Lysias, ink, grapes

I am in Cambridge.
It’s a weird feeling.
Here's what's weird:
a) There’s hardly anyone around except Intensive Greek students, mathematicians, a few theologians (apparently – I haven’t seen any) and older people. And choral scholars. There aren’t even that many tourists.
b) The tourists that are here mostly stand outside the Super-Duper-Fantastic Corpus Christi Stephen Hawking clock, with its flashing lights and random perching insect. They literally just stand there with their mouths open.
c) I know loads of people from Bryanston and yet I don’t know anyone.
d) There’s no kettle. Therefore no tea, for now. This is distressing.
e) We’re going to have this week of work and then it’s Fresher’s Week. And it feels like no one quite knows what to do with themselves, whether we should be working or being all WOOHOO NOW WE ARE FRESHERS, or both. Or indeed, both…
f) My Greek is apparently now AS-level standard.
g) The College cat can walk on the grass.

And the weirdest thing of all is that I live here now. Like, I’m not a tourist.
I have a card and everything.
Is that not INSANE?

So long to the RAVE CAVE

"sceptrum, i, neut. Sceptre; phallus; kingship."

A small example of why I've missed Latin during the past fortnight of GREEKORAMA. The day after I make my offer for Cambridge (yeah, see how I dropped that in) I'm already translating Aeneid 9 like a good little loser. What can I say, I'm so excited.

Bryanston never had a chance. If I'm completely honest, the way I'd been imagining G(r)eek camp - as a kind of two-week long Arvon-for-classicists staying in the kind of school that apparently needs its own Greek theatre - meant that it could only ever have been an anticlimax. I mean, I had a really good time: I learnt shitloads of Greek, obviously; I swam in the pool; I drank gallons of coffee; I sang in the choir; I went on biscuit rampages; I drank in the bar, I attempted to dance on one leg in the "rave cave" (a joke of a room where they have strobe lights and one CD that they play every single night) and when I had too much work in the evenings I joined the library crew which was conveniently situated right above the rave cave. I went to all the lectures, which were mostly fantastic: they included Edith "I'm mad, me!!" Hall being her feminist self, and David Raeburn doing a reading from Homer, Euripides and Callimachus which was one of the most amazing things I have EVER seen in my life. I also sat by the pond, pratted around in the Greek theatre, played cards, and danced to the Macarena right through the building. I did not swim in the fountain, have sex in the bushes, pass out in a corridor or get hospitalised or expelled. (Some people did.) And I made lots of nice friends without actually bonding with anyone. One forlorn Plato-sodden night I texted this to Immy and she texted back saying, "Dude, you're not looking for a life partner" and she had a point.

So it wasn't the TWO-WEEK LONG BACCHANALIA a few people had hinted it would be, but I got a lot out of it and I MAY come back next year. If someone else pays...

(On the way home, by the way, our coach crashed into a car in a village called Nether Wallop. Because no one was injured this is allowed to be hilarious.)

This coming month, I have to wade through lots of Virgil and Cicero. I think Latin will always remain my true love.

He said "hand that pen over to ME, poetaster!"

My most productive week in AGES. Two sestinas and a poem about Massachusetts! And I'm not even doing July NaPoWriMo. Sadly both sestinas are silly and foaming at the mouth with emo (mainly because I was trying to find out whether sestinas were better when written in a big fast almost-stream-of-consciousness whirlwind rather than labouring over every end-word - still not sure really, and wondering if they aren't just simply annoying). Then on Thursday I went to the first of Roddy Lumsden's "50 States" readings at the Scooterworks Cafe - 50 poets, 50 states of America, huzzah, 50 poems. It was really good. I took Immy, and we sat there and sipped our neverending caffeine drinks, played Connect 4 and got the giggles over Idaho like the cool people we are. THEN Roddy comes up to me, says that the person doing Massachusetts tomorrow night has pulled out and would I like to do it instead?

And I thought: WARGH MASSACHUSETTS WHAT.
And I said: "Yeah, sure!"

And went home to eat Wikipedia. In the end the poem was hardly about Massachusetts at all - all vaguenesses and INSERT-CRAP-EMILY-DICKINSON-REFERENCE-HEREisms - but it did win me a bottle of bourbon. (Roddy: "Are you eighteen now or will I get arrested if I give this to you?") Earlier that night I became possibly the first person ever to get turned away at the bar for trying to order a glass of milk.

So, writing poems, learning Greek, hanging around in this glorious town that I live in. I've been a bit stressed lately for no reason - well, for REASONS, but not actual important ones - and it's made me kind of ill (stomach currently not digesting anything that isn't porridge. Or occasionally Cheerios). So I'm thinking of turning over a new leaf. The "Life Is Insane And You Can't Control It No Matter How Hard You Try So Stop Being Such A Bloody Capricorn And Be Happy" leaf. Let's hope it works.

Also, this. It's true.

Today I went to the Poetry Library and read Rosemary Tonks books out of the rare and out-of-print section. I am, sometimes, very easily pleased.

Are we going to prom or to hell?

Gaaaaah. Just got back from a party in Maidstone. Have spent all morning sitting on the floors of various trains. In about eight hours I have to be at school wearing a ridiculous dress for the sixth form ball, which...yeah. God. Sentences. Goawaysentences.

I'm not hungover at all, just exhausted. Evening basically consisted of firstly drinking too much wine too fast forgetting I have a stomach bug, suddenly remembering I have a stomach bug, lying down behind a sofa for ages, and then spending the rest of the night talking to Charly/Antho/a few other people, and helping to look after drunks. It was quite fun actually - I mean, not looking after drunks, but just seeing people again. Also spent a bit of time wandering around having stupid earnest conversations with people ("Yeah, I mean - yeah! YEAH, totally!") and quoting things at a guy dressed as Hamlet. He looked like he was going to throw up at one point so I said, in a kind of I'm-not-really-taking-the-piss-out-of-you-but-I-am way, "O, what a rogue and peasant slave are you" to which he yelled in my face "FUCK YEAH. HONEYING AND MAKING LOVE OVER THE NASTY STY!" and ran out of the room. So yeah, that was...I'm not really sure why I just remembered that actually.

Am tired, tired tired. Very pale too. I will look like a corpse at the ball. Oh God. I want to go, but not now, not today. Just got that line from Heathers in my head: "Are we going to pruhhhhm or to hell?" Really want my pyjamas. My lovely pyjamas. Only I know if I get changed into them now I will never be able to get changed out of them. It's really dark and it's blatantly going to rain and oh heck, I have to get to school myself which means walking through town in a dress in the rain, OH WORLD GO AWAY.

At least, because I have no desire to drink tonight, at all, I won't repeat the ridiculous drunken fiasco of last year's ball. (Gah.) And it's in a house/manor thing this year, not on a big lurching boat, so...that should be interesting. I am looking forward to it. Should really stop typing. OK, I will read for a bit, then have lunch, then bath, then get ready, then stagger out of house. Yes, a plan. At the moment I'm reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (which has been on the To Read list for years and years) and it's quite good; I'm not hooked but I like it. It has Ken Kesey's sketches in it, which is nice. Pictures of men who look like their faces are falling apart.

My face is falling apart. What is this quintessence of dust?

Full stop.

...That's it. Hamlet copped it, the Third Reich has fallen, Manderley is burning, Turnus is in the underworld. I've finished my A-levels. I did well in about three of them. My room is full of pieces of paper. And today I am hosting a birthday party for ten ten-year-olds.

Mark Pilarski says

The smarter you play, the luckier you'll be.

Because life is indeed like poker (i.e. I don't really understand it and just throw cards down blindly, instead stacking all the chips into patterns and rolling my eyes at anyone who takes it seriously).

Verbs of fearing...

Saw the doctor yesterday (a regular feature of my life at the moment). We talked about all the knee/back/leg/foot problems of the past two years and he said that because of all this it was probably best that I avoided wearing what he called "fashion shoes" (i.e. anything that looks good) and stuck to wearing trainers whenever possible. Cue me sighing vainly.

He also looked at my feet and said, "You know, you have practically no fat on your feet."

I said, "Well, is there anything I can do to GET fat on my feet?", imagining a diet of chocolate milkshakes or something, to which he guffawed - he is the kind of man who never laughs but guffaws - and then replied, "No, not really. It's just the way you are."

So, yes. Am torn between feeling so worn out by the whole thing that I don't care anymore, and on the other hand wanting to fall to my knees (ow) and scream "WHEN, WHEN WILL THIS END?" Because none of it is exactly life-threatening and obviously I'm thankful for that, but on the other hand it's so, so annoying and makes me feel about ninety-five. (Dr E also said yesterday "It usually affects older people, you're quite unusual", which basically amounts to, "Yeah, you're a bit of a freak"). And also it's got to the point where I can no longer distinguish between health problems that are serious and ones that aren't, which AS WE ALL KNOW was not something I was good at in the first place, but all this is just making it worse.

Par exemple: elbow pain
Normal person: "Oh look, my elbow hurts. I'll take some painkillers in a sec."
Annie: "OH NOES! MY ELBOW! OH MY ELBOW! OH THIS IS CLEARLY LINKED TO ALL THE OTHER STUFF! OH ME! OH MY! WHAT HO! WHY WHY WHY" *collapses in panicked heap, etc*

And I miss running. SO much. I watched a runner go past me yesterday in the park and just thought, "You lucky BITCH."

Anyway, anyway. Bright sides: it's a beautiful day, I have strawberries, I also have ice-cream, and I think I'm ready for the Latin exam tomorrow. "Revised" just now by reading the whole of my Latin grammar book - all 149 pages - only I say "revised" because I was watching Casper at the same time so how much I actually took in is questionable. It's quite distressing, by the way, when you go back to a film you loved when you were little and realise it's actually a bit shit. (See also: Honey I Shrunk The Kids).