My blog at Uni

A Perversion of Justice

2008-03-06T22:13:00.006Z

Now, is it just me, or are Capcom's standards slipping?
Just when I think I've finally come round to the introduction of Apollo Justice in the Ace Attorney series (Phoenix is, after all, still IN the game, and witty as ever) I'm confronted with evidence to suggest he's not as wholesome a character as his name may suggest.

That word "panties" is appearing a little too much in his thought process for my liking...
Magic panties?

Now, wait a minute Apollo. What exactly is your profession supposed to be again?
If Phoenix can lose his badge for fraudulent evidence...

And just to cap it all off, we have this bizarre statement from Phoenix's daughter, 15 year-old Trucy:

Um... what?
And, a side note: I don't think that picture depicts her panties... I mean underwear.

Conclusion: there's only one thing I can say:

An Inexplicable Dream

2008-02-28T22:30:00.004Z

Guess what I went to go and see last night?

Ever since I heard Kaos were back with a new show, I've been dying to see The Kaos Dream. Missing the performance in Norwich in October left me feeling muchly miffed, but a quick glance at their website soon revealed they were actually coming to Wakefield as well. I'd been nagging Sri to look at their website in a bid to get her interested in going with no success, and it was just by chance that I mentioned to Elena on the way back from our last-minute dash to Norwich a few weeks ago that there was this show by one of my favourite theatre companies on in Wakefield that I desperately wanted to see but would be missing (all buses would get me back to Leeds too late). Elena's Mum had also been to see the show in Norwich and had recommended it to her, so it was quickly decided that a road trip to Wakefield was in order.

As usual, I was not disappointed. If it wasn't for the fact that the show closes in Wakefield yesterday, I'd tell anyone and everyone to go, because defining and describing such an experience is absolutely impossible with the restrictions of the English language. Simply put, it was awesome. The interpretation of the text was the most original version of the Dream I have seen to date, with it making so much sense in a "Ohhhhh, that WORKS! How did I not SEE that before??!" kind of way. It was the first piece of theatre I've seen since... let's face it, Kaos' adaptation of Moll Flanders, that actually had me rolling about in the aisles. A brilliant, hilarious, clever production... can't say much more than that (well, I suppose I could, but not without going on in a drama luvvie, fangirl fanatic way).

The real shame in all of this boils down to two things. The first, that although I'd rung up expecting to be shoved at the back of the auditorium since I'd booked my tickets so late, I wasn't. It became blatantly clear why this was when we arrived at the theatre. Although we couldn't see the entirety of the stalls from where we were sitting (the dress circle, of course dahling), the dress circle seated a maximum of 15 people for the third performance (the one we went to) at the Wakefield Theatre Royal. The stalls didn't seem overly full either, although there was at least one rather rowdy school party there. Basically, the theatre wasn't even half full. How awful to perform to such few people towards the end of the run of a show? The second shame? It's their last show. With the Arts Council withdrawing their funding last July, on Saturday, Kaos play their last performance of their Dream, and their last performance as Kaos, to a theatre in Manchester. If you can get out to Manchester this weekend and have never seen Kaos, go!

Children in Our Prisons

2008-02-27T11:52:00.005Z

I've held off writing or talking about our prison visit to HMP New Hall on Monday (for my Collaborative Performance Project module) mainly because I've needed a while to collect my thoughts about the whole experience. I wasn't really expecting anything in particular before I visited and I wasn't even scared by the prospect of being in the company of the female "dregs of our society", but nevertheless, the visit left me feeling completely hollow and incapable of holding a proper conversation about much for a whole afternoon and evening.

With a bit of reflection, I think it's fair to say I was a little in shock. Although the group working in Rivendell (the juvenile unit) were given a complete tour of the juvenile wing, we were only shown round the education department, so we were presented with the surreal experience of walking round what felt like a normal HE college, surrounded by several-metre-high green fences topped with barbed wire. The only glimpse we got of the actual "prison-like" bit of the prison was a quick glance to the left to see a corridor marked at every few feet with heavy white gates. With that image imprinted in my mind and still giving me shivers, I'm glad we weren't given the full tour we were primed for. And the actual department? Also all very surreal and unexpected.

The education department is a confusing mix of what you'd think prison cells may look like and a primary school. The classroom walls are covered by brightly-coloured displays created by the women: pictures they have created from cutting images out of magazines and pasting them onto coloured paper, and drawings vividly coloured in or stencilled with bright coloured pens. On the table of the room we were left to wait in while our guides were rounded up, there was an image created by one of the women depicting herself and her three children with the words "single parent family" stencilled underneath. Amongst this quite uncomfortable display of relatively childish work were "class rules" and "what you hope to gain from this course". There were thick white bars across each of the windows. Each of the classrooms opened onto a main corridor granting access to the two small "break" rooms: a rectangular room with bare white walls and low wooden benches along three of the walls. The contrast between the two was awful.

We were given a tour of the department by two women who were on the Business Ed course. It was their job to take us round, getting each teacher to explain what they were doing with their class and generally chat to us about why we were here. The two classes that stand out for me the most are the Kitchen class (I can't remember the exact name of the class, but they were covering food preparation, hygiene, etc) and the class simply described to us as "the one where the girls who would struggle in the normal classes go".
The teacher in the Kitchen class explained to us about how her girls were being "angelic" today and were "behaving themselves": the "girls" referring to a group comprised mainly of middle-aged women, a few younger women and a heavily pregnant woman in her mid to late 20s. On hearing this, one of the younger women chipped in "We're not all bad people in here you know - some of us are nice people just in a bad situation". I couldn't have put it more succinctly.
The women in the other class were the most upsetting. They were clearly either heavily sedated or just not with us in this world, most of them staring out into space or quietly colouring in tessellation patterns. The description of the class was one given to us by the teacher in front of his whole class - there was no pretence that these women could be considered in the same way as all the others we had seen or the women who were showing us round. They shouldn't have been there.

For the other half of our visit, we were sat with the PHSE class (some of which we may be working with when we return to conduct out workshops in April) and were given the opportunity to ask them pretty much anything, and them us. Before anyone had a chance to say anything though, one of the women (with a large amount of facial piercings and a black and fushia pink mohican) burst into a fit of giggles, quickly followed by the other few women sitting round the table. It was quickly explained to us by another one of the women (with a shaved head and baseball cap) that "someone in this room is rather hot", with a meaningful look in Ginny's direction. The experience was similar to that of being in a year 8 class full of pubescent teenagers - very unnerving considering most of the women were older than us. The rest of our time there all but two of the women became resolutely silent, unwilling to ask any questions with their eyes tilted to their laps with their arms crossed or their fingers fidgeting.

Leaving felt wrong. Knowing that all the women we had met that day (bar the staff) couldn't leave whilst we were phoning for taxis to take us to the train station just seemed... wrong. I knew they were there for a reason - but what reason? Only a tiny percentage of women in prisons are there for violent crimes, the majority are there for theft, fraud, prostitution or drugs offences. Surely there's a better way to deal with these problems instead of locking them away from their children and their families? I knew I'd feel this way after meeting them - after all, as I explained to someone who asked me what it was like in a hushed, excited tone the day afterwards; they're just people. People like you and me, people with families, who had homes somewhere once, just people who have done something wrong and are paying dearly for it.

The fact they've done something wrong though - does that mean they should be treated like kids? Given tasks to draw patterns using circles, squares and triangles, magazines to cut nice pictures out of, and praised in front of strangers for being "angelic"? Called "girls" by every nearly every member of staff, most of whom are younger than them? It just seemed all wrong. What these women need is help, not patronisation. There is a reason why people offend, and sticking them in cells for a few months or a few years isn't going to change the reasons they committed the offence in the first place. In fact, they're even more likely to re-offend, losing their homes whilst they're locked up and consequently losing their children or partners because of this. Education is a help, but not this way. These prisoners are women, just like the teachers teaching them. We are all equal in that sense, and should be treated as such since these women have chosen education over manual labour.

And the women who are so sedated or so out of it they can't even join in with the main classes? Should they even be in prison at all, let alone an education system? What good is it doing them sitting in a room colouring in pictures? And how does it make them feel to hear they "wouldn't cope" with the work everyone else is doing being aired to a few strangers visiting from a university? They're like children; they're treated like children and some even have their mindset. Prison is right for some - I do still believe that, but I also believe some of them should never be put there in the first place.

Is there any wonder these women suffer from major self-esteem problems? That their confidence is so low that the minute they leave prison they resort back to the numbing drugs or the security of organised prostitution? There's no respect there - and why would there be? These women ARE "the dregs of society", the ones that several people have told me deserve to rot in jail because they're bad people and don't deserve to mix with us. And who the hell are we to judge? Our society isn't so great that we can consider ourselves to be the angelic layer of it. We're all human - we all have similar traits, similar thoughts, desires, hopes and dreams. It's just that some of us don't stand a chance where others do. They deserve some kind of respect - not praise for what they've done, just an acknowledgement that they're human too, and because of that some respect is deserved.

I won't be calling them "girls" during my workshops. And I won't be asking them to draw pretty pictures. They're women in their own right - funny, intelligent, interested women, and I for one am interested to hear what they have to say and what they feel about a society that has failed them somewhere along the line.

Grown Ups

2008-02-26T17:35:00.003Z

------------------------

Being a grown-up is a scary reality of adult life that should be avoided at all costs. A grown-up is a responsible adult who handles things like the mortgage and other bills, someone who has a job, and someone, as I was told today, who has "no life". It would appear that this generation's 'responsible' and 'mature' students consider anyone who isn't a part of the student elite and who works instead to have missed out on the best opportunities open to them in life, and that their chosen path can only lead to doom and gloom as they have severely limited their options by making choices before they turn 30. What you really ought to do, the government, our teachers and our parents tell us, is go to university.

The common trend with the youth of today is, if you can, to go to university to study a BA in whatever you fancy. Most people don't really know exactly what they want to do aged 18 for the rest of their lives, so a stint in university, "growing up" away from home, is the best place to get your thoughts together and to prepare yourself for the real world. The problem with this is that if you don't know what you want to do with your life, how can you know which degree you want to take? For many students, those three or four blissful years can be used solely for "the experience" of being a student - whatever that is (most people would argue that it's meeting a load of people, getting drunk on a regular basis and attending the odd lecture in between). If you've got an aim behind your degree, then maybe academic achievement is on the agenda, but if you're not working in any particular direction, keeping your options open and avoiding those pesky limitations, then that's fine too - everyone knows that just having a degree is guaranteed to get you where you eventually decide you want to be, since they work as fast tickets into the workplace nowadays.

The best thing about being a student is that you don't have to be a grown up. You're in a wonderful limbo between dependence and independence, not needing to be completely responsible for your actions since your parents are always there to pick up the bill for any monetary problems, and free to do whatever you want because you're away from home, in "the best years of your life" and with access to more pubs and clubs than you could possibly think of. Being a grown-up? That's not for many years to come - students need to live their lives to the fullest before they can even start to think about all that.

------------------------

I do wonder when I became a "grown up". And when and where the cynicism kicked in.

I sat in a discussion with the rest of my Actions and Interventions group today, arguing the case for those of us who think getting into £19k worth of debt isn't worth it if you're just at uni because you were told it was the right/best thing to or because you're there just for "the experience". If I've learnt anything from this module, it's that most students feel lonely quite a lot of the time, despite being around thousands of other academics and people with the same interests. Most of us have felt depressed at some point, whether it be clinical or just feeling a bit blue and homesick. And most of us have so little money, you'd be lucky to get one night out a month where you could buy enough to get roaring drunk. Is all that worth the debt? What kind of experience is it you're paying for if it's not the education you rate?

As someone at university with an agenda - to leave Leeds with a 2:1 or 1:1 to go on to achieve QTS - it's incredibly frustrating to have to work alongside people who are simply there for "the experience". They are the ones who are getting the stereotypical experience, because they're putting all of their time, money and effort into everything but the educational experience, complaining at the same time about the standard of teaching and the content of the lessons, only half of which they attend. I was told on application to the university that I was one of over 9000, and that I'd be lucky to become one of the 90 odd who actually got accepted. It angers me to think of all those other people who wanted to be here so much when half the people I come across don't want to be here, have thought about dropping out, or have just given up already.

Academic achievement isn't the priority for a proportion of students "studying" at university in our society. Doing the reading for the session or getting an essay finished any time before a few hours before the due time is still looked down on, even though everyone here supposedly did that in high school to be able to get where they are now. Apathy kicked in somewhere in the application process and just "a degree" of any level in any subject seems to be the goal for some people I come across. The number of people hoping to continue with drama after BA? A handful.

Being a student allows you to postpone becoming a grown up. Those of us who start our adult lives as students won't be leaving home for several years after we graduate because of the amount of debt we're in. We're bestowed with limited responsibility masquerading as independence whilst we're at university because we're living away from home, but in reality we're given the money to get through everything by a loans company or by our parents, so we're never in a situation where we're not depending on anyone. The debt ensures that this will continue for several years, where, at the same time, the 16-year-old school leavers will have more money and possibly property behind them than we hope to have 5-10 years after graduation.

Maybe I'm too serious about things. I don't aim to travel for a few years after leaving (how would I afford it anyway?) or anything else away from Norwich, I just want to secure myself a job I'm going to be happy to work in for 40 odd years, have a home and a family. Yes, I'm "limiting" myself by having hopes and plans, but is it really limitation? Isn't what I'm doing more about enabling? I've hopefully got about 60 or so years left in me - why would I want to concentrate all the good times into 5 or 6 years and be miserable, in large amounts of debt and with no direction in life for the other 55?

True Awesomeness

2008-01-25T21:27:00.001Z

Have to say, I'm not usually a fan of, well, fan-art, but this image pretty much sums it up for me at the moment.

I've just finished the third game in the Phoenix Wright series (Trials and Tribulations) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, I knew that the next one in the series is due to be called Apollo Justice, clearly stating that Phoenix is very much out of the picture. This is pretty sad in itself (due to the general awesomeness of his character), but also, along with Phoenix, some of the best characters of the game are also being dumped on the rubbish pile. However, what really gets my goat is that they're still attempting to include him in the new game.. as a washed up lawyer.
*cries buckets*
Capcom are clearly just bored of Phoenix and prefer shiny young boys instead...

Now for some awesomeness...

Ace Attorney goes... regional. Tee hee.

A drumroll please...

2008-01-23T12:27:00.000Z

Three of us sat in a library cluster after Alice told us she'd be sending us our TiE Practical marks within a few minutes - I don't think any of us were actually breathing. FINALLY, after an excruciating 5 minutes, we got this through:

Conceptual Development: A
Composition: A
Impact: A
Skills and Techniques: A
Critical Reflection: A

Comments:
This was an outstanding piece of TIE practice and showed innovation and accomplishment throughout. The opening in the classroom by ‘the Doctor’ was very clear and provided the pupils with a very well-defined set of rules and frames for the ensuing drama. The character was easy for the children to relate to and pitched appropriately in terms of language, tone and narrative. There was a clear sense of magic from the outset and the children entered the space in a controlled manner but with clear excitement.
The company demonstrated great attention to detail in terms of costume, props, set and so on. This was a real treat to see and evidence of the great commitment to a total, immersive theatrical environment. Costumes provided for the children really helped build the sense of community expressed in the group’s aims.
This piece was highly effective in terms of both educational imperative and aesthetic framing. Sustaining this for over an hour with total engagement from the children is evidence of the group’s careful planning and professional execution of the session.
All sections were delivered with clear instructions. Each task flowed from the previous one and made methodological and pedagogical sense. The children moved from completing each task with compliance to taking more responsibility for their actions and improvising with the characters according to the given circumstances. Evidence of scaffolded learning was in abundance and the complexity of the narrative situation provided the children with an experience which was both meaningful and rewarding. At all times the session was child-centred, well-structured and had a calm atmosphere which maximised learning for all participants. This was an extremely professional piece of which you should be proud. Very well done.

Suggestions for Future Improvement:
These are minor points but still worth considering.
Some nerves were evident at the start of the piece. This is understandable and you did keep them under control but at times it did affect the audibility of certain scripted sections. There was also a tendency to overuse “OK” when working in small groups. This didn’t fit with the narrative context and jarred with me (although I don’t think the children noticed!).
Groups were not evenly distributed. This didn’t seem to hinder any activity but did mean that some clan leaders had many more children to deal with.
Getting children to sit where you wanted them was your biggest problem. Moving very small children around a space can be extremely difficult, particularly getting them into a circle. How might you manage this in future?
There was a slight drop in energy and pace towards the end when the children were working on their own solutions to the problem. This went on slightly too long but, again, is a minor point.

Overall Mark: 83/90 (1:1)

Here's a run down of the criteria we fulfilled:

A - Outstanding (70-90)
Conceptual Development: Lucid and illuminating application of relevant theories and ideas to practice. Own practice is used to creatively explore and extend understanding of the wider frame of contemporary practice leading to work which offers new conceptual insights.
Composition: Exceptional levels of creativity and imagination evidencing excellent levels of independent compositional judgement. Fully convincing synthesis of formal aspects of the practice demonstrating sensitivity and control. Prepared to take compositional risks and succeeds.
Impact: Outstanding achievement where the response to the task set reflects a strong sense of originality and imagination. The work communicates a lasting and persuasive impact.
Skills and Techniques: Thoroughly accomplished demonstration of practical skills and techniques. Levels of achievement reflect professional practice.
Critical Reflection: All work informed by exceptional levels of critical understanding and insight. Thorough use of supportive materials, clearly evidencing extended sustained and imaginative research as a means of developing own practice. (Where appropriate: Seeks and actively engages with constructive criticism.)

A little note about the mark...
You may have noticed that I've written this one out of 90 instead of a percentage... this is because I've actually got my marks wrong for the last year. I always thought that we were marked out of 100, and that our mark was a percentage, but after a disagreement between us as to whether the mark was out of 90 or 100, I checked the criteria (something I've never actually done)... and it says the most you can achieve is a 90 on any PCI assessment. Which means I've been making my marks look worse than they actually are!

But anyway.. very, very happy and proud. Can't say much more than that :D

My Big Adventure

2008-01-21T17:33:00.001Z

Well I had fun this morning.

I stupidly left my purse round Jenny and Jessica's house on Saturday night after our preview viewing of Sweeney Todd and pizza at theirs, so I arranged with Jenny to go and collect it today so I could go shopping for stuff. Unfortunately, I've only been to their house once and in the dark following them, so when I tried to head out this morning in the grey and pouring rain, I found myself getting more and more lost.

I kid you not, that is the actual route I took. And the most frustrating thing? If I'd just continued down Argie Avenue a little further the first time, I would have made it there quite quickly and with relatively dry feet. But no, after several fruitless walks round (literally) in circles, I gave up, stood on a street corner and tried to phone someone who could help me.
First off, I tried Elena. She nearly always has a map to hand, and was therefore a relatively safe and considered option. Didn't answer her phone.
Then I thought I'd try Jenny, since she should know where her house is. No answer.
Finally, and with a flash of brilliance, I remembered that some people have things called COMPUTERS on which they have the INTERNET and with which they can find MAPS. Everything crossed, I phoned Isa, who promptly told me I just needed to walk a few more feet forward and the street I needed would be on the right. I felt so, so intelligent.

Anyway, after being reunited with my purse, I headed off into the city to do my scouting for cheap telephones (since the ones we currently have are Isa's and are therefore going back to Spain with her). Unfortunately, I didn't find any that didn't cost a small fortune, but I did find this:

THIS is the dress I've had my eye on at work since I started back in December, and I watched it be reduced from £160 to £95. Now, being the skint student I am, I knew there was no chance I'd ever afford it, so I forgot about it. Cut to moving back up here, and I spot it, reduced to 50% in the Leeds Monsoon. Still too much, I leave it in the shop after trying it on and falling in love with it, hoping it'll be reduced again. Today, I went back, daring to hope it might still be there, and to my complete surprise, on the end of a 75% rail hung a size 18... and a size 12. I could have wept. Needless to say, it's hanging in my wardrobe - a steal at £40 :D

Probably a little TOO pleased with myself, I headed home... to find the new Module Handbook online. To my horror, I found this description of my POP4 choice:

"Taught workshops for the Performance Actions and Interventions option in this semester led by Fiona Mathers will explore performance / actions as a means of re-interpreting place, using sound in particular. Students will be required to research the background and use of a chosen place before embarking on their own devised responses to a creative brief that will specify a selection of appropriate methods and techniques for further independent, practical exploration in collaborating groups.
Assignment brief: Devise, develop and present a performance piece exploring the re-interpretation of place using the creative use in particular of vocal sound, and, to some extent, recording. (The presentation will not be in the original source space)."

Interpreting space using sound??? Eugh.
Then I looked at the description of the sessions with the other Actions and Interventions class...

"Taught workshops for the Performance Actions and Interventions option in this semester led by Jon Brazil will explore performance / actions as a means of intervening in particular situations. Students will be required to research at least two key practitioners before embarking on their own devised responses to a creative brief that will specify a selection of appropriate methods and techniques for further independent, practical exploration in collaborating groups.
Assignment brief: Devise, develop and present a performance piece exploring autobiography, and more specifically student experience, and including a ceremonial/ ritual dimension. The piece should involve an engagement with notions of identity and include the use of organised sound."

Now THAT sounds like what I signed up for!
So, I sent off an email to George asking to switch groups.
Now I wait, everything crossed.

And now.. for a rest

2008-01-20T18:55:00.000Z

OK, this time, I do actually have a genuine and honourable excuse to explain away why I've neglected my poor little blog for so long. This is actually my first full weekend off for 6 weeks, so, since I haven't been able to update everyone on a regular basis on my goings-on for the last month and a half, here's a bit of a recap:

December 10^th2007 – January 3^rd 2008

This jolly period of time saw me working pretty much all the hours at Monsoon, with only 3 days off (Christmas, New Years and a random Friday) and one day’s sick leave. Unlike my time there over the summer, my ‘Temporary Sales Assistant’ status had been elevated to “one of the only two temps who can operate a till and can be trusted in the stockroom for hours on end” (thank goodness that wasn’t my general job description). So, instead of walking about on the shop floor for hours tidying already tidy racks of clothes for the 4 weeks, that only happened for about a week in total. The rest of the time, I was stationed in the fitting room, on the till, or keeping an eye on the new temps that needed coaching (from someone who had only been working there for a grand total of 6 weeks). And then, just as the sale prep period started to kick off, I found myself locked away in the stockroom for hours at a time (4 hours, a lunch hour, and another 4 hours, to be precise), entrusted with the weighty job of coding every single piece of stock in the room. What fun. Stripped of my staff discount (skint company policy, apparently) and prevented from experiencing daylight for a week, it would have been easy to become despondent but no! I had these fellas to keep me company:

Oh yes, 4 weeks later, I had created 88 bracelets and (not pictured, unfortunately) an entire costume – by hand. This makes me muchly proud since sewing machines terrify me and have kept me scared enough to not use one for 6 years. And yes, OK, the dress did look slightly like a sack, but that was kind of the intention.

Honest.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage the 3000-word essay I’d been aiming to do (more on that monstrosity later) but at least I came away from the holidays with a good pile of cash to put towards those scary driving lessons I’m aiming for this summer.

January 7^th – January 11^th

I moved back up to uni on the Friday with my Mum, fish bundled up in the wastepaper bin, several jumpers and their bags. Both fish are getting on fine, seemingly happy with their change of location again. I’m still not sure whether I should get them another friend or not; Pearl spends a lot of time on her own, foraging for food (mostly algae actually :s) and Pips has started playing with his reflection again, so it’s something I’m seriously considering again.

My Mum left on Sunday morning (after very kindly refilling my fridge and freezer, helping me find a few bits in the city and taking us out to the cinema to see The Golden Compass – most enjoyable) and then the work started…

Although by the end of Sunday I’d finished all the little bracelets I was supposed to make, when we met up on Monday to rehearse for Theatre In Education, it was apparent that I was not only the only one who had completed their designated work, but the only Native American character with a costume. So we decided to take the day out to do some ‘arts and crafts’ and bought all the pieces to make everyone else’s costumes and props that they hadn’t managed to do over Christmas.

And, with much hilarity, I became the authority on how to make sack-dresses.

Or rather, it would have been hilarious if this authority hadn’t required me to stay at Elena’s every night before the performance to help with her and Katy’s costumes and to help get props together or made. I would have minded so much helping Elena out, but having to help people with props and stuff that they simply didn’t do over Christmas wasn’t really fair. This generally resulted in my days stretching from an 8:30am start to a nasty 12:00am finish. Yays.

Over the week, we rehearsed in the mysteriously named ‘The Raven’. The only thing I found mysterious about it was how it managed to exist on University property and not have any kind of proper heating installed. By Thursday, we’d cottoned on and installed our own heaters:

But, all that said, it was a really useful space and we were rarely disturbed.

Wednesday, Elena and I dyed our hair. Although I found the prospect of having black hair for a week quite scary, it was much more daunting for Elena, who couldn’t get hold of a dye that wouldn’t leave her with black hair for 28 washes. I found it rather becoming:

If you’re wondering, my hair was almost brown again after 3 washes (6-8 washes my arse), and I’m back to normal now.

By Thursday when we had most of the costumes finished (including the boys’, although we did get them to sew bits of theirs, with vay funny consequences) and most of the props were getting there, it did seem to have all paid off. On Friday, we transformed from this (actually taken the following week, but meh):

To this:

span >

And everyone involved seemed to be quite impressed. The teachers all had very nice comments about the effort we’d put in and how they’d be able to use our session to refer back to in the future, but the nicest comments came from our tutor. She said we should be proud of what we’d managed to achieve, that the attention to detail was great, and how we’d be able to tour the session we’d put together and would be able to get schools to pay good money for it (!!!!).

Key Quotes:

Child 1: “We’re going to… … … find some grass”.
Child 2: “No we’re not, we’re going to help the Medicine Woman make medicine!”

Elena: “And now we will show you the dangers of the swamp, where there are many… sucky things… that can suck you”.
Explanation: “Well I couldn’t tell them they were leeches, could I? I had to use their words!”

January 12^th – January 14^th

A weekend to rest? Goodness no.

Since I didn’t get my essay done over the holidays, I had to use my weekend to get it done, since I knew after Tuesday I’d be preparing for the Staging Histories presentations on Friday. So I trawled my way through 3000 words of pure torture to get it done. The aim was to be finished by the time Phil arrived on Monday night, but by that point I was so shattered I could have banged my head against the keyboard and come out with something more meaningful than what I was typing. So, it carried on over until Tuesday, when the beast was finally slain. Woo.

January 15^th

Tuesday was the day of our final performance in the school, and although the pressure of the assessment didn’t hang over us like the first performance on the Friday, the afternoon performance had taught us that the younger the children got, the harder our job got, so, as Tuesday was Year 1, we were positively terrified. However, Year 1 actually proved to be the most responsive of all, and were absolutely brilliant with all the tasks we set them. Before posing for some final memento pictures:

We left the school with a few reminders of our visit:

The cave wall, signed by the Native Americans and, very inconspicuously, Doctor Who…

…the wonderfully made tepee…

… and the awesome totem pole (courtesy of Danny, aka The Doctor).

January 16^th – January 18^th

By Wednesday, the rehearsals for the presentation were underway. Our first meeting bade well for the rest of the process:

“So guys, how about we go round the table and show everyone what we’ve got?”
[Collective mumbles]
“OK, so no-one’s done anything yet…”

However, after a frustrating research session, and an anguishing ‘Let’s Write a Script for the Presentation and Learn It in an Evening” session, by Friday, we seemed to pull it off. We ran to exactly 30 minutes (the set time) and made one of the tutors smile. Bonus.

And the rest…

Isa’s Departure: For those who I haven’t already told, Isa has decided to drop out of her Performance Management course here and try and get onto an architecture course in Spain. Unfortunately, she decided to tell us this when Sri wasn’t in the country, and 4 days before we were due to resign our housing contract. Immediate panic over, I organised with our landlord for Sri and I to sign individually let contracts for our room, and we’re now looking for another housemate before the Fletchers find us one. Isa’s off on Wednesday, but with her Mum arriving this evening, time to organise something nice for her before she leaves is running out, so we’ll have to see what we can do!

Marks for things: I’ve put those in a separate post, so if you want to find out about how any of my written work went, scroll down a little!

Ok, well I think that’s about it for now, I’ll attempt to keep you all as updated as possible!

A few feedback notes

2008-01-19T15:09:00.000Z

Strategies for Research: Literature Review

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: B/A
Structure: C/B
Presentation: B

Comments:
Clearly focused in terms of both the question and the source material identified. Key concepts are clearly understood, and the assessment of the roles the texts play in the study is well presented. Demonstrates clear thinking in indicating the shape of the investigation. Engaging in style. A wide range of material is included in the bibliography, especially for the psychological content. Perhaps needs strengthening with regard to films which unbalances the structure a little. The final paragraph is unnecessarily negative.

For future improvement:
Some more extended evaluation of the use of films as sources would make the application of the psychological material to the topic more focused. Bear in mind that you may not necessarily find sources that reflect your topic exactly, indeed it would be unhelpful if you did, so be more positive about needing to create your own context.

Overall mark: 68% (2:1)

Staging Histories Essay

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: B/A
Structure: B
Presentation: B

Comments:
From the start, this is a closely argued and carefully researched essay that manages to get to the heart of the issues raised by the title in a fluent and controlled writing style. The range of theories and other discussion of history-writing that you have chosen for detailed analysis is broad, and well-suited to your central argument concerning "uncertain histories" and their relevance to contemporary theatre practice. The effort you made to explore the implications of these theories, and the questions they might lead us to in the present, is especially impressive. This material might have been a little turgid, given its complexity and the ground that needed to be covered, but the analysis is sustained enough to keep the reader focused on the central line of the argument.

Despite this, your analysis would have certainly benefited from a more detailed exploration of Making History and its context of performance as your central example, and a tighter structure within which to hold your many and various points. The balance of theoretical discussion and analysis of evidence could have been a little more carefully balanced in this sense. Overall though, this is very good work, demonstrating intelligence and insight in many places.

Overall mark: 67: (2:1)

POP3 - Applied Theatre (Theatre in Education): Critical Evaluation

Coverage: B/A
Analysis: A
Structure: A
Presentation: A

Comments:
This is an excellent piece of work, Lizzy. You write in a very articulate and informed manner, demonstrating a strong grasp not only of your own material but also of the theoretical underpinning that surrounds it. You have provided a most effective evaluation of the methods you have employed in your group piece and have given a clear rationale for each decision taken. You have an eye on both the educational imperative and the theatrical one and I feel confident that with such clear articulation of ideas, your session in school will be a great success.

For future improvement:
You write very accurately and with great care so there is little technical improvement to be done. Perhaps a target for the future might be to start to articulate your own theories, beliefs, opinions about this type of work. You’ve drawn on the practice of Boal, Neelands etc but what are your own thoughts? This is a big leap to take but perhaps one which you are now ready to address.

Overall mark: 76% (1:1)

More essay writing

2007-11-21T18:13:00.000Z

Posts always seem to get a bit sparse around high-workload essay times, so apologies for the lack of updating. My weekend at home was very nice, thank you.

This is what happens when I have essays to write:

BOOK AVALANCHES.
GENERAL DESTRUCTION.
It's all going on at essay central.

Thankfully, I finished my Strategies essay today, so I have a whole evening to lounge about and do not a lot at all. Although, that is before the mammoth rehearsal run I have for TiE over the weekend.
IT NEVER STOPS...

It's been a while

2007-11-14T21:07:00.000Z

Ok, so we're back two weeks after the last post.
I simply don't have the energy to explain what I've been up to, so I'll add what's been occupying most of my time for the last week for you all to see. Enjoy.

“History is never for itself; it is always for someone.” (Keith Jenkins) Discuss Jenkins’ comment as well as his general perspective on history in relation to a range of work covered during the module, with special reference to Brian Friel’s play Making History.

In order to discuss the above quote and indeed his general view on the subject, it is first necessary to determine what Jenkins implies with his use of the word ‘history’. Before his book Re-Thinking History was published in 1991, it was uncommon for the historian to make the distinction between ‘the past’ and ‘history’[1], but it is this distinction that defines the viewpoint that is reflected in the quote and his further writings. To exemplify, Jenkins (2006:7) states

as English-speakers we tend to lose sight of the fact that there is actually this distinction between history – as that which has been written/recorded about the past – and the past itself, because the word history covers both things… register this difference by using the term ‘the past’ for all that has gone on before everywhere, whilst using the word ‘historiography’ for history, historiography referring to the writings of historians

thus demonstrating that history and the past are “not stitched together” (ibid.) but are separate entities to be considered independently of each other. The notion that historiography is not necessarily a true or complete reflection of the past (an issue to be investigated later) is explored within Friel’s text. The character Archbishop Lombard makes several references to the nature of history throughout the play, explaining “I’ll just try to tell the story of what I saw and took part in as accurately as I can” (Friel, 1989:8) but notably says when questioned about the truthfulness of his account of O’Neill’s history, “my responsibility will be to tell the best possible narrative…I’m not sure the ‘truth’ is the primary ingredient” (ibid.). Here he is clearly making the division between ‘what he saw’, the past, and ‘what he tells’, history. He is presenting history as a subjective piece of “story-telling” (ibid.).

Conversely, a more traditional and positivist view of history is displayed as a contrast to Lombard’s attitude in the form of Hugh O’Neill’s character. Freedman (2000:594) defines this traditional view as “emphasis[ing] the critical and scientific description and evaluation of past events (in the words of the 19th century German historian Leopold von Ranke, “to tell it as it actually happened”)”. This view therefore acknowledges the past and history to be one and the same, focusing on the necessity of complete accuracy and truth. This is a belief that O’Neill conveys to the audience repeatedly whenever the subject of his history arises, specifically stating, “I need the truth Peter… The schemer, the leader, the liar, the statesman, the lecher, the patriot, the drunk, the soured, bitter émigré – put it all in, Peter. Record the whole life” (Friel, 1989:63). O’Neill is emphasising his wish that his past should be recorded in its’ entirety as his history, reflecting his view that this is what constitutes history: objectivity.

Through the two characters discussed, we are presented with vehicles to present and discuss history as either subjective or objective. A question that arises from looking at history in this manner is this: can history ever be truly objective? In order for a historical account to avoid subjectivity, it must be purely factual and therefore without the affects of a historian’s interpretation. Jenkins implies in his writing that this is not possible, stating, “history remains inevitably a personal construct, a manifestation of the historian’s perspective as ‘narrator’” (Jenkins, 2006:14). Vansina (1980) furthers this by stating, “all historical sources are suffused by subjectivity right from the start”, implying that even if a historian could approach evidence from the past in an objective manner, the factual element of the very material is questionable as human memory is subjective[2]. Even artefacts can become subjective, argues Shanks who states, “only humans talk, and when artefacts are said to speak it is through a human intermediary” (Pearson and Shanks, 2001:97), indicating that to understand relics of the past we require a human to interpret them, which therefore, as human thought is subjective, makes an objective understanding of it impossible. Does this therefore render O’Neill’s demands of Lombard’s history futile? Many historians do still attempt to create objective accounts of the past, Arthur Marwick being a clear example, whose position is, “that while historians are certainly fallible… history …is an ‘objective’ discipline” (Marwick, 2001:38) but even he states, “history is reasonably objective, and certainly is not entirely subjective” (2001:45). It would seem that while it is highly likely one could create an entirely subjective historiography, the same cannot be said for an entirely objective historiography.

With an understanding of the subjective nature of history established, Jenkins furthers his explanation of his definition of history by discussing the way in which the past can be read in a multitude of ways. He states, “bear in mind that ‘history’ is really ‘histories’… we ought to… recognise that there is a multiplicity of types of history whose only common feature is that their ostensible object of enquiry is the past” (Jenkins, 2006:4). The fact that past events can be interpreted in this manner consequently means that we should expect there to be several ways of recording the past, as “the same object of enquiry is capable of being read differently by different discourses” (ibid.), thus producing several versions of the same ‘history’. In Friel’s play, Lombard supports Jenkins’ view, stating “I don’t believe that a period of history – a given space of time – my life – your life – that it contains within it one ‘true’ interpretation just waiting to be mined” (Friel, 1989:15). A real-life example of this is the work of David Irving, a historian who sought to rewrite the history of the Holocaust from the way it is depicted by many other historians[3] by interpreting the evidence available to support his beliefs.

The actions of Irving tally with Jenkins views of the nature of historiography, which he describes as “a contested discourse, an embattled terrain wherein people(s), classes and groups autobiographically construct interpretations of the past literally to please themselves” (Jenkins, 2006:23). As there are so many ways possible to interpret the same past events, the way a historian chooses their take on these events is often determined by their target audience, and in Irving’s case, this was for himself and the Neo-Nazi movement. It is this choice of audience and subsequent interpretation that Jenkins (2006:21) is referring to when he states, “history is never for itself; it’s always for someone”.

The motivation behind the way in which historians use the past to write their histories for others can differ greatly. Plumb (2004:11) states,

man, from the earliest days of recorded time, has used the past in a variety of ways: to explain the origins and purpose of human life, to sanctify institutions of government, to give validity to class structure, to provide moral example, to vivify his cultural and educational processes, to interpret the future, to invest both the individual human life or a nation’s with a sense of destiny

demonstrating several ways in which he believes the past has been used to write a history relevant and necessary for others. Phelan describes the way in which the history of the Rose Theatre was altered in an attempt to preserve the site upon its’ discovery in her book Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. She explains, “the Shakespeare connection was heightened and the Marlowe connection was played down, in part because Shakespeare has a cultural capital that Marlowe lacks” (Phelan, 1997:74). In this instance, the past was interpreted for the developers of the site and the British public, for whom Shakespeare is a key cultural symbol. This supports Jenkins’ (2006:27) view that “who the historian sees as his/her market will influence what is said”. Shakespeare’s importance in our society (the market) determined that, in order to preserve the site, his limited connection to the theatre needed to be exaggerated.

In Friel’s text, Lombard is writing O’Neill’s history with the Irish people in mind, which requires him to focus on the heroic and Catholic things he did for Ireland, and not actions that were contradictory to these. He states, “I’m offering Gaelic Ireland two things. I’m offering them this narrative that has elements of myth. And I’m offering them Hugh O’Neill as a hero” (Friel, 1989:67). By writing in this manner, he is selecting the material that is relevant for the interpretation required by his target audience, so although he may not be telling the whole truth of O’Neill’s life, his history could not be deemed entirely untruthful either. This choosing only certain parts of the past to document presents later generations with a problem. People reading this history years later after all those who knew the ‘real truth’ had died would never be able to distinguish between the partially censored account (to present O’Neill solely as a Gaelic hero) and the completely accurate one. Lowenthal (1996:187) states, “the past is gone; its parity with things now seen, recalled or read about can never be proved”. Jenkins (2006:14) also suggests that we can never really judge whether anything written is accurate, stating

we judge the ‘accuracy’ of historians’ accounts vis-à-vis other historians’ interpretations and there is no real account, no proper history that, deep down, allows us to check all other accounts against it: there is no fundamentally ‘correct’ text of which other interpretations are variations; variations are all they are

which in turn implies that accuracy is never a definite element of a historiography. Whilst this is an issue that would clearly concern O’Neill’s character personally, (he who almost obsessively tries to ensure Lombard’s history of his life is without comment, without interpretation and altogether completely true-to-life[4]) as long as a person studying a history understands and accepts that “history is what historians make”, that they “make it on slender evidence” and that it is “inescapably interpretive” (Jenkins, 2006:30), the quest for ‘real truth’ becomes pointless and unnecessary, and it is building your own interpretation and ideas about the past that become key. Demonstrating this, Shanks states accuracy “is not an intrinsic property or essential quality” (Pearson and Shanks, 2001:114). An example of this in modern society is the Shakespeare debate, featured frequently in the early seminars of this module. Various people have written books[5] disproving Shakespeare as the author of his works, but ultimately this does not detract from the fact that the literary works would be important (in the Elizabethan era and our own) even if they had been written by a man of another name (many authors have written under pseudonyms before and this has not rendered their work invalid!). Therefore, one could conclude that the accuracy surrounding who the ‘the real Shakespeare’ was is not that important overall.

If we accept that factors such as accuracy, subjectivity and bias are not important in historiography, where does this leave the importance of such uncertain histories? Jenkins argues that it is the meaning we derive from the past that has true importance to historians. He states, “historians are not too concerned about discrete facts… historians have ambitions, wishing to discover not only what happened but how and why and what these things meant and mean” (Jenkins, 2006:40). Plumb (2004:12) also supports this view, stating, “the majority of men and historians for most of recorded time were concerned with far more than what merely happened”. This meaning they generate is, of course, particular to the historian, as each interpretation will be unique to the writer, but it can also have great importance, as history is often used by or affects our society. For example, Plumb suggests that it can be used to “give validity to the class structure” or to “sanctify institutions of government” (Plumb, 2004:11), demonstrating how we often draw on what has gone before to validate our actions in the present. Jenkins (2006:22) states, “people(s) literally feel the need to root themselves today and tomorrow in their yesterdays… people(s) in the present need antecedents to… legitimate their ongoing and future ways of living”. With histories being written to help provide the relevant antecedents, we can further clarify what Jenkins means by history being “for someone”.

Particular antecedents can also used by directors or writers in theatre. As a theatrical setting allows for uncertainty and questioning of beliefs and truths, having access to several ‘histories’ can be an advantage, as they can either provide them with several points of view, allowing for a piece that maybe considers some or all of these possibilities, or a particular interpretation that supports and therefore justifies their version depicted or used in their production. Looking at history can also help us to develop and improve on what has gone before. By looking at historians’ interpretations of mistakes made in the past, bearing these in mind we can work towards new solutions, avoiding or solving previous problems. This process of working towards a solution through trial and error can be particularly applied to the theatrical devising process. By looking at past practitioners’ or simply the company’s problems, it is possible to draw new conclusions about how the process can be tackled[6] which can help to shape a new approach. By being aware of theatrical history, it is also possible for older techniques to be examined, reused, revisited or modified to create a new shape for contemporary theatre technique. It can therefore be argued that these uncertain histories still hold some importance for theatre practitioners, writers and anyone working in the theatrical industry.

To summarise, Jenkins believes that historians write ‘histories’, personal interpretations of the past that always have an element of subjectivity and inaccuracy due to the personal nature of interpretation and the fallibility of human memory. His comment, “history is never for itself; it is always for someone” implies that these interpretations are written with specific audiences or purposes in mind. Whilst this perspective could impact greatly on the practice of history, with history playing a key role in theatre, how does Jenkins’ take on the topic affect the theatrical practitioner? As the importance of historical accuracy is removed (as this is considered to be no certain thing), it could be suggested that we should accept revisits to older texts as interpretations, understanding that this has no impact on their validity as no “true” version exists. As an accurate and objective documentation of a performance is not possible, this really emphasises the importance of the live performance, and diminishes the value of any attempt to document or recreate it without interpretation. However, with an emphasis on the importance of the interpretation of what has gone before, the way people come to understand a performance personally also becomes highly significant. It would therefore be beneficial to the practitioner to consider the ways in which they can exploit the audience’s perception of the piece. He may want to ensure that they understand one message or idea within the work and would need to consider specific semiotics and text in order to ensure that this is conveyed correctly. Alternatively, he may want the audience to draw their own conclusions and personal interpretations from the performance and may therefore want to be less specific with what is shown. A performance may also be tailored for a target audience. I would therefore argue that theatre can always be made for someone in the same way that this is possible for history.

[1] This is explained in Arthur Munslow’s introduction to Rethinking History (see bibliography), and is a claim substantiated within the works of historians writing pre-1990, discussed throughout Jenkins’ book.
[2] This is explained in greater detail in David Lowenthal’s book, The Past is a Foreign Country.
[3] Drawn from the television programme entitled “The Holocaust on Trial”, material referenced during the module.
[4] See page 8 of Friel’s Making History to read the discussion that takes place demonstrating these thoughts.
[5] For example, The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare by James and Rubinstein.
[6] For example, see Alison Oddeys’ Devising Theatre.

I love how this thing has added endnotes instead of my footnotes :D

And, just a quick woop- I'll be in Norwich from tomorrow until Sunday! Yays!!

The worst so far

2007-10-31T15:55:00.000Z

I got my mark back for the Strategies for Research presentation today, and I can honestly say that this is the first time I've actually thought I might not be able to get the 2:1 I need to teach.

Identification of Sources: C
Analysis: C/B
Structure: B
Impact: C/B
Skills and Techniques: C

Comments: Some interesting ideas were posed, but there was an underlying lack of clarity about whether schizophrenia, as a modern psychological term, can be applied to some areas of theatrical presentation, especially older texts. As the presentation progressed the term tended to slip into more generalised ideas of mental disorder rather then that precise one. A clearer idea of what particular films or plays might be used would have helped, as well as a clearer sense of potential sources. The sub-questions showed more precision, but again might be better dealt with without a precise clinical condition.

Suggestions for further improvement: When dealing with areas outside your specialist area it is important to make very clear how you are using specific terms and how they apply. If developing this, consider carefully the degree to which you would have to draw on psychiatric material, and whether this is a distraction to what you really want to investigate.

Overall mark: 58

That's a 2:2. A 2:2 for a presentation where all you had to explain was the topic you wanted to research and show, in a preliminary sense, how you might go about researching it. I actually can't believe it. This is going to be the easiest assessment all year, and I managed to make a complete mess of it. Ah... but did I?
You see, I've got a few points of contention here, since it seems she can't actually remember the content of our presentation.

1) "Some interesting ideas were posed, but there was an underlying lack of clarity about whether schizophrenia, as a modern psychological term, can be applied to some areas of theatrical presentation, especially older texts."
Actually, we were clear about whether it could be applied to older texts, as we stated that we were going to be looking at C20th texts as they would be more tangible than a time where the disorder had not been categorised. A short answer, but I could go into this for ages.

2) As the presentation progressed the term tended to slip into more generalised ideas of mental disorder rather then that precise one.
I can't actually ever remember slipping up about "mental illness" and "schizophrenia", although I do remember Sarah doing so. I wasn't aware that we would receive the same marks, and if I HAD known this, I would have actively tried to work on my own.

3) A clearer idea of what particular films or plays might be used would have helped, as well as a clearer sense of potential sources.
We detailed two example plays that we would look into, even though it wasn't specified that we NEEDED to show the tutor exactly which texts, books, films etc that we would be using. If I had known this, I had a list of plays and films I was going to look into, but, yet again, lack of communication on HER part meant that I didn't fully understand what was expected of us. (In fact, I actually asked what she wanted and what she'd be marking us on, and she just said to look in the assessment criteria - WHICH ISN'T SPECIFIC TO THE MODULE).

4) The sub-questions showed more precision, but again might be better dealt with without a precise clinical condition.
This is what riles me more than anything. WE WERE TOLD that the topic of mental illness was too broad, and we actually had a section of the presentation where we discussed WHY we had narrowed down the question to one particular disorder. It is my belief, from my initial research, that a conclusion to the question, or in fact, a tangible way to approach the question, could not be achieved if we had to focus on the thousands of disorders out there. She clearly didn't listen to the first 3 minutes of the presentation.

A general summary of my mood at the moment: absolutely livid.

Oh, and the wonderfulness of my day doesn't stop there. After leaving off a little earlier than Isa (she had decided it would be a good idea to come to the 9am lecture in full Halloween garb, and as well as being a tad.. well, embarrassing, this proved to be time consuming and we didn't want to be late), we entered into a rather interesting-looking lecture. We were given multi-coloured pieces of card with numbers on and HANDOUTS. Yep, they were actually trying to help us. However, the content of the lecture left a lot to be desired.
The handouts we were given? These were a complete copy of the Powerpoint presentation for the lecture, which happened to be a word-for-word script for the lecturer. In other words, I could have read the paper at home and NOT at 9am and got exactly the same amount of knowledge from the session. Also, I felt that we should have been given the session either last year, or at the beginning of the module. We were given really important information about how to track down articles, info I desperately needed last year and some of this year when journal articles were set as reading and I didn't know how to find them. The rest? A lecture on the internet, how unreliable wikipedia is, and how "great" blogs and the wonderful "world of web 2.0" are. I could have died.

Further to the uselessness of this whole module, here's a good indicator of the interesting and/or useful content of each weeks' session:

This is the back of my pad of paper. When I'm bored, and have nothing I can write down, I doodle on the pad (not the paper of course, that would be wasteful :D). As you can see, there was a slump in drawing in weeks 3 (the week before the presentation) and 4 (the week of the presentation), but all other weeks, I've found time to draw pretty patterns. I use this notepad for all my classes, and all drawing seems to take place in Strategies. May I also emphasise at this point that this is the Okea lecture's module.
I rest my case.
This module is

Now, hopefully we can lighten this day up a little with some "Theatre/Archaeology" (a charming book I have to read parts of for Friday) and a refined visit to the cinema to see Brief Encounter.
With Minstrels.

The chocolate's got to do it.

Tor's visit and general cahoots

2007-10-30T21:53:00.000Z

Ok, so I've been a bit busy over the last week, what with Tor visiting and work and not feeling well again, but I think I've got just enough time to squeeze in an update and some photos for you...

Tor's visit
Tor arrived safe and well, even after sitting opposite a drunk dood for half the way, on Wednesday afternoon, and as soon as she arrived, we hopped straight to the more interesting and funky part of the student lifestyle.. with a trip to Morrisons. We discovered that they were selling Ben and Jerry's for under £2 (actually beating ASDA - the wonders will never cease), and that handwash can be rather expensive. After trekking to several different shops (Morrisons, Netto and Iceland, we like to shop about), we settled on pizza and corn for tea.

Yes, those were big bits of corn, but we battled valiantly to devour them.

Ahh, our tasty modified pizza. No, we didn't manage to eat the whole thing in one sitting (that would be greedy), but, we can tell you, Iceland are clearly onto something with their £1.50 pizzas.

After the pizza, we went to see a play that was on at the union, "Narcissus!". A very interesting, very strange, and very captivating performance. We both really enjoyed it, and its innovative use of blood beads. We almost missed the bus home, because, yet again, I managed to look at an old version of the bus timetable (that's the last time I use the Metro site for anything), which said the bus went to the bus station, when it didn't. Luckily, practically round the corner from one of the stops for the bus home, the bus driver stopped and asked us where we were going, and explained that we would never be able to reach our destination. So, a close shave, but we got home ok in the end :)

The next day, we decided to do a spot of shopping and exploring Leeds. We tried on many nice clothes...

As you can see, they made Tor look beautiful.
I managed to find, FINALLY, after many years of searching, some heels to wear!!! Ok, they ARE kids ones, but they're copies of the adult ones, and they're not velcro!! wooooo!!! I also managed to find a rather nice top for £2 :D

In the evening, we went to see Stardust at the local cinema. We decided, since we hadn't got round to eating it, to bring the Ben and Jerry's with us, since it was going to be difficult for Tor to take it back on the train. Looking around in the cinema, I could see people eating popcorn, pick 'n' mix, chocolate, nachos, even Pombears.. but we were the only ones digging into a tub of icecream with metal spoons. Go us :) The film was brilliant, and, for once, better than the book.

We weren't able to get up to much on the final day, since I had a class until 12, but we watched some stuff (Tor is now hooked on Yakitate, tee hee), ate some tasty food, and by 5ish we were ready to set off to the station, equipped with Pombears and Ribena. We took some final nice piccies:

And off she... chuff-chuffed, into the sunset...

And the rest...
I haven't been feeling 100% over the weekend, as it seems the lack of sleep caused by sharing a bed with my twitchy sister resulted in me waking up on Saturday morning with half of the top of my lips swollen with coldsores. I looked like I was mutating, so I stayed in the house over the weekend to hide my mutant shame. Luckily for me, my TiE group had decided not to meet on the Sunday since the host had the flu and one other member wouldn't have been able to attend anyway. So, I basically spent the weekend camping out in the house, dozing in bed (I've been REALLY, stupidly tired recently), reading for assignments and classes and generally moaning to Phil about feeling yucky. Hopefully this will have all passed by the weekend when he gets here!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the mark for the presentation I did a couple of weeks ago, so fingers crossed for a good mark (even though it's only 20%!)...

Fishy Update
The fish are fine, and the levels in the tank are finally reading as normal every week - woop! Pearl seems to have fully settled in, and they're both healthy and love foraging for food. So they're living the good life :D I haven't got any photos at the moment, but I'll try and put one on here soon!

Several other things have happened, but they'll have to wait for another time, this post is already epic enough!

Yay List

2007-10-22T19:59:00.000Z

A series of good things has happened over the past few days:

1) I found out I'm not a criminal. That's right, University of Leeds, my non-criminal status is no longer unofficial and I can legally do all the working elsewhere you want me to do. So yay for me and my law-abidingness.

2) We regained heating and hot water. For Saturday evening and all of Sunday (and, granted some of this morning - yes of course it was the part when I got showered) we didn't have any heating or hot water working in the house. Despite trying to reset BOTH heaty things when we realised nothing was working, our landlord came this morning and was somehow able to reset them and get them working. We're happy we've got the basic facilities of our house back again, but at the same time are confused as to why the boiler refuses to do the same for us...

3) I had some very nice special fried rice. On Sunday my TiE company met up at Elena's house and she treated us to some yummy home-cooking. Unfortunately, we didn't get to watch any films since they became irrelevant to our work, but the rice made the day :D

4) I found out my fish aren't weird. Elena has fishies and when she saw mine she says that it's normal behaviour, and that sometimes they like to take water in through their mouths as well as their gills. So my fish are officially sane.

5) I started counting down the days till Tori gets here. The countdown is currently at 1 day, 15 hours and 57 minutes. Woop woop!

I'm off to get ready for a party :)

Tiredness and Happiness

2007-10-20T21:49:00.000Z

This weekend is my weekend to clean the house, and since my TiE company have decided to meet tomorrow round someone's house for food and films, I decided it was best to get it out of the way today. I hereby dub today "Housework Day", as it feels like that's all I've been doing ALL day.
I decided to try and get all my washing up to date first of all, since I needed to change one set of sheets ready for Tor, and then had to wash the towels (a separate wash). This constituted two rounds of washing going into the machine and individually being pegged outside. Then I had to catch up on my ironing, since I had a pile left from washing done last weekend and during the week. All in all I must have ironed about 30 odd pieces of clothing... taking me a couple of hours. Then I set to cleaning the dirty filthy house. It took me a good long while to do the kitchen (which was a bit of a state) a little while to do the lounge, a struggle to hoover two flights of curvy stairs, and not too long to do the bathroom (well practiced at this one from last year). Doing my room is always easy, and then I had to clean out the fish etc as well. All in all, the whole lot from start to finish took me about 6 hours. I am knackered.

Job Update:
After reading the message my mum left me about Monsoon in Norwich recruiting for Christmas last night, I decided to give them a ring this morning to plead my case. To my surprise, this wasn't necessary. When I phoned, the line went straight through to the manager Michelle, and when I introduced myself she easily remembered me and then explained that she was in the middle of ringing people to find out whether they'd be available for Christmas work. I explained that it was the reason why I was ringing, and she then asked me when I'd be available to start! It was brilliant - I was so worried about what I was going to say and how I was going to ask about work, but I never had to, and all I had to to was explain when I was coming home and confirm my mobile number :) Just shows that I wasn't supposed to have the job at La Senza anyway - this way, I can come home and generate Christmas spending money!

Fishy Update:
Pearl seems to have settled well into her new home, and Pips isn't chasing her any more. In fact, at times they almost copy each other exactly, and others they swim completely separately from each other, almost ignoring the other fish! Strange fishies. The worrying thing is that, although she wasn't doing it when I first had her, and for about the first day, Pearl seems to be displaying the same strange behaviour as Pips now. She does seem to only do it when he does, and she's always up very close to him when she does it, so she could actually be copying him.. although of course it worries me. I've checked all of the levels in the tank and everything is perfect, so I'm going to monitor the behaviour a little more and if they're still doing it after the weekend (when I can get the bus out to Colton), I'll take a water sample to Pets at Home to see if they can find anything wrong with the water that I can't. One theory I have is that they're looking for food. Pips only started doing this after I reduced his feeding amounts, and since they've both got used to finding the food floating on the surface, maybe they're trying to tell me they're hungry.. of course I'm not going to feed them extra, but it's a possibility.
Cute fishy pic of the day:

Introducing...

2007-10-18T20:08:00.000Z

... Pearl!

Her doing her poutiest face there..
She's so cute and tiny! Pips almost dwarfs her.. and there was me thinking that she'd be about the same size as him! Slight underestimation there...

Thought I ought to put a picture of Pips in in case he thought he was being left out...

Hopefully I can get a picture of them together somehow.. Pips did begin by chasing her a bit when she first came into the tank, but they seemed to have settled down a bit and now Pearl follows Pips about... so sweet!

Good news and more flargh

2007-10-17T21:47:00.000Z

Ok, so our presentation went quite well.
We both remembered what we had to say, and, unlike about half the class, we were actually there on time. The general thing that got to me today though was the fact that we were told that we were only allowed notes, and that reading from a script would not be accepted. So, we spent the last few days learning all of the details for our piece, all of the information, everything. Then, this morning, round about 3/4 of the class read their entire presentation from scripts.
Some were clever, and wrote the whole lot on note cards. The thing that gave them away was the fact that they wouldn't take their eyes off them and they delivered the whole of their presentation to the table. However, some weren't subtle at all. Some couples had sheafs of papers that looked like an essay, with alternate sections highlighted. They then proceeded to deliver the whole presentation in an incredibly wordy (but well thought-out manner) from these pieces of paper. This wouldn't have annoyed me too much if the teacher had mentioned anything to these people about the fact that scripts weren't allowed. However, she didn't, and I doubt she thought to write down who was reading and who was delivering from memory. So, you can see why we were annoyed after the session. Oh, and people were talking all the way through our presentation next to our tutor, and she didn't even tell them to shut up. That's how clued in she was. So, flargh on that account.

However, there is some good news for today...
I did another partial water change this morning and tested the water when I got back from the frustrating assessment, and the results are in:

We are reading zero Nitrite, zero Nitrate, the correct pH and zero ammonia!!
Woop woop! This means Pips gets a new friend tomorrow!

Pips' behaviour has got slightly better today, although I'm not sure whether that's just because he's cottoned on to the fact that he's trying to race his reflection. However, he does still occasionally blow bubbles at the top of the tank, although he doesn't seem to be doing it on such a regular basis nowadays, so I think we just have to assume that it's a funny habit he's picked up and it doesn't reflect a problem with the water. However, if the other fish starts doing it, I'll be back down to Pets at Home quick as a flash to get the water tested by them.

Cute fishy pic for the day:

Guess what?

2007-10-16T20:40:00.000Z

Guess what theme we've been given by the primary school for our TiE piece?!

I'll give you a few clues...

Woop woop!

Wish us luck for our presentation tomorrow :)

Flargh and more flargh

2007-10-15T21:17:00.000Z

Job Update:
I rang Monsoon today to find out whether any positions had become available (since I knew there was supposed to be one, theoretically). Unfortunately, it turns out the only vacancy they had in store was in admin, and I was told that you needed an interest in the field to fulfil the requirements of the job... having no interest whatsoever in admin, I kindly thanked them for their help and ended the call. So, that seems to be it for Monsoon up here, anyway. I'm still going to try ringing the home branch in about November to see whether they're recruiting extras for the Christmas period, but I get the feeling this is going to be another academic year of unemployment.

Uni work Update:
Today I went to the most pointless lecture I have encountered in my course so far. Ok, so the lecture conducted entirely in a faux-Swiss accent by a man dressed in "Okea" overalls was strange, but at least it had a kind of focus, and it fitted in with the lecture schedule for the module. Today's lecture for POP3 was completely useless. It was useless to the point where I don't actually know what it had to to with anything anyone was doing, let alone Theatre in Education students. We were presented with...

...pictures like the one above, from a recent production of Philip Glass' Satyagraha, and snippets from a video of the same opera but a different production. The lecturer then went on to compare and contrast the two productions, talking over the problems with performances drawing on foreign cultures. All very interesting, but all material covered in a series of lectures in our first year. So yes, I think I have real reason to resent a 4 hour session this afternoon instead of a 3 hour one.
In Theatre in Education news, we now have an additional member to our group. Today, we put together a "mission statement", which all sounds rather posh:

"We intend to immerse young students in a stimulating and above all entertaining learning environment in which they are subtly presented with the opportunity to learn in a variety of styles. We aim to both acknowledge their age and respect the fact that they have their own ideas, opinions and experience, whilst seeking to further these using challenging material."

We also came up with ideas for a company policy which encompassed many a discussion about types of biscuit to bring to rehearsals and Sunday dinners round people's houses (all good stuff, although I'm not sure there are those kinds of things in PROPER ones, but meh). We also decided to ban swearing in rehearsals, and decided anyone caught swearing would have to pay 20p per word. We already have £2.80 in the jar.

Although we don't need to have fixed on a particular topic as of yet, our new member brought to the group an idea she wanted to use with her original Key Stage 2 group. We've decided to use the basics of it for a minute of material we were required to produce for our session tomorrow, but I don't think we actually agreed to use it for the final project. However, I'm not sure that the girl knows this, and seems to have presumed that we're taking the idea and running with it. :s
In a selfish sense, I really don't want to carry on with the idea, since the notion of producing a whole TiE piece on the workings of the human body as someone who hates biology isn't the friendliest one. There's also the matter of it not being on the curriculum for our target age group, but maybe that's something we can tackle later. I'm currently waiting to hear back from a contact at the school to find out what the focus of the second term will be so that maybe we can draw on that to find a topic.. so there's hope for this scienceophobe yet..

Oh, did I mention half our group was comprised of guys? Guess what our group is going to be called...

Theatre In Education... TiE... Tie...
See what they've done there?
*groans*

No Excuse Really...

2007-10-14T19:45:00.000Z

I haven't really got as much to show for my absence this time as I did when I last came and updated :( But, in my defence, I have had a lot going on recently that has, understandably, taken up the time and effort it takes to write a new post. Anyway, an explanation...

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I had a nasty cold. By the time it got to Thursday, whatever I had managed to catch was tiring me out so much that by the time Phil and I had walked the relatively short walk to Morrisons, I was absolutely exhausted and needed to sit down (and no, I'm not just unfit, because I can manage the treck to uni UPHILL with no problems). Powered by the fuel of a scotch egg and a few bites of a cherry scone, I managed to make my way home after we had hastily completed the shopping trip. Anyway, by the time Friday morning came along, I was exhausted again, even after a good 8 hours sleep. Phil insisted I stay behind instead of walking to uni and sitting through a 3 hour class (which, in hindsight, I can see there was no way I would have survived), and although I tried to get up, washed, dressed and breakfasted, by the time it came to leave I could see his point. Back I went to bed, and about three hours later, I woke up, feeling slightly better, albeit sniffly and achey. And now? I'm still sniffly, but I think I'm finally getting over the worst of this. Unfortunately, Sri is now ill too - I hope it's not the same thing I had! Anyway, get well wishes to her!

Saturday finally rolled round for Pips yesterday and I was able to change his water and give him back his scenery. He seems to be pleased with his "new" habitat:

That's him being bonkers on the left there.
On the topic of the water, the ammonia is now reading at a zero, so there were celebrations all round. However, after completing other tests, it's become clear that the nitrite levels are still a bit of a problem, so I'm doing small water changes every day up until Wednesday in an attempt to lower them. I'll test again on Wednesday to see whether my efforts have had any impact, and if not, I'm taking a water sample to Pets at Home for them to test, to see whether there are any other problems with the water. The thing is, it's normal for the levels to be a bit dodgy for the first 6 weeks with a new tank, so generally speaking it's not something to be too worried about, but Pips occasionally comes to the surface of the water (even though he's actually blowing bubbles and not gasping for air), which is concerning... so if he continues and the levels come down, I'll know he's just picked up a weird habit (in which case, we're renaming him Bubbles, heh), but until then, I'm watching closely. Apart from that, his health seems to be good and he's eating well :)
If the nitrate levels go down, I also might consider getting him a friend (if all's well with the water). I'll keep you updated on that one.

This weekend, Sarah has been coming here to go over things for the oral presentation on Wednesday. It's easy to be enthusiastic about it because I've chosen a topic I'm really interested in, but if that wasn't the case, I doubt I'd be that bothered. This assessment is only 20% of the grade for Strategies of Research, so it's probably not enough to even affect the overall grade for the module. Still, I find it hard to NOT be bothered about these things, as does Sarah, so we've come up with a detailed plan for the presentation which outlines our research proposal. In short, we've created a very good essay plan (kind of). The question has changed slightly, but this is what we're working on now:

"How is the portrayal of schizophrenia in theatre and performance affected by social climate?"

We've put together all of the material for the presentation and have even done the background research. Three days before the actual assessment. Get us. We're now going over the parts that we're going to be talking about, but apart from getting the speech eloquent, we're pretty much there. It's so nice to feel organised for once!
In between our hard work sessions, we've been discussing fish. Sarah has a goldfish too and is looking to buy a new tank for her, since the one she's in at the moment has got a bit small, so I'm helping her find all the things she needs. The thing is, Flaps (the fish) seems to be immortal. There's me worrying about my nitrate levels... and there's Sarah, whose fish can survive in tap water. I feel that I have been cheated somehow with the hardiness levels of my fish. But anyway, some time next week we're off to research for Sarah's tank and to maybe find Pips a playmate!

Cute fishy picture of the day:

A mixed bag of stuffs

2007-10-10T20:06:00.000Z

I don't come and blog for one day and suddenly lots happens at once!

Job Update:
Yesterday, I got a call back from La Senza after the interview I attended on Friday. I've been really worrying about this since I came out of the interview, because it seemed to go really well and the manager I met seemed to be really enthusiastic about the answers I gave to all her questions, etc. The only problem with the whole thing, since I really wanted to work for the company, was that it was a Christmas temping job, and that taking it if I was offered it would mean that I wouldn't be able to come home for the full 4 weeks. I knew this before I came into the interview, but when I was told that I might not be able to come home for Christmas full stop, I really started wondering whether the whole thing was worth it. I was really hoping that, in the end, they wouldn't ring me, because then I wouldn't have to make a decision, but, of course, on the way to my class in the morning I got a phone call from the manager offering me the job and asking when I could start. I asked whether it would be ok if I considered the offer over the day and rang her back in the afternoon, which she said was fine. After much umming and arghing, talking to several people, I decided I probably wouldn't be able to last 4 weeks up on my own, since the others are going home at the beginning of the holidays. and Phil, my friends and family would find it difficult to visit. What really made the decision for me was the prospect of Christmas on my own here.. so I rang them back later and asked whether they would be willing to keep my details on file. She went one better and offered to contact me and keep me in mind if any permanent positions came up after Christmas, which I'm very happy about.
In terms of finding a job before I go home, I remembered recently that when I went into the Monsoon in Leeds, they suggested coming back in a couple of weeks, since they weren't sure whether people who had arranged to come back after the holidays were still doing so. Well, I met one of these people on my course, and she told me that actually, she wasn't planning on returning. So, this weekend, I'm going back to Monsoon to enquire again. Wish me luck.

Uni Work Update:
Yesterday we were allocated our groups for our Theatre in Education companies and our age groups that we're working with. I have to say, I am SO excited about this whole project! To start with, the Key Stage we're working with is KS1, which means we're working with the littlest people in the school! And then there's the company I'm in now - one of the first things that one of the guy said to us was "You know, I'm so glad I'm with all of you because we all like to work". After he said that, I knew we were going to be ok. It seems we have all been burnt by people who couldn't be bothered already this year, so now all the worky people have got together so that we can all rely on each other. This is such a comforting thought :)
The performance, by the way, went really well, and no-one had a bad thing to say about anything :D
This morning's Strategies for Research lecture was.. interesting. When we walked into the room, we wee greeted by the sight of the lecturer dressed in blue dungarees and a yellow shirt, accessorized with a blue baseball cap with the motif "Okea" on the front. He was walking around measuring people, and eventually came up to us and asked to measure Isa's nose. The mortification was clear. The whole lecture was delivered in a pseudo-Swedish accent, with ABBA playing in intervals (with volunteer dancers) so he could change "costumes". We think the whole thing was about different research methods.. but we're not entirely sure.

General Update:
I am ill. I'm not sure how or why, but I have a nasty cold and it keeps making me feel sick :( And this morning when I woke up, I realised I had managed to strain/sprain one of my ankles as well. So, as you can imagine, the walk to uni (half up hill) was interesting this morning. So, poor Phil has been looking after me, even though he only came to see me - although, he's been an absolute saint and I'm so glad I've got someone to look after me!
Despite feeling a bit meh, we decided to go bowling today (since this morning's lecture was... interesting, in a dire and unnecessary fashion).

This is the motley crew (taken by a rather friendly dude who was out with his wife and kids!)

This is evidence that bowling whilst ill greatly boosts your ability to bowl (or maybe it was the velcro shoes..)

General excitedness

2007-10-08T20:22:00.000Z

Ok, it is officially 58 minutes until Phil arrives in Leeds.
I am SOOOO excited!!! *jumps*

A quick note aside - woop for Isa, our chief cleaner-of-house yesterday, who did an awesome job in restoring our house to its natural shininess, and who unblocked the nasty plughole in the bathroom (which was clearly blocked from the previous tenants - apparently there were weird pieces of pink plastic in it as well... :/). She will hereby be given a rest for two weeks :D

Now that's out of the way, I can tell you what I've been up to today.
My self directed for POP3 was actually brilliant. Today, we were set the task to look at different levels of audience participation, and to pick a text and play around with it to see how we could work with some of the levels. We chose "Our Country's Good", mainly because most of us know it well because we studied it for A Level, but also, it's a really good text to work with, and we all had lots of ideas about what we could do. So, basically, what we're doing is marking out a tight box on the floor of the studio, and the audience is going to be made to sit in it, attached with "chains" (ie. string) to another person. This will represent the boat, and the conditions the convicts were kept in, and since the actors will be sitting in with the audience, we're making them part of the action and part of the performance - participation mode number 1. We're going to have them sitting in the dark (since it would have been on the boat) with the sound effects of the sea around them and the boat creaking.
When the characters talk, they're going to have lights (torches) shone on them, so that the audience's attention is drawn towards the speech. This way, there's a distinction between audience and actors (even though they're all sitting together), since the actors are lit.. - participation mode number 2. I'm going to be one of these people, and I'm going to do the whole piece chained to another actor.
One of the characters is going to be chained to an audience member, and when they speak, they're going to address their speech to the people around them, as if they were having a conversation with them - participation mode number 3.
I'm not entirely sure why we're so excited about this, but I think we know it's going to work really well, and we went through lots of really good ideas to get to this point. Anyway, I can't wait for the lesson tomorrow, because the performance is going to knock everyone's socks off :D

I've been trying desperately to find things to do to waste time so that Phil gets here faster. So far, I've ironed all of my clothes (and some of Isa's and some of Sri's), I've washed up (was going to do that anyway) and cleaned the kitchen (wasn't going to do that, but it was gross) and.. well, I'm doing this. Time sure does go slowly, doesn't it?

*jumps*

Ridiculousness

2007-10-06T17:46:00.001Z

As the true picture of ridiculousness, here's a photo of our lounge:

It looks like Widow Twankey's laundry in here at the moment... and the fun doesn't stop there, oh no. Just step out of the front door and you see..

Yup, yet more washing. Just tickled me slightly.

Fishy update:
I did Pips' second treatment for the white spot today, which makes it the last one in the course. In a week, I'll be able to introduce his ornaments back into the tank and do a partial water change to try and lower the ammonia some more. The nitrite levels in the tank are a little high as well at the moment, but that's due to the previous problems, so once the water's been changed a couple of times that'll soon be ironed out. Interestingly, the nitrate levels are just right...
Pips seems to have adopted the adorable hobby of playing with his reflection. The majority of the time I see him looking at himself in the two most reflectable sides of the tank (when he's not looking hungrily at me - "please feed me more!"), and a couple of times, he's tried to swim at himself :( I think he misses another fishy to play with, so the sooner I can get this tank regulated and the treatment over, the better.
A fishy-photo update:

As you can see, his fins are really nice and clear (no white spots anywhere), and, although the camera hasn't picked it up, he's a lot shinier than he was as well, which probably means that his slime coating is now up to scratch as well.

And, to finish, a little photo-summary of what we got up to last night:

Oh dear.

Brooding

2007-10-04T22:02:00.000Z

Note: brooding not broody.

Been thinking a lot about yesterday and why what happened to Kai happened. At the moment I can't stop watching Pips because I'm terrified that something unexpected is going to happen to him as well. I think the worst thing was that the woman I spoke to at Pets at Home said he was going to be ok, which reassured me that as long as I saw the treatment through, he was going to recover. So, ok, it's her fault that I got my hopes up, but ultimately (and what's the worst thing), it's my fault that he became ill in the first place. Pips is clearly a stronger fish, so I'm sure he'll pull through, but I'm still incredibly nervy where he's concerned. At the moment, he isn't noticing when I feed him because he's used to much more, but I guess that's something he'll adjust to. He definitely hasn't lost his appetite since he's constantly foraging for food (he looks so cute when he picks up the gravel and spits it out :D), but, nevertheless, I'm still worried for him, and can't wait until the treatment is over when I can switch the light on and have a proper look at him again. I am thinking about getting another fish to keep Pips company once the tank is sorted and I'm sure Pips is healthy - if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't get another so soon, but goldfish are very sociable, and I can tell that Pips is lonely, especially since he doesn't have much to play round any more either.

Still feeling very low after having to deal with what I found when I came back in the afternoon, so I haven't really got very much done today. Done lots of research and printed several things for further reading, but I'm not sure anything's gone in much. Still feeling kind of numb. I guess it sounds really stupid to anyone who hasn't had a pet, or even anyone who hasn't had fish, but I really got attached to Kai, and losing him felt horrid.

I've got the joy of Staging Histories tomorrow morning, this time with Tony Gardner, who, if this is humanly possible, is worse than Fiona. I had him for my interview for the uni, and he had us in an audition for MUCH longer than all the other groups.. and plus, he kind of creeps me out. Not really sure why, but I'm not particularly hopeful about this 3 hour lesson.
I've also got my interview with La Senza tomorrow afternoon - still not sure whether I should tell them I'm going home at Christmas since it's a Christmas temping job, but I'll play it by ear and see how it goes. Wish me luck for both...

2007-10-03T12:31:00.000Z

Kai died this morning while I was in a lecture.

A Dark Day

2007-10-02T21:45:00.000Z

My Dad came to visit me on the way to York today and offered to help me take Kai to Pets at Home, since I'm still suffering from my efforts yesterday. It's not brilliant news.
Basically, the ammonia levels in the tank are dangerously high, and the stress that this has brought on Kai has made him vulnerable, and has consequentially given him white spot. Luckily, as the woman I spoke to said, I spotted the disease very early on, and he's got a very good chance of recovery. She mentioned that Pips probably has it as well, but the fact that he wasn't as affected by the general stress (as well as the heightened levels of ammonia) probably means that he is a bit stronger than Kai. The good news here is that he's not going to die. The bad news (especially for Pips) is that they both need to be treated, which meant that, when I got home, I had to change over half of the water in the tank (not usually recommended, but I was told to do it because it was absolutely necessary), remove all of the scenery that the fish like to hide in, retreat the new water with a different kind of dechlorinator that has added aloe vera in it (to help restore Pips' and Kai's coats to their former glory), add extra Easy Balance to add lots of good bacteria to the water, add a new plant to use up some of the ammonia, and THEN treat the water with the medicine (which is nasty stuff, btw). So, all in all, everything's been hard work today, but if it means that my fish will get better, I know it's worth it.
When the treatment has run it's course, both fish should be a lot happier and a lot healthier, so in about a week and a half, everything should be back to normal with them. Except with less food this time :/ Strangely enough, and what worried me more than anything, is the dark mark on Kai's face. Apparently this is an absolutely normal change in colour... very strange.

In slightly better news, I've decided what I'm going to do my research project on: the representation of mental illness in playtexts throughout history. What I'll basically be looking at is how the representation changes due to social and political change as well as the relation to advances in the history of medicine. This excites me SO much because I'm getting my interests in history and psychology in at the same time as my drama, so, call me a geek, but I can't wait to get started on this one :D

A Day of Arghs

2007-10-01T20:58:00.000Z

Today has been the worst day by far for a long, long time.

I guess it started with my rent coming out of my account this morning, and even though I was expecting that, it's not the best way to start your day. To make things obviously bad, I'd had a really bad night's sleep because there seems to be a problem with the filter in my fish tank and now it rattles constantly, which woke me up several times during the night. So, when I got up (after being woken up for what I had decided to be the last time) I decided to try and remedy the problem. An hour, several soggy pieces of kitchen roll and a soggy section of nightie later, I was close to collapse with frustration as nothing seemed to work to help at all. I have come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the internal pump, since the whole unit rattles noisily even outside of it's casing. So yeah, even before breakfast, I knew today wasn't going to go well.

I had several application forms that I had completed over the weekend to hand back into shops, so, instead of walking to uni, the plan was to take the bus into the city centre, take the free bus up to the back of uni and walk across campus for my self-directed session in the afternoon. All well and good if you actually believe in the public transport system. The bus I had to catch to get into the city nearly left me behind, despite obvious flailing and running towards the driver (on second thought, maybe that's why he went to pull away), and the free bus, as always, was leaving just as I got to the stop after I'd finished in the city. I wasn't too worried to begin with, since they're supposed to arrive "every few minutes", but 15 minutes later, and no sign of a free bus anywhere, I'm seriously considering buying a street map and walking it. Eventually a bus turns up and I think I'm going to make it. No such luck. We get to the train station and the driver slams on the hand break, slams the cabin door open, and storms off the bus. We can only assume he finished late. Fivish minutes and a whole buses worth of confused conversations earlier, and another driver steps on board and continues the journey. It's now 1pm and I'm supposed to be in my session. Eventually (about 10 minutes late) I arrive on campus to find that my room has been changed - but luckily it's close and I don't have to treck much.

Oh, the fun doesn't stop there. Today in POP3 we were supposed to put together 2 minutes of the opening of a good piece of Theatre in Education. To complete this task, we have 3 hours. You think that a group of drama students (who, I might add, are all aware that this year counts towards their degree) might be able to manage this, wouldn't you? Well, think again. 3 hours later, I'm already back home. Our group managed to spend an hour discussing what we thought might be a good idea, a further half hour buying and eating food, and then roughly three quarters of an hour talking about work again, and then running through the ideas in a rather vague fashion. The remaining quarter of an hour? Spent gossiping and organising a last-minute rehearsal round someones house tomorrow morning. Some things never change. And the catch? I have no idea where the house is. I've got the postcode (I think, I'm not actually sure any more), but it's rather vague... and even so, it still looks like a good 45 minute walk. :/

It's not over yet. When I get back, I ring Pets at Home to try and find out what's wrong with Kai. He's got several white lines over his body, and his face looks all mucky. I described these symptoms to a nice lady over the phone, but she couldn't make a diagnosis, and wanted to see him. She was concerned that it could possibly be something serious (or not), so I decided to try and take him on the bus to Colton. It took me a while to suss out which bus to catch, etc, and how to transport Kai (we ended up with him in his transporter tank within a big shoebox), but eventually I set off to the bus stop (for a reference, look at the map from my walk to uni, and the bus stop is just after Cardigan Road on Burley Road). I seriously underestimated my strength and overestimated the gradual increase in the weight of the water. By the time I got half way, I was having to stop every couple of minutes because my arms were shaking so much and poor Kai was getting sloshed about all over the place. By the time I got to approaching the bus stop, I saw the bus coming, but, unable to run with a big shoe box, I missed it. I waited about for around 20 minutes and another bus came along. The guy told me that his bus didn't go all the way to Colton, but that one would be along soon that did. About 25 minutes later, the next bus comes, and this guy kindly tells me that his bus doesn't go to Colton either, but that there is another one in 20 minutes. By this time, it's just before 7, getting darker and colder. I decide, since I don't know whether I'll have to wait hours to get the bus back even if the next bus DOES go to Colton, I pick up Kai and carry him all the way home again. Kai, by this point, has given up on being scared and has decided to lay very still on the bottom of the transporter tank. Eventually I arrive home, and my hands are shaking so much I can hardly pick up the net to put Kai back in the tank (he is, coincidentally, absolutely fine now, ie. he's zooming about like a trooper with Pips).

To add to the aching back, arms, hands and neck, I have blisters on half of my toes because of the weird way I was having to walk to steady the tank, and also.. I have two wisdom teeth coming through on the same side of my mouth. It's like the left hand side of my mouth has decided to rebel, leaving all fooding work to the right side. It's not pleasant, and it's making my ear hurt.

So yeah, today has been rather suckish. However, surely things can't get much worse, so hopefully it'll all be a lot better tomorrow... hopefully :/

Cute fish pic to make this slightly cheerier:

Housedom

2007-09-30T20:37:00.000Z

Today, I have demonstrated how house-wifey I am. Having worked through the required reading for next week (except the full books, which we just won't go into) and the house being empty, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to clean my room. The hoover is absolutely impossible to use, and I think it's been designed for a 5 year old to use, because the attachment hoovery bit is so short that you have to stoop whenever you use it :( However, after stuggling with hoover demons and with a little bit of help from my friends (aka Mr Sheen and Mr Duster) I got by.

On the way down the stairs to take the hoover back to the creepy creepy cellar, I realised the bathroom hadn't been cleaned either. I couldn't plug the hoover in (what a shame) because the nearest plug point was in Isa's room and she was out, but instead I broke out the bathroom cleaners and washed out the sink, the bath, the shower, wiped over the mirrors and cleaned the toilet (which, trust me, needed doing :/).

I continued downstairs with the hoover and realised that the lounge floor had loads of bits all over it. So, back to the "trusty" (ahem) hoover, and 10 minutes later, the floors and mat were clean, the sofas were tidied and the room generally made nicer.

Getting closer to the cellar, I realised the kitchen floor was dirty too. Out came the hoover again and the floor was cleaned. I then realised the sink area and hob needed going over, so they got cleaned as well.

You think that would be enough, wouldn't you? Well, noticing a pile of my washing on the table, I decided to iron all of that as well.
I really am a bit sad, aren't I?

And you know what, I think this confirms it:

Not only did I notice it, I AM able to read it. I think this speaks volumes :'(

The fish send their regards. They say:
"Today, we were swimming about happily, and then suddenly that person who keeps giving us food swirled this weird stick around in our water. We tried to get a look in but she made sure that we couldn't get near it. It really sucked. And then later on, we had this weird liquidy stuff put in our water as well. Smelt a bit funky, but not as funky as our water (but it's cool, we like it). Apart from that, not much else going on today. We weren't able to get up to much because the Feeder was in all day, but tomorrow we're planning some crazy shizzle. Hope we get fed soon! xxx"

Treck No. 2

2007-09-29T17:49:00.000Z

Since today was a Saturday, and Saturday is the day of general slobbishness for the unemployed, I took my slothy butt out for a walk to Morrissons.

Looks like a bit of a treck, but it actually only took me 20 minutes (have to admit, I was a little disappointed since I wanted a proper, long and rejuvenating - ha! - stroll). However, I did lengthen the treck up and down the isles trying to find some Soy Sauce. I thought about asking one of the shop floor people, but they all looked younger than me and far too stressed for their age, so I thought I'd carry on my quest alone. Eventually I found it with the noodles, and, after grabbing a tasty-looking loaf of granary bread, some cereal, too many carrots and some sesame oil, I trecked home again. I actually saw some interesting places that I'd like to go exploring, but they're not the kind of places you'd really go alone. Unless you're asking someone to stalk you and bury you later in the bushes.

To add to the continuing saga of the house, I gave up being scared of the mouldering washing machine and decided to wash my clothes today. This would have been fine and dandy if the washing machine actually spun your clothes. However, it doesn't seem to have a spin cycle, and it doesn't really seem to do much whirly stuff during the cycle you set it on, so, consequentially, I have some very soggy clothes that aren't going to be dry for about a week. But hey, that's ok, because that's when I'll be doing my next lot of washing :)

I have to show this off:

This was my rather tasty salad I had for dinner yesterday. Just looking at the picture makes me want to have salad again. THAT is how good that salad was.

In fish news, Kai seems to have injured himself somehow (he has a scrape on his back). I got a bit worried that it was something more serious, since he looked a bit under the weather compared to Pips (but hey, Pips is always hyper, so it can't be hard to look knackered next to him), but I'm keeping an eye on it, and as long as it doesn't get infected, he'll be back to his old self soon. Both fishes seem to be deciding to finally live up to their names (they're Comets) and seem to enjoy zooming about their tank now, which is very funny to watch.
Today's cute fish picture:

Appreciation

2007-09-28T15:05:00.000Z

I'd just like to take a moment to show my appreciation for the highly reasonable shop that is..

Seriously, this place is awesome. Everything is priced in pennies (that is to say, I didn't find much over £1, unless it was like major brand stuffs), and although it looks like a Pet Shop from the outside, it isn't (I consider the Pet-Shop-Lookalike factor to be an advantage - who doesn't want to go grocery shopping in a store that looks like it caters for your pet dog?). I went to Netto in my desperation to do something half creative with a pack of mince that, left much longer, would have been festering in the fridge. I came out with a tin of tomatoes, a tube of tomato puree and a can of kidney beans, and the whole lot cost under 50p. You have to admit, that's pretty awesome.
What's even awesomer (there needs to be a word for that) is that with a small pack of mince, a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a can of kidney beans, a small pack of mushrooms and a few squirts of tomato puree, I made 5 meals. Woo me.

Carrying on with the good news, today our Landlord came to visit the house to check the comments we had made on the inventory. I was actually terrified that I'd be left with a note saying "deal with the fish" since, technically, we're not supposed to have pets, but actually the prognosis for our troublesome house is good. The fridge is getting a new seal, we're getting a burglar alarm and a step ladder (woo!! no more shortness issues!) and.. i'm getting a new mattress. No news on the washing machine (or should we say, festering mould farm), and some slightly confused news about damp in a room upstairs (I wasn't about, so I got all the info second hand), but two new mattresses, an alarm and a step ladder is a pretty good haul for a day's work.

Other funniness got my through the day with my first Staging Histories class. This could have been really un-funny, since on the timetable it's scheduled to run until 11:30, and on arrival we were told it was actually going to last until 12. This wouldn't normally be such an issue, but I had that interview scheduled for 1 and I'd planned on going home in between to get changed and half presentable. So there I sat, in possibly my baggiest pair of jeans and a hoodie thinking, "crap". Another reason for potential unfunniness is that Fiona, a tutor I encountered on my Stage Management module last year, is teaching the class, and although she's really lovely and incredibly full of knowledge, she does have the tendency to ramble a bit. However, in the correct, sleep deprived state, this can become very funny. Hence the hilarity that seems a little misplaced.
The truly great part of this lesson was not, however, supposed to be in the lesson (which isn't really unusual, I'm sure). No, after our 20 minutes break (which, technically, we're not supposed to have, thanks Fiona), we returned to the room full of dread, since we'd already sat through an hour and half of rambling about Theatre History when we were told that wasn't what we were going to learn about. Instead of the expected continued rambling, she opened a kind of forum for us to discuss. And boy did we discuss. The hot topic of today was "the majority of theatre that theatre students and people studying the art produce is not suitable for the general public, as nine times out of ten they don't get it". Sounds funny? Not really, no. HOWEVER, what was hilarious was that while the people in each camp getting more and more frustrated with each other to the point where they were shouting across the room, Fiona was standing in the middle of the room looking from one side to the other like she was in a tennis match. A very scary one.
Ever heard the word "luvvie" used in anger? I have now, and my goodness it's funny.

On the job interview, I wasn't able to go in the end, so I rang up to apologise and reschedule. Unfortunately, they weren't willing to offer me another one, so I've missed out there. If any one's been talking to me about this job, they'll know that I was a bit dubious about the offer, so this is probably a blessing in disguise anyway. Here's hoping I'll hear from somewhere else soon, eh?

In fish news, I'm not feeding them lettuce any more. I've spent about an hour trying to fish all of the left over bits out of the tank, so they're not getting any more. There's lots of seaweedy stuff in their food anyway, so I'm sure they'll be fine. Pips doesn't seem to be quite so crazy any more, and both fishies seem to have got used to their environment and aren't even scared of the light any more! They even recognise me to the point they know I mean food, and they get all excited when they see me now - so cute!
Today's cute fish picture:

Noice...

2007-09-27T17:43:00.000Z

Just thought I'd share with you something that has been terrorising me in the bathroom since this morning...

Yes, it's a toilet roll. And no, I don't know what it's doing in the bath.
What facinates (and, let's be honest here, repluses) me is that we haven't even lived here for a week and look how disgusting the roll is... I mean, it's pretty clear that someone knocked it into the bath, but that's where all recognisable logic ends. I mean, why wasn't it taken out of the bath? And why is it soaking wet, since we only ever have had showers? And why, oh why, is it yellow round the edges?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I definately didn't do the knocking of the roll into the creepy bath, so I certainly won't be removing it in all of it's creepiness.

In slightly less creepy (but only slightly *shudder*) news, I have an interview for a job tomorrow at Internacionale. If you know what shop that is, you'll know why it's creepy. But hey, I need a job, so I thought I'd go along. This of course does not stop me hoping that Body Shop will ring and offer me an interview too so I'm not left with this ominous interview opportunity.

Pips and Kai send their regards - no photos at the moment because one of them is currently having what we would call a "Mad Five Minutes" if we were talking about Tom - except it's more like a mad five plus five plus five plus five hours. Hopefully Pips will calm down a bit and I can show off some more pictures (like the proud Mummy I am) soon :D

Awesome.. and not so awesome

2007-09-26T20:11:00.000Z

Before I start, I'd like to give a big "woo!" to Norwich for being so darn awesome (and Leeds for being mediocre in comparison).

Above is Exhibit A, the new UK Monopoly Board. Note how Leeds has not made it past those oh-so-cheap sludgy brown ones, and how Norwich (the superior city) is up, in prime place at Trafalgar Square. This is not to say that I dislike Leeds or anything, just that Norwich is way better (and hey, a nation of people who vote online to make their city seem popular can't be wrong) :D

Anyway, in today's news, my common module officially smells. Not only is it NOTHING to do with drama in particular, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It is called "Strategies for Research", and that is pretty much what it is, except there are three assignments set in and the whole thing is worth 20 precious credits. You'd think a module about researching would require you to write about your research, wouldn't you? This one doesn't - they want you to write about (or so I gather, I sincerely hope I've gathered wrong) is HOW you researched. In 3000 words, none the less. Words cannot express my frustration at being given such a wishy-washy module in my SECOND year. I mean, it would have been quite useful at the beginning of the course, showing you how to research for all of your work in the following years, but why let us muddle through for a year, and then do a module on the bloody thing that contributes to the final grade of my degree???

Also on the less awesome front, we have my job hunting. Now, when I came home in the summer, job hunting was actually quite fun (although I do suspect this was something to do with the fact that I know I would have been bored out of my skull had I not been distracted with my impending employment). There were lots of jobs available, and people in the shops seemed quite friendly. Job hunting in Leeds simply does not compare. All the people in the shops are terrifying, and they do as much as possible to deter you from applying for the jobs that they are advertsing. They also (which I guess doesn't just apply to Leeds) are all currently recruiting people for Christmas, with rather a lot of emphasis being put on CHRISTMAS. A bit too much. Basically meaning that unless I'm willing to stay in an empty house for Christmas (including Christmas day), I haven't really got a hope in hell with the majority of vacancies about at the moment.
Having said that, there is a job at the Body Shop going, and it wasn't advertised as Christmas work, so maybe I've got a chance there. Oh, and there's always Primark...

A great adventure

2007-09-24T16:36:00.000Z

This is the route to the uni that we took today:

Our house is at the top, and the Uni is at the bottom.
As you can see, it's a bit of a treck. However, Isa told us that it would take about 45 minutes, when it actually took 35, so it's not too bad a walk really. It was raining though, which was a bit bleugh.

Anyway, today we went to the University campus to go to our first lecture for POP3. The lecture in itself seemed pretty pointless, since only a quarter of it (15 minutes) applied to each person, but, that said, after hearing what my module was going to be about, I'm am SO excited! Basically, I'm doing Applied Theatre: Theatre in Education. This means that, as a class, we get to put together our own Theatre in Education companies and then work with a school (either primary or secondary) to create a piece for the children to watch, workshops (which are usually in the performance), the build-up and follow-up work, teachers packs, stage design and everything. Basically, it looks awesome.

I didn't go looking for jobs today because it's been raining really heavily, but bad weather or no bad weather, tomorrow morning I WILL go into Leeds and jobhunt! We're also going to see Don Quixote tomorrow night, which should be good :D

A New Home

2007-09-23T17:05:00.000Z

Phil and my Mum have gone home now, so I thought I'd come and tell you a bit about our new house! The journey up here wasn't too bad, although it was very slow and we ended up arriving 2 hours later than we had planned, but at least we got here in the end! It did mean that poor Phil was left waiting at the train station for a while, but he had been able to travel up in First Class on the train, so he didn't seem too annoyed that he got to sit about in the comfy Leeds Train Station and read for a while afterwards :)
Yesterday we went to York, or rather, we went to the outskirts of York to go to its' Designer Outlet. I have never seen such a massive place in the UK before in my life! They also had this rather weird Viking theme going...

Phil didn't take a picture of the massive ships (complete with oars, might I add) that were suspended from the ceiling around the place, but you get the idea. Suitably looted up we went to the slightly downmarket shopping options and tried to find things for my room in Argos and a QD-like place. Unfortunately Argos was closed, but Pets at Home wasn't - so we went and chose my fish. Introducing....

Pips...

and Kai!

The water is a little cloudy at the moment because the Nitrogen Cycle is starting up, but I should be able to get some clearer pictures in a week :)

As promised, here are some photos of my new room:

My bed - note the groovy fairy lights there ^^

Good ol' Putey (and Jigglypuff creeping in too)

My new fish tank (next to the wardrobe and chest of drawers)
Below: not a good picture, but this is my new mirror!

I think that's about it for now. I'm off into the city tomorrow to go to a lecture in the afternoon, so navigating my way from the house to the university campus for the first time should be pretty... interesting, to say the least, And then it's off to try and find any job vacancies - what a day :(

Oh go on, have another cute fish picture :D

A summery summary

2007-09-12T12:17:00.000Z

Phil has been berating me for my lack of updates over the summer, so, with just 10 days left before I move back to uni, I'll let you know what I've been doing since I last updated you (In April :s)!

Big News
If you don't know already, where have you been? Me and Phil got engaged over the summer on our 4th anniversary on the 30th June. We're not planning on getting married for the next few years, since I've got a BA and Phil has a MA to get out of the way, but thank you to everyone for our lovely cards and presents - we hope everyone who was able to come enjoyed our party.

Assessments and the Like
I completed assessments in POP2 practicals, POP2 written assessments, Collab practicals and Collab assessments (that's the dreaded portfolio and Critical Evaluation) before I came home at the end of May, so for people who I didn't tell (or rather, offload on) about what happened, here are the relevant marks and, er, experiences.

POP2 Practical - This was the piece I was rehearsing for when I last updated, and, unfortunately, after a positive start, the group experienced an awful lot of problems to the point where we had to devise and finish the whole piece the day before it was due to be assessed. The structure of the group changed twice during the devising process, which held us back a little, and which meant that a piece that was supposed to be 20 minutes long (5 minutes per person), had to be lengthened to 35 minutes. Since we weren't able to produce that amount of material in a day, we were worried that we may get marked down for our "efforts", but the marks weren't that bad after all:

Conceptual Development: B
Content: C
Skills and Techniques: B

All comments: Overall, this was an intelligent piece which found two good sources to weave together: the Surrendered wife and the Roald Dahl story: Lamb to the Slaughter. You used the space and selected props effectively to explore the issues arising out of these sources and were careful to transform the uses of, for example, the washing line, so that it became a dynamic sign on stage. Your playing style was appropriate to critique the ideas represented in the surrendered wife section and there were some strong and committed performances within the group. There were, however, some failings which arose from a lack of balance and overall coherence in the performance score. Whilst your written sources were rich and had great potential, you did not research these well enough to exploit them fully. The Roald Dahl line through the piece was reduced to a gesture of beef pounding until the revelatory ending and this needed more careful thought so that juxtaposing testimony from surrendered wives with the radical act of murder had real purpose. In addition, there were some individual scores and texts which were more fully developed than others. Individually, your performance was strong and well integrated into the piece.

Overall mark: 63%

So, not too bad overall, but I'm really hoping for some higher marks this year, as I haven't managed to achieve a 1:1 in a practical piece yet.

POP2 Critical Evaluation - When I wrote this I wasn't particularly happy with it, and I had to rush it because I had several deadlines around the same date, so, to be honest, I probably deserve the comments the lovely PhD student made about my work. However (and there's always one where he's concerned), I'm not sure about his reference to a "reading list", since we were never given one... but meh, never mind.

Investigation/Research: C
Coverage: C/B
Analysis: C/B
Presentation: B

Comments: You proffer some interesting arguments in this essay but your tone is a little too conversational to be adequately incisive. There is a tendency to make sweeping generalisations without proper support. The essay also lacks analysis as it is more descriptive than critical, it is important that you always interrogate the arguments you set up rather than simply writing a diary of the process. It would have been interesting to see
you relate theoretical arguments on the implications of this type of performance back into the process you went through in reaching your performance. More extensive reading will help you to both focus your ideas and will encourage you to integrate theory and argument more full. Try to expand your reading outside the given reading lists. Overall, this piece of work shows potential but is substantially underdeveloped.

Overall mark: 60%

Collaborative Processes Practical: Where to start on this one? Collab was one lengthy period of frustration and sitting about not doing very much. Our group really only started working the week before we were due to be assessed, and stronger people within the group eventually took over, which meant that everyone else had very little to do (and therefore not much to be marked on). Our actual performance was disturbed because, after we managed to get everyone into the auditorium with several people on stage holding freezes for about 15 minutes, someone called out to turn the lights up, the music off, and proceeded to pick people out of the audience since they had allowed too many people into the auditiorium. It was an absolute mess and completely spoiled the atmosphere and the set up of the piece, and by the time we had finished, everyone seemed a bit down but relieved it was over. Below are the marks for the whole group (we didn't get individual marks for this one):

Conceptual Development: B
Creativity: C
Content: C
Skills/Techniques: C/B
Investigation/Research: C

Comments: You were a pleasant and articulate group to be working with, and I enjoyed seeing your piece develop. I feel that you were particularly creative in response to the stimuli, and things that were generated from it, such as the very strong image provided by Libby and ideas arising from excursions and workshops. In a process like this, there is always a transitional period between the ideas and the pragmatic (“only 2 weeks left – what can we realistically do?”) stages. While you managed to transfer some concepts and images, I feel that some strong ideas got lost due to technical restraints, compromise and lack of attendance or time input. Again, the balance between creativity and feasibility is a difficult one to negotiate, and the short get in and tech time is certainly taken into consideration here. In terms of communication, every group struggles to make every member’s voice heard, and your process was no different. Although I could detect certain authority struggles, you kept it together when it really mattered, and were always checking that you were contributing to the project as professionally as possible, and not so much concentrating on personal relationships. That is a very good learning outcome. Performance day was a big challenge, and it is to your credit that concentration and energy were largely maintained in difficult circumstances. I do, however, think that you could have invested more time developing the piece, and that its shortcomings are not down to lack of creativity, but to late decision making and in some cases lack of commitment. You had a tight rehearsal schedule over the last few days, but had the sense of urgency kicked in earlier, the quality of the work would have profited.
Re the audience chaos at the beginning: I realise it was too late to supply additional seating by the time you had rigged and set up, but you could maybe have done something about it early in the day. Not a marking-related point, but it would have been nice to get all your year group in.
I feel the piece was at the penultimate draft stage by the time it reached performance, for reasons outlined above. The connections between the scenes were functional, but not as dramaturgically meaningful as they might have been, and it could have done with more content, co-ordination and polish overall. I really liked the idea of the double ‘Sam’ (a lot of research connections come to mind – Artaud, CG Jung etc etc), but feel it could have been established much more strongly in the opening scene. It wasn’t until the fight scene that I got a satisfactory sense of the duality. The performance has left me (and colleagues) with some very strong images (the umbrellas, the weatherman gradually being stripped of status and turned into a torture victim, the speeding up office, the significance of water etc…) and some very good sound work, live, as well as recorded (the latter of a professional standard). While I was not necessarily looking for the linear, and while you inserted some sense of the cyclical, the piece was a bit short on context. The images and scenarios certainly all connect to the overall notions of ‘water’ and ‘war’, but stop short of making proper points at times, and could have developed much further – just think of where the umbrella scene might have gone after such a strong initial image! The dance, although dynamic and imaginative, could have been contextualized much better. Strobe was used in to inflationary a way, and the costumes, although striking, were out of kilter with the rest of the visual style (I do realise they were inspired by the candles, but that was not very obvious semiotically). So, an interesting, but fragmented piece, where the notion of fragmentation could have been exploited in a more performative way, and as a choice that could have come across as more deliberate.
Well done to all of you for performing it with energy and commitment, and I hope you can profit from the huge collaborative learning achievement you have created.

Overall Mark: 59%

Collaborative Processes Written: Ah, the dreaded logbook and critical evaluation. The bain of my existance since Easter, and the cause of many sleepness nights. And what did Kara have to say about it? That my writing was too small. I did feel inclined to tell her to get her eyes tested and to equip her with a magnifying glass, but, after hours of work, I seemed to lose my gutsiness by the time it got to the end of the year.

Investigation/Research: B
Coverage: B
Presentation: C/B
Analysis: B

Comments: While tidy, organised and very detailed indeed, your portfolio is very difficult to read, as the writing is very small. Your visual resources are well chosen and very relevant, but sometimes there are too few to integrate with the very wordy resource.
Your critical evaluation sets up an interesting question about the nature of collaboration at the start – a useful thing to do, especially as you then use other sources such as Belbin to continue the discussion of group behaviour. You are also analytical and honest about evaluating your own input; this is promising. It is worth paying a bit more attention to the piece, its narrative and its dramaturgy.

Overall mark: 65%

I can't believe she gave me a C/B because of my writing for presentation!

Overall, I got a 2:1 for the whole year (and I found out that I got a 2:1 for the summer exam as well), which is pretty good, so hopefully I can improve on that next year!

Work at Home
Since I couldn't sit about at home for 4 months, I decided to look for a job to occupy my time so I didn't go bonkers. All in all, I applied for about 11 jobs, and was given 4 interviews: Dorothy Perkins, Superdrug, Past Times and Monsoon. Although I didn't get offered jobs at DP and Past Times, Monsoon, Superdrug and Mothercare offered me work, so I decided, since I've always wanted to work for them, to go with Monsoon. After the initial thrill of getting a job, I soon came down to earth with a bump when I realised that they were only offering me work for a month, something they didn't tell me in the interview. As I had already turned down the job with Superdrug, I had to keep with Monsoon, but was still incredibly worried about how I was going to make enough money to cover two lots of summer rent and September's rent on a month's work of work at 8 hours a week. Luckily, I was actually working for about 6 weeks and I ended up working pretty much every day for several of those weeks, and I was even told that they would try to sort me out a job up in Leeds.
Ok, so you can't have everything your way. They didn't do anything about a job in Leeds for me, and they didn't want me to come and work for a bit after our holiday either, but they DID pay me holiday pay, even though I wasn't entitled to it, so I can't complain too much! And the boss there is willing to act as a referee for me when I start applying for jobs next week, and since I managed to open 3 accounts (quite a feat, I'll tell you), hopefully she'll have some good things to say about me!

Our Holiday
After working away solidly for 6 weeks, our holiday in Spain was lovely! Here are some photos, since they explain more than writing:

House News
We've had several issues with things in the house, from internet problems, TV licence issues to confusing messages to and from landlords, but I think we're all sorted now and ready for the big move in on Friday next week. If you don't have my new address, please ask me for it - DO NOT send anything to my previous uni address, as they are not forwarding my mail! I'll put some photos on here once we're moved in so you can see our new house!

Fish News
As some of you know, I am getting fish to accompany me in my next two years of uni, and Phil and I have been researching for the last week into all the relevant equipment, etc. Hopefully I'll have bought everything I need/want to get by the end of the weekend, and I'm off searching for a stand/table thing for the tank today. The fish are being introduced on the weekend I move up, so I'll have some more fishy updates and pictures then!

Springtime at Bretton

2007-04-30T17:50:00.000Z

Today was my last day with Phil for a couple of weeks, so after attending THE LAST Cultures Of Performance lecture and seminar of the year (woooo!!), I met up with Phil and we had a walk round Bretton for a couple of hours. It was a lovely day, so we took some nice pictures:

Me in "Faerie Mode" with my daisy chain garland there.

Me and Phil under a blossom tree.

After a nice sunny day, I returned home (to an empty room) to find that, after rehearsing outside for the afternoon, I am now slightly sunburnt. So, yay for me and my pinky cheeks. At least the rehearsal went well!

Mags' last resort

2007-04-29T19:29:00.000Z

I think you realise that you are living in absolute squalor when your housekeeper finally, after several months of tolerance, refuses to clean up your kitchen.

Actually, looking at the state of the kitchen, it's not as bad as it has been before... but then again, we did take the picture in the evening, and "they" had quite obviously cleaned out two of the sinks before we had the chance to take the photos.
In other annoying kitchen news, my chicken kievs have been stolen out of my freezer, but the sign in the fridge seems to be working and I haven't had anything taken from there recently. We also managed to locate one plate and two knives on an expedition around the kitchen the other day, so I guess it's not all bad...

A last resort

2007-04-25T12:57:00.000Z

After finding items missing from my fridge for the last three days now, we decided to take a stand...

Can I point out the Marks and Spencer brand stuff on the shelf below mine? Why can't they take the posh stuff that's WORTH stealing? :( Why do they have to disappear my cheap ASDA but absolutely necessary stuff instead?

The £10 a week thing isn't a lie - I'm trying to cut down on the money I'm using out of my loan so that I can afford to pay the summer rent on my house for next year with this term's loan money.

On a lighter note - Happy Birthday Phil!
I'll put some pictures up from today another time.

I hate Fridays

2007-04-20T12:03:00.000Z

I hate Fridays because it's one of the days in the week where I lack motivation to do anything. I don't have to be on campus, I don't have any looming deadlines, and because we don't have class on a Friday, most people are still in bed after a late night last night, so there isn't much to do here either. My nearest source of entertainment is ASDA and someone's stolen my fork. Oh, and I miss Phil.
However, I was finally able to check my post this morning, and look what Phil sent me:

[Enter shameless showing off of lovely boyfriend here].
Anyway, getting a couple of letters, a postcard and a "care package" from home made me feel a bit better, so I decided to begin the post that I've been threatening to start for ages: "You Know You're in Wakey When...". I will be adding to it when I experience the appropriate material.

So.... You Know You're in Wakey When...

1) You're standing at a bus stop and you overhear a conversation between a man and a woman who are discussing a friend who recently died from "that dreadul Motorola disease".

2) You're waiting to cross a road at one of those little crossing island things when you see a poor kiddie (female, I must add) being forced by a persistant mother to wee towards oncoming traffic.

3) You're walking past the cathedral and are suddenly hit by the irony that it is the meeting place of Wakefieldian Goths and Emos.

4) You're in a shop and are told by the sales assistant that your slightly Norfolk/Norwich accent is "very posh".

5) A group of chavs kindly wave down a bus for you when they see that you're running for it.

6) The bus driver can't remember where he's going, takes a wrong turn and then proceeds to reverse back onto the road via a blind corner and into oncoming traffic.

To be continued...

deepening dislike of PHd student

2007-04-18T15:37:00.000Z

As promised, here is my mark and the feedback for my POP2 practical assessement that I didn before Easter. As you can probably tell from the entry title, it hasn't exactly increased his popularity.

Conceptual Development: B
Creativity: B
Content: B
Skills and Techniques: B/C
Investigation/Research: B

Group Comment: This piece had a good sense of dramatic style and the ideas behind the performance were fairly well developed. It would, however, have benefitted from closer scrutiny of what constitues "sex in society" and sexuality more generally - there were many areas of sexuality that were ignored completely and others which were simply washed over. The form of the piece was set up well and was both effective and enjoyable, although certain scenes were far from fully realised and many needed to me more carefully executed. One element that needed particular attention were the transitions between scenes; while the setting up of a "host" for the show helped smooth the way between scenes, there was still an element of chunkiness and hestiation. Overall, the piece worked well and tackled some difficult material in diverse and interesting ways but was not fully realised and lacked depth in performance.

Individual Comment: Lizzy, your performance was committed and energetic with a clear understanding of the material, your place within the piece and displayed good versatility. There were times when you were in danger of over acting, pusing the style out of sync with the rest of the piece but overall a competant and enjoyable performance.

Overall mark: 64%

Ok, so it's a 2:1 - not bad, you say. However, what a nasty piece of feedback. So, just because I don't like our jumped-up-PHd-student of a tutor, I will now go on to pick to pieces his feedback. Don't you just love bitterness?

1) "there were many areas of sexuality that were ignored completely and others which were simply washed over" - that's because you only gave us 20-30 minutes.. and you can't do everything!

2) "certain scenes were far from fully realised and many needed to me more carefully executed" - this is because we were underrehearsed, since you only gave us 4 days to devise and rehearse our piece, and you told us it didn't have to be polished :( And, "needed to ME"? *tuts*

3) "One element that needed particular attention were the transitions between scenes" - if you had been listening, you would have noticed that what we were presenting were a series of experiments, something you set us to do. Therefore, no scenes, and no need to make smooth "polished" transitions.

4) "there was still an element of chunkiness" - tee hee, chunkiness.

5) "was not fully realised and lacked depth in performance" - again, lack of rehearsal time. You can't achieve that much in 4 days.

6) "There were times when you were in danger of over acting" - Moi? No, with all seriousness, some characters were meant to be exaggerated, and others weren't... nevertheless, highly insulting.

7) "a competant" - gee, thanks.

You get the idea. Anyway, at least he had SOME good things to say about me - I've spoken to other people in my group and their feedback comments are a lot harsher. And, it looks like I got the highest mark out of my group, so I guess I can't complain too much. Well, I can always try :D

Anyway, now to the Cultures of Performance essay feedback - slightly nicer.

Coverage: B
Analysis: A/B
Presentation: B

Comments: A very good essay with a measured and compelling style of presentation. You handle the ideas maturely and with confidence - including the nice reference to Husserl when things had the potential to go astray. A good piece!

Overall mark: 67%

Now, considering I got such nice comments from him and got a 67, and such.. bleh ones from Mr PHd and got a 64, and then considering that there were only 3 marks between the two, something seems slightly fishy. Either Mr PHd is overmarking, or Calvin is undermarking. Hmmm.
Either way, they're both 2:1s, so it's not so bad I suppose.

Easter in pictures

2007-04-16T15:33:00.000Z

Well, after a lounging about the house for 4 weeks with a notable absence of calls from the agency I signed with, i'm back at uni, where the real work is. Since I was far to busy to come and update everyone while I was at home, I thought i'd brief you all using the medium of pictures.. and some additional words. So...

A few days into my holiday, my Mum and Dad went to Spain to have a bit of a break, leaving me and Phil in charge for the rest of the week. We were highly effective carers, providing "the children of the house" with evenings of entertainment (plugging a Gamecube and a Dance Mat into the TV downstairs), haute cuisine (baked potatoes, TASTY potatoes, pictured below) and general fun-ness that only students can provide. Unfortunately for me, I had a stinking cold all week and felt absolutely terrible, but this DID give me the excuse to sit in front of the TV for most of the day watching the Figure Skating World Championships - yays :D

My rather tasty potatoes - whoever said students eat rubbish?

The next week wasn't particularly eventful. I spent most of my time with my Mum at home (who had become ill over the holiday in Spain, and, consequently, couldn't go to work because she felt so bad and had lost her voice), helping her out with a bit of work for the new drama group she's in (Wymondham Musical Theatre Company). This started out as designing the logo for the group, since Tor was supposed to do it but didn't have enough time, but then I volunteered to out some music into Sibelius to create a backing track for some songs, and THEN I decided it would be a good idea to try and replicate Arabian Nights (from Aladdin), since the easy piano version I was given sounded a bit naff. I didn't realise what I had started. At this point in time, the NEW AND IMPROVED version of Arabian Nights is.. well... work in progress. Still. But I'm getting there - Phil installed a new version of Sibelius on my computer here so I can finish it off... I just need the impetus to get it done!

The next week of the holiday was the beginning of the Easter holidays for the schools, so we had Tor and Alexander at home. Again, the beginning of the week was pretty uneventful, but I did spend lots of time with Phil (which was nice). On the Thursday, we decided to do something with our holiday time and the nice weather, and decided to go to Cambridge. We decided to make our trip a half day thing (since we were only ready to go at about 1:00), and spent the day browsing the shops and market, and looking at some of the colleges. We went looking for an icecream truck that Phil and I discovered on out trip to Cambridge in the summer, and luckily, we found it! (The picture below is shortly after the consumption of the icecreams)

I like this picture - hehe :D

Later, we found a mini garden thingy, which we thought was a perfect place for posing for photos. Phil got bored, and found something else to do.

Phil in a tree!

We had a bit more of a wander around, and then made our way home.
The next day (Good Friday), Phil went for his 21st birthday outing (yes, nearly a year late, but it's better late than never!) to Wroxham Barns. Phil's sister Amy and her fiance Tony, Phil's brother Stuart and his girlfriend Rachel, Phil's mum and dad and me (and Phil, obviously), all went for a walk round the Junior Farm and fed the animals.

Phil feeding a sheep/ram/thing

Always a fan of cuddling, I readied myself in the Cuddle Barn for either a chick or a guinea pig. I got a chick. Now, my chick started off pretty docile, and was happy to perch on my wrist and be stroked. But then it decided to poo everywhere and then got a bit flighty and tried to escape, jumping off my lap and making a run for it across the floor. The chick was captured and safely returned to it's coop.

Cute chick? You decide.

We had a relaxed picnic on the grass, watching the many small peoples running around us, and then had a look round some of the shops before returning home - after a quick trip to Roys for some shoes for Tim.

The next day, I found myself in Wroxham again, this time with my family, in search of a dayboat to take out on the Broads. Unfortunately, we didn't find one in Wroxham, but we did find one somewhere else - the name of the place I forget. Anyway, we were out for 4 hours on the water, looking for wildlife (we saw a kingfisher, some swans, lots of ducks, some geese and some coots), eating tasty food from a farm shop we went to, and generally being scared by Alexander's boat driving.

Me and Tor on the boat

Some rather friendly swans

A nice picture of a windmill we saw

Our actual Easter Sunday and Monday were relatively girly, since my Dad and Alexander went to the motocross in Ling on the Sunday, and Brands Hatch to see the British Superbikes on the Monday. So, on the Sunday, we had a lazy morning around the house, a leisurely afternoon walk around the visiting French Market, a quick trip to the DVD rental shop, and then a girly late afternoon watching a girly film. (And then we watched Snakes on a Plane in the evening - :P)

On the Monday, we decided to go to Thrigby Wildlife Park. We saw monkeys, leopards, lots of birds...

...otters...

...tigers (and my mum)...

...crocodiles, aligators, snakes, tortoises, red panda (only saw one) and porcupines.
Then we went into a Chinese Garden where Tor chased lots of geese.

Tor looking more docile.

Me and Tor in the garden - a nice picture taken by Phil.

In the evening, we went out to Wagamamas, where Tor demonstrated that we should have left her in Thrigby:

So, that's pretty much everything. I went out to the pub with Phil and George a couple of times, and met up with some friends, but now i'm back here again :(
Today, I found out my mark for my Cultures of Performance essay - 67% - but I didn't get any feedback because my essay went walkies.. but apparently I can get it from the office now, so I'll go fetch that tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get my mark for POP2 tomorrow then too!

A bit of a catch up

2007-03-20T09:54:00.000Z

This is the second time that I have attempted to write this post, as some inconsiderate person logged me off my account when I was doing something else. So, apologies if this is slightly more abridged that it would have been.. blame that person.
So, it's been over a month since I last posted, but I do have an excuse - I have been incredibly busy, rehearsing for assessments and shows, writing 2500 word assignments, etc... But now that I am at home, waiting patiently for some agency... ANY agency to give me some work, I seem to have all the time in the world to come and update you with what I have been up to in the last month. So...

After coming back from a flying visit to Norwich to see family and Chicago at the Theatre Royal after my birthday, I returned to Bretton to rehearse with vigour for my practical assessment for my POP2 module, which we had three days to devise and rehearse for. Although we were given the briefest of briefs ("create a piece of Documentary Theatre using any of the methods we explored over the last four weeks"), we finally decided to create our piece from a selection of articles that I collected for a previous piece of work, all linked under the theme of sex in society. The process was slight;y rocky, but we eventually came up with a series of experiments into how you can present a piece of Documentary Theatre, in the guise of a Music Hall type piece. We created a programme that was to be given to every audience member, with the acts listed as follows:

1) "St George's School Boys' Choir" (a short song about a man who was training to be a magistrate who was found in possession of child pornography - taken from a news article - sung to the tune of "If", by cast members holding soft porn magazines as chour sheets.
2) A News Report (a Verbatim Theatre piece constructed from interviews with several girls who slept with their teacher, a man who was convisted recently for sleeping with three underage pupils)
3) A Forecast (a ditzy weather-girl style report of abortion rates in Europe - simple, but worrying when the whole audience laughed as they were told that half of all pregnancies in Eastern Europe are terminated...)
4) "A Girl's Night Out" (a movement piece depicting how a girl who supposedly provoked her attackers into rape by the way she dressed and acted on a night out - disturbing, lots of loud music, but effective)
5) "Me and a Gun" (a song by Tori Amos about when she was raped, sung acapella by a cast member during a still from a previous scene - so, so effective... scarily so)
6) "The Jemima Kayle Show" (a take on the classic programme "The Jeremy Kyle Show", with the show focusing on teen pregancy)
7) "Two Men and a Lift" (a short sketch where two businessmen meet in a lift and go on to discuss how their businesses are going - the catch being that the inner thoughts of the men are revealed to the audience and they realise that their businesses are in child traffcing, and that the children they bring in are sold and used as sex slaves - more of a problem in the UK than you'd think)
8) "Find the Paedophile" (a game show where the audience have to guess which of 4 contestants are most likely to be paedophiles.. the catch being that all of them are and that the audience should come to understand that there isn't a stereotypical type of person who could be one)
9) And to finish, an audience participation type thing where everyone in the audience and the cast had to open an envelope that was paperclipped into the programmes - each envelope contained a statistic that was in proportion to everyone in that room about the rates of women who are raped - 50,000 a year in the UK - and of those who actually manage to get their rapist convicted - 1% of the 25% of women who actually report their rape)

We think it went quite well, but we haven't got our grades for it yet, so I guess we'll see after Easter. But anyway, the teacher (our lovely PHd student) and the dreaded George (leader of the Theatre and Performance course, notorious for being incredibly harsh with marking and so hard to please) seemed to enjoy it, so yay for that at least.
Speaking of grades, I got a rather brief (what IS it with tutors here???) email from my seminar tutor from last term saying

"Just to let you know that you obtained a 63% in your Performance Perspectives exam"

So, there you go. Several months after it, I finally get the grade for my exam that I took in January. This means that, overall, I got a 2:1 for this module :D

After the intensive week of arghing and stressing over the POP2 practical piece, I had a week left to write my written assignment for my Cultures of Performance module. Again, this was all rather brief, but I chose to use the model question of "Explore any two of the models you have encountered in the first five weeks of lectures". I decided to focus on Goffman's model of Front and Saussure's theory of Semiology - if you don't understand either of these, email me and ask to see the essay, it will explain all. Never one for making things overly complicated without necessity, my essay was eventually titled "An exploration of Goffman's model of Front and Saussure's theory of Semiology". Short and sweet. I worked in this solidly for a week, making sure that it was finished in time for Saturday so that I had the weekend free to go shopping for Mothers' Day, and the Sunday free for an all-day rehearsal for Midummers. Armed with a printed copy of my essay on the Sunday night, ready to be handed in on the Monday morning, I suddenly get a loud knock on my door from Isa, who has come to tell me that everyone has been given an extention... an extra day. Slightly annoyed, but glad that I got mine out of the way, I still went to hand it in on the Monday while everyone else was talking about going to write those last 1000 words... (of a 2500 word essay :s) Of course, no grade yet - in all fairness that would be too much to ask- so I should know how I did when I get back after Easter.

Just a quick idea of what we've all been up to in Collab (yet another module) recently:

Me looking rather artistic in the front of the picture there... in a lovely new top, courtesy of Topshop and Mum-Leeds-Birthday-Shopping-Trip :)

No, you're not supposed to be able to fit three people in this cupboard, but, in the name of theatre, we did!

So anyway, now to Midsummers.
Last week was Production Week for A Midsummer Night's Dream. For those who don't know what Production Week entails, in this week you have to bring all of the set into the theatre you're performing in, set up all of the lighting (this alone took three days), conduct a full technical rehearsal (even more technical for us because out whole production relied heavily on computerised thingamigiggies) and a full dress. In short, this meant being at Bretton for 10-14 hour days.Oh how I slept well last week.
Those of you who were paying attention (or have good memories) will remember that ORIGINALLY I was DSMing for the show. However, it was decided that a first year would not be able to handle it (pffft I say to that), and it was handed over to Michelle. I was then allocated the role of Admin Stage Manager. This then changed again because I couldn't be at a lot of the rehearsals (fair enough) and I became a backstage person. THEN I became a Stage Manager again because the people named Stage Managers weren't backstage and needed to be to perform Health and Safety checks. THEN I volunteered to be what Isa and I termed "Fly Girls", which basically meant being around 20 odd feet above the stage dropping gauzes in and taking them out at the right moment. Eventually, I think I was called an Assistant Stage Manager. I would have been happy with Fly Girl, but you can't have everything...
SO - for half of the time, we were sitting about in the auditorium watching the actors because there wasn't a great need to gauze shifting, which was fun, but eventually we went up and down the vertical ladders so many times that my hands started to blister... and I now have slight callouses (sp?) where my hands were put to use. Of course, we were helpful in other ways, such as making the props table, shifting props around, taping things up and the like, but the days were a bit long and only didn't drag because the show was so entertaining.
On Wednesday, we had a presenter and camera man from BBCs Look North come and do a little bit of filming of the show for their feature on Bretton in their "A to Z of Yorkshire" series. The link is here:

YAY LINKAGE!!
...Ok, so the link was SUPPOSED to be there.. but it isn't. Go to the BBC home page and do a search for "Look North, A to Z of Yorkshire reaches B", and you should be able to find it. Sorry :(

The VIP show on Thursday and the performances on Friday and Saturday all went without hitches (as far as we know, anyway) and the audiences seemed to enjoy themselves, so I think we can say the show was a success. Unfortunately I haven't got any pictures, but somebody was taking some so maybe I'll be able to gte hold of a copy of one of those...

Well, I think that brings you up to date.
I'm off to get ready to go out as I have to go register with an agency (yay for OSR who didn't turn me down before they read my CV) and film Phil inflitrating the Norfolk Library System.
Before I go, a couple of photos of what I (not personally, mind, I'm a tidy person) left behind at The Lodge when I came home:

The horror....

THE HORROR

Happy Pancake Day!

2007-02-20T19:51:00.000Z

Well, Happy Pancake Day everyone!
Me and Phil have been creating in the kitchen for what eventually totalled just under two hours, and the results were rather tasty... (i'd like to mention that we had two different types of pancakes, chickeny savoury ones and your usual lemony and sugary ones, and that we seemed to be the only people in the kitchen who were able to cook pancakes..) Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to bring my camera down to document this momentous occasion, but, take it from me, they were quite impressive :D

So anyway, I'm aware I haven't updated in a while.. this is because the last week has been rather busy, what with my birthday (thank you to everyone who sent me pressies and/or cards), visiting relatives and boyfriend and general business. So...

My Mum and Tor came to visit on Friday and were up here until Sunday afternoon.
We went exploring Castleford on Friday night in an attempt to find the Cineworld there because it was showing a film we wanted to watch at a better time than the one in Wakefield. However, I have never been to Castleford before, Tor can't read maps (and I am a bit shaky) and it was rather dark, so it took several wrong turns and multiple rides round roundabouts until we found the complex the cinema was situated on. It took a bit longer to find the actual cinema, but we got there just in time for the beginning of the film (we even missed most of the trailers - bonus!). The film (Music and Lyrics) was good, by the way :)
On Saturday we went shopping in Leeds, since I couldn't think of anything other than clothes that I wanted/needed for my birthday. Tor seemed rather impressed with the large range of shops that Leeds has to offer, and was also horrified at the cost of the contents of Vivienne Westwood (but at least she got to see the clothes!). My mum seemed impressed with the size of the Marks and Spencers, and managed to take a good 25 minutes to find the toilets (although she DID confess to browsing the lingerie selection, but still denies taking 25 minutes..). I came home with some lovely clothes to fill my wardrobe, but we left Leeds without a pair of jeans for me (which I'm in desperate need for, since one pair is so baggy even a belt struggles to keep them up, and the other is almost crotchless due to over-wearage). Luckily however, ASDA came in handy as, even though a multitude of designer shops were unable to provide me with a well-fitting pair, our favourite local supermarket was. For £12, nevertheless.
On Sunday, I took them for a stroll around the grounds of Bretton...

A rather nicely composed photo of the mansion

(You don't want to know how many tries it took to get this one...)

Tor and the mansion :D
and
My sister, the poser

And then just under two hours after they left for the drive home, Phil arrived!
My birthday was a mix of boring and fun. I had to get up at 7am so I could get ready to catch the bus for my 9am lecture (*groans*), which, actually, wasn't that bad. I decided to come home a bit after my seminar since I was hungry and only had a small smoothie (an Innocent kiddies one, I'd like to add) in my bag, and picked up my birthday post (ha Mags, I DO get mail!!). I went back to Bretton in the afternoon for a self-directed session, but I was the only one in the whole class who'd actually done the work properly, and it looked like no-one was planning to do anything other than sit around and gossip. Thinking of the birthday and boyfriend waiting at home situation, I decided, after asking people whether we were ACTUALLY going to do something, to go and get the next bus home. I had been at Bretton for just under an hour, and had completely wasted my time going to campus... but at least I had a Phil waiting back at the Lodge.
In the evening, we went out for a meal at The Walnut Tree, which actually turned out to be a lot nicer than we had originally thought after going there with my Mum after we travelled up here after Christmas. Photos...

Me and Phil in the restuarant

I did NOT eat this whole sundae on my own, but it was absolutely MASSIVE.. and rather tasty too!

Stage Management marks

2007-02-07T17:21:00.000Z

I found out I could go and collect my portfolio and marks for Stage Management yesterday, and after a slightly confusing trek up to Victor Pasmore (a building I wasn't quite sure how to find), I found the office of the course leader and picked up my file. Marks for the people who are interested as follows:

Investigation/Research: A
Conceptual Frameworks: A/B
Selection and Organisation of Material: A
Structure and Management of Material: A
Skills and Techniques: B

Comments: A thoughtful and clear file, with excellent use of example and very focused reflection on it - comprehensive. Shows keen involvement in the "whys" of different tasks rather than just "hows" - well presented. Sample prompt copy clear and workable. Well done.

Overall mark: 73%

A bit happier with this one, to say the least :D

A brief idea of what we've been up to recently:

Helpful-Looking Librarians

2007-02-02T20:18:00.000Z

First, a plea to anyone who can help:
I am trying to track down a copy of Bertolt Brecht's poem "On Everyday Theatre".

Yes, I have looked online, and the only copies I have found so far have been missing quite a large chunk. Now, unluckily for me, I studied this poem at A-Level, so I know that there is a section missing. For the blissfully unaware majority of my class who had never heard of the poem, they will search online for it, find the incomplete version and be happy with it. For me, it's like cheating, because I KNOW that there is something missing, which doesn't really give me an excuse for not doing the proper research.
So, several frustrating hours of searching the internet later, I resorted to the slightly more reliable medium of books. This is where the first story of today "The Tale of the Incompetent Librarians" begins. From my extensive research online I found a number of books that could include a complete original version of the sought-after poem. I decided that a book of poems (sounds good, eh?) would be my best bet, and looked it up on the Leeds Library Catalogue website. Unfortunately, the library didn't seem to have the book, so, after reading through lists and lists of German books, I found a promising-looking poems book that had been translated to English. After a quick catalogue search, I found the book to be available in the library. Classmark noted (German, N58-BRE), I equipped myself for a library search the following afternoon.

Oh I wish I hadn't bothered.

Since I didn't have a clue where the German section was, I approached a friendly-looking librarian at the help desk and asked her to point me in the correct direction. She did so, and, ever the intrepid explorer, I set off with my faithful companion Sri, up a flight of stairs into a previously unexplored area of the library. Walking though the door, we first saw the "English section". After the "English section", we found the "French section", and, intelligently knowing my alphabet, I expected to see the "German section" after the French. But what did I find? A load of empty shelves. Slightly confused but not in the least deterred, I set off up and down the rows of shelves, looking for the lost German section. After a few minutes, we found a "German Language section". Strangely, there didn't seem to be any sign of "N58-BRE".
Confused, we trekked downstairs to the help desk, and asked the librarian for more precise directions, sure that we'd missed the section somewhere during our travels. Helpfully, the librarian told us that we should find the German section after the English and French ones. Explaining that we'd already tried this, she looked up my classmark on her computer and told me that "N58" was the code for Brecht, and that we would find him upstairs in the German Language section. Determined, we set off up the stairs again.
Looking through the German Language section, it became apparent that Mr Brecht was never going to be found there. And why was this clear? Because all of the books were categorised by numbers. Not a letter in sight. Slightly annoyed, I set off up and down the shelves again, looking for something that resembled N58. What I found was a classmark converter (lucky me!), where I found that my N58 translated into "282" in the Bretton Campus library system. Boosted with confidence, I tracked down the "28" numbers until I came across "281". After "281" came "283". No sign of "282". Now very annoyed, I left for my lesson.

Three hours later, we returned to the library and approached the help desk once more, where we found another helpful-looking librarian. I explained to the new librarian that I had found out the section that my book of Brechty poems was supposed to be in, but that the section seemed to be missing. Looking confused, she told me to wait aside while she helped the people behind us. Adding to the hilarity (?) of the situation, the people behind us were also looking for a section that had apparently upped and walked out of where it should have been. This prompted a snort from me and Sri.
Confused people assuringly made more confused, the not-so-helpful librarian went to find YET ANOTHER librarian, who then came and asked me what the problem was. I explained that I was looking for section 282, and that it didn't seem to be between sections 281 and 283. With a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders, he matter-of-a-factly told us that section 282 was downstairs with all of the other drama books, and led us to the lesser-spotted-section-282. Confused but relieved, I bent down and began flicking through the books on the shelves. My book didn't seem to be there.
At that precise moment, another helpful-looking (ah, but they don't fool me any more!!) librarian walked up to me and asked if everything was alright. Slightly hysterically, I explained my quest for Brecht's Book of Poems to her, and she kindly told me that it could be one of those books that has disappeared into the limbo of the library. She then walked off.

So, after a LONG library search, a LENGTHY online search and an aggrieved phonecall to my sister, I should hopefully be getting a copy from my ever-reliable High School drama teacher. Mrs Wickham, you saint.

The moral of this tale? Don't use the library. Oh, and librarians are never helpful.

I mentioned that this was the "first" tale of the day. After such a lengthy explanation, I'm sure you will have read enough for one day, so I will save "The Tale of the Cursing PHd Student" for another time. Toodles!

What's this? An assessment mark?

2007-01-30T17:40:00.000Z

Remember that POP1 practical assessment I did the day before I came home for Christmas?
Well, 56 days later, I finally got my marks today...

Conceptual Development: B
Creativity: B
Content: B
Skills and Techniques: B
Investigation/Research: B

Group Story: This was a simple, coherent and intelligent performance. Physically and structurally this was a very strong performance. You worked very well indeed with the pushing out/pulling in of energy and demonstrated your ability to work effectively at different paces. Your interjections in the performance worked very well indeed and you were all able to move in and out of these and between altered states/bodies/levels with ease and clarity. You also worked well with the notes that I gave you in class supervisions, and demonstrated some very good transitions. You need now to all work at developing your ability to engage fully with aspects of transformation, there were moments when you seemed to ‘drop out’ of the transformation. You could have pushed your alteration of your physicality even more for this work, and taken more risks. In terms of the rhythm of ‘characters’ you need to now be a little more rigorous, there were moments of inconsistency when your rhythmic qualities altered and fell back to more familiar territory for you. Consistency in any kind of transformative physical work is highly demanding and requires extremes of physical investment as well as investment of time (through repetition you will find such consistency easier to manage). Lizzy, you have a lovely everyday body in the space, it is engaging and highly watchable (you never disappear), you also have a very strong and energised neutral body and demonstrate moments of consistency in your physical transformations.

Overall mark: 66%

Ok, so I'm not the happiest of bunnies with this mark because of the amount of work etc that I put into the classes and the final piece, but I guess it's a strong 2:1 at the end of the day and I should be pleased that I didn't fail abysmally! Hopefully I can do better next time around with POP2 (I have the same tutor again).

Lies, all lies..

2007-01-24T18:40:00.000Z

Yes, BBC Weather lies.

It IS NOT snowing here. It snowed for about 10 minutes yesterday evening, leaving a slight powdery residue on the car park tarmac. It did not, however, even manage that today. Instead, it decided to rain bucketloads.
So, the moral of this story? Do not trust the BBC.

In other news...
...we found our ultimate and final Dream House. This house beats all other houses because it is £53 a week and is still dreamy. AND my potential room has a slanty roof - yays! After a long debate lasting two buses, we decided that, for that price and such a nice house, we are going to go for it. So, currently, I am trying to get through to my parents to talk to them about it, but someone seems to have been on the phone for the last hour. So, hopefully by the end of the evening, we will have secured Ultimate Dream House!
Unfortunately I don't have any photos because the current tenants were dotted about over the house and it didn't really seem very appropriate to take photos around them, but I can assure you that it has a nice medium-sized kitchen, a lovely lounge, a slightly green-carpeted (as in it was coloured, not mouldy) bathroom, and three nice bedrooms. One with a slanty roof. :D
So yay for Number 40 Argie Road!

Brace yourselves...

2007-01-23T17:18:00.000Z

... and look with wondrous awe at the pieces of paper that cost me a fiver.

Yes, a fiver.
Now, most of you will be thinking that I got ripped off. Oh no - if I hadn't bought this at the introductory lecture this morning, it would have cost me a whole TWO POUNDS FIFTY extra. And, not only were these pieces of paper value for money, they are vital, yes VITAL for me to actually work on my Collaborative Processes module. Because, unbeknown to me, the tutors for this module are refusing to use our beloved Nathan Bodington and are instead insisting on us buying this book full of photocopied articles. And the pages aren't even numbered.
Meh, I guess I pay £55 a month for an even smaller piece of paper to get me around West Yorkshire.

Next on the agenda - the amazing ability of the electricians to muck up an hour of my life.
I came home after an intensive day of lectures, workshops and self-directed time to find a small balding man on my bedroom floor. (At this point, I'd like to say that he then explained he was there to check the electricity flow and that I should have been notified by letter that someone would come into my room this week - a letter that i conveniently never received) Now, I'm used to unexplainable things happening now that I live here, but I REALLY needed the toilet and wasn't too pleased when I realised I wasn't going to be able to without baldie listening to my every move. So, bladder bursting, I went and waited in the lounge (with crossed legs).
Eventually I was allowed back into my room.
I pottered about in my room, doing some work on my computer for about 20 minutes, until suddenly all the lights and my computer turned off simultaneously. Angered at the loss of 20 minutes of work, I stepped out of my room to look for a pesky electrician. I found one after about 5 minutes, who then kindly explained that he was wondering why the power was still on in the room he was trying to work on, and that he would go and turn my power back on immediately. What a gent. What an imbecile.

Anyway, with annoyances out of the way, we are trekking off to Leeds tomorrow to get another look at my Dream House 3. This is so that Isa can see what Sri and I have been raving about, and so we can finally come to a decision about which house we want to go for. I will keep you posted!

More house hunting

2007-01-15T16:38:00.000Z

Well, I'm back at uni again.

Unfortunately, it's been one annoyance after another.
I came back on Wednesday last week to prepare for my Performance Perspectives exam (more on that later) on the Friday. Knowing that there weren't going to be any lectures or lessons this week, I arranged some viewings for a few houses we were half interested in. Not knowing how long this would take, I arranged a ticket home for the rest of the week for tomorrow, but after an uneventful viewing of three houses, I was left with enough time to come home anyway, but with a ticket that can't be changed. Great how these things work out, eh? To add to my annoyance of being back away from home, I found that the classes for my actual degree don't start until the week beginning 29th January. So, even though I'm coming back here next Monday for a lecture, the rest of the week is looking decidedly empty and pointless. Yay for bad university timetabling (you have to wonder what you're paying three grand a year for).

Anyway, on to the exam.
The actual paper was ok, and answering the questions was alright (or as alright as it can be when you don't really know what you're exam's about until you get into the exam room). Anyway, before we can even get to the exam room, there's the travelling there, and, in their usual style, Arriva did it again (combined with the university's inability to notice that an exam in Leeds requires over 100 Bretton people to get on one bus).
We accepted the fact that there wasn't one room big enough to hold everyone in my year to take this exam, so we can understand why we were sent to Leeds. However, what seems relatively hard to comprehend is why they had to schedule it for 9:30am. Anyway, we came to accept the hideous time we would need to catch a bus to get to the Leeds campus in time for the exam (7:45am). What we did not come to accept was that by 8:15am, the bus still hadn't turned up.. the only bus we could have caught to get there on time. Having no faith in another bus turning up on time, we took a taxi, which cost £20 (so much for my weekly bus pass). Being around 8:30am, the traffic on the M1 was abominable, and i seriously considered telling the poor cabbie to turn around and take me home so I could go back to bed. But we got there eventually, with 5 minutes before we had to be in the exam room.
A note on this exam room. Remember the reason we came to Leeds? Because there wasn't ONE room that would hold everyone. When we got to Leeds, we found out that they had put us into TWO rooms anyway (which could have been done at Bretton anyway). I don't need to elaborate. The rooms they put us into were on the most eastern point of the campus, in the Sports Block. When we got there, we walked following the signs to the exam room, only to be told by a scary loud man that this wasn't ACTUALLY the way, and that we had to walk all the way back where we'd come from and round the side of the building. SO.. we do as he says, and come to ONE room. The room I'm in (letters A-L) is no-where to be seen. So, i walk further round the building and see some people I recognise and FINALLY find my room.
The most annoying thing? After forking out a taxi fare to get there on time, the invigilator waited for the others from Bretton (whose bus was 20 mins late - hah! so what?) before starting the exam. I could have cried.
Anyway, here ends the saga of the exam. I only need to wait until May to relive it. Oh yay.

Now, to the houses.
I have to admit that I was looking forward to seeing the houses, as they seemed to be some really nice properties. Well.. the camera lies. We are half interested in the second of the three houses we viewed, although it doesn't really have much on the house we like in Armley (otherwise known as Dream House 2). Well, here are some pics from (possibly) Dream House 3...

I was going to post some shock-inducing photos of a bathroom we saw today, but luckily for you lot, blogger won’t upload pictures properly today (hence the fancy slideshow). Anyway, I’ll let you know whether we decide on 2 or 3 :D

See you Norwichy peoples tomorrow!

12 amazingly long hours to go...

2006-12-07T20:22:00.000Z

Ok, so basically I have the rest of today (Thursday) left until I can go home.
I can honestly say that this has been one of the most excruciating experiences I have ever had in my life. Every time I look at the clock to see how much time I've wasted until I ought to go to bed, it seems to have only been 10 minutes since I last checked. Unless there is something wrong with my clock...
And it's STILL only 8:30. Arghs.

Anyway, in a bid to take up some of my time until Phil gets back from work and can talk to me about being excited about tomorrow, I decided to try and find something to spruce my blog up with a little. The result: that rather nifty little slideshow to the right here.
A bit more interesting than ONE picture, eh? Now I have about TWENTY pictures!! Woo! And... they're not just of me this time...

Surprisingly, the rest of the day hasn't actually taken that long to pass. Today I had my practical POP1 (yes, another one) assessment, and I think I can say it went rather well. To elaborate, our class laughed for 8 minutes non-stop. And even though this wasn't the intention, we were trying to look pretty stupid, so it made sense. And anyway, to be honest, I don't know how you can re-enact someone being kicked in the face by a stupid person (5 times, no less) without making it slightly humorous...

Anyway, if it EVER gets past today (and at this rate, I really don't think it's going to), I will see you all tomorrow (or Saturday!)!!

shocked

2006-12-05T16:38:00.000Z

Feedback for my POP1 written assignment:

Coverage: A
Analysis: A
Presentation: A

This is an excellent first attempt at writing of this kind, Lizzy. You have clearly read around your subject and are able to use referencing succinctly and efficiently to support your argument. You clearly have an excellent grasp of this material and are able to talk confidently about Boal's practice, his ideological framework and how that manifests in companies' work. You run out of time a little when it comes to your own performance piece but this is understandable when you have given such an eloquent explanation of drama as a living art form in the opening pages. Very well done.

Overall mark: 72%

THAT'S A FIRST!!!
*faints onto floor*

6 days to go...

2006-12-02T18:51:00.000Z

I opened the second door on my advent calendar this morning, which means that I am coming home in precisely 6 days time! Yay for ends of semesters.
However, before I do come back, I have my practical assessment on Thursday (jumping around doing several silly walks for 8 minutes), and I still have to get the feedback from the dreaded Assignment 2. So, we'll see if I'm still feeling so festive after then...

Anyway, today we went into Leeds to do a spot of Christmas shopping, so here is a picture of us (plus Bea, a friend of Isa's) in the posh shopping arcade in the city centre:

Yay for Christmas, and see you all very soon!

Dream House 2

2006-11-26T23:27:00.000Z

As all I seem to be talking to people about at the moment is house hunting, I though I would enlighten you to the particulars of Dream House 2. This is a house we are very interested in, as it's in a nice area, the house is of good size and the bedrooms are good too. We haven't decided yet whether this is "The One" yet, but we're very enthusiastic about it.
These are photos taken from my second viewing of the house when my mum came up to see it this weekend. It wasn't that late when we went, but 4:30 means darkness at the moment!

This is the view up the steps to the front of the house. Note the handy automatic light that comes on if you walk near the door. The house is on a street that looks rather like the road that Phil lives on...

Here are some photos of the kitchen:

For me, the selling point of this house is the kitchen. It's absolutely lovely and almost double the size of the one we have back home. The landlady said the major downside of it is that it doesn't have a dishwasher... I don't think it bothered us that much!

These are photos of the lounge, which is at the front of the house. It's not a big room, but is nice and cozy with a couple of good (albeit rather grubby atm) sofas. And it has a fireplace... wow.
I have to point out at this moment that this house makes the house we viewed the other week look like a hole. Which it was. But anyway, it makes it look even worse.

More pics in the next post -->

More Dream House 2

2006-11-26T23:03:00.000Z

Following the previous post, here are some more pics of Dream House 2:

Here are two photos of the bathroom:

It's quite small, but very clean and nicely kept with everything we need, so it's all good.

This is the first bedroom which is located on the first floor. I wasn't able to take a picture of the room when i visited, and the one He-re has on their site really doesn't do it justice as it's actually an incredibly large room, but this is the one that Isa would like if we went ahead.

These are photos of the second bedroom which is located on the second floor. Again, the picture makes the room look quite small but it's a good size. This would hopefully be my room if we went ahead with the house.

These are photos of the third bedroom which is also on the second floor. This one needs some work done on it and there is no-one living in it at the moment which makes it look a bit bare and dingy, but it's aa nice size room, even though this is the smallest. Sri would have this one if we had the house. There is also a fourth bedroom which is used as a spare room.

And...
Just some nice pics taken around a rather Christmassy Leeds before my mum had to go home!

See you all in 12 days!

An eventual update

2006-11-20T12:39:00.000Z

I realise I have not updated this for a while, and although Phil nagged me to come and update about a week ago, I tried and nothing was uploaded because I was still sharing my net connection with my friends. Having logged into Blogger, I found that my unpublished post was still saved here, even though it never appeared on my blog. So, just to prove that I DID try to update:

14th November 2006 - Yay for BT
2 weeks, lots of books and one incredibly messy room later (as shown below: PICTURES TO FOLLOW!), I finally finished my Assignment 2 last night.

I'd like to point out that my room isn't this messy any more, I've actually had time to tidy it now (even though personally, I think it looks relatively organised actually). Also, the apple juice and the cotton buds were essential to the completion of the essay :D But YAY! it's finally finished and I can now relax. Coincidentally, if anyone wants to read my essay, I can send it to you (it's only 1500 words).

And another YAY! - I now have an internet connection. Well, currently, I'm still stealing Isa and Sri's one, but I will be connecting mine up tomorrow. But either way, I finally have net access. So I can talk to everyone now (and do research, of course).

In other news, we've been looking for houses for next year (they seem to start early up here in Leeds), and we're going to view Dream House 1 on Friday! I'm also trying to arrange a viewing for Dream House 2 as soon as I can, but I will let you know what we're doing once it's all been arranged. But it's all very exciting! :)

So there you go. Anyway, for this update.
I am no longer stealing my friends' internet connection - while Phil was staying with me, he installed all the relevant stuffs and sorted out all the scary wires and now I have my own internet connection! I also have free evening and weekend calls, so if someone would like me to call them who cannot afford to call me, contact me somehow and I can give you a ring!

We viewed Dream House 1 on Friday, and unfortunately, it wasn't all that dreamy. In fact, it was a complete waste of time. When the landlord asked me to phone him an hour before we were supposed to be viewing just in case he forgot, I thought he was joking. Well, he wasn't. When I phoned him an hour beforehand as planned, he had completely forgotten about us and was unable to meet us at the arranged time. On top of that, the house we wanted to view wasn't actually available for viewing, so we had to arrange to see a different house that was supposedly exactly the same. So, we come and see the house, and realise that actually it isn't anything like the one we were supposed to be viewing. For example, it was minus a dining room. Also, we weren't that happy with the house because one of us would have to live in a box room with 2 foot of floor space, and another would have a room twice the size - a recipe for arguments and problems, no matter how friendly you are. So, after deciding that we really did not want this disorganised and annoying man as a landlord, we came home, rather disgruntled. At least we made him give us a lift back into Leeds because we didn't know when the buses were that late in the day. I have arranged a viewing for Dream House 2 (which better actually be dreamy!!) on Wednesday, so hopefully things will start to get a bit better for us from then onwards.

Last night we went to see Spirit of the Dance.
I invite anyone to watch the video that made me want to see this show: http://www.spiritofthedanceproductions.com/spiritofthedance_index_01.htm.
The show promised "a foot-stomping international production featuring the passionate latino rhythms of the Tango, Flamenco, and red-hot Salsa along with powerful show-stopping Irish Dance". We got: a load of Irish Dancing along with 30 mins of singing from Ireland's Three Tenors (including a Westlife cover, a Queen Cover, a bad Phantom of the Opera cover, and some traditional Irish songs). No latin rhythms WHATSOEVER. Also, the show was 2 hours long, including the interval. Which means, after minusing a 20 min interval and 30 mins of Three Tenors, you get a 1 hour 10 min show. Which, in my opinion, is not worth £10.50 (at the cheapest rate!!). So yes, a highly disappointing Riverdance rip-off.

Well, I'm off for another 3 hours of constant moving and body analysis. Yay for me.
I guess things can only get better, eh?

Practical Assessment One

2006-11-09T12:02:00.000Z

Swiftly following the last one, for anyone who was interested in my practical assignment marks:

Conceptual Development: C
Creativity: C
Content: B
Skills and Techniques: B
Investigation/Research: B

Comments:
This was an extremely clear and well organised presentation that had a tight structure and a clear participatory framework. Despite the frantic technical hitches at the start, the group worked well together to produce a coherent narrative that involved the audience as framed witnesses responsible for making a decision over the unfolding drama. The use of film at the beginning provided a useful framework for the overarching theme of media manipulation and the quality of it was good. The sharp change of pace and dynamic as the main character appeared and the audience were led into the court room showed a strong sense of the theatrical. Instructions for the audience were extremely clear at all times and their involvement controlled and well managed. Whilst the group had spent considerable time attending to the language of the piece, it might have been interesting to experiment a little more with style. Whilst a courtroom drama perhaps lends itself to naturalism, the aesthetic dimension lacked creativity and risk at times. It might also have been worth considering how the audience could have explained their decision more fully rather than merely announcing their verdict. Opportunities for audience involvement were built in but a little constricting. Getting this balance right might be a target for future work.

Lizzy, you have made some excellent contributions throughout the module and clearly have a great enthusiasm for this kind of work. Your articulation of ideas on your first presentation was particularly impressive and shows the high level at which you are responding to tasks set. Very well done.

Overall mark: 62%

I guess it's not that bad really, although isn't it strange how my percentage is exactly the same again...
I'm currently working on the essay to support this module, so we'll see how I do overall later.

Oh help

2006-11-06T11:50:00.000Z

For anyone who wanted to know how I did in my first assignment:

Coverage: B
Analysis: C
Presentation: B

Comments:
This was a very interesting paper. You gave a strong argument with a real sense of your own position in relation to the argument. You write stylishly and articulately, and explain your ideas well. You also gave a solid sense of a self-reflective position with regards to your understanding of yourself as an emergent artist with a specific agenda. Structurally the body of the essay was good, your argument flowed coherently and logically. Where you fell down considerably is in your failure to develop appropriate introduction and conclusion and your failure to use citations to back up, extent and further develop your own argument. Your introduction needs to map out the entire essay and not just the opening section as you do, and your conclusion needs to stand as a statement for your position in the argument itself, rather than as a sad add on at the end. This is such a shame as the main body of the text was excellent.
Bibliography is well laid out (such a shame you didn't use it).

Overall grade: 62%

I think maybe i should go crawl somewhere and die :(
As an extra note, one of her sentences didnt quite make sense... heh.

I really hate buses

2006-10-25T16:55:00.000Z

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!

Assigments and being ill (again)

2006-10-19T10:33:00.000Z

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.

Dance Off

2006-10-10T11:10:00.001Z

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.

Our trip to Asda

2006-10-04T11:12:00.000Z

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!

x44

2006-10-02T11:06:00.000Z

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

Guide to Bretton

2006-09-29T13:26:00.000Z

Well, after yesterday, I can quite honestly say I never want to experience the pain that is yoga again. My back hurts :( And also, i got knocked in the leg with a chair, and bashed on the hip, so I have some rather large, rather impressive bruises, just so you know. Oh - and someone stood on my back yesterday as well. Yeah, not fun.

But anyway, yesterday I became a tourist and took some photos for you all around Bretton campus. So...

This is the fabulous Bretton Hall mansion. And no, I haven't altered this photo at all, the sky really is that blue here... hehe. This is where I have most of my classes.

Here is the main staircase in the mansion, although, i assure you, there are many more, which means that there is at least 3 ways of getting to each room in the mansion, using servant's passageways and main staircases, and different routes... which makes it rather confusing to get around, as I'm sure you can imagine.

This is a mural at the midway-point at the top of the stairs pictured above. Phil: remind you of Keepsake?

This is what was formerly the Stable Block of the halls, but is now the Experimental Theatre, which is a really nice little theatre here. I couldn't get any pictures of the Performance Centre, but that one is HUGE and a total performers' dream.

This is the view towards the Refectory from the Mansion. Thought it was quite pretty, and there were students rehearsing for a class, so quite atmospheric as well.

These are two of my friends, Srividya (left) and Isa (right). And they are sitting on an extentiony bit next to the mansion.

Anyway, I have another unreliable bus to go and catch, so I'll come and update you all later.

Want to see my room? (updated)

2006-09-28T11:12:00.000Z

Well, the IT training wasn't that good. In fact, it was plain stupid, considering one whole page of this rather large book was entitled "What is Internet Explorer?" Which, on it's own, looks a bit silly, but when you consider that everyone who goes to uni has to apply through UCAS which is WEB-BASED, it looks really dumb. Even if you use Firefox or some other browser, it's pretty straightforward, i mean, it's Windows.
ANYWAY...

As promised, some up-to-date photos of my room, since it changed somewhat after Phil and my Dad visited me last weekend. So...

Here is the view into my room again. You will notice the addition of a poster on the wall, some clutter on my windowsill, and the appearance of the laundry skip thing which was elsewhere. Riveting.

Here is the view of my computer area. You will see the bedside cabinet has now become an under-desk-food-cabinet type thing. Much prettier than a cardboard box that used to transport rubix cubes.

Here is my bed again, this time with a classy bookcase as a bedside table, and a rather nice poster on the wall. New, i might add.

And, for Phil's benefit, here is my new bookcase (he wanted me to post a photo of it here). Yay for the bookcase, as I now have somewhere to keep all my books and folders. And blackcurrant squash. If you look carefully on the top shelf, you may be able to see a white finger-puppet mouse. This is a present to someone in my applied drama class, as we had to bring a present for them today, which we had to make. So, my present is the mouse.

That's about it for now, i'm off to a class in 45 minutes, and have a Drama Society meeting tonight, which should be fun, so I'll tell you about all that when I come back next time.

IT Training..

2006-09-26T08:19:00.000Z

I caught the 8:40 bus here this morning, and instantly regretted it.
It's stupid, because I didn't even go to bed that late last night, but I still feel as if i'm going to fall asleep at the keyboard. I'm blaming entirely whoever it was that was tapping on someone's wall/door/something at 6:30 this morning, a time when I should have been enjoying a last half hour of sleep before having to get up to go. So yeah, I am liiittle bit cranky. And sleepy. So, so sleepy.
And why am I here at 8:40 in the morning when I have my no lessons or lectures, I hear you ask. Well, I have 2 hours worth of IT training today at 10. IT training which is compulsory because the university have paid for me to have it, despite the fact that I actually have a passable grade in A Level IT. And because the training is at 10, and the morning buses which leave The Lodge for Bretton are at either 8:40 or 10:05 (getting here at 10:20, I did consider it, of course), I had to get here an hour early. Which I'm really not happy about.

Anyway, this is my second proper day at uni, so I might as well tell you what I did yesterday. On my first day at uni, some sadistic person decided to put the only common module lecture at 9:00 on Monday morning. I only have two lectures to go to in a week, and the longest most general one is placed on a Monday morning. And the lecture wasn't even majorly interesting. It was all about different ways of learning, which isn't the most riveting stuff when you'd rather be in bed, as I'm sure you'd imagine. THEN we had to go into seminar groups to discuss the lecture, and all anyone could truly remember was an analogy about 5 monkeys, which wasn't particularly relevant either. It was here where we were forced into "tell us your name and age, where you come from and what EXCITES you about theatre" by a wide-eyed new lecturer here (although she has been teaching for 10 years). It was a most excruciating experience, and I never want to live it again. At least I only have to do that bit once a week. Our homework: look up some words in a dictionary. Great.
The afternoon, however, was much better. I went to my class on the module of my choice, Applied Theatre, which is basically about theatre and using it in the community (something not particularly new to me then!). That was really good fun, and the course looks like it's going to be really interesting. It's just a shame i'm only doing it for 5 weeks of the year :( So anyway, I'm looking forward to my second class for that, which is Thursday, and even though the classes are 3 hours long, you don't really realise it, which is probably the best thing!

I'm incredibly reliant on the buses to get around, which meant that even though my class finised at 4:15, i got home at 5:45, because I simply couldn't get an earlier bus. So, that's kind of annoying, but at least I have a bus pass now, which I will be using to it's full advantage and monetary value (eg. taking the bus back from Asda, usually a £1.60 fare for a 15 minute walk, and the like). I'm also becoming increasingly reliant on the internet, which is not a personal choice, not having one at the Lodge yet. All of the work we are being set seems to be internet based, which is annoying because obviously we have to leave here to go home, and therefore cannot do any work in the evening. Although when we were here yesterday afternoon/early evening, a guy did come up to us and tell us we had to be out of the computer clusters by 9.00pm, to which we replied, "Yes, we hope to be home by then too!"

So anyway, I should be getting on with some work, since I have hundreds of hours worth to complete yet, so I will come back (most definately with some photos next time) when I have some free time!

Arghs...

2006-09-22T10:38:00.000Z

Eugh... I got my timetable today, and although it seems rather empty (with no lessons scheduled on the Wednesday, and all lessons starting after 1 on three days of the week), the guy introducing us to the course made it clear that, including lessons, we had to complete 500 hours of study time thi semester. 500 hours. And they want us to be able to go to the theatre as well.. I don't know whether I'm going to be able to fit in sleeping and eating at this rate!

Phil and my Dad are coming to visit me today, so I need to be on a bus in 5 minutes, so I better keep this entry short, but next time hopefully I'll be able to post some photos of the beautiful Bretton Campus (and the mansion here!).

Hope everyone back home is ok!!

Want to see my room?

2006-09-20T11:20:00.000Z

Well, I'm here! It's a bit difficult to update regularly at the moment because, as those of you who have spoken to me will know, we don't have any internet access at all at the Lodge where i am living, so i'm having to come onto campus, or into Leeds (where i am now) to come and write on here and upload photos.
So anyway, I came into Leeds today to sort out my Student ID card for the university, and to pick my elective for my first semester. The ID card was sorted im about three minutes, but I look like i've been on a sunbed for too long... which is annoying since I have to use this card for the rest of the year now.. but meh. I chose "Stage Management" for my elective, which is handy because the lessons are on the Bretton Campus, which means I shouldn't have to travel too far for the 2 hours of lecture/lesson/practical time.

Anyway, something I had to put on here, simply because I was so pleased with myself is this:

This is my suitcase of clothes I took with me to last the year. If there was such a thing as 1337 packing, this would be it :D
Anyway, here are some pictures of my room at the Lodge. I have to say i was expecting something a lot smaller than this, so i was really pleased when i saw that i actually had more space in the uni accommodation than at home!

So... This is my bed, where I'd love to spend most of my time, but unfortunately will not be able to..

You see the "fragile" box under the bed? That's full of a kilo bag of pasta and cans of Cola. Student food - woo!

This is the main view of my room from my doorway. I'm not sure whether the lovely red curtains come as standard, but they really make my room pitch black when you turn the lights off at night.

And last (but most definately not least), is my desk and lovely computer. If you're ever tempted to use a JML cable tidy, put it down and walk away from the shop very quickly. They reckon that you can tidy cables away with their tools in seconds. It took me TWO HOURS to do mine. And I had to, because otherwise there would have been cables everywhere. So, if you have a choice, don't do it. For your own sanity.

Right, I'm off into Leeds to find an over-priced bus pass and a job (to support my purchases of bus passes). Email me if you need me, but don't expect a reply any time soon, what with the nearest connection being 4 miles from my house.

4 days to go...

2006-09-12T16:14:00.000Z

As you can see, I have taken my time to make this blog pretty, and have spent the best part of a couple of hours editing html to get what I want - I think the result makes it worthwhile!

Since not everyone knows exactly where I will be, here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of where I should be living for the next year.

This is The Lodge in Kettlesthorpe, and this is where all of the self-catering Bretton Campus students live. I was really chuffed to be living here, as the rooms are en-suite - which will be a nice change!

This is a sample picture of one of the rooms in The Lodge. All looks very comfy and nice, eh?

As the title of this entry suggests, I am moving in exactly 4 days time, which means I should probably have spent the time I was playing around with html packing and reading some of my coursebooks... but I guess there's those 4 days to do that in :)

I'll put some photos of my real room up on here once I'm there!

Welcome to my blog!

2006-09-06T20:29:00.000Z

This blog has been set up so that I can keep all of you who are interested in the mundane happenings of my life up to date while I'm away at the University of Leeds. Unlike my previous blog, which fell into a poor state of disrepair, I am hoping to keep this one relatively up to date and offensive-material-free.

Although, of course, I can't make any promises.

So, anyway, I will update this when I have actually moved.. which will be in exactly 10 days..
oooh, that's pretty close and scary actually.

I'll let you know more when I have some interesting things to tell you :)