Letters from Across the Pond: Part 2

Dear Yas and IQ,

I'm heading for Atlanta tomorrow, so I'll close out my New York portion of this trip. The week has been pretty quiet so far, in large part to everyone else having....you know....a job. So I've been on my own a bit, which I don't mind at all. One of the big reasons I like coming to visit my Dad is that I can catch up on sleep and spend a couple of days just being comfortable and letting my brain catch up with me. I've not been a complete slugabed however, and have gone on a few forays into The City to catch up with friends (or rather just one, the other canceled on me. Twice ;p) and see some awesome art.
First there was dinner with Jen on Sunday night -
Complete with a very nice view of the City on the ferry ride back. I used to take the Ferry in every day when I did a summer internship in the Financial District. It's always pretty to look at, some days more than others. Particularly when it isn't raining (Ferry when it's raining = le crap).

On Monday I went into city to a little gallery in Chelsea to see...well...Legos. But not just *any* Legos. Legos by this guy; Nathan Sawaya. I know I've already raved to you guys in just about every imaginable electronic medium available about this exhibit...but, clearly I have to get this one as well. OH MY GOD, THAT WAS SO COOL! Seriously...beautiful stuff, and I wish I could have some of his art in my house. I never thought of LEGO bricks as being able to communicate emotion (other than frustration when you're missing that last piece in the 3,000 piece LEGO Star Destroyer kit...that was a dark day) but apparently I was wrong....have you ever wanted to hug a LEGO sculpture because it looks sad? Don't answer that...(YARR PHOTO BLIZZARD AHEAD!!!) ( See Flickr for better versions of these photos, it's not nice to kill the blog/people's internet connections by putting these full res, but a lot of them came out really well) .

















Of all the works, I think this one is probably my favorite....not to say the others weren't amazing...but I kept coming back to this one for some reason...If i ever get a spare 10,000 dollars (Lotto anyone) I could stare at this all day...


After that? Well....obviously I had to swing by Times Square. Not much has changed, but it's still nice to take a look at. If only to remind myself why I DON'T want to live here full time.



Tomorrow I'm heading for Atlanta to take a look at Emory....woohah.

Letters from Across the Pond

Dear Yas and IQ,

Because of the time change, I'm figuring this is as good a way to write to you kids and let you know what I've been up to on my trip home. The trip started out with my flight back - which was mostly okay, complete with a vociferously-swearing, dual-blackberry-wielding American Businessman with a cold and a couple of screaming babies. On the whole though, it wasn't too bad, and the sunset we landed in was gorgeous, i just wish i'd be able to capture all the colors. This is the best one I got, mostly reds and blooms, the greens just simply wouldn't cooperate. After getting home from the airport....I promptly passed out. There may have been a brief foray into laundry before that happened, but I don't quite recall. I blame the jet lag.
The next day Mom came in, and we had some amaaaaaazing sushi for lunch, followed by general hanging out and enjoyment of life. There was also a serious amount of cleaning out my closest and room. I know that wherever I end up next year, the reckoning is nigh and I'm going to have to deal with all my crap that is scattered across the 4 corners of the earth. My hope is that I can minimize enough of the other stuff, that when my family figures out just how much yarn I own they won't have me committed. Or drowned.
The day after Mom left, sadly the weather was not nearly as fun. It's so weird waking up inside of a cloud.
Thankfully, the fog burned off (though it didn't on Monday or today) and Dad and I took a trip down the park underneath the GW Bridge. You'd never know it was there if a local didn't show you. Lucky me, I had an in!










































Last but not least....I'm sure I've mentioned "The Dog" .....there are no words, other than "Soda can added for scale"


So that's part 1 of "What I've Been Up To", what about you folks? Anything interesting on your end? In my next letter: Dinner and night shots of the city, and the aweeeesome Lego exhibit.

A weekend in Lewknor/Tetsworth, Oxfordshire

The morning after breaking my toe, I went out to the 'wilds' of Oxfordshire to meet up with my grandmother for a workshop. We spent the weekend doing Cortical Field Re-education stuff, which was awesome...I have totally grown an inch. Or rather, I have regained an inch, perhaps by improving my posture. Fun stuff! We stayed at a B&B called Long Acre in Tetsworth, aka a village seemingly in the middle of nowhere, which was absolutely adorable.The Breakfast room, complete with epic amounts of harness buckle...things. Not entirely sure what they're called, but the lady had some very cool ones. She also made some of the BEST English Breakfast food I've had. Ever. View from outside. I couldn't get a shot from the front, sadly, but trust me, it was a pretty building! It also, as previously mentioned, was in the middle of nowhere, which meant I got an absolutely awesome view of the stars while I was out there. Complete with Milky Way. View of the back garden from our room. :D

Cultural Monday's....Topolski's Century and Gabriel's Wharf

Hidden among the arches of Waterloo is Topolski's Century, the artist's 600 ft record of the 20h century. Topolski was an eye witness to many of the major events, including both World Wars, the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights Movement in the US (to name a few). In particular, he was an official war artist for the Brits in World War Two, creating many sketches during the Blitz, and he was embedded with one of the units involved in the liberation of (if i recall) Bergen-Belsen.
In short? Dude's seen a lot, and his art is worth taking a look at. More over, his gallery has free admission on Monday's (2 quid for adults during the rest of the week). So off we went.


















Left: The UN Wheel, Right: World War I

One of the more interesting items for me, personally, was the original door to Newgate Prison, which was demolished in the late 17oos. Now...WHY Topolski had the door to Newgate, and decided that it would be a great piece to display as part of his artwork relating to the Soviet Union and Cold War mentality....I don't know. I can understand the prison connotations etc etc, but why THIS door? There's so much more history related to it! Sigh....silly artists.
History note: The 'original' Newgate was demolished in 1777, but the prison existed, in some form or another from the 1100s through to 1902. Also note that the 'original' as previously referenced, was definitely not the original, if nothing else, it burned down in the Great Fire in 1666. I'm not entirely sure which iteration the door is from, but that's neither here nor there.

After wandering through Topolski's Mural, his paintings regarding the opening of Bergen-Belsen being particularly poignant for me, we went for a walk along Southbank, including a visit to the top of OXO Tower and Gabriel's Wharf.

What's Inside?

Oh the Telephone Box, that bastion symbol of the British Empire.....

This particular box being the one near Big Ben, and in view of Trafalgar Square as well. It's probably the most photographed phone boxes in Britain, if not the world. As such, it's (relatively) well maintained and clean. Shiny, and loved, and not at all scandalous.

Personally, I think it's a bit of a cheat, to lie to all those happy tourists about what English telephone boxes are really like! It's not something I think about all that often, if ever really, but a few weeks ago, as we were walking towards the Museum, I stopped to take a peek inside one of the UKs bits of History and symbolism...it's not that different from Vegas really...























In case you can't read that sign, it says "Amanda: Very sexy genuine Spanish girl, fantastic body"...charming.

Hobbies

Lately, I've gotten really into sending postcards via a website called PostCrossing. I'm a big fan of the concept; send a postcard to someone random, somewhere in the world and then someone random, somewhere in the world will send you one. So far I've received cards from China, Germany, Finland, the US, Poland, Brazil, The Netherlands, Hungary and Italy. I've sent cards to lots of really cool places as well. I'm hooked.

With all this postcard sending and receiving, I'm suddenly paying a lot more attention to what's around me, and particularly places that might have postcards. Silly, I know. I've also started collecting postcards...a hobby which I can see as becoming hugely problematic. But no matter, at least it takes up less space then yarn! So far, this is my favorite. Please pardon the crap picture of it, trust me, it's gorgeous.


Last week, while waiting for a friend in Bond Street, I swung by Selfridges and took a look at their current basement exhibition, The Museum of Small Things. I was excited about it, but am forced to admit that the museum was a bit lackluster and unimpressive. All the same, there were some neat things, but mostly it was a bunch of walls with some form of tissue paper on it and flashing lights (the buddha was very cool though). At the end, however, there was a massive collection of free postcards, which I am very much enjoying, and will be sending out on postcrossing over the next several months.

Hanging out with the Posh Folk

Among other happenings, this past Friday Alli and I went to the Ivy Plus Society's (semi?) annual cocktail party. Sounds pretentious doesn't it? Well, it was. Initially I was very hesitant about going, and the 25 pound price tag didn't help. But the event was also being held at The East India Club, a proper 'Gentleman's Club' if there ever was one, and originally populated by the various Higher Ups of the East India Company. Translation: You're never going to have the chance to get through the door ever again in your life, so GO. Thus, off we went to a schmancy cocktail party, makeup, hair, dress and all. Here are a few (very poor quality) pictures i snapped on the sly.

The entry to the building, and the wall of school plaques (featuring all the really poncy schools)










Our event was held in the smoking room, featuring many portraits of very important (and likely deceased) old men.


In all honestly, I would have loved to have the opportunity to poke around, but sadly it wasn't in the cards. So we went off and mingled instead. Sigh....can you imagine what a stereotypical Ivy League gathering might have been?? Yeah, a lot of the people were like that. There were some pretty neat ones there as well, however. So it was a very good time to be had, not to mention the wine (East India Club's House Label) was fantastic.

Plus? We looked awesome - first photo is from after we left (they kicked us out promptly at 10 pm) and went and had a great dinner at Spaghetti House, made even tastier by being starving. Please also note - I totally had awesome heels on, but took them off when I actually had to walk somewhere. The second photo is Alli's absoutley INSANE hair do. Because it's awesome.


















Lastly, the current state of my Ravelympics Chantal, which is going VERY fast (as I've done nothing but knit for the past two days). Yoke, sleeves divided, and the waist decreases are all done, Now I'm just plugging along with the body until I get back to the hip increases. After that, a nice classy moss stitch border for the buttons and collar.

Careers Advice: I advise you get a career....

So yesterday I had an appointment with the LSE Career Service, it was supposed to be on Monday but due to a mix-up, and a crappy internet based 'hit refresh constantly' type allocation system, I wound up booking an appointment that I didn't get when I actually showed up for it, and went home rather weepy. I came back yesterday, and did manage to get my appointment spot(perhaps due to the weeping stint the day before), to talk to the nice lady, in hopes that she would solve my problems.

Obviously she didn't, as a 15 minute appointment is not going to solve the question of 'What do you want to do with your life', but i was at least hoping for a 'what the hell am i doing with my life right now'. Instead it went something like this...

Me: So i'm hoping to find an internship or volunteer opportunity, something to get work experience in, while i figure out what i'm doing

Her: So what is it that you are interested in?

Me: Women's reproductive health and rights, access to care etc in developing countries. Things along those lines.

Her: But why would you be interested in that??

And this is basically how 80% of our time was spent, her demanding an exact explanation as to why i am interested in health and development...because it's such a 'small, niche area'. Seriously?? I've never thought of women's health as a 'niche' nor esoteric. You'd think I had asked her for help finding a career option that involved braiding purple llama's hair whilst singing electronica to them (accapella style) in the northeast sector of a very small town in Iceland, and ONLY that. Cripes...

Suffice to say, it didn't really help much, but I did pillage the hell out of the career services library and managed to get several websites to follow up with. Here's hoping they turn out to be a better use of my time.