"Stress" ...

I never thought I'd be stressed from trying to fit in/juggle too many parties.
I never thought I'd be stressed from having too little work.

Oh Cambridge, how you've surprised me this year.
<3

TGIW ...

Thank God It's Wednesday ...


I have found the perfect image to describe the lifestyle of King's College.

Might I say this must have been tailored specifically for Cambridge University kids who have formals on Wednesday nights.

Christmas Formals

Cambridge got into the Christmas spirit during its last week, even though term ended Dec. 4 (yeah. ridiculous.) ... so, formals left and right with holiday themes.

= GLORIOUS


Besides our very own Christmas bash, King's and iCUSU (International Cambridge University Student Union) had Christmas formals during the last week of term.

12/1/09 - iCUSU Christmas Formal at Churchill College


[King's contingency]


[Churchill hall]


[apple tart dessert]


[Alexa, me, Elian]


[Ola, Oscar, Victoria]


12/2/09 - King's College Disney-Themed SUPERFORMAL


[pre-formal, milling around in bar, ready to invade hall]


[extravagant King's hall decorated for Christmas]


[place settings, complete with Disney menu, cracker/party favor, mistletoe, and other holiday decorations]


[ladies in costume]


[meatiest meat dinner ever.]


[King's Choir boys perform Christmas carols during formal]


[... then Santa Claus came and visited each table with gifts!]


[happy children with gifts from Santa]


[King's bar, post-formal festivities]


[Halliki, me, Siyao, Nadia]


[Shayan and a very Nina-looking Santa bust out karaoke moves]


[post Christmas Superformal - King's bar - standard.]


Epic epic epic formal. Amazing job done by Sho and ents staff!

Formals & Swaps

formal n.
Dinner event at Cambridge University. Entails semiformal attire: suit-jacket/tie, dresses. Usually a 3-course meal is served with wine and post-dessert coffee/chocolates. Uber posh.

(see Halloween formal post)


Depending on which college it is, formal halls happen from daily to weekly to bi-weekly, even. King's has formal hall every Wednesday night - I've gone to 2 of them. They're pretty costly, but good fun, what with candles, formal dress, a 3-course meal, wine, delectable dessert, and endless pennying, all served inside a medieval castle of a dining hall.

pennying v.
1. Maneuvering a 1pence coin into your friend's (preferably full or empty) wine glass. Consequence: they have to down their glass; if it's empty, it has to be filled to the rim and downed.
2. A unique Cambridge tradition.
3. Endless entertainment.


The Guide to Pennying
- penny in wine glass = down the glass
- penny in empty wine glass = fill the glass, down it
- 2nd penny in glass = pennier downs their glass
- 3rd penny in glass = whole table downs their glasses
- penny in wine bottle = get ready for a forgotten night
(note this can only be accomplished with an "engineer's penny" - a bent 1p coin to fit into the bottle opening)
- 5 pence in dessert = no hands allowed!
* pennying is invalid if the glass is in hand or the dessert's already been started

Ways to Penny Your Friend (or Stranger sitting next to you)
- drop in a p when they're not looking
- free-throw across the table
- sneak it in by pretending to reach for the water pitcher
- wrestle them down and dunk it in their glass
- fight them
- ask them to pass the sugar bowl with both hands and plunk it in
- fast as a lightning bolt when they've just finished the glass and are picking up the bottle to refill

---------------------------

Got a couple of ins with other MIT students also doing CME (Cambridge-MIT Exchange) ... basically since all the CME kids are at different colleges, this means we get to go to each others' formals pretty easily :)

Couple of the last formals:

11/02 Pembroke iCUSU formal
11/11 King's formal hall
11/14 Trinity formal hall
11/17 Selwyn formal hall

---------------King's College formal


[King's formal]

funny story about this formal: so I'm sitting in the bar, having just finished dinner and about to take a nap while others dine, so I can be fully energized and ready to go once everybody gets out of formal. Naiara comes around asking if anybody wants a free ticket.
"Why?" ...
"cause we know we can't sell it now." (It's like ... 15 minutes before formal starts, haha.)
"eh ... well, we all just ate ..."
"yeah, I gotta do work"
"I'm writing a paper"
....
"Ok how about this: you try to find someone who really wants the ticket. If you can't find someone within the next 5 mins, I'll take it."
So at this point I sit back, relax, and expect the chances I'll have to rush back to my room and change for formal are pretty slim.
7:21pm - I get the ticket. Oh snap.
[fast walk back to room, change into formal wear, get back to hall]
7:28pm - standing outside hall.


[Juan returned to his dessert with 5p in it :)]


[Juan, Shayan, Jade]


[Boat Club/Rowers' Boat Race, haha]


["Boaties" (rowers) post-Boatie-formal]


[King's bar post-formal]


---------------Trinity College formal


[Trinity College]


[smoked salmon appetizer]


[fruitcake dessert at Trinity]


[CMEs at Trinity formal: Denys, Jon, Isaac, me, Ye]


---------------Selwyn College formal


[Selwyn formal]


[strawberry parfait dessert .. mmm]


[CMEs at Selwyn formal: me, Ye, Francis, Isaac]


---------------Pembroke College formal


[Pembroke iCUSU formal]


[Pembroke's hall]


[me and Mateusz, international formal]


[main course - duck]


[King's at Pembroke]

Halloween Superformal 2009

formal n.
Dinner event at Cambridge University. Entails semiformal attire: suit-jacket/tie, dresses. Usually a 3-course meal is served with wine and post-dessert coffee/chocolates. Uber posh.

superformal n.
Formal on crack.

Halloween superformal n.
Themed formal on crack. Fantastic food. Decorations galore. Giddy students. Entertaining time all around.



So, 3 days prior to Halloween 2009, I went King's superformal - the great hall was decked out with Party-City-like favors ... plastic bones, fuzzy spiders, glowing skulls, and the like. With 10 at our table and an equal number of wines, kids soon livened up and the party got started.


[Our table, complete with Michael Jackson/Thriller-themed menu+placesettings]


[Our table of 10.]


[2nd course, lamb steak]

Before the 1st course and between the 2nd/3rd, King's Choir entertained hall with Michael Jackson a cappella ... and coming from an a cappella group, I gotta say, they were amazing like wow. They serenaded all of us with Thriller, a medley of Beat It/something else, and one more song that I can't remember .. anyway, they were all dressed as vampires/ghosts/whatevs and our table had front row seating :)


[King's Choir serenading hall]


[Elian playing with the party favor at our table ..]


[Jack Sparrow, Old Man, and Banana = Sho, Mads, Oscar]


[Oompa Loompa and Marie Antoinoitte = Jade, Alexa]


[Michael Jackson himself = Roman]


[WHY SO SERIOUS?]


[Fanastic. Kieron, Chris]


[King's Halloween Superformal 2009]

We are, we are, we are The Engineers ...

... we can, we can, we can, we can, we can drink forty beers ...

Oh wait. That's MIT's Engineer's Drinking Song.

Funny that should be the case, since it's actually in the UK where most undergraduates are actually of age to drink.

Anyway, 10/16/2009 marked the King's Engineers' initiation into engineeringhood at Cambridge. The upperclassmen threw a party for the freshers (me included since I'm technically a fresher at this place, I guess ...) with several entertaining rituals ...


[Engineers' solution to making a compact cooler out of a too-large cart]


[Fresher shots ... with Cinnamon?]


[Elian the Italian Engineer (who likes to pick people up)]


[see what I mean?]

and then it became one big PICK-PEOPLE-UP-FEST.




[Oscar, me, Dan]


[King's Engineers - notice the 9:2 guy:girl ratio in this picture, lol]


[Having a bit of trouble with the Cinnamon Challenge ...]


[Hazing freshers - Elian wouldn't do the Cinnamon Challenge, so ...]


[Fresher Engineers 2009]
(Yeah, Julie is the only girl true-fresher engineer at King's, and she's a chemical engineer, which splits off into its own department after the 2nd year. Haha.)