Y4-4: a summary of my final year! Second Semester II – BUSMS & shows

Hey!

Although this semester was quite busy and academically important, I didn’t give up enjoying myself. It’s all about balance am I right?

BUSMS put on two new shows. Main Show this year was Made in Dagenham, a musical about the female machinists at a Ford factory striking for Equal Pay in the 60s. I did not get cast but rather took part in a couple of chorus numbers (and helping out with the numerous and confusing scene changes), and I was so glad in the end. It was already pretty time consuming to just be in the chorus and, contrary to when rehearsing for In The Heights, this time I had a lot of uni work to get done. We had six weeks of rehearsals, affected by intersemester break, snow and lack of proper rehearsal space, but somehow we managed to pull it off! Olli and Aaron, the directors, did a great job and so did the cast. Hannah the choreographer made us sweat with all the shimming and jumping around and I got to live my best 60s life (I’m all about vintage costumes in case you don’t know). An excuse to wear my polka dot dress and petticoat was a dream and I also got to be a showgirl and struggle not to flash my bum on stage in This Is America, while rocking long tassel blue earrings. 

All in all, it was a great experience and I managed to tick off ‘doing a main show’ off my bucket list. It was my last chance to do it and the organization efforts (and unavoidable stress) were worth it. Unfortunately, show dates this year were a bit crap with them being the week we split off for Easter, so we had an open dress rehearsal and a matinée. However, it meant that a few of my friends managed to come and see it before going home and also some of the crowds were buzzing and clapping along on the evening performances, which was such a great and rewarding feeling! Fighting for women’s rights made for an incredibly emotional show and I met a few new people who got involved with BUSMS for the first time then – all for the win!

The last (and possibly most pressed for time) BUSMS show I got involved in was, of course, Encore (I definitely did the full BUSMS shebang this time round!). Another revue show, including the 2018 Leavers Song. We only had 3 weeks to rehearse so every hour was important… And it clashed with my oral exams so that was fun… Anyhow, I got cast in The Nicest Kids from Hairspray which was fun but also in Sweet Transvestite from Rocky Horror, possibly one of my favourite BUSMS numbers I have ever done. It was challenging in the sense that we had to go all out to make it work, but I really enjoyed the fishnet tights and was amazed at Calum’s skills to trot along the stage in massive platform heels. I hope we made Chloe the director proud!

The Leavers Song this year ended up being a right nostalgia trip. Rather than changing the lyrics to a musical song, we came up with a mashup of ‘The Best of BUSMS 2014 to 2018’ with songs from all the shows we leavers had been involved in over the course of our years at Bath. Costumes and choreo borrowed from the shows themselves. Grease, The Book of Mormon, Rent, Made in Dagenham, Sunshine on Leith… and, of course, In The Heights. I wore the Dominican flag proudly as I sung with the leavers one last time. It was very emotional that is for sure.

Joining BUSMS was one of the best decisions I made at University. Lacking some artistic pastime, I joined in second year and took part in chorus numbers, braving my first ever audition (on video though!) for the second show I did. While in Siena I sent my video audition for In The Heights and somehow got picked for the ensemble – one of the best experiences of my 4 years at University for sure. This last year I had my mind set on being involved as much as possible despite the workload and I think I successfully managed to do so. BUSMS has given me tonnes of self-confidence, making me more comfortable on stage or in front of a crowd but, most of all, it has given me new friendships and the chance to say I am proudly part of the BUSMS family! I know all the members will go on to do great things in the future and I will be there for the aftershows as long as I am able to… Who knows, I might do November show next year too? #postgradonasuicidemission

Aside from being involved in BUSMS shows themselves, I also did a few theatre trips in general. In February I went to Bristol Hippodrome to watch Wicked and I absolutely loved it! It is so well staged and is essentially a fairy tale. I now understand why it is some people’s favourite musical. Later that month I went to the Royal Theatre in Bath to watch an amateur production of My Fair Lady which was fun. It was pretty cool to watch amateur troupes performing in big theatres!

In April BUSMS had their annual theatre trip and we went to the West End to watch Kinky Boots. We had seats in the stalls and omg it was amazing! It felt like a school field trip to go on the coach singing musical songs (of course) and then I had dinner with a few gals before the show. The show itself was great. I absolutely loved the Angels, it had been ages since I’d watched a drag show and it reminded me of my love for it! I also particularly liked the rendition of History of Wrong Guys – I love that song!

Finally, I got a group going to plan a trip to Bristol Hippodrome in May to watch Miss Saigon right after the exams. My favourite part of the musical was the helicopter scene and the lighting, but I wasn’t a massive fan of the musical itself. It’s a classic though, so I am happy I went to watch it!

I also went to a few BUST, Bodysoc and BUSMS shows which included the annual Bodysoc showcase (the gymnastics people set up a routine for The Greatest Show which was amazing), BUST show 1984 which was intense to say the least, BUSMS Cabaret night to raise funds for charity (I wanted to sign up to sing but Jess’ birthday was on the same night so I had to split my time between both events…) and Fringe! During Fringe I watched two BUST shows: Yerma and The History Boys. I was pleasantly surprised by the cast of Yerma and The History Boys was a fun one with cross gender students. I just about made it to the BUSMS Fringe show, Oh What A Lovely War – a strange take on wars from the last century. It was hard to follow but props to all of them for putting on the show in just a week!

During Fringe I also attended a workshop run by Gavin Wilkinson, a West End performer and current performing arts teacher. It was such a high intensity workshop but we worked non-stop and put together three choreos including the full number of Don’t Even Know It from Everybody Is Talking About Jamie (I saw the live-stream of the show a few weeks ago and you should totally go and watch it if you get the chance!) which I really enjoyed, and also a Beyoncé song and my all-time dream of doing All That Jazz. Overall it was a tough day and I had sore muscles for a few days afterwards but it was so worth it! Gavin was super nice, approachable and full of energy so it was an amazing day!

Related to BUSMS but not shows included going to the Activities Awards at the Apex Hotel on the 1^st of May. The food was bad but it was a lovely night with fellow BUSMers and an excuse to dress up. My booby MiD photo got flashed on the screen which was just fab (sense the irony) and it was lovely to catch up with people involved in the societies. Genuinely so glad societies are a thing! I had to leave early because I had an oral exam the next morning, but I was glad I went!

We also had the BUSMS End of Year Meal on the 8^th of May in Aqua. We had the full restaurant to ourselves and it was a great chance to all meet up, celebrate a wonderful year (Chair Hannah’s speech at the end of the night was so lovely!) and receive awards… I got best BUSMS-related social media because I am the #promoqueen when it comes to shows (if you don’t yet, you should follow me on IG @zoeamz!). It is always so funny to see what awards people receive as there are always some worth a cackle.

Finally, the last BUSMS event of the year was, of course, BUSMS Tag to nurse our Summer Ball hungovers… Once I’d woken up I made my way to Victoria Park to meet up with Jess, Dan and a few other Siena Brits. It was good to see Dan again and catch up for a bit. Then I joined the BUSMS lot who were day drinking, sunbathing and playing football, before we made our way to The Canon for some burgers and open mic. It was insanely hot so my fan was a god send but it was a lovely night with some fun numbers.

So, as you’ve read, I’ve been seriously involved with BUSMS this year – and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I have dedicated a lot of time to my BUSMS family, but I also managed not to neglect (and actually do quite well) in my role as Fencing Social Sec – more on that on my next post!

Zoe x

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoeamz/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gatheringsmithereens/

Snapchat: zoeamma

Y4-3: a summary of my final year! Second Semester I – Modules, strikes & snow

Hello again!

I know it’s been absolute ages, but after finishing exams I thought I’d have time to update the blog… guess I was wrong.

Like I did for last semester, I will be publishing a series of posts about my final semester at Bath as an undergraduate (I cannot believe my four years are over already!). Again, they will be split by theme and you’ll get a nice little summary of all the fun (and stressful) stuff that I got up to over the past six or seven odd months. Enjoy!

MY MODULES

I quite enjoyed my second semester modules. Concerning the language side of things, they were quite similar to the first semester, only changing the style of text for the “grammar” parts of the units. As expected, I really enjoyed translation and Enrico’s speaking lessons were really interesting although at 9am on a Thursday I have to admit I missed a few and had to catch up with the Friday ones… In regards to German, I gave it up as I didn’t really have enough time to attend the lessons (and thank God I did because I was struggling to do everything, especially towards the last few weeks). So no more German, but I did go to Berlin during intersemester break with Megan and clumsily put my skills into practice. You can read all about that HERE .

My second semester content modules were pretty interesting.

·         ‘Language, Power & Society’ offered really varied content on language linked to issues of identity, gender, hierarchy, international institutions… Each lecture was on a different topic by a different lecturer so we had quite a lot to take in but the variety made it quite useful as everybody had a topic they felt more passionate about. I particularly enjoyed learning about the imperialism of the English language (how it has become the “superlanguage” in today’s day and age) and had to give a presentation on the promotion of Welsh in Wales, something I never thought I’d be learning about… I also had the chance to write an exam on how Canarian Spanish differs from standard Spanish. That was pretty cool as I never thought I’d be writing about my mother tongue during my degree!

·         ‘Les avant-gardes du 20eme siècle’. This was an interesting one. There were only six of us in the class. And it clashed with fencing training (so, another excuse not to train… Apparently constant rehearsals wasn’t a good enough reason). Because of the strikes and the snow (I will get more into detail later), the content was a bit all over the place but essentially we learnt about Dada and Surrealism. I focused on Marcel Duchamp and René Magritte for my assignments, which seemed like a great idea at the start but ended up being very challenging topics… I still enjoyed it though; I do love art!

·         ‘Applied Translation Studies’ (for Italian). Here’s to my first proper theory module on translation and let me tell you, oh boy was it dense. We had to read about loads of theories of translation in order to apply them to the texts we were given and write commentaries on our translations. Strangely, I turned out to be better at the commentary than the translation itself… Although some theories were quite hard to grasp, I really enjoyed the module and learning about how different people explain and try to structure the process of translating. If you are taking the MLES degree at Bath and like languages, I’d definitely recommend this module!

As I briefly mentioned, there were a load of UCU strikes this past semester, which impacted us massively. You can read more about it here: https://www.thesubath.com/campaigns/ucustrike/ At a glance, senior management issued a new pension scheme proposal nation-wide which would’ve involved cuts in pay and pensions for many professors and so teachers and staff went on strike nationally. In Bath, they called from 2 to 5 days of strike a week for 4 or 5 weeks, which in my case meant that we lost a lot of contact hours and thus had no access to the content of the modules. This was quite frustrating given as language students most of our work relies on regular language seminars and constant feedback. However, I completely backed our teachers and, on the whole, there was a widespread feel of empathy and support towards them. Students joined the strikes and demonstrations too. Frustratingly though, it mainly impacted PoLIS (language and politics faculty), barely affecting any other faculties at university and the days that we did have class, it so happened that the Beast from the East made its appearance from the 1^st to the 4^th of March and then again about two weeks later, which meant cancelled lessons… 

Snow days caused havoc: university closed, no lessons (yet again), no food at the supermarkets, buses weren’t running,… We were in the middle of Made in Dagenham rehearsals running quite short on time before the show and those had to be cancelled or shifted around too for safety reasons. You’d think a country as cold as England would be ready for snow… Although to be fair, the first day that snow was expected, it barely stuck so when it did start falling hard it was quite a shock. Personally, I just hibernated at home until the snow melted down. I attempted to make my way to Oldfield for rehearsals and seriously slipped in my attempt so by the time I got to Kingsmead Square I gave up on my quest and came back home… Bath was beautiful in the snow, but my room was absolutely freezing. The old windows let literal snow come in through the cracks and my storage heater heating was virtually non-existent, so I had to make do with loads of layers and an emergency convector heater from ASDA… I did survive though! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

As teachers tried to update Moodle for us to keep up with work, we sent out complaint emails all around, supported the picket lines and overall panicked about assessments. It became quite frustrating (but necessary) to go to University to do some independent work and try to keep on top of the workload. Unfortunately, with due dates shifted, untaught content and looming deadlines, this became really hard to do. In retrospect, I think I handled it pretty well in comparison to other people, but it was hard to keep track of what work had to be done without regular lessons. Fortunately, the hours in the library and tandem sessions sort of helped. A new assistant teacher for Italian, Marta, came for a few months and Megan and I met her regularly in 4W to speak some Italian and help each other out as due to the strikes she had loads of free time. She came from Siena which was amazing and we got along really well. She even came to watch some of my BUSMS shows and we met up for dinner in town a few times, so that was amazing! Hopefully we’ll pay her a visit sometime in the future!

On the other hand, once the strike was fortunately called off after negotiations, we had a general meeting with the head of department and other people from the teaching boards to discuss how to mitigate the impact of the strikes. After a lot of complaining and deliberating, they decided to push back due dates for assignments, meaning that I fortunately had a bit of extra time to finish my essays before handing them in.

Towards the end of the semester it all became a bit stressful due to exams and making up for the lost time. I decided not to go back home for Easter. I was feeling super tired and ended up having some blood tests done and finding out I had to supplement iron and B12 (I’ve become pescatarian and I am trying to reduce the animal products I consume, which also means I have to be mindful to supplement accordingly). But despite feeling under the weather I forced myself to go up to the library every day during the first week of the break (a library which was eerily empty) and work for hours straight to finish my assignments (that I’d pushed back because of Made in Dagenham rehearsals and show week). I was quite proud of myself when I managed to finish all of it before treating myself to a short solo trip to Athens (more on that HERE).

A similar situation occurred towards the end of the semester, when oral exams piled up with Encore rehearsals and working on assignments, meaning that I pretty much spent the last two weeks of revision and exam time in the finalist study room in 1WN with the pals (Library is a no-go during exam season if you desperately need a power socket). It was a nice solution because I could come and go as I pleased and I always had a socket and a space. Quite depressing due to the lack of sunlight in such good weather, but a few lunch and study breaks by the lake with Megan and Simon helped out and somehow I managed to finish all my assignments and exams on time plus sit my assessment and interview day for the Interpreting and Translating MA in Bath – but more on that soon!

This was a long post, but hopefully it made for an interesting read. Stay tuned for more on musicals, fencing and general socialising!

Zoe x

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoeamz/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gatheringsmithereens/

Snapchat: zoeamma