Sunday, October 12, 2008

I Guess Grad Students are Anti-Social For a Reason...

So this weekend, I made a valiant effort to have a social life. On Friday night, I went out with a few people from my course to a grad student night at one of the on-campus bars (of which we have tons...I love English schools for that). I definitely had too much to drink, but hopefully I didn't embarass myself too horribly. I did manage to bond a lot more with one of the girls in my course who I've really liked since the first day I got here...it was nice to feel like I'm getting closer to making more actual friends vs. friendly acquaintances. I paid dearly for the sambucha shots the next day, but it was worth it.

Last night (Saturday night) I was invited to attend the 30th birthday party of a guy that worked at camp with me way back in 2004. I didn't really know him particularly well whilst at camp, but his wife, who also worked there, was my boss, and I knew her reasonably well. The party was a costume party (called a "fancy dress" party over here, which I find hysterical), and the theme was "British". My friends Kendall and Rhys and I had been debating for weeks what we would dress as...first we were going as the Spice Girls (Rhys obviously being Baby Spice as a 6'2 man), but there were only 3 of us. Then we were going to go as Amy Whinehouse at three different stages of her career. However, in the end Rhys decided not to come, so Kendall and I had to think fast. We dug through my wardrobe and found some brown slacks and white tops and ties (don't ask me why I own ties; I'm not really sure. The ghosts of costume parties past, I think...) and ran around central London in a tizzy for hours looking for Sherlock Holmes and Watson attire. We managed to find it, but not before almost giving up and tying black bedsheets around our shoulders and finding some sticks and going as Hermione and Cho from Harry Potter. In the end, it all worked out, and we managed to find the hats, the pipes, the magnifying glass, even some stick-on mustaches and fuzzy eyebrows. We didn't win the costume competition, but everyone loved our idea anyway. We were the only girls who didn't try to look nice in our costumes, which was mildly detrimental. Everyone else actually looked very pretty in their Maid Marion or Alice in Wonderland or Queen Mum costumes. And we were in drag. Awesome. I feel it shows boldness on our parts. :)

The party in the end was a lot of fun...I couldn't bring myself to touch any alchohol, but there were a lot of people there that I haven't seen in years, so it was really nice to reconnect with everyone. Good times.

Today, however, I am paying for trying to have a social life. I've got so much homework that I'm actually worrying if an all-nighter will be enough to get it all done. I wouldn't be that concerned, except for the fact that in a stroke of masicism, my Latin teacher assigned us 3 more poems to translate...from English to Latin, which is SO much harder. Ugh. Wish me luck.

P.S. I know I said this already on Facebook, but in case you read this-Happy belated birthday, Jake!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pulling an overnighter, too, with my micro question set - which means I need to review last weeks stuff that I postponed due to either career events or a slight piece of some social life. And I'm the one who went after another job fair in Islington this, no, yesterday afternoon despite of my pre-existing conditions.

Anyway, thank you for your B-day message again - Colleen you are fabulous!

Anonymous said...

OMG! Speaking of Hermine... when we were at Universal the other day we snatched a look at HOGWARTS! I smacked Kevin for not bringing the camera so I could show you.

On another note: I wish I could help you out with some of your homework... but I can barely translate English to English some days. :) Good Luck!

(fixing you a cup of Tea to help keep you awake...)