Found an Apartment

I've found an apartment in Beijing! Living with a French girl and an American/Chinese couple, slightly overpriced at 3000rmb (about $450) all-told, but available for just the month (and with the screwy dates I have) and in a great location...actually around the corner from my hostel. Moved in yesterday.
Interestingly, Beijing seems to be cheaper than Shanghai in almost all respects, from food to transport. Been exploring a little, had dinner with Larry the other night (and his girlfriend...OOPS, he didn't know it was Chinese Valentine's day until I told him.) You can live in a country for 20 years, but if it's all in an office...the story behind this holiday is fun, it has to do with a goddess [in the moon. obviously.] and mortal falling in love, but the goddesses protective father separates them. Once a year on this day [by the lunar calendar so it changes every year] the birds form a bridge to the moon and they meet. Met a friend with a scooter (and my landlord has one! he took me to the bank and the police to register) so I've been scootering around Beijing a bit. Terrifying. God save the third world as they get cars. The visit to the police station was interesting--they have an old-time stamp for everything instead of signing and I got to go into the fun 'interrogation room'...to sign stuff. Little nerve wracking, but certainly an experience.

Beijing Impressions

Beijing: So much more alive, more vibrant, more smelly! A city of big causeways and myriad wending alleyways that threaten to swallow you. Each is a city in its own right, replete with markets, shops, hair salons, restaurants, old women complaining, young couples walking, and nearly naked children with wise faces perched on handcarts, surveying it all. Public toilets abound—one on every corner, wafting its odour to mingle with the food and people and dog smells of the street. The air is hot but dry, the sun casting mottled shadows on the larger, tree-lined boulevards, catching the red lanterns lining the street and washing out the neon facades of the more glamorous restaurants, making them even more tacky. Three bird cages hang from one tree above a stand of bicycles. I sat in the only restaurant I could find that was still open and busy for lunch at 3 in the afternoon and devoured a bowl of eggplant-pork noodles drowned in enough oil to fry a cat. I sipped a can of cold coconut milk.

I feel much more at home here than in Shanghai. People seem less rushed, more relaxed. The mere presence of trees and gardens does wonders for the spirits, and the older, crumbling architecture gives it a sense of concrete PLACE (spatiality) in this McWorld that Shanghai lacks. And on the steet, a white UN truck honks in irritation as a taxi cab cuts it off.

Still alive in Shanghai

Hey! I'm still alive, still in Shanghai partying the weekend up before getting serious about Beijing next week (like how to get there....where to stay...the small stuff).

I've read that the more time you spend in China the less you are able to say. Stuff that at first is really odd becomes everyday, but I thought I'd start a list, for my own memory as much as anything.

It starts with the hallway outside our apartment, on the 25th floor. Coming out of the elevator the first thing you notice is the shiny plastic wall hanging--two tigers around a character. I imagine it is left over from some holiday or festival--we saw similar things in Guangdong on the doors of houses. Moving down the hallway you notice a row of cactuses and plants on one window ledge, then the next window open and leading out onto a rooftop area, where one of the neighbours has installed a pigeon coop. Pigeon is a fairly common item on all the menus here. Further on my neighbours have hung their washing and have a stool and bucket out in the hallway--their apartment is only maybe two rooms so they leave the door open most of the time and a large amount of day-to-day life is lived in the corridor. Should also mention that the corridor is the parking garage for everyone's bikes.

And speaking of bikes, the things people here fit on them boggles the mind. Today I saw someone on a motorcycle with a flowerpot--that was just surreal, but its not uncommon to see them loaded with wood or water cooler tanks or anything you can imagine (plants are more common than you might expect). Also popular are attached trailers with everything from goods to people, with the poor person in front pedaling furiously in the traffic. And bikes and motorcycles here consider themselves halfway between pedestrian and car, zooming around on sidewalks and even 'jaywalking' when no cars are coming. A lot of the streets have unofficial bike/motorbike lanes, and cars seem to be as used to driving around them as the cyclists are to performing all sorts of vehicular acrobats to not get run over.

That's all for now--more next time!

Brain-digging

There is a world of difference, as far as I can tell, between US and UK university experience. Doing some brain-digging, I think the language used in each country to describe the experience is revealing of the overall experience itself:


UK: "at university"
'At' refers to a place or a temporary stage of life--"I'm at work right now", or, "I'm at National and 1st street". The experience is temporary, transient, a one-way relationship. You can be 'at' something, but it can't be 'at' you.


US: "in college"
'In' is different--it refers to a physical placement as well, but the connotation is of enfolding, encircling, protecting--what you are 'in' has agency, in that *it* contains *you*. And it does contain--it becomes institutional, you are 'in', you can't just leave as if you were merely 'at'. But to be 'in' also implies entrance (exclusivity!) or membership--"I am *in*, they are out." And it comes with greater propriety and ownership: "I am *in* my house" versus "I am *at* home"."In college", you own it and it owns you, protects you, keeps others out but keeps you in. It is altogether a more infantile relationship than the autonomous "I am *at* university--I am here, for now, for my purposes. Tomorrow I may leave."


In the UK, most of the population goes to university, derailing its 'elitism', and schools themselves are government service institutions that are taken somewhat more for granted. The US does a better job of 'branding' and 'owning', one of the upsides of the common complaint that US schools are just businesses. Or is it an upside? It's been interesting speaking to Jason, who goes to Cornell--his freshman year has been absolutely harrowing, by the sounds of it, in terms of workload and expectations. I'm conflicted how to feel about this--I recognize the huge value of the leeway and free time or 'reading time' that St Andrews gives, but further structure and a comprehensive liberal arts agenda would actually probably have been more beneficial *for me*. The followup question, I guess, is about results: which of us winds up knowing more, or being able to think better? And how much of that can actually be attributed to whether or not we took a mandatory Writing 101 class?


One of the things I'm missing this summer is real academic interaction. I still read my blogs but it definitely is not the same--the lack of someone to have 'idea' talks with is dead depressing, and I can actually feel the scope of my thoughts shrinking. I've learnt a lot of specifics here, but the big-picture general stuff and the connections are lacking.

Swords and fauna

Yesterday in front of the fitness center there was a guy with a sword! Just with his buddy, out in the courtyard, practicing classical Chinese swordfighting (like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but with less flying!). Have also had some interesting observations about the fauna here--Mom commented when we were in China last summer that there are no birds. This is still true, though little birds in little cages (think Mulan!) are quite common (there is actually a 'market' where they are sold in a nearby park) and our neighbors have a pigeon coop. Tasty! These are no messenger birds...Where the skies fill up though is at dusk, where it seems like little sparrows suddenly appear everywhere--but watching their movements more closely, you realise that they are bats! Everywhere. There are a lot of mosquitoes around, so I guess it makes perfect sense, but its actually caught me by surprise a few times.

My medical experience...

I called Qi, who is the head of marketing at our company and just generally the sweetest woman you'll ever meet (she is sort of the go-to for all questions and advice) and she knew about a place nearby (10 minute cab ride). It looked like a university hospital, or at least one attached to a university, and there was a small upstairs area that was an 'international hospital'. Qi was actually slightly concerned making sure that the place I went would treat foreigners. At the international hospital the people who spoke english were the receptionist, pharmacist, and one nurse (not the other! though it meant i did a spectacular pantomime to tell the woman taking blood 'I faint sometimes with shots'...hooray for nonverbal communication, she took me to a big recliner right away, though I didn't faint in the end). The doctor was a much older woman who spoke very broken English--I understood her well but I often had to ask questions several times. The man who took me down to get x-rays and the x-ray people spoke no English. I paid at the end. Interestingly, at the beginning they did say 'the doctor fee is rmb500' but I wasn't told a price tag for any of the other tests or medication until the end...they just assumed, I guess, that I would have the money? When I paid, they presented me the entire bill at the pharmacy (the special little 'international' pharmacy) rather than paying just for medicine there. Because of the 'international pharmacy' I'm sure I got 'international prices'--seeing the doctor was 1/2 of the bill, and I'm sure if I'd gone downstairs the doctor visit would've been much cheaper. The staff were overall helpful and friendly, though, and I was pleased with pretty much everything, though a bit disappointed that the doctor didn't actually speak much English.

It was Bronchitis!

Of the acute bacterial variety, believe it or not. Oh joy, my first real adult illness.

Spent most of today at the hospital. Bill came to about RMB12500 (around US$180) for drop-in doctor, bloodwork, x-ray, and perscription (antibiotics, something for my sinuses, and "traditional Chinese cough syrup"[mostly honey and herbs]). Phew. Long day. Good to know what the crappiness was and have something to do about it. I've got records and a receipt if you think Kaiser will do anything about it, along with a nifty x-ray of my lung that looks like someone exploded a spider in it.

So...taking it easy for the weekend?
Though we may go see pandas tomorrow.

No more proxy

So, the proxy I got to get around the (Great) Firewall that actually worked....was also loaded with malicious spyware. Hah. Ah well. So that's deleted now, and I again facebook and blog-less.

I've been quite ill for the last few days--too little sleep and horribly polluted air is my guess. Took yesterday off from work, laid on the couch and slept or watched The Colbert Report and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It was crap...great visuals, but somehow they decided that The Chronicles of Narnia was an appropriate story to tie that deliciously nonsensical mess to...and it didn't work. At all. A few really clever moments, but the film felt like a Burton flick constrained by the Alice mythos rather than something that gave it wings. Ah well. It was a bootleg Chinese copy and pretty good quality for that, though at 2 points the film went into black and white for a few minutes...odd.

What else? Earlier this week I went with Jason (who I'm living with) to get an hour massage for US$10, which was pretty good, especially for $10! Otherwise things have been pretty quiet here, Larry has honestly kinda run out of stuff for us to do...we've been doing "online marketing" for over a week now, just trolling forums and message boards and setting up pages, which is potentially useful, but Larry is distinctly NOT someone who does computers, so all the social networking/viral marketing stuff that is possible really isn't in this context because no one will ever go on the pages or update content....ah well. Hopefully next week will be busier, I'm going to ask if I can shadow someone...I've gotten a decent data analyst/marketing perspective, but still not seen any actual 'consulting', which is what the firm, yennow, does. Still fingers crossed about something green-tech-y, but I haven't heard anything about that in a while. Since Malinda (his niece) left Larry hasn't been around out of the office, where he is, understandably, furiously busy, so I haven't gotten much time to talk.

Going out for Karaoke with Jason and most of the marketing team tonight, though, which should be fun.

Proxies!

Trust the Chinese how to get around their own governments. A girl at the office today gave me a proxy to access facebook/blogspot/youtube, so I'm back online! Have had a really good couple of days at the office creating an online presence for Larry's company ('astroturfing' I believe is the term...a company spamming the internet while making it look like a grassroots movement), which is awesome and has had me learning how to use all sorts of encyclopedic and social networking sites that I wasn't on before. I should get back to work, but it's good to have social networking access again!

Long Time, No Write

I've been keeping busy! As in, yesterday I was in the office for 12 hours. There is no official 'clock in' or 'clock out' time here, at least not so far as I have been told. Nor, as far as I can tell, is there an official 'lunch time'. I tend to eat when everyone eats (usually ordering into the office, eating, and going straight back to work) and leave when most of the marketing people leave (this is where I sit--some of the consultants will have left an hour or two before, some stay much longer). The effect of this is interesting in an psychology/economics sense--I at least feel a strong pressure to not take an hour for lunch, to arrive early and to leave late, so as not be seen as a slacker. Larry, of course, as CEO, essentially lives in the office (he has two full wracks of clothes here, and no permanent address in Shanghai). Fortunately, Jason, Malinda's cousin (Malinda is Larry's niece--convoluted enough enough family for you? And Jason, as we found out last night, is actually a second cousin, or a cousin a few times removed) arrived a couple days ago. He's a Cornell student here for a couple weeks to intern too and we're sharing a desk and projects...ahhh hooray for having someone to 'manage'--but really, he's good fun and insists on things like a lunch hour, which I hadn't even realised I was missing (a little too easygoing, perhaps?).

In any case, Larry's new book launches in Beijing tomorrow so the marketing area has been a-flurry over getting ready for that, and we've been getting sucked in. My primary job has still been data collection and analysis, and either Larry or I finally figured out what he was going for so I've been getting statistics that are maybe even useful! And, as its the end of June, probably endlessly updating the office data. But as much fun as spreadsheets have been ("a learning experience...") we're moving on to greener pastures! Larry is decidedly NOT tech savvy (both a good and bad thing) so we've got the very general assignment to "create an internet presence" and "do 'viral' marketing" etc. You know, the stuff young people and small companies do for cheap with big results...maybe. I worry that without maintenance (you can't just 'create' digg, twitter, and facebook accounts, you've actually gotta do stuff with them!) this effort will be half-hearted and ineffective, but there are some basic things (a wikipedia page! online photos!) that we are working on right now that are actually kinda cool, with the bonus of forcing me how to use the sites and do some basic HTML. I think Larry also wants us to do some astroturfing, aka fake 'grassroots' campaigning, like spamming forums with "I just discovered this new book!" kinda stuff from 'unrelated people'. Morally questionable, but again, probably a great thing for me to know. Giving me lots of new ideas for theatre marketing...

On the social front, have been meeting some cool people. Randomly have gotten to know a bunch of the dancers from the US pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, and that's been great for having people with some sense of ART AND BEAUTY IN THE WORLD in addition to money money money. Also, they're pro dancers. Like, music videos and broadway shows pro. Which is awesome. And last weekend I went to a party on a boat with them, hosted by the Spain Pavilion, and that was pretty sweet--free alcohol, and ON A BOAT! What else? I've been eating for about 10RMB a meal (that's about $1.4) which makes me happy, and I have hilarious interactions every time I try to do something as simple as buy fruit from a fruit stand...I got enough basic Chinese to ask for things but not nearly enough to understand the responses.

Half-formed thought-of-the-week:

Don't blame the West. Westernisation of Chinese culture, etc. Or at least, don't blame it exclusively. Blame urbanization at an incredible pace. I've been reading shanghaiexpat.com, an expat forum, and a lot of the complaints are about 'rudeness', spitting in the streets, littering, doing 'private business' in public, not saying sorry, etc. Some of the responses have said "hey, it's a cultural thing", but the best ones have said "look at any early-stage city, or cities with a lot of migrants from the countryside. Habits that in the country are fine or even best-practices in crowded cities become disruptive. People need time to learn how to live in cities. Give China a generation or two. The government is trying to 'rush' 'civilizing' behaviour for the Olympics and Expo...this will come by itself in time." It's an interesting thought, I'll be fascinated to see if it is proven correct.

Tragic but funny

Further Blogservations:

Or, Why the US is Fat and Sick (Compared to the Rest of the World).
Everyone in the office in Shanghai has been coughing up a storm, myself especially--who wouldn't, the air is basically brown and the tops of the skyscrapers are shrouded in a haze of *something*. Last Monday I asked Xi, the head of marketing who's desk is closest to mine, what she'd done over the weekend. "You know," she replied, "stayed home...tried to get rid of my cough." Xi lived in the UK for a while and her English is exceptional.

"Oh," I ask, "What did you take?"
She hesitates for a moment. "You know, in China, we use some food as medicine. My mother made me special drink...it has...pear...mushroom....some sweet (candy), and a, how do you say, a type of medicine juice. Chinese cough syrup!" Then yesterday, around the end of the day someone starting handing out sweets around the office (Xi keeps a seemingly neverending supply of cough drops that appear whenever I start coughing), and on the packet I noticed, written over and over in big letters, VITAMIN C. Melinda, the other Western Intern and Larry's niece, said, "doesn't this company make cough drops? Is this candy or cough drops?" They were lime flavoured, soothing on the throat, and doubtless great for the Vitamin C levels.

And it got me thinking back. In Costa Rica, when one of the staff was sick, they made him drink something whose main ingredient seemed to be cinnamon until he got better. In Korea last summer, the Jim Je Ban, the public bath, was not a luxury or just a way to keep clean but a health institution that you would visit weekly for the same reasons you brush your teeth each day. Likewise, acupuncture and massage have health connotations. And when we order into the office, I've twice now pointed at a picture on the take-out menu only to have Xi say, "I do not think that will be good for cough, it's too spicy."

Colonial Brian goes "Ah, how quaint! Folklore!" while Sceptic Brian makes unfavourable comparisons to homeopathy and remembers the words of Robbie, my chemist roommate from first year: "I don't understand people who are against taking pills but drink all these teas. It's all the same at a chemical level! The pills just distill them and give you more of the same good thing." But I can't help thinking there is more than that. Somehow, there is a world of difference between the hippy who drinks green tea (for the polyphenols and catechins! totally good for your health!) and eats Big Macs and the Chinese office worker who tells me I shouldn't even order something spicy because I want to look after my cough. It's a difference of categorization, or a nominal difference or a question of norms or somesuch structural BS that I normally dismiss as impractical and academic but does actually affect the way people act. Here, it's a question of how people relate to their bodies and to their health.

Ken Robinson says of academics, "they view their bodies as a way to get their heads to meetings" and that we "educate from the waist up...then above the neck...and slightly to the left." This slots in nicely with Descartes dualism, the idea that the body and mind are categorically different and that our bodies are mostly useful as vessels for our minds. And I would argue that this conceptual separation manifests itself in the way we treat our bodies. They probably need some sustenance and some exercise, yennow, at least a base level, but beyond that we'd really rather be watching TV or typing away at the laptop. But in China it's a common sight in offices and even just in the street in the morning to see people in groups and alone exercising and stretching as part of their daily routine--again, like brushing your teeth. It's team-building and it's brain-awakening and generally 'good for you'. I think there is a lot more of a sense, not only here but outside of the 'West' in general, of the delicate balance of our bodies (did the Greeks and medieval scholars have this with the idea of 'balancing the humours'?) and the fact that EVERYTHING we do affects them. It's a two way street--certain medicines are foods, but all food is medicine--you don't want to eat anything too spicy if you've got a cough!

What could be the cause of this? Moving from rampant speculation to rampant speculation, I'd hazard a guess that generally harsher conditions, harder living, and a greater closeness to manual labour, as well as just the sheer LACK of ability to fix something if it does go wrong, all contribute to the sense that anything you plug into the body's equation will come out the other end. We have weight loss pills and anxiety pills and cold pills, indoor gym memberships and holidays to help us 'relax when we get too stressed' and paid sick leave. All of these wonders of the modern age allow us, somehow, to be lenient, to be lax when it comes to taking care of ourselves on a day-to-day basis. For us, the very meaning of the word 'medicine' focuses on 'treatment' rather than 'prevention'.

Which isn't to say that everyone in China doesn't smoke (universally considered healthy for you, by the way, until maybe 150 years ago) and have horrible health problems, just that the way in which they CONCEIVE of their problems seems somewhat different to a Western mindset. And sure, we are starting to see, with food especially, the (re?)emergence of smoothies and health food stores and organic movements--but even look at the rhetoric for these! They market themselves as 'good for you', sure, but its not just 'good for you', its 'good for you COMPARED TO xyz'--still the rhetoric is of treatment, though in this case maybe of a more society-wide ill, rather than simply 'harmony within the body' detached from any movement or stigma (F***ng vegetarians and hippies! Get off my lawn!).

I'm sure a lot of this is wrong, but hey, it's a theory! I'd love to hear thoughts from people who know what they're talking about. And, in my own defense, I'll leave you with the words of UK comedian Eddie Izzard: "There was Socrates, he was great, he invented questioning. Before Socrates, no questioning. Everyone just sorta went 'yeah, I suppose so.'...and Aristotle, Aristotle said the sun goes around the Earth--wrong! Wrong...But in his day you didn't have to prove a theory...they went 'well done! That's a theory! That's fantastic. Just a few photos, alright...'...and Leonardo da Vinci invented a helicopted that *did not work*--and so did I! "

Thought for the day

In China, age differences make a huge difference. "Of course," I thought when I first came, "It's a cultural thing. Respect your elders and all that. Traditional!" But talking with the people in the office (who are mainly late 20s and early 30s) here I can see how much this is the product of recent history. Simply put, the difference between the exposure and opportunities that China presented to a 27-year-old and a 30-year-old growing up are vast--and this is probably increasingly true with my generation here as China opens up its doors to the West. In Korea I saw a similar thing, though it manifested itself differently and more dramatically: a comparatively small youth population (especially in cities, it's increasingly expensive to have kids) whose parents all had many more siblings and were accustomed to large families, so that all of those resources and attention (and pressure! Your future IS the national exam) were lavished on just one or two kids compared to a previous generation's 7 or 8. In both China and Korea, on different time-scales, economic development has meant a hugely expanded world of opportunity for youth. Several things I've read suggest that Chinese are unconcerned with Western fixations like free media because, for the first time, everyone has good access to enough food. 'Human Rights' seem not to be the most fundamental rights, after all--but the free-speech-ful hobo begging for food in any major American city could tell you as much. And of course you have to factor in things like the One Child Policy and a rich and turbulent modern history that I am by-and-large ignorant of. The experiences, opportunities, and expectations for each subsequent generation (and even each year within generations) are vastly different from one another.

Poem inspired by the 25 floor elevator ride

"The Corporate Pastures of Our Green and Pleasant Land"

They stood in solemn silence, four abreast,
With upturned faces reflected in chrome
Elevator doors, and laboured breathing
Heavy through gaping mouths. Still no one spoke,
But deeply breathed in grime and dust and smog,
Patient, waiting for the pond'rous machine
To reach the nadir of its heavenly
Descent, a growling beast on the slow track
Going down...down...down… (Stop. Another man,
Another automaton, clambers on
To stare glassy-eyed at the mirror doors).
Still no one speaks! The silence is not bleak,
Nor dull, nor rev'rent, nor even sullen.
The passengers do not resent the beast
Or love it, as disciples with lower’d gaze,
But merely ride in its enflamed gullet
Without a second thought, heedless and bored--
Poised expectant to stream out like a flood
Bursting over the waking world's dry dam
In a sort of sweaty wakeful sleep.
To dream, through android days, of electric sheep.

Day 1: June 17 2010

1. Created list of data analysis tasks

2. Re-familiarised self with Excel

3. Graphs
pie charts of cases and revenue by location
bar charts of age and gender by location
3-d bar charts of experience of employee (at and out of Wang-Li) vs time to get a promotion

4. Added values for May resume tracking

5. Started to compare associate resume tracking/candidates passed line manager/received offer

6. Reviewed and edited article for newsletter of Larry interview

7. Read a bunch of promo material/company stats and 50 pages of Larry's book "Know the Game, Play the Game"

Larry is looking into hiring a full-time data analyst but in the meantime seems to have decided that I am good enough. Again I grudgingly thank my education in Chile that had me spending hours on spreadsheets. And thank my time-wasting on entrepreneurial/economics blogs for giving me anything even close to the vocabulary that I might need. And almost wish I'd done the statistical analyses rather than just written essays for bio last semester (the essays I got perfect scores on? no, wait, nevermind, I don't wish that!).

So my 21st birthday has been my first day in an office. Smells like justice! Or maybe just fate. In any case, slightly musty with a lukewarm water cooler and a bunch of Chinese girls. Everyone has a Western name and it's still impossible to remember any of them. I've been taking it all very seriously, writing everything down (including names/schools/jobs/physical descriptions), which is immensely helpful. I have probably done more work today than in the last year, at least in one concerted spate. And that's on 8-hour jetlag! Open office=24-hour supervision. Oh, also, yennow, "open community" etc. Not that I'm not writing this from the office....but then again, it's 5:30pm and no one shows any signs of letting up. I've been awake for 12 hours, I am officially done...

coming home

On the 26th. Should arrive in the evening. Flight booked.

The meaning of 'revision'

We've got this week off, ostensibly for studying, which most of the university seem to be procrastinating from with great vigor. My exams are both at the end of next week, so I've been finishing up course reading I haven't done and looked over previous exam questions for the first time today, but all-in-all haven't been panicked. Instead, I've been reading a book of World War I poetry, working on a comic (around a speaker-silent listener motif) and being ill, as my body went "Wait, are we all done here? Right, I'll just die for a bit then."

Excited for this summer, both coming home and going to China. Not too worried about exams, all things considered, I feel very up-to-date on the concepts of the courses.

Here's a poem I wrote just now. I've been reading this poetry, as I said, and opposite our flat there is a park with a football (soccer) pitch.

Outside boy-men with sunken chests

Play football in a muddy field,

Inside I sit and read on death

In wartime, of men broke and healed.

Reading trench-poems to springtime days

As they turn evening, shadows long,

Outside my window, the football players

Are the same age, about as strong

As men who died in foreign lands.

Tired boys, with footballs in their hands.

free associating--sort of (maybe I'm just bored of punctuation?)

done i'm almost done this piece of crap is in tomorrow and its okay not great but i think i'm fine with that, then a couple more things but first of all i'm going to see people and eat and drink and have fun cause i've spent all day today in bed in my boxers wedded to my laptop and our marriage isn't healthy and HAS TO END, oh laptop, you dispatcher of the infinite internet that tells me everything i need to know (how did you people write essays with books and pens and typewriters? it boggles the mind)

and my play ended oh my play ended yeah it was a success, got some great audience interaction (did this one as un-theatrically as possible, opened with a paper-crane-making/drumming/storytelling workshop, proceeded to the performance [in a classroom in a museum, no lights, no set, no real costumes, just the actors and some instruments], ended with an hour of audience discussion) and it was about GENOCIDE and REFUGEES and stuff and that's very real etc but we raised over £100 to go toward warning people of attacks and getting them firewood so there's some real world good and i don't think i was able to fully appreciate the play because of this essay and life going on and generally having too long a rehearsal time, i think short-and-intense always beats long-and-exhaustive, though the script is possibly the best thing i've (collaboratively) written, ever, its quite good

and this gives me hope for my dissertation next year, a play as research, the audience as ethnography, really such a bullshit thing but it's what i want to do and so i'll do it and i'll justify it and it will come off with a solid academic backing and maybe i'll delude myself into believing that that legitimizes it as a project

and in terms of relationships i have had some great meals and chill-time with people, friends really coming through (and others not) and life goes on--i think maybe i have too many friends here, there is a critical mass you reach in any given place and you CANNOT physically see all of them, even if you want to, and the ones you do see are not necessarily the ones you would like to most, though i see more people i want to see than last year. the ones you like the most are not even necessarily the ones you want to like, and it gets very first order/second order philosophical but I think that in the end all friendship is may be reducible to time and proximity, and that's scary but there are scarier things in heaven and earth

have started talking, half-joking, about what i'm doing after uni, that's scary. a friend at directing school asked, when he was up, if i wanted to start a theatre company with him. yesterday a friend and i decided it could be fun, in a i-am-the-devil kinda way, and possibly incredibly lucrative to do fairtrade organic tobacco and market it to environmentally conscious people who are going to smoke anyways...this summer in china i think will see major developments in my thinking. i really should have worked, properly worked, before now--all i know is school and school is a tiny microcosm of life--or maybe it isn't, i wouldn't know. i'm kinda scared of this summer, the idea of 'the last freedom' is terrifying, though less so with a british and not american mindset--british people are fine working at a menial job for a year to go traveling for a year, that's considered valid, whereas in america that would be career suicide (maybe?)

there is a lot i don't know. i have been thinking a bit lately about "life as a game"--I have a friend who owns a shop. What does that mean? She isn't any different, and it's just a room. But she rents it out and puts stuff in there and puts a sign on the door that says 'shop' and people come in and give her money. The 'shop' game. Likewise, the 'academic' game--the essays we write, the stuff professors talk about as 'knowledge' is another kind of game, a true-make-believe. You speak with authority, you take on a role like a kid in the sandbox, and then that is you. But it is just as mutable, just as fictitious as the child's role, just as easy to shed and shape, if only you see that it is.

Wednesday morning

Things are just starting to wrap up...Have finished all of my acting for this semester and am focusing on my play, Asylum, which goes up this weekend and is, fortunately, starting to look good. Working on it has been a huge challenge--its an original play that we've been workshopping since last December, but the hecticness of people's schedules in St Andrews means that it has actually been a challenge to get the whole cast (only 7 people) in a single space (also a challenge to find) for any length of time...that has been really frustrating. But, despite that, I think we'll put up a solid show.

Originally my review essay was due in this Thursday, which would have meant this week would've been a panicked work week, but due to an unfortunate slip on the part of the module coordinator the deadline has been pushed back to next Tuesday. I am grateful for that, at least.

That 'end of the semester' feeling is definitely hitting us, everyone stressed with dissertations and exams and a healthy dose of can't-be-fucked-ness. It's warm and actually a bit muggy out, light from 6am to 9pm, good weather for exploring and being on the grass and not great weather for sitting inside working. Something is in bloom that has my nose in fits.

It's unseemly to gush to individuals so I'll just do it in the general direction of the public domain:

Got another 20 (of 20) on a biology essay, as I found out from Cresswell (the lecturer--picture a 12-year-old bird enthusiast, completely unabashed in his love for animals, grown into a professor without losing any of that enthusiasm) in front of the whole class. Being a good statistician, he shows everyone the regression on the class grades and compares them to last time--the Sustainable Development students have alternative assessment, so he leaves those out (confounding variables--they're marked differently), but after gushing about the class's positive performance he goes on "and the alternative assessment were at a high standard too...Brian--where's Brian [he finds me in the lecture hall of probably 50 people] you've done it again. If you want to learn how to write essays, talk to this man. He writes the best essays I've had from undergraduates, [a brief pause--almost as an afterthought] ever. [I do the shifty-eyes embarrassed thing] Are you embarrassed now?" But all said in a wonderful jovial way, not an Ender's Game 'single him out so everyone hates him!' way (thinking of certain nameless high school teachers...), but in a great 'we're all in this together, well done' way.

Anyway, that's the whole story. Time to go finish this history essay, or as much as I can. And memorise Antigone. And go to the gym later on. And then rehearsal. Ah life!

Best way to motivate a blog post: try to write an essay

So much has been going on. From last Monday-Sunday I have been in performances for three shows, 'The Diary of Anne Frank', 'I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change', and 'The Tempest'. Busy, busy week. Also saw lots of people, wrote my review essay (the final draft is due next week), and I'm sure did loads of other really exciting stuff that I don't remember fully at the moment. This weekend was the launch party for the On The Rocks theatre festival, and I'm in Antigone (Greek tragedy) this Friday and have a cameo in Five Go Mad in Dorset (piss-take of the quintessential British War-era kid's story) on Saturday, as well as reading some stories for an audience tonight.

Am currently working on a history essay, topic: Compare and contrast Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' and Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' within the history of dangerous environments. Interesting stuff, lots of unexpected parallels around reactions to modernism and technology, framed within turn-of-the-century and 1960s thought.

In terms of summer plans, I heard back from Larry, who I met this last summer in China, and if everything works out it looks like I will be in Shanghai working for his company and possibly in Beijing doing green-tech stuff, both of which would be phenomenal...all in very preliminary stages right now, but sounding very cool.

I'll try to get more regular updates in that won't just be laundry-lists.

When last we spoke and what has passed in the meantime

Quite a bit.

Today: 11 hours of rehearsal from 8.30am (I am in a performance every night from this Monday to Sunday, for 3 different plays), then dinner and a quick social event. Knackered.

Previously: Went to Nethy Bridge, a tiny town in the Cleghorns (Highlands Scotland) for three days with the cast of Anne Frank. Really fun lot of people, and spending a few days solid with people you always get to know them better and in ways other than the standard mask-wearing competition. I think particularly because I had been asked the day before and knew that I would be with these people for the next week, tops, I was incredibly friendly and, moreover, open. Results were positive.

In the last leg of the bus ride we discovered that the bus from Aviemore (small town) to Nethy Bridge (town? several buildings...) hadn't run in years. We got a friend who had driven to pick some of us up, but there were too many for the car so I said 'Fine--which way is the town? I'll hitch. Who's in?!' and proceeded to on a hitchhiking adventure with a girl I just met. Got picked up by a digger in a minivan and found Nethy Bridge after getting only slightly lost. Good experience, all in all.

Then, in Nethy, that first night I was feeling brave etc, and somehow the little journal I've been carrying around came up. It started as a project like "A Treatise on the Wars, Sex & Thought of Men and Monsters" (see 'Little Brown Book of White Lies' on facebook albums) that I did in the Balkans, but in recent weeks has turned into a rant/poetry book of really quite personal (and occasionally depraved) stuff. On an impulse, I said "here"--and handed two complete strangers my most intimate thoughts of the last two weeks. Aside from being a great instigator to conversation, it was such a liberating experience, and I felt like it immediately erased any of my mental barriers or inhibitions. As an instigator to conversation, I think it made others open up a lot to relate, and definitely broke all the 'first meeting' rules.

As far as the general experience, it was great. My part is quite small, so I was able to use most of the time to memorize lines for other shows and do reading for tobacco crop substitution. It was definitely a theatre trip--most of our drinking games were warm-up games adapted for drinking when you messed up. It was refreshing, honestly, compared to say, card games where you just sort of play Russian Roulette with gin, no skill involved. 'Big Booty' is a personal favourite, and becomes more fun when you introduce comedy accents. It was cool to be in a place where people both felt comfortable and wanted to be moving and emoting and engaging.

Back in St Andrews, realised that the first draft of my review essay is due in this Thursday, so that's my major project this week...I have written about 4000 words in the last 3 days, so I'm feeling fairly good about it (surprisingly). I also have a history essay in for the Friday after next that I need to figure out...though I think that will come a bit later. I am looking forward to starting lectures again tomorrow (today). Academics...hmm...

I'll end with a poem, as I do.

Morning hoar

On the chilly breast of dawn

Mantles morning faces

As they approach, pass, and are gone

Seeping into morning silence

As its disturbed by cars and birds

Until the Memory of Silence

Is gone in deed, though spared in words

We sit in coffee shops

With drooping faces, tired hooded eyes

Crawl out from secret morning spaces

To find our places on the silent streets of dawn

Cold and overcaffinated

Shuddering into daytime occupations

Morning hoar

On the beating breast of dawn

Mysterious morning faces

Elude me as they approach, pass

And are gone.

Stochasticity

Is just a fancy word for randomness. Biologists seem to like it, talking about a 'stochastic system' makes it sound a hell of a lot more like you know what you are talking about than saying 'yeah, it's a pretty random system'.

Let's call it serendipity instead: I'm in another play. A production of The Diary of Anne Frank is going up next week it turns out one of the actors (bit part, 3 lines, apparently) can't make the mandatory 3-day intensive rehearsal at a cottage in the highlands, so I'm going instead! Am I going for the Nazis or for the holiday? Time will tell...

So that's me off for a wee bit. It should be really good for me working, actually, as the internet appears to be my nemesis when it comes to work. I'll print out the articles I'd bookmarked and gone "good enough!" for and actually read them. Or, so I think. I think it'll also be brilliant social times--I got closer to the biologists I lived with for a week this summer in that week than most of the people I've met this year. Should be interesting times. It means putting off the gym-going and guitar-learning goals I've had for this week, but so be it!

I have gotten back into writing again with a good flow, which is really nice. Have also committed to a 1000-word-a-day goal, 500 words of essay and 500 for please. I have kept said goal exactly...once. But goals are a good start, at least.

So, blog silence for a few days. I'll let you know how it all goes. And, of course, leave you with a poem of mine, or a fragment of one:

Shall I read you what I’ve written

So you’ll know where I have been?

Shall I paint a pretty picture?

No? Then where should I begin?

I could write ten thousand tales,

I could spin a hundred yarns,

Even tell you where I’m headed

Leave you with a crown of thorns.

I could lay it out in verse,

I could stand it up in song.

I could sail there and back again

Before the telling was too long.

I could shake you by the shoulders,

I could grip you by the ears,

I could wail on all night,

Or else unfold it through the years.

But tell me where I should begin,

And how I should proceed

Tell me—extol me—allow my voice

To scream! To speak! At least, to read.

What does this mean?

Wrote a poem just now. Not sure what it means. Have a go:

Greedy clouds consume the sun
To the off-key singing of children
With grass-stained knees
(Bless them, their hearts are really in it!)
Glass-stained children sing down the sun
Whose light grasps feebly at the treetops
And slips away.
The children laugh and roll in the grass.
They start a new song--
The noise of construction (a new motorway)
Lays down their backing track.
The grass is slick,
Children muddy.
The sun will not come out again today.

Have spent the last few days (Tues-Thurs) visiting friends in Stirling and Falkirk, which was fun. Scotland really is small...it was nice not to cook for myself for a wee bit, and good to get a change of scenery, though really I didn't do anything terribly differently from what I would've done at St Andrews. I'm back in town now, and it's pretty dead, but that's good for my productivity at least.

I've watched all of the episodes of Glee that are avaliable so far. An intelligent High School Musical formula knock-off, it poses some great dicey situations and characters you love to hate and then are conflicted about (everyone gets sympathetic and dicey moments) while maintaining a really strong message about self-acceptance and -expression. And fully choreographed musical numbers, of course. And even here, the minority characters are token stereotypes (which one epsiode comes dangerously close to realising, but keeps it in the safe realm of parody). It's been a good distraction.

Also further thinking and planning around Romeo and Juliet for next year. We are looking at all sorts of funding and talking about turning it into a week-long event with a couple of shows (NOT all directed by me, whew) and various lectures/readings/workshops and things around a general Shakespeare theme, which would be a blast (also, a huge pain in the ass to organise...but worth it). More on that to come.

Man day

Yesterday I had a couchsurfer come in the late afternoon--a Canadian guy who is studying at Edinburgh for the year and is on his own spring break and traveling around Scotland. At the same time, my flatmates' little brother (sixteen) and two friends were over (one of whom is a cousin). It was a very full flat, and testosterone was at silly levels. Played rugby in the park opposite us for about 2 hours that night and another 2 early the next morning. Most of me hurts. It's been quite cool, met some people out in the park and got them to join us (one girl became a regular fixture of our group), had a good mix of my friends and my flatmate's friends and just generally felt sociable and not like there was no one about because it was break. After rugby this morning watched '300' (we watched 'The Longest Yard', an American-football-in-jail story, last night) and went and jumped off the pier into the North Sea for funsies. It was really sunny and warm in the morning, but by the time we made it out for the pier jump it started to rain and actually hailed briefly before clearing up again for us to jump in. I jumped twice, and after we all dried off we went for hot chocolate and nachos. I split briefly and had coffee with an old friend and ex, which was really nice. She is a cool person. We went back to mine for the afternoon, which was spent in the group playing ancient video games on my flatmates' old Sega. Various of us went to get pizza and beer for dinner (spicy beef, onion, jalapeno), during which we watched 'Dodgeball', and a few more of my flatmates' friends came over and we spent the night playing poker and bullshit and various cardgames, to end the night with a few episodes of 'Family Guy' and trying to gross each other out.

So, entirely out of character.

And I really, absolutely enjoyed it. Not as a state to live in, but something to visit on holiday. To see the sights and enjoy myself and feel immersed in culture and be thoughtful because of that but not because of anything in particular that I was doing--but at the same time, to enjoy it authentically as a brilliant way to live life. Right, that makes me sound really detached. I wasn't, I'm not. I'm sore and exhausted and I've thought so little since showing up and having a rugby ball tossed into my hands last night. And that's been nice, that's been wonderful, that's been exactly what I needed. To meet new people and do new things. But it is a different type of 'meeting'. Not 'tell me about yourself' but 'wouldn't it be funny if?' and 'let's go do that!' And that is refreshing. It's so fucking refreshing. And all of these people are immensely clever, doctors and vets and etc, but they are in relaxation mode, and it puts me in the same place. Thinking about the stress and near-panic of last week, it seems like a world away, a wasteland. It makes me wish I'd been less of a pussy as a kid, had learned to appreciate activity and exercise and groups in the way that I am doing now. I've been going wall-climbing in Dundee with my old roomate and chatted with some of the climbing society from St Andrews when we were last there, and I think that could be quite a fun thing to do next year--there's also the 'adventure society' or something like that that does camping and trekking in the highlands that I think I might check out next year, because, hey, what a shame to leave Scotland and not have experienced the incredible nature (insert diatribe about nature being a social construct/Britain having no 'wild' nature after centuries of cultivation) of the country. So that's where my mind is now. Hah.

Starting to look seriously at tobacco crop substitution, as that review essay is due in the week after I have 2 shows so I should strive to get most of it done during this break. It looks like the World Bank has done all sorts of health reviews of countries in terms of feasibility of crop replacement, which is a great resource. Let's be honest, though, by "started to look seriously" I mean "done a few google searches and read some abstracts". More on that to follow...it had better.

Over

Finally the spring holiday!

After a frantic couple of days, what with an essay and presentation both on Friday, I am free! Woke up this morning and played video games, went over to a friend's, going to the gym now. Have a few web pages open for research, but nothing I need to do immediately. I recognize that I am going to get VERY bored, but all in all that's not a bad alternative to the last few weeks. I have lots of lines to memorize, lots of words to write, I'll keep myself busy. Looks like I'm going to head to Stirling on Tuesday for clubbing with Julie, and Louise has invited me to Falkirk at some point to mortify her conservative Catholic parents, so I should even manage to make it out of St Andrews a bit.

the last few days...

...have been largely tired. Had a productive work-day on Sunday followed by an unfortunate rehearsal in which half of the cast cancelled at the last minute (this is becoming somewhat of a trend and deeply worries me, as the writing of the show is nearing completion but its becoming difficult to block because of people not being able to make times). This was followed by re-living breakup for the third time, followed by much agony, despair, and watching of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Monday was pretty good, more work for Friday and a great meal at Jenna's that ended up lasting until 4 in the morning. Jenna and I are co-directing Romeo and Juliet next year, largely to spite people (but not really!). We are going to do it traditionally, meaning *fully* traditionally, 3 hours long with no interval, vendors and disruptions from the audience, and an all-male cast in full Elizabethan garb. I am excited for it because it should let me both play with concepts of what an audience is (standing? eating? talking?) and allow for some proper indignation and divineness on the love story. Modern productions automatically have audiences on the side of the lovers, and short of setting it across the Israel/Palestine border I think it would be difficult to really get that effect with modern audiences. But I think St Andrews, for all it is ostensibly a liberal blah blah blah place, will be suitably shocked to see "the greatest love story ever told" be between two men. Shocked but forced to accept it, because its traditional, and we're an old university, and we like that sort of thing, but my god! Or, as Jenna puts it, "shocked, but kinda turned on".

Tuesday went on a Sustainable Development fieldtrip with the Masters class, which my dissertation supervisor recommended, to see a museum in Kilmarnoch housing an art exhibition entitled "Radical Nature". It was interesting, but pictures would have been just as good (as a matter of fact, the best bits WERE pictures) and it wasn't really worth driving 2.5 hours in either direction and wasting a day of work to go see, although it was good chatting with the SD Masters students.

Today after class (biology--fisheries and marine protection zones, yawn) went rock climbing with Robbie (ex-roomate) in Dundee for the second time, which was loads of fun again. Now, after a quick spell of work (preparing for a History presentation of Friday, on Richard Jeffries, author of 'After London', an early postapocalyptic fiction), heading to a dinner/reunion for the Julius Caesar cast. Theme is 'Italian food'. I am lazy. I am bringing garlic bread and wine.

Have a poem--bad attempt at nature poetry:
"Sunlight makes shadows of the tops of the apple trees,
Climbs into the cracks and disheveled places,
Makes its mottled home in twisted spaces.
The lizard supines languid on a rock
The quaver-nosed hare quivers in his home, watching for a hawk.
The wood waits poised in a breathless quiet kind of entropy,
Self-assured in its secret cycles."

For Art

Hi Art :) . Here's an in-print thing I wrote down late last week. I tend not to put vulnerable stuff up on the internet (aka public domain) because it seems more personal and, of course, by its very nature makes me insecure. This is general enough I feel okay posting it--if you have specific questions, e-mail me and I promise I'll answer as humanly as possible.

"I feel as alone as I've felt in 2 years. I feel as alone as I feel.

It is times like these, surrounded by drunk people, that I realise this essential truth. We're all the same--I believe that firmly--underneath, we are all identical. This is not a unifying force. This is what separates us. It is not that we are ashamed, it is the pure and putrefying fact that NO ONE is interesting. NO ONE is special--and this, by extension, neither are you. It is the saddest fate. It is the loneliest fate. Our normality divides us, cuts us off from one another, and in its cruel tricks makes the very essence of that loneliness unexceptional, a communal experience.

And one of my (old) friends is a rapper now. 'Sage Word Wise'--"because my sage words make me wise," he tells me. He's not bad. For a white dude. I had love, I had so much love I was bursting with it. I feel deflated, like a bone with the meat scraped off. My cup is empty now. It's exciting, in a way, opportunity! Bullshit, bollocks. It's terrifying. I don't want people I don't like people BUT I NEED PEOPLE and that's the conundrum that's the honest truth that is what makes me the same and the sheer staggering humanity of it all makes me SICK. What are the lines in 4.48 Psychosis?

'Validate me!
Witness me!
See me!
Love me!'

Sarcastic. Sardonic. Sincere.
Yeah, that."

Decision

Latest on the "things you can only do at university" list: I have decided to become a poet. The statement makes me laugh so hard. But yeah, decided. Life sorted.

Bit of an explanation: Handed in an essay on Friday (history--about Thoreau [also, I've been reading Kerouac, these explain a lot]) and got one back (biology, 20 of 20, with "well beyond the undergraduate level" and "I would be pleased to have written this" comments--fuck yes.). Did Julius Caesar, which I started memorizing lines for on Monday and performed in front of an audience on Saturday (finished last night). Ended a relationship. Started reading The Savage Detectives, about a 17 year old in Mexico who faffs about with women and poets (the 'visceral realists') and generally leads the (false, bullshit, romantic, wonderful) life literary. Had a bit of a think.

How do you 'become' something? You make a decision. A plumber, for example. "I think I'll be a plumber"--then you go to plumber school, then you get hired, then you are a plumber. Other things are easier--to be a poet, you just have to write poetry. But I've always written poetry. So, really, its a decision to be a pretentious asshole and not care. Or, rather, an interest in taking a mask off the wall, putting it on, and seeing what people say. So, in the space of 5 minutes, I decided to be a poet. This next weekend I am (getting paid!?!) to recite poetry to people at the Byre Theatre for four hours, walking around during this poetry festival and offering to do dramatic renditions of one of 3-4 memorized poems to people. Because why not? I've borrowed Paradise Lost and a book of TS Eliot from friends, and am making people tell me about their favourite poets and recite poetry for me--and it's St Andrews, so people can! And do! And I find it entertaining beyond words, and I laugh and laugh.

In a way, it's a joke, and I imagine I'll get tired of it within a week. But, also, not. Because I read something that really clicked about entrepreneurship that applies to the creative process, and that's the value of making promises--making promises to other people, because its much harder to forget than promises to yourself. So, because it's a funny joke, I've been telling people this. But also because, if I tell people, then I WILL DO IT. I knew this applied to plays--once you have a cast, you can't just stop, you HAVE to go through with something until it is finished, whatever that end product is. What I didn't know was how to apply that to the rest of life. So this is an experiment in that. I've started carrying around a notebook and writing poems whenever I have downtime or an idea (similar to the way, when traveling through the Balkans, I had a 'bathroom poems' rule--whenever I used the bathroom, I had to write a poem, however short or long, and I made myself do it). This summer--or possibly just during Spring Break--I'm going to try to get published. Which is what everyone wants, obviously, but this drive is different. I have made it into something better than a joke, I have made it into a game, and it's a fun game. I get to make up the rules, and I get to win. So that's the plan. I'm getting paid to recite poetry of my choosing this Saturday! I'm reading poetry a lot, even though I'm very bad at reading it, because I will get better. I'm reading The Savage Detectives, because it's young and idealistic (so far) and supports and bolsters my fiction. And I'm writing a lot, which I do better than reading.

Also still writing my play, which I have rehearsal for tonight and am looking forward to. Hoping to have it finished before Easter and sort out performance stuff then. I have been doing very little work since Friday, having a bit of a break and going on long walks, drinking bottles of wine with people until six in the morning, and sitting outside pubs at midday speaking to friends as they pass. Living the life Bohemian. I do it like my generation--self aware, self conscious--I am doing it all ironically. But we just use our irony to cover our sincerity. I saw a friend on facebook post that he now has a shirt with a picture of his own face on it, above which is written "The Death of Irony.", itself obviously an ironic statement. So there we are, hipsters irritate me, but there is such a thing as sincere irony. And there is something wonderful about that, sincerely.

"And these are but random shafts from my mind, I know."

on race and Scotland

Scotland is a white country. Scotland is a Christian country. Glasgow and Edinburgh are the only two really big cities with any significant minority populations. In St Andrews, there is a decently sized asian population (East and South, big enough to form their own communities), a tiny black population, and, as far as I have seen, no latinos to speak of. There are about 6 Christian denominational societies, a Jewish society (population: New Yorkers), and a Pagan society. There may be an Islamic one, but as far as I can tell that's just a service of "Middle East-Soc".

When I first arrived this made me very uncomfortable and I certainly felt something was missing. Now that I've been here a while, I think I can speculate as to why. It has to do with where I fit in culturally. Obviously, my first niche is "American", though not obnoxiously so--I fit in with the international school kids, with their nondescript mid-Atlantic accents, or (obviously) the laid back Californians much better than with the purebred Ivy Prep Americans or the Midwestern study-abroad kids. But that's a tangent deserving of its own anthropological essay.

No, what worries me is this: as I have said to a few people, "I'm, like, the blackest person here".

Let's unpack that. First, obviously, I'm NOT. What I mean by that phrase is that I was raised in a cultural milieu that included all variety of recent immigrants as well as well-established American-black and -latino cultures. The black people here for the most part are middle class and often from Africa, and the few Mexicans I know (I know two) are white as the driven snow and, again, middle class. I have more an idea of the norms of black and latino culture (from an American point of view in an American context) than they do. Or so I think.

This in itself isn't worrying, and certainly shouldn't be the cause of any discomfort of identity. I think where that comes in is how my St Andrews self interfaces with my LA self, aka "the whitest person ever". Oops. In LA, I am defined by being middle class (in the American sense, shut up snobby Brits and use the term 'upper class' where you mean it) and white, both the norm (of American culture, TV, movies, etc) and the 'other' (in terms of, say, the majority population at school). Because it was Culver City and therefore a pretty white, middle class area, this wasn't weird at all. What is confusing is that, at St Andrews, I end up with all sorts of false associations that are based on place of origin, as well as odd cultural mixes that don't quite fit. False associations mainly revolve around the California hippy/surfer/stoner stereotype--roles I am happy enough to play along in, but which I would have been in contrast to in places where they, you know, actually exist. In terms of (racial) culture, something similar bizzarely happens. I can say "chill" and "dawg" without sounding like I'm speaking a foreign language, and I know people who sound like the bad American rap that upper crust Brits like listening to before a night out. I feel a strange kinship with the (2) Mexicans I know, but at the same time realise that (1) their experience is different from the bland stereotype I'm probably projecting, and (2) they have legitimate outsider status in a different way-being from Mexico and Mexican, rather than being near Mexico and knowing Mexicans. And it's not like loads of my friends are Mexican! But somehow I am along an odd continuum where I have outsider status in LA from black/latino/generally-ethnic culture, but just enough immersion in that culture to miss it here and for my (very slight) emulations of it to give me outsider status here.

What spurred this post was listening to an American-latino spoken word poet (Carlos Andres Gomez), specifically talking about a Latino sense of machismo, and thinking 'man, very few people in St Andrews would probably get this.' Then I thought, 'man, *I* probably don't get this'. But I would get it more than them?

Anyways, it's late and bedtime. I imagine this post is probably offensive in some way, but there it is.

It ended up being a productive night...

Started to feel really overwhelmed today, as the reality that I didn't know my lines for Caesar (for which I was meant to be offbook tonight), that I didn't know what I was going to say for my essay (which is due Friday) and that I wouldn't have time to figure it out bit me like a freight train. Woke up late and so missed out on reading, but spent the afternoon after lectures in incredibly tightly-scheduled reading, life tasks (buying food, activating my ATM card, eating) and a meeting about my devised show, about which I am increasingly excited (and for which I really need to come up with a name...). Had a bit of an epiphany that, if I decide very specific timescales for tasks, I will do them and have time left. Proceeded to waste most of the evening before rehearsals. Before, let's make it clear, five hours of rehearsals. Nonstop. Two for Caesar, three learning music for I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (my musical-of-the-semester). I will have my lines for Caesar by tomorrow. I will have my lines for Caesar by tomorrow. Went home, ate loads of soup, and decided that I'd rather pull an all-nighter tonight to write this essay than on Thursday when it's due in less than 24 hours. Stopped at 3am with 1000 words written, which, out of 2500, isn't bad at all, especially since I've got all my research now and know just where I'm going. It's ending up kinda fun: a history essay about philosophy, allowing me to go on tangents and speculate about influences while remaining close to a context and framework I'm comfortable with and at the same time allowing me to stay on the surface of the arguments to compare them, rather than deconstructing them and trying to figure out their logical sequence (which, let's face it, is impossible for Thoreau).

weekend exploits

This weekend has been fun--moderately studious (lots of reading, but, lets not go overboard, still haven't started my essay) and generally relaxed but focused. Today a few of us got together to run scenes from Caesar, which opens next weekend and for which I am, alas, woefully unprepared, and then I spent the afternoon with a couple friends on a spontaneous jaunt to Anstruther to get fish and chips (they have a 'world famous' chippy there, though, let's be honest, it's hard to get fried fish too terribly wrong). This morning (at the absurd hour of seven in the am) I finished filming for the short film I'm in, which consisted in scenes of me stuffing bodies into a dumpster and the boot/trunk of a car...so...fun times. As I mentioned, I have yet to start on my "was Thoreau a deep ecologist?" essay, though I've been reading a massive biography of him from the 1930s that I'm finding surprisingly readable and engrossing. The more I read of nonfiction the more fiction seems to pale--ever so slightly-by comparison. Life ends up being stranger than fiction, and the nuances of real events and people end up as disjointed but oddly harmonious as the best Murakami. [The previous sentence was pretentious drivel.] I am excited for my own show's rehearsal tonight, as I have the first bit of a script to work with for the first time, which will hopefully not end disastrously. My efforts to be studious and reclusive and boring have, so far, met with abysmal failure. I'm going to have to work harder at it if I plan to get anything done, ever.

Friday times

Friday is my busiest day, which is a bit sad considering that that means 3 hours of class (one hour of biology and two of history, this being the one day a week that class meets). Of course, it also means various hours of rehearsal, for four things today, all overlapping. Hooray! I will be going to shooting for a student film I'm in (stokked--playing the part of 'psycho guy', a non-speaking character who is in the background of every shot, being creepy. They've told me to bring clothes I don't mind getting blood on... :) ). The film is only shooting this weekend, so that'll be a good short commitment. The weekend is relatively light for me, with that shooting, an essay to write (for this history module. I think I'm going to do it on Thoreau, since I want to read him anyway and this will give me a good excuse), and a couchsurfer coming in at short notice tomorrow!

I've also, for some mysterious reason, decided that video games are a good use of time again. Cue 4 hours yesterday spent exploring planets in the original Mass Effect. The manufacturer, Bioware, is famous for its stories, though I can't help but cringe at some of the writing (especially in unskippable talk-y bits). Mass Effect is all about politics, with a heavy dose of aliens and guns thrown in. I'm also writing my devised play, and the writing for that is going really well. It's ended up more political than I expected--it was always meant to be a story of a journey, and the reason for that journey has ended up being a political refugee situation, which is incredibly powerful just to think about and is, I know, very much influenced by our trip around the Balkans. The *proximity* of war and subsequent *urgency* of it is something that Western Europe, and even more so the US, just don't have.

Also reading about tobacco, which is quite interesting to look at historically. It's a new world crop and so wasn't even heard of in Europe until the 1500s, and the idea of "smoking" was non-existent. It was associated, through natives and the Spanish being paranoid assholes, with satanic pagan cults, but also has early associations with sex as some of the first European use was as a medicine to combat the syphilis they got from raping and pillaging the natives (ah, sweet, ironic justice). And, naturally, the English were the first to use it for pleasure.

Life-y stuff

I handed in my first essay of the semester today and I'm fairly happy with it. I'm really enjoying classes--a biology module on ecosystems that's nice and fact-y, and a history module on the history of human interaction with the environment and environmental thought, which so far has some really cool stuff on the history of thought as its influenced by evolving concepts of technology and science as well as the changing place of religion. Then there's the review essay, obviously, but I really haven't started research on that in a significant way...that's to come next week, I think.

I am involved in way too much, as usual. I'm a production of Shakespeare's Caesar going up on the ides of March which is fast approaching, as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest and being essentially the narrator in Antigone (all of the soldier/messenger parts condensed...essentially, everything that happens offstage is told by me in horrendous monologues), both going up in On the Rocks, the theatre festival here. And auditions still aren't over! I'm also directing my devised piece, which is coming along quite well. It's had a really interesting contingent of artists and writers interested in getting involved in creating original work, and I hope to continue those relationships after the show, as it has evolved into a mini-community in a really cool way.

Socially I'm just sort of finding my feet this semester, have only really started going out and having fun this last week, but that's been nice. I'm feeling like this semester will be a lot of reconnection, and I have the impulse back to go meet new people and do new, fun things...I do tend to get into a rut, as it is very easy to let theatre dominate my life and not have to interact much outside of that. I think we have flat stuff more-or-less sorted out for next year, have applied to a few places at least. I'm really excited to live with the friend's I'll be with, it should be a very strange and interesting flat. And I will be the only one who can even semi-cook, which is a frightening prospect!

Plans for the next week include, I think, writing out more of my play and figuring out the structure (the sentence is based on is "this is the story of a small girl pursued by a strange wind", I've been thinking a lot about both the creative process as a journey and actual journeys--I want to have a look at the Odyssey and Dante's Inferno) and going for massive amounts of coffee with people. And starting this review essay.

The Oddessy, Part 2

I am back in St Andrews

The flight left another hour after they said it would (already a 5 hour delay because of snow in London) because of slowness of LAX with baggage checking under increased security. Flight itself was good--watched Julie & Julia and slept for ages...then got to Heathrow. Oh boy. Flight to Edinburgh cancelled, they said 'go get your bag and we'll put you on a coach'--yes, drive up through the ice and snow! Waited for 4 hours for my bag, which is still in Heathrow somewhere, then ran when they said 'final call for coaches to Edinburgh!' The coach drove through the night, leaving at midnight, for 9 hours. Then, we turned off one exit before the actual airport exit accidentaly and got stuck in a snow drift. Joy! Dunno what the others ended up doing, may still be there, but I hiked in to the airport (through the morning mist and snow...nice sunrise, though!) and got a bus into central Edinburgh. Spent the afternoon at Zoe's, then got the bus back to St Andrews--at the bus transfer, realised that I couldn't find the ticket anywhere. The guy let me on anyways, since he'd seen me get off of the first bus.

So, everything that could go wrong did? Yep! But I live.