This weekend held the most weird and interesting of St Andrews traditions. I have briefly mentioned academic families to you all. Raisin Weekend is a celebration of these families. The tradition goes as such: third and fourth year students 'adopt' Freshers and Study Abroad students (JSAs and JYAs), to be their 'children'. Their job is basically to help their children get acquainted with university life. We exited the quad, had our mum take pictures of us and then made our way back to hall. I had to be careful to not dirty my room with foam while I was getting out of my foam covered clothing. That took some skill. I managed, and realised I was quite quite tired. So after lunch I took a nice long nap.
And that, was Raisin Weekend--the craziest of St Andrews traditions. More pictures here.
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To start off this entry and to explain my excitement in the title, I have to let you all know that I have never seen the snow before and have never ever watched it snow. And with you knowing that, I'll begin... The view from my window as I watched my first snowfall! More pictures now here! I'm away from the US, but somehow I don't think I can ever truly be away. The US is everywhere in the world, on TV and in the newspapers. Sadly, when you're actually in the US the existence of this outside world is barely noticed or acknowledged. EDIT: The UK papers a day later. I know this entry is a bit delayed, but I was too tired on Sunday and busy on Monday and well.... anyway, Halloween... I feel like I've been posting less and less lately. I suppose that's because things are getting to the point where they aren't that new and exciting anymore. On one hand that's a good thing, as it means I've settled in and adjusted to life over here, on the other hand I don't feel as inspired to write about things anymore. This week has been an interesting one. I'll start off from last weekend. The girl in the white is my academic mum, and weirdly enough, she's a few months younger than me.
I figure I should tell you all something about where I'm staying, i.e. my dorm or hall as its called here. OK, I know that title sounds completely crazy. But, let me explain. Oh, and if you're wondering, the guy in the middle of the picture (grey jacket) is my dad. This past weekend, A horde of celebrities were in St Andrews for a golf tournament. The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, pairs amateur celebrity golfers with pros as they compete for the cup. The celebrities included Hugh Grant and Samuel L Jackson who were probably the most talked about/sought after of the lot. There were quite a few more, a number of cricketers included. Freshers Week at St Andrews was very interesting. The hall I'm staying in is called University Hall and it happens to be the hall that has the most number of social events and the freshers week hall schedule left no doubt about that. And at most events, especially the evening ones, drinks flow more freely than water (our hall is the only one with free drinks bars), so it has most definitely been interesting. We've had an event every afternoon and every evening. The evening once are usually just large parties, with music, dancing, and drinks. The afternoon events were mostly smaller scale getting to know people things. We had ice-breaker games one afternoon, tea parties (albeit with drinks) on another, crazy golf on the putting green, a photo scavenger hunt and a few others. All the events except the last two were held in the Old Wing Common Room. The pub crawl was a boys vs. girls event and of course was held in various pubs around town. The girls were all dressed in pink and the boys had to wear ties. We screamed and chanted at the boys when we saw them on our way and they did the same to us. Apparently this got us warnings from the local police for being too noisy and we had to quiet down in the end. It was a lot of fun walking down the streets in a large group of girls all dressed in pink shouting and chanting and having fun. The Bop was fun as well. It's basically a clubbing event in the Student Union. Our hall went in a large group dressed in black and gold (hall colours) with black and gold stripes painted on our cheeks. We dominated the place with our sheer numbers and random chanting/singing of the Uni Hall song. I got back at 2:30 that night and went to bed close to 4 am. To make up for that I went to bed before 10 pm the following nights. Apart from all the fun, we also had to advise and matriculate (ie meet with our advisers about classes we're taking so we can be signed into them and officially register at the university). I was expecting this process to be a bit long and tedious, but it was smooth, went without a hitch and was over pretty quickly. Right now, I believe I've caught the "freshers flu". My throat is absolutely dying and I've been coughing all day. I don't know why I am this sick, I didn't even party all that much. I am sipping a hot cup of tea as I write this, so I hope I get better soon. |