Hypatia Avenue

"How great are we?"

Well, how great are we?

After two weeks of stress, strife, bribes to stay late in the form of very good pizza and amazing Thai takeaways, a cab home from the office because I worked so late I missed the tube, an emergency dash to the docklands to nurse the server, harassing the Sweden-based designers and general all-round panic and hair-tearing, we managed to get the website running, managed to get in and upload and stream 12 brand new films *and* organise the event at the IMAX cinema including personalised badges and information folders for all our guests and an amazing exhibition space that included 12 G4 laptops connected wirelessly to the net and our new site for all to peruse after the presentation on the feckin' big screen in the auditorium.

Phew.

This is the biggest thing I've done since mounting my own play from scratch at university - I didn't think I'd ever do anything so multi-faceted, so nerve-wracking, so nail-bitingly exciting and frustrating all at the same time. But I did. And it was amazing. We're not greatly organised as a relatively new staff team with a very new project such as this, but we pulled it off and it was a spectacular day. And an even more amazing evening afterwards...

We got into the IMAX at about 7.30am and were divided into 3 teams - the cinema team were setting up the actual presentation, running Powerpoint slides, screencaps and the actual website, live from the internet onto the big IMAX screen. The exhibition team were setting up the laptops and projectors in the foyer and I was in the meet and greet team on reception downstairs. Due to my epic night in the office the night before, I was late (surprise, surprise) and turned up in my jeans and pyjama top (I was in a hurry, k?) and was looked at aghast by the rest of the team who were all scrubbed up nice for the day. I had to defend myself strenuously and run to get changed before I got pelted with USB cables and screen wipes... reassuringly, 20 minutes later, I emerged like a butterfly out of a public convenience-shaped chrysalis and went down to reception, ready to meet and greet with full Boots make-up counter war paint on. The transformation was so complete, one relatively new staff member didn't know who I was - which suggests to me now, in hindsight, how much of a mess I must look on an average day, slobbing around the office in my Big Bro's cast-off jeans and dinner-stained sweaters...

Well, the guests arrived, they were loving the exhibition and their personalised name badges and info packs and the generally slick, sleek and interactive pre-show stuff.... then the show started and fuck me, we knocked their socks off. We all held our breath backstage as the website was brought up on screen, direct from the internet and we were terrified that an Error: page cannot be found screen would come up, or maybe the site would come up and the whole thing would be ballsed up... but it was fine and dandy and a nifty little site, which you can go see for yourself... it was fabulous to see it, finally, after all the long hours, tantrums and tears.

We were all packed up and ecstatic by 2.30pm and all de-camped to a restaurant bar nearby and started on a merry trip into Group Drunkenness. I don't know when we broke into two separate camps but senior staff somehow disappeared by the time the rest of us moved into the NFT bar and the drinks came in thick and fast, there was much joyous celebration and woo-ing and cheering for getting through the whole thing and managing it all so well and then two of us left and then three, leaving three of us there to stay on drinking and shouting and indulging in ...well, let's just say, "behaviour unsuitable for two colleagues to carry out in the office but kinda okay under the table in a bar by the South Bank..." And then a long and blurry journey home to my bed, exhausted but too exhilarated to sleep. But finally, I slept. And it was a sound and sweet sleep. We did it! We did it! Woo-YAY!

Gosh, and it's my birthday too. Must dash - got to keep celebrating...! I'll be back to report on my entry into my 23rd year. Watch this space...