Everyone on the Cambridge Primary PGCE course returned to the Faculty of Education today after being on placement for two months. A strange atmosphere was about the place, similar to that old feeling of returning to school after the summer holidays.

You feel yourself thinking ‘yes, I remember being here before’. It felt a tad like a dream where you find yourself in your old high school, as if The Faculty is an element of my past from which I’ve now moved on.

After the Professional Studies seminar (which refreshingly began at 11:00) someone asked me if I had lost weight.  Then other people asked. I must be looking considerably slimmer than I was before, which made me wonder about exactly how large I had become.

I knew I’d lost weight recently, but clearly underestimated how much I had lost. I went to Asda earlier this evening, and accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a giant window. It occurred to me that, yes, I’m essentially looking reasonably slim at the moment.

It’s been a while. When I gave up my job as a playworker to concentrate on the finals of my degree, I was exercising considerably less. It took me 45 minutes to walk to my job, and another 45 back, with three hours of excitable children to entertain in between. This makes you burn calories like an energy pyromaniac. Consulting history books in your bedroom or in the library does not have this effect.

Deciding to learn web design for a few months, and then temping in an office, is similarly lenient to any calories you consume. They are safe from being burnt – making your desk chair go up and down does not require many of the blighters.

But being back in school, and actually doing stuff, has caused my shape to become less round. I also have less boredom to deal with, and less time to resolve it by stuffing my face. Maybe this will do a little more justice to the fact that, at 22, I’m supposed to look as good as I ever will.