Who needs sleep anyway?
Oct. 30th, 2003 03:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotherusedpageSo, I got back from singing the Mikado at about eleven o clock at night, having drunk about half a bottle of red wine. This is how I spend my Wednesday evenings - my big scary tute is done for the week, so what else is there to do but eat, drink and sing Gilbert and Sullivan? I was sitting in the room of Amy, one of my G and S buddies and we were chatting about musicals and she decided to force me to sit through Evita. I've never seen Evita before because I have a violent aversion to 1) Madonna and 2) Eva Peron - My aunt-by-marriage's dad was imprisoned for chucking a molotov cocktail at her and ended up in prison with Che Guevarra which I can't spell and is totally beside the point, but hey.
So there we were about three scenes from the end - and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I'm going to have to go back and watch the last couple of scenes at some point, I think - when the fire bell goes off. It's about one in the morning by this point. Grab coat down stairs out of building - our formal gathering point seems to be in the middle of Oxford High Street in the way of all the traffic. From there you can see straight into halls, as the building is a massive sixties monstrosity and has huge ugly glass windows. We stood and watched people evacuating. It was like something out of a cartoon, they had to go along the glass corridor in one direction and then they dissapeared to go down the stairs and then you could see them going along the next corridor down in the other direction. Classicist James was semi-unconscious and being carried by two buddies, so we thought that maybe something exciting had actually happened, but he turned out just to be drunk. The Dean of Waynflete - which is the poncy name for the guy in charge of halls, he's a sixth year medic student - was running around in nothing but his boxers trying to work out what the hell was going on.
And we stood. And it was cold. And I was fully dressed and had shoes and a coat, so pity those poor people who'd been dragged out of bed and were wearing nothing but a dressing gown.
It turned out to be cigerrettes too near a smoke alarm in a room on the third floor.
So back we all traipsed. It was about two o clock by this point. Unfortunately
a) I live on the groundfloor corridor, which means we have the firedoor in our corridor. When this is opened, it sets of a different alarm which keeps going for an hour and a half after the main alarm's been switched off. You can hear this alarm three floors away with all the doors inbetween shut - in our corridor, it's unbearable.
b) I'd left my bag, and my doorkeys, in Amy's room. She'd managed to misplace her doorkeys.
So. Locked out. Fire alarm still making horrible noises. Hopes of getting to bed any time in the near future receeding into oblivion.
I ended up sitting on the floor of Historian James' room drinking tea and talking politics and football - two of my favourite topics (there are many MANY Jameses in my college - around fourteen in a year of about a hundred and fifty people. Unlike the Johnnys who have picked up tags - Dubious Johnny, Braindead Johnny and Wolverine, amongst others - the Jameses tend to be indentified by subject.). It was actually really good fun. So much so that even when Amy delivered my bag and keys at about two thirty and even when the alarm switched itself off at about three o clock, I sat there and kept chatting....
I really do like James. I think he writes poetry. He's a sweetheart.
It's now four in the morning. James has a nine o clock lecture tomorrow. My only one is at two in the afternoon. Which is very nice and I feel exceedingly smug about.
But it's still four in the morning. And I really ought to go to bed....
So there we were about three scenes from the end - and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I'm going to have to go back and watch the last couple of scenes at some point, I think - when the fire bell goes off. It's about one in the morning by this point. Grab coat down stairs out of building - our formal gathering point seems to be in the middle of Oxford High Street in the way of all the traffic. From there you can see straight into halls, as the building is a massive sixties monstrosity and has huge ugly glass windows. We stood and watched people evacuating. It was like something out of a cartoon, they had to go along the glass corridor in one direction and then they dissapeared to go down the stairs and then you could see them going along the next corridor down in the other direction. Classicist James was semi-unconscious and being carried by two buddies, so we thought that maybe something exciting had actually happened, but he turned out just to be drunk. The Dean of Waynflete - which is the poncy name for the guy in charge of halls, he's a sixth year medic student - was running around in nothing but his boxers trying to work out what the hell was going on.
And we stood. And it was cold. And I was fully dressed and had shoes and a coat, so pity those poor people who'd been dragged out of bed and were wearing nothing but a dressing gown.
It turned out to be cigerrettes too near a smoke alarm in a room on the third floor.
So back we all traipsed. It was about two o clock by this point. Unfortunately
a) I live on the groundfloor corridor, which means we have the firedoor in our corridor. When this is opened, it sets of a different alarm which keeps going for an hour and a half after the main alarm's been switched off. You can hear this alarm three floors away with all the doors inbetween shut - in our corridor, it's unbearable.
b) I'd left my bag, and my doorkeys, in Amy's room. She'd managed to misplace her doorkeys.
So. Locked out. Fire alarm still making horrible noises. Hopes of getting to bed any time in the near future receeding into oblivion.
I ended up sitting on the floor of Historian James' room drinking tea and talking politics and football - two of my favourite topics (there are many MANY Jameses in my college - around fourteen in a year of about a hundred and fifty people. Unlike the Johnnys who have picked up tags - Dubious Johnny, Braindead Johnny and Wolverine, amongst others - the Jameses tend to be indentified by subject.). It was actually really good fun. So much so that even when Amy delivered my bag and keys at about two thirty and even when the alarm switched itself off at about three o clock, I sat there and kept chatting....
I really do like James. I think he writes poetry. He's a sweetheart.
It's now four in the morning. James has a nine o clock lecture tomorrow. My only one is at two in the afternoon. Which is very nice and I feel exceedingly smug about.
But it's still four in the morning. And I really ought to go to bed....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 09:04 pm (UTC)Fire alarms aren't a problem at my residential college, but my friends in the States have awful times with them. Because the drinking age in the US is 21, most college students are too young to drink (legally), so everytime the police come someone sets off an alarm so they can't get into the building. It become so usual that people just ignore the alarms. One night at this sames friends college, there was an actual fire, so she had to go around waking up everyone who had gone back to bed. You don't realise how little sleep you can function on until you stay at a residential college. And I hope you did eventually get to sleep.
James sounds adorable. All the guys named James I meet are perfect gentlemen, but in Australia it's the Dylans and the Jasons that are dodgy, not the Johnnies. I need a James. Good luck with yours :)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-30 03:07 am (UTC)Interesting is a great word to describe my family. Loved your story too.... being the first woman to drop out of Yale is quite something....
Ignoring fire alarms.... people are already pretty complacent here (this was our second one in three weeks. Last time it was the candles on someone's birthday cake...) but you actually COULDN'T go back to sleep with our alarm. It's thoroughly loud and unpleasant. Probably my best every fire alarm story was when at my last school someone managed to accidentally-on-purpose lock a maths teacher in a supply cupboard as the alarm was going off. Despite the search parties, it took them most of the afternoon to find him, mostly because when the rumour got out of where he was they said they'd expell whoever had done it, so of course the guy wouldn't then come forward and admit exactly WHERE he'd locked the teacher up....
So yeah. Good luck with finding a James... and I'll let you know if mine goes anywhere...