The downing of
lecterns is on hold. Trouble is, life sans lecture has now become an
ingrained habit. I didn’t awake until half past noon on Monday and
figured half an hour was a bit of a squeeze to get to the medieval
English disquisition in a seemly fashion. 10.00am on Tuesday was also
way too garish an hour to attend the second one. Of course, it’s
connected to the student noise pollution affair; a true murder
mystery that will thankfully never be written. I need to make peace
with ear plugs.
I did materialise at the Tuesday afternoon medieval English seminar. I can’t blame Sarah for talking to us like we’re six years old and might not know what the Bible or prayer beads are when we all turn up to class not having bothered to read The Pardoner’s Tale. She is exquisitely good humoured about it; I would say even comfortable. The exception I’ve found to the general rule that the teaching feels about GCSE level is when our cheerful tutor slipped in the word ‘heteronormative’, when explaining there is some suggestion the pardoner may not be heterosexual, but then is that really such a curveball? It feels like a high-falutin word to me, having been out of the country and extensive interaction with Brits so long, but these days I wouldn’t be surprised if such a term gets used in primary schools. Feminism and gender politics are a national focal point at the moment and are never far from discourse. Example: In Thursday’s class Matthew said he ‘had issues’ with the term ‘chick flick’. You routinely wear your feminism like good Communists quoted the Little Red Book or movie nuns make the sign of the cross. Hell, even in the generally polite post break up exchange of messages with my ex I was at one point pointedly accused of ‘mansplaining’ and Emma could hardly be accused of being a militant feminist. It’s just a thing now.
Tuesday evening is my 1 or 2 hour confab with writers. These meetings are an illustration of how it’s much better to simply write on your own unless you can somehow assemble a group of committed, talented, flexible writers who have genuine chemistry. Of course, for me it’s just about getting out the house, that is really why I am in attendance, to be with other human beings. But in writing terms I’m wondering why I don’t write the whole thing myself. I’ve come up with the concept in its entirety alone and many of the important characters (9 out of the original 12 if I recollect). Any that weren’t mine I could easily have matched and it’s just a long and winding formality, so far, making it a group effort. I hope that my analysis is incorrect, I very much hope that we can be more than the sum of our parts, and not less than, I hope that a herd of baby elephants tell me as much with their trunks in a cute video sent to me on social media. However, so far my faculties report that it’s not looking good. The others have chipped in interesting but thematically confused and irrelevant characters that are watering down the concept and the play looks like its going to be another studenty, episodic sketch show, rather than a properly plotted play that can be traditionally called ace.
There are reasons to be half full. I am listened to when I make suggestions, so I can use a lot of my influence to keep getting the play back on track or at least what I imagine to be on track, I should humbly add. (Actually, I really don’t care where it goes or who suggests it goes there provided it is being propelled). Also, I liked Briony’s scene she wrote for the cruise play and I suggested that we collaborate on a scene in this one. I’m writing all the dialogue for two characters that have been allotted to me and the scenes that go with them, but rather than do all the lines for a third- which I could happily do- I thought it would be interesting if we worked together and played off each other. Plus, when I’m in a care home one day or on a park bench I can say I worked with a famous writer. Briony is way ahead of the game. She has an agent and is finishing her first novel. How is it that I am not? I don’t know. I’ve always known I’m talented but at the same time I feel paralysed by all kinds of existential things I can hardly express. I need an Alex Ferguson to throw a boot at me.
On Wednesday I went to the English school to tailor my course for next year. The website is as clear as darkness on how to compile your module choices- erroneously suggesting that virtually all of them are compulsory- and I ended up just asking Michelle in admin to pick some at random because I’d written too many on the form and I pretty much did not care what I ended up studying. Just as I turned into the stairwell I noticed a photocopy of a press article someone had stuck on the partition, headline:
Let’s not give up on the idea that a good education is a search for the truth
Sub-heading:
Students who sue universities because their degrees didn’t lead to well-paid jobs forget they were there to learn how to think
There was also the same article on the partition on the floor below, just in case you didn’t notice how bummed the professors are that you don’t appreciate their stratospheric opinion of themselves. It almost goes without saying that it came from you know what periodical. I think every time I’ve seen a newspaper clipping in Bangor (Dianne and Laura use them in their classes) it comes from... the Guardian. (How about the Financial Times? The Fortean Times? The Pyongyang Times?) And what does the Guardian stand for? Well, the Guardian supports the notion that we are essentially nothing more than a bunch of atoms and that intelligent aliens may exist, but if so, they’re somehow out there, not here. And I do not concur. If we actually were a bunch of atoms and nothing more would we even need to think? (The almost universal presumption that artificial intelligence will become self-aware I personally don’t hold to be a given). And if there is intelligent alien life, then it stands to reason that intelligent life could walk amongst us, superintend us, interfere with us, talk to us: without us even knowing. Funny that never occurred to Stephen- I'm your man if you want to know anything about aliens- Hawkings, who Diane was zeitgeistingly gushing over last week. Well I’m not flaming well gushing. He may have been a mean black hole whizz kid but from what I can tell you’d get as much sense out of a random person on the street when it came to anything outside that purview. But don’t take my word for it. Just ask people born two hundred years from now (when all the hype has died down).
On Wednesday evening I caught up with Kerry on Facecrook. As far as I can tell she’s been off the radar for two weeks because her boyfriend has been making non-committal noises and she was so depressed she refused to leave her dorm. I’m sure come the Easter holiday that problem will be sorted for a while. Fun fact: she has said that she’d like to go ghost hunting with me and I wasn’t sure if she was serious but she confirmed she is still interested. Can you imagine? I might actually have a few minutes of fun this year...
On Thursday after Diane’s non-fiction seminar I told Kerry I was going to Morrison’s and she said she’d tag along. I thought she had shopping of her own to do, but she was apparently keeping me company, which was nice. (What a wonderfully euphemistic word ‘nice’ is). She told me that she doesn’t smoke but during her recent serotonin crisis she chain smoked three days straight. I raised the ghost investigation again. It was kind of embarrassing but I do most of my ghost hunting in hotel rooms and...well, you can imagine the rest. I really don’t know what is going on in her mind. Does she know this? Would she run a mile if I suggested sharing a room with twin beds? Should I book two rooms and pay for both (kind of pointless when ghost investigating). So I was saying, have you thought of what sort of place you’d like to go? It could be somewhere outside (castle ruins, spooky woods), it could be somewhere inside... And do you mind going any place with someone my age? She said she had no problem with that (she is 20), but I still don't know if she approves of a possible hotel room investigation. I am slowly beginning to appreciate that like she told me she is autistic. She’s friendly but not overly chatty and I tend to think if she was "normal" she wouldn't be walking around Morrison's with this strange 42 year old.
As for me, here’s a funny thing. I don’t use ghost hunting as an excuse to (try to) jump a girl’s bones, I just use girls as a shield to hide from ghosts.
I did materialise at the Tuesday afternoon medieval English seminar. I can’t blame Sarah for talking to us like we’re six years old and might not know what the Bible or prayer beads are when we all turn up to class not having bothered to read The Pardoner’s Tale. She is exquisitely good humoured about it; I would say even comfortable. The exception I’ve found to the general rule that the teaching feels about GCSE level is when our cheerful tutor slipped in the word ‘heteronormative’, when explaining there is some suggestion the pardoner may not be heterosexual, but then is that really such a curveball? It feels like a high-falutin word to me, having been out of the country and extensive interaction with Brits so long, but these days I wouldn’t be surprised if such a term gets used in primary schools. Feminism and gender politics are a national focal point at the moment and are never far from discourse. Example: In Thursday’s class Matthew said he ‘had issues’ with the term ‘chick flick’. You routinely wear your feminism like good Communists quoted the Little Red Book or movie nuns make the sign of the cross. Hell, even in the generally polite post break up exchange of messages with my ex I was at one point pointedly accused of ‘mansplaining’ and Emma could hardly be accused of being a militant feminist. It’s just a thing now.
Tuesday evening is my 1 or 2 hour confab with writers. These meetings are an illustration of how it’s much better to simply write on your own unless you can somehow assemble a group of committed, talented, flexible writers who have genuine chemistry. Of course, for me it’s just about getting out the house, that is really why I am in attendance, to be with other human beings. But in writing terms I’m wondering why I don’t write the whole thing myself. I’ve come up with the concept in its entirety alone and many of the important characters (9 out of the original 12 if I recollect). Any that weren’t mine I could easily have matched and it’s just a long and winding formality, so far, making it a group effort. I hope that my analysis is incorrect, I very much hope that we can be more than the sum of our parts, and not less than, I hope that a herd of baby elephants tell me as much with their trunks in a cute video sent to me on social media. However, so far my faculties report that it’s not looking good. The others have chipped in interesting but thematically confused and irrelevant characters that are watering down the concept and the play looks like its going to be another studenty, episodic sketch show, rather than a properly plotted play that can be traditionally called ace.
There are reasons to be half full. I am listened to when I make suggestions, so I can use a lot of my influence to keep getting the play back on track or at least what I imagine to be on track, I should humbly add. (Actually, I really don’t care where it goes or who suggests it goes there provided it is being propelled). Also, I liked Briony’s scene she wrote for the cruise play and I suggested that we collaborate on a scene in this one. I’m writing all the dialogue for two characters that have been allotted to me and the scenes that go with them, but rather than do all the lines for a third- which I could happily do- I thought it would be interesting if we worked together and played off each other. Plus, when I’m in a care home one day or on a park bench I can say I worked with a famous writer. Briony is way ahead of the game. She has an agent and is finishing her first novel. How is it that I am not? I don’t know. I’ve always known I’m talented but at the same time I feel paralysed by all kinds of existential things I can hardly express. I need an Alex Ferguson to throw a boot at me.
On Wednesday I went to the English school to tailor my course for next year. The website is as clear as darkness on how to compile your module choices- erroneously suggesting that virtually all of them are compulsory- and I ended up just asking Michelle in admin to pick some at random because I’d written too many on the form and I pretty much did not care what I ended up studying. Just as I turned into the stairwell I noticed a photocopy of a press article someone had stuck on the partition, headline:
Let’s not give up on the idea that a good education is a search for the truth
Sub-heading:
Students who sue universities because their degrees didn’t lead to well-paid jobs forget they were there to learn how to think
There was also the same article on the partition on the floor below, just in case you didn’t notice how bummed the professors are that you don’t appreciate their stratospheric opinion of themselves. It almost goes without saying that it came from you know what periodical. I think every time I’ve seen a newspaper clipping in Bangor (Dianne and Laura use them in their classes) it comes from... the Guardian. (How about the Financial Times? The Fortean Times? The Pyongyang Times?) And what does the Guardian stand for? Well, the Guardian supports the notion that we are essentially nothing more than a bunch of atoms and that intelligent aliens may exist, but if so, they’re somehow out there, not here. And I do not concur. If we actually were a bunch of atoms and nothing more would we even need to think? (The almost universal presumption that artificial intelligence will become self-aware I personally don’t hold to be a given). And if there is intelligent alien life, then it stands to reason that intelligent life could walk amongst us, superintend us, interfere with us, talk to us: without us even knowing. Funny that never occurred to Stephen- I'm your man if you want to know anything about aliens- Hawkings, who Diane was zeitgeistingly gushing over last week. Well I’m not flaming well gushing. He may have been a mean black hole whizz kid but from what I can tell you’d get as much sense out of a random person on the street when it came to anything outside that purview. But don’t take my word for it. Just ask people born two hundred years from now (when all the hype has died down).
On Wednesday evening I caught up with Kerry on Facecrook. As far as I can tell she’s been off the radar for two weeks because her boyfriend has been making non-committal noises and she was so depressed she refused to leave her dorm. I’m sure come the Easter holiday that problem will be sorted for a while. Fun fact: she has said that she’d like to go ghost hunting with me and I wasn’t sure if she was serious but she confirmed she is still interested. Can you imagine? I might actually have a few minutes of fun this year...
On Thursday after Diane’s non-fiction seminar I told Kerry I was going to Morrison’s and she said she’d tag along. I thought she had shopping of her own to do, but she was apparently keeping me company, which was nice. (What a wonderfully euphemistic word ‘nice’ is). She told me that she doesn’t smoke but during her recent serotonin crisis she chain smoked three days straight. I raised the ghost investigation again. It was kind of embarrassing but I do most of my ghost hunting in hotel rooms and...well, you can imagine the rest. I really don’t know what is going on in her mind. Does she know this? Would she run a mile if I suggested sharing a room with twin beds? Should I book two rooms and pay for both (kind of pointless when ghost investigating). So I was saying, have you thought of what sort of place you’d like to go? It could be somewhere outside (castle ruins, spooky woods), it could be somewhere inside... And do you mind going any place with someone my age? She said she had no problem with that (she is 20), but I still don't know if she approves of a possible hotel room investigation. I am slowly beginning to appreciate that like she told me she is autistic. She’s friendly but not overly chatty and I tend to think if she was "normal" she wouldn't be walking around Morrison's with this strange 42 year old.
As for me, here’s a funny thing. I don’t use ghost hunting as an excuse to (try to) jump a girl’s bones, I just use girls as a shield to hide from ghosts.
