chocolate.

So, another week down, and the time is ticking away until the Christmas holidays. I don’t want it to be, really. I’ll be happy enough to be at home when I get there, I know, and the rest time to catch up on work will be wonderful, but I always miss Cambridge when I’m not there. I miss Matt too. So I’m not thinking about that now.

What I am thinking about is that fact that I’m going to see Sigur Ros tomorrow. I can’t quite say how thrilled I am about this; plans have come together now with trains and staying over at Ed’s and cetera, and it all seems like a very long reality away from the summer day at home when I booked the tickets.

Also funny is the thought that, this time last year, Matt and I were only just beginning. Hadn’t even begun, in fact. Last night last year, he saw me cry for the first time as I sat there thinking I’d never escape the cycles of rejection and rejecting that characterised my sixthform years. I thought there were some heartbreaks and guilt stains that I’d never be free of. But it happened, it really did, and whatever time does to us in the future, it will never take away the fact that I keep finding new capacity to say that I’m the happiest and most whole I’ve ever been. This year has been the best of my life, and I know who (plural) I owe that to.

Last night last year, my best friend also did the best, wisest, kindest thing she has ever done for me, something I only fully understood last night when Matt and I were reminiscing. So it was nice for that reason too that we had such a nice yesterday evening together, hanging out and baking stuff (hooray for New Hall student kitchens having ovens.) It was a rather lovely reminder that even as time keeps passing and things keep changing, there are some relationships that remain tested and true.

I didn’t really begin writing this with the intention of emotional ramble, but I guess I was considering a lot of things last night. On more practical levels, I have a Latin translation and a solo to learn before evensong, so it’s back to work for me. If I have time I might even have dinner.

count to three and grin

I just had a meeting/audition with my choir director and it seems that my slowly-developing singing confidence is going to be tested sooner than expected. On 6th December, it’s going to be the best viol consort in the country and me performing for an audience who paid ‘tremendous amounts’ to be in attendance.

So, um, I’ll let you know how that goes.

and breathe…

So! Hormones gone, normalcy returning. I suppose it was the notorious Week Five last week, where generally people are meant to get all depressed and things – middle of term and all. Actually my week hasn’t been bad at all; I’ve been to two really nice formals at Christ’s, one as a swap with Emma College musicians and one just last night because Emma (the person) was reading grace.

I’ve also been to another Footlights Smoker (good stuff) and sung one of the pieces we’re recording at the end of term – Philip Ledger’s Requiem. We sang it on Remembrance Sunday, of course, and having the composer conduct us made an interesting difference to the character of the music. I actually liked it a lot better with him than when we’re been rehearsing it with Dave, even though I prefer his conducting. But the composer himself can show you how to put the meaning into it; show you how it sounds in his head. The performance was beautiful, because we knew from his joy that we were singing it the way he meant it to be sung. Now I’m looking forward to the recording – with a full orchestra, yays.

Anyway. I was actually coming on here just to offer the exciting (not) tidbit of information that when I am pressed for time I apparently write really long essays. Hooray, how clever. I skipped lectures this morning to write my essay and have been writing all afternoon, two-hour DB supervision excluded, and I just sent it off to my supervisor ten minutes late but 800 words longer than the last one I wrote for him. It’s actually the longest I’ve ever written, what the hell.

But yes, now I have fifteen minutes before choir rehearsal and evensong and then Parade at the ADC, so I’m going to go find something to eat. I have fresh bread! Om.

Wow. I am one biig psychopath when the hormones kick in.

must’ve done something good

The days are flashing by here. I only realise this when I see the sparseness of my blogs; when I don’t have an anchor, it seems things are going slowly. Too much has happened to report, so I’ll just tie up the things I made reference to last time.

The history essay on religion turned out really well and Patterson is a fantastic supervisor, so Farz and I had a great supervision with him. He’s a lot like my dad really; lacking in the kind of stagecraft that makes a great lecturer (Diggle), but he knows his stuff. He’s great in supervisions because he’ll listen and let some back-and-forth happen instead of simply telling us what he knows. some supervisors can’t do that.

Unfortunately the other thing I mentioned last Wednesday, the evening orchestra rehearsal, didn’t go quite as well. It culminated in an almost-disastrous concert on Saturday evening – I say ‘almost’ because the audience seemed to enjoy it in spite of the wrong notes, and that’s what counts in the end. But it wasn’t fun for the performers, and that’s really sad. Mat’s on the committee for the college Music Society, and I’m trying to get him to bring up in a meeting the fact that when a non-strings player conducts a string orchestra, there should be some checks on the music he picks for them. There is a lot of great repertoire for violinists who aren’t grade eight standard, but that wasn’t it, and it was unfair on everybody involved.

Anyway. That feels like a rather long time ago now, which is nice. I had a very busy evening yesterday – we had the inaugural event of the Classics Society, with alumna Natalie Haynes as our guest speaker, and I’m relieved to say it was a big success. About 40-50 people turned up, filling the room nicely, and Natalie herself was really funny and interesting to listen to – her talk was a good combination of discussing her own career and describing how her Classics background has influenced it. All in all, it was a great start, and hopefully we’ll be able to follow her up with someone just as good next term…

The other thing I did last night was go to the union comedy debate, ‘This House believes that the end of the world is nigh.’ It was very silly but in parts incredibly entertaining, and though the Oxford revue wasn’t nearly as good at opposing the motion as it has been in the two previous debates, it was satisfying to have the Footlights come out on top. Not that they ever lose, according to the public vote: last time it was about 520 ayes to 14 nays. We make no pretence of being unbiased.

Anyway. I should go do prose comp and syntax essay, because I’m busy later: our madrigals group is (hopefully) having its first meeting at 8pm, then compline rehearsal and service at 9:20/10pm, then after hot chocolate I guess we’ll go to the union or college gatherings to watch BBC coverage of the election. I’d love to watch it to the bitter end, but I’m not sure I’ll manage. Historic times, though. Hopefully.

5:10am edit: yep.