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Home, a set on Flickr.

This is a project I did for my Kent Connections lecture @ Canterbury Christ Church University. It had to be images of our home, and what made it home for us. A little background info for you: my mother and her partner run a pub in Dartford, and that is where I consider my home to be. It is a lovely pub that I have ten years of memories of.

The Canterbury Derive

A dérive:  "is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geographysubconsciously direct the travellers, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience."

I was asked to complete a dérive through notes, recordings and images. I've decided to share my findings with you, and: the result of my "unplanned journey" of Canterbury Christ Church University.

www.canterbury.ac.uk/support/fitness-centre/docs/CampusMap.pdf

Directed by tweets by @Heidi_Colthup, my lecturer at CCCU; I left Ramsey, and headed out from the building towards Touchdown, but was halted by Hannah, who "needed a fag". And so, I photographed by surroundings:

I then continued my derive with the tweets:

#cccuDerive What’s under your feet right now?

#cccuDerive take a left turn NOW ;) 

#cccuDerive find something RED – photograph it

 

#cccuDerive Find an old wall

#cccuDerive Find some writing around you. Collect FIVE words

#cccuDerive Find somewhere to write. Sit & write for 10 minutes. Write ANYTHING.

 So there we go, the unplanned journey, and it led me to a leaf on a page and a jumble of words.... at least it stopped raining!

Mel x

Before the Canterbury Christ Church chaos begins...

Hello bloggers/blog-readers/my friends who are forced to read these,
 
It's been a while, so I thought I should catch you all up on the incredible life of ME! I've been living in Canterbury for two months now, and have enjoyed it immensely.
 
I went to visit Canterbury Cathedral recently, and as someone who is completely unaware of religion, I found it to be an overwhelming experience. I, as a logical person does, decided to try and focus on the beauty of where I was, but was too taken aback by the murals and the memorials, and the sheer commitment that religion desires, and indeed (by those who are involved in it) deserves. I highly recommend a visit, whether you are religious or not: it is a beautiful place and needs to be revered.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Over the past month, I have had new people come in to my life in the form of housemates. They are all lovely people, and it's quite an enjoyable experience (despite it being a house full of students who have no regard for noise control). That is Quinland on the right, wearing my glasses, clever thing he is, but likes to scare us by not talking as he walks in to a room, he creeps in quietly and scares the hell out of us all. Our kitchen is a mess, we eat Tiramisu for dinner, and spend hours watching the TV show, Angel. I love my housemates, and hope it stays this fun as the year progresses.
 
 




 
This is a picture of my bedroom wall, covered in my geeky posters. #geekandproud
 




I also, celebrated my nineteenth, a month late but oh well, with a Doctor Who/SciFi Friday 13th Belated Birthday Bonanza... (yes, it had a title and everything). We played Doctor Who drinking games, such as Doctor Who Pictionary and Doctor Who Quotes drinking game - which I will upload later.
 
We also dressed up as our favourite characters, and went out clubbing with some more of my friends. I was dressed as River Song, with my attempt at her hair.  Ashleigh dressed as the TARDIS, +Shelby Fuller was Clara Owsald.
 
My friend, Ashleigh (right) bought me my very own RIVER SONG notebook, for all my favourite quotes. It's nearly full already, but I've left some space for the 50th Anniversary.
 
 
 
 Well, that's me for now! I hope you've enjoyed my little update. Sorry +Shelby Fuller for the pictures, but your shock at the TARDIS sketch was enough to merit a post on my blog.


Thanks for the page views, keep them coming - I'm aiming for 2000 by November!

Mel x

 

banters in canters, or melancoly in Canterbury?

Hi bloggersphere! 
(to be said loudly and with a hint of irony)

I've recently moved to Canterbury, for work and university, since they shut my beloved UCF down, and well, my old job was rubbish. 

Any who, because I've moved in six weeks early, I've found myself with a lot of free time. Although I have worked nearly every day, it's 12pm to 4pm, and on a quiet day, there is NOTHING to do. 

So, I decided to start exploring Canterbury, local to my house. In my first week, I'd walked up and down the high street at least ten times, been to St Martin's Church (I'm an atheist so I can only appreciate the architecture), found the Post Office/ Londis, found another Londis, figured out my perfect routes to work, university and town, spent two hours sitting in King George VI Memorial Field, found a graveyard/neutral space, walked around my garden and figured out the best places to buy cheap food (heads up students: it's Poundland and Waitrose...)

That was all in one WEEK... Oh dear. This is my third week here, and I'm going crazy, which isn't good considering four days of that I was actually in Dartford picking up some of the rest of my stuff. 

Oh, and I read three books. 

Since Thursday, I've signed up for the 30 Day Free Trial on Love Film Instant www.lovefilm.co.uk/instant, and I've watched 11 films. In less than three days. ELEVEN FILMS. 

So, beautiful people of Blogger and Canterbury, I set you a challenge: Find something free, local and time consuming for me to do, and if you do, I'll write an article about it, and add in some free publicity. 

RISE TO THE CHALLENGE!

As I promised: Unipinion

Here we go: UNIpinion: http://issuu.com/unipinion/docs/unipinion__final_edit_

Created by Creative and Professional Writing (BA Hons) First and Second Years at Canterbury Christ Church University for our final assignment of the year.


My article is pages 46-47, and is titled, "London, but no bacon".  The magazine contains some fantastic articles, and was edited beautifully.

ENJOY!

(PS: Hope the link works, if not; go to: www.issuu.com and type in "unipinion" to the sites search bar!)