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April 4th, 2007

03:39 pm It's a blustery, rainy day.  The rain seems to acknowlege its mortality, evading everything designed to quell it.  Winds blow the rain around and under umbrellas, streams form on the pavement, waterfalls from the gutters.  My canvas shoes are drenched in moments, the rest of my body conflicted between feelings of cold and damp.  Big, sloppy drops pelt the street and windscreens and tyres begin to sound like planes on a runway.  The path to campus is barricaded by a, stream, of sorts, a swiftly moving mass of water that slides downhill from the car park, makes its way down the bank to the street and collects in a massive puddle directly in front of the staircase (the only feasible pedestrian entrance).  The day has barely begun and i'm completely certain that i have no desire to venture back out there. Yet, the rain is comforting. It allows for the excuse of a lazy, quiet day.  The sounds of traffic, rain on the roof, the thought of the veritable oceans that must be forming makes me feel safe.  Whenever it snows, i feel so completely trapped, as though the world is caving in around me, as though i have hundreds of thousands of things i need to do at that very moment, every single one of them outside of the house. But that doesn't happen in the rain.  And maybe it's because i know that i could still do those things.  Yes, my feet may get soaked and my hair damp and plastered to my head, but that's the worst of it.  There are no icy patches, no unshoveled pavement, no slick roads, no chance of vehicular entrapment. And tonight, in the dark, the streetlights and headlights will reflect in the puddles for what seems like miles.  Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: The Rosebuds- Boxcar

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March 25th, 2007

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March 8th, 2007

05:55 am For the past 6 months or so, i've been talking to my mother about semi-elaborate plans for what i was going to do once i graduate in May.  All of them involved moving home until September until recently, finding a job as a substitute teacher or in the customer service part of S&S or as bar staff or waitressing staff, or something.  anything to make a little money, get me on my feet while i enjoyed a rent free/food provided lifestyle... and then moving out/on in September. And then it became 5 weeks, leaving in mid june.  i was going to cram in as many hours as i could at S&S before i left, make as much money as possible, and then be on my way. But now it's 13 days.  enough time for me to unpack, cram 6 months into a 50 pound suitcase and head out again.  I'm sure this is what they worried about when they first saw me off at Arcadia, and i'm sure they worried about it more when I left for the UK a second time.  But now that i know this could potentially be the last time i leave them temporarily, i'm struck with an overwhelming sense of guilt, a feeling of selfishness that I can't shake. I tried to make it as easy as possible for them, staying for as long as i thought i could before flight prices skyrocketed for the tourist period, trying to give them enough time to get sick of me being home while still giving myself time to find a place to live before June.  I found a flight from providence, which shaves an hour off of travel time, and risked Phil's wrath by booking a (more expensive) flight that departed at a time that wouldn't require them taking a full day from work to see me off (if they want to), or that Andrew at least could bring me to.  I'm flying back on the 20th rather than the 21st or the 22nd of November, mostly so I'll be home for Thanksgiving (the 22nd) and so they won't have to drive to Boston, home, and then back again within 24 hours.  And though choosing the latest departure from London was mostly so we would have the morning together, i also wanted them to be able to be the first people to see me (after passport control) when i got back. But i still feel so completely selfish.  I've built up this alternate reality for my parents where I'll be living at home again, which, due to how absent i've been for the last 4 years, they were pretty excited about.  i could see it in their faces when we talked about it, could hear it in their voices.  so now i'm not sure how i'm supposed to tell them that i'll be leaving pretty much as soon as i can to go be back in the UK, to be with Phil, whom they've never even spoken to (except online), nevermind met.  I won't be around for my brother's 18th birthday or Ellen's final ballet or their high school graduation.  I'll miss trying to get to the o'neill festival with my dad, and beach trips to duxbury, and sailing trips in boston harbour.  I know i'll be replacing the experiences with amazing adventures to new and exotic places (like Cornwall) but isn't that more of a reason to feel guilty? so how am i supposed to tell them? Don't get me wrong, i am really really excited about this adventure.  We've already got the first few days planned out already, meeting up in london (so i can attend the mandatory orientation for bunac), going on some London adventures (mostly in greenwich) and then venturing back to Manc the next evening so we can attend some flat viewings the next day.  I try not to plan much further than that because it doesn't make me want to be in the present anymore, but rather three months in the future, with a space of our own and my yellow plates liberated once again, and a new alarm clock that sounds nothing like the ones i associate with having to wake up in Manchester. but how do i get past the part where i feel like a terrible daughter so i can actually enjoy the planning and the anticipation without the shame? Current Mood: guilty Current Music: Recloose- Can't Take It

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January 22nd, 2007

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December 21st, 2006

03:52 pm I'll be back in the UK in less than a week! *freaks out* Current Mood: nervous

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December 19th, 2006

03:43 am for as much as i've hated all of this work, i've learned a lot more in the past couple weeks than in the whole of my university career. I can now tell you: a) almost anything you want to to know about any of Pinter's plays written before the homecoming. b) about Virginia Woolf's projection of her own feelings and frustrations about her mental stability into her fiction, as well as how she perceived the status of women in the 1920s. c) basic ideas behind the man who died, the dead, heart of darkness, or some of tennyson or browning's poems. d) about the idea of the Panopticon e) about psychoanalytic, feminist, reader-response, or structuralist criticism. f) about the characteristics of and differences between Romanticism, Victorianism and Modernism. g) a number of theories about what causes aggression and violence h) what happens in the pillowman, line by line. i) the names, ages, causes of death and various other details of the prostitutes murdered in suffolk recently j) why i never want to pick up another book or write another word in my life. not to finish writing about pinter. and the packing/revising/sleeping/exam taking/check picking up/driving home goodness. Current Mood: rushed

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December 17th, 2006

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December 16th, 2006

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November 28th, 2006

01:14 pm "I wanted to find a hole in the ground and hide myself in it forever" Current Mood: crushed

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November 17th, 2006

04:33 pm "I love you now. I'm with you now. I'll do my best, moment to moment, not to betray you. Now. That's it. No more. Don't make me lie to you" Sarah Kane, Cleansed. Current Mood: numb

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November 16th, 2006

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04:21 pm It’s 6:36pm, still sunny and warm. Birds chirping, children playing, the loud music of a car stereo reverberating on the street. Somewhere in the world. In Glenside it’s another dreary November morning. The trees are naked, the fields are void of barely clothed students sunbathing and playing Frisbee and the wind blows dry, withered leaves along the brick pathways. There’s one maple tree on Limekiln somewhere between here and my house that is still bright red, flooding the pavement with fallen leaves, allowing a momentary escape from the death that looms, the strange dampness that permeates the unseasonably warm air, the periodic scatterings of unfamiliar faces and strange laughter. I want to run away; go to Colchester, to a warm house, free meals, familiar curves of the roads. I want to negate all responsibility, sleep in my old bed, be completely taken care of, allow myself not to think for a while. Or to Ecuador, or Spain, to a cave in the hills, hidden away. I’d bring a lorry full of blankets and pillows and fill the cave, and send the lorry over a cliff. Nothing else. No books, no films, no computer, no other people. Just me in an inordinately comfortable cave where, if discovered, I could feign an inability to understand. I don’t ever want to read another book or write another essay or be required to move. Maybe saying ever is a bit over the top, but I need a complete escape from everything right now. The library is full of people reading, typing and looking generally studious. I should be finishing an essay that was due in yesterday but I really don’t care. I wish I cared, I really do. But Darwin and the Victorian age don’t really excite me. Nor do relationships in Pinter’s works, nor does the Pillowman now that Grady is convinced that my idea to explore the phenomenon of violence, within the pillowman, is too sociological and not a good idea for a literature dissertation. I, personally, have never read a sociology essay that focuses, or even really talks about a play, but apparently Grady has. So, less than two weeks from a time in which I should be handing in a rough draft of my dissertation (/thesis) I have no idea what to even write about. There’s also the frustration of the constant suggestions of lecturers to “use Thanksgiving as a time to catch up.” No. I refuse. The five days I don’t have to be here are for me, and besides, not everyone (though most do) live within an hour’s drive of Arcadia and can go home and back as they wish. Nor do we have the library at home. However, I guess one could argue that I really should be done researching by now. Ugh, I don’t even care enough to write anything more. It doesn’t matter, you don’t want to hear it (or you already have) and I’m boring myself. I just want a hug, a nap and something else I can’t identify. Current Mood: cold

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October 23rd, 2006

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September 12th, 2006

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September 11th, 2006

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September 6th, 2006

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July 10th, 2006

04:35 pm     'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com Mine's better than Meghan's.  Although I don't think an obituaty would specify a death as "horrific"... unless they wanted to upset people. I know I haven't written in AGES, but chances are if you're reading this, you already know what's been going on in my life, and writing about it in any specifity would probably bore you to tears.  If not, keep up! I've spent the last 2.5 weeks of my life trying to keep as busy as possible while Phil's off in Europe, were I was meant to be leaving today after spending a month doing exactly what he's doing- travelling by rail.  He's in Prague at the moment, one of  my top three must-see destinations, so i am exceedingly jealous.  While he's away i've spent most of my time picking up as many spare shifts at varsity (including one in the Didsbury varsity tonight), sleeping excessive amounts (or trying to, i can rarely sleep at night here because the street outside of my window is very loud and I feel like i'm facing the wrong way, and the window's on the east side so the light starts to come in at about 5 and my bed's too big), and reading as many plays and relatively shit books as possible.  I also tried to flog some stuff on ebay, but it doesn't look promising so far and I'm not going to bother listing everything if nothing is going to sell. I've begun to get into that last-month panic stage, exactly like what happened in London.  As a bit of an obsessive planner, I laid out so many things to do and then realised I'd not done a fraction of them as the end of my time there was approaching.  In London it was easy, i wanted to do the touristy things I had been too stubborn to admit to wanting to do: visiting museums and the aquarium and the burough market one more time and taking photos I'd neglected to take and buying shit souvineers to take my friends. But Manchester is so much different.  I came to Manchester mostly so I could be at the continents doorstep.  I had plans to eurrail for the last month I was here, so the things yet unfinished, rather than being trips to the natural history or science museum are instead trips to bruges, stockholm, prague, berlin, vienna, etc...  I'd like to go back to Holland, replace pictures I lost when my computer was stolen, rent a bike again, get less lost, and hopefully less wet.  I still haven't been down to the south coast, still no brighton, no cornwall and even though it's virtually next door, I've still not been to Liverpool properly.  Yes, I still want to go around photographing Manchester, but I'd rather photograph the abandoned buildings with broken and boarded windows than any sort of tourist site the big red bus brings you to.  So, while I talked to Phil online last week (when he was either in Austria or Poland), I began to break down, thinking that my time in Manchester has been a failure, that I've not accomplished anything, that I may as well just never come. But in all honesty, that's probably as far from the truth as it gets.  Reasons why my time in Manchester has been a success, Brenna style: *I auditioned for, got a role in and actually followed through completely with being in a play.  Granted, it was the Vagina Monologues, but people were turned down (against the rules). *I managed to meet, and get really close to 30 girls in the period of a month.  I'm still in contact with a good number of them.  And I'm shit at befriending girls. *I (regularly) attended a pub quiz, which we won (several times).  I experienced the post Orange Grove pub quiz win tradition of phoning Khan's for takeaway on the way back to MRW, I befriended Phil's housemates and kind of stole Jon and Caz from him. *I learned to skim stones on Loch Ness *I touched a sheep. *I visited the Scottish Highlands, the peak district, Hadrian's Wall, the proper Colchester, Chester, Amsterdam. *I've learned Manchester City Centre really fucking well.  I discovered (with the help of others) some really sweet places like Oklahoma, the Star and Garter, Font, Space, Earth Cafe, Hugo Mash (RIP) *I ate far too many chips and drank far too much Belgian beer than is healthy for a person. *I went to Mr. Scruff at the music box.  Twice.  Once completely on my own, where I met some really interesting people. *I got a job.  Yes the pay is shit, but the co-workers are great, Line Cleaning/Ring of Fire is a brilliant tradition, time passes quickly and It gives me the experience to get a really SWEET job (read, lots of tips) when I get home.  It's also quite good for the ego as I tend to get asked out about once/week. *I vastly improved my cooking skills, to the point where I kid of became the flat mum with my baked goods and enchiladas and such.  I also learned to use a gas hob and no longer want to deal with the electric kind. *I survived/handled getting a passport, phone and computer stolen.  Fucking more difficult to replace than one would think. *I met Phil. That's enough of a success for all of it, isn't it? And I'll be back this time.  I will.  This is my home more than anywhere else I've ever been.

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February 15th, 2006

12:06 am - you all want the lovely music to save your lives Broken Social Scene really really was the best valentine ever. They played both versions of major label debut, lover's spit, pretty much everything off of the new album. it was ambient and romantic and beautiful and didn't last anwhere near long enough. And i wish they had played I'm still your fag. I'm pretty excited for the period of time that begins on friday, that is once phil's dissertation's been turned in and we don't have to deliberate over whether we can afford the time to get together, or separate at 11 on valentine's day. this is bad. but in good news, customs has not contacted me since yesterday, so hopefully my computer will be here tomorrow. no clue how long it will take for them to get in and fix my internet stuff though. And then I have to trek down to london with my passport application. for those of you who haven't been keeping up, here's the news, brenna style: -someone managed to fit themselves through my one foot square bathroom window one night while i was making dinner (by making dinner i mean drinking bourbon in the common room.) computer, mobile phone and passport all = gone. I slept in Lottie's room for two nights after that and am still trying to get things sorted. -For those of you who have noticed my absence from AIM, it is directly linked with the above. I should be back online soon and I'll catch up with people. -I will be in london at some point soon. For those of you who are there, if anyone wants to accompany me to see 4.48 psychosis, that would be awesome. or, if anyone wants to accompany me to the gyspsy moth pub in greenwich, that would be almost as awesome. -I saw Munich last night. All i could say for about 45 minutes after leaving the theatre was "holy shit." If you've seen it, please contact me so we can discuss it. if you've not, please direct yourself to the nearest cinema. -I have a new mobile number. I'm not sure what it is at the moment, and I think that my service provider has just reimbursed me for the £25 i've spent since buying the phone. -For some unknown reason i auditioned for and (even more surprisingly) got cast in the vagina monologues. We preform on the 9th/10th/11th of march. It should be pretty good. If you're in Manchester, come check it out. -Crystal's coming to visit this weekend, and Jinell's coming up on saturday. We're going to Smile i think. It's going to be a good weekend. anyone else want to hang out? -I can't think at the moment because i'm still thinking about broken social scene. *drools... and then shakes fist at sean ashley* Current Mood: in awe Current Music: Broken Social Scene - It's All Gonna Break

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January 19th, 2006

11:45 am A real little green pig. I wonder how the pillowman's Michal would feel about this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm Current Mood: disgusted Current Music: Zero 7 - Somersault

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January 18th, 2006

07:23 pm i am in love with words. the way they look, they way the fit together, the way they sound. the most horrifying image can be painted with words that sound beautiful when sung to a single guitar track, the most commonplace things can be described with an intriguing and fascinating word. on days like today, when i spend hours with austen and peacock in front of me, struggling to finish reading, i forget why it is that i decided to study english. but then i see the words that long to have a voice, a poem by baraka or williams (i'm thinking "preface to a 20 vol. suicide note" and "this is just to say" in case you were wondering), a bit of a sarah kane play, a line in a salinger novel, lyrics to an elliott smith or broken social scene song and i want to collect them. I want to say them aloud again and again, trying to etch them into my memory so they'll never be lost like so many scraps of paper. It's the same dizzying feeling as having hair brushed from your forehead by a gentle palm. it's the things in between that are frustrating though: the dull conversations between characters in 18th century novels that stall progress, the disappointing ending to a poem you'd want to take home with you, the awkward, obvious rhyme structure of that song on the radio. is it worth all of the effort just for those occasional moments of dizzying happiness? is it the same of everything? Current Mood: elated Current Music: Elliott Smith - Fond Farewell

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