Lazy Sunday

Have had a highly entertaining weekend. Saturday we had a Diplomacy (boardgame) party, with an interesting mix of theatre and annexe friends, ending in a Russian (me)/Turkish biumverate ruling Europe following English and Italian surrender in 1907. Great fun, and especially worthwhile for talking to people I respect artistically: an actor from 1984/Psychosis who brought up the idea of trying to adapt a graphic novel for the stage ages ago and who I'm trying to convince to go through with it, and an actress from Hecuba who is a brilliant writer that I'm offering to work with doing illustrations for a comic of our own. Should be meeting with both of them today!

This was followed by going to our house to film a video for Harry (co-director from Psychosis) on my computer for an ARG (alternative reality game) he's involved in about online dating...for robots. You can check out MustLoveRobots or RobotFriendFinder if you're *really* interested--they're mildly amusing.

The next day (Sunday), I golfed in St Andrews for the first time! Well, mini-golfed. Had an extremely random invitation from a 4th year who is trying to do everything in St Andrews she hasn't done before she leaves, and so four of us went and had a few drinks and went out in the sun to piss about with golf clubs and be insulted by middle-aged Americans and their children whose education in the One True Path Of Golf we were doubtless obstructing laughing, hitting multiple balls/hitting balls between our legs/aiming for the wrong flags, and generally not acting as if Golf was an accurate measure of our self-worth and possibility for success later in life. It was great fun. Went back to study and then to a dinner party with some of the same group and their friends. Again, a good time, complete with after-dinner charades and guitar hero.

Today is a buckle-down-and-study day, in anticipation of being done with exams for another 7 months or so following tomorrow. I have been delaying revising Kant, so that'll be like pulling teeth.

As for the change in blog layout--I highly recommend it. Very effective procrastination tool!

SD exam

Had my SD exam at 2 yesterday--it went well, I thought, though the questions were all very vague so my approach was basically just "get indignant and rant", which will hopefully be effective. One of the questions was about Easter Island, which was only mentioned in a single lecture, but made me very smug. I mentioned that it smelled like horse.

Read the first Neil Gaiman's "Sandman", another adult-ish comic book. The artistry of some of it takes me aback, and its an fun premise--the main character is essentially the god of dreams, with all sorts of other weird and quirky characters, including a jealous Lucifer, a deranged super-villain, and a perky, punk-goth Death.

Also returning to an idea I had yesterday, thinking about doing a children's story as my main drama project next year, trying to do stuff with costumes/puppets/set as much as possible. I've had a look at "Where The Wild Things Are", since it's badass, and really love the idea of doing that....the story as read is about six minutes and, of course, very simple, but with some good physical storytelling creating personalities for each monster I think I could stretch it to 40 minutes or so. Would also be a great town-gown show, with a kid and possibly an older person as a storyteller and, of course, students as the monsters (hah!). Could do a lot of cool stuff, though I'd want to get a few artists to work on extensive set bits and Lion King-style costumes. It's certainly an idea!

Finally, a link: http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/161682/detail/ . He is so flipping [boo bad pun] cool.

Exams=adventure?

Had my first exam today, and it went really well. World Religions, quite general questions and absolutely confirmed to me that I can remember anything if I read it before bed and then just before the exam. I had dates, mo'fucka!

Had a few beers to celebrate (keep in mind--exam got out at 11.30) and lounged about for a while before going back home to study a bit for Sustainable Development tomorrow. Had enough of that, and went on a long aimless walk with Anne (a partner in procrastination), where we ended up at a university dump--fantastic! It was all piles of rubble, lines on eerie lines of microwaves, stoves, and fridges from halls, and old battered physics equipment (including a crate that said "lazer" on the side!). But the peak of it all was a skip filled with boxes of books--course requirements from other universities (before they had the internet!), PhD dissertations (so that's where they go...), and copies of New Scientist dating back to the early 80's, with some awesome Cold War stuff going on. Played in the books for a good hour before heading back, laughing elatedly in the street much to the unsettlement of passers by. Headed home for further revision.

Finished The Dharma Bums, which I enjoyed immensely (much more than On The Road) and which I swear helped with my Buddhism essay, for better or for worse. It made me really want to go camping, or at least walk on the fire trails around LA--'real' nature doesn't really exist here, its all manicured through the centuries of human interaction.

Home seems to be coming up fast and hard--this weekend is a party weekend, then another day to study and one last exam, and then I'm all done. I'll probably stay for a day or two afterward to soak up the people while I can and figure out where the hell I'm going to put my stuff, and then hop on the plane. I intend to make the most of these last few days, though.

Ah the joys of the posh and English in summer! Yesterday (summer) was fantastic, in the sense that it was good and slightly unreal. Went for breakfast with a group of friends as always, and a walk on the beach afterward, as sometimes happens on a nice day. Then, in the further interest of procrastination, had the most stereotypically Engish picnic ever in one of the guys' back yards: scones, cream, jam, tea, ginger beer, champagne. Then another long walk by a stream along some of the parks in St Andrews, complete with dicking around on the playground. After this I went home and had a nap (it's hard work!), ate dinner, and got a call to go on another walk with another friend. That was my Sunday: zero studying, zero worrying about studying, lots of outside time. It was awesome.

Revision now is really odd-I've had practically 2 weeks to prepare for 3 exams (7 hours), which has led to me being slack-tastic.

More grey days

Lots of people have their first exams today so tonight there's a barbecue and some pub-age, which will be a welcome change. Yesterday spent the whole day in my pajamas. Still reading Dharma Bums, and finding it wonderfully escapist. It really makes me want to go camping. Still revising at a rate of a few pages per day. Writing a little bit, but only a very little. Thinking about theatre for next year, but drawing an absolute blank. I was looking into Nightmare Before Christmas, but rights become too much of a hassle. They are putting on Rent next semester, which should be fun. I re-read my adaptation of 1984 this morning and thought more about devising pieces. I think the only problem with it is that I end up with a similar flavour or tone with the Cheolseung method of devising stuff, which is really good but not for everything. Might be fun to do a Sam Shepard play or something, see what I can do with the cowboy American image that Brits love. I don't know. I definitely need this summer to re-invigorate me.

And exams still seem ages away...

Grey sky

Revision for the first few weeks of Sustainable Development. Sitting next to the window reading Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" and drinking tea. Counting that as revision, since "Dharma Bums" at least mentions Buddhism....It's nice actually, as Kerouac I feel like really talks about enjoying life and being dissatisfied with it at the same time. I don't think I really got it last year when I read "On the Road", but certainly feel like I do more now.

Bought a mango and realised today that I need to eat it before it goes off. Cut it up, but that just made it more evident how much there was. I had some canned peaches and mixed them, with a sort of smoothie in mind, but we don't have a blender...then hit on the idea of cobbler. Put it all in a pan with some rasins and cinnamon. But wait, cobbler requires pastry...made some french toast, cut it up, and put it in. Not bad! Way more than I could eat, still...

Have thought lately a lot about how I miss interacting with people who aren't in the 18-28 age range. I think there is an implicit value in interacting with people who have been through what you are going through and figured life out a bit more, or can at least show you the options going forward. I think I've been incredibly lucky through my life in interacting with people from all sorts of generations, and that alone may be reason enough to look for a job in addition to school next year. The best cure for existential angst may just be someone a bit older saying, "yeah, get over it", by example if not in words.

My shoes have broken and I'm cycling between steel-toed boots, nice shoes, and slippers. I have a few zombie films to watch. But I am a bit bored.

Calm days

The unintended (nice) result of revision week (no lectures to study) is that it lets you go on long walks and catch up with people in way you can't during the busy year. And to get some closure from the year, I guess. Which is what I did yesterday.

Today, I went and watched the new StarTrek film. Not bad, though really nothing special. I like the new cast and will be interested to see where it goes from here, but the origin story itself felt obligatory and forced. Entertaining enough I suppose, though I prefer the onion article about it at http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film?utm_source=a-section .

Party weekend

Finished up Godspell last night and went to two drama parties--one held by my co-director for Psychosis (who is graduating this year and held this as a "everyone from all shows" party) and the afterparty for Godspell. Fun stuff. The end of shows always makes me a bit sad, because it's a group of people you know will never come together again, and often here you end up really starting to get to know people only as the show closes. But good fun.

This week is revision week, though my first exam isn't until the 21st, so I have about two weeks to study for 3 tests...or to read, surf the internet, tie up loose ends, and watch films! Also good time to buckle down and figure out what's going on this summer...any suggestions of interesting internships/jobs/experiences?

Changed my honours to SD officially today

I like the sound of the coming year. With Philosophy I'd have been looking at philosophy of language, creativity, mind, and value--all interesting, but only 4 classes a week and all philosophy at that felt a bit funny. With SD, I'm keeping the philosophy value and normatively module, but also doing two biology ones (field work and ecosystems), two SD ones (case studies and a review essay on a topic of my choice), and two geography ones (urban geography and people with an awesome professor, and political ecology with a philosopher-go figure). Sounds fun and exciting and new, so I'm stoked for that. Doing the same thing as this year with 50 credits in the first semester and 70 in the second, but as 20 of those are from the review essay it should be okay.

Also talking quite seriously about creating ZAPS, the Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Society, for next year--doing film screenings, games of zombie-tag, zombie-related lectures (factual [philosophical zombies, death in different cultures, diseases that change personality, etc] and fictional). Good fun. Also thinking about drama for next year, of course...and work, since I won't be doing ambassadoring again as they're changing the format so it functions more like a real job (regular, non-negotiable hours) and I've gotten a bit bored of it.

Aaaaaand this summer. Still need to talk more with Cheolseung, still need tickets from London to LA. But focusing on exams short term and then the long term, so need to give that a bit more thought.

rutted

Just sort of...about. In a bit of a rut, I think, though this week should change that. Godspell goes up through the second half, so I'll have plenty to do. My final essay was in last Friday, and I did it in a record-breaking book-in-a-day essay-in-four-hours, but am well pleased with the final result. It's a book review for divinity, even if it is worth 25%, just not that difficult. One more assignment for SD next week, and then done until exams.

Deep metaphysical speculations: maybe later.