So my friend Amanda, the OBGYN student, invited us all to a concert where she would be playing.
Amanda plays the violin. And while she and the pianist were amazing, the others were not, lol.
Chiara, our Italian friend, recorded Amanda's piece and the pianist before her and put them up on YouTube. Check them out.
Czardas, Amanda accompanied b Cat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKZKdMt8S3E
Chopin, played by Cat Mactier - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yxNz_ZgaZg
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Last bit of Ketchup--training
This past Saturday was fun. After having problems convincing a couple of girls to go running with me earlier in the year, I convinced them that I could act as a trainer to them, which is free, vs. going to the gym and paying.
My scheme worked quite well. On Saturday, we had our first workout. I was training five girls in Regent's park.
I didn't realize how small London really is until we walked to the park from my hostel. The other side of Regent's Park is...you guessed it...Regent street, which is where my school is. It would take me about an hour and a half to get to school walking slowly. Not too bad, right. Attainable. I was really surprised.
Anyway, had a relatively easy workout. Relatively, as in I wasn't really tired, lol. But it was really great. Got to go to a park and run for a bit, then we did some abs in the grass, being careful to watch for droppings, and finished off with a few sprints. Nice, right?
I liked seeing all the dogs, honestly. I will never bring Kathy to a park here. There are just too many dogs. We wouldn't be able to get anything done! Cat and I actually went out for a run on Tuesday and a couple of times the dogs just came right up to us. So sweet.
Monday night me, Cat, and Amanda ran to Primrose hill--very safe, lots of lights and opens to the street on all sides--unlike the heath at night, which I hear has been a well known male prostitution spot? Oh the irony. Anyway...Primrose hill is beautiful, you get to the top and you see the entire skyline of London. It was stunning at night.
Back to Saturday--we pretty much spent most of the day working out--felt it the day after--and then watched Sex and the City at bedtime. It was me, Amanda, and Rebecca...the girls I am closest to at the hostel...and we were downstairs watching the first season of the show. Well, the nun's kitchen connects to this great room and we were sitting with our backs to the door. Well the sweetest of all nuns comes in right after a nude scene and we nearly crapped ourselves. She didn't notice, but did tell us to be careful watching movies at night because it is bad for our eyes when there is no light on, lol.
Anyway...fun times...
My scheme worked quite well. On Saturday, we had our first workout. I was training five girls in Regent's park.
I didn't realize how small London really is until we walked to the park from my hostel. The other side of Regent's Park is...you guessed it...Regent street, which is where my school is. It would take me about an hour and a half to get to school walking slowly. Not too bad, right. Attainable. I was really surprised.
Anyway, had a relatively easy workout. Relatively, as in I wasn't really tired, lol. But it was really great. Got to go to a park and run for a bit, then we did some abs in the grass, being careful to watch for droppings, and finished off with a few sprints. Nice, right?
I liked seeing all the dogs, honestly. I will never bring Kathy to a park here. There are just too many dogs. We wouldn't be able to get anything done! Cat and I actually went out for a run on Tuesday and a couple of times the dogs just came right up to us. So sweet.
Monday night me, Cat, and Amanda ran to Primrose hill--very safe, lots of lights and opens to the street on all sides--unlike the heath at night, which I hear has been a well known male prostitution spot? Oh the irony. Anyway...Primrose hill is beautiful, you get to the top and you see the entire skyline of London. It was stunning at night.
Back to Saturday--we pretty much spent most of the day working out--felt it the day after--and then watched Sex and the City at bedtime. It was me, Amanda, and Rebecca...the girls I am closest to at the hostel...and we were downstairs watching the first season of the show. Well, the nun's kitchen connects to this great room and we were sitting with our backs to the door. Well the sweetest of all nuns comes in right after a nude scene and we nearly crapped ourselves. She didn't notice, but did tell us to be careful watching movies at night because it is bad for our eyes when there is no light on, lol.
Anyway...fun times...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Even more...
I think we have made it to Wednesday the 18th. I went to the Tate Modern to meet up with my Creating Writing in London class. I met up with a guy named Mike who was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt with a florescent orange down puffy vest, jeans, and neon Adidas high tops--he wants to be comedian, lol. He is really cool actually. We had an assignment the week before to come up with 6 word stories.
Mine was:
He dribbles, he shoots, we lose.
(oh how optimistic of me)
His were:
Met some cannibals in the jungle.
AND
I died alone, surrounded by friends.
It was a fun assignment. Try it. It is tough.
Uh, anyway, met up with him at Blackfriars tube station so we could walk along the river to the Tate. It was cool, we walked along the Thames path and over a modern bridge to get there. Once we did, and got together with our class, our assignment was to go into 3 different rooms in the Tate and write a love story influenced by the three rooms, art pieces, or sights. Honestly, I didn't finish the assignment, but the experience was cool.
I walked into a dark part of a giant room and heard water dripping and rain and lightning, so I started my story there. After that I went upstairs, into this very graphic room that had some pretty disturbing images--I will spare you the details of the pictures, but it quite turned me off to a love story. I moved on to the impressionistic part of the museum, which inspired me to write another component of my story. It was a piece that was a collage of papers painted black and neon. It reminded me of a city, somehow. Finally, I went to the surrealist portion of the museum, a floor up and was quite surprised what I saw. Not really graphic in a bad way...just strange...manipulated, hard to interpret. I was told modern art is really quite hard to like from my friends. But I found it was actually quite easy. It isn't so much about a story or a message, even though a lot of them included these, it is more about emotion--the impression you get when you initially see it. I had quite an experience at the Tate, because I am so affected. But some feelings were better than others. Personally, I found that I really enjoyed impressionism and realism--not so much surrealism. I had a great time.
After, I walked down with a group of guys and had lunch at EAT. From there I walked back with one of them, a guy from the Jersey Shore...enough said...and headed home for the day. (He was actually quite nice, superficial, but nice)
Saturday, Julia and I were going to meet and go to Borough market--the large food market in London. Well, me not paying attention to the tube line closures realized I was stuck at the Embankment station--right in front of the London Eye. I ended up walking down the Thames South Bank for 45 minutes to get to where Julia was. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought though. I got to walk to my destination as opposed to just showing up in front of it, which made me stop and see where everything was. It made me realize how close everything really was.
When Jules and I finally met, we headed to Borough market to pick up some food for Sunday's brunch at Speakers corner. I am not gonna lie. It was pretty miserable. The place was packed. And even though there was so much to do and try, once I got there, I wanted to get out, lol. Regardless of my insomnia, we did walk around a bit and see and experience some new types of food. There were different cheeses, artisan breads, baked goods, olives, salami's, indian food, middle eastern food, hummus, vegi burgers, oysters, seafood, meat, smoothies..anything you could ever want.
It was pretty cool. Jules and I walked out with bread, cheese, and olives.
Later that night Julia, Clif, and I meet up to see Taming of the Shrew at Novello Theatre. It was not what I was expecting at all. Seeing the modern interpretations of it clouded the entire misogynistic message. Men ARE the superior species.
KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
Yeah. I tend to disagree with this interpretation. Tend to. Anyway...Sunday.
I met up with Clifton and Julia in front of Marble Arch and there we saw a man standing on a stool behind layers of books placed in a pattern on the ground before him. He called: "Calling all Women....Calling all Women." I looked over. Julia looked over. "Calling all Women, Go BACK TO YOUR KITCHENS, tend the fire, and listen to man, as he is your savior."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Clifton laughed. I laughed. Ignorant man. That is all you can really do.
We walked over to a bench in Hyde Park and ate our humble meal of bread, cheese, olives, and Clif's contribution, jam. I looked out onto the park where guys were playing football. I felt sad. :(
It was a rather nasty day. Saturday, I could have worn short sleeves it was like 58 or something. Sunday, it was like 38 or so. Windy, gray, and cold. When we finished our lunch we went over to listen to the speaker--which wasn't really speaking. He brought up a topic--Creationism, I believe, and some guy in the audience was supporting evolution. He must have been a science teacher because he was rambling on about genes and cell development to prove his point. It was more the audience talking than the actual speaker. We didn't stay long because it was cold.
When I got home that day, I worked on a paper for class due that week and that was about it. Another busy weekend.
Mine was:
He dribbles, he shoots, we lose.
(oh how optimistic of me)
His were:
Met some cannibals in the jungle.
AND
I died alone, surrounded by friends.
It was a fun assignment. Try it. It is tough.
Uh, anyway, met up with him at Blackfriars tube station so we could walk along the river to the Tate. It was cool, we walked along the Thames path and over a modern bridge to get there. Once we did, and got together with our class, our assignment was to go into 3 different rooms in the Tate and write a love story influenced by the three rooms, art pieces, or sights. Honestly, I didn't finish the assignment, but the experience was cool.
I walked into a dark part of a giant room and heard water dripping and rain and lightning, so I started my story there. After that I went upstairs, into this very graphic room that had some pretty disturbing images--I will spare you the details of the pictures, but it quite turned me off to a love story. I moved on to the impressionistic part of the museum, which inspired me to write another component of my story. It was a piece that was a collage of papers painted black and neon. It reminded me of a city, somehow. Finally, I went to the surrealist portion of the museum, a floor up and was quite surprised what I saw. Not really graphic in a bad way...just strange...manipulated, hard to interpret. I was told modern art is really quite hard to like from my friends. But I found it was actually quite easy. It isn't so much about a story or a message, even though a lot of them included these, it is more about emotion--the impression you get when you initially see it. I had quite an experience at the Tate, because I am so affected. But some feelings were better than others. Personally, I found that I really enjoyed impressionism and realism--not so much surrealism. I had a great time.
After, I walked down with a group of guys and had lunch at EAT. From there I walked back with one of them, a guy from the Jersey Shore...enough said...and headed home for the day. (He was actually quite nice, superficial, but nice)
Saturday, Julia and I were going to meet and go to Borough market--the large food market in London. Well, me not paying attention to the tube line closures realized I was stuck at the Embankment station--right in front of the London Eye. I ended up walking down the Thames South Bank for 45 minutes to get to where Julia was. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought though. I got to walk to my destination as opposed to just showing up in front of it, which made me stop and see where everything was. It made me realize how close everything really was.
When Jules and I finally met, we headed to Borough market to pick up some food for Sunday's brunch at Speakers corner. I am not gonna lie. It was pretty miserable. The place was packed. And even though there was so much to do and try, once I got there, I wanted to get out, lol. Regardless of my insomnia, we did walk around a bit and see and experience some new types of food. There were different cheeses, artisan breads, baked goods, olives, salami's, indian food, middle eastern food, hummus, vegi burgers, oysters, seafood, meat, smoothies..anything you could ever want.
It was pretty cool. Jules and I walked out with bread, cheese, and olives.
Later that night Julia, Clif, and I meet up to see Taming of the Shrew at Novello Theatre. It was not what I was expecting at all. Seeing the modern interpretations of it clouded the entire misogynistic message. Men ARE the superior species.
KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
Yeah. I tend to disagree with this interpretation. Tend to. Anyway...Sunday.
I met up with Clifton and Julia in front of Marble Arch and there we saw a man standing on a stool behind layers of books placed in a pattern on the ground before him. He called: "Calling all Women....Calling all Women." I looked over. Julia looked over. "Calling all Women, Go BACK TO YOUR KITCHENS, tend the fire, and listen to man, as he is your savior."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Clifton laughed. I laughed. Ignorant man. That is all you can really do.
We walked over to a bench in Hyde Park and ate our humble meal of bread, cheese, olives, and Clif's contribution, jam. I looked out onto the park where guys were playing football. I felt sad. :(
It was a rather nasty day. Saturday, I could have worn short sleeves it was like 58 or something. Sunday, it was like 38 or so. Windy, gray, and cold. When we finished our lunch we went over to listen to the speaker--which wasn't really speaking. He brought up a topic--Creationism, I believe, and some guy in the audience was supporting evolution. He must have been a science teacher because he was rambling on about genes and cell development to prove his point. It was more the audience talking than the actual speaker. We didn't stay long because it was cold.
When I got home that day, I worked on a paper for class due that week and that was about it. Another busy weekend.
Yeah, so the last several weeks?
So I am going to trek all the way back to the 13th of Feburary. Friday the 13th. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Can't remember seeing any black cats or anything weird. But I do remember I spent the greater part of my day with Clif. I met him at his place around lunch time to...eat lunch--I made the infamous tuna sandwiches. After, we headed toward Houseman's Booksellers. Clif had told me about it before--it was a radical book, book shop. Cool, right? After scouring through loads of books both new and old, and not being able to find an old leather bound copy of Capital by Marx (it would have been only 1 quid), we went to Starbucks. Nothing really special about this. Quite predictable really. But--not for long. Clif spotted a man sitting on the other side of me reading The Fountainhead! Yay, for Ayn Rand! Her individualist ways are infiltrating the English socialist system! That called for a celebration. I was beaming. Clif looked at me like he made a mistake telling me. lol. On my way home, Kaley, my friend that is over here from the states, gave me a call to see if I wanted to hang out later that night. Of course I said yes...and as I said goodbye to Clifton, I headed over to Kaley's.
I spend an exorbitant amount of money going to see Kaley's roommate's band play--Target 9--for about 5 songs before we headed over to her friend Paul's place. Paul is cool--very quiet, philosophical, theatre-y, type. I actually enjoyed this stop of the evening the best. We met some fun people and talked about Capitalism and Socialism as entities with moral bounds. For, me, this is awesome. Everyone else seemed really into it as well. Quite the conversation at a birthday party, don't you think? hahaha. We stayed here till about 11, and then headed over to a rave. Kaley's roommate Phil, got us into this student-night rave for free! We have all the connections. We practically walked past 300 people and went straight to the front of the line. Nice, right? Well when we got in we were a bit taken aback by the coat line, so we walked about to see if we could find Phil. The first room we went through was the foam room, where they played pop music while machine spit soap suds at you. It was wet and everyone smelled like dog. Not nice. We walk into the next room where we see a mechanical beer bottle being ridden by teens...again, not our cup of tea. The last room was the UV room which was just a light show thing. They played a genre of music I was looking forward to hearing--drum n' bass. Not quite as bad. We stayed here for the remainder of the night and danced. We left pretty early, it was after all a student night and I was getting bored with so much irresponsibility compiled in one place.
That pretty much ended my big party-hoping night. And I think I only had a glass of wine. Not as bad as you all thought, right? Nah.
The Saturday was V-day, I believe. I got together with a big group of girls and we basically ate pizza and ice cream and watched the cheesist chick flick on the planet--P.S. I love you.
Wow. Enough said?
I love the girls at the hostel, they really are fun. I am enjoying myself here soooo much.
Sunday night we went to Hampstead to get crepes in a little shack by a gay pub. Awesome. I think it was 9 or 10 and there was a queue all the way out to the street--prob about 30 people in front of us, maybe more. We waited 30 minutes for a crepe--but it was soooooo worth it. I mean, I was in line with about four people from the hostel, one which could count as 10 persons, she is just so loud and outgoing and crazy. Her name is Siobhan (Sha-ban) and she is from Essex--thus she has a strong accent and vibrant personality. She is an actress and is known to perform Romeo and Juliet, both parts, on tubes, lol. Quite the character. Remember, too, I am the youngest. So, between Siobhan's acting and gossip from school, the time really went by. I ended up getting a Carribbean Crepe concoction. It had dark chocolate (which is so much darker than the states--like 70-80% cocao), bananas, coconut, rum, and cream. OMG, between the rum and everything else, I couldn't even finish it. But it was pretty amazing.
We went back on Tuesday, believe it or not, since it was Pancake day--over here they are not publicly religious like our presidential candidates in the states, yet, they still maintain old religious traditions. Pancake day is the day before lent where everyone would get rid of their fatty foods-- milk, cream, eggs, sugar (and flour)-- and make pancakes. Anyway, I decided not to go so heavy on the crepe this time and I just got chocolate and hazelnuts. AMAZING! Heavenly, even. hehehe.
I spend an exorbitant amount of money going to see Kaley's roommate's band play--Target 9--for about 5 songs before we headed over to her friend Paul's place. Paul is cool--very quiet, philosophical, theatre-y, type. I actually enjoyed this stop of the evening the best. We met some fun people and talked about Capitalism and Socialism as entities with moral bounds. For, me, this is awesome. Everyone else seemed really into it as well. Quite the conversation at a birthday party, don't you think? hahaha. We stayed here till about 11, and then headed over to a rave. Kaley's roommate Phil, got us into this student-night rave for free! We have all the connections. We practically walked past 300 people and went straight to the front of the line. Nice, right? Well when we got in we were a bit taken aback by the coat line, so we walked about to see if we could find Phil. The first room we went through was the foam room, where they played pop music while machine spit soap suds at you. It was wet and everyone smelled like dog. Not nice. We walk into the next room where we see a mechanical beer bottle being ridden by teens...again, not our cup of tea. The last room was the UV room which was just a light show thing. They played a genre of music I was looking forward to hearing--drum n' bass. Not quite as bad. We stayed here for the remainder of the night and danced. We left pretty early, it was after all a student night and I was getting bored with so much irresponsibility compiled in one place.
That pretty much ended my big party-hoping night. And I think I only had a glass of wine. Not as bad as you all thought, right? Nah.
The Saturday was V-day, I believe. I got together with a big group of girls and we basically ate pizza and ice cream and watched the cheesist chick flick on the planet--P.S. I love you.
Wow. Enough said?
I love the girls at the hostel, they really are fun. I am enjoying myself here soooo much.
Sunday night we went to Hampstead to get crepes in a little shack by a gay pub. Awesome. I think it was 9 or 10 and there was a queue all the way out to the street--prob about 30 people in front of us, maybe more. We waited 30 minutes for a crepe--but it was soooooo worth it. I mean, I was in line with about four people from the hostel, one which could count as 10 persons, she is just so loud and outgoing and crazy. Her name is Siobhan (Sha-ban) and she is from Essex--thus she has a strong accent and vibrant personality. She is an actress and is known to perform Romeo and Juliet, both parts, on tubes, lol. Quite the character. Remember, too, I am the youngest. So, between Siobhan's acting and gossip from school, the time really went by. I ended up getting a Carribbean Crepe concoction. It had dark chocolate (which is so much darker than the states--like 70-80% cocao), bananas, coconut, rum, and cream. OMG, between the rum and everything else, I couldn't even finish it. But it was pretty amazing.
We went back on Tuesday, believe it or not, since it was Pancake day--over here they are not publicly religious like our presidential candidates in the states, yet, they still maintain old religious traditions. Pancake day is the day before lent where everyone would get rid of their fatty foods-- milk, cream, eggs, sugar (and flour)-- and make pancakes. Anyway, I decided not to go so heavy on the crepe this time and I just got chocolate and hazelnuts. AMAZING! Heavenly, even. hehehe.
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