CTS squash

[jack]

Last night was the tolkien squash. We picked up food and stuff from sainsbury's and successfully negotiated with trinity porters for the key.

I may have been slightly tense at this point (sorry). I think it's being responsible for something else, when I'm primarily concentrating on work.

I returned to Great Gate to form a walking party, with Tim and Naath -- who it was nice to see again -- but the freshers managed to totally elude us. I genuinely have no idea how they managed this: they claim to have been outside at the same time we were, but we were constantly looking for *any* lone/small group of people waiting, and there weren't any.

But once the squash started it seemed to go well. It was jolly. I chatted to a lot of old friends, was insulted a bit, and met freshers. Quite a lot turned up, and several joined. Matthew assures us that next year we'll start having second-generation CTS people in cambridge.

We had freshers of the several stripes we hoped for, from obscure-elvish-names to obscure-elvish-slash, and despite a few awkward moments, no-one seemed very scared. There did seem to be a tendancy to divide entirely by sex (or possibly by slash-ness).

There were a few short speaches introducing the committee, but theses were entirely impromptu. Formal speeches in trinity rooms require a variety of permissions to ensure freedom of speech, in a sensible-but-apparently-ironic way.

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

insulted how?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I can't remember now. It was just Pippa and Sonic teasing me.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you meant that you were insulted by my "Wah! Where's the mathom party!" comment about your lovely termcard (which is pretty, so you FIBBED about that, didn't you eh?)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, not at all. Any real miff would have been said so, not olluded to obliquiely, honest.

Fibbed what? You mean about it going to be boring? I meant "doesn't have the faded dragon ivy poster thing in the background, sorry".

"lovely termcard" <-- Sugar (or possibly sarcasm) is good :)

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you said it was boring, but it wasn't, it was shiny with a nice pretty icon and nice fonts and good layout and good descriptive text and stuff.

And I'm not and wasn't being sarcastic! So ner ;-P

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. I didn't think you were, but same difference :)

Well, ok, not very boring, I guess I need more expressive smilies after that... The point is that I made it in half an hour (by c&p the title and elvish from the flier and the text from Naath's website) and I wanted to clarify that.

(Of course, I have different ideas of 'acceptable' to other people. I remember producing publications for the industrial society, and just can't produce something with pixel-alignment errors and the like, and being amazed other people couldn't see this, and I still don't know which of us was right.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Reading that, I seem to be defensive -- I seem to place more importance on my flier-evaluation than my flier-creation. I have no idea why this is, I just thought it was interesting :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

you mean it's important people know what you think, even if they don't like your fliers?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I meant, I seem to be more embarassed by admitting ignorance than other faults, so contrary to expectation I seem to have been more defensive about claiming my statement was accurate, than about claiming my fliers were good. I know this is odd.

[mair_in_grenderich]

ooh, look over there, there's a strange man!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

?

[mair_in_grenderich]

you said it ):

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Is that MethSoc Tim?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yep. Methsoccers get everywhere, don't they? :)

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Indeed we do!

[senji.livejournal.com]

You appear to be implying that obscure-elvish-names people are mail and obscure-elvish-slash female.

Or possibly the other way around.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

In furtherence of humorous stereotypes, yes.

[senji.livejournal.com]

Of course, I mean "male" not "item of post" :)

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

[giggles]

[mair_in_grenderich]

but they are in the post.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The Czech is in the male. Errrr.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

What is a Tolkien squash? I take it from the context that it is neither an energetic sport nor a vegetable... :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Tolkien = Cambridge Tolkien Society

Squash = cambridge term. A society starts the year inviting new students to join them somewhere and ply them with lemonade and wine and persuade them to come again. I don't know where it started.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. :-)

Perhaps it came from the idea of squashing as many of 'em into one room as possible?

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Did I insult you? I don't remember saying anything I intended to be an insult... ;)

*has idea* You *could* give out your mobile number to people if you're leading walking parties in the future, though I know it's not ideal. Or you could ask people to sign up to a walking party in advance and provide their own numbers. Hmm, that sounds so practical...

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

PS Is this picture good or bad?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Um. I think you would have been pretty, but I'm afraid the icon seems a bit pixelated and glary, so it doesn't really work as well. But I'm sorry, someone else may have the other opinion.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Did I insult you? I don't remember saying anything I intended to be an insult... ;)

Well, it wasn't *really*. I think it was something sonic was saying, and i didn't hear, and you were btoh laughing... ring any bells?

[sonicdrift.livejournal.com]

We did tell you what was so amusing. I don't think it was overly insulting, I think I just twisted what you were saying about fanfic, the internet and 14 year old girls.

PS. Is Saturday happening? Does Trinity have a room? As I think more than 10 people may show up and if they do they'll have to suspend themselves from the ceiling or stand in my lavender bushes and watch through the window.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I think winstanly charged, so possible, but unideal. No-one else volunteered to obtain a college theatre, and I unfortunately never followed anyone up. I think it's better to leave it till next week than major squeeze[1], but should confer with another committee member or two tonight.

[1] Gah! Why do some words thrust[1] themselves to prominence on a given day??

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

*has idea* You *could* give out your mobile number to people if you're leading walking parties in the future, though I know it's not ideal. Or you could ask people to sign up to a walking party in advance and provide their own numbers. Hmm, that sounds so practical...

Yes. What I'd *hoped* to do, but didn't have time to organise, was to find a distinct (preferably tolkien-related) hat so people could find *me* easily.

Mobile number: ok for eg. foreyule, but I'd rather not email it to a *completely* open mailing list.