How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another.

[raven]

So, I've actually had a really nice day today, despite the dreadful start to Friday the thirteenth. It feels like a million years ago that I woke up feeling like death and did not warm up by means of coffee and toast with honey. By the time I staggered into college for my Ethics tute, I wasn't feeling any better. To add further insult, the tute turned out to be be in 13.9, a room which always makes me apprehensive because I was interviewed in it, and I'm pretty sure I came across as a complete idiot, but I was shattered. I'd had about four hours of sleep, it was half ten in the morning and my tutor wanted me to talk about passion as a motivation for the will. I just couldn't focus on anything; I had ideas, but they were slipping away from my head and I hadn't a clue what to say. Once it was over, I lurched back home, crashed into the flat and landed with an ungraceful thump onto Claire's bed regardless of the fact she was still in it at the time.

We both lay there in the dark and went back to sleep for ten minutes, at which point she dragged me into the kitchen and Maria fed me a large serving of last night's stir-fry. And once I was feeling human again, I went down Longwall to meet chiasmata and - supposedly - have coffee. We did have coffee, but it took a long time, and we emerged mid-afternoon into delightful wintry sunlight only for me to inquire where exactly the last three hours of my life had gone. Where time always goes, I guess, but I had a lovely afternoon.

What followed was slightly less lovely - I am making very heavy weather of my egalitarianism reasding, for some reason - and in the evening, Liya started cooking with furious enthusiasm and I slipped out and went to George Street to see The History Boys. Lots of people appeared in short order - jacinthsong and steerpikelet and withiel and slasheuse and me_ves_y_sufres and New Laura Whom I Met At Queer Drinks Who Has No LJ (Yet) - and after some faffing, we managed to find seats of a sort.

The film was lovely. I never saw the stage version, although I wanted to, so this was all new to me and I just loved it. I knew the basic premise - bright A-level students and their (occasional pederast) teacher try to get in to Oxford - but to use that summary is to miss the point of it entirely. It's so very sweet and charming, very funny and slashy in a way you don't often see in real media - by which I mean it can be deliciously sexy and sharp without ever losing the subtlety of the script.

And in addition to this, it's set in 1983 and the setting is so vividly drawn, with tiny little details like those white packets of crisps with the salt in that I used to have when I was little, and it's been partly made by the BBC and does feel like it. The Oxford scenes were really delightful - I liked the exploding giggles and whispers all over the cinema, and around me people were muttering, "Worcester... Somerville... Magdalen?" It's odd, really, that I should see the film the same day as I was sleepily sitting in that same armchair in college remembering my own Oxford interview, which I maintain was one of the most intimidating things I've ever done. Perhaps my brain has magnified it in retrospect, but my abiding memory is of being seventeen and scared.

Anyway. Lovely film, heartbreaking ending. And marvellous dialogue, of course, especially the bit in French.

Afterwards we ended up picking up a foulds on the way to Wadham, and sitting around drinking ginger wine for a bit, before I decided I'd better go home. foulds came with me, and I invited him in this time; he met my flatmates - and Ben, who doesn't live here but it does feel like he does - who were for some reason rehearsing their dances for Carousel in the kitchen. I ate the food left for me, fed him tea and introduced him to the various components of the communist madhouse I live in.

Er. Yes. I had a lovely day, but it was not the reason I wanted to make this entry. All of the above was meant to be a brief introductory preamble to something quite different. Recently more than one person has asked me for my various ridiculous recipes, so I'll type them up at some point, I think. Maybe not now, because I've rambled enough.

Comments

[icepixie]

Oh, man, I really disliked The History Boys when I saw the play in London. It seemed like a really cynical version of Dead Poets Society (which I love), and didn't work for me at all. I think maybe some of it had to do with the different cultural context? I dunno. I'm glad you liked the movie, though. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Maybe? I mean, I had a lot of points of reference for that film that might not be universal, I guess. I have never seen Dead Poets Society, unfortunately... *g*

[icepixie]

Ooooh, DPS is very good. It addresses the same question at the center of HB--is education more about useful skills/the ends or expanding the mind/the means?--but it's much more sentimental, I suppose. And, y'know, there isn't any pederasty. At least none that I remember. ;) Robin Williams does a really excellent job in it.

I had to watch it all the time (at least once a year, sometimes two or three times) in middle and high school, since teachers loved to show it during free periods or whatever, and I still like it, so. *g*

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I obviously need to see that film.

Maybe tomorrow if I get my chores done.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Do! You'll love it.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

foulds came with me, and I invited him in this time

?

I'm done now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't. :)

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Well, someone had to check, and who better than me, She Who Resides In The Gutter?

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

Where do you live, Iona?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

In Jowett Walk, off Mansfield Road. The college owns the flat, which is very handy. :)