My rendition of the International Student's reception '09

I wanted to get this in for today, I was a bit confused whether it was today last year or yesterday... anyway, I remember writing this in my private blog.
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I scurried off to The Great Hall at 6:00pm yesterday, worried that I was so darn late for the International Students' Reception. I panted my way through the very very chilly evening until I arrived at a huge gathering of people. I walked in lost and claustrophobic. It was the first time I felt warm at Lancaster without a heater in the vicinity.

I bumped into a couple of people, randomly exchanging smiles and quick hellos.

I bumped into an Indian, "Hi," I say deliberately, eyeing the empty glass of wine in her hand," Umm... Is this the international student reception?" She smiled at me, "Yea, I guess so..." We quickly introduced ourselves. Fiona is from Mumbai and is doing her MBA here. She's been in and out of UK, doing corresponding courses and jobs. 7 years of work experience! How about that! But her face defies her age. That's for sure. No sooner I met her flatmate, Jay, a Filipino-Singaporean doing his PhD in Sociology. He's quite a character! Very funny and easy to get along with. Or maybe it was just the wine I'd been sipping on. (Kidding Jay) Oh by the way, red wine tastes amazing! I finished half my glass when I realised I was already a little light headed and my cheeks flushed a bit. Oh gawd! That was embarrassing, considering normal people don't get drunk on half a glass of wine. Oh well! I'll work on that! *wink*  (I sure did work on it over time!)

I met Jay's friend, Ritchie, a Malaysian and his finance management classmate James from North China. Talk about being six degrees apart! So the five of us were around the place talking about a crazy number of things, before the pro-vice chancellor of the university shared a few words and welcomed us all for the umpteenth time. (we're not complaining as along as the wine kept coming.)

After a dizzying half glass of wine, I quietly placed my glass away and headed out of the hall with the others. There was some Chinese food on the house at the Common Room, very close to Graduate College (where all PG students stay)... Now things get interesting, you see none of us knew the route to get back. So we were roaming about aimless chatting up on stupid miscellaneous things. It turned out most of them couldn't pronounce my name. And suggested names like Kate and Katie and Kitty- oh that one got everyone laughing. "Hello Kitty!" James made a funny bunny face (was supposed to look like a cat, he added later). I threatened to fight him with chopsticks if he said that again!

The place we ended up in, was deserted. That's when we knew, we were in the wrong place. We hiked back and pulled a couple of people up to help us with our way. James spoke to a bunch of Chinese people who spoke in Cantonese and it didn't look like he understood it. I cursed the campus map 'cause it's not really comprehensive. Really now, the map doesn't coincide with the place, they've got their scale and proportion all wrong. After aimlessly strolling by, we see people. A mob. A crazy mob. Chinese aroma filling up the room. YUP! this is about right. We all knew, but were worried if we didn't get any food. We came up with all sorts of things to get the crowd out of our way, but the best was James' flatmate, Patrick, an Irish "lad" doing PhD in Nuclear Engineering. "Oh nowt a problem," he says calmly while scanning the crowd then looked at us,"Step back peowple, lemme explowd this place!" he said in an Irish accent, I'm certain I can't imitate.

So we inch our way to the table with pathetic Chinese food,(which we were out in the cold and starving for), when we meet a comical Russian, Sergjy aka C.J. I just tried really hard not to look surprised at this alarmingly natural orange hair. He was talking something about Borat... Umm.. I wasn't really listening. But anyway, after dinner we bid our good nights and headed for some warmth and a good night's rest.
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The following week I met Jo... I'll write about that soon! 
Cheers to that night! :)