Last Monday found people raining from the Imperial sky instead of the usual drizzle. While initially alarmed (droughts are a serious issue), we settled down on Queen’s lawn for what my friend Lucy termed “the best day of Uni yet!” Although she did get to jump face-first off a giant crane, so I think she had a bit of a head start. Badum-pshh.
So, why was it raining men (and ladies)? RAG week! RAG is Imperial’s star charity society, and RAG week is their star week. It’s apparently as large a part of uni culture as ‘Greek life’ is in the United States, but also probably infinitely better because it’s British, raises money for charity, and actually condones kidnapping. I’m not actually in RAG, so if you want a better explanation it would behoove you to check out Mala’s post about RAG week. From what I understand, though, joining RAG basically gives you an excuse to do the craziest of things throughout London with your friends, all while raising money for lovely people such as the folks at Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
They’ve been pushing RAG week on Facebook for ages, but it’s one thing to scroll past a bunch of [entirely too many] pictures of happy people and flowery links–you tune it out–and another thing entirely to have your usual walk to the JCR punctuated by the unusual sounds of people screaming as they fall out of the sky. I knew what I had to do, and twenty minutes later we were all sitting on Queen’s Lawn, basking in the sun and the competing noise from IC Radio’s summer tunes, IC Big Band’s lovely but poorly planned Queen’s Tower concert (What’s funnier than a pianist’s face as he watches his sheet music flutter off the tower and land on the lawn far below? NOTHING! Seriously, it was a nice concert, though), and the sound of pure vertigo-fuelled terror. Also, JCR fried chicken.
I didn’t really get involved in the rest of the week, but one can’t really escape RAG when it gets proper going. Eating contests, three-legged bar crawls, Jailbreak, RAG collects, bubble football… although they probably won’t have that last one since someone managed to break his neck or something. I’m not sure what exactly happened, though…the Imperial grapevine is rough. He’s fine, however!
Also worth mentioning was the RAG Valentine’s Ball a few weeks ago. Nothing classier than sipping a ten-pound jagerbomb on the 31st floor of one of SoHo’s tallest buildings. The view was amazing, if your mask was lucky enough to have practical eyeholes.
Can you smell the class and/or the ten-pound jagerbomb? It smelled good.
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