Culture Society

Just a quick scribble about the societies I joined, people've been asking about societies here in Liverpool and if they resemble Leiden or USA societies/fraternities. They do NOT! Not at all. It's a whole different idea here. For instance, you do have the English society and the Medical society for students of those subjects. However, the big difference here is that you also have, say, the Indie society, the Volunteering society, the Food society and many many more, including the ones I joined, Drama and Culture. With Drama it's basically being in a play, producing a play, participating in the independent workshops, inventing new stuff (Like the Halloween Ghost tour I and some other peeps are putting up for the 31st) and socials/fun stuff. (Pubcrawl coming up on Thursday)

The culture society is a little different. It's a brand new thing, just set up by some enthusiastic students this year. We, that is the members, are creating everything from scratch. We meet every Thursday to talk about what we are doing that or the following weeks; like going to see a play or a film together, starting up a poetry club, art club, book club etc, or, what we did the past two weeks, Paint! yes yes, I've become not only a poet in our little poetry club, but also a fully fledged Rembrandt when we put together our Culture Club (I know, very Karma Karma Chameleon) banner to be hung high in the Student Guild building. And as they say, a picture can say more than a thousand words, so here goes:

I wandered lonely as a cloud...(or sheep)

My first outing!! My first trip to a part of England that isn't Manchester! It was soooo cool. I tell you, go to the Lake District if you can, even if you can't.

The day began at 7.50 which was the time we had to be at the Adelphi Hotel to take the bus to the beautiful village that is Grasmere. To my utter utter astonishment (I did not know this before being on the bus) this was once the home of one of my favourite English Romantic poets William Wordsworth (Suus, start being jealous riiight.....NOW :p) He wrote a few of his most famous poems in the little cottage that is now the Wordsworth museum, and he is buried in the Grasmere graveyard alongside his wife and Dorothy his sister! I have not often been this excited about a dead person, but my heart lept a feet in the air when we arrived. We decided to go on the arranged hike first. Up into the mountains so famous for their beauty and inspiring many a Lake Poet. It was gorgeous. And the sun shone down on us while we climbed up the mountain and tasted the spring water. We met a few sheep on the way and became good friends with them. Along the way during our descend we had a little picknick in the sun while comfortably lounging on a big rock. We were very pleased to find a pencil on that very spot and of course christened it William Wordsworth pencil. We payed our respects and decided to leave it there to be found by other admirers.


Back in town we made our way through the bundles of excited Gingerbread buying people to the place we had been looking for for a while (for such a small town they still make it bloody difficult to find anything) The Graves....Of course they looked like any other grave in any other cemetery, but this one housed the body of the man that wrote some of the best poetry around in the English Language. It was wicked.



We also payed a visit to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's house for many years. It was a few pounds to get in and we only had half an hour left so we didn't. But it was quite cool to see where he lived and worked. I can imagine you can produce world-famous literary work in such a lovely place. Too bad it has been commercialised over the years, it would have been so much nicer if there hadn't been such a steep entrance fee and museum shop there. (although I did buy some little thingys, hehe)

Back on the bus and on the way to Windemere, another small town in the District. Famous for it's boat/cruise trips on the lake adjacent to the town and a load of swans that live on chips and left over sandwiches all their lives. We had a lot of fun walking round the village, but were also shattered from the hike up the hill so decided to buy some food and look at the swans.







The ride home took about two hours, one of which I spent dreaming about sheep, and were back by dinner time. Today, sunday, I slept till 2 o'clock because I was completely dead after such an exhausting day. But it was worth it!

To look at the village of Grasmere in some detail:

http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/grasmere.htm

A day in the week of.....

My first job interview! Even though it took place last Friday, I'm still proud of myself for finding out about it. And even though I walked out in the middle of it (I'll explain) they still want me to work for them. And even though I really really can't, I'm still pretty pleased with the fact that I got the offer...

So, the story here is that I reacted on a position for Bosch Communications (yes, the ones that make the powertools, but surprisingly, they have a whole franchise of things going on including security and communication branches) who are in desperate need of Scandinavian speakers (according to them Dutch can be classified as Scandinavian it seems) to handle German airline Lufthansa assesments. (offering people 50 quid if they've filed complaints or send thank-yous to big CEOs who travel on a regular basis)

I went to the Bosch office --poshly situated in the middle of the Exchange district; the nicest part of town where Armani suits and Manolo Blahnik's roam the pavement-- to take part in their training day. This is the part where I walked out after an hour, but only because I kindly informed them that I wasn't going to be available to attend the 4 week training session they had in mind for all the newly recruited language wonders. No hard feelings (except that I'd left my bed at 6.30 for nothing) and I'm already looking out for summat new....Thing is...They still want me! Recruitment agency emailed me back that they want to negotiate hours with me....I'd say this is a 'to be continued'

*Picture is of the entrance to the Cotton Exchange, where Bosch's office is at*

Sooo, also spent another wonderful weekend in Manchester. Bart had organised a Karaoke night just because I was coming, bless him. It was a hoot, were it not that we were all slightly drunk and ate almost everything edible in his cupboard. Sorry 'bout that, but Molly was very happy :D

Went to the Bombed out Church and the Cathedral....

Oh bugger....

I auditioned yesterday...I basically stunk...

Ok, so the story is, I'm in the Drama society, the dramas preform 4 plays each semester. This time round it's The Tragical history of Doctor Faustus, Crime and Punishment, A Midsummer night's dream and Claxons, Trumpets and Raspberries. I want to be in one of them. Preferably as an actor, but if not, perhaps backstage. Now, I auditioned, or tried to, for Claxons first. I realised I'm not very good at modern plays cus I had no clue how to portray this character I had to read. (Besides that, my mind was on the 3000 euro the tax officers thought I had to pay back, but thankfully that turned out to be not me) Aaaanyway. I was rubbish and decided never to audition again.

I did though, for Faustus, and even if I don't get cast for anything, which I think is the case, I still think I did a good job! I found out I'm much much better at Old 1600's iambic pentamater plays than at something that has to resemble the present...I was indeed born in the wrong century. Sooooo, now I'm going to try out for something a good buddy of mine wrote, my old friend William. Maybe I can be a fairy...I bet I can flutter about on stage a little....doesn't even have to be lines really.

In other news, I discovered the pleasure that is eating potato waffels at 11 o' clock at night. Seriously, the pure delight of a warm, steaming yellow ovensnack with some mayo and ketchup after you've been out in the cold is incomparable to any other thing you could be doing at 11 o'clock in the evening. No, don't try to agrue, you can't. Potato goodness, throathy warmth and greasy fingers all in one. Secondly, I'm also very pleased with the little fact I'm will be writing for the University magazine, arts section, which entails free passes to any concert, gig, theatre event etc I want to attend if only I write an article about it for the paper. yay, I've got some ideas in the back of my head that will serve that purpose, and my own, very well.