Gotham City - MPSU Ball 2014

MPSU Ball 2014 - yesssus
Cue obligatory selfies.

And this is the first photo because it's the most important.
Meet David. Cutie of Pharmacy and every girl's Squish.
(and maybe some squashes I don't know about ;))

I attended the MPSU Ball last Friday night and let me just say, I've attended a few large events this year and I am proud that I can remember this whole night and didn't make a fool of myself in front of my pharmily. Because Monash Parkville is a small campus and you do not want to get a bad reputation.

So my table was with my uni group - so Aesthetics Crew (yes....really) (I think someone named it as a joke but it stuck) plus some Mazenod boys we know :). Tina, also a member of AC (yes.. really), is also on the MPSU committee so she was able to plan our tables so that our friends were on tables close to ours.

This is my dress! Thanks to Anh for taking the photo and Ella for lending her belt.
I didn't really take any nice photos than this of my dress :/

From back to the front: Dennis, Anh, Me, Vanessa, and Monica

Obligatory selfie
(loljks I just thought I looked nice here)

Most of my friends stayed the night at Atlantis Hotel on Spencer St. It was... a tiny room for about 15 people. It had two small bedrooms (one with a king bed, the other with two singles), a small foyer area and a bathroom. I arrived at about 4:30pm and I honestly expected most of the people to be there and ready, and just ready to drink and have a good pres. LOL what expectations -.- There were three girls there totally not ready when I arrived, and two guys. So I spent my time sewing on Dennis' two buttons that fell off his dinner jacket and then curling my hair for two hours and by that time, everyone had arrived and was ready to go. Pre-drinks ended up being bored Dennis drinking by himself, and then me pushing everyone to do shots before we left.
We had this awesome taxi driver who allowed the 14 of us to go in his maxi... totally got his card after that.

And most of them would probably kill me for this ^^
I think it was three extra in this taxi - David, front and middle, John behind him and Jeren next to me
(All the girls here are Panel)

Arriving at Flemington Racecourse Atrium, we saw a queue of dressed up kids waiting to get their tickets and IDs checked to get into the event. Thankfully, our boys, Khoa and Vincent, had arrived about 30 minutes earlier than us and were at the front of the line! <3 br="" nbsp="">

(wow that change in quality of photos)
Sources as tagged

Loved the centrepieces so much -
plus it was cute watching Tina and Kelvin go around blowing out the candles at the end
Sources as tagged

Walking in, the Atrium was gorgeous. The entrance opened under a white net curtain and onto a dark carpeted walkway lined with candles. The metalwork on the candles was carried onto the tables, with the centrepieces climbing up into the air and lit by tea lights. The Gotham City theme was shown through the entertainers walking the floor, dressed as Batman, The Penguin, The Joker and Catwoman. There may have been more that I didn't see. Further, each name place was a little standee with the bat symbol and a joker's card with our name on it. I loved the work they put into the ball. It definitely exceeded my expectations. Further, they also had 2 caricature artists working throughout the night, a photographer, a cinematographer, photobooths and even gambling tables! (I was relieved to find out it was fake money - for a moment, I thought MPSU were encouraging gambling!). A team of waiters stood by the door and I was able to grab a champagne glass off one of them.

Sources as tagged

Sources as tagged

jumbo spinach and ricotta tortellini
with napoli, pine nuts and gremolata crumbs
Courtesies of Vanessa :)

And on to the food - omg. This was the best formal food I've had. MLC was.. and St Kevin's - I can't even remember well, but I feel like I could go on for days about how good the catering was at MPSU. We started with an entrée of giant tortellini. Now this - was good. I had a small smear of the napoli sauce (no where near that shown in the picture) which did unfortunately leave the tortellini a little drier than I would have liked, but it was creamy without being too creamy and it was fresh and just. wow. I can't food critique cause I just eat.

Daube of Beef Bourguignon, Grilled Bacon,
Roast Shallots and Button Mushrooms, Pedro Ximinez Jus
(sorry the lighting.. I try)

But yes.. good (y). Around this time, a waiter came up to ask if we wanted any more drinks and I put my empty glass onto her tray and asked for another champagne. To my surprise, she placed my glass back onto the table and said she could get me another glass. Now,  I certaintly don't have any expectations on whether my glass is filled or replaced, but don't you take an empty glass anyway? This really confused me..

Next up for the main, we were served this wonderfully soft fall apart beef in a red wine jus. unf. I started to feel a little bit sick during the dancing and when dessert came around a creamy and rich dessert was not what I wanted. There was just this blob of cream on the side which I thought would be a lemon mousse or maybe even a scoop of ice cream - but no. cream. Luckily, unlike the resident troll, Jeren, I didn't take a large spoonful. I think I ate about two half teaspoons of the dessert. I'm serious.

Salted caramel layered cake
topped with chocolate ganache and berry coulis
Source as tagged

Reading the description - I wish I'd eaten more of it now. All I tasted was the rich chocolate ganache and the blob of cream. I love salted caramel and I'm so disappointed that I didn't even take a full slice of cake. Urgh. Bad Mai!

As with most formal events, tea/coffee and small desserts? chocolates were served afterwards. I should have read the menu and then I wouldn't have missed out on dessert or the tea. I love tea. :( They also had Lindt chocolates sitting on the tables. I was just thirsty from dancing and drank Dennis' something and coke, before ordering my own rum and coke. Missed all the chocolate :(.

I'm not sure about the time frame but it was definitely after the mains, two acrobats dressed as Batman and Catwoman (though somewhat shoddily I must admit) performed some pretty damn cool stunts.
















MPSU was sweet enough to have organised transport from the Ball to the After Party - So we hopped onto the first bus (albeit a little later than we should have, so we weren't able to get any seats) and drove down to Eve. However, most of us were in long dresses so we made a trip back to the hotel to get changed. Honestly, I'm surprised the guys went with us, since they could have gone straight into the club. We waited miserably in the cold for about 10 minutes before giving up on the tram and catching a taxi down the road to Atlantis. (No awesome taxi driver - so all the girls plus Jeren jumped into one taxi, and the boys went in another two taxis). We probably spent another 30 or 40 minutes recuperating in the hotel with some people KOing to an extent and everyone getting changed. And pouring more shots - but with the increased number of people in the room (picked up two random DOTA friends and Phuphu), not everyone got a shot before we ran out. And then off in another taxi trip back to Eve.

Party buses :D
Sources as tagged

There was this scary lady who was all 'Next time, come straight to the after party after ball' so I'm going to wear a short (or more appropriate for clubbing) dress next time. She was really, scary. So this is my first proper experience of a club? I went to Easter Thursday but that was more like a big clubbing event at Crown and this was more of like what an actual club is like. So really, it was quite boring because well.. we weren't drunk. We saw a lot of pharm kids (well duh) and ended up sneaking to the front and dancing right under the booth. And... everyone kind of left quite quickly. They just sort of drifted off, saying they were going back to the hotel or dragging the drunk kids out. And then there was four. Me, Jeren, and his two DOTA mates. One of them, Alan, was quite eager to buy drinks since I suppose he'd only had one or two back at the hotel. His second round, he bought us all tequila shots which we took straight ... and that was kinda cute that he'd buy us all. so that was fun.

Some AC and AC girls. Nicole is honorary everything.
(we will procure a badge for you somehow..)

Then I pretty much left after 10 minutes cause my parents picked me up and I got a huge lecture about drinking from my parents who are so fucking conservative and think that no one drinks spirits in this world except the really rebel kids and therefore, since all my friends are drinking - they must all be terrible people.

the end.
fml. what an ending to a good night.

(Okay so I wrote this on Sunday and have been slowly editing and waiting for ball pictures with us actually in them but I'm so keen to get this out haha - I'll probably just do a photo post later - enjoy)

faithfully,
Mai