The Farmstead

I think I may be giving up on my Shakespeare thing. :(

I know, it's only been a week, I hear you cry, but I found myself at the point where I was really going to be putting off the inevitable if I didn't just give up - and the idea of all the complicated going backwards and forwards was getting me down. Also, looking at the amount of money I owe British Gas and thinking about how much money I'm spending on train tickets.

As usual, it's my lack of attention to detail/practicality that's really been the bugger. In theory, I love the idea of a multi-lingual Shakespeare festival, and I have been enjoying the actual plays as objects. The problem is that the actual experience has not been play-play-Shakespeare-joy so much as feeling constantly tired, cold, distracted and lonely - which I should have remembered from the last time I studied in the British Library. It is something of a flaw of mine that I am rarely/never 'transported' by art of whatever form; if I'm cold and wet and have sore feet, then adding a play to the whole experience just means that I'm cold and wet and watching a play. It's slightly more pleasant than not having a play at all, but it doesn't cancel things out. On top of that, I really, really can't do much more than one thing at once, and even though the work I've been getting done hasn't been so bad, relatively speaking, I've been constantly feeling like I need to change gear and have to go so I can get to the next thing on time. Yesterday was my first 'day off' and realising how much if felt like a day off today made me realise that this probably wasn't going so well...

It's a bit sad that it turns out I really am one of those sad PhD students who gets twitchy if they're out of the library too long, but I miss cycling in and being able to just slump in my seat with my laptop and my stack of bits I've been keeping on the window sill. Going into London with a rucksack full of stuff everyday doesn't make me feel like anything that involved is happening.

Oh well, it doesn't really matter. Just thought I'd share this new confirmation of things I should have already known about myself - will have to remember in future that my daft ideas aren't always so great. I think I'll still maybe go to some of them, though. I'll see how I feel.

It is my birthday! It is also magnificently sunny, which is a strange phenomenon indeed. Thanks everyone for the good wishes and green_maia for the virtual gift!!

I didn't have a very exciting morning, because I had an appointment at the hospital about what will be my new hearing aids, which we did all the testing and calibrating for. I held my nerve and asked about the exciting transparent dark blue ones I'd seen on the internet, but they only had beige in, so they're going to have to send them to me when they've ordered some and programmed them up. But! I had the test ones on for a little while and they seemed to do enough to make me think I'm not wasting everyone's time about wanting to try them, though apparently it's going to take getting used to them before the world stops sounding like a bathroom. I hope they'll be OK; with both them and my glasses round my ears I felt remarkably cyborg-like, but you can't really see the tubes in my ear.

Because I am a creature of routine, I then went into the library, but thankfully found a few of friends at lunchtime with the presence of mind to tell me I should fuck off and go shopping. Also that there was more than enough time to rally at least the lit. people together for a drink this evening, so we will be off for Nando's and cocktails later! I really wanted to organise something with all the various disparate groups of friends I have, but I didn't get my act together at all... But I did have pizza with some other people last night, and was presented with four bottles of Jelly Belly soda (!!!! - Cyber Candy FTW)! Haven't tried them yet, but am looking forward to it. Maybe I should have one when I've finished my Coke...

I also had some cash from my family, so I did indeed fuck off for the afternoon and go shopping. The only problem is that, with the weather as it is, I'm feeling remarkably lacking in anything remotely spring like or slouchy-cool. This is partly because the two vaguely slouchy-cool tops I own need a wash and I'm stuck otherwise with tight t-shirts (all of which are getting really old). I didn't really solve this problem, but I did buy the palest jumper I've owned in a long time/ever(?). I also found a Whistles slouchy jumper dress reduced to £35 in John Lewis, which was a bit of a result. It's not really spring like in any respect, but it is burgundy and 100% merino wool, so I don't see how this can be in any way bad. It needs some leggings and boots, but then it will be joy!

But I feel like I haven't posted in ages, so I am posting. Here is some stuff:

1) Just played Holst's The Planets in a concert. Venus was a shambles (at least for the viola section), but Jupiter was great. It's my favourite planet and my favourite movement and even though the big tune mostly sounds indulgent and overplayed whenever I hear it about the place, playing the viola part right in the middle of the suite is a wonderful and lovely feeling. Especially since our conductor was keen to have the first time through restrained and reflective - by the time we were in the upper register it was all sad and slightly hopeless, heading straight towards Saturn - before we were back in jollity again. Good stuff.

2) Am quite miffed that I can't yet watch the third episode of Melvyn Bragg's series on Class and Culture, which like The Tube series I mentioned last time(?) has become the closest thing to must-see TV I have at the moment. You may well ask when the last time I watched a drama series was, but I feel like documentaries that cover literary culture are so rare that I want to just gobble this one up (and all it's other culturey bits) with a big spoon.

3) Just signed up for seasonal_spuffy, which means getting the third part of my alt S6 AtS crossover thing done in time. Even though it's apparently going to be long. But I'm looking forward to that; just need to write it.

4) Everyone should come and play Prompt Tag with us at sb_fag_ends, because bouncing off other people's ideas is highly amusing! I wrote a fic.

I've had a really nice day today, for several reasons. It started with snickfic leaving some massively juicy feedback on As Good as a Rest, which I hope she won't mind me linking to over here, as part of the More Feedback Week she's running. I don't know if Snick's up for debate or anything, but I do want to take the opportunity to say that if you ever want to talk to me about thematic stuff in my fic, you can do it any time of ever. I overthink most stuff I write, so I'll always have something to say back!

Otherwise, I spent the day actually reading the text that I'm working on (believe it or not, this rarely happens) trying to make sense of how I was going to talk about it in relation to all the other reading I've been doing, and actually managed to develop some ideas. All preliminary stuff, natch, because we're only halfway through term, but I now have a notebook page with sections and passage references and questions to be answered. This is not the level of achievement I usually expect to perceive!

Also went out for a lovely meal with friends (only slightly scuppered by my high-waisted skirt and remarkably poor digestive system, which for some reason turned a cheesy pizza into enough pain that I felt nauseous for the whole journey home and a little while afterwards, but let's ignore that).

And then I watched this interesting slideshow on the BBC website about the history of British housing. For some reason I'm often drawn to documentaries about housing, so I knew quite a lot of what was covered, but I still thought it was interesting.

So there you go. It's rare that I look back on a day and really think 'well, that was pleasant, wasn't it?', so I thought it deserved a post.

ETA: Although, also, side note, just because it appeared above my post on my DW reading page and I think it's probably my turn to mention it, but - Mark Watches? Are we all agreed he's basically given up anything even vaguely resembling review-writing now? I think I might have to keep reading just to see how the heck he manages to spin this out for another four seasons of material, but, otherwise, yeesh.

Have decided this proves I am an adult: the snow has come, and all I can think about is that it's going to make it really hard to get to the library on Monday.

Also I'm out of all food that isn't pie. And Coke! I'm out of Coke! I meant to go to Asda today, but I was playing FFXIII and then I was cleaning... Thankfully Housemate is still excited enough by snow to be willing to adventure out with me. Of course, the Saturday crowd means there probably isn't going to be everything I want left, but hopefully there'll be non-pie food and some flapjack ingredients. And Coke.

Apparently Kiva.org is doing free trials? I don't know what a 'free trial' on Kiva actually involves, but if you're interested in funding micro loans for business start ups (etc.) around the developing world, now's the chance to try out Kiva's system for free!

http://kiva.org/ladieshomejournal

It says they're going to run out of the sponsored free trials pretty quickly, so the link may stop working at some point.

In other news, I'm reading the first Harry Potter in ancient Greek. Couple of chapters in and it's going OK - funnily enough (or probably not surprisingly) it's the names and necessary neologisms (for televisions etc.) that are the most confusing thing. On the other hand, the Dursleys live on 'the street of the myrtle trees', and this continues to tickle me...

This series of Rev has been a bit ropey, I've found - I was saying to Sue (Sue, was it you?) on Saturday that I've found it simultaneously more cartoonish, more dystopian and worse written, - but in isolation, I have to say that I thought this week's episode was very, very good! If only because it as an Archdeacon and Nigel episode. Although I imagine the fact that Richard is James Purefoy means we'll never see him again, a bit like Ralph Fiennes the bishop. :( Too much love for Adam and his iPod, though why has Adoha been completely sidelined this series?

It probably needs mentioning somewhere that I'm still in love with Misfits. Hooray for this series being the Kelly and Curtis series! I think the Nazi episode proved that the pair of them could save the world single-handedly. Right at the back of my brain I want a Buffyverse-Misfits crossover, possibly(?!) where Kelly and Nadira go waaaaay back to school or primary school or something (primary school maybe), and something happens with vampires. I dunno. That might be filed with the S7-Final Fantasy IX crossover that should never happen.

Now that I've packed up for the term and going home tomorrow, I'm procrastinating from cleaning the bathroom and buying Christmas presents (+ my mum's very urgent birthday present) and filing my paper bits by watching TV. Sigh. But The Thick of It Series Three remains as excellent as ever - Nicola and Terri and Robyn for three of the best middle-aged women comedy characters in recent times. And the Opposition!! Always.

Look, videos! Hopefully they might play outside of the UK, though they're off the BBC website, so they might not. Oh, and, um, NSFW, what with all the swearing...

Yay, London shopping tomorrow! I really wouldn't mind getting some new things, since I am very much in a rut of just owning Topshop things (it's the only actually decent shop in town), which means chatting to everyone and having people say 'I love your jumper; I've got it at home'. And it's a running joke among several of us that we all have the same top in different colours. (Oh, but so comfy and easy to wear and ridiculously modern-looking for something so shapeless.)

However, it's fun to browse places online before you go shopping, right? I think so. Unfortunately, this means I find myself on the Selfridge's website in exactly the place where I never want to be because I can't afford anything and, and... Matthew Williamson, what have you done; I love you and your coat is so beautiful and worth over five months' rent. Aaaaaaahhh!!!

And now I must sulk because I've chosen academia as a career and will probably never own clothes as nice as these. :( Alas!

(On a brighter note, however; thanks louise39 for the cute Halloween spider gift! It's so cute!!

is back on. I had a feeling it was going to be slightly tough after the summer, but it wasn't too bad, all told, especially since I was reading French. The afternoon was mostly a wash-out of me fighting sleep and feeling cold despite my massive library-cold-staving-off jumper, but I got up and out on time this morning, stayed for a non-too-shabby day, and think I did something worthwhile. Although, if I've lost this much stamina with reading, I'm slightly worried about how my stamina-stamina is going to hold up when football starts again...

Hopefully, also, this was exacerbated by my post-syringing ears, which seem to have got some fairly stubborn water bubbles stuck in them, so every time I talk to someone it sounds like we're underwater (a bit). Fingers crossed they'll have cleared up tomorrow for my ear test.

The only other amusing titbit I have is that my mum has been making noises about me getting my bike serviced before the winter, with the comment that it's really expensive in our only (not so) local bike shop, but it'll probably be cheaper out here in Bikeland, and worth doing just to make sure everything's OK. Of course, how it turns out that things are actually done here is that I go to a bike shop, get told to bring my bike in, then have a five minute chat with the bike mechanic (who looks disconcertingly like one of my cousins when he was about eighteen) about how the wheels and brakes are doing and how it otherwise looks fine for everyday use. And then I'm sent on my way, with instructions on how to properly tighten up brakes and the comment 'yeah, obviously if you pump up the tyres a few times and they keep going flat, you've got a puncture'. I was rather tickled by the way there was absolutely no attempt to rope me into buying/paying for anything at all, but I'm assuming this is because they have far too many on-going bike repairs to waste everybody's time with vanity services for panicky non-locals still getting used to having a bike as an everyday, all-purpose vehicle...

On the baking front I have discovered

- the oven in my new house runs at least ten if not twenty degrees higher than advertised.
- non-stick cake tins aren't actually non-stick; things will still stick, it just won't be as much of a disaster if you tried cooking without paper in a normal cake tin. You still need paper if you want your cake to come away clean from the bottom.
- hand whisks gathered second-hand from a friend of a friend are liable to break halfway through mixing your sponge batter, leaving you minutes of fun trying to get the sponge of them and trying to make sure that the butter is all unlumped.

All in all, I think this has produced the worst all-in-one Victoria sponges that I have made since I was nine years old. And I'm intending to serve it to stultiloquentia tomorrow when she visits... :( (To be fair, I think it will taste OK in the middle where it rose properly, but the edges are all flat and crispy. Sigh! I'm meant to be good at sponges. I should have got a new baking tray and made brownies...)

Otherwise, on the ears front, over the last few months I've been finding it more and more difficult to hear people in crowds. And understand French when I can't see lips moving. This possibly requires a slightly larger sigh than the cake!fail, though as a start I apparently need to get them syringed again, so I'm on olive oil until Monday, before I have that done and a proper hearing test on Wednesday. Considering the amount of deafness on my dad's side of the family and the fact that my ears have already proved themselves quite shit, I'm not holding out much hope for an all clear, but we shall see. And, hey, apparently NHS hearing aids come in funky colours these days...

Otherotherwise, in case it got lost, Stulti's coming to visit tomorrow!!! I am excited. If unlikely to impress with my baking skills.