just nineteen and dream obscene

Siiigh. I atent dead. I'm still here, still a bit of a mess, but less of one, now. Thank you, all of you, who commented with love and good advice and gentle reminders that I was being ridiculous. It was much appreciated and made me feel much better about life. Which is good, right? I have since given up on Economics entirely, with the logic that even if I do fail that particular exam, I refuse to fail the rest. And I've spent the day today in the garden with Mill's Utilitarianism, tomorrow shall be spent in the garden with General Philosophy, and I will not fail this exam. Sunday is going to be devoted to Political Theory, and maybe I won't fail that one either. We shall see. Anyway. Collections, which is Oxford-speak for start-of-term college exams, are next Friday and Saturday. Prelims, the real things, are from June 19th. Two months away. I can, and will, live through this. My summer, which runs from the end of June to the start of October, and will feature bookshop work, internships, lazy long days and a road trip with Pedar through New England, should be idyllic. Again, we shall see.

Anyway. On Tuesday morning, which seems like a very long time ago now, I went down to London with Claire, there to meet Sky, Ben and James. Between the five of us, we had a lovely, lovely time. The day, which was very rainy, was spent running around the South Bank, getting very wet. I can't actually remember what we did beyond eat, get wet and tease Claire about the Underground. I hadn't been to London for a couple of months - I went to meet Pedar back in February - and it was nice to go back. Anyway, at length Claire and I said goodbye to the boys and went trekking out to Alexandra Palace, which is a large and somewhat peculiar venue on top of a hill in zone 4. It was still very wet and it was a very steep hill, which led to some grousing, but at length, we made it, and I was impressed. I've never been to a gig at a really big venue before, for some reason. We hung about for a bit, but thankfully we'd not got there too early, and for once, the band came out exactly on time.

And, yes, I think I died of squee on the spot. The last time I used the subject line "just nineteen and dream obscene", I wasn't nineteen, I was fifteen and having my emo phase. But Placebo do not get old. They were amazing. They were just... amazing. I was way back in the crush of people, with Claire occasionally elbowing people for my benefit, but I didn't care because I was swaying a bit and having an experience all of my very own. It was just fantastic.

( the setlist )

They played Nancy Boy. I actually thought they'd given up playing that one live, but they did, and it made up for the fact they didn't play Sleeping With Ghosts, which is still my favourite. Actually, that's my only quibble - too much stuff off Meds, which I do like, but not as much as Sleeping With Ghosts.

Afterwards, Claire and I stumbled out into the darkness to find taxis impossible to get and buses non-existent. Being the intelligent people that we are, we decided to walk to Wood Green tube station. I have since decided that Wood Green no longer exists; it disappeared off the face of the planet sometime on the night of April 11th and hasn't been seen since. We hunted and hunted for it, all to no avail. It was cold and dark and we were getting rather fed up until we stumbled onto that comforting red and blue Underground glow; we had, somehow I don't know how, managed to reach Turnpike Lane, which is the next station along the line. What happened to Wood Green remains a mystery.

Safely back in Leicester Square, I ended up in a small Italian place with Claire (and Ben and James!) until two in the morning, slowly eating chips and getting very sleepy and talking about rubbish. It was wonderful. A sleepy small-hours wander by the Thames later, we repaired to bed. The morning was marked by obscene amounts of coffee, getting up at the crack of dawn and Claire's solemn decision that she wanted to go to the aquarium. Why, I wanted to know. Because, she said. I had never been to an aquarium. We went back to the South Bank and put this right.

And bizarre as this was, I actually really rather enjoyed it. Clownfish! Sharks! Seahorses! All wonderful things. And by far the highlight of it was my getting to stroke a ray. I like rays. They are underrated. Also, they are furry. I did not know this. And having spent the morning at the aquarium, we had sushi for lunch. I can't help but think this was probably a bad thing to do. James came with us and eventually dragged us to Camden Lock, which I was all for. While we were there we got stuck behind the barriers at the station, had to wander down to Mornington Crescent - which does, in fact, exist - and made it for the train with twenty minutes to spare.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, and it was figured into revision time so I refuse to feel guilty about it. I am, however, beginning to feel abjectly terrified about going back. I don't want to go back! I want to stay here in the north forever and ever!

Which isn't true; I just don't think I can stand noughth week, which is all collections, and write an essay and do an economics assignment, all in time for first week. I won't have time to eat or sleep. It will not be good.

Um. In news of the fannish, I am still writing Remus/Tonks and still feeling vaguely horrified at the idea. The silly epic has stalled a bit - despite amchau being her usual helpful self - although I have come to the realisation that the part of the fic that would not cooperate is not cooperating because it is, in fact, part of another fic entirely. This is being dealt with. I have posted fic into rt_challenge, which I can't crosspost until the ficathon is over, but that is also vaguely horrifying. And that is it.

Except no, no it isn't. From tomorrow night, Doctor Who is back! Given that you all know my enthusiasm for writing episode reviews borders on fanaticism, I should probably make clear from the get-go that all my reviews will, naturally, be cut and spoiler-tagged. You may read your flists in peace, so to speak. And talking of flist-reading-in-peace, I have a polite request to make. There's been a lot of chat lately about Snakes On A Plane, which is understandable as it represents the Hollywood version of crackfic. I mean, come on. Snakes. On. A. Plane. It is genius.

However. (And there's always one of those.) I have a problem. I have a severe, irrational, primal-scream problem. With snakes, that is. I have the sort of phobia that manifests as frenzied screaming, usually in public. It is horrendous and awful. So, yes, I will not be seeing that movie. But here's the thing - other people will be, and I just recently started seeing people using icons on a snake-ish sort of theme. I am very, very scared of these icons. It is an irrational phobia. Just how irrational should be illustrated by the fact I have never seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, because I read the book and couldn't sleep for a week. I am scared of still mages and plastic models and cuddly snakes from Ikea. So this is the polite request, really, really polite: please, if you're gonna be using icons with snakes in 'em, let me know. I will filter you out of my default view and read you with images turned off. For the sake of my sanity, you understand. What there is left of it.

Yes. That is all. I am fully aware that I do not sound remotely rational at any point during this entry. But I'm better than I was.