Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Self-imposed isolation. I haven't left my room today, except to walk into the kitchen.
I have watched 2.5 movies and a short film and I have eaten my way through an apple, 2 oranges, a frozen pizza and 4 chocolate biscuits. As well as a glass of orange juice and a cup of tea. I ran in place in front of my computer for about 15 minutes. I have been wearing running clothes all day. As if to prepare myself for exercise, but I never made it outside. It is now almost 10pm. What am I doing?
I have watched 2.5 movies and a short film and I have eaten my way through an apple, 2 oranges, a frozen pizza and 4 chocolate biscuits. As well as a glass of orange juice and a cup of tea. I ran in place in front of my computer for about 15 minutes. I have been wearing running clothes all day. As if to prepare myself for exercise, but I never made it outside. It is now almost 10pm. What am I doing?
There is still so much I need to tell you about blog.
Examples:
I went to Prague
and I went to see Beach House open for Grizzly Bear
and I went against all my scheduling and spent a glorious day in bed
Side Note: people here assume that as a 'Virginian' I'm 5 seconds away from pulling out a shotgun and shooting my dinner out of a tree. I told someone I was from Virginia and was promptly asked about "ho-downs."
People are constantly giving Americans shit about geography. I got a phone call tonight from a friend in my class, and he said that he and his friends were playing a pub game called "name all 50 of the United States," sounds fun right? I was out and not really in the mood to talk, seeing as I was in a pub trying to have a good time and he was like "OH! VIRGINIA IS A STATE?! I thought it was just a city in your county!!! Weird" SERIOUSLY?
Fairly often I've been critiqued for being American and am constantly told "Oh! You don't LOOK American." Initially, I was flattered, but now....First of all, what the hell does that mean? Is there some ignorant, obese American cookie cutter shape that we're all supposed to step into before we leave the country?
America is a beautiful place! Full of educated, wonderful, smart, and creative, kind people. There are ignorant, fat douche bags there too, but those people exist everywhere. I really never thought I would feel so protective of America. Europe is a dream, and I'm in love with this place, but I wish that people wouldn't let stereotypes shape their judgement.
Examples:
I went to Prague
and I went to see Beach House open for Grizzly Bear
and I went against all my scheduling and spent a glorious day in bed
Side Note: people here assume that as a 'Virginian' I'm 5 seconds away from pulling out a shotgun and shooting my dinner out of a tree. I told someone I was from Virginia and was promptly asked about "ho-downs."
People are constantly giving Americans shit about geography. I got a phone call tonight from a friend in my class, and he said that he and his friends were playing a pub game called "name all 50 of the United States," sounds fun right? I was out and not really in the mood to talk, seeing as I was in a pub trying to have a good time and he was like "OH! VIRGINIA IS A STATE?! I thought it was just a city in your county!!! Weird" SERIOUSLY?
Fairly often I've been critiqued for being American and am constantly told "Oh! You don't LOOK American." Initially, I was flattered, but now....First of all, what the hell does that mean? Is there some ignorant, obese American cookie cutter shape that we're all supposed to step into before we leave the country?
America is a beautiful place! Full of educated, wonderful, smart, and creative, kind people. There are ignorant, fat douche bags there too, but those people exist everywhere. I really never thought I would feel so protective of America. Europe is a dream, and I'm in love with this place, but I wish that people wouldn't let stereotypes shape their judgement.
"There’s a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats."
–Diane Arbus
–Diane Arbus
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Diane Arbus used a Rolleiflex twin lens.
I have a Rolleiflex twin lens. Too bad mine is in America.
Backtracking is hard for me, I would rather keep moving forward, but there is much I have to tell you sweet little blog. Much you have missed out on.
I'll start with today.
Today was glorious! First of all, the weather was stunning, it's finally starting to stay light longer and it was warm and sunshiney and just a beautiful day in general. Secondly, the Scotland vs. England rugby match was today so Edinburgh had about 10 times more people in it than usual and plenty of them were in costume, loud, drunk and boisterous...that's not necessarily a highlight, but it happened, so it's worth mentioning. For a moment, I was one of those people, but then my buzz wore off and now here I am. Still content. Oh, and I was never dressed up.
Anyways, I went to a lecture this afternoon, Peter something or other, who was speaking on behalf of Diane Arbus. He was actually a close contact of hers in the UK. He read from letters she wrote him and it was amazing to hear his point of view. I knew so little about Diane Arbus, except what everybody seems to know, that she photographed the freaks of society. Interestingly, she hated this label. She was brilliant though, and had amazing ideas. One of her series was "Fat Girls Holiday Camp," where she basically went to fat camps and photographed the young girls. The images are genius. She did another feature called "People who Think they look like Famous People" and put an add out in a news paper calling for these people to turn up and get their photos taken. See what I mean? She's amazing. I had no idea. But anyways, her exhibit is here in Edinburgh for the time being and I think I'm going to go see it.
I left the lecture and bought beer and pizza and headed to Mike's to watch the Rugby match. I navigated the bus system flawlessly. pow! pow! I feel like I'm finally getting my bearings a bit around Edinburgh. Although, I led Jaime in the wrong direction tonight, oops, but I autocorrected, successfully.
The match ended up in a draw, with each team scoring 15 points. tooo bad. Scotland is the lowest ranking team in the Six Nations. Oh well, I love Scotland the best regardless. Watching rugby is really entertaining...mostly because of how fitted the uniforms are...
Fast forward, here I am...dressed up, with my new straight across bangs and cute shirt, blogging, on a Saturday night. I'm downloading a movie that I looked up on a film blog and I just ate a whole container of soy yogurt. I needed to save the money, but I really wanted to go to the Wee Red Bar, damnit. My friends are all either in London, on a stupid pub crawl or at the Hive...would you willingly step into Hell? That's how I feel about the Hive. That's also how I currently feel about Pub Crawls. Oh well, it's nice to be in and have some 'me' time.
I wish I was in Fife at the music festival with Chris! I just want to put my feet in sand and see the ocean! I really need to travel around Scotland more. In my head I'm changing my summer plans to less Europe and more Scotland. There are so many places I want to see in this country. I want to go to the Isle of Skye and Lewis and the Islay and Isla and I want to go to the Orkney Islands and the Highlands! So much. but I also want to go to Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands, Italy, Egypt, India, etc. Spring Break I'll be in Stockholm, Sweden, Berlin, Germany, Athens, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey. I'm so soso excited! I just need to figure out when I'll be able to do all of my school work. Shite.
Backtracking is hard for me, I would rather keep moving forward, but there is much I have to tell you sweet little blog. Much you have missed out on.
I'll start with today.
Today was glorious! First of all, the weather was stunning, it's finally starting to stay light longer and it was warm and sunshiney and just a beautiful day in general. Secondly, the Scotland vs. England rugby match was today so Edinburgh had about 10 times more people in it than usual and plenty of them were in costume, loud, drunk and boisterous...that's not necessarily a highlight, but it happened, so it's worth mentioning. For a moment, I was one of those people, but then my buzz wore off and now here I am. Still content. Oh, and I was never dressed up.
Anyways, I went to a lecture this afternoon, Peter something or other, who was speaking on behalf of Diane Arbus. He was actually a close contact of hers in the UK. He read from letters she wrote him and it was amazing to hear his point of view. I knew so little about Diane Arbus, except what everybody seems to know, that she photographed the freaks of society. Interestingly, she hated this label. She was brilliant though, and had amazing ideas. One of her series was "Fat Girls Holiday Camp," where she basically went to fat camps and photographed the young girls. The images are genius. She did another feature called "People who Think they look like Famous People" and put an add out in a news paper calling for these people to turn up and get their photos taken. See what I mean? She's amazing. I had no idea. But anyways, her exhibit is here in Edinburgh for the time being and I think I'm going to go see it.
I left the lecture and bought beer and pizza and headed to Mike's to watch the Rugby match. I navigated the bus system flawlessly. pow! pow! I feel like I'm finally getting my bearings a bit around Edinburgh. Although, I led Jaime in the wrong direction tonight, oops, but I autocorrected, successfully.
The match ended up in a draw, with each team scoring 15 points. tooo bad. Scotland is the lowest ranking team in the Six Nations. Oh well, I love Scotland the best regardless. Watching rugby is really entertaining...mostly because of how fitted the uniforms are...
Fast forward, here I am...dressed up, with my new straight across bangs and cute shirt, blogging, on a Saturday night. I'm downloading a movie that I looked up on a film blog and I just ate a whole container of soy yogurt. I needed to save the money, but I really wanted to go to the Wee Red Bar, damnit. My friends are all either in London, on a stupid pub crawl or at the Hive...would you willingly step into Hell? That's how I feel about the Hive. That's also how I currently feel about Pub Crawls. Oh well, it's nice to be in and have some 'me' time.
I wish I was in Fife at the music festival with Chris! I just want to put my feet in sand and see the ocean! I really need to travel around Scotland more. In my head I'm changing my summer plans to less Europe and more Scotland. There are so many places I want to see in this country. I want to go to the Isle of Skye and Lewis and the Islay and Isla and I want to go to the Orkney Islands and the Highlands! So much. but I also want to go to Spain, Morocco, the Netherlands, Italy, Egypt, India, etc. Spring Break I'll be in Stockholm, Sweden, Berlin, Germany, Athens, Greece and Istanbul, Turkey. I'm so soso excited! I just need to figure out when I'll be able to do all of my school work. Shite.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Today was charmed. I had a wonderful time with Chris, we met around 2 and spent the day at a gallery on the east side of Princes Street called the Fruitmarket Gallery. The artist showing was Toby Paterson, a painter/installation artist, who works with pretty limited color and a lot of geometric marks. The work was cool, some pieces stood out and others blended in for me. Chris and I had a really nice chat in the gallery cafe and then left to hit some shoe stores looking for trainers. No success there, but we had awesome sandwiches at this small tea house (the same place Mike's friend was showing photographs) and then we went to the Filmhouse to see the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, Micmacs, and It was phenomenal. It was definitely one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen. It was about arms dealers and their misuse of power, etc, but it mostly followed this one man and his assorted family of uniquely talented people who set out to teach the arms dealers a lesson. It was just so perfect. I had such a wonderful time; hanging out with Chris is really easy, I'm looking forward to a really solid friendship.
I stopped by Benny and Daves on the way home to check out what was going on in terms of the Olympic Canada vs. America ice hockey game. I was surprised to see about 50 people packed into Benny's room all glued to the tv. It was about 50% Americans and 50% Canadians so the tension was high. I couldn't care less about ice hockey, I just wanted to get home and fiddle with photoshop and images, but I got trapped in a corner and it was nice to be around friends for a moment. The US was down 2-1 with 24 seconds on the board, when they managed to score. It was ridiculous, everyone flipped out. When I decided to head home, moments before overtime began, people commented on my timing. I prefer sports with more exposed skin.
Had a jolly chat with Adam on the tellyphone tonight, we're two peas in a pod when it comes to our senses of humor. I feel like I'm settling into a really nice niche in terms of making friends. I'm really happy where I am right now.
I stopped by Benny and Daves on the way home to check out what was going on in terms of the Olympic Canada vs. America ice hockey game. I was surprised to see about 50 people packed into Benny's room all glued to the tv. It was about 50% Americans and 50% Canadians so the tension was high. I couldn't care less about ice hockey, I just wanted to get home and fiddle with photoshop and images, but I got trapped in a corner and it was nice to be around friends for a moment. The US was down 2-1 with 24 seconds on the board, when they managed to score. It was ridiculous, everyone flipped out. When I decided to head home, moments before overtime began, people commented on my timing. I prefer sports with more exposed skin.
Had a jolly chat with Adam on the tellyphone tonight, we're two peas in a pod when it comes to our senses of humor. I feel like I'm settling into a really nice niche in terms of making friends. I'm really happy where I am right now.
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