Sweet movie theatres – warm is your air, snug are your seats, silent is your atmosphere, funny are your ads, golden is your silver screen of wide dimensions. Sweet movie theatres, oh have I missed you like England misses penalties. 

Our first stint of SCA has rolled by at a speedy rate and now here we are in half-term’s clutches suckling its milk for all it is worth. Holiday milk comes in many forms. Yours might be the full-fat Jersey variety that takes you abroad on grand getaways to Florence or Vienna. My milk is lean and skimmed and it comes in the form of spread-eagling my legs in an empty cinema, McDonald’s burger clasped in one hand, nicotine dispensing gadget in the other, awaiting what is to me some kind of heroin-like dose of pleasure for a runtime of two hours. 

I have had no time to bask in the warm glow of the big screen these here past few weeks – did nobody tell you SCA is a jealous lover? It wants you all to itself all of the time. Yeah. No. I’ve had zero time to indulge. But muchas grateful am I that I have had a whole week off (sort of) to go see some real gems being churned out by the film machine. 

I’m doing my best to lap up this free time as best I can, for it is finite. I am slurping up the lactose sweetness that holiday provides for an otherwise busy soul bound by an unbreakable pact with SCA. It’s something I’ve been mulling over in the back of my cranium without much conscious consideration. Namely, balancing life at a relentless ad school with life outside of it. Everybody in this honey-combed hive of creativity has been toiling busily to the Queen Bee’s tune (that’s Marc). 

It’s been thrilling, no doubt about it. I’ve done more in six weeks than I have in five years and it’s, quite frankly, addictive. But having the sweet taste of holiday does allow the mind to catch up with itself. And a niggling consideration for me is that I’m finding it difficult to allow myself to clock off from all things advertising and engage with the rest of the world. Worryingly, it’s only been six weeks and by far these six weeks will be the least arduous or important in the entire ten months of SCA. In my heart of hearts, I know if I’m struggling now with work-life balance, the pull of its gravity will only increase the steeper the climb becomes. 

And so, I would like to make a little promise to myself that I will not resist the urge of a good trip down to the local picture house every now and then. Watching a good movie is nothing if not a perfect way to let my mind relax from a hard week. Even the most recent film I saw, Triangle of Sadness, which has an obscene 15-minute sequence of people vomiting on a swaying yacht, is, in its own way, relaxing. Aye. Movies were made for watching, eyes were made for watching movies and godammit I’m not gonna resist nature no more. 

Love,

Me

@frederik_smidth