My Odyssey and Matchgirls

Sorry sorry sorry!

It's been too long! (again)

Quick catch-up because I'm due at the theatre in 45 minutes (more about that in a minute) and I still have to get changed and make my lunch...

So you all know I got stuck at home for an extra 3 and a half days thanks to the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull (pfft knows how THAT'S pronounced), which culminated in an epic journey back to the UK on my own.

This included a flight to Barcelona, an 18h coach from Barcelona to Calais organised by two lovely people on facebook and twitter who were trying to get their parents back home (props to Elizabeth and Joe for all their help!!), a 3h queue for a ferry, an hour and a half ferry from Calais to Dover and then I missed my train home by about 10 minutes.

This annoyed me greatly.

I ended up getting a 3h train to Eastbourne, staying with my godmother for the night and then catching another 3h train from Eastbourne back to uni the next day.

I left on Tuesday afternoon and arrived on Thursday afternoon. 48h total. Ugh.

I did meet some lovely people on the way though: an Irish guy who'd caught a last-minute train from Tarragona to Barcelona and managed to get on our coach with milliseconds to spare; a family of six who'd been travelling since Sunday from Morocco; a group of American girls who'd left Prague on Monday and were travelling back to uni in Scotland; the lovely volunteer lady who very kindly gave me a tissue when I went into hysterics after realising that the last train home had already left without me and then helped me figure out what I was going to do and how to get to the station...

To be fair, I was quite lucky. But it was still a pain in the ***!


Believe it or not, that's the queue of people waiting for a ferry to Dover.

And after that little Odyssey, we went into intensives for Matchgirls (the second year show I'm assistant stage managing for extra credit).

Sunday was the get-in. An absolute nightmare as our set (a 10-foot wooden wall) hadn't been made right, so we spent six extra hours fixing that, which then put us hours out of schedule and we didn't finish until 9.30pm.

Monday we did 9am until 7.30pm.

Tuesday was long and tiring: tech rehearsals. 9am until 10pm. Plus I lost my voice.

Wednesday: dress rehearsals. 9am until 8pm and I most definitely had no voice.

Thursday: last dress rehearsal and opening night. Drou, Kris and me had an epic laughing time but Jess was ill and didn't make it. I also went to the doctors and got diagnosed with laryngitis.

Friday (yesterday): had to postpone my singing assessment as still had no voice. Jess was half dying. We had a talk on our modules next year. Not happy at all. I'll talk more about this another day. The show was good. Again, Kris, Drou and me have SUCH fun backstage!!! Then we went to the pub with the whole cast and crew which was a laugh and a half I can tell you!

And today is the final show day. Matinee, evening performance, get-out and then After-Show Party at the pub with everyone! Should be good!


I'll post again soon, I promise!

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

Listening to:
Freedom - The Unauthorised Biography of Samantha Brown

PS. Listen to this song! It's amazing! Kerrigan and Lowdermilk. Check out their website for mp3 downloads, lyrics and sheet music to their brilliant shows!

70 Days

Or 2 and a bit months. That's how long I've been away from here!

Several of my home friends have been complaining that since I stopped posting on this 'ere blog, they have no idea what's up with my life (you'd think that twitter, facebook, MSN, fotolog and tuenti would be enough for them, but apparently not...)

So I've decided to return to the world of blogging.

To be honest I've missed it. Just writing down the daily craziness that occurs at uni...Because you guys have missed SO much! Which means that when I come back to re-read this thing ten years down the line, I'm going to have trouble remembering the best months I spent at uni. Sigh.

So many things have happened, changed and transformed over these past 70 days. I'm going to try and bring you up to date with the main stuff and maybe some random things that I remember on the way, so get ready.

This is going to be one VERY long post...

I want to start off by quickly introducing you to the Lovelies. We've become really good friends this term and I'm probably gonna be talking about them a lot so it's fair that you know who they are. Lizzie, Lucy, Gemma and Zoe are four amazing girls who live on my floor in halls. We all have blue eyes and enjoy noodles with gravy and cheese but we do different courses and enjoy different types of music, movies, books, boys and alcohol.

Lizzie is my next-door neighbour and we watch Eastenders together and she borrows my hairdryer. She is the first person I ever talked to at uni.

Lucy has the complete collection of FRIENDS episodes, an awesome large pink bouncy ball and has just moved out of halls and back home. She likes Simba from the Lion King.

Gemma's room is almost as messy as mine and she let me borrow her printer to print my boarding pass home. She has two virtual dogs called Herbert and Sherbert who she lets me look after sometimes.

Zoe and I have almost exactly the same taste in guys. We are the Harry Potter geekettes of Longbrook and we share a kitchen (with other people).

These are my Lovelies (aren't they lovely?) I'm trying to get them to come and visit me at home over the summer!

So. Quick recap of what I posted last time: I was working on stage management, going out a LOT, Production had yet to happen and I was in love with The Light In The Piazza.

Well. Production finished about three weeks ago. I was a "Bathing Beauty" and literally used up half a can of hairspray getting my hair to do the feathery-flicky-Farrah-Fawcett style thing. It went very well I think. It looked good from where I was anyway. We haven't got our marks back yet. Now we're working on our Production essays which have to be handed a week on Friday (ARGH)

Stage management is still being worked on. We have to hand in our work folders on the 10th of May and I'm already forseeing several all-nighters to get it finished in time... I'm working on the 2nd-Years' final production as Assistant Stage Manager so I'm doing that as my Special Project which means the next two weeks (intensive rehearsals and then techs, dress and show) are going to be long and hard...

February Reading Week meant home for a few days and then a fab trip to London with one of my best mates from home: Mei. We had massive trouble with our hotel when we first got there (do NOT ever book the CORBIGOE HOTEL!) but it got sorted and then we had a fab time spending in Primark, visiting Madame Tussauds, watching Wicked and then The Lion King, before getting the train to campus and showing her around my town for the next couple of days.

I went out a LOT last term (especially February and the end of January) which involved a lot of late night parties, early morning dance classes and sleep deprivation, but was SO worth it. I had a great time, met some AMAZING people (the Longbrook crowd and Kelly especially) and (hate to admit this but...) suffered some pretty intense hangovers.

And speaking of hangovers...

Say hello to RAG RACE 2010. About 1500 people dressed up in funny, brilliant and plain ridiculous costumes running around 12 pubs and 2 clubs in town...

Starting at 9am in the morning.

The girls and I had vodka and lemonade with our bacon sandwiches for breakfast before hitting the SU for a couple of hours and then town all day. Then back to the SU and then back to the clubs! I spent 18h drunk. Zoe and I spent the day running around taking as many photos as we could with different groups of people in their costumes. And you wanna know the best part? All for charity.
(We were biscuits)

(Fellow MTers Danny, Ben and Kris as Greek Gods)

(Spongebob!)

(About a third of the Gingerbread Men Army that made my day!)

(Avatars!)

As you can see it was a FAB day!!!

It's getting late and this is getting long so I'm going to leave this here and carry on tomorrow. Hopefully by the time I get back to uni next week this'll be (more or less) up to date!

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

PS. Please excuse any spelling mistakes, my spell-check is randomly only checking in Spanish!

PS2. DAMN VOLCANOS! I'm stuck at home till at LEAST Wednesday 28th of April... Lets see if I can post more randomness before going back!

Listening to:
2006 - Hello Saferide

It's Love...Not Santa Claus

I'm still doing Stage Management stuff.

Sigh.

I've done half of the costumes, but still have to finish the other half AND do my sketches and plan for our stage design of A Midsummer Nights Dream AND type out my learning outcomes for all three sessions AND do the prep work I never did for the first session...

Busy times.

But still fun times as well!

In production on Tuesday we did a read-through of the dialogue to help Maria (our director) sort out casting. Lots and lots of fun times. And then Maria decided to make us all say what our greatest long term dreams are. It was quite interesting actually...

Then it was 999 (Emergency) Night at the SU which was good. Lucy, Gemma, Zoe and me were nurses and Lizzie was a policewoman, Harry and Evan and the guys were fireman which was brilliant and there was even a few girls dressed as Ghostbusters which might be the most amazing thing I saw that night.

My night was kinda cut short when I slipped over in front of a group of guys and landed on my bum, hurting my hip in the process...

So I came home and had a lovely catch-up chat with Hector on MSN. He made me take note of a lot of things and remember a lot of stuff I'd been forgetting...

I think a shot of tequila in his honour might be in order tonight! Miss you babe...

Yesterday was fun too. Masterclass was BRILLIANT. Andy and Rosie sang The Marriage Tango from I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change with Tom and Shvonne doing the extra voices. Hilarious.

Had a nice quiet night in with the Lovelies and Ryan. Lucy, Lizzie, Sam, Louise and me went for a run along the beach followed by porridge (which I suddenly had a massive craving for) and 500 Days of Summer...

It's SUCH a sweet film. But really sad at the same time because just from the title you know it's not going to end well...

And today I had a massive lie-in, followed by costume design and now I'm remembering why I love Italians.

The Light in the Piazza.

Sigh. I might just have to move to Italy in the 1950's...

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

Listening to:
Say It Somehow - The Light in the Piazza

PS for GLEE fans: the original male lead of The Light in the Piazza is Matthew Morrison AKA Mr Schuester :)

As Demetrius said to Hermia...

I'm thinking updates on here are going to be a lot shorter and scarce this term... There's just too much going on!!!!!

Friday was pretty quiet. Had a lovely time just chilling at the pub with the others, gossiping, playing pool and just generally catching up.

Saturday...hmm. Well on Saturday I left campus with Harry and Dom at about 2.20pm for a dance session at Katie's musical theatre academy in Portsmouth that started at 3pm. Should have been absolutely fine...

Except we got lost.

After discovering that tomtom wasn't working, asking for directions at a petrol station, going to Southsea, ringing Dom's dad for directions, going back the way we came, ending up back where we started, asking a taxi man for directions, a packet of hula hoops, a banana and a whole LOT of swearing later...we finally turned up at 4.30pm, having missed the tap class and half of the jazz.

Fun times!

Then it was Geeks and Superheroes at Zee Bar with the Lovelies! Had a great pre-drinking time at Zoe's (who got back on Saturday!), attaching "Kick Me" signs to the girls' backs...

It was a great night, but by 1am my fabulous new killer-heeled shoe boots were MURDERING my feet so I spent the rest of the night curled up on one of the leather sofas with my feet tucked up and people-watching.

(I always enjoy people watching, but it's so much more interesting when the people are drunk...)

Sunday I was so tired I completely slept through my 10.30am alarm and woke up at 1pm...an hour late for Glee.

Oops.

Finally arrived at 3pm and had a great jam session with everyone on "One Day More" and "A New World". Curled up in bed by 7pm with "The Princess and the Frog" and "10 Things I Hate About You" (OHMYGOD HEATH LEDGER) but didn't actually get to sleep till about 3am...

Stupid brain.

And today has been dancing and Stage Management. A whole lot of giggly yet productive times with Jodie O., Jodie D. and Sarah.

And now I'm off to (try and) do my whole backlog of SM work (which is a LOT...)

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

Listening to:
Home - The Wiz (Diana Ross)

So much stuff!

Agh. Two weeks into term and I haven't updated this thing yet! Sorry sorry!

There's just been SO much going on!

Quick recap for your benefit:

Ballet, tap, disco, jazz, body conditioning, singing, Merrily We Roll Along, monologues, surprise birthday parties, PJ Party, hanging out with the Lovelies, Sheiks, facebook, Glee by the Sea, Toga Toga, Thursdays, vodka, rum, hangovers, Musical Theatre in the Community, new shoes, Stage Management, sticky tape, costumes, Morrisons, room-raped Andy's place with a million and one balloons (332 actually), signed and paid deposit for next years flat, Girls Night In with Dom and Jodie, truth or dare, sleep...

And I have photographical proof too!









See?

[I really like my camera... :)]

I promise I'll start doing normal updates though!

Tonight I'm supposed to be going to the pub with Rosie, Andy, Shvonne, Tom, Harry and others I know not of.

Tomorrow I will sleep and then I have extra ballet and jazz classes in Portsmouth (courtesy of our dance teacher Katie's school)

And then I am going to Geeks and Superheroes night at Zee Bar with the Lovelies.

Yay.

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

Listening to:

Freddy My Love - Grease

Christmas Holidays Last Part

I'm back at uni, and on Monday I'll start again with the Chronicles!

Happy New Year!

Rock on,

KATY xxxx

Christmas Holidays Part 2