Beginning of Fresher's Week

It's about time I updated this blog to let all you know whats been going on. The first week of St. Andrew's is called Fresher's week. A Fresher is someone who is new to the university, either a new 4 year student, transfer, or JSA (junior study abroad). So I am a Fresher for the second time at a university.  During the week they have lectures to help make yourself acquainted with campus, social events in the evenings, and chances to try sports and societies. There were many events and things to do, doing them all is impossible. I will do my best to give you a description of my activities this past week.

This day begins on Sep. 19. This may look odd to some of you cause I posted on the 20th, but I was catching up on stuff. My time at St. Andrew's started on Sep. 17. On the 19th of Sep. My experience as a St. Andrew's Fresher began. I got tickets for this Tribal Warefare event. It's a competition between all of the dorms on campus. Each dorm has a specific color, and most dorms paint faces. David Russell Apartments colors are black and white. Somehow, I got face painted to look like a panda. I thought I looked like a deranged Joker panda, but I guess thats ok. The event took place in the Student Union.  I was assuming this was like Homecoming back at Bethel. However the events where for one person from the dorm. The first event was St. Andrew's trivia and other lame stuff like that. It was nothing. It was just an opportunity to dance to some music. I threw down the q-tip, tossing the pizza, and the pizza roll. It was fun cause I was with some of my newly made friends Grace, Amanda, and Rory (1 of 3 Scottish people I am friends with). 

The next day, Sep. 20th, Brendan and I went to the library orientation. It was not in the library since the library was getting some renovation done. There was a huge line to get in, and we waited for about an hour and a half. They only let in 8 people at a time. The whole thing was watching a slide show of what the library looked like before and after renovation, a scavenger hunt on some computers to learn to navigate the library website, and some basic info like opening times.  I did get a free cloth bag out of it though and a free coffee mug.  I spent the rest of my day updating my blog during my time in Edinburgh. Later that night, I went to a showing of V for Vendetta in the St. Salvators Quad. The quad is beautiful I might add. The movie was shown by the left wing political group on campus. They are responsible for protests, blocking streets. They called themselves anarchists. So the movie was very fitting for the group. Afterwards they led us all to a bonfire on the east sands by the ruined cathedral of St. Andrews.  Then all of the anarchists did some fire spinning. I was not surprised that they could do that or would do that. Tonight was also the night that I tried a bite of Rory's fried black pudding. Black pudding is made with dried she eps  blood. It was actually pretty good. It looked like I was gagging, but it was just because it was super hot and it burned my mouth. Another food culture Scotland experience.