Fife is in Flux!

The transition from first to second semester is definitely a strange one. The early plunge into winter darkness, where the sun clocks out by 4pm, gets me every time. By December, both motivation and morale are on their last legs. Having had the misfortune of being assigned one of the last in-person exams, I can testify that calling the Fifan mid-December grim is an understatement. But coming back after the winter break, things felt different. St Andrews isn’t fully awake yet, but there are signs of an impending spring: slightly later sunsets, fewer scarves and layers, people lingering outside lectures for just a little bit longer.

Fife is starting to lighten up — literally and figuratively. The longer days, the occasional burst of Scottish sunshine, the way you can actually feel the weather changing — it’s a soft nudge saying that the grim winter is finally over. It’s not that the workload gets any easier, or that impending deadlines magically vanish, but something about the shift in the weather makes the second semester feel more promising. The occasional UV 3 reading and the ability to eat a Combini bowl in St Mary’s Quad without losing a finger means that spring has, in some capacity, sprung. People are shedding their coats (or unzipping them at the very least), pretending it’s warm enough to justify the choice.

The collective mood lifts too. The line at Taste is just long enough to justify skipping a lecture, and the dog walkers on the Scores have multiplied, their spaniels no longer dragging their feet like they did in January. I sense this type of quiet optimism everywhere. Conversations in the library to avoid working, half-hearted attempts at productivity becoming more common. The frantic pace of the first semester has slowed, replaced by something more subdued. When the sun doesn’t show up, it has a weird way of shrinking the town. Not much has changed, but after such a long winter, there's a noticeable shift — even if it’s just in the way people move through the day.

Second semester just feels more settled. Nothing seems too pressing anymore, the pressure to be constantly busy has faded. Though exams still loom, there’s something comforting about knowing that in just a few months, you’ll be somewhere else — home, travelling, working. The end of the academic year is closer than it seems, and maybe it’s that certainty which makes this semester feel so much more relaxed. I transition from winter grinch, clutching my hands together like a Victorian child while speed-walking back to Sallies, into someone who no longer fears the outside.

My biweekly bunch of Tesco tulips has become a quiet constant — half because they brighten up my desk for a few days before they wilt, half because they make me feel like I have everything together. Even my Spotify ‘Daylist’ algorithm seems to have gotten the memo and no longer recommending me ‘melancholic late winter night’ playlists. Instead, it’s pushing the ‘soft indie spring afternoon’ as if I’m emerging from hibernation, along with the rest of St Andrews.

The dragging weeks of November have now disappeared into a blur of deadlines and half-made plans, and, somehow, it’s mid-March already. The town is alive again, and now, instead of winter blues, people are talking about which hot European city they’re heading to for spring break. Whether you're in first-year or fourth, leaving St Andrews is always a strange mix of relief and nostalgia. Stepping out of the bubble (to return to whatever version of a bubble exists at home) means saying goodbye to three streets, familiar faces, and the comforting rhythm of routine. But it’s not quite over yet — this is the time to enjoy the best stretch of the year, where everything seems to exist in a kind of in-between.

Spring is in full swing even if the Scottish weather doesn’t always agree. The second semester is hitting its stride: routines are set, days are stretching out, the sun makes its grand return. Maybe that’s the thing about this time of year — you can see the end in sight (with many deadlines and exams), but there’s no rush to get there. In the meantime, it's the calm before the storm.

Illustration by Sandra Palazuelos Garcia