English City Blog

Hi! This is Elizabeth (I am Professor Artemis Pax in English City).

I had the pleasure of eating at a Brazilian restaurant! :D I had lots of delicious MEAT!  It was ALL YOU COULD EAT!  The waiters brought delicious grilled meat on giant swords. My favorite meat was the special Picanha. SOO GOOD.

I also had lots of delicious pao de quejio! I couldn’t stop smiling and thinking of my good friend Geraldo Highwater who comes from Minas Gerais, the home of the pao de quejio.

I can’t wait to go back!! :D

I was on an oil rig, and I didn’t know where I was and where was everybody, I just heard voices. Then I got a note card but I didn’t have time to read it and so I didn’t know what I should  do. then I met Ihar but he didn’t tell me where we should go. so I sat down on the cow and thought. after this I went up and suddenly I fell down into the water. I didn’t see where should I swim to, and I reached this island, and flew from this island back to the rig (I didn’t know that I shouldn’t fly). so when I went up to the third floor, I met people in blue costumes, but I was in cocktail dress and I had a bottle of water, which I often drank, I didn’t know why;)  then we went down and back up and finally we sat down in the helicopter (i think I sat down on somebody’s head) and so we are here on the small island. and while people were telling their story I was reading a notecard and now I know what we did.

We met with Professor Pax today to live a new experience, this time we had an emergency on the oil rig. We had to work in a team and for that we had to follow the instructions. We went to the oil rig by surfboard. There were 3 animals and one human waiting for us. We were looking for the animals. We found them and we took pictures with them to save them. We found the fires but we didn’t know how to extinguish them. We pressed the fire alarm and found Professor A. H. Pax lying on the floor (but not like Jennifer Lopez xD ). we tried to stop the fire but at the end we had to get away from the oil rig, but … How can we get away from there? We had an helicopter!! So everybody got into the helicopter and we flew to an island. Now we are safe and we can tell this story to our grandchildren!! We are lucky!!!!

Today we had an interesting event. I had difficulty with the suit. It took me a long time to put the suit on. After that, our team went to the rig. We rode on beautiful surfboards.  It was way cool. We had a problem landing. (I had to fly)
On the second floor we saw a cow. We took a photo and went upstairs to the place where the fire was. Our team tried to stop the fire, but we didn’t know how to use the water bottles.
Then we found our Professor, she looked dead.
On the helicopter pad i saw a giraffe.

We received this week the news that Kodak has filed for bankruptcy protection, marking the demise of the analogue era. This event is a good opportunity to remember the history of the photographs. We discussed this subject in the class of Dart Jarman which was dedicatedto current events. I prepared four photos for discussion, which would represent four epochs of photography.

Let’s look:

1.)

This photos were taken 100 years ago by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky and look as if they were taken yesterday.  Between 1907 and 1915, Prokudin-Gorsky transported his photography-equipment in a special darkroom rail car. He printed the color photos by a method of his own invention.

2.)

The mid-20th century was an era of black-white photos for ordinary people and color photos for the professional photographers (look the famous photo of the Beatles). I remember this time. I made my photos using special equipment and chemicals in the darkroom. I stored my black-white photos in photo-albums. I couldn’t imagine that doing color photos would be so easy thanks to Kodak’s technology.

3.)

This photo was taken in Copenhagen by me using a simple camera and was printed in a service-centre which used Kodak technology. We kept photos like this in albums. We admired the colors. It was only Kodak’s technology which allowed us to keep our memories in color. Thank, you, Kodak! But the times changed and today is epoch of digital photos.

4.)

This photo was made by my daughter on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal. If it was made 50 years ago it would have been a model photo for a magazine or for exhibition. This process so simple today. We have thousands of photo files in our collection. We don’t print them.

It was great of course. But we can remember a wonderful company which gave us the ability to make our own COLOR photos.

Thank you Kodak, your photos stay in the our memories…

Anatoly Lyric.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing on behalf of the Cambridge Square residents’ association.  We would like some answers to our questions and as this is the fourth letter we have written to you, if we do not get answers we will be contacting the English City News and Al Peretz the resident film maker to expose your failings.

Our complaint is about the unsightly old house that has appeared in the middle of the square (see attached pictures) 

Why on earth has a shabby, run down, ugly, dangerous, death-trap been allowed to stay in our developing residential and social area? We are aware the house may have some historical significance,  but all things considered we feel that the best thing for the area would be to demolish it right away.

The values of our properties have fallen considerably and two members of the community are struggling to sell their appartments.  

The house breaks many health and safety laws and children are now being discouraged from playing on the green, not to mention the fact that it is discouraging new business tenants.

We would like to meet with the English City Council as soon as possible. We are fed up with being fobbed off and we want a response to this letter immediately. 

The Cambridge Square residents’ association.

by Ulys Hurricane

We arrived to an island. We were about to enjoy a nice adventure. Our mission was to reach the offshore rig, to take photos and to rescue Dr Pax. So we sailed on a surf board to go there because we were not allowed to fly.

Once we got on the place, we climbed up the stairs; on a floor, there was a fire alarm. We pulled it down; it set off a noisy alarm and we took a photograph. we also took a photo of the fire extinguisher. But we could not use it to put out the fire so we threw water on it. then we went up stairs to take a photo with Dr. Pax unfortunately she was under big stones. In fact rocks were falling down on her; finally she got a broken leg. Luckily, the rescue team came quickly. We went then to the helicopter parking but no one came. the best solution was to find a lifeboat. Once we arrived at the basement; we took the lifeboat and we arrived at the departure point.

by Met Macbain

My lovely dr. Pax, today, was involved into deep trouble again. I think she was trapped in an oil rig and we had to save her but first we needed to accomplish some objectives. First we had to get to the oil rig by a normal way, we did it by surf boards.

After getting on the oil rig we found the fire alarm, activated it, next to it were the fire extinguisher and the fire. We took some pictures.

Suddenly, we heard Dr. Pax’s voice crying for help, we quickly found her and freed her. She had a broken leg, but her situation became a little worse because of the stupid paramedics who were carrying her. I believe that when we were not next to her they accidentally dropped her on the floor. It was very sad to see our teacher in this situation.

We had a journey together with Dr. Pax and Aldemar.Our rendezvous is at an isolated island. There we dressed up a safari suit. It’s like an adventure, going to wilderness instead we travel  to unknown place. We landed to a something like abandoned temple located atop of a mountain. The temple is like an ancient Greek,because the floor was engraved with symbols. It’s a zodiac signs, the ancient civilization are using this symbol for agriculture and use a calendar. Also each symbol has an assigned date of month, and people believe there is a significant correlation between supernatural and really world. We decided to go downstairs to explore the place and see if there are people living in the temple. But we only saw ritual tables and three Giant Head facing the ritual table.Suddenly Dr. Pax was attacked by goblins, Aldemar and I helped Dr. Pax to get rid of the goblins.Accidentally, I sat down on ritual table, then suddenly a smoke rising up from table. I felt like I was  being possessed and then I blackouted. Suddenly, I saw a weird vision, it was like a dream. The vision kept on changing. The only thing I remember is a house, an old church and a cave. Then I woke up and found out that our companion Aldemar was dead/missing. So we decided to leave the place because its was so dangerous. Before we left, we honored  a rose and a gun salute to our beloved companion who died in this journey.

Tet is the most important holiday in Vietnam. It is also called Lunar New Year, but I prefer call it Tet Holiday.  According to the Lunar Calendar, the first day of Lunar year is on January 23^rd. And people will have 9 days off for this Tet holiday. It is the time for family reunion, think of the ancestors. We believe that Tet bring the new good things, get a new start and leave all the bad things. That is why everyone will try to be calm and generous in this time to have a new coming year full of happiness. Besides this, people also like Tet because this is a great time for relax after a hard-working year.

About ten days before Tet, people start to clean up and repaint the house, go out for buying new things for new coming year. Traditional markets and supermarkets are full of people. In addition, night markets appear for the need on food, flowers, decoration things, clothes and so on.

The streets these days are so colorful with Tet decorations at stores and shopping mall. The main street in down town is being decorated to be a flower street.

(The flower street is being prepared. It’s not done yet.)

Peach-blossom is the symbol of Tet in the North while apricot-blossom is the symbol in the South of Vietnam.

(Peach blossom in the North)

(Apricot blossom in the South)

The zodiac of 2012 is dragon.

Most of Vietnamese people will go to pagoda on New Year Eve. Pagoda is a solemn place and people believe that what they pray will come true in New Year. Receiving red envelops or fruits from the monks is believed receiving gifts from Buddha.

On Tet Holiday, people will give best wishes to each other. It is very common to wish to be success, have a good health, long-lived or prosperity in all year. Children will get red envelop with lucky money inside after give best wishes to their grandparents, parents and relatives.  

All people conceive that if your house is full of food from the very first moment of New Year, they will have a good life all year. One more reason is that there were no market or stores on Tet Holiday in the past, everyone had to stock food at home for 10 days. People keep doing it even things now changed.

Some of traditional foods on Tet Holiday are:

Bánh chưng is traditional cake of  Tet which is the symbol of the ground. It is made from rice, green peas and pork.

Bánh tét is traditional cake of people in the country of the South. It’s also made from rice, green pea and pork but it has different shape.

(The left one is “banh chung”, the other is “banh tet”)

Pork cooked with coconut water.

Scallion salad, cucumber salad are eaten with the main dish on Tet Holiday.

It takes time to make these and you have to be patient while cut and wash them. Nowadays, people in the city are busy and they prefer the instant ones. It is easy to buy bottles of scallion salad or onion, cucumber salad at the supermarket. However, it is not as good as you make it at home.

Roasted watermelon seeds, dried fruit are some of junk food on Tet. When you visit someone’s house, you will be invited to eat them while having a talk or eat them while playing cards. Playing cards is a very common activity on Tet.

On Tet, there are so many customs. I just mention several.

You do not allow to sweep the floor on the New Year day because you may sweep out your prosperity. Red is a lucky color of Tet. On Tet everyone will dress with colorful clothes except white and black. White and black are unlucky colors in East-Asia culture.

People also put the five fruits included watermelon, custard apple, coconut, papaya and mango on family altar. The sound of these fruit in Vietnamese is similar to prosperity in all year.

People also invite a very successful friend or relative to be the first one come to house. That person will bring the good luck to you house and family members.

Tet is a good occasion to enjoy the warm of family. Not only Vietnamese but also people who live outside of Vietnam try coming back to mother land on Tet Holiday.

p/s: Tet may be enjoyed quite different in the North, the Central and the South of Vietnam. I live in Hochiminh City in the South of Vietnam and I just show some customs of people in the South.

And Ho Chi Minh will be empty during Tet Holiday instead of being crowded as normal day because everyone come back to their home town. ^^