On Classics & a cinema excursion
As most of my friends are already aware (due to my extensive yammering on any night out, plus my undue service as a sober chauffeur to and from local night haunts), I’m still unable to drink alcohol on my course of roaccutane until August.
Sadly not the chirpiest of sober clubbers, I tend to tour my trusted little mini home after dropping the collectives off to enjoy a hazy alcohol induced night.
Weekends have become all a little droll and bemusing, sat scouring The Tab as opposed to wreaking havoc out on the town. It was on one such article, concerning a fellow sober clubber - albeit by choice - that I decided to roll back the clocks to preteen weekend cinema excursions. This girl claimed university life hardly needed a shot of tequila and a slim picking of lime, when instead she prided herself on having attended all recent movie releases, like a true saint.
Although I can’t quite afford to budget out a tenner for Vue teen tickets all that regularly, I have decided to educate myself a little more in terms of the visual arts.Zoolander 2 was the obvious choice here, for heightening the senses, stimulating the intellect, reaching undiscovered levels of erudite satiationI’m sure you can all hear ‘kids who can’t read good’ echoing somewhere in the background. Anyhow I don’t wish to spoil the thrilling journey alongside Ben Stiller and his infamous pout, in his sassy quest to regain the love of his son. Something did however strike me while watching the showing – what would someone watching this say maybe ten, fifteen years down the line think?
I say this while deeply engrossed in Aristophanes The Clouds, as one of my Classical Civilisation texts on Ancient Greek Comedy. The play follows a greed stricken Athenian man, so desperate to outwit debt collectors haranguing his measly fortunes after his son floundered what little they held on racing ponies. He turns to the widely criticised philosophist, Socrates, hoping he too can learn the art of deceiving the world with complex ideologies and spoken intellect. I’ll attempt not to run into spoilers in this field, as I’m sure you’re teetering on the edge of your seat, eager to nosedive into ancient Greek drama.
One catchesim that has arisen in class is whether or not a modern audience would find thee same humour in the play as a group of slightly inebriated men in togas once did. The play satirises many known politicians of the period, and surely these jokes go amiss on us nowadays.
While we might all be in fits of giggles at an onstage representation of Boris Johnson, all albino, his drooping and furrowed white brows pedalling around on one of his infamous bikes, we might just struggle to find ‘Cleisthenes’ and his trademark shaven chin - the source of great ridicule for feminine attributes - quite as entertaining, in a production of ‘The Clouds’.
As much of the plot in Zoolander 2 is peppered with the faces of famed fashion designers, and of course with Justin Bieber’s sunkissed cheeks thrown into the mix, I do question what an audience perhaps a decade down the line would think. The brutal execution of a teen heart-throb might not be equally amusing when the name doesn’t make you think of pet monkeys, beautifully photoshopped Calvin Klein abdominals, and the verification that he does truly not stuff socks down his pants.
Much in the same way that the satirical humour of the Old Comedies floats over our heads, it is intriguing to see how these timeless plays influence what you pay out to see on a quiet Friday, alongside that extra large popcorn which-you-probably-shouldn’t-have but will still munch through by the time the adverts come to a neat end.Just as we need a little footnote to help us laugh along to Cleisthenes and his chin, smooth as a baby’s bottom, we might one day need a little helping hand to laugh along to Justin Bieber’s fated demise in Zoolander 2.
On your siblings having kids
There will come an odd occasion when your cherished siblings will spawn.You will always remember as quick to snitch to mummy when you stole the last cookie, for pinching your thighs under the dinner table, and stealing your glitziest mini skirt to take to a thirteen year olds slumber party. You’ll know quite how poor their judgement can sometimes be, for leaping head first into the stream in the heat of summer and ending up being hauled out with a cracked open skull, poking at bees nests, or bringing greasy haired rocker boys home from high school under mother’s disapproving gaze. You may know all this, and you can certainly just hope that they’ll bring a little more judgement into play when it comes to raising their own.Don’t get me wrong, I love all my siblings. I now also adore all my little nieces and nephews (although I haven’t actually come face to face with one of them, beyond Skype, as he lives on the other side of the world). It is just terribly hard to imagine them as parents. I am personally semi blessed & half cursed in being surrounded with considerably older half-siblings. On one hand they are notably wiser and there were far fewer skirmishes when we did live together, growing up. On the other hand, it is slightly similar to having a posse of parents. There’s much less giggling in cahoots over having hidden daddy’s car keys, or gossiping over illicit teenage acts. Any talk of teenage crime receives a multitude of stern stares from across the dinner table.Or at least it was. My brother was the first to bear his little boy (not physically bear that is, not quite a natural phenomenon). Seeing him with a mini-him did confirm quite what a wonderful father he is, and will be. It’s all the teasing of play of my childhood, but on a minimalist level with plenty of cuddles and care. Believe it or not, your siblings can actually change a nappy, even if they protested furiously at even clearing out the dishwasher, or cleaning up cat sick hidden in the study. My sister quickly followed suit with her daughter, even though we’re still at the stage of partially swapping and sharing clothes. Having just spent the Christmas period with my sister, her hubby and newborn, I was exposed again to just how tender my siblings can be. Clearly getting pregnant flips some sort of serious switch in the brain – or maybe they just save the brutal tormenting and ‘typewriter’ (which involves being pinned to the floor and repeatedly jabbed on the chest, courteously of my brother) for me nowadays.
It's not fun being ill anymore
I used to love skiving off school for a week. Although conventionally shy and never the girl with hairbrush in hand, belting out Beyonce lyrics at pre-drinks, I excelled in the dramatic field when it came to feigning sickness. I would flounder from sofa to sofa, quivering with the unidentifiable flu and moaning softly every so often for the full effect. If anyone asked me if I was feeling well enough to return to school for the afternoon, I would just peer out from under the covers with quivering eyelids to communicate what a ludicrous idea that was. By Friday lunchtime I would have miraculously recovered and be fit and ready for any year 7 sleepovers or play dates gracing the weekend.
Unfortunately long term bouts of sickness and setting up semi permanent residence on the couch are no longer feasible. Life seems slightly more exciting than continuous episodes of Home & Away, or Antiques Roadshow (god bless daytime television). There’s also the matter of A Levels, and general life. So, come Sunday night I was fairly perturbed to be feeling ill. By Monday this had worsened, and I decided to take myself off to A&E since there was a murmured mention of appendix pain being isolated solely to the right of the stomach. I’ve been to A&E twice before and it’s always hideously exciting, sat on a squeaky plastic chair getting to ogle various degrees of fascinating injuries in the waiting room. On the first occasion, I snapped a glowstick and got an interesting amount of glow in the dark liquid in my eye (being quite young, I still can’t fully remember if I did this on purpose, to see if my eyes would glow in the dark, or if it was an honest mistake).
On the second occasion I slit open my finger on a tin of cat food and the sight of flesh made me a little weak at the knees. This time I did have to drive myself, the true early stages of committed adulting starting to arise. However no one was fully pleased to see me as I wasn’t in any way near expiry. I got a tap on the wrist for taking the wrong sort of medication, asked pleasantly what I had eaten for lunch, reminded to drink enough water and take some fresh exercise. All and well I spent the rest of the evening under the covers bemoaning life and scrolling instagram continuously, hoping I would sleep off my pain. The next day followed suit, and come the following I dropped back in to the doctors to have some bloods taken.I suppose I’m every doctors worst nightmare – before coming into your office I have scrolled WebMD thoroughly, and diagnosed myself with at least 5 possible illnesses, alongside covering all varying degrees of treatment and efficiency.
My best true diagnosis to date was coming in to tell the doctor I had moo-co-co-lees. She looked at me a little perplexed, until I showed her my lips whereby I was left a little red faced when told that my pronunciation from online readings didn’t quite fit mew-co-seals, or rather mucoceles.
Anyway feeling considerably better after my GP visit I duly headed to the gym haven the next day, necked my preworkout and set about my deadlifts to receive a call stating that I may indeed have appendicitis. This mixed with a questionable amount of caffeine was indeed an interesting combination. Followed by my third doctors visit to the week, I was sat pleasantly in the waiting room when a nurse came, smiling cheerfully and attempted to insert a canula into my arm as routine procedure. This wasn’t quite what I had expected, having been told by my GP that it would just be a quick scan to make sure it wasn’t appendicitis (the quick scan turned out also to be not quite so quick, as there was a flurried explanation of cameras going into all sorts of holes).
As it turned out I don’t have appendicitis (curse you WebMD), quite thankfully as I was nowhere near as sick as the poor people in the ward. I also avoided both scan and canula and left with only a slightly sore vein from another blood test.Either way, I’m certainly quite thankful not to be plagued with appendicitis or anything more serious and have learned a lesson as not to glue myself to online self diagnoses at the slight ache or ailment.
(Once a hypochondriac always a hypochondriac).
On having a surname that no one can pronounce.
Although people have tried, bless them.
WEE-AY-ELD?WADDLE?WAY-EL-DA?
My personal favourite was something along the lines of ‘valkyrie’ at a poetry reading. My cheeks may have risen to an odd shade of scarlet.
I’ve been asked where I originate from (really the UK), and stopped at border controls (although I feel like this may be more due to my passport photo, in which I look vaguely like a pre pubescent six year old boy with a neat pudding bowl crop).
One of the classic moments was during a school register, with Miss calling out each of our names one by one, calling everyone’s first name and their surname. Of course she reached my name in the list and paused for a moment, gave me a quick glance, and left it at Liv. Sometimes it is clearly better to act blasé and breeze over it than give out an awkward mouthful.
I know plenty of other people experience the same issue, tricky surnames aren’t a rare occurrence. I think mine maybe does climb a little higher than the others, mainly as no one (not even myself) seems to be wholly sure how it is spelt. The original surname includes the German letter A-Umlaut – Ä. Those pesky little dots cause a whole lot of trouble, through the pronunciation, which differs from the standard A to a more stringent AY. The struggle arises when moving across continents, between countries that don’t fully share the same alphabet. The question of how my German surname is translated is a rather tricky one. Some of my cousins have dropped half the lettering anyway for a nice well rounded Wald.
The Ä can traditionally be subbed in with AE in English, for the same sort of sound. However the pairing of these two vowels does seem to be difficult for some to comprehend. Therefore my parents did both occasionally drop even the E for just plain old Walde – as it states on all my credit cards and passports. Unfortunately I’ve been programmed to sign my surname WAELDE, which has resulted in a few sticky situations at visa inspections when travelling, when I’m unable to even sign my own name correctly.That being said, there isn’t a whole lot that I can do now.
Plus my go-to running dad joke involves raising a quizzical eyebrow when asked how to pronounce my surname. The waggish response of ‘it’s like WELL-DONE. Without the UN’, would surely go amiss.I’m just going to continue on my hunt to marry a man whose surname begins with a G.
Who wouldn’t want their initials to be O-M-G anyway?
On passing my driving test & celebratory noodles.
Living in a fairly rural area, the best part of five years have been spent trekking to and from a very rural bus stop (so rural that in fact it has not even reached the marked title of an actual bus stop, and remains a bend in the road that you have to sweet-talk the bus driver into a quick standstill. Failure to do so leads to being dropped in the next lay-by, and having to tackle a bramble bush headfirst. This is followed by several muddy fields either plowed or filled with curious sheep, all the while feeling like a miniature Bear Grylls).
Thus the past five years of my life have been ruled by bus timetables (I can tell you exactly when the 55 passes the stop prior to my colonized bend in the road, and time myself to be ready and waiting approximately four and a half minutes in advance).
There have been few occasions when the bus has simply not arrived, or dismal Sundays spent meandering the high street and stranded in town, due to the one-every-three-hour rule on the day of rest. The mile in between my house and my bus stop has also proved perilous in the dark, when matched with a glaring pair of red headphones yanked up to full volume and cars not fully expecting a schoolgirl wandering country lanes in the dark. Countless arguments have arisen with my mother, over wearing the fluorescent & flashing battery powered vest she kindly purchased (ever the agreeable teenager, I stated that I would rather end up face first in a bonnet than sink to such crimes against fashion). Countless arguments have also arisen over mad dashes to the bus when the agreeable teenager forgets to set a timely alarm, with numerous pitiable pheasants taken on the death toll of such morning pursuits. This is all without mention of the extortionate fares of £7.50 per day, making my gym-goings suddenly very precious.
Having struggled under the woes of a teenager, a Rapunzel stranded in her rural castle, you can imagine my delight at receiving my first car after my seventeenth birthday, accompanied with driving lessons. These extended over the next customary 6 months, or 40 hours expected to pass ones test. These then extended for an additional 6 months.
I wouldn’t consider myself a poor driver. I’m not overly nervous, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel and nails furiously nibbled at every red light. Nor am I dangerous, for I certainly don’t tackle sharp bends at ’60 accompanied by a shriek of glee. I do however buckle under pressure (I turned to faithful old Rescue Remedy in my final two tests). The first was failed rather admirably – I simply didn’t pay attention in the navigational section, and came to a slittle confused stop at a roundabout as a result, A cheery examiner, described by my instructor as looking ‘as if she should be knitting shreddies’, told me she was certain I would pass next time).
Sadly this didn’t quite follow suite, and the following three passed with heightening nerves and wallowing disappointment, growing with every trip to the DVLA website.
All that aside, I do now stand the proud owner of a pass certificate, to match my proud owner of car status which, after a year and a half, I finally am able to decorate with garish swinging die (I’m going to signpost that as the plural of dice), and countless tins of fruit pastilles as procedure in any car.Accompanied by this pass is are the celebratory noodles I banned myself from having a good 8months ago, after the soul crushing failure of my first test. A self confessed picky eater, I do have some credit to my habits and taste. Having scoured the aisles for the weekly grocery shop, cooked and cleaned for about 6 years, I admittedly don’t see much point in eating that which doesn’t please my palate. Hence my Wagamamas order has been nitpicky and consistent for the past few yearsphad-thai-no-egg-no-shallots-no-peanuts-whole-wheat-noodles – please !comes out in a sort of trance, or chant as if opening a hidden door. (Ali Baba reference, which I was continuously placed in front of as a child, in German no less) (sadly they are also not offering wholewheat noodles this season)
So, after having to turn down several other group expeditions to Wagamamas with an embarrassed mutter about jinxing driving tests and black magic, I finally have my celebratory noodles!
Interpretation of Ariel, by Sylvia Plath
Ariel. A luscious red haired mermaid sadly isn’t included in the identification of the namesake. Rather Sylvia’s husband, Ted, influenced many of the readings through adding that Sylvia rode at a Dartmoor riding school. Having engaged in several long and enduring treks over Dartmoor hill and heath, I’m thoroughly surprised that one shaggy haired moor pony ever bolted in its lifetime. My experience tends to surround hammering the oblivious sides of the beasts, and trying to blindly tear their mouths away from the nearest fern. This all takes place in spitting cold rain, in sodden castoff jeans considered weathered enough to feel the fury of three hours in the saddle. Not quite the ‘substanceless blue / pour of tor and distances’ (you can’t quite see for the next tor through the muggy Dartmoor smog, let alone the great distances. Prayers be with the ten tors volunteers). The spondees ‘stasis in darkness’ and ‘pour of tor’ amplify quite the pace at which the trail pony must have taken up, static scenery turned to a blur of Dartmoor colours (which have a regrettable tendency to revolve around grey and green).
(my friend aboard a trusty Dartmoor steed)
Some claim the horse to ignite the symbol of male sexuality. I’m not quite sure. We may indeed have fallen so low as to include ‘stud’ or ‘studmuffin’ in the endless list of endearments, or Tinder profile labels, but horses can just as easily be assimilated in the female sense. I was never quite sure on the gender of Falada, my favourite fairytale mount, I don’t suppose they gelded in those days.
The words murmured by poor Falada’s head ‘if this your mother knew / her heart would break in two’ do otherwise take the tone of a gentle, doting mare.
Jerusalem was also referred to as ‘Ariel’, as predestined to be destroyed by flames. Another interpretation of the title of choice, tying in to the concluding stanza, and line – ‘suicidal, at one with the drive / into the red / Eye, the cauldron of the morning’. Perhaps the pony has truly taken a turn for the worst, and with the wind up its tail bolted straight through the night until the rising sun brightens Plath’s world – if she has not already plunged off the careering animal in rather a few nightly hours. Otherwise, this reference could indeed be Jerusalem’s flames, come to plague. Much like Troy, you could ascertain. Cities tend to go down in flames.I’m not necessarily a hardcore feminist. I don’t think this poem sees Plath paving the gender-war either. The allusions to female strength and powder are obvious; ‘God’s lioness’, as if embodying the almighty powder of a Lord within the sleek coat of a female predator. ‘Godiva’, too, the woman who paraded the streets of Coventry, nude and on horseback, to boycott taxation, is an emblem of female strength, on horseback (lets hope Plath herself wasn’t too unclothed, sitting astride her Dartmoor pony. It gets rather nippy in Winter)
.Yet, ‘I unpeel – dead hands, dead stringencies’, suggests rebirth and shedding of restrictions. When related to ‘the child’s cry / Melts in the wall’, the mention of an adolescent could possibly be the internal child, in the narrator, or rather Plath, herself. Sitting astride a bolting horse is rather frightening (my mother bought me an ex racehorse in place of a trusty furry Shetland, so I can advise you justly). Perhaps Plath has indeed located her inner sophisticated goddess whilst straddling a wild horse. I just question the feasibility of reaching great epiphanies when grappling for the reins.
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
God’s lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks—
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else
Hauls me through air—
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeel—
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child’s cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
-Sylvia Plath, 1962