White rabbits and a very Jewish Easter

So by normal people standards, very little was accomplished this weekend. However, by my low and increasingly lower student expectations, the last two days have been a positive whirlwind of activity. What this means is that I had one thing planned, in advance, that would get me out of my pajamas each day. Whew. I am exhausted.

On Saturday a friend and I took advantage of the fact that everyone else has low expectations of students, too. In the world of performing arts, these doubts as to the worth of certain studious young people has led to the development of the rush ticket, aka God's gift to the perpetual academic. In most towns, what rushing means is that students can show up to buy performance tickets a couple hours before curtain and get the best available seats for a set price--usually around $10/£10. A better term for this practice might be "the best flippin' deal on the planet." I have seen at least half a dozen different performances by rushing, and all of those together cost me less than a normal-price ticket to one of those performances would have run me.

So we rushed for "Alice," a new ballet commissioned by the Scottish National Ballet and based on Lewis Carroll's books.

It was...interesting. My take-away impression was that the staging was really inventive and the costumes were incredible, but that the zaniness of the storyline was (unfortunately) taken as a license for less than adequate choreography.This seemed to be reinforced by the fact that the really uncoordinated parts were the corps dances, when the entire cast was onstage. Overall, though, it was a very intriguing performance with lots of very, very nice partnering. And the above paragraph is an example of why I will never be hired to write dance reviews. Here are some pictures I stole, so you can get a sense of the costumes:

Alice, the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit

Cheshire, Alice, Mad Hatter and Humpty Dumpty

Queen and King of Hearts, and the Jabberwock (who was fabulous)

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum

Then today was Easter! I am a long-time heathen baby, as my parents have affectionately (?) termed me, and so I made absolutely no effort to go to church. Instead I got a little bit drunk! Some friends and I made an Easter brunch of bagels and lox, fruit salad and mimosas. As there was more prosecco than anything else, well...you can't waste that shit!

Oh, also, we had crumpets...I mean, we are in Britain.

The stereotypical Jewishness of the meal only occurred to us afterward, but overall I'd say it's better to eat lox on Easter than lamb, which my family routinely does, and the irony of which never fails to amuse me.

Delicious with mint jelly.

After that, I had a bit of a lie-about in the sun and called it a day. Stay tuned for the future adventures of...the STUDENT: She eats, she sleeps, she sponges off of society!