reasons to be happy

1) We had a Pride and Prejudice watching night at my flat a week or so ago. (Obviously - the five hour BBC version.) We created a facebook event and just invited anyone who might conceivably want to come - and crossed our fingers that all fifty people wouldn't show up! In the end, there were about fifteen or sixteen of us, and so we moved all the couches, beanbags, and so on into my room, the biggest in the house, and had a REALLY GOOD TIME. We actually had a few extremely keen males show up, which always makes me feel hopeful about the state of male-kind.

Organising party food also makes me happy, and arranging the carrot sticks and celery, as in the photo above, was one of the best bits.

2) On Saturday night I went to a screening of the 1925 Russian silent film, "Battleship Potemkin". One of THE classic movies, this was shown in the Christchurch Town Hall, with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra playing the music - which was in this case written by Shostakovich. SUCH a good concert. Sadly I can't watch Soviet films without thinking "propaganda! propaganda!" anymore - but I could certainly admire the forward-thinking, beautiful cinematography, and the music was just amazing.

3) In 48 hours EXACTLY, I will be leaving for Europe. Now that I've got all my preparation pretty much done, I'm not panicky anymore, but EXCITED. And scared in a good kind of way.