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Memories of St Andrews
Jun. 1st, 2006 06:11 pmToday is the 1st of June. At the end of this month I'm going to be flying off to America to restart life as I know it once again. With that daunting thought out of the way, I'm going to take a while to reflect on the more unusual aspects of life at St Andrews that stick in my memory. I always say that it seems like only weeks since I arrived in AMH for the first time, but some of these seem like years ago now. And they were.
Chemistry - I never really understood Chemistry to be honest, but I spent half of my first two years in courses in the Purdie building, a significant amount of that time in the lab pouring acetone on to things or participating in pointless high-school-like newspaper/poster projects. I haven't really stayed in touch with the group I used to go around with, but I think Greg, Graeme and I deserve to be commended for our efforts in eliminating the Chemistry with Computer Science course from the year entirely.
Melville - I hated Melville at first, grew to love it, then gradually slipped back to hating it again by the time I left. But that middle section was quite nice. Now that the new Melvillites have proved themselves to be equally dysfunctional to the last lot, I can only conclude that there is something in the building or the food served there that gradually drives individuals to insanity.
Quake Jumps - On the Purdie stairs on the way to the Union every weekend (8:30 in the foyer). If you weren't there, you'll never know, and to be honest it's probably better that way.
Television Analogies - See the above. Pioneered by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
raphx.
Air hockey - Before the rise of the DDR machine that would eventually take over a major part of my life in second year, air hockey was the game of choice despite the table being the worst in the world. In fact, I remember on my first day in St Andrews, I was part of a group of students previously unknown to each other who were united in an effort to unscrew the panel on the front of it just to retrieve the puck. Inevitably someone would spill a drink on the table as soon as it was cleaned, making playing it feel like dragging a paddle through treacle.
After-dinner Simpsons - The Simpsons on Sky 1 used to be virtually a requirement for Melville residents.gr33bo was always immensely proud of the way he could correctly guess when it was going to start, and changed the channel from dreadful music videos at exactly the right time.
Empire pizza - Trips to Empire used to take place regularly on Saturdays, in the days when their pizza was excellent and didn't taste at all of soap. The highlight was being surprised at the lack of spice on the Spicy Chicken variety, then stepping up to Hot 'n' Spicy and discovering that it was actually a round flat thermonuclear device.
The butcher's shop that looks like it's come out of Silent Hill - I thought I would be used to it by now (I'm a meat-eater, after all), but the selection of half-pigs and cow carcasses hung up proudly in the window always unsettles me a bit. I've seen many tourists walk past it, do a gigantic double take and leap back in shock. Then stop and take a photo.
6am Melville fire alarms - Of course not. There are some good memories, though, such as Tom always jumping up to the top of the mound and saying something nonsensical about Steve the warden. Or, earlier than that, Kenny - who just stood at the front of the building and mumbled until we all got fed up. We had got a regular routine going, with guitars, drinks and seating being brought out so we could sing "Always look on the bright side of life" in the pouring rain. And there was that one time when we saw smoke billowing out of D-block, provoking a massive cheer as we thought the building really was on fire.
IRC - The Sinner IRC channel used to be a major part of my university experience, but after leaving it for a couple of days in third year I realised just how much more work I was getting done and decided to put it on hold indefinitely. Recently I've been missing it a lot, and have attempted to get my fixes in both the old ZZT community and the new attempt at a Click-related channel. In fact, though I haven't informed the community of this, I have also reinstated the famous Quotelog concept, and while it does contain some rather impenetrable in-jokes, you can find the short log over in my corner of the Internet. (If I feel like I have too much free time on my hands, I'll set up a bash.org-type frontend for the whole lot of them if you like.)
I'd like to point out one quotation from the old files in particular, as I don't think anything else in the world has ever so succinctly highlighted the continuing culture clash that exists in St Andrews.
<Donald> g33|<3ry!!!!
<Donald> damn, |< doesn't look anything like K
<Donald> one would think it ought to
* Donald feels c|-|3373d!!!11
* Donald is getting into this whole dork-speak
Meeting Americans - It's been said that St Andrews is a colony of America nestled between Scotland and Norway, and my group of friends somehow always took in a significant number of JYAs. Therefore, I had a "British culture pack" on my shelf, containing videos of programmes such as Father Ted, Black Books and Red Dwarf, which were always either received with hysterics or stared at blankly until people got bored. (Bear in mind that this was back in the day when people actually used videos.)
The Lab - Who would have thought that I'd miss the windowless JH/SH lab at the top of the Jack Cole building? Despite its strong resemblance to Hell with flourescent lighting, we have slacked off work in innumerable imaginative ways there, from discussing the inconvenience of quantum mechanics to harnessing a robot up to pull a chair around the room.
More as I think of them.
Chemistry - I never really understood Chemistry to be honest, but I spent half of my first two years in courses in the Purdie building, a significant amount of that time in the lab pouring acetone on to things or participating in pointless high-school-like newspaper/poster projects. I haven't really stayed in touch with the group I used to go around with, but I think Greg, Graeme and I deserve to be commended for our efforts in eliminating the Chemistry with Computer Science course from the year entirely.
Melville - I hated Melville at first, grew to love it, then gradually slipped back to hating it again by the time I left. But that middle section was quite nice. Now that the new Melvillites have proved themselves to be equally dysfunctional to the last lot, I can only conclude that there is something in the building or the food served there that gradually drives individuals to insanity.
Quake Jumps - On the Purdie stairs on the way to the Union every weekend (8:30 in the foyer). If you weren't there, you'll never know, and to be honest it's probably better that way.
Television Analogies - See the above. Pioneered by
raphx.Air hockey - Before the rise of the DDR machine that would eventually take over a major part of my life in second year, air hockey was the game of choice despite the table being the worst in the world. In fact, I remember on my first day in St Andrews, I was part of a group of students previously unknown to each other who were united in an effort to unscrew the panel on the front of it just to retrieve the puck. Inevitably someone would spill a drink on the table as soon as it was cleaned, making playing it feel like dragging a paddle through treacle.
After-dinner Simpsons - The Simpsons on Sky 1 used to be virtually a requirement for Melville residents.
gr33bo was always immensely proud of the way he could correctly guess when it was going to start, and changed the channel from dreadful music videos at exactly the right time.Empire pizza - Trips to Empire used to take place regularly on Saturdays, in the days when their pizza was excellent and didn't taste at all of soap. The highlight was being surprised at the lack of spice on the Spicy Chicken variety, then stepping up to Hot 'n' Spicy and discovering that it was actually a round flat thermonuclear device.
The butcher's shop that looks like it's come out of Silent Hill - I thought I would be used to it by now (I'm a meat-eater, after all), but the selection of half-pigs and cow carcasses hung up proudly in the window always unsettles me a bit. I've seen many tourists walk past it, do a gigantic double take and leap back in shock. Then stop and take a photo.
IRC - The Sinner IRC channel used to be a major part of my university experience, but after leaving it for a couple of days in third year I realised just how much more work I was getting done and decided to put it on hold indefinitely. Recently I've been missing it a lot, and have attempted to get my fixes in both the old ZZT community and the new attempt at a Click-related channel. In fact, though I haven't informed the community of this, I have also reinstated the famous Quotelog concept, and while it does contain some rather impenetrable in-jokes, you can find the short log over in my corner of the Internet. (If I feel like I have too much free time on my hands, I'll set up a bash.org-type frontend for the whole lot of them if you like.)
I'd like to point out one quotation from the old files in particular, as I don't think anything else in the world has ever so succinctly highlighted the continuing culture clash that exists in St Andrews.
<Donald> g33|<3ry!!!!
<Donald> damn, |< doesn't look anything like K
<Donald> one would think it ought to
* Donald feels c|-|3373d!!!11
* Donald is getting into this whole dork-speak
Meeting Americans - It's been said that St Andrews is a colony of America nestled between Scotland and Norway, and my group of friends somehow always took in a significant number of JYAs. Therefore, I had a "British culture pack" on my shelf, containing videos of programmes such as Father Ted, Black Books and Red Dwarf, which were always either received with hysterics or stared at blankly until people got bored. (Bear in mind that this was back in the day when people actually used videos.)
The Lab - Who would have thought that I'd miss the windowless JH/SH lab at the top of the Jack Cole building? Despite its strong resemblance to Hell with flourescent lighting, we have slacked off work in innumerable imaginative ways there, from discussing the inconvenience of quantum mechanics to harnessing a robot up to pull a chair around the room.
More as I think of them.
