Sunday, March 12
Aloha!
How is everyone?! So looking forward to the end of term!! Full term finishes on Wednesday here, yet I still have 3 essays to do for tomorrow (can you SPELL procrastination?), and a presentation for Tuesday. How non-heterosexual, as Will would say. Anyway, as usual I then have till Saturday before I've gotta move out of my room. This time, however, I'm getting the parentals to come and collect my stuff, and then I'm moving into North Court to stay with Will, Emma, Amy and Phill for a few days before my Wednesday morning flight to...EDINBURGH!! Woooo! So I think I'm staying with Kieran (and Guy!) for a couple of days, before they both come back down here on the 24th; then I'll stay with Cat till Monday. Cannae wait! Is Jess still gonna be there too?
Hmm. Don't know if I have much news really. Oh, the ballot. It happened, and it didn't go too shabbily at all. Remember how I said we'd be extremely, stupidly lucky to get a house? Well, we were extremely, stupidly lucky. Well, sort of. The house is on Maid's Causeway, which is (I timed) 6 minutes once you leave the Chimney (the long passage leading to Jesus). Here's a map, courtesy of the coolness that is Google Earth: (all the other houses are Jesus Lane and Malcolm Street.)
Red arrow: Next year's house on Maid's Causeway;
Orange arrow: My current room in Chapel Court;
Blue arrow: End of the Chimney;
Green arrow: Lectures...
So yeah, this was the last full house remaining - we were quite surprised that people above us on the list had obviously chosen to split up rather than go in that house. It took some doing to persuade Phillida to join us there though; I think she's quite worried a
bout us becoming insular as we'll be so far out, and also as all the rooms aren't as nice as the one she has now (whereas for me it'll be much the same). After choosing it, we decided to go and have a look around. Now having visited it, I'm really looking forward to living there; I didn't get to see my room, but I was told by the girl showing us round that they use it as the DVD room cos it's massive! (Tis also in the basement, next to the kitchen, don't know whether that's good or bad; but it does have a massive bay window and it's own door!) It's gonna be so fun having us all in one place, next door or up a flight of stairs! And we're planning to bring as many instruments as we can, as all 
7 of us play various things, and we're competing with our 'nearest neighbour' house, the one nearest the roundabout on Jesus Lane, for coolness on that front. So to recap, the house contains me, Will, Amy, Emma, Phillida and Mark, and Lucy, an engineer who joined the house later and will be living on the top floor with Amy (coincidentally, while the ballot was still going on after we'd chosen, I was wondering who I'd like to fill the empty room, and thought of her! So I'm happy :) ). Can't wait!
On Friday we had the 'Annual NatSci Dinner': a black tie event in Upper Hall. It was very cool - as much wine as you could drink, port, people giving me their puddings and truffles... This photo was taken at the Pre-Dinner drinks in the Coleridge room:
There're more on Facebook... uploading here's a wee bit of a hassle. Anyway, it was a very cool night, loads of people in the bar afterwards, the most there've been for ages, then we retired to North Court for After-bar-after-dinner drinks. Mmm Strawberry liqueur. :D
Have a fantastic last week everyone!
How is everyone?! So looking forward to the end of term!! Full term finishes on Wednesday here, yet I still have 3 essays to do for tomorrow (can you SPELL procrastination?), and a presentation for Tuesday. How non-heterosexual, as Will would say. Anyway, as usual I then have till Saturday before I've gotta move out of my room. This time, however, I'm getting the parentals to come and collect my stuff, and then I'm moving into North Court to stay with Will, Emma, Amy and Phill for a few days before my Wednesday morning flight to...EDINBURGH!! Woooo! So I think I'm staying with Kieran (and Guy!) for a couple of days, before they both come back down here on the 24th; then I'll stay with Cat till Monday. Cannae wait! Is Jess still gonna be there too?
Hmm. Don't know if I have much news really. Oh, the ballot. It happened, and it didn't go too shabbily at all. Remember how I said we'd be extremely, stupidly lucky to get a house? Well, we were extremely, stupidly lucky. Well, sort of. The house is on Maid's Causeway, which is (I timed) 6 minutes once you leave the Chimney (the long passage leading to Jesus). Here's a map, courtesy of the coolness that is Google Earth: (all the other houses are Jesus Lane and Malcolm Street.)
Red arrow: Next year's house on Maid's Causeway;Orange arrow: My current room in Chapel Court;
Blue arrow: End of the Chimney;
Green arrow: Lectures...
So yeah, this was the last full house remaining - we were quite surprised that people above us on the list had obviously chosen to split up rather than go in that house. It took some doing to persuade Phillida to join us there though; I think she's quite worried a
bout us becoming insular as we'll be so far out, and also as all the rooms aren't as nice as the one she has now (whereas for me it'll be much the same). After choosing it, we decided to go and have a look around. Now having visited it, I'm really looking forward to living there; I didn't get to see my room, but I was told by the girl showing us round that they use it as the DVD room cos it's massive! (Tis also in the basement, next to the kitchen, don't know whether that's good or bad; but it does have a massive bay window and it's own door!) It's gonna be so fun having us all in one place, next door or up a flight of stairs! And we're planning to bring as many instruments as we can, as all 
7 of us play various things, and we're competing with our 'nearest neighbour' house, the one nearest the roundabout on Jesus Lane, for coolness on that front. So to recap, the house contains me, Will, Amy, Emma, Phillida and Mark, and Lucy, an engineer who joined the house later and will be living on the top floor with Amy (coincidentally, while the ballot was still going on after we'd chosen, I was wondering who I'd like to fill the empty room, and thought of her! So I'm happy :) ). Can't wait!On Friday we had the 'Annual NatSci Dinner': a black tie event in Upper Hall. It was very cool - as much wine as you could drink, port, people giving me their puddings and truffles... This photo was taken at the Pre-Dinner drinks in the Coleridge room:
There're more on Facebook... uploading here's a wee bit of a hassle. Anyway, it was a very cool night, loads of people in the bar afterwards, the most there've been for ages, then we retired to North Court for After-bar-after-dinner drinks. Mmm Strawberry liqueur. :DHave a fantastic last week everyone!
Monday, February 20
¡Buenos días todos!
Time for an update from the flatlands. However I am very tired as I had to spend TWELVE HOURS in the library yesterday writing two essays for today, finally finishing at 3.15 am. Man that was unproductive.
Things are going pretty well academically other than that. The first two essays I handed in seem to have been well-received, with the one that was graded being given a 1st! (That's a first for me...) Recently, the lecture series have taken both a turn up and a turn down: we've moved onto behaviour (finally) BUT physiology is now PLANTS for the rest of term. Which isn't fun for anyone involved. We really do have some crazy lecturers - our first plant guy spent all his time trying to convince us that plants are better than animals (grr) when in fact they are some of the dullest and most repetitive organisms on earth. Suffice to say I skipped the rest of his lectures. Then the second lecturer, my DoS, was even more highly insane, bringing in a potato to his lecture and throwing it up and catching it, and getting 'the Jesus crew' to distribute packets of crisps to the entire auditorium so that he could look at the brown ones (where the potato started to sprout, dontcha know). And our current plantsci talks at 1 million words a minute, reminding me hilariously of Will's impression of Phillida, always hyperactive and not pausing for breath; so much so, in fact, that the guy actually physically choked on his words, and came spluttering to a halt. Shame the characters, or lack thereof, of the lecturers don't make the content any more interesting...
This term I've been getting out of college way more. I've been on a formal swap with Fitzwilliam with about 40 Natscis, then went to Christ's with Guy and Sam, and lunch at Caius. This Friday we have a Jesus formal, and Sunday at Peterhouse. Oh, and I finally met some of Tom's friends at the weekend, when Phoebe and Louise came up again. I really was beginning to wonder if he was actually inventing them. In some ways I wish he was... Oh yeah, and James suggested today that we do some kind of formal-swappage, which would be very cool! (I'm free next week... cough)
Incidentally, all my friends are constantly having friends up to stay and come to formal, and I've never done that - people should come! O-J, Freddie - I'm looking at you. I'm also undecided as to whether I'd want to take my parents to formal; I can imagine it being weird, and I don't know if I should just take them and siblings, or bring friends along. Hmm. Which reminds me, when I finally went to get my dad's old bike registered at the porters' lodge, the bike porter guy examined it thoroughly and eventually told me it was worth £400-£500! (When my dad bought it for 7L 10d.) Though when I told my dad this, he checked it out on tinternet and was told it would be worth max £100 in absolutely mint condition. So there goes that money-making scheme.
The ballot order came out last week. My group came 23rd out of 41. As only 10 empty houses remain after the 2nd-year ballot, sadly it's pretty unlikely we'll all be able to go together, so we'll probably have to split, into girls and guys - so I'll be with Will and Mark, and whoever we can squeeze in a house with. The day of reckoning is Thursday. The system does suck somewhat - we should be allowed to just go and find our own houses - if we know who we want to go with, it's really crap for us not to be able to, and even to have to live with people of the year above who have been retarded enough to leave huge gaps in all their houses. On the plus side, several of the 'groups' above us in the list are people on their own, or just in twos, so we'll have to see what happens.
As an aside, for those of you who didn't know (brought to my attention by an email from Freds), I'm no longer going out with Kat, as of the first day back. Just thought I'd clear that up!
This term is really flying by, way faster than last term. It's hard to describe, but somehow last term fly by and also dragged on at the same time, whereas this term no dragging is occurring. It's been a laugh though. One weekend, Mark had a friend up, John. After 16 of us going out for dinner in Spoons, most of us then came back to college for drinking games (Ring of Fire...so good!) After that, having ventured outside, we thought it'd be a good idea to go into James H's (opposite me) kitchen and take all the labels off his tins. When we got there, we found he'd left his room open but wasn't in. So we instead went in and proceded to remove all his furniture, depositing it in my room, not to mention overturning his bed and putting the mattress in the wardrobe.
Unfortunately, in the process, SOMEONE (a drunken Alice) knocked over and smashed the bulb of his bedside lamp. Panic ensued, so they hurriedly put everything back in place while I ran down 4 flights of stairs to fetch the hoover to vacuum up the glass off his pillow...
When everything was restored, and we'd swapped his lamp for mine, we instead played some smaller jokes, such as swapping round his two anatomy posters (so similar that I don't think he's noticed to this day), taking out all his shoelaces and hiding them round the room, hiding his toothpaste... After a quick victory photo we vacated the premises, a good night's work completed.
Wow it's late, and I need sleep. I'll just quickly mention that our May Ball in June (...) is Never Never Land. Thought that might appeal to certain people.... The format is simply that the party extends through the entire college, with different Ents in each place, such as music tents, comedy, performing arts... And of course as much food and drink as you can...eat and drink. Should be very cool!
P.S. Freds, in response to your comment, do you want to join this blog? You'd be very welcome!
Time for an update from the flatlands. However I am very tired as I had to spend TWELVE HOURS in the library yesterday writing two essays for today, finally finishing at 3.15 am. Man that was unproductive.
Things are going pretty well academically other than that. The first two essays I handed in seem to have been well-received, with the one that was graded being given a 1st! (That's a first for me...) Recently, the lecture series have taken both a turn up and a turn down: we've moved onto behaviour (finally) BUT physiology is now PLANTS for the rest of term. Which isn't fun for anyone involved. We really do have some crazy lecturers - our first plant guy spent all his time trying to convince us that plants are better than animals (grr) when in fact they are some of the dullest and most repetitive organisms on earth. Suffice to say I skipped the rest of his lectures. Then the second lecturer, my DoS, was even more highly insane, bringing in a potato to his lecture and throwing it up and catching it, and getting 'the Jesus crew' to distribute packets of crisps to the entire auditorium so that he could look at the brown ones (where the potato started to sprout, dontcha know). And our current plantsci talks at 1 million words a minute, reminding me hilariously of Will's impression of Phillida, always hyperactive and not pausing for breath; so much so, in fact, that the guy actually physically choked on his words, and came spluttering to a halt. Shame the characters, or lack thereof, of the lecturers don't make the content any more interesting...
This term I've been getting out of college way more. I've been on a formal swap with Fitzwilliam with about 40 Natscis, then went to Christ's with Guy and Sam, and lunch at Caius. This Friday we have a Jesus formal, and Sunday at Peterhouse. Oh, and I finally met some of Tom's friends at the weekend, when Phoebe and Louise came up again. I really was beginning to wonder if he was actually inventing them. In some ways I wish he was... Oh yeah, and James suggested today that we do some kind of formal-swappage, which would be very cool! (I'm free next week... cough)
Incidentally, all my friends are constantly having friends up to stay and come to formal, and I've never done that - people should come! O-J, Freddie - I'm looking at you. I'm also undecided as to whether I'd want to take my parents to formal; I can imagine it being weird, and I don't know if I should just take them and siblings, or bring friends along. Hmm. Which reminds me, when I finally went to get my dad's old bike registered at the porters' lodge, the bike porter guy examined it thoroughly and eventually told me it was worth £400-£500! (When my dad bought it for 7L 10d.) Though when I told my dad this, he checked it out on tinternet and was told it would be worth max £100 in absolutely mint condition. So there goes that money-making scheme.
The ballot order came out last week. My group came 23rd out of 41. As only 10 empty houses remain after the 2nd-year ballot, sadly it's pretty unlikely we'll all be able to go together, so we'll probably have to split, into girls and guys - so I'll be with Will and Mark, and whoever we can squeeze in a house with. The day of reckoning is Thursday. The system does suck somewhat - we should be allowed to just go and find our own houses - if we know who we want to go with, it's really crap for us not to be able to, and even to have to live with people of the year above who have been retarded enough to leave huge gaps in all their houses. On the plus side, several of the 'groups' above us in the list are people on their own, or just in twos, so we'll have to see what happens.
As an aside, for those of you who didn't know (brought to my attention by an email from Freds), I'm no longer going out with Kat, as of the first day back. Just thought I'd clear that up!
This term is really flying by, way faster than last term. It's hard to describe, but somehow last term fly by and also dragged on at the same time, whereas this term no dragging is occurring. It's been a laugh though. One weekend, Mark had a friend up, John. After 16 of us going out for dinner in Spoons, most of us then came back to college for drinking games (Ring of Fire...so good!) After that, having ventured outside, we thought it'd be a good idea to go into James H's (opposite me) kitchen and take all the labels off his tins. When we got there, we found he'd left his room open but wasn't in. So we instead went in and proceded to remove all his furniture, depositing it in my room, not to mention overturning his bed and putting the mattress in the wardrobe.
Unfortunately, in the process, SOMEONE (a drunken Alice) knocked over and smashed the bulb of his bedside lamp. Panic ensued, so they hurriedly put everything back in place while I ran down 4 flights of stairs to fetch the hoover to vacuum up the glass off his pillow...
When everything was restored, and we'd swapped his lamp for mine, we instead played some smaller jokes, such as swapping round his two anatomy posters (so similar that I don't think he's noticed to this day), taking out all his shoelaces and hiding them round the room, hiding his toothpaste... After a quick victory photo we vacated the premises, a good night's work completed.
Wow it's late, and I need sleep. I'll just quickly mention that our May Ball in June (...) is Never Never Land. Thought that might appeal to certain people.... The format is simply that the party extends through the entire college, with different Ents in each place, such as music tents, comedy, performing arts... And of course as much food and drink as you can...eat and drink. Should be very cool!
P.S. Freds, in response to your comment, do you want to join this blog? You'd be very welcome!
Monday, January 23
I suppose if Jess is apologising for being antisocial I have no excuse. So hello world!
Christmas: Very good, if unproductive academically. Altogether too much time spent playing San Andreas. Ahem. Really enjoyed seeing everyone though, it was really good to be back around you all again! Sorry to the twins for once again spending altogether too much time at their house (but the Die Hard scene editor was worth it). To make up for it, I'm defo coming up to Edinburgh at the end of term to .. er... stay at your house some more. Maybe I should've thought that through.
I also met up with most of the uni peeps over the hols. Before Christmas I went and stayed with Kat, and Mark and Kat then came up to Oxford on a different day to meet me and Alice (who lives in Oxford too). For New Year, Mark picked up Kat and me and drove us to Ewan's in Nottingham, where Nicola joined us. We had a classy time there, having a 'Russian new year', discovering a new drink, the Snowball :), playing pool on his professional table and generally staying in bed till 5 the next day. Then after new year, Will, Amy and Emma all converged on Oxford from Bristol, Birmingham and Reading respectively, where we checked out the rival Jesus College and encountered a dancing man in the street (who was 'just high on life and love'), and stayed the night at mine.
Might be an idea to put up photos of people so you know who I'm talking about...
Clockwise from left: Will - BioNatSci; Amy - BioNatSci; Jo - BioNatSci; Emma - Classics; Kat - Medicine; Mark - History; John - Languages; Phillida - History; Ewan - Medicine; Jack - History; Alice - Medic; James - Medic; Nicola - Medic; Lisa - History of Art.
This photo was taken after the Toffs and Chavs bop on Friday. Interesting how the medic clique all went as chavs, and the rest of us as toffs...
Since being back (for just over a week), I've been kicked quite severely up the arse, by several things. Among other things, work-wise by two essays and two tests - a mock exam and a timed essay - and now I'm having to face the joyous occasion that is ballotting for accommodation next year. Nearly everyone lives in houses out on Jesus Lane and Malcolm Street, right outside the college, and most of these have 7 rooms. After much ado, I'm with Will, Amy, Emma and Phillida, and looking for two more, preferably guys... The hardest part is having to refuse people - the girls had previously told Jo and Flick 'yeah sure', but then we decided we couldn't cope with a house of 5 girls to 2 guys. Then Liz (stalky stalkersdottir) found out yesterday she's been booted out of her house-to-be, and was blaters implying I should take her in, so I skirted the issue. So now we're waiting for Mark to decide what he's doing, and then we'll have to take it from there... How's everyone else's going?!
Btw last week I bought John Mayer's album 'Room for Squares' and I've gotta say Hal's right for plugging it. It's only about £8 in HMV so you might as well... I can't express how much better he is than any of the crap out now, and how much of a relief it is not to have to listen to lyrics like "You cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that’s what made me see". Urgh. Buy it!
Hypocritical as it is to say, those who have access to blogs, post! (I'm looking at you, mingface. Yes that means O-J.) and those who don't, drop a comment somewhere! Oh, and get on facebook everyone!
P.S. Zeebee - Imogen is doing a London date now, did you see? 30th march at the Shepherd's Bush Empire - "THE place to see live music in London", apparently. Whaddya think?
Christmas: Very good, if unproductive academically. Altogether too much time spent playing San Andreas. Ahem. Really enjoyed seeing everyone though, it was really good to be back around you all again! Sorry to the twins for once again spending altogether too much time at their house (but the Die Hard scene editor was worth it). To make up for it, I'm defo coming up to Edinburgh at the end of term to .. er... stay at your house some more. Maybe I should've thought that through.
I also met up with most of the uni peeps over the hols. Before Christmas I went and stayed with Kat, and Mark and Kat then came up to Oxford on a different day to meet me and Alice (who lives in Oxford too). For New Year, Mark picked up Kat and me and drove us to Ewan's in Nottingham, where Nicola joined us. We had a classy time there, having a 'Russian new year', discovering a new drink, the Snowball :), playing pool on his professional table and generally staying in bed till 5 the next day. Then after new year, Will, Amy and Emma all converged on Oxford from Bristol, Birmingham and Reading respectively, where we checked out the rival Jesus College and encountered a dancing man in the street (who was 'just high on life and love'), and stayed the night at mine.
Might be an idea to put up photos of people so you know who I'm talking about...
Clockwise from left: Will - BioNatSci; Amy - BioNatSci; Jo - BioNatSci; Emma - Classics; Kat - Medicine; Mark - History; John - Languages; Phillida - History; Ewan - Medicine; Jack - History; Alice - Medic; James - Medic; Nicola - Medic; Lisa - History of Art.This photo was taken after the Toffs and Chavs bop on Friday. Interesting how the medic clique all went as chavs, and the rest of us as toffs...
Since being back (for just over a week), I've been kicked quite severely up the arse, by several things. Among other things, work-wise by two essays and two tests - a mock exam and a timed essay - and now I'm having to face the joyous occasion that is ballotting for accommodation next year. Nearly everyone lives in houses out on Jesus Lane and Malcolm Street, right outside the college, and most of these have 7 rooms. After much ado, I'm with Will, Amy, Emma and Phillida, and looking for two more, preferably guys... The hardest part is having to refuse people - the girls had previously told Jo and Flick 'yeah sure', but then we decided we couldn't cope with a house of 5 girls to 2 guys. Then Liz (stalky stalkersdottir) found out yesterday she's been booted out of her house-to-be, and was blaters implying I should take her in, so I skirted the issue. So now we're waiting for Mark to decide what he's doing, and then we'll have to take it from there... How's everyone else's going?!
Btw last week I bought John Mayer's album 'Room for Squares' and I've gotta say Hal's right for plugging it. It's only about £8 in HMV so you might as well... I can't express how much better he is than any of the crap out now, and how much of a relief it is not to have to listen to lyrics like "You cut me down a tree and brought it back to me and that’s what made me see". Urgh. Buy it!
Hypocritical as it is to say, those who have access to blogs, post! (I'm looking at you, mingface. Yes that means O-J.) and those who don't, drop a comment somewhere! Oh, and get on facebook everyone!
P.S. Zeebee - Imogen is doing a London date now, did you see? 30th march at the Shepherd's Bush Empire - "THE place to see live music in London", apparently. Whaddya think?
Wednesday, December 14
Hello all you lovely/lucky people! Comment ca va? Hope you're all having wonderful times, and looking forward to coming back and seeing us all again! Seeing as you've all been badgering me so incessantly for so long, here I am posting. But don't expect anything great. In fact, if I were you, I'd just skip to the end and leave a comment saying how amazing I am for returning. You know you want to.
Well as it's been plus qu'un mois, this post would go on forever if I described everything that happened over the entire term. So here are some interesting times that spring to mind.
The Chaplain had the entire year, over the course of the term, round for "cocoa, sloe gin, cakes and entertainment" (yay for sloe gin!). This turned out to consist of playing Jenga and Bop It, but the interesting bit was watching the entire room try to manoeuvre an After Eight from their forehead to their mouths without using their hands, to try and win food. Ah, the spasticity. :)
After resolving not to play in the Freshers' Concert, I ended up accompanying two AMAZING singers, Belle and Ruth, who sang the Flower Duet (off the BA ads if you don't know it by name). God they were amazing; they completely blew my mind, singing the high notes on either side of me, right next to me. Another girl played a beautiful flute piece as well - "Pan et les berges" from "La flute de Pan" by Mouquet - do you know it, Jess? If you have a recording that would be fantastic! After the concert we went for drinks in the Master's house - sooo nice - where we returned later in the term when he too had us round for drinks to get to know us.
One weekend, Tom's and Sam's parents came to visit, and took us all to dinner at Eraina, a place seeming to serve every nationality's food you could think of. After the meal, we took Phoebe and her friend back to the Jesus bar, where (they attracted rather a lot of attention and) she provided much hilarity for us by claiming to be Tom's twin (Tom is something of a regular in our bar), studying Russian at Magdalen. This led to some amusement when asked questions like "How's the workload?" or "How many students are there?", to which she would reply "Erm....I think about the same as here.....yeah..". Smooth. To say nothing of returning to St John's only to meet someone who knew a 1st year Russian student at Magdalen...
Bonfire night was quite a notorious night for me... The whole college was invited down to the Jesus boathouse for a barbecue and a view of the fireworks over Midsummer Common, with each person bringing 1/2 a bottle of vodka to add to the concoctions being produced. Suffice to say, after several cups of the 'Strong' batch, I was rather merry, and ended up getting engaged to about 11 people. Which was quite flattering really, I guess, as most of them proposed to me rather than vice versa! Some time after that night, 12 of us went out to Ask for an engagement party for those of us who've got married legitimately since that time (well, engaged I guess). Do all you guys have college parents or something similar? If not, each fresher has two parents, one of which will be doing his subject, and two siblings. After dinner, some of us detoured to Sainsburys to spend the money we would've spent on pudding in the restaurant, on cheaper food and drink to bring back to the kitchens, where we had numerous games of Twister and....gay chicken! The premise being, if Chicken is a game in which you run at each other till one backs down, gay chicken is a variety where you have to be gay at each other till one backs down. (I didn't play btw, much to your dismay I'm sure!) Good times.
On the 21st of November, I took a train down to Londinium to meet the Juice in Shepherd's Bush to see...Imogen Heap! Wooooo! It was such a cool concert. In typical Imogen style, she had fairy lights and candles everywhere, and multicoloured backlights on the walls (the chandeliers were illuminated in purple). She did her first set of four songs on the piano, which was in front of the main stage and on floor level. She said that, as it was, no-one would be able to see her, so could the first few rows sit down (there weren't seats, we were all just standing round). In response, the entire room sat down. It was crazy, and so cool. After the set, she went up on the stage to all her equipment so that she could sort out backing tracks, and play other instruments and stuff, then came back to the piano for the final set, which she finished with 'Sleep' from 'I Megaphone' which is essentially a lullaby, so everyone (including O-J next to me) was falling asleep! Then she came back after much persuasion for 2 encores, the second of which was 'The Moment I Said It', for which they turned on a rotating, cloud-projecting light, which really did send everyone off! It was just so cool! I will have photos when I finish the film, and some guy was actually filming it all officially, so hopefully that might become available!
We finished off the term in style. On the final Thursday, I went at 4.00 to my Physiology supervisor's house for Christmas drinks, and ate far too much chocolate. Too much chocolate? I hear you cry. Impossible! Well I then came back, and after attending the beautiful Carol Service in Chapel, made my way to Christmas Formal Hall. Sooooo much food! It was a really nice evening, as we'd actually managed to get seats all together without mingers intruding as is usually the case. I was also proud of myself as I managed to acquire my first piece of Jesus crockery (collect the whole set!). After formal was the Panto, Narnia, in the Chapel, which unfortunately was ruined due to both poor acoustics and complete twats behind us who kept shouting through the whole thing. THEN there was the Christmas bop, which was a complete laugh, and we were all sad when the stroke of midnight heralded its end. Nevertheless, not to be beaten, about 30 of us all piled off to James's room opposite mine to continue the party. These things, while always really fun, always lead to the inevitable - someone setting off the fire extinguisher. Ah well. As long as we can avoid being charged for it, as was apparently threatened!
It was quite sad having to move out on Saturday morning, heightened by our breakfast session in pyjamas (there you go, O-J, we did it! If only we'd somehow incorporated showers into it...) in James's room. I'm really missing impromptu gatherings in someone or other's room, and just random good times. At the same time, I'm immeasurably glad to be back and away from the pressures of essay-writing! Looking forward to Christmas, despite the torture that is Christmas shopping, and of course to seeing you all again on Sunday! ¡Hasta luego!
Well as it's been plus qu'un mois, this post would go on forever if I described everything that happened over the entire term. So here are some interesting times that spring to mind.
The Chaplain had the entire year, over the course of the term, round for "cocoa, sloe gin, cakes and entertainment" (yay for sloe gin!). This turned out to consist of playing Jenga and Bop It, but the interesting bit was watching the entire room try to manoeuvre an After Eight from their forehead to their mouths without using their hands, to try and win food. Ah, the spasticity. :)
After resolving not to play in the Freshers' Concert, I ended up accompanying two AMAZING singers, Belle and Ruth, who sang the Flower Duet (off the BA ads if you don't know it by name). God they were amazing; they completely blew my mind, singing the high notes on either side of me, right next to me. Another girl played a beautiful flute piece as well - "Pan et les berges" from "La flute de Pan" by Mouquet - do you know it, Jess? If you have a recording that would be fantastic! After the concert we went for drinks in the Master's house - sooo nice - where we returned later in the term when he too had us round for drinks to get to know us.
One weekend, Tom's and Sam's parents came to visit, and took us all to dinner at Eraina, a place seeming to serve every nationality's food you could think of. After the meal, we took Phoebe and her friend back to the Jesus bar, where (they attracted rather a lot of attention and) she provided much hilarity for us by claiming to be Tom's twin (Tom is something of a regular in our bar), studying Russian at Magdalen. This led to some amusement when asked questions like "How's the workload?" or "How many students are there?", to which she would reply "Erm....I think about the same as here.....yeah..". Smooth. To say nothing of returning to St John's only to meet someone who knew a 1st year Russian student at Magdalen...
Bonfire night was quite a notorious night for me... The whole college was invited down to the Jesus boathouse for a barbecue and a view of the fireworks over Midsummer Common, with each person bringing 1/2 a bottle of vodka to add to the concoctions being produced. Suffice to say, after several cups of the 'Strong' batch, I was rather merry, and ended up getting engaged to about 11 people. Which was quite flattering really, I guess, as most of them proposed to me rather than vice versa! Some time after that night, 12 of us went out to Ask for an engagement party for those of us who've got married legitimately since that time (well, engaged I guess). Do all you guys have college parents or something similar? If not, each fresher has two parents, one of which will be doing his subject, and two siblings. After dinner, some of us detoured to Sainsburys to spend the money we would've spent on pudding in the restaurant, on cheaper food and drink to bring back to the kitchens, where we had numerous games of Twister and....gay chicken! The premise being, if Chicken is a game in which you run at each other till one backs down, gay chicken is a variety where you have to be gay at each other till one backs down. (I didn't play btw, much to your dismay I'm sure!) Good times.
On the 21st of November, I took a train down to Londinium to meet the Juice in Shepherd's Bush to see...Imogen Heap! Wooooo! It was such a cool concert. In typical Imogen style, she had fairy lights and candles everywhere, and multicoloured backlights on the walls (the chandeliers were illuminated in purple). She did her first set of four songs on the piano, which was in front of the main stage and on floor level. She said that, as it was, no-one would be able to see her, so could the first few rows sit down (there weren't seats, we were all just standing round). In response, the entire room sat down. It was crazy, and so cool. After the set, she went up on the stage to all her equipment so that she could sort out backing tracks, and play other instruments and stuff, then came back to the piano for the final set, which she finished with 'Sleep' from 'I Megaphone' which is essentially a lullaby, so everyone (including O-J next to me) was falling asleep! Then she came back after much persuasion for 2 encores, the second of which was 'The Moment I Said It', for which they turned on a rotating, cloud-projecting light, which really did send everyone off! It was just so cool! I will have photos when I finish the film, and some guy was actually filming it all officially, so hopefully that might become available!
We finished off the term in style. On the final Thursday, I went at 4.00 to my Physiology supervisor's house for Christmas drinks, and ate far too much chocolate. Too much chocolate? I hear you cry. Impossible! Well I then came back, and after attending the beautiful Carol Service in Chapel, made my way to Christmas Formal Hall. Sooooo much food! It was a really nice evening, as we'd actually managed to get seats all together without mingers intruding as is usually the case. I was also proud of myself as I managed to acquire my first piece of Jesus crockery (collect the whole set!). After formal was the Panto, Narnia, in the Chapel, which unfortunately was ruined due to both poor acoustics and complete twats behind us who kept shouting through the whole thing. THEN there was the Christmas bop, which was a complete laugh, and we were all sad when the stroke of midnight heralded its end. Nevertheless, not to be beaten, about 30 of us all piled off to James's room opposite mine to continue the party. These things, while always really fun, always lead to the inevitable - someone setting off the fire extinguisher. Ah well. As long as we can avoid being charged for it, as was apparently threatened!
It was quite sad having to move out on Saturday morning, heightened by our breakfast session in pyjamas (there you go, O-J, we did it! If only we'd somehow incorporated showers into it...) in James's room. I'm really missing impromptu gatherings in someone or other's room, and just random good times. At the same time, I'm immeasurably glad to be back and away from the pressures of essay-writing! Looking forward to Christmas, despite the torture that is Christmas shopping, and of course to seeing you all again on Sunday! ¡Hasta luego!
Wednesday, October 26
Zdrasvoitchye! Kak dela? Sorry about the absence of posting...I have had no time ever! (Except when I'm bumming around listening to music and avoiding work...:p)
Anyway. It's another beautiful day at Jesus, made even more so by the fact that I only had one lecture today (at 10) :D. However I am very tired, and in fact I don't think I've ever been to bed before midnight since arriving :s. Last night, for example, I was just heading back to my room at 1 in the morning (my intended 'early night') when a load of people poured out of my staircase and I was swept along to another party till half 2. Zzz
Going back to the beginning, freshers' week was a laugh and a half. I was introduced to my 'family' on the first day, none of whom I've ever really seen again...they seem to hate me...*sniff* My mum is really cool, my dad sounds like a bit of a lameo (well he IS a physical Natsci), and my brother is very untalkative, although he revealed hidden depths by performing in the concert last night (more on that later). Throughout the week there were 3 'bops' - the first night was the Welcome bop, then a Karaoke/Pop star-themed bop three days later, then the Old skool bop on the final friday. They were all good fun, except the karaoke which sucked majorly cos the machine didn't really work.. In between all that, we went to Life ("one of Cambridge's 'greatest' clubs"), where I bumped into Nigel, Jamal and two people who I'd done the Instrumental Award with from Catz and New Hall, which was very nice; also a pub crawl which was also very cool - in one pub, four of us introduced ourselves to each other, then the first thing one girl said to one guy was "Are you gay?". That certainly made for a more interesting conversation than "Who are you, what are you studying, where are you staying etc", and twas more graphic than perhaps it should have been. Wetherspoons, incidentally, is a very cool place. It's just MASSIVE, very reminiscent of a casino (I think someone may have said something about it having been one in the past, anyone know anything about that?). Then there was Matric Dinner, which was our first Formal Hall, which was really impressive - someone who sat on the table on the balcony overlooking the hall remarked on how much like Harry Potter it felt! But it really is: one particular time I noticed that was when walking through Cloister Court; especially when people are in gowns, they all turn off at different exits, and because it's all so old it could totally be Hogwarts, all going off to their common rooms. Very cool.
On that note, I'm so glad I picked Jesus. It's SUCH a beautiful place, I love it. I have an amazing view from my room (see below), especially in the evening, and, walking back late at night when the dew has settled and there's often a thick mist hanging over Chapel Court, it's just breathtaking. And I'm also really glad Sam's here. Initially I was a bit worried about it, like we'd overlap too much, but we really don't, and it's always really cool to have him round and just chill in my room; as he said, with no expectations, and you don't have to make any effort whatsoever, you can just relax and be yourself. Ironically though, I appear to be better friends with the medics than he is! Mainly because he's always hanging around with a certain someone, who will for now remain nameless...
The people in my staircase are variable; Guen, on the ground floor, was here before term, like me, so we met early on, and she's so cool. Whenever I walk past her room outside the building, she pokes her head out of her window and we have a gossiping session - perhaps not the smartest thing to do, as it usually concerns the other inhabitants of our staircase... Idil next door to her is absolutely mad, but also very cool - she has infinite stories of her escapades involving animals: apparently there was a cat in her room back home or somewhere, and she cornered it onto the balcony, whence it flung itself off into the air! Then later on she went out and saw it, and thought it had died and that she was having an attack of conscience and seeing its ghost...but instead it turned out it had broken its leg. She's mental I say. Then there's Ben on the middle floor who has 100 pairs of shoes... And of course, Liz, my stalker opposite my room. The other guy opposite, James the medic, tells me that whenever I open my door, he hears her open hers a split-second after. She just comes and knocks on my door the whole time and bores me with her 'Dimensional Analysis' (she's an engineer) or else tries to get me to go to Caff with her, or ballroom dancing (4 times! Four!). Though I laughed when I had Sam,Guy,Tom and James (the MCS crew, that is) round and we were looking at Flickr, and she wandered in and said hello, and we all just turned back to the computer and talked amongst ourselves. Eventually she announced she was leaving. I cried. James also tells me that he lent her his ironing board to get rid of her, and when she left to take it to her room next door, he locked his door behind her :p.
The days are completely flying by, and everything's blurring into one - possibly because the amount of sleep I get negates the boundary between days... Every other day I have 3 lectures, starting at 9, while on the other days I have 1 starting at 10 (like today). Then there's 2 practicals a week which are anything up to five hours long *shudder*. Then 4 supervisions a week, and a maths examples class. But it's kinda weird in that work seems to be taking a back seat to everything else. Apparently the Lawyers are advised to get 8 hours of sleep a day, 8 hours of play and 8 hours of work. If I did that I wouldn't do any work outside of lectures as we often have 8-hour days. My evenings are generally spent with the medic crew - Kat, Alice, Ewan, Nicola, James, Mark - who are all really cool, and quite a lot like all you guys: we've done human pyramids, squashing people into beds, belly-button poking (damn you zeebee), the whole lot. I usually go to Formal about once a week, too - it's a really nice occasion, especially going with all your friends. Pennying is a laugh as well: put a penny in someone's glass and they have to down it, but you can't do it if they're holding hteir glass, but then you're not allowed to hold your glass unnecessarily. Then, if you down it with your right hand, you have to down another one after that, and once you've downed two you have to down a third... It's not surprising people get kicked out of Hall for doing it... After Formal it's usually back to the bar, or the pool room above, or the snooker hall (which has a piano in :D), then back to someone's room for music, drink and/or fondue.
Anyway I think that's quite enough for now, sorry about all that. Hopefully it'll be slightly more regular in the future. Give yourself a pat on the back if you got this far! See you Cambridge ppl around, Hal in Nov, Edinburgh ppl in early Dec, and EVERYONE at mine when you're back in Oxford!
Have a good week all.
P.S. O-J can you call/email me? I tried to text you on both your numbers as I forgot which it is, but you replied to neither...
Anyway. It's another beautiful day at Jesus, made even more so by the fact that I only had one lecture today (at 10) :D. However I am very tired, and in fact I don't think I've ever been to bed before midnight since arriving :s. Last night, for example, I was just heading back to my room at 1 in the morning (my intended 'early night') when a load of people poured out of my staircase and I was swept along to another party till half 2. Zzz
Going back to the beginning, freshers' week was a laugh and a half. I was introduced to my 'family' on the first day, none of whom I've ever really seen again...they seem to hate me...*sniff* My mum is really cool, my dad sounds like a bit of a lameo (well he IS a physical Natsci), and my brother is very untalkative, although he revealed hidden depths by performing in the concert last night (more on that later). Throughout the week there were 3 'bops' - the first night was the Welcome bop, then a Karaoke/Pop star-themed bop three days later, then the Old skool bop on the final friday. They were all good fun, except the karaoke which sucked majorly cos the machine didn't really work.. In between all that, we went to Life ("one of Cambridge's 'greatest' clubs"), where I bumped into Nigel, Jamal and two people who I'd done the Instrumental Award with from Catz and New Hall, which was very nice; also a pub crawl which was also very cool - in one pub, four of us introduced ourselves to each other, then the first thing one girl said to one guy was "Are you gay?". That certainly made for a more interesting conversation than "Who are you, what are you studying, where are you staying etc", and twas more graphic than perhaps it should have been. Wetherspoons, incidentally, is a very cool place. It's just MASSIVE, very reminiscent of a casino (I think someone may have said something about it having been one in the past, anyone know anything about that?). Then there was Matric Dinner, which was our first Formal Hall, which was really impressive - someone who sat on the table on the balcony overlooking the hall remarked on how much like Harry Potter it felt! But it really is: one particular time I noticed that was when walking through Cloister Court; especially when people are in gowns, they all turn off at different exits, and because it's all so old it could totally be Hogwarts, all going off to their common rooms. Very cool.
On that note, I'm so glad I picked Jesus. It's SUCH a beautiful place, I love it. I have an amazing view from my room (see below), especially in the evening, and, walking back late at night when the dew has settled and there's often a thick mist hanging over Chapel Court, it's just breathtaking. And I'm also really glad Sam's here. Initially I was a bit worried about it, like we'd overlap too much, but we really don't, and it's always really cool to have him round and just chill in my room; as he said, with no expectations, and you don't have to make any effort whatsoever, you can just relax and be yourself. Ironically though, I appear to be better friends with the medics than he is! Mainly because he's always hanging around with a certain someone, who will for now remain nameless...
The people in my staircase are variable; Guen, on the ground floor, was here before term, like me, so we met early on, and she's so cool. Whenever I walk past her room outside the building, she pokes her head out of her window and we have a gossiping session - perhaps not the smartest thing to do, as it usually concerns the other inhabitants of our staircase... Idil next door to her is absolutely mad, but also very cool - she has infinite stories of her escapades involving animals: apparently there was a cat in her room back home or somewhere, and she cornered it onto the balcony, whence it flung itself off into the air! Then later on she went out and saw it, and thought it had died and that she was having an attack of conscience and seeing its ghost...but instead it turned out it had broken its leg. She's mental I say. Then there's Ben on the middle floor who has 100 pairs of shoes... And of course, Liz, my stalker opposite my room. The other guy opposite, James the medic, tells me that whenever I open my door, he hears her open hers a split-second after. She just comes and knocks on my door the whole time and bores me with her 'Dimensional Analysis' (she's an engineer) or else tries to get me to go to Caff with her, or ballroom dancing (4 times! Four!). Though I laughed when I had Sam,Guy,Tom and James (the MCS crew, that is) round and we were looking at Flickr, and she wandered in and said hello, and we all just turned back to the computer and talked amongst ourselves. Eventually she announced she was leaving. I cried. James also tells me that he lent her his ironing board to get rid of her, and when she left to take it to her room next door, he locked his door behind her :p.
The days are completely flying by, and everything's blurring into one - possibly because the amount of sleep I get negates the boundary between days... Every other day I have 3 lectures, starting at 9, while on the other days I have 1 starting at 10 (like today). Then there's 2 practicals a week which are anything up to five hours long *shudder*. Then 4 supervisions a week, and a maths examples class. But it's kinda weird in that work seems to be taking a back seat to everything else. Apparently the Lawyers are advised to get 8 hours of sleep a day, 8 hours of play and 8 hours of work. If I did that I wouldn't do any work outside of lectures as we often have 8-hour days. My evenings are generally spent with the medic crew - Kat, Alice, Ewan, Nicola, James, Mark - who are all really cool, and quite a lot like all you guys: we've done human pyramids, squashing people into beds, belly-button poking (damn you zeebee), the whole lot. I usually go to Formal about once a week, too - it's a really nice occasion, especially going with all your friends. Pennying is a laugh as well: put a penny in someone's glass and they have to down it, but you can't do it if they're holding hteir glass, but then you're not allowed to hold your glass unnecessarily. Then, if you down it with your right hand, you have to down another one after that, and once you've downed two you have to down a third... It's not surprising people get kicked out of Hall for doing it... After Formal it's usually back to the bar, or the pool room above, or the snooker hall (which has a piano in :D), then back to someone's room for music, drink and/or fondue.
Anyway I think that's quite enough for now, sorry about all that. Hopefully it'll be slightly more regular in the future. Give yourself a pat on the back if you got this far! See you Cambridge ppl around, Hal in Nov, Edinburgh ppl in early Dec, and EVERYONE at mine when you're back in Oxford!
Have a good week all.
P.S. O-J can you call/email me? I tried to text you on both your numbers as I forgot which it is, but you replied to neither...
Wednesday, October 5
Hello from the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and the Glorious Virgin Saint Radegund! (That's 'Jesus' to you and me.) How is everyone?! It's been a crazy, crazy week - as Elton John once did sing, "There's far too much to take in here; more to do than can ever be done". He en't lying.
I've only been here a week, but I'm quite settled already. On Wednesday last, I moved in in time to go to my rehearsal for the instrumental award, the audition for which was on Thursday evening, and didn't go very well. But never mind!
I've only been here a week, but I'm quite settled already. On Wednesday last, I moved in in time to go to my rehearsal for the instrumental award, the audition for which was on Thursday evening, and didn't go very well. But never mind!
The view from my window.
On Friday morning I was up at 7 to catch an early bus back home in order to partake in one final Camareros de la Noche extravaganza that evening (and also to pack a load more stuff to bring which I'd forgotten!) Despite a misunderstanding/retardedness on Tom's part which led to me being the one selected for demotion, much fun was to be had afterwards: on our walk back through the fields, in our puffing of cigars in the garden, and the relaxed conversation with drinks. I thought it was an incredible night to end our days in Oxford, and I can't think of a better way to have spent it.
Tis now very late and I have my first actual lecture in the morning at 9!! :o God the timetable's a nightmare...
Anyway. Check out Flickr, I've now put up all the photos of France, a few of Jess's party and also a couple of random ones of Cambridge and other stuff, with more to come :). I'll report back on Freshers' week when it's officially come to an end on Friday evening!
Tuesday, September 27
I've uploaded some photos of France, with many more to come (as of 27/09). You can either go to my Flickr link or the individual links from the France post. Enjoy!
Jess’s party on the 2nd was pretty cool, even if we were a million million hours late. The food was delish and the champagne flowed – that was a serious amount! The most memorable times were to be had, as usual, with Freddie; whether sitting on the trampoline (“There’s an umBRELLA here!?!”) or in the annexe he was never not slapping people. Also amusing was watching him, Cat and O-J exhaust their entire repertoire of accents, ranging from Indian to Irish. Oh, and Freddie falling over. All in all, a very cool party.
Equally fantabulous was the twins’ send-off. This was memorable for perhaps less pleasant reasons. I am talking of course about the whipped cream incident(s). I think there is still some in my left ear, and I’m looking at you. Yes you. Other highlights included trampoline-twister, Kieran’s spaz-dance from Bring It On, James’s entire hilarious monologue on Shania Twain in the morning (so funny! “What nationality am I?”, “Mr Majug” :p) the fight for the duvets on the trampoline (why do so many of the best times happen on trampolines?!). On that note, it took me back almost exactly a year, where once again we spent a considerable time on a trampoline, into the early hours, just totally relaxed, gently falling asleep. I thought it was quite a fitting way to end this year just as we started it. I hope you guys all have an absolutely amazing time up in Edinburgh – wish I were there!
Now for the rest of the month! I finally received a letter from my college father, Matthew, who’s a PHYSICAL (as opposed to biological) natural scientist transferring to Chemical Engineering next year(…?!). My mother is Rebecca, an Arch & Anth student. That’s about it really, except for him to tell me to bring up lots of warm clothes because Cambridge “can get quite cold”. Hello, it’s not like I’m coming here from Bali or, like, the Sun. I also got my accommodation letter at bloomin’ long last – if you go HERE you can see a virtual tour (panoramic rotating view) of Chapel Court where I’ll be staying!
I went to Reading with the Juice sometime last week for, as he said, our biennial shopping trip. That was a very cool day. The first shop we walked past was playing Goodnight And Go which was very cool of them, and we must have amassed Coldplay’s entire works throughout the day.
In the evening, we saw Me And You And Everyone We Know at the Phoenix. It was the best film I’ve seen in a long time; it was just so…offbeat, I think is one word to describe it! Maybe I’ll review it sometime… When we returned home, we watched Rules of Attraction which was also very good; it was weird having seen American Psycho fairly recently, so I was actually able to notice the similarities between, respectively, Sean and Patrick Bateman in the two films. Very classy.
A ‘happy birthday’ is due to Liv, whose birthday dinner took place in Ask last Friday, moving on to Anuba afterwards. Even though you were successfully late for your own party (as usual :p) we had a really nice time. Something worthy of mention is the contract we drew up – if Tom turns out to be wrong he has agreed to eat my beard. Mmm-mm.
On Saturday I put on my best bib ‘n’ tuc—I mean DJ, and travelled down to London to go to……..a party on a boat cruising down the Thames. How. Cool. Am I. (Tom, I think this counts as effectively being that party on a plane over London we talked about so often!) The occasion was the wedding reception of my cousin, Kirsty, to Jonathan (£400,000 salary :O). There was a tab of £2000 behind the bar. Initially. It was then topped up to last the rest of the night, so no-one had to buy a single drink! And as for the food...it was a delicious barbecue for supposedly 150 but there was easily enough for 300! It was an absolutely amazing evening: the boat had three decks, each with a bar, one with a disco, and it was quite exciting to be surrounded by millionaires, all against the backdrop of Tower Bridge, Big Ben or the London Eye! (Oh, and Freds, my sister was sick on the way home!)
