OK, so if you’ve been reading this blog for long enough you might remember that Oliver and Abi have a reputation for pretty awesome birthday presents. But I have to report that this year they have completely outdone themselves, and with such panache that I have no way of ever making up for lost ground in return. But never mind. Last night I travelled up to the distant shores of High Barnet to be presented with the Secret Project (TM): The Doctor’s London Underground Adventure Game*.
That’s right: it’s a handmade, lovingly crafted board game. Based around my life. And with its own unique set of rules. This is, hand on heart, the coolest thing ever:
The beautiful game board
Official playing pieces
Some of my favourite cards from the ‘Deck of Cool’
And some of the worthy adversaries…
So, come on over and face a universe which includes: London Underground, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Merlin, True Blood, Twilight, mango beer, the collapse of Metronet, the ‘RSS Feed’ deck, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Hume, Marx, Hegel, Tybalt Capulet II, the perils of eating fruit – and much more besides! You know you want to…
*Private, non-commercial use only. Only one set ever made, so don’t sue. That includes you, St. Botolph. Take it as a compliment.
I’m easily bought. A chocolate brownie on my birthday (cheers, Mairi), free drinks (Niamh, you’re awesome) and an entire mouth-watering picnic (all you Märak-Freemans totally rock) are only the latest examples of the ongoing auction for my soul – and honestly, if any of you need any serious crimes committed for you in the near future, just ask*. But it’s not just food and drink, oh no! It turns out that e-mailing me photos of (now bygone) merry studenting times will work just as well. And so, in this journal of record, in the year of our Lord two thousand and ten Anno Domini, I would like to take a moment to officially declare to the world that Laura Rouse is a wonderful wonderful person 
Feed me photos, and I will feed you blog love in return
Right, giving a speech tomorrow** so the next task is an urgent examination of what I might actually say…
*Dear law enforcement agencies: stop taking the world so seriously – it’s not good for your health.
** Just to graduating QPCSers. I mean, I say ‘just’ – graduating QPCSers are also wonderful wonderful people. But it’s a niche audience.
Bow-ties should always be slightly wonky
As of Thursday, at least. And predictably I am immediately really busy, so won’t go into the finer details of graduation apart from to say that – until that very moment – I had no idea whether I would be able to kneel down, pseudo-pray to the Master whilst he spoke some magic Latin over me, get up again, bow and walk out of Senate House without freezing in panic or falling over. (I could!) So hurrah for all that
Last week was incredible. Awesome, in the sense that it was packed to the brim with awe! In fact, so much happened that I might now be about to overload my blog with photos just trying to hint at it all, but I’ll give it a go. (Check Facebook later on for more, by the way.) And as I’ve already blogged about Trinity May Ball on Monday, here are just a few pictures to round that off:
Me and Sophie
Promise prepares for battle
And bumping into Caroline, right at the end!
Caius May Ball on Tuesday night perhaps had a more intimate feel, befitting the place where I’ve spent the last three years, and part of the joy was just spending the night running into so many great people. It also had its fair share of big moments, though, including Joshua high-fiving Toploader’s guitarist and walking off with their set-list, tucking into a gingerbread model of the college and watching Tim Key perform his, ahem, very special poetry
Black tie!
Free gaming machines
A gingerbread Caius
Right at the front for Toploader
Look guys, we survived!
Bill and Sharon, plus flowers
So then I went home and spent some time catching up, which I was totally ready to do by this stage. Excitingly, I got the rare honour of visiting Sanna’s mysterious Golders Green Mousehole – which will perhaps play host to rather cosy dinner parties of the future – and spent a milkshake-and-tea-fuelled afternoon with Saoirse on Friday. Halfway through which, incidentally, I decided it was high time for another obsessive check on CamSis… whereupon I discovered that I had somehow walked away from Cambridge with a First! Woo! (Saoirse was there – she knows my natural reaction to news like this is to drop a table on my foot.)
This put me in a rather good mood to go out and see Paul’s band Ethereal Fire, who were – and I say this not just because Paul is an immensely lovable guy – really really good. (Worthy of note, by the way, is that before their set I watched an entire England match in the pub!) Afterwards we all danced / jumped the night away, and at some point it turned midnight and I became 21 years old. Oh, and on the bus back home, we led everyone in a rousing sing-song – the highlight, for me, being We All Live In A London Transport Bus 
Paul invades the floor
I believe the Rocky theme was playing…
My new favourite photo of Abbi
Always with the moves
Mr. Hawaiian Shirt
The next morning we did the traditional birthday present thing, and in particular I want to thank my sisters for giving me presents which perfectly encapsulates our relationships: a personalised beer mug from Tash and a Battlestar Galactica boxset from Katie! And in the evening we all continued family tradition with Pizza Express… aww [Edit – what a fool. Almost forgot about Doctor Who, too!]
Tea with Tash is always good
Happy geeks!
Finally, the week officially ended last night, back in Cambridge, as Simon and I ate chips and watched Galaxy Quest. Hurrah! To be honest, I might not ever have a week quite like it again, but that’s OK – as I said, I have photos Still, graduation on Thursday…
OK, I don’t have time to trawl through photographs at the moment – or even coherently organise my thoughts in full sentences – because Joshua’s coming up in a couple of hours for the Caius May Ball tonight! (Yeah, it’s hedonism central at the moment ) But! Here are some of my highlights from last night:
- The whole crowd loudly demanding Wheatus play Teenage Dirtbag throughout their set, and the moment they actually started
- Quite unexpectedly bumping into Promise in the queue for the dodgems
- The dodgems!
- Being responsible for handing Sophie her first ever piece of candy floss
- Losing to Helen in a night-long eating contest (that girl is impressive)
- The amazing fireworks with an amazing soundtrack – especially the synchronised fire display to the theme from Pirates of The Caribbean!
- Looking out over the Cam and seeing it 99.7% filled by punts, as people took advantage of the river passing through Trinity to also watch the fireworks
- And finally on the fireworks, actually being moved when they played out to Palladio. We used to listen to that in the car all the time!(I think it was at this moment when I had a strong sense that, whatever you might think, I do actually deserve this right now
) - Alphabeat’s entire set. Superb
- Amateur Transplants! Who ended with the famous London Underground song, as you’d expect, but did a whole hour of other hilarious stuff first
- The paps waiting outside at 6 in the morning, clearly waiting for embarrassing photos of Cambridge students
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
