Sports Federation Ball

last week was an expensive week - first Final Fling on Thursday, then Sports Federation Ball on Saturday (another £46 went bye-bye). no, Tap isnt a sport, although C&M is (and Latin & Ballroom was up for an award), but we decided to make a social out of it (any excuse to dress up and drink is a good reason for a social). on the Piazza with pre-dinner drinks (courtesy of Costcutter) and lots of photo-taking
a massive Tap photo! wheeeeee!old exec - Liaison (me), Publicity & Sponsorship (Claire) and co-Presidents (Kirsty and Anna) my first first-year Tap friend made this year! (i just realised) - Hayley

at the marquee in the field between Carpark 15 and University House - we had 14 people so we should have been given 2 tables of 7. instead they gave us 2 tables of 10, which we didnt realise till we had sat down to form a table of 9 and one of 5 and we were served the starters (because we thought that maybe we were supposed to be sharing tables with some other group). so... my table had 4 bottles of wine and 10 plates of food to go through (which the next table conveniently helped us finish).
the starter - Goats' Cheese & Red Onion Tart
main course - Roast Lamb in a Port & Redcurrant sauce, served with spring vegetables and minted new potatoes
dessert - Pear & Almond Tart

old Social Secretary and old Liaison Officer with the new ones!
Helen, me and Claire (i love these ladies!) as the night progressed...
Claire's gorgeous dress (tailored from home) and Anna's self-made dress (i'm very impressed she made such a nice dress in 2 days)

the two Ians (new presidents of Latin & Ballroom and Tap respectively)
i'm going to miss everyone...

Graduand status sealed

so today i got my results - a second upper class honours, if you must know. hail to mediocrity...

but in the big picture, i'm very pleased with some of my results. especially since i seem to have done really well in the difficult modules, AND after a talk with my personal tutor, have managed to secure the offer of a good testimonial from her (as well from as another two tutors) - which is more positive than the vibe i got from her last year during our meeting to discuss my progress.

also, i've come to the conclusion that the more work you put into making that essay perfect, the lower your grade will be. AND the worse you think your exam went, the better the results will be. there's some strange inverse relationship going on there...

Final Fling 2007

every year the Student Union organises a big bash called 'Final Fling', where Finalists get a chance to dress up and have loads of fun (well, at least we get priority for tickets).

this year i made up my mind that i definitely had to go for it, and i was going to take Josh along with me. :) i decided to buy dinner tickets (they sold 2 types - dinner and after-dinner), which were £60 each, because i figured that if i didnt go for the dinner, it would be silly just to dress up for the after-dinner fun.

anyway, all Final Fling tickets included transportation from campus to the venue (to facilitate people drinking and not having to worry about driving back) so the evening started with us getting to campus for the coach ride. Josh had forgotten to bring cuff links from his house in Birimingham and he had come straight from work so he didnt realise it till we were about to leave my place. ingenious as we university students are, we used binder clips (for the journey to campus, where a friend had brought some cufflinks for him). on the bus
the programme booklet for the night
and a map of the site of the festivities - dinner was served in the Big Top
a very good friend, Ian McD, from Tap had spotted me before we sat down for dinner - here's a picture that not only shows the tent but also my dress!
a Big Band + groupies-ish picture
me with my coursemates Esther and Shez (darn they are tall and pretty!)
at each table they had funny stuff like balloons and bubbles (perhaps for amusement while we waited for dinner?)
Josh obligingly blowing up some balloons for me
we did some tweaking to the table decor (and popped some of those party popper things so that we could drap the streamers)
while waiting for the food to arrive...
the dinner -
i was very disappointed with my starter. as you can sort of see from the photo, the filo isnt even brown. which, of course, shows that it isnt even cooked through. and yes, i had a hard time cutting through the "nest" and when i finally managed to cut myself a slice, i could see that the layers inside had not risen. urgh.
this was a lot better than i expected - but that was because all expectations were off after the starter.
and dessert was quite good - the chocolate torte was nice and bittersweet.

the fun we had at the table taking loads of photos...Josh and Andrea were having an interesting staring competition

after dinner we headed outside for some Fairground fun! which was kind of dampened by rain, but it meant that we could use the funky ponchos they gave out at the door (wet weather contingency?)part of the Fairground - they had food stalls selling hotdogs, burgers, candyfloss and chow mein (which was disgusting by the way - bleh!)
Josh playing with his candyfloss - doesnt it look like he's barfing pink?
the Big Top where after dinner they had two bands, The Automatic and Hard-Fi, playing
the Fairground stalls - you know those where you throw balls at cans to win prizes? that sort...
they had fireworks! which were AMAZING!

the rides! i went on the one on the left (the kind where you are in a little space-car-thingy and you are swung round and round at an increasing speed up in the air) - that was insanely fast and whoa i was freaked out! Josh and i spent most of it screaming! the Waltzes - we didnt go on it cos we'd heard that it was deceptively nice because they had these huge guys walking around on the platform and spinning the little teacups faster than they were already going.
we went on the bumper cars 3 times in total! but we spent A LOT of time queueing. so naturally, we took loads of photos!
i think he looks a bit scary...
BUMPER CAR FUN! (by the way, here in the UK they call it 'Dodgems' - just like it's candyfloss, not cotton candy)
going so fast! the bumper cars were really good because when you turn the wheel, you can actually turn 360 degrees! and they dont stall!
we met a friend Owain who was slightly tipsy and i said, "come'on, i'll take a picture of you guys", then Owain decided to run up to Josh, jump and Josh had to catch him! it was really funny...
we went into the casino area but only played a few games of Blackjack - it was really boring because they only had Blackjack and Roulette even though they had advertised that there was going to be Poker (they probably decided to take that game out because it would be too long) and a total of 2 tables per game. which, if you do the math, is ridiculous! like there were several hundred (dare i say thousands?) students there and each table was jam-packed that you had to jump in when there was a free spot. plus by the time we made it to the Cocktail Bar (long queues, incredibly hot marquee), they had pretty much sold out all their liquor.

the third time we decided to queue for the bumper cars, we just managed to get onto the last ride of the night! wheeeeeee!
i saw quite a few people but it didnt occur to me to take photos with them! (how silly) but even then, there were a lot of people i knew were going to be there that i didnt end up seeing as the place was huge and there were too many people and activities going on.

oh but i had loads of fun and best of all was that i got to spend time with Josh. :)