Day 13: Black Comedy Gold

Another short night made it hard to get up this morning, but once I actually gained coherency (read: once I made it to the Tube) I wasn’t all that tired. I thought for sure I’d be groggy given the difficulty I had waking, but I rebounded nicely. Today was a day of Tube delays, and several of us were nearly late due to one, but it was nothing more than a scare, as we all made it with moments to spare.

Class is as it ever was, the chances of me being an English major are now lower than my chances of being a coal miner. I’m really hoping tomorrow is going to be useful, otherwise I’m stuck pulling a 10 page paper out of thin air, since we haven’t even touched my topic yet. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d pulled a paper of length out of nothing, but it’s tiring, and Lit. Crit. isn’t my second nature the way poli sci is.

Much of the class went to office hours after class, but I headed home to bang out my proposal, since I already had a good idea of what to write and how I wanted to lay it out. Apparently, when I turn mine in tomorrow, I’ll be one of the only ones. Nice to know after a long layoff, I’ve still got the writing knack (I think, we’ll see what his comments are). It took me a while to get back into the groove, but once I did, things moved nicely enough. I’ll need better focus to bang out 10 pages in the time frame it will need to be done, but I’ve done worse.

Thankfully, I was able to finish the proposal in time for our pizza dinner before the show. Pizza hit the spot, and there was just about enough for everyone. The Veggie didn’t do so well, but it never does; its just one of the rules of massive pizza orders. I was ready to go even before dinner, so the extra time to kill meant I watched trashy British TV like The Weakest Link and Eggheads*

*Think Beat the Geeks, but with less specific categories

I had a great conversation with our RA on the way to the Tube about the hardships of group dynamics. I realized that I really do have a ton of experience with the issues she was talking about (being too big a group to do activities all together, budgets) from being in Boychoir and the May House pres, so it was nice to have real advice to give. She’ll be a great asset for looking over grad stuff and getting last minute advice, so I’m glad to be on good terms with her.

The play was incredible, as I’ve said other places: Chekhov + Tom Stoppard + the peerless Kenneth Brannagh makes for an unreal experience. Black comedies are SO difficult to do well, but this cast was top shelf and it was a wonderful experience all around.

A few of us decided to head to out and grab something to eat and drink. We ended up at a pub called The Garrick Arms in Leicester Square, very close to the theater, which didn’t suit the people who wanted food. Four of us stayed to order our pints while they went in search of eats, but came back with none. Rather than just spend the rest of my evening in my room, I decided to look for food with them for a while. We went to Covent Garden and around the side streets between Covent and Leicester before settling on the nicest Haagen-Daz I’ve ever seen. It was a very pleasant time out with a smaller group than usual and not all that expensive when all was accounted for.

The tube ride back took longer than expected, much like the morning, but as we saw on a posted sign in the station, this was due to someone under a train further down the line. We were as surprised that they would actually tell us that someone was dead under a train as we were by the fact that it happened. You couldn’t pry that info out of someone on the EL, the Tube people figure you have a right to know, I guess.

I’m going to make it through as much of the debate as my computer will take. The random stops and starts will make things tiring. So, I’ve got my doubt as to how much of it I’ll actually see.