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

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

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

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.

Me, Harry, Heather, Amanda, Charlotte

Me, Katie (sometimes part of our group but not always), Heather

Me, Sarah

Sarah, Amanda, Me

Amanda, Heather, Me

Heather, Charlotte, Amanda, Katie, Harry, Me

Heather, Amanda, Charlotte, Me, Harry

Amanda, Heather, Me

--Rachael

Report of the Week

Monday:

First day of classes, but I already talked about that, so let's move on. 

Tuesday:

Doctor Who society episode-watching party! Oh. Best thing ever. It's like going to Rocky Horror (the heckling, the fandom, the costumes/accessories...) but for Doctor Who. 'Tis a dream come true. 

Wednesday: 

No lectures :) I spent the day crossing things off my to-do list, like going out to the Community Hospital to fix my health forms. Apparently I forgot to sign somewhere and give them my student number. Before that I met up with Mrs. Minick (admissions lady I met at the College Fair last year) for coffee and that was lovely. I also went over to the School of English building and found out when my English tutorial (note: tutorial = small group discussion) was. Monday at 11 am. Not ideal, but whatever. My Wednesday freedom remains intact, which is good. I was worried about that when I filled out the tutorial form on Monday. I then spent the rest of the day finishing Wuthering Heights, the first book of the semester. It was such a beautiful day that I read outside, which helped ease the pain of having to read Wuthering Heights. I do not like that book. Pretty much all of the characters have some sort of mental illness and/or violent behaviour issues, and they all end up marrying each other, and it's just a mess. 

Thursday:

Instead of doing the smart thing, which was to walk to my 4:00 social anthropology class on the other side of town, I took the bus out there, because I was (am) sick, and didn't want to walk all the way out there carrying my huge bag. So I got on the correct bus, the number 92. When I got on, the driver said something about "golf course" I thought that he was talking about the stop that I get off at, the Old Course Hotel stop, so I said yes, got my ticket and sat down. The bus stopped at the stop before the Old Course Hotel stop, but then didn't stop at the Old Course Hotel stop. I wasn't worried at that point because I thought that he would stop soon after my stop. Well, he didn't. I ended up all the way in Leuchars, with only 20 minutes to spare. When I got off in Leuchars, the bus driver told me that he shouted at me to tell me to get off the bus, but I didn't hear him. Anyway, I managed to get a bus back into St Andrews, get off at the right stop, and get to my lecture...10 minutes late. The good thing is that all of the lectures this week have been "What is (insert subject here)?", so there hasn't been any substantive material yet. This coming week should pick up though...yay! I am a nerd and I want to learn! 

Friday:

The only lecture I have on Fridays is Social Anthropology, and on Fridays they show films, so today was a pretty light day as well. Before my lecture, I went out with Amanda, Harry, Charlotte, Miriam, Heather and Jamie for some ice cream, because it has been so warm and lovely here for the past week, and to stop at the stationery store to get a hole punch. Exciting, I know. After my lecture and dinner*, I went out to the Mermaids (performing arts group) party. I was excited to go to this party because I got the Mermaids announcements email, and in it there was an ad for a stage manager for As You Like It. I talked to the director at the party, and she said that she would love to talk to me more about it later. Who knows whether I will end up with the job, seeing as it's a big production and I'm just a first-year, but it's worth a shot. Sadly, my academic mum wasn't there; she is in Glasgow for the weekend. My academic did eventually turn up, but I didn't stay for too long after he arrived because I'm sick and therefore tired and in need of a lot of sleep. 

Speaking of, I am going to stop now and go to bed. 

Good night, 

--Rachael

*My group of friends and I have discovered that going down to dinner later spares you the pain of having to queue (stand in line) for so long for dinner. So we went down at about 6:15 (dinner starts at 5:45). The menu for tonight said that the mains were a) lamb pot pie b) turkey something-or-other and c) wild mushroom risotto. Seeing that there was risotto on the menu, I wasn't too worried. Well, turns out I should have been worried because there was no risotto left when we got to the entree station. Turns out the queue is so big at the beginning of dinner for a reason; otherwise all of the good food is gone! Anyways, so I was stuck with either lamb pot pie (which didn't even look like a pot pie) and the turkey thing which looked absolutely horrific. So I went with the lamb pot pie, solely because it had potatoes in it. But I did die a little bit inside. There wasn't even any dessert either. Usually there is a dessert, and a good one too, but tonight it was just like the fruit topping stuff that you might see served on top of ice cream, but with no ice cream. So I didn't get any of the "dessert" either. The only things I got to accompany my sad lamb "pot pie" were some carrots (steamed in Britain, therefore mushy and not very good) and carrot and coriander soup, which was the only good part of the meal. Unfortunately, I only have one Easy Mac left.

Sorting out my classes

Okay, so it's official. I have emailed my adviser and asked to switch to Modern History. It really is just impossible to get to the other side of town where the Linguistics class is right after my English class is over. I couldn't even do it today, when our english class consisted of only "Hi, welcome to English, fill out this form and then be on your way." Unfortunately, switching to Modern History means missing lunch. I will either have to figure out how to request a pack lunch from my hall or buy lunch everyday once English is over at 2:00. I guess this means I should start eating breakfast now. Good thing I stocked up on cereal.

--Rachael

PS. Why bother taking linguistics when there is Stephen Fry? See here, and here.

*Update: I am now in Modern History. Now I all I have to do is sign up for a tutorial and get a handbook.

The Union Ceilidh

was a bit disappointing, if I'm honest. There weren't as many people there as I thought there would have been, and the music wasn't as classic/traditional Celtic as I would have liked, and the directions were no better, maybe worse even, than those at the Sallie's ceilidh. Luckily, the Celtic society is having ceilidh lessons tomorrow.

Before that though...

me and my group of friends Charlotte, Harry, Sarah, Heather, Jamie, Miriam, Amanda and Christina attempted to make omelettes for dinner this evening. It didn't go too well. Some of the eggs from the frying pan fell down into the cooker (or some nether region of the oven/stovetop combo unit) and created a bunch of smoke, so we were really afraid that we would set off the fire alarm and everyone would hate us. We also I think shorted a circuit in the kitchen, so the toaster would spark when the toast popped out. It was a bit of a disaster. It's a good thing we tidied up really well.

 Tomorrow starts the first day of academics at St Andrews, while I am excited, I am terribly nervous (as well as confused) about how it is all going to work out. The linguistics module that I swapped for comparative literature is currently on the other side of town, right after my English class is over. If this is the case for the whole first semester, then I'm going to have to change my module...again...to modern history (although modern history this semester covers 1450-1770, so I don't know how that classifies as modern).

Hopefully I can talk to my adviser and sort this out.

I'm trying not to worry about it, but it really bothers me.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now because poor Amanda has her French class at 9 am tomorrow, and there's an aptitude test. Although in fairness, I am going to get up early as well to try and sort out some of these issues, and maybe clear off my desk, which looks like the result of an angry gorilla rampage.

Night all,
--Rachael