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Archive | June, 2012

Scotland sunshine and camera obscura without a battery charger

20 Jun

This is my second day here in Scotland and my immediate thoughts were just… “Bloody hell, what did I get myself into.”

Arriving really early in the morning yesterday and then trying to dive right into the new culture was a ‘wee’ bit stressful, but I managed to escape my shock by appreciating the Scotland land and bunnies roaming the campus grounds. Not to mention the beautiful swans that swim happily on the campus loch.

Baby swan poses on Airthrey Loch.

The Scotland weather has been really kind to me since my arrival. Other students arrived on Saturday and met the real weather of Scotland–rain. One of my flatmates actually caught a cold because of the wet weather. Luckily my transition to this country has been fairly smooth. Smooth with minor bumps.

Some of the things that I have noticed:

  • Flushing the toilet means pumping the heck out of it in order for the contents to be completely gone.
  • Windows are screenless.
  • There is a shower string.
  • Cars and walkways are driven and walked on the opposite side compared to the US.
  • No American peanut-butter
  • Pay with pounds not dollars.
  • Busses give you change if you pay with too much.
  • If you want toast, you have to leave the oven door open.

You do learn a lot and take for granted the small things that are pivotal to living a modern life.

Today for my Photography class, students have to make a camera obscura out of cardboard, I tackled this project. Seeing that I missed the first day of classes due to a flight mishap, I received this assignment and had no idea what a camera obscura was and found the concept daunting. To my rescue came my mother with her awesome Google image search skills and helpful flatmates this is what my simple but effective camera looks like.

Camera Obscura or Pinhole Cameras are basic examples of how images are projected upside down.

If you are interested in making a camera obscura then check out the class blog.

My time here so far, has been interesting and more is yet to come. I am feeling so many things and doing so much that keeping up blogging is surely a task for me. So do bare with me for a ‘wee’ bit.

For your guilty pleasure check out my Facebook photos of my time in Scotland.

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Study abroad stress and Legionnaires’ outbreak

9 Jun

Why, hello there my dears! I have not written a blog post in awhile since I’ve been on the tipping point of my study abroad whereabouts.

Waiting to receive my Tier-4 VISA from the UK Consulate was probably the most stressful occurrence to deal with if you want to study abroad and complete an internship. I had many disgruntled thoughts in the past two weeks before my departure date which is this coming Friday that perhaps this dream to study abroad will not happen. Yet, everyone that I would talk to seemed very nonchalant about the time constraints and I felt simply isolated and I wonder now if it was just the Universe letting me know that everything would be ok–exactly like what everyone told me when I brought up my doubts.

So, I sit here in the kitchen writing to you with a very complacent grin on my face thinking how easy life would be if we could do without stress, fear, and negativity. However, I am a firm believer in balance and life is full of it. To really understand the good we must compare it with the bad.

Finding out that I can go to Scotland now, I sent out the social media updates of course and some few text messages. I need to visit some family members before I go and need to exchange my money. And the money situation will be elaborated in future posts as I have a cute little idea in my head about it. Upon my new-found enthusiasm for life, I decided to research the current events of the Celtic country and I discovered that there is a raging disease that could kill people and it’s called Legionnaires’ Disease or “Legion Fever.” Currently, only one man died from it.

I have never heard of this bacterial disease before and immediately wondered if it is anything like “Swine Flu.” And we all know what happened when that entered my reality…my high school graduation was limited to close relatives and minimal administration  to carry out the ceremony. It was a frightening and fear-stricken day since all of us – “Milts” were concerned for our health and the fate of our admission into the big bad world. Everything turned out well on that day too.

Fear and stress are made for each other.

As I reflect on those adventures and new beginnings I shall not let these cantankerous ingredients disturb my whimsy fantasy in traveling abroad. Simply, make notes of the facts and prevention is key. For example, “Legion Fever” is not contracted via touch and can be treatable. I am fairly confident in the country’s actions to quarantine this bug.

Prevention is the best medicine they say…right? Well, a good friend of mine also would advise me with this witty saying:

“Measure twice and cut once.”

Even though it’s a great reminder for design needs, but as for stress I think it works just as well. Measure all the stress in your life and cut it out the first time around by being positive or aspiring to be stress-free. Stress does come into our lives and won’t leave entirely as we often need to work for our efforts, but having a constant reminder to be positive really helps keep that young spirit alive.

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