"Billy Shakespeare Wrote A Whole Buncha Sonnets..."-LFO

Ello' Gents, and Gentle Ladies!

I fear it hast been far to longeth for thoust to blog, but shalt fill thus mortals in.

Haha, so that was a pathetic attempt at being as witty as my boy William Shakespeare, but either way, I have so much to catch up on from the past few days/week since I blogged last! I hope in that long time period, you actually had enough time to read the last post, because I'm pretty sure I used up 5352 internet hours to write it all.

Nevertheless! To update!

Last time you checked in, I had seen Paris/France, been apart of a live Radio Broadcast BBC studio audience and other many fun excursions. If you can imagine all of that excitement, I was pretty tired by the time Thursday/Friday came around last weekend. So when I went to The Guardian which is one of London's 8ish large newspapers to speak with one of the long-running Ombudsman for my class, I was a bit wiped out. For everyone who is not my mother and an English major, an Ombudsman is more or less an independent party or person, who regulates what type of media or news journalism that is fit to be printed in a paper or source, as to keep the product as fair and balanced as possible. Anyways, after a lecture and visiting a newspaper's center on Thursday, I went for a run with my roomate Nick along the Canals in Little Venice. I must say, the area we live in here is absolutely gorgeous, filled with all the small gondala-like boaters, and lovely small parks and scenery. Then, later on Thursday night, a number of the people from our program all went out to a nightclub called "Tiger Tiger." This place was really interesting though, because in addition to having an interesting name, it had a huge dancefloor, and multiple floors of course, all of which were like themed kinda. So that was a fun time, dancing and getting to know people on the trip that I had previously not met yet.

Friday was relax day for our flat. In addition to doing the daily tasks of cleaning up, laundry, and grocery shopping, for once the guys in our flat just had a day to relax, which was something we haven't done basically since our arrival in London. Saturday was also low-key, as it was a day to get homework finished up, and another day to watch a movie here and there, travel to a park to read and people watch. And of course, I've been trying my best to keep my photography skillz all primed and up to speed. And since I took so many pictures in Paris, I had really lacked the rest of the week, so I've been doing my best to keep them coming. Hopefully everyone saw them posted the other week.

Hmm, lets see what else can I update you on. I've been trying my best to eat right while I'm here, even on a budget. The guys in the penthouse this past week cooked breaded chicken and breaded mashed potatoes for dinner one night. Topped with of course tobasco and ketchup haha, but the entire meal for each person in our 4-man flat was 1.5 pounds. That's 3 american dollars, so we've been doing our best to budget, but also eat decently, and not just pasta, every single waking moment of our time here.

I must say, on the school side, since many of my readers may feel I don't ever do homework, is VERY INTENSE. Let me reiterate, SCHOOL IS VERY INTENSE here. Basically, despite the fact that I have "school days" only two days a week. The amount of homework I have from my classes, keep me occupied many nights, weekends, and daylight hours in between my real passion, which is of course, the work I do at Xtreme Information. Speaking of which, I'll touch on my internship just a bit from the beginning of this past week, because it was a very very epic week for me in the working world.

Last week, when I worked at Xtreme, I worked on a project called "The Reel" which essentially is a one-of-a-kind product in the world, that is basically a DVD that can be sent to Media Agencies, Large Corporations, Creatives, Post-Production companies, or anyone in the video/corporate comm world to keep them up to speed on the best directors/editors/producers as well as the top-of-the-line advertisements of the day. What all that means is that every month, the people at Xtreme, release a DVD and Brochure/package that highlights this month's top 30 some advertisements, and gives all the contact information of the people that created them. Now to do this, in addition to compiling the ads, selecting them, and harnassing contact info, when they create the package, they need images for each of the adverts, to entice our consumers to view them. So my job last week, was to view over 150 advertisements (many that you might even be watching on your television right now), freeze-frame them in an artistic or particularly point, and take hi-resolution photos of them. To which, will be used in next month's copy of The Reel. So even as an unpaid intern, essentially my work will be published immediately at the release of October's Reel Edition, and I'll have a hardcopy of some of my work for a company. How cool is that right?

Well this week, I had a similar experience, because when I worked on the Reel this week. We also provide an up-to-date website that highlights a brand new ad, everyday called a "hotspot" that is selected by The Reel team, and then described in length, so consumers can check out the latest and greatest we have to offer. Well every one of those hotspot selections, needs a detailed description, with a nice fun, tagline and such, and yours truly wrote up a description, details, and hooked it in, so that I got posted on the net yesterday on our website. It doesn't make me feel famous or anything, just another day at the job, but it is a really important feeling to have a sense that my own work is actually contributing as an asset to a company I'm working with. It's awesome.

Enough about that though, let me get back to Shakespeare, since by now you've forgotten how poorly I started this blog entry. Last night, I had the amazing opportunity with my theater class to see Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in of course...THE GLOBE!?!?!! What an incredible experience. I've never laughed so hard at a Shakespheare production in my life. The actors were phenomenal, the atmosphere amazing, I stood just like all the other peasants would have in the olden days front and center, right at all the action...alongside of the smelly drunks and artsy people that needed a shower, but nevertheless, that's also an experience to have in one's lifetime I suppose too haha. But nothing by a standing ovation from me, literally, for 2.5 hours while we watched one of the last performances of the season in the globe. It's just really amazing that no matter how much I try to put my head around it, London has just so much rich history, that I really appreciate being able to walk along cobblestone streets and just imagine myself in a Dickens novel or to say that, I stood where I know the Queen shops.

Speaking of history though, it's just awesome, our classroom, is a block from the British Museum, and so on my lunch break last week, in between classes, I just went back to the Museum a second time and hit all of the Roman/Egyptian/Asian exhibits that I missed the first time I visited. It's awesome to me, how like two weekends ago barely, I was in the Louvre, staring at Hammurabi's code, the Mona Lisa, and this past Tuesday, I walked back and saw scores of mummies, roman gear, and Viking helmets. Just so epic for a history buff like myself.

Anyways, this weekend, I have some friends from Elon coming to visit from the Italy program, and it should be a great time to see some familiar faces for sure. I'm stoked to show them a bit of the city and act like a tour guide in a city that I've barely conquered, but either way, just for everyone else's sake, I've begun to pick up my accent, worked the word Cheers permanently into the vocabulary, and no mom, I haven't found anyone of royalty that wants to marry me yet, but I think it's because they think my teeth are too straight, yeah, I'm sure that's it. Nevertheless, this coming week, I hope to hit the London Eye up, Go to St. Pauls for a service, Maybe see the Tower of London, get Knighted when the Queen gets back in town, and of course, ride more double decker busses. But the cool thing also is Next weekend I'll be in Jolly' Good Scotland for the weekend, filled with the Loch Ness, Hadrian's Wall, and lavish green scenery, yea, I'll probably purchase a kilt/bagpipes just for the story, but who wouldn't? You only live once.

Anyways, I love you all and hope everything's going well in the States/wherever you might be reading this from. Take care, keep the updates coming, and as always...Cheers!