this weekend was amazing.

friday night:  went to wagamama with some of my lovely designers.  great meal, great company.  then came home and all got ready for mobsters and broads. probably the best college thrown party i’ve ever been to.  it’s a the royal welsh college of music and drama, which means there was lighting, there were costumes, there was a live band… it was wonderful.  there was even free toast! we had such a great time in our (sequined) outfits from primark.  i love design students.  and i love being a design student.  i would so much rather spend my entire day working on something tangible and creative than just listening and reading and writing.

saturday: KNACKERED.  i went to school and worked on the project, and after i left i just felt like i should be there.

sunday: CHEESE FESTIVAL.  i felt so at home.  six and a half quid for an exhausting amount of cheese sampling, live music, and loveliness. we also got to sample ice cream, jam, and alcohol.  they IDed me for a sample of liqeur and said

“sorry, you have to be 21 to drink on these premesis.  i need to confiscate that [ID]”

he was so convincing, i was terrified for a second.  then he gave me my sample.  very funny.

then tonight we went to the CIRCUS. no animals, just people. http://www.nofitstate.org/

it was called tabu and it was amazing—like “cirque de soleil without the disney.”  i organized the group (as usual… and things went without a hitch!) to head down to the bay.  i want to describe it but i don’t even know how… the things they could do with their bodies were unreal.  trampoline, trapeze, flaming hula hoop… my favorite part (i think) was the tightrope walker.  she was in HIGH HEELS.  i can barely walk in high heels when i’m on the ground. she changed her outfit, she changed her shoes, she ate, she even rolled a cigarette… all while standing on the tightrope.

i want to run off and join the circus. i loved the way everything was done. beautifully choreographed slow pieces were alternated with more pieces that were acrobatically amazing but also hilarious.  the costumes were wonderful, pulling you into the circus fantasy world of another era.  i also really loved how they didn’t ever hide the mechanics behind what they were doing—you could see the ropes, you could see the ladders, but they added to the beauty.  during one of the trapeze acts they used chalk on their hands while in the air, and the way it was lit as it fell made it look almost like mist.  whenever people were raised or lowered on ropes, it wasn’t because they were being pulled. there was someone on the ladder on the opposite end of the rope countering the weight. i wish i could do it justice in a blog post, but i don’t think i can even do it justice in my memory.  i felt like a little kid. during the show one of the performers came up to me and said, “she’s lost her marbles! can you hold my umbrella?”  i love that kind of thing.  i am six years old at heart (but was also also called the mother, as usual).

i love it here. tomorrow/this week (and last week) are going to be exhausting, but it’s great. now back to newspaper and celotape.  some of us may be swinging from the ropes tomorrow.

i am so busy.  i love this country. i feel like i’ve been here forever. i feel like i’ve known these people forever. updates and pics soon i hope. but right now, on my way to school on saturday morning.

yesterday was induction.  fresher stuff.  not too exciting, but i met some really fab girls. I went out to a pub with one of them last night.  we tried pear cider, which is amazing.  (and then she licked my hair… while mostly sober… but only she can explain that.)

today was the first real day of uni.  it was so intense.  i’m sore and i’m tired and i just want to melt into my bed.  but it was lovely.

we started off at 9am (ugh) doing some team building and intro stuff. we had to make part of a tea set out of paper and tape in 5 minutes, and then we had to build a structure to carry the tallest member of our group.  in our case, he was around 6 feet tall.  and not like, the scrawny kind of 6 foot either.

as soon as i heard what we had to do in this opening excercise, i thought of project runway.  (because i am a geek… but hey, i’m in design school!) the last episode was them having to make garments out of newspaper.  in a time crunch.  we were making things out of paper in a time crunch.  granted, they were a lot smaller, but so was the time frame.

the tea set and carrying structure challenges served as an introduction to our first  project, which is to make these MASSIVE paper sculptures of animals.  i thought they would be simple until i saw pictures from past years.  they are AMAZING. and daunting.  next friday, we have a showing. and the news might be coming to film.

after the crazy beginning, we got assigned our animals—my (lovely) group is making a giant goldfish.

we sketched, we printed, we scanned, we copied, we planned… now i have to make a mini-maquette. it doesn’t feel like school.  it’s hard work, but it’s just so different from vassar.  instead of sitting in class, listening to lectures, and leaving after the allotted time period, we were there for the entire day.  but we were more free-released into the wild.  we went to town for lunch, did some shopping, got a goldfish (phil) , went to the public library.  i felt like i was skipping school! then it was back to college to work.  we sketched, we printed, we scanned, we copied, we planned… now i have to make a mini-maquette.

i have a sketchbook! and fancy pencils! and a drawing i like! i feel like a real design student. and excited. and terrified.

I know I’ve only been here a week.  only? and i know i’ve only had one day of real class.  but i already feel like i might not want to leave.  i love vassar, and i miss vassar, and my vassar friends mean the UNIVERSE to me.  i just wish i could bring them here becuase cardiff is lovely, and royal welsh just seems right.  i’m not good at school in a traditional sense—i can do well, but just sitting and listening and writing and reading is so hard for me.  i would much rather be active, be doing, be creating. and that’s what this place is all about. (plus, my friend keeps saying I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE LEAVING! I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE! and i’ve known her for about a day. i’ll just try not to think about it)

cheers!