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.