Gah. Realised today:
1) Might not get funding to do Ph.D here next year.
2) Work placement (which might not be in York) starts early on in summer term.
3) Consequently, if I want to make a film through Cinematography Society, I'll have to do it next term.
4) If I want to make a film next term, I have to submit a script next Monday.
5) I have no script ideas.

Fortunately, while listening to Iron Maiden, I got it into my head that I *must* write a script featuring their song "Wildest Dreams". Sadly, since it's an uberoptimistic song, it will have to occur at the end of a film full o Overwhelming Woe And Overcoming It. Luckily, after several hours of staring at a blank page, I worked out a funchie story of Overwhelming Woe And Overcoming It, which, for once, wasn't stolen from a friend's experiences.

Unfortunately, it will have to be at least twenty minutes long, and for it, I'll have to write two songs, a stand-up comedy routine, a C program and a long derivation of equations for it, all of them incredibly amusing. Yes, really.

Of course Week Of Having My Work Cut Out coincides with Week Of Vast Number Of Goth Nights!


Saturday 15 November 2003

Week O Deth is proving to be not so bad, not so bad at all. Admittedly, I haven't done much of any use in it. I haven't had a lot of work to do, and I have managed to do a worksheet, learn loads of Dutch vocabulary, make zillions of pages of notes, read some biology articles and download loads of black metal MP3s off various bands' websites, but muchos time has been given over to Silly Pursuits. Namely, I've been told that there isn't a proof for a certain fairly well-known conjecture, but I believe I'm capable of either proving it or proving it can't be proven. The Voice Of Reason tells me that the latter activity just isn't possible in general, and since I'm using really basic techniques, chances of me accomplishing the former are slim. But when would I listen to the voice of reason? I much prefer to listen to the voice of Andrew Eldritch. Ah, how cool are uberdeep voices? How many otherwise-attractive men have I instantly lost interest in upon realising their voices just aren't deep enough?

Anyway, what I don't understand is:

I have to finish my script by Monday.
I have a lot of it worked out in my head.
Writing is my favourite activity.
Yet, I'm choosing to do fiendish Maths, a much-hated thing and "extra work" to boot, instead. The fact that I'm writing a program that includes a function called make_heauge_number is adding to the appeal of this task, but still.

Ah well, I've still got two days left.

Ziggy's on Tuesday was pants. How I miss The Beercart! Due to liking goth, industrial, classic rock, hard rock, punk, grunge, classic metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, thrash metal, metal cover versions of pop songs, manga metal, techno black metal, nu metal that resembles any of the aforementioned genres and just plain METAL, and being able to tolerate rappy nu-metal, I like pretty much everything they play there. At Ziggy's, however, in addition to rock and metal, they play beeploads of emo, ska and rap. Emo isn't really my thing, but it's ok, I can see why other people like it. I just don't think it's very good for dancing to. I like ska, but it's too happy! And so, since I lack the skanking gene, dancing to ska makes me feel like I'm in a vapid American TV series about four goofy guys who communicate solely by slapping each other's hands, and spend all the time surfing, performing in their local café and having minor misunderstandings with their drop-dead-gorgeous pouty girlfriends. And I don't like rap. The idea of "urban poetry" is all well and good, but I appreciate a tune in my music, you know?

We collected our coats before the music ended, to avoid the rush, but I insisted on returning to the club afterwards, since last time, I missed "The Ace Of Spades" that way. This time, of course, the final metal song was "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"! (Then they played "Gay Bar" (which is still fine by me) and the "beep off" song, which was "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran. Weirdness. It's too good to be an "Argh! Run away!" song, it's the right tempo for slow-dancing but not exactly romantic, and it's hardly ending the night on an upbeat note.)

I got back to my room at 2.45. As usual, I turned my mobile phone off. At 8.30 the following morning, my landline phone rang.

Zed: Meurgh.
Mum: Were you still in bed?
Zed: Uh huh.
Mum: Well, you should be up by now.
Zed: Why?
Mum: To go to lectures.
Zed: They don't start until 11.15.
Mum: Do they not? I thought lectures always started at 9.
Zed: Why would they do that? I don't have any whatosever next Wednesday, and my only one tomorrow's at 4.15.
Mum: Really?

Ok, so she hasn't been to university since 1971, but she was an English student! i.e. someone who gets four lectures a week, maximum! And her offspring have been at university for over five years of twice-weekly phonecalls between them! Early senility is clearly setting in. I won't get in until 4am tomorrow night: remind me to unplug my landline then, ok?

Anyway. Enshrouded, the goth night on Wednesday, was fantastique! I danced for pretty much all of it, and they played Ultravox! w00t, for I [hart] Ultravox but keep forgetting they exist. Further, Deviation, the goth/metal night tonight, was schitterend! (That's "splendid" in Dutch; v. useful if you're saying, for example, a gig was sh*t, when you realise one of the band members is listening.) They played "Wish", my second favourite Nine Inch Nails song (which is to say, my second favourite song); three of Those Really Good Songs They Always Play At Goth Clubs Whose Identities I Never Knew But Now I Do, Ha Ha!; and a fine mixture of other goodness. There was a smidgen of badness (in the form of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", of course), but the sound seemed to be much better than I found it last time: "Dragula" sounded especially funchie.

Musical Ponderings O The Night: "Hey Mickey" and "Come Out And Play" seem to have the same intro. "80s" and "Come As You Are" do too. And why are there two songs in existence that begin with the word "Enola" - "Enola Gay" and "Enola Alone"? I know "Enola" is "Alone" backwards, but what's "Yag" supposed to mean?


Sunday 16 November 2003

Yay! After thirteen hours of non-stop scriptwriting, I finished it! (Well, I've only written two thirds of one song and very little of the other, but that's just too bad!)

It doesn't progress perfectly, so, knowing my luck, Cinematography society probably won't want to help me make it, but hurrah for me actually writing and (almost) finishing something other than a journal entry or an e-mail for the first time since . . . May? (And that was really weird and pointless.) I've got the power! Task the next: finish short story for Writer's News competition. (Deadline: 1 December.)

The Wendyhouse was pretty good last night. I've taken against the main floor, since the dancefloor is in a pit, and once it got full, the thought of going into it made me feel sick. The dancefloor in The Other Room is open-plan though. They played too much techno-techno-techno-techno there for my usual tastes, but I was in a really techno-techno-techno-techno mood and enyojed myself.