Just a quick few words about my first day at AIB...
K and I drove down to Bournemouth around 8:15 (about an hour and a half later than my usual train into London), I even had time to cook some oatmeal for breakfast. I was due at the university at 9:30. It only took us about 50 minutes to drive down there. Traffic wasn't too bad.
As usual, when starting a new job, there's a bit of thumb-twiddling. I got brought in on a morning meeting with some of the first year students wherein the course leader introduced me. Then I had a bit of a tour around with one of the other Technician Demonstrators, seeing how things work, meeting students and other faculty, etc. Then I met up with the course leader and we had a bit of a "chat". He just wanted to get to know me and try to get a feel for how my skills can be used. He's really happy to get a Tech. Dem. that has film production experience so I can better help the students with issues related to location shooting, etc. However, it's going to be rather quiet at the uni until October, when the fall semester starts. So, during the summer, I'll likely be working on creating an internal website to disseminate information to the film production students. After our "chat", we had lunch with the cinematography instructor to talk about how I might be able to take some of the burden off of his shoulders. The course leader's idea is to have him teach me all of the technical details of the camera equipment, especially how it should be handled, so that I can specialize in that aspect. Then he can focus more on teaching the students about cinematography. This all sounds pretty good to me!
The rest of the day was pretty much all thumb-twiddling. The Technician Demonstrator room is quite small and cramped right now, so I don't have anywhere to be at the moment. They are enlarging the room this summer and then revamping the layout inside. Until that is done, they have a desk for me in the staff room, though no computer, so there's not much I can do there. It'll get going soon enough. We have plenty of time. I just have trouble if I feel idle, so I hope I get some legitimate tasks sooner rather than later.
I'm excited about the job though. It's going to be very fascinating work.
Monday, June 5
Sunday, June 4
Fuerza Bruta
The picnic was fantastic. We brought a loaf of sundried tomato bread, homemade veggie wraps, marinated olives, basil and black olive bread twists, San Pellegrino sparkling water, "vintage" English cider, sea salt and pepper potato chips, and some mixed nuts. They brought various cured meats, a couple of cheeses, tomatoes and basil, a small carrot cake, mixed berries with mint leaves, sparkling wine, and a small bottle of muscat. We spread ourselves out on a big blanket underneath a laurel tree in Regent's Park and stayed there for about 3 hours.
Then we headed up to Chalk Farm (a suburb of London) to see Fuerza Bruta. Very unique. Very filmic and kinetic. We're still trying to decide what it meant. We came to the conclusion that parts of it symbolize the fast pace of modern life and that you have to break out of the drudgery to just enjoy yourself from time to time. And I think there's an allusion to our video game culture in there somewhere (having three lives so you can try the game over again
if you die). It was a good show, but we both agreed that Blue Man Group is a much better show overall and more value for money (Fuerza Bruta was a little over an hour, while Blue Man is an hour and a half or more). Though these are two completely different shows, they share a common grounding in audience involvement, primal music, and filmic action.
It was a perfect day in London. Just what I needed to help me forget about the old job and get ready for the new one!
Then we headed up to Chalk Farm (a suburb of London) to see Fuerza Bruta. Very unique. Very filmic and kinetic. We're still trying to decide what it meant. We came to the conclusion that parts of it symbolize the fast pace of modern life and that you have to break out of the drudgery to just enjoy yourself from time to time. And I think there's an allusion to our video game culture in there somewhere (having three lives so you can try the game over again
if you die). It was a good show, but we both agreed that Blue Man Group is a much better show overall and more value for money (Fuerza Bruta was a little over an hour, while Blue Man is an hour and a half or more). Though these are two completely different shows, they share a common grounding in audience involvement, primal music, and filmic action.
It was a perfect day in London. Just what I needed to help me forget about the old job and get ready for the new one!
Saturday, June 3
A Vibrant Social Calendar
Tonight we're heading to London to see Fuerza Bruta. C and R (the people we spent New Year's with) called us a couple of weeks ago and invited us to go with them to see this show. We're going to meet up at Regents Park for an afternoon picnic and then head over to Chalk Farm for the show. The weather is absolutely gorgeous today, should be a nice day and a fitting farewell to London. Not that we'll never go back there again, it'll just be a rare occurrence to head to the Big Smoke now that neither of us have a season ticket.
Thursday, June 1
Last Day
Well, this is my last day on the newsfilm project. Been tidying up some remaining projects and getting things ready to be taken up by whomever will replace me. They're hiring four more cataloguers. I'm a hard worker, but I didn't think it would take that many to replace me. Sheesh!
It will be sad to leave behind all the people I have come to know during my time here and one can feel sort of proud to be working in London and be able to walk by all kinds of sites that people come from far away to see (Big Ben, etc.). I'm not going to miss the long commute and the crowds of people though. The bad part is that I'll lose some valuable reading time! Churned through quite a few books over these past 9 months.
Excited about the prospects of the new job, though I'm starting to get a bit nervous about my first day. Only because I'll be meeting a bunch of new people and I'll be out of my comfort zone again. Until I get used to things at the university, I'm going to feel a bit unsure of myself.
K and I are going to be car commuters for the duration of this month until we move into our new place in Bournemouth. Will be interesting to see how that goes, driving every day. But it should save us some money instead of both of us buying train tickets.
I fear change. Change is good.
It will be sad to leave behind all the people I have come to know during my time here and one can feel sort of proud to be working in London and be able to walk by all kinds of sites that people come from far away to see (Big Ben, etc.). I'm not going to miss the long commute and the crowds of people though. The bad part is that I'll lose some valuable reading time! Churned through quite a few books over these past 9 months.
Excited about the prospects of the new job, though I'm starting to get a bit nervous about my first day. Only because I'll be meeting a bunch of new people and I'll be out of my comfort zone again. Until I get used to things at the university, I'm going to feel a bit unsure of myself.
K and I are going to be car commuters for the duration of this month until we move into our new place in Bournemouth. Will be interesting to see how that goes, driving every day. But it should save us some money instead of both of us buying train tickets.
I fear change. Change is good.
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