Foppish Victorian Outfits
May. 2nd, 2008 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theyellowhobbitMonday is the Myld Hunt, a HRSFA tradition in which we dress up in foppish Victorian clothing and "hunt" a "fox," defeat it in a battle of great cunning, and eat the transubstantiated fox, which now seems to be a feast of normal food.1
The Myld Hunt starts at 1.
My German qualifying exam starts at 2. We are given an hour, which should be fine especially since I'm taking it on the computer so I can easily type definitions of words and then copy and paste everything to put it in English word order. Technically, I get time and a half, but I'm probably not going to use it, since I feel like I don't actually need or deserve it and it would give me an unfair advantage. In most exams I finish early, if anything. I took time and a half for the Machinist exam of doom, but that's because it was particularly doomful.
Anyways, the hunt will probably still be socializing until 6PM. Maybe not that late, but definitely up through 3/3:30PM
So my options:
1) Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam. Change at the party.
1a)Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam having changed in Div Hall.
2) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam, change at the party.
2a) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam having changed in Div Hall.
3)Go to the beginning of the hunt in foppish Victorian outfit (which is not Victorian, but rather my Chinese dress of awesome, which I will incidentally be wearing the day before...) and take the exam in said outfit, and then go back to the party.
I'm thinking 2 sounds most reasonable, but 3 is looking rather shiny. Thoughts?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm still writing the paper. I am also sick. Tea is nice, though.
I realize that I've been overly ambitious. This is evidenced by the fact that I have a preamble. A preamble! It's nearly a double spaced page by itself.
Preamble: On the desire for the supernatural
As children, most of us were raised on stories of magic and the supernatural, of heroes with great strength and wit, of beautiful princesses waiting to be rescued, of dragons, of fairies, of Good and Evil; things fantastical, things out of the realm of ordinary experience. Many of us had fantasies of being able to use magic, of flying, of defeating the villain and being a hero. We would play games, one of us could be the knight in shining armor, another the princess, another an evil witch, or perhaps we could all be mermaids, or a group of sentient winged horses. But society instills in us a sense of what is and is not possible in the world. Stories of great achievement are more a matter of creating political change, of discovering new technologies that save lives, etc., and the monsters are not fantastical creatures, but rather the evil people in our world who needlessly steal, rape, murder, set up government systems of genocide, etc. Anyone who still believes in the supernatural is considered to be naïve or foolish, and in our modern society, even when the supernatural beliefs are grounded in religion, the person or system holding them is often looked down upon.
Now imagine a chance to reclaim the magical, and the superhuman; to perform great feats of heroism and courage, to be beautiful or handsome, to be taller or shorter, to be smarter, to have wings, to be everything you are or everything you are not. Imagine playing with a group of people, all pretending to be such characters. Imagine a plot and a quest and a villain and an end of the world that needs to be prevented. All this, and much more, is possible in the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.
1No actual foxes are hurt in the running of this hunt.
The Myld Hunt starts at 1.
My German qualifying exam starts at 2. We are given an hour, which should be fine especially since I'm taking it on the computer so I can easily type definitions of words and then copy and paste everything to put it in English word order. Technically, I get time and a half, but I'm probably not going to use it, since I feel like I don't actually need or deserve it and it would give me an unfair advantage. In most exams I finish early, if anything. I took time and a half for the Machinist exam of doom, but that's because it was particularly doomful.
Anyways, the hunt will probably still be socializing until 6PM. Maybe not that late, but definitely up through 3/3:30PM
So my options:
1) Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam. Change at the party.
1a)Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam having changed in Div Hall.
2) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam, change at the party.
2a) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam having changed in Div Hall.
3)Go to the beginning of the hunt in foppish Victorian outfit (which is not Victorian, but rather my Chinese dress of awesome, which I will incidentally be wearing the day before...) and take the exam in said outfit, and then go back to the party.
I'm thinking 2 sounds most reasonable, but 3 is looking rather shiny. Thoughts?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm still writing the paper. I am also sick. Tea is nice, though.
I realize that I've been overly ambitious. This is evidenced by the fact that I have a preamble. A preamble! It's nearly a double spaced page by itself.
Preamble: On the desire for the supernatural
As children, most of us were raised on stories of magic and the supernatural, of heroes with great strength and wit, of beautiful princesses waiting to be rescued, of dragons, of fairies, of Good and Evil; things fantastical, things out of the realm of ordinary experience. Many of us had fantasies of being able to use magic, of flying, of defeating the villain and being a hero. We would play games, one of us could be the knight in shining armor, another the princess, another an evil witch, or perhaps we could all be mermaids, or a group of sentient winged horses. But society instills in us a sense of what is and is not possible in the world. Stories of great achievement are more a matter of creating political change, of discovering new technologies that save lives, etc., and the monsters are not fantastical creatures, but rather the evil people in our world who needlessly steal, rape, murder, set up government systems of genocide, etc. Anyone who still believes in the supernatural is considered to be naïve or foolish, and in our modern society, even when the supernatural beliefs are grounded in religion, the person or system holding them is often looked down upon.
Now imagine a chance to reclaim the magical, and the superhuman; to perform great feats of heroism and courage, to be beautiful or handsome, to be taller or shorter, to be smarter, to have wings, to be everything you are or everything you are not. Imagine playing with a group of people, all pretending to be such characters. Imagine a plot and a quest and a villain and an end of the world that needs to be prevented. All this, and much more, is possible in the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.
1No actual foxes are hurt in the running of this hunt.
