This Is Not A Book - 2. This Is A Secret Agent

I think I'd originally promised to be back last Friday (8th January 2016), but I've been a bit busy with uni assignments over the past few days.  However, those are now finished and for the next few days, I can generate as much blog material as I want (I'll also be catching up with studio manager things at RamAir, and attending a production meeting for BUSOM's March production of Back to the 80s).

I also have a lot of things happening in 2016:

1. This is my final semester of uni and overall education, so from next week until mid-May, everything is going to become a huge whirlwind.  I have to get an idea pitch ready in the next fortnight, and then we'll be split into groups for our big final project.
2. From 12th to 14th March, I'll be producing the aforementioned Back to the 80s production at Studio @ at the Bradford Playhouse.  The production team and I are all very nervous and excited.  I'm mainly doing behind the scenes things like props, costumes, etc., but I've also been thinking about some choreography for Material Girl which I can't wait to test with the others if it works.
3. In early June, I'll be turning 21.  I currently don't have anything planned, it's also while my brother has school, and it's while many of my uni friends will have possibly gone home for the summer/before graduation and my school friends won't be back home yet, but I'd love to go to London with some of my friends and check off some items from World of Wanderlust's London Bucket List!
4. In mid-July, I'll (hopefully) be graduating from the University of Bradford with a BSc in Web Design and Technology.  I don't know what the plan is from here though.
5. Something else that I am kinda excited about, but I'll keep under wraps for a bit until I know properly what's going on.

Anyway, flashback to a month ago, and I was doing Christmas stuff at uni and had had the BUSOM Secret Santa, in which I received This Is Not A Book by Keri Smith.  I said in my first post about this book (12th December 2015) that I didn't know who had given me this for Secret Santa, but I now think it might be Hannah (because of reasons involving wrapping paper), so THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I really want to get into this book more this year and blog my experiences with it on this blog, so here's the second instalment:

"This is a secret agent.

Instructions: Give This Is Not A Book some kind of disguise to hide its identity."

So this sounds mostly simple, right?  By the way, I'm not going to stick anything onto the book, so the following "disguise" is just temporary and also a lot like a dust cover ...

The book without any disguise ...

 

I feel disappointed in myself for not doing anything more elaborate, but this is a little bit awesome anyway.  I'm not very good at folding at all, so the folds to slip the book covers aren't straight or even at all.  I had to try several times to get it right.  Here it is anyway - a simple blue card cover with the title "Little book of Adventure 2016" because I think and hope that this book will bring me many adventures over this year (and possibly beyond) without having to go to places far away (although I will possibly be doing that as well).  Maybe I should have put a picture of a previous adventure under the title ... oh well.  Maybe another time.

Little book of Adventure 2016!

 

 

Before I sign off, I'd just like to say I was distraught to hear on Monday morning as I turned on the television to watch the news during breakfast about David Bowie's death.  In fact, it felt like I was being kicked in the stomach and I kept wishing it wasn't true.  I was so confused because he'd released a new album on his 69th birthday, just 2 days before his death, even though he'd been ill.  Even as a 20 year old, many of my friends and I were influenced by David Bowie and yesterday I felt quite lost, especially when listening to his older music and finishing my report.  I've been listening to his music since I was 14 and at an awkward stage of my life where I was quickly changing (not physically, but emotionally) and didn't know what to do.  Last night, just as I was about to go to sleep, I looked out of my bedroom window to see if there were any stars in the sky that were any twinklier than the rest.  Most of the stars were very faint, but I think there was one that was just a little bit brighter, and I thought that maybe that was the Starman, waiting in the sky.  Rest in peace, David Bowie (1947-2016).

 

 

 

This Is Not A Book - 1. This Is A Recording Device

On Wednesday this week, we had our annual Christmas party at BUSOM.  We went to see a couple of our members in a local pantomime of Aladdin, which was very funny and we were noted as bringing the energy to the audience participation.  We also had our Secret Santa present-sharing.  I received (from one of my friends but I don't know which) a book called This Is Not A Book by Keri Smith.  This is a type of journal which provides the reader with different tasks which often involve the book itself, which prove that it is not a book and finds innovative ways of using it for other purposes.  I then had the idea of documenting my experiences with This Is Not A Book in the format of a vlog on YouTube for each different task.  Unfortunately, I'm not that much of a person for being filmed on camera and I don't feel confident that I'd be able to keep going with a vlog.  Meanwhile, I find writing blog posts much easier, so I want to now try to document this new adventure here as part of this blog as regularly as I can.

Without further ado, this is the first challenge:

"This is a recording device.  Record the events of your day in point form here:  Make a mark for every time you enter a room."

I'm not going to make a new point for every time I enter a room as I will be entering a lot of rooms today, but these were the events of my day on Friday 11th December 2015:

• I started my day VERY early in the morning with finishing off my posters and bookmarks for the Christmas Fayre at uni today.  I then organised my music folder for carol-singing and my pocket money for anything I want to buy at the Christmas market.
  
  
  

  

  Mickey Mouse poster made using a Mickey Mouse drawing
   tutorial and adding a hat!

  
  

  

  Reindeer and sleigh poster made using stencils!

  
  
   
• My best friend and I explored Waterstones and the new Broadway Shopping Centre for a couple of hours.  We discovered glitter spray in The Body Shop, clothes in a variety of sizes at Marks and Spencer, and lots of Terry Pratchett books in both Waterstones and WH Smiths.  I think it definitely woke us both up and cheered us up.
• The BUSOM (Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals) stall is full of handmade Christmas cards, hats, scarves, Christmas decorations, candles, mice, posters and bookmarks.  For group photos, we have all been using the hats, and some of us have also been buying the hats.  I've bought five Christmas cards, most of which have buttons on them, one of which is of a female same-sex couple kissing under the mistletoe.  Other stalls include Heather's Jewellery, The Art of Conversation by the chaplaincy team, a Prince's trust stall that is selling adult's colouring books called Don't Judge A Book By It's Covers, and some food stalls too!  We also sang a selection of Christmas carols at both 1pm and 3pm and drank warm, spiced apple juice.
  
  

  

  The BUSOM stall, including Christmas decorations, homemade candles,
  bows, bookmarks and earrings.

  
  

  

  Christmas cards, mice, posters, scarves and hats!

  
  

  

  Warm, spiced apple juice

  
   
• I watched some of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog with both of my two best friends from uni, but we had some problems with the Internet connection and buffering, so we played The Hobbit: Love Letters card game and talked for a while.
• The evening ended with a BUSOM mini-Christmas party for eight, at which we ate food, sang along to You Can't Stop The Beat from Hairspray, Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, Skid Row (Downtown) from Little Shop of Horrors and Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent, amongst other songs, and found out that two of our members have just got engaged!

This was my haul from our stall, which cost me a total of £5 (£2 for any 5 cards and £3 for any 3 Christmas decorations)!  The card with two girls kissing under the mistletoe is part of a set of cards designed by Zainab Ojulari to support LGBT couples, which is something I fully support!

Christmas cards

Christmas cards by Zainab and Elina

Christmas decorations by Zainab, Elina and others

So that is now my first task complete.  I'll update you with task 2 in the next few days, once I've caught up with writing some other posts!