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. 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)
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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. 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. So, this is an entry that I wrote a week ago, when I was hearing about the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. I did not feel like posting at that time. I still don't really feel like posting this, but if I don't do it now, I never will. So here goes: 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. 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! This past week was reading week over here. Reading Week is a week's break from classes, meant for students to catch up on reading and other work. Most people however, go home or go travelling. A few of my friends went to Berlin, a couple went to London, another went to Ireland and few others travelled around Scotland a bit. 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.
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