What better way to celebrate the start of real, hardcore winter (for the UK anyway, back in my hometown this would be nothing) than for the central heating to break? So now I'm wearing a stupid amount of clothes and drinking two cups of tea simultaneously.
Bah Humbug! yesterday (at the really lovely Betsey Trotwood pub on Farringdon Road) was a good way to start the holiday, even though I left it with kind of mixed feelings. The atmosphere was great, all mince pies and fairy lights and stuff, and we recognised a few people (and Roddy Lumsden actually came up to me and apologised for rejecting me for Magma, which was totally unexpected but nice. I said he really didn't need to apologise). There were some people performing there who were fantastic: it would be stupid to name everyone I liked (mainly cos I, er, can't remember all their names), but you must check out Nick Mulvey, who performed in the freezing cold basement and was absolutely amazing. Parts of the day were so good they made me want to pick up a pen and write a poem ASAP, about anything. During the Generation Txt poets, for example, I was sitting there listening and outside the window there were all these 63 buses going to Honor Oak and I kept thinking, "God, I really need to write a poem about the 63 to Honor Oak." Or anything else, really - candles, chandeliers, beer stains. Had an idea for a poem at one point and wrote "C, C, C" on my hand, but when I came home I couldn't remember what the hell "C, C, C" was supposed to mean.
Also, having seen the guy playing the melodica in Excentral Tempest I've decided I desperately need to find one and learn to play it. Seriously, if you have a spare melodica...
However, me and Adham found that getting through an all-day poetry event without drinking (we were possibly the only people there fuelled by tea and mince pies alone) meant serious poetry fatigue by about 8pm. This may have also had something to do with the fact that...not everyone was that good. Again, not naming names. (Not that they're going to read this, I know, but still.) So the combination of that with sheer exhaustion meant that I came away from it not exactly full of the joys of Christmas & poetry as I was at first, but kind of deflated and bleary-eyed. But in more of a good way than a bad way.
Anyway, so that started the holiday well. School finished on Friday in its usual last-day tide of carols, secret Santas and random distribution of Capri-Suns. Also, Immy has an offer from Christ Church in Oxford, for biology, which is FANTASTIC and made me jump around the house in happiness. Regarding Cambridge, I actually don't care very much anymore if I get an offer or not, but this waiting around is so irritating. I just need to KNOW, and whatever.
On a random note - one of my poems, Margarita, just got translated into Russian and published in the Moscow Medical Journal. Of all places. That poem, and also Teaspoons and The Passenger (yeuch, can't stand the latter anymore) are going into some pamphlet anthology which is being published in Russia. Bizarre is not the word. I've had nothing to do with this and haven't actually read the translations yet. But hey, as Christmas presents go, that ain't bad.
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