University Freshers! Part Two

I feel very guilty that it has taken me so long to get the second half of my freshers post up but as I hope you can all appreciate, it has been a pretty hectic time where I've had to cope with a lot of adjusting and new situations. It's now the last day of my first teaching week and so the end of all official freshers events (the last being on the Thursday just gone).

There were obviously various nights out during Freshers. The first 'proper' night out was a night called 'Fiesta' and a nightclub called Koko in Camden. The venue was pretty sweet as it was in a converted theatre and so had a really cool layout with the balcony and VIP boxes and the theatre still retained it's decor. However, it was so crowded on the dance floor that after a few hours of being pushed around and constantly separated from each other, my friends and I decided to go to the balcony where we could enjoy the music and also have room to breathe and dance properly. I'd made the schoolboy error of wearing heels (apparently wearing heels in London is pretty uncommon?) and we had walked all the way to Camden (about a half an hour walk from my accommodation) so my feet were feeling pretty fragile by the end of the night. Luckily though, there were some UCLU (our student union) staff outside the club offering slippers for heels-wearers to walk home in, which I thought was a brilliant idea!

The next day (I know I'm a party animal, right?) I went to a night called 'Chaos' which was held at the nightclub Fabric. Now do I have a Kira story for you... so we took the train to this club and there was a huge queue outside of people waiting to get in. I, unfortunately, needed the toilet very, very badly (spoiler alert: no I didn't wet myself). When we finally reached the front and the bouncer asked me for my ID I looked in my purse and it wasn't there! I had left it in my other purse! I had paid good money for that ticket so I decided that I was going to go back to my halls and get it since the train ride was only 3 stops. I ran back to the station (by the way I'm still desperate for the toilet, more desperate than I have ever been in my whole life, so that just made the whole experience particularly painful and uncomfortable) and I got the train home. Once I get my station I asked a member of staff on the platform when the next train is and he says in ten minutes. That's ten minutes to run back to my halls, go to the toilet, grab my ID and run back. It was such a narrow margin that I wasn't sure if I should even bother at all but I persevered and I (miraculously) made the train! My next obstacle was whether I'd be able to get in since my friend had my ticket on her phone and she had already gone in. Thankfully, it worked and I was allowed in but then I had another obstacle to face; I had to find a different group of friends from my halls who I was going home with! By sheer luck I bumped into one of them and one by one we rounded up the others. With all the chaos (geddit, because the event was called Chaos?), I did still end up having a great night. They had an RnB room which was playing some great old tunes which I just LOVED.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show you from the first two nights because I was an absolute idiot and didn't take any!

I went to a school themed night called 'Detention' at a club called Pacha which was pretty much a standard night out with a bit of dressing up involved. There was an incident however where I did the splits just to prove to some guy that I could because he didn't believe me, i regretted that the next morning (note to self: do not attempt splits unless suitably stretched)

Goofy picture from before Pacha! We were waiting for another friend to finish getting ready.

By far my favourite night was at a club called Rise for their 'Born in the 90s' night. Now I love 90s music and so the music they played this night was just amazing and so much fun! You'll come to realise that for me a great night out is determined by the music, the people I'm with and any funny antics that happen (in that order). I went with two of my floormates and we pre-drank together in our kitchen so it was nice to get closer to them and have a girly night out. 

 My two floormates (Alex and Charlotte) and I

This next night out doesn't really count as a Freshers' event but it still happened this week so I'll add it in anyway (plus there's another Kira story...). It was my friend Danielle's birthday and since she's at the same university as me but at different halls I could actually make it to her birthday celebration. We all met at her halls to pre-drink and to meet some of her friends and then we moved off to a nightclub called Tiger Tiger. I was having a great night but my bag kept dropping on the floor and opening everywhere and although I thought I'd managed to reclaim all my bag's content, I lost my keys to my halls and my lipstain. I only figured this out on the way home however and so had to crash for the night in Danielle's small single room with three other people. The next day we went back to the club and found my keys so I could finally go home. I had to do the walk of shame (kinda) because as I hadn't planned to stay at Danielle's, I had no other clothes to change into. It was all very awkward and annoying. Just as a sidenote, I never found that lipstain and I'm still mourning its loss- it was my favourite lipstain!

Old school friends! Will, Louis and birthday girl Danielle!

Have another pic: Me with the beauty that is my friend Courtenay

The final Freshers event was 'The Freshers Ball' at Ministry of Sound which I went to yesterday. We had a fairly long pre-drinking session in a nice big group of about 11 people and then we all headed out to the nightclub. It was a fun night and Gemma Cairney from Radio 1 was DJing in one of the rooms which was pretty cool. I left quite early with two other people though because one of our friends was feeling ill and we had made a pact to leave together since we're from the same halls and knew it'd be safer to go home together. I didn't mind leaving though.

You can tell this was after an few vodka and cokes (with the odd shot thrown in for good measure)

So those are all the nights out that I've had this past fortnight, I think it's fairly obvious that I had an eventful and interesting time. Even the moments which were not exactly pleasing at the time have since become fond memories and have developed into great drunken stories.

I do want to mention some of the other parts of Freshers week that didn't involve partying. There was, of course, induction meetings and talks during the day throughout Freshers week which helped to introduce you to the university and your department as well as provide guidance in what to do now you had arrived at UCL. By far the most interesting thing to me that week was the Freshers Fair, where a thousand or so ambassadors tried to sell their  societies to you and boy were there some good/interesting/plain weird ones! We had: Harry Potter society, Surf society, RAG society, Dinosaur Appreciation society, Pole Fitness society, Chocolate society and so many more! I joined so many mailing lists for societies but I have decided to cut it down with Dance society, Salsa society, Make Up Artistry society (of course!) and Volsoc, which is the society for volunteering.

So that's all I have to say about my Freshers experience! I know that this is a hefty post and I thank anyone who has made the effort to read it all.

Lots of love, Kira x

Happy Birthday to Me!

I think the first thing I should probably get out of the way is that I really am 18. Honest. I was one of the last people in my year to reach that wonderful milestone but I finally did on July 17th 2013 and I was going to go all out with the celebrations to make up for all the times I'd had to miss out on going out with my friends. It was for this reason that I celebrated my birthday three times and although it may seem excessive it was completely necessary and unavoidable.

My birthday is in the summer holidays which is a pain for many reasons. Firstly it makes me one of the younger kids in my year which has always been a source of mockery from my friends and has earnt me nicknames such as 'Baby Kira'. My friends also kindly liked to remind me that I was not legal to drink alcohol (the drinking age is 18 in the UK) which was bearable when they were just going out to the pub the odd night but was more upsetting when it meant I missed out on some major events. But the main reason it sucks (and the contributing factor to why I had so many birthday celebrations) is that people are always away on holiday for my birthday! It can actually be quite lonely!

 

Celebration #1

On my birthday itself only two of my friends were around to celebrate with me so we spent the day together. We went out for a nice pub lunch (where I ordered my first legal drink and ironically wasn't ID'd- the one time I actually wanted to be!)

 

My first legal drink was a Mojito!

 



It was such a nice relaxing lunch and great to catch up with two of my best friends who I hadn't seen in quite a long time (as it always is with school holidays, you never see your friends as much as you'd hope to). One of the more peculiar things that happened that lunch (and with my friends there was bound to be something odd) was that when we looked out into the beer garden, we saw a lovely white peacock roaming around! I took it as a sign that my birthday(s) would all be successful. When we came home we decided to watch a film and chill out before my parents came home and then we all went out for dinner with some of my extended family. We went to a nice little Italian restaurant near where I live and had so much food! My dad somehow managed to convince my friends and I (who were adamant that we wanted a main and dessert ONLY) to have all three courses so that by the time the main course was being cleared away none of us thought we could handle another course. Of course this was when the lights were turned down low and the cheesy 'Happy Birthday' song came chiming though the speakers and I was presented with my birthday dessert, a Patisserie Valerie cake that my mum had brought to the restaurant earlier in the day! To say I was surprised was an understatement and the thought of eating yet more food made me anxious but somehow between 8 full tummies we managed to eat a large proportion of this cake and wow was it gorgeous...

My simply divine birthday cake (picture provided by mum, taken before she gave it to the restaurant)

 

Celebration #2

The second celebration happened the day after my birthday and the only reason it was held on a different day was because my actualy birthday was a Wednesday, which is a dull night to go out in London. Thursday, however, is much better. That day my two faithful friends Ellie and Scarlett (the girls who had been with me the day before) and I were joined by another friend, Luke, as well as some of my cousins and we headed to a bar called Vodka Revolution in Soho. This bar is a great place to start a night out! It specialises in different flavoured vodkas including jelly baby, chilli and bubblegum, all of which tasted yummy and so is good for when you can still appreciate your drinks i.e. the start of a night or when you're only going for a quick drink. However, the atmosphere was quite mild considering that there was a DJ playing music there and so would probably be a nice place to go for a quiet drink instead. It also closed up at 11pm which was a bit annoying and so due to those two reasons we moved on to another bar and then later to a nightclub. I'd love to tell you what those were both called but since they were not planned in advanced and my cousins pretty much herded my friends and I from place to place so that I didn't have to worry about what was going on, I have no idea what either of them were called. What I do know was that the next bar was a complete let down with no one inside and so we swiftly left and moved on to a nightclub which made up for the last bar very quickly. There was music and dancing and it was so much fun! I love me some dancing you see, that's my one priority when I go out. Oh, and here's a picture from that night for your viewing pleasure (taken from Vodka Revolution)

 

Celebration #3

Well here we are, finally at the last celebration- my birthday party! I know many of you will be thinking 'You already celebrated it, why do you need a party?', well you see I have a large friendship group who I love very dearly and it just wouldn't feel right not to celebrate my birthday with them! Also, the idea for my party had been with me for many months prior to my birthday and the more I thought about it, the more necessary it felt for me to have the party. I wanted a party that was unique and fun and very very messy and so I had a Holi party! Holi is an Indian festival where powdered paint is thrown and it was something I have always wanted to try. Surprisingly, my parents did not shoot down the idea straight away as I had expected but started to help me plan it and work out the logistics. They even let me use our garden for the party and persuaded my cousin's boyfriend to DJ for us (don't worry, we protected his kit from the paint) so it felt like I had an outdoor nightclub in my garden! My poor neighbours must've thought we were all nuts, although we did warn them about the party in advance.

 

We had 25.5kg of powder paint in 11 different colours!

I think it's safe to say that we all had a lot of fun! My house and garden was a mess afterwards with coloured powder absolutely EVERYWHERE but I think it was worth it because everyone told me it was the best 18th they had been to- result! 

 

Before...

...and after!

 

And that concluded my birthday extravaganza!