Episode 809: Barcelona Redux

Have read so much of Her Fearful Symmetry! Definitely going to be able to review it in time. Randomly, the hostel that we're staying at seems to do bar/club visits every night, and tonight, they're going to Shoko, which was where I went while on tour with Contiki. Guess it's not too surprising really, since Shoko is apparently one of the hottest nightspots in the city. We had lunch at Cerveceria Catalana on a hostel staff recommendation, and it truly was amazing. Left feeling stuffed, which was a bit of a surprise because we didn't think that we'd ordered especially much in the way of tapas. The only dish that didn't impress me was the patatas bravas, simply because it seemed like nothing more than fried potato drizzled with ready-made sauces. I liked the crispy anchovies that we got though! I think when I'm back in Singapore, a visit to The Tapas Tree is in order with the usual suspects from JC days. Anyway, being in Barcelona again is bringing home to me just how little of my self-taught Spanish I've actually retained. I've got pronunciation rules in place, and that's about it! Not that I was ever able to communicate in Spanish while on holiday in the way I can in francophone countries, but still, I wish I'd tried harder. Incidentally, we did an insane amount of walking today, so my feet and back are absolutely killing me. Thank goodness there's free WiFi in this hostel by the way, as I don't think I could stand being cut off from communicating. Call it addicted to Web 2.0, whatever you want, but it's all become massively important since getting the iPhone made it so easy. It's having it available as a recourse that matters, I think, like some sort of psychological prop.

Episode 808: Haunting The Airport

Had assumed I was going to spend an uncomfortable night in the airport waiting for the others, but mercifully, there's a 24/7 Costa outlet in Terminal 2, so I'm reading Her Fearful Symmetry now with a frescato beside me. The question is whether I'll be able to stay awake till sometime past 3 am, which is when they're arriving. Maybe caffeine will have an effect for once? Last day at Warwick for the term was actually quite eventful. Went to a reading in the Chaplaincy by José Luís Peixoto because Laura reminded me about it, and it was really good. Plus Peixoto, like China Miéville, has an impressive number of earrings and piercings. I suppose I'm fascinated by piercings because I'm almost 100% I'll never work up the nerve to get any. (Plus my parents would total freak out, I think.) Then I ran into George Ttoouli while waiting for my EN331 seminar to begin and we chatted for a bit. Well, more like I rambled and he listened. He did say he enjoyed the poems I read last night, which made me happier than it ought to. (Then again, I've always been a bit unsure what he thought about my poetry, so this puts my mind more at ease, I suppose. Even I can get insecure where my writing's concerned.) The seminar itself ended pretty dramatically, everyone having just received confirmation that the essay's due on the first week after the holidays. Doesn't affect me because I'm only auditing, but it still feels like a crazily tight deadline, and way to ruin Christmas vacation for people! So that's the end of term, and hopefully, the next couple of days in Barcelona will be relaxing. Then back to warmth (and unfortunately, humidity)!

Episode 807: Dinner At Strada

Dan and I read at the Ugly Cousins slam, and then joined the rest of our house for dinner at Strada with Annie and Kathy. (We're such classy people!) Then it was drinks at The Robbins' Well, where I discovered the cocktail menu. Gosh, the list was yummy. I mean, there was even one with mango juice in it. I don't think I've ever come across that before. (Yes, that was the cocktail I ended up having, and it was rather moreish, I'll admit.) Didn't carry on from there though, as I've got a seminar tomorrow morning and I haven't even read the stories that we're meant to be workshopping. Was going to do it when I got home, but obviously, I've decided to update my blog instead, so I guess I'll be reading them on the bus tomorrow. Oh well. I'm actually kind of looking forward to spending about six hours alone in the airport tomorrow before my flight. You know, just me, a novel or two (Paul Golding's Abomination and Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, the latter which I've decided to review for Evolve Journal this month), and possibly several cups of overpriced coffee blended with ice, assuming the airport outlets stay open that late. If they don't, well, it's clearly a #FML moment for Twitter.

Episode 806: Christmas Slam!

So didn't want to go in for my EN301 seminar this morning, but I did. Was a couple of minutes late because I caught the wrong bus, but the seminar was pretty fun. Then I was supposed to do another experiment for DR@W, but that had been cancelled, so I decided to just go home and bum around until the AdHoc Christmas slam. I thought the slam went quite well anyway. We sold some cupcakes, at the very least! I should probably stop buying pitchers of Blue Lagoon at Kelsey's though. I'm starting to realise that I don't actually like the taste that much. One glass is fine, but after that, it feels like I'm drinking lemonade that tastes just a little bit off, which is either from the Malibu, the vodka, or a combination of the two. Incidentally, how good was the Gossip Girl mid-season finale? I thought it was pretty surprising. I'd figured the full revelation of the Ben/Juliet back story was going to be a bit boring, but wow, I completely didn't expect the actual reveal. It was a brilliant way to go into the mid-season hiatus, although if Blair and Dan don't end up sleeping together over the holiday season, I'm going to be really disappointed. I mean, they're literally the last remaining heterosexual, non-incestuous pairing available that hasn't actually been explored on the show yet. Right?

Episode 805: Pretty Much Done For The Term...

Just finished reading Doctor Faustus, the A-text anyway. Not going to bother with Macbeth! So after grumbling about the review yesterday, I came home after my lecture and forced myself to finish it. That I did, between eating dinner and rewatching No Reservations. Multitasking is like my forte or something. The review ended up being the complete reverse of what I'd planned, in that I got the negative stuff out of the way first, before going on to dissect a couple of pieces that I particularly enjoyed. I'm quite pleased with my analysis of Sam Rawling's 'Hung', at the very least. So with the review out of the way, I'm basically done for the term. (Technically, I have another review due in for Evolve Journal, but seeing as I haven't even decided what I'm reviewing, I don't think I'll worry about it until I'm back in Singapore.) Now it's Barcelona, then home for Christmas, where I'll probably spend most of my time not doing work, even though I really can't afford to this time if I'm to avoid falling drastically behind on everything. Such is life.

Episode 804: Okay, Why Did I Agree To Do This?

Just watched Mean Girls on Claire Heffer's recommendation. Isn't it funny how Lindsay Lohan was so normal way back then? I'll admit, by the way, that I had no idea that Tina Fey wrote the screenplay. I guess that actually makes it okay to like the film? Now trying to get on with that review of Lazy Gramophone. I like the idea that they're really a grassroots kind of collective, but at the same time, it really bothers me how some of the pieces don't seem to have been edited properly. It's either HTML hell, or really random typographical experimentation. It sounds like a petty complaint, but given that this is the third iteration of their website, and how organised it generally is otherwise, I don't think I can give them a free pass on this. I'm not going to make a big deal of it though, as I really like some of the work, so maybe just a small paragraph at the end, like a sort of caveat. I'm finding it hard to review Lazy Gramophone because the site is really more like a gallery of the collective's artistic efforts than a straightforward literary journal, so the sheer volume of material is a little overwhelming, to say the least. Oh well. I've got another day or two to figure it out...

Episode 803: Christmas Dinner!

Have begun looking at the Lazy Gramophone website, and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to read through work by all the 48 artists before writing my review. To be honest, I'm guessing that's probably way more effort than my editor actually expects. I just feel like I should do the site justice by going through it all. Had already started on the first featured artist (I'm going in alphabetical order), but I had to leave for the annual Singapore Society Christmas Dinner. Was the only third-year Singaporean there apart from Keegan, but it was nice to talk to some of the second-year people again. I don't think I've actually been to any sort of Singaporean Society event this year so far, and I think the only Singaporean I've spoken to for any sort of extended time this term has been Bella, and then only because we went to see a couple of productions together. Anyway, getting to where the dinner was being held was pretty interesting. I had to walk along Stoneleigh Road, in complete darkness where the road wasn't lit and no cars happened to drive by. Exciting times! Was going to do it again on the way back, this time probably in utter darkness because I wouldn't have expected many cars to be passing by then, but ended up snagging a place on the bus back to campus. Now watching the season finale of Merlin, and Morgana is still being pantomime-evil. It's actually really annoying.

Episode 802: Bookcase Is Back!

So this afternoon, I finally went over to my old place and brought my bookcase back. It's now reassembled and teetering beside my bed, so if you stop hearing from me, assume that I was crushed by something you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen reading (like a China Miéville novel) and mourn my passing by cracking open a book. It also means that pretty much the first thing I'll see every morning from now on when I wake up is five shelves of (mostly) unread books. I'm sure it's going to be immensely motivational, even if the Norton Shakespeare isn't exactly at eye level even when I'm lying down. Have randomly sent off a round of submissions for no other reason than that I was trying to avoid doing work and I had a bunch of poems that I thought were good enough. Definitely spent more time on this than I had to, especially given that I've got another literary website to review for Sabotage Reviews and two unread plays for next Tuesday's seminar. I'm thinking that I'll try to read at least Macbeth over the weekend, but I'm not terribly fussed, given that it will be Week 10 and who actually does work then unless they've got a deadline to meet?

Episode 801: Bitten The Bullet!

So after weeks of vacillating on what exactly my creative project was going to be, including deciding on something and then undeciding within days, I went in to see Carol Rutter today and finally committed to an idea. Reassuringly, she seemed to think it was worth exploring, although it does mean that now I'm probably going to spend the whole of the Christmas break reading the various comedies, or at least their endings. I'm basically riffing off what I saw on the second night of The King Lear Project, which was a production about rehearsing 'problem scenes' in King Lear. I'm almost certainly going to be able only to have time to write about one of the comedies' problematic ending, so I have to pick one pretty soon. She suggested Measure For Measure as one of the plays particularly worth exploring, and I've seen a production of that before, so I agree that it definitely leaves a lot hanging, even for a Shakespearean comedy. Between this and my PWP, it looks like this is turning out to be a Christmas holiday when I actually have to do work!

Episode 800: The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui

Saw Brecht's The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui with Bella at the Arts Centre. I thought the second half after the interval gelled better for me in terms of pacing, which isn't to say that what came before wasn't good, just that it felt a bit too disconnected. I thought using physical mannerisms to distinguish all of the characters was brilliantly done, and I especially enjoyed watching the characters from the Cauliflower Trust. Less keen on the guy who played Actor/Bowl, who seems to play all his characters the same way (this isn't the first production I've seen with him in it), i.e. pretty much like how he is in real life (from the limited times that I've encountered him in passing). Wasn't quite sure precisely which bits of the Nazi rise to power were being satirised while I was watching the play, although I did pick up on the Ernst Röhm and SA references. Thankfully, Wikipedia informs me that practically everything in Brecht's play is pinned to someone or something historical. Kebabs to end the night! Disgustingly unhealthy, but hey, I was hungry. Now have to read through 8000+ words if I want to have anything useful to say at tomorrow's workshop...