It's the final countdown (du nu nu nah, duh na na na na!)

Monday.

Busy day, lots to do. Somehow when you have no actual timetabled events/schedule you may actually do more than on a normal day, especially when you're trying to tie up loose ends, pack, etc etc. It was super warm and sunny today, wonderousness!

Today I seemed to spend all my time in Fed Ex at the airport talking to an insane woman who wouldn't mail my package, at Bale (delicious sandwich shop), browsing Macy's and befriending the ladies at Mac and convincing them to give us 4 free makeovers, and then went out to dinner to celebrate the end of our school followed by a Cosmopolitan and a super-long stint in a Korean karaoke bar. It was a little bit like Lost In Translation, but not really.

After that I continued staying up until some 4-ridiculous-o'clock in the morning for no good reason. There is regret in my bloodstream today. And all my synapses too. There is absolutely no motivation for packing or doing anything except lying in bed. Even though it's super sunny again, it's a travesty. I even missed a breakfast date: going out for a delicious sunshining 6:30am malasada & coffee. I'm trying to convince my roommates to do this again tomorrow.

Bale and hot sauce


Fed-Ex forms and the package that didn't get sent


Shells & I drinking Cosmos in our makeovers

Awww crap.

I've been avoiding the blog, I bet you can't tell. I couldn't even browse your latest comments until today (thank you though, I feel mightily affirmed in my Englishness).

It's all had something to do with:

• deadlines

• artistic/photographic blocks

• tears before bedtime
  

• hiring a car for a week to overcome such blockages

• working 36 hours straight (x2 sessions) in 1 week

• mastering Photoshop

• fixing Photoshop in my technilogical genius way
  

• walking around campus in my pyjamas

• drinking INSANE amounts on coffee

• getting sunburned and drinking half my body weight of the Pacific ocean

• getting my credit card bill and realising that dollars are not actually monopoly money and do translate into pounds (darn)

• procrastinating on iTunes and also realising that the 'buy me' button does cost me money
  

• forgetting to eat meals

• googling hypoglycemia.

It's been nutty here, nutty as a fruit cake, but I promise I will be posting up some INCREDIBLE-KNOCK-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF work soon.

I promise.

The school finishes here on Wednesday then we scatter abroad like leaves in the wind. I am DEFINITELY going to be crying again (although, fine friends of the Homeland, this does not mean that I don't miss you all and think fondly of returning to the Motherland Monday week). I then have a few extra days which will most likely involve more sunbathing, more reading, more Borders wanderings, more 'how-the-heck-am-I-going-to-pack-all-this-stuff' freak outs and hopefully more knitting.

And, absolutement, bloggage.

I'm losing it.

So turns out my American and British accent are merging in a slightly frightening way. Stanley posted this slideshow of our work from last week and I did a wee bit of an interview at the end. It's the first time I've heard my voice recorded since being out here. The other Brits have been trying to warn me but now I've heard it all for myself. Scary.

Anyone know a place where I can get some cheap elocution lessons in London? He he haw (that's an authentic American laugh for you right there).

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

(Or forgetful)

Well flippity flip flop, it's been a while since I posted on here. Sozzles everyone. I was about to write 'not much has happened recently' but that is a blatant lie because if that were so then I would have had more time to blog, right?

So let me see, what has been going on? Well, let's work backwards:

Today (Monday): just finished a week of teaching with Stanley Leary and his uncle Knolan. Stanley does a vast array of different photographic wonderfulness. He is the only speaker we've had who shoots with Nikon. Him and Knolan have been teaching us some incredible white-balance, colour temperature, studio strobes (light), outdoor strobe photography... A lot of it has sort of gone over my head and one of my assignments this week ended with me in tears after a miserable 2 hour shoot. Ugh. But I'm all over that now :) Thanks especially to the amazing Jim & Sheena - staff members extraordinaire who continue to remind me that this is a school and it's not supposed to work out perfectly first time round because I'm learning. You would think that I'd know all about this, being a teacher and all...

Also been perfecting 'Why Waste More Time' (Rosie Thomas) and 'Run' (Snow Patrol) on guitar today.

Weekend: very chilled, no camping, no beaching, a bit of dress shopping with Cherry (which was just wonderful), some Starbucks action, some fruit smoothie action, some sleeping in, a bit of modelling and lots of assisting other peoples' shoots. I love assisting. It's an opportunity to help things work out a bit more smoothly and peacefully for others and also to learn and re-learn and learn once more for luck, exactly what it is you're supposed to be learning. My personal assistant-ish forté is calling out 'ready' in a dulceted English tone of voice when the strobe has recycled.

Love it.

Monday-Friday: well, a bit of 'going over my head-ness' in the teaching department and a bit of sickness (migraine, falling asleep in the back of the classroom, not being able to get out of bed) but apart from that generally wonderful. Climbed a water tower on the campus with some folks and watched Taken which had some killer spy moves but lacked a lot in other ways. I'm now pretty hooked on extreme location DVD watching.

Last weekend: work duty in the kitchen. Including some Valentine's Day frolics involving graffiting poems and ditties on the hard-boiled and soft-boiled eggs. One memorable verse 'Attractive cutlery washer seeks part time lover and full time fun' came up with the goods when one friendly chap came up to me (the attractive cutlery washer that I am) and said "I got your message". No date though.

Last week: a week of photo journalism with Louis, as previously mentioned. I had an awesome time doing my journalism assignment on a Tattoo Parlour and am now seriously thinking about getting a tattoo. But this inclination is not quite sustained with as much passion from one day to the next, so I'm not so sure about when or if I should commit to this life-long tattoo thing.

Here are some photographic highlights -

My favourite moment of the week taken by Jim was an early morning impromptu Starbucks on Thursday. Go here to enjoy it too.

Tattoo the aloha way


Sam, my roommate, modelling for one of my studio shots


Charlie, not my roommate, modelling for another studio shot

(See some quite interesting photos of me modelling for Charlie here too)


Kat, modelling for an outdoor strobe shot

I am not Paris Hilton

Folks, I just have to say, thanks for all your blog-couragement (encouragement about the blog). Thanks, seriously, it’s cool :) My friend Debo just started a blog, she’s pretty much the coolest gal alive today. Along with all the other cool gals that are out there. Right? Right on.

So it was a bit of a tough week last week (although, wait, I’m still in Hawaii, so how tough can it be, right?!?) We had a week of teaching on flash and colour composition which was über theoretical and well…I don’t know, I think I just need a lot of practical application and got lost last week which was disappointing and frustrating. I also got a bit sick (of the twisting knives in your stomach causing you to bend over double variety, or look slightly slain in the spirit according to staff member Jim) and our assignment was tricky and did not inspire me. We went to visit the Hilton Hotel here on the island and it was pants-o-rama. But I’m getting over it all now, and realising that being a photographer is not just about shooting what you feel like when you feel like it. But if I want to take this seriously then I need to get my head and heart in gear and get on with it, ya know?

Here’s my good photo from last week, showing muted colour:

It’s kinda cool being a student again and being the other side of the classroom as it were. Louis DeLuca arrived over the weekend and started teaching us yesterday. He is cool as (which means “cool as anything you can possibly think of”. It does not mean cool ass, which is what a few people here think I mean).

Louis is a big sports photographer which is incredibly fascinating as I am about as un-sportiv as, but still love the images. He’s got a fun sense of humour too, which is working out nicely for all of us nut cases in class. So it’s a week of photo journalism ahead of us. I am so excited about it all.

I LOVE STORIES!!!!!!

[Okay and on a totally unrelated note]

Thought of the day:
Life is not a maze to become anxious about. I watched the movie Labyrinth so many times when I was younger. I was permanently scared and thus scarred by it, ridiculous, right?! Anyway, life is not like that labyrinth where one wrong turn leads to awfulness (or meeting David Bowie). It is not like the scaling the Cliffs of Insanity or facing the Pit of Despair in the Princess Bride. Life is not even like the maze in Hampton Court Palace where to get to the centre über fast you follow the right hand hedge and your right hand all the way in and the left hand hedge with your left hand all the way out. Make sense? Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, because the point is that life is not actually like that.

It’s not, it’s really not.

I’m a bit obsessed with the typing the word über, I just love the fact that I have mastered the keyboard shortcut for the umlaut and I can actually remember the shortcut (Apple shortcut - option+u followed by the letter u).

"We're going to the country"

Went camping here. Totally survived. Slept under canvas put up by boys (boys arrrrreeeee amazing!). Toasted marshmallows over a campfire (made by boys). Talked lots and told stories with girls (girls arrrrreeeee amazing!).

Played with glow sticks and made some cool shots. Photography students we be:

I'm the 'o'

Met some boy scouts also camping. And another random bunch of YWAMers who turned up late and did not eat chilli cooked on the fire like we did, but ate marinated steak (un-cool). We had a mad glow stick war with the other YWAM guys and then pranced around on a moonlit beach.

Felt like we were in Lost, or Jurassic Park, or Castaway.

Got scared by the cows making late night cow noises across the valley and having to go to the toilet IN THE DARK. Eeep! I was voted/made 'Forest Mum', which if you haven't watched Defiance, is almost like Forest Wife, but not...just more Mumsie, which does not mean bossy.

I hope.

Hitch-hiked our way there and back. LOVED IT! Made up a very bad 'story' to one hitch-hiker picker-upper person for our 'own amusement' and I'm still feeling fairly bad about it all. It was some story spun about how I have short term memory loss because of a bad car accident I was involved in about 6 months ago. In which I was knocked down by a Mr Whippy and my boyfriend died. Only I don't remember anything so can't grieve about it/for him. Max is my social worker, Ginny is along for a free ride. I managed to get a lot of compensation out of the accident and so it is funding the 3 of us to go on some world-wide therputic travel thing in which we visit places known for their restful and peaceful qualities. All of this hoping to jog and heal my memory. Also I have SAD so can only visit warm climates. Because the dark and cold will tip me over the edge.

Apparently.

Oh my goodness, I am a bad person. Our friendly hitch-hiker picker-upper guy lapped it all up.

We were going to do this all in Australian accents but I just didn't think I could keep it up.

This was not my idea. Honestly.

He took our number, he wants to meet up with us sometime before we 'move on' to our next destination. Thankfully though my memory only lasts 2 hours, so it won't be too embarrassing for me.