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!
