Having fun

So that’s it. The assignment deadlines and exams are fast approaching but lectures and seminars are in our wake. That was virtually the year that was. Here are some stats.

Friends made 0

Pseudo-friends made 1 (A lunch with this person in Morrisons, a few brief conversations on the way to and in Morrisons)

Worst moment- Acute embarrassment when Laura told us to make a den (my problem) that felt very much like under-performing 1980s socialist primary school lesson filler, not a degree course exercise. (Erm, not that I can talk. I ran some similarly out of the box lessons in my TEFL days).

Best moment- Ehhh. Probably doing a roleplay with Briony.

Things I wish I knew last year- Studio apartment is an indulgence (I don't have guests), Bangor has very few mature students

Thing I’ll do differently next year- I’ll try and get more involved in societies. I've got to do something to enliven my experience here. This isn't living. This is a slow and comfortable death. The societies are overrun by the yoof of today and I don’t know if I’ll be welcome but there is no other direction to go in and there's just no room for negative and self-limiting thoughts anymore. Let's give complete faith in the future and not second-guessing an unbroken run for a while, and see where it takes us. I'm actually going to ban moaning in next year's blog, that is how serious I am. In regard to the society I did join I must admit it did provide me with some kind of a social life this year that I was definitely the gladder man for. That and my favourite comfort food. It helped that I hit upon the writer's arm of BEDS and that happened to be small, quiet and run by somebody who is living his own personal version of Ground Hog day like me (Nathanael, another eternal student) but was that was pure chance (if you believe in pure chance)or...could 33% of my time at Bangor been better employed?

Anyway, a quick rundown. I’m not spending time polishing this blog because I’m super busy.

Monday I skipped the last medieval lecture.

Tuesday I skipped more stuff and was very annoyed with myself. Michelle Harrison arranged an end of term party for Tuesday 6-8. I really wanted to attend, free food and drink (well, the taxpayer pays- people who never went to university, etc) and a subject for this week’s blog, but I plum forgot and instead went to the writer’s group meeting. You may guess what happened next. I didn’t need to be there. We discussed a scene I’d written for all about 5-10 minutes because nobody could find anything wrong with it and then- drum roll- we talked about Zoe’s play. Fortunately, only for about half an hour, which was pretty good going, but it was a word for word repeat of the first week. Gosh, it was horrible. Zoe asked if we could meet again in the week to talk about it more. Can you fucking believe that? I am not making this up. The human ego is a wonderful thing. Afterwards, I asked Nathan which way he was going. “Which way? Any way. Away,” he replied, as he hobbled off on his crutches. Zoe was left in the classroom getting her things together and still slightly shell-shocked that there was nobody who wanted to read her script. I must say Nathanael did a wonderful job of not showing the slightest shade of dislike of Zoe or consternation. That being so, God knows what he thinks of me. He’d make a great poker player.

I find it hard to hide my dislike of people and if you saw my body language you’d see I was sat looking ahead, rather than at Zoe and made no eye contact. Nick had his arms folded, Nicholas was sat behind the computer monitor in the teacher’s chair. Bethany was reportedly ill. Nicholas wants to play a part in the scene Bethany and I are working on – he says he can be a good unbiased referee/editor if Bethany and I have a contretemps about who writes what. Truthfully I think we can figure it out between us but as that desire is there I might be able to find a way to satiate it.

Anyway, if Zoe hadn’t spent so long describing background she had already described we could have had some fun reading the script and made creative suggestions. And who do we have to blame for this? Lyle, the professor who said there is a crisis in publishing and encouraged Zoe to complete the work. So what is this play, you may ask? Well it’s called Something about the weather and is about bi-polar people who all get very depressed and roll around in self-pity. Of course, you might think I am being insensitive but this is my little corner plot of insensitivity, indulge me...

Wednesday

Day off. Mostly working on my play, I think.

Thursday

A sad day. It was the last seminar with Diane who is done with me now but Kerry was in class today. We didn’t sit together because I hadn’t seen her at first. As we were leaving she asked which way I was going, I said Morrisons (as usual) she said she was going to halls but needed to talk to Diane afterwards, did I want to stay or walk with her? I said I’d wait. Turned out to be quite awkward. I waited about 10 minutes. First outside the classroom whilst she was still inside and then she came and Diane came and sat on the bench in the corridor talking for a few minutes. I tried to read something on my smartphone and then they got up and called me after walking half way down. Diane said,“James, we don’t want to leave you behind,” (I was trying to pretend I wasn’t waiting for Kerry) so I walked alongside them as they continued talking and parted at the English faculty. Diane turned to us and said ‘Have fun’. (I think that’s what happy people imagine other people are having, as if it's something you can order off a menu).

Have fun? Have fun? It was just a 3 minute walk to the turn off to Kerry's halls, nothing to get excited about. We said goodbye without ceremony but I doubt I'll see her again. I didn’t raise the subject of the ghost trip (which Kerry never got back to me about) but I did ask whether she wanted to go see Ghost stories, which is on at Pontio, and is another thing we had tentatively agreed. Kerry said her boyfriend might want to see it. Ahhh, her boyfriend. I think this is what all this is about. Now don’t get me wrong, Kerry is a good looking girl an all, but you have to understand I was happy with my one ice bun, which was the prospect of a ghost hunting companion and a fun day out. And the fact that Kerry said she wanted to go ghost hunting and then said again she did and I asked her if she was really sure and did she said yes, so I did a lot of research into it and then, silence: is just... Oh shut up. Right, what’s next...

Fun fact: Kerry was talking to Diane about her piece. I wasn’t listening very closely because its none of my business but it was hard not to overhear one detail, which is that she is doing a piece about her special friend's drug habit. Now what is funny is I think Diane was assuming that Kerry doesn’t have one herself. Diane was talking to Kerry about how someone she knows with a pot habit and it’s hard to get her head around it because this person has children (and should be more responsible). Well, in our lunch in Morrisons Kerry told me her special hypothetical friend, who is facing years in jail for growing the stuff as a business, (Kerry is going back to Kent as a character witness in a few days) gave her some for the remainder of her stay in Bangor and she was going to use it to spur her creativity.

Having been a potter myself at one point I advised that actually it doesn’t really make you more creative so much as silence your inner critic, so you can quite easily mimic the effect of pot by giving yourself permission to write rubbish with the added benefit that your inner critic will still be there to help you along the way. Okay, I admit that there is a kind of idea association that can be slightly freer with pot but that is perhaps more than countered by immaturity which can be hard to unpick. When I write I don’t even drink. In fact I’ve been virtually tee-total this year, and I’m more creative than ever.

On Saturday I saw a girl in a black dress which crisscrossed at the breast level like a tweated gown and an ivory body with her huge breasts and it looked like she had nothing else on. In Morrisons of course.

On Sunday I went to see a BEDS play, written by a student called Blood is thicker. I was twice the age of everybody else in the whole building and more or less invisible. Support from professors? Perhaps on another night (this was the last of three) but on this night none. Entirely a non-mature student affair. The thing is you can’t get away from the fact that the societies are an extension of the student social groups and I do wonder if this will impact my chances of getting my own play put on, but we'll see. A play cannot be put on if it doesn't attract students who want to perform in it but my guess is students will want to be in something their mate wrote.

The play? I honestly didn’t understand it. It was described as an emotionally charged play about toxic masculinity (from my POV, the evening was about toxic ageism) and seemed to be some kind of family get together set in the country that reveals dark truths, but I lost the thread very early on and watched in complete confusion. Like I was really stoned. It didn't in anyway feel like a coherent or sensical play about adults but it had its moments and felt like a play at times. I mean, what is a play? I liked the guy who played the father, he was probably the best actor (the others were over acting) and reminded me of James McAvoy. I also liked the girl who convincingly burst into tears, something many professional actors struggle to do. The writer (and maybe director) was invited on the stage at the end and given chocolates and flowers.