Sons of Loki

Last night, the three of us in the flat were burned out (either from work or from exams) and decided to have a chilled night with a few beers. There was nothing on TV, and we couldn’t really be bothered to set up the kit for Rock Band, so I pulled out the old poker set and dealt everyone in.

I first played poker in high school, I think – it was, and remains today, a deeply cool adult-y thing to do. It’s a tremendously interesting game, unlike anything digital or otherwise – even chess lacks the subtle joys of betting and bluffing your opponent. I started playing it again with a group of my friends at university last year, and after some beginner’s luck I soon found myself to be not very good, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I’ve never played for big money in a professional context – occasionally we’d put money in, and I did win once, but I prefer a laidback evening with friends to serious competition with strangers. I’ve been thinking about playing online at sites like PartyPoker, though; the idea of doing it in an online environment and being able to test myself at a level that suits me does appeal.

Playing poker last night reminded me of something else. Since I last posted here, I’ve started work at an opticians, and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve found out a lot about myself at my new job. There’s an element of sales to my position – it’s not hard selling and you’re only ever recommending what’s best for the customer, but I’ve found it a struggle sometimes to properly explain myself and to properly explain the product in a way that makes the customer want to buy it. If you push too hard, most people will – quite rightly – clam up and outright refuse. If you don’t push at all, you end up with a string of “alright” sales, and the customers end up with glasses that are okay, but not as great as they could be. (In particular, way too many people settle for going without reflection-free coatings. The camera in your phone has it, everybody in Germany has it, why wouldn’t you want it on your glasses?)

There are tactics. I’ve talked myself into a corner quite often, where I’ve tried to promote one option and wound up discrediting another, with the result that the customer goes for neither. You really have to play your cards in the right order, and at the right time – just like poker, you can’t get too greedy, or the customer will fold. It’s an interesting business, sales.

 

One of the proper intellectual-like things I’ve started doing this year (along with drinking coffee and listening to jazz) has been going to the theatre. I think I can count the number of plays I’ve seen on the fingers of one hand – we never seemed to go on any trips to the theatre at school, and no one else was around to take me, so most of what I know about theatre is gleaned from Christmas pantos and TV shows where someone gets murdered backstage and there is a ruckus and the detective has to pretend to be an actor to find out the real murderer or something.

I think the first ‘proper’ play I saw really opened my eyes to the power of theatre. It was Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind in Chicago way back in 2008, a series of two dozen audience-chosen mini-plays that run the gamut from creepy to hilarious to deeply moving and which really should be seen if you’re ever in the neighbourhood (I seem to recall the theatre is above a funeral home).

Since then I’ve seen a production of As You Like It at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, which was enjoyable, and Othello at our very own Stage@Leeds on campus. Last night, however, we decided to try something a little different – an original production called Lolz which, I confess, we attended based purely on the title and the fact that it was £3 for a ticket.

It’s a play about the internet – Google, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, email, instant messaging, lolcats, even Minecraft. What if the internet was a god? An enormous body of information, entrusted with every last drop of human knowledge – what would it do if it could think? Matthew Allen and Anton Krasauskas of the Skeleton Project wander haphazardly through a network of white circuit lines on the stage, pausing to offer us thoughts on the structure of the human mind and how social interaction has changed in this modern age. It’s funny, raising laughs over shared experiences with technology and some surprisingly niche and nerdy references, ending with frantic dashing about as the two redefine the white tape network they’ve built on the stage, building shortcuts and restructuring their world.

The only problem I had was with the speeches that the Leeds Student reviewer seemed to enjoy the most. Krausauskas came across as a bit preachy to me – it began to feel less like a play and more like a lecture. I’m a shameless technophile and I love the internet, so I’m always wary of people who say it’s a dangerous thing and that it’s turning us into idiots. It’s got its downsides, of course, but people have rallied against the dangers of the telephone and the printing press and even, in the case of no less a thinker than Socrates, the written word itself. So I take the cries that computers are dumbing us down with a pinch of salt.

It’s a very exciting time to be alive: revolution is in the air! Egypt’s fallen, Libya’s on the way, and who knows who will be next?

Of course, most revolutions tend to end in dictatorships. It’s one of the sad fallacies of humanity that the people who should rule never want to, while the people who lust after power are precisely the ones who should not be allowed to be in power. But some good might come of it. I love the idea of revolution, if not the practicalities of it.

And on the theme of revolution, my life is … revolting! I’m afraid to report that after a long struggle with Failure, my BA in Japanese has passed away peacefully after receiving poor marks in the recent exams. In all seriousness, I think this is the third and final time I’ll be thinking of packing it in. Even though I only have a year left, my Japanese just isn’t going to get any better. I gave it a year, and it’s not coming together, and it’s become a frustrating chore. This just isn’t what I want to do. Best to cut my losses and try for a decent English degree rather than a poor joint honours one. I don’t think doing English will be any easier – it might well be harder – but I’ll be able to concentrate on one subject, rather than the ungainly hodge-podge of joint honours, and it’s a difficulty I enjoy – a challenge, not the immovable mountain that is trying to learn Japanese.

Wheels are in motion, and I’m reasonably certain that this time there’s nothing to stop me – I’ve got the marks, and I should get funding for an extra year. This gives me the rest of the semester off. A kind of sabbatical, if you will. Sort my head out. Get a job. Do some writing. Here’s hoping it goes well.

Amusing/depressing (depending on who you support) tale of the day: Rotherham’s Mark Randall is presumably hunting for better breakdown cover after his car broke down on the way to the Tuesday fixture against Stockport, which ended up with Rotherham struggling a 3-3 draw (thanks in part to an own goal). Oh, and a fine for Randall.

I’m reminded of something that happened to me when I went to visit my friend (who shall remain unnamed) in Sheffield a few weeks back; we’d had an exciting evening not bothering to queue up for Corp (which is possibly the Cockpit of Sheffield?) and instead headed down to DQ (which I imagine is Wire, or something) for Halloween. After sleeping on a sofa about half as long as me under somebody’s coat, we awoke fresh and early, the stage was set for a comfortable afternoon on lazing on the sofa at my friend’s brother’s house halfway across Crookes and playing Halo 3.

First problem.

My friend’s housemate had work. No problem! We’d play a few games of Halo at my friend’s brother’s house, then my mate could drive him to work.

Second problem.

My friend’s other housemate phoned us. He had spent the night elsewhere. The previous night, my other friend and I had borrowed his keys so we could get back. Hence housemate 2 was standing outside the locked door of his own house in the blustery Sheffield winds with no way in. Would we kindly return to the house, he asked, and let him in? No problem! We’d drive back to my friend’s house, let housemate 2 in, then take housemate 1 to work, drive back to my friend’s brother’s and play some Halo 3. Plan!

Third problem.

Car didn’t start. Bonnet up, oil-stained hands poking around. Man from a window shouting at us if he could help. Two housemates becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Phone calls made. My friend, being the sort to just hope for the best rather than prepare for the worst, had no sort of breakdown cover whatsoever.

Not a problem! Stu ended up sprinting for thirty minutes through Crookes to get to his house and let housemate 2 in, while housemate 1 had to run to work, presumably ending up a) late and b) sweaty, which is not the best state to start work in. But, y’know, the car started eventually. The next day. We still don’t know why.

Thursday was the listening exam; I was very pleased to discover that it was (intentionally?) easier than the exercises we’d done in class. Some of the questions – particularly the multiple choice ones – were nigh on incomprehensible with weird diagrams and unexpected answers, but I feel I did well enough to pass. Revision helped, as did having Japanese TV on. It’s really all about training your ear to split up the sound into syllables and words.

I ended up with a slightly-bonkers set-up with my netbook on my left, plugged into my radio streaming Japanese TV; Anki open on the left half of my desktop monitor for flashcards; and JDIC open on the right half of my monitor for looking up words; and a remarkable program called Synergy which lets you use one mouse and keyboard on two PCs as if my laptop was just another monitor. Another monitor and an iPhone somewhere in there and I would truly be a self-facilitating media node.

Today was the Japanese writing exam. Regular readers will know I’m actually not very good at Japanese, so I wasn’t very confident about this one to begin with. But from the looks of the past papers, it was obvious that it was basically going to be a letter to a teacher making a request, which is easy to learn by heart (with the help of the wonderful Anki). So, basically, I taught myself this basic form:

It is [hot/cold] because it is [summer/winter]! I hope you are well. n years have passed since I graduated from [university] and now I am living in [place]. Things were [difficult/bad] to start with, but then they became [easy/good]. I am working as a [occupation].

The truth is, I need to ask a favour. Because of [reason], could you do [request] for me? It’d be really good if you could.
Give my regards to your [wife/husband].

Then you throw in some 「もっと早くご連絡しようと思っておりましたが、遅くなり、申し訳ありません。」 (“I thought I’d contact you quickly, but it became late. My deepest apologies.”) or 「桜の美しい季節になりましたが」 (“It has become the season of cherry blossom’s beauty.”) and the killer 「仕事応募の為、身元保証をご提出して頂き、有難う御座います。」 (“For bestowing on me the honourable submission of a personal reference for the benefit of my job application, my deep thanks.” written with ridiciously showy-off kanji that will probably make the marker either shake their head or admire my pluck).

So I revised that while listening to some amazing jazz (I find it the perfect revision music because it’s sort of soothing and exciting all at the same time, and there’s no words to distract you) and went into the exam this morning, wrote a half-decent letter, and finished neatly before the end.

We went into town, ended up at Waterstones. I bought Catcher in the Rye ’cause it’s like my favourite book ever and I don’t care if that makes me a hideous hipster stereotype or whatever, and a terrible paranormal romance called … oh god, I can’t even remember the name – Double-Dating With The Dead. My reasoning was, yeah, I should turn my unfinished NaNoWriMo into a kind of deconstruction of the paranormal romance genre that’s so big at the moment, and I want to catch the tropes and cliches of the genre firsthand. It also features wonderful dialogue such as “I can’t stay in a place that’s haunted since there are no such things as ghosts” (imagine that in John Freemon’s voice, if you know who that is).

Walked back listening to Classic FM on my phone because I deleted all my MP3s while upgrading to Android 2.2. It was Chopin’s beautiful Romance Larghetto, which really went well with the drizzling rain. Listening to a lot more radio, these days, which is nice. Sometimes you can get a bit fed up of having so many MP3s always available.