...And I'm back!
I'm alive!
Rushed off my feet and fuelled entirely on tea* and biscuits, but very much alive!
(*Oh, I drink tea now. PG Tips, naturally.)
So what's new since my last post? Too much, but I'll list a few things for the sake of chronology in my blog history lol.
-6th November: Travelled to London to help out on the set of Dodie Clark (doddleoddle)'s sketch Santa's Not Real and it was just the coolest thing because I've never seen such big cameras in all my life, and there was proper lighting equipment and booms and everything!!! On top of this, Dodie and Sammy are creatives who I've respected and admired for years so to be asked to help them create something that I would have usually watched in my bedroom was such a privilege. Dear life, more of this please.
-19/20th November: Was in my first drama society production, The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol in the Gulbenkian Theatre, which was nothing short of an absolute blast and my biggest acting learning experience to date.
-21st November: My Pop celebrated his 80th birthday with a lil shindig in a fancy hotel and it was so lovely and I got a bit secretly emotional because it happened right at a time in term when things were getting a bit overwhelming and I was beginning to really miss home and it was the best therapy to see all my family and go swimming and pig out on proper food. I remember people asking me how I was finding University and I'm sure I said nothing but positive things, but as we were leaving, everyone said 'you've only got four more weeks/ it's the final push/it'll be Christmas before you know it' as if they could see right inside me and knew that I was hurting a little bit, and I don't think that example of total understanding will ever leave me. I've definitely come to appreciate my family SO much more since moving away, even the people I didn't see regularly when I lived at home, it's bizarre, my heart is a puzzle.
-7th December: Was in a wacky production of Martin Crimp's Attempts on her Life, directed by the students of the Directing MA course. I got to where a pink gingham dress and draw lines on maps with fake blood and it was a lot of fun haha.
-10th December: Jess, Lucy and I signed for a house for second year! It was stressful and fun and scary and exciting, but above all, we proved that we are smart independent women who may not know everything about the housing market but we sure know how to assert ourselves in front of unnecessarily patronising estate agents (shout out to Stuart and Dave).
-11th December: House 5 cooked the bestest Christmas dinner there ever has been and I'm still baffled as to how we managed it all with only one oven because in true Parkwood style, our second oven was out of action for the majority of first term.
-I spent 95% of my Christmas holiday working at the cinema, but even though by mid January I was getting ill and showing signs of mild insanity, I loved it and I wouldn't trade an hour of my time there for anything, except another episode of War and Peace with my Mum.
-31st January - Got given a part in my second drama society production; King Edward in The Wars of the Roses; an adaptation of Shakespeare's earliest history plays. We're setting it in a children's playground with proper toys and climbing frames and I'm so excited!!
Et voila, an update. Not as brief as intended, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for self reflection.
So back to now and my inspiration for this post. I have very recently realised that I complete everything in bulk, with a very 'all or nothing' attitude. By this I mean I (subconsciously, on the most part) let things pile up because I'd much rather deal with it all in one go than commit to the little and often approach that teachers, family members and doctors have preached to me all my life. For example, the time on the clock as I write these exact words is 03:35am and I'm sitting down having just tidied my room top to bottom because over the last week I let it mutate into a rather disturbing mirroring of Tracey Emin's infamous bed. I'm also waiting for my washing to finish it's cycle, because the early hours of the morning are as good of a time as any to deal with your dirty laundry, right? I've also just noticed in my peripheral vision how dry my hands are having spent half an hour washing up 3 days worth of cooking utensils earlier because once you've filled the bowl up, you might as well do the whole hog.
But my arguably dysfunctional way of dealing with life's demands doesn't just stop at the menial day-to-day chores. Instead, it manifests itself into all sorts of other tasks, most notably writing essays, reading, responding to emails and messages and shopping. It's funny, as I pondered whether this was a blog post worthy subject earlier I thought my only coverage was my laundry and course work, but low and behold I've gone and found heaps more examples and I can't work out whether this is a good thing or an awful thing, haha.
I think this topic is, in a way, an unintentional follow up from my post on procrastination I wrote in November 2014, because this way of dealing with things is undoubtedly a form of procrastination, but the very fact that I am able to categorise it now is an almost exciting development in my understanding of myself and my brain and all that jazz. What I'm also finding interesting in this field of thought is the fact that my feelings towards my chronic procrastination were once numbingly negative with an almost self-loathing taste to them, but now, when I speak of it so rationally and in a practical sense, I'm totally at peace with it. I am able to recognise the positives that can come from it, and I understand that arguably, leaving things until near their deadline is simply a different way of working. By lessening the time I can spend on tasks, I find I focus much more effectively and I'm forced to prioritise simply by not having a choice. The trick is not to leave things too late...there's a fine line.
So if I'm a little slow in responding to a message you've sent me, know that it's nothing personal, you're not the only one, I'm just waiting for something to pass so that I can give you the time I think you deserve.
Likewise, if you haven't seen me for a while, I'm probably slaving away over something I've left a little too late, but will be back on the scene in the click of a turnitin submission. It might just be worth encouraging me to go to bed at some point.
Oh, would you look at that, it's 05:45am...lol.
Night!
Ro is listening to: Old Money by Lana Del Rey
AND
All the Wasted Time - Parade, London Cast
(It sort of starts at 3 different points, depending on how much context you like - 0:00/1:43/3:00)
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