Gay Rights and Cold Baked Beans

Last Saturday was absolutely choc-a-bloc for me. There was lion dance, fully clothed swimming with James and Lee, open day performance of Le Logobitombo, followed by:

PRIDE PARADE
(whereby we were attacked by reporters as we walked behind a socialist banner yelling
LOVE IS A HUMAN RIGHT along with sex workers (under)dressed as cowboys)

Followed by:

AFRICAN DINNER
(I'm a curtain chief, Mia's a warrior and Andres is a mummy)

 Followed by:  ACE (African Cultural Evening see the trailer here)

Followed by: CANTEEN PARTY (which was followed by being locked out of my room and sleeping in the computer room but we can pass that part)

Sunday was very quiet, I woke up ridiculously early, stole some of Rosie's clothes, had a European Cultural Evening meeting for a couple of hours, skyped the Mammy and had judo.

Monday I had my first ToK (theory of knowledge) class. ToK is pretty much structured philosophical debates. So basically you make loads of points during the discussions and come out knowing so much less. It turns into a but how do you know that you know what you know type job within minutes. After that we had a lecture on study skills, coral monitoring service planning, a china week meeting, photography and luckily no lion dance fitness because a) I had a lotta work to do for school and b) I was absolutely wrecked!

On Tuesday I studied a bitta maths with Jose and went for a swim avec Mia. Aaaand that's about it tbh.

Wednesday was purdy productive, I went shopping in Ma On Shan, exchanged some money, had another European Cultural Evening meeting (myself agus Aine are going to be laying down Riverdance the likes of which have never before been seen outside of Michael Flatley's wildest dreams), did some geo and got in the way of the people cooking in the student kitchen. I also recieved a turkish postcard, 12 pairs of socks, 2 books and FOOD.

Thursday I only had 3 classes which was divine (despite one of those being a maths test), and after school I finished one of the aforementioned books (Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?), had Art For Non Artists whereby we failed at making pinhole cameras and succeeded in eating too many iced gems, went out for pork rice n' a packet of cookies each with Mia and Dilaynay which was very much needed. Although we'd planned to get back for 7 for the global issues forum on LGBT rights we made it back at about 8:30...hmmm...At 9 we had block meeting, campus ecologists prolly took away our privilege to respire (due to CO2 emissions), then after block meeting all the Brits went to the block 3 dayroom and we had BRIT PUD NIGHT. With angel delight with malteasers, dodgy banana custard, branston pickle, marmite, baked beans, proper dairy milk and leftover bananas. It was a feast like no other. We planned some particularly intense things to do as a culture group too which shall be duly recorded.

Friday was when the International School's Theatre Association (not sure if the A is right but the abbreviation is ISTA) invaded. All these international theatre kids coming down on our school. Tis fairly bothersome for us non-theatre students I ain't gone lie. Getting special bbq lunches while we struggle through our sweetcorn sauce chicken of slime. Ah sure. At about 5 I took myself off into central on me lonesome armed with food and a book and Paolina's iPod (because mine's locked in Dorte's top drawer aaallll the way in block 4) and I went for a walkabout in HK as ya do. Took the star ferry, ate some fro yo, lived the life yadda yadda. Ended up working my way back home by challenging myself to finally figure out the bus system and then once I made it back to Ma On Shan I had no money to get the MTR so I somehow defied my gender and navigated my way home by the light of the stars (and by following the MTR line when I could see it). Had a bro out with James on my return then crashed in bed at 11.

Today I had a record 3 HOUR SKYPE CALL le mo cara, followed by brekkie, laundry, lion dance, and blog writing. Baking gingerbread men and brownies with Aine after lunch and going out with the Brits before dinner at 4:30. We be cool like that. Also, going to mainland China on Monday for a week to go paint an orphanage? Thought I should throw that in there. 

Let's Talk About Sex Baby....

On Friday last, I went out with Tiffany for her birthday. We got burgers and cream soda and went up to Lan Kwai for happy fun dancy times but I got sleepy and came home early.

Saturday morning I had lion dance but there'd been so much confusion because most people had SATs that there were hardly any of us there so we did a bitta fitness before a few of us decided to jump in the pool (fully clothed as ya do). We stayed there drowning each other until lunchtime and after that I took myself off to Ikea on the MTR and had myself a very enjoyable time in Sha Tin's scandinavian paradise (after getting lost in the station for half an hour or so). I bought me a mirror, another alternative storage solution and some more bedsheets. I got to the foodie section and bought 6 uncooked kanelbulle and some weird fish in a blue jar (on request from Rosie). After getting back to campus I bumped into Mia and her visiting friend Alea, whom I met when we went to Zhu Hai. I attempted to cook my swedish goodies but really didn't have enough time so I semi cooked them, ate one raw and left the other 5 in the fridge. Cause it was bonfire night, I helped Heather and Paloma to make a guy then we carried him down to the beach with the majority of t'other brits (Minh, Bellamy, Rosie, Matthew, Leila and Olivia) and some refreshments (in the form of carcinogenic marshmallows and as-close-to-walkers as you can get crisps). Bonfire night was the absolute best, twas sunset at the beach and although the guy was mostly just burning plastic and a few twigs, it created enough of an atmosphere to yell a poorly remembered ONE MAN AND HIS DOG WENT TO MOW A MEADOW followed by a mash up of our respective national anthems. We left the beach chanting Spice Girls and I went on my way to IP* rehearsals, which went on for 4 hours. I couldn't go out afterwards but I really wasn't too fussed - it was well time to hit the hay.

Sunday was a very lazy day. I went to brunch late, procrastinated my Geo essay, had more intense rehearsals for the IP then did my wannabe visual arts student ritual of hanging in the art room bugging people (namely Rosie and J-Kwok) whilst totally forgetting about judo. Hmm.

Monday's classes were spent in anticipation of the IP that night. After lunch I did a bitta grocery shopping then at 4:30 the cast and crew met to set up the stage and at 5:30 we went for dinner together which was great cause we were very nearly late back to the auditorium for our warm up etc. The play was great. It was like everything we'd been practising was BAM all professional loike with the lights and the costumes and the audience and that! After our play had finished we watched sadnam's which was hella funny. I'll admit to being a little post ip depressed but there was always Tuesday!

Tuesday was, again, spent in anticipation of that night's performance. This one was like phwoaaaaaaar too, at least for me, but then the real post IP depression kicked in. My life had no meaning! I was free after check in! What was wrong with the world?!

On Wednesday we had sex CoP day! A whole 7 hours of sex ed. I had Salt n' Pepa's "let's talk about sex" stuck playing in a loop in my head for the following few days...That night I did a bitta homework loike me geography essay so muchos productive. Also tried and failed to learn the lyrics of Gasolina...


Thursday was beautiful, I only had 2 classes due to Geo teacher in early morning Skype call with the IB people. It was divine. After school I watched a bittuva movie and a bittuv Scrubs with the American before ART FOR NON ARTISTS. We had cookies and juice and made the first part of our soon-to-be-failed pinhole cameras. After dinner I'd planned to go to the GIF on neo-colonialism in Africa but I'd accidentally left all my washing in the washing machine since 2pm and so legged it back to back sure they weren'ta) mega smelly b) in a sopping wet pile on the floor or c) on fire in the tumble drier. In block meeting we ranted about people stealing our shampoo (when I say we....) and afterwards we went to collect our winter duvets. Everyone here keeps whining about how cold it is and I'm being really hardcore north european. That said, extra heavy duvet was appreciated.


Friday classes seemed to go on. And on. And on. I guess it's just in anticipation of this weekend, which, I can assure you, will be epic. After school was finally over, I nommed down my sangwich and then had ACE (african cultural evening) rehearsals from 2:20-7:20 (I'm not complaining, some people have sold their souls to ACE!) after which I called it a day, pretty much collapsed in my corner, and accidentally fell asleep.


Today shall be a great one. Just got brekkie, now it's lion dance training, followed by french dance performance for open day, followed by Pride parade in central, followed by ACE, followed by paaaartaaay with me bros....

*Brief synopsis of the play: crazy director kidnaps four artists and locks them up and forces them to come up with a play so that he can get recognition and become famous, but the play was based on a type of theatre called Epic theatre which is what some guy called Brecht uses in his theatre plays so it was a bit more complex in that as actors we had to come out of character and talk to the audience about our characters and we had to break the idea that the audience were emotionally attached to our characters in the play? So yeah.

VLOG TIIIME

So today's is a vlog. Saves you reading, and you get to see me at my finest. Apologies for:


a) Holding laptop on my knees, thus squeaking noises and jiggling all over the place
b) The sun messing up the left hand side (cause it's reaaaaally sunny over here suckaaaahs)
c) The angle (in fairness no-one looks that great on webcam no matter who they are)

Vlog the first

Aaaaand another thing....