Universities in Britain

Hello, everyone! How ya doing?

My schedule is getting busy for job hunting, and I'm sorry I can't attend this class tomorrow because of attending a business forum.

We researched universities in Britain, especially Oxbridge: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge. They have lots of differences from university in Japan. As the most interesting thing to me, I would like to write about "May Ball".

May Ball is one of the biggest festival, which is held by each collage of University of Cambridge. It is usually held in the middle of June every year after an examination term. Originally, they finished exam and got into a long vacation in May before, so that is why it is called May Ball. May Ball is a big party and it is very exciting, but remember it is also very formal and all participants have to wear evening dress or formal suits. Besides, the ticket will cost about ￡150. ( about 30,000 yen )

University of Cambridge has 32 collages, and students can join other collage's May Ball if they have tickets ( some collage already have a ticket pre-registration system for next ball, click HERE to have a look ). This year, 2009 is the 800th anniversary year of University of Cambridge, so each collage might have more exciting, traditional May Ball than before. Now, I would like to tell some pieces of Jesus collage's May Ball 2009.

Jesus collage's May Ball started at 9:00 pm on 15th June. They started it with drinking wines, and after dinner time they enjoy dancing, singing, drinking again, talking, watching performances etc.... Look at the picture below, this is a map of the Ball. If you go to a big one like Jesus collage's, you can enjoy a Ferris wheel and a go-cart, too. The May Ball ended at 6:00 am next day. Many students attend others' May Balls on other day, so they have a special ( kind of hard) week at the end of the academic year.

REFERENCES:
Go to Cambridge MBA http://gmcam.blog17.fc2.com/blog-entry-258.html

Wikipedia (May Ball) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Ball

Houses in Britain

How many houses do you have? What type of house do you live? It might be a strange question if I ask to Japanese people, but it tells me their social class positions or their jobs if I ask to people in the UK. I would like to tell you main 6 types of house in the UK, and residents who live in each type of house.

The first type of house is Tower blocks. This can vary 10-20 stories high and each story contains 5 or 6 flats for families. Tower blocks are usually found in the center of the city, but the rich and the Upper or Middle class people don’t live in it, because many British people don’t like living with other families in apartment house like this.

The second one is Terraced houses. This is built in long rows and often found in inner cities. Some industries build it near the factories for their workers, so residents of terraced houses are mainly working class or lower middle class people.

The third one is Semi-detached houses. It usually has a small garden. Semi-detached house could be called the house of “Mr. and Mrs. Average” because it is the most popular type of house in the UK.


Next, the fourth one that is more expensive than semis is Detached house. It stands by itself with a well-kept garden. It is often found in suburbs, and owned by professional people.


More rich people and the Upper class people live in cities, but they have a second house in country called Cottages. Wooden beams and a thatched roof are the features of cottages.


The last one is Mansion. It is far from “mansion” Japanese people say, the mansion in the UK look like castles. It is a huge house for the royal family and extremely wealthy people. It has about 5 bedrooms, and as I researched on the internet, the price is ￡1,000,000 (about　150,000,000 yen) at least. Click HERE to check prices and pictures of British mansions for sale.

REFERENCES:
Clare Lavery, (1993) Focus on Britain Today, Macmillan