THANKSGIVING

hello!! so it's thanksgiving morning, and i'm lying in bed, watching a movie. it's a little sad that i'm not home for thanksgiving--besides obviously seeing the family, i'm missing so much goooooood foooooood!!! however, we are cooking "thanksgiving dinner" here on saturday, so we'll have it, even if it is a little displaced.

so, i have a new job. it's not with office team. it's not even close to office work. claire pulled some strings at the place she's working (through office team) and they needed "domestic staff" (translation: housekeepers). the idea i got was that under the old management, people just got really lazy and things that needed to get done weren't getting done. so a lot of people have been fired, and the new management is looking for new people to replace the old workers. the pay isn't quite what i would be making doing office work, but i figured that it will probably even out since it will be steady work and not the two-weeks-on three-weeks-off kind of deal. AND they talked about "bumping" me up to a supervisor's position (did i forget to mention that i have ZERO housekeeping experience??) so that i'll make more and have more flexibility in my schedule, as far as when i want to work, when i can take holiday, etc. oooh, also. this is in a nursing home. i met a few of the residents yesterday and have a feeling that things could get pretty interesting...

anywho. back to sisterhood of the traveling pants 2!!

RUGBY!!

so the most recent job I had via office team was with the Scottish rugby union. basically, i replaced this guy, liam, who was kind of lazy and not very organized and altogether a little useless. he actually told me that i shouldn’t be so American in my work and i should “chill out” a little. ummm, right. so, sru didn’t really appreciate that kind of attitude and so they asked for someone else: ME!! what i did was make the accreditation p asses for the visiting team that would give them the access they needed to the locker room and so they could actually get to the pitch to play; i made passes for journalists and photographers so they could have access to the “media” areas; VIPs like the CEOs of companies, the finance commissioner, match officials, match medics, etc. it was much more involved that i thought it would be—i was busy all the time (i worked form 8-6. that’s a lot of time to fill) and it went rather quickly to be honest. but i really enjoyed the organizing aspect of it. i actually felt like what i was doing was helpful to someone. and this is a task/position that an actual person usually has, so i basically just took over part of her job. i had full access to the accreditation email account and was able to correspond with people from the media about their film crew, to companies about who they were sending to advertise during the match, etc. i mean, i was the go-to girl for the BBC! that’s pretty darn cool.

probably the most exciting part of my job was that on Saturday i actually got to watch the rugby match that i had made all the passes for. the first part of the day was quite boring, as i spent it in a brick building handing out the passes to the media before the game, but after that was all finished, i got to go up to the media area and watch! it was really exciting. i didn’t really understand what was going on, but i asked a ton of questions to Pamela, who worked with me, and so i think i have a good understanding of how rugby is played. i’m officially a fan! i worked there until Wednesday of this week, and there’s a match today against Canada (which i also made all the passes for, thank you. :) ) if we’re actually in the flat, i think i might watch it.

not much else going on right now that’s exciting. there’s a vegetable market that’s pretty close to us that we’re going to check out today, and then we’ll probably hit up a museum or something. a nice relaxing day in Edinburgh.

and yet, more art...

as promised. note the tear marks, as well as the cock-eyed eyes, and my huge, saggy cheeks. gah.

remember, remember, the fifth of november...

wow, so many things to post about today!! well, really, just three. slash that, four. work, the election, and guy fawkes day (okay, not so much posting and just mentioning it) and tonight at the tron.

work. eh, not as cool as i thought it would be. i went yesterday, just to make sure i could find it (super easy.) and got there today with no problem, with time enough to pick up a latte before i got there. i get there and they tell me what i already know (aka what i'll be doing) and then another girl walks it (katherine. kathryn. catherine. catheryn. i don't know the spelling, but she has the same name as me. you choose.) and apparently she's helping me. we start stuffing the dvd cases with the dvds and the paper thingy in the front until we run out of them. "oh, well they should be coming in soon today. why don't you two take a wee lunch? take an hour or so, if you like," we're told by the receptionist. okay, sure! however, i've taken my lunch and so i hike my way up to the fourth floor to use the microwave (mmmm, our untasty minestrone soup! okay, not untasty, just not tasty.) and then...well, eat it. until the rest of the dvd cases come in. which there are like twelve boxes of them (108 dvds in each box...you can do the math.). so i start putting the paper covers in the cases until this guy walks in and says, "well, f*&% [this is completely normal, btw], black cases. great." apparently, they wanted clear cases. sooo, i'm told to go home and that they'd be in touch with me...or rather office team would. but either way, i didn't meet many cool people. i met katherine/kathryn/catheryn/catherine. who is nice, but not necessarily the cool scottish person i was hoping to meet. oh, well. however, i'm going back tomorrow at 1, and then all day friday. so woot. more work!!

election. i can't express to you how excited i am that our country finally has someone in office that isn't white. i mean, for a country that boasts that we're all democratic, and equal opportunity, and not racist, it's been a while since segregation, people. why hasn't this happened before? the outcome was truly amazing. i can't wait to see the change that is going to happen within our country. so many backwards things have happened in the last eight years that just aren't necessary. we have screwed up foreign policy. we're in a war that completely isn't necessary. we're not at all a country that is equal opportunity or understanding of people who are different (come on, people...this is 2008 we're living in. where is tolerance? an open mind? we're way past civil rights, here...are we grown ups or what?)

guy fawkes day. basically, today is novemeber fifth, the day that guy fawkes tried to blow up parliament in 1605. fireworks are included...it's cold in november in scotland, so we didn't stay out to watch them. that's all about that.

the tron. finally, tonight is wednesday and on wednesdays, we go to the tron for pound pints night. we eat dinner and then have pound pints. it just so happens that tonight, as well as two weeks ago when we went, there was a football (soccer) match on, and so the place was absolutely packed. firstly, yaaay! soccer. it's so nice to watch a game where its really appreciated. and to make it even better, it was manchester u vs. celtic...who are kind of rivals. really, the scottish just hate the english and so anytime an english team is playing, it's going to be grand. as can be expected, there are some pretty trashed guys there. one guy in particular, came up to me with a sketchpad and said, "can i draw you?" completely taken aback, i stuttered, "uhhh, suuure?" well, it turned out to be a complete mistake because the guy wouldn't leave me alone after that, insisting that i buy him a drink for his drawing (which i didn't ask for in the first place). he also kept telling me that i would be a great nude model (ummm, EXCUSE ME?!? i told him he was unnecessarily cheeky...) which he apparently draws a lot. sick. luckily, he momentarily left to go smoke outside, and we took the opportunity to get the guys beside us to hide the stool the guy was sitting on (someone took it, so the evidence was gone, luckly.) and then finally when he came back and i refused to buy him a drink/ignored him, he tore the picture up into four pieces ("ha, lady! this is what i think of you! take that....) to offend me, maybe? and stomped off, finding other suckers to draw. he was a weirdo....claire thought it was hilarious and reveled in the moment since i "get all the attention from guys." (okay, whatever. i don't ask for it by flaunting anything...) it was quite the interesting night. if i find a chance, i'll tape my portrait back together and post a picture of it on here. it's quite ugly, actually...

oh, also made two new friends today. they're cousins from canada--the guy's name is ross and the girls name is brandy. both very cool...look like prospective real friends!!

more art!

November 4, 2008
DEAN GALLERY AND THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART

Yesterday, I decided to visit the Dean Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. I figured it would be a good day to go—Claire was at work and Anna woke up with a virus, so I figured it would be worth my time to walk there and check it out. It was only about a 15 or 20 minute walk, so it wasn’t far at all. My guidebook told me that the Dean Gallery holds the Gallery of Modern Art’s collection of Dada and surrealist art with artists like Picasso, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, etc. I went having heard of Dada, but not really knowing what kind of art it was, exactly. Since I didn’t really know much about it, I made sure to read all the plaques on the wall and found out that the gallery obtained most of its art from two people: Sir Roland Penrose (a surrealist artist, collector and exhibition organizer) and Ms. Gabrielle Keiller, who were friends of artists like Picasso, Miró and Max Ernst. “Dada” was a word that had no particular meaning for the artists who made it their genre, but instead chose it out of the dictionary because it sounded like a childish and nonsense word. It emerged during WW1 and attacked the culture values of the world that the artists felt were responsible for the war. Dada was concerned with painting, collage and drawing but also literature, especially poetry.

The Dada movement turned into surrealism, meaning “beyond realism,” and dealt with dreams and the unconscious. Surrealism was officially began with André Breton’s “Manifesto of Surrealism” but led to other artists like Ernst, Yues Tanguy, Magritte, Dalí, Picasso and Miró. Surrealists made their art with the idea of creating a poetic suggestion rather than something with a literal interpretation.

At The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, I saw an exhibit by English/Turkish artist Tracey Emin. Her art was very emotional and quite graphic as well. The boards she painted on consisted of graphic nudes, which I’m sure some people could find quite offensive. She also created quite a few patchwork/appliqué quilts, consisting of words describing her life, people in her life, tough times, etc. She had created a whole lot of art before she had an abortion gone wrong and she threw it all away, later having to force herself to create art. She did this by agreeing to have an exhibit at a museum, but having no art, she locked herself into the museum, living there for two weeks, creating the art going into the exhibit. It was quite the interesting exhibit.

I also saw exhibits by four Scottish painters: Anne Redpath, who worked with a palette knife and her later works have a “jewel-like coloration reminiscent of stained glass windows,” and was influenced by French painters like Paul Gauguin and Herni Matisse. Alan Davie, who was the son of an artist and whose second painting is amazing to be a second painting. He used bold colors and figures worked themselves into his paintings unconsciously. Wilhelmina Bains-Graham, who studies abstract art at the Edinburgh College of Art. Her art is based on abstract forms that can be traced back to nature. Finally, John Bellany, who visited concentration camps in Germany which inspired art dealing with original sin, guilt and death (lots of sinew, bird/fish/other carcasses). To me, his art was quite disturbing and it made me really uncomfortable.

All in all, a good day at the art museum. It made me want to find some art supplies and paint…alas, I’m broke. So no art supplies for me.

I start a two-day job (!!!) tomorrow at this placed called 20/20 Productions. I’ll be watching DVDs to make sure they work and then putting them in cases and boxes. Woot. I’m sure it’ll be ridiculously boring, but hopefully I’ll meet some cool people? And, I mean, it’s money. So I can’t complain to much.