It's hard to dance with a devil on your back

[dolorosa_12]

This week has been hard. It's been filled with fun stuff, including one of our department's annual lectures, which was followed up with a long night in the pub. Surprisingly, I did not wake up the next morning with a hangover, having been very restrained. On Friday afternoon, we hiked out to Grantchester, which was lovely in the crisp, cold weather. Matthias stayed at the pub there with our friends, but I had to go straight back in to the faculty in order to do a shift at the library, but when I got home, I was informed they were waiting for me in another pub, and our friend L had already bought me a glass of wine. So that was a nice surprise.

On Saturday, we had our friends P and V around for dinner. They had invited us over when they moved into their own new place earlier in the year, so it was high time we returned the favour. I'm loving living in our own place because it means you can do stuff like this without having to worry if the kitchen will be free or if housemates are going to want to watch DVDs in the living room.

TV-wise, I'm getting very into The Killing. I missed the previous two seasons because they aired when I happened to be out of the UK, but luckily each season is self-contained. It's so tense and twisty and just when I think I've got things figured out, some new complication appears.

I've also been very well-served with books this week. I finished The Lions of Al-Rassan on Wednesday. The ending made me cry, but I also felt a deep sense of satisfaction because it was such a perfect story. I'll probably write about it at length on my Wordpress blog in a few days, if I have time. Today at work I picked up two collections of essays by Marina Warner, and that's looking very good too. I love her writing - it's always so good, and it's always about subjects that interest me.

The theme of this week has been 'weight'.* Not physical weight, but the things that hold me under and weigh me down. The weight around my neck that is my PhD and the other things I need to do and finish. The weight of expectations - those of other people and those of myself. The weight of all the things that keep me from dancing.

With that in mind, the song for this week can be nothing but 'Shake It Out' by Florence + The Machine.

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* I'm borrowing something from my old yoga teacher, who always started each class with a theme such as 'beauty', 'kindness', 'power' or whatever.