Caty

From start to finish. 5th April: “So come with me, where...

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:15:32 +0100

From start to finish.

5th April: “So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land! 79/365”

From start to finish. 30th March: “The question is not...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:55:05 +0100

From start to finish.

30th March: “The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live. 75/365”

From start to finish. 27th January: “I am the Other...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:41:50 +0100

From start to finish.

27th January: “I am the Other Woman:21/365”

6th February: “If I Lay Here: 31/365”

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:24:45 +0100

6th February: “If I Lay Here: 31/365”

I’ve decided to start using this again after all these months. I’m just going to post...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:19:33 +0100

I’ve decided to start using this again after all these months. I’m just going to post...

SOOC. That’s the dress I’ll wear tomorrow night....

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:08:07 +0100

SOOC. That’s the dress I’ll wear tomorrow night. Grreat. I really hate wearing dresses. They don’t flatter me. But then again, nothing does.

23rd April 2009: (aka St. George’s Day)

Tutor period this morning, which is basically a 30min get-together with the teacher who is in charge of us. We’re split into groups of about 10, & one tutor is in charge of each group. They’re the ones teachers report to if there are any problems with us, & they talk through our monthly period grades to see where we could improve etc. They also write us testimonials at the end of 2 years. So today we had to fill out reports about what we’ve most enjoyed doing, what we’ve enjoyed in our time at school, what is our greatest achievement etc. It became clear that I had predominantly enjoyed Theatre. English & History got mentions too, but it was all about the Theatre really.

I had 4 frees this morning, because my only lesson (History) didn’t start til 12pm. I spent the first hour trying to write my English essay before giving up & writing Ecosystems notes. During break I went to get a piece of toast & as I walked back to my room I heard Alice call out to me, but I was already talking to our Housemother, Liz, so I figured if it was important she’d come & tell me, but I didn’t want to be rude to Liz & just stop talking to find out what it was. She could come & find me. She’s now blanking me. Pathetic. I doubt it was anything important then.

In my next two frees I went to talk to Georgie. I’d had to spend a few minutes with Ashley & I was very tense. So Georgie & I just talked & talked. Hannah came back from her final Art exam part way through (which went very well apparently) & then we went to History, where we talked through Hitler & Stalin’s foreign policies, & then we were given some notes on Mussolini, because, you know, they hadn’t got round to teaching us anything about him & we need it for our third History exam.

After that I went to lunch with Hannah & Laurence, & there was lovely quorn lasagne. Mmm. I left for my extra Spanish lesson after promising Hannah I’d come back & help her with her English afterwards.

Spanish was good. I wrote out a practise exam paper & only made 3 mistakes. Which I thought was quite good. & my teacher is allergic to chocolate & someone had given her a box of Lindt chocolates, so she gave them to me & my Dad. My Dad felt sick eating them (they are very sweet) so I brought some back for Hannah.

When I got home my Mom had bought tomato bread. Well, it’s actually cheese & onion bread, but I think it looks like tomato bread, so that’s what I call it. So I had some. & then my Mom gave me a miniature pot of Häagen-Dazs so I took that up to school with me to eat while helping Hannah with her English =)

Up at school everyone was discussing the ball, so I hung around there for a bit before we went next door to work. I was telling Hannah about the best bread in the world (aka. tomato bread) & then Ashley went “Oh that’s interesting” in a really sarcastic voice, & Hannah & I had been in a silly mood & we weren’t taking things seriously (especially a conversation about bread) so I just turned around & told her that seeing as I’d been telling Hannah, not her, it didn’t matter what she thought. That shocked her, because nobody ever tells her to stop being such a miserable bitchy cow. Hannah & I spent the next few minutes trying not to laugh before she walked out of the room.

We later went to tell Amy & Amber about it, (Georgie would have appreciated it more, because Georgie absolutely hates Ashley) & Loran was there too, & said the most shocking thing ever. She didn’t understand why none of us like Ashley. I have spent a long time defending Ashley, & saying that I didn’t want to bitch about her because I didn’t know what made her that way, but she is now so horrible about people that I don’t care. Then Amber said it must have been hard for me not to bitch about Ashley because I bitch about everybody, which I thought was a bit rich coming from her. She has three ‘best friends’ at school, & she immediately bitches to the other two about the one who’s just left the room. They all talk aboit it now. When I was best friends with Loran I would never ever say a bad thing about her, & if I expressed even the slightest that she’d annoyed me in some way I felt guilty about it for ages.

So now I’m at home. It’s 8pm & I haven’t done anything, though I really need to finish my English essay. It’s due in tomorrow.

I have the Meynell dinner tomorrow & that’s what the dress is for. Ugh.

This is my new pyjama top =) I wanted to upload it to flickr,...

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:51:58 +0100

This is my new pyjama top =) I wanted to upload it to flickr, but I couldn’t because of all the clevage. & I couldn’t get a photo without clevage (it’s like impossible). So here it is.

22nd April 2008:

English first thing today. Our teacher gave us back some practise exam papers we’d done before the end of last term. I got a Level 6 (out of 7) which sucks. He went through where we could improve & then we talked through some more unseen pieces.

On the way back to house we saw Mrs Purcell so Hannah told her she didn’t think she’d be able to go to the Leavers’ Dinner tomorrow night. She did not take that well. She started saying she was annoyed because she’d arranged the dinner at that time so that the IB students could go to it, but none of them were. That’s because our exams are soon!!! Duh.

Spanish next. Lesson was good. Our Spanish teacher said to Hannah & I afterwards how impressive we’d been. Yay! This German girl, Jennie, would not shut up for the whole lesson!! It was so irritating. She kept cutting across when I tried to answer & then just saying random answers out loud. I wanted to hit her at the end. So did Hannah.

We went back to house to put our backs there. Unfortunately, the girl we share a room with was there also. She is so miserable. I tried not to talk badly about her for a while, but she bitches about everyone. She can’t stand it when Hannah or I know something she doesn’t (which is all the time) & doesn’t like social situations unless she is making everyone feel miserable. She tags along & follows people. Hannah & I waited ages for her to leave the room so we could go to lunch & not have to feel depressed, but she ended up tagging along with Loran, Alice, Hannah & I anyway. It was so quiet on the table. I didn’t want to say anything just because she judges you all the time. We all went back to our room & everytime she said something there would be an awkward pause. Alice filled them by being loud.

I went to monitor detention at 1.10pm with Hannah, so that we could do our maths work together. Nobody turned up to detention today because they were all getting ready for Sports Day. Hannah wasn’t going because of her bandaged toes & she had to get ready for her Art exhibition/exam, & I had an extra Maths lesson.

Maths was fine. Got through the work okay. I came home & planned to work, but I took a photo for flickr & read the paper & now suddenly it’s almost 9pm & I haven’t done any work. Well, I wrote out a title, & then two lines, but I scribbled them out again. Ah well. I’ll get it done eventually. =)

So another easy one. I feel like I should try something harder,...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:44:00 +0100

So another easy one. I feel like I should try something harder, but that would be more time consuming & would distract me from revision.

Autofix
Exposure: -1
Contrast: 9
Saturation: 12
Temperature: 21
Boost: 5%
Vignette: 39%
Orton: 67%
Cross process: 70%
Black & White: Indigo with a 54% fade
Exposure: -8
Contrast: 11
Saturation: 6
Temperature: -7
Black & White: Light blue with a 66% fade

After this I cropped out to the side of the mask so as to prevent the string from being visible. I did wonder if I could just add more hair over it, but I thought the ear & back of the head were just adding more distractions so that area would still have been distracting. I then cropped the top of the photo because this was just excess space really.

I took 10 photos in total. I was originally going to go outside...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:42:06 +0100

I took 10 photos in total. I was originally going to go outside & try a bit of cloning, but I would have only done a half-assed job on it, and so I took the easy option.

Brett Dennen - Ain’t No Reaon I first heard this on the...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:40:13 +0100

Brett Dennen - Ain’t No Reaon

I first heard this on the episode of Scrubs when Laverne has just been caught up in a car crash.

A brief description of the video from Brett himself:

“It is our routines and our comforts that allow us to ignore social issues. For some of us, it is our privilege to be ignorant. This video tells the story of social issues challenging our privileges and entering our routines making them impossible to ignore. Social injustice cannot be ignored when you are forced to deal with them. That is the idea behind this video.

What would happen if you were forced to deal with something that you may think has nothing to do with you? If suddenly the world’s problems came into your
own home? You would have to realize that you are connected to everything and everyone one earth.”

I took this 3 years ago, when I was 14, for part of my GCSE...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:54:00 +0100

I took this 3 years ago, when I was 14, for part of my GCSE Media coursework. We had to create an album cover, and this is one of the photos I used. I think I called the band Legislated Nostalgia, or that might have been the name of the album. I used this girl, Grace, and this boy, Dave Anders, & just told them I needed it to look like they were kissing.

I thought I’d lost this, but I found it tonight saved in PowerPoint. I’m just going through a lot of my old files to see if I can find any of my ‘lost’ work. So yay! I loved this, still do.

"If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a..."

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:34:23 +0100

““If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never...

I brought up the exposure to bring more detail to the photo,...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:29:00 +0100

I brought up the exposure to bring more detail to the photo, then upped the contrast. I raised the temperature and exposure, and followed this by using the boost button, pulling it up a few points. I used Orton at about 85% again, and cross-processed it at 75%. Using the cross-processing is what brought out the white of the rabbit face, not the contrast function.

I used the black and white function and moved it to aquamarine, then faded it out to desaturate the colours. I tried adding a sepia colour tone to it, but this didn’t add much.

I pulled up the contrast again, and then desaturated it just past half-way.

Voila. I’ll try to be a little more specific next time.

This was amazingly easy to edit. I considered cropping the edges...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:19:20 +0100

This was amazingly easy to edit. I considered cropping the edges of it before I messed with it, but I left it just in case it added something to the final version.

Blast from the past =)I made this 2 years ago for my Media GCSE...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:13:59 +0100

Blast from the past =)

I made this 2 years ago for my Media GCSE exam. I can see it’s riddled with flaws now, but I did quite well (3 marks off full marks). It’s such a lame trailer, but I have fond memories of filming my friends. Just wanted to post it somewhere, and I think flickr people would mutiny if I published this tripe on there.

When I usually read blogs if someone’s talking about...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:56:00 +0100

When I usually read blogs if someone’s talking about photography they usually have photoshop. I don’t. I used Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 & Picnik.

I edited this on picnik.

I took the exposure down, & then upped the contrast to emphasise the shadows. I then increased the saturation of the photo, so that when I played with the tones afterwards there would still be some ‘pop’. I used the temperature function and increased it by 1, just to make my hair look warmer.

I used the Orton function to soften it and add a richer colour. Using the Soften function usually loses detail, whereas I found that Orton allows you to keep the focus of the photo. I cross-processed at about 85%, before converting it to black and white. I played with the colour tones, moving from red to aquamarine, and then faded the black out to 80-90%. I finally adjusted the exposure and saturation again, decreasing it.

The background was too distracting. I cropped the top of the photo out originally, but the banister on the right of the photo was still too jarring. To remove the majority of it I had to crop onto the tips of my fingers.

That’s it. Yeah, I know, pretty easy, but I do love this photo.

I no longer have the original photo, but this is just after I...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:38:55 +0100

I no longer have the original photo, but this is just after I first cropped it.

I don’t have a tripod, so I used a candlestand we have to rest the camera on. I took a couple of test photos so I could gauge how much I was actually getting in the frame, and then I used my brother as my remote control.

Hola =)

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:32:22 +0100

At the moment I’m blogging on flickr, but once my exams come along I won’t have time to...