Happy Buffiversary for, um, Friday!
This makes me remember watching the very first episode on the WB when I lived in Canada during my student exhange year over there. I was living with some people I didn't like very much and I used to spend all of my time in my room in a sulk.
God, what a joy I must have been.
But in my defense, the people I lived with -- my 'host' family as they're called in the exchange student bizz -- were borderline psychopaths who gave me a 5pm curfew (I was 18), would go through my things, and forbade me from going out with any of my male friends.
They were convinced that should they let me out of their sights I would go on a drunken orgiastic bender, I think, even though I didn't actually drink. Yes, I was an 18-year-old non-drinker. Seriously, if there was anyone less likely to do that sort of thing it would be me -- but I'm also very stubborn, and so I didn't tell them that when I broke my curfew on a Friday night I was actually at the public library. Reading a book. Which saw me grounded and put on exhange student probation.
It was a very odd situation.
Crazy family also had an enormous, and real, moosehead sitting over the TV in the living room, which so profoundly creeped me out that I couldn't be in the same room as it.
Anyway, I was miserably homesick and lonely and going through every awkward spasm of adolescent self-consciousness you can imagine, in another country too, and I credit Buffy with giving me a tiny weekly way to escape, a little glimmer of excitement and joy in what was a pretty distressing period of my life.
Yeah, that's pretty sad, I admit -- I got to go overseas and all I could do was think about how miserable I was and how I really wanted to be back home with my family and friends.
I was that kind of a kid. (If I were ten years younger I'd be sitting in my room listening to My Chemical Romance, painting my nails black to match my hair and thinking bitter thoughts about how few friends I have on MySpace.)
Thankfully the misery only lasted until I moved in with a new host family who were lovely and didn't read my letters from home and check my breath when I got home of an evening to make sure I hadn't been drinking. (Yes really.)
And after that little trip down memory lane, I bring you:
Cyclone watch
Jacob's back down to a category two after intensifying yesterday to a category three, so that's good. (Well, there's still the possibility it'll cross the coast with winds as high as 130km an hour, which ain't so hot.)
It's due to reach the coast early tomorrow morning I think. There's a warning for much of the Pilbara coast.
JW continues to be bored, or so his latest report says. Let's hope it stays that way.
Have you read M J Hyland's _When the Light Gets In_? It's about an exchange student in similar circumstances to yours.
Posted by: elsewhere | March 11, 2007 at 01:32 PM
No, I haven't. A quick google makes it sound a lot more interesting than what happened to me!
Posted by: Kate | March 11, 2007 at 01:46 PM
I've read it, and I actually liked it more than Carry Me Down, which got all the press last year. It's quite disturbing though, so it might be a better post-cyclone read.
Posted by: Nomes | March 12, 2007 at 07:06 AM
"Reading a book"
Yeah, well, first they're drinking and rubbing against each other, then before you know it they're into literature. Classic signs here, Kate-o, going out to spend reading time by yourself, not admitting to others your use of written material, so on. I'll bet you kept stashes of books around your room in case you ran out, right? Did you constantly worry about what you'd be reading next?
I've seen too much binge erudition and problem rambling to have any illusions about the effect of books on the young. Parents, talk to your children about literature before it's too late!
Posted by: The Devil Drink | March 12, 2007 at 02:51 PM
You've seen straight through me, DD. I did try Readers Anonymous once, but I'm afraid it got too much for me.
Look, I like the damn books, okay? And everyone's got to die of something, right? What's wrong with being crushed to death by a pile of novels when you're 80? Better than drnking yourself to death, that's for sure.
Posted by: Kate | March 12, 2007 at 05:51 PM
just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your essays on The Buffyverse - excellent work. Also, nice to see your 10 year Buffiversary - Hard to understand how quickly the years have gone by and that we first say the wonderful series 10 years ago.
Notice that you have a flicker site - I have seversal sets of buffy fanart you might like to see - look forward to seeing your work there. Look for NMCIL ortiz domney at flickr
Posted by: nmcil | March 13, 2007 at 02:51 AM
Hey, no judgment here, K. As long as you don't try and read while you're driving and know your own limits, I reckon you should enjoy the written word as much as I do.
Now, back to Marlowe...
Posted by: The Devil Drink | March 13, 2007 at 11:51 AM