This year looks harder! Wierd...Reading on the first day for Philosophy, major project stuff and an essay in Sustainable Development. But it also looks GOOD. The lecturer for Ancient is a famous Aristotle scholar and no mean shakes with Plato as well as being a compelling lecturer (in her dry way) and looking like a bat in tweed. SD has all different lecturers, but already we've got great freedom in terms of essays (12 possible topics) and project (choose your partner, choose your topic-anything relating to ecology or the environment). But yeah, they look good. Let's see how a first day in actual teaching looks.
And I'm kind of glad that I've only got 2 classes (plus Chinese--must remember that starts up next Monday) this year, because it's getting closer to audition crunch-time and I'm just hoping people turn up. Ah well breakfast time for now.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
And I didn't do a theatre degree because...?
Matriculated today. The lineup for this semester looks like:
Semester 1:
Ancient Philosophy
Sustainable Development (Science)
Mandarin Chinese for Beginners (evening course--marked but no credit)
Semester 2:
Modern Philosophy Descartes to Kant
Sustainable Development (Arts)
Drama: Reading and Performance (a second year English module with no pre-requisites...it's either that or Comparative Religions, but seeing as how the school of divinity is completely nutsoid and I'm soon to be churning out plays faster than I can count, figured a drama literary class might be ok to fill the 20 credits I need).
Also in the first semester, directing 1984 (whose name will probably need to be something else due to lovely copyright, and whose auditions are this wednesday and thursday), starting up TROUPE, my outdoor performance...thing. About which I know very little, despite it being 100% my project. But I've got some ideas, along the lines of doing surreal public performance to highlight the mundanity (is that a word?) of modern life and see if we can't do some performance psychology in making people question their routines. And I'm in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Well, the societies fayre is yet to come, so we'll see what else I end up with.
On the "intimate feelings online" end, this week has been bizzare. On the bus into St Andrews I scrawled on a piece of paper: "When you feel a kind of ironic detatchment from a place--that's when you know you're home". Remains true. Seen lots of old people, met a few new people, mostly solidified aquantinces with old people who I really didn't know but had seen around. Have talked to very few Freshers. Have spent a lot of time alone, and it's actually been a bit lonely for the past few days. I do miss having someone to go around with in the afternoons--even something as simple as Robbie and I last year "I'm going to pop down to Tesco"--"I'll come with you". It's a decently productive solitude, but still. Got a bit stressed about what lectures I could take since SD conflicts with every f*ing thing I wanted to do second semester, and the cues were not great. But nights out have been consistently good, though it's interesting to see who maintains the "let's go out all the time!" attitude and who is now too "grown up" for such childish persuits! Both strike me as a bit silly. I really want to form some meaningful relationships. Yeah, well, we'll see. That kind of thing doesn't happen because of wishing.
Semester 1:
Ancient Philosophy
Sustainable Development (Science)
Mandarin Chinese for Beginners (evening course--marked but no credit)
Semester 2:
Modern Philosophy Descartes to Kant
Sustainable Development (Arts)
Drama: Reading and Performance (a second year English module with no pre-requisites...it's either that or Comparative Religions, but seeing as how the school of divinity is completely nutsoid and I'm soon to be churning out plays faster than I can count, figured a drama literary class might be ok to fill the 20 credits I need).
Also in the first semester, directing 1984 (whose name will probably need to be something else due to lovely copyright, and whose auditions are this wednesday and thursday), starting up TROUPE, my outdoor performance...thing. About which I know very little, despite it being 100% my project. But I've got some ideas, along the lines of doing surreal public performance to highlight the mundanity (is that a word?) of modern life and see if we can't do some performance psychology in making people question their routines. And I'm in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Well, the societies fayre is yet to come, so we'll see what else I end up with.
On the "intimate feelings online" end, this week has been bizzare. On the bus into St Andrews I scrawled on a piece of paper: "When you feel a kind of ironic detatchment from a place--that's when you know you're home". Remains true. Seen lots of old people, met a few new people, mostly solidified aquantinces with old people who I really didn't know but had seen around. Have talked to very few Freshers. Have spent a lot of time alone, and it's actually been a bit lonely for the past few days. I do miss having someone to go around with in the afternoons--even something as simple as Robbie and I last year "I'm going to pop down to Tesco"--"I'll come with you". It's a decently productive solitude, but still. Got a bit stressed about what lectures I could take since SD conflicts with every f*ing thing I wanted to do second semester, and the cues were not great. But nights out have been consistently good, though it's interesting to see who maintains the "let's go out all the time!" attitude and who is now too "grown up" for such childish persuits! Both strike me as a bit silly. I really want to form some meaningful relationships. Yeah, well, we'll see. That kind of thing doesn't happen because of wishing.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Back on the town
Yes! Got the keys and found the house with no difficulty...it's not bad. All our stuff is strewn all over the living room, but it should be nice with some clean up. The fridge is VERY small and the freezer is a shelf, so we'll work on that. Also, still no internet as of yet, but it should be coming...in the meantime, I'm entering this from the library. ALSO my mobile's been deactivated (something about not being turned on in 4 months....hmmm) so I'm working on that. And need to stop in at the bank to figure out accounts and wire transfers and stuff. And buy a towel and maybe sheets/blankets. So, work cut out for me.
Fortunately, on the eating front, this week is Fresher's Week so there are loads of free food events so I think I'm sorted for now. I've got two lunches today and one tomorrow, so that's good. Also, Jim got a kilo of bananas and a kilo of carrots, not realizing how much that was. So, there's nutrition for this week!
Good seeing people again. It's frightning how little actually changes, on the surface at least. First impressions and all. Anyways, off to the bank/phone store/flat again to see if people are up and about.
Fortunately, on the eating front, this week is Fresher's Week so there are loads of free food events so I think I'm sorted for now. I've got two lunches today and one tomorrow, so that's good. Also, Jim got a kilo of bananas and a kilo of carrots, not realizing how much that was. So, there's nutrition for this week!
Good seeing people again. It's frightning how little actually changes, on the surface at least. First impressions and all. Anyways, off to the bank/phone store/flat again to see if people are up and about.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
St Andrews--tomorrow
The laptop is still pushing up daisies-hopefully, in a box in a flat somewhere in St A's there will be a piece of a cardboard box cut out with a number on it, which, when e-mailed to apple, will cause them to activate my warranty, allowing me to request them to ship me an envelope in which I can stick the damn thing and ship it off to get fixed. I'm anticipating "5-7 working days" BUT am much more optimistic because Mom's letting me take her old laptop. No files but at least a hook-in to the internet and a place to type/print stuff from.
Greece has been nice, though it comes at an odd time sandwiched between Costa Rica/LA/Scotland--good "bonding with parentals" time, anyways. Looking forward to getting back to Scotland, slightly dreading having to cook all my own meals, but now actually thinking it could be a great social opportunity. A lot of societies do 1 pound lunches to encourage people to come to their meetings. A cheap gimmick or dastardly effective? Time will tell.
Also really getting into concept for my production of Orwell's 1984 (note to self-investigate copyright! Possilbe name change to come...). Conceptualizing it less as a "play" than as an event, taking place in the US elections week or the week after and featuring an art gallery, donations box for torture victims, chalk graffiti all over town by way of promotion, and, if I can get some of the politically active societies in on it, maybe even some speakers and other, as-yet-unthought-but-potent-in-their-own-right *things*. Also thinking of having the entire thing done without stage lights (almost the entire thing, at least-think "we will meet in the place where there is no darkness") and possibly with a Frank Sanatra/crooner score for a taste of irony. But of course it's all unformed ideas, and everything is liable to change. Also need to think more about my TROUPE outdoor semi-scripted theatre *thing*. What's that? Don't ask me. But I'm thinking to hold auditions just after Fresher's week.
The economy is looking scary, but tuition is payed for this year at least. And hopefully I'll arrive in Scotland to a mail-in absentee voter confirmation letter to sign and send back to vote in the McCain/Palin 2008 Republican elections. But hey, I've left the country and I bet it would boost 1984 ticket sales. Also, I need to matriculate and confirm my class choices for this year. How do I do that? The answer, and many other mysteries, await.
Greece has been nice, though it comes at an odd time sandwiched between Costa Rica/LA/Scotland--good "bonding with parentals" time, anyways. Looking forward to getting back to Scotland, slightly dreading having to cook all my own meals, but now actually thinking it could be a great social opportunity. A lot of societies do 1 pound lunches to encourage people to come to their meetings. A cheap gimmick or dastardly effective? Time will tell.
Also really getting into concept for my production of Orwell's 1984 (note to self-investigate copyright! Possilbe name change to come...). Conceptualizing it less as a "play" than as an event, taking place in the US elections week or the week after and featuring an art gallery, donations box for torture victims, chalk graffiti all over town by way of promotion, and, if I can get some of the politically active societies in on it, maybe even some speakers and other, as-yet-unthought-but-potent-in-their-own-right *things*. Also thinking of having the entire thing done without stage lights (almost the entire thing, at least-think "we will meet in the place where there is no darkness") and possibly with a Frank Sanatra/crooner score for a taste of irony. But of course it's all unformed ideas, and everything is liable to change. Also need to think more about my TROUPE outdoor semi-scripted theatre *thing*. What's that? Don't ask me. But I'm thinking to hold auditions just after Fresher's week.
The economy is looking scary, but tuition is payed for this year at least. And hopefully I'll arrive in Scotland to a mail-in absentee voter confirmation letter to sign and send back to vote in the McCain/Palin 2008 Republican elections. But hey, I've left the country and I bet it would boost 1984 ticket sales. Also, I need to matriculate and confirm my class choices for this year. How do I do that? The answer, and many other mysteries, await.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Right, let's try to start posting again...
For real. Got back from Costa Rica, spent the fastest 5 days ever in LA, and now am in Athens Greeceing it up.
Costa Rica was definitely up there in the "best 2 months of my life" rating, both for fun and learning, in an extremely non-academic sense. Living in a 3rd world country and interacting with the people there, even just for a couple months, was eye-opening. I'd describe it as "more basic" but not "more simple". That is, people had just as many worries, just as many conflicts, and a much more difficult life. BUT their worries were about real, life-altering issues, their conflicts took the backseat to what they needed to do, and less assurance of life meant both more respect for it and a different attitude toward risk. Overall, it opened my eyes to the pettiness of our worries and wants. And that's not even mentioning the sloths!
LA was just a quick re-connect, to discover that my computer, which I left in LA to keep it safe, had broken while I was gone (the monitor's out). Still waiting for the warranty number from Apple, then have to send it in to a UK office to get fixed. So no real computer for a little bit longer.
And Greece! Arrived tired, but the food is good, and walking around seeing stuff is cool. More impressions to come. A couple words (good morning-kalimera, and sorry-signome) I recognize from the video game Quest for Glory 5. Hooray for the intense educational experience that is computer games!
Reading "Kite Runner" for the first time, and finding it very emotionally powerful, though I'm unsure where it's going. Also going through "1984" again and writing down stuff to use in my adaptation when I get back to school. Which I'm looking forward to getting back to, incidentally.
And hopefully blogging will be come...consistant?
Costa Rica was definitely up there in the "best 2 months of my life" rating, both for fun and learning, in an extremely non-academic sense. Living in a 3rd world country and interacting with the people there, even just for a couple months, was eye-opening. I'd describe it as "more basic" but not "more simple". That is, people had just as many worries, just as many conflicts, and a much more difficult life. BUT their worries were about real, life-altering issues, their conflicts took the backseat to what they needed to do, and less assurance of life meant both more respect for it and a different attitude toward risk. Overall, it opened my eyes to the pettiness of our worries and wants. And that's not even mentioning the sloths!
LA was just a quick re-connect, to discover that my computer, which I left in LA to keep it safe, had broken while I was gone (the monitor's out). Still waiting for the warranty number from Apple, then have to send it in to a UK office to get fixed. So no real computer for a little bit longer.
And Greece! Arrived tired, but the food is good, and walking around seeing stuff is cool. More impressions to come. A couple words (good morning-kalimera, and sorry-signome) I recognize from the video game Quest for Glory 5. Hooray for the intense educational experience that is computer games!
Reading "Kite Runner" for the first time, and finding it very emotionally powerful, though I'm unsure where it's going. Also going through "1984" again and writing down stuff to use in my adaptation when I get back to school. Which I'm looking forward to getting back to, incidentally.
And hopefully blogging will be come...consistant?
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