GenesisDreams

Campus Jubilee

Guest Entry Way back in the beginning of June, my friend Morgs came to visit me at Uni (you can read all about it here). While he was here I got him to write a guest entry for GenesisDreams. It was never completed, and it has been sitting on my desktop gathering virtual dust all summer. So, in an effort to keep updating regularly, even though I am too slack to write something myself, here is a very late, only partially finished, guest entry from Morgs.

Life at Wigs' joint is comfortable, eventful and well... sometimes difficult to remember. Upon arrival on Wednesday night over a week ago I was treated to some rare hospitality in the form of a warm English welcome - a few beers at the local campus bar. Situated no further than thirty meters from Wigs' room 'the BAR', as it is known, is the place where all the action begins. The lively, youthful crowd populates the place at 7:30pm upon opening and disperses well before 11pm when it closes. That's right - it closes at 11pm. In fact, all bars and pubs in England close at 11pm. That's why there is such a raging club scene. It didn't take long before I was shown around. On Thursday, we visited the Pitcher & the Piano, a pub located inside a church. Some may claim it's sinful, others may say it's a stunt for cash, but between the chandeliers and the stained glass windows, all enclosed in an enormous stone chapel, the Pitcher & the Piano is quite simply the most grandiose place I've ever spilled beer in. On Monday, the UK's largest foam machine made a stop at 'The Works', a multi-room, seven-bar nightclub packed full of fit chicks with wet t-shirts. Order five shots of vodka with redbull (it comes in a pint glass) for five quid and sip this while enjoying watching everyone on the dancefloor being irregularly squirted by foam guns. Afterwards, dance to some well mixed club music on any one of three dancefloors. On Wednesday, the crowd from the BAR... Life... A free bed, a free catering card and a few free drinks here and there have made my stay at Nottingham both comfortable and remarkable. Mind you, it still wasn't cheap; Between the pound-fifty drinks, the 16 pound 'Summer Party', and the endless poker games (all at my expense), Nottingham has so far proven to be one of the most expensive places I've stayed.

Play, Rewind, Record

Friends - Personal - University Whenever I think I have managed to get up to date with this blog, something comes up and I manage to get terribly behind. So here are the last couple of weeks in brief. I have moved into my new house! If anyone wants to send me anything, email me and I'll give you the address (as always care packages from home (filled with Vegemite and Tim-Tams and the like) are most appreciated ^_^). We have dubbed it the Party House and there are six of us living there. Myself, Bruce, Ben and Graeme (the three lads I travelled around Europe with for the first month), and Nikkie and Viki. It is a three story house, four if you count the basement, with a nice big kitchen and lounge room. It's about a twenty minute walk from Jubilee campus (where I do most of my subjects) and about forty minutes from University Park campus. There is a hopper bus that runs between the two campuses though, so I just take that when I am feeling lazy. I have been there two weeks now and I am absolutely loving share house living. It helps that I am really good friends with all my housemates (we were all in Newark Hall last year), but just generally I am having a fantastic time. I am not eating well, I am drinking far more than I should, and I spend more time in bed than out of it, but that's what being a student is all about, and I am trying to make the most of it while I can. This is my last semester of University. Lectures start today (I've got a break and am stuck in the library, so that's the reason I am writing this). My holidays are finally over. What a glorious summer it has been, but now it is time to get back to work. Not that I have that much work. With around eight contact hours a week the actual learning I do here is a bit of a joke. Still it gives me the free time to do all the drinking and lazing about I mentioned before. I don't really know yet how I feel about this finally being my last semester. I have done the whole graduation thing already. I have finished engineering, worn my silly gown, and gone through the whole ceremony. I wasn't that excited then, so the prospect of graduating from a second degree isn't really thrilling me either. The prospect of being completely free though is thrilling. I have always seen the end of University to be the moment in my life where I face the most possibilities. Even more so than the end of highschool, finishing Uni signifies an end of an era, and a point of origin for the rest of my grown up life. There are opportunities out there for me that I haven't even discovered yet, and a whole world of possibility for me to explore. I don't think there has been any other point in my life, nor do I think there will be any other point in my life, where I have so many choices. This is it, and I am going to make the most of it. I am not going to let this chance slip away, I am not going to take the easy option, the safe road. I choose adventure, I choose life, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have already decided that I am going to stay in the U.K. next year. I am currently in the process of looking into working permits and visas and applying for jobs. I know my adventure starts here, I just don't know where it is going to take me yet. But enough rewinding, it's time to press play again. I haven't caught up completely, a lot of other stuff has happened these last two weeks, but some things are best simply summarised I think. We went out, had some drinks, danced a lot. Went shopping, bought food, went to the hardware store, bought stuff, went to Ikea, bought even more stuff (pillows, duvets and the like). Went to the Ark, to Tantra, to the Pit and Pendulum, to Bar BZR. I made lasagna, noodles, stir fry, toast, bacon sandwiches, scrambled eggs, spaghetti bolognese, corknflakes and weetabix. I registered for Uni, signed up for subjects, and (as of this morning) went to a lecture. No more fast forwarding though, it's time to play, and hopefully this blog will do a good job and record too.

Filling The Gaps

Friends - Fun - Guest Entry Continuing from where I left off in my last entry (becuase it is not as late as I thought it was)... I didn't spent all my time at my cousin's asleep though. My friend Jacqui came to visit me during the week. We had a great time and it was really good to catch up. I did my best to show her "traditional English countryside" and she cooked dinner for me, so it all worked out well! She wrote a wonderful description of her stay for her periodic mass emails, which I am going to reproduce here (I hope you don't mind Jacqui!):

I'm in Milton Keynes (England), staying with my friend Michael (from uni in Brisbane) at his cousins' place (they're away in Cornwall) in their gorgeous home - an old converted water mill - with bunny rabbits outside the door, a stream running past the back of the house, cows in the neighbouring fields and beautiful green, green scenery everywhere! Michael's surprise for me yesterday was to go kayaking - we climbed out the window of the house (first surprise!) 'cos that was the easiest access to the stream. Lifted the kayak down, jumped in, paddled across to the other side (like, 3 metres), jumped out, hauled the kayak up, carried it a few metres to the bank of the river, lowered the kayak down again and headed off downstream. (it sounds like a lot of work, but as we each nearly fell into the mud and water a couple of times, was actually quite funny). Down the river about a kilometre, I guess, then another muddy landing, then carried the kayak up a hill, before lowering it into... the Grand Union Canal: which, if you follow it far enough, ends up in London! The canal was great - colourful canalboats to look at, (no bunches of reeds to navigate!), people walking their dogs along the path beside the canal... and only one lock to get through! At the lock we jumped out, carried the kayak to the other side, and got back in again. We followed the canal up as far as a (nice, old English) pub, got out and had lunch and relaxed there for a while, before heading back the way we'd come. We were nearly back (rowing harder because we were going against the current this time) when we emerged from the leaves of an overhanging tree branch, to find a family of swans in front of us. Michael very wisely suggested we not go any closer, since Mother Swan was giving us some VERY suspicious looks! So we slowed down to swan-speed, and followed the family home - Dad in front, the three kids, and Mum bringing up the rear, glancing back at us frequently to make sure we got no closer! I wished I could have reached my camera, but it was tied up in a big bundle of my jacket and Michael's, keeping it out of the water which seeped into the bottom of the kayak. So you'll just have to imagine what a magic scene that was!

Jacqui had come up from London, and after staying a couple of days with me, headed off to Oxford. She is in France at the moment, and if you are reading this Jacqui, good luck on the rest of your trip! After Jacqui had left I did some more sleeping and watching DVDs until my cousin came home, where I did some sleeping and watching DVDs intermingled with going out with them. Which brings us up to The Elephant Vanishes. Yay! I am now almost up to date! I'll write all about my new place and my housemates and what we've been up to after the weekend.

Edinburgh Revisited

Friends - Fun - Travel I've moved into my new house! It's great! I will write more about it soon. First though I want to go back to Edinburgh, because if I don't do it now I never will. So, a couple of days after I got back into the UK, I got the train up to Edinburgh to meet up with Bruce and check out the tail end of the Fringe Festival. It's a long train trip up from Milton Keynes, about six hours in total, but I dozed on the train and the trip went rather quickly. Bruce met me at the train station and we walked down to his place, I dumped my backpack, and then we promptly went out for a beer. That set the tone for my stay in Edinburgh. Bruce showed me around the pubs and bars of the city and we got drunk... quite a lot. We also were being quite cultured at the same time. Surrounded by the Fringe it is hard not to, with performances of all types happening in all corners. We saw trapeze acts, an assortment of jugglers and acrobats, a number of theatre troops, singers, dancers and all sorts of other musicians, comedians, mimes, and the just plain bizarre... and this was all just down the Royal Mile. I stayed up in Edinburgh for about a week, and during that time managed to catch bunch of different shows; standup acts, dramatic performances, live music, and some that were a cross between them all. Some shows we had planned to go to, Bruce's parents had organised tickets, or we saw a performance in the street and decided go to the show afterwards. Another time I was sitting in a bar called "Under" something at about 1AM and this guy gave me a free ticket to see a two hour standup comedy set featuring four different comics. I was really pissed at this point, so everything seemed funny, but I think it would have been hilarious sober as well. Bruce couldn't direct us home that night (too drunk), so we ended up getting a taxi back to his place, cooking pizza in his oven and falling asleep on his floor. Good times. I met up with Morgs while in Edinburgh (I've talked about him here before). He was working as a driving for British Telecom, trying to save some money and enjoying Edinburgh and the festival at the same time. It was good to see him again and swap stories. When he first came to visit he was very much the seasoned traveller, while I was still a relative newcomer. After my summer trip though we had a lot more travelling stories to compare and advice to swap. He asked about everyone back home and I had to admit to him that I didn't really know much about what is happening with them. I updated him on Jimmy the Hacker (whom I only found out about via Ads) and gave him a brief overview, but couldn't do any more than that. We had a few drinks, caught up, and then he went home (he is living with four Polish guys in a 1 bedroom flat somewhere for £20 a week, or something like that). A few days later I went "home" too. Bruce was flying out to Dubai, the Festival was winding down, and after ten weeks of constantly being on the go, I just wanted to sleep. So I got the train back down to Milton Keynes (it took eight hours to get back!) and slumped asleep at my cousin's place. My cousin, her husband and her kids were all on holiday down in Cornwall, at the beach (what constitutes a beach in this country) so I had the house to myself. I made the most of it and spent almost three full days either in bed, or in front of the TV watching DVDs (my cousin had the most awesome DVD collection). It was bliss.

The Elephant Vanishes

Books - Fun Thursday night I went into London to see a play adaptation of Haruki Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes at the Barbican Theatre. I got the train down to London early, and met up with my friend Bull. We went to high school together, and, having finished Uni at the end of last year, he is travelling the world in search of adventure. At the moment he is working in a "Walkabout" bar in Bromley, but his shifts don't start till six, so he had time to meet up with me and have a few beers. It was good to see Bull again. We swapped travel stories. He had been to Spain last month and told me all about that, while I related (most) of my travel tales. He asked me about how everyone is doing back home, and I told him what little I knew. We are both so cut off over here. After a few too many beers we parted ways with promises to catch up in the next couple of months. He left to go to work, I went to the play. I've written about Murakami before (Midori, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Popcorn, Lord Jim, Extinction) and over the past year of so have read almost all of his work. I can't describe why I like his stories exactly, but they never fail to touch me, and at heart, I am a person who likes to be moved. The Elephant Vanishes is a collection of short stories by Murakami, and three of them (The Second Bakery Attack, Sleep, and The Elephant Vanishes itself) were adapted into one continuous theatrical performance. The style was very innovative, with movement and action and changing scenes and use of props all flowing together to form a stunning show. The actors were Japanese, and the dialogue was all in Japanese. There were "subtitles" provided on a screen above the stage, but I didn't bother with them most of the time. There was too much going on in front of me. I got a terrific seat, a centre of the stage, a couple of rows back, and from there the action and drama unfolded in a truly magical way. I love being able to go see performances like this. I actually get the opportunity now, living so close to London, and I really should take advantage of it more. Anyway so I was on quite a high afterwards. I want to see it again! I am moving into my new house tomorrow. University starts the week after next. I still have to talk about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (and I will) and also about my house, and my new housemates and all that jazz, but it will have to wait a little while longer. I don't know when we will get Internet access (or even a phone) set up in our new place. So please be patient.

How To Travel With A Salmon

Books - General - Metaposts - Music I have been really slack in updating lately. Sorry about that everyone. I have had to time to update, I've just been doing so much recently that I haven't had the energy to sit down and write all about it. I will catch up soon. I will be moving into my new place in a week, so if I don't post a big Fringe Festival and after review before then, it will likely be a couple more weeks before I get the net hooked up and everything organised for me to post properly again. I will get around to replying to all the emails I have been sent too... Sometime ^_^ Oh yeah, I'm reading some Umberto Eco and listening to lots of Faithless.