Holiday time is upon all the physicists, and you can really tell. Scan down my list of physics contacts and you would find that each name sports a tag line:
Only Two Left!! Fighting!!
2 down 1 to go
C will die
Finished my formal report!
And then, there are those tag lines that come after the last of the deadlines are met. We are like wild animals captured and then set loose, blinking at the sunshine as we hesitate on the thresholds of our cages:
wow, what to do now, we have free time for the first time in ages
Look at the sky!
We have all been so brutally overworked that now that we have even a few minutes of free time we have no idea what to do with ourselves. I have been working pretty much solidly for the last week to meet all requirements to such an intensity that I do not eat and I do not sleep. This is the case for me, and I do not doubt for a second that I form a completely representative indication of the rest on my course. Of course, there are some people who do not take stress too well.
"Oh my goodness!" I manage, coming down the stairs, simultaneously wilting and chuckling, "worst day of my life ever!"
"Why?" demands Steve sharply.
"Only just finished my final C project. It was crazy!"
"Well, I've been working two days solid on my essay," he retorts.
I give up. It is not worth pointing out to him I've been working at least three times as long, even missing meals, while he says this to me having just finished dinner tucked away watching South Park. Some people, eh? Never mind him though, I am now on holiday. To misquote my mother's recent misquotation, the only people who truly appreciate laziness are the hardest workers. And I can say this to you with the fullest understanding: maaaaaan, it is good to be lazy!
My time will once again be devoted to the things I love. I will juggle, I will dance, I will laugh and write and play my piano. I will start to notice the small things in life again, like the way being clean after getting out of the shower feels so good, or the shape of the clouds, or the way the last sip of a hot cup of tea made from a limescaly kettle is decidedly crunchy.
Thursday 15 March 2007
Tuesday 6 March 2007
Nine Inch Nails O'Clock
Sunday was a day of grey rain, a day of technicolour heat. A day of euphoria and nerves. A day of friends and enemies. A day of idols and rabble. A day of really, really cool stuff... and, um... underwear.
Sctott and I, off we went to Birmingham, for one of the greatest days of our lives (of mine, anyway). We were off to see Nine Inch Nails in Carling Academy that night, and oh if we are but two nutty fans! Sctott moreso than I, he never misses a hint nor a lyric nor an opportunity in the slightest. In fact, due to Sctott's obsessive vigilance he had won a Meet and Greet session with the band.
Out of over preparation we made sure to arrive in Birmingham several hours before the Meet and Greet, scheduled at 4:15pm. When it was then postponed to 7:00pm, the time of the start of the gig, we had a whole day to ourselves. It consisted mostly of hanging around coffee shops and restaurants, failing to ingest properly out of anticipation. We shopped for clothes. Where I bought a rather fetching hood, the boy insisted on buying some green boxer shorts and arguing their worth and stylishness at length. I assure you, no male underwear is ever stylish. This is a fact of life, and no amount of green dye is about to change this. His cause was not furthered by getting them out to show his friend Aaron (with dibs on a spare ticket), as we sat in a pub waiting for time to pass.
So, at 7ish we are to be found waiting with various record label people in the main lobby of the academy. Eventually we are whisked single file through a windy corridor, a room where white towels are being washed, a room where white towels are hanging out to dry, and into the boiler room, housing three seriously Victorian style boiler units, and there we wait. And arrives the band! Trent in all his amazing loveliness, smiling and chatting, trailed by the other members of the band, Aaron, Jeordy, Josh and Allessandro. As Sctott holds out his copy of the Downward Spiral to be signed by Trent the following dialogue occurs:
Trent: What's this?
Sctott: It's the Downward Spiral.
Trent: Oh.
But Sctott, oh Sctott, what on Earth are you doing? He is offering wine gums to all the band, with an excitedly slurred "Would you like a wine gum?" and an obsessive clawing at the packet, and receiving mostly bemused refusals. I would have warned him not to scare them like that, but the band was in earshot all the while. The only exception was Josh, the drummer. "Ah, Maynard's," he notes as he places a green sweet in his mouth. (Before NIN he was to be found in A Perfect Circle, performing alongside one Maynard James Keenan, now of Tool.)
And then, there was just enough time for us to be ejected to the public area, dump bags and coats in the cloakroom, and get to the stage for Ladytron. When they'd done their bit it was not too long at all to wait...
And the band began at Nine Inch Nails O'Clock, and all was excellent. But who in my story shall play the role of the enemy? It turned out to be two girls behind me, who spent their entire gig experience trying to push in front of me, getting pissed when I wouldn't let them, and not even grabbing and pulling would work, and eventually screaming profanities at me when Sctott stopped them from performing some serious manoeuvre on me. And I don't know why, but I just found them funny, and kept to my spot in the crowd and had the best gig of my entire LIFE.
Sctott and I got home at some late hour with much merchandise, an autographed album each, and a sense of euphoria so strong it lasted the whole of the next day too. To finish the evening I had a shower, we sipped wine together and chatted, and I fell into bed shattered, clean, slightly tipsy, warm, and unbelievably happy.
Sctott and I, off we went to Birmingham, for one of the greatest days of our lives (of mine, anyway). We were off to see Nine Inch Nails in Carling Academy that night, and oh if we are but two nutty fans! Sctott moreso than I, he never misses a hint nor a lyric nor an opportunity in the slightest. In fact, due to Sctott's obsessive vigilance he had won a Meet and Greet session with the band.
Out of over preparation we made sure to arrive in Birmingham several hours before the Meet and Greet, scheduled at 4:15pm. When it was then postponed to 7:00pm, the time of the start of the gig, we had a whole day to ourselves. It consisted mostly of hanging around coffee shops and restaurants, failing to ingest properly out of anticipation. We shopped for clothes. Where I bought a rather fetching hood, the boy insisted on buying some green boxer shorts and arguing their worth and stylishness at length. I assure you, no male underwear is ever stylish. This is a fact of life, and no amount of green dye is about to change this. His cause was not furthered by getting them out to show his friend Aaron (with dibs on a spare ticket), as we sat in a pub waiting for time to pass.
So, at 7ish we are to be found waiting with various record label people in the main lobby of the academy. Eventually we are whisked single file through a windy corridor, a room where white towels are being washed, a room where white towels are hanging out to dry, and into the boiler room, housing three seriously Victorian style boiler units, and there we wait. And arrives the band! Trent in all his amazing loveliness, smiling and chatting, trailed by the other members of the band, Aaron, Jeordy, Josh and Allessandro. As Sctott holds out his copy of the Downward Spiral to be signed by Trent the following dialogue occurs:
Trent: What's this?
Sctott: It's the Downward Spiral.
Trent: Oh.
But Sctott, oh Sctott, what on Earth are you doing? He is offering wine gums to all the band, with an excitedly slurred "Would you like a wine gum?" and an obsessive clawing at the packet, and receiving mostly bemused refusals. I would have warned him not to scare them like that, but the band was in earshot all the while. The only exception was Josh, the drummer. "Ah, Maynard's," he notes as he places a green sweet in his mouth. (Before NIN he was to be found in A Perfect Circle, performing alongside one Maynard James Keenan, now of Tool.)
And then, there was just enough time for us to be ejected to the public area, dump bags and coats in the cloakroom, and get to the stage for Ladytron. When they'd done their bit it was not too long at all to wait...
And the band began at Nine Inch Nails O'Clock, and all was excellent. But who in my story shall play the role of the enemy? It turned out to be two girls behind me, who spent their entire gig experience trying to push in front of me, getting pissed when I wouldn't let them, and not even grabbing and pulling would work, and eventually screaming profanities at me when Sctott stopped them from performing some serious manoeuvre on me. And I don't know why, but I just found them funny, and kept to my spot in the crowd and had the best gig of my entire LIFE.
Sctott and I got home at some late hour with much merchandise, an autographed album each, and a sense of euphoria so strong it lasted the whole of the next day too. To finish the evening I had a shower, we sipped wine together and chatted, and I fell into bed shattered, clean, slightly tipsy, warm, and unbelievably happy.
Friday 2 March 2007
My Fantasy
I had a fantasy a minute or so ago:
I'm walking up to where my physics classes are held, and suddenly the guy I've decided I like runs up to me and kisses me. "Oh," I say, "you shouldn't have done that, because I just ate a tuna and onion panini" (which was true, I had just finished having a brunch at the Arts Centre). "Oh," he says. He can taste it. And he walks off with the air of one who has just made an embarrassing error.
How very half-arsed. I continue to believe that my imagination is currently suffering due to the stress of overworking in the scientific mindset.
I'm walking up to where my physics classes are held, and suddenly the guy I've decided I like runs up to me and kisses me. "Oh," I say, "you shouldn't have done that, because I just ate a tuna and onion panini" (which was true, I had just finished having a brunch at the Arts Centre). "Oh," he says. He can taste it. And he walks off with the air of one who has just made an embarrassing error.
How very half-arsed. I continue to believe that my imagination is currently suffering due to the stress of overworking in the scientific mindset.
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