stairway to heaven

These intrepid angels were probably my favorite thing about the abbey in Bath. If you look closely, you can see that a couple of the lower ones have lost their heads, which I suppose makes sense, if you pursue the scenario of an Earth-bound angel to its logical conclusion.
There's a story idea in there, if I would take the time to sit down and write it.

forward thinking

For those of you who may not be aware: I have an internship for this summer!!!
(Well, two months of it, anyway. They're not paying me, so two months is all I could afford:-P)

my whereabouts yesterday

It's strange, but they seem so small in real life...I could almost imagine them as sheepish, embarrassed to be so incomplete and worn down by their absolutely colossal, mystical reputation.

The "minders" at the site don't let you get much closer than this, and one must wonder why - will the stones get spooked and run away if you venture too close?

good intentions

Dear Professor-

I would like to point out that I had every intention of completing the reading for class tomorrow. Unfortunately, this happened:

I'm sure you understand.

Sincerely,

~L

PS Let it never be said that there is no sunshine in England.

Showtime! (Part 2)

Fair warning: this blog post is TOO LONG. I've been fiddling with it for ages, and today I decided to stop stalling and just finish the silly thing, but if you, unlike myself, have NOT been writing and discussing and otherwise obsessing over Frankenstein for the last two weeks, and are not interested in reading about it, feel free to skip this post altogether. I promise not to be offended.

Showtime! (Part 1)

In case any of you haven’t picked it up yet, I’m kind of into theatre.

While I’ve been in London, I’ve (half-accidentally) fallen into the habit of going to see at least one play a week – usually on Thursday nights. Some of them haven’t been very good plays, but the practice has done a lot to help re-ignite my interest in the technique of theatre, expand my understanding of what’s going on in the field right now and, not least, remind me why I’m trying to get into this business at all.

If you’re interested, what follows is a list, with brief reviews, of what I’ve been seeing. Enjoy. I have.

Paddington (sans bears...mostly)

Yesterday I took a trip up to Paddington, and as usual, the trip itself was half the adventure. 

It being the weekend, the tube line I wanted was under “scheduled maintenance,” so I ended up changing trains three times before I reached my destination. (Side note: the Baker Street tube station is really cool – I think they refurbished the old-school design in parts of it, instead of just making over everything in concrete, the result being that large parts of it look like they were torn off of Robert Downey Junior’s Sherlock Holmes movie set. Awesome.) Paddington Station is big, too, big enough that it took fifteen minutes and two sets of directions for me to find the hotel attached to it.

I'm famous!

If you're interested, my friend Michelle has made a video about the academics here in England, which you can see if you mosey on over to her blog. I helped her put it together last weekend, and she's got a bit of on-campus footage on there, too. Enjoy!

attention, please...

I HAVE A SHOW TO WORK ON.

*cue ticker-tape, brass bands, dancing in the streets*

It's called "Comrades" and I have yet to read it, but it's about two poor Italian anarchists in America in the 1920s. The director (Rob) is a student at Kingston, and I contacted him a couple days ago when I first saw the flyer in the theater building, calling for actors and techies and an SM, ASAP. When I showed up to talk to him today, we chit-chatted for a few minutes (mostly about my SMing experience/style), and he hired me on the spot.

!!!!!!!
I am slightly excited about this. Auditions are continuing tomorrow, so I'll be going up to campus to sit in on those...and we perform for three nights at the end of March. It's a fairly tech-heavy show. I'm anticipating a challenge.

I am now full of both ferocity and purpose. Much like Batman. Or Snape.

Note: I did NOT draw this, I found it someplace on the internet - if you know who the artist is, please let me know so I can credit them!

That is all. FOR NOW.

a small adventure

Yesterday, I left the house on a small adventure. A quest, if you will.
See, I packed no hair products when I left the US, and things have been getting...fuzzy, to say the least. My Aunt Fran (who is both understanding and fantastic) is mailing me a jar of the essentials, but we can only guess how long that'll be crossing the Atlantic, and when I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday morning, I could swear it cracked.

So. My very first multi-train journey solo.

the state of my brain this evening

I have been doing a lot - and I really do mean a lot - of reading about theatre, much of it by "men called Peter."
I'm referring to Peter Hall and Peter Brook, authors of The Necessary Theatre and The Empty Space respectively. Both these men are living legends in modern theatre history...and they both work with/around the university I'm currently attending. I'm not sure whether fangirl squealing or terrified paralysis is in order...?

Finally, Brighton. As promised.

(Sorry this post is late...the wifi at my landlady's house has gone on bank holiday or something, so I had to get down to the pub today and mooch theirs to do all my internet-ing.)

This trip was the first for my “British Life and Culture” class. We departed from campus at 930am, piling into two enormous buses for an hour’s drive down to the coast, where we would experience the place they call ‘London-on-Sea.’