Valentines and Postgraduates

Well today is St. Valentine's day and though I could simply pass this day by, it is almost impossible to avoid it - even blogger has a little heart shaped logo today. As such, some mention will also be given in my blog.

Valentine's day truly is one of those odd days which can almost go un-noticed by many people, is either a time of great joy and thankfulness or great sorrow and pain for others, and just brings about some very odd behaviour in general. As I am being informed by those around me I am an 'incurable romantic', but even I approach today with a shudder. It is just random. So much pressure placed on one random day in February to be 'super romantic'. Why not give someone you care about a card or flowers at numerous other times of the year? Hmm... Anyway. It is an day of oddness and odd behaviour.

And University is a place where the odd behaviour becomes even more apparent. A particularly bizarre part of valentine's day at Liverpool is the 'Vet Valentine'. For those unfamilar with this vet 'tradition', then it is common place for the first year vets to offer to perform a 'Vet Valentine' on some unsuspecting person, in return for a small amount of money to be donated to an animal charity. Those lucky people who are nominated to recieve a 'Vet Valentine' will, in the course of the day, be tracked down in their lectures and, well, humiliated in vet related ways. For example people may be given a 'physical', during which a 'team' of first year vets will invite the honoured recepient down to the front of the lecture theatre, and infront of200 of their peers, they will be asked to drop their trousers, get down on all fours, have their legs shaved (if they are a guy), be given their worming medicine (usually vodka adminstered with a worming gun normally used on sheep), and then forced to be 'ridden' like a horse around the front of the lecture theatre whilst neighing. So, very, very, very odd. And yet it fits in perfectly well with the rest of vet/medicine culture at uni.

Admittedly it is probably the most extreme example of university valentine's day oddness but hey, there you go.

Away from valentine's day then i've been having a few days of being an extreme post-graduate. By that I mean that I've had lots of contact with postgrads in the last two days. Yesterday I went to meet up with an old friend from my history degree who is now also a postgrad at Liverpool, and it was cool to meet up and discuss courses, reminise about liverpool two years ago, and to discuss our respective futures. I also had the opportunity to spend some time with two other postgrads who joined us in No. 5 (the Faculty of Arts coffee shop - synonomous with postgrads and arty people). One was a grandmother who I worked with before as part of my research training course last year, and she continues to amaze me in her rebellious tendancies. Seriously, inspite of being both a grandmother and a retired teacher, she fights tooth-and-nail against all forms of university authority. It is amazing to see sometimes, believe me.

The other post-graduate was a guy who used to serve in the army, and he happened to be stationed in N Ireland. And man, did he have some interesting stories. Over the short time that I had to speak to him, he explained to us the reality of being on riot duty, as well as other interesting stories. Facinating.

And today I also came across some more interesting postgrad types in a 'poster making workshop' - yes, yes, I know it sounds like something more akin to primary school (they even tried to encourage us by saying that we were 'poster pioneers'), but hey I had to go. Postgrads really are a different breed though.

On that however I shall stop blogging and go and try to be more productive. The picture is from my brief trip home the other day.