deconstructing mark
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Wednesday 29.10.03 | FECKING UCL computers are so bloody slow - feel like I'm going to need a shave every time I click a link. Bad mood as well due to feelings of ill-health due to the brain-scan I've just had. Far from checking for existence (just pre-empting the inevitable floods of comedy emails) they were, erm, doing something to do with my fingers. Or something. Anyway, I was lying in this scanning tunnel and it was all fine until they switched the thing off after about 10 minutes' of scanning to prepare the second experiment they wanted to do on me, and I suddenly felt like hurling, so I decided to exercise my right as a subject and throw in the towel. Ugh. Still, had auditions last night for the madness play I am directing, and I now have a cast. Cue simultaneous excitement and bricking self... Oh yeah, and before I go, I just have to share this with you because it's very very funny, albeit particularly culturally inappropriate and just downright rude. Thanks, Will... Saturday 1.11.03 Sorry these are a bit big, not really sure how to scale them down. Don't think any knowledge of German is required to understand quite how dense this woman is. Matt's Halloween party last night; bloody good night but feel like I've been used to wipe the floor this morning... Sunday 2.11.03 PAY attention people, for this is going to be one of the few genuinely serious, heartfelt, meaningful things I will ever write on here. I know I'm full of shit most of the time, but occasionally I do come out with something from the heart. That something is that there is a change taking place within me, or perhaps it has already taken place. There wasn't one particular moment where I realised it, and I'm still trying to measure its depth and its breadth, its meaning and its intensity. It's very difficult to put into words, because whatever I seem to say doesn't quite cover what I mean. I'm trying to tell you that, for the first time in my life, I've discovered what it is genuinely like, genuinely genuinely, to be moved and fascinated by what I am working on, namely my degree. I have always loved German, and hopefully always will. It's frustrated me, confused me, eluded me, and I know that I will never have mastered it perfectly. But it is, quite simply, amazing. None of this should be new - even if you don't know me, it should be clear from my writings that Germany, the Germans, their language, history and culture are all things which have been central to me for almost 10 years now. What is new, then, is that, God how to put this, it is dawning on me that I want to spend my life what I am doing now - that is, working on the problems, the highs, the lows, the gutters and the stars, the doormats and the top-hats of German. Call me a ridiculous, esoteric, irrelevant geek, and watch me not give a crap. I have often wondered why the feck I did this degree, and for the first time, I think it might be becoming clear. I did choose the right degree, well, almost (French will always take 2nd place with me, kinda wish I'd done German and English now); not only because the last three years have been a delight, a challenge and mostly atrociously lazy but because also, for the first time, the next however many can be spent working on something which really means something to me. I'm realising that I'm not doing German because I want a career in international politics or whatever, engaging as they undoubtedly would be. I'm doing German because it's my passion. No, no good. Can't quite get to the bottom of it in words. I would just be very unsurprised if you find me saying much the same thing in 20 years' time, even if I am a dusty academic. Und jetzt Schluss. Tuesday 4.11.03 FELT like bloody Adonis last night in walking into my local gay bar, which happens to be approximately 1 minutes' walk from our flat. Full of ageing, lechey, striped-jumper-wearing 50-year-olds, I suddenly felt like I should have been sitting down to watch Blue Peter with a glass of orange squash; in short, Charlie, Jules and I burst into fits of giggles (especially as they were the only females in there.) The over-friendly bartender, Oscar, came up to to us and started chatting, and asked innocently whether we knew it was a gay bar. 'REALLY? NO! Would have NEVER have guessed' (I really must stop being so sarcastic to everyone I meet, really) and then introduced Charlie as Michael (or something), Jules as Bob (or something) and myself as Mabel (or something). We left after one drink. | |||||||||
