BEDIN #1: The Pledge

So I have a confession to make: I have no intention of doing NaNoWriMo this year. Last year I tried, valiantly, but failed. I blamed the first year of university and having to make friends and the such, but the truth is the idea I had to work with meant so much to me that I couldn't face thrashing it out in one month. And this year, I feel exactly the same, and have none of the same half baked excuses to fall back on. So I'm not even going to try.

But I feel it's a shame not to do *any* forced, pressurised writing over the month. I always came out the other side of November enthused and inspired and feeling good about my writing style. And considering how many words of assessed work I am going to have to write this year, I could do with some of that.

My plan, then, is to dig out the folder full of half-baked ideas for blogs, for posts started but never completed, completed but never posted and blog every day in November: BEDIN if you will. Which, I agree, sounds a bit like an obscure ex-Soviet dictator but IGNORE that and keep reading. And at the end of the month, maybe, I will look back and feel less guilty about avoiding NaNoWriMo than I did last year. 

And, hopefully, most of them will be longer than this.

Summer 2012

I am going to move on from the implied 'I am a crap blogger' and go straight into the post...

So, if you were so minded, you could definitely draw a correlation between how often I blog and how much work I should be doing. I am five days away from my first exam, thirteen away from my second and last, and instead of practicing Middle English or learning stock epithets from The Iliad, I am blogging. Well done me.

My main method of procrastination (among many) has been daydreaming about the summer and I am so excited for it to start. There was a time, not long ago, when the summer seemed like it was going to be average at best, mainly consisting of me trying (and probably failing) to find work in London and slumming it with my mates in the (mediocre) sunshine. But now it looks like it's going to be amazing, and here's why in a handy, month-by-month, cut-out-and-keep guide to what I'll be doing this summer.

1. 29th June - 15th July = NEW YORK
So this is clearly the most exciting part of my summer plans: a family friend with a house in NY asked if I wanted to house-sit and I could not reply to the e-mail fast enough. Now me and Charlotte are going to get to spend two weeks swanning around New York; going to see open-air films, shopping in second hand book stores, frolicking in Central Park and occasionally feeding some cats. I am so desperate to be there: while I'm not sure I am hipster enough to live in Brooklyn, even for a fortnight, I am excited to try! And it'll be exactly twelve years since I was there as a child with my best friend, it'll be a nice little update on my second favourite city in the world. Can't wait.

2. 1st August - 31st August = CAMP NaNoWriMo
One of the main disappointments of this whole year was that I did not complete NaNoWriMo in November: the last three years have been this great creative challenge which I have become completely immersed in. But this year, having just started university, I tried hard but ultimately failed. These damn people I lived with wanted to like, talk to me and my tutors wanted me to like, read The Iliad and stuff. So I really want to do Camp NaNoWriMo instead, an opportunity to make up for how rubbish I was earlier in the year. No idea what I'll write yet as I've already started the thing I most want to work on but we'll see, maybe the Big Apple will inspire me.

3. 8th September - 15th September = ITALY
Because I don't come back to university until October, I also have the delights of September to enjoy without much pressure. This could have been a massive drag, as most people will go back throughout the month until it's just me and the Oxbridge ones left. I am so looking forward to swanning around Italy; hopefully I'll have a reading list by then and I can read my American/Arabic/Devolutionary British fiction in the sun - after applying the proper amount of suntan lotion! Having been in Verona last summer as well, I am super excited to spend my second summer in a row in Italy, where the ice cream is amazing and it is always acceptable to eat pizza.

4. All Summer =  Starting From Splash
As I said right at the start, my blogging and my workload tend to increase together. This time around, however, I've gone a step further and started a whole new blog! The basic premise of Starting From Splash is that I am a crap geek because I have never read any comic books, so I'm going to start! I haven't been fantastic at updating it so far, exams demotivating me as they originally motivated me, but I have loads of titles, nine in all now, already sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. And I intend too, preferably while sitting in Queens Park drinking Pimms.

There we go! A perfect combination of my favourite procrastination techniques: now if I could just enjoy blogging about Gawain as much, I might pass this stupid exam!

In Which I List Things...

So 2012 is in full swing! It's already been over a month (scary) and it's less than twenty days until I am 20 (scarier). Because this month seems to have gone so quickly, and not because it was so full of productive events, I thought I'd try and make myself feel better by listing some of the things that have happened to me this month.

1. Got given an inhaler to get rid of my cough
2. Did my radio show, Theme Time, on RaW, three times
3. Discovered the board game Game Of Knowledge
4. Read The Aenied
5. Bought seven books (in charity shops)
6. Finished Season One of Buffy
7. Got to 1 million on Temple Run
8. Gave a tour of campus to four people
9. Gave two essays in (one which is very big and scary)
10. Ate a slice of caterpillar cake
11. Went to a career event
12. Went to an SU General Meeting (which was subsequently cancelled)
13. Saw five films at the student cinema
14. Learned the right way to fold socks
15. Analysed the likelihood of each of my housemates committing murder and came out on top
16. Avoided all spoilers of The Fault In Our Stars
17. Watched (and was amazed/baffled by) Sherlock
18. Discovered that koalas are in serious danger of dying out due to chlamydia and was sad about that
19. Almost definitely did not give anyone whooping cough (subject to change, blood test on Monday)
20. Ate a lot at an All-You-Can-Eat pan-Asian restaurant in Coventry

I like to list things - this makes it look like I did lots in January but in reality I did not do enough. I haven't really gotten back into the swing of work, mainly because my cough has made me pretty tired and unmotivated earlier than I usually am but also partly because it's January. Quite excited for February though, because I have these things planned:

1. See The Room again but this time introduced... by Tommy Wiseau!
2. Turn twenty
3. Read The Fault In Our Stars
4. Make (and eat) Tom and Jerry cakes
5. Do three more radio shows
6. Go and see a version of A Doll's House in Coventry
7. THE MUPPET MOVIE
8. Give one essay and one commentary in
9. Read Lolita, The Buddha of Suburbia, Endgame10. Give another campus tour, maybe to more than four people this time


See, lists are awesome. Lists make February looks awesome and January look productive. Obviously that makes them massively flawed and misleading but fun!

Anyway, I have to go now and try and sleep because as of tomorrow stuff has to get productive, whether my not (or maybe) whooping cough has gotten better or not.

Maybe It's Because I'm Half A Londoner...

It's been a while (as usual). My blog came up today in conversation and suddenly I had this urge to write a really annoying, long rambling blog post. Yay for you guys!

I've come to find it very strange essentially living in two places. I think it's one of those things you never really consider having much of an impact when you dream of going to university. You might imagine being homesick but that's not really what I'm talking about. It's like I'm constantly readjusting to living here and then before I know it I'm back there again.

I don't really feel it so much here at Warwick. I guess that's because it's still so new and everyone is in the same boat and there is something so *me* about my room here. Obviously I didn't paint the walls or anything but it feels like my room in a really liberating way: I think I'd find it hard to feel not at home here. And also, it's different here because work is so stressful but my friends are so chilled out that it completely balances; there's no pressure to be cool and go wild, we can just stay in and play board games and eat After Eights.

However, going home for Christmas felt really strange. I didn't feel weird the two times I came back to London before Christmas; I think because I was always in such a rush and my mind was so much still *here* that I didn't have time to settle in. But I found it quite hard over Christmas.

It felt so unlike the life I remembered at home, mainly because I had nothing to do. I mean, obviously I had work to do but I was never actually going to do any of it. There were, like, actual changes. My mum was working, which she hasn't been for ages, and it was weird. And my dad was on holiday for most of the time I was home so he was around in the day which isn't usual. Not that I didn't like it that way round but it was just odd.

Maybe it was me: I felt like, very slightly, a different person and I associate that person with this room, this home rather than London home. There were things I was used to talking about, jokes I was used to making, food I was used to cooking which suddenly made no sense anymore. I felt like I had to get in the London mindset almost, remember what I did here and what I liked. Remember the London private jokes and the London references.

But then, really soon, I relaxed into it. I went to Arthur's, spent new year at 'our' house, watched copious amounts of TV on my laptop, watched a Moffat TV show with the Self family and it all came back to me. And it was nice to be back, to see everyone and not have to do anything for myself. But five days back here and I feel like I've been here for weeks. I've gone from doing nothing to having so much to do I have to write myself lists and stick to 'write this many words a day or you can't sleep' rules.

By the end of next week, I'll have no deadlines for a month, I'll be turning 20 really soon and I'll finally be able to relax and enjoy my degree again. But right now it's stressful and it's making me miss London.

*sigh* This blog made no sense and was pointless. Maybe I'll hate it so much once it's posted, it will inspire me to write another one so it is not at the top of the page. We'll see.

PS: This whole blog might be the result of me writing a horrible, long, scary essay about physical space and its meaning in The Magic Toyshop. It's made me very aware of my sense of space.

An Insight Into My First Two Weeks At University

While obviously everyone has an entirely different Freshers Week/Fortnight experience, mine I think has been especially unique. There are lots of examples I could cite in order to prove this point: the post-night out snacking on smoked salmon and quail eggs, the fact we've very rarely gone out as a group (or out at all), the fact that we call our common room the Atrium and that our most exciting evenings of Freshers week were dressing two of the boys up in drag and watching Bridget Jones (at the boys request).

But I want to discuss this evening, exactly two weeks after my first night and my only truly drunken Freshers memory - falling spectacularly down the stairs at the SU. I got back from the Literature Societies Pub Quiz (which my team won, by the way, cash prize and everything) and Fi (my neighbour in the house) just got back from a weekend seeing some friends in Leeds. We arrived to the sight of a homemade croquembouche made by two of my other housemates Georgie and Hugo while we'd been out. After devouring that (and sending a hurried Tweet to @BritshBakeOff) we began to discuss the Fact Board.

So the Fact Board needs explaining. On our first night, we christened our common area 'The Atrium' because it sounds more regal and fancy. We began discussing how we'd decorate over the year, including a bust of Hugo and a large house plant on our plinth. Then we decided on a fact board which would display the one major fact we could all agree on: 'Both Kenan and Kel are alive and well'. Afterwards, once we actually put a bit of paper with that fact up, others started appearing. But none rhymed quite as well as the first fact.

When I got back today, I decided to write the facts out nicely and, in doing so, we decided to write them all out like rhymes. For example, 'Roger the Cabin Boy was not a character from Captain Pugwash' became 'Roger the Cabin Boy, oh golly gosh, was not a character in Captain Pugwash'. Then we got cocky and decided to write the last fact out in limerick form. The last fact in itself needs some explanation: the boys bought a poster of a girl on a tennis court with her skirt tucked into her pants so her bum shows. When we discovered how long ago it was shot, we began to wonder if she was dead. And so the fact was added to the board: 'The tennis girl isn't dead but the photographer is.'

Cut to 40 minutes (no exaggeration) of trying to turn that into a limerick. This included frantic Googling to find his name and then reading over five obituaries, texting Dominic to ask for words that rhyme with 'bum' and several drafts, this was the result:

'There was a young lady from Brum,
Who had a fantastical bum,
While holding a racquet
Her squeeze chose to snap it,
To cancer he'd later succumb.'

Then Luke (another housemate, who makes frequent appearances on the same notice-board with a list of his funniest quotes) decided to prove how easy it was to write haikus and then limericks. On this limerick, Luke said 'This could get published, you know.' So here I am, publishing it.

'I loved to play with my lego
I liked to eat lots of Jell-o
I splashed in a puddle
Mum gave me a cuddle
Now I'm grown up [sic]'

We laughed, a lot. More even that at his contributions to the previous poems. So I decided to prove my worth as the English student in the house and contribute an analysis of the poem, drawing on all my knowledge of poetry forms and language.

'Beautiful subversion of the limerick form in order to discuss the hardships of growing up. The last line brings the joyful rhythm to an end, as the narrator's youth is shattered by the harsh reality of adulthood and it's inherent responsibilities.'

It's gone up on the fridge for everyone to see.