...Night Of The Living Dead...

I saw this on Sunday night, oooh I loved it!!! Think I may have stumbled on yet another filmic obsession. And they are showing the other two Romero "Dead" films on BBC all this week!!! Doesn't the fact it's in black and white make it seem much much scarier! Just sitting there watching it is like a scene from a horror movie, you know, late at night, up alone in the lounge, some scary B&W flick on the TV. Or maybe that's just me being typically romantic about even the most mundane situations in life. And me being typical me I also sat there pulling apart the film for all sorts of socio-political contexts. Don't do an English degree, it seriously hinders the ability to sit and relax and mindlessly watch telly or partake in any culture just for fun. I've even found myself analysing the lighting and composition of commercials.

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Finished The Baghdad Blog and thoroughly enjoyed it. Pax is so inspiring, through both his thirst for knowledge and his blogging style. Wish my blog was that well written and popular. The coverage of the Iraq war, from a different perspective to the dry news items we're used to, got me very interested in the details of the conflict. I have been Googling all sorts of Iraq-related stuff I read about first from Pax, and am following the blog from where the book leaves off. Oh, and I just started the book version of the other blog phenomenon Belle De Jour.

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Ah, and so it's my final week of the holidays. It really did seem like an endless expanse and I have no idea what lies I will spin to my uni pals when they finish off an account of their astounding summer adventures with "And what did you do over the summer?". One can hardly say "Knitted, watched loads of crap on telly, masturbated, blogged, and erm, that's it really.". However, one thing I have been able to do at home, thanks to T4, is work on the counsellor-set goal of making myself more intergrated. And how? I've become a fan of The O.C. Yes, so no more Sunday afternoons skulking off to my room with my tea and the papers while everyone else sits there enthralled at the escapades of Marissa et al. It's pretty decent actually, good mindless telly, with good music. I'm only up to the whole Rebecca coming back/Summer finding Cohen's pictures of her/Marissa struggling with feelings for Alex but I'm getting there. Now I too get to partake in the Sunday afternoon enthrallment (sic?).

On returning to the hallowed campus I regard with such bitter-sweetness, I yet again have mixed feelings. So mixed that I go from tearful memories of how it used to be, and how sad I am that the final strait is now in view, to anger and sadness at the bad bits in one foul swoop. It really is a flip-sided coin. But I am looking foward to going back, putting all the things my counsellor told me into practise, and generally being a functioning being again. One thing I do enjoy about university is the freedom it's given me, being away from home. I exist again. Whereas when I'm at home I feel like I go on pause. And the tiny pleasures a new year of academia still affords, such as stationery shopping (I've spent the last few days debating the merits and such forth of various academic-year diaries on the market. This is important to me. I was very disappointed with the lack of choice in Paperchase though.). Not to mention finally getting to grips with my room. Finally, after a year of being half-unpacked. I will get round to modelling it on the chicness of a bedroom ripped out of the interiors setcion of Grazia.

This year I actually felt not comforted by being at home, like I always do, hence the problems, but more stifled, as though I could see everyone was having fun and doing stuff out there and I was merely hiding behind mummy when things got too tough as opposed to battling it out. I'll never forgive myself for missing the final week of my second year when we were all together for the very last time, packing it all in because of a tantrum. I just want to "grow up" and do stuff.

...here's to the future I guess...