Welcome Week/ Fresher Week?

Unlike Hong Kong, British uni doesn't have an orientation camp, rather a welcome week. they won't "force" you to take part in any programme/ plan your schedule for you. Students just walk in the million activities, and there are so many things going on, especially in a big uni like UoM. 

Welcome week, traditionally called fresher week, is a week of orientation, and mingling, and drinking, and crazy partying if you like, in all the universities in the UK. The new name, welcome week, is to dilute the obvious focus of the week on freshers, drinking, and partying. It's seemingly more about welcoming everyone else, international student, postgraduate and the like, but the tradition of freshers drinking and partying never actually stops. 

I arrived on 11th Sept, which is a day earlier than the official date when room licence starts, so I had the whole flat to myself. That's when I cooked my first dinner my time in Manchester. 

Not the most impressive spaghetti you can have, but that's not bad from a tired, and hungry man who just wanted to come up with something to avoid starvation. LOL

And by the way, that's the view from my room, and that's also how the outside of all the ''houses'' at Whitworth Park would look like.

Flat mates started to move in the following days, and there were already some mingling nights at the Grove house, our hall bar. We didn't go the first night, just mingled among ourselves. We went the second night and sort of checked the bar out.

A small and cozy bar. Grove House at the Whitworth Park Student Residence.

Before all the fun stuffs, there're some rather serious stuffs one must first address. The core presentation, the study abroad welcome talk, the Tier-4 visa obligation talk (for those who are staying for one academic year). These are compulsory. And of course, there're also fire security talk, money and banking and such.

This is the Core presentation session, which took place at the University Place. University Place has some of the biggest lecture theatres in the uni.

About the tier-4 visa, here's a spoiler for you. It turns out the visa doesn't only limit the working hours you can do per week, visa holders are also obliged to make sure 100% attendance to class. There'll also be census checking, so you might not be able to skip all the lessons to travel around Europe as you might have planned. That could be one down-side if you plan to travel a lot during exchange; but then, to be fair, attending class isn't actually a harsh requirement.

Here comes the fun part. The fresher parties! 

There'd be so many fresher parties open to you. And your student hall would be selling fresher pack, which included all the parties your hall has planned for you and sold at a lower price than all the tickets combined. So if you are a party animal, that's an option for you. For me, I just got three tickets (not a pack, and paid the individual prices); needed a break every other party. And you also want to make sure your friends, or in my case my flat mates, are going with you too, you don't want to go to the party alone and be a sad loner wandering around. So don't pre-book all the tickets you are told about. 

Every time before we head off to the venue, we'd do something called "pre-drink". The name is pretty much self-explanatory, we drink and perhaps play some drinking game before the party starts. It's cheaper to get alcohol from store and drink at home than buy all the drinks from bars where the parties are held. 

Because every one has "pre-drunken", so even on the way to the party venue, you could be seeing pretty drunk people doing crazy/ alcohol-motivated things. People kissing in the middle of the dance floor ignoring all other people could be a common place in these fresher parties.

英國人由於習俗驅使, 平日的行為都比較保守,有禮, 大庭廣眾自然有一套潛規則約束; 但是兩杯酒精落肚, 就會開始攬攬錫錫。不過他們大多縱使是醉酒, 都未至於在電影<<宿醉>>系列那般瘋狂的。

This is the deaf Institute, one of the venues.
It's a pretty nice bar.

Apart from all the crazy nights out, I did have some fun, but less party-ish, nights with my flat mates. We would play board games, and have nice chats among us.

Scrabble is one of the more intellectual games we play, and I don't necessarily lose every time we play. LOL

There are other games we play too, and all of them are good fun.

Thankfully, I have some really good flat mates, who has given me an unforgettable and enjoyable fresher week. Though I get some terrible neighbours, some inconsiderate guys living just below my flat; they smoke just below my room and filled it with second hand smoke; play loud music, sometimes even with heavy bass, at mid-night; they talk so loudly, which is unnecessary at mid-night; and joke about stupid things. But when you don't get to choose both your flat mates and neighbours, at least I get one of the two things right, that's half full. I'm sure I'll be having a good year here.

Oh! By the way, if you want to see more of my photo updates, you may also follow my instagram, by searching "Kifungkung", where I update more frequently, and less wordily LOL.

Next up, academic stuffs, and next exploring Manchester City Centre... Stay tuned!