A New Year, A New Blog

Again...it's been ages since I've written anything. This time I was inspired by the thought of uploading all my Instagram pictures. I was going to copy Maggie and make a Tumblr page, but then I thought this was a good excuse to write a blog. However, I've found that loading the picture to here itsn't really working...so at the bottom of the post, I'll put a link to the tumblr page.

I just reread my last post...and I'm feeling pretty good about myself because I've actually stuck with and/or finished alot of the things I talked about. I think that's a good starting point...to build on what I wrote last June.

First, and foremost, after an incredibly hard August where I spent almost every waking hour in the library, I finished my dissertation and even handed it in 2 hours early. If that's not exciting enough, I have since learned that not only did I graduate...but I graduated with Distinction (apparently in England that's really impressive). My graduation is on Monday, loan repayment begins in March, and now I can say I have a Masters...never in a million years did I see that coming a couple years ago.

Second, my internship at Factory Media turned into a job. I'm the Marketing Administrator...and I guess it's completely official as i got my very own business cards yesterday. So far, it's been good...really busy, but it's nice getting off work by 5:30 everyday, and getting paid vacation (although...with the amount I'm making, unemployment in the States is kinda like paid vacation too!). But I get to go to lots of cool events...things like surf contests, skate jams, BMX Awards, etc..and I really like everyone I work with. So...all-in-all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Third update from my last post is the weirdest. I mentioned that I was doing a Learn-To-Row course. I did it, had fun, and ended up joining the rowing club. It's pretty cool saying I belong to a club (even if it is in Hackney!). I'm in the novice squad that trains to race...unfortunately, I haven't been in a race yet due to work commitments last fall, but in Feb., there is a race almost every weekend, so I'll probably get a chance. It's fun, but really hard work...especially the training schedule. Tuesday night, Thursday night, and Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8AM! On the weekends, we have 2 sessions a day, so I often don't leave the clubhouse until 1pm. We've had decent weather so far, but today was pretty awful...frost everywhere, mist on the river, and so cold. And we're not allowed to wear gloves!!

With work and rowing, I don't have time for much else. I quit The Lauriston, so that at least frees up my Wednesdays..but really it just means I can get a bit more sleep.

Anyway, I guess that's about it. Here's a link to my tumblr page...

http://www.tumblr.com/customize/allsarahallthetime

                                                        

I'm back!

Well, I guess I've done a piss-all job at keeping my blog updated this year. Not sure why..maybe I was on the computer too much at school, maybe nothing exciting was happening, maybe I'm just lazy...regardless, it's been a few months. But today, after a run and a lunch that consisted of a bowl of vegetables, I decided I should continue being productive and write something. I've posted a lot of pics on Facebook...but I'll put some other ones on here too.

The most exciting thing that's happened to me as of late, is I've finished the formal-lecture-note-taking part of school. Still waiting on exam results, but I got B's on my essays. Exams were really stressful, and although I feel like I picked the wrong topics to study in-depth, I think I managed to write something coherent in the 2-hour time limit and have hopefully passed. Should get results next week.

Although, I've stayed really busy for the past few weeks, I've let my mind take a break from the Creative Industries and haven't really thought much about my dissertation. All of sudden though, it seems like September is looming, so I'm going to need to buckle down and start writing. Hopefully still have a fun summer too though.

The summer has started off pretty awesome. I got hired to be the Athlete Liasion at a big BMX contest that Nike put on called The Pool. Saw lots of old friends, watched awesome BMX and got to boss around a bunch of boys. Plus Maggie got to come to London the same weekend for a job delivering tapes.

The next weekend, Amity came for a visit. It was really hard trying to fit London into a weekend...especially as we were both pretty tired(she from being busy at work and then jetlag, and me from going nonstop since writing my essays 3 weeks earlier.) We had fun though...saw the main sites, took the train to Cambridge and went punting(it turned out it was during exams so we couldn't get onto the college grounds), went to Greenwich, and most importantly ate Indian food and sat on the Thames with a jug of Pimms(not at the same time).





I went to Barcelona for a weekend for a big music festival called Primavera Sound. It was funner than I expected and I actually saw some really good bands. The Flaming Lips played one night and it made me proud to be an Oklahoman.
Didn't really do much other than go to the festival...although I did eat seafood paella, and mussels(which I liked for the first time in my life(i think it was the tomato sauce they were drenched in).

Two of my flatmates have moved out, so my remaining flatmate and I are going to have to find new people take the rooms. Shouldn't be too hard, as the rent is fairly cheap. I moved into one of the bigger rooms though, and although it's in the front of the house instead of overlooking the garden, which makes it so much noisier...it's also so much nicer. Here's a pic of my new room.

Some other random things I've done...
- Went to The Boat Race (Oxford vs. Cambridge rowing). I rowed for Kings for about 3 weeks, but decided drinking load of gin with 18 yr-olds wasn't my style(the gin..not the 18 year olds...ha). I'm just signed up for a 7 week Learn2Row course at the boathouse near where I live though.
- Went to a Polo Match
- The Royal Wedding happened. Got dressed up and went to a pub where we watched it on a big screen.
- Been doing an internship at Factory Media in the Marketing and Events department. Factory is the main publisher for extreme sports magazines in Europe.
- Venue-managed opening night at The East End Film Festival

I applied to be a Student Ambassador at King's...and got the gig. Don't think it's that exciting of an accomplishment judging by the amount of people that were at the training on Friday...but still. One of the main jobs of the Student Ambassador is to give campus tours, but we also help out at Open Days and other things. Of course, we get paid. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some jobs through it because I've pretty much already quit my pub job...which was at least guaranteed money. Unfortunately, I really think I need to have a job where I can make my own schedule. Things just happen way too last minute for me. Plus the pub already told me I had to work Christmas Eve...don't really want to.

For Halloween, Elaine and I went on a zombie-walk. Unfortunately, American Football was being broadcast from Trafalgar Square, which I think messed up the organizers' plan...and caused a lot of the zombies to get separated. For the short while we all marched together, it was pretty entertaining...people do some crazy things. We saw one lady get so scared she just took off running and didn't stop.

Sand In My Ears, No Feeling in My Feet

Surfing was really hard. I'm super sore today, have a severely stubbed toe, and surprisingly a sunburnt face(I even put on sunscreen). But..it was also fun, and I'd definitely try it again.

I made it to the train on time...stupid me only got 3 hours of sleep. Found the Surf Club president and other other beginner surfers, and off we went. It was me, Clare(the prez), Bram from Belgium, Jasmine from Germany, Jessica from England, and a boy named Pip from a little island called Guernsey(an absolutely amazing sounding place). The good mix of people made for interesting conversation on our hour and 1/2 train ride to Chichester. The train ride scenery was good too...saw a castle and lots on pretty English country-side.

The lesson was only 2 hours long, so after a brief intro on the beach, we got right into the freezing cold water. It was so cold that when I would fall of the board and go underwater, i would get brain-freeze. We had really thick wetsuits, and we were working pretty hard, so I managed to stay warm until about the last 20 minutes...except for my feet. I didn't get booties, and that was a mistake. My feet were numb after about 10 minutes...which made it hard to do stuff, like stand on the board. I could have sliced my foot open and would never have known(I definitely stubbed my toes numerous times...don't think I broke anything though).

The weather was weird. It was sunny, but then a squall rolled in...making the waves pretty crazy and raining on us for about 10 minutes. Then it cleared up, there was a rainbow and the waves calmed down...but by that point we were getting out of the water. The waves were so strong, we didn't really even try paddling out..we would just walk out and catch waves pretty close to the beach. I managed to catch a lot of waves, but by the time I figured out how to stand up, I was too tired. I definitely think I would benefit from "popping up" on land a bunch of times first.

After we finished in the water, we went back to the Clubhouse for lunch and to thaw out. I was actually alittle concerned about my feet for awhile, but I think they are ok. We could have gone back out for another session on our own, but we were all too tired and cold, we instead we took a walk down the beach. Then we headed back into Chichester to get a pint. It turned out we were ready to leave way before out pre-booked train tickets, so we all agreed we'd rather pay for new tickets then kill time sitting in the pub. We'd end up spending just as much money sitting around.
So, we headed back to London...I'm surprised we all managed to stay awake on the train. It was a good trip, I definitely want to try surfing again, and the English Channel is great for it because it's so cold you don't worry about what creatures might be lurking.

When I was uploading my photos, I found my pics from the OU/TX game. I went with my friend Kristin to the Texas Exes party. I was the only one in crimson, and it wasgreat when we won. If you look carefully, you can see my red back in behind all the burnt orange!

And I thought postgrads were supposed to be smart...

Apparently I've lost my mind and decided that going surfing tomorrow is a good idea. Not only do I have to get up at 5:45am so I can get to Victoria train station on time, but the high in Chichester tomorrow is supposed to be about 53 degrees with rain in the morning. Hopefully this experience doesn't turn me off of surfing all together. On the bright side, I'm going with all beginners, so at least we'll be in the same boat.
The place we're going is in West Sussex about an hour and 1/2 train ride southwest of London...just east of Portsmouth and not too far from the Isle of Wight. It's a cathedral city...so if it ends up being too cold to surf for long, we can always wander around and look at churches.

The president of the Surf Club sent out the itinerary:
7.30 – Meet at Victoria train station. Meeting point: outside Starbucks.
8.02 – Train to Chichester
9.34 – Arrive at Chichester. Get bus to Wittering Beach
10 – Arrive at Wittering
11 – 2 – Lesson!
2 – 3 – Lunch
3 – 5 – Second surf session (tbc)
5 - 6 – Dinner, hopefully on the beach if it’s not really cold
6.30 – Bus to Chichester
7.07 – Train from Chichester
8.05 – Arrive at Victoria. Go home.

In other news, I wrote my first essay. It wasn't for an actual grade...just so our tutors can see our writing style and tell us what we are doing wrong. It took me about 18 hours to write 1700 words...and I'm not really sure if it made any sense. I submitted it with 2 hours to spare. Hopefully, it's not completely wrong!

I'll def take my camera to Chichester tomorrow and hopefully get some good pics to post!

Arts n' Crafts??

I guess technically "crafts" are part of The Cultural & Creative Industries...however, I didn't realize that getting an MA in the field meant having to do them. Not that I'm complaining. I'd rather make an "Academic Poster" with my study group than write a 2000 word paper(apparently the next thing on the agenda)...but it was certainly unexpected. This week was Induction/Introduction/Orientation/Whatever you want to call it... for the CCI course. The fire alarm went off in the first hour and we had to file outside and stand around for 15 minutes, then we sat through a lot of fairly useless lectures, but also met our teachers and personal tutors, as well as our assigned study groups. So far, I'm feeling pretty old and definitely out-of-touch with the academic world. I'm hearing lots of words that I don't know what they mean, and trying to pretend that I know how to think critically. Kings College has an English Language Center that I'll be putting to good use. Although a main function of it is for non-native English speakers, they also offer classes for English speakers to get better at going to school. So far, I've signed up for:

- Making the Transition to Postgraduate Study
- Principles of Academic Writing
- Academic Argument and Critical Writing
- Using Sources Effectively

Seems a little excessive, but hey, my £14000 should pay for something, right? Plus, I've decided I don't just want to Pass my course, but I'd like to pass with Merit..so I better relearn how to read and write!

In other news, I found a place to live today!!! Woohoo. I'm so excited to stop viewing flats, not have any more rejections when I'm not picked to live somewhere, and unpack my bag...which at the moment is exploded all over my little closet-living-space. I'll definitely be sad to leave my lovely hosts though...the boys I've been staying with have been great. They make me dinner at least a couple times a week, and are good to sit around with at night. I've been trying to pull my weight by doing dishes, buying toilet paper, and I made Fake Chicken Enchiladas(the old stand-by) one night. I'll definitely need to make one more meal...and make sure they invite me over for dinner once in awhile! And of course, I'll miss Elsa...the other girl in the house.
Anyway, I don't move in until next week, but it's nice to know it's there. It's a bit farther out than I wanted...the past few weeks have spoiled me since I've been right next to my local bar and across the street from the Overground Train that takes me to school..but it's a cute house with a big back garden, decent-sized kitchen, and a big bed.

Other than school and flat-hunting, I've hung out with a few friends, gone to a couple parties, and randomly helped a guy I know, run a stand at a street fair that gave info about a Charity that teaches kids business sense. It was originally meant to be a paying gig (£50), but somehow he suckered us all into donating our pay to the charity. Pretty shady if you ask me, but I still had fun and it was something different to do. The picture below are shot glasses of jellybeans that we gave away.

Back in London

Time to start updating the blog again...

I got to London on Sunday morning. It was an uneventful flight....the first to London where I only watched one movie...KickAss...I would recommend it. I managed to get a 20 lb overweight bag on the flight for free, as well as overweight carry-ons. I love Virgin Atlantic.

My friend Jersey (Sarah) met me at the airport...and we began our adventure of getting from Heathrow to Dalston only using trains and stations that had lifts...except for the replacement bus service from Heathrow(but it was a coach, so plenty of room for bags). We went from tube to DLR train to Overground..and had one station with stairs. Ended up at the new Haggerston Overground Station which was only across a park from where I was staying. I found one of the boys who lives in the house at the bar next door, he let us in, and that was it. Easy!

Since then I've spent a lot of time online...looking for a place to live. I've viewed a few flats..so far nothing to write home about. So far, i like the closet I'm staying in the best...too bad it's not for rent(although I think i'd change my mind come winter...it's not insulated and I can tell). I've posted a pic of it below.
Other than hanging out with my temporary flatmates and looking for a place to live, I've done a few school-related things. Enrollment, which took 20 minutes, and today I went to a "fair" with different booths. Nothing very helpful, and I felt old.
Next week is the fair that the Student Union is putting on...with all the booths for the clubs and societies. I'm gunna go...I'm thinking about joining the rowing club.
More soon.