A reflection on studentdom and my oldfogieness

This week I have been to visit Cranmer Hall in Durham. I loved the place and I loved the people but it caused me to think about being a student and how I am not one anymore. I had thought that I would love to go back to the student way of life, I'm not long graduated in the first place and being a student was brilliant. For some reason when I arrived I expected that my bedroom would have a bathroom in the near vacinity, which it did, but without a shower. When I woke up in the morning I had to think about where I could go to find a shower? would I have to queue when I found it? did that affect how early I should get up? would it be alright to go in my pyjamas and return to my room only wrapped in my towel? Such are factors of studentdom that I had conveniently forgotten, particularly as I lived in a shared house and not in a hall of residence since I was in my second year and even when I was in my first year the halls were arranged into flats so the issue wasn't quite the same.

On leaving Durham I travelled north to Newcastle to visit my friend from home who has just started university there. She is living in the largest and most sprawling hall of residence that I have ever known... there are over 1000 first year students all living within the same complex. This caused me to reflect on different aspects of studentdom... Slumming it has never really been a problem for me, I enjoy camping and I'm not adverse to lying on the floor, so spending a night on the floor of my friend's student room didn't phase me. Until her fellow corridor dwellers arrived home in the early hours of the morning a little worse for the wear. Clearly they have never learnt that when you arrive home late it is polite to whisper so that you don't wake up those of us who went to bed at a more sociable hour. There was much slamming of doors and loud drunken conversations right outside our room about why another girl who was clearly far past her best should be left to sleep. I was not best pleased. And I was sore from lying on the floor just to add to the joy. My friend slept soundly through it, she has obviously become a heavy sleeper in response.

As a result of these experiences I have discovered that:
I don't like sleeping on the floor,
I don't like people who talk loudly when they should be sleeping,
I DO like living in a house with its own bathroom,
I have become old and grumpy.

Not good.

Hooray!

I am only going to sing Dona Nobis Pacem through one more time! Hooray hooray! We have been rehearsing for 3 hours this afternoon and I am tired. I am always glad to get to the performance... the conductor can't stop us and make us go over and over and over and over a few bars...

Christian celebrations

My mum went to Preston yesterday to re-register at the university (she's in the middle of doing a masters) and was given a free academic diary. I have had a flick through it and noticed a strange thing... for each pagan festival there is a note like:
Winter solstice - Pagan Society celebrates Yule or
Pagan Society celebrates Eostre
equally there are notes like:
Baha'i Society celebrates Naw-Ruz or
Islamic Society celebrates Festival of Id al Adha
Yet for Christian festivals (and now I've had a look, Hindu and Jewish festivals) it seems that no-one is celebrating, or at least the university doesn't seem to know about it. Christmas gets:
Christmas Day - Public Holiday (though fair enough, the Christian Union or even Chaplaincy aren't likely to be holding a Christmas Day celebration, being that the students will be at home with their families) and Easter:
Easter Sunday, End of Lent.
Is there some kind of heirarchy here between who celebrates and who doesn't? Is there a member of the Pagan Society on the team for producing the diaries?
Well, at least the Christian festivals are listed I suppose.