A Year at St Andrews...

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.

My Easter Break has been going well so far. I had a 4 day retreat in the North of Scotland. It was held at this Benedictine Monks' Abbey in Pluscarden and was organised by the St Andrews Catholic Society. The place is lovely with a serene and prayerful atmosphere.

The boys got to stay in the abbey and eat with the monks. Us girls had rooms in a place about a five minute walk away from the abbey, and we got to cook our own meals. There were tons of pheasants all over the place and a few of us were eager to catch and eat them ;). Daffodils were springing up all over the fields and the sides of the roads, making everything look quite pretty.

The retreat was very helpful. I knew that I had been missing something crucial for a while and as I had suspected it turned out that I was missing God. The retreat helped me reconnect with Him and helped me to figure out what was important in my life. We went to prayers when the monks had them. We didn't have to go to each and every one during the day, but we went to most, especially to Mass and Compline. On the last day, I made it a point to get up at half four in the morning to go to Vigils and Lauds which starts at a quarter to 5 and goes on till a quarter past 6. I got a bit fidgety in the middle, but I don't regret going. Prayer is always good. :)

After that, I spent a few days in Aberdeen. The weather was quite lovely the whole time I was there and Aberdeen is a nice place as well. The beach is pretty and I saw the ships in the harbour which looked quite impressive. 

I had a long train journey back to London from Aberdeen on which a woman who sat next to me reprimanded me for being anti-social with my laptop. I tried to explain that I really only had my laptop open to keep me from getting bored and people in today's world generally don't speak to each other on trains and planes. But she got me and the guy sitting across to shut out laptops and engage in conversation. The guy turned out to be a young physics professor. Interesting. I'd like to know what your opinion is on the issue. Should people talk to each other more on public transport? Is technology making us more antisocial? Let me know in the comments.


Anyway, London is nice so far; weather has been good. I'm looking forward to Holy Week and Easter, but I half wish I was spending it in Pluscarden. The monks told us all about  their lovely Holy Week and Easter services and staying there for a while definitely put me in a more prayerful mood. I don't think the Holy Week services here will be quite as moving.

I hope you all have a Blessed Holy Week!

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 ;-).

My alarm rang at 7 and when I sleepily looked out the window, it seemed foggy.  The thought of snow crossed my mind, but I was not too hopeful since the last few times, either it was just sleeting, or it would snow but none of it would settle.
When I actually got up to look out the window half an hour later, I saw that it was actually snowing! Praying that it would settle, I went down to shower. When I came back up to my room again, I looked out the window and saw that everything had turned white. It was a lovely start to the day.
I went to breakfast singing with delight, my prayers for another snow in St Andrews had finally been answered.

It continued to snow till about 3 in the evening. Which was fantastic because there ended up being enough snow for people to make snowmen and snow angels and to have snow fights and slide down slopes and all the other fun stuff.
I actually got to build a snowman right from scratch this time. It made me very happy as well. We named the snowman "Handy".
Here's Handy:

We couldn't decide if Handy was a guy or a girl.

Also, notice my nice new red coat.

I had class all morning, so I it wasn't until after lunch that I actually got to play in the snow. I joined in a snowball fight on the Wardlaw lawn and then I helped a friend build Handy. After that we went sledging down the slopes. Here's a video of me doing that:

In other news, the new semester has started and classes seem alright. It has been a very busy week with quite a few friends having their Birthdays and Birthday Parties. Tomorrow (Friday) is the Hall Ball. It's 1920s themed and I just finished making myself a sequinned and feathered head band to match my dress.

More pictures from this week coming soon!

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?

I'm on the train back up to St Andrews as I write this. I left from King's Cross in London, I guess you could say I'm on the Hogwarts express (I promise one of these days I'll get a picture of me by Platform nine and three quarters).
My holiday was fun. I had a great time with my cousins, enjoyed the preparation and consumption of the lovely Christmas dinners, and enjoyed navigating the mad sales after Christmas as well.

I only went into the City twice this time. Once we walked around the Trafalgar Square area and another time we went to see a play at the National Theatre. The play is called WarHorse and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The set design, the props, the acting were all amazing.

For Christmas, we went to the Midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral which was said in Latin. We opened presents right after we got back and on Christmas Day we had a big dinner.

New Year's was much more laid back. We roast duck on New Year's Eve and then stayed up to watch the New Year's Eve specials on TV. We brought in the New Year with champagne while watching the firework display at London Eye on TV.

I do not usually make New Years' resolutions, but this year I did. I also discovered why so many people's New Years' resolutions fail. For one, people expect things to change overnight, which doesn't happen. If you have been going a certain way or doing or not doing something for a long time you cant expect it to just change suddenly and completely just because we hang a new calendar on the wall.  It takes a while, and its a process of change. I was almost read to give up my resolution when I figured (after the first day itself) that it wasn't going to work and every thing I saw or read seemed to contradict my resolution. Well, after a bit of thought and the revelation that it will take a while to get used to, I decided to stick with it.

It snowed during the night and early this morning back in Croydon and it seems to have snowed all over England as well. As the train rolls on I see trees with snow in their branches and large fields made white with the snow. I only hope St Andrews gets a bit of snow, I am longing to build another snowman!

Happy New Year to you, and I hope your New Year's resolution will last!

This is my Christmas Card to you all. Pictures are from around Wardlaw (i.e. my dorm/hall in St Andrews). Click the link to Download.

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After a seven hour journey on Saturday, including a bus and three trains. I made to London in one piece. I have to say hearing some of the stories of other people being stuck in airports etc. I am glad I only had to make it to London. I am also glad that my home university is only two hours away from home for me, meaning that I would be able to go home on any weekend if I wanted to. I have to say, I had a bit of a glitch, since I ended up locking my debit card by being a ditz and forgetting my pin one too many times in a row. I'll have to sort that out when I get back. 

As for now, I am with my relatives and will be spending Christmas here.  There's a Christmas tree in the window with presents around it. It looks so lovely. Preparations for Christmas dinner and sweets have begun. I have to say that I miss my mum dad and brother a lot. It's hard being without them at Christmas since I never have, but I suppose I'll be alright. I miss my Mummy most of all.
I also happen to miss my friends from St Andrews as well. It wasn't especially hard leaving, because I know I'll see most of them in the New Year. It was hard saying goodbye to the JSAs though. Being in a place for only a semester must have been quite hard for them, leaving now and knowing they won't really be coming back. I am going to miss them.

I am a bit excited to see what Christmas in London is going to be like.