everything else

after ANTICHRIST i spent the whole day thinking about it and wrote a blog dedicated to that powerful, beautiful film. however, immediately after antichrist i was plunged into an entirely different kind of reality. i was in mexico for a silly football comedy called RUDO Y CURSI. it was another group project from director carlos cuaron reuniting him with diego luna and gael garcia banal. it was wonderful fun. they effortlessly played two poor brothers who fought but loved each other (like better looking gallaghers) and got a chance to get out of the slums by playing football and once there were given their nicknames rudo and cursi (meaning soft, sentimental). it was all about chasing dreams that will never come to fruition, rudo (diego luna) is a compulsive gambler and whenever he has anything for 5 minutes has pawned it or lost it in gambling debts; cursi (gael garcia banal) plays the accordian and wants to be a big singing star, but has no talent to back it up. one of the funniest moments comes when cursi pays for a music video, a spanish cover of cheap trick's "i want you to want me" complete with silly dancing, outrageously camp cowboy outfit and his trusty accordian. very engaging and watchable, i'd recommend it to everyone.

wednesday i was ushering for BURMA VJ, a documentary about the video journalists who risk their lives every day to bring pictures from the closed society in burma. it was narrated by one who had to escape to thailand and centred on the protests led by monks last year. it was very interesting and seeing the lengths these people were going to be free made me just go into sobs. it was inspiring and heartbreaking, with the foreknowledge that aung san suu kyi is on trial again at the moment.

in the evening we had a bloody lovely catch up with the canton youth (rich and rhian). shamefully we hadn't been around to their new house after countless invites so we went over there with a bottle of wine (which the four of us finished pretty sharpish) and saw their bloody gorgeous and amazing new house in the heart of leafy upper canton. i highly doubt steen or i will ever have enough money in our pockets to buy a house like this so its nice that the nosworthys have already allocated a spare room for me (with a secret room attached!) in the attic that includes a life sized luke skywalker. ace!

thursday was the day of triumph. having come third in FWCH GOCH POP QUIZ two months in a row we were determined to maybe come third again or maybe lower. as far as i was concerned we were lucky to come third twice. but in fact we won. came first. beat the whole of cardiff at pop! this was not an easy victory. we (me, steen, deans, anwen and anwen's lovely friend jenny) were tied in first place with a dream team (rylett, nay, grace, leo, iain and leah) and had to shout out the tie breaker: the year ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars album came out. we all screamed "73!" at once so mr dc gates instead asked us to write down the answer to the highest chart position instead and hand it in. the tension built, steen was biting his nails more than usual. we won! woop! very very excited and a little drunk we got a round of drinks (making us more drunk and missing mel's birthday party in gwdihw) and a whole bag of gifts. out of these i got a spillers mug and some pens (score! my biro had run out that morning) and steen got some cds. since we'd already purchased mum tickets, anwen and deans had this and jenny had the remainder of the cds. we all went home elated.

the next day i was excited and a little nervous: the steens were visiting, all of them. excited as i hadn't yet met the littlest steen, ciaran and nervous cos i hadn't seen them for ages and had the usual "what if they hate me" nerves. i'm sure they don't and as much as i was trying to reassure myself that i was being very silly i still tidied up the house like a whirlwind so they didn't make will move out of the pigsty he'd ended up in. it was a lovely visit. we went for an ice cream in the park and i played with little un (don't babies have serious faces? my friend's little boy sonny is the same, the boys especially look like little old men!) and gave laura her birthday gifts and went up to rob's house (that weirdly enough after knowing him about 2 years had not been to). it was great. they didn't come to the house but i felt better for my tidying. all good.

saturday i finished at 5.30pm so i could go to timmy and macca's french themed leaving party. i iced cakes with french themes and steen cooked a lovely tea in preparation for a night's drinking. and we fell asleep. dead away. we missed the party and now, almost a week later i still have 12 (well, not 12, i've snacked on a couple, i think more like 8 now) iced buns that were meant to be eaten by my friends. oops!