been having a hard stressful time of it. it’s days, oh hell, weeks! like this that make me take a closer look at the world around me and find something wonderful.
Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing. -Cormac McCarthy
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Koalas ‘could face extinction’.
Koalas have chlamydia??? guess it’s true the cute ones are always the dirty whores.
in other news sorry been absent
been sick/busy/stressed/roommate’s moving out/ money shit/ blah
have kept me away from posting anything
don’t really want to do bitchy ranting posts, don’t want to make this “that” kind of blog
though happy thoughts cause JONATHAN’S COMING IN 11 DAYS!!!
very excited if you hadn’t guessed already.
hope you’re all well
~Lauran
my mind is blown, completely blown away by this BBC news article. This new instrument is crazy all the different sounds it can do. Looks like it would be fun to play with and easy to fiddle around on and create music. First there was the synth keyboard in the 80’s that sounded like shit. more recently there was the Tenori-on made famous by the fabulous Little Boots. But this thing just blows all of that out of the water. I’m sure music geeks across the world just got a hard on watch the video for this thing. Though the one things I really didn’t like is watching the 3 guys jam you’re not really sure where the sound is coming from. I don’t know but it just seems to strip too much from what it is to really play an instrument. I’m not sure but it doesn’t seem to follow any of the sort of rules that apply to traditional musical instruments. whatever happened to cords and scales?
we’ll see if it actually catches on, that things looks wicked expensive.
I’ll be interested to see who the first nutter who buys one is and what they’ll do with it.
sincerely
~Lauran
like the title? yea me too
ok so we’re going to go in reverse order of the title so first Spurs, as in Tottenham hotspurs. Big win this weekend against Portsmouth. In the league standings not that big but when you take into account that the manager, Harry Redknapp, and three players Defoe, Crouch, and Niko all used to be with Portsmouth, for the club it was a big win. It was a brutal game though Defoe got the red card which i thought was bogus. Being a man up Pompy really started to play dirty, I was very happy when Brown finally got the red card and was sent off.
Bones: This weekend I went with a group of my Anthro club babies to see the Lucy’s Legacy exhibit at Discovery times square. The exhibit was amazing. there were real acheulian hand axes which are actually massive! tons of really cool casts of different skulls. They had the real Ida plaque B which was amazing. Half the exhibit was a “yay go Ethiopia” sort of thing promoting the religious history of the country. But the bit that I was really looking forward to was in the last room where lain out in a glass case was Lucy herself. The real 3.4 million year old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton of Lucy! She was so gorgeous I cried. Seeing her was one of the 100 things want to do before I die. Yay checked another one off! The best thing though was the security guard who was guarding over Lucy was so cool. We were chatting with him and mentioned that we were anthropology students to which he said “hang out here til it clears out a bit, i always do right by the anthro kids” He actually let us take pictures!!!! I’ll post the pictures on my flickr later and then share them here.
And finally Boots as in Little Boots as in a totally awesome chick from the UK who through self promotion on youtube was named UK’s sound of 2009. She started out about a year and a half ago writing songs and posting videos of her performing these song in her bed with a keyboard and her awesome Tenori-on. She’s fabulous and is my fashion crush.
Watch her, listen to her, lover her. I command it.
Also go with books I got 2 new books from amazon this weekend. The Archaeology of Disease and The Archaeology of Death and Burial. I need stop buy more books cause I’m going to need to ship them to the UK when I move next summer! Applying to grad schools is fun. I’m going to study Osteology/ Bioarchaerology for my master’s, applying to University College London, Birbeck University, and University of Sheffield. Sheffield has a really awesome funerary archaeology program but I think I’d rather do my PhD there cause I’m really tired of having a long distance relationship and I really want to move in with Jonathan. Sheffield is my last choice cause I don’t really want to go all the way up to Sheffield and Jonathan said he didn’t want me there either.
that’s all for now.
~Lauran
this is a journal of oddities from all over. i enjoy oddities, they’re the little things in life that make you look twice and go wait what?
my first oddity comes from the BBC and an article last week about zebras in the Gaza zoo
recently i’ve gotten really into photographing street graffiti, some of it is really amazing. People like Banksy have made it popular and even fashionable to do. There’ a Banksy down on Canal st that i have to go photograph, saw it when driving past in a cab last spring…hope it’s still there. But people like Banksy have made it into a global art project to leave marks on cities world wide. This is interesting to me cause I live in New York and the have been spending a lot of time in London. This summer I wandered around London finding all sorts of interesting niches. One which i found was this
Pacman mosaic on the side of a building on Brick lane in the Shoreditch area of London.
when i got back to New York I then found this
Pacman mosaic found on the side of curb on W 23rd st in the Chelsea area of New York city.
I guess I like it because it’s a link between where I am and where I want to be.
Political graffiti is also on the rise in the US. During the last election we saw one guy’s graffiti art became the central image of a presidential campaign. I found this one in SoHo.
If you can’t read that it says “Laser guided democracy”.
Now I may post images which speak out against conditions in the US and they may call of a rise to revolution i just want to state now that in this blog i will not state if I do or don’t agree with made statements, I’m just the anthropologist reporting interesting findings. I do like the come back of graffiti which makes a political statement, we seemed to lose that here with the implementation of Reaganism.
~Lauran
with my sort of personal style i often get asked where i shop. the answer is all over the place. the answer is there is no one place i shop. i keep a running score of what i own and what i might need to add in my head. i am the essential hunter gatherer of fashion. so i’ve done this journal to act as a visual representation of this fact
look 1: boots: ebay; socks: century 21; tighs: H&M; shorts: BCBG; t-shirt: vintage shop in Santa Barbara, CA; yellow jumper: Urban outfitters; blazer: free people; scarf: thrift store in Lincoln, UK
look 2: Boots: modcloth.com; Socks: uhhhh scottish highland festival?; trousers: Tripp jeans from Trash and Vaudeville; jumper: JCpenny?; Jacket: Urban Outfitters; Scarf: thrift store in Lincoln, UK; head bands: Forever 21
look 3: Boots: ebay; Tighs: American Apparel; Trench coat: Joy, London, UK; sweater dress (under trench): Forever 21; Belt: Spitalfield Market, London, UK; Scarf: vintage shop, London, UK
Look 4: Boots: ebay; Tights: H&M; Jumper: rescued from my dad’s closet when my mom tried to throw it out; Belt: Spitalfield Market, London, UK; Scarf: thrift store, Lincoln, UK
so there’s your answer. plus finding great accessories brings a whole news aspect to an outfit, they can take you from just jeans and a tank top to a wow factor.
hop this was informative
ttyl
~Lauran
blah so this week has been crazy but actually really good crazy.
started off sunday night having a breakdown while looking up work visa application stuff for next year. ok so that part wasn’t so good but i ended up tweeting this “whenever i look at the UK visa info i get really down and think i’ll never be able to get one. was having a good night and now i’m depressed” and this “crying myself to sleep. oh UK why must you be so stingy and heartbreaking with you visa permits? give a girl in love/with a dream a break” which lead my former professor/ friend/ guru to tweet this “@kittienthecity 
Tea is called for. This week, I promise. Even if you have to come to my house and have it. I’ll make you beans on toast.”
next day we had tea between classes and she was screw getting a work visa you’re going to grad school, she says we’ll find funding and get amazing recommendation letters and i’ll get in, do part time cause it costs less, get a student visa, then apply for a work visa so i can work to help pay for my school costs and with the fact that i’ve already worked in the UK it should give me a stronger footing. so ok now there’s just the little thing of ‘ahhh i’m applying for grad school!’
so what’s my dream program you might ask UCL Skeletal and Dental Bioarchaeology what’s my back up Birbeck University of London Archaeology masters. so yea wish me luck. to fund both of those i need about $5000 up front….still hoping that my great uncle who just died left me some money.
so having the fact of going to grad school sped up to 3 years sooner than i expected i’m not going to have as much field experience to carry me into the program. but i do have field experience already, and lab, and i’m going to try to work in the field again this summer, though there’s a lot of shit going on this coming summer already like moving and 2 possible trips of Greece and a road trip in the US.
with having to rely more on my grades i’ve been emailing those 3 professors which i have FINs for. heard back from one of them and i just have to do 2 papers for him and we’re square. another professor i owe a paper. and the third one i’ll probably have to trek to the English department to find cause i’ve lost his email address.
but yea everything’s working out! once i get these 3 classes sorted out i’ll a) have more credits and b) my GPA will go up a lot! (FINs factor in as F’s so yea not looking to hot right now in the GPA department but all 3 i shouldn’t get less than a B in)
so i am busy as now but really really happy. and still finding time to find things like
the Paranthropus boisei ancestor of Fu Man Chu
gotta keep things light hearted. ok back to work. tons of papers you know
tata
~Laurna
ok so too much work to do to blog properly so enjoy these random little internet gems
bigfoot
this is from one of my professors actually we have an assignment due where we have to read an article ‘proving’ the existence of bigfoot and then say if the article went through all the proper anthropological criteria. should be well interesting.
and the next one falls under the category of are you an idiot?
ok well that’s all for now. doing homework and making lasagna. if i fail at the lasagna i’ll post a fail blog about it.
tata
sincerely
~Lauran
blah… yea that pretty much sums it up. i’m not even going to post really there’s no point. i know what’s wrong i’m just stressed, i’m too busy doing what i have to, what i’m supposed to and what people want me to that i’m losing myself. there are so many things i want to do to find myself but i haven’t got the cash. the thinness of my wallet just adds to the stress. i want to do something for myself and something more than just sit and watch tv. i’m really leaning to getting a fucking tattoo. stars. not sure where though, might do the shooting star up the side of my tit, but then again no money. if any one wants to fund my delinquency please let me know.
today i splurged and had a lunch with friends that was really good but way more than i wanted to spend. then i went to barnes & noble and got 4 books. 1 it turns out was the wrong book and i already have a copy of it so it’s getting returned, it was also the more expensive so i feel a little less bad about buying it since i’m going to return it. so the titles are “written in bones” (to be returned), “The bog people: iron-age man preserved”, “human sacrifice: an expose of ritual killings worldwide”, and “the buried soul: how humans invented death”. the last 2 i’m really excited about. the buried souls one has a chapter on funeral feasts (what sold me on the book), which is just a nice way of saying cannibalism. no clue why i like this and human sacrifices but i do. my mum says i’m morbid and has told me i’m not allowed to do my PhD on either of these subjects because she’ll not be able to tell people about what i do. but i like it an it makes me happy so whatever.
ok so all the journals are done and posted. Finished the journals Sunday night, then finished the papers last night before midnight so yay! now that that’s no longer hanging over my head i can reclaim my blog.
this weekend was eventful on top of doing the work for my field school my building caught on fire. don’t worry i’m fine, the cat and roommate are fine and the apartment is fine. the first was at the front of my building and i live at the back. we didn’t even have smoke smell/ damage back where i live. It was scary though, felt like it took forever to capture the damn cat. other than Tyke i grabbed my computer, stuffed bunny that i’ve had for 20 years, and the stuffed puma jonathan gave me. it was scary standing out on the streets seeing flames and smoke bellowing from your building and not knowing if you’re going to lose everything. The fire was put out soon after and we were let back in the building at 10:30pm, but there are a lot of people in my building who had a lot of damage, a lot of elderly. check out my flickr for pictures of the event and then the damage.
ok i didn’t really mean to write that much on a depressing subject, it’s my birthday today and it’s been going pretty good. I got a big bouquet of purple flowers from Jonathan last night they’re so gorgeous! I was still up at 2am when he started to get ready for work in London, we chatted while he got ready and he hinted that there might be something else waiting for me when I get home, as if the flowers weren’t enough! he spoils me so much.
Tonight i’m going to dinner with my best friend and she ‘has something for me that i’ll die over’ hmmm, i also got a pair of really hot ankle boots from my friend Jason (i now have to make an amazing scarf for his birthday), and lotion and a bath ball from my friend Carmen.
and in conclusion: amazing things from youtube - LED sheep
sincerely
~Lauran
