So I travelled through to Reading last Thursday and stayed the night on campus. Staying in soulless hotel rooms on your own is an odd sort of feeling and I tend to watch a lot of television! So it was Relocation Relocation and the Liverpool game for me. The conference went really well and there was some interesting chat. My highlight was the Q&A with Dan Evans from the Sheffield Crucible. As soon as he walked into the room I knew I recognised him but as he is a pretty well known actor I didn't think a great deal of it. That is until the chair referred to him as a Sondheim expert. Now you may remember that a couple of months ago I mentioned a spectacular Proms concert of Sondheim songs (Judy Dench, Bryn Terfel et al). Well Dan Evans sang with Bryn! When the chair opened it up for questions it was all I could do to stop myself from gushing! There were a whole load of other big names there and everyone I wanted to come to my paper came. The paper was well received and there was some enjoyable chat.
On Saturday our friends Anna-Lauren and Tim came to stay. We had a lovely time with them. Some great chat and I think we solved most of the big problems of the contemporary world. Thanks for coming guys. Hope the subsequent camping trip wasn't too chilly!
And so we are back into the swing of things. This week is a bit bonkers. It is Freshers' Week. You can tell because there are a lot of young folks wandering around with maps and because they are giving out free stuff. I even got in on the act and managed to blag free cereal and Rice Krispie Squares. Perhaps I was giving off a student vibe! Tomorrow we get to meet the first years. Man, how exciting (and I really do mean that!)!
As for current reading matter, well it is non-fiction all the way with my Friedrich Engels book and 1599 which looks at one year in the life of Shakespeare. Other than that it is just plays and books about Stanislavsky and documentary theatre. I, for one, am hoping for a quiet few weeks while I get into teaching life again. With the deadline for the book coming on fast (OK so I have nearly a year but that will just speed past!) I need to make special time each week to work on that too. Time management is the name of the game - sometimes I am good at this and sometimes I'm not!
And the flat needs a bit of a tidy so I'll try and get that sorted over the next few days too.
Hope everyone is doing well.
CSW
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