UWE Pub Quiz

So, we finally made it to a UWE Frenchay Pub Quiz night, which coincided nicely with Super Bowl Sunday. Our team, consisting of four members, somehow managed to come joint-second from last which to be honest was quite an achievement considering this quiz was American themed in honour of the Super Bowl, which we knew nothing about.

Emma, being sober and knowing more about sports than the guys, led the team, Sarah on the other-hand was too busy drinking JD&Honey (a new favourite, of which she managed to spill an entire cups-worth on her lap).

We spent most of the night socialising, sharking uni talent, mocking the boys for getting their faces painted and complaining about the bitter cold.

After an eventful car-journey home which included one of the guys stalling Emma's car,  the other being rugby tackled by Emma to the ground and trying hard not to squash a birthday cake that we had made earlier that day...We ended the night safefully in Emma’s bed, eating a not so student like supper of cheese & hummus.

Shortly followed by a trip on the chunder train by the only sober participant of the evening, Emma...clearly the chicken nachos consumed earlier that night proved a poor decision.  

Crashing a Politics Lecture...

So this morning Sarah and I underwent the next mission on our Bucket List. To crash another courses lecture, and by crash we mean sneak in under the radar and sit there like a pair of geeks making more notes than the actual course students.  Our friends assured us that it was a big lecture and there was no chance of us possibly being spotted by the lecturer, by big class, they meant the top attendance of 10 students.

Being final year history  (and English) students, we wanted to attend a lecture that was different, something creative, but instead we opted for politics.

To be perfectly honest, I, myself, was not intending to find the lecture at all interesting. This is primarily because two days before the lecture I was talking to my friends who study politics and revealed that I wasn’t even entirely sure what government Britain was currently under. I know, shocking. Sarah on the other hand studied politics for A-level, so was somewhat more clued up to the political world.

Though Sarah and I went into the lecture and quite possibly enjoyed it far more than we intended and took around 4 pages of notes each, we did also ensure that we didn’t miss the opening sale of Arctic Monkeys tickets and made sure we purchased a pair whilst the lecturer was discussing the Economic Development of Latin America.

What did we learn? Erm… that politics is geography? International development, external economic market pressures, economic improvement, industrialisation, ISI’s and Neoliberalism are all terms that cross over what appears to be politics, geography and of course, history. The words conservative, election, franchise, revolution, were never uttered once. The lecture therefore, proved not only to be surprisingly interesting but also opened our eyes to the world of politics (marginally) and highlighted that there’s more to it than just sitting around in parliament shouting at one another about the best way to avoid paying taxes on their second homes.

Hosting a New Years Eve House Party - Bristol Style:

New Year, New Start?

No. Of course not. The New Year saw us continue to carry ourselves in true student fashion. Mascara smudged around our faces, mouths as dry as the Sahara desert, one next to a guy, the other next to the toilet.

It was decided we were too old for New Year’s Eve clubbing, as it’s always expensive and a disappointment. So it was clear what we needed to do, embrace our last New Year in Bristol, as students, in a house that if damaged, the biggest cost would be the £350 deposit. I, (Emma), drew the short straw as hostess and armed with supplies of cocktail umbrellas, 2014 sunglasses and £10 worth of bacon, we were ready, or were we?

All in all, it was successful, there was Shot Roulette, Ring of Fire, Beer Pong, burnt pizza, Romanian shots, tears, massages, and of course, the occasional trip on the chunder train.

I thought, no host can do better than supply an abundance of pizza, Doritos and of course, booze. However, I over-looked one vital factor, this being, my physical state and my ability to successfully cook the pizzas. By pizza number 8, all the windows were open and we could no longer scoff at the taste of charcoal; it became a bitter sweet familiarity. Though my chef skills failed, everyone was grateful for the carb overload to try and counter the alcohol flooding our bloodstreams. Nonetheless, this didn’t necessarily work for everyone, after a round of Raspberry Sambuca, one of the boys merely looked at me, cursed and chundered in the kitchen sink. Chunder No.1 of the evening under our belt at a mere 9pm, we knew there was plenty more to come.

MIDNIGHT: We *apparently* gathered in my living room all linked hands like the one big dysfunctional Oxfordian family we are and sang Auld Lang Syne. All that is but one, who by 10:30pm had been tucked into my onesie and passed out in my bed.

This is one of the few images that were taken that evening. We played a guess the caption moment the next day trying to figure out if this was Sarah eggin’ the boys on in a fight for her honour:

A personal highlight of mine comes from my co-author of this blog, Miss Sarah Gore. She, like myself, and almost any girls our age, has a very apparent thing for men with beards. Upon emerging from a room at around 4am, I found Sarah, along with 4 other men in my hallway. I heard the words ‘I don’t like you. I just love your beard’. This couldn’t have been a prouder moment for me.

As we all know, house parties are awesome, you’ll never beat them, until you remember you’re the host and you don’t own a cleaning service as a side business to fund your degree. Doritos became an official part of my floors décor, and the carpet doubled up as a swimming pool. It was 5 bin bags later and a very much deserved Maccy D’s on News Years which made us realise, we may be third years, but we’ve still got it. 

Christmas Last Orders at the SU:

Me and Emma first met down at UWE Students Union a
few days before our first term at University started. It was our first night at
the SU, and we both bonded over a Cider & Black, the fact that we were from
Oxford and were both studying history (being the deal breakers).

Three years on and still best friends, we decided
that we needed to take a trip back to Frenchay Last Orders, which brings back
blurry images of us being over-excited drunken freshers. We dragged a few
friends along, drank a lot of cheap vodka and even bumped into a few familiar
faces. Familiar faces including some of those you want to duck from, if you
know what we mean, and we even bumped into the SU Pres (this time Sarah refrained from eating his face).

Being the first and last trip to the SU this term,
we forgot just how cheap and fun it can be. We have vowed to go again, pull a
fresher and get back into the Student Village. These two vows take form as
other goals on our University bucket list, and therefore must and will happen.

All in all, another banter-filled drunken night, which ended in a long teary bus journey home, pillow-talk, spooning and eating fresh baguettes in bed.

Another great student union night out to add to the
collection of drunken memories, and yet another drunken toilet selfie:

THE BUCKET LIST...

This is the Bucket List:

1)   Christmas Last Orders
2)   Go to another subjects lecture
3)   Get back into the Student Village
4)   Make our own alcohol
5)   Throw a New Year’s Eve Party – Student House/Bristol
6)   Take Kent and Phil (lecturers) for a pint
7)   Go on a date
8)   Get Bristol Pounds
9)   Get with a Fresher
10)  Go on a pub/bar crawl up Park Street/Gloucester Road
11)  St Matt Campus photography day
12)  Cocktail Night in Clifton
13)  UWE Pub Quiz
14)  Have the strongest Cider at the Corry Tap
15)  Get mentioned in a University Publication i.e. Western Eye, UWE Tab, UWE Radio.
16)  Wear a onesie to the library
17) Go over the top on University Merchandise.
18) Attend a University Sports game/varsity. 
19) Visit every campus SU and library
20) Read an entire Lecturers Book
21) Get Lecturers to sign their books we had to buy just for course basics.
22) Volunteer
23) Get another First Class piece of work each.
24) Order a Dominoes Pizza to campus
25) Play crate escape
26) Paddle in the Bristol fountains
27) SU Elections - Get involved.
28) Walk and do something creative over Clifton Suspension Bridge.
29) Photocopy Body Parts in the Library
30) Start a Conga and see how far we get...
31) Visit all14 Banksy artworks around Bristol
32) Spray ourselves in Champagne after our final Exam.
33) GRADUATE- with a good degree.

The start of it all...

So, what better way to engage yourself in your last assignment of third year before Christmas, than looking across at your best friend suffering the same fate, and proposing to start a University ‘Bucket List’?

Facing the impending doom of adulthood has not been an easy task. The first of the turning 21’s proved to be as eventful and traumatic as any would expect from a night out in Cardiff, Oxford & Plymouth (on a sprained ankle). We soon realised that both our dignities and more so our bodies will fail us and no longer allow us to get away with such ridiculous behaviour. Such as, going out three nights in a row, and surviving a harrowing fall in 6inch heels without a trip to A&E (though tears were flowing and A&E received a visit from Emma 5 days later…).

Having sent off one postgraduate application to Oxford, and one of us still soul searching for future direction, we realised that it was time to do all of the amazing/ridiculous and mundane things that we never got round to doing at University. Everybody told us University would fly by, but it wasn’t until dissertation talk was shoved down our throats, we realised that it was time to achieve everything that we had set out to achieve.

So here goes the Bucket List…