I have finished my Exams! Rejoice! This means I have got on with things like the online check in for my flights to Spain.
In other news I have spent a bit of time organising my bracelets so I could photograph and name who gave me them or the event I got them from. It turns out I have more than I remember. And I recall more names/events that I thought I would. Bracelets to me are a way of remembering people and things, I am a sentimental guy and I gain attachments to objects which represent memories or are symbolic of the people who gave me them. Bracelets I can wear and show the world I’ve been here or I’ve got this from so and so. Whenever I go on holiday, see a band, visit somewhere I will attempt to get some sort of bangle to fit round my wrist; whether it’s beads, metal or rags.
I quite often will look at one and think <blahblah> made me this when we first met and became friends. Each one below has it’s own story in some way and I am content to say I remember the vast majority of them. Thank you anyone who has passed on a bracelet to me in the last 4/5 years.
I have recently been getting my head down to shift through piles of revision; well attempting to anyway. I have had one exam already with two left to go, one with Thursday and one the following Tuesday.
However as well as ‘revising’ I have also had a couple of other pleasant happenings such as my best friend Mikey coming up to see me. I had to show him a proper night out in Liverpool. Unfortunately we had to choose clubs carefully due to him being epileptic but in the end we just went to Baa Bar and chatted in the smoking area for about three hours before returning back to mine. Usually after a night out everyone is hungry so we get a takeaway (usually Mr Kebab it seems) however when I was with Mikey I only realised how hungry I was till we got to my halls; this resulted in an emergency trip to the holy grail of supermarkets — The 24 hour Tesco — I chose food which would tend to my cravings! a 20 bag of Tesco’s everyday value chicken nuggets. It’s effectively heaven in chicken form, wrapped up and sold cheaply. We spent the rest of the night eating chicken nuggets and relaxing, having a big catch up and having those close talks you get every so often.
The following morning I suggested we could meet up with Ellen, a mutual friend from back home. One which although we know each other, we don’t know each other. So I was grateful when all three of us went to the Albert Docks, chatting away. The wind was proving a little bit too much for us so we sheltered in the Liverpool Museum and had a brief look while continuing our discussions. It wasn’t long will we were hungry so we came up with a plan for them to come to Carnatic and sample the fine canteen cuisine before returning to the Tesco for alcohol. It wasn’t too long since we got alcohol and started drinking till we needed to go to Jo’s house as we had organised to meet earlier on in the day. After I introduced everyone to all the others chit chat and banter continued flowing throughout the rest of the evening. Eventually we had to leave the flat and walk all the way back to my halls of residence, we stopped to pick up Pringles from Ellen’s halls because we planned to watch a movie while drinking and munching away.
It was also the last PhotoSoc meet up last week so we had a friendly last photo competition and group photo:
After meeting Ellen the other day I found out that two friends from back home are coming up to visit her, Charlotte and Hattie. I organised to see them all and go out with them one night, I decided to drink again for the occasion. After some frapes occurred on several Facebooks which resulted in Charlotte’s boyfriend finding out I was with them. I was worried about this happened before meeting them as I knew he didn’t like me as I was a past boyfriend of Charlotte. Anyway we go out, I convince Charlotte to spontaneously take a banana out to the club with her. Kieran really wasn’t happy with me being there, understandably I suppose. But this caused a bit of friction between them. The following morning he added me on Facebook, I was quite worried to be honest. I discussed with people during the day whether I should speak to him and try my best to explain I am not a danger to their relationship, it was more than three years ago when we split up. To think I have feelings for her in that kind of way I think is absurd. Regardless I stopped worrying when he came to talk to me instead. We had a fantastic chat, quite a deep one. It was mainly about him and the past. As I have said to many people in the past, he is such a lovely person to talk to even when he thinks I am a problem. So he apologised for everything in the past and we cleared up a lot of stuff. This has made me respect him so much more, especially as he said he feels like he has a approached a fear. And it was quite an honour to see him say ‘You’re a decent guy. It’s just the fact you were a decent guy that worried me and the fact you were her ex. You’re so close to home, like all her friends love you, her family and I just felt threatened.’. I was initially worried he meant her family was threatened by me, but he said he made a mistake and said they loved me (which I don’t actually believe but never the less). We both agreed we were glad we spoke and cleared the air.
I have recently noticed Facebook picture URLs like to be changed after a period of time. Or at least photos I posted in excess of a year ago are no long there. I think after exams and I have more three time I shall do a back up and file photos I put on the blog so they are more permanent. I look back on past posts regularly to reminisce or remind me about something so it’s a pain when photos aren’t there any more. Anyway I better get back to revision!
It wasn’t too long ago when PhotoSoc decided to ascend Liverpool cathedral and spot the sights you could see from way up high, before capturing the scenery on our cameras. Although many peoples photos looked quite similar here is a selection of them.
Alex Bretherton:
Oliver Stevenson:
Jo Isaac:
Nathan Wimlett:
Me, Dominic Stevenson:
For anyone who is interested in going it is just a few pounds to climb the tower (in some rather scary elevators). You can go up most days but on Thursdays you can go up in the evening and if it is good weather you should see a sensational sunset going over Merseyside.
Recently I have been to quite a bit more things than usual. Plenty of Hockey with the engineers is going on; lots of going out before I need to settle down to revise. I also went to see the great band known as Enter Shikari live, they have produced the sweatiest and manliest gig I have been to and it resulted in probably the best band I have seen live, Shikari definitely know how to put on a show! I wish I was able to photograph it. I also have been to the top of Liverpool Cathedral to take photographs (I’ll do a post containing photos shortly).
Another thing I have decided to try out was life drawing, on Tuesday evening I went to the library with about 5 other people and we all drew a model in front of us. I have always been good at shading in pencil but I have always been bad at getting proportions correct and quickly sketching, because of this I thought life drawing would be a good place to practise. I can say my first attempts were dreadful, with an upper body far too long with abnormal looking legs because of it. Apart from this I slowly improved (although one of my final ones did have a huge ass by accident). Next year I will definitely have to go to get better at it.
Recently as part of Liverpool PhotoSoc we decided we needed some sort of practical evening so someone suggested we experimented with flour, lighting it up and throwing it. This resulted in one messy but thoroughly great evening, giving us some wonderful photos. Me and my brother pretty much had a flour fight while others photographed us.
Photos by Alex Bretherton:
(In this photo you can see how we set up the majority of the photos)
I just this moment saw this video called ‘THIS IS WATER’. It’s quite inspirational, explaining how people by default quite often feel like the world revolves around them and question why things aren’t going there way or why someone in the same situation might seem incredibly annoying to you. It was originally a speech done by David Foster Wallace but people have taken the audio and transformed it along with this beautifying video.
In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.
We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie).
-The Glossary
After watching the video I had a quick search for David Foster Wallace, only to find he committed suicide back in 2008, perhaps he was thinking in this’default’ state due to his depression? It’s quite horrible to think so.
Good news everyone! I am now a committee member and the treasurer of the University of Liverpool’s PhotoSoc. Unfortunately I didn’t get president but I am very happy with the my position never the less.
I had another great night out. It was someone’s ’36th birthday’ (They are neither 36 nor was it their birthday). So pre-drinks started normal, that was until I had the same conversation with someone three times. Without barely any gap either; I would leave the room, come back and then I would have the same chat again. After the third time I decided I would avoid them for the rest of the night. When we had gone into town to get into the clubs someone I was with realised they lost their ID on the bus and so we had to sort out what they were doing before going into the club and finding a 60/70 year old who either was someone’s dad or one fantastic pimp. Fast forward throughout the night (as it was just normal club fun) and we get back to the halls of residence I live at.We realise someone has left their door open so we decide to prank him my moving all of his possessions onto his bed! This included his shelves, clothes dryer, work, heater and much much more. While we were back at halls one of the people we had gone out with was completely drunk and was acting incredibly odd. She lay on someone’s bed while talking gibberish, she kept zoning out, sitting down and looking for her shoes which were in obvious places. The finishing touch was when she managed to fall onto the floor off a wall while people were smoking outside, it resulted in a security guard coming to see what all the noise was from us laughing so loudly.
I also have been to an event called Speakeasy with PhotoSoc. It is an electroswing club night full of live bands and other entertainment. There were 3 bands; One with a fiddle and a double bass, a french band with a sax, a rap band with trumpets. They were fantastically different to music I normally listen to and the whole event had a great atmosphere. The extra entertainment they had was a contact juggler and a burlesque dancer. One person I was with decided it was a good idea to try start a fire in a stove (used as a furniture feature) in the club. Luckily they didn’t get too far and only burnt a tissue and so it was rather hilarious. Hopefully there will be some official event photos on their facebook soon.
For the first time the other weekend I tried a little bit of Urbex. That’s Urban Exploration. Me and my friend decided to try explore a disused hospital for children but that resulted fruitless due to the amount of CCTV and general activity around the area. Soon we began to search for somewhere new on the way home, he looked online while I drove. Fortunately we found something! A train graveyard! it was all through some foliage though so we parked the car a little while away and then snuck through the hedge and snuck past various obstacles being careful not to attract security.
This has all definitely given me a taste for it and am hoping to search more abandoned or old places in the near future, perhaps over the summer hopefully.
Below are videos and photos taken at Red Bull Illume 2013, an international photography competition for showcasing ‘the world of action and adventure sports’. Red Bull and Snap! Orlando collaborated to photograph illuminated wakeboarders and a pilot. The results are brilliant:
Just a small post about what I did over Easter apart from Paris. I spent the following four days just seeing people and having a hot tub gathering round at my house before returning back to France to go skiing with my family in Val Thoren. Unfortunately this resulted in me falling over foolishly for the first time in 5 or 6 years. I ended up having an off-piste lesson to improve my technique, just after all the hard tiring skiing which I expected to fall over on we went to a button lift which then there I decided to take my tumble. Otherwise the rest of Easter was full of trying to see as many people as possible, going to the pub most evenings trying to get as many people to come from different groups of friends. Although I did something different on the final Saturday before returning up to uni on the Sunday…
