Episode 475: Term Starts Tomorrow But I Have No Classes!

So I walked to church this morning for band practice because I stupidly didn't keep enough cash on me for a taxi. It was manageable though, and by this I mean 40 minutes of treading across icy pavements, so in more clement weather, it should take me half an hour at the most. It's funny, but I don't miss leading worship half as much as singing backup. Not that I don't want to continue doing the former when I get back to Singapore, as I do think it's an area that I've been gifted in, but there are times when I really, really like singing harmony more? Anyway, bought loads of groceries after service, so now I have enough food to survive on for about two weeks! Have written two poems today, and this was after taking a nap in the evening to try and cure a headache. Tempted to just push on and reach 21 before going to bed, but now that we're not going to look at houses until Tuesday, I could spend some time writing before tomorrow evening's rehearsal if I headed onto campus earlier. Incidentally, I'm loving the new Planetshakers album, and I think it's really entirely due to Joth Hunt's songwriting and vocals, as I noticed this album is almost entirely written by him. (I also find his vocals a lot less annoying than Henry Seeley's.) I swear some of the guitar riffs and drumming on the praise tracks remind me of Hoobastank, which is brilliant!

Episode 474: Royal Mail Fail!

Just finished the French comprehension, so now all I have to do is write 200 words on whether ethical and humanitarian concerns factor into my consumer behaviour. It's going to be boring, but it'll sound sexy because it's written in French. Wrote another two poems today, so it's less than I'd hoped to get through, but I'm still on track. My box from Graze was supposed to arrive today, but it didn't, which is odd, since my Railcard did and that was sent by Royal Mail First Class as well. Have e-mailed the company to make a complaint, which they'll hopefully sort out on Monday. It's not that big a deal though, since this first box was free. I'm just upset because I was quite looking forward to some healthy snacking for a change. Also, I can't believe Royal Mail chose this day of all days to be efficient. They tried to redeliver my hard drive at 7.20 am! Obviously, I wasn't awake, so have had to reschedule for Tuesday instead. Knowing my luck, the van will probably come around when I'm at French class. It boggles my mind why they came at 7.20 am, especially since it was snowing! What happened to British inefficiency? Is there nothing you can rely on anymore?

Episode 473: I'm Really Starting To Hate The Snow

I've made no further progress on the portfolio, although I am still on track to completing my 21 poems. Wrote two today that were more word games than anything else, and am now contemplating whether to go for a third, which would be an epistolary poem. I could handle that quite nicely, I think, which therefore tempts me to put it off till tomorrow. I've also discovered that I can in fact download that PhD thesis on Kazuo Ishiguro's novels because it's been digitised and access to it is free! This excites me terribly because the thesis, for all its academese, the points it's making are really relevant and are leading me to rethink my experience of reading Ishiguro's novels. Won't go so far as re-reading all of them though, since it hasn't been that long since I finished the latest one. That and I've got other more pressing books demanding to be read. Anyway, to continue on one of yesterday's random topics, I noticed on the way home in the bus that Pizza Hut does deliveries here. Why, then, does KFC not do the same? I thought they were owned by the same parent company? (Yes, another instance in which I've been pampered by the way things work in Singapore. See? Home is really all about the mundane little things.)

Episode 472: I Spent The Whole Day Trying To Write One Poem (And Finally Succeeded)

Have fulfilled my goal of finishing the poem about ice, which naturally ended up as yet another poem about a mildly dysfunctional relationship edging towards open disaster. You could say it's a pet theme of mine. Randomly, today I discovered that KFC does not offer a delivery service in the UK. This upsets me greatly, even though there is a KFC conveniently located along the 12 route between campus and my house. It's just that I've been craving unhealthy, artery-clogging fried chicken since, well, before Christmas, and I have yet to satisfy that craving. It's so upsetting that I'm going to drown my sorrows tomorrow with lunch at NoodleBar. (Yeah, substituting Chinese for KFC doesn't really make sense to me either, but hey, nobody said you had to read this.) Also randomly, did you know Singapore was at one point (i.e. in 1992) the number two market for Fisherman's Friend? I also discovered the word 'mamihlapinatapai' today, which holds the Guinness world record for most succint word. Wikipedia says it describes 'a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start' in the Yagán language of the Tierra del Fuego. Pretty damn impressive, if you ask me.

Episode 471: I Can Still Feel My Toes

Missed the train back from Bristol due to a combination of bad weather and Laura's absent sense of direction. We did get a complimentary slip from First Great Western for another company's train, which turned out fine in the end. Guess the bad weather made the train conductor more sympathetic? Either that or Dan's right and people do respond more positively to that grown-up Ted Baker coat. (I knew it was a sound investment, I just knew it!) I haven't done any work since getting back, having mostly concentrated on restoring feeling to my feet, having trudge through a lot of snow between Laura's place and the station. Have some nice pictures of the snow though. You would think after all the snow I've seen over the past two days, writing a poem about ice wouldn't be that hard, right? Well, apparently, it is. I've got a vague idea at the back of my head for a poem, or the ghost of one anyway, but I think I'm going to sleep on it. I've also figured out what's wrong with Accidentally On Purpose. It's a two-hour romantic comedy forced to stretch its plot out over a full TV season. That and some of the jokes are definitely not that funny.

Episode 470: Snowy Bristol

Hopped over to Bristol with Dan to pay Laura a visit. (Managed to finish a poem on the train down!) It was snowing in Birmingham, but I thought we'd escaped the snow at first, since the weather at Bristol Parkway Station was fine. By the time we got to Temple Meads though, it was quite clear that the snow was pretty much everywhere. (The university even had to invoke the Severe Weather Policy!) We did get to walk about in the snow though, which was pretty cool! At dinnertime, my lack of culinary experience was once again mercilessly mocked, although I'm pretty sure I could pick up enough within a day to begin making 'proper' meals. So there. The biggest reason why I don't cook from scratch is that I hate washing up. Baking in the oven means there are only ever two things to clean. One, the glass tray. Two, the fork I use to eat with. Haha! It was quite funny that Waitrose was completely out of eggs. Apart from expensive quail eggs. (I do love them though.) It wasn't even a weekend! Bet you anything people have started panic-buying groceries...

Episode 469: Wrote A 60-Line Poem In Under An Hour!

Spent time in the Library today reading and writing. Got through Seamus Heaney's Selected Poems: 1965-1975, and then wrote a three-part poem about Singapore because the one simple thing that kept coming back to me as I was reading was that Heaney loves Ireland, in a way that I could never feel for my own country. Or at least I don't think I could, and I wanted to begin exploring that in this poem, even though I'm not really fond of writing poetry with political overtones. Then I wrote a funny poem about a hungover chorister, inspired by an episode in Chekhov's short story, 'Choristers'. Was going to write one based on this entry from Neil Gaiman's blog. (Yeah, I know it's a bit random!) A bit tired now though, and I've got to be up early to catch a train to Bristol to see Laura, so maybe I'll do it on the way down instead. Am ending off the night with an episode of Accidentally On Purpose. Some of the punchlines fall flat, which is a shame because I used to think Jenna Elfman had really good comic timing when she was on Dharma & Greg.

Episode 468: Hexagonal Mirrored Rooms?

Have done no work today beyond writing this line: 'My name is John, and I have seen the end of the world.' I like to think it's a recognisable Biblical allusion. I described the future contents of my portfolio to Chris as the ideas of Jorge Luis Borges meets the weirdness of Tim Burton (thanks to Shirley for that comment), set in a library that owes more to the two-parter storyline, 'Silence In The Library'/'Forest Of The Dead', from Doctor Who than I realised. Maybe I could talk about all this in my commentary? It would definitely help me hit the 1000-word limit for that, just not very sure whether whoever's marking my portfolio will approve of Doctor Who as an influence. It is, admittedly, a very polarising cultural touchstone. I did also read Borges's 'The Total Library', 'The Library Of Babel' and 'The Book Of Sand' though, so I guess that somewhat makes up for things. Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to make the whole story apocalyptic, although I guess it is kind of hellish to make your narrator piece together his story in Morse code, which is a direct reference to W. V. O. Quine's reductio of Borges's ideas, as expressed in his short essay, 'Universal Library': 'The ultimate absurdity is now staring us in the face: a universal library of two volumes, one containing a single dot and the other a dash. Persistent repetition and alternation of the two is sufficient, we well know, for spelling out any and every truth. The miracle of the finite but universal library is a mere inflation of the miracle of binary notation: everything worth saying, and everything else as well, can be said with two characters. It is a letdown befitting the Wizard of Oz, but it has been a boon to computers.'

Episode 467: Getting Work Done, Bit By Bit

I've finally figured out how I'm going to structure my 4000-word portfolio! I don't think anyone really cares all that much about my inconsequential dilemmas, so all I'm going to say is that I'm going to be reading some Borges in the name of research. Am quite excited by what I've thought out so far, as it definitely allows me to play to my strengths. Spent the day trying to write a poem, and all I came up with was a lame truncated terzanelle that's now been posted up. Had hoped to finish another one by tonight, but I'm finding it hard to cope without adjectives, adverbs and similes. Including the word 'lime' is really the least difficult thing at the moment, as I've already figured out why it's going to be in the poem. We'll see how it goes. Have totally not been doing any work for French so far, although there are some listening comprehensions online and written work that needs to be in for our first lesson of term. Still have a week though, so it's not quite time for panic mode yet. In fact, I might just be nuts and spend the whole of Monday on campus in the Library, reading and writing poetry, and listening to French news. (Yes, I'm aware that these activities sound just a little bit pretentious.)

Episode 466: Happy New Year!

I can safely say that was the most random New Year's Eve I've ever spent in my life. Come to think of it, most years I just sleep right through it. It is, after all, just a midnight like any other. Not even the first of the decade, as I was explaining to Dan. This is just one of those things I'm a bit of a pedant about. Anyway, I wasn't drunk, although that vodka lemonade Reece made me down was quite vile. Crashed at Sophie's for the night, and we had to get into the house via the back door because she was brilliant and left her keys at Jemma's, only realising after we'd got out of the cab. Classic moment! Getting back to Coventry this afternoon was quite an experience for me. There were no buses, so I walked northward hoping to reach some sort of building where a taxi would be able to find me, but I was pretty far north of the town centre, so I eventually reached a point where there wasn't even a pavement to walk on anymore. Was tempted for a moment to walk all the way back to Coventry, but in an uncommon display of sense, decided against it. Called Keegan up to check there were trains running between Leamington and Coventry, and then walked all the way to the train station in South Leamington. I suppose I should be grateful I didn't get lost then, as well as while I was walking back to Earlsdon from the train station. The price for all this? No work done today. Again. At this rate, I'm going to spend the first two weeks of term panicking about the portfolio.