Since Emilia was last around...
... she has become pretentious enough to refer to herself as 'Emilia' in a subject line. She has no idea why, or why she is referring to herself in the third person.
Life is strange.
I'm on reading week now, thank the lord, and I used the chance to actually go out last night. I went to Population at the union, and it was a very good night. I went on my own, but I met Kirsty from Beechwood and her (six foot seven) boyfriend and her friends in Bar One, and I played on the itbox and had a drink with them before doors opened, and then hung around with them before it really got going. We were waiting for the doors to open so we could get at the cheaper beer. Even tho the price difference between The Late One in Bar One (ie Population pre-bar) and Population itself is only 15p. Ah, student lifestyle. They've put the prices up in there tho, which means I can officially say farewell to pound a pint lager. 'Tis a sad day. Anyway, there was a drunk guy dancing alone, quite badly but with muchos enthusiasm, right at the beginning of the night. I had to take a video of him cuz he was a legend. I saw Louise as well, who was there with her church outreach group, and after it finished she said I had to come for dinner at hers as soon as she figured out when everyone was going to be in at the same time. I spent most of the night in the party room, which plays alternating crap, decent music and cheese classics (come on, nothing beats being swung around by complete strangers to Cotton Eye Joe), on the dancing stages, because I'm a raging exhibitionist. I have Noel Fielding Syndrome when I'm in clubs, it would seem. I only got my titties out once, just for a laugh, and because the night just isn't complete until it happens. But only for a second, but I was very much aware of being in view of security. There was an article in the Forge Press on the first week back about security being told to tighten up on 'indecent acts' in the union. And I got the women's bus home, and realised how hilarious it is to sit next to someone who insists that "you should let me drive, because I'm not drunk. I'm completely sober- I only had three doubles and four singles".
But... you know it's not a night until you've stolen fruit. There was a big box of it in the panto rehearsal, and not all of it got eaten, so I had it. I ate some before Population and gave some to a nice girl I met in the toilets, and I still went home with an apple and four massive oranges. Score!
Speaking of panto- I voluteered to do a showcase for USLES at the end of the month (we're doing the Bank Robbery Opera, which we did in the RAG week sketch show before summer, and I lost all ability to sing as soon as we were on stage. A good omen if ever I saw one), and guess who else has volunteered. Avoiding someone you see so much of is not easy or fun. He came up to me in the interval at Last Laugh on Sunday and gave me a hug, and then went off to chat to someone else. He left Amy on her own, so I went to talk to her. She liked my (attempted) carob cake. In the second half, I kept noticing him turning round to look at me. After the show, I tried to explain to Amy about avoiding Arkady for a bit while he was in the toilet, but it's a hard thing to explain really, especially to her- the two of them are near enough inseperable. People are always mistaking her for his girlfriend, and when I first met her and she told me that she wasn't his girlfriend, I automatically assumed that she must be his sister. So she doesn't really get it. I'm wondering if I'm really going about this the right way, but even that night, I felt just that little bit more melancholy after seeing him, and I wanted to come on here and vent, but the charger's playing up again, and it wouldn't work, which got me really really angry and frustrated.
This is getting ridiculous. I've had it, what, three weeks? And I paid £35 for it. I'll have to take it back to the shop at some point. And while I'm at it, I need to go into town and buy Robinson Crusoe- the book they didn't tell us was on the Restoration reading list. But not today- it's been miserable and rainy and freezing all day. I've had a look in Rare and Racy already, but they didn't have it. They did have Moll Flanders for £2 tho, so not a total loss.
And I am officially obsessed with ninjas. When we meet up in Brum, I will have a black belt-thing tied around my head. And when the Boosh comes back to Sheffield in January, I plan to stand outside the stage door every night, in full ninja get-up, with a balaclava and everything so they can't see who I am, not even looking at them, but just standing there every night like their diminutive ninja bodyguard. Hahahahaha.
I need some kind of weapon too. If they make toy nunchucks, those would be good. Or, possibly, if Ellis will let me, a real sword. He has one. A Japanese one. It's amazing. And apparently, if you keep it in the sheath, it's legal to carry it.
Harry from USLES also has a sword, which I have also held. A Celtic short sword. He brought it to the stagefighting workshop just so we could see what a real sword feels like. He actually has two swords- the other is a broadsword. Which I will make it my mission to see.
Stagefighting was brilliant, btw- I learned how to fall, get pulled around, slap, punch, kick, strangle, and be on the recieving end of all these, and how to swordfight. It was so much fun. And at the end, me, Tim and Emma put together a scene from everything we'd learned, which turned into this completely hilarious showcase of mindless violence, in which I tripped Tim, he got up and threw me down, so Emma punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground, I kicked him in the belly while he was down, he grabbed a conveniently nearby sword (a little kids' plastic one- they wouldn't let us use anthing else XD), swung at my feet, I jumped, and he came at me with the sword. But Emma stepped in with her own sword, and they parried while I found another sword and came at Tim from behind. We wound up in a three-way swordfight, until me and Emma forced him down. Then, while we were celebrating, Tim got up and stabbed me. Then he and Emma lunged for each other at once and stabbed each other simultaneously. So in the end, we all wound up dead. That happened in several scenes. But everyone else there said it was really good, especially for something we'd choreographed in twenty minutes.
I've been trying to record the BBC3 Late Night Feature song from Booshy Horror, but not having too much luck. High notes, I've realised, are not my forte. Which is a problem when the only version of the original song I have is sung my a man whose falsetto is probably higher than my own voice. The last go I had at it sounded better than I thought tho, so maybe soonish. I'm having a problem tho, because my dad wanted the microphone back before I came back to Sheffield, so I'm singing into the one on the front of the keyboard, which is just fucking awkward. I either have to put the laptop on top of the tv so it's at about chest level, which means that the dodgy charger won't connect (it went to critical battery really suddenly earlier, having skipped the low battery stage altogether, and scared my housemates by beeping incessantly very very loudly), or lean down to it, which crunches my stomach up, which feels awkward because I always feel that I don't sound as good without standing straight. Argh!
Speaking of singing tho, I've switched to tenor in the gospel choir. I had a go at a low alto bit in one of the songs, and I couldn't manage it, so I've gone down to tenor. We're performing in a church in a small village somewhere on Saturday, and I have no idea why I said I'd do it, because I've missed a load of rehearsals and don't know the new songs, and since I've switched parts, I'm gonna have to re-learn all the songs I already know. I'm quite good at getting notes by ear tho, so hopefully I should be able to blag without too much trouble, especially if I stand next to Matt.
Soooo, plan for reading week (in no particular order):
Buy and read Robinson Crusoe.
Check when essays are due, choose questions and start planning/writing.
Check whether we're doing Derrida or feminism and queer theory first, and read that.
Read Midnight's Children.
Learn lines for panto, starting with the scenes I have a lot of lines in.
Write Gideon fic.
Review various femfics.
Record BBC3 Late Night Feature Song, with reverb and suchlike.
Finally claim Anthrax/Ebola for drabble123
I think that's everything.
It looks like a lot, but a week off from lectures is VERY VERY welcome. I celebrated on Monday by waking up as my lectures would have started any other Monday- at 3pm.
And I'll be able to be on here more! JOY!!!