KK’s Blog

I’m in Louisville with Kyle, working on the 48-hour film project. We got a genre Friday night and have until Sunday night to write, film, and edit a 4-7 minute movie. We got Road movie as our genre, and we’re in the process of doing a few more shots and then will finish editing. I’ve gotten quite a bit of sleep because I contribute virtually nothing. But Kyle has been staying up all night and has probably gotten a total of 6-7 hours sleep over the past two nights. Last night, I was sleeping while Kyle and three other guys were editing, and I started talking in my sleep. Wonderfully embarrassing when I found out about it in the morning. So now I’m sitting, writing my blog as we wait to do a few more car shots. But if anyone wants to come, the screenings are Wednesday at 7:00 pm and Thursday at 9:15 pm in Louisville, July 25 and 26. They are at Apex Village 8 Theaters on Dutchmans Lane. $7.50 each night. And then you can vote for our movie, which may or may not be called “Good in Red.” Our group is “For the Birds” and we’re in group A. I think at each screening you get to see all the movies in that group, so you have to buy tickets for the right screening to see our movie. It’s about a couple fighting in a car with flashbacks to the party that they’re fighting about. I might be an extra in the party scene, but I hope not because I was supposed to look shocked and I don’t think I did. But anyway, everyone should come. It will be fun! Call me or e-mail me if you want to come and have any questions. Yay!

But I don’t really know where to start. I don’t want to do school work. I wish I could just do a paper instead of a thesis. Then I would just have another normal tutorial and another collection, and just do 8 instead of 7 three-hour final exams. But then I think it will be cool to have a thesis under my belt. And usually students get higher marks on theses because more work goes into them. And I don’t know how I’d tell my adviser that I don’t want to anymore. I’m just being lazy, and I know it. But I feel like I deserve a break. And I know, I’ve already had one. I’ve taken 3 1/2 weeks off. But I want more. I’m also just scared. Doing this thesis is more than just memorizing. It’s thinking up new stuff, being original, and really analyzing. And though you’d think I would have, I haven’t ever really done that. I think I’ve acted like an overachiever, but really I’ve done the least I could get away with when it comes to individual things. I’ve just done a lot of things with a little work on each. Soon I’ll be writing more Europe blog entries and putting up more pictures, but that makes me feel like I’m really procrastinating. By writing about my thesis, at least I’m thinking about it, even if I’m not really doing work on it. And then I think about the fact that I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get done with Oxford. And Suke told me I need to look into that over this break as well. But I don’t know where to start there either. Any suggestions?

In Austria, we had a lot of fun. My favorite part of the Europe trip. The first day, we couldn’t check in early. We got in around 6:30 am, but the hostel let us keep our stuff in the luggage room. So we dropped stuff off, went walking around, and found our way back to the train station where we got some food for lunch from a grocery and bakery. Then we went to the park and ate, slept, read, and listened to music for quite a while. We went back and checked into our hostel, got showers, and went to an Authentic Austrian restaurant. We tried to watch a movie, but ended up falling asleep, so we finished it the next night.

Out in front of the authentic Austrian restaurant.

The next day, we called this place that did canyoning. We saw a brochure and thought it looked cool and decided on that over whitewater rafting. It was amazing. It cost a bunch of money, and the wet suits were a little complicated, but was so worth it. We got picked up by our guide, Romed, who we loved. And it was just Christi, Melissa, and me. The largest cliff we jumped off was 30 feet. And at one point, I was hanging in the air before I could jump. All the pictures are up on flickr, and that’s really the only way to explain it. But by the end of the trip, we were in such good spirits that we thought Romed’s music was really good. He ended up giving us his mixed CD, and by the time we listened to it again, we were wondering what we were thinking before. It wasn’t terrible, but not our typical music. I guess canyoning just makes you think everything is better.

We got used to the water in our wetsuits.

Absailing, or repelling, but without anything to hold onto, except the rock.

Climbing.

Someone sliding down a waterfall.

Me doing the 30-foot jump.

We finished our movie that night and had pizza, which was excellent, for dinner. Then we took a little walk. And we slept really well.

Our Austrian pizza.

The mountains at night.

Our last day, we planned on catching the train to Munich in the afternoon, but first we wanted to make it to the top of the Alps. We hiked, trying to find the cable car, only to find the one that we wanted was broken, so we had to hike higher. We finally made it to Hungerburg, and took the cable car up there. It was amazing, breathtaking, and cold. We didn’t consider the fact that we were going up higher, and the three of us girls were in tank tops and shorts. We got used to it, but we felt a little stupid. Pictures couldn’t capture it all, but we tried anyway. All of them are up on flickr, but here are a few.

Finally made it to Hungerburg and the cable cars.

At the top.

Panoramic of the mountains.

An old Austrian man offered to take a picture of the four of us.

We made it home safe and sound. Though our flight from London took off a little late and it took forever to get through security, etc. (didn’t know there were some crazy car bombs found or anything until we got a newspaper on the plane). We got into Chicago on time, and came upon a Chili’s as soon as we got through security. We had wonderful chips, salsa, and queso along with some buffalo wings. Then we snacked on some Belgian chocolates while we waited. We hadn’t had time to eat before we got on the plane and we tried to get something out of a vending machine that was completely overpriced, but it just ate my money. So we were very happy to have American food that wasn’t on a plane. Now I’m in Richmond with my mom and Kyle. I got a little sick, and it seems Christi did too, trying to adjust our stomachs to edible food as she said. I need to put up pictures and write real entries, especially about Austria. Nothing like sliding down waterfalls and jumping off 30-foot cliffs in the Austrian Alps. And yes we have pictures to prove it.