I go through intense periods of loathing for this game.

Then I sit down to dinner one evening and am sucked inexplicably into the vortex of madness that is twenty-two men plus A BALL plus an audience bursting its collective vein plus assorted field people and trembling managers PLUS MAGICAL ROLLING ADVERTISEMENTS.

That whooshing sound you just heard was my brain. Oh, football.

That whooshing sound is not, as I would in my delusion dare to believe, the sound of a torturously stressful month passing finally by. I will probably be sixty before I can breathe. And then I'll go and ruin the fun by dying. Hah.

While waiting for my (splendid, majestic but all too rare to behold) tutor in the corridor today I was treated to delicious slow sunlight and free music. All right, they were playing Nirvana (I think?) and early Beatles songs, ergo yawn, but sunlight and music. So good.

I have been wonderfully gay for quite a while now. I mean 'gay' in a certain way, of course. I don't mean 'lesbian' or 'stupid' or 'maddeningly, poetically, archaically cheerful'. I do mean 'shamelessly, flammably campy'. It's interesting, because in temperament I am quite the opposite. I don't think I need to stop. Not yet. There's something liberating about a pose, a pose which is deliberately a pose and delights in that blatant deliberation. Poseur pose posy Bosie all roads lead to Wilde...

Everything beyond this B.A. Honours thing

is pitch black to me. I'm afraid to imagine, afraid to anticipate, afraid to suppose. I'm reasonably certain I don't want to be one of those people whose happiest memories are of bunking college classes, but I have such low selfesteem that I can't even think of anything going my way.
I do know that whatever I choose to do, the world will do its best to break me. And that I'll make it worse for myself by resisting.

--



Now who do you think that sort of kinda hmm maybe slightly perhaps donchathink looks like?

Today while struggling to construct a decent argument

in a Browning essay (dramatic monologue, what else), I was for a moment overwhelmed by love. For Browning's poetry. I chose to discuss (and again, we shall relax our usual standards about these words) 'Porphyria's Lover' and 'My Last Duchess', but I sneaked looks at 'Soliloquy of a Spanish Cloister' and kept splitting my face into silly grins.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps--
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

This Spanish cloistermonk bloke... gr-r-r, so CUTE!

--

Saw a very funny Hungarian artfilm today. I wish I had been allowed to sign up for a Film Studies course. I never get to see films, ever, and shut up, HBO/Star Movies doesn't count. It's unfair, utterly unfair. I can't even buy them, no home video players. And considering my financial situation, very unlikely I ever will.

Yes, that's why I resent it when people around me talk about films.

--

My but JU is an interesting place to be. Not that I didn't know before - having lived on the campus for years - but. Chemistry lab fire yesterday, stupid accident, too. The people who work in the office - I suppose almost everyone is used to things like these, one shakes one's head or shrugs, says, that's life, this is the system, quit whining and suck it up. Except I can't. And I know a few people who can't, either.

The chocolate bomb(s?) in the department loo was less than hilarious. I would like to keep my eardrums, thank you very much.

Be careful what you wish for.

I split my left big toenail on a table leg this morning. This coming less than a month after the same injury to my right big toenail. But that's not all. In the evening I fell down most ridiculously and skinned my left knee. It was outside the college canteen, there's a little slope and I was too busy blathering to even notice. And tipsy tippy shoes. Fortunately I had just bought some chocolate and fruit juice - I am such a baby. And no, I didn't cry. An old man sitting under one of the trees leaned in gravely and advised me on proper ointments. I remember the red stuff, from the time I had my ears pierced as a child.

Dabbed a bit of Dettol on the area. You must realise I have very few experiences of casual injuries, which every parent obsessed with The Cult of Health believes every youngster has a respectable list of. I don't have a history of fall-down-break-my-leg-so-what-LOL, mostly because my sporting activities have largely been restricted to water. Which, er, hasn't bent my bones. Yet.

Another realisation - I tend to become slightly hysterical when I sustain physical injury. Not really so-what-LOL, it's just strangely exhilarating. But then I'm usually a morbid person.

I wonder if Coleridge had dimples.

He looks like he would have.

I really must stop doing this.

Sometimes I think a lot of things would be easier for me if I were less interested in almost everything. Or better at balancing many different interests. Because I want to do everything justice and end up doing justice to absolutely nothing.

The simple and sour example of the moment? The 'Hard Times' business. I don't like his works much, I don't want to spend time on them, I told myself, but I went and got myself fascinated. This tendency (trait? habit? temperament?) would be a source of much joy but for all these real-world limitations. I hate that we get so little time to find out stuff, in the semester system. I hate that I'm an ignoramus (but no use crying over the past, is there). I hate that one day I'll have to choose something to specialise in. I want to know everything, but I don't want to specialise. Which would be... wonderful, except I'm not a genius.

Utterly ridiculous.

--

I watched 'Master and Commander' last night, nursing my frozen right shoulder against the wretchedest pillow in the world. The film brought back all these memories. Haha, nothing interesting, just... being in ninth grade and reading Patrick O'Brian and being a nerd about sailships. And why did that get cut off so easily? Because I couldn't get all the books I wanted. Because I realised I'd never get to actually see a sailship for myself. Because I felt bitter.

Story of my life.

I can say from my (limited) knowledge that casting Paul Bettany as Maturin was the best idea ever. Maturin... think of Gray's Anatomy, except done in watercolours. Paul is like that, too, he is perfect in this role.

I hope they make decent sequels or something. With lots of Aubrey-Maturin story and lots of sailship love.

Move, you dummkopf of a computer maus!

The phone is dead (the phone has more lives than the average human being, how amazamacating is that?), so I am working on dad's machine. Now, dad's machine is quite odd - the internet connection isn't so slow that it makes me twitch in impatience, but the mouse! *nudges it* *curses*

I got meme-tagged by Srin... let's see if I've got this right...

Seven things I plan to do

Scrounge a little more German, purely for my own satisfaction.
FINISH THIS GODDAMNED ESSAY.
Write poems. A lot of them.
Back exercises, oof.
Stop being embarrassed by myself.
Stop embarrassing other people?...
Two words: Time. Management.

Seven things I can't do

Swim in December, although I'd love to :(
Stop being "so serious".
Stand on my toes (except in water, hahaha).
Cut my hair.
Be feminine.
Eat chocolate without making a mess.
Jack Davenport.

Seven things I say quite often

"OMG"
"But where are all the pretty gay boys??"
"The problem with this patriarchal society is..."
"Oh god, that is disgusting" [usually follow with something even more disgusting in reply]
"I can't decide, help me decide!"
"Fuck off, it's my decision to make."
"HI KIDS!"

Seven blogs - a) that i read but do not personally know the author of; b) which are not connected with the media; c) which are random discovery blogs

Oi... can I do this one later? When I've read at least seven such blogs? *silly grin*

I tag

Anyone who wants to do it, I guess. :)

Let's just say

that I have two new quotes for my 'No! S/he did not just say that!' file.

The feesbook remains lost to me. It is gone, it has gone beyond the Sea, to Valinor...

--

It happened again today. I walk around on campus a lot, I walk around in the department corridors a lot, and every five seconds I'm bang in front of a professor. It's usually either ADG or the Head. And I'm usually in the middle of a conversation (with someone else) or a song (to myself!), and I have half a notion I should say 'Good morning' or something polite like that, but all I do is stare like my brain has temporarily vacated my cranium. I'm reasonably sure the Head doesn't notice, he seems to be in a hurry most of the time, but I'm not sure about, for example, ADG. I don't take up extra space or have my foot stuck out inconveniently, but it's... weird. I don't know if I'm supposed to say 'Good morning' (a bit awkward, I can explain why) or WHAT. I don't want to look creepy, either.

Advice? Please?? And if you laugh I'll hunt you down and kick all your teeth out. Hmph.

My feesbook

is nowhere to be found.

:(

A stageful of ballerinas.

But it looked like the infantry caught in split-second rewind-replay mode. Those are not arms, those are ... bayonets? That's not a stage, that's the Theatre of War?


What? (Favourite question, no wonder I sound drunk most of the time.)

Whenever I open my mouth, things fall out

that hurt other people. I really must learn to shut up sometimes. I swear I'm not in love with the sound of my own voice that much.

And I'm listening to German... rap? It's surprisingly palatable. Either I picked a good rapper, or something about the combination of German and xcore rap cancels out the harshness. Or maybe I'm seriously biased now, and finding German as... aesthetically? pleasing as I used to find, say, Portuguese.

But, with the shutting up. Must work on that.

O what?

I have been singing all day, because this bad cold imbues my voice with a bizarre hoarse erotic quality, and no more fitting tribute to Jeff Buckley could I possibly imagine... Naturally, after doing this all day my voice is now a husk, my throat hacking and burning with the fruit of its labour. If I haven't sung my heart out, I have certainly made an attempt to evict my lungs.

God, what the fuck? Dickens is contagious. I finished 'Hard Times'. It's a good time, in my life, to be an English major. I can't believe my luck. Which will all dissipate by 3 PM tomorrow, of course. Grr.

I doubt if there are many things as pathetic

as blawging at eight in the morning on a Saturday.

This is going to be a shitty week.

I play breakfast rock (a voice like the snooze button, guitars like scrambled eggs) and reschedule the day around my books. Again.

You know they've done a sloppy job in the costume/makeup department

when the edges of the pillow are poking at the surface of a woman's pregnant belly. Ahh, bangla serials!

I was disturbed to note that the husband stood around outside the operating room (or 'operation theatre', as they so fancifully call it). 'He should be inside, with his wife. What the hell is he doing?' But I am informed that this is not an embarrassing oversight or personal preference - apparently in India the husband isn't allowed inside.

I don't know if it's true. Or, if it's true, for how many people - just the husband? Are female relatives/friends excluded, too?

If it's true, it's... disgusting. What is it supposed to do, save the poor menfolk from the traumatic vision that is the birth of a child? Butchered bodies, burning buildings, rinse repeat ad infinitum, but childbirth... shudder!

--

Nothing happened today. I didn't 'study' much. Still haven't made much headway with 'Hard Times'. I want to see some Fillum Feshtible movies, but I can't find anyone to go with me. I told myself last year during exams, 'I will next year, I simply must', and this year I can, except again I can't. This fucking stinks.

Outside it was beautiful today.

One, a square of treeful backyard as seen through the double filters of yellow sheet glass and early-orange sun. Two, the call-and-response of quick feet up slow stairs.

What tiny things.

Gelignite

is a sexually ambiguous word.

I'm overdosing on tea, beginning to feel ill again.

An eventful life.

I'm giving Jane Austen a second chance. I made that sound so pompous. Do I have a choice in the matter? Haha. There's something wrong with me, or with Austen: all this talk of 'exquisite development of plot' and 'skilfully built-up suspense' and what-have-you when from the very beginning I was reading with the assurance that Mr Knightley and Emma Woodhouse would hook up. In an Austenian way they are so perfect for each other, and only that marriage could ensure the sort of conclusion to an Austen novel that Austen would have written. What with Emma being too happy and comfortable with her life at home with her father and not wanting to move away, and Mr Knightley being the arrogant, upright, rational creature that he is... I'm surprised to find that it was meant to be some kind of revelation to the reader.

In other news I have a cold.

*hits head against desk* I wish there was something a little more exciting that I could do.

LOL I remembered my password!

I won't be pedantic and say 'my favourite mezzosoprano!' The fact is, Cecilia Bartoli has long been one of my favourite voices. How much is this connected to my (scattered, shamefully poor) knowledge of opera? To be honest I haven't been keeping up with all the major mezzosopranos, so I don't know with any degree of objectivity who's who these days. In the past couple of years, for example, I've heard some Zajick. That's about it.
I was singing along with her on the Rossini, but after all these years I still haven't figured out whether I'm a contralto or a mezzosop. Or one of those pesky, delicate in-betweens.
Oh well, let's resort to cutting long stories short - all hail Cecilia Bartoli! I hope she forgives my confusing her last name with the olive oil manufacturer, although in my defence I was only nine at the time.

---



Whoever told me today in class that they (not that person, the Powers That Be) are going to start airing 'Coupling' on the telly... will be murdered if I find out it's not true. Look at Jack! I mean, really, look at this bloke. The fact is that if I stare at his mug for too long it looks like an amalgamation of various other celebfaces. Mel Gibson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs. The last two aren't unpleasant to be reminded of, of course. But!
Thankfully, if I stare for even longer it all goes away and leaves me with a merciful, artful and masterly (artly and masterful?) face that can barely hold itself together for all the British snarkiness. He needs to work more! More more more. Work is life, Jack my lad; besides, you can't seriously want to disappoint all your fangirls by hiding yourself away in those damned sitcoms.