Same Old Song and Dance

    I attended a medieval “fayre,” and, yes, they spelled it that way. I left my friends’ party and hopped aboard a train heading to Ludlow and, once there, proceeded to revisit the old town. I was rather fond of the place, with its towering church and ancient castle, and am a bit of a medieval geek, so I thought that I’d feel right at home. Well, I did at first, enjoying the elaborate costumes that ranged from historical to fantastic,

except that most of the normal people walking around weren’t very keen to talk while everything that I looked at cost a mint. Still, wandering around the castle again, chatting with medieval history specialists, and browsing the stalls was fun. Then the lights went out. I think that there was a power outage in most of Ludlow, or at least in our area, and all of the floodlights that illuminated the night died and the occasional gas powered torch was not enough to stave off the gloom. So I went back to the shops, since most of the events had to cancel (some medieval fair that can’t go on in the dark, right?) and bought a few things for my parents when Christmas came. I got a small, hand carved chest, splendid in ivy and leaf patterns, for my mother and a bottle of mead for my father, since that just seemed like a perfectly “English” thing to get for him. After that, I bugged out and crashed in my dorm after listening to the guys complain about our dorm parent again. They dislike how strict the housemaster is, but I rather like the Spanish teacher. I refer to him by two titles because, while they share the same man’s name body, they are as different from each other as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The man is personable, fun, and listens well, but from the moment he goes on house duty, well, let’s just say that he’s stringent.
    That week I had to sing with the choir for their annual “Carol Service” where I was roped into giving a small, mediocre solo, perform three times in a pantomime of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” where I had to cross dress and sing again and dance. If I have not mentioned this before, trying to organize extra rehearsals for the pantomime when it became clear that our weekly sessions would not suffice was hellish. You have no idea how difficult it is for people to take your stage directions seriously when you’re hitching up your dress and adjusting your wig with every step. Furthermore, with the late nights caused by extra rehearsals for choir and drama plus homework, I fell asleep during all school assembly. The world became a soft and comforting darkness with droning voices for white noise. And then it exploded. I almost jumped out of my seat as the speakers banged and crackled with noise when the speaker moved the mic. Sleep eluded me after that. Turns out that I’d slept through the announcement of the essay competition winners and I’d earned second place with the rough draft I’d submitted. I turned in the paper, alright? I thought when our head of house berated me for being lazy when I told him that it was just a once-over paper. That’s all you said you wanted from me. Ha. Can’t complain now, can he?
    Anyhow, that was all before scrambling through my application to the University of Southern California’s film production major, part of which was to make a short film. Everything was going well until my actors failed to show at the appointed time and then, when we rescheduled, the other guy still failed to appear. As I was out of time, I had to grab some random kid to play the part of a priest (thank God I had planned on not filming the priest’s face, as a boy would be very… out of place in the film), and not record about a minute out of the film itself before I had to catch a train to London for a meeting with the people hosting my scholarship for this gap year at school and a Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out to be a gathering of pretty much all of the other current scholars and some past participants as well. I got to meet some very friendly people, some other rather self-absorbed people, and many very pleasant folk. The food was a little disappointing, the company was great, and then we made fools of ourselves before a camera before heading  onto the streets, seeking clubs and pubs.

    Well, it turned out that a good number of us were underaged while most of the clubs were absolutely booked on a Friday night and could not hold us. So we split up and I ended up with a group of four others heading to a pub and then sleep in our hostel. I should have gone with the others it turns out, as they had scrounged up a club after about an hour of searching and sounded like they had a great, if extraordinarily expensive, time. I’ve found that few places can match London’s exorbitant prices. Anyhow, as my application to USC was due by the end of that weekend, I was forced to seclude myself in the hostel for the entire weekend, instead of heading out and exploring the city with the others. This wouldn’t have happened if I had been able to film when I had originally scheduled, but trying to organize teenage guys is like trying to convince a wet cat that it’s happy. It is an impossible task.

    By the time I was heading back to school, I was disappointed at my lack of adventure, but glad to have finished my application. Then things went south. My train had an hour delay on the tracks, nearly causing me to miss the opening night of the Pantomime, the Common App broke, so I couldn’t submit my application to USC on time, and I caught a fever right afterward. Whee. Soon enough, everyone was sick of the pantomime, as it was directed at four year-old kids. On our final night, two days before Christmas break was to begin, the Pantomime suffered a little *ahem* “derailment.” We started the night with almost half of our cast missing with another two scheduled to leave about half-way through, as if performing this show for our classmates and teachers wasn’t bad enough. Furthermore, the girl playing Snow White was having a mental breakdown because a storm had cancelled all flights to her home for several days. Most of the other cast members thought that we should refuse to perform, due to the absent cast and how we all detested performing a kid’s show for teenagers and adults. However, I encouraged an alternative. Since the girls playing Snow White and the evil queen were eastern European, I started making socialist and communist jokes which the others caught onto quickly enough. We threw in quips about missing characters being imprisoned for absurd felonies ranging from spitting on a seagull to sexual harassment and, half way through the play, we murdered Snow White. Yep. Stabbed dat bitch good an’ dead. While unorthodox, the students got a least a chuckle out of it. Our drama teachers were not so amused. You can imagine how happy was I for break to start after that week.