Addendum: Bear with me through the first three paragraphs, I am aware they make little sense, but it takes a while to warm up, yeah? 

If I were a wizard, one of my fave office possessions would undoubtedly be the pensieve, as I very much like the idea of depositing silvery beard strands into a pot. I would most likely also endeavour to become the creator of a pocket size, invisible, indestructible, turbo 4000 version that you could sneak into exams and recall pages of textbook in a morally dodgy yet most likely successful way, shattering the word 'revision' into a squillion tiny fragments and distributing them evenly all around the Earth. Unfortunately, this would actually be an unrealistic goal for me, as DT has never been my forté. In fact, I can distinctly remember being given an intensely simplified and separate task to the rest of the class, as I was so inept and couldn't be trusted with a bandsaw, so had to come home offering an entirely non-functioning wooden puzzle, watching from the shadows of ineptitude my normal friends who had somehow managed to conjure up fully working radios. Coupled with the fact that I am ceaselessly baffled by the grey matter that writes the numbers on a digital watch, and that my childhood dream was to become the inventor of the already existing electric toothbrush, I would probably be better off selling the concept of the mini-pensieve to a wizarding manufacturing company who could do the soldering for me, as I shall never be competent enough to make it myself, even if it is entirely fictional...

ANYWAY, if I ever did manage to make this tiny bowl of thoughts, and I were to cast back to this day a whopping two years ago, I would see myself as a keeny fresher-to-be thinking all about whether I was going to be accepted as a normal human being if I wore my borderline peculiar top. I have been thus inspired to provide an Essential Freshers' Triangle, which I can guarantee shall not be at all essential, or particularly fresh, or indeed that triangular, given that it is an abstract piece of writing, not a 2D polygon. Nevertheless, it may help you out in a dark moment of unharmonious loose end eveningness, when you have seen The Copper Rooms 14 days in a row and just want a meal, a song and a book to soothe away the thought of another 9am welcome speech in another mysterious location (by the way, L3 is in the science concourse and is VAST. If you have anything there, turn up at least three days early to avoid embarrassment of clambering/tripping down stairs).

The University of Warwick is unique* in its exclusively self-catered halls, so you better be prepared for the slog to Tesco and the fight for oven space. If you are reading this, it's probably too late to be prepared, as you are already here, but I'm going to storm ahead with my advisory tone anyway because it makes me feel wise. I grabbed a bargainous tripartite theory of kitchenality which provided me with a wonderful wok, a fantastic frying pan, and a sad excuse for a saucepan that couldn't even cook one bean in it, but still looked good as part of the collection in my cupboard. I would recommend doing likewise, as one can never have too many metal pots. 

So, to fill this array of cuisine paraphernalia with nourishment, here is a recipe that will put the FUL(L) back in HELPFUL**. 

4-6 chicken thighs, bones an'all - much cheaper than breast meat and nicer if cooked long enough 

1 tin of chickpeas

a good serving of chorizo, chopped up small like

2 tins of tomatoes

some optional tomato purée, use only if you are going to be that person anyway

1 red onion, chopped up equally smallish like

1 tin of sweetcorn

1 tin of baked beans

teaspoon of paprika, to be affectionately referred to as 'paps'

half a teaspoon chilli powder

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

2) Fry the chicken thighs in a little olive oil in your frying pan of choice until the skin is golden and slightly crispy

3) Sizzle off the onion and chorizo in one of your many gloriously assembled saucepans. I say saucepan and not frying pan because sauce is about to be added and a large volume receptacle is needed. No need to add extra olive oil as the chorizo oozes its own cooking juice (in the word chorizo lies one of the world's greatest conflict of pronunciation - choritzo or choritho? To be English and risk sounding ignorant, or to be Spanish and risk sounding like a nob?)

3) Add everything that is in a tin, plus our good friend paps and the chilli

4) Add the fried chicken thighs

5) Place in oven for a decent hour and a half

6) Remove from oven when the chicken comes away from the bone very easily

This should last you for two or three meals provided you store it properly (Mama Gregz drills this in on a termly basis - air tight container, straight into fridge, freeze only once etc), which makes it cheap and space-effective too. If you don't want to become known as Chickpea McBeanson for eating the same thing three times, then freeze two portions and keep them for later.

By this stage, your stomach will be full, but your ears will still be empty cavities yearning for attention. No amount of saucepans can satiate this, so one must turn to the thing we call music. This time two years ago I was into my breaks, and once I actually got told to turn my music down by the warden oh gosh and blimey how naughty, so I bring to you my three part freshers' playlist of the tunes I was having a right jolly old skank to in my ensuite room. Raspberry Dub by Ed Solo & Skool of Thought will give you one of the most pleasant headaches ever, Night by Benga will banish this ache away, and Cornish Acid by Aphex Twin, which is technically defined under the genre 'braindance', will make you forget you ever had a headache that needed banishing in the first place. My brain does dance a little bit when I listen to it, and I hope yours does too.

So your stomach and your ears have now been satisfied, but your eyes are crying out for their lucky break from staring at endless timetable chaos (WHAT?! WHY WOULD THEY PUT TWO COMPULSORY MODULES AS A CLASH?! FIVE 9AMS?! HOW DO I GET FROM MILBURN HOUSE TO THE ACCR IN UNDER FIVE MINUTES?!). We solve this, oh brothers***, with Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange. After reading this perfectly addictive and pointed novel you shall feel a compulsive need to sneak in bits of Nadsat to everyday speech, which shall no doubt help you attract the friends that will stay with you for the next three years. Don't be tempted towards any campus-style gang warfare though, as Bluebell will always have the unfair advantage and it shall only end badly.

Hopefully, as promised, this has been an averagely-helpful, semi-fresh, multi-angular guide on how to spend one evening of your many to come at Warwick. WELCOME EVERYONE, hope you have a great time here, even if we are 83rd in the Student Sex League 2012.

*Probably not true

** Don't worry, my strap lines aren't usually this unbelievably great

***Literary in-joke. Ahem.