jack

Again I was a bit tired all day, but again I perked up in the evening a lot. Roleplaying was cancelled and I went to tolkien society games; this was really jolly. I didn't know how CTS was getting on as I hadn't been for ages, but the committee and other current regulars did seem to have been having fun. (It was nice that Emma's stint as president hadn't put her off.)

In beard news, I had two more favourite comments. Ewan's was simply "Ming the Merciless" which pleased me immensely. Emma's (one of the few most non-geek friends I know) was just a spontaneous "it really suits you", but completely spontaneous, not having seen me for so long it wasn't a shock.

When I've shaved, I've been remembered to leave some stubble in the pattern I want it to grow into (at the bottom corners, to bring them more square). It's really difficult, it's too easily to wake up and blearily hack all the stubble off without thinking. Come to think of it, I also need a hair cut some point this week. I need to try somewhere else, I basically just want it trimmed a bit shorter than this, but last time we couldn't get it right and we just shaved it back to grade mumblesmall and let it grow.

On Saturday was CTS AGM and Annual Dinner. It was very fun! The food was very nice -- a pleasant surprise from Newnham. We adjourned to sonicdrift's for port and cheese (ooh, very organised -- thanks to her! And to everyone else who helped).

I saw rochvelleth for the first time in ages *cuddle*!

We played with lightsabers (see rochvelleth's photos...), cuddled, chatted about all sorts of things, successfully stitched up a committee for next year, and generally had fun.

The CTS squash was good. It was about the same size as last year, and fewer members, I think, but many freshers were enthusiastic, and joined, and intend to come back. I hope the society has new life this year, now quite a few people have moved away from cam.

For the record, I am not an old mainstay of the CTS, even now, honest :)

It's always nostalgic meeting freshers :) They don't actually look that young, not more than when I was third year, but I find myself in conversations I first had six years ago, except now I know where they end, and can reliably out-pedant first year trinity mathmos by remembering what the comeback I worked out at great length last time :)

There are types (not all drawn from CTS). The tall thin slightly shy black-T-shirt-with-a-small-logo Trinity mathmo. The sweet waiflike girl who's going to take the assassins guild by storm. The guy with bushy hair who talks to everyone. The slightly shy one just on the edge of each group.

I stopped at games evening on the way back, and again confounded people who can play Blockus by playing intuitively, getting stymied and trapped on one side of the board, and then filling in all the gaps and ending up with one T-piece left at the end.

And after some doubt and democracy, there was a vast horde of CTS descending on the castle. Richard and Eni and Naath had just finished exams, most people had finished exams ages ago. Special guest stars were Owen and Emperor who are old CTS people but haven't been able to come in my memory. It was a very jolly crowd, I reiterate how much I love it :)

This might be the last of the recent spate; if I don't write as much I'll have more time to do things rather than explaining comments I provoked :) But this was a really nice evening.

I nearly didn't make it, but abandoned work at seven and cycled down to the CTS start of term innmoot at the Castle. The people I probably know *best* weren't there, but there were a lot of people, including Nick and Chess who only rarely make it these days but it was very nice to see, who I have now known for a quite a long time, and just about everyone there is lovely and interesting and easy to talk to, and I'd forgotten how nice the CTS crowd could be, when most of them I don't see elsewhere.

There was cuddling, and discussion of politics and glossolalia and immigration and housebuying and more Tim K. Top Secret LOTR plays :) and two different dinner parties plotted :) and a full termcard all but one event and a Sibbleying and a scrap of paper listing amusing/important things to look up and do, now transcribed. About the only thing missing was maths puns!

I didn't drink anything -- still being slightly spaced/hyper from lack of sleep after port last night -- but those had the same effect; I only worry I might have been slightly too manic at the start and too quiet at the end[1] :)

I was going to get to bet *early* but I should still get nine hours sleep and get up at a usual time, so tomorrow should be productive.

[1] OK, ok, A, I *am* you-know-who :)

Fuck again. Today overall went very well. Work went well, wrapped up by 7. Came home, had dinner and watched TV for a bit but not too long. Fiddled with breaks, answered email, ok.

Spent an hour getting CTS agenda, (hopefully) last announcements about the agm, and everything else written. Went the carlton. Know what I'm doing tomorrow so I don't put off going to sleep or getting up.

Except, fuck, guess what I did? I used winscp and ms word to write the agenda on my server space. Oops. It was in text only format, but with an rtf extension (oops). I saved it as rich text (double oops) because Word helpfully changed "agenda.rtf" to "agenda.rtf.doc". Then scp uploaded it when I closed word (treble oops) because it then deleted the directory.

When will I learn?

ETA: And then I spent half the night trying to propose a good compromise between having life members and not dinging freshers for so much they don't join. It takes a long time to compose my thoughts into something coherent and persuasive, and I don't think I even reached that point. But I felt I had to do my bit, hoping the AGM won't be a big argument about this that ends inconclusively by picking one unsatisfactory side arbitrarily.

In CTS, we set sail and helped Beowulf kill grendels and dragons and pick up two cards with symbols on. After a long and dangerous picking up two cards with symbols on, we had lots of fame and gold, and eventually Beowulf died, and we all picked up two cards with symbols on fought to the death.

I was the most famous, but got deaded, so Naath won.

Then I sloped off to (Alex Churchill's) games evening, and played a round of magic with him and Peter. Mmm, yes. it was interesting, and went ok, though with a bit too much dithering, until we had two "number of spells since" cards start interacting, when I just got way too confused. But it was fun.

I realise I have 200+ useless business cards because of us moving building, they should have playing card something inscribed on the back.

OK, maybe I'm a spin off of them, or perhaps poohsoc, but you know what I mean. Anyway, conclusions from the meeting:

* We should go to the CUFS pub crawl.

* We should buy Eni a leather bikini

* [censored] loves [censored]

* Matthew told us about a boy scount who built a breeder reactor in his shed[1].

[1] cf. http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html and http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841152293/026-6031962-1521203 I have. I haven't established veracity yet, but it was so cool anyway it deserves its own post in a bit.

It was strange being back in worcester. Everything was narrower than I remembered :) But it was lovely to see mum and dad, I think I'd missed them more than I'd realised. It didn't last very long, but we had a concentrated day and a half together, and then I got off to Tolkien 2005.

I know everyone else disagrees, but I enjoyed the weather we had.

I was curious to see the lectures, and some were very interesting/amusing, though all in all I probably might as well have gone to an oxonmoot. But the CTS managed a staggering number of performances, which was why I really wanted to go.

The Reduced Silmarillion COmpany, (by Matthew, Matthew, Matthew and Mark and a something or performing eagles) was really great, though I need to reread the silmarilion and remember more of it. I won't try and reproduce any of the jokes, you have to see it, but if you've seen a 'reduced' company before you'll know the idea; much simplified costumes and collapsing of large battles into one arm movement. This performance was especially successful because the audience really knew the material and hence got the jokes :) Unquestionably see it if you ever get the chance though the actors are rather tired of it now and intend to get away from it...

The Radio Play. For maybe the last time the CTS did a readthrough of selected portions of the radio play. It was very fun, and very much adored despite being at Early O'clock on sunday. For this and RSC[1][2] people were coming up to the casts all weekend thanking them, helped of course by the identifying T-shirts. And I think this one was the one with the standing ovation; the others were on the cusp.

[1] LOTG presumably being too late in the weekend; it was certainly popular enough.
[2] For crying out loud, how many Reduced foo Companies are there? How many have the acronym RSC? :)

I had the usual smattering of small parts including Odo Proudfoot. I felt very guilty when I managed to arrive late (having non-on-site accomodation) due to difficulty getting up at 7, trying to get a vegetarian breakfast at the busy time whilst chatting to a netball team, and then jogging across brum, but felt it was completely made up for by not missing any lines, and managing to burst in just at Bilbo's speach, calling out "PROUDFEET" from the back of the room.

Mole and Esther singing. You can't get away from the CTS at T2k5. Esther signed her first autographs!

Lord of the Goons by Tim Kelby, Tim Kelby, Tim Kelby, Anna Slack and Tim Kelby. I've heard it before, but by Ephal is it good. Like the others it benefited enormously from having a large, drunk, audience intimitely familiar with LOTR (and with a significant minority having seen the goon show too :)); all sorts of things got applause, though that rather ruined some of the jokes dependant on reading out fictional stage directions predicted on no applause :)

The CTS should spin off a complete drama society. People were certainly planning some sketches for next year, with Matthew D provisionally suggesting he'd help collate offerings so we can decide which to enact. I should have a go at parlaying my acceptable story writing into a performance career...

OK, for the record, a brief summary of may week.

Friday

CDC Ball. I nearly didn't go, I've forgotten lots of fun dances (even foxtrot, vienese and samba), but it turned out well. At first there were few people I knew and I hovered rather, but then I met several old friends from dancing, including a few people from Trinity I'd forgotten ever did dance. And atreic arrived, and we spent ages chatting, and she gave me a lift back. The dancesport team were very shiny.

Saturday

Playford ball. As tangoing at CDC is to James Bond or Harry Tasker, so Playford is to Firefly! Well, not quite. But it's all old-fasioned much smouldering stares no touching circling each other with occasional swinging and complicated progressions stuff.

For anyone who doesn't know, it's organised by the Round, the country dancing society, who do regular (and great!) ceilidhs.

I was a bit worried not having practiced before, but it mostly went ok. And people were happy to help, though sometimes that was more transitive than others: one old gentleman was absolutely brilliant, giving a little nudge in the right direction whenever we hesitated, but never seeming patronising or even to notice; another couple were helpful, but rather overbearing, and made us feel we shouldn't have been trying if we couldn't do it right first time, and called advice which was perhaps more helpful to someone who knew what all the words mean.

It reminds me of playing dominos against dad in the pub; when I'd been hesitating one of the spectators would say "You could play that one," I can't tell if he means "That's a valid domino and I don't know why you haven't seen it" or "there's a 50/50 chance he has the double six, so don't play that one, but if you play this, he can only score two points from these dominos, and you have a counter to those ones, so your expected return is ok" which is what the cider is busily muzzing me to see, and I don't want to ASK becasue then that tells dad what I have.

In other musings, food was nice. And we talked a lot about education. And Naath asked me to dance with a very gracious "Jack! Here! Now!" :) And how does the room always go quiet just before you say 'moosefuckers'? *After* makes sense, but before? That's non-causal!

Oh, and I went to some CULES sketches in the afternoon, with several people I knew in. They were good, though, while I'm very fond of "Let's self-deprecatingly announce this is a bad play and then say some innuendo" humour, it was possibly overdone. But they all had some classic lines, and it's lovely and relaxing to sit and watch for once.