Roads to Safe Places

A very happy birthday, Greg!!

A very happy birthday, lordhellebore!!

Happy Birthday, Greg!!!

I hope you are out there partying and dancing with the young!Severus fellow right now and you're having a great, great time!!

Happy belated birthday, dearest Sad!!

Here's hoping you're having a great day, lordhellebore!

deadsoulmate

Crocky and I hope that you're going to have a wonderful day, dearest Sad!

Thank you so much for the various birthday greetings!

GOSH, am I old! Twenty-three! The ever-so-lovely Crocky surprised my with a birthday table yesterday, complete with birthday cake and candles! She is so lovely, and everyday with her is, so yesterday was as perfect as I had anticipated in spite of being quite lazy. After that weekend I really, really did not have the least desire to go out, and so we stayed home befitting a lady as old as I am. 

Also, we did not go to Carmen as planned as it was an info event rather than the opera by the look of it, so now we have to hurry and go before the move on to Edinburgh. Maybe it would have been worth the while to go yesterday to goggle at the choirmaster, who is none but the Chapel Choir's choirmaster James. Maybe he would have been better groomed than he was at the concert on Sunday, in his proper conductor's attire for a change and without glasses. 

The weekend was fun and but all the farewells were sad. There are so many people I will never see again and who I don't really know well enough to stay in touch with, and every time I have to wish someone a good life it gives me a little stab in the chest. Seeing Julez go was one such moment. Julez the Mighty, who always We will see her again when we are back in summer, but still... it felt terrible to say goodbye. The other guys from the various courses have already gone home over the summer. Sigh. 

Hearing the concert on Sunday made me feel all emotional and nostalgic, too, but I guess that was mostly due to the superb music. It is the last time I am going to be in that church, probably. It is certainly the last time I heard the Chapel Choir sing - and they were so absolutely fantastic!  It was (yet another...) concert designed to show off the new organ - although strangely, what bothered me about the concert were the organ-only pieces. One I thought was somehow... very...  jazzy, and it flattered my non-existent knowledge no ends to find out that Gemma, a big, evil and knowledgeable music post-grad thought the same, the others were just... I don't know. I feel I don't have the background knowledge to get them and they are too loud and booming for me to like them. With the exception of a Bach piece, it was modern music only. Usually, I avoid modern music after having discovered Nono and Schoenberg, but the pieces the choir performed were all absolutely, heart-wrenchingly beautiful. 
One piece was even commissioned by the University for the organ especially and the composer was there! It was strange to think that the small man sitting in the second row should have been able to come up with that piece.
Two of the pieces always make me feel all choked and teary and emotional and make me wish I was able to sing a lot better to be able to sing with them. Oh, I found a sample, they are very short. The first one is  "Lullaby for Lucy" by Peter Maxwell Davies, the other is "A Child's Prayer" by James McMillan. Sigh. That one always makes me cry. Oooh, and Swayne's "Beatus Vir". Beautiful.

Today, I was half-heartedly planning to go to the movies, but somehow, there just isn't anything which sounds interesting - with the possible exception of Wah-Wah and United 93 - both films I'd much rather see at home than in the cinema. But the rest...? 
Why exactly does anyone want us to go and watch Poseidon? Why should anyone see a movie without a plot or characters? Well, for the floating corpses and the shipwreck. Are we interested in shipwrecks? I don't think so. It's rated 12A, too - which means there'll probably be to much carnage for me, anyway. 
Then - The Omen 666... not that I didn't like the original version, but... Nah. Brooding kids and blue filters are not scary. 
Oh, yeah, The Wild. I wanted to go and see a horror movie, but there is no way I am going to endure that. 

So - we'll see. I guess staying home and watching The Memoirs of a Geisha which I didn't see when it was in the cinemas will be it. I wish I had read the book, but I guess if I had, it would make me wish I hadn't seen the film. 
Oh, which also means more time spent with my book (The Unbearable Lightness Of Being - which has been on my reading list for sooo long now. Since I first heard of the author  back in - what was it, '97? -anyway, nearly ten years ago, I wanted to read that book and somehow never got round to doing it, but I saw it in the library yesterday and just had to take it out. Strangely, to read  on the receipt that I have to hand it in "by no later than 27-09-06" made me feel all teary-eyed again. I won't even be here then, I won't even have my library card... Ah, well.

Hugs to all.

A Very Happy Birthday, lordhellebore!

Good to read you had a blast, girl. I hope you were able to catch some sleep later on.

Apart from that: I hope you're better. Don't do anything foolish, hun. :( I wish there was something I could do.
Curse be upon the unavailability of computers at the uni and the nonexistance of my internet connection at home.

I hope you liked count_tygath's and my present.

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot -

No, wait there was something else which was special about this day...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAD!

Have a wonderful day with lots of fun and hopefully little uni-related stress!