and they're off!

to paris that is! literally running out the door as we speak to go meet up with melissa to catch the night train to paris. we'll be watching the sunrise and getting into the land of love (also the home of my least favorite tutor at csm) at 7am.

i'm excited. seriously.

i'll be rolling back into london at 7pm on monday night... pulling an all-nighter finishing louis vuitton... and winning in the morning.

love y'all. peace out.

what's on your list?

today felt like a monday. i wonder why. do you think that means i didn't do anything i should have on monday? but i did watch 5 episodes of "six feet under". totally my new favorite ... and the school library has it on dvd. sweet, i know. my school is cooler than your school.

after spending $100 on materials for a scale model that kelsey and i are constructing for the louis vuitton brief we are working on ... we decided to cheer ourselves up by spending more money by grabbing a beer at "the ivy house". the pub is right next to school and is filled with men in suits after work. they are too tired/busy/important/cold? to take their coats off or take a seat, so they hover around the bar talking to eachother. it's fun to not be like them. it's also fun to watch them. i got a XXXX since it's on the student discount menu. the first time i ever ordered a beer at the ivy house the bartender told me to get that because it was cheap. when i went to order a second (also on the first occasion) i approached the bar and asked for "a triple 4". yeah... don't ask. i wish i could say that one beer would make me say something that stupid, but unfortunately i was completely and utterly sober. the bartender didn't believe that. i don't blame him... but he just doesn't even know anything.



since i'm not one to let something like public humiliation get to me (who am i kidding...) i was determined to order it again... correctly. one goal i can now successfully cross off my list.

like the responsible students we are, kels and i said goodbye to textile design pal jen and tipped our hats to the guys in suits and made our way out to leyton. our agenda was something along the lines of:

1. go to asda (purchase chocolate covered raisins, shampoo, and maybe something for dinner)
2. make "dinner" (a challenge kels and i are rarely excited about...)
3. build a freakin' model
4. win the louis vuitton brief (that will come later)

oh...

5. eat chocolate covered raisins

upon entering asda (my second home, if you have not picked up on it by now) i grabbed a basket from the incredibly friendly "greeter" and began what was to be a "quick grocery run". "i should get some eggs... i need protein", i explained. eggs in leyton are so much more than protein... they are really a form of entertainment in themselves.





as hard as it was to turn down... i'm just not ready for a little one... so i grabbed another carton.

my bedroom looks a bit like a contruction site... which makes me really excited, just in case you were wondering. yeah, so what that the wood is actually balsa and the closest thing to a saw is a no.11 blade. glue = nails. masking tape = clamp. am i a geek for loving it? well... i don't care what you think anyway. i mean, i do... just not right now.

now it's time to let the glue dry... which is strangely hard for me. i like to see things working NOW not in a couple of hours. but i will say i'm learning patience. kind of. slowly but surely. so instead of messing with what i've done so far, i'm going to watch my last episode of "six feet under" ... and pass out.

the sound of music

this post is being made promptly at the request (demand) of a miss kitten.

i woke up at 11:30 am on sunday morning quite proud of myself. not only had i stayed up until 5 am drawing some 30 new dress designs (what COOL KIDS do on a saturday night in london... ? ), i had actuallly managed to wake up before 2 in the afternoon. "good job hannah". pat on the back.

it quickly became apparent why i had woken. now i don't know about you guys... but there is nothing better than blaring and bumping techno to really get ya goin' on a grey sunday morning. wait. no. that's just what my NEIGHBOR thinks. while i completely appreciate and support expression through music... COME ON! i'm going to kill you! soon enough i found myself stomping around my room, slamming doors, and making angry comments aloud to myself. i literally had to leave... or someone was going to die. sometimes i'm surprised (pleasantly?) by the rage that can form in between my eyeballs in those little creases in a matter of a minute.

i straped a green-houndstooth print bandana around my head, put on my jacket and puma tennies ... and got the hell outta there. standing outside the door of my flat ... i wished desperately that someone could be there to laugh with me. no one... damn. the "techno" i was so angry about moments before... turned out to actually be some ridiculous early 90's r&b ballad ... played extremely loud with the bass turned up too high. if you know me at all you will not be surprised to hear me say that while i recognized the song... i couldn't remember for the life of me who or what it was. whatever. not the point.

a few more steps down the block and it sounded like bollywood was about to bust out onto the street.

apparently leyton likes its music. as do i. apparently we just don't like the same music.



and so it was off to camden town ... also a musical part of london, but known more for its punk than whitney houston. the outoor market (pictured above) is great. better than great. so great... it's a little overwhelming. you just have to be prepared to put on your mean face to push your way through traffic and escape the "offerings" of crazy japanese ladies trying to force feed you then make you pay for it. i was there on a bit of a mission (could have something to do with an upcoming birthday... on the 26th of feb the aforementioned miss kitten will be turning 19... so get on it people!). on the way i picked up a few little things for myself. it was a great and successful escape. weaving my way through the masses and back into the tube station to hop on the northern line i could hear a dude belting out some gnarls barkley song. he had been singing the exact same one when i had arrived in camden two hours earlier.

on another musical note (ha ha ... clever i know) kitty has been sending me clips of a song she's working on. she rocks. serisouly. she will be famous someday... and i'll design her cd covers ... and the dress she wears to the grammys. i can't wait.

so since i know you peeps don't tune in just for "words" ... here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend. enjoy.



what? is it so wrong for a girl to match her tea cup to her pink fuzzy pants and hoodie?



as you can see by their footwear, people in camden are way more creative than the rest of londoners.



chinese new year = pretty.



whatever.

happy love day

i love all y'all ... but i kinda like this guy too...



his "chugging grey goose straight outta the bottle" days may be in the past (maybe)... but he's still pretty entertaining. this picture is also entertaining... since i kind of look like an alien. cool.



love to all. spread it around!

i have a secret

bright and early on monday morning a brave few congregated in the photo studio to be instructed on a one day photo brief. the theme... secrets. in a short 5 1/2 hours we were expected to shoot, print and present our "solution". this was mine.








p.s. i love the photo department at csm. best guys + girl ever. they've taken "team america" (what they call the group of us 6 american study abroad girls) under their wing from day one. to pay our debts to them for their kindness, they have insisted we throw a party for everyone in the studio. we will be hosting an american style prom. most schools in the uk don't have prom... so we will be putting together a prom that they will never forget... and i'm sure we won't either. more to come on that later.

i can see clearly now...

the rain is SO not gone. a few brisk yet beautiful days were followed by, well, crap. some london "snow" which the city had amazingly prepared itself for by salting and sanding the streets excessively the night before. funny how productive fear can be. a snowy night and morning turned into a slushy afternoon and a very wet and windy weekend. the london i expected all along... no disappointments. don't worry. a few drops of water aren't about to get the best of this mid-westerner.

the weekend went somthing like this: kill bill, stella artois (bottle and can ... we like to switch it up), the club 93 feet east (from djs and dancing to live music and beyond), lost in translation, 2 1/2 hours of runway fashion shows on vhs, ELLE-collections, id, the british museum, comics and coincidences, high heels, cheap wine, a tube encounter with an easily suspected mental ward escapee, bathroom adventures, an artsy house party, what felt like a 12 hour bus tour home, cereal in bed, lost in translation (again), pajamas, shopping in camden market, cool artists, the best sweet treat ever invented, skype, and dinner with parents of a crazy bostonian.






that brings us up to now... with a cup o' green tea (which tastes strangely like tobacco compared to the black tea i've become slightly dependent on) in bed ready to watch yet another movie thinking about how that long list i just made did not include any work. hmmm. oh well. that't what mondays are for.

a walk in the park.

it has been the coldest the past two days out of my entire time here. actually smelled like winter wednesday morning. there was a thick frost over everything and it just smelled crisp, but for once i didn't really mind. i was starting to think that the colder it was in london the sunnier it was, and that was ok too. kp (my friend kelsey from uw) had made a date the day before to meet at school at 10:30 to discuss a brief that we are working on together for louis vuitton. yes. LOUIS VUITTON! basically they have come to central saint martins (and no other school) and have set a competition to design and implement their christmas windows for there 368 stores worldwide for 2007. yeah... how sweet is that!!!!??? anyway, we met, had a caffeinated beverage of choice, and set to work on the brief. so many ideas, so little time. we decided that instead of doing the whole "photoshop something that isn't that thought out and just try to make it look that way" was so not the way to go... and that we were going to fully hash out this concept and then do a magazine collage to present our initial ideas and theme.

too sunny for london to sit inside on a computer... so we both grabbed 35 mm's and went out to shoot... whatever. decided to head over to green park. this is a little of what we found... you just have to love february in london...





and then right across the street to buckingham palace... not that you can tell from the pictures (which are from my digital not the 35 mm ... those will come later ...)




following frosty flowers, we went to buy a few different fashion magazines for homework (i love that i just said fashion magazine and homework in the same sentence and it didn't have to do with procrastination!). instead went shopping. got a great coat for 15 quid. then it was down to business.

won't go into the hours spent up until 5am today rushing to prepare our presentation, but i will say we were primped and ready at 10:15 am in the conference room ready to rock (or pass out... nerves or lack of sleep or lack of food or lack of caffeine). we went third. we stumbled a bit. we were nervous. we were standing in front of 4 reps from louis vuitton as well as a film crew. FILM CREW. yeah, fun. anyway... it went really well. we still have a ton of work, and i won't go into our concept quite yet... but i'm just proud that we stood in front of louis vuitton reps, presented an idea, and didn't get laughed at or blank faces. score! we rock! more to come... we're going to win. i've decided. i'll keep you posted.

monday morning...

too late to still be in bed... but toooooo early to get up. argh.

i read mummies new essay on mental contagion as i was going to sleep last night. check it out people (i would assume most people reading this have already read that, but just double checking). i could not relate anymore with the dishes. such a strange satisfaction each time. it's funny. i can't seem to share the task either. it's really all or nothing. i have a system and you just can't mess with it. i'm sorry. i don't care how many years you've been washin dishes... i just do it better than you.

wish i was there to help you out with a load mom. you know how pretty my stacks are too.

alright. a bowl of muesli awaits my attention and consumption downstairs. maybe i'll get ambitious and shower too... maybe.

super bowl ... !

so i guess the super bowl is on. perfect time to make a blog post.

today was sunday. otherwise known as "lay around the house and do nothing" as well as "drink 14 cups of tea and watch episodes of tv shows you never cared about at all in the states". i love sundays.

another thing that sundays are good for ... or at least this sunday evening would be good for ... is giving you all a bit of a catch up, seeing as i started this blog just over a month after arriving in london. so where do i begin?

is billy joel singing the national anthem? funny.

ok, back to the "catch up". lets see. so like i said in the first post, i arrived in london on new years eve day. arriving in london for the ball drop seemed like the best thing ever. of course after becoming quickly reacquainted with the concept of jet lag, i started to doubt my ability to get pretty and get out of the house. thanks to franz's persuasive skills we got out of the flat. first stop: some random "tapas" restuarant for a quick bite. well... let's just say "welcome to london". overpriced, overall crappy food. out of the 4 tables is the place i think there were people at one other table. i felt extremely bad to be sitting there while i'm sure the employees wanted desperately to leave and go celebrate themselves. somewhere along the line this crazy south african guy with these two kind of scary looking russian girls came in and started buying everyone drinks. the night was getting cheaper... thanks to his desire to show off for one of the russian ladies. i'd like to say that the reason we never made it to central london to some classy club or funky pub was because the tube system would have been closed and we wouldn't have had a way to get home... but that would be a lie. the tube was running all night for the occasion. still, we ended up staying at this hilarious little place with these weird people. kind of entertaining. kind of pathetic. regardless, that was new years eve.

the following days were plagued by staying up incredibly late and sleeping in the same due to lack of time zone adjustment. we would drag ourselves out of the flat and make the trip into the city via tube after dark. the first few times we were in central london it was this way. it was weird and kind of surreal. there was usually no one on the streets. nothing open. it felt like a ghost town... hardlly the london i remembered or franz had expected. but it slowly came into focus. we started to get out of the house earlier each day (packing a lunch to save money) and started seeing the sights. we scraped the surface of both of british museum and the national gallery which are both amazing. a little too much to take in completely in one visit. here's some nice camera work by the master gastler outside of the national gallery one night.



we did a ton of just wandering around the city by foot and becoming familiar with the tube system (which p.s. i LOVE!). we even went to a service one sunday morning at st. pauls cathedral, thinking, what better way to see the cathedral than "in action". the attendance for the main service was surprisingly small, but the cathedral itself is beautiful. we also checked out a few more of the touristy sites like the london eye (which is i believe the worlds largest ferris wheel) and the various bridges/towers/etc that london offers. more entertaining to watch the other tourists in these areas than it is to see whatever it is you're standing in front of.

after the first week of being there classes started for me. i'll explain this in more detail later, but let's just say art school in london is in a class of its own... in many ways. basically we don't have "class". can't even go there right now. like i said, i will later.



a stairwell at central st. martins. one cool old building. awesome wood staircases. slippery i will say. last week as there was a tour going on, kelsey (my friend from uw) and i were walking down the stairs through the crowd of prospective students... and i proceeded to slip and begin to fall down the stairs. lovely. classic. only me. the tour guide stopped his speech to ask if i was ok. "no. i just fell in front of a bunch of people!" "yeah ... hahha... eh."

anyway, much of the second week was spent saying goodbye to franz. our last night i made rules. #1 no talking about money. we're not going to go on a date together for the next three months, so i'm getting dessert. #2 let's play it by ear. that was about it. it was nice. sad, but nice. a classic "london meal" of shepards pie along with pims and lemonade. yummy. then went to the haagen daz cafe. pretty much the best thing EVER! as if i wasn't addicted before.



followed by coffee at this hilarious little place that looked like the inside of a circus tent.







prince for the super bowl half time show? interesting. hmmm. i'm sure football fans are also huge prince fans. right.

basically... it was more than awesome having franz here my first two weeks while i was getting settled. not to mention that it was great getting to spend 2 weeks together in general. i can say that hasn't happened as much as i would like.



so it would be totally cool of me to keep writing this post until the end of the super bowl, but since they aren't playing the good commercials here in the uk, it's just totally not worth keeping it on and trying to stay awake. the commentary here is totally lame in a funny way though. i'm surprised i even turned it on.

another monday awaits me after the short 6 hours ahead of me.

thanks for tuning into super bowl XLI.

"don't whaaaaannnnnuuuuuuuu!" (please read in brents voice.)

it's almost 9am, i have a fashion design class at 10am (yeah that's right, on SATURDAY... not quite sure what i was thinking...). the tube is out at my station. NOW, instead of a 20 minute tube ride i will be making an hour long journey by bus/national rail/tube. grrrr. not happy. sleepy. want to make pancakes. *correction* want to be MADE pancakes by someone else. or maybe french toast.

this morning aside, this fashion design short course is great. it's an extra class i signed up for outside of my regular load because i have pretty much ALWAYS wanted to do fashion design. my "pracitical" side has somehow kept me from actually doing anything about it. hopefully the money i have spent thus far to supposedly become a graphic designer will not be wasted when i suddenlly admit i have to be a fashion designer. we'll see though. none of that yet.

timeline:

we started out working on fashion illustration



one of my drawings ... sorry for the crappy image

then we started working on collages ... colors/images/styles we like...



one result

and along the way i found this...



could it look ANY MORE like KITTY!!! omg.

i have just over 10 minutes. gotta go!

mistakes

on my first of many trips to ASDA*

*sidenote... while i usually avoid wal-mart at all cost in the states, the ramen noodles for 8p have been more than persuasive.

franz and i made an amazing discovery that really set me wondering ... "did i make the wrong decision in coming to london to attend central st. martins college of art and design when i could have gone to mexico state?" i'm still pondering this deep and disturbing question. any and all opinions or suggestions welcome.




i figure, i can always buy the sweatshirt at asda and SAY i went to school there...

ivy baby, yeah!

ok... so i am aware that it is after 8pm on a friday night and i am posting yet AGAIN on this thing... but i just realized that i presented the outside of the flat without giving any credit or even air time to the most amazing part of the whole she-bang. my room. there is a theme here... let's see if you can figure it out.






do you see a PATTERN here perhaps?

in other news... my light that previously looked like this



has now been upgraded (thanks to a £1 purchase from ASDA ... the UK wal-mart).



sweet, right.

52 and sunny

that's right. the land of grey skys and hellish wind has been blessed the past few days with temps of 52 degrees and sun. yeah sure, it rained in the morning, or half way through the afternoon... but this is london we're talking about here. just thought i needed to rub this in all of your faces while i have the chance. sounds like minnesota and wisconsin have had far from pleasant weather lately... ha ha ha. and believe it or not ... the flowers are blooming. beat that! you guys won't see any buds or leaves for at least another month. i love london. i might just stay.



now's the perfect opportunity to introduce the amazing, the luxurious, the one and only ... LEYTON! yeah, so i guess i've been lying when i told you i was living in london. well, not REALLY lying. anyway, leyton is about 20 minutes by tube (that's what we "locals" call the underground system ... duh.) away from where i go to school in central london. not bad for a london commute. as you can see it is truly nothing but the classiest most happening place in all of zone 3. well, kind of. doesn't matter. what matter is that i am saving a good $240/mo by staying here instead of a few stops closer. i'm smart.



the outside of my flat. yup, it's pink.



my block. cute little flats all in a row.



the leyton tube station... conveniently just around the block. (ya hear that mommy and daddy... no walking home in the dark for 30 minutes by myself.) again, i'm smart.

yeah ok

since all of you folks are just finishing up dinner and need something to do ... i'll post a few more pictures. but then i'm going to sleep ... OK! g'night.



love you kitty ... even though you smell.





he learns so quickly.



happy new years 2007!



... but since new years it's been NOTHING but work... i swear...