The Christmas/New Year/Term Paper Installment

HELLO!

Oh man. I have so much to include. I am pretty much bursting as I sit here. 

We last left off with Thanksgiving Cubed. Which was, again, amazing. That led me to an amazing end of term. 

I went to a friend's slam literary event at a local performance pub/room. It was really cool! So cool that I may do it this semester. :) Great job to all involved! Off The Page was hilarious and touching at the same time. 

I explored Soho! It was definitely an experience. HAHA. We had a fantastic time for Allyson's birthday. Woo woo! I was offered drugs, and even after I declined, me and the two hilarious dealers had a great conversation on my British conversion and they wished me the best. 10/10, would go London gay clubbing again. Escape was great!

Also, as a birthday present for Allyson we got makeovers!!! I got a contest winner deal (EXTREME discount) on a few glamour shots. It was amazing! Makeup and hair. We had a really good experience at the place. Thanks ENVY London!

The end of the semester was punctuated with a bunch of different things. Cold weather(32 degrees, brrr). Fog that lasted for three days. 

We sang in a Christmas concert the last week of classes, as well as a Choral Service where we did a collection of hymns and Christmas stuffs. It was great! I really like singing with the Twist choir. Unfortunately, I was assigned to a different module block that puts my Structure and Style Course directly on top of the rehearsal time for them. So, for the foreseeable future I won't get the chance to sing with them. Sigh.

The last classes were interesting. They gave us the chance to ask questions about the term papers before break. We also did this bad ass game where we embodied our characters and answered questions. It was GREAT. I was really good at it. And it really gave me a grasp of my semi-bad guy. He's definitely interesting, that one. A sociopath that dreams of calm things. It's gonna be soooo AMAZING to portray him. 

We discussed the building blocks of story in my Critical Challenges module. It was really cool to see the way that the essentials can all be broken down. The best thing that I took away from it all was that the stakes, no matter what, have to continue to be higher. Writing yourself into a corner is a good way of upping the stakes for your characters and keeping them on their feet. Also, the value of throwing crazy stuff at them to see how they react was amazing. 

So, that led up to Break. The first week of break we decided to do one last dinner before everyone scattered to the wind. It was an ugly sweater party at The Swan. We got drunk. And enjoyed ourselves. It was also the first time I have ever been paid for singing. It was Kelly Clarkson, "Since You Been Gone" and I totally got a free cider for it. Best deal ever.

After than it was catch up with tv shows, and mostly just relaxing. I was taking a break because I knew that Christmas away from home was going to be hard. So I gorged on holiday movies and decorated my flat. i even made a Christmas plant.

It was hard being away from home on Christmas, but dinner with my flatmates and amazing company kept me from being really really sad about it. The food wasn't as good, but we make due. 

Boxing Day I went into Camden and had drinks at the World's End, the world's largest pub, with Meredith (an old high school friend). It was definitely a great time! Taking a bus and a slow train meant my usual 45 minute journey became over two hours long (Thanks for shutting down the Overground, TFL) but it was well worth it to get to hang around that said of town and gab with a friend. :)

New Years Eve was amazing and filled with very distant fireworks, Hootenanny and amazingly perfect company. 

But, by then, I was already hard at work on term papers and RiPPLE edits. My break pretty much ended after I came back from Camden. I was writing, revising, and spreadsheeting for RiPPLE so that I could get the final draft in before the start of term. I also had to get together a plan of exactly what I needed from my new team so that was definitely an interesting experience. 

After that I was onto editing my Workshop piece for my fantasy novel. I wrote the final 1,500 words I needed fairly quickly after a bit of pushing and prodding to get it done. It came out really really well. I definitely think I kicked that term paper's ass.

Next came Finalizing RiPPLE edits. That was pretty easy. The hard part, though, cam from my genius idea of sorting them all into a flowing storyline. I felt that alphabetical was too easy so I reread each piece and found a way to make them all flow in a coherent and easy fashion. It was amazing. And hard. And time consuming. but I finally got it right. Then went through and stripped each piece of formatting (that took hours!) and made it all fit nice and snug. 

After that was my experimental piece. That didn't take too long, but it also came out really really well. I definitely enjoyed that bit. I ended up calling it Blue.

The essay was hard, mostly because I had so much I wanted to say but not a ton of space to really say it in. But, soon that became a notch in my writing post and I was done!

I briefed the RiPPLE team and wrapped at some loose ends, went off to my new classes and started my new term!

But, that isn't it! I got visitors!!!!

The three of us, together, wandered through the city. I played tour guide since I've been wandering here for so long. And, I'm proud to announce, I didn't get us lost ONCE. Activate "Amazing Mode" in 3-2-1 AMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING! 

We then had dinner and drinks at a pub near the Tower Bridge. It was fantastic. 

Pretty soon, though, it was all over and the girls were off to adventure elsewhere. My papers were proofed and finalized and submitted. And I was back to my same routine. 

Between all this crazy stuff life has been kind of fantastic. I went to a live taping of BBC Radio 4 how, Chain Reaction. It was two amazing comedians. Graham Linehan (the creator of the IT Crowd and Father Ted) and Adam Buxton (comedian and host of BUG) were amazing! And hilarious! They just sort of sat there and shot the shit and as a writer, it was so amazing to hear the way that they approached their craft. The universal agreed upon fact of being a writer is you absolutely hate your first draft. Then you rewrite and the hate lessens until you get it to a point where you fall in love with it again. Plus, there was a lot of ridiculous R-rated internet jokes that will never make it into the actual show that I got to experience first hand so that was good. 

I got to experience the birth of Sherlock series 3 live as well as the birth of the 12th Doctor. I was slightly bummed that the started filming in Cardiff the day of my first day of term. I wanted to go, just to give Capaldi a warm welcome, but I had a ton of class stuff and RiPPLE stuff. So, I had to see the updates on the BBC site. I don't like being an adult. Sigh.

In retrospect, though, I'm really really glad that I took this course. That I chose to come here. That I met so many amazing people. I can't even believe that I did it. And I can't imagine having done this any other way.

I go outside everyday and realize that I'm in a different country. It's cold and windy and sometimes noisy but it's amazing. I love it here. I mean, I don't even have the words to describe what I feel whenever I see the Big Ben or the Eye when I go into town.

I do have these moments, though. It sounds corny as shit, but bear with me. I'll look up at the sky and see a plane drifting through the sky towards Heathrow, the telltale wing sign of Virgin Atlantic glinting in the more-bright-than-you-would-think sun. I remember being up there. Scared. Excited. But mostly, hopeful.

And then I look around me. And I'm really excited. My heart is light and my chest gets all warm and fuzzy. I can honestly say that I am in love with London. The shit weather and being Bridgett Jones splashed on the way to Pret A Manger doesn't diminish that.

It's like I am in the right place for once. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be in life. To be honest, I think this is the happiest I have ever been in my entire life. I get to wander a smallish-medium town that's been around for a thousand years and then I can take a train for 45 minutes and visit a town that is so full of amazing and unique blends of people and history and art and culture. 

I never realized what I was missing in life. Sitting in the cafe and laughing with new friends from all over the world and I know this is it. I'm sorry I haven't been updating you all as quickly as I'd hoped but London has been carrying me away and making me deliriously happy. 

Even though I miss you all, I would be lying if I said that my life at this exact moment isn't insanely perfect.

I could see myself staying here for a long time. But, for right now, let's just aim for getting schooling done. We can talk living arrangements after this degree. Or the next. :)

See you in a month!