Blogs • Josh Pemberton (Blog Scholar 2009)

In the middle of exam period there hasn’t been much of excitement to report from within the corridors of Selwyn - other than the snowfall yesterday, which Jimmy Wright has already mentioned in his blog. Other than this my personal highlight has been the introduction of exam suppers, with toast available nightly in the common room kitchen. This may not sound like much but is often just what one needs after a long day spent hunched over a desk at the library. In addition I have a suspicion that toast is healthier than the 60c Mi Goreng instant noodles which I, along with a large proportion of Selwynites, have developed an unhealthy addiction for recently.

The ballet at the rugby, which I mentioned in my last blog, went really well. The French players looked pretty bemused when all us made-up, tutu-clad boys ran out and began to perform during their warm up. Unfortunately it didn’t distract them from the task at hand: Carisbrook witnessed a second successive test loss as the visitors prevailed 27-22. However in my opinion this result was insignificant compared to the success of the ballet. By next week I’ll have uploaded a video of the performance onto YouTube and will put the link up here for any interested readers to follow.

The only thing I’m looking forward to in exam period (other than finishing) is my final performance as part of the Selwyn Ballet. On Saturday June 13th the 40-odd ballerinas - all fresher boys, plus two second years in the form of myself and Willy Sams as the leads - will perform at Carisbrook as pre-match entertainment for the All Blacks v France test. The 2009 ballet has performed 11 times so far - ten times in front of 400 people at the university capping show, and most recently in front of 4000 at a netball match in Invercargill. However the rugby performance represents a step up; our pirouettes and leaps will now be on show for 28,000 rugby fans, and potentially a global television audience. Last year we performed on the field as the All Blacks and Springboks warmed up all around us. There’s one classic photo in particular of us going through our routine, with Dan Carter practising his punts in the bottom corner. And from our dressing room in the stadium last time around we could watch the captains perform the coin toss metres away, just before kick off. So it promises to be an exciting night, especially if the ABs can get a win - something they didn’t manage last year.

However the ballet is primarily choreographed and put together for the capping show, and in this sense it has special meaning for me this year. Exactly 70 years ago, my great-uncle George Rolleston (Selwyn 1935-1939) was in charge of organising Selwyn’s contribution to the capping show, a task which I’ve been able to assist Willy with this year. While the 81-year old ballet may be similar in some sense to how it was back then, I think a lot of other things in Selwyn have clearly changed a fair bit. In his memoirs George praised the Warden at the time, Archdeacon L.G. Whitehead, for being liberal enough to allow wines and ales in the college, and even letting the male residents of the college entertain girlfriends for afternoon tea on Sundays. With the college now co-ed it’s fair to say that Dr Clark evidently doesn’t have the same sort of control over interactions between members of the opposite sex (or wine and ale consumption for that matter) and quite frankly I think that’s for the best. The girls might still not be allowed in the ballet - after all, they’d show us boys up - but I can’t quite imagine what Selwyn would be like without any females at all.

It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of semester already, with exams starting in just over a week for most Selwynites. It’s even harder to believe that the onset of exams means that we’re almost half way through the year. Personally I’m looking forward to second semester: the latter half of the year will throw up re-O Week and all the awesome Selwyn events that come with it; the Selwyn ski weekend, 21sters Ball, a sporting exchange where we will host Canterbury University’s College House, and the majority of our sporting and cultural events with Knox in the Cameron Shield and Neville Cup respectively.

Dunedin has done it’s best to encourage students to stay indoors and work by offering up an abysmal mix of hail and rain in the last few days. Yet today is clear, the sky is blue and therefore it’s harder than ever to get into the books. Everyone battles for motivation at times and finds things to distract them from their study. In my case it’s actually been browsing the net and writing this blog as I sit in the third floor of the science library, blatantly procrastinating. And with that realisation I guess it’s probably time to get back to the books.

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