A Year at St Andrews...

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!

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.

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?

This past weekend in St Andrews was the Christmassy weekend. We had the Christmas Dinner and Cabaret in Hall and there was also the Christmas Ball. A weekend that had much fun and excitement contained within its thin walls. I say thin walls because I had an essay due at 12 noon on Monday that I pulled an all-nighter for on Thursday and ran on caffeine for three days, which is a lot since I rarely ever have coffee now-a-days, it makes me so hyper and I cannot get a restful sleep with it. It did however help me to spurn out words for my paper without falling asleep.

But, back to the Christmassy stuff. The Christmas Dinner was lovely. It was a formal sit down dinner in our usual dining room which was decorated for the purpose. There were three Christmas trees and a nativity scene around the room.  There were tablecloths on the tables and christmassy napkins and a cracker in front of each person's plate. We also had a high table that night. A high table is a tradition where students get invited to sit at the wardens' table for dinner and get served by the wardens. Also when they enter, everyone has to stand up and wait for them to process in and take their seats before sitting down. high table occurs about a couple times each semester. The Christmas Dinner high table was extra special since it was, well, Christmas Dinner. For regular high tables, people get selected randomly, but for the Christmas one, they were specially nominated as people who had done the most for Hall over the semester. One of my academic brothers was on high table.

We had a three course meal. The appetizer was spiced vegetables in a pastry cup, the main dish was chicken and stuffing wrapped in bacon and the dessert was a blueberry sponge cake like thing. It all tasted lovely and we also had bottles of red and white wine on the table. It was nice to see everyone in their formals and gowns as well. A pretty sea of red, very christmassy. 

After the dinner, we had the Cabaret. Each floor/section of hall put on an act, including the wardens who did "A Uni Hall Christmas Carol". It was wonderful to see the talent and creativity on show. Us Wardlaw girls did a dance to the song "Santa Baby". I also learned that the boys in Uni Hall can dance really well and they enjoy doing it!  After the Cabaret, quite a few people went to the Bop. I, against my good sense went as well. Owing to the fact that I had been running purely on caffeine, the remnants of which were slowly running out of my system, I almost fell asleep on the dance floor. 

Saturday was rest-and-regain-my-senses day. We had an amazing brunch that morning, the Christmas Brunch. It consisted of everything we get at breakfast over the course of the three week rotation, all served on one day. Amazing! I only got up for brunch and went back to sleep for most of the rest of that day. 
 Sunday was a nice day, albeit a full one. We had the Wardlaw Christmas party in the afternoon and exchanged gifts secret santa style. There were mince pies to eat and mulled wine to drink and we played charades afterwards.

Then it was time to get ready for the Ball. I joined three other Wardlaw girls for this process and got my hair done by another one. We took prom style pictures just before we left as well. An actual Ball, and my! was it amazing. I wore my emerald green ball gown to it. It took place on a farm about a five minute drive away from St Andrews, and they had buses taking us back and forth as well. The place is called Kinkell farm and the dance took place in this huge barn which was spectacularly decorated. there was mistletoe at every doorway holly around the pillars and upside down Christmas trees hanging from the ceiling. We got free gingerbread and a glass of champagne when we arrived. We spent the rest of the night dancing to the songs of the different bands that played. Lots of people lots of music lots of fun and dancing! My feet felt like they were on fire at the end of the night, but it was all so worth it. (I miss the shoe I lost in Edinburgh)



So all in all, I had a great weekend. I got my essay (a bit haphazardly) done on Monday, printed it off at hall 20 minutes before it was due and then ran all the way across town to turn it in. 

Now I'm just waiting for our holidays to begin.

The weather has been very Scottish this past week. We've had frost, ice, and (now that its warmed up a bit) a good amount of rain, all with large portions of wind and cloud cover. Also, my assignments, papers and lab reports are piling up since  it's getting towards the end of the semester. Add all this together and I fluctuate between feeling lethargic and stressed and one only makes the other worse.
Basically, this means that I haven't felt like writing much. (And Mummy, while I know you'll say It's better that I concentrate on my studies, I really haven't been successful at getting work done.)

Let me start with my birthday, it was a fun birthday. I had a party in the Wardlaw common room and it was nice to be around a group of friends. I got a lot of cards and more chocolate than I can eat. One of my friends also made me a birthday cake  (technically, she made three) and it was quite delicious. We played a few games, danced a bit and all in all it was a good time.  That was Thursday. On Friday, I went to the bop and compared to usual bop nights, and ones I've had before, this one involved some harder partying (Well, it was my 21st birthday!) I had a great time with a bunch of friends and got home quite late. Lethargy reigned for the rest of that weekend.

Then it was time to buckle down and do some work, which as mentioned before, I have been utterly unsuccessful at. I have tried nonetheless and have kept trying since.

The Christmas Ball is coming up and since it is the cheapest open ball of the year, tickets are hard to get. They sold them on Monday and Wednesday of this week from 11:30 onwards with half on each day. Each person was limited to buying 4 tickets. On Monday I gave my money and details to my friends who i thought were in a good position in line, but turns out that it was harder than imagined and they didn't get tickets even after standing in line in the cold for two hours. On Wednesday they joined the queue at 9am. This was a good thing and we were happily rewarded with tickets! So, on December 14th, I'll be going to a ball!

Thats pretty much all that's been going on so far. The rain and wind are pounding on my window and the snow capped tops of hills in the distance are taunting me. I want some snow again, not rain!
It's not yet 4pm, but the light is fading, I haven't really seen the sun at all today.  More for the nightlife??? Nay, I should get to work.

Thanks for reading and comment if you feel like it!

I know this entry is a bit delayed, but I was too tired on Sunday and busy on Monday and well.... anyway, Halloween...

Yes, for those of you wondering, it is celebrated here. Kids do dress up and go trick-or-treating, and jack-o'lanterns are made as well.

Honestly, I don't know much more about  what people all around Scotland do for Halloween, but I do an awful lot about what St Andrews did. There were parties galore. Since it was a Friday night, there was the Bop as well. Uni Hall had its customary party vodka bar, and there was much dancing.  It was also the night of the James Bond film release and there was a special event for that at the cinema, it was black tie, with martinis and popcorn served.  A few of my friends attended that.

I went to the Uni Hall party, dressed as Flora- The Goddess of Flowers. It was a little bit of a cop out as I had been Flora two years ago, and some of you may remember my stories from that Halloween (wink, wink).  The thing about the costumes here is that girls tended to dress up scary, as opposed to cute or  sexy or pretty like they do in America. There were a lot of vampires and witches among the girls, and the Joker from The Dark Knight was the predominant choice among the guys. Fake blood, face paint, white powder, dark eyeshadow and black eyeliner were all significantly used among both girls and guys. There was one guy who painted himself red and stuck a note on his chest that read "Why the Irish need sun cream". It was quite a laugh. There was a girl who was "a molested Snow White", in the pretty snow with dress, but with fake blood all over her arms and knees. Slightly disturbing, but still, pretty innovative.

I enjoyed myself at the party, and later against my better judgement decided to go to the Bop. Not that I really lost anything by going, but I felt like I should have used that night to relax a bit, and maybe have done some work the next day. But I went, and partied it up even more out there. There were more crazy costumes at the Bop and it was a lot of fun dancing. I stayed till the end, and I came back quite late that night and chatted with a few friends online, before finally going to bed.

Pictures form Halloween are up in My Pictures now. 

This week has been an interesting one. I'll start off from last weekend.

Last weekend was lovely. On Saturday we had a bunch of Uni Hall Alumni visiting us. The Uni Hall Choir (of which I am a part of) and Uni Hall Ensemble put up a cabaret for the Alumni in the evening. We also got the privilege of being able to talk and mingle with the Alumni over drinks in the afternoon. It was fun to talk to them. Most of them were women, as Uni Hall was built (in 1896) as a female student residence hall, the first one in Scotland and remained a women's hall for a long time. Now, however, it is mixed.  They told us tales of what Hall was like when it was women only, how they were only allowed to have male visitors in their rooms during the early evening and sometimes had to be chaperoned as well. All these rules were strictly enforced by the wardens. It was nice to hear these women talk about what they did when they were young and lived in hall and interesting to think that they once occupied the rooms we're now using.
Later that evening I went over to a birthday party. One of the other EAPers celebrated her birthday with a movie night. We had to go outside to light the candles on her birthday cake for her to blow out, in order to avoid setting off the fire alarms. It was the first time since being in St Andrews that all seven of us on EAP were together. Later, we watched the old version of The Producers and it was all in all a good night.
On Sunday, we had our Uni Hall photograph. We all wore black and white, and those of us who had them, wore the red gowns as well. It was cool to see the flocks of students going around town in their gowns. Makes me wonder what it was like when students were required to wear them all the time. Sunday evening, My academic Mum and her flatmates and all their children had dinner together at Zizzi's and Italian restaurant. I ordered pizza and would have not done that had I known how hard it was to cut a pizza with a fork and knife. After dinner we all went back to their flat for some Sangria that my mum had made.  Oh, and this means I also have a picture of my academic family from my mum's side. We're a lot smaller than my dad's family, but still awesome.
Here:

The girl in the white is my academic mum, and weirdly enough, she's a few months younger than me.

So, that was last weekend-- fun, magical, delightful. Then came Monday, and Monday sucked. I really won't go into the details here, but lets just say that I was upset and it ruined my mood for the first half of the week. And the rest of the week didnt really get better. It was all a bunch of small, seemingly meaningless incidents coming together in unfortunate ways and I felt like fate was conspiring against me. But at last, Friday arrived, and I decided that it was the right time to party. We had our first free vodka bar of the year (barring the freshers week events) and it was lovely. The theme was "Plastic Fantastic" and we had to make fancy dress outfits out of plastic. I have to say that the guys were a lot more creative than the girls in the whole, because most girls resorted to black bin bag dresses. Of course that wasn't all bad, as a group of girls from Wardlaw created the most amazing black and yellow dresses, that looked like designer prom dresses.  I made my dress an hour before the event out of a blue and white shower curtain.  After the vodka bar in hall we all made our way to teh Union and the Bop. We had quite a lot of fun over there before we decided to call it a night.

So the past few days really have been a roller coaster, and I guess I have to take it as it comes. I have no doubt that I will be upset again at some point through the year, but I also have no doubt that I will have some amazingly magical moments as well.

I figure I should tell you all something about where I'm staying, i.e. my dorm or hall as its called here.

I live in University Hall, and as I've said before is the best hall out here. I also happen to live in the coolest wing of the hall as well. The building is called Wardlaw and it is a mini castle. It's quite old (both inside and out), but is young compared to most buildings in St Andrews.

My room is on the top floor of the building and it has turrets on the sides. I also have two windows, which is amazing, since I get lots of light because of it.

My windows have lovely views. One of them has an amazing view of the golf course, and the north sea, which is absolutely fantastic. The first thing I see when I wake up every morning is the sea. The other window looks out on to some trees, a few old houses and the path below that leads up to the front door.

I absolutely love my room!

Pictures are here.

If you want my address, email me and ask. I'll send it to you.

I would totally appreciate receiving some mail! And if you want me to send you some, email me your address as well.