I’m really too tired to say very much (despite being well aware of having a laundry list of things to cover), but I simply had to express my euphoria at SPAIN WINNING EURO 2008!

:DDDDD

It’s been a good ride – so much better than the previous Euro, where Greece choked all the life out of football. I’m going to miss this.

…spending your whole morning rushing a last-minute application for a UK job that sounds ideal – arts marketing, one-year fixed contract, PAID – mailing it off at 12:17pm, feeling extremely happy and satisfied with the personal statement that you laboured over, and – receiving an email one minute later, telling you that the deadline, which you stupidly neglected to take note of in the small print of one of the millions of documents relating to the job spec, was in fact noon.

Ah! I could just die!

…and what a whirlwind June it’s been. I know no less an authority than T. S. Eliot tells me April is the cruellest month, but June always seems to go by so quickly – it fairly flies – and then what’s left but the second half, the winding down to twilight, the end of yet another year?

I have so much to say, about Christie and Kevin’s much anticipated visit, about the unexpected melancholy I felt after watching the surprisingly bittersweet Prince Caspian today, about the fabulous Euro (Spain all the way – go Casillas and Fabregas!), about the amazing beach at Alicante and all the Gaudi in Barcelona that I missed out on last time through cheapo-ness; so many thoughts to spill out about the looming end of an era in York and a farewell to this house, about the continuing job-hunt, about going home, wherever home is -

- but I have still so, so much more to do yet: 1000 words and an outline to churn out (because I really can’t push it any further and I don’t want to, it makes me sick), unpacking my travel stuff, packing all the rest of my stuff, a mountain of accumulated correspondence, photos to upload, books to collect, books to read, sleep to catch up on…

One thing at a time, and the latter first, for now.

Feeling unexpectedly melancholy after prince caspian…

“for it might end, you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

…it’s been a draining, exhausting few days. everything seemed to converge at once, everything, spinning spinning horribly and coming to land on one fatally explosive spot; it’s been mad dashes everywhere, geographically, emotionally, mentally. i feel like i’m in one of those movies where i see the storm coming from a mile away but i’m rooted to the spot and the film is in slow motion – the camera rotates 360 degrees, it keeps coming coming closer, ominously, and still i stand transfixed, my expression unchanging, because i am utterly powerless to do anything about it, and when time goes back to normal the storm will hit me hard and fast. and then everything will blow up.

it isn’t over yet: i’ve two and a half more days before clearing the next big hurdle in dissertating, and a meagre 1/10th through what i’m supposed to hand in. even the weather hasn’t been friendly, shuffling with frustrating rapidity between gorgeously sunny and frigidly cold and wet.

yesterday’s london interview was an unexpected bright spot, but i can’t just stop now, i can’t sit back and rest content – there’s still so much more i can do, so much more i can at least try to do – how can i leave all the other doors closed just because one has opened for me? what if behind the next one is something even better – and i never know, because i’ve been lying back on some flimsy plastic laurels -

at times i’ve felt, as alice did, that i might shrink till i go out poof just like a candle-flame. but there must be a way out of this trough, there must be; there always is.

Thoughts on the Euro 2008 opening matches -

1. The Czech team is not the same without Nedved and Rosicky… they were really fortunate to eke out a win against a very plucky Swiss side who had incredibly raucous homeground support. Koller looks really tired and clumsy upfront on his own, and they seemed to be missing a lot of bite in attack and creativity in midfield.
2. Portugal were obviously the favourite to win their match, but I have a huge soft spot for Turkey (even if Terim has apparently decided that Hakan Sukur is too old to keep playing), so – much sadness. They really did try.
3. That said, the genius of Cristiano Ronaldo is seriously undeniable. BBC writes, amusingly, that he is so good he could probably win Euro 2008 all by himself if he was in the right mood. And Portugal did hit the woodwork three times, so try as I may, I can’t say it was an undeserved win.
4. Deco is showing his age. Which is not his fault, but still saddening.
5. The BBC commentary is ten thousand times better than ITV’s, even if ITV has the rather adorable Gary Neville giving match analyses. ITV’s commentators kept making irritating judgement calls about Turkish players diving, and dwelling endlessly on every possible link to England they could find: “and here’s Tuncay, who plays for Middlesbrough!”, “Nani is down, which is bad news for Manchester United”, “Going into the second half of this match, Portugal, ranked 11th in the world – 2 behind England – and Turkey, ranked 20th – 3 behind Scotland. Make of that what you will.” Also, at half-time, everyone just talked about Portugal Portugal Portugal, and how long it would take before Portugal breaks free and scores a goal, and no one paid attention to Turkey at all!
6. I can’t say I miss Milan Baros’s play particularly – he wasn’t looking very inspiring, last I saw him – but I miss looking at him on the field. ;)
7. And finally, it really isn’t the same without my football-watching folks. Ailin and Jason particularly – you’re much missed! ♥

staring blankly into space…

It’s been an oddly melancholy week, and I can’t put my finger on why. Have I – horrors – prematurely reached the plodding, weary phase of my dissertation, having spent the past few days mired in an excellently written but extremely long biography? (Next up, >1200 pages’ worth of letters… joy.) Is it the end-of-term syndrome, where everyone around is either done, very near done, or leaving for good already, and the thought of home and family just beckons so enticingly? Is it the ridiculously indecisive weather, which has been seesawing back and forth between lovely and abysmal with almost daily regularity? Is it my continued deficit of money and employment, and a frightening dearth of further prospects to apply to?

Actually, I suspect it isn’t really any of the above. I’m probably just trying to find excuses to justify the vague, moody miasma that’s been hanging round me lately… and more likely than not, it’s just one of those inexplicably emo things that will go away on its own with time.

The RJ lit trip made a stop at York last Wednesday, and I was very happily assigned to the campus tour group which had Mr Purvis in it :) And it dawned on me, really dawned on me, how much I have changed since I was the shy silent girl in the back of TS2. I found myself strangely able to have a real conversation with him where in the past I would have been too terrified to do anything other than nod and smile; we had a very thought-provoking chat about literature and life after university as we walked round the campus, and it might just be the very first time I’ve really understood the human side of this teacher who was such a prominent figure in my JC days. He told me about how he was glad I’d kept the faith with English, and that he really regrets not doing a Masters after getting his first degree – and how, now, thinking about it, he’s afraid he’s not good enough for an MA and that his BA was really a fluke.

Hearing that, just that one line, from someone who was almost singlehandedly responsible for igniting my obsession with lit and pushing me towards the path I’ve taken… it was heartbreaking. I felt there were so many things I wanted to say to him: I wanted to tell him he was good enough, that it wasn’t just luck, that he’s been inspirational not just to me but to a lot of other students, and how could someone like that be a fluke of the system?

But I couldn’t find the words. I struggled with what sounded, to my ears, like hollow reassurances; I don’t even remember what I said in the end. We moved on to talk about how beautiful the campus is in spring, my mind trailed off and I started wondering if I should tell them that the lake is really toxic, actually, and I forgot all about it for the moment.

Thinking back, I wish I could have said everything I was feeling. I wish I could have poured it out, I wish I could have found a way to show it. But there will never be a way, when words just aren’t enough, and it will always be one of those increasingly frequent instances where the empty signifiers of everyday language are just sorely, sorely inadequate to the occasion.