12 posts tagged “king's”
So get this: I move out of Cambridge about two months ago and then a waffle joint opens up across the corner from my building! What's up with that?! I avoided the English breakfast as often as possible. Though I must admit that these waffles aren't necessarily the breakfast type. "Savory" waffles could include anything from tuna melts to bolognaise (not unlike the amazing street crepes in France). Check this menu out! It is absolutely ridonk!* In a clever marketing scheme, the proprietors have named the waffles after different colleges. Of course King's receives the most liberal waffle: you can choose your own combinations! How fitting! AND they have free wifi! It's probably just as well that this place popped up after I left. I would've been eating waffles all the time (especially since they're only four quid a pop). I WILL have some waffles when I visit.
I do love me some waffles though.
*As in "ridonkulous," "ridonkadonk," and any number of other variants.
I started taking apart my room today.....tossed the stuff I knew I wanted to throw out, took down the posters. My walls haven't been this bare practically since I arrived nearly a year ago. It's really weird; maybe it'll help me get used to the idea of leaving.
Praveen left yesterday. He was one of my best friends here, and seeing him off made the fact that I'm flying home in a week all the more real. Boy will I miss this place.
So yeah, May Week has officially begun.
What is May Week, you ask? It's basically a week-long party that takes the colleges by storm. It is so named because it traditionally took place before exams began, which is toward the end of May, rather than after they finished. Having the festivities after exams makes way more sense, but the name stuck.
What goes on during May Week? Garden parties. Loads of drinking. Punting. Fancy dress. Oh, and May Balls, of course. It's basically the light at the end of the tunnel for the undergrads and most of the M.Phil students as they doggedly revise for exams and work on dissertations throughout Easter Term. The colleges explode in a waves of euphoria as everyone finishes. It happened in a sort of staggered fashion. Some people finished two weeks ago; others wrote their last exam just a few days ago. But now they're all finished, and it's time to cut loose.
For King's, the party began on Sunday, which was our annual FUNDAY! And oh what fun it was! All of the activities took place on the back lawn, which was very nice. The weather was perfect: brilliantly sunny for the first few hours, and then some nice (not depressing) cloud cover set in but it was still warm. They set up sumo suit wrestling, bouncy jousting, bouncy boxing and......A BOUNCY CASTLE!!! I hadn't been in one of those for years, and it was quite a lot of fun (though it did leave me surprisingly winded). We played a game of rounders, which is like baseball except they've perverted everything that is good and pure about the sport. When that debacle was over we tried our hand at the punt races. I'm a pretty skilled punter, but I couldn't handle the short distance and the underhanded tactics of the other teams. We ended up coming in second in our heat. Later we joined in the wacky races (egg & spoon, wheelbarrow, etc.). We also played some (British) Bulldog.
In between all of this stuff we just chilled out on a blanket on the grass, it was awesome. Tons of people came out. I brought my juggling stuff and ran a bit of a clinic. And then there was a free barbecue in the evening. This country has a lot to learn about barbecues, but it was alright anyway. We ended the evening with a game of capture the flag. I was pretty bushed so I served as a line judge.
Robinson College kicked off the May Ball season on Friday, but tonight was the first night that any of the heavy hitters came out; Clare and Trinity both had their balls. Clare are our immediate neighbors to the north, so a bunch of people always try to crash by going through the Backs at King's. The balls are truly decadent affairs, and very expensive (if you want to go to the Trinity Ball and you aren't a member, a pair of tickets costs 235 pounds, double that and you have the price in dollars). Entertainment includes live music, DJ's, fireworks, jugglers, bumper cars, casino games, and whatever else the ball committees think of. Trinity also has unlimited free champagne all night. Nuts.
I wasn't willing to drop dough for any of the balls (King's has the Affair, which is totally different and goes down on Wednesday; watch this space), so I decided to try and catch the Trinity fireworks from the river. Of course, all of the King's punts were take by the time I checked at the porters lodge. So I went to Plan B: kayak. I ran into Kevin on my way to get the kayak key, and he eagerly joined in on the adventure. Some of our friends were at the Clare ball; we saw them as we raced under Clare Bridge with the fireworks going off above and the light reflected in the water just below. We managed to paddle up to Trinity just as the finale touched off. It was really incredible.
The river between King's and Trinity was amazingly clear on our way there, but afterward a huge armada of punts came toward us. Practically every punt on the Cam had pulled up to Trinity to watch the show, and we watched them all go by in an amazing flow of humanity. Some of them had candles at the stern. Kayakers were darting between them. I felt like I was in the middle of one of Canaletto's scenes of Venice.
I still marvel at the power of this place. May Week has only just begun, but it is already shaping up to be one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. The city feels so full of tremendously positive energy. The nights are magical, and the people are wonderful. Must this end?
....there will be an ostrich burger stand at King's Affair. I will be stuffing myself with flightless bird meat on that night to end all nights. Holla.
That's the kind of thing that gets me excited these days. Exam One of Two tomorrow at 1:30, with Number Two the following day.
This place is warping my perception in small yet strange ways.
Example: Cambridge, despite its quasi-urban setting, has many nice open green spaces. Most of them, however, happen to be in the middle of colleges. Every college has its own rules about who can and cannot walk on the grass. Churchill College is a very modern place, and its layout more or less requires one to walk on the grass to get anywhere. Many of the older establishments like St. John's, Trinity, and King's guard their grass as though it were an endangered species. The two huge lawns at King's may only be trodden upon by senior members of the college (a status that I will obtain once I finish my MPhil) or those accompanied by senior members. As laid back as King's is (we don't have to wear gowns ever except at graduation), the fellows still retain this silly tradition meant to remind you of your place in the institution. You are lower in the pecking order so we shall make your life just a teeny bit inconvenient. BECAUSE IT IS OUR RIGHT! Very silly.
So nowadays, when I see a lovely stretch of lush green grass I automatically assume that I'm not allowed to walk on it. Case in point: my recent visit to Audley End, a completely over the top country estate near Cambridge that used to be a royal residence.
Oh well. I suppose it could be worse. I hear that the fellows at Peterhouse make the newest fellow at any given meal serve the more senior ones. That's crazy if it's true; those guys aren't even students anymore and they're still getting dumped on.
The weather here has been amazing recently. It was a little overcast four mornings ago, but other than that is has been fantastic. Yesterday I decided to take advantage of this by doing some work in the fellows' garden.
- They've turned the fountain in front court back on. I love the sound of the fountain, and I watch the birds nancing about in it from the windows of the grad suite.
- The cherry blossoms along the river are blooming. They're gorgeous, and I use my punt pole to shower my passengers with their lovely little leaves as we pass under them.
- PUNTING, of course!
- The Botanic Garden should look amazing within a week or so, I need to get over there soon to catch the flowers as they wake up.
- The chapel looks especially magnificent when the sun hits it (not really restricted to springtime, but I'm more likely to be ooutside to see it).
- Reading on the lawn in Bodley's (the only court where junior members of King's are allowed on the grass) next to the river.
- ICE CREAM CARTS ALL OVER TOWN!
That's all for now...
On Friday I went punting for the first time since the fall. It's such a wonderful and relaxing activity, even with all of the tourists on the river who don't know what they're doing. It was only my second time out since I've been at Cambridge, but I've taken to it quite quickly. I took out one of the King's punts with Louis, Stuart, and Kate. They all stayed out for about half an hour or so, and then I messed about on my own for another twenty minutes or so after I dropped them off at King's. The river's such a peaceful place. I'm going to try to punt at least once a week for the rest of my time here, now that the weather has taken a nicer turn. It's a great upper body workout as well.
I also went to see "Into Great Silence" yesterday. It's a fascinating documentary about the Carthusian monks who live in a monastery known as the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps (they make the Chartreuse liqueur, which some of you may enjoy). Philip Groning, the filmmaker, asked the monks' permission to film inside the monastery in the late 80's, but they told him that it wasn't the right time yet. They invited him back in 2002, and he lived with them for six months. He was the only one allowed in, and he couldn't bring any lights or anything. Much of the film is indeed silent, with only the sounds of nature and the monks' tasks in the background. They haven't taken a vow of silence, but they only speak when it is absolutely necessary. Most of the don't even seem to notice that they are being filmed. It's two and a half hours long, so it sort of makes you appreciate the implications of living your life like that all of the time. I found it to be quite moving and beautiful. One of the monks described their condition as making a decision to live an everlasting prayer. A great prelude to Easter.
Christina set up an Easter egg hunt in the fellows' garden this afternoon. I hadn't participated in one of those for years. It was great fun, and the garden was an excellent setting for it. Lots of places to look. We had a hard time finding things. She hid decorated hard boiled eggs, Cadbury eggs, chocolate bars, bags of candy, and three huge hollow chocolate eggs throughout the garden. I only managed to find one of the painted eggs, and I was really itching for some sweets.
So I was pretty excited when I spied one of the big chocolate eggs hanging from a tree. Now Christina's not very tall; I have no idea how she managed to get the egg so high in the tree (it was suspended by a bit of string), but I wasn't having much luck getting it down. I finally decided to drag a bench over to the tree and use it as a platform when Adam came out of nowhere in his usual pajama pants/sandal combo. He plays on the second varsity basketball squad and he's pretty tall, so when he saw what was going on he decided to help me out by leaping through the air and swatting the egg with his hand as though he were blocking a layup. This of course resulted in my precious egg shattering into a thousand chocolatey delicious pieces. I was more indredulous than upset, and we all had a great laugh about it. It was even funnier because I never ended up finding any other candy in the garden. It was a good time.
After that I acolyted during the Easter evensong service in chapel. I was the crucifer so I got to wear a huge gold and purple tunic over the usual acolyte duds. The service went out on BBC Radio 3 so there were mics all over the place. The music was quite lovely.
I hope you all have a safe and blessed holiday! He is risen!
Well, I think that my computer's hard disk may have bitten the bullet. I tried to reinstall OS X, but the installer didn't recognize the disk as a volume. The disk utility didn't see it either. Could be bad. I won't know for a while because the engineer at Cancom is off for Easter, and he'll be gone all next week too. So that combined with the usual wait time means that it'll be a while until they look at my computer, unless they send it to another service center. Hopefully they'll do that. Good thing I coughed up the extra money for AppleCare.
After the depressing walk back from Cancom yesterday, I decided to tool about in the western part of town. I've never really spent much time there. King's is in the very center of Cambridge; I live across the street from it and my department is two or three blocks away from my building. This has resulted in me living in a box that, while well-stocked with eateries, theaters, shops, and other amenities, is nevertheless amazingly small. I explored the colleges in and around the center of Cambridge during my first week here, so I decided to go and see some of the outlying territories.
And let me tell you, it is beautiful out there. King's will always be first in my heart, but there are some lovely colleges out in the west. Cambridge is comprised of 31 constituent colleges, which act as residential associations for students and arrange supervisions for undergraduates. Eleven of the colleges lie to the west of the Cam (not counting and Darwin Magdalene, which are both right on the river and still in the main part of town). These colleges are all pretty new, in Cambridge terms, and it shows in their architecture. King's is one of the more classic-looking colleges, and I must say that it was nice to see some of these other ones for a change.
The first one I visited was Newnham, which is one of the three colleges that only admit women (the other two being New Hall and Lucy Cavendish, also both in West Cambridge). This is definitely the most beautiful of the three. If I were a woman and I had to be confined to a female-only college, I would hope to end up at Newnham. It's done in beautiful red brick, lovely nineteenth century architecture, and the main court is open on one side. It's basically a huge garden in the center of the college laid out in a classical English style. It was very easy to forget that you were even in Cambridge; no traffic noises, no tourists, nothing. King's is overrun with tourists, especially now that it's getting warmer. It'll only get worse in the summer. Newnham feels quite secluded, but town is still close enough for you to go and have a little fun. This place had pheasants frolicking through its gardens (they're such beautiful birds)! Crazy.
That's the best part about West Cambridge, it's so peaceful. Being in the middle of town is definitely convenient, but if I had ended up on the outskirts I just would have bought a bike (cycling is huge here). Robinson was another one of the colleges I visited. It's one huge building laid out in an L-shape, and it is very modern. It sort of looks like a red brick fortress from the outside, and there's a bit of a street running through the center of the L. Supposedly it was built with summer conferencing in mind (King's is already hosting loads of conferences now that term is out, it's pretty annoying), so it's a pretty cushy-looking place. A lot of the rooms have patios, and the ones on the inside of the L have got to be some of the most sought-after ones in the whole place because they look out onto what the fortress is guarding: a ridiculous garden with willow trees, a stream, fountains, and wooden bridges going over the stream. It was like I had discovered Shangri-La or something. At the edge of the garden there's a broad lawn and a pretty sweet cottage that looks out on the garden and the college building. I figured that this was the master's house, but apparently students live there! Competition for those spots must be pretty stiff.
I checked out most of the other colleges on the other side of the river, and most of them look very nice (Clare Hall being the only exception; it's a small grad-only college, and it looks like a cramped block of condos). One of the crazy things about this place is the college selection process. King's was my first choice, and I consider myself lucky to have been selected. Along with Trinity and St. John's, it's one of the most popular choices and they all have to turn a lot of people away. After that your second or third choices consider you, and if they fill up then you're just allocated to a random college that still has space (this is after you're accepted to the university itself; everyone gets picked up by a college once you get into the university). My entire social life revolves around King's. There are only four other people in my program, and we don't do much stuff with the other archaeology folks. I never would have met any of my friends here if I had ended up at a different college. I can't imagine what it would have been like. I'm sure that I would have met some great people anyway, but they wouldn't have been these great people. I wouldn't have done any films, probably. It's a strange thing to think about, how important your choice of college is. Each one has its own character. It's a pretty amazing system, and it definitely makes for tight bonds across disciplines. And between grads and undegrads, thought the undergrads at King's may be an exception, not the rule. We're pretty close with some of the undergrads here, but that may be because of the way my residence is set up.
I'm really going to miss Cambridge.
Well, "Natural Selection" wasn't screened with this month's Future Shorts bill. Miguel is still toying around with the footage, so it'll probably be shown next month. But I put it up on YouTube anyway so all of the folks back home (and out on the InterWeb) can see it. Here it is: our newest film, "Natural Selection!" Let me know what you think!
