Kafka, Kick-offs and Eartha Kitt

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I did not wake up this morning to find I had turned into a gigantic insect, but it was just as surreal. First of all, I think I've actually got a legitimate sunburn in February. The weather is so alliteratively brilliant and balmy and beautiful that I've spent all my free time outside for the past few days; I even succeeded in having my Spanish class taught outside this Thursday because I announced that I would die a cold and sudden death without the beautiful rays of the shining sun (I said it in Spanish, and I don't actually have the vocabulary yet to be sane when I ask for things). Perhaps the weather itself is attempting to make up for certain other heartless nature-butchering eco-fascist anti-non-conformist qualities of the world, not mentioning THOSE AWFUL FAT RUDDY-FACED CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WHO CUT DOWN MY CLOTHESLINE again or anything (p.s. I didn't actually mean to PUBLISH my clothesline poem...not that the sentiments weren't true or anything but still, the 'Save' button is still dangerously close to the 'Publish' button). I created a memorial to it out of the last chunk of wood that they chainsawed off my beloved tree, and Daniel leaned out his window and played a sad song on the harmonica while I placed it directly underneath where the branch used to be. I will not admit defeat, however - I have the original clothesline itself, I just have to find a new home for it. Emma Wollum awoke from uneasy dreams and found she had turned into a gigantic clothespeg...I could barely concentrate on my Kafka this morning, mainly because I chose to strategically read it sprawled upside down on a bench on the front lawn where I KNEW I would be distracted by the glittering early afternoon sun on the lush, inviting green of the gardens and the Channel sparkling below. The daffodils are blooming in army formations of brilliant yellow, tiny daisies are carpeting the gardens like snow, the first lambs are born and I'm expecting one of them to skip up and sing at me as it all seems so ridiculously Snow White And The Seven Dwarves. Pictures really can't do it any justice, at least my pictures can't. Sioned and I tried for about half an hour to get a picture on a stone wall with sheep in the background and a horse and a farmer and even a legitimate castle ruin in the background, but it was impossible to capture it, at least not in enough time to actually make it to see the rugby at 2. I'm sort of an expat now, so I can ridicule American football, right? Because compared to rugby, it really deserves to be. When we walked into the Kings Head pub, we were the only ones not wearing some form of the official Brains Beer-sponsored Welsh rugby jersey (during half time we rushed to the charity shop and found two child-sized ones for 75p each); I just screamed and clapped when everyone else in the packed room did, figuring that the only thing worse than asking in my American accent "Wait...can you explain this to me? What's a try?" would be screaming "GO SCOTLAND!" Seriously, the one Scottish supporter was actually bodily forced out of the pub during halftime, even though Wales was ahead (Wales - we? - won, 30-15). The funny thing is, I almost understand why. It's a really exciting game to watch, probably because I couldn't and shouldn't ever even try to play it. I guess I could bring a new face to it, being the only player under 200 pounds that is. No true rugby player, or indeed no true Brains Beer-guzzling Nobby's Nuts-inhaling rugby fan can wear a rugby jersey meant for an eight-year-old boy. A rugby fan thinks that the Tempest is the the nickname of #9 James Hook, not the Shakespearean classic I went to with my English class Friday night;the play itself was a bit pretentious and the actors seemed to think they were being a lot more profound and poetic than they really were, but Prospero was good enough to save the whole production, and it was fun to go to Swansea for the first time even though it was in the dark and some chavs mooned us just as the bus drove into the city center. If I'm to be a true rubgy fan, I should also listen to the Welsh anthem and not the Best Of Eartha Kitt collection I found at the charity shop yesterday. I think I've performed the miracle of Barry White again, and got my Zimbabwean roommate hooked. Santa Baby can and must be played at any time of year, especially in July. Oh right, by 'July' I mean 'the second weekend of February'.

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