Looking Back....

I was just looking at my ical and thought how funny it was to see the difference between my MCAD and Brighton schedules....
Brighton schedule basically = footie matches
Mcad schedule basically = lack of life due to work

:''''''''''(

Had a fun and happy but oh-so-sad night in Brighton last night. Jenny and I went out to the pub and met with Ally, Ant, Alex, and Tom for one last bit of fun. Then the four of us (- Ant and Alex) headed over to a different pub up the street to meet Rob and some friends. But on the way there the best thing in the world happened, we decided to stop in a few different news agents and buy a ton of candy that I haven't tried yet. YUM WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! Such fun, I'm really going to miss Brighton and everyone in it! I'm not ready to say goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee boohoo.

Today finished up at Topman and said super depressing goodbyes to Ramzy and Jenny, both of whom I MISS ALREADY! (I can't wait to go home and pig out on cheeseburgers in your honor, guys!). And when I got home Frankie was waiting to take me to her favorite special pub. We walked passed Kate Moss' house and there were 4 paparazzi outside, crazy! Anyway, we met Ihab there later and this pub was amazing, it was the poshest pub I've ever been in and I had the most amazing meal and it was just so nice of Frankie!

I'M NOT READY TO SAY GOODBYE!
I DON'T WANT MY ENGLAND ADVENTURE TO END TOMORROW/TODAY TECHNICALLY I GUESS!
But I guess that just means it's the beginning of my SUMMER '09 AMERICA TIME adventure, right?!?! YEAH!

The Last Supper HAHAHA I'M ONLY JOKING

No it really was my last Sunday in England and Jenny and I spent it out and about having an amazing time in London going from markets to galleries and all over the place. At the end of the day we headed back to Frankie's where we along with Frankie and Ihab had a picnic outside her flat with amazing food and just a fun time as usual.

Ihab told me today that he thought I was going to write about how he snuck chilis in the salad (he said he didn't want the chili to be lonely in the fridge.), so there you go, I thought they were tomatoes and just about died when I ate them.

Stratford Upon Avon

I have realized that when I do things I need to blog about them right away because when I put it off I totally loose the motivation and interest in writing about them.

But anyway on Wednesday, very very bright and early Jenny and I set off on a nice long train ride to Stratford Upon Avon, which is not only Shakespeare's birthplace, but Jenny lived there for a year when she was 7 so that was her main motivation for going back and I figured "why not come along on the journey? It'll be fun!" and it was!!!

Our first day there we not only saw Julius Caesar in the Royal Shakespeare Company theater but we knocked on the door and met the lovely family who leased Jenny's family their house when she lived there. So kind of them to let us in and talk to us and show us around the house, it was adorable! Later that night after we saw the play we met up with Andy, the son of the people who own the house and he took us out for drinks at a nearby pub called the Dirty Duck. It was a blast! I love how friendly people are in England!

The next day we ate a scrumptious b&b breakfast and then spent the day sightseeing more around Stratford and wandering around and having more delicious tea. We even got to go out to the country a little bit and sat in the sun and had a grande old time. Later we wandered Stratford more and sat by the river and had fun watching the hilarious combinations of people row past in their boats. Then we met back up with Andy again before saying goodbye and catching the train back to Brighton late Thursday night. The trip was soooo much fun! I'm definitely not properly expressing how fun it was in this post. The whole weekend we just kept bursting into giggle fits. We still talk about it and burst into giggle fits, haha!

Read about it on Jenny's blog here. And see more of my photos here.

Arundel

Saturday Jenny and I went to Arundel on a day trip. The city was super cute and the castle was veryyyy impressive! It was a great trip but I am lazy and don't feel like writing much so here are some pictures. I really liked the library-esque room, which I am stealing a photo of from flickr to show you:







If you want to see more pictures, they are here.

Laughing Laughing Laughing

Today Jenny and I went on a fun little day trip to Arundel. But more on that later, there are much more important things to focus on. Such as the two PURE GEMS OF COMEDIC GOLD that we encountered today.

First, feast your eyes on this amazingly tacky thing we found in one of the gardens of Arundel Castle:

Too good, I tell you!

And second, the best for last. When we saw this we stopped dead in our tracks and burst into absolute hysterics:


Um.... southern railway, as much as I love you, who on earth do you think you're kidding? Trying to say that this:


is somehow "the new" this:



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA NICE TRY!

My Kind of Town

It's not exactly that I'm homesick, I just really really really love Chicago. A lot.

I do actually do stuff here sometimes

So um I guess for maybe the first time ever I'm going to actually write something about what I'm actually doing here in regards to school work (extension studies doesn't count cause that's different....).

It's getting to the end of the year and the 3rd years (seniors) are putting up their degree shows (senior shows) and each 3rd year is assigned a second year (junior.... me) to help them and basically be their personal assistant/do whatever they want, whenever they want to help them get their show ready. So I've been super busy helping my lovely 3rd year, Pat, get ready for her degree show by binding book upon book by hand. It's been great cause I'm learning so many new techniques and it just feels really good to actually spend time in Brighton working for hours upon hours. Feels a little like Mcad, awwwww. But it makes me REALLY thankful for the perfect binder we have in the service bureau... F'realz.

Apart from that, I'm really having fun because I am working on this new project and I've been inspired by the Kanye - Welcome to Heartbreak video and the Chairlift - Evident Utensil video to learn how to data-mosh. And it's SO FRUSTRATING sometimes but it's really rewarding to teach yourself how to do something. Andddd it's appropriate to the idea I have for this project, so hoooooray!

Here are two ugly dumb experiments I tried. They mean nothing and they look like poop but I MADE THEM and I'm proud of myself. And to all my family out there reading this and watching the videos: Yes, they are supposed to look like that. Your computer isn't really crashing.

Pretty Pretty Panorama

Ben showed me how to make panoramas in photoshop, soooooooo now I've become addicted. Here are some pretty ones from my travels! Click to make them bigger.

Lakes and mountains district around Salzburg, Austria.



The blue lagoon on Comino, a super small island off Malta.



Another of the blue lagoon on Comino, a super small island off Malta.



Gozo, one of the other islands of Malta.



At the bottom of a mountain in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.



Brighton Pier yesterday on a windy windy day.



View from the top of this fountain thing at the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona.



View from the top of the Gaudi Casa Milla apartments.



View from the Parc Montjuic of Barcelona's ports at night.




View from the Parc Montjuic of Barcelona at dusk.

Ace of Cakes

There were real fireworks in my cake! Thanks, Choccy Woccy Doo Dah and Jenny! And thanks to everyone who came out and made my 21st so fun :)

Thanks, Ally!

Yesterday Ally took Jenny and I on a wonderful day trip through something like 6 or 7 different counties in England!

First we drove to Tylney Hall in Hook, which was just absolutely incredible! It's a huge old fancy hotel that is on lovely grounds and feels like a movie set because it's just so picturesque. It feels like the kind of place that if you were filthy rich and getting married, this is where you would dream of having your reception or something. Anyway, we strolled around the gardens and explored the water garden as well before we decided to feel really posh and order coffees at their terrace. It was such a beautiful day and we enjoyed feeling really fancy and sipping our drinks in the sunshine.

After that we headed to Henley upon Thames but before going there we passed through Reading and met Ally's friend for lunch. Then we wandered around Henley, a cute little town on the river filled with little boats and things. And after that we went and visited Ally's house and had a lovely dinner with her and her parents. It was such a nice treat and a great way to spend a spring day in England! Thanks for such a fun day, Ally!

The Most Adverb Adjective Few Days Ever!

Last week Mary Ellen and Alex came to England for a visit! It was so much fun and a wonderful reunion although we missed all our other friends from home :(

Friday Meo and I wandered around London doing some hard core shopping and sight seeing. We also saw the Ukrainian national football team walking along Oxford street, COOL!


Saturday Alex arrived and the three of us spent time wandering around London and eating delicious cakes and foods before heading over to Wembley Stadium to see the friendly match between England and Slovakia. IT WAS A BLAST! The atmosphere was incredible! The singing and chanting pretty much never stopped. Anddd there were something like 85,200 people there. Alex and I had spectacular seats, I wish Mary Ellen were near us though! Oh and England 4 - Slovakia 0. Scores by Heskey, Rooney (x2), and Lampard. NICE! After the game we headed back to Frankie's for some cakes and insanely delicious food, Thanks Frankie and Ihab!



The next day we spent also in London doing more shopping and eating and exploring. And after that we headed back to Brighton for a day of fun! We did more shopping, had cakes with Ally and Alex at Choccy Woccy, ate traditional pub food, and relaxed along the beach. Brighton pier was really fun and the day was gorgeous so we had a great time sitting on the rocky beach and inventing "games" of therowing rocks into the water and then throwing rocks into other rocks to make them bounce in to the water. Being in Europe is making me realize how fun throwing rocks is, seriously.

After an exhaustingly fun day we all ate more delicious foods and walked along Brighton and up the hills to look at the pretty houses before packing. Meo went back to Belgium and Alex and I jetted off to Barcelona. More on that soon!

THANKS ALEX AND MARY ELLEN FOR VISITING ME I HAD THE BEST TIME EVER!

EXCITEMENT!

In the next two days, I will be seeing:

These birds:


and these blokes:


Could life get any better?
Probably not.

Oh Stevie G, If I could Return the Favor I Would...

Liverpool 4 - 1 Man United
DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE, KIDS!
CLOSING THE GAP.... ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE TITLE!
I had a spectacular time at the pub where I sat with two nice middle aged men who bought me a pint of pop and talked Liverpool FC, Chicago, and Brighton with me. England is so friendly... Liverpool is so great!!!!!

Yesterday was a class trip to London to see the Changing Face Of Letterpress show at the London College of Communications that our letterpress technician, Rose had work in. But since we weren't supposed to meet until 3pm, Jenny and I decided to go get a full day's worth of entertainment in London!

We took a train up to London and went straight to the Natural History Museum. It was great!!!! So many animals! There were some weird ones that I couldn't possibly believe were real unless they were in a museum.... some looked like pokemon, some had the spindliest legs ever and I don't know how they could walk on them... it was great! We also saw tons of dinosaur bones and fossils, as well as a giant huge baby fetus in a dark room that was incredibly frightening...

After the museum, we went to go to LCC to find the gallery show. We eventually got there and saw a few of our classmates and our two teachers there, as well as Rose who's work was amazingggg!!! The show was really nice to see, lots of beautiful work, and it makes me want to get back in the lettepress studio back at Brighton and make stuff! We got a little tour of the gallery show and then looked around before getting a tour of their actual letterpress studio at LCC, which is HUGE! It was niceeeee and big and pretty. Then, since it was an open day (kind of like "experience mcad" days), Jenny and I figured we'd take the opportunity to go exploring around the school. It was really confusing but we had a good time seeing what it would have been like if we applied there instead of Brighton.

By then it was about 5 and we decided that since we spent money on our train tickets up to London we were going to make our trip worth the money and not just go back home. Sooo we decided to see a play/musical! Off we went on the good old tube till we found ourselves in London's west end and theater district. We ended up seeing Sunset Boulevard (the musical) at The Comedy Theater. But after we bought our tickets we had about 2 hours of free time to kill, so what else would we posibly do other than find doughnuts and smoothies for ourselves!?! As we wandered in search of a good smoothie, we passed Fortnum and Mason, an incredible store which I had visited with Sam a few days before. And I just knew that it was something Jenny needed to see and something I needed to see again. So we went in and basically were in heaven the entire time. I treated myself to a giant blood-orange macaroon which I ate on the train ride home. Yummmm. Then we found this nice little place called Cilantro Cafe that had smoothies so we went in and got ourselves smoothies AND A GIANT CHOCOLATE MACAROON which basically made my life complete. Beyond delicious. Then we found a doughnut place and headed back to the theater.

sunset Boulevard was great! I only knew a little bit about the plot because it's my dad's favorite movie but I'd never seen it before so I was so excited to see it and then tell my dadddd yayyyy! The storyline was reallllllly great and the main character is FIERCE AND INSANE AND MENTAL IN SUCH A COMPELLINGLY GREAT WAY! I really enjoyed it. The theater was really nice and tiny and old and beautiful too.

Then at the end of our journey we caught the train and made it back to Brighton by midnight. Another splendid day in London!

Train Time Giggle Fest!

These last few days involved Jenny and I welcoming our good old mcad buddies Ben and Zach to England as they decided to stop on by for a visit since they are studying in Ireland at the moment.

Tons of fun ensued, including:
- Going out for Millie's lovely birthday and having a good time before with Rob and Joe at some new bar place.
- The 6 of us going to Digital to meet Millie & friends and having the fun flashing-lights-fog-machine-stay-out-till-3-club experience.
- Day tripping up to London
- SHOPPING. Hello, topman! Hello, Primark. Hello, cheap deals and bargains!
- The best chocolate covered Belgian waffles in the WORLD.
- Big Ben, House of Parliament, London Eye, fancy bridge thing at night
- Sherlock Holmes pub time
- 12:30 am train back to Brighton complete with pokemon and sims talk/giggle fest/laugh-so-hard-I-cried time
- Doughnut factory
- Trip to Brighton Pier
- British tv/Jumangi/ping pong time in the common room
- Delicious Sunday Roast with Rob's welcoming and lovely family
- Sunshine
- Thai food
- Snooper's Paradise
- More time at the Great Eastern with friends talking and having fun

SUCH A GOOD LAST FEW DAYS. Can't wait to go visit Ben & Zach & the rest of the Ireland crew in a few weeks!

HIGH SCHOOL MASKICAL

Since people seem to be interested in it, I figured I'd post some images from my Community Arts class today. These are from some exercises we have done over the last few weeks.

Also, since our eventual final product will be mask images, we brainstormed on titles for our project and here are some of the more memorable suggestions the kids and us came up with. Too good!

"Masks R Us"
"Masks For Us"
"Masks By Us"
"Masks About Us"
"It's Mask Time!"
"Project Liam" (suggested by Liam)
"Project Me"
"P.P." (Personal Project)
"Mask Attack!"
"Close To The Bone"
"Me, Myself, and Mask"

And my two personal favorites...
"Mask Of Zorro"
"High School Maskical"

PS: Liverpool V. Real tomorrow... DREAM COME TRUE!