The Word

Had an excellent lecture today that was largely about writing dialogue, but with the intention of stressing the value of recording what you're doing in your practical work. It's sound advice and (like most sound advice) it tends to go unheeded by me because I'm terrible and lazy. My physical theatre journal does not get updated as often as it should, and it's something I've been meaning to rectify lately. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I wanted to journalise my progress as the degree goes but also to start a new writing project that I could come to whenever I wanted and could just generally *practice* writing with. My old blog was often a bit scrappy when I was out of practice, and given that I once intended to be a professional writer (I even went for a career in journalism at one point), it's a pretty poor state of affairs when I can't actually formulate a decent post that's interesting to read (I'm well aware that *none* of this is interesting to read) and I want to get back into the habit of writing lengthily and often (hence my wibbling on about Fruit Gums and the Richmond Filmhouse), so you'll just have to put up with it.

But yes, the lecture went well with a short and delicious 'post script' where we looked at an article from The Sun moaning about how prisoners in Whitemoor (including a man convicted for plotting a terrorist attack) are being given standup comedy lessons as part of (*gasp*) a 're-habilitation' program. I'll stop while you catch your breath at the mere *notion*. The point of interest was that the guy running the course has done some workshops at the university with the Applied Theatre group and others, and seemed to be being personally lambasted by The Sun for his part in the program. Needless to say the article was traditionally Sunny.

Discussing the issue however did bring out some fairly strong opinions in the room which I was rather surprised by. The relationship with fellow university-goers is an odd one because it's one that's forced to be very intense very quickly. I'm in another odd position because I live in my own hovel out away from the halls of residence where the huge majority of the year group live. As a result I'm somewhat detached from a lot of the extra-curricular socialising and soforth, which I'm quite happy with in some ways because I did all that about eight years ago. As I'm from the area, I'm quite happy with my own social life and haven't had to go off to university and make loads of new friends out of necessity. Anyhow, I've noticed lately that some people get wound up very easily by other people as a result of their being forced together in this way. This is why I'm quite fortunate in my position because I can go home at the end of the day and forget about anything that's annoyed me, but if you're living right there with the people you work with all day every day, there's no escape and I suppose everything just builds up and explodes now and then.