Choiry thoughts
29/6/2009
For a fair while I've been wondering whether I should give up Choir next year. It has rather a tendency of getting in the way of other things, and has (at least this year) been more political than I would've liked. I'd certainly never regret having had this year - my first real singing since my voice broke has introduced me to all sorts of wonderful things - but I wondered whether maybe next year would be the right time to try other things.
I think, though, that it was on Friday night, as a dozen choristers returned from a storm-washed punting trip, that I realised that I couldn't do that. It may stop me from doing other things, but it's worth missing other things for the sake of choral music. It may have been overly political, but I shouldn't be so easily lead that other people's disappointment (in comparison with more glorious years) stops me appreciating the experience. And moments like last Friday night, where a few people come together and can just make beautiful music, without having to think about it, are very special.
Then there's the small matter of my friends. I can't decide who my "core friends" at Cambridge are - or indeed if I should think of any 1 group like that - but there are few people I so often socialise with as the rabble of a choir formal, so it's no surprise that they're strong contenders for the title :-P. I can't imagine ever wanting to lose this package, (minor) warts and all...
MAY WEEK
29/6/2009
Cambridge life is rarely on quite one-to-one terms with reality, so it shouldn't be too surprising that May Week is in June. Or indeed that it's roughly ten days long. Mine began with a mounting excitement as I saw Robinson May Ball being built around college - to be honest, probably the most exciting side of it for the techie geek in me was following all the 63amp cables (that's Big Power) round, working out where it all goes... I realised that much of what excites me about theatre teching, and indeed part of what excites me about greenbelt, has an analogue on the production side of a May Ball. I may find it hard to resist having a go at that next year.
Once the ball itself started, though, I was just caught up in it. From the glass of pink champagne that they served as I arrived to the morning paper we were given as we left, everywhere held new excitements. I felt rather like an 8 year-old, rushing from one new stimulus to another. Why has my life until now held such an absence of chocolate fountains? And my first ball pit for ever such a long time. Fireworks that excited me more than they have since the first time I saw them, and were undoubtedly the most impressive I'd ever seen. DJ Yoda, who may have a stupid name but played a superb set with some absolutely top tunes. Right the way through to Molly and the Johnsons, who managed to keep people on their feet even at 5am, when the sun had clearly risen and we all felt a bit disorientated. On reflection, I realised this was another time to feel really very proud of my college - we can put on a Ball that lacks nothing that one should expect, but which costs £75 - £30 less than any of the other colleges can manage to produce one for (and half the price of, for instance, Magdalene, who's only draw is a stricter dress-code).
Despite all these wonderful diversions, though, undoubtedly the best thing about Robinson ball was that, with the exception of the ADC mob and a few theologians, almost everyone I like spending time with in Cambridge was there. I could spend an hour dancing to DJ Yoda with my Robinson fresher friends, before listening to Collegium Regale with choir friends, stopping in between to laugh at Joachim's post-impalement adventures in the ball pit (long story). A week later I worked at Corpus' Ball, and on the surface it should have been just as good - perhaps better - but the lack of ubiqutous friends* (and, perhaps, the ability to drink), it just couldn't compare, as far as I was concerned. Admittedly, Robinson was so perfect that others may struggle to ever live up to it, I can only wait and see.
Two days later came Suicide Sunday (apparently so-called because in the ancient past results were announced then; it now takes a little longer, and the only potentially-suicidal aspect of the day is the quantity imbibed by certain drinking societies). Mine was rather more sedate, with the morning spent with theatre types (although I had to miss the ADC and the SoD garden parties, I could at least get to the ETG/CAST one), followed by the last choral evensong of the year and the choir garden party. From their a hard-core of the choir wandered up to New Hall for their garden party, which (since they don't have a ball) they Do Properly. A wonderful afternoon of sun, summery music, food, drink and friends, and an evening watching silly films. I'd never fully recognised quite how racist Bedknobs and Broomsticks is, though :-(.
In effect, that was the pattern for the week - and perhaps it would be silly to recount it too many times. Further highlights, tho, included watching Johns and Queens fireworks synchronised to try to outdo each other, each one slightly better than the last, from an excellent viewing spot at the corner of the UL, and a spot of work for the production company that put together the Tit Hall June event - the first time I've been paid for techie work, and it'll fund much of May Week. Then the week ended with results (for which, see below...). All in all, pretty content ;-)
*Not to downplay the value of Alex and Joachim, of course ;-)
Exam season
29/6/2009
I felt pretty weird going into these exams. On the one hand, they were to be the first taste of Cambridge exams, which has to be a pretty big deal, and I couldn't be confident of a safe result without much effort. But on the other, there was a feeling that being mediocre was OK - the female parent has helpfully insisted at regular intervals that it was perfectly OK to get a 2.i, so for the first time I didn't feel the need to challenge myself to be the best I know. I had the Cambridge ideal to refer to - these are the cleverest people in the country, so there's no need for me to try to keep pace with the best of them. But on the gripping hand* that desire is hard to drop, and besides I felt like I'd revised peculiarly badly - it was very frustrating to just stare at the pages and feel nothing go in, particularly since so much of Cambridge revision is actually the first time you look at something (since when you write an essay you concentrate on one thread in a particular core text, and when it comes to the exam it might well not be that thread which is picked up on).
So ultimately I didn't know what to expect of them. I knew my supervisors reports mostly said I should be looking at a 2.i, some saying I could get a first if I pushed myself. But I didn't know what it felt like to write a 2.i exam - if I think I've done really well, is that the standard of a first? Or is that a 2.i? Or, given that this is Cambridge, a 2.ii? Of course, at this stage it doesn't matter unduly - these results don't count towards my final degree, so all I really have to do is scrape enough marks to stop the university chucking me out (which is apparently pretty hard to fail to do). I did want to do as well as I could on the philosophy paper, though, since the plan was to take 3 papers from the theology faculty and one from philosophy next year - and there's no official way to do this, so I'd have to rely on impressing people with my philosophical prowess ;-)
First up was sociology, which I really didn't give two figs about. Felt fine, I guessed it'd be a 2.i, so was perfectly happy with that. Next, tho, was the one that mattered, philosophy. From this safe distance it's hard to bring back the feelings in my head as I left that exam, but perhaps the best taste I can give is to quote the email I sent to the mother just afterwards:
FUCK SHIT FUCKING SHITTING FUCK
that is all
Fortunately I had a weekend off to recover my mental state before the New Testament paper, and in what looked like a very good omen both the readings in Chapel on the Sunday evening before the exam were taken from the set texts (the "Nazareth manifesto" in Luke 4 and a bit of the Pentecost story in Acts 2). As it turned out, neither of those bits of the set texts actually came up, but it felt pretty good nonetheless - I could answer fairly standard essay questions on Luke's inclusion of the poor, and his attitude to Rome throughout Luke and Acts - so the fact that the detailed commentary question was on a section of Acts that I didn't know much about didn't bother me hugely. Greek the next day was largely OK, but had the worrying flaw that I couldn't make head or tail of what John was saying at the beginning of his first letter... I'm pretty sure it wasn't really a sentence at all :-P That just left the Christology paper, which had possibly the most wonderfully friendly exam question I've ever seen. Along the lines of "comment on the Christological work of either Maximus or Charles Gore", which basically means I can write anything I like about whichever of them I chose, as long as it's vaguely intelligent. Given that I'm a big fan of both Maximus and Gore, that was a real pleasure. Add in a fairly standard "quest for the historical Jesus" question, one on the historicity of the resurrection, and some Bonhoeffer, and you've got a pretty good paper as far as Giles is concerned.
And releasing the tension of the past month or so involved getting walking-into-trees drunk on cheap champagne in a punt full of theologians... a good way to end a day.
Although results didn't come around til the end of May Week, I think they fit more into this story than that one. They're posted up in class lists at the Senate House in the middle of Cambridge, but despite that I felt remarkably relaxed as I went to get mine - I don't really know whether I thought I'd done well, or whether I'd finally come to accept what I'd been telling myself all year, that it didn't really matter what I got, as long as I didn't outright fail. Whatever it was, I have to say it was a very nice surprise to see my name among the four that had been awarded firsts this year! Equally pleasing is the fact that the 2 people with stars next to their firsts (even better than an ordinary first...) are friends :-). The mark breakdown which arrived a few days later helpfully reminded me that I know nothing, though - my second highest mark was in philosophy, and the two lowest were new testament and sociology, both of which had felt fairly comfortable. I should probably give up forming any judgement of how I've done in any form of assessment, since I'm always wrong...
*See, you learn something new every day ;-)