catching up

Going backwards, here's some of what I've been up to recently.

I'm not sure whether May Week has officially started (Friday?) or if it starts tomorrow or on Monday. However, I've been in May Week mode most of this week, since I've been rehearsing and attending social functions this week and haven't done any work since Tuesday.



Today we went to see the May Bumps (a Cambridge sport which involves boats trying to bump into each other). Two of my coursemates (Caro and Trudy) were competing and both did very well. It was good exercise, if a little tiring, trying to get all the way up the river in time to see the race.






Yesterday was the college May Week musical, entitled The Circle of Christ's and loosely based on The Lion King. I played Ron the JCR president and Darth Vader. A good time seemed to be had by all. Much of the performance was impressive and all of it was entertaining. An unintentional comedy moment was when I walked off the front of the stage as Darth Vader - I was striding through smoke wearing a mask and wasn't concentrating on where I was going. Earlier in the day I made brief appearances at the Harry's garden party and the Christ's English, history and linguists garden party.

On Thursday evening, the Renaissance MPhil group had a "final fling" (in Stephanie's words) before descent into the summer of our dissertations. We had formal hall at Pembroke, where we had an excellent four course meal (soup, fish, meat, dessert, coffee - that's five if you count coffee, but I'm not sure you do). I've never had Vichyssoise soup before, but it seems to be French for "cold soup with ice in it". The meal was followed by jazz.




On Wednesday afternoon I went on a chapel punting trip. We punted up to the barbecue site and had a picnic/barbecue with ample food and wine supplied by college. Quote from Charlotte: "David, you're a bit snappy happy." Charlotte looked very maternal with baby Sophie and Lottie looked rather blue when seen through a water bottle.









On Tuesday, after a rehearsal, I ran to the second half of Risky Living through the rain. It takes about a minute to run from Christ's to HT, but when I got there I was pretty drenched.

The Thursday before I went to a formal hall at Girton accompanied by four Asian girls (Chin Hwa, Trudy, Shinae and Janice). This involved excellent food, and we sat at high table with the fellows somehow. An extra special bonus was the tour of the college by Chin Hwa. Girton College is pretty self-contained, almost like a village in itself, with grounds that are attractive in a very homely way.

Other things happened in the weeks before then and since last posting (e.g. birthday, Xanthe's leaving barbecue, thinking about breath (for my work)), but I'm lacking energy to write about them right now. In about an hour's time I'm going for an overnight punting trip. See you soon.