The Girl in a Plaid Skirt: 10/11

23 October 2011

Report of the week

Monday: Went to the doctor's office and confirmed that I had a nasty virus. Great.

Tuesday: I can't remember anything I did on Tuesday it was that uneventful.

Wednesday: Met up with Peter and Mathilde the director and producer of Medea (yes, I am stage managering for Medea) to talk about what we wanted to do at our first rehearsal the next day and what our sets and costumes were going to be like, who we needed to talk to about sets and costumes and when our show was going to go up. It was very productive. I then spent the rest of the day in the library being productive on my social anthtopology essay, which is due on monday. That night, Sarah, Christina and I went to a late night (11, so not Rocky Horror late night) showing of the Inbetweeners movie. The Inbetweeners is a British comedy series about four socially awkward and desperate high school (equivalent of American high school) boys Jay, Neil, Simon and Will and their often embarrassing situations. The film is their graduation trip to Greece. What I loved about the film was that all four guys get their story lines wrapped up very nicely. It was very satisfying.

Thursday: Medea rehearsal. The only bad thing about this rehearsal was that it was all the way out in David Russell Apartments, which is basically some apartment buildings in the middle of a field somewhere supposedly in St Andrews. This created some problems that I will explain to you now: Our rehearsal was scheduled from 6.30 to 8.30. My social anthropology lecture on Thursday is from 4.00 to 5.00 in the Purdie (chemistry) building, which is relatively close to DRA, so I figured that instead of going back to Sallie's and then turning around pretty soon after I got there, I would stay over in the science-y area until our rehearsal started at 6.30. This did mean missing dinner (dinner is from 5.45 to 6.45), but I thought ahead and brought a Pot Noodle (Pot Noodle = Cup Noodle) with me and figured that there would be hot water availble for me to make my Pot Noodle. I was wrong. I didn't get to eat my Pot Noodle until I got back to my room at 10.00. We had drinks after our rehearsal, so that why I got back so late. It was worth it though.

Friday: No exciting evening plans tonight, because everyone has essays due and other work going on, and we were going out for Christina's birthday the following night so everyone spent the night in getting work done. Although Amanda, Harry, Heather, Jamie and I managed to go to the toastie bar. If only the toastie bar were open every night...

Saturday: We went out to the Blue Stane pub for Christina's birthday dinner. Considering that I was at a proper laddish (one of my new favourite words--meaning manly) pub with a football match on, and that I had missed out last weekend, I ordered the fish and chips. Little did I know that at the Blue Stane, they really mean fish when they say fish and chips. I ended up getting a whole fish fillet, which was pretty embarrassing. I only managed to eat half of it--but it was really delicious. From there, we went to Tesco so Christina could legally buy alcohol as an adult. Our purchases included Smirnoff Ice, Malibu, cheap white wine, some more vodka, two things of lemonade and a birthday cake. We then consumed our purchases in Katie's room by playing some fun games--Roxanne/red light and Ring of Fire. Roxanne/red light is when you have two teams--team Roxanne and tean red light--and you listen to the song Roxanne by the Police and depending on which team you're on, you drink whenever they say Roxanne or red light. The chorus gets pretty crazy. Ring of Fire (aka Kings, King's Cup) is when you have a deck of cards dealt out in a circle around a cup. Each card has a task assigned to it so when you draw that card, you have to do that task. For the Kings, you have to put some of your drink into the middle cup. The game ends when the last king is drawn and the drawer has to drink whatever is in the middle cup. Guess who drew the last king? Yep. Then we went out to The Lizard, the closest thing St Andrews has to a nightclub. That was fun until it got too crowded, at which point we went home and then stayed up for another hour talking about random things.

Sunday: Well, techinically some of the things I described in the Saturday category happened on Sunday... Anyway, today I have to read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for my English tutorial tomorrow and finish my social anthropology essay. Fun. I'm going to get to work now.

--Rachael

21 October 2011

AWS Care Package

has arrived! Tehnically it arrived two days ago but I haven't had time until today to pick it up from the porter. Unfortunately the envelope thing that it came it got ripped in transit, so this grey lint stuff that makes up the lining in the envelope went everywhere when I tried to open the package and get all of my stuff out of it. Jamie said that it looked like they had sent me a hoover (vacuum) bag. Anyway, I got some macaroni and cheese, a Fruit by the Foot, a Starbucks gift card and tons of candy out of it so I'm not complaining. I also got some lovely notes from Mary Bradford, Josephine Ren and Mrs Bauska, so that was nice. I will do a proper report of the week either tomorrow or on Saturday, but I just wanted to announce that my care package had arrived.

--Rachael

16 October 2011

Report from Sick Bay (Report of the Week)

Sunday: Movie night watching the 1992 version of Wuthering Heights. Mocking and hilarity ensued.

Monday: Day 1 of mystery illness. I had a sore throat and felt really cold.

Tuesday: I don't think anything terribly exciting happened on Tuesday. Tuesdays are very rarely exciting.

Wednesday: Day of crisis. I discovered a lump in my neck, and automatically assumed I had cancer and that it was the end of all times. I called Mom and Dad in an absolute state of panic, and then called NHS 24 and talked to a real live nurse who confirmed Mom and Dad's diagnosis that it was a swollen gland due to me being ill rather than a cancerous tumour.

Thursday: Again, nothing exciting.

Friday: You would think that there would be something exciting because it's Friday, but no. What a let down.

Saturday: Nearly everyone was gone doing something or other, so there weren't many of us left to go out and do things. Amanda was in Edinburgh for a beginner's korfball tournament, Harry was in the wilderness somewhere for some OTC (Officer's Training Corps) thing, Miriam went home to Dundee because she is quite ill, and Heather went home to Aberdeen for a visit. The rest of us (me, Sarah, Charlotte, Christina) went out to see Johnny English: Reborn. And that's it.

Sunday: Finally finished Great Expectations for my tutorial tomorrow! I was going to go out for fish and chips on the beach with the crew (now that they're all back), but my stomach suddenly starting hurting really badly, so I just went back to my room :( I can't wait to go to the doctor tomorrow and figure out what the flamingo is wrong with me.

--Rachael

09 October 2011

Opening Ball (Report of the Week)

Friday: I went to the Mermaids opening party, and I talked to the director of As You Like It about being stage manager for the show. Unfortunately, since then and now I they got someone else to be stage manager. But do not despair! I will most likely be stage managering for this year's Fresher's Play, Medea, which is being put on by my Academic sister Mathilda and some other Mermaids friends Peter and Hamish (hay-mish). Peter and Hamish both study classics, so it's no wonder that they chose to put on Medea. I'm excited to work with them on this and to state manage again!

Saturday: St Andrews has its own Wine and Cheese society (and Sallie's even puts on its own Wine and Cheese events), but our group has come up with something better: Budget Wine and Cheese. We have our own events, and it's a lot more fun. This Budget Wine and Cheese event consisted of us gathering in my room and snacking on cheese that Amanda got from the St Andrews farmer's market (smoked garlic cheddar), fudge with walnuts that Miriam's sister made for her birthday, toffee popcorn, Charlotte's red pepper hummus and pita bread, drinking white wine from Tesco (I didn't have any), and also planning a weekend trip to the cheese farm where Amanda's cheese came from. We also watched Thelma and Louise. It was a good evening.

Sunday: The day before was Miriam's 18th birthday, but since she was up in Dundee with her family for the day, we decided to celebrate her birthday the next day. Sarah, Charlotte, Heather and I went shopping for Miriam's birthday present, and we ended up getting her a Tunnock's Caramel Wafers mug, and an owl keychain because she likes Tunnocks Caramel Wafers and always makes tea and hot chocolate, and because she has an owl pillow in her room. Then we went out to Bella Italia for Miriam's birthday, and I actually got to eat pasta for once! Yaaaay!

Monday: My first English tutorial was that morning, which went fine, but the only problem is that my Modern History lecture is right after my tutorial, so I was quite a bit late for my lecture.

Tuesday: Charlotte, Harry, Heather, Sarah, Amanda and I went to the library and were there until just about when the library closes at 2 am. Little did we know that that was not a good thing to do because...

Wednesday: morning at like 6 whatever AM, we had a fire drill. Not. Fun. Luckily for me I don't have any lectures or tutorials on Wednesdays, so I could go back to sleep, but Amanda has all of her lectures in a row from 9 until 12 so she had a rough day.

Thursday: Nothing too exciting except for the fact that I had one of the two most quintessentially British meals for lunch. I went to the bakery Gregg's because their food is cheap and I got a cheese and onion toastie (toastie = grilled cheese sandwich, basically) and a tea. I then went over to Tesco's for a bag of crisps. I loved it.

Friday: Had my other two tutorials, Social Anthropology and Modern History, and those went fine as well, and then went back out at 4 for my Social Anthropoogy lecture, which, on Fridays, is just a film. This week's film was...interesting. It's called Wild Man, and it's about these guys who have daddy issues and they all go out into the wilderness of Texas and crying/sharing/hugging circles to release their bottled up emotions about how their fathers treated them horribly and taught them to never show their emotions and blah blah blah. I could not stop laughing during this film. I knew that it wasn't supposed to be funny, but it just was.

Saturday: Mom's birthday! The Opening Ball! Lots of things going on. Before Dad left St Andrews, I gave him the present and card I got for Mom's birthday. I got her an apron that I had seen in a shop window that had "wee coloured birds" (as the shop lady had said) on it, and I got her a card with a bird (either a Kingfisher or a Kookaburra. Not sure which) on it as well. Mom likes birds, and she had told me that she wanted an apron for her birthday, so this was perfect. We left for the Opening Ball at approximately 8:30 in these claustrophobic buses and arrived in the middle of a field in who knows where. It was very confusing. For the first hour and a half or so it seemed to me that the "black tie" Opening Ball event was just people standing in a tent in the middle of a field. But then the group (Sarah, Charlotte, Harry, Heather, Amanda) and I got on the dance floor and then I started having fun. We got on the "early" bus back at 1:10 or so. It was a lot of fun, even if the beginning was misleading.