HW Freshers 2010

-“She’s been a good girl.” “Not in those shorts.”

-“I just made a Fresher eat our orange. I told him it had vodka in it.”

-“There’ s something in my pants.” Mike (fresher) during comedy hypnotist

-“John, I think I love you!” “…My name is Pete…”

-In the toilet cubicle “Get your school uniform and get your ass down here.” “Give me a sec…” “Get the fuck down here!”

-“Do you know how she wakes me up in the mornings? With fart noises!”

-“She’s hot.” “I know, my eyes are over ther having sex with her.”

-“These are friends you will make for life!” “Do we have to?”

-“Ali’s has a teet”

-“It’s bigger than the one I have now”

-“If I get you that room will you sort me out?”

-“It’s so depressing to have depression”

-“He’s so far in the closet, he’s talking to fauns and lions”

-“I am going to push you off the top of my basement.”

-“He snogged me for 30 minutes , then whacked it in me”

-“Hey, do you fancy a boy?”

-“I hid under your porch because I love you”

-“I heres a fire. LOLZ”

-In the foyer: “So, is this the Union?”

-“I’m not gay, I am just hungry!”

-“That hurt my radio”

-“I want to be a man for a week to see what sex is like. They seem to put in a lot of effort.”

-“I’m hardcore, I take it in the eye!”

-“Oh, we have cocktail sausages when we get home!” “what? Alcoholic sausages?”

- “Rape, Rape, Rape, Rape, Rape, Rape,….” “How many rapes should I put you down for?”

-“If someone is dressed as a banana, you’ve got to have a gorilla beat it”

-“Saturday night will be the night after the morning before”

-“Where are my pants!?”

-“High Towers is 10.5 Connor hands tall!”

-“I only wanted a wee one!”

-“Why is this puddle wet?”

-“Wouldn’t it be weird if we had two legs?”

-“I wish I could orgasm for 30 minutes”

-“You’re really tall, it must be difficult to 69”

-“The game is a itchy foot”

-“Stop throwing your balls around”

-“I just ignore him, honest, he’s a Geordie’s”

-“Got all my boys to make me warm tonight”

-“TRUMP” “lamp you!”

- “I will be wearing breasts and breasts.”

-“I can’t go out with you, I am a secret lesbian.” “Well I’m a secret woman!”

-“It’s not the first time I’ve been under Bottom”

-“I love pushing people’s legs apart. Turns me on!”

Day Eight of Freshers Week and it’s almost all over! But we aren’t quite finished yet and today’s fun started with The International Food Fayre which took place on the Bridge Link. It cost £3 for a selection of foods from around the world, including lamb samosas, Mexican chicken wraps and lasagne, along with one of the nicest cakes ever! All proceeds went to a good cause, helping the victims of the Pakistan floods.  With all the food going, a decent amount must’ve been raised and hopefully there’s more to come in the coming weeks and months. 

We also had the return of Battle of The Halls, with all new ways of getting some much needed points! Points were awarded for making friends with someone in your halls you hadn’t met with and inventing hall Cocktails and Mottos. Robin Smith are still in the lead but a big “Well Done!” goes out to Ettrick who did extremely well today, even fashioning one halls member a kilt and sash made from newspaper and halls badges!  Why not enter your team into the quiz tomorrow night and win a few more points!

Tonight’s big event on campus is the ‘Highland Fling’ Scottish Ceilidh. For the uninitiated a ceilidh is a completely inclusive, (literally anyone and everyone can ceilidh, there’s a man in charge who guides you through each dance before the start, meaning that in no time at all you can be ceilidhing like a pro) fast paced and most of all sweaty Scottish tradition.  Like Irn-Bru and the much maligned battered Mars Bar, the ceilidh is a Scottish institution and no-one can truly say they’ve lived in Scotland until they’ve tried it.

The music for tonight’s festivities was provided by Rusty Nail, a ceilidh band with a reputation as one of the country’s premiere groups.  Also famous for their between song banter, they didn’t fail to deliver tonight keeping everyone inside Zero’s spinning and smiling all through the night.  The event wrapped up just after midnight with the classic ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and everyone headed back to their respective halls with sweaty backs and tired legs, many asking when they could expect the next union ceilidh!    

The last day of this year’s freshers week is all but upon us, ending in the traditional way with one of the stalwarts of the freshers week calendar, the Freshers Pub Quiz, hosted by Forth One’s Grant Stott.  Tomorrow we’ll be posting twice, the usual daily round up and an extra special blog featuring the funniest snippets of conversations overheard this week, don’t miss it!

Day Seven of Fresher’s Week at Heriot-Watt and we’re still going strong! Today we welcomed the international students to the University with a presentation and ice breaker session in the Postgraduate Centre. They were treated to talks from our VP Murray Hope as well as the Chaplain, Sports Union President Peter Correy and International Officer Mohamed El-Shaib. Haggis Tours then took over the presentation and talked about Scotland and the Scottish people. After the presentation  the new students were offered to try some haggis, whiskey and Irn Bru, yum!

Also today, the Chaplaincy were giving you the chance to make your own pancakes! Some people took to it very enthusiastically and one pancake even ended up stuck to the ceiling! There was also table tennis and table football to keep everyone entertained once they had eaten their pancakes.

Then the night’s main event, the Fresher’s Party! There were two big names for the Freshers to enjoy tonight, firstly, Aggro Santos. Earlier in the year he hit number five in the charts with his single “Candy” which featured the vocals of a former Pussycat Doll. He was here tonight to help promote his new single “Saint Or Sinner” and really got the crowd moving during his short set. Then tonight’s second act was James Buckley, who you may know better as Jay from the Inbetweeners. He played a DJ set and really got a good atmosphere going and had everybody dancing away. As well as all the, there was a Snaparazzi photo booth where everyone could pose for silly photos using the bucket of props provided! And there’s more! Liberty’s was turned into a Casino for the night allowing Freshers a chance to play roulette and black jack!

Don’t forget tomorrow we have the International Food Fayre outside LT2 and LT3 from 12:30pm. Then tomorrow night, we’re having a good old Highland Fling Scottish Ceilidh!

PS. We’re still on the hunt for our mysterious welsh blogger, if any one has any information, we’re still interested!!!

Into the second half of the week now and everyone is still going strong. Some of us were up bright and early this morning for the Tour of Scotland coach trip. First stop was the Wallace Monument in Stirling, where the chatty tour guide was keen to point out all of the flaws in Braveheart. Next port of call was Stirling Bridge and then onto Kilmahog where we fed some highland cows! We had a bit of drama at the Falls of Dochart in Killin where we had stopped for lunch when one of the girls actually fell into the water! The Heritage Fall at Aberfeldy were up next, everyone managed to stay on dry land this time. After some ice cream and a visit to the cathedral in Dunkeld, we set off for home again, playing games such as “Spot the Tractor” and having a good old fashioned sing-song!

Back on campus now and all over the place the societies were giving students the chance to “Give It a Go.” We had a chance to visit some of them to see what they were getting up to.

-         -  The computer games society were set up in the canteen with two Xbox 360 consoles and two TVs for playing console games such as Halo 3 and Call Of Duty. There were also PCs available for playing Worms and Unreal Tournament.

-          - The Ceilidh Society were in the Mary Burton building offering some practice ahead of tomorrow night.

-          - The Engineering Society had a water fight in front of the Union.

-          - The Drama Society were putting on drama based games in Zero’s, as well as letting people know about their upcoming panto, Ali Baba.

The evening’s main event saw the first HW Live of the year. In Liberties we had a free acoustic stage, which saw several acts performing to a packed house. In Zero’s, there was a change to the advertised listings with Pearl And The Puppets replacing The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, Kassidy played as scheduled. Both bands put on top class performances, keeping everyone dancing around the floor all night with catchy tunes and lyrics.

Finally, the Media Team would like to extend a thank you to Freshers Helper Brittany Brown, who organised a challenge between two of the chattier helpers as to who could stay silent for longest! We appreciated the peace and quiet!

Wednesday.  Half way through the week and the cracks are beginning to show in some of the freshers helpers.  One lucky helper received his daily meal voucher, usually credit card sized, in A3!  It’s a struggle this photocopying business.  Those not showing the strain however, are the ever irrepressible first years!  Today was the Fresher’s Fayre, the annual event where new students are introduced to the huge variety of societies and groups available at Heriot-Watt. 

Also at the fayre were a multitude of commercial stalls, among which were:

• Dominoes Pizza, giving away pizzas, loyalty cards, bumper stickers and T-shirts.
• Lush, giving away things ranging from their famous soaps, lip balms and moisturiser.
• Urban Outfitters, scarves and hair clips were distributed from this stall.
• Endsleigh insurance giving students the chance to get their property protected.
• St. James shopping centre were handing out discount cards.

The societies, while not trying to bribe first years with cheap trinkets and the like, did offer an excellent range of sweeties and pens.  Tomorrow, a selection of them are offering people the chance to ‘Give it a go’.  The Drama society are running an improvisation workshop, the Computer Games Society are playing LAN games and the Poker society are playing poker.  In the near future, the Debating society are having a debate entitled “This house will abolish the law”, discussing whether laws still apply in this modern world, interesting stuff! Another, high brow, society are the economics crowd, who are in talks with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, trying to persuade him to come and give a talk.

Outside the union building the Medieval Society held a reenactment of a famous historical battle.  Equally interesting but from the other end of the technology scale was the robotics society’s Jenga playing robot arm! It wasn’t just societies in attendance today, student groups were also present.  Three, very important groups worthy of a special mention this afternoon were:

-       The British Red Cross, who were looking for volunteers for the coming year to attend various events both and nationwide.

-       LGBT society whose highlight in the near future is a trip to the premier, on October 9^th, of the film ‘Inside Out’.

-       The Watt student newspaper were recruiting advertisers, writers, reporters and photographers.

Tonight’s main event on campus is the Rock & Roll bingo, an event that was very well attended both times last year is sure to be another massive hit, at the time of writing the doors have only been open ten minutes and already Zero’s is looking full!  Then in town is the first of the weekly Heriot-Watt club night in Lulu’s on George St. and don’t worry lads, Queen Margaret University are also attending so that pesky 70% boys to 30% girls ratio will be seriously evened out!     

The first miserable day we’ve had this week, unfortunately this coincided with ‘The Big ?’, an outdoor event.  Due to the horrible weather ‘The Big ?’ was replaced by an afternoon film ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ screened in LT3.  For those non Russell Brand fans, board games were available in Geordies, with a massive Connect 4 tournament springing up in spite of the worsening conditions outside.

Meanwhile, over at the Centre for Sport & Exercise, the Sports Union kicked off their Festival of Sports and Exercise with a variety of things to try from the common, rugby, to the not so common, anyone for Zumba!?  This continues for the next two days with enough different sports that quite literally everyone can find something they can enjoy, check it out.

As the day progressed the weather improved and so the word went around, ‘The Big ?’ was back on!   It transpired that the ? was in fact a water fight!  The freshers helpers armed themselves with a pair of water bomb catapults and a plethora of other water based projectiles.  For the first ten minutes the hundred or so freshers that had ventured out were getting thoroughly soaked, one unfortunate new student getting one water bomb right to the face!  However, as more first years emerged and as the apparently unprepared helpers ran out of bombs, the tide turned.  They weren’t helped by the slightly questionable use of buckets and bin bags by the fresher reinforcements!

As it was last semester, it is now.  Tonight’s Hairy Watt Comedy Club was sold out by 19:00 and was packed not long after the doors opened at 20:00!  Both acts, and the compere for that matter, getting extremely warm receptions from a crowd, clearly as happy to spend the night laughing and enjoying the atmosphere as they have been partying as though week one of lectures will never come.  

For those of you not following us on Twitter (and why aren’t you!?) here are a selection of the best tips from today’s ‘Freshers 101’, a feature with literally 101 tips for the new student.

 - When the fire alarm goes off you must leave your hall, no excuses! No matter who you are…

 - If you have any problems while at uni, we do have some excellent and well used support services that you can come and talk to.

 - We can’t advocate stealing road signs to put in your room. This is illegal and you will get in trouble if you get caught.

 - Linlithgow halls have a 24 hour computer lab, for use by all students.

 - The ducks are friendly, you can feed them, but they’re not food for you! Students have been deported for eating a swan or duck from the loch!

http://twitter.com/HWFreshersWeek

How long have you been a double act and how did it start?

         14 years ago at the BBC

Do you miss “Da Bungalow”?

         Miss the laughs, don’t miss the creamy muck-muck.

Inspirational figures?

         Peter Cook and Dudly Moore

Kids TV vs Freshers Circuit, why the switch?

         Still doing both - Freshers love our antics!

Advice for Freshers?

         Work hard and play hard!

Tired yet?  I know some freshers helpers are!  Especially the halls team who went into overdrive today, kicking off the battle of the halls contest.  The competition that caught the eye of most passing students were the underwear chains, the winners, from Midlothian hall, stretched 164 items of underwear in a variety of styles, some conservative, some not so!  Their chain was so long it reached from their halls, over the loch and to the front door of the union!  They lost out in the human chain battle to their close rivals Linlithgow, you can feel the tension building between these two already.

Speaking of Linlithgow, those not stretching themselves sore joined Ettrick hall for a Hannah Montana based flash mob, all recreating her famous Hoedown Throwdown.  For the uninitiated, check out the link at the bottom for the original article.  Feeling you should be more active after a couple of heavy nights?  You missed out on the football, rugby and rounders that all went off in front of the union and up on the UEFA pitches.     

Then the main event, the one everyone’s been waiting for, it was Dick and Dom’s Dunk Tank Tour! Woo! They came on stage around half past eleven and played plenty of popular tracks ranging from Rage Against the Machine to The Libertines, and really whipped up the crowd! Then three lucky volunteers got to play a game of Bogies to see who would be getting dunked! There was a lot of splashing as in the end all three dropped into the tank! The TV duo then went back to the music and kept the crowd dancing on into the morning.

Tomorrow’s events include the Hairy Watt Comedy Club, The Big ?, and The Midnight Movie, sounds like fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_aRYNHjFr4

Day 2 of Heriot-Watt Freshers started pretty early for some with two fire alarms in quick succession not long after midnight! Naughty! But on with the week and we’re getting into the swing of things now!

As it was the first Sunday of the year there was a non-denominational church service at the University Chaplaincy this morning, which was followed by a pizza lunch, a pretty tasty morning!

This afternoon we had some organized football going on outside the Union with two matches happening side by side. Players had to be extra careful though, with regular shouts of “Heads!” as a rugby ball was kicked over the games! But, before the footballers had even kicked off we had a Freshers Helper hobbling to the sidelines with a sprained ankle! Ouch!

Later on, The Union’s nightly program kicked off with comedy hypnotist Alan Bates entertaining us all! Among some of the laughs was when one girl was convinced she was John Barrowman! Also, a male Little Bo Peep has been looking for his sheep; “Jack Black” was seen roaming the Union and Santa’s helper told us that someone wanted a sex change for Christmas! All of the hypnotized guests also performed a lap dance! Raunchy!

Then we had the night’s main attraction. It was UV Neon night, and everybody loves a neon party! We started dancing around 11pm with everyone beautifully kitted out and plenty of UV paint used! There were one or two of us that maybe had one too many, but it was a heck of party!

Now for a good night’s sleep so we can be ready for Day 3, when we’ll have the likes of Dick And Dom’s Dunk Tank Tour and a Skool Disco as well as the Battle Of The Halls Launch Event! And don’t forget the outdoor Bar & BBQ outside the Union all afternoon!

Checklist:

• Halls Check In
• Goodbye Mum and Dad
• Got lost - was found
• Said hey to the ducks
• Awkward chat about the weather
• Got asked ‘Where’d ya come from?’
• Unpacked … roughly
• Food?  Nah … let’s get some drink.
• Found people to go to Freshen Up tonight
• Go home with people you’ll never remember

First day of the new academic year here at Heriot-Watt, and it hasn’t been without incident.  Did you leave this morning with butterflies in your tummy?  Or did it all start innocuously enough?  Freshers began arriving from 06:00 (too keen!) and by seven the first shiny red fire engine of the new semester had been called out.  It wasn’t even the work of a new student, having overcooked their first beans and toast meal.  Turns out cleaners had been preparing for the arrival of the Freshers and had left the hot tap on …  for so long that the room filled with steam and set off the fire alarm, calling the fire brigade to the scene.  Sure they’re pleased to know that Uni has started back. 

As the day wore on and the halls began to fill, more fun and games ensued.  Leonard Horner Hall, great for rolling out of bed and right into the Union, were initially without water, handy the Loch is close by.  At one point it was looking like staying that way until Monday!  Luckily Your Union intervened and the residents of LH are going home to showers and glasses of water, thank goodness, just as you’d expect from a 21^st century university campus.  Other highlights included Robert Bryson residents starting a new keep fit regime, as they had to relay back and forth from their Halls in Beverley Hills, to the main Uni reception, waving hey to the Jimmy Watt statue on the way by, in an effort to get their hands on their new room keys.  The Freshers Helpers are so dedicated that the only First Aid needed today was for one of them who got stung by a bee, probably thanks to their bright yellow t-shirts!  But hopefully, we’ve all overcome these minor mishaps, got over the fact that we forgot to pack any underwear, or left our left foot of your favourite pair of shoes at home, and dived into the first day of Freshers Week 2010!