So, as expected, the interview was a complete farce. I took all 15 required documents with me, sat in a queue for 45 minutes and had a 2 minute interview to a woman behind bullet-proof glass. Prior to that I was searched and made to go through airport-like security. Completely over the top, in true American style. Excellent.

In other news, I cleared out my house today. I wish I’d had my camera on me, when I opened my food cupboard I was greeted with a rather ugly sight - my potatoes had sprouted quite badly. Here’s a pic for comparrison:

Mine were considerably worse than that, the sprouts had grown upwards to about 15cm and the whole bottom of my cupboard was like a small forest of sprouts. It was absolutely rank.

Then I noticed an electricity bill that had been posted. That was considerably worse news.

9am tomorrow for my interview with the Americans. Wish me luck!

Just before I start, this blog has an RSS feed. This means that if you click the little rss icon that’s somewhere on the page (probably the address bar at the top) you can bookmark my blog and see if theres new posts, instead of having to visit the site to check. Not that I don’t want you to visit my site!

Visitors

I was having a look actually at the visitors to this site. Mostly from the UK as I would expect but a few more international people, from the likes of Finland, Turkey, Germany (quite a few Germans actually), the US and Canada. By all means, leave a comment and say hello!

Good News

Last week was a great week as expected. My hard work finally paid off as our group won the design competition for the Two Minds project (more…)

It’s the last week of the semester for me this week, and the pressure is really mounting. I’ve got 2 assignment deadlines and another one for next Tuesday. It’s fair to say that IMD has completely stolen my life over the last few weeks. I’ve been in the labs working till 3 and 4am some days, working 14 hour shifts in front of the computer all day. I’ve barely got to see any of the nice weather we’ve been having.

On the bright side, our design module groupwork has been getting good feedback from the lecturer. He likes our work and reckons we have a good shot at winning the Two Minds contract we’ve been working on. For those not in the know, Two Minds is a Belfast project combining 10 artists with 10 architects in an attempt to explore new design areas. Our class has been commisioned with designing the online community for the venture, working in groups. Our site pitch is here if you want to take a look. Our group works well together but they’ve insisted on using Flash which I’m not a huge fan of. Especially not on every page. We have a critique on our work tomorrow so we’ll see what our lecturer Ian has to say about it.

In other news, I got an email from future boss Rodrigo asking about the possibility of moving my US Embassy interview to a sooner date. Looks like he needs me ASAP. My sister gets home from South Africa on the 16th June, so I’d really like to still be here to spend some time with her before I go, otherwise it could be several years before we’re both at home again! At the same time, I’m really eager to move to San Fran and start my job. I could do with a few weeks off to chill out first though.

I got a bit of a breather today, playing ultimate frisbee with the CU. We’ve got two American girls in the CU at the mo who are big ultimate frisbee fans. This was my second time playing it, and it’s really fun. Simple rules but very tiring!

And finally to end this pity rant, next week is looking good for me. I’m not telling the Vivo I’m finished uni yet thus earning me a well deserved week off (once I pass the Tuesday coursework deadline!). Next week I shall be going to see the one and only Third Day at Whitewell Metropolitan on Thursday followed by The Answer the day after in the Mandella Hall. Can’t wait for these, haven’t been to a gig in several months! Interestingly I’m looking forward to The Answer most, seeing as they’ve been simply outstanding the last few times I saw them.

The Answer
Go see them. They’re fantastic.