Hello, Butt Rape.

I hate listening to music, working on my blog, and eating all at the same time. It's like, you're sitting there typing, and your roommate is sitting there typing, and you eat some bread, take a bite of cheese, drink some water, whatever. Then all of a sudden, the music stops, and you hear yourself for a second. And you realize that you sound like a very loudly ruminating camel or something. How long have you been making that noise? Has your roommate noticed and not said anything? Do you always sound like this when you eat? I don't know. I just thought I'd mention that.

So apparently last night was more interesting than I could have experienced. I went to bed at around 2am. A couple of my roommates went to bed before me or around the same time as I did, but Caitlin stayed up for a while longer. So I guess this is what happened, based on the story:

Me: *lying there with my eyes open*
Caitlin: Julia? Are you asleep???
Me: *stares blankly into nothingness*
Stacy or Rachel: Oh yeah, Julia sleeps with her eyes open.
Caitlin: Really??? *goes over to me and dances around*
Me: O.O
Caitlin: *makes weird faces*
Me: O.O
Caitlin: *Slowly points finger towards my eye*
Me: *suddenly closes eyes*

What I thought was weird about this story is that someone in this room knew it was perfectly normal for me to sleep with my eyes open. I didn't think I did it that often, but I guess I do.

But that's not all. Later that night, everyone had gone to sleep and Caitlin had just gotten into bed. It was all dark when suddenly she heard someone, possibly Stacy, say "Good Morning." Then from somewhere on our (Mine and Rachel's) side of the room someone said "Hello, butt rape."

Rachel is apparently well known for talking in her sleep, but it sounded like something I'd say. So I guess we'll never know.

The morning was very entertaining since we woke up to all of these stories. Then we went downstairs for breakfast where a bunch of other people from our group were sitting and eating. We got into all kinds of discussions involving Ghandi eating veal, putting salt on slugs, and something else that was really disgusting, but that's all I remember about it. It was nice though, to know that if it turns out London does suck really bad (it's actually alright now), I could at least just hang out with the people on the group and still have a lot of fun. Just realizing that has really made me feel a lot more comfortable here, so I think everything is going to be fine.


Stacy, Rachel, Jenny, Caitlin, Karina, and I (there were possibly more people with us) all went out to a grocery store to get some food. I ended up buying a loaf of bread for 60p (bread!! I feel so much better now that my mom approves), and a bag of those little wax cheese things to eat with it. Total for lunch today: 1.85. Oh yeah, I'm good.

We ate in Karina's room, then made our way down (or up...I'm still so confused) to Illuminations, a sort of television/art production company. We met the principle there, John Wyver, who was a very nice british guy. He told us about what they were doing, and we had some conversations about the differences between public television in the UK and in the US. Apparently you have to have a license to have a TV or radio here. And it sounds like public television here is waaaay more interesting. Illuminations was working on a television show, possibly called ArtLand? Anyway, they travelled across the US in a giant art bus, looking at art all over the country. It sounds pretty interesting, and we watched a bit of it. It's also in HD. I don't know how I feel about that.

Question time. What is the point of HD? I can imagine it being useful for an art show or art documentary because the audience could see the art almost exactly like how it would look in real life. But what about regular documentaries? I watched that movie about the blind guy climbing Mt.Everest in HD at the Santa Fe Film Festival, and that was cool because we were looking at landscapes for a lot of it, and it was almost like looking through a window. But why use it for hollywood films and primetime television? Does that really need to look realistic? I guess I just don't understand why everyone wants to make things in HD. It bothers me a little that it's in such demand, because there's not really any point in making EVERYTHING in HD. It's getting to the point where people don't want to produce something that's NOT in HD, and that's just as stupid as people not wanting to accept my sisters art in their galleries because she uses gouche. I saw a piece of art in MoMA that was made with gouche!!



Anyway, back on track.

We were supposed to go to the Institute for Contemporary Art after the talk, but only John knew where it was. We all kind of tagged along and followed him to the tube (hehehe) station. At that point, things started getting bad. It was about 5:30, so everyone was getting off work. All the cars were packed with people, and there were 20 of us, not to mention the other 50 people on the platform. If I've ever felt crammed on a New York subway, it was NOTHING like this. We were literally all pressed against eachother and squished against the door. I would have been worried about pick pockets, but I don't think they could have moved enough to steal anything out of my backpack. We stayed like that for three stops, and were very relieved when the doors opened and we fell out.

We had to get onto another train, but it wasn't as bad until after the first stop. At some point I just started giggling uncontrollably at how smashed we were in the subway. It was kind of funny though.

We got off and followed John to ICA where he bought us drinks (coca-cola!) and we looked at the art exhibit. The first room we walked into was supposed to have a 4 minute film going on it. There was a projector and a screen all set up, but there wasn't really any kind of movie. It was just film running through the projector. It kind of looked neat, but I think everyone else hated it. Alissa described it as "extreme minimalism: Let's project nothing and then watch it." Which was totally true. We looked at the other pieces: a neon sign that said "And if I don't meet you no more in this world then I'll, I'll meet you in the next one. And don't be late, don't be late." and an otherwise empty room with a little computer moniter on the wall that was typing out a paragraph in morse code.....slowly.....

We went downstairs where John Schott said very loudly infront of the front desk people that the exhibit sucked, and then I bought some postcards for 70p each (ouch). I decided though, that today was the day I was going to figure out the coins here. I always get confused, and there are always a million people in the line (queue!!!) behind me, so I never have time to get it. But there wasn't really anyone buying anything so I pulled out my wallet and said to the guy "I'm going to figure out this money someday.." and started searching for 40 pence. I sat there and read each stupid coin while he looked at me, entertained. Finally, I came up with a 20p, a 10p, and two 5p, said thank you, and we left to go back to ISH (International Students House).



Nothing too evenful happened after that. Except for that I started working on my blog at a decent hour.
So I guess this means it's time for answers to the picture game!!
Picture 1: Silver
Picture 2: Glassgow (spelled wrong, I know)
Picture 3: Sheer
Picture 4: Boot
Picture 5: Furry (it was obvious, but that lobster was so cool!!!)

The winner of Game #1 was Matej! With 3 out of 5. You aren't going to let him beat you, are you Mara? Talia? Come on.
So no random words today, because I managed to find some pictures to put in. But you guys better play tomorrow. Or Matej will win and you'll all be losers. Except Matej. He'll be a winner.