Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge University,
is known as Sidney Sainsbury's
for good reason. It's the most convenient college for the supermarket -
this is the college's main selling point. Other reasons you might want to
consider taking your degree at Sidney, is for it's small, friendly
atmosphere, it's cheap student-run college bar (that looks like a Swedish
sauna, but we'll gloss over that), and overall it is a jolly nice place to
spend three or more years of your life.
I spent far too much of my time at
Cambridge on the river. The time I didn't spend
rowing I spent either working, sleeping, or
setting up a business. Not enough of
my time was spent working on my degree, however I scraped through somehow.
Sidney May Balls
Sidney Sussex had some of the best May
Balls in Cambridge. May Balls, are, for perfectly sensible reasons (like
it being after exams) are held in June. Sidney doesn't have the Cam
running through our grounds and can't afford massive fireworks displays
like Trinity and St Johns. Even so, we still have a very good time, and
everyone enjoys themselves.
I was on the
organising committee for the 1996 Ball, the Quatercentenary May Ball
(400th anniversary of the college if your Latin fails you). I was chief
techie, in charge of marquees, lighting, sound, power distribution, web
sites, and giving everyone tutorials on Microsoft Word. To the right is the "survivors" photo taken at 6am for all those still
standing... as you can see it was quite a party.
By the time of this photo, myself and the
other organising Committee members (those in the red and blue sashes at
the front of the photo) had all been up for about 36 hours. I went home
and slept for a couple of hours, came back, helped clear up, then went
home again and tried to stay awake during a dinner party. Apparently I
failed miserably and was so out of it I had people slapping my face and I
still didn't wake up. The
person who was doing the slapping was enjoying it quite a lot, but that's a whole other
story...
Digiserve,
my business, sponsored subsequent May Balls in 1998 and 2000.
You can find photos of the occasions on
my photos site. You can see the current Sidney May Ball web site at
www.mayball.com.
