gettin' blitzed

I've done all the available readings for this week, I've gone for a run (?!?!), I've bought ridiculous amounts of produce, and have been back in London for over a week. I've done some minor ukulele playing, even. And yet, my suitcase remains unpacked. Well, it's been opened, the ukulele retrieved, and the clothes sort of strewn about everywhere as if I was an Important Person and spies had rummaged through my personal effects looking for secret documents and hoping to Send A Message. There is nothing left to do now except unpack it, probably.

Careless Whiskers

Monica 22:14:
I had the WEIRDEST sleeping hours today.
Like, asleep from 4 am last night to 7:30 this morning, then wide awake til 11:00, back to sleep til 2:00. Then awake til 4:00, and napped til 5:00.

Melissa 22:14:
What even is that?

Monica 22:16:
Basically those are a cat's sleeping hours. Which helps me achieve my goal of being more cat-like in everyday life, but also more or less ensured that I did nothing today.
Cats don't have jobs for a reason.

Melissa 22:18:
Mmmm this is true.
Wouldn't life be great if you were a cat??
SO GREAT.

Running Wild

Sometimes you feel great about the Master's Programme (the extra 'm' and 'e' mean it's a big deal) you are in, and sometimes you are in class while the director of a theatre company asks you to stand "relaxed, with your feet shoulder width apart, but your hips slightly backwards, like you're holding a penny between your bum cheeks, and with your chest out, and stomach inwards as though someone's putting a needle through it. Calmly." Sure.

In other news, I brought a ukulele back to London with me, basically 100% because of this:

Someone hook me up with some butt fringe and we are in business.

The Girl Kant Help It

I think there is so much comedy about airplanes because flying is actually kind of terrifying and horrible if you think about it, and laughter is a good way of dealing with things that are difficult or scary (she said, exposing a world of neuroses to the internet). But really, about once every flight that I take, I have a moment where I realize that I have NO idea how what is happening is happening. I could just google how planes work, but I suspect technically getting it would be of little help towards actually knowing what the eff is going on. I know it is something to do with wings and wind and maybe something called aerials or vectors, but realistically I am about as clueless as the 1800sy people who were around when planes first became a thing.

"Well, Marple, I'm getting into this big metal bird, and with some luck and help from the sweet lord who is for sure real and governs all of our movements, eventually I will be back in the warm, colonial arms of mother europe. God save the King, right?" - Me, basically.

Marple = incredibly common 19th century name, obviously.

Other things that I don't know how they work and which you could tell me were magic and I would proooobably just be alright with it:

I do not deserve to be a grad student.

Haven’t written much because I’ve come home for the holidays and have been too busy eating high-calorie meals with long lost pals, getting drunk with elderly relatives, and making out merry all over the city of Toronto. This is a good place. 

While looking through boxes in my mum’s LOVELY new place in Cabbagetown, I found a folder full of my undergraduate essays, including a gem called: ‘“What a rant, say you, is here”: Problematizing Edward Young’s conception of ‘Originality’ and the Author in his ‘Conjectures on Original Composition’’. First off, I’m not sure when I discovered the formula for essay-titles, but if anyone is not aware yet, this is it:

Witty pun or quote/Colon/Explanatory bit about your essay with a few academic-sounding words. 

e.g. Pic of the Litter: The politics of cats, captions and ‘laughing out loud’ in the internet’s postmodern milieu.

A+.

The essay I found is not exceptional. I did fine on it, but reading it over, it mostly just ramblingly contradicts Edward Young’s opinion that imitation is a low and ultimately useless form of creative output. (Sorry, everyone after Madonna.) My chosen approach to debunking this theory was to craft some imitative poems of my own, and being the hopeless Bard-worshipper I am, I rewrote some of the more famous sonnets. About cheese. And Maury Povich.

Hoff the hook.

I'm not going to dignify the closed airports with a post. I think we can just all agree that 10 centimetres of snow should not completely shut down one of the world's busiest airports for 48 hours, and move on. Fuck you, Heathrow airport, you are terrible, the end.

In happier news, I don't even need to go home, or even stay alive, really. I could just die right now and it would be okay, because I saw this:

Look at those gentle yet mischievous eyes. They're looking right into your sense of childlike wonder 

(and love of dirty jokes about 'rodgering').

The photo doesn't make it clear what THIS is, but I think it does make it clear that this is amazing. Basically, when we heard that David Hasselhoff was starring as Captain Hook in a children's Christmas panto, we had no choice. Tickets were purchased, the train was ridden to Wimbledon in the bitter cold (a newspaper literally described it as a "bone-chilling -2 degrees", so...) and the greatest theatrical journey of my life unfolded.

"Just look at the camera for a.... there we go."

Watching Bridget Jones on my next door neighbour's telly (just kidding that is not a real word I would use, although I'm all about "chunder" to mean "vomit") last week I realized that its eponymous heroine lives right around the corner from my house. Mainly this lead me to consider why, despite the millions of times I have embarrassed myself in the area through "charming" Bridget Jones-y mishaps (falling, clothing malfunctions, a general lack of awareness regarding British traffic directions, etc.), I have not been asked on a date by a beautiful-if-horrible Hugh Grant type and then rescued from that terrible relationship by beautiful-and-perfect Colin Firth. Not the type, just the man himself.

And then I realized that I carry the reason in my wallet.