Listen to the dark beat

So another weekend is over and I can't believe how fast this chapter is unfolding..

Even more unbelievable is how I've finally found the time to sit down and recollect several things I should have done several weeks ago before all that stuff happened.

So I'm chilling and the lavendar-pathy is working its magic and I'm trying to find the peace before hitting another crazy week. My degree has turned into something of a full-time job... more or less trying to get used to, or get over the manic pace, and giving up the idea of having one more year of pissing about, enjoying student life. But in a way, i'm getting the buzz, which is great.

And speaking about buzzes... last night was absolutely fantastic. One of my coursemates had a halloween/birthday burlesque-themed party and I had to attempt to squeeze into this corset which I could wear three years ago, then became to big for it a year ago... and was surprised that I could fit into it now. and if u think i had made the effort with the suspenders-plus-corset-type costume, you should have seen the amazing outfits those guys came up with at the party. Wigs and fishnets, garter belts and feathers... I was very impressed. T looked stunning in her outfit, moulin-rouge style. No one ever makes the effort to do anything interesting dress-wise where I come from. Too many people take things too seriously there. There was a house party after but me and two others were getting the buzz and we went to SEOne instead, this famous venue under the arches of the London Bridge, since my best friend and co were there. Think massive, think history, think awesome. How many people have trod on the warehouse-huge grounds inside those arches? From the illegal ravers to squatters to cars parked on its ground, I love thinking about inhabiting a space previously inhabited by a time, generation and people so different, but yet so universally and fundamentally, the same.

Huge, dark, lasers, loud loud music, absolutely amazing. The dance floors and dj platforms were massive and everyone was * their face and it was such a colourful night-festival, Glastonbury-like without the mud. Several drags of laughing gas later I was hammering it - got up on the podiums and might have got myself a job (crosses fingers) If not, no loss either. I made new friends and there's nothing like seeing a whole massive crowd pump and jump to the beat from up there.

I felt so loved up - (I'm so glad I went in the end babe!) and we danced all night till it shut at 7am in the morning. The clocks went backwards last night (signalling winter, oh the horrors..), so we got an extra hour or dancing, or sleeping, depends on how you want to look at it. Went back to L's and crashed from sheer exhaustion and nausea and have been feeling tender all day. Photos from last night (send it to me soon!) were incredible and slightly embarrassing when I got up this afternoon and saw it...i will put it up, maybe when I finally get down to setting up that photoblog i've been speaking about...

The only person missing was J - I guess if he was here I wouldn't have been able to do all the shopping and partying this weekend, but it would have been so much better if he was there, and it's a sunday night now and I'm feeling a bit shit for not being to see him for another whole week.

And I guess time to put all the stuff that's been happening the last month into perspective is also much-overdue. Time alone is always undervalued and sometimes when circumstances force you into it, you realize how much you've needed it. And I have learnt several important things over the last few weeks. There are some things you don't want to go through again, some you just want to forget, some you learn to embrace and at the end of it all, you might become a better person for accepting it all.

I guess I've had a good weekend.

Moving along... I also read something recently that really disappointed me. But it's taught me that some people whom you consider friends, you can never trust. It's a sobering sort of disappointment when you realise it. It's cyncial but cynicism exists for a reason. If you're naturally a person who opens to people easily, as J told me, you're going to find that there's a lot of nasty, small-minded people in this world who'll try and screw you over just to make themselves feel bigger or better. And you don't have to grow too old to find that out. Sometimes you can get too comfortable with people you think are friends... but inevitably there are occasions where things are taken out of context, jokes misconstrued and if they can't see past that to what you're really like then they don't know you at all, and they're just simply not worth it. not any time. not a single second.

The cardinal sin for any journalist is to represent any matter out of context. And some people sit on their high horse and do precisely the thing they accuse others of doing - despite their own misguided claims of objectivity, all they do is reinforce their own parochial views and insecurities. They think they're funny, but they really are not.

My suggestion? Go look in the mirror first.

If you look like Humpty Dumpty, don't sit on the fucking throne and pretend you're the King.

There's always a first time for everything

I've been recently too busy having a life to blog.. or rather, slaving away at my course to have time to do anything else.

But I witnessed my first bank robbery today!

I was at HSBC going to collect my debit card which i lost two weeks ago amidst drunken-ness and there was this huge bloke standing behind me. The strange thing was I had such a funny vibe when I stepped into the bank this morning... like something was going to happen. And careless me was actually clutching my bag really tightly for no apparent reason, probably due to the subconscious.

This African guy was standing behind me and we made small conversation before this even larger 6 foot man in a baseball cap stood behind me. i was too cautious to turn around and look at him, but i could see him at the reflection of the bank counter and i thought to myself he looks really rough. then the bank security guy comes into the bank and is putting big bags of money into the chute really carefully. when he removes the money from the third safe box, this 6-foot guy lunges at him and grabs the money bag. i was so stunned. there was a mad scramble. there were many men standing at the entrance to the bank and they clambered to stop him. the african guy whom i was speaking to, managed to rip the surface of this yellow overcoat he was wearing. but he had an accomplice at the door who opened it for him to escape. there was some chasing but the guy ran so fast, he got away with the bag of money and we were all left stunned in the bank. and locked in.

the police were called in but they took ages to arrive and in the midst of it, the only thought that kept flashing through my mind was: grab a pen!
how silly, on hindsight. that guy could have been armed and someone could have been stabbed or injured. and at the aftermath, all i wanted to do was ask, how much money was in the bag, whether i could get any witnessess' names (well, i guess i got my own name)... when i should be glad no one was injured and i was alive to tell the story!

I left after telling the bank staff that i had to go on campus - i DID have to send in a report due today. and when I exited the bank, I still only had 4 quid in my wallet, still debit card-less. I walked back in jitters feeling all the time I was walking back, that I might get stabbed from behind at anytime. I passed this dark looking bloke who was covered from head to toe, wearing a hoodie over his head and with huge sunglasses covering his face, looking down on the pavement, on a rainy day. And he looked so dodgy I thought he was going to step out and brandish a gun to demand my money.

But I got home okay and got my report in.

I only wish it happened after I got my debit card.

What a morning.

Overdue

At the beginning of every new academic year, there's nothing like the lack-of-internet-desperation/feeling to make you feel right at home, heralding the crazy start of a new year where in between lectures and hectic timetables, you keep wandering into the library to relentlessly check your email.

The advantage of having my lovely powerbook is I can lug it to the library rather effortlessly, and it almost feels like I'm surfing in the comforts of my own zone. I say almost because I still rather miss the surfing-in-bed luxury and mindless picking at random websites to look at while in between making dinner, having a shower, being on the phone and general thinking-I-should-do-work-but-I-really-am-not feeling that revisits me once in a... uh... few hours. (I will get room internet soon anyway)

So here I am, strolling around campus and various parts of london thinking I can take it easy - since it's only the first week. And then I get a text to say lecture time has been brought forward - I missed half a lecture. And then coursemates start fretting about the enormous amount of work to do - how they've already almost finished our assignment at the same time as it was beginning to dawn on me that I actually have work to do on the first week of first term. Oh the horrors. How can you be so laidback I hear someone say...

Well, why not?

But it's starting to creep into me, this sense of urgency and intensity - perpetuated by the fact that I have met two separate people on separate occassions who have had close friends who'd done the same course - who never had a minute of rest in the whole year and was constantly working.

I'm afraid I have to give up procrastination not really by will, but by choice.

Yet still, I'm mucking about online instead of going home to labour at my desk to bang out three reports due tonight.
Some things don't change?

Am also beginning to wonder at my choice of course - I'm doing right now, what I would have to do for the next six years of my life after this year. Isn't it stupidity or a matter of overdose?

but I find myself strangely glad, and slightly happy about what I'm studying now. (despite initial disparaging comments that i was doing a "useless degree" by some bitter-type people) There are some things you learn on the job - there are other things you learn by being both on the job and studying it.

What I would have completed in my coming term would have basically got me in on a level that's required for a higher skill-set-group - even before I've started my career. Everyday I'm learning things that would have made me so much better at my job if I had known this right from the start. There's just no substitute for proper training - and too many people underestimate the importance of professionalism in our industry. Learning on the job is too slow for too many.

It's amazing how much history is behind the media and how rich the resources available to you, and how incredible the stories you hear behind closed doors from profs who have been in the industry long enough to not be astounded by the astonishing stories they're tellling us.

Right now, I'm struggling between immensely excited and passionate about the prevailing subject matter and being slightly sian (there's no proper queen's english equivalent for this expression, is there) about the fact that there's no stopping in this world of deadlines and intensity - and the looming disillusionment I can already forsee which is going to besiege me in a year's time.

So the only hope I have right now is to prolong time and prevent certain attitudes from settling in my mind.

What happened to having a great time and doing nothing while breezing through my MA?

Sigh.

I am getting used to my surroundings, too. It's not exactly the prettiest area of London but it suffices and besides only being a 10min train ride from central London, there's the second biggest park (after Hyde park) which is only 5 minutes away to comfort me. I guess there is beauty everywhere and it is only up to you to open your eyes to see it.

So I'm getting used to the immensity of this urban landscape and thank God I have my escapes during weekend when I can take refuge in the english countryside and small town atmosphere. There's nothing better than having the best of both worlds...

Am also getting used to my L-shaped room - which I wasn't very happy about at first - but it is still quite spacious and I have added a few homely touches and got it feeling more like my own. I miss having a living room though - we have a bare kitchen replacement for that - which I share with 4 other flatmates.

And they make it much better too. I'm living with 4 guys currently - one Palestinian, one British-Canadian, a half-Thai,half-Scot and a uh... shit, I can't remember where he's from orginally but he's British from..uh somewhere. I had a German girl doing an MA in photography initially but she's left to make way for the Palestinian because she can't stand the noise from the roads coming through her window. My own room, thankfully, is blissfully quiet. Although I can hear R flushing his toilet, and the rest when they make breakfast in the morning in the kitchen.

Everyone's so darn arty in this college and I love it. In my flat alone, we're doing degrees in journalism, design, fine arts, film and photography. No efforts of making boring conversations interesting with math and morse students from around. (Although I have to admit I do like math sometimes) Two of my flat mates are doing second or third degrees in film and I love them simply for the fact they know what I'm talking about when I talk about films properly! Such amazing discussions and conversations and the great thing is everyone is intelligent - no one is stupid. I hate having stupid conversations. Trying to get someone to understand a complexity which most of the times, either you get it, or you don't.
When we went down the pub the other day, we actually had to make an effort to talk about frivolous things - but even the stupidest of things we talked about always found its way round to something interesting and intelligent. Oh how I love it!

so yes, trying to get used to a different rhythm in life is not easy to do. but I'm slowly finding my pace.

And I'm savouring it.