I had a bit of trouble getting ready for work today. Everyone in my room has an early class that day, so all four of us were competing for the bathroom, which made things kind of interesting. I managed to get out of the flat with what I thought would be plenty of time, but that turned out to not be the case. Over the course of the night, we had gotten about 4 inches of snow. Apparently, this is the most snow that London has seen in the last decade, or so I was later told. This had the effect of shutting down most of the transportation system in London. How a bunch of snow can shut down a train underground is beyond me. Anyways, I got to the station and ended up waiting about half an hour for the train to finally leave. It forever to get there too, it was running really slow. I ended up being half an hour late, but it wasn’t a big deal. A lot of people at this office will take a day or more a week and work from there home. That, with the weather, made for a pretty empty office. I just kept working on the reader, and I got pretty close to getting most of the formatting done on it. I still will have to go through and do a bunch of work to get the index sorted out and then Damien wants to have an index with terms that will be relevant, so I need to get that all sorted out. I really didn't talk to many people, because there really wasn't anyone around. At the end of the day, I did talk to Roslyn. She works in the same general area that I do. We talked for about half an hour, just about the city and getting to know each other in general. I stopped to get some food before I went to a play for the night.
Tonight we went and saw the stage adaption of Mary Poppins. There was a big contest in England, kind of like American Idol, for the lead role in this play. This creates a lot of hype for this paricular play. I went in really expecting to liking it and I really wanted too. The play itself was really disapointing though. The pace was really fast, too fast in fact. You didn't get a chance to get to know any of the characters and nothing really sank it. The girl who played mary Poppins really didn't do a very good job either I thought. She played the part as way to conceded. She really wasn't likable for me. That was very off putting. I'm not sad I went, but it could have been a lot better I think. Luckily, since it was pretty kid oriented, it got done pretty early so we were back at the flat before it was too late. I headed to bed pretty quick since I had to work the next day.
Friday, 9 February 2007
Feb 7th
Feb 7th
Today I really didn’t do much since I had class all day. I got up and went for a shortish run to get things started off. Just a nice and easy run around the park. It’s been a lot colder here than it has been for the last week or so. Its weird because I can see my breath, but its really not that cold out. I’m comfortable in a light jacket. Weird stuff. I haven’t quite figured that out. I stopped by Metrogate to pick up some mail before I headed to class for the day. It took me a while to find someone to give me a package of some stuff that I had forgotten that Mom and Dad had sent out. Because of that, I was almost late for class. Woops. I got there just in time and the teacher didn’t mind, so all was well. The first class of the day was pretty interesting. We talked about the idea of a crowd: its definition, its characteristics, and things like that. We also watched some films about soccer hooligans, Princess Di’s funreal, and a carnival that goes on in London every year. Each of the these groups brought out something different in the crowds that gathered with them. It was really cool stuff.
After that, I went with a bunch of people to a fish and chips shop that is near where we had class. We took it to go because it was about thirty percent off to eat it takeout. We just took it back to the building and ate there. I got to class early to meet with a group to discuss the play we had seen the week before, Bash. We just had a few things to go over before giving a presentation in class. In class, we talked about our visit to the Globe and the play for most if it. I also asked the teacher about some good plays to go see besides the big musicals. He gave me some good suggestions, so I think I’ll have to check them out. We got of class early and I went to get some groceries. I was stocking up and planning on making some bigger dinner this weekend since there won’t be a lot of people around. That, and I just wanted to do some cooking. I got back from that and just read before going to bed.
Today I really didn’t do much since I had class all day. I got up and went for a shortish run to get things started off. Just a nice and easy run around the park. It’s been a lot colder here than it has been for the last week or so. Its weird because I can see my breath, but its really not that cold out. I’m comfortable in a light jacket. Weird stuff. I haven’t quite figured that out. I stopped by Metrogate to pick up some mail before I headed to class for the day. It took me a while to find someone to give me a package of some stuff that I had forgotten that Mom and Dad had sent out. Because of that, I was almost late for class. Woops. I got there just in time and the teacher didn’t mind, so all was well. The first class of the day was pretty interesting. We talked about the idea of a crowd: its definition, its characteristics, and things like that. We also watched some films about soccer hooligans, Princess Di’s funreal, and a carnival that goes on in London every year. Each of the these groups brought out something different in the crowds that gathered with them. It was really cool stuff.
After that, I went with a bunch of people to a fish and chips shop that is near where we had class. We took it to go because it was about thirty percent off to eat it takeout. We just took it back to the building and ate there. I got to class early to meet with a group to discuss the play we had seen the week before, Bash. We just had a few things to go over before giving a presentation in class. In class, we talked about our visit to the Globe and the play for most if it. I also asked the teacher about some good plays to go see besides the big musicals. He gave me some good suggestions, so I think I’ll have to check them out. We got of class early and I went to get some groceries. I was stocking up and planning on making some bigger dinner this weekend since there won’t be a lot of people around. That, and I just wanted to do some cooking. I got back from that and just read before going to bed.
Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Feb 6th
Feb 5th
I was feeling pretty good when I got up this morning, considering that I really didn’t sleep that much the night before. I ran some errands before I went to class, which was pretty interesting. I talked to our advisor after class for a while about tours and hotels for when Mom and Dad come out which came out pretty well. I think she gave me some pretty good sites to look at and I think that we’ll be able to find some really cool things to do. There were tours to look at different architectural themes or tours to go look at specific points of interests. I think we’ll be able to keep ourselves pretty busy for the week. I ran and picked up a quick lunch and bought a minced meat pie to try out. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed. I had forgotten that they were supposed to be sweet, so all the sugar and sweet kind of flavors was a bit of a surprise. Not what I was expecting, but I liked it. I headed out for a run before going to circuit training up on the campus. I really like workout. Its fun to be able workout with some other people instead of just doing it all by myself. I got everything set for this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it. I got back from that and after I had some dinner I did a little homework. I met with a group for my theater class to get a presentation done for a play we saw last week, Bash. That was pretty easy. A bunch of people watched the movie Thank You For Smoking, so I hung around for that. That was a lot fun. It’s a really good movie and it was a great way to cap off the day.
Feb 6th
So today was the big day. I got up and went for a short run and got myself all ready for the day. I got there with plenty of time to spare and got buzzed in. I talked to Damien for a little bit before I started working. He helped me get set with an account on their network and everything I needed to get started. I’m going through all the old publications that this group has put out and getting all the articles that they’ve published about organic cotton over the last fifteen years or so. Something like that. All in all I’m going through around 200 hundred pages of text to go through and format. They’re getting ready to put out a reader that covers all this stuff. It’s not hard, but its interesting to get to look at the whole history of the issue and see how it evolved. There’s a couple of little sandwich shops and little places to eat around there, so that should be nice. I should be able to get some nice variety in my diet. Its also really nice because they’ll pay for four pounds of my meals when I’m there and my travel to get there every day. Its not whole of cash, but every little bit helps. I spent the entire afternoon going through the packet I had and that was that. I just chilled chilled in the cubicle and listened to my iPod.
Working there was pretty interesting. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was really laid back. There was a really laid back attitude in the office. It wasn’t like people were goofing off, but everyone was just very mellow. They didn’t really talk to each other during the time when I was there, they just did their thing. I was also really overdressed. I wore a pair of khakis with a dress shirt and sweater. There was a guy who some accounting that had on a nice pair of cords and a dress shirt, but Damien was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I think I can stick with jeans and nice shirt and I’ll be fine. I think its going to be an interesting experience. It will be nice once I get into more of the real work, but we all have to start somewhere.
I was feeling pretty good when I got up this morning, considering that I really didn’t sleep that much the night before. I ran some errands before I went to class, which was pretty interesting. I talked to our advisor after class for a while about tours and hotels for when Mom and Dad come out which came out pretty well. I think she gave me some pretty good sites to look at and I think that we’ll be able to find some really cool things to do. There were tours to look at different architectural themes or tours to go look at specific points of interests. I think we’ll be able to keep ourselves pretty busy for the week. I ran and picked up a quick lunch and bought a minced meat pie to try out. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed. I had forgotten that they were supposed to be sweet, so all the sugar and sweet kind of flavors was a bit of a surprise. Not what I was expecting, but I liked it. I headed out for a run before going to circuit training up on the campus. I really like workout. Its fun to be able workout with some other people instead of just doing it all by myself. I got everything set for this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it. I got back from that and after I had some dinner I did a little homework. I met with a group for my theater class to get a presentation done for a play we saw last week, Bash. That was pretty easy. A bunch of people watched the movie Thank You For Smoking, so I hung around for that. That was a lot fun. It’s a really good movie and it was a great way to cap off the day.
Feb 6th
So today was the big day. I got up and went for a short run and got myself all ready for the day. I got there with plenty of time to spare and got buzzed in. I talked to Damien for a little bit before I started working. He helped me get set with an account on their network and everything I needed to get started. I’m going through all the old publications that this group has put out and getting all the articles that they’ve published about organic cotton over the last fifteen years or so. Something like that. All in all I’m going through around 200 hundred pages of text to go through and format. They’re getting ready to put out a reader that covers all this stuff. It’s not hard, but its interesting to get to look at the whole history of the issue and see how it evolved. There’s a couple of little sandwich shops and little places to eat around there, so that should be nice. I should be able to get some nice variety in my diet. Its also really nice because they’ll pay for four pounds of my meals when I’m there and my travel to get there every day. Its not whole of cash, but every little bit helps. I spent the entire afternoon going through the packet I had and that was that. I just chilled chilled in the cubicle and listened to my iPod.
Working there was pretty interesting. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was really laid back. There was a really laid back attitude in the office. It wasn’t like people were goofing off, but everyone was just very mellow. They didn’t really talk to each other during the time when I was there, they just did their thing. I was also really overdressed. I wore a pair of khakis with a dress shirt and sweater. There was a guy who some accounting that had on a nice pair of cords and a dress shirt, but Damien was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I think I can stick with jeans and nice shirt and I’ll be fine. I think its going to be an interesting experience. It will be nice once I get into more of the real work, but we all have to start somewhere.
Monday, 5 February 2007
Feb 4th Part Three
Feb 4th
I didn’t have much to this afternoon, so I really didn’t do much. I ended up sleeping in pretty late and I just caught Sam as he was leaving to go see the Tower of London. I spent most of the afternoon writing my blog to get caught up with that and then I just did some reading on my computer. I did go for a long run this afternoon, which felt really good. On Sunday’s in Hyde Park there is a tradition at a place called Speaker’s Corner, where people come to air their grievances or just speak out. People come and watch and listen, but also heckle the people that are speaking. The people there will do anything to get attention. I saw guy as I was running by with a Union Jack draped over his back and a big fuzzy horn on his head. He looked really ridiculous. As I was passing this big throng of people, there was a group of Muslims going about their evening prayers. I have to say that I found that a little odd that amidst this chaos people were choosing this place to worship. I got back from that and talked to Mom and Dad for awhile. Our computer connection is still not working like it should, but they gave me a call and we were able to talk for a while. We started getting things sorted out for their trip in a couple of week. After that, I spent a long time talking to Katie. Our schedules haven’t made that possible for quite a while, so having a chance to sit and talk was rather refreshing.
The big plan for the night was the Superbowl. It was being broadcast here, but with the obvious time delay. The game started at 2330 at night and most of the flat showed up to watch it. Overall I though it was a good game, at least a lot better than the games I had seen in the past. People brought food and we all had a really good time. Well, except for the people cheering for Chicago. We didn’t get the good commercials however, which was kind of disappointing. Around the end of the game, Sam headed out to catch a bus to get to the airport for his flight. He was leaving at 630 in the morning so he had to ride a 330 bus to get there in enough time.
I didn’t have much to this afternoon, so I really didn’t do much. I ended up sleeping in pretty late and I just caught Sam as he was leaving to go see the Tower of London. I spent most of the afternoon writing my blog to get caught up with that and then I just did some reading on my computer. I did go for a long run this afternoon, which felt really good. On Sunday’s in Hyde Park there is a tradition at a place called Speaker’s Corner, where people come to air their grievances or just speak out. People come and watch and listen, but also heckle the people that are speaking. The people there will do anything to get attention. I saw guy as I was running by with a Union Jack draped over his back and a big fuzzy horn on his head. He looked really ridiculous. As I was passing this big throng of people, there was a group of Muslims going about their evening prayers. I have to say that I found that a little odd that amidst this chaos people were choosing this place to worship. I got back from that and talked to Mom and Dad for awhile. Our computer connection is still not working like it should, but they gave me a call and we were able to talk for a while. We started getting things sorted out for their trip in a couple of week. After that, I spent a long time talking to Katie. Our schedules haven’t made that possible for quite a while, so having a chance to sit and talk was rather refreshing.
The big plan for the night was the Superbowl. It was being broadcast here, but with the obvious time delay. The game started at 2330 at night and most of the flat showed up to watch it. Overall I though it was a good game, at least a lot better than the games I had seen in the past. People brought food and we all had a really good time. Well, except for the people cheering for Chicago. We didn’t get the good commercials however, which was kind of disappointing. Around the end of the game, Sam headed out to catch a bus to get to the airport for his flight. He was leaving at 630 in the morning so he had to ride a 330 bus to get there in enough time.
Sunday, 4 February 2007
Feb 4th Part Two
Feb 3rd
I got up this morning and went for a run. Sam had already left with another friend that was on the trip to go and see some things over the course of the day. They were going to go see a bunch of things, but I missed them. I needed to catch up on my sleep anyways. I sat around being lazy for a long time. The flat was really quite because a bunch of the people here had left for Paris really early this morning and a lot of people were out doing stuff, so it was really calm. I decided to go you to the National Gallery. I took a bus over there and walked around Trafalgar Square before heading in. I went into the gallery that had works from 1500 to 1600. So these were works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their contemporaries. They vast variety of pieces was also really cool. There were pieces that had really simple coloring to ones with amazing vibrancy. Then there were pieces with incredibly intricate backgrounds to some of that were just painted a solid color. It was really cool to see. I spent around 3 and half hours walking around there by myself. It was nice to take a day to just be by myself and really set my own pace.
I took the tube back and just a little while later I was asked if I wanted to go to eat in Brixton at a Caribbean place. It sounded like a lot of fun, so off I went. It was a kind of long tube ride, but not really that bad. The way back was longer because the Tube was running really slowly in the direction we needed to go, so we took a detour. The place itself was really good. I had a West Indian Curry that was just delicious. The other guys had some jerked chicken, which they really liked as well. We sat around and talked for a long time after we were done and then came back to the flat. Just as I was getting ready for bed, I had a chance to talk to Katie for a while, that was really nice. We haven’t done that for quite a while, so it was really nice to get back in touch.
I got up this morning and went for a run. Sam had already left with another friend that was on the trip to go and see some things over the course of the day. They were going to go see a bunch of things, but I missed them. I needed to catch up on my sleep anyways. I sat around being lazy for a long time. The flat was really quite because a bunch of the people here had left for Paris really early this morning and a lot of people were out doing stuff, so it was really calm. I decided to go you to the National Gallery. I took a bus over there and walked around Trafalgar Square before heading in. I went into the gallery that had works from 1500 to 1600. So these were works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their contemporaries. They vast variety of pieces was also really cool. There were pieces that had really simple coloring to ones with amazing vibrancy. Then there were pieces with incredibly intricate backgrounds to some of that were just painted a solid color. It was really cool to see. I spent around 3 and half hours walking around there by myself. It was nice to take a day to just be by myself and really set my own pace.
I took the tube back and just a little while later I was asked if I wanted to go to eat in Brixton at a Caribbean place. It sounded like a lot of fun, so off I went. It was a kind of long tube ride, but not really that bad. The way back was longer because the Tube was running really slowly in the direction we needed to go, so we took a detour. The place itself was really good. I had a West Indian Curry that was just delicious. The other guys had some jerked chicken, which they really liked as well. We sat around and talked for a long time after we were done and then came back to the flat. Just as I was getting ready for bed, I had a chance to talk to Katie for a while, that was really nice. We haven’t done that for quite a while, so it was really nice to get back in touch.
Feb 4th
Hello.
I’ve done a lot this week, which is why I haven’t written anything on here for so long. I went to two plays this week, but the really big event was I finally had my interview with the company I will be interning with. The NGO is called PAN UK, which stands for Pesticide Action Network. They work al over the world to help promote organic growing of crops and other sustainable organic fibers and such. I’m going to be spending most of my time working on a project centered around making sure that cotton is grown organically. They work with local groups that help farmers make the transfer to organic farming. Those groups help to provide the farmers with a means to move not using pesticides any more. PAN UK spends most of its time working to help provide information about where they can buy organic cotton and keeps tabs on the progress on the amount of cotton sold in the UK and they’re starting to work to get information on the rest of EU. I’ll be working on getting their database up to date an fixing it up so they can move all the information over to a new program. That’s going to take me quite a bit of time. Later I’ll get to do some more interesting stuff, like collecting information on the companies that sell organic cotton for a report they put out every year. I start there this Tuesday.
Jan 29th
For Senior Sem this week we went to the Imperial War Museum. It’s a place that has all sorts of artifacts and weapons from the various world wars. They had old tanks, planes, parts of planes and even a couple of miniature subs that the Axis powers used at various times. It was pretty cool. We had an assignment that we had to do so I went and look around for those things. We also had tickets to go to an exhibit on the use of animals in wars over time. It was kind of interesting, but it made these animals out to be more like soldiers than anything else, like they all actively choose to be there. I guess I felt they glorified it too much. There was one quote at the end that acknowledged this, but it was more in passing than anything else. One exhibit that was really cool was a recreated trench down in the basement. They had models posing in various actions that soldiers would have been doing in the trench. They had people writing letters, talking with superiors, soldiers getting ready to make a raid, and then people being brought back from being injured at some point. The atmosphere was really spooky and I’m not going to say that it felt like I was there, but it felt authentic. It did fell really desolate and disheartening.
After finishing up there, I found a place to grab some food and then went to go find the place where I was interning and get an idea of how long it would take me to get there on Tuesday. I got a little lost on my way there, but it wasn’t too bad. The station is under a big roundabout, so I couldn’t really figure out which road was what. Once I got that figured out it was alright. I got that figured out than came back and sat for a little way before I went to practice at Imperial. It was going really good until the fire alarm went off and we had to sit outside for like half an hour. We finished up and I headed home didn’t really do anything for the rest of the night.
Jan 30th
Over the last couple of days, my computer was giving me some problems. I couldn’t get it to start for some reason and I didn’t have the stuff to fix it. So, I found the nearest Apple store and took the tube there first thing in the morning. It was a pretty cool place. It was two floors and had a ton of cool stuff. I couldn’t get my computer in that day, so I left pretty quickly. I had a lot of time until I had my interview and luckily I managed to get it working in that period of time. Whatever. I headed to my interview and stopped to get some coffee because I got there really early. The Tube got there a lot quicker than I thought it would. I went up to there offices and a women by the name Katie showed me around. She talked to me about what I would be doing and then showed me around the office. After that I met the guy who I would be working with by the name of Damien, he’s from France actually. I find that somewhat ironic that I did this to work with British people and now I’m working with a French man. Oh well, we spent about an hour going over the projects I would be working on and all the stuff I would have to do. I also found out I might be helping Katie write a bunch of thank you notes for a new project that this group just got up and running. During the 80’s a pesticide plane in Bhoupal India exploded and caused all sorts of bad things. PAN UK set up a group to help fund a hospital in the area, so I might get to write some thank you notes to all the people who helped.
I got back from that and I had a play to go too for class. The play was called Bash: The Latter Day plays. It was three plays that all centered around how a person had made a bad choice that ended up costing someone there life. The first one was a businessperson who let his daughter die because he thought he was going to loose his job. The second one centered on some guys who say a homosexual couple kissing in the park and then hunted him down and killed him. The last one was about a girl who fell in love with a teacher and had a son with him. She realized years latter that the guy had just been using her and she then killed her son as a way to get back at him. They we all done as a monologue. They were pretty good, and something different. I liked it. I had actually seen a version of the second act in high school at a speech event during debate. We stopped at a pub after that and I went shopping after that.
Jan 31st
I went for a run and then had class for the rest of the day. First was Ethno which was interesting. We covered a bunch of different aspects of the British government system and how it all interacted. We got talked at a lot, but it was still pretty interesting. After that I headed out to the Globe Theater for a tour. We met our teacher there and we had a tour guide who was an actual director, which was a lot cooler than having just a regular tour guide. He knew a ton about the theater culture in the city and he talked about a lot of different things. I would describe the stage and inside myself, but I took some good pictures. He told us about how the stage only had one set and things didn’t change from show to show. (They’re in the album, Museums and Other Places of Interest.) The actors only had the morning to rehearse a new play. And they did a new one every day. They would only repeat the play every couple of months. They also only got part of the script so that people couldn’t copy it all and to save on copying parts. They got their part in rolled up scroll and they would practice from that. That’s also where the terms came from. He also explained how they only had the last three words of the speech as a queue to know when they were going to speak. It was all really interesting. We spent about an hour there and I even got up and we all did a little mock play to illustrate how it would have been done. He also told us the real genius of Shakespeare was his ability to imagine the set and how he used his wording to put people there. Like I said, the set didn’t change ever, so he had to describe everything that was going on. When he wanted people to know that Juliet was looking through a window, he had to say she was looking through window. Little things like that were really cool to think about.
Feb 1st
I got up this morning early to make go get tickets to Wicked. We got to the ticket booth and the guy working there told us to wait for about half an hour because better tickets might become available. So we went to a little café on the corner and I had a chance to try a full English breakfast. I’m pretty sure that it’s only a tourist thing at this point, but it was really cool. It consisted of sausage, fired eggs, toast, English bacon, baked beans, and fired tomatoes. It was all really good. I really enjoyed it. We finished up there and went back and got out tickets. They were really good and we got a really great price on them. I came back, ran and did some homework before we headed out. The theater itself was pretty cool. It had a ton of green lights on the outside to give it a nice glow. It made it pretty easy to find too. Our tickets were pretty much dead center on the balcony and we could see all but the very back of the stage. The cast was excellent and performed really well. I think they had changed some of the wording to have it make more sense for the British audience, but it wasn’t really anything that was incredibly apparent and I could have been imagining it. Everyone I went with really enjoyed and we all had a great night.
I had a friend coming out to stay for the weekend, so once we got back I sat around waiting for him to get back. His flight got in around 2100 and the bus ride into town was about 2 hours plus the time it took him to walk here since everything was shut down. He got to out flat at about 230 and I went to bed so after that.
Feb 2nd
Today we went to Windsor Castle. My friend couldn’t come along because we were taking a train and Cynthia couldn’t get any more tickets, so he got to explore London on his own. I thought I talked to her about this before, but I guess I forgot. The ride out there was pretty uneventful and it only took about an hour. It wasn’t that bad at all. I did a bunch of reading for my internship. We got to the castle just in time to catch the end of the changing of the guard, which was kind of cool. After that we walked into the Cathedral of St. George (I think). It was a really cool place. There were some many member of the royalty buried there, it was kind of surreal actually. You would be walking around and then realize you’re walking on the grave of some King. Pretty crazy. In the choir, there was the base of the Knights of the Garter. This is a special order that the monarch picks the members of for great service to the empire and the world. There are people who have donated money to the arts, other monarchs, and heads of state. Each person has their crest on the very top of the choir with a helm. They also have a brass plaque on the wall in the back of their chair. When they died, the person’s trappings were taken down except for the plaque. So one could look at all the plaques and you would have had complete record of all the people ever in the order. We talked to a women working there who talked to us for about half an hour about the people in the order and all the things that were associated with it. It was really interesting.
After that we went into the castle itself. We entered through the public galleries that had pictures and things like that on display. They had a huge dollhouse that was supposed to show how the really rich lived when it was made. It was pretty amazing. It had working electricity and plumbing. Working plumbing, I just didn’t get that. I guess when you have that much money to throw around you can do that sort of thing. After that there was some pictures of the Queen, some pictures and papers from Da Vinci’s folios. I really like seeing those. Other than that it was just a lot of really extravagant rooms with huge tables, pictures and things like that. It was cool to see, but I wasn’t really drawn into any of it. We walked through the semi-private living spaces and it was more of the same. One thing I really did like was little garden right outside the big tower. That was really nice.
Once we finished up with the castle, we went to a pub to get some lunch. We had quite a bit of time before out train left, so we sat around talking and eating. It was a really good time. I got back and rested for a while before I went out with Sam to a couple of Pubs. That was a good time. I came back and watched a movie before I went to bed.
I’m going to go for a run now, so I’ll finish this up when I get back. We’re going to watch the Superbowl here tonight. That’s going to be a great time.
I’ve done a lot this week, which is why I haven’t written anything on here for so long. I went to two plays this week, but the really big event was I finally had my interview with the company I will be interning with. The NGO is called PAN UK, which stands for Pesticide Action Network. They work al over the world to help promote organic growing of crops and other sustainable organic fibers and such. I’m going to be spending most of my time working on a project centered around making sure that cotton is grown organically. They work with local groups that help farmers make the transfer to organic farming. Those groups help to provide the farmers with a means to move not using pesticides any more. PAN UK spends most of its time working to help provide information about where they can buy organic cotton and keeps tabs on the progress on the amount of cotton sold in the UK and they’re starting to work to get information on the rest of EU. I’ll be working on getting their database up to date an fixing it up so they can move all the information over to a new program. That’s going to take me quite a bit of time. Later I’ll get to do some more interesting stuff, like collecting information on the companies that sell organic cotton for a report they put out every year. I start there this Tuesday.
Jan 29th
For Senior Sem this week we went to the Imperial War Museum. It’s a place that has all sorts of artifacts and weapons from the various world wars. They had old tanks, planes, parts of planes and even a couple of miniature subs that the Axis powers used at various times. It was pretty cool. We had an assignment that we had to do so I went and look around for those things. We also had tickets to go to an exhibit on the use of animals in wars over time. It was kind of interesting, but it made these animals out to be more like soldiers than anything else, like they all actively choose to be there. I guess I felt they glorified it too much. There was one quote at the end that acknowledged this, but it was more in passing than anything else. One exhibit that was really cool was a recreated trench down in the basement. They had models posing in various actions that soldiers would have been doing in the trench. They had people writing letters, talking with superiors, soldiers getting ready to make a raid, and then people being brought back from being injured at some point. The atmosphere was really spooky and I’m not going to say that it felt like I was there, but it felt authentic. It did fell really desolate and disheartening.
After finishing up there, I found a place to grab some food and then went to go find the place where I was interning and get an idea of how long it would take me to get there on Tuesday. I got a little lost on my way there, but it wasn’t too bad. The station is under a big roundabout, so I couldn’t really figure out which road was what. Once I got that figured out it was alright. I got that figured out than came back and sat for a little way before I went to practice at Imperial. It was going really good until the fire alarm went off and we had to sit outside for like half an hour. We finished up and I headed home didn’t really do anything for the rest of the night.
Jan 30th
Over the last couple of days, my computer was giving me some problems. I couldn’t get it to start for some reason and I didn’t have the stuff to fix it. So, I found the nearest Apple store and took the tube there first thing in the morning. It was a pretty cool place. It was two floors and had a ton of cool stuff. I couldn’t get my computer in that day, so I left pretty quickly. I had a lot of time until I had my interview and luckily I managed to get it working in that period of time. Whatever. I headed to my interview and stopped to get some coffee because I got there really early. The Tube got there a lot quicker than I thought it would. I went up to there offices and a women by the name Katie showed me around. She talked to me about what I would be doing and then showed me around the office. After that I met the guy who I would be working with by the name of Damien, he’s from France actually. I find that somewhat ironic that I did this to work with British people and now I’m working with a French man. Oh well, we spent about an hour going over the projects I would be working on and all the stuff I would have to do. I also found out I might be helping Katie write a bunch of thank you notes for a new project that this group just got up and running. During the 80’s a pesticide plane in Bhoupal India exploded and caused all sorts of bad things. PAN UK set up a group to help fund a hospital in the area, so I might get to write some thank you notes to all the people who helped.
I got back from that and I had a play to go too for class. The play was called Bash: The Latter Day plays. It was three plays that all centered around how a person had made a bad choice that ended up costing someone there life. The first one was a businessperson who let his daughter die because he thought he was going to loose his job. The second one centered on some guys who say a homosexual couple kissing in the park and then hunted him down and killed him. The last one was about a girl who fell in love with a teacher and had a son with him. She realized years latter that the guy had just been using her and she then killed her son as a way to get back at him. They we all done as a monologue. They were pretty good, and something different. I liked it. I had actually seen a version of the second act in high school at a speech event during debate. We stopped at a pub after that and I went shopping after that.
Jan 31st
I went for a run and then had class for the rest of the day. First was Ethno which was interesting. We covered a bunch of different aspects of the British government system and how it all interacted. We got talked at a lot, but it was still pretty interesting. After that I headed out to the Globe Theater for a tour. We met our teacher there and we had a tour guide who was an actual director, which was a lot cooler than having just a regular tour guide. He knew a ton about the theater culture in the city and he talked about a lot of different things. I would describe the stage and inside myself, but I took some good pictures. He told us about how the stage only had one set and things didn’t change from show to show. (They’re in the album, Museums and Other Places of Interest.) The actors only had the morning to rehearse a new play. And they did a new one every day. They would only repeat the play every couple of months. They also only got part of the script so that people couldn’t copy it all and to save on copying parts. They got their part in rolled up scroll and they would practice from that. That’s also where the terms came from. He also explained how they only had the last three words of the speech as a queue to know when they were going to speak. It was all really interesting. We spent about an hour there and I even got up and we all did a little mock play to illustrate how it would have been done. He also told us the real genius of Shakespeare was his ability to imagine the set and how he used his wording to put people there. Like I said, the set didn’t change ever, so he had to describe everything that was going on. When he wanted people to know that Juliet was looking through a window, he had to say she was looking through window. Little things like that were really cool to think about.
Feb 1st
I got up this morning early to make go get tickets to Wicked. We got to the ticket booth and the guy working there told us to wait for about half an hour because better tickets might become available. So we went to a little café on the corner and I had a chance to try a full English breakfast. I’m pretty sure that it’s only a tourist thing at this point, but it was really cool. It consisted of sausage, fired eggs, toast, English bacon, baked beans, and fired tomatoes. It was all really good. I really enjoyed it. We finished up there and went back and got out tickets. They were really good and we got a really great price on them. I came back, ran and did some homework before we headed out. The theater itself was pretty cool. It had a ton of green lights on the outside to give it a nice glow. It made it pretty easy to find too. Our tickets were pretty much dead center on the balcony and we could see all but the very back of the stage. The cast was excellent and performed really well. I think they had changed some of the wording to have it make more sense for the British audience, but it wasn’t really anything that was incredibly apparent and I could have been imagining it. Everyone I went with really enjoyed and we all had a great night.
I had a friend coming out to stay for the weekend, so once we got back I sat around waiting for him to get back. His flight got in around 2100 and the bus ride into town was about 2 hours plus the time it took him to walk here since everything was shut down. He got to out flat at about 230 and I went to bed so after that.
Feb 2nd
Today we went to Windsor Castle. My friend couldn’t come along because we were taking a train and Cynthia couldn’t get any more tickets, so he got to explore London on his own. I thought I talked to her about this before, but I guess I forgot. The ride out there was pretty uneventful and it only took about an hour. It wasn’t that bad at all. I did a bunch of reading for my internship. We got to the castle just in time to catch the end of the changing of the guard, which was kind of cool. After that we walked into the Cathedral of St. George (I think). It was a really cool place. There were some many member of the royalty buried there, it was kind of surreal actually. You would be walking around and then realize you’re walking on the grave of some King. Pretty crazy. In the choir, there was the base of the Knights of the Garter. This is a special order that the monarch picks the members of for great service to the empire and the world. There are people who have donated money to the arts, other monarchs, and heads of state. Each person has their crest on the very top of the choir with a helm. They also have a brass plaque on the wall in the back of their chair. When they died, the person’s trappings were taken down except for the plaque. So one could look at all the plaques and you would have had complete record of all the people ever in the order. We talked to a women working there who talked to us for about half an hour about the people in the order and all the things that were associated with it. It was really interesting.
After that we went into the castle itself. We entered through the public galleries that had pictures and things like that on display. They had a huge dollhouse that was supposed to show how the really rich lived when it was made. It was pretty amazing. It had working electricity and plumbing. Working plumbing, I just didn’t get that. I guess when you have that much money to throw around you can do that sort of thing. After that there was some pictures of the Queen, some pictures and papers from Da Vinci’s folios. I really like seeing those. Other than that it was just a lot of really extravagant rooms with huge tables, pictures and things like that. It was cool to see, but I wasn’t really drawn into any of it. We walked through the semi-private living spaces and it was more of the same. One thing I really did like was little garden right outside the big tower. That was really nice.
Once we finished up with the castle, we went to a pub to get some lunch. We had quite a bit of time before out train left, so we sat around talking and eating. It was a really good time. I got back and rested for a while before I went out with Sam to a couple of Pubs. That was a good time. I came back and watched a movie before I went to bed.
I’m going to go for a run now, so I’ll finish this up when I get back. We’re going to watch the Superbowl here tonight. That’s going to be a great time.
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