The plague circulating and re-circulating Durham (most people I know have had it twice, wtf) has finally struck my lecturers. I feel bad for them, but also, WOOOO UNEXPECTED DAYS OFF. Sure, I'll be using it to do lots of Akkadian work, but I also got a lie-in. It was pretty sweet, I can tell you.

What's going on with me? I went to TT on Saturday, won Best Monster again, and we did medieval entertainment at the Hatfield Ball, which a) went far better and was better received than expected (one drunk guy, who I honestly was expecting to cause trouble, got REALLY EXCITED when he realized we were performing 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and started yelling at everyone else "HEY, GUYS, SHUT UP! I WANNA HEAR THE STORY!") and b) would have been awesome even if not, because we were given a giant plate of all the leftover meat from the hog roast. HOG ROAST MEAT IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

Then yesterday, I didn't do anywhere near as much work as I should have done, and had Elvet Underground in the evening. It was absolutely chucking it down with rain - seriously, soaked jeans and wet socks by the time I got there - so we had a tiny tiny audience, mostly my friends. But it was a GOOD audience, and a really fun show. How many other shows can you play both a singing octopus ("JAZZ TENTACLES!") and Eve, who has become a Martian explorer and is easily turned on by quadratic equations? EXACTLY.

So, I'm off to work on Akkadian now. My life is pretty good right now... there's stuff I haven't even mentioned here. I will soon enough :D


PS: Oh, and not doing NaNoWriMo was SUCH a good call on my part. As much as I've envied everyone else doing it, I think my brain would actually have exploded.

So, I may actually be clambering to the top of the work heap again. This weekend, I just have to do two lots of Akkadian and various Greek exercises and reading for CRMR and start reading for my formative lit review. THIS IS MANAGEABLE. (eep.)

I have also finally finished the first drafts of my stories for the crossover exchange and sent them to be beta'd. Damn, that took long enough. Well, it took me long enough to figure out what the hell to write about. First idea? Too long and complicated. Second idea? FAR too grim, far too quickly, leik WOAH. Third idea, worked out fine. Phew.

Had an improv show last night as well, and that went amazingly, because our freshers are AWESOME. Also, it was for Amnesty International, so, you know, karma points for the rest of the year. And then there was pubbage and epic mucking about with Alistair and generally I love my friends and my life, d'awww.

I am also now the proud owner of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Along with Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, the Dhoom films, GI Joe and The Core, I have developed a genuine love of cheesy badness.

So, this weekend: tomorrow, adventure, Improv, Hatfield Ball; Sunday, Elvet Underground show, either performing or watching.

I'll probably be right back down to the bottom of the work heap by Monday.

OMG AMERICAN PEOPLE THE YOUNG VICTORIA IS FINALLY BEING RELEASED OVER THERE AROUND CHRISTMAS

I love this movie. SO MUCH. I saw it twice in cinemas and bought it on DVD the red-hot second it came out. If you like history and/or adorable romance, GO SEE IT.

Reasons to go see it:
- Emily Blunt kicking ass and taking names as Victoria
- Rupert Friend being utterly schnooglable as Albert (no, I don't know what schnooglable means, but you'll understand if you go watch)
- Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent and Mark "HEY, IT'S THAT GUY FROM STARDUST AND MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY" Strong ALL IN THE SAME MOVIE
- Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous costumes
- TOTALLY HISTORICAL YO
- Did I mention the adorable romance?? I CANNOT EMPHASISE ENOUGH THE ADORABLE ROMANCE. Seriously, it makes hand-holding and eye contact the most "RAWR" thing ever.

TRAILER!



... I may have had too much caffeine this morning.

9am - Akkadian
11am - Greek
12pm-1:30 - Classical Research Methods & Resources, on Epigraphy
Preparation for report tomorrow on Babylonian libraries
Do moar Akkadian, as always
Wash hair
Improv show for Amnesty International

WHY AM I AWAKE. I WANT TO STILL BE IN BED.

(I don't know why this is bugging me today. I've been way busier in the past. Maybe it's because I had very vivid dreams last night about running around trying to organize an Edinburgh show, so I feel like I was working all NIGHT as well.)

So, I planned to do lots and lots of reading this afternoon and be good and scholarly. I was sat on my bed, with reading to my left and cookies and juice to my right, all set to study the HELL out of epigraphy.

I somehow fell asleep within five minutes, only being woken up three hours later when my housemate came and asked if I still wanted chips.

I did NOT know I was that tired. I was so tired, I was dreaming I was tired. In my dreams, everyone else was talking about adventures they wanted to have, while I just sprawled on a sofa or a bed and dozed.

So... more rest for me, then.

Dear Classics Lecturers,

I know I'm not getting as much work done as I should. Please believe me when I say I AM working really, really hard, pretty much every spare moment I have. I've just had a distinct lack of spare moments lately. I do have a lot of social activities, like Improv, but normally I can work around them.

The problem is, over the past week, I have:

1. Just recovered from flu of the suspiciously swine variety,
2. Had to catch up with all the work I missed,
3. Had to call a doctor TWICE on my housemate who caught the flu off me, to check if we need to take him to hospital, and spent a whole night trying to get his temperature down,
4. Had the power go out in my house,
5. Had my mum come up to visit, and actually spent lots of time with her discussing...
6. ... my various personal dramas which I am most definitely not going to get into here, but are time-consuming, believe me.

Not to mention Akkadian continues to eat a large part of my brain every single week.

Just... I know I need to work harder. And I'm going to, I really am. Just... bear with me, for a little bit.

Much love for letting me delay real life for another year,

Katie xx

Just got back from a showcase of Indian culture by a visiting Indian performing arts institute. It was certainly... thorough. Three hours of thorough.

The most entertaining bit had to be a play they put on halfway through the second half, which was some sort of pantomime-courtroom drama-satire-musical, which featured THIS plot twist:

Judge: Ho ho, that was a wacky court case about an ox's tail coming off. Who's up next?

Woman: I want to charge that man as well!

Judge: Well, he already got forgiven for the ox thing even though it was totally his fault because we thought he was rich. What's he done to YOU?

Woman: HE KILLED MY CHILD!!!

Audience: (thus far merrily enjoying the wacky antics with the ox) ..... wait, WHAT.

Man: Look, all I did was ACCIDENTALLY knock over the cradle, it's not MY fault the baby fell out, fell down the stairs and cracked open its skull!

Audience: WUT.

Judge: You're right! And still rich! Instead of hanging you, your punishment will be to be the NEW child for this grieving mother!

Woman: WHAT?

Man: Woohoo!

Judge: Ho ho, wacky antics! Bring on the next one!

Another man: That man killed my father!

Judge: MORE hilarity!

Audience: OMG he killed a BABY.

*~*SONG AND DANCE NUMBER*~*

Basically, the judge thinks the guy is rich so keeps letting him off these horrible crimes, with punishments which actually suck for the wronged person, but then it turns out the guy isn't rich, but gets away with it because he says otherwise he would have just killed the judge. That is, until all the wronged people end up paying him to stop his 'punishment' (ie, stop being my child, you creepy baby-murderer), and even the judge ends up paying him for NOT murdering him. So he gets enough money to get married and lives... happily ever... after.

It also has the glorious line when the man's trying to refuse the money the judge is offering him, "No! I don't want to corrupt the courts!" "Oh, don't worry, this money is FROM corruption!"

There was also a lot of music (with the most intense drums player I've ever seen - he kept looking up like he was scanning the audience for a sniper) and dancing (two girls dropped their sticks in a morris-type dance but kept going, somehow becoming more entertaining) and there was a series of dances about the eight kinds of heroine, such as 'The Heroine who is Fearless and goes out to find her Beloved' (she seemed to be dancing about how annoying rain was) and 'The Heroine who is Arguing with her Beloved' (dancing along the lines of "OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT")

It is now almost 1am and I have a 9am lecture... fun times.

Woooo, no more plague! Instead the rest of my house has fallen ill. My housemate MattMatt has actually been diagnosed with swine flu, and swears he got it off me. He certainly got ill very shortly after I did and has the same symptoms and detoriation rate. It seems my horrible horrible plague may have been swine flu without me even noticing. Who knew?

Anyway, I get to celebrate by working like crazy to catch up and going out tonight with Alistair and Beccy :D Fun times!

Well, I'm still sick, and frankly getting quite tired of it. I've had crazy dreams the past few nights, and last night was the first night since Thursday where I actually managed to get a decent amount of uninterrupted sleep, without being woken up by my temperature shooting up and down and requiring adjustment of bedding. (At worst, I had my duvet, blanket AND dressing gown to try to stop shivering.)

But the cough is still here and showing no signs of going anywhere, and my appetite has vanished. I can't have more than a few mouthfuls of something before feeling nauseous and wanting no more to do with it. This was especially bad last night when I went to see Inglourious Basterds at the college film soc cinema with Alistair and Richard, and, despite having only eaten half a can of soup and half a lasagne that day, could NOT face a Hild Bede Burger Van Burger.

(I understand the majority of people on my flist have never had a Hild Bede Burger Van Burger, but the fact I'm capitalizing it should say enough. They are glorious creations of meat and cheese and bacon.)

So yeah. THAT sucked. (Not the film, of course, that still rocks. Just the lack of burger.) But, as I said, I managed to sleep pretty much through the night last night and didn't wake up till half 10, when I e-mailed my tutor to say 'yeah, still dead, not making class' and just watched the new Doctor Who and Top Gear all morning.

I'm on the mend. Just still not better. Grr.

Back in bed, with plague, AGAIN. It may in fact be the same plague - the cold may have turned into a stealth chest infection. Either that, or I got it off a friend I saw last weekend. Either way, this SUCKS. I had crazy fever dreams last night about fighting off hordes of zombies with Greek nouns (which had to have matching definite articles and endings before they could be used) and just about managed to make it to Akkadian this morning, though my lecturer stopped halfway through to ask if I was all right.

Bah. I do not like being ill.


LATER: ( Having watched Supernatural... )

Oh crap, I think I'm getting ill again. Why, WHYYYYYYY.

This weekend I disappeared off to Chester for another mysterious SFX weekend (known to my friends only as "when Katie goes off with those people she knows on the internet and returns with a hangover") and awesome times were had. We had a belated Halloween party, where we carved pumpkins and got all dressed up, and I was an undead pirate. Well, I'd wanted to wear my pirate costume, and wanted to recycle my make-up from being Queen Victoria the Banshee on actual Halloween, so... compromise.

( Photo! )

That photo was taken on the Saturday evening, after a guy who was dressed as one of the Ghostbusters had given me his goggles to wear. Suddenly my costume was transformed into Mad Steampunk Scientist, and that same guy was so inspired he actually drew me as a comic book character. Mozo, the Mad Scientist/Airship Pirate. Believe me when I say I'll be posting his sketches as soon as he scans and e-mails them. I was a ball of squee throughout Sunday.

What else did we do? We had a sci-fi quiz, which I came 4th in or something, and successfully did not pick one of the six or seven prizes of Laszlo action figures (people were VERY surprised at how many there were... Countfests are fun), and Leonie and I spent most of Sunday in the swimming pool again.

OH - and I saw one of my new favourite films EVER. Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!: Strippers vs. Zombies. You'd think that title would tell you everything you needed to know, but no - there was also a pimp character called Johnny 'Backhand' Vegas. Basically, a bunch of hookers get infected with a zombie virus, and the local strippers have to defend themselves with improvised weapons like chainsaws, their stripper poles and stilettos, until they get hold of a cure which makes the zombies explode. IT'S AMAZING. I bought my own copy as soon as I got back to Durham, and the guy behind the counter was clearly trying not to laugh.

So now I am back in Durham and have discovered my friend Beccy was thrown from her horse on Saturday and has broken her collarbone and dislocated her shoulder :( Will be spending much time round there this week to help her with stuff and generally keep her company. She's more frustrated than anything, because she can't do everything she wants to and doesn't get to ride again for another 6 weeks.

I went round with fruit tarts and Ever After. That helped.

My friend Alistair was on this thing called '3 Minute Wonder' - 3-minute documentaries aired around lunchtime on Channel 4. Now, someone has fallen in love with him and is desperately searching the interwebs for him.

BRB LOLING FOREVER.


PS: Here is the video where all the magic began... to be fair, he is talking about fluorescent monkeys.

When I was growing up, I never liked tea or coffee. The latter is understandable, but the former, in England, is met with similar reactions to kicking over the Queen and throwing her crown into the mud. I also never liked most fizzy drinks. The long and short of it is, I grew up with little to no caffeine in my life.

Now, you may have noticed in my LJ that I've been very busy lately. This, combined with the clocks going back and it getting dark so much earlier, means I've been much more tired. In my third year, I tried to combat this by taking Pro Plus - just one tablet would usually be enough to perk me up for an entire morning, two would almost have me bouncing off the walls. Possibly not as healthy as getting enough sleep, but it worked.

This year, I've been trying a different tack. The other day, I tried buying myself a mocha. I was in too much of a hurry and didn't quite like it enough to finish it, I only had a little less than half, but I was intrigued. I figured, in an emergency, a whole mocha would be great to get me through it.

This morning was was such an emergency. After getting to bed at 1am, I had to be up at 7am to finish reading an article before a 9am seminar, where I'd have to discuss it in close detail. No way was I going to be awake enough without some kind of miracle. And lo, this miracle, I thought, was a mocha. So after I got up, I headed straight to O'Briens with my reading to get a mocha and finish my reading before heading off to the department.

..... If you have read the bit of Girl Genius where Agatha has coffee for the first time, you can probably get a good idea as to what I was like.

The reading was suddenly simple! It all made perfect sense! I bounded up to the seminar and sat there, buzzing, as everyone else slouched and tried to stay awake, and when the lecturer asked for our opinions, I found myself expressing them. Loudly.

"THIS GUY IS JUST RIDICULOUS I MEAN HE GOES ON AND ON LIKE SOME SENTIMENTAL IDIOT I MEAN OMG IT'S A CONSPIRACY WHAT THE HELL MAN CRY MOAR!!!"

"Er, that's a good point, Katie, does anyone else-?"

"AND THIS!! HOW THE HELL DOES FREUD FIT INTO THIS??? THEY HAVE NO PERSPECTIVE AND JUST GET EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO THE ISSUES AND IT'S REALLY REALLY STUPID!!!"

The seminar was an hour and a half, and by the end, I was fiddling with my pen A LOT and clicking it frequently. After being let out at the end, I was walking up to the library, and the world was so - sharp, and in focus, it was actually dizzying. I felt like I was drunk, or had a fever, and was wondering if this was what it was like to be on drugs. I was actually a little worried that the effects of the caffeine weren't showing any signs of wearing off, but actually seemed to be getting stronger. I had to go and sit in the library quietly for, like, an hour, and try to get my head together, because by now I was both dizzy and nauseous from being SO GODDAMN AWAKE.

It is now about seven hours since I had that mocha, and I'm finally starting to feel vaguely normal again. I can't believe I had such a strong reaction! I was just... so focussed and awake, and I could feel my body going "Dude, what the hell?..." and my brain going "SILENCE WORTHLESS PEON WE HAVE CLASSICS TO DO!!!! WE SHALL SHOW ALL THOSE SCHOLARS, SHOW THEM ALL!!! TODAY, THE DISSERTATION - TOMORROW, THE WORLD!!!"

Maybe the Agatha Clay comparison was even more appropriate than I thought...

Wow. This is pretty much the first time I've had time to sit down and chill in a WHILE.

So, I've had a crazy week. I was trying to catch up on work after being ill, which wasn't helped by taking two days away from Durham to go see Green Day in Birmingham with my mum (AWESOME) and there was a Night Bash on Friday which I had to finish writing and organizing AND a pirate bar crawl which was awesome but didn't help with sleep deprivation.

Basically, I was getting up really early and going to bed REALLY late and working constantly throughout the day, doing reading for seminars and trying to get Akkadian into my head. I even tried mochas in desperation for caffeine (I don't like coffee, but can now stand mochas) and basically didn't stop until I ran into Ali in the marketplace the evening before the Night Bash. I had just been running around frantically looking for glowsticks, crying out praise to Glowstick Jesus in the middle of the shop upon finding some, and she very quickly saw how manic I was, and dragged me off to the pub to make sure I had a sit down and a proper meal before the adventure that night. It was amazing, and SO necessary, I hadn't realized.

So, Night Bash went awesomely, I DID get all my necessary work done (and then some), and I finally got sleep afterwards. I just slept in till 11 on Saturday, and noon today. But sleeping in so late today was because of my awesome day yesterday.

First, I had auditions for the Society Film (a film noir, this year) and, according to Richard, have almost definitely got a part. WOO. Then I had the debrief for the Night Bash, finally explaining the deal with the glowsticks. Then I had Improv Comedy, where I got into a vociferous debate during Conducted Story about the values of Kent (defending it to the last) and discovered there's an Elvet Underground show today, and then it was the Naked Calendar photoshoot.

Somehow, it was less awkward than last time, even though there were more of us and most of them were freshers and thus we didn't know them all that well. AND we all had a lot more on show - basically, we had John in the middle holding up the VaryTale die, and us all kneeling and lying around him reaching for it, without even drawing boards to hide behind like last year. Like last year, there was a lot of definite "NOT LOOKING AROUND OH MY LOOK AT THE CEILING ISN'T IT FASCINATING." At one point the photographer called "Can you all get a bit closer together?" Fuuun.

THEN I headed off to Improv Katie's Halloween party in Neville's Cross. Her house has awesome parties - their housewarming had the theme the Cold War, and I went as the secret communist McCarthy was always warning about - and this time's theme was Victoriana horror. I went as Queen Victoria turned into a banshee after the death of Albert, in a really hot black dress (well, a top with swooshy sleeves and a skirt with my black underbust corset over it) and creepy-ass grey corpse make-up on my face and in my hair. It was a good effect, if I may say so myself.

That party was mostly hanging around with Richard, Sophie, Alex and Katie and talking about random stuff. We also tried to cheer Richard up, since he was a bit dejected on not finding anyone new and awesome at the auditions earlier. Then, at 11pm, I got a taxi (booked WAY in advance) over to Gilesgate to the Treasure Trap Halloween party, which involved a LOT of people crammed into a living room (seriously - all over the sofas and the floor and leaning against walls) and much alcohol and singing. Alistair was there too, already an impressive way through various cider bottles and breaking into the rum, who'd never heard the songs before and was amazed.

That party went on till 4am, but after a rousing rendition of Super Vampire Bunny, it was time to pack it in and go to bed. Which I did, until being woken up by MattMatt at noon.

Now, I have to do my ancient Greek exercises and write a scene for the Society Film before meeting my college family in the pub later and the show this evening - but first, I wash the make-up out of my hair.

Zoe STILL doesn't know where I get my energy.

So, last night was my first organized social as social secretary of Improv Comedy. Perhaps some backstory is required.

Before I ran for social sec, Alistair had been talking a lot about how much he wanted to do a Raptor Bar Crawl some time. He was quite vague about what it involved, but insisted everyone would have to buy dinosaurs. And when I actually ran for social sec and was husting, he asked "What kind of socials would you run?" I replied, "Well, I was once given the BRILLIANT suggestion of a Raptor Bar Crawl..." and he said, "YES, I am voting for YOU."

Of course, the result of this was that I actually had to have a Raptor Bar Crawl, and I had even less idea of what that involved than Alistair. But still, I announced the time and day to the society at large, and told them all to try to find a toy dinosaur.

This turned out to be quite the task. I tried the toy store in the Indoor Market, going up to the lady and asking if she had any toy dinosaurs. "You're the third person we've had in today asking for them," she said, looking slightly confused and wary, "But the first guy bought them all, we're sold out."

"... Was he really tall?"

"YES."

So, Alistair had gotten there before me. Undefeated, however, I went to Poundland, that magical place, and found some raptor-esque toy dinosaurs which - AMAZINGLY - even made a roaring noise when you pressed their stomachs. There were only two left, so I got one for me and one for whoever needed one, which ended up being Max - we couldn't very well have the President without a dinosaur. Asking around at the Improv workshop, I discovered a lot of people were having trouble getting hold of dinosaurs, but - intriguingly - were making their own...

Now, I was worried at the start of this social that people wouldn't 'get' why we had to have dinosaurs, and honestly, I couldn't automatically think of a reason to have them other than that they were awesome. Alistair suggested the dinosaurs had to make friends with each other over the course of the bar crawl, but with the wrong crowd, I knew that could fall totally flat.

Turns out this was exactly the RIGHT crowd. By the arrival of the fifth person, all the dinosaurs were out on the table - my cheap roaring one, some tiny ones, a wind-up walking one, a toy cow with green spikes stuck on it and a cardboard one - and everyone was explaining their dinosaur's names, personalities and goals in life. One guy showed up with a dinosaur made entirely of pipecleaners and was a HERO. By the time we left the first bar, we had LOADS of dinosaurs, my dinosaur was a single mother of two different dinosaurs with two different fathers (one possibly Dinosaur Jesus), we had timetravel and renegade cops and the One Black Dinosaur and illicit love affairs, and I think there was a jailbreak or something going on.

So yeah. They REALLY got into it. I was astonished. And it turns out? EVERYONE loves dinosaurs. We've tried to do publicity bar crawls at Improv before, but never really gotten much attention. But it seems that when you go into a bar and immediately set up loads of dinosaurs on the pool table and start acting out some epic drama, you will get an audience, and that audience will think you're the coolest people in the city.

I'm very sad I had to duck out at 10pm. I wasn't worried it'd fall apart without me there - the soap opera was in full swing, everyone was getting along great, and there were still many bars they could go to, I didn't see it winding down any time soon. But right before I left, two dinosaurs were about to get married, and my own dinosaur stormed in yelling her objections, announcing to the dinosaur populace at large that the groom was her secret biological son, and she wasn't going to let him marry 'that harlot'. 'That harlot''s dad had just challenged her to a duel, but she had Roger the War Veteran on her side ("Why's your roar function broken? And why is there a dent in the back of your head?" "YOU DON'T KNOW, MAN! YOU WEREN'T THERE!") and the dad was about 1/3 of her size, so that wasn't going to go well for him... yeah, I was sad to leave at a cliffhanger.

But yes. SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL WITH DINOSAURS WOOOOOO.

OK, I guess I learned my lesson. No million different social activities today - just improv comedy workshop in the afternoon, followed by the Raptor Bar Crawl, whiiich I'm still not sure what will happen on, but I guess since it's the FIRST Raptor Bar Crawl, I GET TO DECIDE. First step: find a toy dinosaur.

I had a couple of people try to get me to go on the adventure again, either monstering or charactering, but I decided last night (on my way with Beccy, Thorley and Alex to see As You Like It, which a friend of my family was in and got us free tickets for, and was AWESOME) that that would be a bad idea. For one thing, I'm still not fully better - this cough probably won't be going anywhere for another week at least - and running around in the woods in the cold/rain is not advisable. For another, bigger reason, I still have two chapters of Akkadian to complete by Tuesday, and it took me 3 hours yesterday to do the first one.

I don't quite know whether I love Akkadian or strongly dislike it (I think I'm incapable of hating things.) While I was in the depths of that chapter yesterday, trying to work out how one syllable could have so many different meanings, I was pretty damn frustrated, but now that I've (sort of) got the hang of it? It's... kind of fun. I mean, translating directly from the cuneiform is like a PUZZLE. You have to identify all the symbols and write out the syllables represent, then figure out which syllables are phonetic and which are Sumerograms, and finally compact them all together into words, and THEN you translate it! Yeah, I'm back to loving it for now. Ask again once I've done chapter two.

So I hopefully get at least one more chapter done, then head off to improv and the bar crawl, and OH WAIT then I'm going round Thorley's to watch horror movies and write the Halloween Night Bash, probably ending in a VERY late night. So much for a quiet day.

Forget what I said about loving being sick. I'd forgotten the downside - the sheer damn nuisance of not being able to do everything you want.

(Oh, and actually being sick. But that's not so bad.)

I wanted to go to Improv tonight. I wanted to go see Up before it went out of cinemas. Most of all, I wanted to go to my first Akkadian lecture tomorrow. But because of this goddamn plague, I'm bedridden, and have to reschedule everything. I've played so much Solitaire I dream of the cards, and so much Hearts I've actually figured out the rules and a strategy. I haven't yet resorted to Minesweeper, but it's only a matter of time.

On the plus side, I've been writing, and one scene has been writing itself more easily than I imagined it ever could. It's AWESOME.

As mentioned in the last entry, on a particularly busy Saturday, the question was raised as to whether I ever stopped. Today, the answer has been changed to yes - when I get plagued.

Freshers flu has finally caught up with me. It basically struck yesterday, and I tried to keep going with my daily routine as much as possible, including staying out at TT till 11. But this morning, it would seem my body has gone "NO *SMACK*" and is insisting I stay in bed. While I'm feeling OK enough to smell someone in my house cooking some sort of fried breakfast and think "Ooooh...", it basically took me 45 minutes to summon enough energy to get out of bed. As long as I do very little, it's OK, but as soon as I start moving, my head spins, my body aches, and I generally sneeze and cough the house down.

So. No going out for me today. Except maybe to get ice-cream from Sainsburys.

But the plus side? This means I get to do WRITING! ALL DAY! EEEEEEEEEEEEE I LOVE BEING SICK.

So, yesterday? I:

* Woke up early and tried to recover from the previous night's Loinfire Club, where we read The Tao of Sex by Jade Lee, one of the best/worst books we've read there EVER,
* Went on the freshers adventure, where I won Best Monster for my portrayal of Igor,
* Caught the second half of the Improv Comedy workshop, which has become REALLY POPULAR since Edinburgh,
* Went up to Mary's with a few of the others to look at the room where we're doing the naked calendar photoshoot,
* Went to get falafel with improv veteran Kate,
* Went to the DSU Ceilidh, where I was asked to dance twice by a random, but subsequently scared him off with my re-enaction of earlier portrayal of Igor,
* Went to the last ever Durham WitTank show, which was fantastic and I really hope those guys become famous,
* Got chips with Alistair and his housemates,
* and finally got home just past midnight, where I realized I'd forgotten my keys. Luckily MattMatt was still up, and I ended up watching the last twenty minutes of Heat with him.

I was also asked on two separate occasions by two different people, "Do you EVER stop?" and "Do you do EVERYTHING?" I... guess so.