Cambridge Pics

We're starting a new series of blog entries, in the "places I will miss having right on my doorstep category". We start today with Kings College and its wonderful chapel. I remember being shown around here by a rather dear friend after I had left Kuwait. He said to me "One day, Becky, if you study hard at your A Levels, you'll be able to come here". I studied hard with the Open University and came to Wolfson instead, but I love the beautiful old buildings that are a few minutes' walk away...

Finals, Results and Balls!

Right, where was I last time we saw each other? Was I waving at you as I wallowed in an alcoholic haze in the aftermath of my exams? Or was I reclining on a punt gliding gently past the backs of Cambridge's most beautiful colleges thanks to the punting expertise of Duncan, Sally or Simone? Was I sipping champagne in Grantchester meadows, having a picnic on the Wolfson lawn or just awaking from an extended afternoon nap?

Well, whatever I was up to, the main news since my last visit here is that I PASSED MY EXAMS - ALL OF THEM!! It turns out I'm nowhere near as thick as I look after all - which is something of a relief!

Friday was a Cambridge Day to Remember. In the morning, Simone and I walked into town: we were psychologically holding hands, nervous as hell about the prospect of finding our names and grades on the Green Notice-Boards of Doom outside the Senate House, both of us only wishing to get the same grade and both hoping that same grade would be a 2.1. We arrived, only to find our results had not yet been posted. We drank coffee, talked incessantly about the same things over and over again, worried, fidgeted, made anxious sideways glances in the general direction of the Senate House. Then we went underwear shopping, realising only as we were queueing in Marks and Spencers that the Results Posting Hour had arrived. We held hands, approached the signs, then panic hit and neither of us could find our names. Three Williamses, there were, all with different grades: I thought "Fuck! I've got a third", then "whoppeee - is that a First?", followed by "Oh bugger, it's a 2.2.". My heart sank just a little - it was what I had been dreading but I was trying my best to comfort myself: some of the papers had been very difficult, a 2.2 was still a decent grade and, besides, I never came here expecting to do well. Remember: beer and boys, that was what it was all about.

Except my grade wasn't a 2.2 - when I worked out the grade I was counting down from the top in groups - my name was in the third group, which made it a 2.2 - until I worked out that the top group was the names of the examiners. So, a 2.1 after all - good stuff, and better stuff still when I found Simone's name in the same group. I hugged her, tried to jump up and down with her and heard her scream "LET GO! I HAVEN'T SEEN MY NAME YET!".

We came home, happy bunnies. Arrived, Louise was here. Joy! Then we checked e-mails, got our breakdown of marks. It turns out we really did get the same grade - averaging out at over 67%. We were still surprisingly unbothered by the extra couple of percentage marks we would have needed to get a first. High 2.1s were plenty good enough for both of us to go on to do any post-grad work we wanted. Happy times.

Fast forward a few hours. Pictures speak louder than words. I'll leave you with some...


















It's not easy putting photos on this blog. I have put most of them on to Facebook and suggest you all get yourselves an account (Nicki Cilia is way ahead on this one!).

Thank you all for helping me celebrate - I never would have dreamt on Friday morning I was capable of (a) a high 2.1, or (b) pulling an all-nighter and making it to the survivors' photo at 6 am. I'm a very happy bunny: sad to be leaving this life behind but looking forward so much to the one that is ahead of me. And I think we have to come back to future balls here, for some sort of annual reunion of crazy alcoholics! You're all just brilliant, you really are!

Lazy Cambridge Days

It's that wonderful time of year. Exams are over, people are gradually emerging from the various bubbles they have been inhabiting in recent weeks, blinking in the early summer sunlight, rubbing their eyes, wondering if it was all a bad dream: and slowly realising that there is both life and alcohol waiting to be embraced. Look at anyone's Facebook status and you will generally see a comment containing the words "over-celebrating" and "apocalyptic hangover". You will also see newly-created photo albums with pictures of people sipping Pimms or fizzy pop somewhere nice and green, or punting down the river Cam, with blue sky and sunshine in the background. It all feels so very Cambridge, so very Brideshead Revisited (which just proves it isn't so very Cambridge after all!).

Garden parties will be starting in a matter of days. Suicide Sunday is fast-approaching (so-called because people get so terribly, terribly drunk: not because they actually try to commit suicide - that would just be silly after putting oneself through all the agony of exams). May Balls will be starting in a couple of weeks. And my time here is drawing to a close. I don't feel quite ready to go. I've felt more at home here than I have done anywhere since I lived in Geneva in the early 90's. I like having my friends less than a minute's walk away, I like the Wolfson squirrels, I like the little love nest that has been mine and Jamie's first home together. I have loved every minute of my time here, and it seems bizarre to think I ever felt I was taking something of a gamble in giving up my old life to give this one a bash.

For the next two weeks, you can rest assured that if I'm not blogging, I am in all likelihood drinking Pimms or wine on a lawn somewhere, probably whilst wearing a floral dress!

Lunatics

Simone and I have just returned from a wonderful break in Dublin, courtesy of Ryanair and their 2p return flights - worth every penny, despite the fact that their pilots always land so badly. The last time I went there, I heard the man in the row behind me say to the person next to him "That was a computerised landing, you know". When the person questioned him as to how he could tell, he replied "Well, you'd have to be a complete fecking eejit to deliberately land it like that, wouldn't you now?". Quite.

What we didn't do in Dublin:

• Visit Trinity College
• See the Book of Kells
• A whole host of other things one probably "Should" do in Dublin

What we did do in Dublin:

• Buy terrible gold/silver leggings in Penny's (their equivalent of Primark) "just in case" we ever needed them for an 80s/bad taste party in the future. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I shall have to host aforementioned theme party in order to get my money's worth (7 Euros, kids)
  
• Ate the best Chinese food I've ever tasted outside of China.
• Did karaoke in a private booth where no-one could hear our screams.
  
• Busked for 2 hours outside Temple Bar.

Now, about the busking. I still can't quite figure out how it happened. I think our spirits were at a temporary low, having been asked to leave the karaoke just as we were starting to sing "Sweet Child O' Mine". Then we walked past a busker, offered him some encouragement, and asked him what he was going to play next. "Hallelujah", he replied. "Oooh!", I said, "Are you going to do the Leonard Cohen version or the Dead Jeff one?". He did the Dead Jeff one. It was wonderful. We joined in. Then we stayed and sang a variety of other songs with him. People walking past stopped for a while and joined in too. Julie, in an attempt to gather more money for Gavin the Busker, started shouting at passers-by: "One Euro for an erotic dance!!!". Many, many men stopped. They paid their one Euro as instructed. Then they asked when they would get the erotic dance. "Get??", replied Julie, "You're the one who has to do it! Now, you've paid your Euro - off you go!". And some of them did. One young man did a particularly good pole dance with an imaginary pole. A crowd gathered. There was rapturous applause. Tourists asked to have their photos taken with us. Later, Simone was given a tambourine to play. We sang, we swayed in time to the music, we laughed and sang some more.

At one point, I asked Gavin if he got many nutters joining him. He said every second person that walks by is generally a bit mad. I was encouraged by this. Not so mad after all, it appears.

However, as Gavin's busking stint came to an end, as he packed up his guitar and tambourine in the early dawn light and prepared to leave, I called out in an anguished cry: "Gavin! Don't leave us! Gavin! I've never had a busker run away from ME before!". We turned to go, slightly downhearted. Gavin said, in a tone of slight amazement, "You's are all a bunch of fecking lunatics!"

A Wednesday night in Dublin. It's a city full of lunatics. And I like that about a place!

School's Out for the Summer!

I am at last free of exams. I am actively trying to evict excess knowledge from my head at the moment, in an attempt to bring back a more normal level of brain function. I can remember numerous quotations from a range of tragic texts and from Chaucer in Middle English, but I can't remember conversations I had only yesterday. For example, I told Megan two days running about the dinner we had with Terry Jones.


"Terry Jones!", I hear you cry! "What, he of Monty Python fame?". Yes, indeed - he is not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy! And he also happens to be a medievalist and is friends with Bill, a visiting scholar from Arkansas who, along with his wife Tricia, is a recently-acquired member of the Scooby Gang. So we all got to have formal hall with him on Thursday night, the evening before my Chaucer exam. And Terry was lovely, and funny and down-to-earth, passionate about the books and articles he is writing (including his many rants in The Guardian about the war in Iraq) and generally a Decent Chap. That's him, second from the left at the back. Terry is my New Best Friend.


And, in other news, this blog will be coming to an end after graduation. Becky will no longer be being educated so it is time to start something new.

Given recent news, I'm thinking of the following titles for the next one:

• Girl Down Under
• Becky Goes to Boganland
• My name is Kenny and I'm a Kangeroo-geroo-geroo (might be a bit too long, that one!)
• G'day, I'm a Sheila
• The Wonderful Becky in Oz

Yay!