Author: Benjamin Barnabas

Permit Number A38

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All this admin will be the death of me. It’s by far the most difficult task of the entire Year Abroad and I’ve hardly even started. Throw into the mix that I’ll be out of the country in five days’ time and it just gets even more needlessly complicated. Erasmus, ICPC and Placement Agreement forms… They’re all well and good, but it’s the little complications they entail that screw over the whole business. Scanned copies of hand-signed signatures, for one. Only one file allowed per application, for another. Try a passport-sized photograph that must be signed by a relevant public official from a list of possible professions, excluding teachers, lecturers or just about any other convenient notary. My parents are both music teachers. Whilst our family scope is (in this case alone) fortunately minimal, the rest of the social circle I’ve grown up in is filled almost entirely with musicians, artists and other ‘vagrants’ of that nature; those not deemed in a ‘reliable’ position for affirming my identity. That, and they must have known you for at least two years in order to confirm you are who you say you are.

Then you need a chequebook to pay for the whole shebang which, unfortunately, I have not had in my possession for almost five years now. Another unnecessary complication. Admin just makes me go to pieces. As I said, it’s not the idea of it, but the little tasks that make the whole thing nearly impossible. And because there’s that shred of possibility, it makes it all the more exhausting. Oh, and did I mention a deadline? I didn’t need to. It was obvious. Never mind the fact that my application gave details and addresses of two previous teaching positions, the government still needs proof that I’m safe around children. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but it doesn’t half drive me up the wall in frustration. Oh, I’m going to look back on all of this in a few years’ time and laugh, I guess, but right now I’m screaming.

There’s worse: this is only the beginning. At the end of the day, all this is British administration. Spanish administration is notoriously impossible to navigate. It’s almost as bad as the French passion for paperwork, and of course, it’ll all be in Spanish. And I’ve all of this to look forward to! Asterix and Obelix, I feel your pain… BB x

Packhorse on the Underground

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I have too much stuff. Simply put. If that wasn’t obvious once I’d crammed it all into two suitcases, a shoulder bag and a satchel, it was made all the more so when I had to lug it from Durham to Crawley, across the Underground with everything on my back. I weighed it on the bathroom scales when I got back and it seems that between the four loads I was carrying nigh on 65 kilos of clothes, books and other bits and pieces. That explains why my shoulders were on fire this morning, as if I needed an explanation. The insides of my fingers are still burning from the strain. By the time I got to London Victoria I was actually dragging the lot across the floor, bent double, in order to keep moving; my fingers felt like they were on the verge of falling off. If it weren’t for an angel sent to help me at King’s Cross – a kindly Bolivian mother of three who shouldered half of my luggage for me when I collapsed in the Underground terminus – I sincerely doubt I’d have made it to Three Bridges in one piece. Typical, that of all the people in the Underground, it would be a Spanish speaker who came to my assistance. London can be so very faceless and yet there are beacons of hope shining in the darkness. I hope that doesn’t sound too disparaging. I was dead on my feet yesterday and even less sympathetic towards the metropolis than usual. The Underground is bad enough when you’ve only got one load to worry about, let alone four; one strapped to your back, one over your shoulder, one in one hand and one in the other. But all’s well that ends well – I made it home!

And that’s it for Year Two. Kaputt. After all the stress and strain I’m home again, and I assure you, I’m not taking anywhere near as much stuff with me to Jordan, let alone when fourth year comes to call. Yesterday did turn out some great news though: I’ve been selected to represent Durham as an official ‘Study Abroad Blogger’. Everything I could have wanted and more. I’ll post a link when it’s all been smoothed out to the main page so you can keep up with my colleagues’ exploits when they set off for their various destinations in September. As for me, well, in a week’s time I’ll be on a plane bound for Jordan, via a brief layover in Kiev. Two hours isn’t enough to get out of the terminal and stretch the legs, so to speak, but no matter – Andrew and I will have time to explore on the way home with that generous twelve hour layover. That, at the end of a week to travel around Jordan to take in some of the sights. Candlelit Petra, anyone? Something to look forward to. Get excited: it won’t be long before I’m no longer clawing thoughts out of the air but serving you anecdotes fresh from the Middle East. How’s that for a breath of fresh air? BB x

Nobody expects the Northern Lights

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We were called in to hype up the revolutionary atmosphere of the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta this morning. How we managed to learn a whole new mash-up in less than twenty-four hours is beyond me, but we did it, and they loved it so much they called us back for a second, not-so-surprising run followed by two of our most popular hits, the Dollar mash-up and Dancing in the Moonlight, our first single. You can get your hands on a copy via Bandcamp by following this link:

http://durhamuniversitynorthernlights.bandcamp.com/releases

Just like the last gig, the surprise was on us instead – what was supposed to be a minor gig turned into a real showcase. I’ve said it a thousand times already, but I’m really going to miss this crowd. Even if I have had time for literally nothing else this year. Well, my curfew’s ending; it’s back to the housework with me. See you on the other side! BB x

Thrice and Once

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I’ll be home in four days’ time. Staring blankly around my still alarmingly cluttered room as the sun sets outside, however, you’d never guess it. Two days’ clothes and my formal wear are lain out on the table in the corner, and I’ve crammed everything else – including all those goddamn shirts – into two suitcases. The wardrobe still looks a mess, however, largely due to the jumbled mess of coathangers, a onesie I’ve yet to wear (I don’t honestly know how I came to possess it, I can’t stand the things) and that ridiculous Soviet coat I thought would be a good fancy dress purchase, staring back at me as a poignant metaphor for the folly of flights of fancy. The only things noticeably absent from my room are all the books, packed away into three boxes. Since I’m already having to carry two suitcases, a satchel and a tog-bag on the train, I’ll have to split the three between friends who live nearby. Much as I hate asking for favours, I’ve gotten into trouble for not doing so before, and now’s just another example. Thank goodness for golden hearts. There really is such a thing as having too much stuff. Remind me never to take this much with me again. I’ll be living out of a rucksack in Jordan.

It’s that critical time of the year when, just like at the end of every term, there’s a moment’s lull before everything comes along in a gigantic rush; this time in the form of a flashmob, Erasmus applications, a major financial crisis vis-a-vis Jordan, Castle’s June Ball, module application, Student Finance, exam results, working out how I’m going to get everything home and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, leaving dear old Percy Square in a respectable condition. Definitely not in the condition we found it – which was lamentable, even for a troglodyte like me – but perhaps in the state after our first week, when we’d blitzed it to within an inch of its life. It’s the swan song of my second-year juggling career, and in all honesty I’ll be glad when it’s all over. Tensions are high on all sides and it’s no environment to live in. But perhaps that’s best. It makes leaving this place a little easier. I mentioned in my last post that Durham is sometimes too much for me, but it’s still Durham, and it’s as much in my heart as Canterbury. I will miss it. Truly.

And as if to remind me what I’m leaving behind, after a sage talking-to from one of my housemates, she pointed out of my window and told me she thought she’d seen a hedgehog. I went out into the garden to have a look and found two skulking behind the pond. It didn’t take long – they’re noisy little critters. Neither of them seemed at all bothered by my being there; one must have noticed eventually, but instead of freezing or scurrying into the bushes, it sped across the lawn and stopped right at my feet to investigate. That’s the third magical mammal encounter in as many weeks. I’m over the moon. Just goes to show there always is a silver lining, especially in the most unexpected places. Here’s to one last juggling spree. BB x

Curious George

Curious George

Summer Blues, City Blues

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There’s no better birthday present in the world than an invoice for nearly two thousand dollars. What a way to start the day. Even off the back of a very generous exchange rate, that’s still a cartload of cash. Of course, what with Student Finance working tirelessly behind the scenes, I suppose it’s easy to forget that I’m putting myself further and further in debt with those £9000 a year tuition fees hovering silently overhead, unseen until they pounce, leech-like, on my first pay cheque. That’s just a bugbear my generation have to face, I guess – not with apathy per se, but with a grudging acceptance that it’s the way things are. So yeah, in short, it was a good start to a twenty-first birthday.

DSC03651

In search of peace of mind, I took a wander out of town for somewhere quiet to sit and think. I initially made for my usual spot beside the river in the Broompark Woods, but as the sun was shining so gloriously and as I hadn’t actually done it before, I set my sights on the hill high over New Brancepeth and made for the top. It took a little while to climb down into the valley and up the other side, and it was quickly apparent that I’d left the Durham bubble far behind me. Everywhere I went I got strange looks from the people I passed; I guess not many students make it this far out of the bubble. Which is a crying shame, because it’s simply b-e-a-utiful. As soon as you’ve put a mile and a half between yourself and the city itself, you’re back in the real north again: fields lined with dry stone walls, rolling, sheep-strewn hills and open sky. Romantic, much. But you already know I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. From the top off the hill overlooking New Brancepeth, about an hour’s walk from Durham itself, you can see for miles in all directions. The cathedral tower, poking out from the valley in which it sits, dwarfs the city even from so far away. But what gets you is the silence. I’ve spent this year living on the fringes of the city, but you can still hear the hum of the A167. Get yourself out onto the hills and it’s another world. Just a couple of pipits, the odd yellowhammer and a single skylark singing their hearts out, with the far-off bleat of a lamb skipping after its mother. Rural idyll. Never mind its status, this is the real reason I applied here. If only I had the time to see more of it. I’d hoped to spend this end of term striking out around the north, but once again the year’s come and gone and I’ve not yet made the move. Fourth year will almost definitely see me finally striking out for Lindisfarne, the Lake District and the Farne Islands.

Durham City in the valley below New Brancepeth

Durham City in the valley below New Brancepeth

I don’t know how I’m going to survive for the next two months. The Arab political situation and the basic laws of the land have left me no choice: if I am to continue to study Arabic, I must go to live in the city. Durham is by far the largest city I’ve ever lived in, which isn’t saying much, because it’s the only city I’ve ever lived in. And its size freaks me out sometimes. In less than two weeks’ time I’ll have to face down my fears and try to adapt to life in Amman, a sprawling metropolis compared to anything I’ve ever known. If I didn’t have a couple of good friends going with me, I know it would break me in days. I hope I can find somewhere to get away from it all, inside the city or outside. If only Amman weren’t so immense… The icing on the cake is the cost of it all. Two months’ study and accommodation in Amman is not exactly cheap. My twisted logic tells me that it’s just insulting to pay so much to have to live in a city, which is bad enough a situation as it is, but that’s obviously not the right way of looking at it. I’m just too much of a country boy for my own good. The sooner I can get out to some tiny, out-of-the-way pueblo in the Extremaduran heartlands, the better. My heart could do with the silence. BB x

Looking north from New Brancepeth

Looking north from New Brancepeth

On the Brink

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Twenty-one in a few hours. Blimey, did that come around quick! Rolling out the monster-drawing on the table in front of me, it feels like I only started it yesterday. In actual fact, I first put pen to paper just over a year ago – a year which has, what with a summer job, rehearsals almost every night and the trip of a lifetime to Morocco and back, come and gone before you can say Tinariwen. It’s set to be a boiler, too – a whopping twenty degrees, even high up here in the frozen north. Pity it isn’t predicted to go that one degree higher, to tally up with the twenty-one guests at my birthday party and the twenty-one hours I intend to be awake. Almost twenty-one and I’m still ridiculous about fateful minutiae like that. Something to work on over the next few years.

This year I’ve decided not to find myself another year older in Klute in the early hours of the morning. I did that last year. To be precise, I seem to remember not only spending the early hours of the 11th in Klute, but the final hours of the day in the same establishment. Hardly the grandest of venues for a birthday party – but it is Klute, and it’s kind of a local treasure zealously guarded by the student body on a Friday night, so I didn’t exactly see it that way at the time. This year I intend to turn twenty-one in the comfort of my own room. I’ll probably be working on the picture when the clock turns and the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban audiobook I’m listening to will be nearing its conclusion. I predict the beginning of the time-turner escapade when the clock strikes midnight. How appropriate. I’ll try to get an earlyish night, I suppose. Lord knows I could do with one, after all these recent two o’clock finishes. It’s not the portraits that take so long, it’s the sitting, thinking and planning that occurs whenever I’ve finished one detail. That’s where all the lost hours have gone, I reckon.

So, since it’ll be another busy day tomorrow, I’d better make my plans tonight. And to kick them off, how’s about twenty-one things to do over the next few years?

  1. Learn to drive
  2. Learn to play bass guitar
  3. Teach yourself ki-Swahili
  4. Teach yourself German
  5. Visit every Spanish communidad autonoma
  6. Go to a music festival
  7. Finish that picture
  8. Find a palatable alcoholic drink
  9. Get into a new genre of music
  10. Get a girlfriend
  11. Decide on a new adventure
  12. Cut chocolate from the diet
  13. Find a new hobby
  14. Learn a martial art
  15. Go for a real all-nighter in Spain
  16. Set foot in the Sahara
  17. Give an animal-related job a try
  18. Set foot in the Americas
  19. Be more like my younger brother
  20. Learn to be happy with who and what I am
  21. Rewrite the book ONE LAST TIME and take it to a publisher’s

I think that’s a nice little set of tasks. Not exactly Herculean, but there’s a few worthy challenges in there. These last twenty-one years have been amazing, but for Pete’s sake, I’ll be spending most of the coming year in Spain. It could hardly get any better than that. Here’s to another spectacular, adventure-filled twenty-one years. I should be so lucky! BB x

Always the Bridesmaid, never the Bride

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Way back at the end of the Christmas term, my Arabic teacher sat us down and told us, quite matter-of-factly, that every year one Arabist comes back from their Year Abroad married. We’d all heard the rumour before, but to hear it from the lecturer’s own mouth was quite something. It’s like coming home from secondary school to your parents filling you in on the playground gossip. It just didn’t seem right. But apparently, it is. Arabists, it seems, have a bit of a knack for getting hitched on their year abroad. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Arab men – or at least, those I have met on my travels in Morocco – are very forward about the whole marriage proposal thing, though I would hope that nobody actually takes them seriously… it’s normally just all a part of the bartering game, right? (At least, I hope it is – for Archie’s sake…) Strangely enough, it’s not just the girls who get hitched either. The split is a clean fifty-fifty, which is odd, not because girls get more marriage proposals – Archie can vouch for the contrary – but because the dowry paid to the bride in Arab cultures can be ludicrously excessive. Putting true love into a box in the corner for the time being, it’s a lose-lose situation for the men: hitched, grounded and probably penniless as well. At least the girls can put that dowry towards that nasty student loan debt. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

We drew up sweepstakes as a class a while back, trying to decide who was most likely to get hitched. Surprise surpise, I ended up tying with fellow gappie Rosie for the spot. Ha ha. Very funny. I’ll bet my sickeningly broody reaction to the Elvet Riverside baby last term had something to do with it. The joke’s on them: I’ll be in Jordan for a maximum of four months. Five tops, factoring in moving in and travel around. Hardly enough time to get to know anybody on a friendly basis, let alone well enough to talk wedding plans. How some students came back for Year Four with a wife and child is beyond my understanding, though an idiom involving the word ‘shotgun’ comes to mind. So sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think I’ll be coming home with a glamorous Jordanian bride, folks. It ain’t happening.

Mum’s opinion was that the whole subject was childish and foolish. It’s a time to branch out and set off down new roads, for widening horizons – not laying down roots. Never mind the fact we’re supposed to be mastering the language. The stress of an Arabic wedding, hypothetical though it may be, if simply not on the cards. Not that she’d mind in the slightest if I came home with a brown-eyed, dark-haired Spanish girl on my arm (‘Think of the grandchildren!’). Not that I’d mind either. Brown eyes, curly, dark hair, and a killer accent. I’m in heaven (maybe now you too can see why they put me at the top of the list…). There’s something intensely captivating about brown eyes, don’t you think? Or maybe that’s just my angst about my ice-blue eyes talking. I’m getting better at it, but it’ll still be a while before I’m happy with having blue eyes. It’s a curse for travelling around the Mediterranean, or anywhere else for that matter. It’s as clear a sign that ‘I’m a Brit’ as a sandwich board. When my eyes finally give up on me – long may that day be in coming – I might go for brown contacts. Though in the best of all possible worlds, I’ll have gotten over my self-consciousness for good by then.

In three weeks’ time I’ll be in Amman. Humbling thought. Presumably still in a hostel, searching for accommodation. Reasons to be a girl studying Arabic include: having the luxury of a homestay organised for you. Though I can see the practical reasons for it, it leaves guys like me and Andrew in the lurch when it comes to finding a worthwhile place to stay. We’ll just have to see when we get there, I guess. Isn’t that the most exciting way? BB x

Tommy Brock’s Reconsideration

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Walking back from college last night I was lucky enough to cross paths – no, to almost step on – our college mascot. No, not one of the burly B-team lads, but the real thing: a badger. Only a little one, mind – any older and it’d probably have done a runner long before I was within earshot – but the scamp was bold enough to root around for worms no more than a few feet away from me whilst I fiddled around with my camera, trying to disable the flash so as not to stun the creature. The result, of course, is that all you can make out in the picture is a grey blur in front of one of the traffic cones. You’ll have to take my word for it that it really is a badger.

Brock hunting for worms in the bushes...

Brock hunting for worms in the bushes…

The buzz I got from this little encounter took me by surprise all over again. I guess the two students who walked past got more of a shock seeing me crouching and talking to this little beastie a few feet away in the bushes, at about twenty minutes past midnight, than I did seeing it in the first place. Not that it matters. I seem to lose any and all worries around animals. I can probably say without a shadow of a doubt that it’s the one thing in the world that makes me genuinely happy. That’s genuinely happy, mind. I get a kick out of a lot of things. But nothing, nothing gives me the same kind of buzz as spending even a few minutes with a wild animal. It’s the same thrill I had as a kid watching my hero, David Attenborough, and all of his adventures at seven o’clock in the evening on Natural World, Blue Planet or the Life series. And it’s never really gone away. It turned into a list-making, box-ticking phase when I was a teenage birdwatcher. Thankfully, that anorak aspect is long gone now. But I’m still the nature fanatic I was when I was a kid, and tonight was just a stern reminder of that. It was what a wildlife magazine I used to get called an ‘RSPB Moment’; just a moment in time when nature gives you something amazing. It doesn’t have to be big. Maybe even just a conversation with a robin in the garden. Or a fleeting encounter with a Montagu’s Harrier (that one will always be stuck in my mind). Other moments that spring to mind include finding a chameleon after a five-hour search along the Mediterranean coast, seeing the whites of a vulture’s eyes as it loomed out of the mist over a cliff and watching a mountain gorilla pull the most ridiculously human postures. I can’t escape the fact that, beneath all the other layers, I’m a true-blue naturalist at heart.

I chose to study languages at University, not just because I love travel, but because I knew it would force me to confront what was then – and to some extent, still is – my greatest fear, and that is people. Not in a phobic way, but I was never as confident around people as around kids or animals. Never work with either, or so the saying goes. To hell with that. I love them both. But animals especially. And I think it’s time I acknowledged that the real reason I love travelling so much is that it almost always brings me into contact with the wild. It’s not just the landscape or the cultures I go in search of, it’s the nature. If this is a career reconsideration moment, it’s not been a dangerous one. Not yet. Just a reminder of where my heart truly lies. I think we all need that from time to time. BB x

...and off he goes!

…and off he goes!

The Circle of Life (otherwise known as Vocalzone)

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There are few things more terrifying than waking up on the morning of a concert and realising you’ve lost your voice.

Alright, so I can think of a few, but it’s one I’d rather not repeat. Especially when that solo is the opening Zulu chant from the Circle of Life and the setting is none other than Durham Cathedral. Probably the biggest solo I am ever going to get and definitely the one I’ve been most looking forward to. So it should be just my luck that I found myself almost voiceless on the morning of the big day, throwing not just one but two gigs into violent disarray. Thanks to a little help from my friends (shout out in especial to the wonderful Emily Collinson for recommending me the miraculous Vocalzone pills) I was able to pull my voice back from the brink at the final hour and deliver the goods. It was still a semitone out, and because of my nerves I guess I rushed it too, but all things considered it could have gone so much worse. Like, my voice could have just gone before the solo. Or worse, gone halfway through, like it did once during The Sun Whose Rays in The Mikado several years back. But it held, even during the crazily last-minute additional solo in the King of Pride Rock finale – which, considering everybody was involved, probably went unheard by everyone except those who were listening out for it, even though I threw caution to the wind and belted out those last Zulu lines with all of my heart and soul, not to mention the last of my vocal chords. Lebo M. does it so much better because he’s the real deal, of course. But I hope I did him proud tonight. I dedicate that one to him. Him and, of course, all my champions in the Durham A Cappella Choir, the one and only Northern Lights. I don’t tend to miss much when I travel, but there will be a hole in my heart for evermore when I have to say goodbye to you all at the end of the year. You don’t know just how much you all mean to me.

Being part of the Northern Lights on their rise to power this year has been one of the best decisions of my life. No doubt. But trumping that and all the facts and life-lessons of the year, perhaps the most important lesson I’m taking away from this year is the danger of doing too much. Good time management may be a staple CV boon, but I’d put an honest acceptance of when too much is too much higher up the list, if I had a say in things. I’ve always tried to live by the creed that having too much to do is always better than having too little, which breeds boredom, idleness and a despicable state of mind. That’s fine, but instead of swinging between extremes as I tend to, in future I’ll be aiming for that golden middle-ground. I’m happy to be the one who does the planning and enthuses along the way, but the responsibility of authority is still beyond me. When you have to balance that power with everything else, it’s not just other people that you let down, it’s your own state of mind. This year for some reason I thought I’d be able to balance five societies, the novel, my degree, a social life, an attempt at a relationship and my sanity. Most of them took a serious hit in one way or another, but it’s the last that’s suffered the most. I’ve not had the chance to meditate properly for almost a year and it shows. I haven’t even managed to keep the novel going, which I stormed through last year. Some useful notes for my last year, at any rate. I know now that if I want to truly apply myself to something, no matter how appealing everything else may seem, it’s better to focus on just a couple of good things rather than trying to please everybody by tackling everything at the same time. Because it’s impossible to please everyone, of course, but most pressing of all, everybody’s friend is nobody’s friend. And that’s something I should really know better. BB x

The Northern Lights hit Durham Cathedral (Durham)

The Northern Lights hit Durham Cathedral. From left to right: Emmanuel, me, Becky and Luke (Durham)

Clear the Runway

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That’s it! No more exams this year! And none for another two years, come to think of it. How’s that for a load off the mind? I guess only time will tell how they went – three weeks’ time, to be precise, by which time I’ll be home. Blimey, but this year has drawn to a close quickly… I’m really not expecting an awesome turnover as far as the language exams are concerned. These last few weeks more than ever I’ve heard people liken language to Maths – the beauty, apparently, being that there’s a logic, and there’s a right and a wrong. Great news if you’ve got the kind of brain that can crunch logic like a harvester, but devastating if your mathematical competence is on par with a freshly-picked beetroot. The highest I ever achieved in a regular Maths paper at school was a paltry 28%. How I got this far – to Durham, of all places – with such a pitiful weakness for numbers is nothing short of a miracle. For me, there’s nothing better than a good, old-fashioned essay, so this last week has been an absolute breeze in comparison with the previous three weeks of grammar-busting. There’s no denying the importance of grammar – it’s the bedrock of any and every language – but it doesn’t exactly make for entertaining reading. Especially when you have to tread the line between what is right and what is wrong. Thank goodness for Arts, where it becomes one big grey area. A difficult place to excel, but a far better environment for the mathematically inept, like me.

Away with the musing. The Morocco/Jordan debate came to a sudden and decisive end yesterday with the booking of return flights from Amman at the end of June. Done! Expensive, but that’s the price you have to pay for visiting wealthy countries. It’s not as though I had much of a choice with my department either, the way things have gone of late. We’re banding together as a year to prevent the following years being plagued by the same problems we faced. Hopefully they don’t have to go through with all that chaos. But that’s that! So I’m going to Jordan. I’ll be there for just over two months before zipping back for a short stop at home before jetting straight back out to Spain, by which point I’ll have much more of an idea as to where it is they’re sending me. Exciting stuff. Now all I’ve left to do is to wait a couple of days for my monstrous portrait to arrive and I can get straight back to work on that, and let’s not forget all the gigs and rehearsals set to swamp me over the coming weeks. And paperwork. Christ, the paperwork. Will it never end?

If you’re after an alternative point of view over the next two months in Jordan, give my friends over at Langlesby travels a browse (https://langlesbytravels.wordpress.com/). It’s highly entertaining reading and a great deal less greenie-pontificating than me! I’m working on that… BB x

Summer's here and the lane is as dark as night again

Freedom!