sister & kozyndan

sister had friends visiting and they randomly found kozyndan doing a signing at giant robot.. they were doing portraits of people and anna had them do our portrait! kozyndan are an illustrating couple (he's american, she's japanese).. and they do these awesome panoramas..

anyway.. here are pics my sister just emailed me.. i think i might print one of them and put it on my wall

another pic from work

we work on the 6th floor, and this is the view out the window behind where i sit... pic was taken 15 Nov.. that's the imax on waterloo roundabout.. i leave work sometime after 5 pm.. i think night falls by 4:30

christmas fairies @ work

it's december and at work christmas fairies decorated the office.. here's some of the decorations, and two of my fav ladies ;)

here is alice with 2 chocolate coins left by the fairies..

here is kirsten. hard at work

anish kapoor

Went to see anish kapoor at Royal Academy with celia last friday.

Anish Kapoor @ RA

had a looooovely time! went after work, double espressoed up, and was good to go. I think we were there over 2 hours!.  when i first heard about the exhibit, i didn't think it would really be my thing.  contemporary sculpture isn't something I really know about.  But the work really engaged me.  it probably helped that i watched a bbc programme about the exhibit before going.  don't think i'm able to articulate why i enjoyed it so much. I just really liked looking at a lot of it.

The two really exciting pieces are a big f-ing block of wax that slowly travels on rails between the 5 back rooms of the RA, and a canon that is fired every 20 minutes and sends wax shooting into a corner.  it was actually great going at a very busy time and having the crowd really into it as well.  me and celia waited like an hour to see the big block of wax travel from one room to another.  it's interesting to me that they let him throw red wax all over the place.

ahh.. love 'culture' in london. sadly, it's getting a bit pricey for me and will have to stay at home more..

we did thanksgiving last saturday. will post pics later as i lost my camera at joao's house. he said he found it though so, crossing fingers, hopefully i'll get it back soon

halloween at the station house

good times.. wish i took more pics of other people there!

my costume was not successful. no one guessed octopus :( i got little miss riding hood.. but was ok when people guessed lobster.. good enough

album on facebook

feeling rather autumnal

haven't posted in awhile! i caught a cold last week, still feeling the effects of it. really crap cos i haven't cycled because of it. and have been really really busy with guests (see following pics) and other business... anyway, just going to give one mass update..  and sorry, adding photos that i haven't colour corrected just to quickly update. need to sleep soon..

this is a couple weeks past now cos this is on my cycle route home.  took the photos cos i wanted to share autumn. i LOOOOVE it when the leaves change colours!

pressies from sister! thanks anna :) the fan is beautiful. almost too nice for me to take out! i don't take very good care of my fans. just throw them in my bag. and then get annoyed when they start falling apart...

emi and ram visited! emi was here longer. here she is with jun. this was a dinner i cooked with them. we went to digweed at matter afterwards. for those on FB, my profile pic is currently me with emi and digweed! what a night

this is jesse.. i met him when i was working at DK and we've kept in touch. he visited london for 24 hours as an extended layover on his way to munich (then shanghai and tokyo! hopefully he'll meet up with some of anna's friends).  had such a great time with jesse. i think he's coming back soon for a visit... on sunday morning, we went for a leisurely bike ride in the area. this is in the park in front of alexandra palace.

this is my 'monster' i made [with celia] for the halloween party coming up at the station house. the station house is a house my friends live in. they're really cool people and throw great parties.. this will be their last major party as the house is about to be demolished.

the theme for the party is 20,000 leagues under the sea, and my 'monster' is an underwater spider. but instead of scary, he's cute! i think stuff has been added to him but i haven't seen him since sunday.. i'll def be posting pics of the party








this is fergus and a huge octopus.. i tell you. it's gonna be an amazing party! can't wait

happy halloween folks! i did me some pumpkin carving today.. stole the ideas from the internet.. fun fun!!


good night!!!

we made tempura

besides all the lovely dancing i get to do, with jun around i'm doing more japanese cooking.  and i feel like i'm being a good influence on jun by getting her to cook more!

this is us making home-made tempura! and agedeshi tofu... there's some improvements that can be made to our battering but i think we get an A for effort!  I also made miso and ginger dressing.  i absolutely love making my own dressings. the miso dressing can also only get better but it's good enough. if anyone visits me, i promise to make some lovely food for you :)

this is sat

short for Satinder. he's my housemate and we get on fabulously. he's from birmingham, which is a couple hours on the train north from london.

sat at our local pub

a nice little corner at our local

bday pressies from court

yea.. it's october and i'm getting bday pressies.. but that's how we roll..

Thanks court!! love it! it was the box that kept on giving! xxx

included in the box:
•  bandages with cute illustrations (if i'll ever use i have no idea!)
•  cupcake girls goodies
•  ann bridal shower card and lip balm
•  colourful hair clips
•  socks
•  kitty glass
•  straw things
•  cute tin can (very useful for me!)
•  lens/screen wipes
•  black jesus
•  stationary cards
•  letter stickers
•  nice notes from courtney

*post addendum: i forgot to also add 'ticket stub diary' to the list and in photos. it's a little photo album looking thing for memorable gig tickets

jun!

for those of you who don't know her, jun is my japanese friend I met when I moved back to LA. she's in the bestival photo i posted earlier as well. she's part of my 'dancing' crowd. and for those of you who don't know, i'm in love with these 2 djs called sasha & digweed.  jun just moved to london for a year. maybe it'll be longer, maybe it won't.  but with her here, i get to enjoy my love for sasha & digweed. a week after she arrived, we went to 2 festivals over the august bank holiday weekend (that's the last weekend in august and generally the UK parties as it is the send off to summer and the monday is a bank holiday).  the first was SW4, featuring our main men, sasha & digweed

http://www.southwestfour.com/

the next day we went to Get Loaded in the Park.

http://www.getloadedinthepark.com/

Then 2 weekends later we were in bestival (see earlier post). Jun is obsessed with Digweed, so we have tickets to see him the 17th, and we just saw Sasha on saturday. it was such an AMAZING night. seriously one of the best nights of seeing sasha. I even saw a man i was very attracted to (but was a bit too out of it to do anything about it!). sasha played from 2 am - 7:45! it was magical.

looking for photos from the night, i ended up on this one site that does club/gig photos.  (mahala, it's the same site i found underworld photos from way back when). and i found me and jun at sw4! haha. so funny

tillate: me and jun at SW4

here is the FB photo album of SW4 and Get Loaded
photo album

bikes!

I have the best landlord. ever. like ever ever.  He keeps the rent at a good price. fixes things you haven't asked to be fixed. and when you do need something fixed, he gets it done quick.

AND he dropped off these bikes for us to use!

not sure if he's giving it to us or what.  'mine' is the bottom one. my housemate and I, Sat, are the ones using the bikes. we've both spent around £44 replacing the tyres. and i've spent loads more on helmet, lock, and soft seat.  On the first 2 days of cycling, i realised my brakes were hurting me too much. so i started using the other one. i finally took my bike back into the shop today. might cost me another £20 to fix the brakes! ahhhh. so expensive. but i loove my bike. when i first saw Sat's bike, i was like omg. it's sooo cool. and mine isn't as cool. but i've become attached to it cos it's soo cute. and i think it rides better anyway. and i feel like such a girl on it. like i should be wearing a long skirt, with my wicker basket, and tassles!

anyway.  i love being a london cyclist. i really really hope it continues through rain and cold. it still takes me 40 minutes to cycle in (then have to shower and change at work).  and using sat's bike, EVERYbody passes me on the road. it's either the bike or it's me. until i try my bike again, i'll say it's 50/50.

bestival and other bestest things ever...

for those of you on my facebook, you may have seen photos from a music festival i recently went to... bestival is a 3 day music festival on the isle of wight. i had the best time ever.
here is the public link.
facebook album: bestival was a blastival
all these photos are on fb... the fb album has nearly 100 images! sooo much fun

hopefully to post soon... photos of the bikes my landlord dropped off. i fixed the tyres (sorry folks, gonna keep to all the british spelling i know) and picked up the bike i'm using on sunday. then rode to work on monday and tuesday (today)! i intend to keep it up  but we'll see when it rains and gets cold! i feel AMAZING though from the exercise. it is going to SUCK to have to take the tube again.

things to look forward to: jaga jazzist at barbican end of october, alisa's fancy dress party in november, sasha this weekend...

opening post

it's been nearly a year since i've come back to london. I cannot believe how fast time flies. just to update everyone where i'm at in my life... I came to london at the start of the recession and still haven't found my design job :(  I've been temping at King's College London though since January. I love the team I'm part of. unfortunately it's just not the right kind of work for me (and the pay makes me cry a little inside).  they're lovely there though and have me design little things here and there for them. they get me for cheap, i get to have fun with photoshop.

despite current career shittiness, i still consider myself a fairly happy person.  I know without a doubt in my mind london is where i want to be right now (and absolutely not LA).  I do really miss my friends and family though and my recent trip back home really reminded me of what i'm missing. (check out FB album here )

anyway, should really get back to the job hunt. well, i've decided i need to fix up my showreel and website asap. i keep getting distracted by fun things though.

check back often! i miss everyone! xxx