Educating Rita.

This play is possibly my favourite play. It's written by Willy Russell who also wrote Blood Brothers and a play called One for The Road that my mum auditioned for! It's just such a beautiful play and is all about literature and the English language so naturally, je l'aime. See the interesting contrast there? I talked about loving the English language...in French. Haha!
    Anyway, Rita is this beautiful twenty six year old Scouser hair dresser who is just SO WITTY and so intelligent. She goes to the Open University to learn because she wants to find herself and she meets Frank, her alcoholic tutor who she describes as a geriatric hippie. The first time Frank sets her an essay, the question is something like "How could one overcome the staging difficulties in Ibsen's Peer Gynt?". Rita answers with "Do it on the radio." I'm sorry but that is just hilarious! It's so, so clever because it's just ridiculously true. It's a completely valid answer; how could you fault it? Oh and believe you me, I have wanted to "do a Rita" in many of my essays!
    Okay, so what I love most about the play is that there's this underlying romance/sexual tension throughout the scenes. I mean Frank CLEARLY fancies Rita a bit; he thinks she's gorgeous and Frank manages to change Rita and so she just obviously fancies him a bit too. It's just so good! I got reminded of this play when I wrote the word assonance in my last post. There's this part when Frank tries to explain assonance to Rita but she's just like "assonance is getting the rhyme wrong". Which to be honest, it is! It's just that no one would ever say that. They'd come up with some long winded explanation to describe it as a meaningful literary technique which yes, it is but it's also just...a wrong rhyme.
     Rita is the character I would love to play more than any character in the whole wide world (except possibly Elizabeth Bennet or Hermione Granger). I'm not sure I could do her justice because she's just SO AMAZING but I would try. I'm not sure I could EVER be as good as the fantastic Julie Walters though. She plays Rita in the film and she's an inspiration. She's just got the perfect cheeky Rita grin that gets you everytime and the on-screen chemistry between her and Michael Caine as Frank is just stunning. Oh, my heart's beating just thinking about it! I need to read the play again but I haven't got a copy and mum threw my video away when the video machine started to eat all the tapes it was getting so ancient. I must buy a copy of the play and a copy of the DVD asap! Anyway, that's Educating Rita for ya. There's an example of an actual rhyme, not assonance. Oh and here's a picture of that pure chemistry between Frank and Rita in the film that I was talking about. That some people think doesn't even exist. But it soooo does.

Sally x

CJ.

This is CJ from Eggheads. He honestly just isn't a real person! He is such an aggravating character. He seems to know so much but gets ridiculously grumpy if he doesn't know it when it's perfectly obvious he won't know everything. He's excessively arrogant and just smirks at the poor contestants on the other team! I really don't like CJ. This is why I need University Challenge back; in order to gain my fix of intellectual quiz show! Please, don't make me put up with CJ any longer. There is always Mastermind though. John Humphreys is really cute!
Sally x

Unwritten essays.

   This title is supposed to be a bit of a paradox. I most definitely should be writing a Philosophy essay this very second, hence title but instead shall continue to write this blog which could constitute as an essay. Clever, huh? No, I know. However, it is being written at the demand of dearest malade Katie Tottman and probably as a nice little bed time story for grumpy Heather May. So really it's more of a priority than aforementioned essay! Yeaaaah. These next paragraphs will bear no relevance and will just be brief accounts of "stuff" I have observed today:
   It's weird isn't it how my brother and I have very little in common. We barely talk and I'd never refer to him as my friend when other siblings are just ridiculously close! But then today, dad rang and I just asked him if he'd made friends and if people were being nice to him, you know, as you do because I want to make sure he's okay and then Nick (mon frere - I know I'm missing the grave accent, I just don't know how to do one) gets the phone and asks him precisely the same questions as I did. Haha! Weird.
   I kicked the day off with double Ethics with the dear old German hamster who is beginning to grow on me. It was alright, we're planning our medical ethical investigations and so she did a whole double lesson on abortion stuff. It was so fun to realise that Christians predominantly don't believe in abortion because of "the sanctity of life" (the idea that it would be doing something that only God should control ie, taking life.). Their reasoning is nothing to do with the effect it could have on the female or the child's life when it's born. Oh the humour! I am always particularly vocal with my views in Philosophy and Ethics haaa and I produce some rather fervent head gestures as well as to whether I agree or disagree.
    In French, the teacher wasn't there (and neither was my Katie :( :( ) so we had a chat. I'd love to say we practiced for our orals or discussed current issues in French but to be honest, we just didn't. We talked about people on drugs and how scary it is, the supreme difference between private schools, grammar schools and state schools, dads thinking they're cool, drunken events and tomorrow's certificate evening. Emily has to sit on her own because she's getting a special award, haha! It was brilliant.
     I then had my Year Seven drama club. Today I concluded that they are stupidly loud, obsessed with death and fighting. They're all female and aged between eleven and twelve. I am slightly scared of them! However, it was extremely cute how excited they became when I told them the plan for Alice In Wonderland and you always get the odd few stealing glances at you whilst they're acting, trying to impress you because you're the teacher and hoping you'll glance at them. I know this because I used to kill myself doing it! When you actually are the teacher though, you prefer not to look at any of them whilst they're rehearsing and just wait until they produce the madness that is their "performances" at the end. Adorable! When I was leaving, there were a few wobbling along in front of me excitedly asking each other who they were going to audition for. I felt so proud and responsible! Bless them.
     After this, I popped to work to check my Saturday shift. The hotel is dead and my shift is eight til four!!! Early start but at least an early finish. You've got to have some sort of compromise! Oh, on my way there I saw a man selling key rings to fund holidays for disabled children. He was dressed as Batman and was absolutely drenched. Naturally, I made sure he knew all about where my money was going and how it would benefit by giving him a good grilling and then bought one. He called me smiley! What a nice man. I then missed the bus after finding out my shift times but luckily saw my friend Jack so we had a nice chat. Oh, that's assonance! Chat and Jack almost rhyme. Okay, maybe not. I then got the bus, trundled home in the rain, plonked on the sofa and haven't really moved since. I have read my book and watched numerous episodes of Come Dine With Me whilst Twitter bitching about the stupid cow who was so up her own bottom it was ridiculous.
     I still need to finish reading my Medical Ethics chapters, write my Philosophy essay and then sort out my certificate evening outfit. We have to wear a white shirt and black skirt; I am going to customise with extravagant jewellery to show I am not a conformist. Bonne nuit tout le monde. Oh, and Heather; cheer up sexy pants :)
Sally x

Custard creams.

    I think I'm addicted to them. I honestly do! This always happens. We get ANY new type of biscuit in the house and I form a brand new addiction. This time it's custard creams! This is not actually going to be the predominant feature in my blog today; I just thought it'd look like a cool title. I was actually going to talk about the first day back to school.
   I started the day oh so well. I went to bed late last night and so naturally couldn't be bothered to transport various essays from laptop to home computer in order to print them off. This meant I had to that this morning and pack my school stuff whilst making myself look half decent. In this area, I failed but luckily, I didn't miss the bus which was nice and even more luckily there was no-one there who I had to talk to so my iPod and I shared a long journey wrapped up in each other. School was nice; I really do like it! In English we did a nice Tennyson poem; ooo it were pretty and very though provoking. Then I had Drama in which we did a few Stanislavsky exercises. I really wish I wasn't so tired and hadn't just exhausted my brain power sorting out Year Seven production stuff (more about that in a sec). Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Stanislavsky is a Russian practioner who believes in basically, real life acting. As in acting that doesn't look like acting. If you get me. This really is only brief!!! Today, we did an exercise in which we all had to envisage ourselved walking through a door. We pictured the situation in our heads, developing it and creating a character and a reason for them wanting to go through aforementioned door. We then all had to, when we felt the time was right, get up and act this out in our various spaces in the room. It was very, very surreal! Stanislavsky believes in an impulse which basically means that when the actor feels the time is right and doesn't even have to think about doing something but it is just utterly compelled to do it, they have mastered the art of impulse acting. Anyway yeah, we didn't know this until after the exercise! It was so strange because as I was sitting in my chair, I began to feel myself feeling like my character and taking on all her characteristics. My face began to creep into a smile and my heart started beating so hard at the thought of what was on the other side of the door! My stomach almost lurched with the adrenaline my character was experiencing and before I knew it, I was up and acting out (but not really because I was my character) walking through the door with the character and situation I'd imagined. What was even more surreal was that some of the others had felt EXACTLY the same way. SPOOKY!
    At the end of the day I had French which was much nicer than I expected. Both teachers were in jolly moods and I have decided to try RIDICULOUSLY hard in French from now on so I even offered to read. Woo!
    Lastly, I got home and decided to start planning this year's Year Seven production. We decided to do Alice In Wonderland because it's got lots of fun characters and is hopefully something eleven and twelve year olds will enjoy! I've been in it twice; once when I was eleven as Alice's sister and then again when I was fourteen as the Mad Hatter and loved it both times! However, I've just cut all the songs because there is no way I'm teaching them the harmonies and what ever, haha. So yeah, I found myself a cheeky little script; spell checked it, edited it, cut bits to make it shorter and generally just sorted it out. I was having a bit of a creative burst at this point so I went through the script and wrote out a character list in order of appearance so the girls can see which characters are available for them to play. Then, I wrote out a letter explaining how the audition process for the girls would go that can be put in each of the Year Seven forms' registers and finally, I scoured the script for three audition pieces; one for one person, one for a pair and one for three people. Each of appropriate length with a bit of background information of the story up to that point to avoid confusion! Now all that's left to do is decide with the others when to hold the auditions, book the drama room for the auditions, create audition sign up sheets (someone else can do that, I'm fine with typing but when it comes to logical tables...oh god no!), pin all the information up on the noticeboard outside the drama room, photocopy about a thousand audition pieces (I'll ask my drama teacher, haha!) and then actually hold the auditions! Then simply casting, direction, costumes, make up, set design, music and deciding a performance date to go. OH MY GOD! I much prefer being an actor but I suppose this is exciting too.
Sally x
   

Mug collection.

I do this so much! Basically, I hord myself away in my room, pretending to do work whilst instead I just think or read or Facebook or sing or Tweet or whatever. Mum is lovely and often makes cups of tea so I get them quite often which creates a build up of mugs in my room. I then have to take them all downstairs in one great clink when Mum shouts about how she can't find any mugs. Oh, and I don't actually have the mug in the picture but I want it now. I couldn't find any pictures of my favourite mugs, mainly because they're from my childhood and don't exist anymore! They could probably be sold for quite a lot of money now. But no! They're my youth.

Sally x

David Tennant.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OH I HATE EVERYTHING. I was going to do this as a shrine to David Tennant and explain how much I fucking love him and prove to the world that he is the most genius and gorgeous and best actor in the whole entire world. BUT NOW!!!! I type his name into Google to get a nice picture and HE'S GETTING MARRIED. HE ANNOUNCED IT TODAY! AND THE DATE IS MY FRICKING BIRTHDAY. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! HE LEFT DOCTOR WHO ON MY BIRTHDAY AS WELL. WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?! I AM GOING TO WRITE HIM A LETTER. AND HE ANNOUNCED HE WAS LEAVING DOCTOR WHO WHEN I WENT TO SEE HIM IN HAMLET FOR MY BIRTHDAY. I DETEST HIM NOW!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. :( :( :(
Sad and devestated Sally x

School and other such abominable things.

Alas, that time has come. The time when one must don the old school bag and drag oneself, eyes half open and make up done horrifically with potential slag lines, through whatever weather that is being hurled to the bus stop. Oh the joys! Yeah, okay so it's school tomorrow. OHHH GOD! I actually really, really like school. However, demain is a full day of double English (parfait!), double Drama (bien!) and then double French (MERDE!). Oh god, okay, French. I love the French language, I really do and I loved French at GCSE level BUT A Level is just so hard. Haha, pointing out the obvious, good one! But I'm supposed to be writing a French essay right now but instead am moaning about it to you poor people who are most likely quite susceptible to a bit of the old procrastination as well. Anyway, yeah, school. I am looking forward to going back; I love being sixth form because we can drink coffee in our frees and stuff but I also have really enjoyed doing nothing. Don't you always find it's just perfect? And when it's time to go back you think you should have done more and you just wish you could turn back the clock to whenever it was that you were happiest in the holidays! I want that first day back again. PLEEEEASE! I am not, however, that naive and am fully aware that I am not Rose Tyler and do not have The Doctor (OHHH DAVID TENNANT) in love with me so cannot possibly do this. I reiterate; merde. I shall have to sit here and sulk and read David Tennant's biography like the sad, lonely girl I am. AND I GOT CANCELLED ON FOR DINNER TONIGHT! He asked me and then he cancelled. Rude! I suppose I should do my French essay as well. It's about Father Christmas, haha even better. That season's over with! Oh what a pessimistic creature I am.
Sally x