LOVE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Now Playing: A New Day Has Come - Celine
I met Sylvester by accident on the path last night and he was wondering where I'd been and what I was doing. Typical that having totally ignored me for most of the year he wants to chat NOW that I'm on the point of leaving. I was like "Child, I do NOT need to talk to you. Why you all up in my bidness no how? Love DO NOT live here anymore. M'ahf*cka!"

But what I actually said was "I'm leaving. Goodbye. I can wish you no greater joy in your life than the happiness a year as your flatmate has brought me."

Thankfully he didn't ask about his "book," which he lent me in about October. I never read the damn thing - dull as f*ck - but could never be bothered giving it back as that would have necessitated talking to him. Ugh. So I put it in a brown envelope with his name on it and left it beside his pigeonhole. It was the most contemptuous thing I could come up with other than that awful Groucho Marx line "I enjoyed your book. I laughed from beginning to end. Someday I intend reading it."

Let's just pray he never gets elected to the office he so desperately craves...

It's over. I'm outta here. Bus is leaving in 40 minutes. There's nothing left to say.

Finally
Now Playing: Hallelujah Chorus/Finally Bootleg Remix (In my head...)
So the dissertation is rebound, resubitted, and REally gone. Hurrah!!!!

And I've checked out of my room and started to pack.

In ten hours I'll be outta here. Hurrah!

Blonde Geography
One blonde asks another: "Which is further, London or the Moon?" The other replies: "Well HELLOOOOO....., can you see London?????!!!!

Mercury Retrograde
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Why Does it Always Rain on Me?
I'm sorry. Mercury Retrograde is a BITCH.

So much for submitting my dissertation. HA!

I showed the finished product (spare copy!) to Charlotte on the bus to London on Saturday afternoon, and ON THE FIRST PAGE SHE OPENED she found a reference that I'd forgotten to include in the bibliography. ONE BLOODY REFERENCE. Strike One.

Then, some of the Japanese girls were flicking through it (amid cries of 'Ah! So Difficurt!") and read three tiny mistakes in the appendix, which are hilariously obvious to any Japanese-literate reader. Strike Two.

And then, to complicate matters, I realise that a) I've sent my computer home with my parents, and b) I've ALSO sent home the cd with the entire dissertation backup on it. And the font in which I printed the blessed thing. STRIKE THREE, and it would seem that I'm out.

But no...

Thank god, I'd saved both of the offending documents on my computer account in college, and the PCs here have this week been upgraded, so that I can re-print the re-corrected things.

Let's just PRAY that my supervisors haven't collected the thesis from the drama office - I'm going to be there at 9am pleading to be allowed to take 'em away, re-do them and re-submit. And then get my haircut...

GAH!!!

Globalisation
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: Natalie's FABULOUS minidisc
INTERNATIONAL THINKING AT ITS BEST!
Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer: Princess Diana's death.
Question: How come?
Answer: An English princess
with an Egyptian boyfriend
crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car
with a Dutch engine,
driven by a Belgian who was drunk
on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling)
followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,
on Japanese motorcycles;
treated by an American doctor,
using Brazilian medicines.
This is sent to you by an American,
using Bill Gates's technology,
and you're probably reading this on your computer,
that use Taiwanese chips,
and a Korean monitor,
assembled by Bangladeshi workers
in a Singapore plant,
transported by Indian lorry-drivers,
hijacked by Indonesians,
unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,
and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.....
That, my friends, is Globalization

Prospero's "True Preservers"
Mood:  loud
Now Playing: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better...
I'm sorry. I waited for Arthur Horowitz's book "Prospero's True Preservers" for like, ten months, and it arrived in the library last Wednesday. Two days before I handed in my dissertation. I have now gone through the entire thing, and I am not impressed.

He admits he knows no Japanese (and demonstrates little knowledge of Japanese theatre) and his chapter on Ninagawa (the reason I was reading his parvum opus in the first place) was singularly unimpressive. Totally not worth the wait.

While I'm still unsure whether I want to do a PhD, I really want to write a book about Ninagawa, especially since yet ANOTHER book has been published with inappropriate comments written by someone who really doesn't understand what they're talking about. Case in point - Horowitz describes early Ninagawa productions with titles like "Hearty but Flippant" and "Fickle, Frivolous and Sincere", and mentions 'another' productions where 'the actors entered the auditorium dressed as riot police. The audience was convinced that the police had come to arrest them, and, as the curtain came down, they attacked the actors'. What Horowitz doesn't realise is that these three points are all about the same play, usually translated as 'Hearty but Flippant' or 'Sincere Frivolity'. Which ended as he described. Duh...

And while we're on the subject, why the hell didn't David Bradby TELL me he had written a chapter on Ninagawa's 'Waiting for Godot' in his production history of the play? Would it have hurt him so much to BRAG about the fact that he'd written on it? I'm so tempted to send him a list of corrections for his article, and to fill in the numerous gaps in his information. But that would be bad karma...

Off the the British Museum tomorrow morning. Tons of fun.

:-D

Twelfth Night, beti...
Now Playing: Bole Chudiyan...
I saw "Twelfth Night" this afternoon in London. What a wonderful idea to transpose Shakespeare's England to contemporary India. An idea I had two years ago but didn't execute (since I didn't have Indian actors...) and instead I directed 'The Bacchae'.

The production is still in previews, so I can't say too much yet - leave it to the reviews, which should appear next week. Some of the acting is very good, none of it is very bad. The set is extremely simple, but very pretty.

I think I'm disappointed because I had hyped it up SOOO much in my head, but anyway... Hopefully the pace will pick up when they get better audiences, though. The ending is particularly interesting - the darkest, most thought-provoking way I think I've ever seen it done. Neha Dubey (Monsoon Wedding) really shines as an Olivia with a conscience.

Lost in Translation
Mood:  blue
Hilarious. My Japanese students had their closing ceremony this afternoon, and they gave us all bunches of flowers. Attached was a very pretty card, which read "In loving memory". I haven't laughed so much in a very long time! But I didn't have the heart to explain what I was laughing at...

It's all over...
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Bedtime Story - Madonna
I handed in my thesis today. It was an epic 80 pages long with the most fabulous bibliography in the history of time.

Then I spent the evening clearing out my room, taking down my pictures, washing my saucepans, clearing everything out. Which was surreal, to say the least.

It's kinda weird how little I feel about leaving Royal Holloway. Hmmm...

Disco-Nation
Now Playing: Donna Summer - I Feel Love....
I'm so excited about my dissertation right now. It's all I can think about, all the time. I'm being really brassy and inserting random theories from a massive variety of unconnected theoretical areas, and daring to blend them together!! I've even found a quote which sanctions such nonsense as a facet of postmodern academic thought!! Hurrah!

I need to get a life...