I’ll have to admit, I was a little bit worried about this week’s blog post. My last one was about how I’ve just got here and how I’m still getting used to everything, newness and excitement everywhere. A month has passed since then, and I’m all settled in. The small everyday routines of Trinity have swallowed me whole and now the place feels almost like home. And although I barely left the campus these weeks (the midterms are tough, I’m telling you), Trinity provides more than enough opportunities to have fun and explore without even having to change from my sweatpants.
Last night for example, I went to one of the acapella groups’ concert (yes, Trinity has at least three of them, yes, it’s like in the movie Pitch Perfect) who sang totally random songs in SpongeBob SquarePants costumes in one of Trinity’s oldest rooms with antique wooden decorations everywhere. And this is what makes the whole campus experience so unique: everything is in your reach; you eat, sleep, study and go out in the same half a mile radius which sounds boring, I know, but trust me it’s anything but that. Being able to get everywhere in five minutes has the huge benefit of being able to make totally spontaneous decisions and shake up a boring, rainy evening with a concert or a random dinner in one of the students associations’ houses.
So without further ado, here is a most possibly incomplete list of things I’ve done in the last couple of weeks without having to leave the campus:
Chapel Formal: a rare occasion for students who otherwise can show up in their classes still wearing their PJs to dress up and have a fancy dinner in Trinity’s amazing chapel. This year it was a fundraiser for a student organization which puts together lunchboxes for local kids. If you wanted to donate money, fine, if you applied to help them out, fine, if you only showed up for the free dinner and the fake champagne that’s also perfectly acceptable. What’s important is that you had a good night.
Diwali: one of the International House’s biggest events of the year, the Hindu festival of lights with amazing Indian food, the best variety of soundtracks known mostly from Bollywood movies and even henna paintings if you had the patience to wait in line (which I did not).
Rocky Horror Picture Show: my first American Halloween could not have been the same without this classic and the campus cinema knew this exactly. They not just showed the Rocky Horror Picture Show but they showed it with a live shadow cast. And trust me having a crew acting out the scenes playing on a big screen behind them is something everyone should see once in their lives.
Made Violent: the “alternative” folks of The Mill student club were nice enough to invite the band Made Violent to play in their house, and although I’ve never even heard about them before, and they were a perfect example of an entertaining but easily forgettable hipster indie bands, the whole event just reminded me of Budapest’s underground concert scene which I happened to miss a lot. Jumping around a little bit and shouting random songs makes you forget about your upcoming exams like nothing else.
Many thanks for Zsófi for the photos, I always forget to take any.
Kellner Scholars 