Student blogs

Hi again everyone!

Already things are getting very exciting in our studio space as we have just heard we will be able to host our own art and design fair, wooo!

This basically means each and every one of us will be making and packaging some wonderful goodies to be sold in the beautiful Crate Brewery in Hackney for one weekend only.
We have also decided to do this to give ourselves a head start in fundraising for our 3rd year final show! Eek! The final show will roughly cost us about £16,000, so we thought we'd better get cracking now while we have less work pressure on! The event will be a mixture of prints, zines, gifts ideas, clothes, jewellery and LOADS MORE THINGS all loosely based around the theme 'Pull Me'. The picture here is the poster we have designed!

Things like these events make me remember exactly why I chose Kingston! It's just so lovely to get a chance to be able to work with your whole year on such big and daring projects!

It also shows how broad our course can be, some of us our making socks, others are screen printing nonstop, what we make for the fair represents how the course fits to you. I'll keep you all updated on what we make and how the fair goes! Come along if you can!!!

Another exciting thing that has happened recently that I feel I ought to share was my experience with THIS IS IT.  THIS IS IT are a collective of graduates from Kingston University who create wonderful original crazy films and animations. I am a huge fan of theirs and was lucky enough, and aware enough, to notice an email that one of my tutors had sent to all the years about the collective needing a hand with a new project! I jumped on this opportunity and emailed them straight away, a few days later they emailed back saying they wanted me. Woooo! Little did I know that I would be helping them on a massive project with a super famous band and huge amounts of plasticine.

Their project was to create a music video for the band Tame Impala, for their song 'Feels like we only go backwards.' The project was roughly 8 weeks long with about 6 weeks making! Me and my friend Matt helped along the way for a solid week, and now and then across the weeks. They had decided to create the music video with a stop motion animation using plasticine frames. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING was made of plasticine! The day would start and we would create from about 5 to 20 frames a day, it was a long process but so worth it. It was a great experience and the final product is just INCREDIBLE! It was so amazing to be given the opportunity to help; I'm just so happy I read the email!

The belly dance season has truly begun and I am so excited!

As I mentioned in my last blog, October saw the birth of The London Algerian Ballet created by my friends Farah Nasri and Toufik. Our first show was the Algerian Cultural Festival which was held at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green, East London. It was an all day event celebrating the 50th anniversary of Algerian Independence, there were talks, art, musicians and of course dancers!

As we were all belly dancers we had just a month of intense preparation and training in Algerian folk styles of dance. On the night 10 of us did a 30 minute set including Tlemcen, Targit, Oran, Chaoui, Algerois and Kabyle. However we didn't manage to do all the dances as there wasn't enough time to learn all of them and the different choreographies by heart, and change clothes in between each dance. The costumes were so glamorous and elaborate; trust me I got into a pickle a couple of times, but I had the other girls around to help me out!

November held round 1 of Belly Dance Trophies 2012-13! I performed in this heat; it's never easy to go first but I had great encouragement and feedback during the night. I danced a cheeky Shaabi style and really loved getting on that stage again and feeling the improvement from last year.

Performers on the night included my girls; The London Algerian Ballet, as well as Sara Sherif Farouk Ahmed Bless Klepcharek and Maelle Roger. It was an honour to be in the same room with such performers and it has made me even more excited for the next one in December!

The show was in Wembley which takes just over an hour to get to from mine, using over ground and then tube. I always like taking the tube because it makes me feel like a ‘Londoner.' It's quite a good place for shopping and of course the Wembley Football Stadium is there.

Whilst travelling I learnt that as part of tube improvement they are introducing WiFi down there! I guess commuters will like that. Although I sort of liked the idea that the tube is ultra modern, busy, the hub of London and yet you cannot access the outside world from down there; a real contradiction in terms.

Here is a video of a recent show I took part in.

Thanks for reading! Charlie.

I had my mock viva voce last week, which is a speaking exam. We get three topics which are to do with complicated childbirth and ours are: epilepsy, management of labour and neonatal jaundice. For the mock we got to choose our topic, (I did epilepsy) but for the real thing in January we could get given any one of them. So my Christmas holidays will probably be spent frantically trying to learn everything about neurones and bilirubin.

Complicated childbirth is our topic for the first semester in third year. It's super interesting and includes topics like premature labour, shoulder dystocia and post-partum haemorrhage. These are all things that a midwife hopes not to encounter on her shift, however a minority of women do experience these problems and the midwife's actions can really make the difference between life and death. I would have to say that it's also pretty scary learning about these things!

The viva voce makes up part of the assessment and the other part comprises of a ‘practice assessment document' which is done during placement. You get graded on outcomes by the midwife mentor you have been working with. I've done my labour and postpartum aspects of the document and so only have my antenatal section left to do. I start my shifts on the antenatal ward this week, so I'll hopefully get a large chunk of it done before the holidays and that'll be one less thing to worry about. Yay!

Amongst all of that I also have my international assignment to hand in just before Christmas. I've decided to focus on childbirth in Afghanistan, after reading shocking figures about the maternal and infant mortality rates over there (Here's the link if you're interested: http://www.atlasofbirth.com/). For the assignment I have to make an information pack for midwives in the UK to read and also back it up with a rationale. The international module is fascinating and I love learning about midwifery practice - the good and the bad - all over the world.

In third year we also have a neonatal placement and mine is in the first week of December. It ties in with our complicated module because often if there are birth complications babies will have to be taken to the neonatal unit so it'll be good to see how it all works! I have a booklet to complete for it, so will be heading off to the library to fill it in!

I've been emailing a French hospital so fingers crossed I'll get a placement for my elective next year. It's good to be speaking and writing French again, I love it! No woeful cycling tales this time - the cars have been relatively sane and I've only nearly been hit twice. That's a good month! Lastly, it's a month until Christmas and I'm pretty excited! I haven't done any shopping yet but my housemates are on placement today so I might sneakily attack the house with tinsel and fairy lights. They'll love it, I hope!