snow covered fields

A few days ago I slagged off snow. Today, snow got its revenge.

At 5:30 this morning, the world looked pretty bleak. In the winter, you get used to waking up in the dark, but this was different in that it was ACTUALLY dark. Can't see my hand in front of my face, gonna fall out of bed and tread on my disco ball dark.

At 7:15, hopping on a train to Waterloo, the world looked slightly better. Slightly. It was getting light, and there were commuters to look at and I just love looking at commuters. Then I got on the train, the world suddenly looked a lot smaller. I found myself squished rather scarily between two fat businessman (I named them Bruno and Sven, after two porn stars I'd seen in a similar situation), one reading the Daily Mail, one reading The Sun. I picked the lesser of two evils and shamelessly read the Mail over Bruno's shoulder until he reached the sports section. My daddy was squished in between two identical fat businessman who refused to budge up, causing my father to spend the entire journey in a kind of limbo, his back not even touching the seat on account of his wedged-ness.

The fat businessman on my daddy's left looked really sad. He closed his eyes as soon as we left Farnborough and stayed that way. He was probably sleeping, but when he relaxed his face it went into a frown automatically, he reverted to that expression when he switched off and it made me quite sad. It reminded me of a Siegfried Sassoon poem about a sleeping soldier, which finishes:
"You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead."
I got to wondering if anyone prays for commuters; they all look the same, they all dress the same but they're not, they can't be. They all look so pissed off, all the time. I love them and hate them all at once.

At 8:30am, when I found our train and got us on it just before it pulled out of the station even though my dad has NO faith in my board reading abilities, I was feeling pretty good. Off we bobbed, leaving the skank of the city behind and zooming out into clean white fields of thick snow. Oh how Christmassy, I thought, oh how bee-yootiful.
Oh how wrong.

I listened to Natasha Bedingfield, only because I've been listening to my Idlewild single for quite a while now, and it was getting old. And by it getting old I mean I was starting to feel pathetic so I changed the CD. It hurt.

Arriving in Canterbury, 45 minutes late because of the snow (warning bells anyone?) we were greeted by the world's arsiest coach driver.
"You can get on you know, you're allowed to sit on the coach, I'm not gonna wipe the floor for you." He announced to a crowd of people who had no idea if it was the right coach on account of him sneaking off to have a fag instead of, uh, I don't know TELLING US WHERE THE HELL THE COACH WAS GOING?
He then severely threatened the cultural fabric of Canterbury by driving into every single bit of it.
Pavement? Yeah.
Lamppost? Hell yeah.
Pensioner? Bring it on, this coach is my monster truck!

We arrived at Kent Uni with a sense of foreboding. We stepped off the coach, it disappeared in a puff of fag smoke and suddenly we (all twenty of us) were alone. Alone in a snow covered Uni, with no idea where we were on account of coloured maps being useless when the whole world is white.

We started to walk. We started to slip. I started having flashbacks to the part of the programme that said CAMPUS TOUR. I'm sure Kent Uni is a lovely campus, but I saw none of it because my eyes were glued to the icy floor like a tongue to a frosty pole. I became vaguely aware of a bar, a library, some accomodation and then my toes started to complain.
They said: "Fi, love, your boots are leaking."

I'm glad I got those boots for £15 in a sale, because if I'd paid full price £65 for leaky boots then someone at Debenhams would have been found dead in a pool of slush.

I can't tell you how fun audition workshops are when your group is twice as big as planned beacuse the staff need to save time so that people can get out of the campus before we all get snowed in and everyone has smelly, bare, wet feet and you're slipping because Dumb Ass Existing Student (C) is making everyone RUN on the wet floor and you eventually leave 45 minutes later than they said you would because that irritating girl in the blue hoodie just wouldn't shut up about Brecht in the group interview.

Luckily I kicked ass in the group interview. We each had to say 2 or 3 sentences about A Practitioner We Respect and A Recent Production We Enjoyed.
Antonin Artaud, revolutionary theatre, total theatre, agit-prop, David Hare, Samuel Beckett, absurdism, nihilism, Lee Evans, Michael Gambon, selling out and staying true to the text summed up in 30 seconds, BOOM BOOM. I might have wet, smelly feet but I know what lecturers mean when they say Get To The Point.

At 7:15 I was supposed to be in Frimley at a dress rehearsal for The House of Bernarda Alba. I was in Ashford station, waiting for our driver to decide if he felt like taking us all the way to London or just leaving us there. We said, if he wanted to, he could pay for us to take the Eurostar from Ashford International to Waterloo. He grinned.
We left soon after that.

I got to my dress rehearsal, late, and found that I'm the only member of the cast who has issues about walking around in a thong and a bra. Thank the Lord it's an all female cast this time. Apparently the pantomime Dame last year had a tattoo above his backside saying "Insert Here". Damn, I auditioned for the right production, nothing but the odd bit of cellulite and people who are skinnier than me in OUR changing rooms.

I'm listening to: Idlewild, Don't Let Me change (choon).
I'm feeling: So tired. Also a little disturbed at my reaction to the trust excercises we did in the workshop today. I freaked out a bit and had serious difficulty falling into people's arms. Maybe it was my wet feet.
I love: Commuters, Siegfried Sassoon, snow (from a distance and only cos it's listening). Bagels.