For our first full weekend here we took a trip to Edinburgh, which is such a beautiful place and I encourage everyone to visit there. Anyhow, once we got there we met up with Charley, one of the hairdressers and made our way to the Edinburgh Dungeons for some adventure. Purchased our tickets and anxiously began the 1 hour and 20 minute journey around the dungeons. The amount of jump scares we encountered, along with our deafening screams definitely made it for a fun, but scary activity. Even with all that, we still had a great time, and got even better photos to prove it. We went for dinner afterwards, and then caught the train back to Glasgow. We would've stayed up there longer but the weather really affected our hopes for sightseeing. So we plan to head up there another day over the next two weeks before we head back home.
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Friday at last, had an extremely hard time getting out of bed today, think the past week is finally catching up with me, but I did it. Hopped on the bus and made our way to college, we have gotten the hang of the travelling by ourselves thing now. Spend the first two hours of this morning in class talking about commissioning, and then after the small break made our way over to Rannoch, a classroom in the new building at the college. We were back to filming our short movies with our groups, only I was put with a different group, with four guys that I hadn't spoken to yet, so at first I was a little nervous, yanno still being one of the newbies and all, but it was all good, I didn't need to worry at all. We started filming in the studio first but then had to move to a different room because it needed to be used by another class. Moved on anyways and began our filming of Bratva, spent about an hour or so doing that, until the camera battery died and we had to charge them so we just headed for lunch. Afterwards we got back and did the remaining filming. I had the funniest time with my group all day and really enjoyed it. It has definitely been the best day I have had here so far and I'm very excited for the rest of my time here.
Today we were shown how to make a Wordpress blog and had to blog about the stuff we have been doing in the college such as the short film and documentary. It was explained very well and was very easy to do. I assume this is because we were in a class with 16-17 year olds. When we were finished at around 11am we were allowed to leave early. I want to say I explored Glasgow. I want to say that I partied all night long but he truth is that I had a bath and went to bed early. Maybe I'm too old for this!
Gina Today was the first day that we had to find our own way to Cumbernauld, no more Stuart the lovely bus driver to bring us in. We got up earlier than we needed to, got ready and left the hotel at 8am to find the bus station. We quickly realised that it is only about a five minute walk away from the hotel. Upon arrival, we got a quick 'breakfast on the go' and went to hop on our bus. We got the x25a, a bus that is bloody roasting, and doesn't help our tiredness very well. Due to it being our first time getting the bus in Glasgow, we weren't sure exactly where it would be dropping us off, so out of sheer panic we got off at a stop or two, too early and had to walk through a lot of traffic, but we got there in the end. Woohoo!!!
Our class subject for the day was documentary, where we were in with the HND's (Level 6 in GTI terms). Alan introduced us both to the class and then put us each into the two groups. I was put in with the group who are doing a documentary on Cumbernauld Village, and I was assigned the role of cinematographer, which of course I was very happy about. Gina was put with the other group, whose documentary was about the artist Brian Millar. I was put into that group for a little bit of class but was then sent back to my original team. Our task was to head out on location to the library/ museum to start shooting. We got equipment and made our way there. We got a little bit of footage inside the museum, went for break and then went back to college for Michael's class which was Critical Analysis, where we analysed movie posters using semiotics. I had a good time with the new people I met in class, they're all so lovely and funny, so definitely my kind of people. We finished up for college at 4pm and headed for the bus, for which we had help from our classmate Cheryl who showed us where to get the bus back home. Bus arrived, we hopped in, probably fell asleep a few times, got to the hotel and started getting ready to go out to dinner with Eileen. We all met down at the bar and made our way uptown to look for somewhere to dine, tried Wetherspoons but not all of us wanted to eat there, and there wasn't enough room for us all anyways. So after a good while of walking around in the freezing cold we decided to try out a restaurant called Life Glasgow. It was a very nice, quiet place, considering there was only about ten people in the whole place, the eight of us included in it. I and a couple of the other girls tried Candy Floss Martinis, which were very nice but very, VERY sweet, so not something I could drink on a regular basis. Dinner was served, more drinks were drank and we had many chats. It was a lovely calm night out. Afterwards Eileen offered to take us somewhere for a drink due to us paying for her dinner, but only the three beauty girls went with her, the rest of us were too exhausted to do anything else, so we just headed back to the hotel. Gina and myself got back to her room and were conked out in no time. So all in all it was a very good and eventful day. - Sarah Tuesday morning we were once again escorted to Cumbernauld by Stuart, the lovely minibus driver. When we arrived we went to our classroom and were shown how to make titles for the short film being made by the students from Monday. We used Photoshop which I learned last year but apparently forgot everything over the summer.
We then had to wait around for two and a half hours to be collected because the hair and beauty girls were not finished until four. We used this time to explore the museum, library and shopping centre located nearby. When we got back to the hotel we went to the leisure centre to take full advantage of the swimming pool and jacuzzi. I also attempted the steam room but stayed away from the sauna because that thing is insane. Dry heat freaks me out. After our swim we went to a nearby take-away and brought food back to the room where we watched tv and fell asleep surrounded by chip wrappers and sauce packets. Keeping it classy. Gina We Managed to pull ourselves out of bed to get ready for our first day at Cumbernauld. We may have been extremely tired but we got there in the end. There we met the rest of the girls and our teacher Eileen down at reception to get picked up by Stuart, our bus driver for the next two days. We started our journey to the first stop at the Coatbridge Campus at the New College Lanarkshire.
We got a tour of the different facilities and it was so fancy and ..... pink! Gina and myself then hopped back onto the bus to be brought to our stop at the Cumbernauld Campus which was about 15 minutes away. We arrived there and we were given a small tour of the media department by one of our lecturers- Alan Moffett. We also met our other mentor Michael Grant. Once we came back from the small break at 11.15am, we were split up and each placed into two groups within the class. We were given the task to go out and shoot on location near by. My group went to Kelly's Bar, where I was assigned to work the camera, which I was more than pleased about because it's what I LOVE to do. The group I was with were absolutely lovely and great craic, so I am really happy that they are easy people to get on with. Everyone else in the class seems the same way, all very nice people. I was then summoned away at 3.30pm because Gina and I were being picked up to head back to the hotel. Once we got back, we met with Eileen our teacher from GTI, so she could ask how we all got on. We then parted ways to go for some food. We found an Italian restaurant which was very nice. After our meal we went to do a little shopping before heading back to the beautiful Hilton. Gina was exhausted when I got back to our room but soon awoke to find me there (she really can't hack these early mornings). On a slightly more negative note I have been feeling very down and out since getting here, it's definitely home sickness. I am finding it very difficult to settle in and get comfortable no matter what I do or where I go. So I'm really hoping I get out of this funk that i'm in at the minute because I don't want to be here in two weeks time still feeling the same way about everything. Let's hope for the best! - Sarah We arrived yesterday afternoon to watch Ireland lose against Scotland in the rugby match. Bad for Ireland, but good for us because no one wants to land in a country they just beat. The hotel is fantastic. (It is a Hilton after all). Giant beds and a lovely swimming pool. What else could you ask for? We are just off the main street filled with pubs, clubs and restaurants. Everyone is very friendly. We partied hard (too hard) last night and slept in late. But then we went swimming in the pool and sat around in the Jacuzzi to feel a bit healthier. We are looking forward to our first day of college tomorrow. The bus comes at 8.30am Wish us luck.
Gina |
Media 2016/17Gina De Lappe Map of Glasgow |