In Spain

trials.

The zed tickets never showed up, so I went ahead and used the frequent flyer.

Terminal 5 has just opened in Heathrow, with everyone completely unprepared, to the tune of absolute chaos. So my flight from Edinburgh was cancelled, the one I was put on next was delayed, and when I finally got there the trains and busses had stopped running. Via the kindness of a businessman who let me get in a cab to Terminal 4 with him and a lady who gave me a lift to the Hilton in exchange for borrowing her mobile, I crashed with Ashley at around 1 AM. Got up super-early to catch the 7.25 flight, but again the trains were so inconsistant that we were delayed 45 mins just waiting and by the time we got there it was after the 45 minute cut-off date to check in, so even though the flight hadn´t gone they made me wait for one at 4.25PM. In Barcelona airport, none of the ATMs would accept my card (neither will the ones I´ve got to yet near the hostel) so I got my 10 pounds changed and the guy who was helping me was amazingly sweet and handed me 5 euros for the bus and metro to the hostel. And now? Well, the hostel is pretty much full, but they´ll set up a bed in the loungue-but only from 2PM to 8AM.

So I haven´t been having a great time. But it´ll work out. And I´m here.

Spain

That last post I put on Facebook as a note and have had no end of discussion about, both here and with friends back home on facebook. Interesting to see the power of words. Lots of people seem to feel the same way, so that's a start. Now, what can be DONE?

No worries about that for a bit. This afternoon I'm heading off to SPAIN. Into Barcelona, out of Lisbon, Portugal, with no plans and no needs along the way except to be in Madrid halfway through. I'm looking forward to it immensely. Expect post-age when I return!


UPDATE: the zed tickets didn't arrive, so I went ahead and ordered frequent flyers--disturbingly easy! Shame on Royal Mail. But I'm headed Spain-ward tonight (staying overnight in Heathrow--no worries, I've got a friend who is getting a room at the Heathrow Hilton (What?!) so I'll be sleeping on the floor of luxury.) Then heading to Barcelona early the next morning. Coming back from Lisbon early on the 13th. Sweet!

What makes me sick about St Andrews

Small town I don't mind. Miserable weather I don't mind.

Here's what I've come to hate in first year: apathy. Are all universities like this? In extracurriculars-the most involved people in school only care about getting drunk. Otherwise, they just fritter their lives away in their rooms watching bad bootleg movies. But more than that--I accept not everyone wants to join every society. It's in academics. First year is a joke. First year is a waste of time. You need a 5 to pass, and a retarded monkey could get that. So many people I know go to under 50% of their lectures (keep in mind, Arts students have only 9 hours of lectures a week!), again, sitting in their rooms, doing fuck all. I've missed lectures to go to other lectures and seminars and more interesting talks. Just a few minutes ago I got back from a talk from a professor from another UK university that I'd seen advertised as an 'open talk' about the postcolonial mentality, volunteering overseas and the transnational person. So much applied to my current experience, where my thoughts are in the future, and even stuff like currently reading Heart of Darkness (set in colonial Africa) that stuff clicked in a way it hasn't done in a long time. "This is what education feels like!" I thought. This is what I thought university would be.

But quite aside from the fact that only 1/2 of any given lecture's audience shows up on a given day, there's the fact that NO one engages. So simple. So easy. Ask a question. Get clarification. But that's my American bias showing through. The reason that it seems St Andrews has so many Americans is that we are the only ones who ask questions, who speak up when the professor asks for an opinion or answer. I'd be really interested to see the inside of a British school to see where this comes from. Is it all students exhausted from their A-levels and Highers who will perk up next year and in Honours? Is it a ritualized thing here that teachers ask questions and its the students job to not respond for as long as humanly possible? People here are intelligent. People DO have questions! I've talked to lots of people who have e-mailed really good questions to professors and gotten really illuminating answers, but by e-mail its only for their benefit. Lectures and tutorials are carried out in an air of dead silence. Why? I want to know why.

And, as an American, I don't want to be *that* American, the one with the horribly piercing voice, who is always the one to answer questions and always asks their own questions, which are usually not as intelligent as other people's, and because others don't ask theirs sound even stupider--like a fundamental question rather than a request for clarification. Yeah, people seem to do their own reading, to seek their own answers, which is great. There is a dependence and babying in US high schools and (I believe) universities where students expect the teacher/professor to hand them everything on a silver platter. But this is not the solution! This way, there is no dialogue, no interaction. I feel closer to the support staff who I've interacted with, to our cleaners, than to any of my professors or tutors.

This is my dissatisfaction. It does not make me despair, but it does make me want to fight. Against apathy.

More rehearsals and a weekend

3 hour rehearsals are a bad thing. How did Academy directors do it? With the Freshers Play I never held rehearsal over one hour-it was convenient, the same time period as a class, so no one had to leave, and by the end of whatever microcosm of a story that rehearsal held everyone was exhausted. Cue The Doctor Despite Himself, a much more traditional rehearsal process. With my goal being to finish rudimentary blocking by the time we split for break, I've held 3 hour blocking rehearsals on Friday and Saturday. During these we've blocked over 1/3 of the play! But my God, they are tiring, for all involved. It's a funny thing that the simplest, shortest scene takes a half hour to an hour and a half to block (depending on physical content), all for maybe 3 minutes of stage-time. And there is a deep dissatisfaction in knowing that the blocking I'm giving will change, depending on the physical features of the stage, how the scenes fit together in the end, and how much the actors forget. And we have barely even started working in "passing the food" to the scenes. Passing the food is focus passing using sharp head movements, the bread and butter of the style. But I think we will reach my goal, and I think and pray that it will work.

We will see what today holds. I finished two books on Sustainable Development recently. Global Spin is about how corporations and special interest groups use the media, advertising, think-tanks, and the government to get what they want and control contemporary dialogue. It's very conspiracy theory, but quite good with loads of case studies and examples, and it does an excellent job of arguing why "free market" controls are undermined by monopolies and so require further controls to protect people and the environment. Philosophy and Environmental Crisis was okay, arguing philosophy about the rights of animals, the value of ecology and ethics's place in it, and how the population bomb and quality of life affected the environment and through it basic human rights. A collection of essays, it was a bit scattered and disorganized, but all-round at least interesting.

This week I'm going to read Heart of Darkness, since we didn't senior year and I've really wanted to. Taking "Infinite Jest", a few thousand page monstrosity, to Spain, with the thought that I'll have quite a bit of traveling time to read.

Was homesick for the first time last night. Weird. An odd combination of events and chemical reactions. I have found friends aplenty here, but no confidante. Everyone to share humor with, few to share thoughts. Everyone who wants adventures when they're drunk, few who can overcome the inertia of laziness when sober.

The storm continues

The usual class-wise. Ask me about the chemistry of fuel manufacturing and reactions! Only, please, don't. Having a short hiatus from rehearsals as people are busy, but hoping to block ALL of Act 2 tomorrow, so we'll see what happens with that. Actors being on-book makes comedia difficult, so the REAL work (and fun work) will begin after break when they are and we can do food passes etc. Went and saw The Vagina Monologues last night, which was really good (surprisingly even good as a play...I must try to figure out how to make the political/message theatre work for me...). Last Friday we discovered a hotel that does karaoke nights on Fridays, and so we'll be back there next Friday. Ashley had some cousins over from the States, so we broke into the castle at 2 AM and showed them around. I'm losing track of what I've said to whom back at home. Constantly checking, "Have I told you this before?" Excited and terrified about Spain. Starting writing a tiny bit again, which feels really good.

Regular posting? Get away from me!

Monday's my busy day...

I feel like a science student. And, oddly, thats not a bad thing. Doing environmental chemistry in SD, memory as it relates to brain functions, as well as statistics, in Psychology, and truth tables (think: math) in Logic. I'm even thinking of looking at what biology courses I could take next year, as away from my 10th grade teacher the subject has always seemed interesting and if we can get away from molecular bio for just 10 seconds I think I might enjoy it.

Lost the elections, don't particularly care. It could've been cool, but this just means I need to be sneakier in worming my way into the underworkings of the university. At least I don't have to worry about representing anyone--whew!

Rehearsals continue going well. Did the first scene last night, gonna do the second and the final scenes tonight. I'm starting to get an idea of what I want to do in terms of props--aka, if I'm having the actors playing instruments, there's no reason why they can't use the instruments as other props as well--aka, to beat each other with. Gently, obviously, but I think it could work. We shall see.

Today is St Patrick's Day. The Union has Guinness hats.

After a week of silence:

This week's been so hectic I haven't known where to start. A lab report due in last Monday. A philosophy "tell us the logical structure of these paragraphs" assignment in on Friday. Student Association elections, where I thought, "why not", and ran for "SRC Arts/Divinity Senate Rep", whatever that may be. Elections were this Friday, hopefully results to come. 4 rehearsals for my show, which is going really well. Hooray cast. Cast it and gave out scripts yesterday (up until this point, it was all Comedia workshops). General going out, reading, processes of life. Going out undulates between being enjoyable and intensely boring. I suppose I still feel a sort of root-less-ness, standard as that is. I continue to be thirsty without a way to satiate that thirst. I look forward to not having a roommate next year, because I think it means I'll be able to write again. Robbie's gone this weekend, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to sit down and type.

End of college-type angst-y whining.

Long time no see!

So:

Had my first rehearsal. Woohoo! Went really well, cast are pretty chipper and there's lots of them so I get to make half of them audience, have them play off each other, and the like fun stuff. Today just did a basic introduction to Comedia, had them do emotion-work, food(passing focus)-work, and talked a bit about the show, characters, my goals in terms of having the actors play instruments and speak French, and the like. I think I am being overly ambitious at the moment, but I think that is a good thing as it will make them overambitious too.

Put in my name for student government elections. Running for "Arts/Divinity Senate Rep", whatever the hell that is, because I wanted to and it was uncontested. Lo and behold. Now it is contested. Damn. Ah well, live a little learn a little (die a little). We'll see what happens.

Got a couple things due in next week: a bit of a psychology lab report (for which I have a general outline for what I'm going to do with the writeup and loads of analyzed data, so I think I'm good) due Monday, and Philosophy (3 pages analyzing arguments in 3 sentences) which I have a rough draft of in Friday, so I'm feeling confident enough about that.

I've got another rehearsal tomorrow (we're starting late so it's gonna be intense. Dammit directing, especially for comedia. Cheolseung-style you sit back and torture them, but for this I have to be shouting and enthusiastic for 2 hours, which is draining as all hell. But fun. I continue to read anti-organization book, have lectures about important resources like oil and...um...gravel in Sustainable Development, have a new nasally lecturer for memory and cognition in Psychology, a bit of boredom in Philosophy (everything dies with too many examples), and watched the movie "Independence Day". That's right, where aliens blow up the white house and only Will Smith can stop them. Classy.

Relaxation weekend

As per the title. I got a bit drunk off of free wine Friday night (be careful when you have a paid-for dinner at a nice hotel...they re-fill your glass). Cool enough, talked a bunch of old university hands, but had what I'd consider my first *real* hangover Saturday. Moved my bed over to my desk to get on the internet without getting out of bed, and liked the arrangement enough that I've switched my room around to make it permanent. Sweet. Jim had a rough night Friday (separate from me, but it ended with him cutting open the back of his head) so he spent the afternoon in my room recouping. Robbie was in Glasgow for his little sister's birthday, and that night was a nice quiet night of playing Andrew's new(?) Wii in his room. Fun stuff. Today I've mostly stayed in and read. I took a couple books out of the library the other day: a "philosophy of SD"-type book, and a "oooh corporations are evil!"-type book, which is actually quite good. The first few chapters are basically a list of organizations in the US, UK, and Australia that look like environmental grassroots groups but are puppets of corporations. Funny stuff, and some scary stuff. All sorts of stuff about private think tanks influencing government and media, directly targeting schools and kids, the "wise use movement" as an environmental anti-environmental group controlled by industry. ITS ALL A CONPSIRASYY! But cool stuff, even if I don't trust it 100%.

This week had better be cool. Tomorrow I've got 3 lectures, a lab, and a tutorial--I have 2 free hours before dinner.