The Stand’s guide to Raisin

Ah, Raisin. It’s that time of year again to dust off your most ridiculous costume and throw your dignity out the window. For freshers, it is a key event in the academic calendar, and for fourth years, it marks the end of an era. Please enjoy this brief guide on how to get the most from your raisin (I’m afraid due to lack of experience, I can only speculate on how best to enjoy this joyous occasion as a third or fourth year).

First years:

Hopefully you are all buddied up with your academic families and you’ve mentality idealised the brother/ sister/ mother/ father/uncle/ aunt/cousin/ dog you want to commit your shameless yet inevitable academic incest with. My only piece of advice for you is to get involved. Don’t be held back by that little voice, which tells you that alcohol is for after 12pm only and that competing in an intense three-legged race down Market Street to find a condom and a stranger who will kiss you for a photo is an undignified endeavour. No one will judge you for your actions on raisin.

The punishment for your drunken antics will come on Monday morning when you are faced with getting out of bed painfully early with the prospect of getting dressed up and partaking in a foam fight. Not to worry though, all hangover symptoms will be abolished with the first strike of cold, soapy foam to the face.

Second years:

There are only two things I intend to do this Sunday. That is to ply my cruel, cruel parents with alcohol in revenge for last year’s antics and watch smugly from afar the anarchy descending on the town. I’ll spend some time at the temporary PH, hang out in Tesco for a while and secure a prime seat in Subway to watch the fountain shenanigans. I remember very little from my experience last year, which bodes well for the quality of entertainment I expect on Sunday.

Third years:

As a lowly second year I can only wonder as to how I will be feeling as a new parent. Scared, excited, proud? One thing I can be sure of though is that it is your responsibility to provide an excellent and totally unmemorable christening for your babies to welcome them to this great establishment. Raisin provides new students with an opportunity to connect with older years and bridge the gap between newbie and patron. It is an integral part of The Bubble experience and a one time opportunity so get your thinking caps on (backwards if you’re American) and come up with the most challenging scavenger hunts, inventive cocktails and cringe-worthy costumes.

Fourth years:

The last Raisin. The twilight of your time at St Andrews. You are not quite old and mature enough yet to dismiss the idea of a Sunday Morning Snakebite. Last year you inflicted some serious psychological scarring on your children, now it is time to taste your own medicine. I can assure you that any “heavy fourth year workload” excuses will fall on deaf ears.

Image courtesy of Paige Settle, greatest academic mom of all time.

Image courtesy of http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Sallies_Chapel_at_the_Foam_Fight_-_geograph.org.uk_-_86572.jpg