We went back to halls and pretended to be freshers again

On Thursday night, we went over to Pollock halls to pretend to be freshers again, aided by our first year confidantes. It was enlightening.

Ch(yah)ncellors

As we came into Pollock around eight in the evening, we saw a group of about twenty people leaving Pollock, drunk, singing in unison the ‘Bob the Builder’ song. Unsure what to make of this, we started chatting to freshers smoking roll-ups in the courtyard outside Chancellor’s – some things never change.

We started off by doing a test run by introducing ourselves as Grant House freshers to some of our insiders’ friends and despite a few minor blips (telling someone outside of Pollock that you’re a fresher is not a good way to convince someone you’re a fresher) they believed us.

It was initially quite stressful. We definitely had flashbacks to our first days of uni where you go there unsure of whether you’ll fit in or if you’ll be able to fit in. But after a couple of conversations with the unsuspecting freshers, we started to enjoy it.

It was pretty funny asking the freshers to tell us what the Big Cheese was, and where Hive is. Hearing people who’ve lived in the city for less then a week attempt to be experts on the city’s nightlife was pretty funny. One Baird House fresher tried to claim that the Three Sisters pub on Cowgate was the “best nightclub in the city.”

Infiltrating Baird house

Eventually we migrated to Baird House where, we were informed, there was a lively pre’s going on. Perfect opportunity to mingle and see how this year’s mad freshers had spent welcome week.

The first two guys we met totally seemed ready for a night out; dressed up in their North Face jackets and woolly hats. To kick start the list of odd stories we heard, this guy was a self-professed barber, who was offering hair cuts for a pound. A keen business man. He was the first of three Henry’s we met in the space of 5 minutes. Coincidence?

Another two people had had the hilarious idea of going round the fresher’s fairs and picking a society for each other. The results were the Medieval Re-enactment and Pole Dancing societies. They both seemed pretty eager to actually turn up, but whether this dream will become a reality remains to be seen.

The pre’s is lit guys!!!

The classic “I got so drunk” tale also came out, in quite a spectacular way. After going to a club with the daughter of the owner and drinking many bottles of vodka in the VIP area, one fresher woke up in hospital the next morning with no recollection of how he got there – and no t-shirt. He’d chipped a tooth and cut his face, and he naïvely assumed that he must have been spiked, despite his ridiculous alcohol intake. It’s quite lucky that he did end up in hospital. He wont be drinking again for a little while, that’s for sure.

Making new friends

Another Baird fresher told us how he smashed up his bedside table because he thought there were people in his room, under the influence of the usual alcohol/weed combo, and a scarily effective video simulating an acid trip.

The classic freshers’ style was pretty obvious, too, with girls dressing up way too posh for Edinburgh’s cobbled death trap streets, and guys were in various states of casual dress. Strangely, there was only one Canada Goose in sight. Maybe, they are better than last year’s lot.

We eventually followed the crowd to the Peartree, which was brimming with freshers, with our new friends and felt like we had successfully integrating into this year’s Baird contingent.

It’s their local now

Blending in wasn’t so hard. Once we were submerged in that typical “yah” accent, we followed the crowd and laughed inwardly as they told us about their gap years, and which clubs they had been to. It was amazing to see how a completely different set of people can be so similar to the people who lived in the same place in previous years. The slightly eerie lack of Scots was still noticeable as were the classic fresher tales of gap years and a clear inability for some to handle alcohol.