Pub Crawl: Not My Call

I'm really bad with social functions here in the UK it seems - they've been out the past few nights clubbing, going down to the various pubs around Oxford (to drink), wine and cheese (now that was pretty alright actually although I was too tired to enjoy it) and tonight they're going out to our neighbours Exeter College and Lincoln College to party and drink again.

I really feel like a spoilsport and not giving my new friends any face for not going out with them, but it's really not my kind of thing - I can't drink, and I can't talk in such a setting, so why go? 

Or maybe I should conform - but really now, drinking and noisy places? Come on!

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Which now allows me some time to blog about yesterday - it was the Freshers' Fair down at the Examination School, High Street, where Oxford University's clubs and societies had an open-day of sorts, much like NUS' matriculation fair. So there were a lot of freebies and well, stuff to look at! I decided to go out with Jed for a walk down to High Street and check out the Freshers' Fair, and the walk did me some good!

For one thing, I think I like Jed, and he's quite nice - he's really encouraging and he doesn't put on airs at all! For a course with only 3 people, that's already half of my friends in the course! I'm really looking forward to getting to know both Jed and Debayan better, and I shall pray to God that I shall not have any misconceptions of or prejudices against them.

I mean, Debayan freaked me out a little, but I'm sure he's nice and I cannot go on like this - he's going to be my friend for a year! I shall endeavour to know both of them well during this academic year here at Oxford! I already suggested to Jed St. Ebbes' church dinner, and he seemed alright with it! :)

Alright, so I didn't take that many pictures because I thought there wasn't much point, and the booths weren't that interesting really:

Random Clubs and Societies

I went to sign up at the Singaporean Society, which had about 20 names on it - next to it was the Malaysian Society, which had quite a few names as well. Seems like we make a pretty good presence in Oxford! The Overseas Chinese Society thought I was from China, so they put my name down as well - well not that I mind, but I guess they felt pretty disappointed when I wrote Singaporean, haha! Oh, and I put my name down for some volunteering programme, doing what I do best: tutoring primary school kids in Science! I'll go for it if I've time, and I'm going to pray about this, and make sure I've time to bless the kids. I hope!

And yeah, here's the sports area:

The Sports Clubs

And I thought this was pretty amusing:

Taekwon-Do Society

Look at how straight they're standing! Haha, quite amusing. And would you look at the huge crowds:

Packed Hall

I went down the stairs to the entrance of the main door, and I found myself staring at the Oxford University Press sign-up - so I did, apparently I get discounts off Oxford books or something:

Examination School, Interior

And here's their information booth:

Examination School Information Counter

In case you don't know, this is where I'm going to be having my examinations - it's not called Examination School for no good reason:

Examination School Hallway

And I must say it looks nice, posh and well, grand and everything nice - to think they've a place just for me to take my examinations:

Examination School Corridor

After a while I just popped by outside for some fresh air and took a look at their exhibits:

Examination School Exterior, Exhibition

They had mighty men:

Oxford Training Corps

But they had clubbers too:

The Clubbing Area

And before I left, I grabbed some pepperoni and cheese pizza at the exit area - I thought this was really nice of them:

Free Pizza by Domino's

And would you look at the weather yesterday - absolutely splendid! I found myself back at the entrance of the Examination School down Merton Street, staring at the lovely sky:

Entrance to Examination School, Merton Street

And then suddenly I caught sight of this ice cream parlour having their mascots walking around giving out free jelly beans and gummy bears - it's called G&D's:

G&D Ice Cream Cows

And as Jed and I walked down Cornmarket Street, I caught one last glimpse of the nice afternoon sky - really beautiful with wispy clouds, no? :)

Fantastic Weather

And then I walked Jed down Broad Street before I left for Jesus College to have lunch; they served something that I thought was quite interesting so I took a shot of the menu - note the first dish:

Lunch Menu, Jesus College Cafeteria

It's a traditional English dish! A Toad-in-the-Hole is simply meat of any sort baked in Yorkshire pudding batter, something like a pastry of sorts, usually served with vegetables and gravy. And it sure looked good and hot:

Meatball Toad-in-the-Hole with Onion Gravy

And then for dinner, I happened to meet Juan Mendoza Arenas - I've been dining with him quite often, and he's a lovely chap from Columbia, South America, doing Cold Matter Physics. He's a really soft spoken and gentle person, and I like him quite a bit:

Juan Mendoza Arenas (left) and YYK (right)

I've also met Jaqueline Bemmer, this Austrian lady who has a Mexican boyfriend, and she tells me lots of interesting stuff over lunch and dinner; she's reading History if I'm not wrong:

YYK (left) and Jaqueline Bemmer (right)

And what was for dinner? Haha! They had the audacity to serve Chinese-Style Braised Beef with Egg Fried Rice and Prawn Crackers! So I gave it a try, together with some potato croquettes, and well, it was a far cry from home cooked food, but oh well, not too bad:

Chinese-Style Braised Beef with Egg Fried
Rice and Prawn Crackers and Potato
Croquettes

And after dinner I met my neighbours, who have been so nice and gracious to drag me out every night for some event - otherwise I'd be some antisocial nutcase, but well, I still don't find the social events really appealing:

Julia Dechamps (left), Marco Corradi (centre) and Michael Murphy (right)

Julia's from Munich, Germany, reading Applied Statistics; Marco's from Venice, Italy, and he's doing his second PhD in Economics; and Michael's from Adelaide, Australia, doing a Masters in Economics. Really fun and funny people. :)

And that was my Thursday! Not too bad, I felt quite happy. :) Toodles!