The past few days have been pretty hectic with so many things going on so I’ve hardly had time to think about my blog, but as promised I just thought I’d write a little note on the Graduation Ball, just to give a lasting idea of the end of term in final year at University.
In past years our University has always organised an event called the Final Fling - aimed principally at final years but inevitably people from other years went as tickets went on sale to everybody after a period of time. It was a slightly strange event.. Not, actually it was downright bizarre. An amalgamation of two seemingly different events, it consisted of a slap up meal in a giant tent in the middle of a giant park, followed by music and a fairground, with firework displays later on in the evening. There were kebab vans and portaloos, with dodgems, a rhythm rider and other carny attractions. Yet people were dressed up to the nines, with guys in rented tuxedoes and girls in cocktail dresses. The meal part of the evening was undoubtedly classy, fitting for a finalist event, but the addition of a fairground in a field was, if nothing else, confusing. I went in my second year as there were good friends of mine graduation the following summer (the year of my Erasmus experience in France) and I wanted to have one last good time with them before going home. Most of them bought dinner tickets (I don’t remember the price of these but I believe it was in the region of about £60) whereas I settled for an after-dinner ticket for about £35 if my (terrible) memory serves me well. I was glad to have gone, but only because I was in the company of amazing people that I was sad to be leaving, but the event itself was.. well, to put it bluntly, a bit rubbish. I spent most of it wandering around a cold field in high heeled shoes, freezing cold and looking for a first aider to give me a paracetamol for a headache which only really developed once I got there (probably because of the cold; it was a very chilly summer evening).
Anyway, I didn’t intend to spend this post whingeing and moaning about the previous events, I merely wanted to highlight that I understood the Student Union’s stance this year when it decided to break down the Final Fling into a Graduation Ball and a Summer Party. It received a fair amount of opposition at first, mostly due to the overall increase in cost (£65 for the Ball, £35 for the Party), but despite being one of the original nay-sayers I’m glad that they did, and even more glad that Emily talked me into going to both events. To have a Ball dedicated to final year students felt like quite a novelty, although unfortunately a huge shortage of tickets meant loads of people were left disappointed. So here’s the low-down of the night.
The afternoon of the Ball was arguably a huge part of the fun. Lucinda came to my flat around lunch time to get ready, and we had lunch and chilled out listening to music, getting ready very slowly compared to any other night out. Hair was conditiond, nails were painted, skin was moisturised etc etc and the whole while we caught up with each other’s lives post-exams.
The ‘coaches’ were due to leave campus from outside the library at about 5pm so our plans were to receive our respective fellas at my flat, then meet Emily and co. for champagne / cava and photos before gliding to our carriages. Once the photos were taken and the drinks were downed, we caught the luxury coach (photo below) to the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham. Cool kids, of course, always sit at the back. So we did.
A red carpet awaited our arrival and we must have spent at least another quarter of an hour taking photos before going in. I was fairly surprised to see it was actually quite a glamorous set-up - girls wondered around in ball gowns underneath chandeliers, searching for the tables they had been assigned, whilst the guys generally pondered ‘so where are the motorcycles?’ A man with mutton chops and a suspicious moustache danced away to 20’s music in a corner. In fact, until we got into the halls and discovered the ‘bar’ (serving beer and cider, with bottles of wine at extortionate prices), the place seemed almost quite decadent.
As a vegetarian I was not hoping for much when it came to the meal - vegetarian options are always pretty poor when substituting roast meals - and I was half expecting a blob of goat’s cheese on pastry (for the record, I LOATHE goat‘s cheese.) But I was surprised! All of the dishes were not only edible, but really tasty! Apart from the dessert. It might look vaguely impressive:
but it was just weird.
We all agreed that the meal was pretty good, but the provision of a glass of wine for each person would really have made it worth the price of the ticket.
After dinner the entertainment was extremely well thought out - surprisingly enough for our dear student union. There was a ‘speakeasy’ bar which served only spirits, a main bar, a photo shoot area, a dance floor with Charleston dancers giving lessons and, later on in the evening, a full on swing band… it was an amazing night! In true student union style, however, at midnight when the band went home the classic songs from Top B were played for the remaining three hours. Mr Brightside, of course, as well as cheesy classics from the 90’s.. which wasn’t a bad thing (bad dancing is acceptable when confronted by bad music).. But when the DJ began playing ‘I’ve had the time of my life’, most of us went into cheese overload and decided it was time to call it a night.
So there we have it! A strange event at times, but definitely worth going to. Just a shame not everyone could go / get tickets, as there are definitely some holes in my pictures.
