The Story of a Play, Episode IV

Tuesday was Imperial College freshers' fair (or fayre). It was incredible to see the sudden burst of manic activity in college following a long summer of having the union to ourselves. I flitted down to the MTsoc table (half of which had been sneakily taken over by techies) on a couple of occassions but spent most of my time in the Union Concert Hall which had been taken over by Dramsoc. There I courted anyone who was foolish enough to poke their head round the corner, persuading all and sundry that they needed to join Dramsoc and audition for my play/be a techie.

To bring you up to speed then, I have written a play! And I thought that since this blog has been so neglected it needed a theme and a purpose. This purpose, I have decided, will be to keep you all informed of the progress of this year's Imperial Dramsoc Christmas Show - 'The Dark Side'.

Work has already begun - I've found most of my production team, had some very productive meetings with Set Designer Henry, got logo ideas from Adam, worked over the script several times (with thanks to Adam and Priyan among others for their helpful suggestions) and of course press-ganged everyone I know into auditioning.

May not be actual logo.

So basically this will be one giant plug. Hmm, that doesn't sound like it'll make for fascinating reading. I will have to find enough interesting occurences to give you all something exciting to read. Well we'll see how it goes, and I shall try not to bore you!

In the mean-time I have a job interview, work and extensive rehearsals to get to tomorrow so good-night until next time!

My deep and meaningful learning experience...

Carrying on with the theme of scrubs-esque titles, here are some of the things I have learnt over the past few days...

• Earrings are incompatible with phones.
• Perennial allergic rhinitis is nothing to do with rhinos.
• When it is a sunny morning and you leave your cardigan at home it WILL rain.
• There is road called Strawberry Mead at which there is a house no. 64 and I would like to live there.
• The backs of stickers are good places for secrets.
• The third musketeer was Athos.
• Never stick matches in your ear - even if you have an annoying itch.
• Not giving your temps their own log-ins is very annoying.
• The time before lunch is infinite.
• You can do anything with google.
• I can sing.
• "Aaaaaadriiiic!" sounds a bit like "Baaaaldriiiick!" but the two phrases have very different meanings.

My first day...

Summary: Data validation is very dull.

Summary: The search function is irritatingly slow. And people have funny names.

Summary: I love Doctor Mac. Susan doesn't count.
Summary: I have post-exam plans. :D
Important Translation: "Work shmurk. Bookshop Wookshop. Q. Is Dunni Bernard or Manny?

Important Bit of the above: What did we spend most of the time filming House actually doing? Right - walking down corridors.
Important Quesitons: Does persepctive have to be the same for all the cubes? Are the cubes floating in space? Are they borg cubes? What is the optimal cube density?
Summary of important points: Instead of writing actual blog post I'll just scan in bored ramblings. Better off drawing cubes. Brigadier not in Peru. Resting my eyes.

P.S. Points for translating bored <-ART

An excuse for a blog post...

An update courtesy of Fiona's wall, just to let you know the awesomeness of my life. Those of you who are in the middle of e-term probably won't sympathise with the dullness. Oh, may I live in interesting times...

Today I have....
got a job while wearing my silky purple dressing gown,
watered the plants,
realised my bonferroni corrections were erroneous,
failed to throw a dead turkey chick over a fence (it sort of hit some branches on the way. Also I'm crap at throwing. I'm sure no-one will notice),
facebook stalked pictures of my brother having a mental time at crazy drug-fueled 17-yr-old parties and apparently getting off with a fit opera singer (my life sucks),
made omelette (except it turned out to just be scrambled egg - how do you get it to stick together?),
finally got dressed in the afternoon,
done some more work on my paper (blooming orangutans, oh when will you leave me alone?!).

And tomorrow I might...
...
...
...
...
nah, I have nothing.

Right, so who wants to pay me for having updated my blog?

I feel somewhat of a hypocrite as I curse the lack of new activity on Sparkie's junkyard and P2006 while knowing that I have posted nothing here. Although not as much of one as Adam trying to complain at me while studiosly ignoring a site he set up half a degree ago!

Anyway, I though posting randomness might assuage some of that guilt. And inform those of you other than the six people I am currently with what's going on in the ever-thrilling world of Antimini.

You know this see-the-world, seek-adventure thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. So why not try staying at home and being a normal person? You know - live with parents, get job, live dull pointless and importantly stress-free existence for a while - sounds fun huh? Turns out I've made some wrong decisions in my life for that. Oddly enough, none of the jobs for temp work in my area say "Requirements: Good Science Degree from Top University." What's wrong with these people? Apparently previous experience is more what they're after. In fact that's all they're after. Why did I spend all that time studying when I could have been doing crappy jobs? What an idiot!

I go into the job centre and a man who doesn't care looks at a sheet I give him and says "Ok, good you're looking for jobs. Sign here please." And I want to say - 'Excuse me, I think I'm in the wrong place. I went to Cambridge. Cambridge? Can I have a job now please?'

In Cambridge at the mo. No jobs here either, but never mind. I realise that when (if) I do manage to get some minimum wage employment I will no longer be able to bugger off to see my friends for a week. And where's the fun in that?

Maybe I'll just enjoy being a waster and sponging off the government a leetle bit longer while lying in and laughing at my friends who have to go off to lectures. Unemployment ain't so bad! :D

Have you ever tried counting the flowers on a Eucalyptus tree?

So, I promised you details about work...*sigh*...ok then – I’ll give you the brief run down

The Juan Fernandez Archipelago is the pointy top part of a volcanic mountain chain – on the cliffs from a boat you can see the stratifications as layers of lava were layed down and numerous conduits/pipes that cut straight up through the hills. Since the islands have always been completely isolated numerous unique species have evolved here that are found nowhere else in the world – including the Juan Fernandez Firecrown, the hummingbird which is the focus of the study. Since people have discovered the island they have introduced numerous species which compete with native vegetation (such as Maqui and bramble), contribute to soil erosion (grazing animals including wild goats and rabbits) and animals that directly harm native birds (cats, rats and coatis). People have also driven a native tree, the Sophora, nearly to extinction due to logging. The trees that now survive are those that were to twisted or innaccessible to be useful, and it takes several hours walking from town to find them. When they are in bloom the hummingbirds flock to the multitude of yellow flowers for nectar so that standing by the tree trunk is like being in a golden aviary. The only nearly terrestrial vertebrates native to the islands other than birds are an endemic species of fur seal – these were hunted for their meat and at one point considered extinct before an isolated population was discovered. The seals are now thriving and a few of them can usually be seen with their flippers raised out of the water, messing about near the shore in front of the town.

The other species of hummingbird on the island – the continental species which is probably the sister-species of the endemic – appears to have made it to the archipelago alone in the last couple of hundred years. Much of our work also applies to these birds and part of the aim of the study is to examine possible competative interactions and to determine whether the vegetation changes caused by humans may be of benefit to the continental species over the endemic. Behavioural observations of birds that enter specified areas during half hour periods will help determine possible differences in feeding strategy, energy budgets, and preffered food sources between the larger endemic and smaller contintal firecrowns. Aggressive interactions between birds are also noted. Ok, so now I sound like a journal article – jeez. Maybe it’s better to say: we sit around in the cold, someimtes in mud, and watch the pretty birdies. :-) Mud problems are solved by the use of waterproof trousers which are an awesome invention – like clothes you can get as dirty if you want and don’t have to wash! The cold is countered by numerous layers – although after hiking up a steep hill, the bottom layer usually stays horribly damp which doesn’t help. The birdies really are very pretty though. The endemic males are the biggest – completely brick red with darker almost-black on the edges of their wings, and when they face you head on a flash of irridescent gold or red on their forehead which gives them their name. The Green-Backed Firecrown males also posses this red crest but apart from this they are small and inconspicuous – dull green fading to grey underneath – much better camouflaged from a history of having to cope with predators. The endemic females are my favourite though –they are irridescent emerald green on top, and bright white underneath and on the edges of their tails when they fan them out. When sitting in a forest clearing you often hear the buzz of the female’s wings before spotting them doing crazy acrobatics in the air while feeidng on insects.

These humminbirds feed on both nectar and insects – and so we research both of these food sources. We count flowers on trees, determine nectar production, and trap and sort insects from various locations. Other work includes measuring trees and finding, measuring and regularly checking nests of both species.

There we go then – blah blah blah. I think next post I’ll go back to how pretty everything is.

Things going along

Work is pretty much going great. I say great coz even one 7 hour day is an amazing achievement for me (and numerous 6 hour ones are excellent!) and I have it all planned out and I have motivation and I have confidence that I can do it.
So I should be pretty happy at the moment, right?
I thought I was. So why do things keep getting me down?
Silly things people do make me upset and I don't know why. We're still hanging out in the evenings some, and there's work/library-bonding to some extent, but I somehow feel more lonely than I did over the whole of Easter when there was no-one here.
I think I'm being melodramatic. A few little arguments, that's all. It's just I'm having trouble getting over a sudden feeling of mopeyness coz none of them quite got resolved. Because I was being oversensitive and there was nothing to resolve!
So. Work. Watch. Eat. Sleep.
Sgood.
Maybe this'll all be better once these project deadlines are outta the way. Oh wait - no, then there's the E word, it must have slipped my mind! And then there's fun, but then after fun there's always next year. Damnit - have to enjoy mayweek. Absolutely must. But try and keep things up now too.
Oh god emotional rants. And cryptic ones at that. Why didn't I write this in my diary? I should know. Damnit. This is all screwey.
However luckily none of it matters so it's all good. Good!