Bar crawl might not happen (40% 10% it happens), this is because I don't feel like drinking but may spontaneously change mind based on vibes.
I am feeling kind of ill, hence there is 30% chance we cancel.
I am not feeling ill anymore, barcrawl may or may not happen depending on what the mood is, but 8pm JCR christ church will happen!
How to get in: The best thing to do would be to come to the Tom gate entrance of Christ Church on St Aldates and then message me on Discord/WhatsApp or call me.
Date: 29th January (Wednesday)
8 PM: Meet at a secret location Christ Church JCR for cake cutting! (Location will be revealed after you sign up in the form (this is just so i have a rough number estimate))
10 PM-ish: Bar crawl begins!
12 AM: After-party at my room!
2 AM: Event concludes!
I know loads of you don't drink but feel free to join the crawl anyways or just come straight to my room! If you have lectures and can't stay late, please come for the cake cutting at 8 PM. It's going to be fun, and I can't wait to see you all!
Other notes? There will hopefully be just enough cake for everyone. Also if you have a chessboard + clock bring it (bughouse?), and if you have any other games that you think may be fun bring it along.
I'm open to suggestions about which bar to go to, but I'm thinking of starting at Bear. Other options could be Undie in CHCH, the Buttery, or Baliol Bar. Let me know your thoughts!
If you want to share your suggestions, please fill out this form: Birthday Suggestion Form
Please let me know if you can make it by filling out this form: RSVP Form
Organising a party in college is a lot easier and cheaper than I thought. I ended up spending 14 pounds on cake and 2.5 pounds on cutlery and this was more than enough for >30 people. Other costs were minimal, making the website+google forms took on the order of an hour, which wasn't too bad given the website also serves as a nice catalogue of the bday.
Inviting people is always tricky, there were lots of people who I feel I should have invited after the fact
I didn't expect so many people to show up, my orignal plan was to invite something like 30 people but have only around 20 people show up just because It is a weekday in the middle of a busy Oxford term and I thought a third of the people would be too busy to come.
Doing a bday in the JCR is nice because lots of people from the college end up at the JCR in the evening. They join in the festivities making the function a lot more lively and busy.
I still find being serenaded with the "happy birthday" song embarassing, but a lot less than before. I was looking forward to cake cutting.
I hypothesised that having parts to your bday party is a nice idea because it means people who couldn't stay for longer than an hour or two can come to the main event (JCR cake cutting) and leave before the longer events that only a smaller proportion can stick out until. This worked as expected!
When I had my going away party in bangalore I noticed a phenomenon the number of people at a function has a half life of ~2 hours but the thing is people don't leave randomly. I find that the people closest to me, stick around longer. This means parties start big with everyone and then end up small with 4-5 people in a room somewhere at 4am. I like this phenonmenon because it means you get to enjoy the benefits of having a big and small celebration. I thought you can maybe make this phenonmenon more likely to happen if you structure your function in parts like (8-10 JCR main celebration, 10-12 bar crawl, 12-2am room etc etc.) but actually it seems to happen regardless.
Thank you all for coming, this was one of my favourite birthday parties to date. Thank you for all the gifts and cards they are super cool. Thank's a lot to Sunny and Zain for getting their cameras!