Time Warp and Tea Parties

Not that I’m a junkie, but getting my internet fixed sort of did make the shaking stop. I spent four whole days without the internet in my room before I finally managed to get hold of IT and take my laptop to them to be fixed or configured or reconfigured or whatever it is they do. They fixed it in under half an hour, and, even stranger, they weren’t creepy. Not even a little bit. This really is a magical land. I will do well here.

Except for the fact that they have squeezable Marmite.

I went to a referencing techniques workshop on Tuesday which was boring as anything, and included questions like “how do you feel about referencing?”, which really only raised the far more interesting question of whether anyone has strong feelings about referencing one way or the other.

The ghost walk in the evening was much more fun, because it was a nice walk, not because it was particularly spooky. The guide… spoke with… far too much… dramatic PAUSE!, which made him hard to listen to, but the tour was fun anyway, and included stories about a few ghosts and a graverobber and a whole lot of really terrible parenting, I assume because child ghosts are that much creepier.* It’s probably lucky it wasn’t a particularly scary tour, because there was a long walk home in the dark, the last stretch of it by myself, which, as a Jo’burger, would normally make me expect to be murdered at any minute. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel at all threatened, pepper-sprayless as I was (because apparently that’s illegal here). But I kept an eye out for wolves and bears, just in case.**

Wednesday was Imke’s birthday, so naturally we had to take jumping photos.

Because what else would you do on someone's birthday?

Once we were all back on the ground for longer than a few minutes at a time, we graced karaoke with our presence, and were totally awesome. Obviously, we’re all awesome all the time always, but this time we got to share it with other people through song, specifically Summer Nights and the Time Warp. We thought we’d got a pretty good cheer from the audience, but we were proven wrong when a group got up after us to sing a Chinese song, and the crowd went a whole lot more wild. We tried not to take it personally.

Time was enthusiastically warped.

Deciding that we probably shouldn’t hog the stage all night, we went en masse to Catherine House, a university house on the far, creepy side of campus, which turned out to be a whole lot less ghetto than those of us from Wentworth had been led to believe. Or maybe it was just a relief to be inside after walking through the murder alley to get there. The evening turned into a multicultural Youtube party, and I introduced everyone to Die Antwoord and that guy who fell off his chair on SABC, we felt warm and fuzzy watching Where the Hell is Matt?, we all pestered Sheliza with questions about Trinidad and Tobago, and sang along to Team America. But this was universally agreed to be the most adorable video of the evening (and/or in the whole world ever):

After a string of late nights which left me running on nothing but adrenaline, fake Oreos, and the high of successful human interaction, the tiredness caught up with me on Thursday, and I spent what turned into most of the day sleeping, taking a break in the middle of the day only to go to the info fair for free stuff, because who doesn’t love free pens and water bottles?

Then it was pub quiz time! Most of our gang abandoned us, so Jason and I attached ourselves to some other friends to form the Quiz Team of Moderate Awesomeness. We failed epically at the first round, which was flag recognition, and although we didn’t end up coming first, second or third, we still reckon we did pretty well at the rest of the quiz. My strange moment of glory came from knowing the gestation period of an elephant, which I didn’t know I knew, but which does in fact turn out to be 22 months. A small late-night tea-drinking party followed, contributing further to my state of sleep deprivation (but also to general fun times and tea consumption, so it was ok).

Go team!

 

This is a fun tea party!

This is not a fun tea party.

I was underpsyched to drag myself out of bed for the Vice Chancellor’s address, which was at 9am, because whoever organises these things apparently disapproves of midnight tea drinking. Better yet, because there are (at least) two contradictory programmes of events for the week, I was surprised to learn that there was not just the VC’s address, like it said on my calendar, but an entire orientation programme for the day. I dutifully stayed until the first break, and then, in a moment of wild rebellion, I remembered that I was an adult and could do what I liked, and I like chopping vegetables because I like having food to eat, so I went and did that instead. I’m so badass.

Moment of badassery over, I went to a workshop on plagiarism detection software where I was reminded that plagiarism was bad, and then spent the afternoon in the kitchen, cooking (butternut stew) and baking (apple and banana muffins) and singing (and apologising to my flatmate for the fact that I can’t do either of the first two without the third).

Never ones to pass up free food, we went to a free buffet in the evening, where they apologised for the very limited selection of vegan food and brought me a plate of grapes and watermelon to make up for it. Since I was really only going for the fruit anyway, this suited me fine. The fact that they even knew what a vegan was when I asked was enough to remind me that I live in a magical land now, so I was happy. Besides, I had grapes that I didn’t have to pay for myself. What’s not to like?

Fortified, we set off for ceilidh, which involved packing a hall with hundreds and hundreds of people and some guys in kilts, and then trying to get us to dance. It should really go without say here that hilarity ensued, but I’m going to say it anyway. Hilarity ensued. Henrik and I made a valiant attempt to do the first dance, but after several minutes of standing and looking confused by instructions as complicated as “walk, then turn around, then walk backwards”, decided that this perhaps wasn’t our forte. Jelle took pity and spun me around a bit, but then I just looked equally confused, except that now I was doing it while moving, and in the end I collapsed in helpless giggles and let him go off to find someone who could work out what to do with their feet and their arms at the same time.

 

I was thrilled to discover that the common room had Articulate!, and we played a heated game with frequent breaks for Jason to move us around so he could film us. Not that I’m competitive, but I would just like to mention in passing that my team totally won. But I think I lose vegan points for getting “nugget” off the clue “chicken”.

*Similarly, children in old photographs always look demonic.

**Although Fishnchips has since turned up again. The wolves and bears must be off their game.