One more video

This is a couple of years old, but I just came across it and I love it:



Also, we had the party this weekend and it was awesome! I'm off to London today to meet my dad, his girlfriend and my brother for dinner. I think I might go in early and get to a gallery, though that depends on how much energy I can muster.

Nuclear Boy has a Stomach Ache

This video is genius in every way. A friend of mine who lives in Japan sent it to me. I feel much better about the situation in Fukushima now:

New animation

Me and my flatmate are having a party next week and we wanted to have a cool invitation for it, so I made this.

I've had to alter the ending for this version as I didn't really think that it'd be a great idea to have my address on here. It's only the very end that's changed though, and hopefully it's still fun to watch.

I'm reading Half of a Yellow Sun at the moment. It's a fantastic book - very understated and genuine, and most of all personal. The Nigerian-Biafran war was something I only knew the vaguest of details about, and as I got into the book, the sensation of being drawn into this huge historical event was at once both wonderful and awful.
It's the same feeling I had when I read Birds Without Wings a couple of years ago. These novels present you with something which was the absolute centre of the world for people in that time and place, and allows you to engage with it on that level. I love that in a way - it makes me feel as though I'm gaining something from being out in these important parts of the world, at least mentally. But it also makes me feel as though there is an infinity of things like this - events which are so important and about which I know so little (and can do so little about), and I feel helpless from knowing that.

There's a quote in Half of a Yellow Sun that describes that feeling - of being overwhelmed by the reality of the world and shocked that you don't collapse from the weight of that awful knowledge. It's so perfectly formed:

"It frightened him that he slept well at nights, that he was still calmed by the scent of orange leaves and the turquoise stillness of the sea..."

Women, women everywhere

I (being the bad woman that I am) hadn't known that today was International Women's Day, and yet I still ended up visiting an exhibition of Mary Kelly projects at the Whitworth.

The pieces were hugely varied, but almost all of them incorporated the narratives of women themselves somehow in the art. The piece below was what really drew me in to the exhibition, it's a greenhouse with short testimonials from different women cut into the glass. You can walk inside and experience the anonymous words of a variety of women - they all somehow relate to the experience of being a woman and/or feminism, but they're all incredibly varied. The setting is very engaging and I felt very connected to the testimonials through the art work.



It's been a while since I went to an exhibition that really challenged me, and I felt a fantastic rush of thoughts and ideas as I walked around it, which was wonderful.

I don't want to go into too much detail here of my own experience of the exhibition, since a) it's obviously very subjective, and related to my own issues with my identity as a woman, but mainly because b) I really think it's worth going to the exhibition (any exhibition really) without too many preconceptions, so that you can engage with it on the personal level that's necessary for it to really speak to you and your ideas and values.

I will say that one of my favourite things about it was that it was very intellectual while at the same time being very emotive, which is, to me, one of the rarest, most special of states to be able to capture. I would really recommend the exhibition - it's there till 12th of June.

I don't own any Apple products, I dislike their focus on branding and their products seem more of a symbol of that brand than anything useful in the long term. However, I do find Steve Jobs an interesting person, and he comes across as particularly genuine in the video below (via Nathan Bransford). It's the sort of speech that you hear and rather than feeling as though it's trying to tell you something, you get a sense that it's crystallising within you something that you've felt elements of for a long time.

I think this video may only be something that feels particularly relevant to me at this point in time, and perhaps anyone else watching it won't feel the same connection. That in itself is interesting I suppose. If you are watching it and you think it's in any way striking a chord, keep on with the whole thing, it's good.

Reading

OK, one more lovely thing found while enjoying the internet too much (also from My Modern Metropolis), I'm going to bed now:

Water Sculpture

Would you look at this. It is incredible - Water Sculpture by Shinichi Maruyama, via My Modern Metropolis:

Water Sculpture from Shinichi Maruyama on Vimeo.

World book night

This is phenomenal, I'm so in love with it (check out the website of one of the creators for more amazing stuff):




Happy World Book Night.

Via

Finished animation

Here's the animation I was working on. I made it as a welcome home for my dad, who came back yesterday from a tour of duty. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to post it here (the army can be a bit weird about this sort of thing), but he's said it's OK.

I made it using Windows Movie Maker, which was all I had. It was really great for software that was already there on my computer, but it got a bit cumbersome towards the end of the project as it's not really designed to make animations from hundreds of photos.

There's a bit in this where the conversion to a movie file has corrupted, and I considered changing the point at which the music transitions. But in the end, it just felt like a lot of work to open it and make the changes then re-export it to a movie file, and I'm really pleased with it as it is.

It was quite easy to make and a lot of fun, so I'd recommend it to anyone who fancies it.

Check it out:

Experiment

This was a bit of an experiment. I was really inspired by the stop motion animations below and wanted to give it a go. I've got a project in mind, but I wanted to get an idea of what was possible before I launched into it. Here's a mock-up of the opening.



It's not quite in focus, but I've figured out a better way to do the writing for next time. I'm glad I've started with a test as this is almost 70 frames and they were all very quick to do. I would have hated to get to the end of a section I'd worked really hard on only to find it hadn't turned out well.

The main issue with making this was the logistics. I don't have a tripod so my camera was tied to my bed frame for this, and I am very clumsy so I kept moving things by mistake. I'm not sure that's too big a problem as I really want a purposefully rough and jumpy look.

I have started work on making the 'set' elements for the animation, so hopefully I'll have something concrete to put on here soon of it.

New template

I think this might be temporary. I wanted to change the background to a photo of my own, but I couldn't find one that was exactly right - I think the one I had in mind is on my dad's computer. This one is lovely for now though.

Origins and new things

I work in the sort of place where a lot of 20 somethings who don't know what they actually want to do seem to gather. In some ways it's like being at university, especially in the way that everyone is so like you that you sometimes struggle to get out of yourself in any way.
Someone there passed the address of their blog on to me and it was a nice reminder that there are different people at work.
When I get onto a new blog, I always like to see their first post to find out where they started. With this one, I noticed that it started just a few days before mine, which feels nicely symmetrical. I don't tend to have many friends who blog, so it's a new experience to peer into someone's thoughts in this way, and it's pleasing to know that it doesn't feel intrusive at all. If you want more from the author, here's some music.

I'm reposting a link I found on the blog to an interesting article in which several authors give their rules of writing. It looks like there could be some things in there that trigger inspiration. I have quite a free weekend so I'm hoping to get some writing done. In a way though, I don't feel like I need to get into anything too urgently. I know how much better my writing flows when I'm away and mentally I'm already there.


Here are some graffiti photos I took in Germany last year that I just downloaded from my camera:







I took other photos as well, of a more standard kind. I'll post those soon I should think, but these stood out as my favourites since I took them all while exploring back streets by myself and I can really remember the free feeling of these places.


Finally, something fun and innocent.

Last Days of the Arctic

Thanks Silvie for this, it's beautiful:



by Rax

Weekending

It's felt like a very long weekend (in a nice way). For the second week, I've spent my sunday working in the British Heart Foundation shop, which is a surprisingly nice thing to do. It's quite relaxing in itself and it's a good drive to do other productive things on the day, rather than waste it watching TV. I did get the second series of Dexter today on the way back from the shop though, I can't resist it.

I have finally taken the months worth of photos off my camera. Though I love the large memory that it has, it does make me very lazy about downloading pictures from it. Here are a few of my favourites:

Visiting Countries

One final post and then I'm off to do things with my day other than stay in bed.

I was just playing with the stats section of blogger, which they've updated a lot since last time I looked, and the countries that people read this blog from struck me as pretty amazing. Here's the list, ordered by number of page views:

United Kingdom
United States
Russia
France
South Korea
Germany
Canada
Netherlands
Brazil
Australia

They all have enough page views to denote repeat visits, and I've had visits from South Korea and Russia in the past week! That's pretty amazing to me as I have always thought that either nobody was reading this or it was just a couple of good friends.
I've never even been to half the countries on this list. It's such a lovely idea that I'm in them in this small intangible way. It gives me a very pleasant feeling of being connected to the rest of the world, and I hope I can keep that sensation with me for at least the rest of the day.

Good friends, good food

I had the lovely experience of visiting the London Street Brasserie again yesterday. The food there is unbelievably delicious and they have a wonderful set menu that is more than reasonable in price. Every ingredient there is exactly what you'd want it to be - fresh and full of flavour, and they are combined in delightful ways. I normally tell people that I don't like seafood because I dislike it so much when it's done badly, but at the London Street Brasserie I confidently order things I would never normally eat, knowing that they'll do it well. If you are ever in Reading, you must visit it.

I was there with two of my very best friends from university. One of whom I now work with and one who lives on the other side of the world. It was a lovely combination, and I felt like I was my true self for all the time we spent together. It was the sort of lunch that I feel should be the standard, but instead it was a little jewel set amongst the rocks of too much work and too many other stresses, and I will treasure it.

Already I have something that I've forgotten to post:



It's a video created by the same person who did the animation a little bit further down this page. This new one was for work. It's really lovely and I want to learn how to do this sort of animation. She's explained the process to me and aside from not being able to draw, I think it's something I could do.

Moved house!

Finally I have the internet! I had to move house to get it, but it was worth it...that's not actually the reason I moved, but it is a real benefit. I'm now living with a really lovely girl from work, right in the centre of town. I've not been here long, but it is such a lovely place.
I'll be back blogging from now on. I feel like I'm so out of practice that it'll take me a good while to get back into it, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Personal and Direct

I still have no internet at home so I guess that's it for a while. I think that might be a good thing anyway, as everything has suddenly become too complicated and my mind is not reaching out in interesting or productive ways.

To anyone who reads this that I owe a letter or a phone call to, or anyone who feels I'm being distant - I'm sorry. What I'm doing at the moment, it feels like all I have the energy for. I don't have anything else. I feel like I cannot maintain smiles long enough to be polite, and I can't see the point sometimes in holding back my feelings. I think I'll be out of this someday, so for now I'm just going to hide away and hope that I don't ruin friendships by saying the wrong things or by not being there enough for people.

To anyone who loves me (in any capacity of that word) - please take care of me. I am grateful, even though I'm terrible at showing you that.