First class and fancy free, She's High Society

On Friday, a momentous event happened. So momenteous, I (and everyone else in the program) was allowed to break one the number 1 rule at Cambridge. I was allowed to walk on the grass!!!!! That's right, I not only was able to walk on the grass, but also loiter there, take off my sandals, and even squish my feet into its immaculate greenness.

That day was the day of the Cambridge banquet, this past Friday. On this evening, dinner was an hour later and we would gather first on the lawn around 7pm to enjoy sherry and white wine. We were told to wear our finest---I wore a black dress with an asymetrical hemline and pulled my hair back. After some primping, I met my friends on the lawn where we admired the grass, savored some white wine, and took photographs. I passed on the sherry since all I could remember about sherry was that Ann of Green Gables passage where she drinks too much of it and ends up being sick.

Once the dinner gong was rung, I entered the dining hall, which had been transformed. Gleaming white tablecloths adorned the table, and fancy programs advertising the banquet were laid on the long, wooden tables. Two glasses of wine were offered to us, both red and white. The meal itself consisted of several courses: a smoked salmon, quail egg, and salad platter, tomato basil soup, steak with potatoes and green beans, and finally, apple charlotte with ice cream for dessert. I mean, quail eggs! I never had quail eggs in my life, and I assumed it had to be some sort of delicacy. The meal was also probably around 50 or 100 dollars each. It was an elaborate affair, and in the typical british manner, it was not quick. It was long and drawn out, with breaks in between courses where students read various pieces about the Cambridge Experience, some written by Sylvia Plath or other former students of Cambridge. I closed the cermeony with a reading by Arthur C. Benson, which truly captured the spirit of our program this summer. At least, our own optimism for the program.

"But it pleases me to think that even now there are men
who live quietly among their books, unambitious, perhaps
unproductive, but forgetting the flight of time, and looking out
into a pleasant garden, with its rustling trees, among the sound of
mellow bells. We are, most of us, too much in a fuss nowadays to
live these gentle, innocent, and beautiful lives; and yet the
University is a place where a poor man, if he be virtuous, may lead
a life of dignity and simplicity, and refined happiness. We make
the mistake of thinking that all can be done by precept, when, as a
matter of fact, example is no less potent a force. To make such
quiet lives possible was to a great extent what these stately and
beautiful places were founded for--that there should be in the busy
world a corner where activities should not be so urgent, and where
life should pass like an old dream, tinged with delicate colour and
soft sound"

Not bad, eh? A bit deep, but enjoyable. After the banquet, completely stuffed, I went for a walk with Yassmeen, Ann Marie, Alan, Sarah, Jason, some of them grad students, and a few undergraduates. We walked around the town, enjoying the difference of Cambridge at night--a lot less touristy, but another venue emerging--the nightlife. People in their twenties and thirties were already gathering at bars or smoking outside on the street. I glimpsed taxi cabs lined up in a long stretch, presumbly for people to take around the city to various clubs and bars. I haven't gone out in Cambridge yet, but hopefully next week, since I heard there is a Karaoke place not too far from the college.

After the walk, I headed straight to bed since the next morning, we would leave for London at 8am!!!