Gryffindor House, Hogwarts School and Harry Potter

Dwuane, Ian, me and Eskandar from Jamaica, US and Malaysia. Noticed the shirt which I wore? One of my last year's birthday presents

All dressed up in suit and gown for the matriculation dinner. Cantab is steep in its 800-year old tradition (since 1209), where students are officially members of the university after going through the matriculation dinner. In other words, you are a member of Cantab after you matriculate...o well.

Here is the piece of dialogue between the Praelector and I on the day of my matriculation (17th Oct):

Me: Hi. Good evening Sir, am here to matriculate.

PraE: Do you have the green form*?

Me: Here it is...

PraE: Okay**Paused to read through the green form**Very well, please sign on the register list over there **finger pointed at a table**

Me: Right. Here?

PraE: Yes, sign there please.

Me: **Silent while signing the registry**

PraE: I, representing the authority of the university, now pronounce you as a member of the University of Cambridge for life...**paused a while to interject a cheeky joke**..well, unless you do something very nasty to us..**eyes winked** Now, go and do your best and achieve what you have set to come here for...

Me: Thank you Sir! **And I left the room**

*Green Form= A surrogate to the invoice confirming that you have already paid the necessary fee to the college.

Basically the collegiate system here works like this: you are a member of a college (in my case, it's Wolfson College) and the colleges are the limbs to the entire university systems. However, the colleges are independent of the university's fundings. Apparently, some colleges like Trinity (where Lee Hsien Loong came from) and Peterhouse (the oldest college in Cambridge) are so rich and financially sufficient that they could sponsor the entire student population in the their colleges for 10 years or run the university without government funding for 4 years! That sounds outrageous but like Peterhouse, it seems they have a large wine cellar in their college with huge stocks of wine dated from the 1300s. You just imagine how much one bottle would fetch in today's market! Think about a warehouse filled with it!

No more fashion faux pas

So, you can't just say that you are a Cambridge graduate without saying which college you came from. In other words, tourist souvenirs, peripherals and novelties on the shops selling "University of Cambridge" do not actually bring the correct message or any at all, to the people who later give the items to others as souvenirs. Having said that, so it's easy to differentiate who are the students here and who are not. The students here would usually wear t-shirts or sweaters like "Wolfson College-University of Cambridge" or "Trinity College-University of Cambridge" unless they are into a club or society where none is based on a particular collegiate system. Then, it would be "Rowing Club-Cambridge University" or "Cambridge University Triathlon Society" etc. Confused? Haha...try to decipher the 800-year old tradition.

The Harry Potter-style matriculation dinner. Formal halls are similar to matriculation dinners too.
Speech by the Praelector, Professor Dumbledore! Hahaha...don't take me seriously! He's Dr Brian Cox, a very friendly English gentleman.

This is the dining hall at Trinity College which I visited today with the two other Malaysians, Ching Yin and Winson. Trinity College was where Lee Hsien Loong belonged to during his days in Cantab.

Take a peep of the matriculation dinner on a short video capture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jna5_0Mzbe0