My computer cord has given up the ghost. I've ordered a new one, but until it gets here, I am rather limited in my computer access.
I will return shortly, apologies for the brief absence.
Showing posts with label FYI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FYI. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 September 2014
Thursday, 19 December 2013
MIA & Christmas Travels
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. This week I had two of three major projects for this semester due, so it got pretty busy there for a while. But I handed the last one in today, and don't have to hand in the final project until Jan 8th! However, I am flying to London tomorrow morning, so I'm not sure how much I'll be posting for the next couple of weeks. My cousin Sam kindly invited me to come down and stay with her in Bath over the break, so I am flying to London, staying there in a hostel for a couple of days, then spending a week (including Christmas) in Bath, before heading off to Paris for New Years (my friend David is doing an internship there and invited me to come visit). So while I may not be posting over the break, I should have lots of photos and stories to share when I get back!
But first - some things I did (besides school) in the last week.
My tutorial group had our christmas party. We decided (at my suggestion) to do a yankee gift swap, but instead of random gifts, to buy our favourite book to put into the exchange. While my all-time favourite book is probably still To Kill A Mockingbird, most people have already read that, so I decided to put in House of Leaves which is, as you may have heard, the best book I've read this year. I told Kate I was getting it, so as soon as it was her turn, she grabbed it, but unfortunately Keira decided to steal it in one of only two steals of the night (the other was from me).
However, we are all such nerds that I think everyone was pretty stoked... certainly not many people wanted to steal. Our main reaction seemed to be "Book! Mine not yours BACK OFF". Then we spent half an hour flipping through the books we got and barely acknowledging each other.
From left to right: Lindsey (USA), Chentong (China), Laura (UK), Rachel (UK), Jonny(UK), Sergio (USA), Annie (UK), Keira (UK).
From left to right: Sarah (UK), Kyra (Canada), Kate (Canada), Steward (UK), Ali (UK), Sophie (France), Lindsey (USA)
Since we were basically the only people in the bar, the barman kindly agreed to take a group photo.
A large part of the rest of my week was spent both at school and hanging out in my living room by the fire (pictured) finishing up my Project Portfolio for Publishing in Practice (the book proposal, including market research, publicity plan, product rational, production schedule, design brief, cover mock-up, and sample pages) and my assessment for CreativeToolkit (redesigning a former Merchiston Publishing project - Detective McLevy's Casebook - including a cover, interior pages, and prelim pages)
Last night I went and saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (again) in this lovely movie theatre... not that its fancy or anything (awesome movie btw).
But first - some things I did (besides school) in the last week.
My tutorial group had our christmas party. We decided (at my suggestion) to do a yankee gift swap, but instead of random gifts, to buy our favourite book to put into the exchange. While my all-time favourite book is probably still To Kill A Mockingbird, most people have already read that, so I decided to put in House of Leaves which is, as you may have heard, the best book I've read this year. I told Kate I was getting it, so as soon as it was her turn, she grabbed it, but unfortunately Keira decided to steal it in one of only two steals of the night (the other was from me).
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| Every one a book! |
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I got a lovely copy of The Hobbit from Laura! :D
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| Photo courtesy of Sergio |
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| Photo courtesy of Sergio |
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| Photo courtesy of Sergio |
A large part of the rest of my week was spent both at school and hanging out in my living room by the fire (pictured) finishing up my Project Portfolio for Publishing in Practice (the book proposal, including market research, publicity plan, product rational, production schedule, design brief, cover mock-up, and sample pages) and my assessment for CreativeToolkit (redesigning a former Merchiston Publishing project - Detective McLevy's Casebook - including a cover, interior pages, and prelim pages)
Last night I went and saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (again) in this lovely movie theatre... not that its fancy or anything (awesome movie btw).
Saturday, 9 November 2013
Cash Money
While England might have the same Queen on their money, the cash money here is a bit different - notably in the denominations of the coins, and in the size of the notes.
One of the hardest parts of moving to Scotland was having to go back to using the penny... sorry, one pence coin. About the same size and colour as the penny, its also probably the easiest coin to deal with.
The singularly stupidest thing in this country is the two pence coin. Bad enough to have to go back to using a one pence coin, but a TWO PENCE COIN? I get that it makes it easier to give change, but my god... what a stupid denomination.
Next is the five pence, which is probably the most confusing coin for me, as it is about the same size as a dime.
The ten pence coin is one of the largest coins...
While the twenty pence coin goes down in size, but up in thickness.
The fifty pence coin is actually quite useful, especially since bus fares are generally £1.50.
The one pound coin is quite thick, probably about two coins pressed together. There is also a two pence coin which I didn't have one of, much like the toonie, they are less common, and appear to be one coin pressed inside a second one.
All of the coins next to a Canadian quarter for size comparison.
The bills here are also very interesting. They are issued by the individual banks, so while they are all the same size and close to the same colour (blue for £5, brown for £10, and purple for £20), they have different bank names and pictures on them. In terms of size, they are taller and less long than Canadian bills.
You also end up with notes from the Bank of England in the mix. Fun fact: while English pounds are accepted universally in Scotland, Scottish pounds, while technically legal currency, are often either scoffed at or outright refused in England, depending on where you are. Another fun fact: no bank notes, including Bank of England notes, are considered legal tender in Scotland.
The bills all also have something to the effect of "the bank promises to provide the bearer of the bill with £__ sterling when presented with the bill" - so the bank issues their own notes, on the condition that they can guarantee that they can provide pounds sterling in exchange, on demand. You can read more about the system here if you want.
One of the hardest parts of moving to Scotland was having to go back to using the penny... sorry, one pence coin. About the same size and colour as the penny, its also probably the easiest coin to deal with.
The singularly stupidest thing in this country is the two pence coin. Bad enough to have to go back to using a one pence coin, but a TWO PENCE COIN? I get that it makes it easier to give change, but my god... what a stupid denomination.
Next is the five pence, which is probably the most confusing coin for me, as it is about the same size as a dime.
The ten pence coin is one of the largest coins...
While the twenty pence coin goes down in size, but up in thickness.
The fifty pence coin is actually quite useful, especially since bus fares are generally £1.50.
The one pound coin is quite thick, probably about two coins pressed together. There is also a two pence coin which I didn't have one of, much like the toonie, they are less common, and appear to be one coin pressed inside a second one.
All of the coins next to a Canadian quarter for size comparison.
The bills here are also very interesting. They are issued by the individual banks, so while they are all the same size and close to the same colour (blue for £5, brown for £10, and purple for £20), they have different bank names and pictures on them. In terms of size, they are taller and less long than Canadian bills.
You also end up with notes from the Bank of England in the mix. Fun fact: while English pounds are accepted universally in Scotland, Scottish pounds, while technically legal currency, are often either scoffed at or outright refused in England, depending on where you are. Another fun fact: no bank notes, including Bank of England notes, are considered legal tender in Scotland.
The bills all also have something to the effect of "the bank promises to provide the bearer of the bill with £__ sterling when presented with the bill" - so the bank issues their own notes, on the condition that they can guarantee that they can provide pounds sterling in exchange, on demand. You can read more about the system here if you want.
Monday, 21 October 2013
New Hair and Other Tidbits
Guess what I did?
I did this.
Also, how awesome is the legit Wonka chocolate bar?
Also got this fabulous poster to add a little bit of decoration to my depressingly bare walls...
... and caught up on a LOT of correspondence. And I still have more to do!
Thursday night I went out with about 12 other people from my program to the SYP's Pub(lishing) Quiz down at the Blind Poet, which was super awesome and fun, as well as a bit stressful! But we came in second place, largely thanks to Candice, who has a shocking amount of random knowledge, not to mention she kicked ass on the music round (listen to a clip of a song, identify the book/movie, the author, the name of the song, and the artist singing it) - if I was in charge, it would have been a blank piece of paper. The only team to beat us was a group of much older people, so we felt like we had definitely achieved our goal of not being in last place, and then some! Not to mention there was a prize (candy!) for the best team name - which were supposed to be book puns - which we won for the terrible and awesome name "Moby Chicks".
Probably my proudest moment of the night was knowing what a Fibonacci sequence is <-- that link isn't to an explanation on the Fibonacci sequence per se, but a video on the Fibonacci spiral in nature that is one of coolest/most incomprehensible things I've ever watched.
I also learned that The Golden Compass was called The Northern Lights in the UK, but retained the other names in the series. Which is weird, because Canada usually keeps the UK title, its the US that tends to change them.
I'm heading up to a place called The Burn tomorrow for three days on a trip with my program. Apparently its quite lovely up there, so I should have lots of pictures to share from that in the near future!
I did this.
Also, how awesome is the legit Wonka chocolate bar?
Also got this fabulous poster to add a little bit of decoration to my depressingly bare walls...
... and caught up on a LOT of correspondence. And I still have more to do!
Thursday night I went out with about 12 other people from my program to the SYP's Pub(lishing) Quiz down at the Blind Poet, which was super awesome and fun, as well as a bit stressful! But we came in second place, largely thanks to Candice, who has a shocking amount of random knowledge, not to mention she kicked ass on the music round (listen to a clip of a song, identify the book/movie, the author, the name of the song, and the artist singing it) - if I was in charge, it would have been a blank piece of paper. The only team to beat us was a group of much older people, so we felt like we had definitely achieved our goal of not being in last place, and then some! Not to mention there was a prize (candy!) for the best team name - which were supposed to be book puns - which we won for the terrible and awesome name "Moby Chicks".
Probably my proudest moment of the night was knowing what a Fibonacci sequence is <-- that link isn't to an explanation on the Fibonacci sequence per se, but a video on the Fibonacci spiral in nature that is one of coolest/most incomprehensible things I've ever watched.
I also learned that The Golden Compass was called The Northern Lights in the UK, but retained the other names in the series. Which is weird, because Canada usually keeps the UK title, its the US that tends to change them.
I'm heading up to a place called The Burn tomorrow for three days on a trip with my program. Apparently its quite lovely up there, so I should have lots of pictures to share from that in the near future!
Sunday, 20 October 2013
Dear Scotland: A Minor Major Complaint
Dear Scotland,
What is with your taps?
Sincerely,
A foreigner who is very confused as to how she is supposed to wash her hands
What. Even.
HOW.
What is with your taps?
Sincerely,
A foreigner who is very confused as to how she is supposed to wash her hands
What. Even.
HOW.
Friday, 11 October 2013
Instagram, More Like InstaGLAM
Amiright?
Went on another tour of the highlands today. Will hopefully be getting internet back in the flat tomorrow, so I'll be making a post and putting up photos from the trip then.
Until then, this is the link to my Instagram account, which is public, so you can see the photos I put up even if you don't have Instagram. I put photos up there that I don't necessarily put on the blog or Facebook, so it'll be something different if you'd like to stalk me further ;)
http://instagram.com/kikijensine
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Friday Funday
Good news! I've downloaded the incredibly functional and well designed blogger app, so unless I want to put photos from my camera on a post, I will no longer have to wait until I have internet on my computer again to post!
My friends Caty and Tori arrived today from Glascow. They are on the last legs of a European tour (ten weeks down, two to go). I met them at the bus station, then we headed back to my flat, where we made some delicious lasagna, before heading over to a friends flat for her housewarming party. However, we didn't stay too late as we are going on a tour of Loch Ness and the Highlands early tomorrow morning - we leave the city at 8 in the morning and don't get back until 8 that night, so it will be a long but hopefully awesome day!
ETA: apparently forgot to actually hit 'post' last night. The trip was indeed awesome, but the post on it will have to wait until I actually have internet, as I took quite a few gorgeous pictures on my camera! However, as a bit of a sneak peak....
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