Well, now that I’ve gotten through what I have been up to recently on the school side of things I thought I would take the time to let everyone know what I’ve been up to in my own time. I’ll tell you one thing, when you only have week-ends off it makes them a lot more special than usual. I try to take the time to seize every minute of them because I rarely get the time to do a lot of personally constructive endeavours throughout the week.
First and foremost, I’ve been having a great time with my flatmates. Every week-end since the end of the break I’ve spent some time with any combination of them. A couple moments of going out to the city and checking in at pubs or clubs in Leicester Square and beyond. There’s one pub in particular in the area, Waxy O’Conner’s, that’s become quite the favourite recently. It’s a really nice Irish pub off Leicester Square in Chinatown that goes underground into an old church. It twists and turns in different rooms and even climbs up at the back where there’s a tree growing out of the floor. It’s quite the bizarre unique place and they serve a lot of different pints that I have not seen at a lot of different pubs. It does become quite crowded and has a club feel to it on the week-ends but it’s a definite must if you’re in the city.
I’ve also introduced my flatmates to the wonderful game of Beer Pong ha ha ha. Some of them already knew what it was but I’ve got a couple of them hooked. Mainly Nate and his friends who already had a pretty good handle on the game. It’s been fun over the last couple of week-ends to have the opportunity to chill on a Friday night and play a bit of Beer Pong before going out. It feels a lot like I never left Queen’s. A nice little nostalgic boost.
I have also been attending a lot of football over the recent days. This time of the year is filled with many different league matches as well as cup competitions in full swing. Fulham are currently in the FA Cup and I attended the Third Round match against Peterborough United with Meg and Laura. It was a complete blow-out with Fulham winning 6-2. I’ve never seen that many goals in one game live before and a Fulham player even got a hat trick! Combine that with the penalty shot that a Peterborough player was given and the two ladies pretty much got the full experience at their first match. The fourth round saw Fulham pitted up against Tottenham Hotspur from North London. A big rivalry and the atmosphere at the match was amazing. I went with Nate, Dani, and her friend Jocelyn (also their first match minus Nate) and we sat in the Home End a couple rows up from the pitch. Fulham took a big 2-0 lead early after two straight penalties were called and ended up embarrassing a very good team 4-0 to move on in the competition. Craven Cottage was absolutely filled with excitement and the chants that the home fans were singing were absolutely hilarious. This was definitely the best match I’ve been to since arriving in September. Jeremy also made a quick trip down at the end of January to attend the Crystal Palace match that I got tickets for as a Christmas gift. The pre-match was really fun as we met up with Richard from Protocol at a local Palace pub. The atmosphere there was great and we headed over to Selhurst Park for the match. Palace is doing very poorly at the moment so it was not a sell-out at all but we had really great seats. It was cold unfortunately and Crystal Palace drew 0-0 so Jeremy didn’t even get to see a goal! It’s the risk you have to take when attending a match though.
It looks like there’s a more football opportunity within the immediate future as well. England is playing a match in March, there’s the Carling Cup final in February, Fulham’s continued FA Cup run, more league matches, and Champion’s League matches too. All of these will of course be well documented by me as I may or may not attend them.
Besides these things I’m also taking the time to develop the artist in me. I’ve recently been cast in an upcoming production of “The Dog in the Manger” at the South London Theatre. The play was written by Lope De Vega in 16th century Spain. De Vega was a contemporary of Shakespeare and so the language, characters, and situations are very Shakespearian in nature. The script is a modernized version done recently for a production by the RSC so the language is updated from the ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ that characterize a Bard text. I am playing Teodoro, the male lead, who is caught in a love triangle between his love, Marcela, and the Countess of Belfor, Diana, for whom he is a secretary. Diana falls in love with Teodoro but because he is below her stature it is not an appropriate match and thus she will not allow anyone else to love him either. Teodoro becomes infatuated with the idea of becoming Count of Belflor but when it becomes evident this is impossible he attempts to return to Marcela. Lots of other ridiculous moments happen but it’s a very quirky almost dark comedy/love story. I’ve received the script and already begun work on it at this point. Rehearsals don’t start until February 22nd so I have lots of time to go through my lines and scenes in order to make notes. I don’t have to be off book for the first rehearsal but the director wants everyone to have a good idea of their characters and what they are saying in each scene for the initial read through. I can’t express how excited I am for this. I wanted so much to be a part of theatre while here as it gives me something else to focus on besides just teaching and being home. It also gives me a good outlet and allows me to hone those skills that I’m teaching in the classroom. I’ve also been in talks with the Roundhouse (a flexible space in Camden) over upcoming shows through their “Take Part 11-25” program in which they recruit people from that age range. They have my information anyways and said they would contact me when audition information became available.
Finally, I’m trying to do as much writing and reading as I possibly can. It’s part of my New Year’s Resolutions to try and be more proactive at reading and to start to get ideas and thoughts down on paper more. I have a lot of different ideas for sports related pieces that I’m starting to flesh out on paper at the moment which will make their printed debut on this very blog, so stay tuned for those! I also have an idea for a play that I’ve slowly been hashing out over here. I think I might jumpstart it soon though because there is currently a playwriting competition sponsored by The Times here in the UK that I would like to attempt to enter. I may lack the necessary skill at the moment to win such a competition but hey, why not try right?
I think that just about covers it! That pretty much sums up the entire month of January for you. Things have already gotten off to a great start in February and I’ll try to be a bit more frequent in my posts about the goings on.
Until then…
Cheers and love,
Erik
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