Okay guys. I’m back. I know how to embed pictures into my posts on this blog again. My classes have calmed down and I have been SEVERAL WEEKS OVERDUE! BUT!!! I will be working both forwards and backwards to catch everyone up on all the cool stuff I’ve been doing in Essex lately! And boy I do I have a lot to catch up on! Plays! Museum sleepovers! Directing radio dramas! Panel show recordings! Family visits! And trips to places outside of Wivenhoe and Colchester! Not to mention the triumphant return of WHITTARD TEA!
So what am I waiting for! Let’s get the blog train a-rollin’!
MONDAY: What a day to re-start my weekly blogging on! Today was the day I shaved my head! I’m not even kidding! I popped a lolly in my mouth (the review for which is here), took my long hair and me down to a Supercuts (yes, they exist here), and went to donate my hair! The hairdresser told me that I was really brave for doing this, and insisted on taking before and after pictures. I even have them on my phone right now.
It started with me putting all my hair into a ponytail, and then cutting it all off. Once it was done, my hair was down to about my ears and the hairdresser said I could get away with using that as a haircut if I felt nervous. I told her I wanted to go on with the shaving. Then she asked me how short I wanted my hair buzzed. I asked her to go as short as possible; I was going chrome dome! She took the clippers, marveled at how I wasn’t even shaking or nervous, and got straight to buzzing. The extra hair was collected and slipped into an extra envelope so I could donate that as well, as some charities to use the shorter parts for other things. She even buzzed behind my ears for a more even look. A few times she stopped so I could brush the excess hair from my head, and also so she and her co-worker could feel how smooth it was. And with that, I had my head shaved for the very first time.
It wasn’t a chrome-dome like I wanted, but I didn’t want to cut it too close (pun completely intended) since I was going to a wedding on the 23rd. With my newly shaved head, I went on down to grab some lunch, feeling the wind in my hair and on the hidden layer of dandruff you never knew existed until you finally cut your hair that short. It was really itchy.
I have new respect for the camodad comics because of this one panel.
After that was lunch at the Purple Dog: a piri piri sandwich with salad, behind four other people with tattooes and dyed hair. I wondered if my newly shaved head could get me into their clique, but then I lost interest because I had a sandwich to attend to. It was windy after lunch, so I bought a hat at T.K. Maxx to cover my bare head and went into a Costa for some hot tea, where I stayed until closing time. Then I took the bus to Tesco, where I bought some instant meals and scotch eggs. I ate scotch eggs for dinner, since I had heard about them but never ate one until just now. They weren’t bad, but let me tell you boiled egg wrapped in fried sausage is murder on the bowels!
Then came the final matter of the day: calling mom. I wanted her to be the first to know because I knew her reaction would be a thousand times worse if she heard it from someone else. As it was, when I called her all she did was say “No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.” Pretty much the funniest thing I’ve heard her say in my life. Then she asked me WHY I shaved my head. You’re probably asking me why I shave me head.
Well, I wanted to know what I looked like with a shaved head for a few years now, at least since high school. A classmate of mine, who typically rocked a luxurious black ponytail, came into class one day with short fluffy hair. He explained that he donated it to Locks of Love, a non-profit that made wigs for cancer patients. I decided to do the same with my hair, thinking that shaving it would maximize its yield. I donated before, but I never shaved because it was always too close to either me trying to get a job, mom surprising me with a coupon to a luxury hair salon for my birthday or fall or winter. But now that it was spring, now that I wouldn’t be in the job market for several months, now that I was in uni where this kind of lunacy was expected and accepted, I shaved!
TUESDAY: The next day was the class/meeting with Liz Kuti. All the students would gather, Liz would debrief us on how to do the dissertation plan and proposal, and we’d hit her with any questions we had. I arrived and awaited the response to my new do. Liz also said I was really brave for donating and she was glad I was doing it for a good cause. Mot of the other classmates were shocked, but liked what I did with my hair (in both meanings of the word.) Dave asked who I was and where Caitlin went. The class went pretty well, we got our questions answered, and Liz emphasized that she was more interested in us getting the plays done first and then writing the papers. With the workshop done, I gave away as many traffic light lollies as I could, because I didn’t want them.
After that, we all decided to get together for lunch. Originally, I was just going to catch up with Kat at Blues Café, but all of us ended up lunching together. Since David, one of the leads in This Gun That I Have In My Right Hand Is Loaded, would only be there for today, I popped back to my dorm to grab a copy of the show for him. I grabbed some curry, rice and Orange San Pelligrino and we all caught up. Everyone had been doing pretty well, with the exception of ne student currently working through a libel case. I’m keeping the details hush hush since I’m not sure how much of this he wants revealed to the general blog-reading public. I can however say that Jacko’s working on a boxing play and I promised him the names of a few articles I read about boxing from my American Masculinities class in undergrad.
After lunch, I was free for the rest of the day. With this in mind, I decided to get started on my dissertation research by reading all the Horrible Histories books I could get my hands on. The reason for this being I know next to nothing about British history, which is a huge part of my dissertation, and this would be a quick and fun way to get a feel for the curriculum. I even found some mythologizing of British history when Terrible Tudors mentioned a Thomas Fuller turning Sir Walter Raleigh into the guy who put his cloak on a puddle for Queen Elizabeth. Today was the day I started the habit of buying some decaf tea in The George and staying until I had read an entire book. My dinner, a humble salami sandwich because I didn’t feel like cooking, was a little more boring.
WEDNESDAY: The main event of the day was playing more episodes of I Love A Mystery on the Cartesian Theatre. Before that, I bumped into Liz and asked her for help with my dissertation proposal. With that done, I put in a few more sources while looking up some others. Then I went to the George or Costa for some late afternoon tea (not sure which, honestly) and had a sandwich for dinner, or lunch (possibly both.) Wednesday was an uneventful one.
THURSDAY: Determined to submit my proposal before the end of April, I went over another draft, fixing the language and adding the sources. I even found an author who specialized in writing about how Shakespeare wrote to promote certain rulers and damn others. Then I sent it to Prof. Kuti. A weight off my shoulders!
I took lunch at The George, a full English breakfast, and read Villainous Victorians. It wasn’t bad, but their ham was saltier than I would have liked. By the time I finished, I was able to drop off my excess things at home, and take a nice walk up to campus in time for the Thursday night play. I bumped into Kat and her boyfriend Lemmy in the theatre café, and we all watched together.
This week’s production was White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, written by homebound playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. Forbidden to leave Iran, Soleimanpour sends his play to theatres in sealed envelopes, left closed until opening night. None of the actors reading the script have seen it before in their lives, and the experience is often compared to “the actor’s nightmare” (i.e. being onstage in front of a full house, not knowing your lines or even what production you’re doing) and revolves partially around censorship but mostly about the power of ancient stereotypes and how difficult it can be to defy authority. The actor read the lines aloud, essentially reading for Soleimanpour as he forced his proxy to compliment people in the front row, take money from one audience member and give it to another, interspace their lines with any slang from “groovy” to “OMG,” and drink a glass of deadly poison. I read some reviews of the play earlier, which said audience members would be expected to live-tweet the play, but tonight’s audience wasn’t asked to do so. We were given Soleimanpour’s email, though.
My main question for the play was how the stage directions were written. Did the actor have any choice in which glass of water they could drink, or would they always be forced to choose the poisonous one? Which stage directions could they read aloud and which were kept hidden from the audience? How much did the director, the one who provided the poison, know about the play before handing it to the actor? I do know that Dave has a copy of the script, since the actor handed it to him (as directed in the script) before ingesting the poison. He promised to let me read it in the future, so I’ll be sure to take extra notes.
I walked back with Kat, Lemmy, and a tagalong friend of Lemmy who bumped into us when we left Square 2. We talked about the play, and how much of it was hidden form the audience, the Tiger concert Kat saw the day before, and my new haircut. Then I went home, took some notes about the play for future references, and doodled.
FRIDAY: Today, there was a May Day Arts festival on campus! An entire afternoon filled with artsy crafts, shows, food and events. I started by taking a walk around to get a better look at the stands: the world’s smallest theatre, a communist miniature mayday parade, balloon sculpture, tote bags, D.I.Y. blossoms, hairstyling, makeovers, crepes, cupcakes for Nepal, make your own utopias, BBQ, and a DJ using record players and grammaphones.
I bumped into Akane during my first walk-around before finding a performance of traditional English Morris Dancing. Typically they involve men dancing around with clacking sticks and twirling handkerchiefs with accordions in the background. Pretty amazing actually!
I was a little sad to miss the Maypole dancing. Said pole was already wrapped up by the time I arrived on campus.
When I finished that, I made my own tote bag. The people at the stand were given blank tote bags, fabric markers, stencils with letters, and blank sheets of paper so the ink would not bleed to the other side. I saw someone drawing a pile of stenciled letters on their tote, so I decided to try my hand at a sort of lettered-spirograph. I ended up with the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire logo.
With that done, I walked around and took some more pictures. After that, I meandered to the Make Your Own Blossoms stand, where I was taught to make blooming boughs using only tissue paper, glue and what I assume are pussy willows.
I also popped over to the stand run by The Grand Theatre of Lemmings, currently harvesting quotes for use of their 50 years, 50 plays, 50 seconds show going on. Said quotes were harvested through asking people to grab a random game piece from a bag and give them a sentence based on it. I pulled out a Monopoly cowboy and offered “I was always better at losing the pieces to Monopoly than actually playing it.” Then I, along with two other passers-by, had the opportunity to go inside the Lemmings’ Smallest Theatre In The World. I stepped “onstage,” they stepped into the “audience” and I was asked to do a short show. I did a monologue about the birth of the ever-popular Steve Johnson joke amongst my playwriting class, and they thought it was pretty funny. I’m glad I didn’t have to say “You had to be there.”
I saw someone getting their hair done in a funky style at one of the booths, and ended up staying to see the whole thing. An undergrad girl came in with blue and lavender streaks in her hair and left with her hair curled, piled, and accented with a bird’s nest and feathers. No photo, unfortunately, but I may be able to find one of the website of the stylists. I don’t remember their names right now, so that makes things difficult.
As there was a long line of people getting their hair done in elaborate ways, I took my buzz cut and me to get a different kind of makeover. A funky theatre company went around with a hot pink mobile makeover salon. The ladies got glitter in their hair and daubs of pink paint on their cheeks. The gents got green paint on their beards. When they finished, they always shouted, “(Insert name here) is beautiful” and you shout, “I feel beautiful!” They expected good loud shouting since I was American. I didn’t disappoint.
All this May-weather frivolity got me hungry, so I decided to look around for lunch options. At the same time, another friend of mine was also looking for lunch options, though hers’ were a little more limited since she was vegan. I directed her to Zest, since she was currently on the lookout for soya flapjacks (a.k.a. soy health bars) and I remembered they had some. When we sat down, she repeatedly tried to offer me her food but all she bought for herself was two flapjacks and I didn’t want to steal her lunch. She insisted that this is something she does with everyone, almost compulsively, and I insisted that I wasn’t going to eat her lunch when I had one of my own. We both ate well and had a good time.
I took my tea at the George while reading Gorgeous Georgians (how appropriate.) I ended up getting two pots of decaf tea by accident, because I had told one waitress that someone was getting me said tea, but she thought I meant I wanted that tea. I drank them both, because waste not want not, but left enough tip to cover the second pot. The day ended with a sandwich for lunch and a trip to Tesco’s to pick up milk and molten chocolate cakes. I talked to Kat about helping her with a Sunday Roast, but I never got a solid answer. I just bought the desserts just to be prepared.
SATURDAY: I spent most of Saturday watching the 50 years, 50 plays, 50 seconds event. I didn’t meet the deadline early enough to write my own plays, but I did get to act in one, do SFX and record one.
It was thinly populated, with Jacko and Rich being the main two students working the production and Frequency Theatre’s Bethany Sharp the one directing the whole affair. The first play I participated in was about a student desperately trying to find coffee. I did knocking sound effects for each door. And now a little bit of SFX advice: when you’re asked to knock loudly for the radio, use the heel of your palm and not the knuckles. You get a louder sound and it hurts less after two takes.
For the second play I participated in (I didn’t get to do all 50 as I arrived closer to noon) I, along with Rick and Jacko, was asked to find two alumni to play the roles of a poet and a professor. Should be easy since it’s Homecoming Week, right? WRONG! Not only were all people who could feasibly qualify as alumni already running booths for the alumni fair, but so were all the under/post-grads. The ones who weren’t just really didn’t want to be bothered to be in a play, even a 50-second play. At one point I went into Zest, which is usually lousy with 30+ year olds, but none of them wanted to do the part either. I finally, FINALLY managed to find one actress after assuring her that I know she has to pick up her kid from school and I promise it won’t be more than 3 minutes of her time. I presented her to Jacko and Rich. Rich informed me that this specific script called for MALE actors. We could have easily worked around the gender thing, but the actress took that opportunity to run off to her kid’s primary school. So the moral of the story is: never ask your producers to grad their actors from the street. They always have something better to do; or they say they do.
The second time around, we did find 3 performers. We were lucky. Jacko’s current job in the campus restaurants meant he knew when all his friends were on break or off duty; that’s how we got the first two actors. I found the third one idly watching a show by The Grand Theatre of Lemmings. I correctly guessed that if he had the time to watch a play, then he had the time to act in one. We did Jacko’s play about the construction workers repairing a collapsed library, with the foreman convinced its stomach was ripped open. Rich and I directed it, and the whole thing came together rather well.
I took a few pictures, caught up with a few people and grabbed a Mexican burger for lunch. It had salsa, nachos, jalapeños and guacamole and it tasted good! I think the only change I’d make to it is to add tomatilla salsa.
While eating, I saw Jacko with one of the Lemmings actresses, writing a play based on cards with descriptions of characters, places, personalities, and needs. His was about two lovers planning to meet in a cave. When he finished I did one about a young girl trying to win the love of a prince, who himself is in love with an evil sorceress, and her teaming up with a fairy to hatch dragon eggs and break the curse of eternal winter over their forest home. The Lemming lady wanted me to perform it, but I wanted her to do it because I’m more interested in seeing other actors interpret my work. She didn’t so much perform it as read what I wrote, but she only had 50 seconds so that was fair dinkum.
The last play was performed by approximately 15 people, myself included, all taking turns reading the lines of a poem. The audience was comprised of The Grand Theatre of Lemmings, who had finished performing for the day. Rehearsals started with us standing around in a circle, so it was easier to know who’s line was coming up. It was less easy when Bethany broke up the circle to organize everyone according to height, and then place them on microphones roughly as tall as they were. But we memorized our lines and we gave a solid performance. The Lemmings loved it.
That was the last play of the day, so I helped the Lemmings close up shop. I impressed them with my mad table-folding skillz, painstakingly developed after years of working with nonprofits. I also carried a few tables, and returned one of the Lakeside Theatre’s stray dollies. Once all the props were accounted for, I went to The George to read Barmy British Empire. Why have been going to the George every single day? Because they’re open late and they won’t kick me out for reading there for three hours. I had my dinner at Café Rouge (poulet escalope et frites) and heard an elderly lady singing along to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” one table over; harmonizing with it actually.
Before leaving central Colchester, I caught up with the homeless man outside the Spar. I buy him the Spar’s prepackaged meals every so often, but I didn’t see him around the past few days. He said it was because his mother in law fell ill so they stayed over their place during that time. I also got the pleasure of meeting his wife Laura, and found out they have two children currently living with the in-laws. I’m not entirely certain why said in-laws aren’t putting them up from the get-go, but they were both eating and I didn’t want to interrupt. I got the bus home, had some tea and got ready to finish off the day.
SUNDAY: The first thing I did that morning was to go to the Tesco to pick up everything I needed for the chicken dijonnaise. I got the chicken, the mustard, the butter, but I also picked up a few extra things (like olives, instant rice dinners, and gherkins) so I’d have enough to get one of those “you can get ?? pounds off your next purchase.” I went home, but didn’t begin cooking right away, because I needed to return some library books.
Even though it was a Sunday, the library was supposed to be open until 4PM, so I had to leave early to get there in time. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Not only were they closed, but so were their after-hours return slots so I was left wandering around Colchester with a bag full of books. Undeterred, I walked around and got some of that Belgian ice cream from the stand in Culver Square. I tried to do the cool thing and walk around while eating it, but that was hard to do with a purse and a bag full of books, so I just sat down on a bench on High Street and ate it.
As I ate, a woman asked if she could sit next to me. She coughed, I said bless you, and she said she was going to need more than blessing. As it turned out, she ran away from abusive husband to find her son, but then she got raped after spending the night in Castle Park. She’s making a case against her rapist, but the police said she had to stay in the area while it was being processed. I asked her if she needed anything, and at first she said “Just put a knife in my throat.” We talked a little more, and I asked if I could get her some coffee or something. She said yes as long as she didn’t have to walk far, so I took her to Costa in the Odeon theatre and bought her coffee and a flapjack. We talked some more and I got some details about her and her son (which won’t be released on here for safety reasons.) Fortunately, she managed to pull on over on her rapist by asking for a cigarette, and then running while he was rolling it. She ran all the way to a garage, asked the first person there to call 999. The police were taking too long to arrive, so she ran off in case the rapist was following her. Fortunately, the police found her first.
I stayed with her until she was done. She thanked me and went off. Before she left, she said something about throwing herself off the tallest building in Colchester if her molester wasn’t put behind bars. It’s been a few weeks. I hope it hadn’t come to that.
I went to George to charge my phone (there was no convenient place to charge it in the Costa,) drank some OJ and read Smashing Saxons. Dinner was a microwave chicken curry at home.
Okay, so I’ve been agonizing for months about how my tumblr won’t let me post pictures anymore, when all I had to do was click on the cute little gear in the top-right corner and switch it from HTML to Rich Text.
YE OLDE SWEETIE THYME REVUE Well, there's two bags down and several more to go! This time, I'm going for the Traffic Light Lollies, since I've mentioned them before. Name: Traffic Light Lollies Look: Not much like a traffic light, with one half red and one half off white. Until I remember the flashing giant yellow balls standing on giant black posts that sit next to crosswalks to let drivers know they might accidentally run someone over. It's a fair cop, whoever named these, but the red half doesn't make it look entirely like a traffic light. Taste: Honey Mustard. The white part tasted like honey mustard. I don't like honey mustard by itself. It's too sweet for me. At the same time, honey mustard is entirely the WRONG taste for a lollipop. The red part tastes like artificial cherry flavour, which I subconsciously associate with Robitussin. Again, I ate the whole thing through sheer force of will. It took approximately two hours. I even brought it with me to the hair salon when I was donating my hair. I threw out the wrapper so I couldn't take it out and wrap it up again. I couldn't take it out because I was in an environment surrounded by hair. The only safe place for it was in my mouth. Final Opinion: Eat one, give the rest to the anyone who will take them., and never eat that type of lolly ever again. Wonder why it's so hard to give away seven lollies. I'm serious, I talked to every person I knew to offer them a lolly and most said no. Note: This actually isn't a picutre of the lollies I had. This is a picture I took from dandycandy.co.uk after my own photo became corrupted.
YE OLDE THYME SWEETIE REVUE Hi again, guys and gals and everyone in between. Here’s sweet treat for anyone interested in British candy. Or at the very least, interested in my opinions about British candy. Name: Anise Balls Look: Small black/brown marbles that look purple in direct sunlight. After sucking on them a little, they look like nobbly pink balls or like the viruses displayed in your school nurse’s office. Suck on them some more and they turn into the white marbles used to play Hungry Hungry Hippos. Taste: I liked them quite a bit. This is no surprise since I like anise in general quite a bit. They had that lingering sweet-tangy aftertaste that proper anise has. When I was younger, I was under the impression that licorice and anise tasted awful. I blame Candyland. I mean, what kid playing that would eat a candy associated with the evil Lord Licorice? When I was near-enough to 21, my family and I went to an Italian restaurant where the server brought ought some anise liquor for us to try. I had some and fell madly in love. I found out that anise is what was used to flavor licorice and immediately changed my stance on the once-dubious foodstuff. Now I’m all about the Sambuca and Nizza Bars with licorice bits. (And if any of you are going to Iceland soon, bring me back some. I miss them.) I will say that they don’t taste nearly as good if you eat them after having something sweet. Or something with ketchup. Verdict: Keep them all for myself, on the bedside desk as a pick-me-up while studying.
YE OLDE THYME SWEETIE REVUE Hello everyone! I’ve decided to start on the one candy I’ve been eying since I cracked open that box, not only for the name, not only for the looks, but also for the fact that there is a bag of candy labeled Traffic Light Lollies, and these looked way more light traffic lights than the lollies did. Name: Rosey Apples (even the name sounds decadent!) Look: Pink, yellow, and green with a coarse sugar coating. Honestly, my first thought when I saw them was ‘this looks like a superball.’ No foolin’. I was considering looking around toy stores for superballs that looked like these because I had a great idea for a gross-out prank. First: show someone the superball, with the rosey apple hidden in your other hand. Second: Bounce it once on the ground and then catch it. Third: Quickly swap out the rosey apple for the superball, and then eat it. Fourth: Watch the disgusted expression on their face. Taste: With a name like “rosey apple” I expected it to have a taste like a Fuji Apple or a Gala Apple or a Pink Lady. I love apples, especially pink apples. I do not, however, like sour apple flavouring. I drank a sour apple flavoured Snapple once, for lack of any actual apple juice. Long story short is it tasted like one of those sour apple Snapples. I ate the whole thing through sheer force of will. Final Opinion: Eat one, then give the rest to the anyone who will take them. Lament that there aren’t enough people hanging around the flats to eat all of the rosey apples. Offer them to the woman who’s cleans the kitchen every week, and be pleasantly surprised when she says those were her favoruites growing up and takes the whole bag.
On April Fools Day of all days, I received a care package from my family filled with a ridiculous amount of traditional British candies. Typically, I like chocolate more than anything else, but I do enjoy some varieties of licorice and hard citrus candies. These candies were all some variation of hard candies or chewy candies that I have never tried before. And since I owe you guys for all the blogging I HAVEN’T BEEN DOING, I am going to do little mini bite-sized reviews of every single 100g bag of candy I’ve gotten from the bag. And with that, I give you… YE OLDE THYME SWEETIE REVUE! (All misspelling in the title are done for aesthetic purposes.)
