My blog at Uni

No really, I do.
I've just stood waiting outside in the rain for 15 minutes (having given up the warm interior of the computer cluster) for a bus home to turn up. The one that did drove right past me and didn't even stop outside the bus stop, despite me and a couple of other people standing there. It is now very dark, still raining, absolutely freezing, and the next bus I can get home is in nearly an hour. Either that, or I can get one to ASDA, and can then walk for 15 minutes in the rain back to the Lodge.
I hate buses.

I am at Brrrrr (yes) etton because we're conducting final rehearsals for our assessment tomorrow. I say this, but we only really rehearsed for about an hour in total, after all the faffing about of other people in my group. Did I mention that I am the only one who knows their lines, and that this is 35% (doesn't sound much, but is pretty decisive) of out mark for this semester? Oh yes. But anyway: our piece.
We have to create a piece of theatre that encourages social change. We decided to use the topic of the justice system, and how celebrities always seem to get off with a lighter sentence because of their fame. We are encouraging the audience to rightly imprison the celebrity, thus encouraging social change. Well, that's what we told our tutor anyway.
We filmed our news reports for the TV last Thursday, but I haven't actually seen what they look like yet because the editing is being done tonight. Yay. So anyway, basically, these news reports will be shown to the audience first, resembling a form of media. Then a news crew rushes in and starts preparing for their piece next to the audience watching TV. They will then encourage the audience to follow them to a staircase where the celebrity is walking down into court with his lawyer (me). Then ensues a court case, in which the audience is the jury, and they are presented with the responsibility of deciding the verdict.
What I haven't explained is that the celebrity is facing rape charges, which means that our case and evidence is all pretty.. revolting. I am also the only one who knows anything about court conventions (having been in a courtroom to watch a case twice, and having watched many episodes of Judge John Deed), so I am the only one talking in a formal manner, while the prosecution is using all sorts of... language to put across her point.
In short, I'm a bit worried about performing tomorrow. But at least I know my lines :)

Last time I posted, I had a cold. NOW I have what seems like either an ear infection, or wisdom-tooth ache. Either way, I still feel yucky, and really can't wait to come home next week. I'm not sure what it is about this place, but everyone seems to be ill all of the time, and this seems to be rubbing off on me. The worst thing is, I don't have a hot water bottle, so I have to use an ice-pack to dull the pain, which means that i'm pretty sure i'm starting to get frostbite on one side of my face. It's also not particularly good for when you want to be sleeping.

For those who don't know, I'm coming home to Norwich for a few days at the beginning of next week. We have a kind of "reading week" thing where my POP1 module has a rest for a week, which means I only have common module and elective lessons. So, I am coming home Monday evening, staying for Tuesday and Wednesday, and am going home on Thursday afternoon. So, if anyone wants to see me, i'm pretty fully booked by Phil and family, but I would very much like to see you if you are free. After this, the next time I'm coming home is Christmas, so it would be nice to hear from people :D

I will see you all in... 5 days!

I realise I have left everyone in suspense for nearly a week now.. this is because I have been tackling the killer Assignment One essay that I handed in to the school office about... 15 minutes ago.
At first, we knew we had an essay, but no-one had told us what it was. THEN, a week before it was due in, we were finally told what it was: via the internet. Which, of course is not ideal when you need a 20 minutes bus journey to get to an connection. So, we finally learn what the question is, and NO-ONE understands it. It was so completely obscure but open ended that everyone had their own interpretation of what we were supposed to be doing, which led to mass confusion whenever anyone wanted to discuss it. But anyhoo, i've basically been researching for this assignment and dying due to confusion and sheer frustration over the last week. But finally.. I am free! And I just have another assignment to hand in in a month's time, and a practical assessment on Thursday. So, no pressure.

In smoking news (which is relatively old news nowadays), the Lodge has been made a smoke free area (apart from the Pool Room, but we're all ok with that). So yay for the people in charge who make all the decisions.
In internet news.. I now have a land-line phone number! So you can all call me at home when you feel like contacting me instead of just writing or emailing. (If you want this number, either email me, or speak to my mum or dad) We have registered everything with Tiscali, and I should be hearing from them some time soon about receiving my broadband package, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. So soon I will be able to come and talk to everyone too!

I promised some pictures of High Voltage at the Light Nights event, so here are a couple:

This is the set that the circusey people (Urban Angels) use. I'm glad I got some people in the picture as well, because then you can appreciate just how high up this structure actually was. The performers were actually climbing around all over this thing, and were using the trapese (which I'm not sure whether you can see because it's tied to one side) to swing about all over the place. Oh, and just so you know, this is the Sheffield Winter Gardens that the show was being performed in. It's a really lovely (but very cold) place.

This is us (the temporary extra stage crew members plus Michelle the Stage Manager) sitting on the stage after the evening performance. We all have glowy necklacey things because they wree giving them out to the kids in the audience and when we saw that they had some left over, we requested some..
I would have liked to have had some more photos, but unfortunately they came out all grainy (like my ones from America), so I used the clearest ones we had.

Speaking of performance, although I auditioned for the Bretton panto and didn't get in (losing a fiver in the process), I WAS able to get a place on the crew for the biggest show in Bretton this year (working with external peoples too) - Midsummer Night's Dream. I should be Deputy Stage Manager for the show, which is launching in January and is being performed in the middle of March - just before I come home for Easter, which means there's no excuse not to come up to Leeds and watch it! I'm sure I'll be able to tell you more about it once it has launched :D

And finally, having gotten over the cold I had when I last posted, I have come down with YET ANOTHER cold since yesterday, and feel really ill again. I blame (this time) lectures - since everyone has to sit close to each other and everyone who has a cold passes it round with ease.
Anyway, I need to go and rehearse for this practical assessment, which I'll tell you a bit about next time.

It's official. I am now ill.
I'm not entirely sure who to blame, but it certainly isn't my fault. All I know is, I feel horrible. And I'm not happy :(

On Friday we went to Sheffield (yay trams) to watch and help out with one of the Light Night events called High Voltage. I will post some photos and will explain more about it when we get the photos back from the developy people.

Anyway, we've been taking Phil about and introducing him to some of the sights around Bretton (although not the ghost dogs and floating nightdress down by the well - i refuse to go on the ghost hunts). Sunday was the last day of a festival thing that was happening at Bretton, and as Michelle was entering the Dance Off competition for her last year, we tagged along to support her. So, more photos:


This is Michelle in front of the stage at the Dance Off in her rather snazzy costume.


This is our motley crew (plus Phil), again in front of the stage - though it was only taken here because it was the only part of the whole of the Performance Centre (where the competition was taking place) that there was any light.


I'm not sure whether this will be particularly clear, because it comes up well on my monitor at home but not here in the library, but this is a picture of Michelle and some other contestants dancing and warming up before everyone else turned up. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures during the actual dance off... because everything happened so quickly :(

Michelle didn't win the dance off because there were a large group of friends in the audience who were cheering on one of the other contestants, and as it was all measured on how much cheering each competitor got, we didn't stand much of a chance. But we thought she did well anyway :)

In smoking news, a petition has been written and signed by several people to make the main communal area (the lounge) a smoke-free environment. Obviously, we're not too popular anymore, but never mind. There is also a meeting tonight with the LUU officer about this that someone else has organised, so hopefully we'll be able to come to some sort of agreement over a solution, because this situation is really starting to get to me.
ALSO... someone decided to steal some of my cutlery: a fork out of my washing up bowl. A dirty fork. I really don't understand these people. Luckily, I found the knife (still dirty) with some other stuff in the kitchen, and resisted the temptation to bleach it. Eugh...

In internet news, the BT man cometh on Thursday, so I will have a phone line then (hopefully) and can then work on obtaining an internet connection. YAY!

One last thing before I go:

Hehe.

Thought I would tell you about the details of our trip to Asda after going to the cinema. It's not a long story, but I've included pictures to make it more interesting.

Last night we went to see "The Queen" at the cinema in Wakefield, which we enjoyed very much. However, after watching the film, we realised that we had missed out on pick and mix for our film, and decided that we should buy some to take back on the bus with us.
Alas! The pick and mix section was locked!
Since we didn't have enough money with us to get the taxi back, we had to go and catch a bus, and we realised that we could get a bus to Asda and could buy pick and mix there...
So, we hop onto a bus, drop Srividya at The Lodge, and carry on to Asda..

We picked up a great deal with Isa at half price - at Asda you most definately pocket the difference! The great thing was, all of the employees in Asda asked if Isa was comfy, and smiled as we walked by. What lovely people.


Our favourite isle in Asda at the moment is the seasonal Haloween isle. We spent quite a while down here :s


This is me with my favourite items in the Haloween isle. I think the pink hair suits me :)

Eventually we made it to the sweetie isle and.. they didnt have pick and mix either :(
So instead we bought 3 for a £1 bags of sweets :D (And Michelle bought Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream - but it was on offer...)
Thus concludes the story of our quest for pick and mix. I hope you enjoyed it :D

For anyone who doesn't know, these are my friends (left to right): Isa, Srividya (me) and Michelle. We were watching DVDs in my room with our sweeties!

I believe my loyal fans are entitled to an explanation as to why the buses (in my last post) are considered most unreliable here. Of course, all buses are usually considered a bit of a pain to catch, but the bus company makes it incredibly hard for you to catch them when they cut your halls of residence out of their route for a few hours. Even more so when those hours are ones when you need to be attending a lecture. On Stage Management, no less. So, I will explain.

Friday 29th September
10:00 - We head out of the Lodge to catch the X44 bus outside the site.
10:05 - The bus is supposed to turn up now.
10:10 - We realise the bus is going to be a bit late.
10:30 - The bus really is very late.
10:45 - We accept the fact that the bus isn't going to turn up.
11:00 - A 444 bus (also heading to Bretton Campus) drives right past us. Depsite obvious flailing.
11:15 - No other buses
11:35 - We wait for the next X44, which should be arriving now.
11:40 - It doesn't turn up.
11:42ish - We catch a 444 to Bretton.

Time wating for buses: 1 hour 42ish minutes. Total time lost from lecture: 1 hour. Time of lecture: 2 hours.
ARGH.

In other news, we are forming a rebel alliance against the smokers and are revolting. Oh yes. More on that as it develops.

AND my Bowthorpe Stagers site has been taken offline. For more details, email me. I don't want to be seen as badmouthing such a wonderful group :D