Thanksgiving

It should, perhaps, come as little surprise to those who know how much my mom enjoys cooking / how well my mom cooks that I didn't really think about the fact that "it's nearly Thanksgiving" should've equalled "I should probably think about, say, getting food and how to cook it", rather than just assuming that delicious food magically appears. So, I arrived home at 4PM after working on campus all morning on my muslin mock-up of my bustle/jacket and having a meeting/lunch with the costuming MA girls; what was probably supposed to be a working/intellectual discussion meeting eventually turned into a giggle fest as we made massive fun of the Fine Arts students and their "organic discoveries" and debated leaving the extra chocolate muffins somewhere around the campus with a sign declaring them to be an "interactive art exhibit" that required the audience to eat the muffins for the performance art to be performed. Good times. Anywho, I came home at 4, stopped by Lidl's for a whole chicken (I couldn't find a turkey, and - frankly - I like chicken better anyway), potatoes, carrots, rolls - you know, food. I sent out text messages inviting people along, and Abigail popped into the room a moment after I sent hers (whoops, she was home and just down the hall) - after popping the chicken (now *named* Turkey) in the oven, we wandered down to Marks and Sparks and picked up some sparkling white wine and mulled red. Thankfully for all involved, soon after arriving home, Ciaran and Zara arrived, and I put them on Turkey duty, seeing as they actually have spices and herbs and garlic and onions and yams and all that stuff. (Woot!)

In the meantime, as the meat and veg were cooking, I popped a bunch of honest-to-goodness pan popped popcorn, apples and caramel, and rolls, while everyone else arrived. Abigail made a playlist of "Thanksgiving" songs, though they basically ended up being songs she liked that were loosely tied to America, food, or just being together. While the food was cooking, we all channelled our inner eight-year-olds, turning construction paper into Indian head-dresses. Well, most were Indian head-dresses - Mione's was an impressive headband with cut-out lettering spelling "Happy Thanksgiving", Patrick's feather was actually a spiral that 'boinged' (and poked him in the eye several times during the evening), and Danny's (as she was the resident Canadian) was a maple leaf (although... well... she had to explain what it was). We also informed her that, as she had already HAD her Thanksgiving, she wasn't allowed to be thankful. So there. 

Once the food was cooked and arrived, we carved up the Turkey (well, Amy, then Patrick, then Mione carved it), then sat in a big circle, eating and going around saying what we were thankful for. Well, all but Danny (the Canadian). "Shut up, I'm trying to be thankful!" - Patrick. We finished up the meal with little apple pies and chocolates, then basically laid around the room for awhile, talking, arguing American football vs. rugby, throwing things at each other, and reading scripts. Like you do.

At around 11PM, I called home and, with the help of Patrick and Ciaran, got Skype working and got to see everyone back home. (Yeah!) After that, we just hung out, checking out such Thanksgiving-esque stuff online as stuffonmycat.com and Kate Beaton's comics, until Patrick, Mione, and Ciaran left to go to bed and I took one look at the dishes and said, "Um, I'm going to bed too!" :) Abigail promised to stop by later today to help me clean, so I'm going to take her up on that offer. (heehee) She also took more pictures than I did, so I'll put some of hers up later when I get them. 

On a side note, I looked up the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special and YouTube and absolutely hated it - I never liked Peppermint Patty, and the whole of the special revolves around her being a total brat. And no Lucy! (grumble) I guess between the Great Pumpkin and the Christmas tree, they can't all be winners. I did, however, watch the Thanksgiving West Wing episode "Shibboleth", and still giggle inanely at Sam's Pilgrim Detective TV series. 

"A Play is Play"

I managed to get home without picking up muslin from the millinery closet. But I had a vision, I had an assignment, and I wasn't going to let a little thing like "not having materials" stand in my way. (I didn't for the garbage fashion show, did I?)
So, here is my "dualism" costume, done on my Ikea bodyform, made entirely out of paper towels. (I started with Kleenex, but it wasn't nearly strong enough for experimentation - besides, my sinus infection is still hanging around, so I need them)

Basic top and bottom - button up, collared, cap-sleeved shirt and long trousers. 

Added overskirt - with kimono/bustle back

And - ta-dah! - a few snaps unsnapped, some wiggling, and two rows of snap-tape snapped up, and - 

SUCCOR! SUCCOR! He will be my SUCCOR!

So, Songs of Praise is apparently filming at St Stephan's (sister church to St Peter's just down the road, though looking up St. Stephan's on their map suggests that it's quite close by... I think...) this weekend - granted, I only know the show through it coming to Dibley (see above - and do also look up part two and three to finish up the episode - the final big joke is just amazing), but I think I shall wander down and check it out come Saturday. If I find out that I'm going to be on the tele, I'll let you all know. :)
That said, I looked through their website to see what else was coming up at St. Stephan's and very nearly vomited into my mouth a little: two Saturdays from this one, they're having a movie night in the church. Please remember, this is a GORGEOUS late Victorian gothic church, with steeple, bells, stained glass, the whole nine yards - yet they're having a movie night. The movie? Mamma Mia. Yes, that Mamma Mia. With Colin Firth prancing about in an ABBA costume and Pierce Brosnan digesting huge chunks of scenery. But it gets better - what, oh what snacks could they provide to go along with this movie night? Digestives? Tea? Cake? Nope. (Brace yourself) Wine and hot dogs. Yes, I said it. Wine AND hot dogs.
There is no hope for humanity. I'm pretty certain Mamma Mia, wine, and hot dogs are one of the signs of the apocalypse.

Ummm...

Well... to be honest, the problem with having a blog for this trip to England is that, unlike my last trip to England, I'm not moving about every week, seeing new places and people. While I am having quite a bit of fun, I'm doing a decent amount of work as well, and generally spend my days in the same sort of ways - it makes for a fun life, but a boring blog. 

But, since I wanted to "update" you all, here's what's been going on over here:

My toaster died yesterday - I put in my morning muffins whilst getting ready for class and - pop, spark, smoke - the thing popped the fuse. Sadly, I discovered a moment later that said fuse was for every single fricking outlet in the flat - everything except the overhead light and the heaters was gone - and this includes my fridge and freezer. I went upstairs to one of the common rooms to blow dry my hair and called James - although he was as ambivalent again on the phone as he was about my window, he must've learned his lesson last time, because he was here at 4PM, flipped the fuse (it's in a box hidden away in the odd little "hallway" room between my room and the hallway, up against the ceiling), and even brought me a new toaster - a big shiny black one that does four pieces at a time. I'm wondering what else I could "accidently" break in order to get an upgrade. 

For all those who were wondering, I still have my American accent - there are just too many different variations on the "British" accent once you get over here to actually successfully mimic one - no matter what adaptations of Dickens and Austen would have you think. I'm falling into a British cadence of speaking, but I'm still quite American sounding. Whilst discussing what "British" things I should bring back to the states for Christmas, however, we passed by a bunch of typical British girls out for a night on the town: massively drunk and wearing, basically, gynecological robes. They told me to bring a scantily-clad girl back, to give everyone the true English experience, but I promised I'd do better, and simply dress like them, get massively plastered on the plane ride home, and stagger off the plane screeching, "MUMMY, DahDddy! Ah'm hoouuuwmme!" 

Dylan Moran was in town for one night of his tour - we managed to get tickets, only after continually forgetting about it and putting it off, then finally wandering over to the BIC to get tickets on the one day this past week that seriously felt like hurricane weather - torrential rain, winds that nearly knocked you off your feet, and absolutely freezing temperatures. Of course, it's been lovely every other day this week...

That said, the show was fantastic - here's a clip of his standup if you've never seen his work. Very funny guy. If you have an hour or two free, just watch everything on youtube by him. 

Afterwards, we went out for noodles and dessert (Mmm... chocolate fudge cake) and, in the course of the evening, it came out that nobody at the table (save myself) had ever seen "A Christmas Story". Needless to say, once December rolls around, we will be educating the British in quality American holiday films.

For Kristi - I got myself a Strongbow at the interval and thought of you. :) I was about halfway through it when 5 minutes were called - Ciaran asked if they needed to help me finish and I rather wish you had been there to give him a sarcastic laugh (I did it for you) - the drink was gone 2 minutes later. (Need help finishing my Strongbow, hah!)

And my early Christmas package arrived this morning - I wasn't sure why I was getting an ebay package from Missouri, until I opened it to find the Muppet Christmas Carol. Man, December is going to be GOOD TIMES for movie nights around here. :)

Huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world

Well, after my last post, I ended up going out to see the new James Bond movie with the group (while it wasn't horrific [unless you ask Ciaran], it was a good waste of time that I otherwise would spend futilely refreshing CNN's website, even while knowing that the polls wouldn't even close until well after midnight over here)

After getting back, we set up our own little election party (if you can't read Ciaran's sign, it says "Go Democracy") - we had a pretty decent crowd at the beginning of the evening, though many slowly but surely headed

 off to bed as the evening wore on. (Patrick and Mionne kept coming in and out to check in, and Julia stayed up until just about the very end) We set up the live stream of MSNBC (fantastic, as it was great quality and - happily - just went mute with a picture of the two candidates during commercial breaks)

After the majority of the East Coast had come in and we saw that it would be about an hour before we started to hear about the middle states, we put in Arrested Development and took a break from the talking heads. (A really fantastic choice - I highly recommend it next time) We tuned again for the middle states to come out, then went back to AD for the next break. We pulled out the bags of American candy, as well as stuck a pizza in the oven. Patrick stuck his head in to say goodnight (and good luck) sadly only about 5 minutes before the West Coast (woot!) was called, and Obama was officially put over the 270 mark.

There was much whooping and hollering and loud music and candy thrown and dancing around the room. But, more to the point, we all kind of looked around and realized that we had just lived through a historic moment - right there and then. 

I loved being there with Brits, because I got to hear their perspective - not only from a European "we love Obama" perspective, but also to hear their take on American politics vs. British politics - and their views on Maggie, Tony, and Gordon. They marveled at the vote counts - over 50 million votes for each candidate. We cheered as the electoral votes for Obama just kept going up, and basically started to go a little crazy from the adrenaline, the fact that it was well past 5AM, and the massive amounts of sugar flowing through our veins.

We kept the video going to watch McCain's concession speech - for my part, I was really, really glad that this was such a clear-cut election, and that McCain got out there so soon - although I suspect that the polarization of America isn't going to go away that soon, thank God this wasn't another "we'll know in a few days" kind of election. We all agreed that McCain's speech was well-written, well-delivered, and very gracious - we also all agreed that he looked like he very desperately needed a nap and a cessation of stress and anxiety. And major kudos to Steve Schmidt for keeping Palin from making her own speech at the concession - the moment was John's, and he did an excellent job with a heartbreaking task.

Finally, Obama came out to give his acceptance speech and, after much screaming and cheering, we shushed and hushed and all - comically nearly simultaneously scooted our chairs closer to the computer. The speech was magnificent. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was Toby and Sam's writing, with some WG Snuffy playing in the background. We let out a cheer when he mentioned those of us listening abroad (and, when he mentioned those of us in the 'forgotten corners of the world', someone muttered, "that's us!" to laughter), and by the end of it Zara and I were crying, though I suspect the red eyes in the rest of the room were not entirely due to the lateness of the hour. True to the fact that I was surrounded by film students, when Obama was joined onstage by Biden and their families, se

t to music and lit beautifully and surrounded by cheering, crying people, we couldn't help wonder aloud if we had accidently put in a movie, rather than simply watching the news. 

Since it was nearly six, we simply hung out talking until 6:15, when we all (save Ciaran) wandered down to the bus station, gibbering maniacally and randomly shouting out YES WE CAN to any pointless question asked. Zara and I got off near Cemetery Junction, where we walked down to Bournemouth U in search of pancakes - when we found that the school cafeteria didn't open until 9, we simply went back to her place for Cornflakes. I arrived on campus to "help" with a film project of Julia and Patrick's - only to basically collapse on a bench outside the costume shop, coughing like the living dead. (Between the cough I already had, the screaming, the crying, the lack of sleep, and the very, very cold air, I didn't sound all that great) Patrick and Julia put me back on the bus, and I came back home and crawled into bed. I unfortunately woke too late to join the group for Bonfire Night in Wimbourne, but Bournemouth is having a fireworks festival this weekend, so I'll just head out to that and pretend it's still the 5th. :) 

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

Today (being Tuesday) was my day for hauling myself out of bed early and heading into campus for tutorials and staff-led seminars - we had a "research methods" lecture from Ronnie, which was interesting information (for the most part) interspersed with the most random pictures and video clips - he had informed us up front that he tried to make the lecture more "lighthearted" and "amusing" so we wouldn't be terribly bored. :) An hour and a half break gave me time to go turn in books at the library and pick up some new ones - I realized that I was truly entering into the spirit of an MA program when I realized that, after browsing through the shelves upon selves of wondrous costume books, I ended up checking out 2 biographies of Elizabeth I, a sketching book, and a book on drag. :) Back to the room where we had a staff-led seminar on the topic of audience - except that "audience" when by the wayside as he began to meander off the topic of user-interface technology redefining audience (youtube, blogs, flickr, second life, etc) and began to just show off favourite new technologies. Interesting, but you arrive at the end of it going, "... huh." 

THE POINT of coming on to post today, however, is that every single person in my MA asked me straight off from seeing me, "Did you vote?!" I assured them that, yes, I mailed in my overseas ballot over three weeks ago. Again, the level of knowledge of the current political state over here is pretty impressive - everyone wanted to know when the polls closed, and many were able to list some of the swing states, wanting to know where they were, so they could keep an eye on them. 

On a bragging note, a few nights ago Julia and I were up super late and talk fell to the election -I mentioned that one of the big things of this election was the incoming President's ability to elect new Supreme Court judges. Which led to explaining the Supreme Court, judicial, executive, and representative powers, the Senate and the House of Representatives, checks and balances, how a bill becomes a law - I was a one-woman Schoolhouse Rock and I really managed to surprise myself with how much I remembered from 11th grade Civics with Mrs. Campbell. :) (West Wing tends to help, too, though) 

That said, it's after 6 here, but obviously the day is just getting started over there - if you haven't already, go out and vote! (If not for all the people of the world who are going to have to deal with him just as much as you will, only they don't get a say in the selection, then for me! Or, if not for any of those reasons, go vote so you can get some free Starbucks. :) 

   

Halloween

I guess it just depends on where you go - the illustrious Katy Strange mentioned last year that she didn't really have any trick-or-treaters, and that she had to push the party organizer to do anything. Over here in Bournemouth, however, there was definitely a feel in the air that it was Halloween. (Granted, the stores didn't get as decked out in Halloween nick-nacks as the states do, but that's just because they're all covered in Christmas EVERYTHING. [And have been for some time...] ) Still, most stores carried a small section of costume accessories, and the town organized a family Halloween event down in the lower gardens - face painting, magicians, the local dance troupes danced to Enya (sure, why not), they had a pumpkin carving contest (as pictured - it was quite lovely seeing them reflected in the small river, though I did rather miss the smell of carving my own pumpkin, then letting it burn with a candle in it until it started to go) I do seem to remember that we have a great picture of young Bonnie holding up a smily-face pumpkin, with young Scott angrily stabbing his unmercifully in the background. Good times.

But what is a costumer to do, with such a short time to prepare and no Jo-Ann's in sight? I took stock of my wardrobe - at which point "little black dress... black heels... eureka!

(I did actually have a cigarette holder, I just couldn't get the touchpad to work with a glove on, so I had to have one hand free and glove-less)

I ended up buying a fall and the tiara and - yes - I made the joke several times that it was more hair than I will EVER have on my head throughout my entire life - combined - and I kept laughing as it gave me another probably 4-5 inches of height that I kept forgetting about until I'd get it caught in something. On the plus side, I managed to fool quite a few people into thinking it was my real hair - after putting these in hundreds of times on actors, it was the oddest sensation putting it into my own hair, as the sensory muscles of my hands knew what to do, but I couldn't see what I was doing. I imagine it's equivalent to field stripping a gun blindfolded but, not having done so (and, I'm sure, those who would do so would get a kick out of me comparing it to putting in false hair) I can only imagine.

The party here in the Halls started at 9 - at some point we left for Benn-with-two-N's house, then wandered off to Adam's in Winton. Most people called me simply Audrey Hepburn, though I did get a "Lady Di". Of course, I was going with Mionne in a full bunny [think mascot type] costume (a bunny wearing a bra and panties stuffed with sweets, no less), and that rather attracts the eye a bit more. The pot dealers were out and about at the second party and Patrick and I had rather a laugh at one of them who was quite completely off his gourd, but still trying to explain to us that pot opens up your mind - all the while forgetting what every other word he was trying to say was. He tried to explain American history to us (which I got quite a kick out of), eventually leading to his explaining about a movie about pot - when I guessed he was referring to Reefer Madness, he took it into his head that I obviously must be / have been a pot-head. I didn't even bother to try to explain to him that not a day would go by in the SPU theatre without someone singing "Reefer Madness: the Musical". When even standing upright on a level, unmoving surface is difficult, explaining the madness that is SPU theatre is a bit out of the question. :)

After rounding up the posse, calling a cab, and getting back to the halls (probably around 3?), we ended up hanging out, talking, and eventually - as all good evenings should end - putting in Arrested Development. Again, I was the obnoxious one laughing at all the jokes before they happened (though I tried to be quieter about it this time). Around 5:30, Patrick and Ciaran left, leaving me and Zara (who actually lived in Winton - closer to the second party - but had followed the crowd and come back with us), who crawled in to bed exhausted... then ended up talking US and UK politics until nearly 7.

All in all, a pretty damn fantastic Halloween. :)