UOG FRESHERS' WEEK 2017

Helloooo Charlie !

I may not be a Saint Charles student anymore, but once an OIB, always an OIB, right ? And this blog being an OIB blog, it makes sense that I am posting here.

So, to those who don't know me : I was in the second promotion of the Saint Charles' OIB, in L, and I am now a student for a bachelor of science in psychology and statistics at the university of Glasgow. Well, I am actually a fresher for now, and my lessons only start on the 18^th, so I am enjoying freshers' week quite a bit.

So what is freshers' week ? Basically it's a festival for the people who are new to the university, and lots of stuff is happening all the time – UoG actually has one of the best freshers' weeks in the UK as it has 4 student unions and over 300 clubs and societies organising events ! And as so much is happening, I am not capable of telling you about all of freshers' week, but I am going to tell you about my experience.

I actually got to Glasgow earlier than most people : I arrived on Thursday, September 7^th, but I am going to skip all the moving in part – I'm still in the process of making this place a home, but it may come in another article ! (Yes Mrs.C, you read it correctly : I intend on writing several articles this year)

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10^th.

First fresher event : international cafe which I attended with one of my flatmates from Finland. It was the first time I was stepping into the university, and I was amazed at the prospect of studying there (it looks like Hogwarts and the automatic doors help that illusion !!). The cafe itself was really good : I met a lot of people from very different places, including two hungarian boys and a girl from Luynes. And it had free food, which, as a student, you never say no to !

Second event : Glitterfest in the evening. It was organised by the Glasgow University Union and the GULGBTQ+ society. I went with two of my flatmates after having put some glitter on our faces, and we spent a couple of hours there, mostly dancing in the nightclub part.

Being under 18, I had a specific stamp to stop me from being alcohol, but a great thing was that they have free water available at the bar, so I still had something to go to after dancing !

It was pretty good until the nightclub got to stuffy for my asthmatic lungs, so we headed back to our accomodation.

That's my glitter, I'm sorry for the bad quality, I only took a selfie before leaving and our lighting is good enough to see, not to take photos.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11^th.

My two Glitterfest flatmates and I attended a gig by Ava Love and then Clean Cut Kid. That night was awesome. I had been very homesick in the evening, and Ava Love brought back so many vivid memories from the OIB. They were almost hypnotising, and I had flashes of everyone from my promotion, first in a usual situation for us (eg. walking back to the station together), then a special moment I had with them (eg. a private conversation walking on the shore). And I was not sad, I was back there, and I was enjoying it as I have never enjoyed memories. I saw our classroom, I saw our revision games, I saw our graduation, and I was happy.

Clean Cut Kid was good as well, and as Ava Love took me into the past, Clean Cut Kid brought me back to the present and gave me some flashes of the future – but it was much weaker than the Ava Love effect. I'll definitely be seeing them again.

It's really hard to find Ava Love on YouTube, so I cannot show you the songs I loved most

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12^th.

I was *HUM* lucky enough to have to wake up early for an induction, so I stumbled to the university half asleep. I then met up with the same two flatmates and we went though freshers' fair : a place where every society has a stall. And oh boy, there are too many interesting ones. I have had the Scottish Country Dancing Society tell me they wanted me (saying I have done 11 years of ballet helped that), and I have got overenthusiastic in front of the Harry Potter one, the Shakespeare one, the LGBT one, the metal one, the vegan one and the psychology one... I'm going to have to sort this out.

So after going around the university several times looking for societies, we headed home, ate dinner aaaand headed back out for a drag 101 show. Absolutely fantastic. There are no other words. The drag queens were super talented, we got to see dancing, acting, and of course, lip-syncing. My two favourite ones were one who played a teen girl reading a bad Harry Potter fanfiction and one who was singing (really singing !) diverse musical songs.

(I would put up the video I filmed of her except I have no way of asking for permission so you will do with this sentence in italics instead of having a picture for the day)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13^th.

Language cafe (with no free food ! Shocked !) at midday, rock bingo in the afternoon. Basically it's a bingo but instead of numbers, you have to recognise the song that is playing to cross out a square on your sheet ! Pretty cool day.

By that evening I was getting tired, so we decided to stay in for a movie night – I am not going to divulge the name of what we were watching, but here's a clue : it's on netflix. Good luck.

This was what my bingo sheet looked like - you can see I didn't get lucky.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14^th.

Resourced, we headed to an LGBT event at noon the next day (with free food. Never say no to free food.) where we talked to a lot of people, and had a lot of fun saying what we were studying one after the other : psychology – psychology and Spanish – psychology and statistics. Sadly I did not get to find anyone else with strong friend potential there, but I am not losing faith. There will be many more LGBT events.

In the evening, we went back out for a Harry Potter pub quiz. If you don't know what a pub quiz is, well it's teams of people in a pub who get asked questions about certain topics. It has several rounds, for instance we had a round all about places in Harry Potter with the question "Where does the patronus of a goat appear for the first time ?". The teams then hand in their papers with answers and points are awarded for each right answer – we didn't win, but I blame it on my knowledge of Harry Potter being way more extensive in French than in English (which just means that I'm going to read them all several times in English this year).

After having gone back to our flat, we decided that we should attend a night event – they are the only ones that require the freshers' band for entry, and as they are quite expensive, we wanted to use them. So roughly around 10:30pm, we headed back out to the nightclub part of the GUU, where we danced until 1:45am and we just couldn't stand anymore.

Us when we got home some time later - there is a reason I put Kiki here, not any other gif with other people falling on beds... Can you guess why ?

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15^th.

For the last day of freshers' week, we were getting tired and only headed out to another pub quiz in the late afternoon, where we did not win – again – but it was still really fun.

Now it is 23:29 here in Glasgow, so I can post this saying that tomorrow will be a "home"day for us and be technically right – albeit you are already tomorrow.

Well, Charlie, it has been a pleasure being back on this blog, and please tell me if there is anything you want me to write about that is post-OIB or Glasgow related !

Judith

PS : it was actually 23:48 when I published the article after two proof readings so my "tomorrow" is debatable if you consider that the article was finished at 00:23.