Birthday!

Today is my grandmother's 85th birthday!

Happy Birthday Grandma! Hope your day is filled with fun, family, and lots of love!

xoxo

tbt

My mum sent me some really nice photos from the summer this weekend, so in honour of Throwback Thursday, here are some oldies. I've been crazy busy lately, but will hopefully have time to post more soon.

For Hanukah, I made my godmother a cutting board from a leftover piece of countertop which my Dad had cut down for them. With a lot of help from Brad, I cut it down to a good size, smoothed down and rounded out the edges, and sanded the whole thing. Power tools are very exciting.

My mum went to a complete hippie-fest this summer, where she met a woman who did custom hula hoops, and, to our entire family's confusion, got one (because who doesn't need a personalized hula hoop?). Not to brag or anything, but I'm pretty awesome at it. Actually, everyone on #teamjones is pretty awesome at it, except for one (not naming any names).

EDIT: just went back and found my mum's post about it. Apparently she just "knew" there was someone in Airdrie that made hoops.

No, I'm not removing a security tag from a pair of shoes, why would you even ask that (it had gotten left on by mistake and I hadn't been able to get back to the store I bought them from). It was a bit of a sketchy process involving a knife and fire, but I got it off eventually!

Totally Judging A Book By Its Cover

So last night I curled into my bed at 9 pm to start reading... and the next time I looked at the clock it was 1:40 am and I had just finished my book. In sum: if you are a fan of YA fantasy, I really recommend Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments series. 

After Rachel and I deciding that we were too brain dead after an entire day at the school to do French Club Wednesday nights, we have moved French Club to Sunday afternoons. Which was really fun and leisurely, and, y'know, we didn't stay so late we got kicked out, which was a nice change of pace. My french continues to get better and better (22 day streak on Duolingo) and French Club remains fun and chill. 

After French Club was over, we inevitably ended up wandering around the bookstore - I didn't buy anything (go me!) but it remains a very real danger, and is definitely the (somewhat questionably) downside of meeting in a bookstore (its also kind of an upside). We also engaged in quite a bit of criticism about cover design and fonts, which was very nerdy. Below are some of my favourites. 

Also seen: my pretty pink nails :)

Ma Face

Y'know, I've always thought of myself as fairly low maintenance... I'm not sure why, because I'm not sure I have ever actually been low maintenance. Traveling at Christmas this year really emphasized that, because, besides the necessities, like the fact that I have all my extra teeth stuff thanks to having had braces, and my contact lens gear, I have established a very extensive makeup routine since September.

Morning - hair undone, zero makeup.

Now that I'm growing out my hair and it is getting longer, I have started straightening it every day again, which is a LOT of work. My hair isn't exactly long, but it still takes 20-30 min for me to straighten it all, because I have to do it in so many small layers. The only good thing about this is it does last two days as long as I don't wash my hair, so I only have to do it every other day if I want.

The other bad thing with how thick my hair is is that, though it is not long at all, it still takes 5-6 hours to air dry completely (if you'd ever seen my hair after being blow dried, you'd know why I don't do that.. my hair has enough volume on its own thankyouverymuch). So showers have to be timed in accordance with when I need to have my hair straightened by.

My cute little straightener from Sephora - besides a crappy drugstore straightener that was utterly useless, this is the only straightener I've ever had, and it works great. I was really pleased that it didn't die when I came over here - the voltage in the UK is much higher than the voltage in Canada, so plugging stuff in over here has the potential for disaster (RIP toothbrush charger).

Straightening your hair all the time with dyed hair also makes the dye fade out faster - which I don't really mind. Makes my hair look more exciting, with bits of red in the black (plus, y'know, brown roots).

My nice, orderly, row-by-row system kind of falls apart when I get to the very back of my head, where it becomes more of a "grab chunks of hair to straighten until you've hopefully got them all" free for all type situation.

After I've done my hair, I start on my face - with my hair clipped back out of my eyes (growing out short hair is seriously annoying). First, I do foundation on any problem areas I've got - I've luckily got a really even skin tone, so I don't find it necessary to do foundation all over.

Next up, eyebrows! They are a recent addition to my routine - one of my new years resolutions was to up my eyebrow game, which I am endeavouring to do. I need to go and get them shaped though (waxing, joy!).

Next is either blush or bronzer depending on my mood and what palette I'm planning on using for my eyeshadow (I made the mistake the other day of doing pink blush and then pink eyeshadow... way too much pink on my face!).

I love the huge powder brushes. They're just so much fun to use... and so soft!

Skin all done and ready for eyes and lips.

I used my Too Faced Return of Sexy palette for my eyes (more specifically, the 'The Ingenue' set, on the far left). This palate was one of my Paris makeup purchases from the flagship Sephora store.

First on is a base coat of Naive that goes all the way up to the eyebrows.

Next, across the lid Innocent (brown) gets blended into New In Town (gold). For every day makeup, I will usually use 2-3 different eyeshadows, and if I'm feeling fancy, more like 4-5 eyeshadows.

Next comes eyeliner. I've just recently started trying to master liquid eyeliner, doing winged eyeliner. As you can see, I'm still not completely steady or even, but it looks good from a distance :P

Mascara is the final touch for the eyes - the best mascara I have ever used I actually got as a free sample, but it is completely amazing (Benefit They're Real! for anyone who is wondering).

Then, finally, lipstick (and/or lipgloss). Today was Mac's Moroccan Fresh, which was another Paris-purchase. Mac has gorgeous lipsticks, beautiful colours and wonderful to put on, plus they last forever. 

And I am done! The hair is really what takes all my time - if I skip the liquid eyeliner (which still takes me forever) I can do all of my makeup in 5-8 min. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll just do mascara and lipstick, which takes about ten seconds.

 Went out to a friends birthday party the night I took these photos and was feeling very punk rock ;)

Snapped this when I got home at 2:30 am... definitely worth the effort. Bit smudged, but stayed on super well, especially since I didn't use a setting spray. Also, please note that I was drinking water all night because the flat was boiling... but this is still what my lipstick looked like.

This has been a lot of photos of my face. Sorry about that.

More Birthday

Very birthday. Much fun. Wow.

So apparently February is EVERYONES birthday month on this course (Camille's is next week, Ali's is coming up as well). Although Eve, Laura H, and I do all have the same birthday, so there's that.

Laura W celebrated her birthday friday night with a super awesome party.

Laura H and Maya

From the left: Becca, Laura H, Maya, Laura W, Hannah T, Hannah D

I didn't realize quite how many repeat names there are on our course... three Kyras (all different spelling though),  two Lauras, two Hannahs, three Rebeccas...

Maya, Laura W

Maya, Laura W

Laura decided to put on a cat onesie at one point and, because it was boiling in that flat with so many people crammed in and dancing, decided to tie it around her waist, in what definitely won coolest outfit of the night :P

I got there at 8 and ended up staying until 2, so it was a pretty successful party :P Some highlights included Ali's "dance" move, Maya and I discovering that we share a we-need-to-dance-NOW mode, Laura H's awesome dance moves (and crazy eyes), and deciding to nickname people after their countries most famous brand (this quickly fell apart when we realized we couldn't pick a single brand for America, and that Scotland has no famous brands). There were also several moments where Maya and I stood by while everyone sang and danced along to a song that clearly never made it big in North America. But there was also a rousing sing-along to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe" and Grease's "Summer Nights".

You Don't Want to Mess With Knitters

For my interactive media class, we are required to propose a potential interactive media project -whether an app or a game or something else. I had been thinking about this since our first class the week before, and was starting to be a bit concerned come Thursday, as it seemed that everyone else had thought of what they were going to do already. However, for the last hour or so of the class (we went over my 30min but I don't think anyone really minded) we split into groups to discuss our projects. I was second, and announced I had no idea. While we went around the circle though, I began thinking about apps and the idea came to me to do a knitting app, so by the time we came full circle and my lecturer announced they were coming back to me, I was ready, and presented my idea for a knitting app.

There are a couple of features that I've thought of so far, and they include things such as:

• Comprehensive tracker for stitches and rows, so that you don't have to keep writing things down and crossing things out.
• Pattern storage.
• Tutorials.
• Dictionary (with pictures) of common terms/stitches.
• Barcode scanner that would check yarn compatibility against patterns for gauge. 
• Gauge calculator (I'm thinking something that would measure how tight of a knitter you are ie. my stitches are always way smaller than my mum's). 
• Needle sizer (just have a to-scale picture on the phone and compare sizes)

I downloaded a bunch of apps, and while some of them have some of these features, none of them have all of them (and some, such as the barcode scanner, aren't in any of the existing apps that I looked at). 

My lecturer seemed pretty impressed with that and said it was really real-world applicable and targeted a specific, interested audience, so I'm pretty excited! We don't have to do any programming work or design, we just have to argue our idea, so this should be pretty awesome! 

Kyra And The Super Awesome Fun Time Thursday

#truestory

Yesterday I had my second interactive media class, which was really fun and interesting. I finally picked my project (more on that tomorrow). After class, it was absolutely gorgeous, so Laura and Kate and I decided to hang out and grab lunch. We walked down to a cafe that none of us had been to previously, The Treehouse, which was absolutely wonderful. So cute inside, and absolutely delicious. They had a really good menu, a student discount, and all day breakfast (which is basically the best thing ever - also, I had literally just been talking about how awesome breakfast is and how there should really be so many more places serving all day breakfast, so that was pretty funny). 

I got a really great panini that was olive, tomato, and cheese (I was really torn because they had so many awesome veggie sandwiches, including a goats cheese, pine nut, and spinach sandwich). They came with two side salads, one pasta, one mixed green (or you could get a soup, which is what Laura did). Seriously tasty. 

After lunch we went up to the Cameo cinema to sign up for the slackers club, which is a free student film every couple of months. I also decided to get the student membership, which also gives you two free movies a year and a discount every time. 

Following that, we stopped into a couple of charity shops. There are a lot more charity shops in the UK, so you can pick and chose which charities to support, which was nice since the couple of thrift shops back home were run by organizations with some very problematic elements. 

Had an awesome (and cheap) shopping spree, grabbing a couple of shirts, a muffin tin (which I was planning to buy new this week so that was perfect! And it was only a pound!), and what is probably the best thing I've ever found in a thrift shop, a Wonder Woman mug and socks.

Really awesome day with the girls :)

Is interactive media the future for books?

No, no it isn't.

I love interactive media. I do. It is an endless source of fascination to me, and I am always interested in the new developments emerging. There are some incredibly creative people out there, in various industries, working on uniquely engaging and multi-faceted projects. Its great. From digital magazines to interactive storytelling modules, to the increasingly interactive gameplay allowed through devices such as the kinect and wii, interactive media is becoming more prominent in various sectors.

However, I do spend a lot of time really questioning the viability of different forms of interactive media, especially when it comes to publishing. For example, a company, I believe it may have been GQ, did an interactive magazine, where you could scan various parts of the magazine and interact with them online, and different ways of engaging with the magazine would engender a different online experience and so forth. And while I was watching the video I was thinking, well, thats cool, but where do you go from there? What is the point? Is this really going to engage the consumer in a way that is more substantial than “well, this is neat” and is it simply going to engender the response: “it is more effort and not really worth my time”. For example, wouldn’t a reader who is buying a magazine rather just read it, instead of needing to find a computer that can scan it in order to engage with the entirety of the content?

I went to a lecture recently put on by the PPA Scotland (you can actually read more about what myself and my other classmates though about that here), which was focused on Digital Media, and actually gave me a far more positive view on the future of digital (interactive) media as it relates to magazine publishing specifically. The speakers managed to move beyond the typical flashy, one-hit-wonder aspect of magazine apps and deal with real questions of reader engagement and what determines the viability of apps. Touching on questions of what the relationship between print and digital is and can be, the presentations focused on the importance of the right content for the right platform, the greater potential for innovation and risk-taking in digital publications, and the question of finding and retaining an audience. However, while I now have much greater faith in the viability of digital media in terms of magazine publishing, I still have a lot of questions about its future in terms of book publishing.

At several points in my masters, the question has come up about what we can do with books, what publishers need to consider when doing ebooks, how they can add value to attract consumers. And honestly, I can’t think of anything. I’ve been thinking about this for months, and while I can think of certain things you can do for adult readers - I have seen book apps that you can interact with to see the author’s original notes and whatnot - these are only going to really appeal to the dedicated reader. Similarly, interactive books don’t really seem to be something, to me, that are viable with an adult audience, nor that should necessarily be introduced to children - I’m sure every kid today wants a tablet, but that is not necessarily the best medium to be teaching kids to read through, especially when given visual and audio add ons which, while perhaps building up the storytelling experience in terms of consumer interaction and multiple levels of engagement, are fundamentally distracting from the active process of reading, and engaging a young reader's imagination.

In terms of an adult audience, while I can only speak for myself, there is no way in hell I want my book to be anything other than a book. I want my ebooks to be a strict adaptation of a print text to digital (and I only read ebooks if I am doing a lot of travelling - I much prefer physical books, but that is a whole other discussion). But, fundamentally, I do not want my books to do anything other than be. I do not want nor require supplementary material to engage me and to encourage me to buy the product. In fact, there is a good chance that I would find such content off-putting. One of my lecturers brought up the question of whether or not we would buy ebooks with ads - as one company has proposed doing - so the cost of the ebook would be reduced, but the reader would have to contend with ads while reading, to which I responded no, full stop. I do not want my reading experience disrupted by outside content. EVER. I don’t like my reading experience being interrupted by other real life humans, much less digital additions.

While this is all of course just my opinion, the fact remains that I just don’t really see a viable future for interactive media in book publishing. There might be some great innovation out there that may change my outlook, but as far as I am concerned, I just want my books to book so that readers can read.

Cookies!

Tuesdays are a bit of a mid-week lull for me this semester, coming after the busyness of Monday afternoons and before the hectic chaos of Wednesdays. While I spent a large portion of my day reading, I also made some cookies for my group tomorrow, as they have all been working hard, and have done an exceptional amount of work in a short period of time (plus, y'know, I just like making cookies for people). About half of the cookies came out a bit too dark, thanks to the fact that I am still getting used to this oven (the recipe has a new penciled-in note on the back indicating the perfect cook time and shelf height for this oven, so future batches will come out better, hopefully).

The recipe I used came to me from my mum's friend and our former next door neighbour from when we lived in Whitecourt, Tania Doepker. Her and mum used to exchange plates of cookies back and forth the way neighbours sometimes do (y'know, oh she gave me cookies on a plate, I have to return the plate, but I can't return it empty, so I will make her cookies... and thus a never ending cookie spiral is born). Not that Logan and I ever complained. 

I made these cookies quite a few times last year, both for my knitting group and for my coworkers, and no matter what, everyone loves them. However, if you are looking for a "healthy" cookies, these are NOT the way to go.

We lack mixing bowls in my flat. 

Mars Bar Cookies

1 c. butter
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 c. flour
1/3 c. cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
3-4 Mars bars

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix flour, coca, and baking soda. Combine both mixes. Chill until firm. Place 1 tbsp. dough on palm and form a cup. Place bar inside and surround with cookie dough (I cut regular sized mars bars into about 6-8 pieces).

Bake at 350 for 12 min (or, if you are in the UK, about 177 degrees).

I had to run down to the grocery store for the Mars bars and cocoa powder... I definitely went through the self checkout. Last time I made these cookies, I told the cashier I was making cookies when she gave me a judgemental look, and she didn't believe me... but the machines don't judge, so self-checkout it was :P

The best ones are packed up for me to take to my group tomorrow, while the... crunchier... ones will be shared with my roommates :)

They're so *photogenic*

In other news, French is crazy...

(To my great relief, Alix assures me that "c'est quoi?", which is what I learned to say for "what is it?" is more common and is totally acceptable).

... and I am cute.

Hope y'all are having nice Wednesdays :) Enjoy the middle of your week!

Alix Had A Birthday, Turned An Age

We now return from a weekend of English geekery to our regularly scheduled programming.

Friday and Saturday were fairly uneventful - I spent most of those days sat at my computer in the living room, working on various things but mainly fielding questions and dealing with problems arising around the book projects. Sunday was a nice break from that, as people either had run out of problems or seemed to have done all they could until Monday...

Sunday was also Alix's birthday, and she decided to have a crepe party, because Alix has the best party ideas. 

I recently bought some new (drug store brand - gasp!) turquoise mascara, that, unlike the navy blue mascara that I have, is an obvious blue, and really fun to wear. I decided to pair it with a blue lip gloss from indie makeup company Lime Crime that Shanni gave me last year, but that I haven't really had a lot of opportunities to wear yet.

Why I decided to wear what is probably the most labour intensive lipstick colour in terms of maintenance if you are eating or drinking anything, on a night filled with eating and drinking, is a mystery. Even I don't understand my choices.

Walking to Alix's was once again an adventure - you may remember the last time I was at her place for a party, I ended up walking home at 1am fairly tipsy, on FaceTime with Logan so I didn't get murdered. I once again decided to take the short cut through the NHS complex, figuring that, at 8pm and sober, it couldn't be that bad - and yet.

I kind of got lost again - I found my way through the whole complex, but couldn't figure out where I had entered last time. I found the gate that I tried to get through last time that was locked (it was locked again) but couldn't find the pedestrian entrance through which I ended up getting in last time. Instead, I ended up in a little park behind more NHS buildings, which was kind of sketchy, but I did get to see a bunny!

Instead of FaceTiming Logan, I was snapchatting him, figuring he would be amused by me once again getting lost and freaked out in the same frigging short cut.

But it would seriously take so much extra time to walk around the NHS complex, it is really so much better to cut through it. BUT! I survived, it was all good, and I got to Alix's carrying my whipped cream, strawberries, and wine... (it was a crepe party remember). Alix made some excellent crepes (she was flipping them in the air, it was terribly impressive) and everyone brought toppings, while Harriet also bought a cake, so, y'know, a really healthy evening for food :P

Melissa, Rachel, Me

Leanne, Alix, Harriet

Leanne wrote Alix a Mad Libs in her birthday card, which we all helped fill in, and was really funny (but doesn't bear repeating).

Leanne-as-Alix, Alix

Laura, me

A+ photobomb

We also played Cards Against Humanity, which I had heard a lot about, but had never had the chance to play before then - it was just as hilarious and disturbing as I had been promised.

Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.

The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a Black Card, and everyone else answers with their funniest White Card.

Its basically Apples to Apples, but for terrible people. It is absoloutly hilarious, so long as you are willing to let go of any basic human decency - as a general rule, it is the person who has the most horrific (and thus probably funny) card who wins each round. The person with the most black cards at the end wins. I wasn't even close to winning, but the three black cards above are the rounds I won.

To give you an example, for the "What's the next Happy Meal toy?" I won with a card that said "Edible Underwear". And that is so far from being the worst thing anyone put down that night.

Joneses, we need to play this game sometime. Maybe not the UK version though. There were a few times where I was nudging the person next to me and getting them to explain the card I'd drawn.

Harriet, Becky, Eve

I'm really not sure why I ask my friends to pose for photos. Although I believe this was because Eve told Becky that she didn't want to pose next to her, because Becky is tiny and would make Eve's head look weirdly huge.

#friendship

Rachel gave me a ride home, as she lives quite close to me, so I didn't have to brave the NHS shortcut of doom twice in one day. A really fun night :)