 |
| Stef (with her fading highlighter), Me, and Collins |
In the air, on Facebook news
feed, everywhere, I felt the change was almost tangible: the summer month of
June had arrived. June 1st. I spent the morning writing letters and
blogging until noon. This was my last full day at UEA, beginning the onset of
the waves and seas of good-byes. Stephen, my flatmate, stopped by my room in
the early afternoon and said good-bye. I hadn’t seen him around the flat in the
last month too much, but all the same, he brought something to the dynamics and
personality of the flat. My next stop was the library, visiting Stef and James
Collins in the single-desk carrels, busy studying/ freaking out for their
Shakespeare exam. It was good to see them, hearing Stef’s light-hearted agony
over her fading highlighter and Collins’ holiday he took before this week. After
the picture (shown here), I waved and headed out of the library, returning to
the flat.
I put on a small free-for-all in my room: anything on the desk
was game. Dan and Charlie were the first on the scene, Charlie ending up with a
nice jumper I never wore (and he wore it for the night out, which made me sure
that it was in better hands now). Irish Laura and Gemma later came in, for
books and other items. Alvin took the last of the nice pens that everyone
seemed to like. It felt good to give away things, especially to my flatmates
who had welcomed me and Vinnie into the flat midway through the year. Dan was
generous enough to let me use his guitar this semester; Charlie offered to let
me ride with him to London tomorrow; Irish Laura cleared up a piano room swipe
card issue for me; Marie and Jen extended me the opportunity to walk around the
lake with them (and go otter-spotting); and there are so many more examples of
my flatmates’ kindness.
Excitement soared when I heard about a USA Special meal deal with Charlie, Dan, Alvin, Vinnie, and Steve (Marie’s new boyfriend). We finally ordered around 5, getting with each £20 order two pizzas of any topping, a 2-L coke, garlic bread, slice of chocolate cake, and chips. Once it came, the kitchen table was checkered with cardboard pizza boxes and garlic bread boxes—and layered with plastic containers with chocolate cake and chips (that is, French fries).
 |
| The Final Game of Yaniv |
Soon the final Yaniv card game began. Steff joined in for a
bit, and Steve played too, helped by his good luck charm Marie. The game was
set to last ‘til 100 points, but then we upped it to 150. Alvin outdid everyone
with a score of 69, with Vinnie doing pretty well for himself with a score of
75—everyone else got into the three digits. It’s hard to explain the scoring
for this game, but essentially if your result for one round brings your
accumulated score to a multiple of 25, you go down 25 points (i.e. you have 33
before the fourth round; by the end of the round/when someone calls ‘Yaniv’
(cards having to be at or below 5), your cards might be something like a joker
(0 points), King (10 points [for all face cards]), an ace (1 point) and a six.
Your new score brings you to 50, which then goes down to 25. Viola).
Then it was the final pregaming—more card games but involving
enchantments. Charlie played the music from his room at first, the group of us
(Marie, Laura, Gemma, Jen, Charlie, Alvin, Dan, Vinnie, and I) first started
out in the corridor and then moved to the kitchen table. A new game was played:
Minority. The players begin by saying two things: Ben Howard or Justin Bieber,
for instance. It’s all about choosing one. Everyone begins shaking one hand
side-to-side (like the gesture for ‘so-so’), making a sharp sound that crescendos
to a ‘nah!’. At this point the players have thumbs up or thumbs down, up
supporting the first thing said (Ben Howard) and down for the second (Justin
Bieber). In this case, everyone but let’s say one loser has thumbs up. That one
Beiber fan has to partake in spirited consumption. And so on.
Next the night brought all of us out to Carnival, where I ran
into Vito for the last time. I was glad I could say good-bye, a fellow European
traveller of mine during April and May. Those trips were some of the best. He
mentioned how his own farewell was going to be bitter, leaving after residing
there for a year and all. Soon all of the group, listed above, headed to Prince
of Wales, where we entered some free-entry places. As Charlie put it later,
‘They both sucked, but we had a good time anyway.’
Back at the flat at 3:30am, there was a final walk around the
lake and sleeping in the hall (a few, Vinnie, Dan, and Jen, brought out their
mattresses and slept there), but I couldn’t stay awake for any of it. I dropped
into my bed and sleep simultaneously.
 |
| Our Last Night Out |
No comments:
Post a Comment