African Prints, Westfield, Another Presentation

About 2 weeks ago Judit and I went to a presentation/workshop on West African print making. They make all these beautiful prints on the fabric from which they make their clothes (now mostly for funerals...). And we got to try it ourselves :)). We had a lot of stamps to choose from - they make stamps (the genuine ones) from some sort of a pumpkin.

Everything means something - for example:
turtle = adaptability
the bird that looks back but goes forward = remember your past; use the knowledge, experience from the past (? something like that)
the round sign = mightiness

 

Ta (=2 tedna nazaj) teden sem imela še eno predstavitev za našo NONMEM skupinico. Ker smo vsi mislili, da bom že končala (in predstavila končne rezultate)...ampak kar še vedno nisem. Vedno se pojavijo novi in novi zapleti... Prejšnji teden sem bila skoraj vsak dan več kot do 6ih na faksu! Upam, da ta teden res končam...da imam potem malo časa za zaključevanje in razmišljanje o pisanju naloge... No, predstavitev mi ni bila ravno zelo všeč (se mi je zdelo, da kar še VELIKO stvari ne vem..). Elham mi je pa takoj po koncu rekla: "Wow, really nice presentation!!" :) Mogoče je zaradi tistega efekta, ko več kot veš, več veš, da ne veš ;). (If that makes any sense, hehe). 

Prejšnji vikend smo šle Slovenke (Kaja, Roni, jaz) malo v Westfield. Westfield is a huge shopping centre with a retail floor area of 150,000m² (~ 30 football pitches). At the time of its opening (2008) it was said to be the 3rd largest in the UK. There are really a lot of stores... But I missed some benches or chairs or something to sit down. Because you can get tired of all that walking really soon :). But it is a nice centre. And the smoothies they sell are soooo yummy... :)).

Zapleti s sostanovalcem...in....nov sostanovalec
Ja, prejšnji sostanovalec je imel nekatere čudne navade. Npr. ko je dal kaj kuhati, je potem včasih kar šel ven (za kakšno uro in pol??). Tako se je enkrat kuhinja skoraj zažgala! Na srečo sem bila doma in vohala dim v svojo sobo...šla pogledat dol... Potem sem ga vprašala, če je pozabil, pa je rekel, ne, samo v trgovino sem še šel vmes. OK?? Ja, pa tudi ponoči je bil zelo glasen - butal je z vrati, tekel s čevli po stopnicah... Enkrat sem se mi zdi da kakšne 5-krat skoraj zaspala, ampak nisem.. Potem sem šla dol v dnevno sobo in mu rekla: "#$%#&@?!??! Stop with that or I will kill you!!" (Well...of course I didn't :) But I DID want to...). Niso mu podaljšali najemne pogodbe, tako da se je moral izseliti.
Prejšnji vikend pa je prišel novi sostanovalecc, Tom. Za enkrat je vredu. Upajmo.

This will be all for today :). I will try to post something sooner than in 3 weeks time ;). In the meantime, write some comments, emails...:).

Nighty nite

Flamenco, Contemporary, Portobello

A bit more than 2 weeks ago I went to see Flamenco show. Eva was performing, so I knew she would be great ;). Ooo...ampak res je bila zelo dobra!! In tudi band, ki ga je imela sabo.. Pa tudi ostali trije plesalci, ki so bili z njo na odru.. Včasih se mi je zdelo, kot bi bila kje na jugu Španije... hehe. [Drugače je njeno celo ime Eva Yerbabuena, če koga zanima.]

 

En dan pred tem je bil spet sončeeek :)). 

Contemporary dance: Ja, končno se mi je ratalo spravit spet do Pineapple Dance School. Šla sem na ta klas... (zdaj sem šla že 3x). Saj je kar zanimivo, malo drugače.. Edino, kar me moti je, da stalno govori leva roka tja, desna tja....in preden se spomnim katera je katera... Potem je velikokrat "the other left". Hheh... Je pa ta, ki ma klas, tudi taka zabavna, se stalno nekaj zafrkava...

On Saturday we went to Portobello Road market. I think it would have been nicer if it hadn't rained.. But then it would probably be too crowded.. This market is close to Notting Hill Gate Station. And it's actually a long street with a lot of stalls with antiques, jewellery, second-hand clothes...

Yaaay...rain!! ;)

I really thought I would continue with my writing soon after the last post...but...well that didn't happen. Still, I've finally managed to find the time and will to write again :). And I've made these beautiful collages...it would be a waste not to publish them.. :).

The week after CNY there was a rainy day! Mostly light rain, but still rain. Elham was really happy - she kept saying "Oh, what a beautiful day..." "What a nice weather...". And because she really meant it, sane people around her started asking themselves: "Is she...
...cuckoo?"
...crazy???"
...gone bananas?"
...related to ducks?" ;)

In the end it turned out that it was all true. For the both of us of course ;). We picked the only (mostly) rainy day to go sightseeing and for a walk, just enjoying the truly nice weather. (For me it actually wasn't so great, but it was still OK). We went to Leicester Square, walked to Trafalgar Square, went to some of the galleries there: National Portrait Gallery and The National Gallery and because that wasn't enough we also went to see the Buckingham Palace. It was nice, surprisingly almost no one anywhere, empty parks...;).

After that day the weather forecast was just rain rain rain ...every day - for a couple of days at least... And every day Elham and I were waiting for the rain but nothing. Those liars! ;) One day it was raining in the morning...so I put on the rubber boots (finally!). But by the time I got to the Uni, even the pavements were already dry... So, I looked pretty stupid :).

V soboto smo šli na razstavo v Wellcome Collection. Bila je o rabi mamil ter zdravil včasih (in danes). Kakšne stvari so bile kar smešne: npr. da so uporabljali heroin kot manj adiktivno nadomestilo za morfin, dokler niso seveda ugotovili, da se v telesu metabolizira do morfina... (članek) In tudi že zelo dolgo nazaj so ugotovili kako nevarne so droge - prepovedali njihov uvoz na Kitajsko...

Drugače pa so v tej galeriji (?) zanimive tudi stalne razstave. Medicine Man in Medicine Now. Imajo tudi v knjigah zapisan celoten človeški genom (iz mislim da približno 5 posameznikov)! Za vsak kromosom približno 5 knjig!! Zanimivo branje ;) heheh.

 

En del je tudi interaktiven :). Tako da sem si naredila sliko svoje biometrične identitete. Pa tudi sodelovala sem v "raziskavi" kakšen je povprečen obraz. And don't zoom-in if you don't feel really sad...because this picture is really funny - uglified me! Hehh

On Sunday we went to Hampton Court Palace...really nice (and close to London - you can take the tube+train to get there! it's in zone 6). But it's sooo huge! We didn't have enough time to see it all and the gardens as well... (you can see the gardens for free:)).

Canteenless + Happy CNY :)

Moj projekt
Zdaj bi bil že čas, da napišem še kaj o svojem projektu :). Teden, ko sem prišla nazaj, sem pripravljala grafe, ocene parametrov (klirens in volumen porazdelitve), ki jih je NONMEM določil... vse to za izvleček, ki so ga hoteli napisati tisti, ki so mi dali podatke. Vse to je bilo treba narediti do ponedeljka. V petek pa sva z mentorjem ugotovila, da smo vzeli napačne podatke!! Ker so nam poslali nekoliko zmedene tabele, vse v različnem vrstnem redu...jaz sem pa napačno domnevala, da je povsod enak vrstni red podatkov... Tako je bilo vse, kar sem naredila v zadnjih 3 mesecih narobe! Jupi :) Joe na srečo ni bil nič jezen, rekel je samo:"Welcome to science." Potem sem v ponedeljek vstala ob pol 8 (zdelo se mi je kot ob pol 6ih!! še tema je bila zunaj), prišla na faks pred 9o (Joe je bil kar malo šokiran, hehh) in do popoldneva mi/nama je uspelo potem vse končati. Drugače se zdaj nekako že bližam končanju svojega projekta, saj so rezultati že kar lepi.. Čeprav sem pa ravno danes dobila podatke, ki so spet malo drugačni od prejšnjih, tako da bom mogoče morala kaj popraviti.

No Refectory
The week after that there was no refectory at the Uni. So, Elham and I had to eat in the park or in the nearby restaurants. Luckily I found quite a lot 2 for 1 vouchers, so it wasn't that expensive :). And there are some really nice restaurants just across the street: we eat in Italian, Japanese, Mexican/Chinese.

 

Sobotno nakupovanje
If you feel suicidal, you should really go shopping on a Saturday. Because it is suicide!! Especially if you choose Oxford Street and one of the stores, where there's a lot of people even during the week. Like Primark. But we (Roni and I) did exactly that. People were waiting almost 45mins just for the fitting rooms! (So just one look at the queue tells you who is probably not completely normal ;)..) How do I know that? Well...I was one of them :). I couldn't just buy boots without trying them on first :P. (Just in case some psychiatrists are reading this..I did try some clothes as well.). But the boots are really cute, so it was worth it. Just last week it was raining, so I could finally wear them. Honestly, it almost NEVER rains here. And if it does, it's just drizzle, light rain. In 4 months I only used my umbrella 3 times :)).

And I had a funny conversation about the boots with one of the Erasmus students
X: Did you buy them?
Me: Yes. (No, I stole them. / No, I would never pay money for something that ugly??)
X: Are they waterproof?
Me: Yes. (?? Hmm...they are RUBBER boots... Well, I hope they are waterproof ;). It wasn't raining heavily, so I don't really know... It would be funny (not really!) if they weren't...)

But I think X didn't really mean to ask this. Like all of us Erasmus, X probably has difficulties expressing Xself in English too. I think X wanted to ask (this was quite difficult to guess) "Do you have new boots?" and (this was a no-brainer) "They are really nice!" :).

protesters (Mubarak), Chinatown

CNY (=Chinese New Year)
Happy CNY = 恭喜發財 = Kung Hei Fat Choi (~ "Congratulations and be prosperous"; Mandarin)
San Nien Faii Lok (~ "Happy New Year"; in Cantonese?)
The CNY normally begins in late January or early February and is calculated according to the lunar calendar. The current Year of the Rabbit runs from 3 February 2011 to 22 January 2012.

Chinese Horoscope (ki sem ga sama naredila:) bjutiful..heh)

On Sunday we went to Trafalgar Square, where the main stage was. It was sooo crowded!! The celebrations started with firecrackers, quite loud. [They are suppose to scare away the mythical beast Nian. And the red colour has the same effect. That's why there's so many red lanterns..] It then continued with Dotting the Dragon's Eyes (some of the important people helped paint the Dragon's eyes, so he could then see...), the Dragon Dance, the Lion Dance (unfortunately we didn't see that. We went to another location (Hong Kong Stage): Shaftesbury Avenue in Chinatown), some speeches... We were really tired from walking so slowly and trying not to bump into somebody...that we decided to get some Chinese. But all the restaurants were full (surprise, surprise;)). We finally found one, but we had to wait more than an hour to get some food.. And by the time we finished eating, the shows almost ended...

Filmček (sicer je posnetek od lanskega leta, ampak vseeno)

Finally =)

Not writing for soooo long has some benefits for you: now you won't have to listen to (read about?) all that jibber-jabber, because I think I have already forgotten a lot. Hopefully not everything though.

[God, it seems ages ago...] Well, a day before I went home to Slovenia, we (Erasmus students) went to Icebar, literally the coolest bar in UK ;). The bar is completely made out of ice. Everything from walls, bar, tables...is made from ice. Even the glasses, which makes them really 100% recyclable ;). The crystal clear ice is harvested from the frozen Torne River in Jukkasjarvi, Northern Sweden. The bar is kept at minus 5 degrees, so 40 mins in it is totally enough :). You actually have a stopwatch on the wall, counting down the minutes and seconds till the end! They gave us thermal capes and gloves, so we could cope with the cold easier. In tako smo se spremenili v modre kapice ;).

International coffee week ;). Elham and my supervisor as well came back from their holidays and both brought coffee. So we had some Arabic and some Costa Rican coffee, both nice.

The next day I had to wake up early (luckily Andrea woke me up), having my flight to Slovenia that day. After just catching the bus (I arrived at the bus stop at 8.38, the bus left at 8.40, hehhe), I got to the airport in plenty of time. So, with two hours to kill, I had an expensive coffee, answered some questions for a (pretty boring) survey (why do they always find me??) and then it was time to leave London, first time after almost 4 months. It was nice travelling with almost no luggage. I was a bit worried about the weight of the suitcase, but then I found out that Easyjet doesn't have any weight limitations! How great is that? (I only wish I had known that earlier..but still, for the next time.) Well, the limitation is: you have to be able to lift it above your head (to put it on the shelf (?) in the plane). Hearing the safety announcements on the plane I started to wonder: why do they always tell you what do you have to do if you land in the water? Even on the inland flights. Just in case you manage to hit a river or a really huge lake when you crash? Hmm... And another thing, why do they let people with speaking disabilities speak to a large crowd of people? (And it wasn't the pilot or the flight attendants, it was a prerecorded Slovenian guy).

sunny in London, rainy and foggy in Ljubljana

It was really nice seeing my family and friends...:). And really funny sometimes - like when I started to talk about something and you knew all about it from the blog (made me so proud of you! heh Maybe I will do a quiz next time...giving prices for the best answers ;)...).

Well, I have to go now... I'm off to see an exhibition about the usage of medicine and drugs throughout the history... Hopefully I will continue with my writing soon :).

Really Soon.. ;)

Yup, soon I'm really going to write another post. :) I've already made all the collages...  But now I'm getting super sleepy, so I will continue...soon. Hehe

For now, just a sneak peek:

Soon...

...(maybe tomorrow?) I will write a new post :).

Last week my blog had his 2000th view! Pridni ste! :). Ob tej priložnosti še malo statistike..

 

I also had some pageviews from Spain, Australia, Russia, Germany...but I don't know why they don't count in the All-time stats. 

And because one has to joke:

Hehhhee :)