A Year at St Andrews...

I'm back in London now and counting down the days till I'm back in California (I almost wrote "till I'm back in St Andrews", I miss it so much).

I spent the first half of this week visiting a friend in Wales. I hadn't seen her in over five years so it was great to meet her again. We had a really nice time. The first couple days were really warm and we went to Barry Island Beach on one of those days. The weather was perfect for it. There was a theme park there as well and

Us with Dunnottar Castle in the background

The weather decided that it really didn't like us and it started to rain again. The train to Aberdeen was fairly quick and uneventful.

 When we got to Aberdeen, we decided to scrap visiting the two other castles that were scheduled for the day and just find our hostel before we had dinner. But since we had no itinerary we had to first figure out the address of the hostel. I ended up misreading address and maps and we got well acquainted with Aberdeen's Union Street. We ended up having dinner at a McDonald's on Union Street.  At half nine ish we found our hostel finally. It was too late do much so we just settled into bed. We made ourselves a cooked breakfast the next morning and set off for Inverness by bus.  We were intending to stop off on the way and see Huntly Castle, but we were too tired. After the 4 hour bus journey, we finally made it to Inverness.

Inverness and the River Ness

Urquhart Castle with Loch Ness behind it

The next day, we had another high table. This one was and uber formal one, kind of similar to Christmas dinner and it was for the valedictorians (graduating seniors). At the end of the dinner, those who had served on the hall committee, this year or in the past, gave speeches. It was nice to hear how those who had been in St Andrews for all four years feel about their time here. I'd say it's sad to see them leave, but then I remember that I'm leaving too. There were funny speeches, crazy speeches, speeches that made people cry and ones that made everyone laugh and reminisce about life in Uni Hall. It was a great evening.

I went to this pub called the  Westport with a few friends for drinks afterwards. We went there in our  dresses/ suits and our red gowns. It was good.


The day after that, we had brunch. For brunch they serve us all the breakfast foods that we have over the entire three week rotation at a single meal, and they also throw in some extras like individually wrapped muffins. That afternoon, there was a garden party. The Garden Party is traditionally thrown by the newly elected senior students for the following year. We had had elections in hall a few weeks prior to this to elect next year's senior students, treasurer, secretary and computer rep. This new committee hosts the party.

I was tired from the antics of the previous night so I slept though most of it. When I went out, I saw people walking around in the deceiving sunshine, it was actually quite cold and windy. There was an inflatable pool filled with water  in the middle of the grassy quad and people were getting thrown into it intermittently. There were others walking around with water guns. There was a raffle going on and a BBQ as well. It was fun, but I had to leave soon because I was too cold in the dress I was wearing to stay for much longer. To end the day, there was a firework show for us at 10 pm. It was  fantastic.

A lot more has been happening. Classes are now over and it's revision week. Last night my academic dad took us out for drinks, which was nice. He's a fourth year as well, so I asked him about his experiences in hall and in St Andrews and what he feels about leaving. 

There so much more that I could talk about, but it's getting late now. And tomorrow, I'm off on a trip visiting castles in the north of Scotland for the next three days. Should be fun!

The semester is drawing to a close; this reminds me that my time in St Andrews is ending as well. And soon I shall have to return to California. This will be a bitter-sweet time, and when the time arrives I shall dwell on it more, but for now, I shall talk about what I have neglected to do so for a while.

I meant to write about these events as they happened, but for some reason I kept putting it off. Either due to lack of pictures, too much school work or just plain laziness.

The first of these is the Kate Kennedy procession. This is organized by the Kate Kennedy Club and old and esteemed males only university club. The procession is a celebration of the history of St Andrews and involves people dressed up as distinguished members that have had a connection to St Andrews. It has its roots in a procession in honour of Kate Kennedy, the niece of Bishop James Kennedy, who was welcomed into town and renowned for her beauty. Her arrival signalled the beginning of spring.

Last Thursday, I was invited to High Table. High Table is a St Andrews tradition where select students are invited to dine with the Warden, sub-Wardens and a special guest or two. In the Days gone by, High Table occurred at least once a week. Now a days it happens rarely, even less than once a month. There are other events where the residents get to meet the wardens, like the tea and biscuits receptions or the more formal wine and cheese receptions that take place throughout the year. These two are more common than high table.

For High Table, the selected students come dressed formally and in their red gowns. Before dinner there is a sherry reception where the students, guests and wardens get to mingle. The guest who was at high table this time was Miss Gemma Coughlan, an artist who created a new painting for University Hall.  All other students come to dinner as usual, but they are allowed to bring wine or beer with them if they wear their gowns. After the sherry reception, the wardens, guest(s) and selected students process into the dining hall while everybody else stands. The Warden says grace in Latin before everyone sits down. Then the meal is served to the students at High Table, by the Wardens, as a three course dinner. There is usually wine as well. Somehow even though we were eating most of the same things we've eaten at dinner before, it tasted a whole lot better at high table. After dinner, there is a wine reception for the High Table guests.

It's a lovely tradition, but it's held fewer times each year due to budget cuts and the need for all Halls to be the same. Older halls that have been around for longer tend to hold on to these traditions, but the newer ones usually don't have them. I guess I'm lucky to be in University Hall.

The weather rigth now is lovely. We've had warm sunshine for the past two days! But before that it was terrible and included fog, cold and wind.  I like that spring is here. It's so lovely to see eveyrthing bursting into life: flowers springing thought teh grass, trees with new leaves and longer days with beautiful sunsets! Too bad I can't just play oustside all the time.

Another Friday the 13th went by! I love the years when you get two in a row like that.

If you're confused, I love Friday the 13th. I don't really know why, but instead of being unlucky, they're usually quite fun and lovely. I like wearing all black and putting on dark make-up and scare people by wishing them a "Happy Friday the 13th!" Yesterday was a good day though. I had to make a poster on Parthenogenesis for my Developmental Biology class with a partner. Yesterday we had to turn in the posters and we got interviewed on them individually. I was nervous before the interview, but it turned out to be quite alright and not so scary. But I guess the grades will tell in the end. We also had a wine reception for the whole class to view the posters at 4 pm.

Our developmental biology class has a meagre 13 students in it. It is the smallest class I have ever been a part of. Ever. We had a lab on Thursday that involved limb re-grafting using stage 21 (three day old) chick embryos. It was interesting and exciting, but also nerve racking and hard to do as the embryos are no bigger than a thumbnail. When I checked yesterday, my embryo was still alive :). At least I didn't kill it.

I went to the bop last night as well and I had fun dancing with friends. One of my friends had a random guy come up and ask to dance with her. She was fine with the dancing, but when he implied that he wanted more that night, she dropped him like a hot potato. I think it's so weird how some guys can go out with the intention of picking up a girl just for one night. Makes me doubt the human race a bit, but then I remember that are loads of nice guys out there as well.

The weather here is starting to get nicer, It's a warm 12 C (54 F), lovely sunny Saturday! It should be a nice weekend, after which I should start working on an essay I have due soon.

This is probably the longest I've gone without putting up a new entry. The main reason being that I was ill for a week with the worst cold I've ever had. It was not fun. All I could do basically was eat and sleep. My friends were really nice; they came up and saw me from time to time and brought me medicines and soup and videos to watch. It's nice having friends like that.

I'm completely better now, and second semester is starting to pick up very slightly. I've had two labs so far. For my Infection & Disease virology practical, we were working with strains of the flu virus. This was interesting and slightly scary, especially for me, seeing as I had just recovered from a cold and have no intention of being that ill again for a very long time. Thankfully, I didn't get the flu.

Also, there's another string of Birthdays now which means there's a party every weekend. I've decided that I can only handle going out one night a week and I'm sticking to that. Should be good for my health and my studies ;-).

I spent the past week in Nottingham.

I went to visit a very dear childhood friend who goes to Uni there. She's a few years younger than me and we've known each other since we were babies in India. We used to run around and play make believe games and colour together when we were kids. The last time I saw her was when I was fifteen. Now we're both grown up and its amazing how much the same we still are and yet, how different we are from who we were as kids.

Train in the Snow at Doncaster

Whew! My exams are over!

Except for the um... screwup in the first one, they went well, and I've come out  learning a few lessons.

One, stress makes me study better. However, excess stress makes me worry too much. Too much worry can take you to scary places and can make you screw up. A calm mind really is important when writing an exam.
Two, it's okay to not know everything for an exam and exam grades are not the be all and end all. (Although I have a harder time accepting that)
Three, it would be nice if I could find a nice balance between stress and apathy when it comes to exams. It would also help if I had a better work ethic. (If wishes were horses....) I tend to swing to the extremes, although before this set of exams I usually swung toward the not-a-care-in-the-world side before my exams.

Hmm... there'll be a new semester that will start in three weeks, lets see if I can put into practice what I've learned. Till then though... freeeeeedom! Three weeks of it. There are things that I really need to do though, like clean my room :( it's a pig sty right now.  I also would like to read a novel during this time. The option of travelling is open, and I might visit a friend or two down in England and eventually, I want to see more of Scotland. Maybe that can happen another time. We'll see.
 Right now, what I really want to do, is relax.

In other news, I found a stone in my potatoes today. We have roasted or boiled new potatoes as sides for our meals. I don't know what kind of weird method they use to cook new potatoes out here, but I don't know if I even want to know how the stone got there. It was on my plate just sitting there and I thought it was a mushroom or a charred potato, until I tried cutting it with a knife. It was round-ish and would fill a teaspoon. I'm sure it was just a one time thing and it doesn't really happen often, but it really was the weirdest thing. A stone, good heavens what next? Cardboard in the bread box??

I am having a ncie time out here though, and the food isn't as bad as it could be. I'm sure some of you might have some stories about stuff you've found in your food that wasn't supposed to be there. Care to share?