I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend – filled with lots of food and family and fun! We have Mondays off so it feels like Thanksgiving Monday here too! What a week…last Monday we officially registered for school – I finally have a student i.d. and a schedule for my classes! We attended a couple introductory lectures just about the program and the professors. Including our dissertation there’s only 8 assignments (one per course) that we are assessed on, which is quite intimidating. The other weird thing is that in our program of 60 students, I’d estimate that about 45 of them are Chinese. I mean actually Chinese – as in they’ve come here from China as international students, and they don’t speak much English. Zainah and I are a little concerned about the quality of our class discussions and group work with numbers like those. I’m not exactly sure how they intend on writing an 18,000 word dissertation in English either.
Speaking of dissertation, I’m not sure I told any of you what I’m interested in researching – but I’m most likely going to do an assessment of beauty culture in the advertising of the cosmetics industry, in relation to young women. So basically how the employment of different tactics or themes – be it celebrity, race, or semiotic codes in cosmetic advertising affect young female’s perception of today’s beauty culture. I’m really interested in looking at why the industry thrives so much on negative publicity…I mean look at Kate Moss…she was making a lowly 4.5 million pounds before all the addiction news. Now everyone from Rimmel to Calvin Klein wants her to be their spokesmodel – and she’s more than doubled her earnings. Why is that? And how does that affect the young female consumers who see those ads of a coke addict being glamorized by the media? I have to submit my proposal before Christmas break…if you have human subjects in your research then they have to get it approved (to make sure it’s ethical). But apparently a lot of people haven’t even chosen a research topic, so I still have time to change my mind should I fancy something else (did I actually just type fancy? Oh my God…)
On Saturday Z and I decided to visit some friends in London. So we booked a coach and did some site-seeing during the day. It was Z’s first time in London, so we made sure to hit all the tourist sites like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square – oh and a special stop in Little Lebanon for shawarma…so yummy! London’s a great city, but I’ve got to admit that I’m glad I’m not in such a busy city where I could easily lose focus. Atleast this way we can buckle down when we need to, and go party in London when we have the time! I think more interesting than the sites in London are the people! I would’ve been quite content to just sit on a bench in Piccadilly Circus and people-watch all afternoon! Everyone is so well put together and trendy. It’s great to walk down the streets and listen to people talking – some in Spanish, French, Arabic, Greek…London is a truly multi-cultural city. Oh and our hotel was fantastic! It’s called The Cumberland, and was recently bumped from a 4 star to a 5 star hotel. The concept is very modern/eclectic – strange statues of oversized men in the lobby hanging sideways with silver space-pod chairs and purple lighting. The rooms have certain themes – ours was an Asian room with red lighting and one red wall as the focal point (ahem Darin…knew you’d love that)…and in the bathroom the towels were hung on this heated rod so that when you use them after a shower they’re nice and toasty!
Even though we had a blast in London, it felt so nice to come home. I think the moment I stepped in the door, I felt that comfort everyone feels when they come back from holidays or vacations. And I realized that this is actually ‘home’ now!
But we had no time to relax because we were expecting 5 people for thanksgiving dinner and we had about 4 hours to prepare! Z and I made quite the scrumptious feast: mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pasta salad, baked cauliflower, sweet potato fries, baked chicken and grilled aubergine & courgettes (aka eggplant & zucchini in Normal Land!). We were a little worried that either a) something would burn or b) something would taste absolutely horrible but we managed to avoid them both – I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. In total there were four Canadians and three Brits so we decided to play a prank on the Brits and convince them of all these customary Thanksgiving traditions that Canadians have…we told them that when you say grace everyone has to stand and hold hands and shout out Canadian celebrities and other things like meals or cities! So we’re all standing there, yelling out random words like “Medicine Hat, Tim Hortons, Celine Dion, Poutine…” for a good five minutes! Oh man the Brits were so perplexed, it was a golden moment! So after we said grace we all overlapped our hands in the middle (think hockey huddle) and sang O Canada! I wish I videotaped it! Z and I truly lucked out with the people we’ve befriended. They’re such kind and fun blokes and lasses. We always laugh so much and have a good, silly time with them. And it’s also not bad that one of them is a pharmacist, another two are doctors, and the last two are a journalist and a phD student. So essentially I can be diagnosed if I fall ill, have my prescription filled and my dissertation written and edited for me all within my circle of friends (please pray that doesn’t actually happen to me) !
So tomorrow is finally the big day – our first day of uni (oh, here you can’t call university ‘school’ because that means elementary school…so everyone says uni instead). I’ll let you know how our first week of uni is next Sunday!
Gobble Gobble!
Speaking of dissertation, I’m not sure I told any of you what I’m interested in researching – but I’m most likely going to do an assessment of beauty culture in the advertising of the cosmetics industry, in relation to young women. So basically how the employment of different tactics or themes – be it celebrity, race, or semiotic codes in cosmetic advertising affect young female’s perception of today’s beauty culture. I’m really interested in looking at why the industry thrives so much on negative publicity…I mean look at Kate Moss…she was making a lowly 4.5 million pounds before all the addiction news. Now everyone from Rimmel to Calvin Klein wants her to be their spokesmodel – and she’s more than doubled her earnings. Why is that? And how does that affect the young female consumers who see those ads of a coke addict being glamorized by the media? I have to submit my proposal before Christmas break…if you have human subjects in your research then they have to get it approved (to make sure it’s ethical). But apparently a lot of people haven’t even chosen a research topic, so I still have time to change my mind should I fancy something else (did I actually just type fancy? Oh my God…)
On Saturday Z and I decided to visit some friends in London. So we booked a coach and did some site-seeing during the day. It was Z’s first time in London, so we made sure to hit all the tourist sites like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square – oh and a special stop in Little Lebanon for shawarma…so yummy! London’s a great city, but I’ve got to admit that I’m glad I’m not in such a busy city where I could easily lose focus. Atleast this way we can buckle down when we need to, and go party in London when we have the time! I think more interesting than the sites in London are the people! I would’ve been quite content to just sit on a bench in Piccadilly Circus and people-watch all afternoon! Everyone is so well put together and trendy. It’s great to walk down the streets and listen to people talking – some in Spanish, French, Arabic, Greek…London is a truly multi-cultural city. Oh and our hotel was fantastic! It’s called The Cumberland, and was recently bumped from a 4 star to a 5 star hotel. The concept is very modern/eclectic – strange statues of oversized men in the lobby hanging sideways with silver space-pod chairs and purple lighting. The rooms have certain themes – ours was an Asian room with red lighting and one red wall as the focal point (ahem Darin…knew you’d love that)…and in the bathroom the towels were hung on this heated rod so that when you use them after a shower they’re nice and toasty!
Even though we had a blast in London, it felt so nice to come home. I think the moment I stepped in the door, I felt that comfort everyone feels when they come back from holidays or vacations. And I realized that this is actually ‘home’ now!
But we had no time to relax because we were expecting 5 people for thanksgiving dinner and we had about 4 hours to prepare! Z and I made quite the scrumptious feast: mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pasta salad, baked cauliflower, sweet potato fries, baked chicken and grilled aubergine & courgettes (aka eggplant & zucchini in Normal Land!). We were a little worried that either a) something would burn or b) something would taste absolutely horrible but we managed to avoid them both – I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. In total there were four Canadians and three Brits so we decided to play a prank on the Brits and convince them of all these customary Thanksgiving traditions that Canadians have…we told them that when you say grace everyone has to stand and hold hands and shout out Canadian celebrities and other things like meals or cities! So we’re all standing there, yelling out random words like “Medicine Hat, Tim Hortons, Celine Dion, Poutine…” for a good five minutes! Oh man the Brits were so perplexed, it was a golden moment! So after we said grace we all overlapped our hands in the middle (think hockey huddle) and sang O Canada! I wish I videotaped it! Z and I truly lucked out with the people we’ve befriended. They’re such kind and fun blokes and lasses. We always laugh so much and have a good, silly time with them. And it’s also not bad that one of them is a pharmacist, another two are doctors, and the last two are a journalist and a phD student. So essentially I can be diagnosed if I fall ill, have my prescription filled and my dissertation written and edited for me all within my circle of friends (please pray that doesn’t actually happen to me) !
So tomorrow is finally the big day – our first day of uni (oh, here you can’t call university ‘school’ because that means elementary school…so everyone says uni instead). I’ll let you know how our first week of uni is next Sunday!
Gobble Gobble!
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