What students do in a small town.....

Well, it has been an eventful, yet not so eventful time since spring break ended and we returned home to finish our last weeks. I had an essay due the day we got back, so I jumped right back into the academics. However, it was not just school work waiting for us. With the end of April going by and May coming around the corner, the students get to have a little more fun. For one thing, we attended the CU (Christian Union) Ball on the following Saturday of our return, which was lovely. It was held in the building where we attend church on Sundays, and there was a wonderful sit down dinner that we were served by our fellow students. We then had a time of worship, and then we got down! We had a ceilidh, a bop (basically a DJ and dancing) and had the time of our lives, dancing reels, mixers, and other such fun dances. Hailey, Meg and I hung out with some of the other Baylor kids, and one of their roommates from Sally's, a British guy named Jaime who is the equivalent of a California boy. He surfs quite a lot, and unlike other English people, actually tans! He apparently takes a dip in the North Sea every month, which leads me to our next adventure - the pre-May dip.
Each year, the students of the university do what is called the May Dip. Basically, they all run into the North Sea at dawn on May 1st. I think they are absolutely insane, and do it because there is not much else to do. But anyways, we few decided we would do a dip before the big day. We woke up Monday morning, Hailey, Meg and I ran to Castle sands, and waited for our partners in crime to arrive. It was a beautiful day and I can safely say if we were going to dip any day, this was the day to do it. The rest of the group arrived, and we (That is, Hailey and I) decided to jump in cold turkey......that was interesting....it makes me realize now how quickly the Titanic people died.....the water was FREEZING! I kept thinking, why are we doing this?! We are cer-azy people! But it turned out to be a fun thing to start off the week, albeit cold....And it all led to the big day.....
April 30, 2010, 9:50 pm. I decide, hey I have to get up at 4 am tomorrow morning, I'm going to go to sleep early.....well, you see the thing is, students over here don't believe in going to bed the night before the May Dip. They stay up, drink, talk, and have a jolly good time at the expense of the few people actually trying to sleep. It felt like an afternoon, not the middle of the night, in my corridor, with doors slamming and people laughing. Finally at about 3:15 in the morning, I heard a few people enter a room a few doors down, and they must have been waiting for whoever it was because I heard a jubilant cry of "To the Beach!" and a mass of people heading out. I finally gave up after getting about two solid hours of sleep, and around 3:45 received a text from Megan asking me if I was awake. My reply: Unfortunately :/ I tumbled out of bed and threw some random clothes on, and made my way to our usual meeting point. As I arrived, we all asked ourselves the same question. "Who's crazy idea was this?!" But as a JSA, you just have to do everything.....So we arrived at Castle sands...to total mayhem. The cops were controlling the groupings of people going down, because the sands is a very small beach. I felt like I was at a concert, because I literally had no control over my body. I was moving and swaying with the crowd we were that packed together. When we finally reached the sand, we were surrounded by screaming people running into the water, a dozen little bonfires with shivering people huddled around them, and yes, the occasional nude male (thankfully nothing was seen by any of us) who'd gone in with his friends without any attire. Mhmmm. We quickly stripped to our bathing suits, and amidst the crowds, ran into the water. Meg was the bravest of all of us, running in and diving under. Nobody else made it that far. But we sure didn't stay in for long! We ran back out and found a spot by a smoking fire for a few moments to try to get some feeling back. Making our way back up the hill was a bit interesting, but we finally made it out, and made our way down the deserted Market Street. The sun had risen and the cool morning light was coming over the town. I parted ways with Meg and Hailey and made my way back to New Hall. I thought that since I was awake, it would be impossible for me to go back to sleep. It was about 5:30 am. I stayed up for about an hour, then thought "what's the harm in trying to sleep?" and so turned out the lights, and got into bed. about three hours later I woke up, saw it was time for breakfast, and didn't care one bit. I went back to sleep and finally got out of bed at 11:30! Oh yeah, it was good :) To finish the evening off, I met Meg and Hailey outside Uni Hall, and ended a good week with fireworks! Legit fireworks too, not pansy, stupid ones. It really was fantastic. And we were close enough that we actually saw the firemen setting them off. That was pretty cool. So while in the UK, at least in Scotland for sure, there are very few things to do in a small town that closes up at 9, the students make do, and make up crazy things like May Dips and other such health risking events.......gotta love it.....

Cheers!