Day 5 (In Summary part 1), 12th of Jan: "Friendship Groups"

Norfolk Terrace, UEA. Day 8. 15 January 2012. 12:36.

You might be confused that I date this so late and it's because I'm catching up on writing the last three days.

I plan to stay in today (maybe run eventually) and not do much but recover from these last few days (and nights, definitely cannot forget those) which I will now put down on paper. Just to clarify, the last post “A Jumbled Account” goes over what happened Friday night mostly, but I need to start further back.

Thursday the 12^th of Jan, Day 5: “Friendship Groups”

After waking up in the very quiet dorms (amazing to think that it was actually quiet at one point), I rolled out of bed and went to orientation with Sierra and Rebecca (University of California students from the London Orientation) and during the coffee and tea welcome, I bumped into a guy I had met during the visa check yesterday, Mohamad. He was with a girl named Anna (I actually heard her say her name was “Adam” at first, but I just smiled and went along with it) and I found out that Anna had found Mohamad three floors above her when she was seeking out someone to be friends with in the empty dorms. The three of us decided to sit together and the first part of the presentation was pretty funny without trying to be. There was this whole professionally done set of four five-minute videos about the UK and (another on the UK) and London and Norwich and each one ended with the name of a place and then “…Be a part of it.” The presentations were mostly introductions to campus resources, so I’ll skip over that stuff and get to…

            When I came back to my room, I saw luggage on the other bed. After about five minutes, in came Vinny, a tall, skinny kiwi with a good accent, sociability, and athletic disposition. Later I walked over to his fellow Australian friend’s place and I met Joe, a taller guy with very distinguishable jet black, “floppy” hair. He has quite a rugged look but I would soon learn that he has a sarcastic edge to his speech. There was also another guy, the British Sean, who studied at Vinny and Joe’s Australian university abroad last year so it’s like they were inspired to come to UEA.  They played FIFA on Joe’s laptop for a bit and then we all went over to the blue bar (known for its blue couches and tables) in the Union Pub for International Students’ Night. A group of us gathered in a corner and I got Mohamad and Anna to come too.

Now about the title of this part of the entry: At one point, the student organizers literally wanted people to play board games, yes like Operation, and so when no one moved to get a game, one of them said, “Do you guys just want to stay in your friendship groups or move around?” No response. “All right, I see, so it’s the friendship groups then.” Anna, Mo (as he liked us to call him), and I thought that phrase was funny, so we took it as our own.

The night was fun and led to more and more games and then taxi to the city. Once the blue bar closed, our ten-person group headed to the other side of the pub (the “red” bar with its hence coloured furnishings) and played ring of fire (or King’s Cup). This guy Ross introduced the entire group, person by person, to buy “Red Snake”, basically a Strongbow cider with a nice red colour from a sugary additive. The best part of the drink was the top: Amidst the foam is a red liquid “S”, my favorite letter (for obvious reasons). The game begot more, but the best part was the action that everyone had to do when someone pulled a 4: as fast as you can, you had to head to the nearest wall or window and touch it with three limbs. It’s called “gecko” and looks ridiculous from an outsider’s perspective: a table of people seated round and in the next minute, everyone is wildly crawling above seats to press against the glass. Later on was a taxi ride to the empty club Tao, but I tore up the dance floor with spins and cartwheels and fierce footwork. Joe was impressed, admittedly out of it too. One taxi ride back with my roomie later, I went to bed.