Three days in a row, including tomorrow, I will spend at least a few hours a day with friends. As in, leave my house and deliberately go somewhere to spend time with people I don’t live with. I’m always a little bit amazed when this happens. I forget, sometimes, that I have friends who want to and can spend time with me.
Yesterday I had lunch with a flatmate from last year, who just got a PhD place here. So yay! She’s coming back to town! It’s very exciting! Especially since she’s the one flatmate from last year that I’ve kept in consistent touch with. And it’s inspired me to at least think about getting back to my own research stuff. I started reading Pearl last night. It’s slow going, but Middle English always is.
Today I was sitting on my bed, slowly getting ready for the day (not unusual), in my bathrobe and towel-turban, when there was a knock on my door and a friend called “BREAKFAST!” So I got dressed and he treated me to breakfast. Then he accompanied me to my initial counseling session, and after that was over, we went to Nottingham Contemporary for the Star City (art and propaganda surrounding the Soviet space program) exhibit.
And while we were doing that, I got a text from another friend, inviting me for coffee before she leaves next week. But I was, of course, unavailable, so I suggested tomorrow instead (we’re meeting for lunch). I’m going to miss her sooooo much when she goes.
I really like Nottingham Contemporary as a gallery. As a building, it’s growing on me although I still think it looks out of place. But as a gallery, it’s lovely. The current exhibit (their second), as I said, focuses on the Soviet space program. It’s named Star City, after the cosmonaut quarters outside of Moscow. It’s primarily modern art, although there are some prints of propaganda posters. It’s also a multimedia exhibit, with a few video and audio things complementing the visual art. The first two galleries also had a sort of electrical theme to them. There was really only one piece that stood out to both me and my friend as “good”* - a sort-of abstract representation of a womb with a red fetus and a black fetus (twins). The red one had a small picture of Castro and the black one had a small picture of Kennedy. I can’t remember the full title, but “We are twins” was a part of it. There was also a giant spacesuit – able to be walked through – representing Tereshkova. One of the things that the Soviet space program did so much better than the US space program was diversity, especially inclusion of women.
*We both agreed that we don’t really “get” modern art in many cases. I was reminded of that Murphy Brown episode, as I almost always am while at contemporary art galleries.
For my birthday, my awesome housemates got me the DVD set of Casualty 1900s, which I had been wanting for a while. And I am obsessed, and can’t stop watching it. There are only 10 episodes at this point, and no word yet on whether there will be another series (season), but I love every single one. It’s so well-produced, well-written, well-acted, and above all, historically accurate. Historical fiction of the highest quality, with a touch of the soaps thrown in. It’s made me ever so interested in medical history, as well as the personal histories of the characters. (Like the lead romantic couple, Dr Culpin and Nurse Bennett, who did get married in real life, eventually.) It’s also helped me clarify my “modern” history/literature interest, which is absolutely Edwardian. Give me 1901-1919 and I’m happy. Much past that, and you get into officially modernist territory, which I really don’t like as much. Even my true literary love, Forster, is more appealing to me in the early works (Room with a View was 1906, Howards End 1910). I knew this before, of course, but this has helped me actually formulate it.
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