Roses
well, yesterday anyway. (Ngaio did her rowing today, Vicki's Tom had volleyball, and Emily does netball later on. so far, we are murdering Lancaster, something like 74.5 v 20.5 points? yay.) the campus has been hit by a wave of Lancaster athletes and you can feel the buzz of competition.
Friday morning, got up early, got dressed and went to the library to grab a key text. i booked a copy for my seminar, instead of buying the book itself. at least, this is what i had planned. turns out my coursemates (all 250 of them) suck. or at least seven do. there were seven copies of the book, and seeing as i'd booked it - technically, at least one should have been there. unfortunately, no one pays attention to due dates anymore and apparently don't mind paying pounds and pounds in late fees... twits.
so, mad enough, i go to find my classroom and hope to hell my tutor (also the course director, incidentally) doesn't notice i don't have the "mandatory" book. get lost trying to find the room, do eventually. i recognized a few of the students from my past History seminars. turns out, tutor's actually really nice (impressed that i can speak French and German, unlike most unilingual (and proud!) Brits) and not as dull as the content of the course would have us believe. thankfully, we didn't focus too much on the actual essays we'd read, and spent most of the time in discussion. we mainly argued whether history is a science - which shockingly, is an argument 10x more interesting than it sounds. i actually enjoyed the class and am intrigued by next week.
then, immediately afterwards, i had to run to Wentworth College (other side of campus) for my Homer seminar. get lost again trying to find the room. once there, realize the tutor isn't even there yet. by the way, the whole time, it had been hellish weather. spitting rain, but 20mile/hour winds, ouf. not conducive to running. in the seminar room though, got a great view of the turbulent lake. anyway, Homer seminar was okay. i can tell that the tutor's approach will be nothing like Djordjevic's. while change is good (i suppose) i just wish for more enthusiasm. i mean, you can tell Minta loves Homer, but he spends more time wrapped up in how great and awe-inspiring it is (which it is, sure) than he does actually telling us anything. not to mention, there's this stuck-up little Londoner who's got several copies of each poem and asks pretentious questions all the time, ack. we have a procedural essay due in a few weeks, and an assessed one after. technically, the assessed one is due in October. but... that obviously doesn't work for me. am gonna try and see if i can persuade Minta to let me hand it in Friday of Week 9, thus giving me one last week of school without any assignments! we'll see how next week's seminar goes though, if it gets any better.
anyway, after this, back out into the wind and rain and into Cell Block. have a hurried lunch of an omelette and cucumber sandwich, while riling Mark, Jack, and Lee up to come watch Chris and Arthur in the American football. i leave with only promises that they'll come later, and bring my camera. (am exhausted by this point - mentally and physically.)
finally get to 22 Acres (the pitches near Halifax College) and meet up with Hannah, Mike, Frankie, and Gemma (the latter leaves promptly, being the girliest, most self-involved woman, haha). they brought wine. wine. to an American football game. oh dear gods, that was only the beginning. i mean, i don't know much about the game, but i sure as hell knew more than most of these people. and these were the ones who actually made it out to watch the game to begin with! it was hilarious listening to them in their cute British accents, wondering why they kept stopping, why no one ran far, why they kept piling up, if there was an 'offside' rule, what the orange markers were for, which direction they were going in, and what a touchdown was, etc etc. i'm not sure if i'd say it was pathetic, considering football really is a minority sport in the UK, but it was strange. i'm not used to people having no idea about the sport. i'm supposed to be the ignorant one!
Chris's dad and stepbrother Garrick also came down to watch. nice to see them again, getting all excited for Chris! Lee, Jack, Mark, and Faye did eventually make it down but scattered as soon as it threatened to rain. soon after, Dutchie, Vicki, Harriet, Anthony, Emily, and Anna came along. dear Christoph, he got practically the whole corridor down to cheer him on. it was hard differentiating the boys from each other on the field, so Hannah and i took lots of photos whenever we noticed numbers 80 or 25! i'm not into football and don't lie about it though. at times it was more fun watching our spectators. there were guys who had an enormous rubber slingshot and were sending water balloon's over at Lancaster's cheerleaders, ahaha. fantastic stuff. the game went pretty well, all things considered. for most of the team, this was their first ever football game - and they did quite well. the Lancaster Bombers won in the end, but our beloved Centurions put up a good fight. i'll say though, it was not fun watching people you knew get thrown to the ground and squashed. there was some nonsense with the ambulance (two of ours went down, badly) so they had to cut the game short, which was really unfortunate. we did get whacked by some pretty vicious rain and wind at one point (after which the number of spectators diminished, and anyone who stayed was shivering) but afterwards it was sunny and rainbow-y and you could tell that all the guys wanted to play out the match. in any case, it was a good afternoon and i was very, very proud of Chris and Arthur.
rugged manliness?
afterwards, came happily back to Cell Block. Chris went out for tea with his dad and Garrick, and joined up with the team later for the classic Micklegate pub crawl. i elected to stay in with Dutchie & co. and we visited the cider tasting. blueberry, summer fruit, apple pie, lemon lime, and cucumber/mint were some of the flavours offered. on the whole, it was quite tasty. don't know how much alcohol was in them, in the end, but i'm glad i wasn't sick all of today because of it, haha. we then went to Costcutter to pick up some (on sale!) Ben & Jerry's and came back to the kitchen for a night of lychee vodka/cognac shots, and cheesy, old school music. S Club 7, Chumbawumba, Marvin Gaye, Queen and all the best. was quite a good end to a long, tiring day!
went out for lunch with Chris's family, had a good pub curry, mmm. chatted away happily, then came home. a well-deserved slow start to the day, haha. tonight is the Anniversary Ball. Goodricke alumni have been here all day, watching Roses and being given tours of their old blocks. i can only imagine how surreal it must be for them to be back on their old stomping grounds, watching a new generation do all the crazy shite they did. it's raining at the moment, but i hope it clears up before i have to go out with my nice hair and dress! poor Chris and Arthur are out watching the rugby now too... must be getting soaked. should be a good evening, tonight. if nothing else we get to see each other all prettied up again. will try to get some good photos of it to show off!
16:45 edit* the rugby win sealed the deal, Lancaster can't catch up. York University has won Roses three years in a row!