Snow!

Thursday night it started snowing, and Friday morning was peacefully quiet. Normally Zac and I are woken up every morning to the soothing sounds of rush hour traffic from about 6 am to 9 am, so we knew it must have been a LOT of snow because we heard no cars at all. Zac estimates it was about 6 inches, but it was enough to keep everyone from leaving their houses. We didn't get any mail for 2 days, we got our little lightweight car with wimpy tires stuck 5 separate times (once by myself (Erica) but 4 guys appeared out of nowhere and helped me push my car out), and it took Zac 2 hours to get to work, normally a 15 minute drive. Other than that, it was absolutely beautiful! Saturday we went "sledding" at a nearby park on a flattened cardboard box (this same box helped us free the car twice) and on Sunday it was so clear and reasonably warm that I went for 2 long walks (Zac joined me for one of them). Today it is melting, so I'm sure we won't have a white Christmas. In fact, I'm hoping we don't because if we get snowed in it means our plans to drive 2 hours to Portsmouth for Christmas dinner with friends will turn into eating cold sandwiches together at home.

MA Graphic Design Semester 1

I've had many of you ask me about how my semester is going, and now that it's pretty much over I'm ready to answer that question.
First of all, my course is organized quite differently than what I undertook with my BA. I don't take different "classes", think of the entire 1 1/2 year as an extended class in 3 parts. In the first part, I had 2 different subjects being focused on, "Research Methodologies" and "Theory into Practice." I attended probably 10 lectures for each subject and I'm turning in different assignments for each, but they are assessed together to give me my first semester overall grade. For Theory into Practice I have four graphic design pieces that I'm turning in; they are hard to view on the computer because they are quite big but I am going to at least try to make a post of them when they're done, so you can all see what I've been up to! For Research Methodologies, I have a class notebook with notes and critical analyses and also the project proposal for my MA Thesis project. No finals!!!
Next semester is focusing strictly on the MA Thesis project, we're coming in 2 days a week, one day to keep learning design theories and the next day for group discussion about the progress of our project.
And now, how do I like it?
I love being an MA student! The pace is so much more doable than the BA was, and I like that we're focusing in on this one subject. The course is an equal emphasis on research and critical thinking and on creativity and design. This is really good for me (not having done graphic design before) because I've always been rather strong academically, especially after Moody. I have had to do some catching up on graphic design history (typical lecture consists of name-dropping hundreds of famous graphic designers, with a "you'll all know who (insert name) is...). I had assumed that I would be really behind my classmates as far as graphic design goes, but we seem to be all at about the same level, and my professors say I'm doing fine. Having to make designs with purpose and research behind them is a bit different from the need-it-right-now-make-it-pretty mentality, but I like the challenge!
Overall course satisfaction level: very high
Overall feeling about cost of program: very worth it
(the picture is one of my four projects. I was given two words and had to make two signs to illustrate them(the purple and blue ones). The other four pictures are other related words that might help you figure them out. Can you guess my words?)

We hit the kerb and our tyre went flat right in front of the gaol!

Some of the oddest British words are the ones that are pronounced the same , but spelled a different way. Some can really throw you off when you read them. Others will always look a bit odd.

Kerb--a stone or concrete edging to a street or path. (Curb)

Gaol--a place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime. (Jail)

Tyre--a rubber covering, typically inflated or surrounding an inflated inner tube, placed around a wheel to form a flexible contact with the road. (Tire)

Foetus--an unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception. (Fetus)

And one completely different...

Draughts--They don't call the game checkers over here, they call it draughts.

Wikipedia has a good list of these "Misspelled" words if you want to check out more.

Introductions

As Erica and I meet people a peculiar pattern emerges. It used to be odd, but now it's just plain weird. After they find out we're Americans the conversation looks like this, almost to the word;

Brit: So where in the States (never the U.S. or America, always "the States") are you from.

Us: Erica is from California, Zac is from Ohio.

Brit: A long pause. (Occasionally I intersperse "One of the small ones in the middle")

Brit: ...so where in California are you from? (Obviously having no clue where Ohio is)

Erica: Napa

Brit: Where?

Erica: The Napa Valley

(Often times) Brit: Oh! Napa Valley (emphasis on valley). How do you like the weather here? (Obviously we hate it since California is 70 degrees and sunny all the time, especially since the entire state is right on the beach)

Us: We don't mind it. It's actually similar to Napa's weather.

Brit: (Look of incredulity; obviously they aren't actually from California)

We do like British people, and meeting them.

O Christmas Shrub, O Christmas Shrub!

We are now the proud owners of a Norway Spruce Christmas tree, purportedly "THE" traditional Christmas tree. I (Erica) was hoping for a soft, bushy pine, but alas! no such trees were to be found at Kingswood Tree Farm (just 5 minutes from our house). The Norway Spruce is not known for its needle-retention abilities, so we're hoping it makes it another 19+ days without collapsing into a pile of needles on our carpet. We didn't bring our lovely collection of ornaments from the US, so we decided to improvise/go cheap. The result: 15 baubles (that's British for bulbs) bought from the dollar store, a bag of miscellaneous ornaments from Freecycle, and some wooden stars that I (Erica) made using branches from the tree in our backyard. Add to this mix two units of Christmas lights, difficult to put up as are in a loop rather than a string, and voila! Christmas is here. Note in the photos above our fireplace are the 2 stockings I made from Zac's worn-out polos. Our tree may be a bit wonky, our stockings fragile, and our fireplace cold, but we are merry!

A Dickensian Christmas Festival

Rochester, about 30 minutes away, was the sometime home of Charles Dickens, which fact is made obvious by every shop or cafe naming itself after one of his characters/book titles/himself. We went there on Sunday because the town was having a Dickensian Christmas Festival. Wisely taking advantage of the city's free park-and-ride, we cruised into Rochester proper (a place we'd never been to until today) to see the streets packed with people, especially those festively dressed in Victorian costumes. For those of you that know of my (Erica's) passion for Victorian/otherwise costumes, I didn't wear a costume though I would have liked to if I had any with me. Especially adorable was the copious amounts of elderly British couples dressed together, walking hand in hand. That will be Zac and I someday!
On other notes, the city boasts a beautiful cathedral, the second one built in England after Canterbury Cathedral, and right next to it an old semi-ruined Norman castle. The cathedral and castle are right next to the high street, which was festively decked out with lights. The festival had food booths (including hot mulled wine and mince pies), some craft booths, some street entertainment, and a parade (Victorian people, Victorian firemen, and of course bagpipers. What would a parade be without bagpipers?) Zac and I both enjoyed a cup of mulled wine and shared a mince pie (sweet and with raisins, not made out of meat like both of us assumed).
See the photos here.