Boris Johnson says hi

Hi everyone! Here is a photo dump of this weekend!

These are the awesome salsas that Mariana and her friend taught me how to make!

The tomatillo salsa in the making:

Then that evening, Serene went all out to make us a Chinese New Year dinner! We helped her to make it, but she bought all the ingredients and prepared a lot of it in advance!

I was on wonton duty. I got pretty good at making them after a while, although I let somebody else put them in the deep frier. The rice was in a pressure cooker right next to the wok, and I really didn't feel like being scalded and burned with oil at the same time, should disaster strike! Both of those things are terrifying ways to cook food, haha. We put a couple almond cookies in the frier too, just to see what would happen.

Today, I set out to see the festivities at Trafalgar Square and Chinatown. Originally, other people were going to come with me, but everyone was still asleep at noon so I went on my own. I had to take a picture of this. I didn't expect to see Engrish right as I got off the tube, haha.

It was packed!

I had a better view than some people of what was going on in the square, but I got bored quickly and decided to try my luck in Chinatown instead!

More people!

Here are some lion feet waiting their turn!

I didn't mean to get this close (mostly because of the massive amounts of people. I was trying to stay by the edges as much as possible), but the dancers were weaving through the crowd so I had a good photo opportunity! Here is a video I uploaded of the lion dancing: link. I was too lazy to use blogger's terrible tools to upload it, so I just stuck it on youtube instead.

This food caught my eye, and it was only £2 so I decided to try it.

A "chicken bunn" from Chinatown. It reminded me of Czech dumplings that I tried in Prague, actually. It was a very sticky, dense, wet bread.

A lot of little kids had balloons and paper dragon toys that I was a bit envious of so I decided to look for stands where they were being sold. I found one that was also selling fireworks, which explained the constant explosions and snaps. I found a cool drum that I liked so I bought it for £1.50, but then halfway down the block I found a different drum that was WAY COOLER so I had to get that one too. Now I can combine them to make the Cacophinator!

As I was leaving Chinatown, police officers suddenly swamped the little side alley I was in. A second later, Donald Trump (?) was hustled by. The crowd was pushing a lot and myself and some other people got crunched up against the police officers. The man inside the human fence high fived some of us and said "Happy New Year!" before hurrying on. "Oh my God, Boris Johnson is here!" people started saying. Ahhhh suddenly everything made a lot more sense. Although for the record, Boris Johnson's crazy hair does make him look a bit like Donald Trump at first glance.

Here are some more photos of plants around my neighborhood! I can't believe there are still flowers blooming in late January!

These snap dragons have been here since I moved in...

It has been a really interesting weekend! I am going to start marinating some chicken in the chile colorado salsa that we made yesterday, because tomorrow is fake-Chipotle-burrito night! MMMMMmmmm so excited!

Phew, done with last term!

Yesterday I turned in my final assignment from last term! I finally got my self-organizing map to organize itself and went on to complete all the bonus items too! So hopefully I will get a good grade, although since The Great Plagiarism Crackdown of 2012, I have been paranoid. I probably wrote a citation for every single line of code in my program, which is a bit over the top but I'm a Paranoid Parrot. Meanwhile, we had to write a "glossary" of terms in our databases class, and the citation guidelines given to us went something like this: "Oh, citations? Uh...I guess you can just write down the websites you used at the bottom of your glossary or whatever. Citation format? ...why would you need the author name or date? Just the link to wikipedia is fine, guys." I fought hard, but I couldn't bring myself to just use a link. I put my sources in Turabian and after an hour or so I finally had to go back and provide footnotes because the lack of proper citation was preventing me from sleeping!

Anyway, now I am free! Last night we made homemade pizza and goofed around in the dorms, nothing too exciting. I just helped Mariana and her friend Carola make several salsas which was really interesting! We made a mild, onion / tomato based salsa, a tomatillo one (yum), and a arbol pepper concentrate. The concentrate was too hot to eat on its own, but they gave me some to try using to marinate meat in. For lunch, while we were watching some of the salsas simmer, we ate a typical Mexican "comfort food," which was bread with refried beans and cheese that had been toasted in the oven, along with a bit of the salsa that we had already created. It was pretty good, even though I normally don't like refried beans! I thought I was going to die while we were boiling chili peppers -- the capsicum or whatever the eff it was in the vapor hurt my eyes and throat. We were all coughing and spluttering even though we had all the windows and doors propped open and two fans on! I'm glad we made a lot of stuff, because there's no way I would do that every time I wanted salsa! In a few hours, Serene is going to start cooking some traditional Chinese recipes and I am going to be her sous chef, so I should learn plenty there too! I am going to write everything from this afternoon down before I watch Serene cooking or else I won't be able to remember all of the ingredients and steps! Tonight, Pep and I might go to the comedy show we were at a few weeks ago for another round. Tomorrow we are all are going to Chinatown to watch acrobats, eat from food stalls, and enjoy the day-long New Year party!

The two stolen books haven't shown up yet, and I am starting to get worried about my final book as well! 1 out of 4 is a pretty abysmal percentage. I think the mail man believes I am stealing mail, because each time he rings the bell I am the first one down the stairs and I take everybody else's packages to my room to keep them safe, haha. Meanwhile, more dorm strife! This Chinese couple on the first floor decided to move in together, and gave up one room. They probably did it to save money, but it is definitely against the rules, and everyone is very upset because there is only one kitchen which those two habitually wreck anyway by leaving their dishes and raw meat everywhere. So now the ground floor kitchen is a bit above capacity. I'm not sure our Vice Warden knows and nobody wants to be mean enough to go tell him. It's not my floor so I am not going to get involved! Sanjiv is the only one who is happy, because a new guy moved into the empty room and he speaks Tamil, so now he and Sanjiv happily chat away, best friends forever. Maia also has a doppelganger! A girl from Iceland moved in upstairs who has the same chillingly bombastic laughter and exuberant personality as Maia, and they have been tearing around the dorm disrupting innocent victim's study habits, leaving destruction in their wake. The rest of us are starting to wonder when OUR twin is going to show up in the dorm! I hope mine brings a violin so we can jam! haha.

Now now our little house has almost enough people to start a village: a police officer, a dentist, a doctor, a forensic anthropologist (for when the police office fails), a chef, several public policy planners, some architects, an artist, a banker, a lawyer (the broken 'Engrish' would add humour to the tv show UCL Heights) a government corruption specialist, and a digital humanist to make the town website.

I'm afraid I don't have much interesting news about doing exciting things in London at the moment, just because I have been locked in my room typing lately. I am going to try to get tickets to an Olympic practice event, because they are allowing the athletes to use the equipment, etc, to make sure everything is peachy before this summer, and there are tickets available for £5 - 10. I know there's no way to go to an actual Olympic event (although knowing my luck I will stumble across the opportunity), but I wouldn't mind going to see one of those events. I might try to go to the Paralympics too, but I think those tickets are going to be very expensive as well.

I have to go now, Serene is beginning to cook, so I will add more later!

DH Party Week

Hello!

I don't have classes today, hooray! It's a good thing too, because it is actually pretty gloomy looking outside, and supposedly near freezing. I think it may try to rain later!

I forgot to talk about the DH trip to the British Library last week! One of my fellow MA students had contacted them asking if we could take a tour of their 'digitisation' facilities and they kindly said yes. I had not been the British Library yet, although it is only about five minutes away from campus, so this was a two-fer trip for me. They have very strict policies at the library, so you are only allowed to bring in a few items, as if you were boarding an airplane. We tried to stuff all our things in lockers in the basement, but a couple people had to leave their backpacks out in the open and then carry their wallets, etc in plastic see-through baggies. We were all given badges and then taken through several layers of security doors to a large meeting room. The walls were decorated with old relics of more imperalistic days -- lots of paintings of Indian temples, portraits of 18th century ambassadors to Siam, etc. The two gentlemen showing us around explained a bit about what they do at the British Library (BL) and then took us to a couple of their project rooms.

The first one we saw was their commercial digitization room. People from all over the world can request materials to be made available to them, at a certain price of course, which the BL will then track down from their collections or nearby libraries and digitize. I was surprised, considering the enormously costly equipment and ridiculously nice facilities, they were scanning these books, manuscripts, scrolls, etc at 300 dpi, which is definitely not archive level quality. Still, they had a LOT of super giant scanners of all types and varieties, some working from cameras, others working from actual scanning beds, etc, and it was very impressive. In each corner of the room, professional photographers were working with materials that were intended for the Israeli government, so these were being treated very carefully and at much higher resolutions and qualities. Apparently they are trying to track down codices and fragments of old texts that have been scattered around the world, but the BL people admitted that they really weren't in the know of the project as much as they were just acting as tools.

The next place they took us to (using Elevator 49, I kid you not...it was a large and confusing building) was the International Dunhuang Project, which has been going for the greater part of the last decade. The staff was very nice. One woman showed us the digitization process for an old Chinese scroll and her method. Because most of the scrolls are longer than available scanners (think upwards of ten feet to around fifty), she has to take photos of them in sections. She showed us the special archive weights that she uses to hold the materials down without damaging them, and then she showed us how the scrolls will eventually show up on the website. It is a very nice interface, with the ability to zoom, scrolls, etc. We went next door to see the woman who patches the digitized version of the scroll together with Photoshop. She had been saving an example for us, so she was able to show us how she puts all the pieces together as perfectly as possible and then tries to blend the layers.

We were taken back to the VIP room and given a big presentation about the BL's projects and funding, etc, as well as the planning that goes into each digital project. They also answered some of our questions, including why they don't use gloves when handling valuable materials. They explained that if you are wearing gloves you are more likely to accidentally tear or damage the materials than with your own hands, which was an interesting and different perspective that I have not come across in conservation circles before. I can talk more about this if you guys want me to, but I'm guessing Grandma and the other people who read this blog are not quite as interested as others, so I will move on!

On Sunday I hosted a dinner party to get the game of assassins going! I found some pre-seasoned whole chicken things at the store and brought several back to feed people with. Others chipped in with roasted potatoes, carrots, homemade bread, and an Indian dessert-type bread whose name I cannot recall at the moment. Bringing everybody together like that did start the game! Two people died that evening, I almost killed my mark (although by chasing him I made my toes worse! Aww), and a lot of people got very stressed out! haha. I thought I knew who was after me, so I let down my guard and then Serene got the jump on me! She had been quietly after me the whole game! I almost got away from her, but she had an accomplice waiting at the bottom of a staircase in case I ran for it, so he held the door against me and she was able to catch up. Betrayed! So now I am dead, but at least I can use the bathroom and kitchen without anxiety once more! I don't know who is going to win. There are only about five people left, and they are all ruthless killers.

Meanwhile, my panicked flight down the stairs while escaping Serene's murderous clutches definitely sealed my toenails' fate. There was a lot more blood, and now when I push on the front of the nails, you can see the back of them move under my skin! It is quite gross. They have detached around the edges...urgh. I figured out which pair of shoes irritates them the least and I am just hobbling around London like an old lady now!

My stolen mail has not come back yet, unfortunately. The administrators at the other residence hall emailed everyone with a warning today (I had informed them that my mail was missing), so maybe I will find the package reappears, but I don't have high hopes. I had four books coming, and two are now gone, but I did get one book yesterday in the mail, so I just have to keep an eye out for one more! I hope the thief enjoys reading James Clavell. Joke's on him or her, I bought the books for one pence off Amazon, so it's not like they will be able to resell them!

Yesterday, some famous DHers from the University of Victoria came and gave us a personal little lecture on collaboration in digital humanities (between computer scientists, engineers, humanists, performers, managers, funding agencies, etc), which was quite interesting and rather practical. It was pleasant to hear a North American accent again, and both professors knew people at Nebraska. I may mention them again later, as they are speaking again tonight and on Wednesday, although I don't think I will go to both events.

Meanwhile, we started getting our grades back from last term already! I got a B+ in E-Publishing (at first I was disappointed because I thought our project was really good), and an A in Internet Tech. I showed up before last night's lecture to meet some of my peers and found a funerial pall hung over the group. Some people had fared well like me, but a couple people had been failed. And we are very confused about this, because we all saw the presentations and nobody's was bad enough as to deserve a fail. One person even got a "G" on his assignment, which sounds like a sick joke, but apparently that's a real grade. I feel like that's the kind of grade you should get if you don't even complete the assignment, let alone work on it for a whole term. People even failed our internet technologies final, which is extra confusing because it was a three hour test in which we all word vomited up a paper about web development, usability, and accessibility. All of us have at least some idea of what is going on, and they had said that language barriers would not be considered as long as the content was understandable and logical, so we really aren't sure what happened there. We don't know what will happen yet. You need a 50% in core modules to complete the degree (keeping in mind that a 50% here is like a 75% in the US), but obviously several of my coursemates now cannot complete the MA degree unless they stick around another year. I am paranoid, because if I fail something I will not be able to afford to pay for housing, food, transport, tuition for another semester so I will just have to quit in disgrace. I didn't realize that the line between A and F was so thin here...
Probably not a good time to mention that my self-organizing map code (due Friday) still isn't organizing itself....urgh.

This is what it is supposed to act like, minus the cool camera view!



So that is what I am working on today!

Also, happy new year! The Chinese students have been partying for the past two days or so. We are going to try to go to China Town at some point to see what they are getting up to there, although I am guessing it will be really crowded! One of my Chinese friends told me that this is going to be my year, because it is a Dragon year, and I am a dragon. I am looking forward to it!


See you later!

Tired!

I found a photo that someone took of Canary Wharf at sunset from their office building. It's very similar to the view we got to enjoy from the train last weekend, so I thought I would post it!

We started up a game of Assassins here in the dorm, and now everyone is very paranoid that someone is after them. I have been very careful to use different bathrooms than normal and I haven't cooked anything in the kitchen since the game started. I have to cook tomorrow, but I have a pre-made chicken roast (I finally decided to buy one of the £3 whole chickens they sell at the grocery store, it's just too good of a bargain) that I figure I can toss in and check on every once in a while, minimizing my time spent in the actual kitchen at the mercy of my potential assassin. I refuse to be the first one killed! I plan on stalking my victim on Monday, as I have looked up his class schedule in the university time table...hahaha!

Today Maia asked me to come to a floorball game with her. I was a bit suspicious that she was just going to try to assassinate me, but after searching her pockets for "weapons" (aka clothespins) I agreed to go with her. She hadn't mentioned that it was for her real floorball club, and I can't really even play the sport let alone play against guys who have been doing it for years. But anyway! As we were running out the door (late), I saw that the books I ordered from Amazon had finally arrived! Whoo hoo! Unfortunately, being short on time I just left them and kept going. We took the underground as far south as we could and then we caught a real train further south, towards Clapham. Because the train was only traveling to Zone 2, my travel card let me on for free! South London gets a bad rap from people who live in North London, but it seemed fine to me. Besides having few and far between underground stations and possibly a lower average income per family, it was quite nice.

One of Maia's friends picked us up from the train station and then we drove to the rec center where practice was. We did some drills, sprints, butt kicks, etc, and I was ready to call it a day at that point (I'm so out of shape), but then we scrimmaged for about 90 minutes! Fortunately, we switched on and off frequently so I was able to catch my breath while I waited to go in again.

For those who are wondering, floorball is like the Nordic answer to floor hockey. It is almost the same except that there is a ball instead of a puck, and it is actually played in real leagues competitively, unlike floor hockey. I was probably the worst person there, and a few times I just ran around for my minute or two without actually touching the ball, but I scored once off of a nice setup, so at least I contributed something!

During the game my feet were kind of burning, probably because my shoes were too tight or too loose or something and when I pivoted quickly it hurt. Someone stepped on my toe while they were turning quickly and that really hurt too, but I ignored it. We walked to a pub after practice to have lunch and chat and I really did not enjoy the walk due to my toes' anger. The time at the pub was pretty fun. The team was pretty cool, and they asked me if I wanted to join but I couldn't afford it (£7 a practice, wooof! That's over £20 a week not including tournament fees). Still, I made some friends and I might go see them play just so I can hang out with them and Maia after the games, haha. One guy asked me if I would help him with usability tests on a website he and his friends are setting up in a month or so, and I said sure because it sounds like it will only be for a few afternoons. I need more experience in that type of thing and I can put it on my resume as "Usability advisor to XCompany.com," so that is cool. I will have to brush up on my accessibility reading materials, clearly, although I think for their purposes I may be knowledgeable enough to do an okay job.

I went home after the pub and stopped by the mailboxes to pick up my Amazon package, but it was gone! I figured someone had brought it up to my room, because people tend to do that here, but it wasn't at my room either! So someone in the dorm is enjoying my Asian Saga loose historical fiction, or a potential assassin has taken my package in order to gain the upper hand! I hope I get it back. So far we haven't had any trouble with mail getting stolen, so I am kind of cranky about this. All the packages for other people are still there! Sigh. They'd better turn up soon!

I got back to my room and I pulled off my socks and guess what! There was a reason why my toes hurt! My left big toe nail is all purple, and my right big toe nail is dark purple and oozing blood out the sides (you can even see blood under the skin behind the cuticle, towards the knuckle), so that is just fantastic! Maybe I need new shoes...this doesn't normally happen to me! I have a bad feeling my nail isn't going to make it....this is going to put me at a serious assassination disadvantage!

The weather here has been quite nice lately. I guess it is normally a bit colder, but most days it reaches around 50 degrees, although it is often cloudy, and at night it drops to around freezing. It never really "rains" here, although sometimes it will spit for a few minutes before slacking off. Serene and I went running outside one day up to a park near our house. It was probably around 45 degrees when we left although the temperature dropped while we were out. When we got to the top of the hill in the park, the sun was setting and some rain clouds were rolling in but we made it not only back to the house, but also back and forth from the grocery store before it even thought about raining!

Meaning, flowers are still blooming outside! It is really trippy. There are some snap dragons that were alive when I first moved here in September that are STILL here now, and it doesn't look like they are going to quit! One of the hedges by my house has tiny little flowers on it, and the hotel down the street still has planters out front with geraniums, etc. It's crazy! The trees no longer have leaves but otherwise you would not think that it was winter here!

Let's see, what are some more London cultural type things to talk about? Well, obviously the fact that we went to a pub in the middle of the day is an indication that it is perfectly alright to start drinking alcohol in early afternoon, haha. Also, I am developing a taste for weird sandwiches. Almost all the grocery stores, corner shops, and drug stores sell these premade sandwiches for around £2, but each store has a different variety! Some of them are normal, like BLTs, tuna, etc, but there are some crazy varieties. I personally like Coronation Chicken, which is kind of a creamy curry type sandwich, or Chicken Salad and Sweetcorn sandwiches. Around Christmas they had a bunch of Turkey Stuffing sandwiches or Cranberry Stuffing Ham sandwiches and random stuff. Sometimes you come across very Anglo-Indian sandwiches (besides the Coronation Chicken) like Korma or Tikka Masala sandwiches and things. I usually like them as long as there aren't too many onions hiding in them. I like Falafel sandwiches too, as long as they get heated up! I try not to eat on campus, but because of my timetable I usually end up buying around two sandwiches a week. I think it is worth the investment, because they are pretty filling as not too expensive as long as I am willing to walk to an actual grocery store and not just buy one from a campus deli/café. Throw in an 18 pence banana or something and I'm pretty much good to go!

I bought actual bacon the other day out of curiousity (and because it was on sale, as that is how I choose the majority of my random groceries). I put them in the oven on high and about ten minutes later I had some of the most deliciously salty stuff ever, so I was quite happy with my decision. I know you are supposed to fry bacon, but I didn't feel like dealing with the mess and I'm glad my solution worked out. I foresee more bacon egg burritos in my future...The moral of the story is that English sausage is just so-so, but English bacon is 10 times better than Oscar Meyers bacon, and not very fatty looking or tasting. Normally I don't like "real" bacon very much, but this was fantastic!

Well I have been rambling for some moments now, but I hope that Grandma Margaret in particular likes the bit about sandwiches and weather! Brad and I finally decided when we will go to Italy! We are going to go in April over a weekend, because he doesn't have to work on Fridays so we can just meet in Rome on Thursday night! I'm still on Spring break, so it shouldn't matter too much for me. I might go out a day early, if the flights are cheaper! So we are glad that our problem has been sorted out!

I am probably going to go to bed now. Floorball really tired me out and I'm not really getting much homework done, so I will sleep off my lack of productivity. Adios!

Tate Modern tour

Hello!

I have been updating an awful lot lately and that is probably because I'm stuck on one of my computer programming assignments and I don't have a lot else to do except sit here hoping that inspiration will strike, haha.

I forgot to mention that last week one of the DH students organized an outing to see the Tate museum's storage and conservation facilities! The Tate (including the Tate Modern) is the biggest art museum in London, and quite famous, I believe. They were nice enough that we didn't even have to ask a faculty member to contact them, they just took our word that we were students and told us to bring our school IDs. When we arrived to the warehouse, we had to go through a couple security checks and then they gave us a badge and told us to wait for a conservationist to come get us.

She was a time-based media conservationist, meaning that when the museum gets old cassette tapes, DVDs, records, phonographs, etc, she is in charge of making sure that they are stored and backed up appropriately. It was quite interesting, actually. She showed us her "work room" which was a giant Wal-mart sized storage area filled with wrapped up sculptures and things. On one side of the wall there were hundreds of shelves of videotapes, cds, etc. The method they use to preserve stuff is very elaborate. They have to talk with every artist to make sure that they are okay with something they may have created on an 8 track being converted and perhaps displayed using a different type of media. The first time they move the original onto a different format, they take detailed notes about what things might possibly be different from format to format and if any nuances of the original were lost, anything added, etc. They have to watch / listen to the art piece playing on both formats simultaneously several times to make sure that it is accurate enough. Then after that, whenever they are converting, say from a cassette to a CD, they will not use the original in order to keep it from getting older faster, but they still have to compare the new version and the slightly less new version against each other several times.

Whoof, sounds like a lot of work! After the original has been suitably copied, they put it in storage somewhere fireproof, bombproof, waterproof, and just slightly above freezing.

She took us to a room where other types of time-based media conservationists were working and had one of them talk about her latest project. An artist in Peru created a piece where a computer programmed ran some internet searches for the word "brutalismo," or "brutalism" in English and then printed out a sentence or two of the context of the results so that the papers would pile up underneath the sculpture. The museum was frustrated about how to preserve the piece, because not only do they need to find those specific printing devices (so that they have backups in case the other ones fail in thirty years, etc), but they have to make sure the computer program will continue to function in the future. So her job is to create a wrapper around the code that can be modified so that no matter what operating system and future environment the antiquated code is put into, they will not have to change the actual original artist's code, but rather the wrapping around it. I had never really thought about art pieces as taking so much work to preserve in an exact form before! What a thankless job, haha.

She told us that it is a nightmare when artists bring in a piece of art that uses a specific old television or projector and does not want their piece to be updated at all (for example, fitting a plasma screen inside the frame of the old television), because then the museum has to buy a certain number of backups, and they can't always find the right replacement bulbs and antennas, etc. One of the DH people from India thought it was funny that they are having so much trouble finding particular objects, because apparently they are a dime a dozen where he comes from. He thinks he might have a future job running old appliances back and forth between India and art museums in Europe, haha.

My favorite part of the tour was when we walked through a giant storage room for paintings. The ceiling was taller than most warehouse stores (like Lowe's, etc), and the room was filled with giant pull out walls that art pieces were hanging on. Hundreds and hundreds of them. It was very impressive.

Tomorrow we are going to the British Library to learn about their digitization process. We are very happy that these large organizations are showing us around, because we have not involved the UCL faculty at all in contacting them.

I went to the gym today, and I plan on going again Thursday and Friday. I figured out that my gym membership is only worth it if I go at least twice a week (it's basically $1 a day), so I am trying to make up for the past two weeks of library confinement. I think during the summer, if I still decide to have a gym membership I will ask for a personal trainer because they come with the membership so I might as well take advantage of it! Now I'm off to watch Sherlock Holmes, the new tv series, so I must be off! Unfortunately, the show is based on the original stories in title alone, but it is interesting enough that I will keep watching it, haha. Bye!

A very interesting weekend

Hello everyone!
I must confess I did very little homework this past weekend, mostly because I felt like I deserved a break after crunching through those essays. So on Saturday I did a bit of window shopping in an area about twenty minutes away which was fun. I ended up buying some Gloucester cheese just to see what it is like, and it's probably my favorite of the cheeses available in the UK so far....mostly because these people only eat cheddar, and when I say "cheddar" I mean something that will make your soul die a little when you eat it because of its "sharpness."
When I got back to the dorm someone asked me if I wanted to go to an ice sculpture exhibit, so we got some people together and trooped down to "Canary Wharf." I had been in this part of town before to visit the Docklands museum (history of London boats, merchant stuff, etc) and I quite liked it both times I visited. It is very modern looking: giant metal and glass buildings, elegant walkways, lots of fancy trees and ritzy restaurants...I think it might be quiet at night but it is certainly a very upscale business district during the day.

This isn't the ice sculptures, this is the view out my back window at the GREEN PLANTS. Jealous?


Here's an ice sculpture! It was getting close to dark so they were all lit up from the bottom, which was a neat effect.


After the sculptures, we rode the DLR up into a main part of the city again. The "Docklands Rail" is pretty much an underground train, except that it runs just in one particular area of town, just north of the river, and it's incredibly nice. It's also above ground on rails so you get a very nice view. I definitely suggest taking this in the evening, because we got to see the sun setting over the river while we whizzed through high rise buildings and interesting glass structures, etc. I convinced my friends to try Chipotle for dinner, and I think I sold them all, even the girl from Mexico who kept insisting that they weren't real burritos. Which is probably true by her standards, but I lurrrve Chipotle. Afterwards, some people went back to the house, but Pep and Sanjiv and I decided to find something else to do. We poked around in a bookstore for a while and then used a smart phone to look up free events in London. We found a free comedy club in Islington (a part of town adjacent to Camden borough) so we took a bus and went in. The show was in a very cool, old pub, and we weren't sure what to expect when we went upstairs and found there were only about 20 people there. However, after a few minutes they kicked us all out so they could set up chairs and when we finally got to go back in it was incredibly crowded! So many people! We ended up sitting on the floor in the front, which was kind of funny. The comedy show was surprisingly good. There were six acts plus a host, and the majority of them were actually quite talented. We are definitely going to be going back on Saturdays that we're bored, as the only cost is whatever you decide to donate to them (a reasonable arrangement).

On Sunday I should have gone to the grocery store, but I decided to do laundry instead and then got distracted by too many other interesting things! So until tomorrow I will be living off of scrambled eggs and toast, I think. In the evening, Pep and I set out to go to a London Symphony Orchestra concert. It was only £4 this time, and a fairly famous contemporary composer, Adès, was conducting his own pieces, so I was pretty pumped. Here he is:

After the concert, we go back to the house around 10 and found a crepe party in full swing, so then we got free second dinners! I contributed some kiwis that I had lying around, which was surprisingly delicious! Kiwis should go in more pancakes in the future.

The girl I went to Munich with, Serene, had a scary weekend. She was going to meet a friend in Nottingham, so she went to the train station and decided to take some money out for the trip. When she put in her card, the atm said that her account had been suspended because of over charges, and that she now had zero pounds in her account. She was pretty freaked out because she just got a big student loan payment and she should have had a couple thousand pounds in her account. The atm wouldn't give her the card back, so then when she went to get her train tickets they wouldn't give her the ticket (you need your purchasing card in order to receive them). After some wrangling, she finally got the ticket and had a nice weekend in Nottingham with her friend. She called her bank but they said they couldn't do anything until Monday so she is in talking to them now to see what happened and how she can get her money back. I hope everything works out okay!

Brad and I are trying to figure out when we are going to take our trip to Rome and the Vatican, and one of his breaks from school is during my spring break too: March 30 - April 8th. We started looking for tickets and hostels and realized that it is really expensive...then we figured out that he has school off that week because it is Holy Week. So now part of us thinks it would be really cool to be in Rome during Holy Week, and the other (larger) part of us thinks that it would be a zoo. I wish I knew when my work placement was going to require me to be there, because his next break is during my third term and I don't know if I can leave then! If we do go right before Easter we would definitely get there a week before Good Friday and leave by Monday or Tuesday. Blahh crowds! Brad is optimistic that the Pope might give Mass most days that week though, so he is the small part that still wants to look into it, haha. While the Pope is giving Mass is probably the best time to go through the museums at the Vatican though, so maybe that would work out for me! haha

Essays!

Blogger is being particularly annoying today, but I'm too lazy to rearrange the images so you'll just have to look at them out of order! I was at the store earlier this week and I came across some dragon fruit. I bought one (and looked up how to eat it), and discovered that they are basically like giant, kind of boring tasting kiwis. They look very pretty though!

And the above is my "standing desk." I was having a lot of trouble focusing on writing my essays, particularly the geography essay, so I made myself a desk that forced me to stand up. It worked well -- after a few days it basically forced me into going to the library to work on my papers where I got on quite well!

If anyone is interested in reading an 18 page masterpiece on GIS's influence on archaeology's future or a 3000 word paper on comparing digital and analog versions of a music performance, let me know and I can send them to you, haha. It was a long week...

I started new classes!

Computer Music: I originally was not intending to take this module, but on a whim I emailed the lecturer to see if he would tell me what the class was going to be about, and he was so enthusiastic that I couldn't help but show up to the first day. He is a computer scientist by trade (something about systems . . . analysis? . . I didn't listen), but a computer musician by hobby, and this is the first time the class has been offered. There are only a couple people taking the class, so it looks like we are going to be moving pretty fast. In two days we've already covered all types of kHz, wavelength stuff plus the building blocks of one computer language we are going to be constructing things with. Our suggested assignment for next week is to create a synthesizer!

XML: This class is not my favorite, but it's required. It will probably be good for me. XML, basically, is a "markup" language meaning that you tag parts of a text and that makes it easy for computers to rearrange them later. It is about as much fun as it sounds...but probably the most useful for me, besides databases. UGhhhh.

Databases: Well. This one is going to be a pretty pickle. We have to design a web-facing database, similar to blackboard or something. I sure don't know how to do that right now, so I guess I'm going to figure it out in the next nine weeks or else! We're in groups of three and it looks like my group is doing okay so far, so I have high hopes for the future!

I haven't really been doing a lot lately because I was cooped up in my room, but last night we went to a Mexican bar to get £1 tacos! They were like, legit Mexican tacos, too. I had one that was made of poblanos and creme and another of papas y chorizo that reminded me of Spain!

Good news! Brad's program finally paid him, so now he knows he can stay until the end of his program! That means that I will go visit him over reading week! Yayyy.

I think I am going to get going now. I didn't make plans for Friday since I didn't know if I would be still writing my essay or not (they're due at midnight), but I'm sure if I look around the dorm long enough I'll find something to do!

Have a good week!

This Week is Too Short

Serene put some photos up of New Year's Eve, so I thought I would post them! All credit goes to her and her awesome camera for the fireworks (since last time I accidentally took credit for her firework images by leaving off any kind of attribution).

Before the show!

And during the show!

This whole week I have been making slow progress on my paper(s). I have only really been working on the digital resources paper because I don't know what I should write about for my GIS assignment! Unfortunately, the assignment is less about GIS and more about archaeology, so I am kind of out of my depth...

The digital resources essay is supposed to be about comparing analog and digital versions of the same item, so I chose an old concert that I played in Texas, since I was able to find the recording online and I am still in contact with a lot of the people who played with me out there (as well as the esteemed composer, Jen-Kuang)! The essay is proving to be fairly easy, because talking about performance practice and changing critical perception of "perfection" in music after the advent of recording technology is kind of old hat for a music major, haha. I am enjoying chasing up old journal articles and resources that I know are out there somewhere, as well as coming across new, interesting perspectives. I think my main problem is going to be condensing my paper down to only five pages!

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the sales going on at the moment during study breaks. For £12 at two different stores, I am now the proud new owner of four belts, two shirts, some gloves, tights, and a purse, which I think is a pretty good haul for Oxford Street, the Mecca of shopping in London, haha.

I found a couple jobs that I think I will apply for, as I should have (hopefully) a bit more time this term. One of them sounds way to good to be true. The National Portrait Gallery's reading room is hiring a part time clerk / researcher / question-answering-type position at the moment. Two days a week, ≈ £20K annum....that's fantastically good money, and the reading room is only open 10 - 5, so I feel like there has to be a hitch. Most likely I am not qualified but there is no harm in sending them my CV. I have to make a CV in the next week or so anyway, because the DH programme is gearing up for work placement at the moment and our lecturer wants to be able to send our CVs to potential internships. I hope that my past experience doesn't mean I get stuck doing OCR (optical character recognition) somewhere....although if it was for google that would be A-OK!

Meanwhile, dad might like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hco0bR_mfzo
It reminds me of Focus, while incorporating more Klaus Nomi / David Bowie types dancing the Johnny Bravo dance, haha. Maia is responsible for showing me that gem.

Also, I recently persuaded Hans, Maia's boyfriend in Germany, to watch Buckaroo Bonzai. Surprise, he burned me a copy and sent it to England with Maia, so now I can watch it whenever I want! haha.

I have also been looking into orchestras that I might be able to play with in the surrounding area. I can't really tell what level of playing a lot of symphonies around here expect, because even the ones without auditions have things like, "Grade 8's and up only, please." I guess there is some kind of a ranking system for musicians in the UK but I can't find a website that will tell me what it means, so I guess me and my crappy UK cello will just have to show up to some stuff before figuring out where I am on their scale, haha. If I had Kip here I would be confident enough to show up to most semi-professional stuff, but with a cello that sounds like a high school quality instrument I am worried about making bad impressions! I will have to contact some orchestras soon, because the spring seasons are all starting up in a week or two and I don't want to miss rehearsals!

Anyway, I got invited to come eat somebody else's food tonight, so I am going to go take advantage of that and then come back and work on my paper some more! Adios!

New Year's Eve!

Wow, it's 2012!
I had a good flight back to London (there was a strong tailwind, so it took an hour less than normal)! I got in at around 5:20, inwardly smirking because I figured customs would be a snap that early in the morning, but unfortunately there was only one officer working so my plan backfired on me and 3 hours later I finally got back to my dorm room and crashed for a while.

When I finally woke up I went to the store with Sanjiv to get some basics for my fridge again and then made dinner. I was trying to decide whether I should go to a coursemate's house for New Year's or if I should try to head to the Thames for the fireworks. I found a couple other people in the house who wanted to go downtown, so at around 10 pm we headed out. The underground was supposed to be running later than usual, so we weren't too worried about how we were going to get back.

While we were on the train, several people were talking about seeing the fireworks in the past. "We'll never see them this year," one guy was telling his girlfriend. "If you wanted to see them we should have left hours ago!" Bummer! We decided to try anyway. They had closed the stop we planned on getting off on because of crowding, so we jumped off at Waterloo and joined the crowds of people moving towards the river. We were on the South side now, which was not supposed to be the best place to see the fireworks, but the bridges were closed off too, so we were marooned and determined to make the best of it. We got to a place where we could see the Eye and figured that was as good as it was going to get, but then the police released a barricade so we were able to move several blocks forward. Pretty soon, we were right underneath the Eye! There were lights and tons of Batman-style headlights pointing up at the clouds whirling and painting them colors, and a DJ from BBC1 was entertaining the crowd.

Finally, the count down! We couldn't see Big Ben from where we were at, but apparently while it was tolling midnight fireworks were erupting from it! We could see the fireworks that had been rigged on the London Eye itself as well as the ones floating on the river on barges. The show went on for about 11 minutes and it was absolutely insane. The artillery booms shook the ground and the lights were almost blinding in a few places, especially at the end. The Eye itself had been rigged with patterns of fireworks -- I have no idea how they kept them from sparking off other fireworks. The whole thing went off flawlessly. It must have cost 100K or more, I swear, it was enormous.

Here's a professional quality video I found on youtube of the fireworks. It will take my parents' connection a very long time to load, but I think it is worth it. Grandma, I don't know what your connection is like, but mom can help you try to watch it if you want!
London 2012 Fireworks

After the display was over, everyone milled around. The police still had us penned in and the nearest tube stations were closed, so we didn't really have anywhere to go.
Once they started taking down some of the barricades, we headed back towards Waterloo.
An ambulance was trying to get through the crowds, but having no luck at all because people physically couldn't get out of the way. A guy ran forward to the driver trying to get his attention and then pretty soon some people carrying a girl with a t-shirt wrapped around her head got to the ambulance. It looked like she had been hit by a glass bottle or something, pretty gruesome. I don't know if she's who the ambulance was trying to get to or not but they put her in the back.

A few hundred feet later (or 20 minutes, in slow moving mob time), suddenly a fight broke out, and a couple guys were going at it. They were quite a ways from me but I could see that everyone else had formed the typical ring watching them, but unfortunately it looked like one guy was getting really hurt. Three guys were standing around kicking him while he lay on the ground and nobody else was doing anything about it. I didn't want to be part of a psychological phenomena, so I grabbed poor Sanjiv and pushed through the ring. He didn't really want to have any part of it, so I let him go and was trying to decide what to do. Physical element of surprise, or vocal element of authority? I decided the latter one would probably be better for my overall health, and I gave a shout at the guys. Two of them kind of split off, although I don't think it had anything to do with me, but one guy stayed and was now punching the victim's face. All of a sudden a volunteer police officer broke through the masses, pepper spray in hand, so I figured that was a good time to rejoin the mob and move away, haha. I am not sure if I would have gotten physically involved or not had the officer not shown up soon, as my morals tell me it was a good idea but my predisposition for having a non-broken nose and all my teeth was telling me it was a bad idea, haha.

We kept going and found a station I had never heard of before, but it looked so terribly crowded we figured we'd aim for the next one, Elephant and Castle. Twenty minutes later, we were a bit depressed that it was turning out to be much further than it had appeared on the map, haha, but we made it there in the end. At that point, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped at a samosa stand. Samosas are a kind of Indian tart filled with peas, potatoes, onions, and meat. For a pound each, they were a pretty good decision!

We had no problems getting back once we were on the tube, and we had fun interacting with a lot of happy drunk people, including one fellow who told us he was the Smile Maker. He was basically doing a goofy standup routine the whole ride, and his friend told us that he'd been doing this since around 8 pm on the bridge where they had been camping for the show.

We made it back at around 2:00 am, which I figured would be okay because I felt tired enough to go to sleep right away. I was thinking if I woke up around 10 am after 8 hours at least I wouldn't be terribly messed up by jet-lag. I set an alarm, but the next thing I knew it was 3 in the afternoon, so obviously my plan backfired quite a bit. I worked on my code after I woke up and I can now proudly say that the homework for my architecture class is almost complete! Now I can work on my papers without worrying about my programming assignment not being up and running. You see, it is much easier to BS a paper than it is to BS programming, because if your program doesn't run, it doesn't run and that's the end of the story, haha. I would be very happy except that I've only been awake for around an hour and it is already dark outside...whoops.

Other updates: my plants survived my absence, although they did look pretty dry, and somebody from maintenance came in and fixed my faucet, which had been leaking. I also got word from the financial office that the second installment of my loan is on the way, which is good because while I still have around £500 left from the first installment, I need to pay housing and tuition for second term soon!

Happy New Year, everyone! I missed the parade this morning because I was sleeping, haha, but I had planned on tuning in on our illegal kitchen tv if it was on one of the few channels we get, haha.

Oh, and if I don't update soon, Go Huskers, etc. : )