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.

Classes are beginning properly. I got so much reading material for one seminar, to be read over the next fortnight, it was almost as thick as the pad of paper I brought for notes - and that's a class I'm AUDITING.

Also just got my first look at Akkadian. It's terrifying. It's a bunch of lines and triangles. Being able to read and write in it will be the coolest thing in the world, but learning it? Over 4 2-hour sessions? ACK.

So, of course, just as work kicks in, it makes sense for me to get my prompts for the xover_exchange.

!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE SO AWESOME. I WANT TO WRITE THEM ALL. Am currently torn between doing a whole bunch of separate stories, or trying to tie them all together in an incredibly complicated web which would probably require diagrams to explain the plot continuum and have all these fandoms collide.

Oh, and it's our Vary Tales comeback show in Durham tonight. EEP.

(in other news, I've just finished reading the entire archive of Girl Genius. If you haven't read it, DO.)

If you ever wondered what a Bond film would look like made by students - well, here it is.



AWESOME, NO. Unfortunately, we haven't filmed half the scenes, and the guy playing Bond (or Banner, as he's known in this) didn't get back into the university this year, sooooo either we film it whatever weekends he can come up, or Bond undergoes dramatic facial reconstruction surgery.

Also, I'm making a profound effort not to blog about every TV show I watch this year - which has been especially difficult with How I Met Your Mother and Supernatural, both of which are bringing their A-game this season - but oddly enough it's been MOST difficult with Merlin of all shows! It's just being AWESOME! AND NEXT WEEK LOOKS SO MUCH FUN OMG.



PS: Oh, and my classes for next year are all set - I'm doing both Akkadian AND Ancient Greek for beginners, since my lecturer believed I could manage them without going insane, and Preservation & Transmission of Information in the Ancient World. I'm also doing the Classical Research training module and my dissertation, of course, and auditing a whole bunch for funsies.

Goodbye social life.

Update in the Case of the Vanishing Classicist - one of our lecturers, who usually tells us anything and everything? Says she is NOT ALLOWED to talk about this. Hmmmm. Conspiracy? Clearly alcohol-assisted questioning is necessary at the Classics drinks on Tuesday. I will be wearing shoes I can run away in and my hair up in such a way it will fall down at the first sign of a fight scene. Jackie, you and Tanja REALLY have to get that airship ready, or you'll be sorry when the ninjas get me.

Lala, other stuff. Tried to publicise Improv at the station to newly-arriving freshers, realized there were hardly any of them and societies weren't really on their minds right then. So I went off to the first sword practice of the term and took Alistair and Tim with me, and a fun painful time was had by all.

Just got my new campus card with my new college and new short haircut on it. The camera was set so low I look like a giant. It's quite scary, really.

Need to reshuffle module choices as I have learned that 'Preservation & Transmission of Knowledge in the Ancient World' is apparently pretty boring. Will need to find a diplomatic way of saying "I DON'T WANT TO DO BORING MODULES" by tomorrow as an excuse.

Plan to go to Newcastle today for shoppings and possibly seeing (500) Days of Summer. Also tomorrow, other than module selection, is Freshers Fair, which is also on Wednesday, along with Matriculation (all over again) and, oh yes, the first Improv show of the term, which, honestly, I'm scared is going to suck, because we are all out of practice and three of our best guys have left. ACK.

But hey, we're being paid £150 in advance. WIN.

Life, life, busy busy life.

So... one of the professors in my department? Has just upped and left. Like, practically no warning, he was all set to teach modules and supervise dissertations this year, but then he just turned around and announced, "I'm leaving!" and DID SO. He hardly took any stuff with him, just important stuff, and boom, gone.

I don't know many details, having only heard this from a friend of mine on the street, but the Classics department is apparently scrambling around in a panic going "OMGWTF HALF THE DEPARTMENT ARE ON LEAVE ALREADY NOW WHAT." I feel bad for them, and bad for the professor, because he was probably in a bad place to make such a snap decision, but...

That big damn adventure story I was writing this summer? BEGINS PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY LIKE THIS. The heroine's old university professor just ups and leaves the Babylon excavations, with no warning, leaving everyone going, "Bwuh??" And she goes to investigate and gets embroiled in it all and there are conspiracies and pirates and robots and adventure archaeology and airships and the Russian Mafia and it's basically what I DREAM my life will be like one day.

So I am torn between feeling bad and thinking, "HOLY CRAP ADVENTURE TIME."

Because I am not busy enough in my life, what with starting an MA, being on the exec of two societies, doing Improv comeback shows and taking part in aurilly's awesome xover_exchange, I am ALSO signing up to offer to write fic for supercharitygo.

Long story short - Philippines hit by typhoon, need money, people offering to write fic for money, I jump on that bandwagon. For the long story, go to the properly coherent post about it HERE. That also tells you how to donate and get proof that you have donated to wave at your fic's author so they write for you.

The full list of fandoms I'm happy to write for is over at my official sign-up post, which is HERE, which is also what you reply to to say "Yes Katie of COURSE I want to read your ridonkulous claptrap" and show me a screenshot of you having donated monies or whatever. Of course, if you'd rather not bother with reading my stuff and just want to donate money, do it! It seems like a really good cause.

and that's totally why I'm doing this, not for procrastination opportunities next term or ANYTHING

OMGGG THE LAST EPISODE OF MERLIN SERIES 1 IS FREE FOR DOWNLOAD OFF ENGLISH ITUNES

THIS WILL PROBABLY BE LESS EXCITING IN THE MORNING WHEN I HAVEN'T HAD QUITE SO MUCH FREE WINE AND FLAPJACK

I'm fine, by the way, how are you?

Term hasn't even started yet and I'm already making my first dumb work-related decision.

I've gone from vaguely considering to deciding I really DO want to do the 'Warrior Poets in Heroic Societies' module... even though the professor says I really should have some knowledge of Old Norse for it, and will probably have to audit those classes as well in the winter term just to pick it up. He's happy for me to take it, just warns it's going to be a lot of hard work.

Does this intimidate me? Hell yes. Does it put me off? No, it makes me want to do it MORE. EXTRA WORK WOOOOOOO.

Bets on how long it is till my first 'OMG SO MUCH WOOOOORK' entry?

Thanks to the website Gives Me Hope, both tahu and ibroketuesday have posted their own stories about what inspires them. After reading both of theirs and a large portion of the site, I kind of want to tell my own.

( Ladies and Gentlemen, meet - my dad. )

Soooo I'm kinda tired of my LJ username. I chose it years ago, when my main thing on the internet was writing (terrible) Lord of the Rings fanfiction, because my eyes bore a resemblance to Elijah Wood's, aaaand yeah. It was a bit lame.

So, I just thought I'd get some advice. Do you guys think it's worth splashing out on the rename token? Or could I just set up a spanking new journal and you guys would follow me there? Or, is my username in fact awesome, the best username to ever grace the interwebs, and am I being delusional?

Incidentally, what the hell should my new username be?

SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Americaland is being generally awesome. Sure, we spend a lot of time inside playing aforementioned Mario Party (unemployment + broken car + living on top of hill = days in) but it's fun just to hang out with Jackie and Tanja, and when we DO go out, we have ADVENTURES. We went to the Oregon State Fair and pirate mini-golf (I WON SOMEHOW) and the pinball arcade and the zoo and I finally saw both GI Joe (a very special kind of awesomely appalling) and Up (COULD NOT STOP CRYING) and we had another photo day in Finnegan's with all the hats and ibroketuesday and just the other day Jackie and I started running across road crossings in slo-mo as the countdown appears, because clearly, you can only jump clear of the explosion at the last minute. Clearly.

I love it here. I don't really want to go home. But I'm also REALLY excited for my Masters next year, so it's not so bad to go home for that. Why can't we be on the same continent, though? :(

omg I'm writing again

it's easy and wonderful and so much fantastic fun there's already a chase scene in Cardiff and a fight scene with pirates

yes it's also 2am what's your point

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Wow, I do an epic 3-part 12,000 word post about Edinburgh and then disappear. My summer holidays are THAT awesome and erratic.

OK, so now I'm in Americaland with Jackie! We're moving back and forth between her parents' house in Portland (where there's stuff to do) and her own apartment in Corvallis (where we sit in playing Mario Party and eating taquitos) and generally are attempting to have an awesome time on a budget. It's working so far! Today we're going to do underground glow-in-the-dark pirate mini-golf (yes, I DO have to call it by its full name every time) and hopefully meeting up with ibroketuesday, GLEE.

Also getting started looking at modules for my MA next year. It's actually all VERY EXCITING. Right now, I'm thinking of doing Akkadian, Preservation & Transmission of Knowledge in the Near East, and this module called Warrior Poets in Heroic Societies from the English department, along with my dissertation and the research methods module. Yay!

OK time for shower.