I don’t know why I am surprised: I have always, always had a love-hate relationship with school. In elementary school, I did well in my classes, but had a hard time with being picked on, a trend which continued until almost high school, when the bullying stopped (I switched to homeschooling), but I learned that there are certain subjects that I cannot wrap my head around. When I was nearing the end of high school, I was determined to not go to university – school just wasn’t for me, I had decided. But then I applied anyway, and was crushed and sobbing when I got rejected (I hadn’t passed enough math classes to get in). And somehow, even though I hadn’t wanted to go to university, I took two years of Spanish classes via correspondence in just two months in order to fulfill the requirements and still get accepted for that same year.

Then, after struggling with university for five years – loving and hating it all along – I couldn’t wait to be done, but somehow in the jumble of papers and novels and creative writing assignments, I decided to apply for an MA in another country. Post-grad? For the girl who hated school?

A weird choice. And yet, one I was (and still am) so excited for.

So here’s the thing: I don’t like being told what to do. I have a naturally “dissident” personality, in the words of my very first acting instructor. So when I am given an assignment, my first instinct is usually, “No! I don’t want to!” I don’t like being told what to write about; I just want to write. And when it comes to essays, unless I am madly in love with the subject, I’d kind of rather do anything than research and write a paper. An argument about something that means nothing to me? That just made my inner indecisive Libra’s head explode. Blam.

Which means that maybe I don’t hate school; maybe I just have some serious issues with authority.

Then again, I spent over an hour today E-Researching the character of Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, as portrayed in a French adaptation called A Tempest just because I got really intrigued by all of the word play and references to Africa and colonialism and tons of other cool things, by my own accord, might I mention.

Did I just say, “cool things”?

Yep. I did.

Maybe I’m just a nerd. I’d be okay with that.

This long and potentially death-inducingly dull rant isn’t really leading anywhere. I guess that rather than that, it’s just been inspired by the last four months. I’ve enjoyed some classes, disliked others, but all have been interesting at least. I can’t seem to get a strong enough grip on the “academic” classes, though. The ones that don’t let me write plays. (I wish there were fewer of those and more than one class that did let me write plays…) I keep disappointing myself, grade-wise. I haven’t gotten my first play returned yet – if I get a strong grade on that, I’ll be happy; that’s kind of how it’s always gone for me in school, anyway. Strong when allowed to make things up; weaker when told what to argue for.

Post-grad? For the girl who hated school?

A weird choice. And yet, one I was (and still am) so excited for.

Wow, so hi! I forgot I had a blog. Okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t forget, I just became a very neglectful blog-parent and made the active choice to ignore it for a while…like, a month. Things got extremely busy in the last days of my Mum’s visit, as we tried to squeeze in as much as possible. This was followed by a period of moping and sadness after my Mum left, and then the beginning of term two at uni, in which I am now fully immersed – drowning, even!

Belgium was amazing. A gorgeous country, albeit very expensive! (And I thought Glasgow was bad – I had NO idea!) Still, it was a fantastic experience, and I hope to go back one day! We were fortunate to see a few cities, and I think this gave us a feel for the country as a whole, which is kind of half French and half Dutch. Brussels, for example, is mainly French speakers, but when you get to Antwerp, it’s all Dutch. It was challenging at times, but I’d say we did a pretty good job navigating the cities and getting what we needed! Here are a few photos from scattered points of the trip…

Brussels – and Belgium is general – is made of chocolate and candy.

And let’s not forget the waffles, which smelled incredible and made me wish I weren’t vegan every time I caught a whiff.

Antwerp at Night.

Mum and I at a Royal Gardens in Brussels, part of our epic self-guided walking tour of the city!

Just looking at this photo makes me want to go back for some of the best fries I have ever, ever had!

Swans in Bruges through my fogged up lens.

Proof I stood here, just like in the film!

The obligatory city hall photo in Brussels – such a stunning building.

Ringing in 2010, Brussels style.

Our trip back to Glasgow, which should have been about an hour long flight, actually took us fifteen; long story, I’m not even going to get into it! I was just really glad to be home after that. And after getting stranded at the train station in Edinburgh due to cancelled trains (due, in turn, to frozen rail lines and snow) for three hours before deciding to catch a late coach home, I felt pretty done with traveling for a while. Though now that it’s been a couple weeks, I’m ready to go somewhere again! Don’t know where, or when I will find the time and money, but I’ll cross that bridge hen I get to it.

Now that I am back to school, travel and holidays feel so distant. And it’s shocking to me that I am already about to start my third week back. This semester is going to be much more intense than last, to say the very least. I have four classes rather than three, and all of them have much bigger work loads than last semester. I feel like the university eased us in a little too gently, because now we all feel like we’re on the brink of mental breaks – and I kind of felt that way throughout semester 1; if only I had known!!! To top things off, the term, like last, is only 10 weeks long, so there is a massive amount to get done in a very short time. The stress, in other words, is on. In a big way. In the next eight weeks, I will be working on: two major essays, two final portfolios, a full-length play, a presentation, and other smaller assignments, not to mention all of the reading that goes along with all of that! (When I type it out like that, in one sentence, I feel like I need a paper bag to breathe into!)

Still, despite the insanity, things continue to go well here in Glasgow. The weather has gotten quite lovely. Still chilly a lot of the time, but there’s been more sun and it’s starting to feel more like Spring than Winter. Rain rather than snow. I like it. There are a lot of amazing Spring/Summer theatre seasons about to begin, so I am excited for that, too. I want to see as much as I possibly can while I’m here!

I promise to make more frequent updates, and I leave you with this: look out, Edmonton – I may be seeing you quite soon!

Well, I don’t even know where to start at this point! I’ve been doing holidays in Glasgow with my Mum for just over a week now, and we have been to so many places and seen so many things that I thought I may just post a few photos to explain!

First things first: we put up a mini Christmas tree, which my Mum brought over to Glasgow with her. What’s funny about that is that I also went out and purchased a mini tree, to surprise her!

One of the first places we visited was the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens on the South East side of Glasgow. I hadn’t been there since almost four years ago when I was in the UK, and it was nice to go back, both to experience the history with a little more personal knowledge of the city, and to situate the building’s location in my (now quite extensive) mental map of the city.

Winter hit Glasgow pretty much the day my Mum arrived (I blame her in part for the cold weather she seems to have brought with her from Edmonton, which apparently was the second coldest place in the world about a week ago. Insane!). We got quite a lot of snow, and have continued to get more over the past week, though it often doesn’t stay on the ground too long…here’s a shot of the snow outside my back window.

I took my Mum to Edinburgh over our first weekend to do a first bit of sight-seeing over there. We did a walk of the Royal Mile, saw the castle, St. Giles Cathedral, the Museum of Childhood, and we did a ghost tour down in the underground vaults of the city! We’ll be going back sometime next week to see more places, like the Palace of Holyrood House, which is stunning.

I also had other reasons to take my Mum to Edinburgh: to see my friend Katy, who spent Christmas in Scotland with her boyfriend and his family!

The next day, my Mum and I caught a train to Balloch, to visit Loch Lomond and to check out the aquarium they have there. I had never been to Loch Lomond before, and it was amazing. It looked absolutely magical in the snow, and I imagine it would be breathtaking in the summer, too! The trek over to the shores of the loch was quite interesting, because it was pouring snow and everything was icy and wet. And being that I was wearing my very low quality, fabric boots (the only ones I had until I got a new pair for Christmas, woo!), I got drenched and frozen! But it was still an amazing time, and the aquarium was quite nice. My favourite part might have been the view of Loch Lomond from the top of the building. Amazing.

Interspersed with our exploration fun has been puppy fun! One of my classmates went home to the states for Christmas, and rather than put her dog, Audrey, into a kennel for almost a month, my friend Kat and I decided to split the duties of taking care of the pup! She is such a sweet-natured little dog, and a joy to spend time with!

What else have we done? Well, we took a walk about five minutes down the street from my flat, where the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and the Museum of Transport are. We stopped along the Partick Bridge to take a few snaps of Kelvingrove Park and the University, which looked incredible in the snow, like a postcard.

It was really cool to go into the Kelvingrove Museum – I hadn’t gotten the chance when I popped briefly into Glasgow four years ago. It’s such a calming and beautiful building, and I think I may start hanging out there to study and read! There’s a cafe and a huge main foyer, and the building is so gorgeous, it’s hard to wrap your head around it. It’s a good place for inspiration, I think. The beauty was magnified when we walked in to live organ music, playing in the main foyer. My eyes welled up with tears it was so beautiful.

We spent a quiet Christmas day together, which was a nice break from all of the busyness of the past few days! Yesterday, which was Boxing Day, we decided to make a trek to the Braehead Retail Park, which is out West, in a kind of industrial area of Glasgow, but it’s where IKEA is, along with a huge mall and a huge row of big-box stores. The inciting incident for this trip was the fact that my downstairs neighbour was giving away her old TV, completely free of charge. And it’s a big TV, probably a 24-inch screen or so, so I jumped at the chance! Then I did some Internet sleuthing and discovered that I could get Freeview cable and a DVD player for about £40, so we packed Audrey into a sweater and a rain coat, and got on the bus to Braehead. And now I have a TV! It’s funny how it worked out, because I had decided not to spend the money on getting one, and ended up receiving one for free! What a nice Christmas gift!

Today will be another relatively quiet day. It’s our last day puppy-sitting Audrey, and also our last day in Glasgow for a few days, because tomorrow morning, we will be getting on a plane to Belgium!! I am so excited to visit Brussels – and Bruges!!! – and to chill out and explore a new country. It should be a lot of fun. What’s funny to me, though, is that I am also a little sad to leave Glasgow, even though it’s only for four days! And I’m also now a home-”owner”, so I’m worried about my flat while I’m away! Hilarious. Maybe I’m a grown-up now or something.

So, expect a report on Belgium soon, and since we’ll be ringing in the New Year over there, I’ll say Happy New Year now!

It seems I have become a bit of a blogging delinquent, but I blame this entirely on the University of Glasgow. Case in point:

My Dramaturgy research paper and my Playwriting draft two swallowed up the last two weeks of my life. Thankfully, they are both handed in at the moment, so I have a slight bit of breathing room, though the amount I have to get done over the holidays is appalling in itself! But I’m not going to think about that right now – I’m giving myself a few days off…

My flatwarming went wonderfully! My flat was full of friends, and love, and wine! And a puppy! Named Audrey! Who I will be puppysitting for a few days over the holidays!

Speaking of holidays, the feeling of Christmas is all over Glasgow in a very serious way! I suppose this is, in part, because Glasgow is a much more condensed city than Edmonton, and has a very urban city centre, but I have never really felt Christmas the way I have felt it here. There are so many people bustling around the city, shopping, browsing shops downtown – it’s crazy! And everything is decorated!

My past couple of days have been full of friends. We’ve been spending quality time before everyone disperses for Christmas. Today I went to see It’s a Wonderful Life on the big screen at Glasgow Film Theatre, and it left me in the greatest mood – what a lovely film! I can’t believe I had never seen it before, and I am now in love with Jimmy Stewart. I know I’m like, over fifty years late, but I don’t care!

Tomorrow my Mom will be arriving to spend Christmas with me here in Glasgow! I’m excited to see her and spend some time together, and to take her to Edinburgh and other fun places. It sounds really nerdy, but I’m looking forward to showing my city off to someone!

And that is that (for now)!

With the end of the semester nearing (tomorrow is our last day of classes), school has quite successfully swallowed up my life as of late, along with getting settled into my new flat, which is still amazing. I got wireless Internet set up, which is brilliant because it’s cheaper and I get unlimited downloading…and I just finished downloading series 1-5 of Peep Show, so I’m pretty excited about that.

For our last playwriting class, our instructor Philip brought in his good friend a colleague David Greig, a.k.a. one of the most well-known playwrights in Britain. I hadn’t read any of his plays until Philip asked us to, but once I started, I didn’t want to stop. He’s an amazing writer. We all had to read two of his plays, and then each of us had to pick a third to write a critique on. I asked a friend for a recommendation and he said, “You can pretty much pick up any of his plays and you’ll love it, because he’s a genius.” I didn’t realise how right he was, but I honestly want to read everything David Greig has ever written now! Really strong storytelling. And it was very interesting and inspiring to hear him speak, too. He had a lot to say about the process of writing, and about having a career as a writer. Some of it was depressing (the usual, “you’ll make no money” story), but a lot of it made me want to be a playwright (not that I didn’t want to be before, obviously, but you know what I mean). It was great to be able to meet him.

The next day, those of us pursuing the playwriting path of our program got a chance to meet with the playwright who is going to be our instructor, Selma Dimitrijevic. She, too, was very inspiring, and I think I am going to love working with her. Her approach to writing is very open, like you could say anything to her and she’d be all right with it. I also think she’ll help me to take the risks I have always wanted to take with my work, since that’s what she’s all about. She’s also really open in terms of contact – when she found out that a couple of us had written plays before, she asked us to email them to her, and also told us that during the writing process, or even right away, we should email her ideas, bits and pieces we’ve written, anything, really. I have a feeling I am going to learn a lot from her, and I’m really excited for it all to begin!

Friday evening I went to the King’s Theatre with my friends Janice and Georgia to see The Rocky Horror Show live. I was so incredibly excited, and I was not disappointed. The show was impeccably cast, and the actors were all amazing – they looked the part and sounded the part, which often isn’t the case. The design was also incredible – I was constantly in awe of the set and how the space was utilized. The man playing Frank-N-Furter was so beautiful and so saucy, it was just perfect! The only thing missing was an English accent, which he didn’t have. And the only flaw in the evening was the dreadful, dreadful crowd. I would really prefer if the King’s had designated one performance in the run as a “callback” night, because I kind of hate watching Rocky Horror with callbacks – they are so annoying. I can understand allowing them during the film, but in a live theatre it blocks out the actors’ voices and distracts them, too! At one point, Frank-N-Furter stopped halfway through a line to turn to a girl in the audience and say, “Honey, this is the part where I talk and you shut the fuck up!” On top of everything, I’d say 80% of that audience was so drunk they won’t even remember the show by now, and we were sitting – literally – in the last row of the theatre, so people were standing up and dancing, and having full-volume conversations through the entire show. It was so obnoxious. We ended up sitting up on the half-wall behind our seats so that we could see. Over all, though, it was a fantastic production, and despite the audience, I am thrilled that I got to see Rocky Horror live!

We had a scary encounter on our way back from the King’s that evening. We were walking parallel to the M8 (the main freeway in Glasgow) towards the St. George’s Cross subway station, and as we were walking, we noticed we were approaching a group of 10-12 guys, probably between about 19 and 24 years old, standing in a circle, all wearing tracksuits. Janice said, “Oh, this’ll be fun,” but she didn’t realise how “fun” it would be. As we got closer, about half of the guys took a few steps backwards, trying to form a circle around us, but we still managed to walk behind the group. But as we neared them, one shouted out, “One, two, three, who would it be?” and another said, “The one that lives.” I was the only one who heard that and started walking more quickly. We were all focused on just getting away and making it home in one piece. They hassled us the whole time we walked by, but I didn’t hear much because I was focused on not getting stabbed. I remember the words, “Cow” and, “Aww, yeah, looking nice tonight,” or something along those lines. Luckily, they didn’t follow us, and we got home just fine, but in hindsight, it was a dangerous situation and I’m very glad we were in a group, or something very bad would have happened. Thank goodness nothing did.

Yesterday, my entire day (well, I got a late start since I didn’t wake up until noon) was devoted to the American Thanksgiving my friends were throwing. I got up and got started on my contribution to the evening: vegan haggis with roasted potatoes, courgettes, and peppers. I was cooking up until the last minute, and then headed over to Carissa, Kat, Sara, and Elysia’s flat where the Thanksgiving magic was happening. It was a blast! There were tons of people there – we counted around 25 at dinner time – and there was even more food!

Just a few of the people:

Just a bit of the food:

It was a lovely evening, and I do not think I have ever been so full in my life! It’s nearly 5pm the next day, and only now am I hungry! Anyway, a fabulous night over all, and my friends were amazing hostesses – they even moved their enormous couch out of the living room and rented tables so that everyone could sit and eat together! And it was so nice to congregate in the kitchen with a glass of wine and just chat, and then do dishes later in the evening. Good friends and good food = all a girl could dream for!

Today I dragged myself out of bed and got myself out of the house to see the new Twilight movie with my friend. Yes, I said it – I went to see Twilight. I figured I’d see what all the hype was about. My friend had already seen it once and really wanted to go again, so I thought “why the hell not?” Well, it was awful. And it was all around awful, too – the acting was an embarrassment, the script…well, the script didn’t really exist, the direction was dreadful, the CGI effects were cartoon-like, and they didn’t even put any effort into making the vampire makeup consistent, or even complete! I couldn’t believe what I saw – parts where Edward would put his hand on Bella’s face and you could see that the white makeup had been rubbed off his knuckles; other parts where you could clearly see where they stopped applying makeup on Edward’s neck. Just embarrassing! Oh well. At least I learned about how not to make a movie while watching it. Also, a couple of the vampires are hot (discovered on IMDB later that they are only hot as vampires – I hate how often that happens to me!). And I had good company. And I got out of the house. So oh well!

This week will be focused on research. My last class of the semester is tomorrow, and then after that, I have a research paper to write, and then a second and third draft of my play to finish, as well as a reflective essay about my play (ugh). It’ll be nice to work on my essay on my own time and not stress about smaller readings for classes and stuff. But I’m also realising how soon the paper is due and am getting a bit nervous. Still, my instructor was really excited about the approach I want to take on the subject, so I am motivated and actually looking forward to writing the paper. I am still trying to get into the right head-space to work on my play, but I know that’ll come as I stop stressing about the research paper.

So, that’s where I am at. One semester almost over. It’s insane how quickly it went by. It’s like I blinked and three months passed, and I have a feeling the same will go for semester two and three. It’s almost stressful how quickly time is flying, because it means more decisions need to be made on my part as to what I will do when this Master’s program is over. But I won’t think about that just now!

Also happening this week: Discombobulate at the Arches on Tuesday (it’s a really cool spoken-word event that I may even be taking part in sometime in the New Year), and a flat-warming do on the weekend, woo!

It’s official, I have moved. It’s also official that I do not understand unpacking math – how is it that no matter how much I unpack, there is still so much to do? Finding a new place for everything it hard!

The move went very smoothly though, which was exactly what I needed to happen or I may have had a breakdown! I went to sign my lease and pick up my keys in the morning, and then three of my girlfriends came over to help me with the move. The took all my stuff to my front sidewalk so that I could vacuum the flat, and then we called two taxis and got everything over in the one go! And they were troopers about lugging my stuff up to the second (see: third) floor. Thank goodness for friends!

A couple shots of the move, taken by my friend Janice:

Standing outside my old flat with my life on the sidewalk:

Excited to get to the new place, and to have the move over with:

In my new living room with Carissa:

Peeking ’round the living room door:

The new place is amazing – it’s new and clean and gorgeous, and a lot bigger than I remembered it to be. It is much, much bigger than my previous flat. I don’t know what to do with all this space! After getting all of my belongings over here, I took my helpers (see: heroes) out to dinner, and then spent the rest of the evening cleaning and unpacking. I also had to learn through the grapevine (see: facebook chat) how to use gas heating! I had no idea how to turn it on, and was freezing until I finally found a friend – Cara – with the answers. Good thing, too, because I didn’t have a duvet yet – only a couple tiny blankets to sleep with. Pretty certain I would have frozen to death!

I got up early this morning and went to IKEA with my friend Carissa for all the bits and bobs I needed for this new flat. She helped me lug home such awkward items as a large clothes airing rack and half a dozen very breakable wine glasses, and I am pleased to announce that everything got back to mine in one piece. I put a few things away here and there, and then I made my way to city centre to get some cheap cushions for the couch and seats in my living room. I know that Primark is supposedly evil, but it’s nice to be able to buy cushions for £2 each. And £0.98 sets of candles? Yes, please.

Then I made my way to a 14+ clothing store called Evans to find jeans, and after going back and forth between browsing and the fitting rooms at least three times, I found jeans that fit! Finally! I have shrunk out of almost all my jeans – glad to know I can retire the pair or two that are much too big. I also found a nice winter coat and some flat ankle boots. Score.

After all of that, I still had to stop at Tesco for groceries, so I went in with a giant bag full of cushions, a smaller bag with a cushion in it, and a bag of clothes, and then I left with three bags of groceries! Luckily it’s only about half a block back to my new flat, but I am pretty exhausted now. It was a big day, complete with a ton more unpacking done, a load of laundry done, and some delicious curry made.

Now I am going to settle in with a cup of tea, my Dramaturgy class’ essay topics, and some David Greig plays – it’s time to get some homework done.

(P.S. Will post photos of my flat when it’s more home-y and organised!)

I am supposed to be either (A) working on a draft of a play, or (B) reading one of six articles on new historicism for class tomorrow right now, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t written in my blog for a while, and I thought to myself, “what better way to not do homework than by updating my blog?!”

It’s been a busy week. On the weekend, I took a day trip to Stirling with a group of friends to visit the William Wallace Monument and Stirling castle. Both were beautiful, though I think the Wallace Monument stole my heart. Perhaps because of all the work involved in getting to it, and then in experiencing it! The monument is at the top of an incredibly steep hill – I would dare call it a small mountain, in fact, due to it’s steepness. The following photo will give you an idea of just how steep it was:

So we decided to challenge ourselves and walk up the hill rather than taking the shuttle…I was sweating like a whore in church by the time we were halfway up! Still, despite feeling like I might die (and just imagine how I would have felt if I had attempted that right when I landed in Scotland!), I was glad to have done it – challenge accomplished! We arrived at the monument:

Then I realised that we had to climb 246 steps to get to the top of the monument…! The steps were not really the hard part, for me. Because for the first time, I experienced a panic attack as a result of claustrophobia. See, the steps were part of a very narrow, all stone, enclosed spiral staircase. I had climbed stairs like this before, at Blarney Castle in Ireland, for example, and I had been fine then. But something must have changed, because when I got into the staircase, my heart rate skyrocketed and I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I needed my friend Janice to walk me through the whole process and tell me when we were reaching a new level where we could get off and take a breather. So it was quite the experience, but in the end it was beyond worth it, because the view from the top of the monument was amazing. I wanted to stay up there forever!!

After making our way back down the 246 steps, we all headed across Stirling to the Castle, which was also very beautiful, though unfortunately the palace area was closed for restoration. Here are a few of my favourite photos:

All in all, it was a great day, and we got stunning weather for the duration of the trip!

Tuesday night was my friend Janice’s birthday, so we all went out for dinner and drinks, which was a lot of fun. My friend Ian and I went on an adventure to Pound Mart to find some gag gifts for her, including a pair of handcuffs, a colouring book, a DVD about trout fishing, and an inflatable William Wallace sword. One item we decided not to buy her was too funny to not photograph:

I give you, the “Smelly Ball”…

Why on earth would anyone ever want to own such a thing?! And to market it to children? Well, I guess dollar stores are the same everywhere you go…

Most of my life has still been consumed with my flat. I’ve been filling out paperwork for my new flat, and will be moving in on Tuesday. So I’ve been packing my things over the past couple of days, and still have more to do. A few of my friends are going to help, which will make the move itself smooth. What I am more worried about is this whole getting-out-of-my-lease business. I think I am going to draft a letter this weekend letting my agency know that I wish to leave early (which I can do, according to my contract), which I will then have to take to them. The most difficult thing is dealing with all of this both by myself and amongst all of my homework and classes. It’s been absolutely mental! I am trying to stay positive and I keep reminding myself that soon this will all be behind me! That moment can’t come soon enough!

I have been to see a couple of plays in the past week, both of which have been somewhat disappointing, but still worth mentioning, I think! The first was Top Dog/Underdog at The Citizens Theatre. It’s the story of two brothers – one of whom dreams of being a hustler, the other who used to be a hustler, and now wants to live an honest life. It’s set in America, presumably in New York, and the acting was pretty much impeccable. The two actors are British, but they performed with spot-on New York accents, and they were both so easy to listen to, and care about (not to mention easy to look at). Unfortunately, though, the script just didn’t do it for me. I felt it was overly cliched, predictable, and at some points, overly theatrical. In a play that seemed to be showing the audience the “real” and “gritty” side of “thug life,” it had at least two very theatrical, and completely uncalled for monologues whose presence just could not be justified. Over all, I didn’t hate it, but I wanted it to be so much better than it was.

Last night some friends and I went to see Neil LaBute’s Autobahn at The Tron Theatre, which also turned out to be very disappointing. I had very high expectations, as I am familiar with the text (even acted in one of the pieces in a drama class once!) and I generally like LaBute’s work, and the production just didn’t live up to them. I genuinely don’t know if it was direction, or acting, or the text itself, or a combination of all of these things, but the play felt way too long, and turned out to be quite boring in the end. Monologues that should have been eerie and disturbing fell flat, as did monologues that should have been moving. They all felt like they dragged on much too long – in every single one of the six separate pieces, there was a moment where you felt the lights should have gone down, and then the piece would keep going, sometimes for as long as ten or fifteen minutes! Either the director was giving the actors a lot of freedom with the dramatic pause, or Neil LaBute is the king of writing the never-ending sentence. Again, it may be a combination of both. Unfortunately, it didn’t help that all of the actors were putting on American accents, and only two or three of the twelve of them pulled it off well. They also seemed to have shifted around the order of the pieces, and I’m not sure it ultimately did them any favours. So, over all, too long, and with the exception of the first piece (incidentally the same one I acted in), quite unsatisfying.

I have to say, since I am on the topic of theatre, I have never been so distracted in the theatre as I have been here. I thought that audience etiquette was poor in Edmonton, but it’s appalling here. Part of that is the fault of the theatres, I think, for selling crisps in the lobby – who wants to listen to crinkling crisp bags and crunching all through a show?! They also sell gummies, which are chewy and make gross noise, but moreso than that, people leave their mobile phones on, and they are constantly going off. The girl sitting beside me during Autobahn last night was using her mobile to read the program during the show, so there was a constant bright light flashing at me. Her mobile background was a photo of her boyfriend, who was sitting next to her in the theatre. I really don’t think you should ever be able to tell what a complete stranger’s mobile background is – if you can, they’re too close, or using their phone inappropriately!

The next few days are going to be more than slightly insane. In addition to finishing a play draft, which is due Monday, I am going to see a new version of Othello at The Citizens on Saturday, and then I am going to Edinburgh with some friends on Sunday to see Tegan and Sarah! Monday will be full of school and packing, and Tuesday is moving day! Then I will need to unpack and settle into my new place. Crazy. Just crazy.

One step at a time, and everything will get done. Hopefully.

All right, I’m not going to go into great, great detail about this ridiculous, disgusting mould problem…in a nutshell:

The mould is definitely what is affecting my health. When I get home, I get headaches, dizziness, and weird respiratory problems – like my throat feels clogged and I cough. Sometimes I feel like I can’t swallow. My eyes get red and hurt. I feel generally unwell. When I am out in fresh air, my headaches, throat problems, eye problems, etc fade. Absolutely no coincidence.

I complained to my letting agency, as as I mentioned before, they did not seem concerned. They are still not concerned; on the contrary, they have gotten increasingly rude with me over the past few days.

Had a visit from my landlord, who is obviously a first-time landlord, and is full of shit. His solution to the mould problem was to turn all of my heating panels up to 35C at night, and have that as my “background heating,” and then also use a portable gas fire heater. Ten minutes after he left my flat, I had to turn all of the heat down because I thought I was going to suffocate to death. He wants to fix the bathroom, but made no mention of cleaning up the rest of the mould or purifying the air. He just lectured me about how freezing my flat was (in his humble opinion).

He’s gone on to tell my letting agency that I ruined the bathtub and made it “not watertight.” I won’t even delve into how angry this makes me. Especially because Niki, the woman in charge of the maintenance department at my letting agency, is a huge bitch and ate it all up.

ANYWAY…

My health has been so affected that I made the decision to move out. I have spent the past few days flat-hunting, and today I went to see a beautiful flat, and I snapped it up. (Just in time, too, because while I was leaving a deposit with the letting company, the guy who viewed the flat right after me phoned to take it! Yikes!) I will probably be moving in about a week or a week and a half. It couldn’t be soon enough.

My challenge now, though – in addition to the normal challenges with moving, like switching addresses at places like my bank and my mobile phone provider, and power bills, and all that other fun stuff – is to find out whether my letting agency is going to allow me out of my lease early, or whether I will have to abandon my lease. Either way, I need to move, but the latter situation will involve the loss of quite a bit of money, as they made me pay my rent in advance. (Bastards.)

This has led to a jumble of Internet searching (shout out to Lester Lee for all of his help with this!), phone calls, visits to the letting agency (they pretty much kicked me out – certainly didn’t want to talk to me about anything), etc. I need to get an appointment at the Uni Health Centre, because if I can get a doctor’s note confirming mold exposure symptoms, it may help me get my money back. Booking an appointment is proving to be a challenge. A “representative” from my agency is coming to inspect the mould on Monday afternoon. I don’t really even want to talk to them, but what the fuck, I don’t have much choice. There is so much to do that I could never list it all here…

This is scattered because I am scattered.

What else has been going on?

Oh, right, I’m a post-grad student and I have work to do!!! It has been nearly impossible to focus on anything, and my major assignment deadlines are nearing and that scares me. At least I will be settled into a new flat before anything is due, though I do have a play draft to hand in by the 17th of November and I haven’t started it yet. I have my final Dramaturgy essay due in just over a month and I haven’t settled on a topic yet.

By the way, the lovely Niki (see above) ignored this chunk of my email when she wrote me back today:

Personal possessions that have been thrown away/will have to be thrown away due to mould problems:

8 head bands (approx. value £20)
2 Pair jeans (approx. value £30 each)
1 Jumper (approx. value £25)
1 Pair shoes (approx. value £20)
1 Pair knee-high boots (approx. value £60)
4 Small wash cloths (approx. value £5)
Total: Approx. £160

I also purchased a dehumidifier to try to control the damp at the cost of £149.95 (cheapest model I could find).

I don’t even remember where I started this blog post. So scattered.

Also, I spelled ‘mould’ in this post, and ‘mold’ in the last. Because I’m somewhere between Scotland and Canada.

Ugh. So much stress. I think I lost my mind a couple weeks ago.

Well, the mold situation continues. More on that in a mo.

Halloween should have been much more exciting than it was! I woke up feeling a little off, but decided to power through. Had a few friends over to get made up as zombies and we went to see another friend in a roller derby game, which, by the way, is my new favourite sport! It was so much fun to watch, and also very intense! I think my eyes welled up with tears a few times just from nerves. But I do have a tendency to be crazy-emotional about random things…

Zombie fun:

I was meant to join in on a zombie walk, and a sack race, and then on some after parties. I got as far as the roller derby game, and then a bite to eat. And then I crashed pretty quickly. Just wasn’t feeling well, and was sad because I couldn’t find the sack race anywhere (found out after the fact that I had the time wrong, and that I had actually missed it by an hour – shit!). I ended up bailing and sleeping on the couch for most of the day. Seems like the zombie walk was a lot of fun, but I won’t get too torn up about it – there’s always next year!

It turned into a pretty calm weekend, as I was feeling quite run down. Sunday was pouring rain all day, so in addition to my low energy, I was not very motivated to leave the house, save for running up the hill for bread and soy milk at the Spar and then running back down again. (Drenched in 15 minutes!)

I am starting to think that the mold in my flat may be contributing to how I am feeling, which is terrifying and sickening and saddening all at once. I phoned my letting agency today and was told that I would be contacted back shortly, either by them or by my landlord. The woman on the other end of the phone didn’t seem very concerned, which was just fuel to my fire of upset! All I can hope is that a solution is brought over to my flat, and soon. And if no one offers a solution, I will need to create one, even if it means complaining to a tenant’s association or something. Hopefully it won’t come to that!

I just want the mold out of my house, and I want to stop feeling off!

So it’s been a FML kind of week.

But I don’t want to end this on a bitter note, so allow me to add in the Halloween photo that will never not put a huge grin on my face. I stole it from Facebook, so I apologize if by some freak chance my friend’s friend finds it here, uncredited.

Oh, EVA!

It’s starting to get out of hand. How quickly time is flying, that is. Plus, I got all weird about having a blog, so I decided to stop blogging, but then I thought I should blog again, so here I am blogging in my blog, blog, blog. Blog. I blog in my blog.

It has been a very busy two weeks, full of birthday celebrations and theatre and movie nights and of me thinking that I am somehow handy (as in a handywoman) when I am very, very far from that.

So, in a nutshell…

My birthday was brilliant – absolutely brilliant. Went to see Denise Mina and Alan Bissett do a talk at The Mitchell Library, and then – long story short – had a coffee with Alan Bissett, who is very kind and in a way renewed my excitement about theatre. Not that my excitement had gone anywhere, but I suppose it was increased even further.

A couple snaps:

My “week off” classes turned into quite the study marathon – I spent at least a few hours every single day (with the exception of the past two days) studying my face off. And now, the night before getting back to the regularly scheduled programming, I still feel disorganised and unprepared!!

Other tidbits from the week:

Went to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and thought it was pretty badly executed. The idea seemed cool, but whoever put it together sure wasn’t paying much attention.

Post-Grad drinks night at a neat little pub called Uisge Beatha (I felt like I was in a ship). Got nervous about socialising and drank a lot. Then went to dinner with friends and drank more. Ooh boy!

Saw Memory Cells, a play by Louise Welsh, at The Arches. The play was really good, very emotional and intense, but I think that more than anything, I fell in love with the space. That’s right, I am officially in love with The Arches. I want to move there, but not really. But I do want to see every show ever there. Ever. It’s a space underneath central station, so literally, arches – and while you watch a show, the trains go by above you and everything rumbles. And it’s just beautiful. I can’t really describe it properly, so come visit me and I will take you to see a show there.

Did an all-day workshop with one of the lads from Reckless Sleepers, a devising theatre group from England/Belgium. Nothing life-changing, but it was interesting and I am glad I did it. Picked up a few cool exercises to use when I want to start writing but don’t know where to start.

Took a pretty ambitious bus ride to See Woo, a giant, warehouse-esque Asian grocery store. It was quite exciting, as it led to EDAMAME, and if you know me, you know how much I love edamame. It took another ambitious bus ride to get me home, and one of my buses broke down on the way.

Took another ambitious bus ride with my friend Janice to IKEA to pick up a few things. The IKEA experience itself was calm, but the bus ride back, with a full-length mirror in tow, was a little crazy. At least I was able to laugh at myself throughout the entire thing. I must have looked quite the sight!

Had a movie night at my place with a few girlfriends and Amelie. It was also like a mini housewarming, as I hadn’t had anyone over until last night! It was a lot of fun to hang out and drink wine and make three rounds of popcorn!!!

Today was an interesting day. I was sitting on my couch this morning on my laptop when I realized that one of the walls across from me had some mold on it near the floor. It instantly occurred to me that the cause of this mold may be my bathtub, which is quite poorly sealed. Every time I’m in the shower I think to myself that water must get into the walls, and maybe it is. I am not sure, but I definitely realise now that my flat is very damp. Some mold is normal, I think, in such a humid place as this. Along the windows and such. But then I saw that a few of my cloth headbands that were sitting on my night table had grown some mold on them. Paired with my wall, this kind of threw me over the edge and I decided to take matters into my own hands.

So I asked my friends where I could find a hardware store and took a short bus ride to Anniesland Cross, which, for the record, is such a sketchy little area. It’s all bookies and pawn shops, and it feels so desolate even when there are people around. I could not find anything that looked like a hardware store, so I walked back and forth for a long time and finally decided I would go in to The Bank of Scotland and ask someone. A nice woman there told me it was just before the railroad bridge, so I walked back the way I had come. And I found it. It was completely run down and looked more like a garage sale than a shop, complete with a giant cardboard sign in the front window that said “FIREWORKS FOR SALE”. Charming! It was equally charming inside, with the most random things on display all over the place and nowhere to walk and no actual usable counter space at the till, and the guy ahead of me – a man in his 50s at least – was buying 60 quid worth of fireworks. I bought a tube of caulking sealant, a bottle of mold and mildew antibacterial cleaner, and some batteries for my remote control (an unrelated issue).

So I got home and decided to get at it right away. I got out my rubber gloves and a sponge and cleaned my wall, my windows, and then all the area around the tub that looked brown and weird. Then, after reading the instructions on the sealant, I opened the tube, attached the pointed tip for even distribution, and got at it. I don’t just have stuff around the house – you know, tools and stuff. Things one needs for random jobs – I have none of them. So I squeezed out the caulking sealant stuff and smoothed it down with my finger and then wiped off my finger on a warm wet cloth. This was going fine, but as I used up the sealant, it got harder and harder to squeeze out of the weird container, so I started squeezing harder. And harder. And harder. Until the bottom of the tube popped out and sealant squeezed out all over my hands. I reacted quickly, thinking, “Fuck it, I’ll dip my finger in and smooth it down and it’ll be fine. So I caulked the remaining area of the tub, maneuvered the caulking tube into the garbage can, and then went to wash my hands…

Hmm, sealant doesn’t wash off hands very well…hmmm. Right. Dish soap? Nope. Hot, hot water? Nope. So I cracked out some nail polish remover. It took a good 4-5 rub downs with handfuls of nail polish remover to get my hands feeling somewhat un-sealed. Then it took washing my hands another twelve million times and rubbing them dry furiously with a wash cloth (that I had to throw out afterwards) to get them feeling somewhat normal and dry.

And then my flat stank of caulking. And I already had all the windows open to try to air out the damp, so there wasn’t anything more to be done!

And the whole situation was so unbelievably girlie/ghetto that I can’t help but laugh, but was also completely emotionally exhausted after the experience. I just want a clean, happy home! NO MORE MOLD!

I hope.

But my house is very, very damp. Sometimes my laundry will take so long to dry that it starts to absolutely stink and instead of getting to wear it, I actually just have to wash it again. This has happened one too many times as of late, and I think I am going to give in and take a few things to a laundrette on Friday. How, in a country so humid, can a dryer not be an automatically installed, expected appliance? HOW? I love my house, and I love Glasgow, but I wish I had a fucking dryer.

So, that’s my story for the past two weeks-ish. Back to classes tomorrow, and then going to see an apparently crazy adaptation of A Beggar’s Opera at The Tramway. Then a daring deed on Friday, which I am not going to talk about. Then Halloween, which is going to be INSANE.

Schedule:

11:30am – Glasgow Roller Girls Roller Derby Game
2:00pm – Sack Race on Buchanan Street hosted by The MIGHTY BOOSH boys, Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett.
3:00pm – Zombie walk on the West End
5pm Onward – After parties

So we have to all be made up as zombies before the roller derby game. It’s going to be a long one! And hopefully all worth it!

Time will tell.