The time has come...

School is winding down and I actually have time to work on this again. I promised you once school was done I’d be back and I am. Technically school isn’t done, I still have one more class and then the school’s fashion show/exhibition which I am attending for the first time ever because I am putting it on. My job for the day will be a dresser but I will talk about that after it happens and I can actually tell you how it went and hopefully I will have some pictures from the very long day that it is going to be.

So as for my classes, things were pretty slow the first half of the term. I felt like I had no homework and it was just crawling along. Then week 5 hit, all of a sudden things were due in a few weeks and things started getting busy which is good for me right now. I need it to be busy to stay sane while Rob isn’t here. All the lounging that I love to do just makes the days crawl. So back to school, week 5 is our midterm and we never have midterms, we occasionally have a presentation to do or something but they aren’t the horrendous midterm exams that most US colleges have. This could be either because it is a specialty school or because it is in the UK. I am sure it is a little of both. The one class I was really excited to take which is Fashion Events has kind of turned out to be a bust. I wish I wouldn’t have taken it the first term it was brought to the school but the next time it is offered it will be my turn to have my stuff shown at the exhibition, so this was my only chance. This class has tested my patience every step of the way. What was initially supposed to happen is that we were going to put on an Alumni event and help with the exhibition. Well there are a total of 20-fashion alumni still living in London so we were expecting about half of them to show. This event would have been miserable and a huge failure. They cancelled it and now put the Alumni party with the fashion show, which is much better. There will be tons of industry people there and everyone will be able to see the work the current students are doing and bump shoulders with some potential employers. There was an opportunity to work with a PR company for this event and I got screwed out of doing it. Every time I leave class I want to punch things and I am not a violent person but it tests me. My other two classes are amazing, I love my teachers and the classes are just so much fun. I do have a group project in one of them and I hate my group. The girls in it are study abroad and have no idea what they are doing and yet try to push me around, I finally just stood up and took control of the group because I am not going to risk my grade because they don’t want to ask for help or admit that they don’t understand what the teacher wants. This term I have also helped on a professional photo shoot and it was so much fun and I met some really good contacts.

(Me working behind the scenes)

(The whole group that made the photo shoot happen)

(One of the models getting touched-up by the make-up artist)

As most of you know I have acquired a roommate and that is going really well, it is nice to have someone around while Rob is gone. We have started going to yoga together on base, so I get to see all my friends from base more often, which is really nice because they all know what it is like to go through what I am. Yoga is so much fun and I have a love/hate relationship with the instructor but I feel like that is how it should be with trainers and exercise instructors. I hate her during the class when she is making me do tons of stuff but at the same time I love her for pushing me and I actually want to do it well so it is nice. She is one of those instructors that when counting time down she will go 7 6 5 4 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. She only does this a few times but its always a fun class. She also will push us harder when there are more guys in the class. And yes there are tons of guys doing yoga right now, but who wouldn’t when they are in a room full of women in spandex.

Some of Steve’s friends were here recently and I met up with them for a night in London. It was a lot of fun to hang out with some people from the states in my new home.

Goodbye for Now!

Well another term has started and the madness has already began. There is so much to be done, but I just wanted to do a short little update. Well this term I am taking Fashion Events, Fashion Cycle, and Targeting Customers. I will update more about school at the end of the term. I will be taking in a roommate for about a month and a half maybe a little longer till the end of the term and right before Rob gets home. As for Rob, he is doing really well and they are definitely keeping him busy, besides the 6 hours of volleyball that he recently played at work. But he is doing really well and just can’t wait to be back. Also, we purchased our plane tickets home and will be flying into Chicago on the 21^st of December and will then be driving down to Ohio to spend a week and then driving back up to Chicago for another week. I know this is really far in advance but we found really good deals. Well I will be back in about 10ish weeks when school stops being crazy and I have some time to relax.

As you can see he works really hard :)

And they call it a desert!

School, School, School!

Over the last two months, things have been busy but not much besides school and work. After my birthday the next big event was Super Bowl. Since we didn’t watch a game all year, as they are not shown over here I didn’t feel that it was that important to watch it when it was going to be on at 1 in the morning. After finishing the massive amounts of homework that I had due that week I agreed to go to a Super Bowl party at one of our friends’ houses. I cheered for the Saints and Rob cheered for the Colts so it was an interesting night. We stayed the night on base and came home the following morning. The following weekend was Valentine’s day and we celebrated the day before due to the gift that I got Rob I had things planned for Sunday. We made a big breakfast Saturday morning and then went and saw Valentine’s Day. We were very disappointed in this movie. I was expecting it to be like Love Actually but it was so bad. After that we came home and opened presents. Rob got a new Samsung flat screen for the bedroom and I got a GHD hair straightener and a teddy bear. After the opening of presents and Rob having to set up the t.v. immediately Rob started to cook our Valentines Day dinner which was ribs, baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli. After that we convinced some of Robs friends to come down to Cambridge and go out to the bars with us. It was their last weekend to go out so we figured we should go out to the bars and kind of go all out. Well they didn’t get down here until around 11 at night and we headed right to the bar. After about two or three hours there, the bar closed and we headed to another bar. After awhile at this bar I really just wanted to go home, so Rob gave me his keys and I jumped in a cab. I fell asleep before they came home and I woke up to 4 guys banging on my front door trying to get me to open up because Rob really needed me. I changed into a pair of sweats and headed out to the cab. I get out there and Rob has a t-shirt held up to his neck and it is completely covered in blood. I then found out that he had been stabbed with a beer bottle outside of the bar and at the hospital in Cambridge we were told that he wouldn’t be able to see a doctor for 3 hours. We made a decision to take a taxi all the way to base. I left the house with nothing so I immediately started thinking that I wouldn’t be able to get on base, but one of the guys with us called a friend and we had got on base no problem and had a police escort to the hospital. At the hospital Rob got his wound cleaned out and we had to talk to the base police and then the Cambridge police came up and we had to talk to them. Rob ended up getting 7 stitches and they had caught the guy who did it before the Cambridge police even got up to base to talk to us.

(Rob's Cut before the stitches)

He was seen on CCTV and if we decided to press charges he would be charged with attempted murder. After spending the night in the hospital we come home to find out we have been locked out of our house, so one of the guys who drove us home climbed up to our second floor window and broke in. On Sunday we got to spend the day doing exactly what I planned and that was to actually stay in bed all day and watch tv. We ended up sleeping most of the day and watched tv. We then spent the entire week in bed doing nothing and just spending time together. The following week I had most of my school projects due. The biggest project I had was a sketchbook that had to be made to look like a coffee table book based on three words (structure, diversity, and reality).

The first picture below is how the book was kept closed and I felt like it kept with the theme that I chose which was weddings and marriage. Next is the page that introduces you to the second half of the book.

From there is the introduction to the chapter on stucture for this I made a wedding invite and had it addressed to my teacher, in the envelope I also had a reception card and reply card. Next is the traditional wedding structure a church so I chose to do St. Pauls Cathedral.

Below I used an Indian Mandap and City Hall. With the mandap I just used some fabric and fake flowers to make it look like it is coming off the page. I used City Hall for same-sex marriages and the little doors open and they each have different couples in them.

I also used the African tribal wedding and a drunken Las Vegas wedding. For the African tribal wedding I just made a hut with straw and I used cinnamon and sugar to make it look like sand. Next for the Las Vegas wedding structure I chose the drive thru and used images from "The Hangover" and they pop up.

lastly for structure I wanted to do a Korean Garden, so this page is meant to look like you are looking through a window at the garden outside.

Then I did the same wedding invitation idea to introduce the reader to the section on diversity. For this section, I wanted to do the diversity in wedding dresses due to culture. The first one is traditional and I used one of those bells that opens up, anyways I thought that the general shape of the bell went well with the idea of a "traditional" wedding dress.

Next is the same sex marriage and for this I used a white satin and an ivory satin to differentiate the two brides. For the Indian wedding I really wanted to show the Henna tattoos because they are so beautiful and very different and then i framed the pictures with red stain because the dresses that they wear are usually red.

Next is the tribal wedding and I really wanted to focus on the jewelry so I tried to make a thick red layered necklace like the one she was wearing in the picture. Next is Las Vegas, and since I chose to do the drunken Vegas wedding, I wanted to show a girl in just kind of a red dress that you would go out in.

Last is the Korean wedding dress and the botton half of this dress is red so I really wanted to show that so I have it going over both pages.

Again with the invitation this time to the reality of marriages. The first reality that I wanted to portray was happily every after. With this I wanted to show a couple getting married, they have kids, the kids grow up and get married and have kids and the cycle continues until you have a huge family.

Next I did divorce, and with this I printed out divorce papers on-line and I actually marked where the husband and wife would have to sign. After divorce I chose to do cheating so I printed out so phone bills and highlighted some numbers and found a picture of a door being opened and you see a couple in a hotel room.

From there I wanted to do an annulment for the drunken wedding. As proof that they were drunk I made the pictures from "The Hangover" look like polaroids. After that I chose to do adoption and so I printed out some referral letters and a picture of Madonna with her adopted child.

For the Indian culture of marriage I wanted to show an arranged marriage. Next I chose separation so I made two little laptops in my book.

Then I had them open up to show a computer screen and keyboard and on the screen is what it looks like when you Skype. So for one computer I have how Rob would see it which is me in the big frame and the other one opens up to show Rob on the big frame. Lastly, I did thank you cards for each of the chapters and then I made a wedding favor/escort card which was a cd and it had songs that are popular for most of the important dances.

The following weeks were papers and other final projects due so things were definitely busy around here. Since school ended last week, my friend Kelsey is spending the week with me before school starts again. As for grades for the term I only know two of my classes and they are both B’s.

Happy New Year?

I am long overdue to be updating this. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it during school, because school keeps me plenty busy without the distractions of always wanting to update this. Since the last time I updated I have successfully passed my first term at my new school and I love it. I took garment construction, principles of design, and fashion marketing. During the course of the 10 weeks I was in school, I learned how to work a sewing machine and realized that I am actually pretty good at it, I also learned how to knit. My classes required a lot of work outside of school so I was definitely really busy from October to December. Let alone what was going on outside of school. Since the last time I have updated we bought another car, a Honda Accord and its automatic. It is my car so when I have days off during the week I can take it to base and go grocery shopping while Rob is working. We didn’t do much sightseeing after the month of October, but we saw two different castles during the month of October. We went to Southampton Court Palace, which is beautiful. They have a life size maze that we went through and the gardens were gorgeous. The castle itself was humongous along with the kitchen. There were 3 kitchens I think and off of one of the kitchens there was a wine room, which was just a huge room with barrels and barrels of wine. This was Rob’s favorite room. During the month of November, Rob had Veteran’s day off and came into the city with some friends while I had school, so I met up with them afterwards and we went to Tower Bridge and went all the way to the top of it. It was a lot of fun but a very long day for me. I had school on Thanksgiving so that was another busy day, but we had so much fun. We went to a friend’s house on base and everyone brought something and it was fun to celebrate an American holiday while over here and with lots of people. We ended up staying the night because we started drinking and we played Rock Band the rest of the night. After Thanksgiving, I only had 2 or 3 weeks left of class so it was time to get ready for final projects and presentations. For garment construction I had to make a skirt out of denim and finish a sketchbook on denim. I did really well in that class and I loved my teacher, to date she is still one of my favorites. It is too bad she doesn’t teach any other classes. For Principles of design I also had to finish a sketchbook but it was much different than the other one. We had to have lots of research and different textiles like weaves and knits. There was also a theme for this sketchbook and it was Pop Art, which was really fun. From our sketchbooks we had to pick our best work and put them on presentation boards and do a presentation. For fashion marketing, we had to make a binder full of observations, clippings, and something else. This class was not my favorite but I really didn’t like the teacher. We had a group paper and presentation and those were ok, they could have been much better. During finals week, Rob ventured back to the States because his sister was really sick. The day before he came back home it started snowing. I wasn’t that worried because I didn’t think anything of the snow until a couple of hours later when the little snow turned into a lot of snow. Our neighbors actually made snowmen in the middle of the street because there was so much snow. When I woke up at 4 to go pick him up at the airport the road was still covered in snow and layers of ice. I decided there was no possible way for me to get into the car and pick him up from the airport. So I made him take the tube and the train home. On that same day my cousin Emily was coming to visit a friend of hers who was deploying right after Christmas. I also picked her up at the train station because the snow was so bad. The first night she was here we all went out to a bar in Cambridge and had a good time despite the snow on the ground and the snow that continued to fall. The following day Rob and I had a Christmas party to go to for work and Emily went out with her friends. The following Monday Emily and I went into the city to see the sights. There were two exhibits that I really wanted to see and she more than obliged to go with me and I took her to some of the easy tourist attractions. After the second exhibit when we started walking towards the door we realized that it was snowing hard outside. We were going to go to Oxford Street and walk around the shops but we vetoed that idea immediately. We went to a pub near school and grabbed something little to eat and have a few pints. Well after the few pints I dragged her to SoHo, which is the boystown of London. We had a couple of pints there and headed home well somewhere on the tube someone stole my phone and then when we got to the train we found that they weren’t running to Cambridge because of the weather so we had to take the train to another stop and then take a bus the rest of the way. Well what should have been an hour train ride turned into a 2 ½ hour trip home. Emily left the following day to spend the rest of her time with her friend. The Wednesday before Christmas Rob lost his phone. On Christmas Eve, we just hung out all day and then went and saw Avatar. It was amazing. Christmas morning was so much fun, Rob woke me up at 7:30 to open presents.The pile of presents reached to about the middle of the tree and he had no idea what his presents were and he is not good with surprises. So we opened our presents and then made breakfast and then started cooking dinner. By the way we loved all of the presents under the tree. We had a very childlike Christmas with lots of videogames so that is what we spent Christmas day doing. For dinner we made a ham, potatoes au gratin, beans, and rolls. It was so good, we were nervous because neither one of us have cooked Christmas dinner before but everything came out and all right around the same time. On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) we went to London and saw The Nutcracker. We had a really good night and the ballet did an amazing job although the sets and costumes weren’t what I was expecting for the Nutcracker. Rob had the following week off of work, which was nice because I was off of school so we spent the days hanging out and watching Lost. We didn’t do anything for New Years because I was sick. So we stayed home and Rob fell asleep long before midnight. I have started school again, and love this term. I am taking principles of design two, fashion in culture, and fashion promotion. I only go to school 2 days a week but I am gone all day on Wednesday. I leave the house at 6 a.m. and don’t get home till either 8 or 9 at night. I just met a girl who lives in Chicago Heights so for any of you that don’t know its about 5 minutes from Lansing. She is the first girl I met from the Chicago area. We also just celebrated my birthday. I was at school all day for my birthday so we went out on Monday and he made me open my presents then also. This will be my last update until I am done with this term. I only have 4 weeks left and midterms are over! I love how fast time seems to goes when you’re in school. I will be back in March! J

The Beginning of Time

So our first week in October has been very exhausting. I took my driver’s test and passed so I am now legally allowed to drive. My next step is to learn to drive stick hopefully; I find it very unlikely though since driving stick over here is crazy, especially in Cambridge. While I was in driving class Rob was in school also. He spent the week in classes for being a dedicated crew chief. On Friday, I spent the day at school for orientation and Rob had his last day of class. It was also our 6-month anniversary. So once I got home from school we got decked out and went out to dinner at a cute little Greek restaurant in town. We made it an early night knowing we had to get up early the next day to go on a trip that my school had planned. We were to meet up with everyone from school at around 10 right on the River Thames. This meant we had to leave the house around 730 to make sure we got there on time. The day started out with a boat tour on the River Thames this was all the way to Greenwich. The boat ride was about an hour and freezing cold but it was definitely cool to see the city that way. Plus the tour guide pointed out places that you should definitely visit, so we now have more things on our list to see.

(Tower of London)

(Tower Bridge)

(London Bridge)

(Ministry of Defense)

(Big Ben)

Once in Greenwich the professor who planned it gave us a very short tour of places we should go back and see during the free time that was planned. Well during our free time we went and got Mexican food, the first time since we have been here. It was delicious and it was a chance to warm up. After that we headed to the Greenwich market, which used to be a farmers market but over the years has turned into an arts and crafts market. From there we headed back to Greenwich Park and walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory. This is where the line of longitude was discovered. There was much debate about where the Prime Meridian should be, but since it was discovered in Greenwich they wanted it to be there especially since this is where people who were travelling in by boat would change their clocks. So on the top of one of the buildings there is a red ball that at 1p.m. hits the top and falls immediately afterwards.

This means that boats would sit on the river and wait for the ball to hit the top so they knew to set the clocks to 1. So while we were at the observatory, we stood in both hemispheres at the same time.

(Standing on separate hemispheres)

After the Royal Observatory we headed to the Queens House, which is where Anne of Denmark lived. She was the wife of King James I. It was built because they couldn’t stand each other and their relationship started off very rocky and things got worse. Behind the Queens House is where the King used to hunt and when she first got there he asked if she would like him to take her dog for a walk while they were hunting. Well while they were hunting he “accidentally” shot and killed the dog. She moved to the house shortly after to keep her out of the kings business. After the Queens House we headed to the Palace of Placentia, this is where King Henry the VII was born and so was his daughters Mary and Elizabeth.

(Queens House and Palace of Placentia)

We went there just to see the Painted Hall and the Chapel. There really are no words to describe either of them. Walking into both rooms they leave you speechless. We decided that it was time to go home so we jumped on the train and two hours later we were home. From there we headed to a guys house that Rob works with, he was having a party and we really wanted to go no matter how long our day was going to be. It was a good time and we ended up spending the night there. Sunday was a day to relax. We laid on the couch all day.

(London Skyline behind us)