Archive for September, 2004

Back in Cam…

Fyse September 29th, 2004

I haven’t posted for a while, so I’ll do a quick recap of what’s been happening. I’m now back in Cambridge, having moved in on Sunday afternoon, and have been getting settled back into college. I’m pleased with my room this year (modern, well-designed room with ensuite), but have to confess to slight pangs of jealousy when I saw some of my friends rooms. The disgracefully meritocratic system at my college determines that obtaining a 1st in end of year exams puts you at the top of the room ballot, enabling you to select one of the wonderful old rooms. Several friends have a massive living room as well as a seperate bedroom, but I’m not bitter. Not even slightly.

The nominal reason for my early return is so that I can ‘make use of the library facilities before term starts’. This is partly true, but it’s also nice to settle in before term starts properly. As I mentioned previously, this year is going to be one of studious and conscientious study, mixed in carefully determined proportion with wild and hedonistic partying. It’s a fine line to tread, but it’s there somewhere. I don’t need to cut down on the ‘extra-curricular activities’, I just need to cut out the ’sitting on my arse’ that so frequently filled idle hours last year.

The other news, of course, is that my sister flys home this weekend. She’s been in Tanzania for the past 9 months teaching on a health education scheme, and is scheduled to land at Heathrow at 06.00 this Saturday. The only minor complication to this plan is that, after almost nine months, and with only a week to go, she’s managed to get malaria. For those of you who know about these things, she has grade 2 malaria, but I can’t pretend that means very much to me. With proper healthcare (which she does appear to be receiving), she ought to be fine again in no time, and apparently symptoms are like a very bad bout of flu. Still, not pleasant, and not a good way to end her time in Africa.

It has been pointed out to me that my website looks pretty lame at any resolution other than 1024×768. Those of you running at different settings, I apologise. I’m gonna redesign the entire site at some point, but for now you’ll have to make do. I really ought not waste time on it at the moment, so it may have to wait until a much later date. When I was designing the site, I did try to do it such that the entire look of the site was fixed by CSS, and would therefore be relatively painless to change, but I got rather sloppy by the end. It may end up being a long, drawn out and protracted nightmare. Don’t worry, I shall be sure to whinge massively, thereby passing on a proportion of the unpleasantness to you, my loyal readers.

New pics & hereditary indolence…

Fyse September 25th, 2004

I’ve sorted out the ‘Utopia Unlimited’ photos now, so feel free to take a look. To be honest, I don’t suppose there’ll be much of interest to most of you, but there are a few reasonable shots hidden amongst the dross.

Looks like I’m definitely going back to uni this Sunday, which is great. It’s amazing quite how much I miss the place, but I guess it is over three months since I was last there. This year wont be as much fun as the last two, however, because I will be working very much harder. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my week of exams last year was the most stressful of my life, and there’s no way I’m gonna put myself through that again. I was utterly convinced I was going to fail, and while I didn’t, I know I can do much better. This year, I’m gonna get off to a good start, and build from there. (I can almost here my friends chuckling at this, shaking their heads as if to say ‘poor old Nick, always deluding himself’. Well, your wrong. After all, I’ve only got to change the habits of a lifetime, right?)

Actually, I fear I’m fighting forces more powerful than habit alone. I am a slacker, born and bred, just as my father before me, and probably his before him. Is there a slacking gene? If so, I am surely a carrier. Are slackers formed purely by environmental factors? Who knows, but as I delight in pointing out to my parents, be it nature or nurture it is still their fault. My brother is similarly afflicted, but while my sister suffered badly in her youth, she seems now to have shaken free from sloth’s languid yet obstinate grasp. Perhaps one day I shall be similarly liberated.

Looking back, I can’t actually remember a time before lethargy and indolence possesed my very soul. Even my junior school reports, (from ages 7-11), mention my reluctance to finish things. At secondary school, I reached new levels/depths with every passing year, my GCSE projects being a case in point. For my Geography project, I worked for 19 of the 24 hours before it was due in, and technology had me trying to complete two projects in a similar time frame, neither of which ever worked properly. At university, I’m always sprinting desperately towards the lab with barely minutes remaining. (Though I have to say that I’m one of many. Cycling back from the lab last time, I was somewhat gratified to see panicked and fraught faces heading in the opposite direction.)

Anyway, if I’m gonna be a productive and dynamic go-getter tomorrow, I’d better get some sleep. I’ve got a lot to sort out before heading back to uni, and you should see the state of my room. On second thoughts, if I really thought you ought to see it, I could just take a photo and post it here. In reality, you really, really shouldn’t see my room.

Quick Pic…

Fyse September 24th, 2004

No time for a proper post now (need sleep) but I’ll post a photo quickly. I thought I’d keep my photoblog for photos taken with my phone, so I’ll shove this photo here.

Mousehole at dawn

Pretty, no? It’s a photo of sunrise at a place called Mousehole, about 10 mins walk from the village we were staying at in Cornwall. It was taken at the end of the after-show party, when everyone decided it’d be a good idea to wander down the hill to watch the sun rise over the bay. It was a good idea.

Who’s a clever boy then?

Fyse September 23rd, 2004

I’ve worked out to resize the picture link to my Photoblog, (which automatically updates to display the most recent image), so you should see it now on the link bar to the left. (Actually, you’ll only see it if you have a javascript enabled browser, but if you haven’t then you’re unlikely to have CSS-P either, which means this site will be all over the place anyway.)

It wasn’t really very tricky to do, and any self-respecting computer geek would probably have taken all of 30 seconds over it, but it looks pretty neat. The great thing about it updating automatically is that you can tell at a glance whether there’s anything new to see. I know you’re all so relieved about that.

Caffeine, Stats & Shakespeare…

Fyse September 23rd, 2004

I bought an espresso pot today, and a milk frother, so am fully kitted out with home cappuccino equipment. Experiments so far have been, well, reasonable. Not great, but passable at least. I’ve actually come to the conclusion that I don’t necessarily like cappuccino very much (and that’s a general thing, not just my version of it). Espresso’s great though. This pot does a triple shot, so I’m worried I’m gonna get into the habit of going to 9 am lectures completely wired on caffeine. Nothing wakes you up better than espresso. So much better than diluting your caffeine hit with large quantities of warm milk.

On a different note, I’m a little suspicious of my site statistics, since there’s been a massive surge in visits in the last 24 hours. Am I seriously to believe that over 50 people have visited me today? Hardly likely, and apparently 8 of them were returning visitors. As far as I am aware, I have only three regularly returning visitors, and that’s it. If so many people randomly turned up at my site today, where the hell did they all come from, eh?

Anyway, if any of you out there have randomly stumbled across this little backwater of the WWW, and you feel that you might be part of the sudden stampede, leave a comment and tell me what the hell is going on. In fact, anyone who reads this, leave a bloody comment! I know you’re there, cos my stats tell me so.

Hold on, does that seem too needy? Should I be writing this solely for myself, giving two fingers to the world in general if they don’t like it? Maybe I’m not being controversial enough to provoke comment, but I’d like to think it’s cos my arguments are so elegant and beautifully constructed that they are entirely irrefutable. Pffft. (That was intended to convey an ‘as if’ expelling of air from between pursed lips, by the way.)

I spent the last few mins going through the ETG website, looking at photos. The European Theatre Group is a Cambridge company that takes a touring production of Shakespeare round mainland Europe for three weeks just before Christmas every year. I really want to do it one year, and have auditioned twice so far, but the competition is probably the highest of any production. Unluckily, the ETG was the first audition I ever did in Cambridge, (I had no clue what a big deal it was), and I proceeded to make a complete tit of myself in front of the panel of four. Last year’s wasn’t so bad (I did at least get a recall) and you know what they say; Third time lucky. (As ever, I have know idea whether that semi-colon was used correctly. Anyone?).

This is just one of those random and rambling posts. Nothing of any import or gravity to say, but waffling on regardless. I’ve half written a post about the Minack, but it’s drivel at the moment. Then again, I’m about to post this, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much about artistic merit.

Return of the Prodigal Son…

Fyse September 20th, 2004

Ok, I am now officially back, and will therefore be returning at full tilt to the blogging fields. Three weeks with only a mobile phone for technological company has ended, and, whilst my typing skills seem to have evapourated into the ether, I can now post properly without the need to wrestle my phone for overall creative control. (Predictive text input is such a double-edged sword.) There’s an overwhelmingly large amount of stuff to say about the three weeks in Cornwall and I don’t really know where to start, but at least now I’ve made first contact again I can feel free to blog about other things in the mean time. I’ll tell you all about the Minack in stages, and probably once I’ve got some visual aids to make things a bit more interesting.

I’m painfully aware how pants the weblog section of my site is looking at the moment. The link photo to my photoblog is too big, and the word ‘September’ has made the jump-box thing too wide for the sidebar as well. If I find time, I’ll change the width of the sidebar but for now you’ll just have to put up with it I’m afraid. I’m wondering whether I can spare the time to do a complete redesign of the entire site, in fact, since the the whole look now seems rather ill-advised. I could do with something a little more flexible, and that photo has to go…

Theatrical update…

Fyse September 13th, 2004

Well, many apologies for the lack of posts since I’ve been in Cornwall. The difficulty of typing large amounts using a phone and the fact that I have been extraordinarily busy has meant I’ve never got very far on anything, and not actually finished anything worth posting in quite a while. I’ll explain what the situation is now though…

After an (extremely) intensive two week rehearsal period, we had our dress/tech last night. The Minack theatre, in case I haven’t explained yet, is an amphitheatre cut into the cliff near a place called Porthcurno in Cornwall. It is about as exposed a spot as you could find outside of the arctic circle, and yesterday we battled gale-force winds that threatened to lift us clean off our feet. Go to the Minack website if you want to see photos, and there should also be one in my photoblog.

Right, am now gonna have a nap before going off to the theatre. I’m truly exhausted. I’ll try and post again soon, since we have a lot more time now rehearsals are over.