ok. i have been in bed under the covers for three days now........tonsillitis strikes!  i returned from an amazing weekend in london with chills and fever.  i'm hoping it will be over soon.  i didn't know my throat could hurt so bad!!!

a few hi-lites from this past week:
*i got a job at my favourite local bar....i am there so often i might as well be working there right...?  i was supposed to do my training today but there's no way i'm going to be able to make it.  my first shift is supposed to be friday nite, so we'll see if i'm up for it.  i'm a bit nervous about it considering my experience in food service esp bar-work is little to none, but i'm keepin' my fingers crossed that no drinks will be spilled!
*i was in london this past weekend for my friend pamela's birthday.  how nice is it to wake up in london!!!!?!  hi-lites included crazy queuing to get into the irish pubs and having major flashBacks to my st. Paddy's day in galway, ireland, in 2001.  we also ended up at a house party in islington, so much fun!  i can tell you, as an 'international student', house parties are few and far between.  i'm all 'real house?  real party?  wowwwww!'  
*we finally got to the danFlavin retrospective at the hayward gallery on sunday.  all the photographs of the works just don't do them justice.  too bad it's only on til 2 april otherwise i would head back to london just for that.  i don't know where it will be traveling to next tho.  as soon as you walk in the exhibition, you just start smiling, and it doesn't stop, everyone around you is smiling up-a-storm.  the lights are so magnificent.  and they actually re-created some of his first gallery installations, e.g. layout and placement.  i loved everything about it, easily forgot all my learnings from museum studies about accessibility, and just enjoyed the space for once.  i want to get a sleepingBag and just curl up in that gallery for ages!  we spent a bit of time walking around the southBank, if you saw match point a lot of that took place in this area.  when i saw match point i remember thinkin', wow, london really IS romantic.  shocked.  but it IS!!!!

another week is over, thankfully our last official week of classes, filled with PDP (personal development planning aka the biggest joke and waste of our time....) workshops and me missing lectures and meetings because of the insomnia that has been taking over my nites (and thus days).  on monday we'll start our two-week group project at one of the local museums here.  hmmmm i can't even say i understand the purpose of group work, let alone enjoy it, but i have decided to be 'project manager' for my group for one of the weeks to *force* myself to get into and GASP actually enjoy the process.  it's lookin' doubtful, but what i thought was going to be two-weeks of less work and especially less work after 5pm, when the museum closes, is lookin' like the opposite.  work, work, and work.  we are in groups of nine and are going to be coming up with a 24-page design brief for a section of one of their galleries, the World Arts Gallery.  the great thing about it is that i will be able to take lots of fotos (generally not allowed to the public) of their amazing shoes and textiles, yay!  so be on the lookout for those fotos....

a few inspirations and 'loves' as of late...
*my search for an original gameBoy, lotsa late nites (insomnia, anybody got any tips?) lookin' on eBay.  i really want to play tetris again, and did you know they came out with 'wordtris', a game just like tetris but where the blocks are made of letters/words....hottttt.  and my shield-fascination continues.  i want to play zelda as well, even tho my brothers would beat the game every day while i was still stuck on the first level.  it's my 'everest'...
*i've also been drawing up ideas for earrings while not paying attention in the lectures i actually attended this week.  i first wanted to use covered buttons and crewel, and i still might, but now i have focused my thoughts on paper, but i've got a while to go before i actually can make any i suppose.  has anyone done any jewellery-making with paper?  any recommendation?
*i wish i could get some fotos up on here, but i don't know how to get fotos out of flash sites, but TOPSHOP shoes are killin' me over here.  takin' my breath away every.damn.time.  if you want to check out their site, it's a dream, cos you don't have to deal with all the crowds in the actual stores!  and you get to see the items one-by-one, instead of being attacked by twenty of the same top.  i am currently lusting after the 'flat shoes with a patent detail' and 'flat shoes with cross over elastic' (gotta love the names of the shoes on there!).  *sigh* could we get a little sun over here....?
*and tunes......i've been listening to a lot of instrumental trax from the album leaf and the octopus project over the past few weeks, havin' lotsa flashBacks to the two amazing octopus project shows in greensboro last year.  i love that the lovely yvonne makes plushies and sells them at shows, and i've been kickin' myself for not buying one, but at least there's always payPal.  you can see her plushies here.  roodee could be makin' his way to me very soon.  <3  i've also been listenin' to a lot of neil young and tim hardin (thanks j.B.), as well as of montreal...they are so sickeningly happy, i love it!
*and last but not least, a true inspiration.  i posted these fotos of jessica ogden in the new british elle to my flickr, where you can probably see them full-on.  but i will post them below as well.  i mean, really, no offense to any madonna fans, but jessica ogden is doin' a lot more for me inspiration-wise than madonna, who graces this month's cover (and sports more of 'her' leotards inside.....what a joke....).  her house is straight outta one of the vintage treasure-troves in portobello market.  what a dream.  i'm looking forward to seeing her line for fall...but these fotos are gettin' me geared up for spring.  again, where is mister sunshine...?
      



totally worth the US$10 price for the mag.

p.S. sorry for the fotos not bein' under the cut, i can't figure out this new rich-text stuff.....  :-D

hm.  the olympics anyone?  i can't believe i missed the opening ceremonies!  i've been known in the past to throwDown on some figure skating and ski-jumping, and now i'm outta tha loop sans t.v.  i will have to seek out a few pubs around town that are showing the games.  you might find this website amusing, hottt mister bode.

this week's gonna be crazy-busy.  we have 4,000 words due in a week from monday, i'm still doing my research!  i think i'm going to focus on censorship in museums and how art museums deal with controversial issues in contrast to other types of museums.  it's really interesting, i've just gotta dive in biggtime!  i'm also leading a seminar this monday on authenticity of artworks, this idea of the replica/copy and the original, particularly in the art museum setting.  it's a really broad and complex topic, one that i'm leaning towards taking on for my dissertation.  there's so much out there, so many different directions i could take, so i know it's going to be a challenge, but it's something i've been thinking a lot about over the past three or four years, just never had the chance to do the extra reading/research.  so leading the seminar on monday will give me a great opportunity to dive in to that topic and also hear what other people have to say about it.  does anyone have any book recommendations on the subject?  any exhibitions you've seen that you think of now?  i've been on the dia art foundation website quite a bit, what a dream it would be to work for them!  their bookshop is amazing, i've been drooling and making notes of all the books i'd love for my little library one day.

on tuesday we're going on our last field trip, to london yay!  it's going to be to the natural history museum and we're supposed to be meeting with a team planning some revisions for the museum, and they actually want our opinions!  go leicester uni.  afterwards a few of us are going to stay on and go to the eagle bar diner, it looks delicious and is supposed to be 'london bar style meets new york street food.'  we shall see.  all i know is i've been cravin hot dogs, and even tho it says they don't have veggie ones, i'm still hoping for them to be there when i get there!

i'll leave you with two more reasons i should stay away from the market, two new dresses from ms dollyMax.  i can't wait for spring and summer now.  they are so far away.  it's still mittenVille around here.   until then i can prance around my room tho, and do some inventive layering.

the one on the right has no zipper, which means me getting into it calls for crazy contortions!  but it's super-cute with jeans and the print and colours are just perfect.  so it's worth all the wiggles.  the one on the left reminds me of so many dresses i left back home, thinking i would never have an opportunity in england for sundresses (i think we had maybe two days with sunshine this week...) and also having to make room for other cuties in my suitcase!

yesterday we went on our second to last field trip, to wolverhampton, which was about 2 hours by bus.  we went to bantock house, a smaller museum that is more like a house museum but they do have interpretive exhibitions in the upstairs.  they had some really neat keys in the upstairs, since 'chubbs' made a lot of keys in wolverhampton.  i've been really inspired recently by keys.  i always think of my friend rita who wore (and i think she still does, haven't seen her in so long...) a skeleton key around her neck on a string.  and i love the idea of a locked diary or book.  and miss leya over at curiousBird also keeps me inspired key-wise.  i made a new splash page and info page for my website a few weeks ago, altho who knows when i will get it up there, i'm still lookin for someone to help me over here with all that jazz.  but i love the way it turned out.  i wanted to do something u.k.-inspired, and i've always loved shields and heraldry, and zelda! the game, so that really inspired this, and then the keys...well i just can't get enuf!  and i've been really into brown kraft paper, i love the brown of the envelopes here versus the u.s. manila-coloured ones.  so this is how it came out...

and the keys at wolverhampton:

( going postal. )

there is a bike that i see on campus all the time, always locked up and lookin lonely.  i'm hoping one day i will see the owner, and maybe exchange a smile.  it's this bike:

the colour-combo caught my eye because it's the very same colour-combo as my *almost* first pair of glasses from first grade!  i wanted some plastic rounded frames that were a sort-of clear plastic.  the top half of the frames was light blue and faded into pink in the bottom half, hottt.  just like this bike!  and it says raleigh, n.c. represent!  i love raleigh bikes.  i've seen another one over the past few days, also a raleigh bue a 'camaro' raleigh, and it's minty-turquoise fading into purple.  stop the madness.  i've decided i've gotta carry my camera at all times, you never know when another great bike might pop up, or a fab colour-combo for that matter!

i never got the glasses, and ended up having blue glasses for a few years.  i still think about them tho, obviously!  i'm thinking of starting to wear glasses again, after all these years of just contacts out-and-about.  i'm thinkin sally jesse raphael-style-red and borderline tacky.  i'm hoping i will walk into the children's section of glasses and at least get to see my original dream pair  :)

phew, mister friday where have you been all my life!?  this week has been insanely topsy-turvy, we're talkin six-hour-days at uni, lots of thinkin and stressin, and not much sleepin or good-eats.  yuck.  but i feel a lot better than i have in a while, esp about uni-related things, which i'll get into in a minute.

i saw stoned last nite, has anyone seen it?  i don't think it is being screened outside the u.k.  can i just say, don't bother anyway!  i don't think i have said that about too many films lately, it's been more like, welllll i don't think i could or would sit through that one again...but damn, it was just the drugged-out-really-bad-fashion-60s that makes my skin crawl.  i mean, look at this robe!  'brian' was always frolicking around in this robe and after the first twenty minutes, i was like, when are you gonna just die already!  and paddy considine, aw i'd really like to see him in something where he is actually a happy person!  even tho seeing him in stoned really made me want to watch in america again.

my favourite scene from in america.

( swoon )

can't stay away...from my vintage lady that is.  'dolly max vintage' is the booth at the market in town that i thankfully discovered a few weeks into my time here.  she has just the absolute dreamiest stuff, and i can never go away without buying anything, story of my life.  :)  one day i will ask her if i can take a foto, everything is crammed in like a tipped-over treasureChest.  this week's treasure:

a gorgeous 'PHOOL' made in india dress with amazingly-detailed little ties and a lovely quilted bodice + hem.  i'm already sad enuf that i have to wear multiple pairs of tights and knitwear on the daily...i'll be itchin for spring even more now so i can wear this cutie!  until then i'll probably leave it hanging outside my wardrobe to admire.  more fotos over at flickr.

i told you i can't stay away!  on saturday filledukke and i made a day of v x2 (veggie burgers + vintage) and after gluttonous intakes at mcDonald's (i know, stop the madness!  but those veggie burgers are something north carolina doesn't even get to think about *not* eating, so i love them!  childhood flashbacks to those soft buns and perfect topping combos...) we headed to dolly max where we were supposed to, really supposed to, not look at bags!  and i was supposed to be just lookin!  but we both found amazing leather bags.  i got another patchwork-beauty, my new school bag, and everywhere bag for that matter:

( slurp.Slurp. )

i saw munich at a *free* (yay) screening this week, i love you the guardian!.  i don't think i could sit through it again.  i had to look away so many times, i think the worst was right in the beginning when one guy got stabbed right in the head with a knife.  accckkkkkkk.  but watching the film pretty much consisted of me looking away and then looking right back because i didn't want to miss another amazing 1970s outfit or apartment!  i got so sucked into the film that by the end i went into the bathroom and had a sad moment realising i was back in 2006 and surrounded by the sounds of seal. ew.  aw but who really made the film for me, besides mister too-hottt eric bana?  yesss!  mathieu kassovitz from amelie!  what a cutie.

( tummYumm )

have you ever found that one person you could just sit with and talk for hours on end about clothes, think up and try on amazing outfits!  well, that was me and my fashion soulMate at design archives for the past two years!  and i'm posting this for you Danita!  this is me a few days ago, i finally made a post to wardrobe_remixon flickr, yay!

as promised, here are some fotos of my new iPod covers i've been working on.  i think i'm just about the only person around here without an iPod, so i thought i'd make a few for gifts.  i have really enjoyed being back at the sewing machine and ironing...how did i go for months when i first came here without ironing!!!?  it's crazy, you do something routinely, several times a day even, especially when i sew i iron every little piece and want to get everything perfect, and that warm iron and repetitive motion are just so therapeutic!  but i was ironing and i just had this big smile on my face, and i thought, "dear ironing, dear sewing, i have missed you more than i knew..."  i have been unhappy at times here to a point where i just didn't know why or what else i could do to think about things differently, and now that i'm back in the driver's seat creatively, i realised that my lack of crafty-me time had a lot to do with it, so *yay*

i really like making smaller items because in general my favourite part about making bags has always been the inside pocket, which i can end up dedicating more time to than the outside, but i love smaller pieces and i love knowing that whoever has the bag has a little surprise inside.  the iPod covers are small enuf that i can give them a lot of detailing.

so here they are:

( see more. )

well.  things have been a little kookie around here, everyone's back from break!  which is so nice!  but it means school has started back, and it means i am trying to be really dedicated to it this week.  :)  ya know, new term, new year, you spend the first week or two feverishly being 'interested' and really wanting to give it yer all...before settling back into slackerDom.  it always happens.  but for now i'm givin it my all!  we have two new lecturers this term, one is for art gallery peeps like me and she just came back from maternity leave in december.  anyway, how refereshing is it to sit around and talk about art.  god i miss art history classes!  i have checked out so many books from the library about site-specific art and action-art, really ready to dive back into those, if i could get away from all my regulatory readings that is!  our other lecturer is a total *dreamboat,* john-cusack+jack-from-will&Grace+david-duchovny all rolled into one, it's so funny to see all the girls completely swooning!  but dreaminess aside he's an amazing lecturer so far, anyone who can make me interested in marketing deserves two-thumbs-up!

*sigh* i saw brokeback mountain last week.  i still can't decide whether i really really liked it or not.  i mean, i liked it, but i think i was expecting so much more.  or maybe not expecting to feel so many connections made to my dad when watching the film.  it was crazy-eerie.  heath ledger in that last scene with alma.  that's totally my dad's living room, totally me and my dad.  i think i got more choked up over that than the rest of the film...

i've been working on some iPod covers for gifts, and now that i've delivered them i can post pics!  hopefully at the weekend, so be on the lookout.  i'm really excited about them.  and i'm working on some as well as some bigger bags for an upcoming gallery show in raleigh, so stay tuned about that!  now if i could just find some buckram, i haven't found any here yet, and i'm running out of places to look!

i have been wanting to acquire a collection of leotards since my summer trip to florida where i scored two vintage leotards.  i love wearing them with skirts, shorts, whatever.  no excuses needed!  and now american apparel has them 'coming soon.'  stop the madness!

i've still gotta go to the dance shop here and check out their selection.  soon.  no more walking by.

...well, one day...  everything is absolutely precious, makes me want to have knitted treats all around my room.

check out that knife!

more yummy fotos here