A Little Love, A Little Chaos

Today is my last day at home before I head back to university. The weather has continued throughout April - blue skies, sun, and heat every day. It hasn't rained for weeks. So yesterday was a good day to hang out with my best friend Danielle one final time, and we spent a lot of it down at the old bowling green (now essentially a park) in my town, with Coke and burgers and the sun. However, we also went to see A Little Chaos, because Danielle has an enormous crush on Alan Rickman, so I might as well write about it.

As far as period dramas go, I've seen better. I feel like something set at the French court should have been more unashamedly sleazy; a lot of pro reviewers have called A Little Chaos too sedate for the setting it's portraying, and I'd agree with that. It's also much too slow, with a beginning that goes on for ever (we know Le Notre is going to hire Sabine de Barra to do the landscape feature in Versailles, it really doesn't need to be dragged out) and a middle that could have been cut down a bit. It's not bloated so much as slow, which is at least something, because I still get angry sometimes about all the pointless, pointless filler in the Hobbit films.

There are lots of things that worked for me, though. Kate Winslet is wonderful as the widowed gardener Sabine de Barra. This film has a good cast in general, although I retain a special fondness for Stanley Tucci's flamboyant bisexual dandy, and Jennifer Ehle was enjoyable as his good-natured wife. The music was good, too - I'm tempted to get the soundtrack, which was just right for this film and really elevated some of the scenes. In terms of the plot, while I criticise the beginning and a lot of the middle, the last half hour was worth the price of admission alone. There's an absolutely marvellous scene when de Barra arrives at the court in Fontainebleau and she ends up being taken to a "secret space" where the women of the court gather; a few of them are familiar faces, such as Jennifer Ehle's character, but most are not. One of the women asks her about her marital status and she says she's widowed and had one child (who is dead now). It's something that's been hinted throughout the film, and we'll hear the full story later, because de Barra can't bear to tell it now - it's too painful. But that's OK - as we go round the circle of women, a lot of them admit that they've lost children (and a few husbands as well), and they're happy to say it out loud even though "the King doesn't allow death to be spoken of at court" (I have no idea if that's the actual line, but it's something like that). They reassure her that even though she might not be able to talk about it yet, some day she'll find the strength. It's an incredible, emotional scene that makes you feel it without being exploitative.

Anyway, it's not my favourite film but it was overall fun to watch, and what it lacked in plot and setting-appropriate sleaze it made up for in great acting, fun characters, and some genuinely touching scenes. Sadly I have no screencaps, because the costumes in this film were to die for.

What I'm Listening To

More music!

(Rapalje - Loch Lomond)

I saw Rapalje last year at a music festival in the Netherlands; I hadn't heard most of their stuff before, but my friend whom I went to visit is a huge fan and they were playing at Midwinter Archaeon Fair, so we went. This was one of the songs they were playing, and I liked it.

(La Plebe - Guerria Sucia)

I found La Plebe through another favourite band, Dubioza Kolektiv (an amaaazing Bosnian dub/ska/reggae band), since they were featured on one of the tracks on Dubioza's album Apsurdistan. I looked up the band on YT, was instantly hooked, and hope you realise that when I say "Guerria Sucia" I actually mean "the entirety of Brazo en Brazo".

(Dilek Koç - Dere Geliyor Dere)

This song is one I learnt during my time working on an EU cultural exchange programme in Turkey. I remembered it one day, and after a few Google searches found the name and searched for recorded versions on YouTube. And I found Dilek Koç! I've listened to a few of her other songs and I'm a fan, I love Turkish folk music.

(Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive)

Featured on one of my favourite TV shows, The Shield. I was doing a rewatch recently, this song was playing, and I... have not stopped listening since!

(Verka Serduchka - Ya Popola Na Lubov')

...There is really no excuse for this one. I admit, I love Verka Serduchka unironically. Also, I really hope the transliteration is correct!

Why the fuck did I take a translation class

It's been unusually sunny here for April, and today was no exception. Blue skies, bright sun, and I was stuck indoors with a pile of paper. Because I have a Latin translation mock in two weeks time which I haven't prepared for! And I'm going to fail!

When I settle down for a long period of translation, it tends to require a lot of work and space. For this - I was translating Tacitus, which is a big ball of WTF and OH MY GOD KILL ME NOW - I had a notebook to write the English translation in, a printout of the original to annotate, my dictionary, a commentary on the text, and a translation off the web on my laptop.

Not pictured: my laptop, or my crushing sense of despair.

To be honest, I can't do this, mostly because I haven't actually learnt the vocabulary. All the grammar knowledge in the world doesn't, it turns out, help you out if you don't know the words. So I found a vocabulary list of my textbook online - God bless the internet - and have a snazzy blue folder with it all in. I'll have to do my exam more or less blind, but at least I might remember this time what egredior means...

On Dart-a-moor so wild

I didn't spend Easter in Bristol. The house we were staying in was full of dust and cat hair, aka Asthmatic Hell, and I only managed two nights there (one of which I spent at my godmother's) before I had to come home. I would have liked to do more in Bristol - I only went to Blaise Castle, IKEA, and the harbour - but I like breathing more. So I've been at home since Saturday - went to the beach, bought discounted jeans at Gap, went down the river on one of the first truly sunny days of the year - and yesterday I went to Dartmoor. It's still dry from the winter, and the new green grass hasn't come through yet. It doesn't really look like Dartmoor in a lot of places, mostly because at the moment it's in its wintry stage but yesterday was very warm and sunny (I got sunburn!) so it was very odd. Anyway, I took a lot of photos and thought I'd share some here.

This is one of several photos I have which I can play the "Dartmoor or Eurasian steppe?" game with.

My mum and brother provide a human comparison to the vast expanse of wherever.

Stone circle yayyyy. This is what we mostly came to see.

Meee!! This is far from the best photo of me - I'm windswept, wearing my glasses and no makeup, but I quite like the photo. Mostly because my smiles in photos usually look horrifying.

Imagine this stretching as far as you can see in every direction and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it was like yesterday.

It's more like Dartmoor down by the rivers. Some of the greenery still remains.

Prehistoric stone lines and rocks and stuff.

Anyway, I liked how these photos came out. This very much isn't what Dartmoor usually looks like, though it looks more familiar in some photos, and I like the results, even if they're not as familiar as you might expect for being taken where they were.

Right, Then.

In the last week I have:

• begun tutoring my younger brother in Latin, because there's no way he'll learn it all in time to pass his exam if he keeps on just teaching himself.
• had an appointment at the optician's, where I found out that my sore eyes are caused by meibomian gland dysfunction. Hurray!
• missed out on meeting up with my friends because of said optician's appointment.
• played my mandolin for the first time in MONTHS and now have a blister on my thumb because I didn't use a plectrum.
• rewatched a significant part of the first two seasons of The Shield because I have a problem.
• bought wool for knitting a scarf, the pattern of which is hideously complicated and will probably be the death of me.
• spent today with my best friend and talked absolute rubbish for most of it, but I always have a good time with her.
• bought a fountain pen!

I'm off to Bristol tomorrow for a few days; my whole family is staying at the house of my mum's friend who is out of town. I think we all (especially my dad, who's been working on the same manuscript for work since before Christmas, and my brother, who has major exams this summer) need the break, and I love Bristol. I'll be taking my camera, and will try to get some photos!

(Not that it matters, because no one actually reads this blog lol)

Welcome to the Sticks

So, today I had to go to Exeter for the afternoon, for an information day I was helping out at. As I live the other end of the county, this involved catching a bus two hours before the event started. I didn't think this would be a problem, and cheerfully walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus to come.

It didn't come. I waited a while.

Eventually, I went back home - "The bus didn't arrive!" I snapped at my dad. "And the next one isn't for two hours!" Country life, my friends. Sigh. This is actually a lot better than some of my friends living in villages, who only get two buses a day to the nearest town. Anyway, I phoned the event organiser, who assured me that it would be OK for me to arrive later than planned (since I was mostly needed for the later events anyway), so that was fine. However, what was weird was the fact that the number of the bus route - the route which has gone between my town and Exeter since before I moved here aged 11 - wasn't on the list of bus routes by the bus stop. When I looked up that timetable online, it was listed as running at the times I thought, but the name of the bus stop in my town was wrong. Also, when I'd been standing at the bus stop earlier I'd noticed another route, almost identical to the one I usually took but a few minutes earlier each time. It seemed too weird for there to be two identical routes, and I got the horrible feeling that my usual bus had been redirected or something, and there was another bus to replace it (with a timetable which, by the way, I couldn't find online!).

Anyway, I walked to the tourist office, got a full bus timetable for the whole county, and looked up my usual bus route. It wasn't there - the service had been cancelled (and of course no one bothered to mention anything, and most people didn't even know). However, we did indeed have the bus route I referred to earlier, which for some bizarre reason had at least 5 different routes all grouped under the same number. When I eventually worked out that yes, there was a bus going from my town to Exeter, it was a relief, but I was also full of rage because it had been such a long and stupid chase to find out what the hell had happened to my bus.

Two hours after I'd initially gone to the bus stop, I walked back and caught the next bus. It was a long, unpleasant two hours journey across the county, traversing winding country lanes in an old, stuffy, rickety bus - the only good part was that I sat on the upper deck and got to see everything from above. Other than that, it was a long and shitty journey and the amount of time I spent running all over town to work out what was going on was not worth it. About the only good thing that happened was that after the event was over I had time to go to the local Boston's for a cup of tea (I love Boston's tea - it's loose leaf, just the way I like it!). Other than that - gah.

Review | Ko To Tamo Peva

Down a dirt track that winds across the rolling green fields, under a chalky blue-and-grey sky, a dilapidated pink van rattles along, accompanied by a jaunty tune. Inside, several mismatched passengers are eager to reach Belgrade, even if it means travelling in a falling-down bus driven by a reckless young man who is perfectly willing to drive blindfolded to prove that he's as good a driver as he claims.

It's April 1941, and as the opening frames say, the scene is "somewhere in Serbia". The fact that the country is facing imminent German invasion is obvious, as complaints about the army appear in one of the very first scenes, where a motley group of travellers stand by the side of a field track waiting for the bus. Ko to tamo peva (released in English as Who's Singin' Over There?) is undeniably a WWII film - but it's also hysterically funny. The long, rickety, trying journey from rural Serbia to Belgrade is marked by many obstacles, including a broken bridge, an obstinate farmer who has ploughed over the road and insists on a payment of 100 dinars before he lets them pass, a funeral, and the driver's recruitment into the army.

The disastrous and chaotic journey is all in the name of comedy: the owner of the bus, Krstić, refuses to let a passenger on because "the stop is 200m downhill", despite the fact that they're driving in a wasteland with no sign of life anywhere; during a funeral the young married couple sneak off to the woods, and end up being spied on by the rest of the passengers, who only realise when a consumptive passenger's hacking cough becomes too loud to hide; the pompous Germanophile falls off a bridge and seemingly drowns, only to reappear some time (and several kilometres) later, and having stripped off his sodden overclothes, ends up chasing a hare across a field in his underwear.

This film is an absurd comedy in the best possible way, bringing together a very disparate group of people and seeing just how ridiculous their situation can get, in a sort of demented roadtrip movie. While these people are in a Europe that is being swallowed up by Nazi forces - indeed, the Nazi invasion of Belgrade ends the film - most of their concerns are far more pedestrian. The moustachioed singer wants to get to Belgrade in time for his audition, and later on makes it his mission to seduce the young bride away from her incompetent husband. The bride, for her part, dreams of going to the sea, although her husband seems far less enthusiastic. The old veteran, who considers his war history to be a source of great pride, wants to see his son, who has joined the Artillery, again. The oncoming war is a shadow over the whole film, but it is not the be all and end all; these people don't live in constant fear, and mostly just want to get on with their lives. It's a refreshing change from the sort of unrelenting grimness that permeates many American WWII films, and a reminder that just because something is set during a war, doesn't mean the war is all there is.

Ko to tamo peva is considered a classic in the ex-Yugoslavia, and one of the most quotable films to come out of the Balkans. It's not an undeserved title; this film is utterly hilarious, with many brilliant lines as well as physical comedy. Eastern European cinema is frequently associated in the West with depressing realist films that make quite sure to hammer home how much of a forsaken slump life is east of the former Iron Curtain. It's hard to get a balanced picture of Eastern European cinema when most of what gets released in the West tries to be relevant - which of course means bleak and miserable. But this 1980 Yugoslav film is brilliantly, absurdly funny, and an excellent antidote to the stereotype of Eastern European cinema in the West.

If you want to watch Ko to tamo peva, you can do so here, with English subtitles:
Ko to tamo peva

New Camera!

With the money that I got for my birthday and Christmas, I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a new camera. The one I currently have... well, I don't use it for anything anymore; if I need a camera I tended to use my mum's. It's a terrible, cheap little Nikon Coolpix that has been held together with gaffer tape for the last four years because the compartment containing the memory card broke and it would have cost more to fix it than to buy a new camera! You can see it in all its gaffer-taped glory below, courtesy of my friend Rhiannon:

This is a massively old photo, taken in South Africa August 2011, but there. My old camera.

My new camera, on the other hand, is utterly beautiful. It's a Fujifilm X30 and I love it so much. After many agonizing hours of research on the internet, I decided that this was the best camera for me; all the reviews compared it in terms of quality to far more expensive cameras, so in my price range it didn't seem like much else matched the Fuji.

Since I got it, my feelings have been confirmed! It's a beautiful camera; pretty chunky, but I always carry all my stuff in a shoulder bag anyway so it's not essential for me that it fits in my pocket. And because a picture tells a thousand words or something, here's a few shots I've taken with it.

All photos are unedited, mostly because I haven't got round to pirating installing Photoshop on my laptop yet.

In conclusion, 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND. This camera is lovely. My only complaint about it is that I ended up taking some pictures in RAW format that wouldn't upload onto my computer, and they're now stuck on my camera, because it appears to be the default format. Customer support has so far been unhelpful...

Met in Thee Tonight.

It's Christmas Eve!

As a Proper Adult or something, I've been helping with the preparations a lot more than I used to. This has involved mostly cooking: so far I've made fudge, Christmas pudding, mince pies, and the Christmas Eve dinner (butternut squash tagine. YUM). I promised my younger siblings I'd make eggy bread for Christmas breakfast, too...

Since my last entry, I've finished uni for the term, gone to visit my good friend Havanah in Amsterdam where she studies, had a hellish time getting home to Devon from Oxford on the train, had to miss out on a party, gone shopping with my best friend, and not revised any of my Latin vocab. I'm very happy, really. I love spending time with my family, and I'm looking forward to seeing my friends from home after the Christmas mayhem.

I'm in a very Christmassy mood this year, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because Oxford always gets going early for Oxmas and it gets you in the mood. Maybe I was jolted into it when I went to my college carol service, which was amazing. But I'm really looking forward to Christmas - I love Christmas - and everything in the lead up to it has been exciting. Our tree has been up since about the 16th, I think, and looks as gloriously tacky as ever, with the decorations I made when I was 2 years old and living in Edinburgh. They include yoghurt pots covered in tinfoil masquerading as bells, to give you an idea!

To anyone also looking forward to Christmas tomorrow: merry Christmas! To anyone who isn't: merry 25th of December!

Science and New Zealand and Graduate Anxiety

Yesterday I went to an archaeology talk about radiocarbon dating and how it can be used in archaeological debates, specifically over the rise and collapse of the First Egyptian State. The talk itself was really interesting - Egypt! Science! I haven't studied any science since I was sixteen, and sometimes I really miss it. But what has really stuck in my head was when some of us, including the lecturer, went to the pub after.

Now, this lecturer is from New Zealand, and only came to the UK for his DPhil. We got onto talking about academia and careers and all that, and he brought up that, in his opinion, British students had a lot more expectations and pressures put on them than their NZ counterparts. Not only do you start specialising a lot earlier in the British system, but you're expected to go straight out of university into a good, graduate-level job and if you don't make it within a couple of years you've missed your window of opportunity. Whereas in NZ, it's pretty common to take a few years off after graduation, travel, live abroad (dear lord do Kiwis travel. Whenever I'm abroad there are New Zealander backpackers everywhere), and then settle down.

I think the thing about having a narrow window in which you're able to get a good job before the next generation of graduates overtakes you is worryingly true. My uncle is 26, and graduated in the recession from a very good university, but there was no way he could find a Good Job straight away, and he didn't really want to anyway. So he worked for a polo company and went to all sorts of places on tour with them, and travelled a bit, and worked as a chef back in his hometown... all things that he really enjoyed! But it meant that by the age of 23/24 he found it very difficult to get that Ideal Job that you're supposed to have, and after a half-hearted attempt at training to be a solicitor he ended up joining the army, to the thorough disapproval of almost the entire family.

I'm only in my second year of my degree, and I'm already supposed to be networking, getting internships, doing things that will appeal to future employers. But honestly, all I want to do after graduation is get back into the habit of reading non-fiction for pleasure (it's amazing how much hatred you can have for reading academic texts in your downtime after being surrounded by them for eight weeks) and to go travelling. I want to learn more languages and improve the ones I know, I want to work abroad, I want to do something utterly unrelated to my status as a BA graduate, like going back into music teaching.


But I'm afraid if I do that, I'll miss my chance. Wah wah life is unfair.