Check it out and comments are more than welcome. Oh! and more stuff soon to come =]

Last weekend I took a trip down to Edinburgh via a scenic train route which was quite enjoyable. I swear I saw a seal!! Basically I find Edinburgh very touristy and as I was in the mind frame of a graphic designer I didn’t particularly do too much – it was also a Sunday as well. There was still life about and you could hear the sound of bagpipes in the distance which definitely highlighted the fact I was in a scottish city and not in Australia.

So my reason for being in Edinburgh was simply for an assignment that requires me to take photos of typography in a city and I thought it would be a good chance to get out of Dundee. I took a few adverts for a collection of graphic design and an abysmal amount of tourist photos so this is definitely not a tourist blog!

Had the busiest day trying to get my assignment in order ready for print. Shortly inbetween I had a nice welcome lunch for international exchange students of Duncan of Jordanstone College (Art and Design students). There were students from Canada, Finland, France, Germany and New Zealand. I think after that lunch only then I realised how academic the art and design program is.

I also tried this random bit of bright pink skinned fruit which was white with wee seeds inside. Twas quite tasty and turned out to be called dragonfruit.

Most interesting fruit I've stumbled across, it's so PINK!

Three week intense graphic design group assignment is almost over! I find the graphic design students here are quite interesting. They toss around ideas with each other and are usually pretty keen to help volunteer some of their time to helping out on others assignments. Their passion is no different from home of course but by saying that I’m pretty much referring to a little photoshoot our group conducted for our assignment.

The night before our shoot we had our RGB (non graphic designers: red green blue) night which is a graphic design student mixer. All the years come together and wear a t-shirt in the colour of their year (in my case green). You also bring along markers and draw on everybodies shirts so it’s a great way to meet other years and for me especially to get to know my classmates while they were in a relaxed alcoholically influenced environment. The guy who thought I was a new zealander grabbed anyone in reach and said ‘she’s from australia!’ haha.

My group members and I had totally forgot the fact that the next day (the day of our photoshoot) everyone would be completely hungover but surprisingly for me to see, there were still a good handful of people who came down to the photostudio to help. Apart from their green screen set up, our photostudio is much bigger for the record =P !!

After taking shots in the studio we all went out to the cantina where everyone was enjoying lunch. Our models walked in and sat in the middle of the cantina in a circle while a few of us were standing on chairs n sitting on tables taking photos. To onlookers it was unusual for like a few minutes and then the ‘well we’re all art/design students’ kicked in and whatever we were doing wasn’t branded abnormal.

Having a hard time adjusting to the fact I have to make an appearance to a 9am class each and every single day but apart from that everything is class. It’s starting to cool down a fair bit so unfortunately my thongs/flip flops will slowly become of little use.

Went to the fish and chip shop yesterday which they like to call, going for a ‘chippy’, haha. It’s a pretty amusing term don’t you reckon. While I remember, other unusual terms are: steaming (when referred to as that it means you are drunk and not hot!), aye (means yes and very pirate sounding, I have the tendency to respond with aye matey! =P ) and naw (no).

On the way back from the shop I was amazed to see a wild bunny which obviously didn’t phase my mates. A few of them teased they’d soon see a bunny blog post, haha. While I thought it was adorable and tried to get as close as possible for a clear shot because I obviously couldn’t use flash, one of the guys said it probably had… (some wierd term) which probably meant it had some kind of rabies.

By the way I’m also doing us aussies proud! Some of the graphic designers were complaining about the temperature of the studio and I didn’t really seem to mind it. I was wearing just as much clothing as they were too. The only difference was that they were wearing warm closed in shoes and I was wearing my thongs (no one calls them thongs here, just flip flops). They clearly thought I was mad!

Clearest and closest shot I could get of the rabbit!

Tried out sailing yesterday and it was pretty fun. Hopped on a 4 – 5 person boat called a waifer with the girls and this pro sailer and we barely got wet. The area we sailed is really pretty too so I’ll definitely get out the dSLR next week. When we weren’t surfing just chilled out to some Pendulum, really like how they’re good fans over here. So I’m definitely going to join the club and start learning. The members are really friendly too!

Afterwards went to braes and I finally tried haggis. I had it with neeps and tatties which is basically some form of turnips I think and potatos. Was pretty yum and yes I know what they’re made of and the fact they’re usually cooked in a sheeps stomach.

Making a fool of myself as per usual. Walked straight into a class full of people with the teacher in mid sentence and because I was busy thinking of my assignment and where I would sit in the labs I probably looked so slow before I said “Sorry!” and dashed out.

Checked out the Art store they have at the uni which is pretty class and we also have our own refectory which they call ‘cantina’. It’s almost as big as JCU’s only refect except this one is mainly for Art n Design students. So spoiled here, haha.

Graphic design students have a very different way of being taught from what I’ve guessed. On my harddrive I have complete folders of lectures notes spanning from colour through to typography and information on Lorem Ipsum. We have so much knowledge from these lecture notes whereas these students have basically been learning through trial error. They have massive mac monitors though, haha.

Something that I found funny was the fact that I must of been talking quite loudly in the media labs because someone in there approached me and asked where I was from. When I replied ‘Australia’ he shouted back to his friend ‘She’s not from New Zealand!’ and I realised he had a bet going hahaha.

Art and Design students have their own library as well which is really cool because there are so many books, dvds and all kinds of resources available at our fingertips. I’m definitely a sucker for a library, haha.

I also decided to do a little photography and took advantage of the beautiful sunny day. My roommate told me that I’m false advertising for back at home because it’s naturally a gloomy cloudy place. That isn’t really the case for Dundee though because the place is one of the sunniest places in Scotland and isn’t actually that cold right now for us Aussies.

Enjoying freshers week at the moment and don’t have classes til next week. I did have a meeting for my course and over here for some reason I’m a third year, though i think they call the first years (that do one year of general art and design) 2nd years. I’m not entirely sure and I’ll have to figure that out this week while enrolling. I managed to get lost in the building trying to find where the meeting was and got directed by a Scot who I’m not sure really knew where abouts to go himself.

Really tired so I think I’ll go for one of my powernaps.
=]

First rainy day in Dundee!

Got through the UK border/immigrations quite smoothly, was a couple of documents here and there, how long I was going to stay and that was it! Took up the meet and greet service Dundee has with a small company called ‘Dundee Direct’ so I was able to be taken from the Edinburgh airport and straight to my accommodation on campus at Dundee (about 60 miles away from Edinburgh airport).

I’m living with culturally diverse people on campus within Belmont flats. Their nationalities include: an American, another Aussie, a greek (i have to confirm that), a Scot and waiting on one other person. A couple loud ones in the flat but should be balance it all out as we’re all quite social.

Not much happening right now but I will be going shopping soon and heading out later tonight!

As promised a few pictures: