Who watches the Wedgeman?

Title from Anthony Burgess' book on the oh so sublime Finnegans Wake. I love it. I'm also reading lots of Samuel Beckett at the moment. I have a teensy feeling that the version of the Trilogy I have is probably better in French. Oh wells. And tonight, I'm off to see The Importance of Being Earnest at the Taliesin with Alexa and most likely a bunch of people I don't know. Should be fun.

I was also going to go to the SUCS Lightning talks last night and discuss memes and things, but they were kinda cancelled as nobody could get into the Robert Recorde Room in a silly fashion. Er, what else? The weather's been all nice, which is good. I'm still working hard on dissertationy bits, as the title and stuff kinda indicates. I'm not sure what else to talk about, really. I'm being a bit of a crap friend. The Anime soc will continue next year (that reminds me, I must get handover forms done soon), er... Nope, that's sadly most of the stuffs I have at the moment. Oh one more thing, people should read The Witness by James Jauncey, I met him at a research seminar the other day and he was quite cool. The extracts I heard from the book are great quality too. Other than that, enjoy seeing my arms, as the sun coming out means I tend to abandon my longsleeve/shortsleeve thing. On the other hand, I don't get to have the fun of looking through my jacket and coat collection for something appropriate. Oh well, some you win, some you lose.

Hey all. Occasionally I do stuff. Here's some stuff I did today:

" Three days, three hours. She stared down the clock, daring it to move. Time had been mocking her with every single tick since her niece had disappeared to find food. Four days, four hours. No water, no food.

Absence is the hardest part of life. To face absence is to face terror. Five days, five hours. The sound of the falling shells became as rhythmic as the achingly slow tick of the clock; as the sound of the blood pounding in her head. The colours were starting to swim.

She was face to face with terror now and it consumed her. A burst of movement; a single bullet, matching the clock's tick perfectly. Six days, six hours. The clock had stopped."

 That was a really poor piece of fiction I wrote in about 20 minutes as part of my Writing Trauma module. It's slightly adapted from real testimonies in Both Right and Left Handed: Arab Women Talk about Their Lives and from things I've read in The Eye of the Mirror. So why did I choose to do this? Well, it was an unusually creative response to the stuff I'd read. We were told to write something like that, just a couple of paragraphs done as a group. My group's eventual effort was sadly crap (they did hold onto one or two of my good ideas, like the clock and the time motif, but abandoned much of the rest of it).

 What else is going on in my life? Well, I'm unwell. This is very sucky. The SUCS guys and the SUMA guys and the Sci-fi guys (try saying that ten times fast!) are all cool and overlapping. This means there might be some sort of Swansea University Geek Alliance (SUGA, pronounced "sugar") at some point in the future. It would be cool to have been a part of forming that. Well, cool in a very geeky way.

 I've received everything in Fables that has been published. It's a series that keeps getting better and better (although I'm starting to miss Bigby. He's bound to come back soon). Basically, it's set in modern New York where a group of characters from myth and legend cohabit, having been exiled from their home. Prominent fables are Prince Charming, Snow White, Beauty and Beast and, my personal favourite, the chain-smoking, generally unkempt and perpetually unshaven son of the North Wind, Bigby Wolf. Ok, so he's just John Constantine again, but he's still awesome.

I'm afraid I have to come clean to anyone that doesn't already know, I've finished my exam. Appointments to punch me in the face can be made via e-mail but book now or miss your chance forever...

In other news (delivered in short sentences): Napoleon Dynamite is awesome.  I have too much washing. Crime and Punishment is really nifty. My Tower of Change is starting to wobble slightly. I can't think of useful things to say. I'll stop now.

First off, apologies to anyone who tried to click the 'o' in 'over'. This is not an episode of Teen Girl Squad but is in fact, another one of those updates on my life. With my workload down near zero, I've been trying to find some fun stuff to do. James sent me a helpful exam question because he felt I didn't have enough to do. It reads as follows:

Q1) 'The Turn of the Screw'*

a) "The narrator is a mentalist, she's just seeing things" - discuss. (20 marks)

b) Compare and contrast the book with 'Jane Eyre' (20 marks)

N.B. Complaining about the examiner's spelling, punctuation and/or grammar will force him to award a zero mark - i.e. it is unfair practice.

Answers on a postcard, I guess, guys. I'm looking forward to the Guildpact prerelease with what can only be described as a near-religious level of fervour. The Gruul, in spite of their silly name, seem to be right up my street, being, as they are, filled with enormous R/G fatties and efficient smaller beatsticks. Hurrah. My exam wasn't perfect, but then I'm not sure I've ever had a perfect exam. I spent the first minute or so panicking slightly having read the question and the passage it related to. The passage itself was from somewhere in the middle (i.e. the dull bit with Stephen and Rachael) of 'Hard Times' and was, as you might expect, a little short on bits of critical analysis to do but I think I managed reasonably well. I expect not to get a totally terrible mark, but who knows, really?

Last night was great fun as we had an impromptu gaming session with Jed and Mike turning up randomly to pester James, Phil and Mark (who I believe were trying to sleep, mainly) followed by me. An excellent way to end the first semester, I think. 

I think I best go and get reading some of my course texts for next year. I ordered a copy of 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Ulysses' by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce respectively for my 'Modernism and Modernity' course and quite look forward to reading them, actually. The whole course should (hopefully) be quite interesting. Right, I hope anyone who was curious has had their curiosity satisfied. 

Hello. I hope you appreciate the time I took to come up with that rhyme in the title there for you. It was awesomely awe-inspiring. Right, to get to the point, I'm ridiculously busy once more. But, you know what? Instead of complaining, I'm actually really enjoying it. I recall being told innumerable times, mostly by teachers, when I was younger that schooldays are the best days of your life. I seemed to disagree somewhat in my usual 'angry at the world for lying' way. (Unhappy childhood, don't ask.) My father, on the other hand, told me otherwise. He said that the best days of his life had been at university (or more accurately, medical school) and recalled all the friends he had made (some of whom he still keeps in contact with) the mischief he got up to and so on. I was naturally wary of all of this sort of thing as I was wary of all his advice, particularly the 'there is no answer to "why are we here?" I don't know it, and I can't tell you'. I remember convincing myself that he wasn't telling me because I wasn't old enough. The upshot of all this is that he was right. University is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me. I seem happy, well-adjusted, (probably not in terms of fashion but I've never really been one to identify what is stylish and what is stupid) coping well with the finance stuff, enjoying nearly every minute of my time here and not in a selfish way either. I ironed one of Andy's shirts today just because I could. Because it was a nice thing to do, and it was kinda fun. I played cards with everyone else yesterday and actually rather enjoyed myself. I wrote most of an essay today so that it can be easily finished either later today or tomorrow at the latest and enjoyed myself doing it. Something about either university life or Swansea really appeals to me. Probably not Swansea, on second thoughts, due to the imminence of rain. I'm loving how happy I am, all I need is a girlfriend and I'll be set. :)

So thank you, dad, you were right. These really are the best days of my life.

OMG EXCITING UPDATE!

So, yes. Dad sent me one of those electronic mails to let me know he'd seen this entry and he had the following to say: "Thanks for pointing me to your blog - I really appreciated reading it and the sentiments contained in it. I could go for the 'I told you so' approach but that would be unfair. It is only with growing up and increasing maturity that you can look and evaluate how things have changed. I am very happy that you are enjoying your time in Swansea and you have found friends and a niche where you can feel comfortable and happy.

I liked the bit about ironing the shirt - doing stuff for other people can
be rewarding - I guess I wouldn't cope as a doctor if I didn't get personal
reward and pleasure from this. I was also pleased to see that some work
featured in it as success with this will help your self esteem and hopefully
lead to other paths."

He also had this enlightening comment to offer: "if you want to publish the first 2 paragraphs as a reply on your blog you can do but don't feel you have to." So there we are.
Dad, you're as famous as Andy's mum now. Hurrah.

Aha! My exams are done and I'm ready to party. Save for fact that I don't really want to party. It's not that they went terribly badly or anything like that, more a dislike of partying. I'm such a spoilsport. Still waiting on the Royal Mail to deliver my goods. They are starting to annoy me rather a bit, now. I suppose I should just learn patience, really. And maybe enough html to make a very basic SUCS webpage. Oh well, at least there are fewer things with 'test' written all over them in this blog now. Joy. Once again, thanks to rollerchris, andybyte and all the others for sorting this out. You guys rock.