The Life of Diana

Ok so now the moment you have all be waiting for (especially Zion)... here is the one thing I have noticed so far as to why Cambridge appears snobby hehe. (Although if you ask them, just because their traditions are different does not mean they are snobby... which may be a valid point, I am still analyzing it and I will get back to you on it... leave a comment on what you think!!) Anyway getting back to the point though... they have this wonderful tradition here of gowns. So as those of you who have been reading my pages know, there are formal halls and super halls which are essentially very fancy dinners that guys wear suits to and girls wear dresses to. Formal halls are generally on tuesday, thursday and saturday and super hall is on friday (hehe I am so excited about my outfit for tonight's super hall!!). Now the very traditional colleges require you to wear a gown to formal hall, and when they say gown, they mean the gown that you graduate in at other schools... you know the baggy black gown that makes everyone look scholarly and smart. That is great and all, but then they totally confuse issues by having a gazillion different gowns. Each college (and there are 31 or 32 colleges that make up cambridge university) has its own special addition or subtraction to the basic gown... then there are the gowns that the undergrads wear before they get a degree, the gowns that postgrads wear once they already have a bachelors from cambridge, and then the gowns that people wear once they have a masters degree from cambridge, and finally the gowns people wear once they have PhD's from cambridge. Now the question arises, what do you wear if you have a bachelors, but it is not from cambridge? I heard from a guy in MCR the other night that this means we have to wear the same gowns as the undergrads that have no degree yet!!! This would be entirely not fair!! So I am still investigating into this matter. I will get back to you on what I find. I do NOT want to buy the wrong gown though, because they are about 99 pounds ($200). Another interestingly weird fact about cambridge... every undergrad here gets a BA (bachelors of arts) even if they are a science or engineering student. Then if they do absolutely no more classes or even set a foot back on campus, if they send in some form and pay some token amount (like $10-20) a couple years later, they AUTOMATICALLY get a MA (masters of arts). So basically they go to school for THREE years and get a BA and MA!!! hehe now don't all of you back home wish America adopted this system? I will be sure to take photos tonight at super hall and at the pav and at poker night.... so look for updates tonight or tomorrow or something.

Cheers!!

~Diana (duh!)