I know I haven’t finished uploading the notes yet, but I thought I’d write a bit about my impression of the course.

So, a bit of background: In the middle of summer I was looking for courses on history of art, as, especially after my visit to Pisa when I got to visit Florence and the rest, I realised that I really needed to brush up on this subject, which I have not touched a lot though it always interested me. So in my search I found a set of courses at the National Gallery on styles in painting. I was interested in attending, but couldn’t find it in me to justify buying them for myself, so I put them on my wish list (yes…Michael’s family function with one, so I have started keeping one).

The part of the course I was mainly interested in originally was the first part, on Medieval and Renaissance art. Michael got me something else for my birthday (which I had been whining about for ages, so I am happy he followed my whining ) so the first part of the course came and went. However, when Michael’s parents came to visit in October they gave me a birthday gift: registration for part 2 of the course, on Northern Art, Mannerism and the Baroque.

I personally know nothing on Northern art or mannerism, so I wasn’t particularly drawn towards this part of the course. I was more drawn to the first part which I already knew quite a bit about and knew I liked and appreciated. However, oh well, it was the second part I was going to, so I might as well make the best of it! And I wasn’t disappointed! In a way I was wanting to remain in my ‘comfort zone’ of that which I knew. However, learning about Northern art and Mannerism allowed me to start appreciating a different style of art which I didn’t understand. And in hindsight I am so glad that it turned out like this! In fact, when we got to the Baroque, talking about Caravaggio and the like I started getting slightly disappointed that I already knew much of the stuff from art classes and some history of art I have done. The result was therefore good…a very much appreciated gift from my in-laws …thanks again!

Yeps…that was an event Michael and I went to last week . A friend of mine was in town and we should have met up with him for this, but unluckily he couldn’t make it in the end so Michael and I went on alone.

Jameson Whisky has been organising a number of Cult Film Club evenings, where they show a cult film at a venue for free for people with tickets, and with free whisky . Michael saw it on the (ever so useful) Ian Visits blog and we managed to get tickets.

This was my first time at the Union Chapel…but WOW what a venue! Especially with the atmosphere set up, and the organ playing, it was like walking into this gothic atmospheric location – the atmosphere created was perfect! On a tip from IanVisits we found a place in the top pews and settled in for the movie as one by one we went to collect our free drinks and popcorn .

The movie started.

It was my first time watching Dracula…I am not the biggest fan of horror movies, so wasn’t the most excited about this, but seeing as it was from 1958, I must say the horror aspect of it was lost a bit with the much simpler effects available to the director/producer. Also, the acting was not exactly as we have now become used to…in fact, a number of supposedly scary parts  ended up eliciting laughs from the audience more than cries.

Nevertheless, in spite of all this, I really liked the movie! Having seen it in that environment I think I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gone! So thank you again Michael for dragging me to an event I did not have much hopes for, but for it actually being exactly what I didn’t know I wanted (Yes…it seems like most of the more unsuccessful events we’ve been to have been my suggestions…maybe I should leave the planning to him? :-/)

Ahh…and btw…Michael has made a much better effort at this post than me…I know I know…but I have so much to blog about, it is starting to get on top of me…still have the weekend activities to blog about…AND the notes from the last (luckily!…as I DO write too much notes!) Styles in Paintings lecture. Hope they are up in the decent near future…

Another World Blog Surf Day has come (remember my posts from the previous events? See them here and here). This time it is about holidays and celebrations. The guidelines were to write about our favourite new holiday and how it is celebrated. I think one of the only ones we don’t celebrate in Malta is Guy Fawkes Night. Unfortunately last year I didn’t celebrate it in any way, and it is due next week…which would be too late for this. So I decided to cheat a bit…and compare Christmas in Malta (I am Maltese) and in Denmark (my boyfriend is Danish), where I spent Christmas last year (you can read up more about that in the posts from the time).

Christmas in Malta

Christmas in Malta is a big thing. Being a quite Catholic country, the emphasis on Christmas as celebrating the birth of Christ I think still exists more than in other countries where the feast has become much more commercialised. Christmas for me is always a happy moment – I get that warm fuzzy feeling when it’s getting closer, a smile on my face walking through streets with Christmas carols on, and a big grin looking at displays. I always look forward to the time!

So first up in my Christmas preparations used to be the decorating the house. This normally happened in early December, often by my mum and me (my sister and brother always try to escape this it seems, but I enjoy it ). The most important ‘decoration’ in the house is always the crib (possibly in most Maltese houses) which represents the grotto in which Jesus Christ was born.

Christmas crib in Malta (Photo: Matthew Mirabelli)

Besides the main crib we also have a small Christmas tree (and many other smaller cribs which we collected along the years ). We also decorate the cribs with white ‘gulbiena’ (read more about gulbiena here from another Maltese blogger), which we would have been growing in the dark for some time (or in our case, our aunt would be doing that for us ).

Decorations done we then wait for Christmas Day. On Christmas eve there will be a procession with a statue of baby Jesus around the village streets, during which children get dressed as angels or shepherds and everyone sings Christmas carols. The procession ends in the church, where after a few more songs everyone goes home to rest before returning for Midnight mass.

Christmas Procession

Midnight mass in Malta actually starts at midnight! Although this is a longer mass than normal (of course, it is a feast), I never mind it! The main highlight of the mass is normally the ‘boy’s sermon’, where a boy (in the past an altar boy, but now any child, even a girl, or sometimes a girl and a boy together) recite a small sermon about the meaning of Christmas which they would have learnt off by heart. Being chosen for the sermon is quite an honour generally for the child (incidentally I never got chosen ). This sermon traditionally always end with the child saying in a loud joyous voice: ‘Viva Gesu Bambin’, meaning ‘Hurrah to Jesus Christ’.

After the mass in the last years the tradition of Christmas breakfast is starting to set in, where after mass young people would have booked a place for this breakfast and go fro breakfast (this means breakfast at around 2am!!!). Being shattered from all this we then all go home to be rested for Christmas day when the big family lunch is on. This means a lot of overeating, overdrinking, laughter and noise (yes…we’re good at noise us Maltese!). Writing about all this I am already missing it…so glad we’re going to Malta this year!

Christmas in Denmark

Christmas in Denmark was quite different to what I am used to. First of all, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th, not the 25th! So when I was there last year we first went to the Christmas service in the nearby church. Following this it was then on to the Christmas dinner, then gift giving. I hope to highlight a few things which to me were quite different when I was there last year.

Christmas trees and gift giving: Before gift giving the Danes have this tradition where they all hold hands round a Christmas tree and go round (sometimes running!) singing Christmas carols. It was quite a hilarious moment for me! Following this everyone sits down for the gift giving to commence. The way it works is that everyone would have wrapped the gifts for everyone else and placed them underneath the Christmas tree. Then, the youngest person goes to the centre picks up a gift and gives it to whom it is meant for who opens the gift (smiles, thanks people etc etc). This is followed by the next youngest person, and so on, till all the gifts are given out. This is very much different to what I am used to…in my ‘tradition’ gifts are hidden underneath the Christmas tree and you find them there as soon as you rush down on Christmas morning. However, even more important than gifts in our family is the Christmas stocking (YES…my mum still makes it for us to this day…we have a long-standing agreement that we get no gifts as long as we get the stocking…which she fills with dried fruit, nuts, chocolates [and normally some money and a small gift like a pair of socks or something). To make it more interesting my mum has now taken the habit of hiding the stockings somewhere so we have to run around looking for them (yes...we're all over 20 :S but we enjoy it all so much )

Another thing which they had which we don't have is the ris ala mande! This is a dessert of rice pudding with nuts and cherry sauce. In the bowl there will be one whole nut which whoever finds it gets the 'ris ala mande gift'. Alas, last year it was nowhere to be found...maybe I bit it and didn't realise it? maybe no one put it in? Who knows! So we ended up rolling dice for the gifts .

Ris Ala Mande

Well…I see I have written so much…so I will let you go…on to the next person: Eyeflare

Ahh! And the loyely Karen from Empty Nest Expat is following this trail of blogs on Twitter…Check her blog and twitter feed! Something mroe about her:

“Karen is an American expat blogger last seen in Prague. The Wall Street Journal said, “Her blog makes a fun read for anyone looking for reassurance that change can be a wonderful thing–and also for anyone interested in visiting the Czech Republic.” Including this information about Karen is our way of thanking her for being our Twitter Reporter on Saturday! She will read all of our posts and make Tweets on Twitter throughout the day about each of our blogs! How awesome is that!”

And yes…I agree…she IS awesome

ahh – and btw, if you want to get to the whole list of blogs just in case the link gets lost, you can read more about WBSD and find the list here.

Look again slightly to the right…a bit further…to the menu. Can you see that further pages have been added?

Yeps! FINALLY! I found time to finish typing up my notes from the Styles in Painting lecture I attended last Saturday on Mannerism. I divided the notes into 2 parts as I found it was getting a bit toooo long…yes I know! I write too much

Read my post on an event I attended last week: Price? No Object!

I am sure that if anyone of you is a PhD student, s/he would have definitely come across the Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) Comics strip…if you haven’t…you missed out on an intrinsic part of being a PhD student…and if you’re not a PhD student and follow them…I like you . (For you who have no idea what I am talking about, you can read about this here).

Well – the reason I am saying all this is that the creator, Jorge Cham, came to UCL! I had come across his strip at intervals during my studies, but at one point when I was feeling quite low, Michael sent me the link and his comic strip is now embedded in my feed list…I look forward to it when I need some laughter…it definitely seems to me to capture what it means to be a PhD student…it also makes me think sometimes…which is not too bad if it makes me view how I am dealing with things!

So did I get to meet him? Of course . First off he came to the PhD room in our department to talk to PhD students, possibly to get ideas. However, though we could have given him some, I am not sure it was 100% succesful, mainly as one girl ended up talking about her project for like 15mins or so!…Not the most exciting .

Then in the evening he gave a presentation on the ‘Power of Procrastination’, where he built a presentation about life as a Phd student around comics he’s drawn. The comics definitely show an insight into life as a PhD student, however, I wasn’t that blown away by him both times round. Maybe I was expecting this character from out of the comics to come out, maybe I was expecting him to be this very engaging character like I’ve found his comics to be. This didn’t exactly happen…I found him a bit distracted and distant, and relying too much on us just laughing on seeing the comics than anything else. But then, he HAD just gone through the possibility of being deported at the UK border! So I am sure he wasn’t looking at the visit to UK universities in the best of light!

Some time back we received a facebook event from Jamie (I’ve mentioned him here and here and here): he was playing at the ‘Return to Camden‘ festival, launching a CD with 2 others: Smith:Byrnes:O’Sullivan. No plans on Monday? Nopes! So off we went!

Monday in the festival apparently is launch night. However, before we could hear Jamie and Co another group was up. This was quite a traditional sort of Irish playing meaning that I enjoy it…but it DOES sound quite similar to my untrained ears. ot something I would rave about, but oh well…they were good – I just don’t know how to appreciate it I guess.

Then it was Jamie and Co’s turn to get on stage. Their music, though Irish in style was much different to the previous group, having a drummer in the mix, together with a synth, a guitar, a drum-like player, and a button accordion, together with Jamie on the fiddle (I apologise for my naming of instruments - I am sure I got them wrong!).

My impression? They certainly took Irish music to another level, at least for me…it definitely didn’t sound all the same. I have heard Jamie play before, but not in a ‘formal’ setting, and not with this group of people. I liked it! Now go over to Michael’s blog to listen to them playing (Yes, I’m being lazy ).

Ahh…I nearly forgot! Check out this post on ‘Presentation at TNA‘

I find myself at the end of another weekend…another busy one…they seem to go by so fast!

So what did we get up to?

Friday evening should have been James Thieree at the Barbican. Alas, when we arrived at the theatre we were told it had been cancelled due to a back injury…booohoo. Not only did we make the trip for no purpose, but we didn’t get to see him! Oh well!

Saturday started again with the Styles in Painting course, this time on Mannerism, (I promise I will put the notes into a page like last time…sometime O:)) while Michael went on a tour of the gallery similar to the one John had gone on last week. From there we then went off to Royal Oak station where a walking tour of the area around Notting Hill with references to film locations was to being organised by the London Metropolitan walkers. However, it seems like many others got the same idea…I am sure we were over 75 on the walk! This made it a bit awkward, so Michael and I dropped out when we arrived at Portobello Market and made our way home. On the way we stopped at a Sainsbury’s to buy the things we needed to make a meat pie, and finished the journey at Willesden Green Library bus stop. As we stopped there we saw that UP was showing there that evening! So after cooking and eating the meat pie, off we went.

This is the third Pixar film Michael and I have watched at the cinema (and this out of maybe 5 films we have watched together!)…Ratatouille the first time I was in Prague (we had booked tickets for the first showing of the film in Prague, but for some reason they had lost all bookings for the day, so we got free tickets for another day…not too bad anyways ), then Wall-E (again in Prague…in CZECH! Read the story here), and now UP. They have all been great films, and this last one was no exception…it made me oh, it made me ahh, it made me grin, and it even made me laugh out loud! Definitely worth seeing it…come on…off you go…what are you waiting for?

And today? After quite a bit of lazing, we decided to make our way to Queen’s Park Farmer’s Market to look around and buy our lunch. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing we decided to bike there (going was fine, but the first part of coming back just about killed me as it was uphill )…mmmm! Such delicious stuff to choose from! How to decide? We finally decided on a Lincolnshire sausage and bacon roll for lunch, and an apple and blackberry pie to take home for dessert. MMMM.

Back home we got down to making the dough for pizzas we had planned to cook for dinner. However, after a quick siesta, we soon had to be off…AGAIN! Michael had ‘won’ free tickets for an event at the Guardian Hay Festival on twitter. We had decided to attend a talk by Dan Cruickshank on The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital. What did I think of the talk? Well, the author did talk a lot, but mainly he fluffed around, and barely got to the point, until he asked for the time and realised he was already over his allotted time, and tried to hurry and fit all in. Well, to me it seemed like a typical talk by an author who just talks and forgets the point for his talking. I wasn’t impressed, but oh well – it was free (this seems to have become my standard response ). Back home we have just cooked and eaten the pizzas (with lots left over for tomorrow!), together with a slice of pie. Now it’s on to relaxing….mmm!

It hasn’t been just me looking for free things to do in London which we would enjoy…Michael has been busy at it as well. And one of the events he came across was in the Kingsway Tramway Subway. This subway is rarely open to the public, but for a number of weeks this year it has been housing an art installation called Chord by Conrad Shawcross.

We met up at the entrance to the subway, meeting up with a guy in a highlighter jacket. We waited for the set time, at which time the gates to the subway opened and we started making our way down.

The subway hasn’t been used for a long time in its intended function. However, it has often been used in films, and we could clearly see evidence of that all around. We stopped in the first part to look around this material, before we made our way further down into the tunnel…to see CHORD!

Chord is an installation made of two identical rope-making machines which move back as the rope/chord becomes longer (to keep it taut). It is a whirling machine of colour, strings and exacting movements. WOW! I have never been very much the ‘art installation’ person, not having seen much of that sort of thing. It was this big thing making something so exacting and so beautiful…it was scary in some ways and relaxing in others…definitely relaxing to see the small tiny movements which were building this great big rope. In a way it got me thinking about how it is the smallest steps and things which allow us to build that which is big and grand. Hopefully that is how my work will go…cos right now I can see myself being very much in the small steps…but you wait and see …grandeur will flourish