Monday- Everybody's Screaming!!!

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I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but Mac likes cheering. And the annual “Bed Race” is the focal point for this. An hour before the race we had a Pep Rally. Everyone from our halls met up outside and we literally covered ourselves in purple paint from head to toe, writing Bates on any skin available. Whilst doing this we practised our cheers, learnt even more, and generally got high on excitement and paint fumes. We then walked down to where the race was being held and queued up with the other Halls. This lead to more cheer-offs, including one with SOCS, the off campus students and biggest group by far. However we held our own thanks to some ridiculously loud Australians and before we knew it, we were running down the course to our viewing spot.

And They're Off

Bed racing is exactly as it sounds. 4 people from each Halls run down the road through campus pushing a bed, whilst a 5th sits/lies on the bed and steers. There are several heats, then semi-finals, and finals. The winning team gets loads and loads of points and pretty much guarantees them the Residence cup. Each Faculty also had a team, and their beds were a lot more creative, with the Nurses completely ignoring the concept and using a wheel chair instead. Quite a few of the beds completely collapsed during the heats, and Kin were disqualified and forced to do an extra lap on their own because some of their supporters had stepped onto the road between the races. I must admit I can’t actually remember who was running for us but Sheree, being pretty much the smallest and lightest girl in our halls, was steering. Because of this (and the fact our bed managed to remain in tact the whole way round) we smashed through qualifying and made it to the semi-finals. The day was wearing on, the sun getting hotter, our paint having dried was now beginning to melt and we were slowly losing our voices from all the cheering and shouting. Our semi was an extremely close race. We took the lead from the off but they soon caught us up. We then over took them on the bend but they took us on the straight. As we got to the final bend it looked like we were pretty much out of it as they had a fair few meters on us, but some sharp cornering by Sheree and a final burst in the last 10 meters meant we took them by half a bed. We were ecstatic…until we found out that, actually, it was done on time trials so it depended on how well the other teams did as to whether we were in the finals or not. As it turns out we missed out by ONE TENTH OF A SECOND. Still, as the motto of our floor goes; 3rd is still a medal.

And Relax

That night, after washing off all the paint and discovering we now had the word “Bates” sun burnt into our arms and legs forever, we first of all had a block party with a BBQ, and then ourselves and some of the Reps went down to the student centre and sat outside the library for an acoustic night and a well deserved chill-out session. Well, I say chilling, but it was really everyone else who was sitting down at the tables having a nice relaxing evening and watching us nutters dancing about like crazy at the side, whilst David Cavan Fraser God bless him, played pretty much any song we asked for, including Oasis twice. (Btw he’s very good and he was such a lovely bloke I thought I’d better plug him. He probably has a MySpace or failing that just bash his name into Google and he’ll probably turn up somewhere). Then, exhausted and hoarse, we went to bed; safe in the knowledge that it was faculty day tomorrow and so our cheering days were finally over. Hurrah!

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Photos

B-B-B-Bates!
Pretty much everyone in our halls

Paint!
For 2 weeks I had a lovely tan on all my arm except for 3 big white "B"s.

Sarah and Justine
Some halls got whistles, others big inflatable thingies, we got flags!

Shree and Justine
The Schumacher of bed racers