Hanging on

I haven't gone off-grid, I swear, I'm just busy! Some annoying things called E-S-S-A-Y-S have taken over my life at the moment, the weather is all over the place (what's with the random bouts of hail?) and...erm...I think that I lost my bike. (Oxford is a pretty safe place if you're a student; not so much if you're a bicycle.)

...And to save this post from being an entire waste of pixels, here, have some more pictures from before Ireland that I forgot to blog about!

Remember how we made our own dumplings for Chinese New Year? Well I
finally have pictorial proof of that now! 

Our super-duper dumpling assembly chain. They were great,
 especially since most had never done this before!

Dusk, as seen from my study room. 

We love our pun-tastic parties. This was for two friends' joint birthday.
 L to R: a Z-bra, Sweet As, WarLord, a "Palay"on words and a cereal killer.

Yet more puns! Eggbox 360 & a Zeit-Geist.

Afternoon tea at the Randolph!

'Twas v. fancy  'n v. yummy indeed.

One day, I was walking by the river...and saw this boat pass by with more
humans on it than I thought possible. (The boat was tilting!)

That is all. See you on the other side of these essays, which will be in one week, and...*gulp*... the beginning of my very last term at Oxford!

#occupynorthpole

Two Saturdays ago, a bunch of us attended the very last bop (ie. big old party) of the semester, organised by the same people who did HallowQueen, namely St-Anthony`s College. The theme of the evening? Soviet Santa. Yes, you read that right. Spread some holiday cheer...with a touch of hammer and sickle! Think Marx meets Santa Clause (it's the beard, I tell you), Rudolf meets Sputnik, or in our case...elves meet the proletariat:

Elves (plus one reindeer) on strike. Look at our angry faces and sign!

Okay, we can be nice as well. Something about asking nicely?

We met up before the party at K's place for an elvish potluck and a sign-making session. I am ridiculously proud  of our protest signs. You can click on the pictures above to see the bigger versions, but in case it isn't legible, let me regale you with some of the brilliance that we came up with that night:

"Stop Elf-Ploitation" 

"No Work 4 Candy Canes" 

"Stop the Sleigh-Driving"

"Santa = the 1%" (plus mandatory #occupynorthpole tag)

"Santa's Workshop = Santa's Sweatshop"

"End Elf-Trafficking" 

...and much much more. My comrades and I had a grand time making those signs. The fact that we looked like a big ol' family making crafts whilst waiting for Santa and turkey was an unexpected bonus:

Straight out of a Christmas special TV movie, no?

We ended the night dancing away to Rasputin and walking back from St-Anthony's singing carols and Disney songs. Not bad for a bunch of striking elves!

(Picture credit: Taken from K's delightful "Christmas, crafts and the proletariat" album on FB)

3 costumes and a belated post

[Health update: My cold is most tenacious, but I'm -- hopefully -- mostly recovered. No idea whether it had anything to do with last week's accidentally skipped Jurisprudence seminar...]

I meant to post about the Halloween shenanigans ages ago but somehow never quite got to it. Oh well, better late than never.

Halloween this year was an elaborate affair. I actually put on not one, nor two, but THREE costumes! It all started on Thursday the 27th, which was our friend M's birthday. As per our grand tradition of celebrating whatever occasion we can find, we had a party that evening but with a twist: a 20's theme! (Themed parties are going to be the thing for our group from now...can't wait for the next one!) Prohibition, gangsters and flapper were de rigueur. Well, except for the actual Prohibition part...let's pretend that we were in a speakeasy?

Look at all these flappers and gangsters. Roaring Twenties incarnate!

Flapper photobomb! Crashing the birthday girl's portrait.

Then, on Friday our college MCR held an outdoors Halloween party, to which we brought our most imaginative, elaborate and/or pun-tastic costumes...

Three guesses as to what I was. Let me give you a clue:
I was dressed like a French caricature and had pieces of
toast  stuck to me. (Yes this is beyond nerdy. Haha.)

Here I am with my friends Blackmail and the Cold War. Oh the puns we made.

And on Saturday St-Anthony's College had their annual Hallow-Queen bop, which means cross-dressing and lots and lots of funny people watching. (Seeing 6 feet-tall guys attempting in heels was a riot was something. And pronouns were a bit difficult that night. "Hey, did he...she...erm... just spill my beer?!")

Girls being boys (including Van Gogh and Doctor Who) was fun...

...but clearly the boys got the more fun end of the bargain! 

When Sunday, the actual 31st, finally rolled around, we were all too tired to do anything. Although, I did find out that night that our porch light is a security light which doesn't turn off. Consequently, kids kept ringing our doorbell and my flatmates and I, after I gave away my last three apples (the kids didn't seem too happy about them), hid and pretended to not be home...

(Photo credit: some are mine, most were taken from various friends' Facebooks.)