(no subject)

[anotherusedpage]

The new Rennaisance tutor at Magdalen who yes I've just had my first tute with a week before my finals, is a wonderful, wonderful young woman of the same type as Elisabeth, my favourite mediaevalist. She really cheered me up, she liked what I did, and she managed to say 'almost a first, but...' without making me burst into tears. I feel much more optimistic than yesterday, not just over finals but about the institution of Oxford as a whole, because I was getting to the point where I was thinking that Someone Like Me just wasn't ever going to do well in this damn place.

The front of New Buildings is covered with lavender flowers. In fact, large swathes of Magdalen are covered with lavender flowers. My exams finish on the Glorious Twenty-Fifth, I suddenly realise. (Were you there? howdotheyrise). I have the urge to wear lavender instead of a red carnation as my button hole because yes I am that much of a Terry Pratchett geek...

Comments

[chrisvenus]

wear both? The red carnation is an excellent tradition that should really be upheld but the lavendar thing does also have an appeal. I see no reason not to go with them both. :)

Must read nightwatch again. Possibly having bought it first. I lose track of which I own now... :)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Fine idea, that man. :)

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I worship at that icon's feet.

Damn, the 25th has sneaked up on me without me realising. Ho hum. Wonder where the nearest flower shop is...

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*grin* you could always come nick some from Magdalen next time you're heading oxfordway

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

O.o.

Ah cos I am so meagrely educated I know nothing of this tradition m'dear, can you elucidate? Is it usually a red carnation? If so, why?

Big fan of lavender here, and it would be highly evocative, yes. *is also a minor Pratchett geek but doesn't get that allusion either*

*sighs*

*kicks self in brain*

*goes back to downloading Supernatural episodes and realises why grey matter has turned to shite, ha ha*

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

It is a white carnation on the first exam, pink on the middle ones and red on the last. Summat about students used to wear white ones, and leave them in their red ink wells and they'd slowly turn red over the course of their exams.

Oscar Wilde is supposed to have used green ink to turn his green.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

It's a Night Watch reference. All the people involved in the Glorious Revolotion of Ankhe Morpork wear lilacs to commemorate it on the 25th of May.

To sit exams in Oxford, you have to dress up in silly clothings. What I've always described as the bat-cape-and-ribbon ensemble. It's compulsory, and means that you get look very picturesque for the tourists. You also wear a carnation as a button hole, as vampire_kitten said, historically you were supposed to start with a white one, and leave it in your inkwell (with red ink, to reduce chances of people being able to submit prewritten essays, because true red ink was rare and expensive). It gradually turned red.

Picture ganked off Google, I have no idea who the girl is... http://www.dayorama.com/archives/amy_before_after_finals.jpg

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

*stops watching Supernatural in pursuit instead of something elegant and interesting*

Oh, yes, I did sort of know that. Not the red ink connection though, and that's exceptionally sweet.

It would appear that its high time I dusted off Night Watch and refreshed my memory of it, as it's entirely one of my favourite. *sighs* The stack of Books Which Must Be Read By The End Of The Year is tall enough to challenge the Tower Of Pisa and balanced just as precariously. I may well be killed soon in a literary avalanche of epic proportions. *g*

Oh go with the lavender hun. A far better sent than the average carnation. To me they tend to have all the perfume of, well, nothing....

[shoolessdwarf.livejournal.com]

before i even begin to read the actual post can i just pool myself in a puddle at your feet and squee in delight at your icon. And also demand that at some point you and your missus are about at the same time as mat, so you can actually meet him. Are you gonna come and see the summer school show this year, because i may be able to drag him down.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll almost certainly be there :)