Showers

Hmmm . . . the problem with being on a corridor with ten third-years who actually go to lectures, and a lovely but enthusiastic cleaner who turns up early in the morning, and not having any lectures yourself until 11am, is that it gets to 10am and you're still thinking 'I could really do with a shower', and you don't do anything about it because the one time you headed for the bathroom today the showers were both taken. And now they're probably being cleaned. Hmmmm.

Yesterday was a strange day. Spent far too long texting a friend about matters I won't get into, safe to say that we're back to where we started, which is good, but does seem a bit of an odd use of two hours and 90+ texts. Thank goodness for the unlimited text package.

Woot, I'm listening to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack. Must be one of the most beautiful and varied OSTs ever. Smiles :)

So, I spent over an hour,and about five journal pages, noting down every image that appears in the first four minutes of Oliver Stone's JFK. There's probably an average of an image every second, perhaps more, in there, so it took a LONG TIME . . . bizzarely interesting though. Not sure how much use it'll be to the dissertation (the Kennedy images don't really start until the last 20seconds of the montage), but once I'd started it was very difficult to stop.

Choir social tonight, which is going to be a formal at Clare's College - a 'formal' basically being a formal meal colleges have here, some once a week (like mine), others every day (like my cousin's). And everyone dresses up in suits/dresses, and wears robes if your college has them (mine doesn't) and has a three-course meal, and often (unfortunately) drinks a crazy amount of wine. Although they've done a lot this year to make people cut back on that. And our choir is full of people who are careful about their drink, so yey, should be a great evening :)

Right, I need a shower.

One of those days

Has been one of those crazy days where I ran around doing lots of stuff not related to my degree, but still important and time-consuming. Most of it got done. But I'm really tired, and should have been in bed ages ago, only I was trying to see if my phone would work- it was receiving texts, but not able to send them or make calls, or even receive calls, despite claiming to have full signal . . . hmmmm. Seems to be ok now, I tested it on Any Question Answered because it was too late to risk waking anyone up - and they replied, even if they screwed up my answer. I asked for reccomendations of atmospheric, indie, non-scary Halloween movies,and they sent me a list that included Psycho, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street. I was thinking more along the lines of Donnie Darko . . . oh well. At least the text went through.

Random info of the day:
1.The only place in this town which has the 2006 movie 'Amazing Grace' which I need for a church group tomorrow is the English Faculty library, which I can't borrow items from. Time to call in a favour.
2. 'True Blood' is very . . . . weird. Not sure what I think of it yet.
3. Postage is cheaper than you might think.
4. Phones always break when you need them the most.
5. I'd really like to get fit and start eating more healthily, but not sure how that would fit into my uni lifestyle at the moment. . . I walk a lot, but it would be good to try some other forms of exercise.
6. My younger brother and sister turn 14 in a few hours. I wonder what I'd say to my 14 year old self? Everything seemed so intense then. It was a really influential year, in a whole variety of ways. Just hang on in there I guess.

And now I really do need to sleep.

Internet spoilers

So today I didn't do much apart from watch Dollhouse. Well, I still did a translation, attended a lecture, a French class, was visited by a good friend I hadn't seen in ages, and hung out with my Austrian friend to eat fruit and watch the new BBC 'Emma', but otherwise I watched Dollhouse. Six episodes of it. Which I'm a little embarassed to admit, because I had a good half a dozen other things I should have been doing (mainly Kennedy related stuff, but also reviewing Watchmen), but this show is soooooo addictive.

I really wasn't expecting it to be that great, I'd heard pretty mixed things about it - the reports of extensive re-filming, and whispers that it was the first real Whedon screw-up. But I absolutely love it. I mean, it's far from perfect - the refilming and filler material is obvious in the first few episodes, and whilst I know that it's a show partly about the objectification (if that's a real word) of women, I wish they didn't have to be show quite so many lingering shots of female body . . . but it's the type of series that feels like it knows where it's going. It manages to slowly unravel the story, little by little giving us glimpses until it all starts to add up, without crawling to a pace that insults viewers' intelligence (like Flashforward), or careering around mulitple red-herrings (like Lost). Whedon is a man with a game plan. Sadly, he's a man with such a need for closure that he filmed a future-set finale for the DVD, in the belief that the series was going to be cancelled . . . and then they renewed it. I havn't got to the end of the series yet, and I probably won't get to see the second series currently airing in America for months, but it will be very interesting to see how he will continue a show that has kind of already ended - whether he will see this as only a possible future, something for the second series to work towards, or ignore it completely.

Anyway, what I logged on to say is that this is the first series in years that I havn't looked up spoilers for. I have a terrible habit of reading through tv series on wikipedia, even if I know that I plan to watch them, or even as I'm sitting in front of the tv watching them . . . I don't know what that says about me. Impatient, doesn't like scary suprises, likes to know what's going on in the media world. Yes, yes and yes. And I know that part of the reason that I've managed to avoid spoilers for this series is that I'm watching it over a few days, rather than a few weeks. Thank goodness for dvd boxsets. I havn't been able to geniunally enjoy the twists and turns of a series for so long. But it's also refreshing to find something so slow-burning and well-written that you don't want to know what happens next until the writer chooses to show you, you just want to go with the flow - I felt the same about Mad Men. I fear that the next series of Dollhouse can't live up to this, second series are always a danger-game, especially if the writer wasn't expecting to write them, had brought things to a close, and then has to re-open Pandora's jigsaw box and start re-arranging the pieces into something meaningful. But for now it is food for thought, one of those morally puzzling shows that leaves you asking questions in your sleep, and I'm really enjoying it. Oh, and that FBI dude is HOT :)

So dream job at the moment? Television script writer. Though most of them seem to have very little creative independence, respect, pay or job security . . . . so let's change that to Joss Whedon. When I grow up I would like to be Joss Whedon. There you go Mum.

I really don't blog enough

I'd totally intended to keep this blogging everyday thing up, but I always forget about it until it's late and I'm really tired. . . hmm, so what's been happening in my life recently?
Had choir rehearsal tonight, and there are about 40 freshers, which has pretty much tripled us from the number we were often dwindling to last term . . . it's exciting, we're all hoping they stay.
Church has also seen a big increase in new students, and we're doing lots more socially stuff, which is great.
I'm still seeing my Austrian friend most days, whether it's for a cup of tea in the evening, or lunch in hall - it's nice to have someone who you can keep in daily contact with like that in a busy place like this.
I havn't done enough work, and I'm seeing my supervisor tomorrow, which is a bit nerve-racking.
On Thursday there's a presentation for the Japan JET scheme that I'm thinking of doing after uni - hopefully it'll clear up some of the questions that I have about it.
I've started the first series of TrueBlood and Dollhouse in the last couple of days thanks to my cousin . . . and I'm still watching Flashforward. And I'm soon to start on MadMen series2. Too much addictive American TV around at the moment :)
I still havn't got round to finishing Watchmen . . . but I hope to do so and book review it soon.
My bedroom is flippin freezing this evening.
I've still only caught up with about half the people I wanted to/should catch up with since the summer.
My two gorgeous new Threadless t-shirts arrived today :) They're very geeky, but in a pretty way-I love them already.
And I need to sleep, because I need to cram some work in the morning.
Night all x

Thoughts

Thoughts whilst in a lecture on cultural history:

1.This lecturer bears an uncanny resemblance to Youtube's Mickeleh. Ok, Mickeleh a decade or so ago. And with a different accent. But still, otherwise they could be twins.
2. Why is this lecturer wearing a tracksuit? Lecturers don't usually wear casual clothes . . .
3. How did I end up sitting behind my good friend C? It's lovely to see her, but what are the chances of me happening to choose that one seat directly behind her one seat for two weeks running, when there are 400 seats in the room?
4. Ummm, why do the doors at the back of the hall keep opening themselves? Is someone listening to the lecture from the wrong side of the hall? Wow, but three doors just opened all a once . . .and now the lecturer is spooked. He may cover it up with laughing, but he's now trying to give the lecture from part-way up the stairs . . .

Thoughts whilst watching 'The Brief Encounter' at film society:
1.Wow, weird accents.
2. I'm glad everyone else agrees. The people in the row in front of me can't stop laughing at all the wrong places . . . and now they're getting slightly hysterical. And it must be infectious, because everyone is biting their lips and sniggering.
3. Oh, and I do feel bad, because this film is gorgeous and sad, and a real classic. But I can't stop laughing.

Thoughts on discovering the 'balloonboy' frenzy that gripped the world(especially when it turned out that he had been at home all along):
1. My goodness, this says a lot about modern society/news coverage/global culture etc etc etc. Perhaps I should vlog about this. Hmmmmm . . .

Uni days are here again

So, I'm back at uni. I've been here since Saturday evening. The leaving and travelling only involved a fraction of the usual emotional breakdown . . . even when I'm looking forward to going back (which I was, at least partly, this time) I find it difficult to say goodbye to my mum. And the packing was only completed ten minutes after we were meant to be leaving . . . and I later found that I'd left a box behind. A box with all my dvds in it. It also had a few other notable things, such as a couple of folders, my cheque books and passport, but it was the dvd loss which was distressing.

Anyhow, I slightly digress. Being back is it's usual mixture of pros and cons. My room is massive, faces out onto an amazing street, has a window seat, and is actually warm. However, it's also right at the top of the building, up several flights of stairs, and there is no lift. So I'm gonna be fit by the end of term.

I've had chance to catch up with a few very wonderful people who I missed a lot over the summer. And I'm meeting with some more over the next few days. However, I only know a few of the people on my corridor, and there's always going to be elements of the uni halls experience that are a little lonely compared to being in a house with a rather loud family.

I've brought my guitar with me this term, which is already providing much needed creative distraction. But I'm not sure if it makes up for the awkwardness of the unisex bathroom with it's two shower cubicles and two toilet cubicles in a rather . . . echoey space, and where the chances of you meeting a someone for the first time after they exit the toilet are rather high :-s

The pre-lecture days are fun but I always find working at the Freshers Fair a bit stressful.
And the course this year looks great. But I should have read more over the summer . . .

So that's my up and down life a the moment.

In other news, I'm enjoying Flasforward, but think comparisons to Lost are unwarranted and unfair. It's a very different show - far more slow-burning, and more fiddly. Wish they'd take a few lessons from Lost and not see the need to over-explain every twist in flashback, it gets a bit insulting. And it's yet to do one of the complete rug-puller moments that Lost is well-known for, but the first time Lost truly did that was the fourth episode of the first series, so we have time yet. But Flashforward does have these little moments and scenes which work so well - the opening to the second episode for example with the children lying on the ground. Actually, any blackout lie-down moment. There's something very spooky about seeing large quantities of people 'asleep' like that. I wonder if they got the idea from that lying down game?

Oh, and the Ozark Cousins are wonderful. Really unique sound, totally different to DPC. Is there anything that Craig Benzine can't do? That man is my hero.