Nott What You'd Expected...

Countdown

One month to spring break.

This isn't your typical American-one-week drunkfest in Cabo, this is a full-blown EuroTrip. One month, 4ish countries, and a lot of cash.

On tap so far? (I'm a bit behind in planning)

WEEK ONE: Meet up with Zach, Megs in France- hit up Southern France
WEEK TWO/THREE: Spain, Portugal, - maybe head to Italy
WEEK FOUR: Italy/ Greece

So pumped/poor right now. Strange combo.

posted by Kevin @ 8:01 PM 0 comments

Fair and Balanced

Pretty Interesting- I had no idea Obama wore swimsuits or smoked. Wait.... you're telling me this guy is black too? Thank God for Rupert Murdoch's gang of cronies...

Pretty interesting until the militia-esque call for action at the end....

posted by Kevin @ 11:41 PM 1 comments

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Danish Television be Done

Today I attended yet another screening for my Television Cultures class here at UNott, and was again blown away at what can somehow be considered entertainment in some countries, and what is considered academia here-

the first clip we watched was a show called The Kingdom, from Denmark, about a haunted hospital- the episode was the show's pilot, and aired in 1994 . The first episode sets up the characters, the basic hauntedness of the hospital, and a creepy occult group of doctors who initiate each other into some strange sect, intent on protecting the hospital.


Apparently, even as a miniseries, the show was included in the 1001 Movies to See Before You Die..... i'll have to check more out later....

The second clip is of the House-like (the Fox TV show, not the dwelling place) doctor, a Swede, who comes to practice medicine in Denmark. The clip is pretty self explanatory.


What struck me as most odd was the scenes including two downs-syndrome characters who act almost as the Pre-Cogs do in Minority Report- they say really cryptic, deep things like 'the woman knows about the child' or 'the building, it cries'- all while washing dishes in the dishroom and readjusting their glasses which seem to keep slipping down their noses....

The last two clips are random Youtubes that caught my eye. The first because of our growing infatuation with Greys here the flat, and the second because the little girl says everything i've ever wanted to say...



_______
Tonight will probably be spent hating myself, wishing my headache would go away, watching last night's LOST, reading 150 pages of Dickens that I should have read over the past few days, and doing research for an upcoming presentation on Televisual Styles.

TGIF....ish.

posted by Kevin @ 1:32 PM 0 comments

At Least the Future Bio Majors will be Pleased

My email today was ripe with irony. If by irony I mean the smouldering stench of capitalist filth and the money hungry Scientists that are driving me to complete and utter poverty.

As Bill Nye used to say- Consider the Following:

An email sent to all students/faculty at Luther College-

The Board also set next year’s comprehensive fee at $33,500, an increase of $2,840. This increase includes a move to bring room and board costs in line with those charged by other institutions. Currently Luther’s room and board charges are among the lowest in the region. This adjustment allows us to keep pace with what it actually costs to provide food and housing at Luther. I assure you our Financial Aid staff will continue to work with you so your Luther education remains affordable.

The comprehensive fee increase will address several other goals at Luther: increasing compensation for students who work on campus, achieving faculty compensation goals, building the pool of financial aid support for students, and continuing to improve residence hall living spaces on campus.

Thanks, Jerry. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the second paragraph. Compensation for students who work on campus? Two things: is this the Luther way of dealing with the Federal Minimum Wage increase- punishing us with a 9% fee increase (I wanna say the average is around 2-5% for most schools)? And secondly, why not just give me a 'get out of work study free' card instead of raping me and then making me tip the perpetrator?

I'm frustrated, poor, and looking more poor. Poorer if you will.

Enjoy your new 21 million dollar science building, bio majors. Us English majors? We'll be starving in two years. Give me a library....better yet, a laptop with wikipedia.... and i'm good to go.

I'm tempted to make one of those 'Current Federal Debt' or 'The War in Iraq is Costing Us...' tickers, but i'm too tired and illiterate to work it out.

Things I could have purchased with the money spent on Luther next year:

posted by Kevin @ 12:53 AM 0 comments

Buckle your seatbelts

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't read it myself.

posted by Kevin @ 10:08 PM 0 comments

Buzzing.

Following a rough day- no sleep, terrible British Novel quiz, back breaking labor at work, and a pay check appx 1/2 of what I thought it would be, I did what every self respecting human does- ate two candy bars and thought to my smart, college educated self- how do I get out of this funk?

Reading CNN.com, I found my answer.

I copped out on two and three- both due to a lack of funds (thanks, Mrs Bunns).

Feeling less weighed down, I am still too ADHD to read Dickens or fully plan out spring break, so I'll have to settle for LOST and Greys.


The flat continues to settle after a late night all-flat meeting yesterday (think Real World confrontation meets Dr Phil meets intervention), and Emily has ditched us for her parents in London. Probobly a good idea....

posted by Kevin @ 9:48 PM 0 comments

Gramps and Gran hit London

This past weekend was a call back. A nostalgic trip down memory lane, a time when (if circumstances allowed) an otherwise normal trip to Sams Club or running errands in middle school turned into.... wait for it...... An Only Child experience.

Maybe this isn't exciting for people who were born (I almost said 'blessed', but let's face it, my siblings kick ass) with no brothers or sisters, but when family Christmas card photos look more like awkward 1950s class pictures (sans lame glasses), a torrent of attention is sometimes hard to come by...

Enter G-rents. Three/Four days of solid Kevin Love. Solid Britsperience. Solid Tube riding, Neapolitan Ice Cream eating, SkyNews watching, Hilton Breakfast Buffet gorging, Times reading fun.

Making a mad dash from British Novel at 12:15 on Friday (keeping in mind Grandpa's cryptic 'oh wow, have we got a story for you' cliffhanger from a phone conversation the night before), I met up with them and showed them Nottingham's favorite out of town tourist pub/dining attraction.....(you could guess it by now)..... Pitcher and Piano.

Over an overly expensive Authentic British Meal, I was regaled with the story of Grandma's phantom blood clot, Grandpa's suitcase amnesia, a few mad dashes to and from the airport, and a sleepless flight over the Atlantic- all alleviated by a Hilton upgrade and a first class train ride up to Notts...

A tea with the flatmates (courtesy of Anna and her amazing homemade scones), a nice chat with Mark and Carol, and we were on our way..... It was hilarious to sit back and let them go- just fly with old stories, recapping Grandpa's leaving Grandma's luggage in the snow an hour from O'Hare, etc- I could look at them and my flatmates/directors and see where this tangent-filled, exaggeration-filled brain comes from.

Exaggeration hit new heights during our late train back to London. I'm not sure, perhaps it's a universal craving for attention and acceptance, but something about British people and one-line introductions seems to act as a catalyst for hour long conversations. Cab drivers, confused Miami Dolphin fans on the tram, and in this case, weird guys on the train- all seem to react to normal pleasantries with the same fervor that one might respond to the statement "Tell me your life story or I will slit your throat.....you have two hours... the clock starts now..."

To simplify (that is, to reduce 2 hours into 4 sentences...) His name was Joe or John. He was, as we could tell, either the most intelligent and qualified human being on the planet or one of the most mentally deranged people I've ever had the pleasure of speaking to.
Think Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me if you Can meets Kevin Spacey in Usual Suspects meets Danny Devito in real life.....

His attributes/accomplishments (as described by him) included: Cancer Survivor (5 years), Exec in Research and Development at Pilsbury, Locomotive conductor/researcher/designer/instructor, researcher, doctoral thesis writer (that is, almost done with his doctorate), Engineer, etc. Not to be outdone, his 2 year old granddaugher could disassemble a bicycle, and he once drove across the United States. Needless to say, we were enraptured.

An early bedtime with promises of Harrods and a show lulled us to a peaceful slumber. That and my introduction of Sufjan Stevens to Gramps and Gram- the song about John Wayne Gacey was a little unnerving, but no nightmares could match with the chainsawlike snoring that kept us up all night.
We discovered a statue of Lincoln, visited travel centres, took countless pictures, and visited the London Eye. The views were amazing, and aside from two young photographers carting 8 thousand dollar cameras around the capsule, it was relatively obstruction-free...

At night we braved our heavily Lebanese neighborhood (complete with Hookah bars at every turn) to find a pub, coincidentally owned by a British ExPat who was at one time a Chicago real estate agent for Century 21. Go figure.

We hit up Food City, turned on the tube (Top Gear, a show about cars) and Gramps crashed, emitting his buzzsawlike snores within seconds. He awoke for a 9/11 Conspiracy show, then crashed again while Grandma and I took in some Gladiator.
Last Day in London (for me, G&G still have 7 more....)- After calling in sick for my now week-old job, we hit the streets of London for a fact-filled Bus Tour.
Carletta as our host, we were whisked away to St. Paul's Cathedral and the Changing of the Guard, while passing through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, past St James Park, countless Prince Albert memorials, a few dozen Victoria statues, and Big Ben a few times....

As stereotypically lame as bus tours (most often loaded with (Old Pensioners or Asians) are supposed to be, it's the best way to learn quirky facts and see a ton of the city that might go unseen. For as many times as I've been to London (not to brag, but 5 or 6 sounds about right)... I've always found it easy to navigate on the tubes.. Driving around above ground, it's crazy how connected things are, not to mention how frigging huge the city is. Wow. I wasn't overwhelmed at all until taking the tour today..... London is massive.

The Changing of the guards illustrated the pomp and circumstance that still surrounds this nation- steeped (tea pun?) in tradition...


It was great to see G&G, and so strange to pause every once in a while and think 'We are in London. These are my grandparents. This is cool'... sometimes things seem so surreal that it's hard to sit back and get some perspective.

It was amazing having them here, especially touristing it up in London and really getting a feel for what Nottingham is like- as unglamorous in comparison, but a huge part of my experience here-

________
Work tomorrow, Charles Dickens to read, Plane tickets home to buy, Spring break to plan, iTunes to fix, flat meetings to attend. Life doesn't slow down just because two sweet G-rents come to town...

posted by Kevin @ 4:49 PM 0 comments