FIRST WEEK

This was a very busy week! My first week of Uni has flown by. I discovered I'm in group C and all my established friends are in other groups, which makes me a bit sad! I have no idea, aside from a girl I was talking to at the afternoon soiree yesterday, who is in my group. I guess I will see on Tuesday. I have Monday off! I believe they must have planned this to give me the Canadian holiday (Thanksgiving) free.

Most of this week was spent doing housekeeping at school - getting set up in the library for logging on to that system, doing the same for the computer labs, etc. Friday was our last day of information lectures, where we heard from our Context teacher. I now understand that Context is about writing and marrying that with graphics, so naturally I'm quite excited about this, as it's right up my alley.

We had this lecture at the Transport Museum in Covent Garden so we were able to wandering the museum after the talk.

So here we all are squeezing through the entrance to the museum bit.

Emilia playing the "calculate your future" game, which always provided the same outcome....

This diagram showed us how long it would take the general population to start doing things we should already be doing, for example: "in 2051, 80% of us will use bicycles as our mode of transport"

Yunnie and Emilia taking the bus for a spin.
The interactive tube knowledge game..

Emilia claiming her trophy after kicking my behind.


Giant 3D map of the city of London


Room full of graphics - artists versions of tube maps and transport graphics.
The evolution of the train station
Sherlock tile, which was actually in one of the underground stations at one point.. I was too hungry at this point to absorb any info and my camera battery was dying.
Never too old to play dress up in smelly museum attire
The talking horses in the carriage room were a highlight.
Keeping it real.

We spent a bit of time in the gift shop, since there was a remarkable amount of items in there. Lots of kids stuff! I was investigating games for Ivan, but he's far from that stage yet....

After our museum meander, we had some time to kill before the "meet the 2nd years" party back at school. We were starved so we went into some pavilion to find a cafe.

There was a nice Mediterranean resto in a courtyard so we ate lunch there. I had a soya hot chocolate that smell (and tasted) like rubber.. hmmm??

My camera died so I didn't get any pics of the party, but it was fun! Lots of slide shows, bad music and beer/cider.

CLASSES COMMENCE

Sorry again for the lack of posts. The pace has picked up plus I had the flu.
Unfortunately I don't have any photos to accompany any of my school stories, but I will do my best to describe what's been happening!

My induction at Central Saint Martins was warm and welcoming. Very different from my experience in Canada. For once, the opening lecture did not begin with... "This is a very tough industry and many of you will not make it."

Our first year course leaders have been hosting intro sessions to the school and our program every day this week.
They are both very kind and positive people and quite proactive in our academic lives. It seems like each year becomes a really close-knit group, planning fun activities like camping and picnics, which the course leaders encourage and do their best not to schedule class so we can participate (and they partake as well)!
There appear to be a lot of fun parties and social gatherings tied into the curriculum. AND, always a bonus, free booze during most of them! Don't worry parentals, these are all held at the Uni and will be supervised by responsible adults. I think they incorporated these activities because I hear the students spend more time there than home. I hope they have showers!

As you can imagine, I'm pretty psyched about the program!!!!! They really made us feel special, like we all must possess some sort of superpower in order to be admitted into the school. We've been shown a lot of previous student work and past collaborations with companies like Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton and the co. that produces sunglasses for Dior and Gucci.
Also there is a big prestigous awards night (DNA(D?) that we do quite well at each year. How exciting!

There are about 180 of us jammed into a lecture room that holds about 160 in these long row bench things. Although the stragglers end up having to squat. I've met people from Italy, Portugal, California, South Korea and of course the UK so far. Compared to Canada, the students here are MUCH friendlier. Next week we will be broken into 8 groups and proceed with regular classes. On Friday we go on a field trip to the Transport Museum (wooo! thrilling!).

Prior to school, we were given a summer project to complete (which some students didn't .. tsk tsk!) and we have to show it on Thursday. For some visuals, I will post a jpeg of mine. The brief was: to record your journey from home to the tube station nearest the school using photographs, illustrations, video, any media.

Unfortunately while my course leader (Cath) was listing off ideas, she named mine! How very unoriginal of me!

It is a lot bigger in reality, but this blog only lets me post teeny tiny photos. I appreciate any feedback!

MEETUP WITH MEGS

It was nice to see a familiar face - and someone I associated with home.
Megan showed me around a bit of the city and shocked me with quite a knowledge of local history!

We went out for Japanese food at this place Wigame (??) that I have seen but never actually investigated. It was delish!! I had these sweet potato breaded cakes (like hashbrowns) with rice and a yummmmy curry sauce drizzled over top. So good!

Then we walked around, checking out nearby sights. I sort of forgot to take a lot of pics, as I was too busy in conversation. Megan pointed out a lot of good book and art shops and some very specialized ones and explained the difference between Toronto and London - there is usually one place to get something specific in all of London. However they do have all kinds of unique items scattered around.

The old porn/naughty district from the 70s has now been confined to this alleyway!

The British Museum - free admission, love that!
We stepped inside so I could get an idea of what it's contents were.
The Rosetta Stone - an ancient Egyptian artifact created in 196 BC, which was essential to modernizing the understanding of hieroglyphics. Mostly you can only see the little kids reflections who were crowding around it.
A room in the museum dedicated to artifacts from the Parthenon in Greece.
Unfortunately I didn't read about this piece, but I'm nearly certain it was a modern artists work sort of misplaced amongst the Asian/Oriental section.
Another room specific to a country/continent. I want to say Egypt or Africa, but I was only half paying attention.

ENROLLED!!

Today was enrollment day at Central Saint Martins. I had to go wait in a queue to fill out some massive sheet of paper and then move on to another queue to show all my supporting documents and yet another queue to get my student card. I ran into Emilia who was on her way out. She waited for me to accomplish this business (and helped me solve a few puzzlers on the sheet).

We explored the school pretty thoroughly, so here are some pics from around the ancient (and creaky at times) buildings.

Emilia and her slow baked cookies! Yum!

The building has a few turrets!


Pretty awesome shot that Emilia took!

The floor of the ghetto lift we were taking.
Peering out the window from the Red Lion building where we have our first class - on the 11th floor!!! Most of the windows have signs on them saying "WEAK WINDOWS - please do not press against"

This is looking at the other side of the building - that turret is where we had come from.

You can see the London Eye!!
The library spans 3 floors and has an extensive DVD and magazine collection.
It also contains a collection of various materials and odd bits which serve some purpose.. hmm.. ??
This was just laying around in the corridor by the lift with a sign "Free stuff, Please take!"

Emilia pretending to give a powerpoint presentation in the Innovation Centre... I'm not sure what the Innovation Centre is all about, but I will let you know when I do.

A display by "Design Against Crime" in the Innovation Centre.
Some dude checking out the Innovation Centre Gallery.
Emilia demonstrating the peculiar couch - made of plastic with an insulation of foam - you can feel it if you press your finger into it - still not very comfortable to sit on.

Emilia and I agreed, our school is pretty rad!! Very excited for class to commence on Monday. We have rotation the first 10 weeks - so we don't have class with the same people at all.

Now I have a giant Graphic Design and Rules & Regulations book to go through!