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.

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.

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.)

Last part. Man, this didn't feel so long when I was writing it THERE.

( Part the Third )

OK, so, I'm in Americaland and it is AMAZING, but before I can post all about that I REALLY need to post the journal I kept of the Edinburgh festival. It doesn't all fit in one entry, so I'm going to split it into three. Here goes:

( Edinburgh Fringe '09, aka You Had To Be There, Part 1 )

Proper Edinburgh blog write-up is coming, I have a whole train journey back to Kent tomorrow to do that. I need to type up the journal I was keeping anyway, some of the guys want a copy (I refused to let them read it while we were there, and faked a front page discussing my undying love for John and simultaneously debating having a fling with Gethin lest one of them picked it up) so I may as well put a 'best of' here.

In short: I won a dance-off with a shrimp, took part in a Victorian game show which involved rounds like 'What part of a wolf am I thinking of?', 'Oscar Wilde's guide to strumpets', and building a model of Big Ben (I also witnessed the same game show with the cast of 'Broken Holmes' - a play about the troubled bromance of Sherlock and Watson - as contestants, in character), got taped under loads of posters to one of the pillars on the Royal Mile, performed to several full houses, played characters ranging from a prince made of paper to Little Red Riding Hood the prostitute to Robin from 'Batman', saw awesome shows like 'Princess Cabaret', the Penny Dreadfuls and 'A Pirate's Life for Me' (A CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-ADVENTURE PIRATE MUSICAL, WHERE YOU VOTED FOR WHAT YOU WANTED TO HAPPEN, OMG), made lots of awesome new friends in other shows, got serenaded by the Shambles, discussed Andrex puppy racism with the Goats in the Shell, met Neil Gaiman, climbed Arthur's Seat, partied till 5am with the venue staff and got offered a job by them, was given a Chick tract by a guy with a Jesus sandwichboard and offered a free personality test by the Church of Scientology, was injured by Gethin on multiple occasions, high-kicked my way up the mile with Alistair yelling 'BOOM' and 'WEASELS' a lot, did several test tube shots in Frankenstein's (THE GREATEST BAR EVER) and got stopped in the street by a little girl and her dad to tell me how much they'd loved the show that day, which just made it all worthwhile.

*breathe*

I have had SUCH AN AWESOME TIME. AND NOW I GET TO GO TO AMERICA. (Speaking of, ibroketuesday, you totally have to meet us for underground glow-in-the-dark miniature pirate golf.)

I cannot believe I've only been here a week. We've done so much in such a short time. Flyering all day, performing every afternoon, two sell-out performances and the rest all large and happy, that day we had piggyback races in the park and the Paradise Green party last night... I'm just having the time of my life. I'm so active and sleep like a log every night, I'm eating less through a combination of nerves and sheer business and have never felt better, and have even been included in the guys' circle of Lad Fives - putting the hand on the forehead and high-fiving like that, ie head-butting with a very thin barrier.

I'm keeping a diary and may post in further detail once I'm home. Right now, I'm still shattered from the party last night, and I'm performing on the Royal Mile in 2 hours, soooo I'm going to have a nap.

I LOVE MY LIFE.

Just stealing Alistair's laptop very quickly - I AM IN EDINBURGH AND IT IS AWESOME. We've done two shows, both went REALLY REALLY WELL, third one tonight, where I'm playing the Hero for the first time, holy crap. I've shared umbrellas with total strangers, some of whom didn't even speak English, our techie Ali was seduced by a Norwegian girl who then stole his hat, and Alistair had his bed peed on by an Australian.

WACKY TIMES.

Holy crap I leave for Edinburgh today. I barely slept last night, despite being exhausted, because my stomach is currently FREAKING OUT.

Practise yesterday went really well. I think we could actually do well, provided we take into account which of us are 'noisy' performers and 'subtle' performers. Luckily, there's a pretty even split, and I think we can always try to make sure we have a good mix of both. It's the ones where it's all 'subtle' performers where it's not as good.

ANYWAY. In the unlikely case you're in Edinburgh from 8th-23rd August, you should come see us!

( Behold our awesome flyer! )

I have no idea whether I'll be able to access internet up there, sooo this may be the beginning of a mini-hiatus. Anyway, I have to go finish packing. I leave in half an hour.

HOLY CRAP I'M GOING TO EDINBURGH.

Gargh. Eight hours of improv a day is getting very very tiring. It's awesome, and I still love it, it's just... I MISS MY BED. With practises starting really early and some sort of 'bonding' social event every evening, I miss my sleep.

Practises are going reasonably well. We're not perfect yet, but that's the thing with improv, you can't ever really hope to be perfect. All you can hope, especially when improvising a 25-minute fairy tale in a group based on audience suggestions, is to be entertaining, and if possible, to have a coherent plot. And I think we're entertaining - most of the time, at least.

OK, examples. Yesterday, we did about four VaryTales, I think.

* The first one, a Coffin Maker vs The Mirror from Snow White in 'The Dirigibles of Farthing Wood', was a bit messy, but still had some entertaining bits.
* The second one, a Unicycling Cartographer vs Mr Oesophagus, the guy who got stronger the more he ate, in 'Last Tango in Antarctica', was better. More coherent, more entertaining, had penguins, even if in the middle scene the heroes had to resort to devices like a 'sonic telescope' to get the exposition as to what the bad guys were up to.
* The third one, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast vs a Geologist in 'The Moon and the Gun I Will Shoot You With' was the best of the day, no doubt. It had talking crockery, rhinos, nature witches, and the Brothers Grimm being shot at the end. I guess you had to be there. But that was entertaining, coherent, and reached a climax. Woop woop.
* And finally the fourth one, a girl with Awesome Shoes vs Captain Haddock in A Play With No Title, was the worst. It was nowhere near the worst one we've ever done - I think that prestigious title goes to a caveman one we did last term - but it was pretty boring. And unfortunately, I was the hero in that one. Sigh.

I'm not good at being a hero yet. Hopefully I'll be able to pull it off today, given that today's the last day of practise. Problem is, the hero really has to be able to be funny on their own, and I'm... well, I'm not. I'm best when interacting with other people. As a villain, I can be good, because I've usually got henchmen and I can come up with plans pretty quickly, but the hero pretty much always starts on their own, and, well, I kinda suck at that. I have a few ideas I'm going to try today, I guess I'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Oh, and we have this new thing - a giant die, with different pictures on the different faces, which the narrator gives the audience to roll during the performance and determine what will happen in the next scene. Some of them, like having a fairy godmother or the Brothers Grimm show up and be able to make whatever changes they want during it, can be awesome. But one of them is 'Rime Thyme', where the next scene was to rhyme.

Turns out we suck at rhyming. Ohhh dear.

OK, this all seems very doom-and-gloomy. And I'm not feeling like that. As I said, we're mostly entertaining, and we're all working together well. The guys I'm not as close friends with as others are still joking about with me, so I'm generally accepted, and the director has also said if I get tired of their jokes and end up punching them in the face (one in particular) and hurt my hand, he'll be sending the 'get well' card to ME. And last night, after watching this film called Godspell for tips on portraying stories simply and effectively, after I got home, I got a phonecall from Alistair, who said he'd had a bad feeling and wanted to check I was all right.

They're all great guys. Even the one who started up my nickname 'Boobs'. And... crap, I'm going to the Edinburgh Festival. THIS WILL ALWAYS BE EXCITING. Terrifying, maybe, but ALWAYS EXCITING.

Just had improv comedy practise for 8 hours, taking out only half an hour around midday for a lunch break.

It went pretty well. Started off awesomely - even the director was pleased - hit a bit of a rough patch in the middle, picked up again, then got a bit tired again towards the end as everyone was going "HOLY CRAP MY BRAIN DOESN'T WORK PROPERLY ANY MORE."

Seriously. Frazzled. Constantly making things up and reacting to stuff and creating plot and character and BEING FUNNY does weird things to your brain.

More practises tomorrow. Now I'm off out again for a Harry Potter marathon, a bowling trip with the Improv guys, and then the end of the Harry Potter marathon.

Oh, and other Katie has swine flu and probably isn't coming to Edinburgh. I'm now the only girl. That'll be... interesting...

I have somehow been chosen to be both a Hero AND a Villain in our various Vary Tales shows up in Edinburgh. As in, most performances I'll be side characters, but some I'll be the Hero and some I'll be the Villain. As in, in charge of driving along a lot of the plot.

I'm still not quite sure how this happened, given that most of the people who are better at it than me are only one role (like Alistair, he's only Narrator, WTF?? He's GENIUS). I may have put myself on all three lists, but most of us did that, and it was only because I had no idea which I wanted to do. I was assuming John would choose whichever I was best at and just put me on that list. But. EEK.

This, combined with today being my last practises before the end of term, AND the fact my exam results come out today, has left me a mite nervous about the day ahead.


ETA: OK. So, just had morning practise. First ever full run-through - ie, games before, Vary Tale, games after to fill up whatever time is remaining - and it went... OK. Not badly, definitely good in the big picture, and some bits had people almost falling off their chairs, but it was my first go as the Hero in a while, and, well, I think I could have done better. Wasn't as utterly fail as the first time, but there were other things which made it worse, sooo basically Must Be Better.

But in a Micro-Play beforehand, I took so long miming dragging a really heavy bag offstage that I cracked everyone up and got told was really good. (You had to be there.) So, good and bad.

Still waiting for exam results. ANG.

Life is currently full of Improv. I have those three three-hour rehearsals a week, not to mention the usual Tuesday and Saturday practises; Monday night, I did Elvet Underground; tonight, I had a show at St Aidan's; and after my rehearsal tomorrow morning, I WOULD have another show that afternoon AND that evening, but the former was postponed and I'm missing the second for my birthday party. EESH.

So, first, the Elvet Underground show. That went pretty awesomely. As I told Beccy afterwards, I didn't fuck up monumentally, and I even got some pretty good laughs at some points, so, HURRAY.

As for the Aidan's show... well, that was kinda screwed from the start. For one thing, it was at midnight, in the middle of their college ball. For another, I only found out what time we were supposed to be meeting TEN MINUTES AFTER that time, and still had to get all the way across Durham. A Thorley with his Car was summoned, and I got there fifteen minutes late - only to find out the show had been postponed, and now we weren't going to be on till 1am, in a different room. It was currently half ten.

This kinda sucked, what with most of us having to be at rehearsal at 10am the next morning, but we dealt with it. We basically hung around talking, and Gethin haggled up our paycheque from £50 to £100. We also had an impromptu game of Tag, which was great. But when we went to start getting ready, we were told we'd been moved again - this time, to outside on a patio, with no stage, nowhere for the audience to sit, and some of the worst acoustics ever.

Gethin and Alex were NOT happy about this, and went off to speak to the guy in charge. While they were doing that, I ran into a very drunk Richard, who, he happily informed me, had been extracted from some rose bushes by the bouncers, and been standing outside for an hour or so trying to sober up. It was nice to see a friendly face that cheerful right then, I must say. Eventually we got it sorted, were allowed to perform inside again, and after a couple more confusing room changes to fit around an Elvis impersonator, we FINALLY got the show underway.

It... well, it wasn't our best. Acoustics were still pretty lame, the stage was small and cluttered with band equipment, and most of our audience was wasted, including Richard, who was very enthusiastic. The audience grew though, and I don't think I was too bad, but all in all it was still ridiculously late and we'd been thoroughly jerked around so we weren't in the best of spirits. But hey, we got paid £100. Food in Edinburgh!

Now I am home and get to go to sleep but have to be up in 5 hours for morning of rehearsal and then my birthday party. How have I managed to remain this busy AFTER my exams??

So, my Saturday was VERY busy. ( Cut for those who are not interested in the minutiae of my life, which... I'm guessing is quite a few. )

So, last night I got elected social secretary of Improv! I'm apparently still not over my compulsion to volunteer for stuff. At least I still haven't volunteered to take over running Elvet Underground. Yet. I can feel my hand twitching every time it's mentioned, though.

I ALSO successfully didn't volunteer to take the last place on the Film Soc exec, but mostly because it's a scary-sounding position called 'Commercial Development Officer'. I mean, that sounds like it actually has RESPONSIBILITIES.

Today was our second Edinburgh Fringe practise session, and I feel like I did a lot better in this one than the last one. Well, the last one I did a monologue which crashed and burned, screaming, in flames, and this one I played Death in a long form and ended up fitting in some fun bits of foreshadowing and mistaken identities, sooo that was cool. We also spent about ten minutes practising different ways of picking each other up. When John attempted the monkey-hold on me, I toppled over into some chairs. Oops.

After Improv, we had the first Bond film readthrough, which was AWESOME, I'm apparently playing Madame Technical Exposition. And at one point I get such an Uhura moment of "Ma'am, we're detecting an increase in power consumption at the CLC!" I may even get a headset phone. IT'S SO MUCH FUN. There's a Fight Workshop on Friday. I may need to bully friends into going to play Random Goons and get shot/ninja-d/kicked in the face.

And TONIGHT, it's the Phoenix Ball. I may just be wearing the same dress as I wore in my first year, but huzzah, life is busy again.

We had an Improv Comedy show tonight up at Ustinov College (aka Almost the Moon - MIR space station?) to raise money for Edinburgh, and IT. WAS. AWESOME.

It wasn't perfect. There were some games and scenes which didn't get as many laughs as they could have done. But there were some that were AMAZING, and the audience was fantastic, getting really into it. I got groped (slapped the guy), Rohypnol-d (biggest laugh of the night), and picked up and swung around in some pretty awesome dancing. Oh, being the only girl. I also got randomly hit round the head by a guy by accident pretty damn hard, from which I now have a lovely bump on my head. It's never fun to interrupt a scene by screaming.

AND we made about £80. WE CAN EAT IN EDINBURGH.

We hung around chatting afterwards, and this random game broke out which basically involved tapping someone else on the head and saying "I win." Alistair, me and all his housemates decamped back to Gilesgate via the Nightbus, and en route, I commented that I could really go for some pizza. This somehow turned to all of us cramming into the pizza takeaway, ordering one of their huge combo deals, and then staying sat in there passing around three boxes of pizza because it had started raining.

It was a random, awesome night. I would say it was the perfect social send-off before exams... except I'm totally going to Newcastle tomorrow to watch Coraline. OH WELL.