Y4-2: a summary of my first term III – my 21st, A Night With The Stars & a few other things

Hey hey hey

Here’s my third update post, which is going to be quite a random one, including a miscellanea of fun stuff I did (yes, I also do a degree).

First up, on the 9^th of November it was my birthday. (Un)fortunately for me, it was reading week, meaning I didn't have any classes but most of my course mates were away/ill so I didn’t have a big party (not that I’m a fan of them anyway). I started the day opening the few presents my family had sent me (and spilling glitter all over my bed – thanks nieces and nephew). I got a lovely bunch of drawings and cards to showcase on my chimney. I then went for birthday brunch in Wild Café with Megan. She surprised me with some flowers and a bunch of presents, inclusing ricciarelli! On our way to the café we discovered an apericena place we are still yet to try, (YASSS APERICENA). Brunch itself was really nice. Megs nearly fell off the table taking her Instagram picture and the bacon pancakes were really good. 

After that I went shopping for some treats; I decided to get myself a dress and jumper I’d been eyeing up, as well as some new heels (which turned out to be hell but are so pretty!). Amélie and Liam surprised me with cake for lunch and a massive blazing candle that I’m surprised didn’t burn the house down! And then in the afternoon I had to go up to campus for rehearsals, but was fortunate enough to have BUSMS sing me ‘Happy Birthday’ which was so cute! That night I went out to Latin Loco with Megan and although it was pretty empty, we danced the night away to reggeaton, like the old times in Siena. Not bad for being 21.

Last semester I was also involved in another BUSMS show, ‘A Night With the Stars’. It was a revue show of musical classics in the form of an award ceremony. Still recovering from my In The Heights final meltdown, I auditioned and got cast in Bend and Snap from Legally Blonde and – for the first time- given a sung line in Welcome To The Rock from Come From Away. I also decided to be chorus for Another Day of Sun (La La Land) and the finale Say Yeah from Kinky Boots. Four songs was more than enough as we literally had three weeks of rehearsals and then straight into show week so it was absolutely manic, including being put in the spins group for the finale and changing the choreo all the time up until literally the day before dress rehearsal (because we like living on the edge). It was a lot of fun to do though, as always, and I met a tonne of freshers. My favourite number was Welcome to the Rock (you should listen to it!) and I had a blast. This time I actually made it to the aftershow and had a fab night and saw a lot of old friends. Ended up walking back into town at around 4 or 5 with Zach while he convinced me to give Made in Dagenham a shot lol

A few extra things I did this past semester:

·         Societies Masquerade Ball with BUSMS, Connie and Megs. It was a really nice excuse to dress up and look fancy. Hosted at the Guildhall, I made a poor choice of heels which meant I spent a lot of the night bare foot (along with half of the girls who attended) but I had a blast dancing with the BUSMS’ lot, taking a tonne of photos and generally enjoying the company. It was definitely a great night.

·         The Christmas market. Despite living in town this year, I was so busy with deadlines and other events towards the end of the semester that I didn’t have much time to check the market out. I made the big mistake of going shopping in town on the first Saturday of the market (also the day after Black Friday and with a rugby match). I immediately regretted it and so I ended up roaming around the market on a Wednesday evening with Megan and getting a few presents. It was so much nicer then and it definitely got me into the spirit so making time for that was a good decision.

·         Seeing shows. This time I’ve taken it upon me to make the most of the shows that students put up at The Edge. I went to the Aquapella Christmas concert with Megs and I really enjoyed it. I also went to the BodySoc performance to support my gal dancing salsa and was amazed by the talent we have at this uni. And I went to see BUST’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, called ‘Wonderland’ and written by Sarah who is a girl from my course. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I went on my own but got a great seat and saw a few busms-ers around. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece. Everything from dialogues to acting to costume to lighting to mise-en-scène was so, so good. I wish I had it recorded so I could watch it again.

·         Generally more socialising. Not only with societies – the BUSMS girls went out on a cocktail night which was so much fun, but also we’ve had a tonne of different BUSMS socials over the semester- but with friends in general. We’ve organized a few meals out or at people’s houses which I think is a lovely excuse to get together and I hope we keep doing it next semester (Megan and Connie already owe me a meal). We also had an Italian tandem event with Italians working in Bath and Erasmus students organized by Enrico. Unfortunately, I was way too busy to meet during the semester for regular coffee dates but I did organize an Italianist’s drinks night out which turned out pretty well. We had a few Erasmus students and language students come along and we got to practice languages and play Taboo and forget about deadlines for a bit. Hopefully we can do the same with the students coming next semester and those staying for the year, because it certainly was a lot of fun.

So, all in all, I think I cannot complain about last semester. I enjoyed my lessons although the stakes have been raised and I have had to work my butt off, but I have had a lot of fun and would not change a thing! From BUSMS to fencing to generally just loving life a bit more and making the most of it, I am pleased with what I’ve done.

I spent the break at home writing essays and seeing people I hadn’t seen in ages. I decided not to plan my life and just roll with it: Lobos games, Chinese food with the gals, a photoshoot with Gema, enjoying a different New Year’s not being hungover but rather swimming in La Punta and admiring the sunset… I watched Sunset Boulevard with Dad and drove again after four months with Sebas, I saw the family and went on (only a couple) morning runs to take in the sea breeze and, generally, I enjoyed the warmer weather before coming back to Bath as I am not going back home until July.

Bath this January has been pretty nice to me. I have spent a lot of time procrastinating and watching TV shows, but have also successfully finished my exams. It is now time to rest, travel and plan next year before the new semester starts and my life becomes madness all over again.

I will try to keep you posted,

Zoe

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Y4-2: a summary of my first term II – fencing, living in town and learning German

Hey,

Next installment of my long-awaited update, here we go.

As some of you might know, I ran for being Social Secretary for the fencing club this year and got the position. Bear in mind, when I did fencing in my second year there were about 40 members, of which pretty much the same 10 people attended the socials. This was the idea I had when getting into it. To my surprise, this year the club has become incredibly popular, with us pretty much doubling the membership aim we’d set (which already was higher, 65 members). Turns out, we have over 120 members this year! So suddenly my role as Social Sec has become vastly more relevant… Me, an introvert, being Social Sec. What was I thinking?

Fortunately, it has gone well so far.

The first event we had as a committee was, of course, our stand on Parade during Sports’ Day in Freshers’ Week. I got the chance to meet the rest of the committee, since I only knew James and had seen Xavier a couple of times. We managed to fill in the position of Secretary and we pretty much have the complete committee this year, even non-core positions. Everybody is super nice and helpful and I think we work well as a team which is fantastic.

During Sports Day we were assigned a great spot right outside the Library and we set up a table with some fencing videos and some of the equipment. So many people were interested and signed up on the spread sheet; we got a few queues and all with about 180 people interested on coming to the tasters. It was definitely a huge success and I think the fact that I was there (clueless about fencing as I actually am), but representing the female side of the club was also a good incentive because the table was quite male-heavy. The fact that Ben and Will were in full gear letting people hit them with swords probably helped to raise interest too…

This year we run foil and épée classes for beginners and have moved to the fencing salle so all the equipment is in the same place. The two taster sessions went super well and a lot of people showed up, so much that we’ve had to order extra equipment to cater for the amount of members. Although attendance died down with the weeks, the training sessions are still pretty popular (nothing compared with the situation in my second year lol). I haven’t managed to attend that many myself because of rehearsals and deadlines, but the few I did were pretty good. Not doing a great job at being a role model, but I do what I can. Next semester will be tough though because I can’t attend foil so will only be able to do an hour a week unless I try the Friday Open Sessions…

That is another point; we have three teams this year. Not only the Men’s First, but also a Men’s Second and a Women’s Team, such a massive achievement! Teams have been getting really good results in the BUCS matches, so we’re all very happy. Honestly, this year has been a really good one for the club: membership, BUCS, Inclusivity Award… We’re working hard to improve and slowly but surely we’re getting there!

Now, what about socials? Like, that’s my job. Well, we had a few socials last semester. I have to say, I’ve found it slightly hard to find time for everything, but I’ve managed. I organized a few different things last semester and am planning some extra ones for this one.

·         Welcome Social: Black & White Pub Crawl challenge. We had a decent turnout of about 30 people and so I split the groups into returners (black) and freshers (white) and handed out a list of challenges to complete as we hit a few pubs in town. Will and I stuck with the freshers to make sure they knew what they were doing and it was a fun night of drinks and weird tasks: line dancing, human pyramids, getting stranger’s numbers, finding birthday buddies… I have a tonne of videos from that night and I think everybody enjoyed themselves and got to know each other. The night ended in Po’s but the very tired Social Sec who’d come straight from a full day of In The Heights rehearsals decided to skip that and head home.

·         Score. Fencing has successfully made it to a few Score nights. With freshers hosting on campus and all sorts of crazy themes, it is definitely the night out for sport clubs in Bath.

·         Glitter social. I made the mistake of setting this on Bonfire Night, but a few people  still showed up. The plan was meeting in Spoons and then heading to Komedia. Spoons was good, I managed to grab a table and had a good chat with a few different people but because of the fireworks, the bunch going into Komedia didn’t seem like a lot of fun so we changed plans and ended up in Canon having a few drinks. The night definitely didn’t go to plan, but I still had a lot of fun ngl

·         Ice skating. This was honestly such a fun social. Making the most of the ice rink for Christmas, I organized a trip to ice skate. Quite a few people showed up and because it wasn’t the usual night out with alcohol involved we had a few different people coming which was a good surprise. It was a lot of fun to see everybody skate or attempt to. Megs came along and we had to help Simon out who was holding onto dear life trying to skate around the rink. We laughed so, so much! The BUSMS lot was around too so I also made it into their photo (cheeky).

·         Snowball. The Sports event of the year. Left it super last minute and we ended up having pre-drinks at Slug and Lettuce. Fortunately James and I managed to score a few tables and took over a space by the bar. It was really busy though and quite hard to get drinks because they took forever, but it was nice to have some time to chat before heading to The Pavilion. Quite a lot of people came, both beginners and advanced. Lydia, James and Ben handed out awards and then we went over to the ball. So busy but I had a great night. Some people had one too many drinks but we got a few crazy photos together and I also saw Megan, Erin and Jess which was super nice. I had a great night, who am I trying to fool.

·         Christmas Meal. This was the one that took most time to organize. I hosted the meal at The Westgate, which has been renovated. The place is super nice. Had to pay a deposit and set up an online product for the menu and choices and chase quite a lot of people down and it was all a bit of a nightmare, but the night itself was good. The food was great, I made little presents with Christmas greetings from the club and all in all everybody enjoyed it. We then ended up in Spoons playing charades and Pictionary… And I also met another Spanish girl who fences, what?

This next semester we have a few non-alcoholic events to plan and some other fun socials so I hope it will go well. My aim is to try to go to the épée sessions weekly and not make excuses, as well as actually go an support the teams on at least one of their home matches (I’ve been slacking, I know). I’m pretty pleased with how the social side of the club has gone so far, so I just need to keep it up.

On another note, I now live in town which has made my Social Sec job so much easier too as I can just go to the venues/home quite quickly. I share a second floor flat with Amélie (and Liam) by the Rugby Rec and Pultney Bridge. Let me say, the upgrade from Oldfield is insane and definitely worth the money. Although the house has been quite cold in the winter (I’ve got myself a convector heater because the night storage ones aren’t warm enough), the flat itself is super nice. It has just the things we need and my room is super big with a double bed. The kitchen is new and has a lot of storage space and the neighbourhood is amazing. Ffs, I walk down Great Pultney Street every day, how can I complain? It is pretty expensive but for final year I just wanted the convenience of sharing a house with Amélie that was close to the centre and I definitely have that. Only sad part is I’m not allowed hanging posters and I’m a sucker for posters so I’m quite bummed about that. I’ve made do with a cork board though… It’s been super convenient to be able to head into town for dinners or club nights and then only having to walk for like ten minutes to get into my house. Great upgrade, 10/10 would recommend. Oh, I also adopted a succulent for my window and decided to name it Bruce. I have successfully managed to care for it and not kill it (yet).

Finally in this post (it’s quite long as is), last semester I took up German lessons. I initially wanted to continue with Arabic but I had dropped it during my Year Abroad and so decided taking level two in my final year would most likely be a bad idea. I am so glad I did that because even with German I had no time to do homework and revision and only passed my exams because I’d attended the lessons and fortunately had done some German before aaaaaages ago. The teacher was a lovely woman but the course was not very structured and she was not the best at explaining things. The first week there was confusion with the rooms and the class lists and it didn’t have a great start honestly. I met a few cool people on the course, Katy and Esther and Kieran, but the two weekly hours were not really worth it. I will be able to introduce myself and ask for my room at the hostel when I go to Berlin in a few weeks, but that’s about it! No German next semester, have better things with which to use my time.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the second update. The third and potentially final one will come in the next few days. I plan on writing about Berlin after that, but I can’t promise when that will come along so enjoy while you can!

‘til next time!

Zoe

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Y4-2: a summary of my first term I – In The Heights & my course

Hello all,

Wow! It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted, probably the longest time I’ve been silent on the blog since I decided to start writing regularly back in first year… Forgive me, but final year has been utter madness, and this time I mean it.

I am now back in Bath after the Christmas break (ready-not-ready) for my exams after spending the break writing my essays due after Reyes. I’m so ready to have my Christmas break back, being at Uni means they are essentially fake holidays since all the essays and exams come right after the break…that’s something I won’t miss after graduating. But anyhow, I have managed to save some time to update you all on my first semester back in Bath. It will take a few posts (this one clearly being the first), as I don’t want to bore you to death but a few of you have asked me if I was still writing, so there you have my lame excuse and long awaited update.

Last time I spoke to you I was in full swing with In The Heights rehearsals. Being involved in an October production was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I must admit it was really intense, with rehearsals running 6 to 8 hours each day for a month (we were setting up an entire musical, mind you). But, as when you do something you love, it felt like nothing and it went by super quickly. Who would have said I’d enjoy being on stage, dancing and singing (what?!), so much. The best part of it is the people you make friendships with during the preparation, and with In The Heights I’ve met some new amazing people, so I am very pleased with that. I didn’t mind waking up early to go to the Music Room at The Edge and learn the horribly complicated harmony lines for Carnaval del Barrio (thanks, Lin-Manuel, your music score certainly was complicated), or dancing and drilling the 96000 choreo in the Dance Studio until I was able to perform it on the go, it was all so much fun! 

Show week was hectic though, as it coincided with the first week of term, meaning I was up on campus until really late throughout most of the week with not only lessons but also full runs, notes or extra rehearsals, and it certainly took its toll. The show went great, with a lot of people praising our efforts with the Spanish accents (believe me, getting Brits to speak like Latinos is no mean feat), and we managed to sell out! I had a great time and I really do love all the prepping that goes into shows and the atmosphere that builds up during performances. 

Unfortunately, the lack of sleep and exhaustion got to me on the last night, which I barely managed to get through (although you wouldn’t tell by the video recording of the musical), and I ended up just about making it to PT presents before I gave up and had to go home. I was super bummed that I’d missed aftershow and brunch as I was really looking forward to it and there were a lot of returners and graduates that I hadn’t seen in over a year, but I literally felt like I was dying, so I had to go. One to learn for the next time.

Now, what about your degree? I hear you ask. Yes, I’m meant to be here to finish my Modern Languages degree, aren’t I? Well, this semester was tough but I really enjoyed it. During Freshers’ we had out Final Year Inductions and it was super weird to see everybody again; it felt like it was yesterday the last time we’d seen each other but we’d all changed so much!  The Director of Studies’ talk about final year only managed to renew our stress and did not lie about the workload. Basically, this year makes up for around 68% of my overall degree (no stress, huh?), which means that I have to give 110% on any assessed work as it weighs a lot in comparison to previous years. Professors have definitely raised their standards, but I haven’t found it to be anything too, too unachievable. It was hard at the beginning to get into the swing of things since I hadn’t done proper work for over a year (I mean, my Erasmus in Italy didn’t really count as work, I think we all agree), so I definitely struggled to focus at the start. Fortunately, I’ve always been one for time management, organization and prioritizing, meaning I’ve successfully managed to combine the work load with all the different things I did this past semester, which you will soon discover.

Concerning the actual content of my lessons, I definitely think I chose wisely. The language seminars have become far more interesting: oral lessons are more engaging and we are separated in smaller groups which just gives us more of a chance to make the most of it. We’ve had translation for the first time, which has been by far my favourite language module – it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of you given my interest in pursuing a translating and interpreting career! Our teacher is lovely and honestly, the change in teaching in final year is amazing: everybody is comfortable around each other since we’ve known each other for so long and the teachers are so much more engaging with us, it’s great! Translation is sometimes challenging, particularly since the exam involved translating a newspaper article and literary extract with no access to a dictionary, but I’d really enjoyed it. We even got the chance to give interpreting a test run with a two-way interpreting exercise set at a police office in which we had to translate for both the police officer and the client in English and Italian. Tough work, but I didn’t do too bad! Translation for French has the same structure and teacher, but I have my exam next week so wish me luck!

The content modules last semester were also super interesting and I found myself to be under the overarching theme of feminism. I took Genre et Politique for French which was definitely the best choice ever. I had had my eye on it since we choosing modules back in April, but I had decided to go for another more general module about French society in hopes of it being more useful for my future. However, it ended up clashing with foil training and since G&P fit nicely in my timetable, it was a match made in heaven. I am so glad I switched! The content was super varied and interesting, examining the status of women in different fields in not only France but other Western countries. Sandra, the professor, was such an engaging lecturer and a lovely person too, making sure to put in debates and controversial issues and to tailor the lessons to our needs. My seminar group for that module was great – all French and Italian gals- and we discussed LGBTQ+ rights, super interesting! And Sandra even brought treats on the last lesson – so, so sweet!

The Italian module was Italian Women Writers of the 21^st Century with Adalgisa. I must say, despite the lessons being quite lengthy and rich, they were super interesting. I have to admit the books we studied were quite obscure, particularly the presentation of my nightmares on Aracoeli by Elsa Morante. It wasn’t bad because of the topic, which was really interesting concerning mother-son psychoanalytical relationships, but because the novel was hard to read and there was not that much secondary reading and we had problems within our presentation group with some people not pulling their weight. However, we also covered a lot of feminist theory of the 70s which was very useful for my other modules and just interesting to learn about in general! Because the class was quite small, there was room for debate and Adalgisa was sure to encourage it. And I was also lucky to be able to discuss my essay topic with Dad considering his field of study was also feminist writers… Quite the win.

Finally, my third module last semester was European Film. I don’t know why, but whenever I choose a cinema module it never turns out to be what I expected. At least this one was better than the one I took in Siena… We had lessons on Friday afternoon, not the best time, but the lecture group was pretty tiny and there were a few film buffs in there, so I didn’t feel alone haha We studied various filmic trends/genres in European film history like Expressionism, Neorealism, Avant-Garde etc. However, I found the structure quite stiff – we’d have an hour lecture on the topic, then an assigned film to view and discuss the following week – and although the different lecturers were clearly experts in their trends, it felt like there was a slight lack of communication/interest from some of them which was a shame. I did enjoy most of it though, so I’m still happy I chose it. I presented on Paisà by Rossellini and wrote my essay on Almodóvar’s representation of women (see the feminist trend yet again?), both offering interesting topics to study.

That’s pretty much what my lessons have consisted of this semester and I’m looking forward to the ones in my next one as I’m taking Applied Translation Studies in Italian, Avant-Garde movements of the 20^th century and a lecture on Language, Power and Society which sounds super interesting! I don’t have to write a dissertation because it was optional for my class at least, meaning I decided I’d rather have two extra content modules.

I have two exams next week, French Translation and Italian language, but after those I will be a free woman for a bit (lol jk I need to sort out my graduate life). I promise I’ll get a few more posts to you, got so much more to update you on! Please bear with me!

In the meantime,

A presto!

Zoe x

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