Drunk on love

Last night was a milestone in my life: I got drunk for the first time at a student-run cocktail party.

Beforehand, I'd had my first lab practical- three hours of looking at chicken blood under a microscope- and ate a proper dinner for once. Simon cooked me pasta with frankfurters, sweetcorn and egg, which was interesting if nothing else. He refused to come to the cocktail party because he needed to do work, so I trundled off to the Chemical Engineering building by myself. Foolishly, I squandered five pounds on a voucher for seven cocktails; I'm classifying this as a mistake because I could have gotten the drinks from Rikki, who has a position of authority and is therefore entitled to free alcohol at events.

I drank a gin and tonic, a Cosmopolitan, a can of Strongbow and a large vodka and cranberry in quick succession. Despite not downing any of them, and having a lining of food in my stomach, I became distinctly inebriated. I'm going to blame the vodka, which I will stay away from in future.

I don't like being drunk. I just get extremely dizzy, slur my words, and suffer memory blanks the next morning. Here is a list of things I can't remember from last night:

• Leaving the cocktail party, which I think we did fairly early because I fell over (Rikki's friend alerted him to the fact that his girlfriend was sitting on the floor).
• Going back to the garage to pick up my bags.
• The journey back to Putney and stopping off at the kebab shop.
• Trying to throw up in Rikki's toilet, and Rikki's subsequent important declaration. Having said that, I do have a recollection of this, but it's the sort of vague memory you have of dreams.
• Taking my hairgrips out before going to bed.

I only know that all this happened because Rikki filled me in this morning; I woke up in his bed at quarter to seven, and my first thought was not "Where am I?" or "What happened last night?", but "Why is he so far away?". Surprisingly, I didn't have a hangover. I'm not especially tired, either. I didn't understand much of this morning's lecture, but the same applies to every lecture I've had this week. Cell biology is complicated stuff.