Happy New Year and Why Medievalists Drink

Salvete fellow Medievalists in Victoria - and a hearty welcome-back to the Winter term from your exec at the UVic Medieval Studies Course Union! As well, a welcome to everyone who might be taking Medieval courses for the first time at UVic; you've already entered a world radically and sometimes creepily different and yet strangely (and sometimes creepily too!) similar to life in 21st century Victoria! We all look forward to meeting, discussing, arguing, memorizing, conjugating and drinking our way through the Middle Ages with you all!

...drinking? If you look to the side, right about.... --->

there, you will see our favourite monk taking some quite unauthourized libations from the monastery cellar. Likewise, we Medievalists take drink deeply from the fountains of wisdom that spring from the metaphorical cask of knowledge, and sate our thirst for understanding on the foam of... um, beer. As it turns out, Medievalists have a reputation for drinking at academic conferences in quantity unmatched by any except engineering graduate students; only with a slightly smaller alcohol tolerance, as this post attests to.

In related news, the ever-almost-victorious UVic MSCU Felicita's Quiz Team is thinking of reuniting for another Tuesday night of mead-ing and greeting, champion quizzing, and drinking! We'll keep you posted;  in the meantime, hit up our Facebook page for conversation, updates, and casual get-togethers with people who will be very, very interested in both drinking and your essay on ploughmen in 13th century French texts. (really! We love ploughmen, and ploughing!)

...(We also love alcohol, especially when it looks like this:)

...not quite yet...

...or not.

Also, The MSCU may have neglected to inform you of an important date in the past, and shall write this wrong now: March 31 is International Hug a Medievalist day - and planning for this landmark date in our academic calendar has already begun. Currently, plans consist of hugging, eating, and... resisting drinking due to exams. Or drinking because of them!

Besides the obvious attraction of the holy waters, we have many events planned this semester from potlucks to movie nights; and a pub crawl tentatively planned for 8th in conjunction with our thuggish friends from History! Watch this space for more info.

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In history today: 49 BC Caesar crosses the Rubicon, thus igniting civil war in the Roman Empire. May your week be as exciting, divisive, challenging, and slightly less bloody!

All the best,

MSCU Exec