brittanniaburns

"Well, you know November has come.... when it's gone____ away."

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 22:18:52 GMT

I wonder if anyone has really been reading this thing at all...

It's been a good week and even better weekend. School is going good, though things are starting to tighen up a bit. I have to carefully start planning all my final places i want to visit and figure out how much it will cost...

I just got back this evening from Manchester (again). I went to the last Gorillaz show of the Demon Days tour.... I must say that if anyone's reading this and they don't have that album, you are missing out on a classic. If i was in pop/rock band i would want a similar stage setup to what i enjoyed last night. there was a full string section, childrens choir, harmony vocalists, guitars, bass, drums, and many, many talented guests. I can't go into great detail on the show here, but let me just say it was fantastic! And a bit quirky. Damon was sitting on a piano for most of the show, though many afterwards didn't know that was him.

On the other hand... I did pay a bit of price when I stayed at a very cheap youth hostel for the evening. Sharing a medium sized room with 7 other male college kids on a saturday night is something i dont want to do again..... people farting all night,.... people insisting to sleep with the lights on.... people puking off the edge of their beds.... people coming in at 3 a.m. to wake me up (again!!!!) just to pour beer on their friend in the bed and then giggling about it for the next hour in french. blah! so that's the price i payed for going cheap.

i want to also say that i have started listening to the chiefs games on sunday over here on radio. it's about a 30 second delay, but it's better than nothing. I MUST HOWEVER POINT OUT that i am so PROUD of DICK VERMILL for going for it to the win the game. He didn't do the boring, stupid field goal which makes games lame. He had some guts and had confidence in his players. I was totally confident he would get the touchdown there, so haha to everyone who thinks you can't take a chance in football.

Britt

"taking the piss out of you!"

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 23:33:18 GMT

yeah....

lately everyone seems to be taking the piss out of me for my coca cola addition, so i decided to take a week off from all caffeine and coke. i must say that i hadn't felt that weird in a long time... i just started slowly drinking a little soda again. surprizingly i didn't have many headaches, but i did feel very spacy for most of the week. i do plan one day to totally give up coke, but it's just so delicious and it's even better in england.... tried lemon coke today, it's pretty good.

well, what's been going on here? i wont be travelling for a little while, but i am going to see a gorillaz concert in manchester on friday the 5th of november... it should be awesome, and i wouldn't be surprized if they release a dvd or cd of this concert.

school is going quite well... it feels good to know that i am writing the best piece of music i've ever written. actually, it's all written, but i'm about halfway through orchestrating the piece. i should be able to get this read and recorded in the near future, and i will enter it in some competitions...

last friday i had a piece played at a public concert at the uni in hull. i recieved many compliments after the concert, many very nice comments.... there will be at least one more concert i can have works played and recorded at....

i want all my friends and family to know that i have been a little homesick lately... well maybe not that i miss kansas, it's more a feeling of not being able to phone up or work with certain people i was used to... one other thing i really do miss is some american food, but the beer here is a lot better. :)

if anyone has an extra thousand dollars, you should fly out and visit me. hehe

roxanne!!

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:45:11 GMT

ok, so i learned a few valuable things recently. if you go out on a weekend evening for a few pints and do kareoke, it can make you famous. i sang the police "roxanne" and days later, people from all around town that i don't know start singing lyrics from that tune at me. :) ...it's a very hard song for a male to sing, if you don't believe me, try it yourself!

another lesson i learned..... DON'T take library books from home overseas.... someone recalled a book that i have checked out and am supposed to mail it asap back the university of kansas music library. i personally am pissed that someone recalled this, as my friend m.p. says "there's a reason i have this checked out!"..... i hope jim smith doesn't read this.

i haven't traveled in a while because i'm saving money for possible future trips to london.... i was barely able to purchase ONE gorillaz ticket to their last show in manchester. i am quite excite about this!! this will be an incredible concert with many guests, choirs and string musicians.

i am currently working on a piece for orchestra.... the mood of the piece is quite dark and i'd rather not say on here what it is about, but it should be one of the best things i've ever written. i really like my teachers a lot, and in all honesty i wish i could have started graduate school here :(.... sigh.....

well, i'm very dissapointed to say that my piece of shit wal mart camera has not been very friendly to me. it keeps deleting the pictures i take.... my friends however have many pics on their expensive cameras, and i will be able to upload them on my computer from them.

i'm also dissapointed to not recieve my stevo like i requested.

britt

"get in the queue!"

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:30:45 GMT

I have to say a big "thank you!" to everyone who responded! :)

I just returned home from Manchester. I was there for most of this weekend on a short trip. It's quite a nice place, but unfortunately I forget my camera :( .... however my friends that i went with took many good pictures and I will just borrow them from them. There are many things to do in Manchester, we had time for a museum and some site seeing.

All the pictures I took the previous week were somehow deleted (!!! :(! cheap wal-mart camera :(!!!!!) BUT they were just of Hull and I can easily take more.... Itll 's weird though because when I came back to Hull tonight, I felt like I was returning "home" so... I guess I can really say that I feel "settled in".

One thing I really do miss about the states is the faucets. Here, ALL of the sinks have two faucets. One for hot, and one for cold. So everytime I wash my hands or do the dishes my hands either freeze, or the skin starts bubbling off my skin! (not really but you get my point!)

WARNING: ONLY READ THIS PART IF YOU LIKE TO READ ABOUT MUSIC STUFF. I am so excited about my classes! Although there are 18,000 students here, only about 4 graduate students are doing the program I'm in (there's about the same at ku). I am taking three modules (classes) and I will have a great opportunity to write for ensembles and get recordings of the pieces (just like I read about before I came here). I'm still trying to figure out where I really sit harmonically in this world, but melodically things are going great.

Laundry here is VERY expensive. It's about 3-5 pounds for one load! I refuse to do this because I'm a cheapskate and I am now hang drying almost everything outside on the rare sunny days.

The real uni work begins tomorrow for me. School here is much more "independent study" than it is in the states where the brits like to call "spoon fed". Your expected to "do your own thing" and if you get really behind, you could really screw yourself. I am somewhat used to this already but many of the other american undergrads I've met have complained about this. But if you dont' have self discipline, what do you have?....

I'm sorry the pictures are not up yet (they were all deleted) but I should be able to get something up soon. I apologize to those of you that I have been slow to respond to your emails or haven't responded yet at all. I will write you back, things are starting to settle into a routine now...

I hope everyone back home is doing good and I hope some of you have found better jobs in the "real world" and I hope someone will send me a Stevo.

Britt

English Coke..... mmmm

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 14:19:23 GMT

Hello everyone back home!,

I must say sorry for taking so long to give a complete update of what's going on over here right now.

Where do I start? SO MUCH has already happened here.... I'll start off with my plane trip i guess. The flight was very long and I got no sleep on the plane. The baggage lady in Newark was really mean to me and I think I will avoid flying into there if I can. I guess that new york stereotype is somewhat true. :) I had a bad headache the whole ride and then was very tired when I got off to start my day. I had to carry 3 bags of heavy luggage and switch trains five times. I feel asleep about 6 p.m. on the day i arrived...

Many people told me it wasn't much different here. I don't know what they mean, because it is VERY different here. The houses, streets, stores, buildings, food, rules,.... everything is different. People are much more friendlier here than most places I've been. It could be partly because I have the american accent (yes, they really do like it here) but I have managed to make more friends here in a week than the past year in the states.

Everything is a bit more expensive here. It cost almost double for most things. A can of coke is about 80-90 cents. But some things are actually cheaper here than at home.

When I first arrived, someone left a tv in my room. So I turned it on thinking "oh how nice"... then after watching "Friday the 13th" I read that there is a tv license here, and if you don't pay this you could be fined £1,000 (about $1,850)! I have taken it out of my room since.... i dont want to pay £120 for a tv license, so i guess i'll have no tele here.... but tv is crap anyways

The food is not as bad as some have told me. I can get most of the things I like from home here, but they often do taste a little different. For example, coke (and all soda) here is made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. It taste a little better here and is not quite as harsh or heavy. The portions of food are a LOT smaller here though. It makes me wonder if that's why I see less overweight people here.

The weather is something I'm still getting used to in the morning, but it's great during the day. It's always about 65-70 degrees in the day, and about 45-50 at night. It's overcast about 5 days of the week but it doesn't rain a lot. It's almost never really humid ( it hasn't been yet). I think Ryan Gordon would love this weather here.

Some people have told me that this town Hull is not the greatest place in england, and obviously it won't compare to london or anything, BUT... it's way prettier than any place I've ever been to in the states, and that includes San Francisco, Sedona, etc.... it's hard to explain until you actually see what I'm talking about. I have taken some pictures of the main town here (very nice) and will try to get them uploaded on here soon.

I will update this about once or twice a week... I still cannot use my home computer yet, and I am going through severe music withdrawal. Class does not start until later this week, but I have already started working a bit. Please leave a comment or any questions or just say hi.

I miss you all, but I love this place :)

Britt