So I should be writing an essay right now, but the inspiration well is
currently dry so I'm on "break" and updating you guys, (yay!). Sorry,
this email is going to be random, please bear with me, I haven't slept
or eaten much this past week/weeks. BIG NEWS! I'm moving into a new
flat with 2 friends from school 2 weeks from now. We're moving out of
student housing into our own flat. This will be cheaper and generally
better in the long run. It's in Ladbroke Grove
(http://maps.yell.com/client/yell/?qs=ladbroke+grove&panel=business&sem=g&cam=sem_maps),
just west of Notting Hill and 2 blocks away from the Portobello Road
Market (which is awesome). I'm really excited about the move. What I'm
even more excited about is being done with the flat searching process
(aka the level of hell that's right above the british home office
which will always be in the lowest level). Let's just say that I know
where all the burrows of London are and roughly how long it should
take me to get to them from school, most letting offices hate students
and foreigners and most affordable flats in London are off the market
within seconds of going on. Anyways, that's done, and I'll have
pictures soon enough of my new place. Other than that my life has been
spent at school, spread between 2 computer labs and the studio. My
group filmed this past weekend (next email I'll include my final film,
I promise). It's sad that it takes several hours of filming for a 2
min. film, but everyone's footage looks great so I guess it's all
worth it. I also know how to build bedrooms and corridors in a small
studio and make them look convincing and we put together an awesome
riding dolly. I did however manage to drop a chunk of stage on my foot
and have a lovely bruise/knot on it now, luckily I didn't break
anything and could continue working. Um, I can't think of any other
really exciting news and the essay is calling my name (ugh). So take
care everyone!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Greetings to my friends and family. This week's email is a much happier one and filled with pictures (and there was much rejoicing). The best news is that Brena came down from st. andrews and spent several days with me and of course we had an awesome time. She had a conference at the British museum last wednesday and needed to get education stuff from other museums in london for her project. Thursday we went to camden market and spent way too much time shopping, but it was fun and I bought an awesome hat. (see 1st pic)
Friday we spent ALL day in museums. We got to the British museum around 9am to stand in line to get tickets to see the terracotta army exhibit. It's a hugely popular exhibit since this is the first time the terracotta army has ever been outside of china. Pre-purchased tickets have been sold out since last march, but 500 tickets are available each day for that day purchase, normally they are sold out by 11am. The museum has also extended the exhibits hours so it stays open till midnight. We got tickets for 10pm. We wandered around the British museum, found some things that we loved and needed pictures with (pictures 2&3) then we had lunch and went to Tate Modern. We spent several hours there and were feeling a bit silly so we took a bunch of pictures with the large art instillation there now (it's a giant crack running the full length of the entrance hall). I have to admit that I was not a fan of the crack at first, but by the time we left it had grown on me, not for the artist's original purpose of course (which was something to do with political and social rifts), but as inspirations for our own artwork in photography. (pics 4-9 is only a small sample of the fun we had) It was some crackin' good times! After that we went back to the british museum to see the terracotta army (which was very awesome) and got home very late.
Saturday we got a late start on the musuem going so did not spend a lot of time at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History museum but still had a great deal of fun (pics 10-13)
Sunday I had to spend the whole day filming in the studio with my Video Tech 3 group so Brena and Jessica went off and had fun without me. Filming went ok. I do like the group I'm in, but it took us forever to get properly started and we each had to get a project done with setting up lights and props etc and the project HAD to be edited IN CAMERA which was SO FRUSTRATING so the end result was everyone being kinda grumpy and a so-so finished project for me. We watched everyone's films today in class though and mine was definitely not the worst project so that's comforting. I'll add it into my next email and you guys can judge for yourselves. The last picture is of Michael and his caterpillar cake that I told you about in the previous email.
That's my news for now, now I get to go work on my screenplay that's due wednesday!
Friday we spent ALL day in museums. We got to the British museum around 9am to stand in line to get tickets to see the terracotta army exhibit. It's a hugely popular exhibit since this is the first time the terracotta army has ever been outside of china. Pre-purchased tickets have been sold out since last march, but 500 tickets are available each day for that day purchase, normally they are sold out by 11am. The museum has also extended the exhibits hours so it stays open till midnight. We got tickets for 10pm. We wandered around the British museum, found some things that we loved and needed pictures with (pictures 2&3) then we had lunch and went to Tate Modern. We spent several hours there and were feeling a bit silly so we took a bunch of pictures with the large art instillation there now (it's a giant crack running the full length of the entrance hall). I have to admit that I was not a fan of the crack at first, but by the time we left it had grown on me, not for the artist's original purpose of course (which was something to do with political and social rifts), but as inspirations for our own artwork in photography. (pics 4-9 is only a small sample of the fun we had) It was some crackin' good times! After that we went back to the british museum to see the terracotta army (which was very awesome) and got home very late.
Saturday we got a late start on the musuem going so did not spend a lot of time at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History museum but still had a great deal of fun (pics 10-13)
Sunday I had to spend the whole day filming in the studio with my Video Tech 3 group so Brena and Jessica went off and had fun without me. Filming went ok. I do like the group I'm in, but it took us forever to get properly started and we each had to get a project done with setting up lights and props etc and the project HAD to be edited IN CAMERA which was SO FRUSTRATING so the end result was everyone being kinda grumpy and a so-so finished project for me. We watched everyone's films today in class though and mine was definitely not the worst project so that's comforting. I'll add it into my next email and you guys can judge for yourselves. The last picture is of Michael and his caterpillar cake that I told you about in the previous email.
That's my news for now, now I get to go work on my screenplay that's due wednesday!
Monday, January 28, 2008
a slightly surrealistic update
jan. 22, 2008
Hello to all. So it has been brought to my attention that I haven't emailed in awhile. My apologies. I really haven't done anything terribly exciting lately. Mostly a lot of going to class, doing a ton of homework and running through the many circles of bureaucratic hell. (yes, for those of you who were unaware, Hell is not fiery but an elaborate labyrinth of bureaucracy). Anyways, if anyone is curious about the fine details of these adventures, you have but to ask and i can send you a long ranting email about them. It is a subject I enjoy ranting on. For the rest of you I will spare you and sum up. American Embassy = a fortress of security, queuing, playing "guess that form", a little bit of white lying and wide-eyed innocence ("What? my appointment's next week? but I need to get in today cause I might be flying to europe soon and can't wait a whole month!). Plus the building is really really ugly. America, where is our pride? But far worse is the British Home Office. Ok, I have to rant about this one. Honestly, Dorthy had an easier time seeing the Wizard than I'm having just getting an APPOINTMENT to get into the home office. The number is always busy, the website is confusing and misdirecting, the London office says "can't help you, call or go to Croydon office" (20 min. by train outside of London), Croydon number, no answer, long trip to Croydon office, standing outside Croydon office in the cold for half hour, Croydon office says "you can't even enter the building without a pre-registered appointment which you can only get over the phone", I say "I've tried the number, no one ever answers" Croydon "oh, you're calling too late in the day (11am-2pm is very late) try calling at 8:30am when they first get there (actually no one's there till 9)". SOMEONE ANSWERS THE PHONE! phone person "have you filled out your NTOT forms?" "No, but I have a I.S. 116 form the airport gave me" "No idea what that form is, but I can mail you the NTOT forms you need then if you still feel you need an appointment then you can call us back and schedule it". It has now been 5 to 10 business days later. I received the forms today (after 2pm so no chance of a phone call working) so tomorrow I might, maybe, possibly, be worthy of an appointment with the Croydon home office. The moral of this story is "Never loose your passport". Good news though! I do have a passport again! As of yesterday. In other news, everyone here is/was/has been getting sick. I only got a little sick earlier last week, cause I decided to sleep a whole lot, invest in Night Nurse (the god of cold medicines) and lots of oranges. Others have not been so fortunate, which made for a very boring week/weekend and low class attendance (by both teachers and students alike). Ok, happy news, to end this email on a lighter note. I got a really cool christmas present from my friend Tim, which is a board game called Cinematique. It is the Lord of movie board games and no one can defeat me at it! (or not yet at least). Oh and Jessica and I had a visit from our friend the traveling australian friend, Mike, 2 weekends ago so he wouldn't have to celebrate his birthday alone. There was an awesome chocolate caterpillar cake included there. (The cake was not made of caterpillars, but in the shape of one). There is an awesome picture of it somewhere, I will try to find it for next time. Sorry, once again this is a really long email. Congratulations if you've made it to the end without a break or scanning over everything, if you've done the latter, don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt, I like to ramble. Farewell for now!
jan. 5, 2008
hope everyone had lovely holidays. I was glad to see those I could while I was home for the break. Some of you are on Aubree's email list too so you have already heard about the um "exciting" trip to London. For those of you who don't know I'll give a short synopsis. Aubree flew back with me cause she's studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh this semester. We set out from Dallas airport at 6:00am Jan. 31st or we should have, the flight left late which meant we had to speed walk through O'Hare to make our connecting flight to Heathrow. The flight was uneventful except the last hour where I discovered that I couldn't find my passport. Somewhere between the plane out of Dallas and the plane to Heathrow my passport disappeared. Fortuantly I still made it through customs, though it took an extra hour to convince them not to send me back. Now I have to go to the American Embassy to get a new passport and the British Home office to let them know I'm in the country legally or something like that. So we celebrated the coming of the new year on the tube platform. Then there was a bunch of crazy tube business with some stations being closed and a bunch of people getting on in central London and we couldn't push our way off the train before the doors closed again and then I left my brand new coat which I love in the taxi which dropped us off at my flat. I made a desperate run after the taxi, but alas I was not fast enough. So our New Year's Eve sucked, but we still made it into the country and slept in the next day so the world was ok again. Since then Aubree and I have been doing some touristy stuff thrown in with errarnd type stuff like getting student rail cards, getting tickets to Edinburgh tomorrow (I'm helping her move up, she has a lot of heavy luggage) and stuff I had to do at school for next week and calling the american embassy and the taxi lost and found dept. (there will be more stories on that next week no doubt). We saw the Tower of London, the National Gallery, Camden Market, Oxford Street, Picadilly Circus etc. Also we went to see Stomp
last night which is a very awesome percussive show. They do music and dance stuff with brooms and trash cans and plungers etc. I highly recommend it to anyone. Ok, I think that's all my news for now
Hello to all. So it has been brought to my attention that I haven't emailed in awhile. My apologies. I really haven't done anything terribly exciting lately. Mostly a lot of going to class, doing a ton of homework and running through the many circles of bureaucratic hell. (yes, for those of you who were unaware, Hell is not fiery but an elaborate labyrinth of bureaucracy). Anyways, if anyone is curious about the fine details of these adventures, you have but to ask and i can send you a long ranting email about them. It is a subject I enjoy ranting on. For the rest of you I will spare you and sum up. American Embassy = a fortress of security, queuing, playing "guess that form", a little bit of white lying and wide-eyed innocence ("What? my appointment's next week? but I need to get in today cause I might be flying to europe soon and can't wait a whole month!). Plus the building is really really ugly. America, where is our pride? But far worse is the British Home Office. Ok, I have to rant about this one. Honestly, Dorthy had an easier time seeing the Wizard than I'm having just getting an APPOINTMENT to get into the home office. The number is always busy, the website is confusing and misdirecting, the London office says "can't help you, call or go to Croydon office" (20 min. by train outside of London), Croydon number, no answer, long trip to Croydon office, standing outside Croydon office in the cold for half hour, Croydon office says "you can't even enter the building without a pre-registered appointment which you can only get over the phone", I say "I've tried the number, no one ever answers" Croydon "oh, you're calling too late in the day (11am-2pm is very late) try calling at 8:30am when they first get there (actually no one's there till 9)". SOMEONE ANSWERS THE PHONE! phone person "have you filled out your NTOT forms?" "No, but I have a I.S. 116 form the airport gave me" "No idea what that form is, but I can mail you the NTOT forms you need then if you still feel you need an appointment then you can call us back and schedule it". It has now been 5 to 10 business days later. I received the forms today (after 2pm so no chance of a phone call working) so tomorrow I might, maybe, possibly, be worthy of an appointment with the Croydon home office. The moral of this story is "Never loose your passport". Good news though! I do have a passport again! As of yesterday. In other news, everyone here is/was/has been getting sick. I only got a little sick earlier last week, cause I decided to sleep a whole lot, invest in Night Nurse (the god of cold medicines) and lots of oranges. Others have not been so fortunate, which made for a very boring week/weekend and low class attendance (by both teachers and students alike). Ok, happy news, to end this email on a lighter note. I got a really cool christmas present from my friend Tim, which is a board game called Cinematique. It is the Lord of movie board games and no one can defeat me at it! (or not yet at least). Oh and Jessica and I had a visit from our friend the traveling australian friend, Mike, 2 weekends ago so he wouldn't have to celebrate his birthday alone. There was an awesome chocolate caterpillar cake included there. (The cake was not made of caterpillars, but in the shape of one). There is an awesome picture of it somewhere, I will try to find it for next time. Sorry, once again this is a really long email. Congratulations if you've made it to the end without a break or scanning over everything, if you've done the latter, don't worry, my feelings aren't hurt, I like to ramble. Farewell for now!
jan. 5, 2008
hope everyone had lovely holidays. I was glad to see those I could while I was home for the break. Some of you are on Aubree's email list too so you have already heard about the um "exciting" trip to London. For those of you who don't know I'll give a short synopsis. Aubree flew back with me cause she's studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh this semester. We set out from Dallas airport at 6:00am Jan. 31st or we should have, the flight left late which meant we had to speed walk through O'Hare to make our connecting flight to Heathrow. The flight was uneventful except the last hour where I discovered that I couldn't find my passport. Somewhere between the plane out of Dallas and the plane to Heathrow my passport disappeared. Fortuantly I still made it through customs, though it took an extra hour to convince them not to send me back. Now I have to go to the American Embassy to get a new passport and the British Home office to let them know I'm in the country legally or something like that. So we celebrated the coming of the new year on the tube platform. Then there was a bunch of crazy tube business with some stations being closed and a bunch of people getting on in central London and we couldn't push our way off the train before the doors closed again and then I left my brand new coat which I love in the taxi which dropped us off at my flat. I made a desperate run after the taxi, but alas I was not fast enough. So our New Year's Eve sucked, but we still made it into the country and slept in the next day so the world was ok again. Since then Aubree and I have been doing some touristy stuff thrown in with errarnd type stuff like getting student rail cards, getting tickets to Edinburgh tomorrow (I'm helping her move up, she has a lot of heavy luggage) and stuff I had to do at school for next week and calling the american embassy and the taxi lost and found dept. (there will be more stories on that next week no doubt). We saw the Tower of London, the National Gallery, Camden Market, Oxford Street, Picadilly Circus etc. Also we went to see Stomp
last night which is a very awesome percussive show. They do music and dance stuff with brooms and trash cans and plungers etc. I highly recommend it to anyone. Ok, I think that's all my news for now
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