Archive for January, 2005

That’s right, tap dancing. Problem?

Fyse January 30th, 2005

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but my role in the upcoming musical ‘Me and My Girl’ requires tap dancing. The level of incredulity amongst my college friends (I even had people knocking on my door just to ask “Is it true?!”) gives a fair indication of the challenge this poses. I’m enjoying it, though, and today’s rehearsal was spent on the dance for ‘Song of Hareford’. Sung by the Duchess, it relates the great and noble history of the Hareford family, and involves a troop of tap dancing ancestors, of which I am one. (I’m dressed up as the Archbishop of Canterbury!) We spend the preceding scene frozen as paintings, before stepping forth from the picture frames as we break into beautiful five-part harmony. It’s a classically cheesy musical theatre moment.

First night is two weeks on Tuesday, and that is a truly terrifying prospect. Our first full run is in one weeks time. The only thing I’m really worried about though is the tap dancing, and whether we guys will be up to scratch in time. The girls are sickeningly good, of course, having been tapping away ever since they could walk, and this puts the pressure on us even more. In one of the songs, the girls (along with the one guy who can actually tap dance) finish this very impressive sequence, just before we come plodding forward to make our contribution. We rapidly came to the conclusion that the only way to avoid looking like total losers is to make a big joke of our comparative incompetence. Adopting the broadest ‘Musical Theatre Face’ possible (a terrifying prospect at close range), we hurl ourselves forward with reckless abandon, hoping to inspire laughter rather than disdain. Time will tell if this is successful.

I now have that rarest of things; a day off from rehearsals. In fact, I’m not rehearsing again until Tuesday. I plan to make the most of this extra time by actually doing some work, for once, but the best laid plans, eh? Oh, interesting thing to mention before I go; the genuine Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is coming to preach in the college chapel tomorrow evening. I wont be attending the service (not really my sort of thing), but I would have gone to the dinner had I got tickets in time. Apparently he’s providing free wine for all! If only I’d know earlier…

PS Check out my Photoblog via the link on the left, where you can see a publicity shot for ‘Me and My Girl’. Now I’ve got a digital camera I’ll be posting photos much more often, so keep an eye on the thumbnail to the left to see if I’ve posted anything new.

The project is over, the work just beginning…

Fyse January 24th, 2005

Ten days without a post, and yet again I must resort to a barrage of information to keep you all up to date. I remember the good old days, when I had nothing of any import to impart, and was free to ramble aimlessly on whatever subject tickled my fancy. Now, however, the terrific whirlwind of activity that is my life forces me to be focused. Well, more focused than normal, anyway…

The project to which I referred in my last post is now done, and while it was no masterpiece, I did at least meet the deadline with a whole twenty minutes to spare. One guy I know was ten minutes late, and is having to go through a lengthy appeal process to get any marks for it at all. It accounts for 10% of this year, and with the experiment from last term, and a review of scientific literature I’m due to start at some point (theoretically soon), I’ll have 70% left resting on the final exams. For a lot of my friends, these really are their ‘finals’, but luckily for me I’m on a four year course so am guaranteed another 12 months to get may act together. (Though anything I apply to do after my fourth year will be with this year’s results. I’d better keep that in mind…)

In other news, the rehearsals for ‘Me and My Girl’ are progressing well. With three hour rehearsals almost every week day evening, and around 8-10 hours on Saturday and Sunday, they are truly exhausting. After ten hours singing the same thing over and over again, a particularly idiosyncratic form of psychosis is liable to form. Stuck in an infinite loop, your brain repeats the same small section of music, and henceforth every idle moment is filled with mental repetition of the same sanity-shredding tune. Even now, my head is nodding along to the unstoppable beat. PLEASE, OH PLEASE, WONT YOU MAKE THE MUSIC STOP?!

Lectures started again on Thursday, and in quite typical style I haven’t made it to any of the three so far. In my defence, the first came only hours before the coursework deadline, and I certainly didn’t have an hour to spend in a lecture theatre. The others came on Friday morning when I was feverishly working for a supervision that afternoon. Tomorrow, I intend to be up bright and early, and I will make it to my 9am lecture. I may as well start with good habits, even if I’m too much of a slacker to maintain them.

Preparations are afoot for our college yearbook, and I spent some of this evening with a group of friends writing the entry for one of my flatmates last year. (Max, the crazy German, and also one of the inventors of ‘Hall Rugby’) I’m a little apprehensive about what mine’s gonna be like, but I’m sure my friends will keep the abuse jovial and friendly. Well, pretty sure. You hear me Joe? Be nice!

Project progress & My New Toy…

Fyse January 13th, 2005

Well, I’m making slow progress on the ‘Computational Physics’ project. In the end I decided to do one involving modeling the orbits of planets and asteroids, rather than percolation. This had less to do with the task being easier, but more that two friends had already started on it. Not that I’ve been copying, you understand, but it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off.

Another thing I will briefly mention is that my digital camera has now arrived. It’s a Sony Cybershot DSC-P73, and I’m really chuffed with it. (There’s that word ‘chuffed’ again!) I’d been pining for a digital SLR, but eventually concluded that my finances were not up to the expense just now. Instead, I went for a camera compact enough that when I do splash out an SLR, I’ll still have a use for the old one. The P73 also has a specially designed under-water housing, so when I get the chance to scuba dive again, I can equip myself for sub-aqua photography (relatively) cheaply.

I’d better leave it there. I need sleep if I’m gonna make any progress on my project tomorrow morning. Currently my program spews out an endlessly repeating loop of error messages every time I run it. This is not desirable…

Revelry, Rowing & Rehearsals… (and work)

Fyse January 8th, 2005

Once again I have been remiss. I haven’t posted in over a week. Here comes the quick-fire update…

I spent New Year’s Eve careering round a small coastal town dressed head-to-toe in surgical scrubs, complete with silly green hat and face mask. My companions included a sixties girl with terrifying beehive hair, a sinister man in fetching goggles/skull-cap/lab coat combo, and Tatiana, Queen of the Fairies. Much alcohol was consumed, and other strangely attired folk were encountered. Amongst those spotted on the streets of Dartmouth that night were a conga-line of Dominoes, fifteen French men dressed as Arabs, and one bloke wearing nothing but suspenders and stilettos. (And a little underwear, thankfully.)

After celebrating the New Year with the grace and sobriety befitting a gentleman of my social standing, I was at home for a few days before returning to Cambridge. I got back here on Wednesday morning (cleverly forgetting several hundred vital items in the process), and have since been immersed in a computing project. I’m meant to be investigating percolation using cellular automata and the Monte Carlo method. My time thus far has been divided equally between learning Fortran-95 (which for some reason they insist on we use), installing Red Hat Linux (then counseling it through its inexplicable hatred of my graphics card) and trying to work out what the hell the preceding sentence means. So far I have managed everything but the last of these obstacles, but I’m getting there.

I’ve got two weeks till the project deadline, but things are complicated by the resumption of rehearsals on the 15th, which will take up a huge proportion of my remaining time. Speaking of which, I’ve just received the full schedule right up until the technical rehearsal on Monday 14th of February. It details a staggering 122 hours of rehearsals in the next five weeks. When I think about fitting in academic work and rowing on top of all these rehearsals, it scares the living daylights out of me. So I try not to think.

Talking of rowing, I’ve signed up for the ‘pre-term training camp’, which sounds a lot more serious than it is. (At least, I hope it isn’t that serious. I’ve got programming to do!) It should just involve a couple of outings, and maybe a session or two on the rowing machines. I could do with the exercise, cos I’m sure the festive season has robbed me of any fitness I’d built up last term.

It’s howling a gale outside, and my window keeps whipping from ’slim crack providing fresh air’ to ‘gaping hole spewing swirling vortex’. I fear that if I don’t close my windows properly tonight, I’ll wake up somewhere over the rainbow. (The Land of Oz. You know, that big tornado thing? ‘Off to see the Wizard’ and all that? Ahh, forget it…)