Anyway, so what has little Nutmeg been up to during her final week of term? Quite a lot. This past week was filled with social events, (starting from Tuesday onward, I've essentially "partied" nonstop), and I can sadly admit that I have never been so social in my entire life.
So starting with last Saturday (not this past one but the one before), I went to my first rowing social ever. At this social, girls were supposed to wear only three articles of clothing, while the guys could only wear two. I originally wasn't going to attend since I didn't like the idea of wandering through freezing Oxford in only three articles of clothing and I had a lot of work to do, but Maggie and one of my best British friends here, Jonny, convinced me to take a break from the library that evening. The Captain of SBHBC (St. Benet's Hall Boat Club) even bought me a pair of too-big-for-me pink footie pj's complete with hearts and a white Scotty Dog to wear, which was incredibly sweet of him. The social itself was an interesting experience with lots of drinking games, my least favourite being "One Fat Hen..." I didn't partake in any of the games, but it was definitely fun to watch. Afterwards, almost everyone was relatively drunk, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. I think a combination of these two factors caused them to start singing very drunkenly at the top of their lungs, which brought a few stares in our direction and caused Jonny to scream "RUN!" at me. And so Jonny and I ran through the freezing streets of Oxford with the feet of my pink footie pj's flopping around everywhere. We must've been quite an interesting sight to see, and unfortunately, since I had come straight from the library, I didn't have my camera to document our ridiculousness. And that was my first rowing social.
A couple of all-nighters and one essay outline later, Tuesday night (as well as ice/slush/snow) finally arrived, which was the evening of our black-tie Boat Club Christmas Dinner. I think our captain had told us earlier that we should "expect carnage in a refined and elegant manner." And that pretty much sums up SBHBC's Christmas Dinner. We dressed up (I wore a flower in my hair! ^_^), ate nice pizza at a nice restaurant, listened to amazing and hilarious speeches by Jonny as well as our captain (his weren't as funny as Jonny's though), and were given very "serious" awards (I got the award for Best Coxswain) and top trump cards (all made by Jonny). And then carnage ensued when our captain began the drinking games...with wine. Thankfully, the sober ones (me, Jonny and a Blackfriars friend Kate; we're three members of the appropriately named Team Awkward) were able to control the carnage to a certain level where we wouldn't be kicked out of the restaurant. After we paid the bill, we walked to a pub down the street. Well, the rowers walked and shouted coxing commands at me, while I was dragged in my rather high heels over icy cobblestones by our now-very-drunk-and-singing-Christmas-carols-at-the-top-of-his-lungs captain. Anyway, I had A LOT of fun that evening with the Boat Club, and I am definitely looking forward to spending time with them for next term's training.
The next evening, Maggie, Kate and I had dinner with the Blackfriars. We had curry, which I had been craving for a long, long time, and I discovered that many of the friars have never had mochi, which is a sin in my book. By the end of the evening, I ended up promising to bring/make mochi for the friars with the possibility of also organising a Japanese meal for them as well. I think I've said in earlier posts that dining with the friars has been one of my favourite experiences here so far, and this still holds true. After the dinner, Team Awkward (Jonny, Maggie, Kate and I) watched Say Anything (which has been added to my list of favourite movies) and had copious amounts of chocolate and not as copious amounts of champagne. After the movie finished, we realised that it was SNOWING, and of course, we had to go skipping through it.
Thursday evening was St. Benet's Hall Christmas Party (black-tie again), which Jonny had been kind enough to invite me and Maggie to. At the party, we had a Christmas dinner complete with ham, salmon, chicken pate?, cranberry sauce, bread, pasta, rice, cake (for pudding) and of course, champagne and wine. Now I'm sure this sort of sounds like a stuffy formal dinner party sort of thing, but it wasn't. I couldn't stop laughing the entire time we ate. After dinner, we had an absolutely amazing live band (I'm not sure whether I should call them a jazz or swing or something else band), and we danced for the rest of the night. Maggie and I agreed that we felt like we had been transported to a party in the 1940's (what with the combination of the dress and the music and the hall itself). Overall, I had a FANTASTIC time even though I couldn't feel my feet by the end of the night.
On Friday evening, I went to the Advent Party the Blackfriars were hosting. We had delicious nibblers and of course (again), wine. I drank apple juice though, since I'm not a huge fan of wine. Anyway, it was a really nice party and as I've said probably a million times now, spending time with the friars has always been great. After the party, a group of us went to our common room and watched A Christmas Story, and I got to skype with my best friend from SF named the Fairy, who I hadn't gotten to talk to in a long, long, long time. So in short, Friday evening = amazing.
And finally, last night (Saturday) the Blackfriars's students had an End of the Term/December Birthdays/Ugly Sweater/Christmas party. It was a relatively small party, and I felt like there were only two of us wearing ugly sweaters (I ended up taking mine off after a while). But the later it became, the more fun I had. Apparently, I became very chatty, talked for a really long time about classical music and marching band, got really upset when someone played a Katy Perry song and then became very giggly. At one point, one of the birthday boys even sang a rap about his birthday, which was pretty neat, and a couple other people had "duels" with the party poppers. Well, I know a few people didn't have the most exciting time at this party, but I can say that I most certainly did and that I really enjoyed spending time with people from my college. Basically, I really love the people in my college and can say that I am very happy I chose to study at Blackfriars this year. =D
So what is little Nutmeg going to do now that she has so much free time on her hands? Well everyone, expect lots of pictures to start appearing of places outside of Oxford, including London, Bath and the Lake District. Speaking of pictures, I've uploaded pictures of Christ Church Regatta to my flickr account, so now everyone can see what I've been devoting quite a bit of my time here to.
To everyone I left back home (or in Japan), I send you my love through the interwebs instead of on a wire. Even though I've been having a lot of fun here, I still miss you all and am looking forward to seeing people over the six days I'm back home for Christmas/New Year's.
Until next time, Cheers!
<3 Nutmeg
2 comments:
I like this post a lot. And thanks for reminding me about the "Run!" incident...
Also: the band at the SBH Christmas Party can be found here: www.rabbitjazz.co.uk
The band at the SBH Party are better heard here! www.myspace.com/theoriginalrabbitfootspasmband
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