EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Dude, I figured it out...why you just can't get enough of that West Wing-y goodness. Because Aaron Sorkin writing is brain crack. No, I'm serious. I used to watch West Wing to make my brain go into writing mode and I had the same intellectual "high" tonight after going to see A Few Good Men in the West End. Alas, I don't have any papers to write for class, so this'll have to do (even if the buzzzzz is fading and I'm starting to feel guilty that I'm not working on the article I have to help discuss in tomorrow's seminar).

Basically, after the UN Society AGM I wandered down to Haymarket to get a ticket for tonight, getting absolutely soaked in the process. Even the concessions are £20, but sometimes you just suck it up and I've gotten nowhere near spending my theatre "budget" (yes, it had its own column on the spreadsheet). You may remember that I mentioned that Rob Lowe is starring as the lead attorney (the ewwww, shudder Tom Cruise character in the movie, if I remember correctly) and I've now completely forgiven him for that haircut in the ill-fated tv show Lyon's Den (don't ask me what it was about...I was too upset by the shaggy haircut in the promos to even think about watching...this was a big thing. Ask Diana if you don't believe me). Can their be a match more perfectly suited to the stage than Sorkin writing and Lowe speaking? I THINK NOT!

*Joyce watches as her inner fangirl escapes and goes skipping about the room.*

Actually though, almost all the performances were excellent, not just his. The lead prosector was someone who I'd seen in shows at the National (and, Duchie, was the one by who's range you were really impressed in De-Lovely). Lead female chick was really getting on my nerves, though. I HATE it when people can't quite pull off the American accent (as if I'm one to speak...I could never get a British accent well enough to perform it in front of people) and she totally couldn't. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except that it's Sorkin, and he writes for a very specific speech pattern/cadence that's probably hard for even the ordinary American to pull off without practice. And if you just can't get the speech patterns, then you're pretty much sunk and you lose a whole lot of what makes him such a great writer. Anyway, she's some British tv person and it was reeeeeeally obvious that she hadn't spent much time onstage.

And, sigh, Rob Lowe. I got my program signed afterwards (the man's so unassuming, I was almost shocked when he came out and seemed...normal (if people from Dayton can be normal)) and I may have to find a friend to go with again so that I can get a picture taken and not seem like tooooo much of a stalker. Oh, and I skipped random lecture to go tonight. I needed the break and after a reflection it seemed to weird to spend quality time with the director of the LLM program in Galway that I skipped in favour of the LSE.

Classes continue. I'm annoyed that my seminar for SO424 will never, ever end on time and I'm always going to be late for the LL423 lecture that's immediately afterwards. The main problem is that I've yet to be in an LSE classroom that has enough chairs for everyone and being late is going to mean spending the next two terms sitting in the corner on the floor for lecture. Blech. I interviewed for Spanish placement, as well, today and distinguished myself by the recognition that I've completely forgotten all that I once knew (little though it was) and my complete inability to conjugate in the past tense. Oh sigh. I still think I'm going to take the classes, even though my Thursdays are starting to seem really full. You know, a whole three hours of class and all. Also, that seminar may have helped cast some light on what I'm doing here. I think I'm the token red-stater in the MSc Human Rights. Yeah, you know how in touch I am with middle America. (See, that was irony, but I probably am more in "touch" than anyone else around.)

So back to the brain crack. I want more! (This, of course, being the problem with addictive substances.) A big part of me wishes I got that same buzz from school. Don't get me wrong, this stuff's exciting (even if Theory of I-Law makes my head go all hurty when they use words I don't understand), but it's a different kind of buzz and an embryonic one at this point in the year. But, never fear, Conor's doing the lecture in SO424 tomorrow and he's his very own sort of addiction. :-)