Fireworks

I ran into Flo the other day. For those not in know, Flo was the only other Burgher who I knew in Melbourne, though I'd really only say that we properly met one another in Melbourne. This is the first time I've seen Flo since coming back, and it was nice to have a tangible link to that year, especially since she echoed many of the same sentiments I've been expressing recently: it feels like longer than four months since we left; it doesn't feel like we were there for a year; it seems like it didn't really happen; and, most importantly, Edinburgh feels like a goddamned fridge-freezer in a way that it just didn't before we left- Melbourne has stripped us of our ability to withstand the weather here in the frozen wasteland that used to be Scotland. This last one is particularly interesting, because Flo is from Dundee originally- so it's not just me with my inferior English blood being a wuss; doing a year abroad actively changes your genetic make-up and makes you better than other people more susceptible to changes in temperature.

Another unexpected side-effect of my time in Aussie-land is that I have a newly acquired disdain for Christmas decorations. Seeing them out of context (i.e. in a land which is pretty much green all year round and where it's light and hot during winter), made me start to view them in a completely different light. And I now can't help but harrumph when I see weird blue star shapes in the windows of the shops on the high street.

Jason giving his famous Hannibal lecture about how ridiculous it is that Australian Hallowe'en decorations include orange leaves, when it occurs during their Spring.

I can't help but feel that this is the start of my transformation into that thing I hate the most: a contrarian. Those people always complaining about Christmas and birthdays and anything else that makes people happy becoming something designed to make people happy (admittedly, with the added cost of massive consumerism) rather than the original pagan festival/unmarked day/whatever. I like getting excited about silly things- it adds spice to life- and this newfound ennui is an unwelcome change.

I have had a complicated with fireworks ever since I was three years old and a firework went off right behind me while I was sat upon my father's shoulders, which understandably made me somewhat...recalcitrant towards fireworks shows.
This is a shame, because one of the few interesting things to happen in Ironbridge every year is the Power Station Fireworks Show, which is so utterly spectacular that it makes us all forget the horrible, horrible things that that station is doing to our air. I especially had a problem with the noise- I remember covering my ears and then complaining that my ears were too warm because I was wearing gloves (I cannot overemphasise how irritating I was as a child). Anyway, I eventually began to get over this insecurity and actually enjoy watching technicolour explosions in the sky, especially the one time Becky gave me a ticket to the Virgin Fireworks Concert in the park. That was just magical.
Anyway, I had a rehearsal last night, and some of the Fresher members of the panto cast were discussing climbing Arthur's Seat to view the pyrotechnics from on high and I flashed back to when I did this in my own first year and realised that none of the people I climbed that hill with- Dillon, Callie and, if I remember correctly, Rosie- are here anymore. This made me sad even though all of them left of their own free-will and, in the case of the first two, they weren't expected to stick around and it would just be odd had they done so.
Due to an essay which I am meant to be writing even now, I ended up watching the various Meadows-centric fireworks displays through the Library windows, which may actually be the perfect way to do it: with none of the noise that used to cause me such duress, and the warmth of a building that students aren't paying to heat. Lovely.

And, finally, I saw Gem yesterday. Gem is someone with whom I had a fraught relationship- she would utterly agree with me about this. However, before I left, I apologised and lamented that she and I had not been friends. She agreed, and we left with a hug. When I saw her yesterday, it was smiles all around. It's nice to see that buried hatchets don't always have to resurface.

You can sleep when you graduate

The Bedlam Hallowe'en party was this weekend and I was faced with the quintessential student dilemna: the party started at half midnight and ended at five in the morning, but I had a commitment at nine the next day and a full day of studenting thereafter. On top of this, this was my projected final Bedlam Hallowe'en party, so I decided to do the immature thing and just stay up all night and complain about it later, because I can be mature when I'm older.

I had a great time, got quite smashed, danced a lot and then was chased down by the corridor by this ghoulish spectre:

by the light of day, she doesn't seem so horrifying, but at the time I was so scared, I actually fell onto the cold, unforgiving floor of the Box Office, begging not to die and, bizarrely, laughing my lungs sore.

The panto rehearsals have begun, and I have been given free rain to ad lib some of my lines; the thing is, that my last rehearsal ended up just being me and Craig Methven, and adlibbing in front of Craig is like showing your chemistry homework to Stephen Hawking- you may have got the answers right and he might give you a smiley face, but you can't help but feel he'd have done it better.

Last night there was a fundraiser for Goblin's Story, which involved a Shrekian mixing of fairytales, as well as a Carterian reimagining of all those fairtale characters as horrible, deeply disturbed people: there was a cannibalistic fairy, a kleptomaniac leprechaun and a gingerbread man who kept handing out his children to other people to eat. The fundraiser took the form of an interactive adventure, in which participants went from one character to another, trading coins for information or necessary items and supposedly helping the characters along the way, but I couldn't help but feel that the real way to help these characters would have been industrial grade therapy.

And finally, I got lost while walking to the Omni centre on Saturday- I then got lost walking to Lothian Road on Sunday; these are both places I have been many times and I don't tend to consider the route as I'm walking there. But it seems I might have to start, because I discovered that roads don't seem to lead where I think they do. It's times like this that I remember I've actually only really been living in this city for a month and a half.

Time Flies by in the City of Light

I climbed Calton Hill today for the first time since coming back: it was night, freezing cold, but very beautiful. Edinburgh from above is so pretty, and very bright- I know light pollution is a blight of modern life et cetera, but all those man-made lights glowing in the darkness was actually quite captivating. I will miss this city when I leave, and I acknowledge that I've been very lucky, aesthetically speaking, in my choice of university city.
It's reading week for me, which means that I have no classes- yay!- and also that we're halfway through semester- boo! There is so little time left in my uni career, that I can hear it dwindling, like a fuse being burnt through. My Dissertation Supervisor actually wants me to move on to the data collection portion of my experiment, whereas I had envisaged myself doing so around late February. Once the data is in, I have to start analysing it, and then I have really crossed the rubicon. The point of no return.
Esmond and I took a walk on Monday, and wound up at debate corner, where we sat on benches and realised that we don't argue like we used to. And, it's odd, but I sort of miss having near diametrically opposed views to my best friend- I could always count on him to bring up a (completely incorrect) stance that I hadn't considered, and I liked the challenge involved. Still, having a relationship based on mutual respect and shared values is good too. I guess.

Don't You Forget About Me

On Thursday, I believe I did something which will undoubtedly make it into the inevitable biopic of my life: having not seen Freya for 16 months, something in my head snapped and I decided that this had gone on too long.
You see, I did not have her mobile number, email address or Facebook, and she never comes on Skype, so I knew drastic measures were necessary. To that end, I put on my extremely fetching wellington boots, and marched to where I thought she lived- I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely sure of the address. One glance through her second floor window from street level confirmed that I was at the right place- Freya has huge chunks of trees scattered haphazardly about her abode, a decorating motif that I believe is fairly unique- so, now I just had to play the waiting game. I won't say how long I waited outside her window, with the lit lightbulb as my only clue that she was even in, but the same man did walk past me twice, and gave me a look which suggested I was standing on the street for a longer time than is normal.
Now, I know that in certain circumstances, standing outside someone's home in the fleeting hope of seeing them is pretty creepy, but I think this was not the case here because: A) Freya had not rejected me, told me to stay away or expressed a preference for not seeing me (quite the opposite, in fact) B) if she had told me to leave, I would have C) I didn't remember which flat number she was, so I couldn't buzz up D) I had literally no other way of contacting her.
Anyway, eventually Freya passed fleetingly by the window, and I started to wave. She completely missed me and went back to where I couldn't see her (as previously stated, her flat was on the second floor, so I had to stand at the opposite side of the road to see anything). At this point, I had to make a choice whether to stay, or head home and start my sociolinguistics essay. I decided to wait it out.
About ten minutes later, Freya walked by the window again, and this time, much to the shock of the man walking past, I started doing star jumps and waving my arms about my head like a man possessed. Freya paused. The man walking past hurried his step. I started to point emphatically at my head, meaning 'IT'S ME!'. Freya looked confused, and opened up her foggied window. The look on her face was amazing; it was a mixture of complete surprise and total joy. She shouted to me 'COME UP!' and I shouted back 'I TRIED, YOUR DOOR'S LOCKED!', she disappeared from view and I heard the familiar buzz of a front door unlocking.
I jogged up and reached the top of the stairs just as she opened the door, and we embraced each other the way friends do when they haven't seen each other for far too long. She welcomed me in, despite the relatively late hour and complete unexpectedness of my visit; her mother was there too- she and I met once during Fringe in first year, but she greeted me like a long-lost son.
Freya and I drank, we went to a birthday party of her drum teacher and caught up with one another to a degree, but it's difficult to cover a year in a couple of hours, so we promised to meet again soon. I owe Freya quite a lot of alcohol, so she has a good incentive to see me again.

P.S. It should be noted, for posterity's sake, that we met again the next day in the meadows quite by chance, rendering my little window stunt quite unnecessary. Oh well, it'll make a nice visual for the movie.

Simple Pleasures

This evening, I rediscovered two pleasures that were denied me while in Australia: the joy of jumping in puddles while wearing wellington boots (this will definitely be going on the booty list), and the pleasure of Murder Mystery Evenings.

On the first: I have not actually owned a pair of Wellingtons since I was, I believe, ten, when I started wearing them to school after playing in my garden of a morning, tracking mud into the carpets of Coalbrookdale Primary and was eventually forcibly divested of them. However, my adoring mother offered to buy me one practical birthday present (after Daphne*, my laptop, pretty much used up my birthday/christmas presents for the next two years), and I decided on Wellington Boots, having used up my being-mistaken-for-a-hobo-quota during Amadeus which means my normal bags-upon-my-feet plan cannot be deployed.

The wellies in question, next to the bag they replaced.

There was only one very rainy day that I can remember in Australia, which means this most infantile of activities was not available, but I think, even if the weather had been wetter, my steadfast refusal to purchase sensible footwear there would have stumped me.
I had forgotten the catharsis of jumping into a puddle and not getting wet feet- I especially like that I can feel the water through my wellingtons, so it's kind of like paddling but without having to dry my feet afterwards or risk Wheeler's disease, which is the closest candidate for the Best of Both Worlds I've ever encountered. So, I danced through the rain all the way home, singing a rather predictable song to myself and feeling quite ecstatic.

And now to the Murder Mystery: I didn't know anyone there. Like, anyone. And I arrived in character and maintained it pretty much the entire evening (there was one fit of giggles, but I managed to cover it up, I think), so as far as these people were aware, I was Alexander Bernadov, russian-orphan-turned-mafia-hitman-turned-Edinburgh-student.
This reminded me slightly of my time travelling alone in Australia and New Zealand, when I would routinely give fake names and backstories to anyone who would listen- and some who wouldn't- simply to try out being some one else.
The mystery itself was also majorly enjoyable, and properly Casimovian in its incest-related twists. It was good to be doing improv again, having not tried it since the Amadeus rehearsal bootcamp. I arrived, met new people, pretended to be someone else for a couple of hours and then left- it was my court date all over again!

Dames

There was going to be a different blog post in place of this one, but I was advised by a friend that its contents might have been a little too...vitriolic. And so now that and friend and I will be the only ones who know that post's contents, and its brilliance will be lost to the annals of history. That friend is Rachel Bussom, and she will probably tell you if you ask. As will I, to be honest: it was about Freshers.

I've been cast as the Dame in this year's pantomime, which makes me inordinately happy for a number of reasons- I get to work with a lot of my friends, it's normally a fun show to be in, I like attention- but the main reason is because it sounds suitably 'larky': David Mitchell devoted roughly two pages in his autobiography to discussing all the times he'd played women (This remains the finest such instance, in my humble opinion), and I'm hoping I can wrangle one or two good dinner-table stories out of it.
Of course, I've played women before (I even had a drag persona when I was younger- Mrs. Raspberry, who'd come in and tell off my sisters)- I was Flute in Midsummer Night's Dream, requiring me to don a dress and my most bored falsetto (Bored Falsetto could totally be the name of my autobiography, in which I pass THREE pages discussing the various cross-dressing shenanigans of my life) and I was Elderly Prostitute in The Good Person of Szechuan, requiring the most nuanced performance I have ever given.

"Searing"- The Academy of Prostitution Arts and Sciences

Look at the pain on my face. God, I'm talented.

Matthew came up to visit over the weekend, and I passed several pleasant hours conversing with him and secretly sweating over exactly what I'll do when I leave Uni; I phoned my mum after one of our talks and she urged me to see him again, as this is apparently something to which I should definitely be devoting brain power.

I'm still running into people whom I haven't encountered since leaving for Australia, and getting comments about my hair, including Matthew's rather tart 'short hair gets the jobs', to which I say 'pish'.

And finally, Travis has learnt to do Jazz hands, making me even more convinced and terrified than usual that he is somehow my son.

And I said "What About Breakfast at Poppy's?"

I just passed an enjoyable ninety minutes playing table tennis with Jari and Daniel, and this made me nostalgic for my days as a score board while Adrian beat Jason; I'm finding a lot of things make me nostalgic right now- I could've sworn I saw a poster advising me to vote for Remy Chadwick as my NUS Representative the other day, and I no longer find Snax as appetising, having discovered the joys of Hot Poppy's with Charlotte.
I'll be honest: Australia feels a long time ago to me now. I'm still running into people I haven't seen since I left (and getting very encouraging comments about my hair), and it's weird to answer all their questions about how my year abroad was when it seems to me that that was a different time of my life. It's like if they asked me how Primary School was.
I understand that this is incredibly self-pitying and that, frankly, if this is all I have to worry about, I'm doing pretty great; but I don't like how easily my brain begins to fog past events even when they were one of the most joyous experiences I've ever had.
But I guess this can't be helped.

In other news, my dissertation is coming along quite well: I've made contact with BLoGS and am, overall, sensing enthusiasm to be involved in the project, which is so relieving. I've always viewed BLoGS as one of my few real failings, as I underwent a (completely unnecessary, I now see) self-imposed exile from the group after Bob, when I could've been reaching and making new friends since first year, if I'd just had more wiles.

I went to the careers fair yesterday, and found it quite disturbing: lots of the businesses there simply would not take me on, due to my choice of degree/area of interest and many of the graduate management schemes are not only starting very soon, but are also only taking on a pitifully minute number of graduates, and I now feel I've lost plan B even before I formulated it.
However, I did find that I am eligible to do a one-year Teacher conversion course, and that Esmond isn't, which made me really happy in an extremely spiteful kind of way (Henriette said I'm allowed a little bit of spite, now and then).