Fresher's week: Day 5

During my stay at Grey College, Durham, I have already been woken up by the drunk ramblings of some of my dorm mates and the wailing siren of a fire alarm. Yesterday morning I can now add to that list the sound of a metal spoon being smashed against a saucepan repeatedly. This was the wake up call we received at 7 in the morning so we would be ready in time to put on our stupid, stupid gowns to head outside after breakfast to have our picture taken as a whole year. In truth, the experience could have been a lot worse, but it would have been slightly less bothersome if there hadn't been a great big honking wasp flying in frenzied circles around the lot of us. Seriously, it just wouldn't leave.

But anyway, that wasn't the main event of the morning. The main event of the morning was matriculation. Matriculation is where we scoot our gown-clad arses down to Durham Cathedral. That's this place.

It looks like Hogwarts.

We then had to sit through about an hour of talking about how awesome Durham is. The history was rather interesting, but I would rather not have been told it all whilst sitting in a cold cathedral hall and desperately needing the loo. The whole point of this ridiculous fiasco was to have someone sign a document on behalf of our entire college to make us official members of the university.

Wait... what?

You mean we weren't members already?!

This is the most lame-ass tradition ever.

But moving swiftly onward, the rest of the day was essentially taken up by this thing called the Freshers Society Fair, which is where everyone heads down to the students union and observes all the crazy, bizzare stalls that people have set up to advertise martial arts, or underwater hockey, or Marxism  or or or........ LESBIANISM.

Well okay, that last one was the LGBTA, but you get the idea.

I joined various geeky groups like the games and anime and manga societies. More info on those when I actually try those out.

Now, for the most interesting bit of the day.

That evening, I did something I thought I would never do.

Are you ready for this?

I don't think you are.

Really, you're sure?

Okay then.

I

DRANK

A BEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

........Well. An alcoholic ginger beer. And I mean actually alcoholic, not the imaginary 0.5% that may or may not exist in normal ginger beer. Because I drank it on a relatively empty stomach, I noticed the effects rather quickly. Not extremely obviously, I only drank the one, but I definitely felt a bit wobbly (or "Squiffy" as my new friend Emily would put it) and I definitely felt more relaxed. But the real question is, did I enjoy it? In short... meh. It was interesting, and I may possibly try it again, (and it didn't taste bad either) but I really don't see myself having enough to get anywhere close to being actually drunk. It's one more thing I can say I've done though, so that's something.

Wow, this post was originally gonna contain Wednesday and Thursday, but I've ranted longer than I thought I would. I'll do that another time.

Until then.

Jake