Episode 59: Pub Crawl!

I got my poetry portfolio back today, and it was a First! David Morley was very generous with his comments too, and he definitely approved of my pantoum, which pleased me immensely. It really is a rather clever piece, and I would consider it, despite the relative simplicity of its language, among one of the best pieces that I've ever written. It's the kind of poem that probably never gets published, then turns up in a New & Collected Poems late in a poet's career as an example of juvenilia that displayed early promise. Haha! Okay, enough bragging. This grade has really encouraged me though, as I always have trouble being certain whether my work is good. I know for sure when it's very good, like the poem that got published in QLRS and the one that won a prize in the NUS competition. I guess deep down, I'm just that little bit insecure about how good I really am, and I feel the pressure to keep repeating the performance. I think that kind of feeling is counterproductive though, so I need to learn to get out of that mentality.

Anyway, tonight was the Warwick TV and STARs social, which was great fun! We started the evening at Mor Bar, where I had a Cosmopolitan and a Bacardi Breezer. I think the only way I can drink vodka comfortably is in a sweet cocktail like the Cosmopolitan. Mor Bar's a really nice place, and I'm looking forward to going back for their fondue sometime soon. Then we headed over to Mumbai Bluu, where we played some drinking games. I can't remember what I had there, but it was sweet too. My newfound friends wanted another drink because they still felt sober, so we stopped by briefly at Tavistock Bar to get just one more drink before heading to Smack. The girls got absinthe, and I had a sip, and it tastes absolutely vile, despite being a rather fetching shade of green. It didn't seem to do them any harm though, as we were all rather sober the whole night. So we ended up getting another drink at Smack, Sambuca with lemonade. I just did a check online, and apparently absinthe and Sambuca are both anise-flavoured, but their derivation differs, which is why when I was sipping my drink in Smack, I thought that it tasted like absinthe, but less overpowering. We stayed at Smack for a couple of hours. The music wasn't really my kind of thing though, but it was still fun to hang out with fellow STARs! I also think it was totally cool how we just got added to the guestlist and walked in, even though most of us weren't originally on it. Having connections is just awesome.