Snow!

Yesterday it started snowing in the evening! A few of us had been baking "snow cookies" to try to coax it along, and lo and behold, halfway through baking it started coming down! We all ran around outside the house a little bit and threw snowballs at people's windows to get them to notice. One fellow finally came outside and suggested we go to the park, so we set out towards Primrose Hill, a very popular lookout point over London that is only about ten minutes from our house. We realized that we should probably bring the sled that has been lying unused in our house the whole time, so I ran back to get it and found the guy from Hong Kong standing outside looking confused. I dragged him along too. A lot of people were on their way to the park as well. It was really fun, actually, because it was around 10 pm when we got there, so there were very few little kids to ruin the slopes with their tiny bodies, so we had a really good time sledding. People brought their dogs and they ran around and around chasing sleds. One husky even knocked Sanjiv off the sled, the dog was so eager to grab it and run back to us with it. Everybody was really friendly, and we talked and laughed with strangers and exchanged sleds. None of us really had proper snow gear, so as the temperature dropped it became a bit less fun. I don't have winter gloves, just little mittens, so I got cold hands really fast!


Sanjiv's first snow experience:

We tried going down the hill two at a time on the tiny sled, but it only worked with the lightest people. Lakshmi and I went down at some point and really started picking up speed (it is a very big hill). We flew off of the sidewalk that we were using as a track and right into a massive trash can. The whole thing got knocked over and we tried to set it back up but it was far too heavy for the two of us, so we had to leave it. Whoops!

We all trooped back to the house and started up some apple cider and fresh bread. People who have very little snow experience were fairly convinced that they had frostbite ("but my ears are red and hurt, I'm pretty sure I have frostbite").

It continued snowing through part of the night, so it looks like we have at least an inch and a half on the ground today. After I actually do some homework, I think I will head out and walk around for a while. We don't have any more apple juice, so I guess if we do anything outdoors again we will have to switch to hot chocolate!

Anyway, have fun with the snow in Nebraska!

So very cultured!

Hello all!

I have been quite busy the past few days! Besides classes, I decided to meet up with one of the guys from Maia's floorball team to follow up on an opportunity. He and some friends are starting their own company and need someone to do usability tests for them. I was apprehensive at first because I didn't want to do a lot of work for free, but having met with them now, I am totally on board. He wants really small tests with five to ten people, just a few minutes at a time, and everything is totally within my comfort zone. Accessibility, usability, technical capabilities of a website, etc are low hanging fruit, so I am more than happy to carry out tests like that every month or so. Now I can say that I was a Usability Consultant / Advisor / Something for their company, hooray. I walked to their offices in St. John's Wood, a very posh part of town about ten minutes away from Swiss Cottage. It's interesting because my tube line runs through that station, but I have never considered how far they physically are from each other. Like most things in London, they are surprisingly close. This gives me hope that during the summer I will not need to buy a travelcard. I think I could walk to campus given about 30 - 40 minutes!

Yesterday night there was a Decoding Digital Humanities event at a pub across the street from the British Museum. I showed up expecting the usual crowd of UCL people, but was pleasantly surprised to find that some folks from the British Library, King's College, and Goldsmith's had showed up as well. Several people identified themselves as digital musicologists, which is quite rare, so I was excited. I chatted with them about my potential dissertation topic and got some good names and emails from them of people I could contact (yay). We were talking about whether social sciences should be included under the umbrella of digital humanities, and whether divisions between humanities will exist in the future or if the cooperative multi-discipline approach that is currently causing people to define themselves as digital humanists is a phase. After a few drinks, those who have recently had paper woes were a bit more inflammatory in their conversation topics ("Why do we need publishers?! What do they do for us anyway? Peer review can be done without them, rar!").

Today, I went to databases and ended up being the only digital humanities student that showed up! It's because almost nothing we are learning in the lectures is helpful to us, as we are not taking the test at the end (we are doing a project instead). So learning about the background relational algebra going on is not particularly pertinent to us. I can't blame them for not showing up -- I was bold enough to skip Monday morning, and I did not miss a thing! After all my classes, I met up with Serene in the main library. I had only been in the science library before, and was very impressed with the actual UCL library. It is a classic looking library with bookshelves built into the walls, statues / busts every few meters, and interesting looking ceilings and frescos. Serene found some books and then we headed to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with a friend of hers who got free tickets to see The Importance of Being Earnest at the Haymarket Theatre. The show was alright, although the version we saw at Fort Robinson is still probably my favorite. We had second row seats, which was a bit distracting, actually, because the actors ate constantly during the show and we could see bits of sandwich and crackers flying from their mouths while they Pontificated Pointed consonants Perfectly. The theatre was really cool! It turns out that the Haymarket Theatre is one of the oldest ones in London. It was really nice of her friend to invite Serene and me along!

Dad might be interested to know that I have theoretically designed the Minimoog synthesizer, now I just have to figure out how to write the code to make it do what I want! The Minimoog was famously used by ELP ("Oooh what a lucky man, he was" awheee awheeee dee doodledoodledoodledoodle waah) and a lot of prog rock bands in the 1970s. The technical bit is that there are a number of oscillators (which should be able to generate specific types of waveforms) that pass through filters that modify the sound, and then reach amplifiers. On paper it is really not difficult to figure out how it works, although it has taken me a few days of reading through articles, watching demos, and studying cryptic analog signal maps to get a mental grip on the problem. The real trick for me is the computer language syntax that will allow me to make it, because I am struggling with this particular language quite a bit!

I just had an email discussion with one of the lecturers here about changing to the MSc track, and I do believe that I will graduate with an MSc rather than an MA at this rate! I don't really know how that will affect my career opportunities, but I am of the opinion that it can't hurt! Who would've thunk I would end up with a science degree?

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!