Week 11-I get sick...yay

Hello everyone!
I apologize for this post being late...again. I'm afraid I got sick earlier this week. I blame a certain individual who will not be named. But thankfully, I'm doing pretty well, just dealing with a stuffy nose and some sneezing.
This past week I made a book tree for my flat. Granted Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet, but I got bored and wanted to add some festivity to my room. It's amazing because I still had books left over. I also added my color-changing plastic cactus on top which made the tree all the more official.
It was nice to decorate my flat and realize the holidays are coming up quicker than I thought. It's only a couple weeks until I return home to Colorado for Christmas. Crazy how time flies. At school we're doing a Secret Santa with all my classmates, so I do look forward to trying to shop for one of my friends. I wonder who I will get? lol. I'm also hosting a Friendsgiving party this Friday evening for all my classmates. Even though the majority don't celebrate Thanksgiving, it will still be nice to be around people during this time so I don't feel homesick. This week has been hard due to my family getting together without me for Thanksgiving. It will be my first Thanksgiving away from home. But I think it will be okay. I have people here to spend time with, or as I call them, my London family.
I also went charity shopping (or thrift store shopping for us Americans) this past week. I've been a bit before, but I wanted to see if I could find some more dresses, just to add some flair to my wardrobe. I got to experience a bit more of the backstreets of London I didn't see before, and of course, took some pictures.

Oddly enough I found a cat on someone's doorstep, just huddled in the rain. I wanted to take them home with me, but my new roommate actually has a phobia of cats. Plus I don't have the time right now to take care of a cat. Instead, I said hi, snapped a photo, and left. I decided I would name the mystery cat Steve. Bye, Steve!
I did manage to find some dresses in the local charity shops, and it was nice to get out of my flat during the weekend. I ended up spending the rest of the weekend in. I read an entire Agatha Christie novel, The Mystery of the Three Quarters. It's one of the new Christie novels that co-author Sophie Hannah has continued in the spirit of Agatha's old novels. Hannah's new novels are okay, they're a bit more modern and less of the adorable 1950s and 1960s slang. But still intriguing, all the same, I really had no idea that the murderer was....oh I shouldn't give it away. Nevermind.

In other news, the podcast I've been working on, Human Angle, has already gotten 50 plays!

Thank you to all my amazing fans! I couldn't have done this without you. Jacqui and I put a lot of work into these episodes, and we're glad to see that a fanbase is rising. Thank you all so much for your support.
I have another essay due tomorrow, so of course, I'm still trying to keep up with the grind, when I'm not trying to sleep in to recover from this cold. I'll get well eventually, I'm sure.
Until next week,
Kenna

Week 10-International Dinner and job interviews

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the lateness of this blog, it has been a very busy week for me with essays to write, a podcast to record, and job interviews. But it's been a fun and exciting week as well with new assignments and opportunities.
This past weekend one of my classmates, Laura, hosted an international dinner. We were to bring a dish from the country of our origin and dress up from that country. I really didn't feel like cooking, and also really didn't know what to make that was truly American (yes, hot dogs, I know...) so instead I went to McDonald's and ordered five large fries. I can't tell you how many stares I received on the tube, but it was a lot! The smell of the fries seemed to fill the entire carriage. The fries were warm so I used the bag to warm my fingers, but 45 minutes later, when I arrived at Laura's flat, they were cold. Most people didn't mind that as they were gone by the evening. We had tomato rice, vegan sausage rolls, Brazilian cocktails, Moscow mules, French baguettes and cheese, Colombian cheese balls with caramel, 15's (a Northern Ireland dish), and stir fry. Wayyyy too much food! But everything was delicious! As the evening went on we played different party games, voting who would be the most likely to... as well as a murder mystery game called mafia. I didn't end up getting home until about 3 A.M., but it was worth it.
Or so I thought until the next day when I had a splitting headache. I didn't leave my flat at all that day, just taking it easy. My new roommate Nishita moved in that day too. She is very nice and friendly. She's a writer as well so I'm sure at some point we will chat books.  I'm sensing that we will get along well.
Monday came and the usual school stuff happened. I have an essay due next Thursday which I need to start writing. Thankfully I already have an outline prepared so it's just filling it in. Monday evening my friend Florian invited the whole class to come back to campus to watch some of the Science Media Production documentaries. It's to be a regular Monday night thing, and I look forward to it. The documentaries were only 30 minutes long, but between the films, we discussed the logistics of the camera angle, different shot sequences, music, dialogue, and other cinematographic techniques.  It was a fun evening, to say the least.
Yesterday I had a job interview for a bookselling position. I walked out of the interview feeling confident, but I never want to assume that I have the job after the interview. It just makes for disappointment. I am supposed to hear back from the company today, so fingers crossed all goes well. I have a separate job interview today for a Science Communications Manager position. I feel the position is too far above my skill level, but I am still going to interview for the experience. Life does throw curveballs, so you never know what you're going to find happening. Fingers crossed all goes well.
Yesterday was extremely busy as I rapidly transitioned from interview mode to school mode. This week is just packed with assignments, interviews, and podcast stuff, all of which I find challenging and fun. Hopefully, I'm not overwhelmed!
Cheers,
Kenna

Week 9-The Podcast is live....and an amazing book to read

Hi Everyone!

So this past week has been a busy one for me, but a very rewarding week. I spent six hours one day trawling through the archives of the I, Science magazine website to make sure all our pictures were not infringing on copyright values. For those of you who don't know, I, Science is Imperial College Science Communication's award-winning magazine. As the web editor, I'm in charge of making sure the website looks pretty and is well maintained, which means that I have to make sure our 3,000 plus photos don't break any legal rules. Thankfully we're all good.
I spent the rest of last week writing my first essay for Dr. Stephen Webster's class: Science in its Social contexts. My essay focuses on whether we can trust our own senses in the case of fear priming, using different philosophies of thought for evidence. I felt rambly with the essay, and of course, will be editing it this week before I hand it in, but often philosophy does get rather wordy, so I'm not too worried.
Jacqui and I also recorded our second episode of Human Angle. I can't give too much away but it's all about the scandal around the discovery of the structure of DNA. We're focusing on two of the main scientists involved, Dr. James Watson and Rosalind Franklin. For those of you who don't know who Rosalind Franklin is, don't be worried. She was never credited with this discovery.
We'll be discussing why that is in the episode. Our last episode on Hedy Lamarr went live this past weekend and is now available on Spotify, iTunes, Alexa+Tune in, and Stitcher. If you haven't listened to it yet I highly recommend. There isn't another podcast like this out there, and Jacqui and I really try to make it a worthwhile experience of discussion and education for our listeners.
I can't give too much away about what I'm recording this week, but this episode is nothing like we've done with the previous two. We'll be discussing John Steinbeck and his lost book on marine biology, Log from the Sea of Cortez. It's an amazing read and I highly recommend it to everyone, as it discusses the friendship Steinbeck had with a marine biologist named Ed Ricketts. Steinbeck, being one of the classic American novelists, loses no style in this incredible read as he discusses how science looks to a layperson, as well as fascinating scenes of marine life in the tidepools around the Gulf of California.
I'm honestly in love with this book and I can't put it down. Some of his quotes are absolutely stunning, and I can't wait to share them in our upcoming episode. So keep your ears open!
Tonight I will be attending the Imperial Late's show called Infectious, which is all about diseases. Imperial College does a once a month late-night show about certain topics in science. I didn't get to go to the last one due to a poorly timed bout of food poisoning (is food poisoning ever appropriately timed?). I'm excited to see what this event has to offer. The I, Science team will hopefully be interviewing people at the event as well so keep looking at our website for updates.
That's all folks!
Until next week,
Kenna

Week 8-Halloween Party and first podcast recorded

Hi, lovelies!

This past week I was busy! I turned in my first essay on the day of Halloween. I spent the earlier part of the week preparing for Halloween, going shopping with my friends Sunita, Cristina, and Matthew to find some stuff for my Halloween costume. I decided to go as Black Widow for Halloween, from Marvel's Avengers series. The costume was easy enough to make, I found black leather pants,  and had a black long sleeve shirt. I cut some holes into black leather gloves to make fingerless gloves. While shopping with my friends I also found some 6-inch tall black boots to wear. While they are not canon to Black Widow's outfit, I thought I would enjoy the extra height.
While waiting for the party to begin at 8 pm on Halloween eve, I got ready and did my makeup while watching Endgame, the last of the Avengers movies, in order to get into character. Not that I really needed to, this was to be a night of fun and games. I met my friend Cristina at the station. She was dressed as Lara Croft, from the famous video game Tomb Raider. She brought her friend Matthew with her, who was dressed as Kim Jong-Ill, the leader of North Korea. Matthew's outfit was perfect for his character, and he got many stares on the trains. But amazingly, he also got many people asking to take photos with him. He kept laughing at how many Instagram followers he was getting because he posted a picture of his costume on Instagram. Someone had even photoshopped his face in a picture with President Trump.
We spent a few hours in the pub, and then a few of us moved to a more exclusive club called Aquum which was oddly enough deserted on Halloween night. My feet were killing me by the end, and I hated how slow I was walking due to wearing such tall heels. I headed home around midnight and was asleep in bed by 12:30 A.M. As I woke the next morning to sore calves and a couple blisters, I was grateful I got to spend time with my friends at the Halloween party.
I walked to campus, slightly hungover, and very exhausted. Friday was the day that my friend Jacqui and I were going to record our first episode of Human Angle, and though I struggled to focus on the upcoming task, I was excited to see what we would make of it. As I met Jacqui outside the radio studio, we went over our script, discussing the life of Hedy Lamarr.
I can't go into too much detail, as I will spoil the podcast for you, but Hedy Lamarr is a famous 1940's actress who also happened to invent the technology for creating wifi and GPS. Jacqui and I decided to split up our script, me taking the first half of her story and Jacqui taking the latter half. After setting things up in the studio, Jacqui hit the record button and we began. Recording the episode was a lot of fun, as Jacqui and I have a natural banter, which helps us to make a smoother narrative of Hedy Lamarr's life. We discussed bigger key points that we thought were important to understand, hoping to make her appear more as a person and less as a celebrity. By the time we were done recording, our 20 minutes planned episode was 40 minutes long and needed a lot of editing. We sent the audio file to Jacqui's brother in Australia to edit, as he is a professional sound mixer. I decided however that for the next episode this coming week, I'd try my hand at mixing and see how it went. Stay tuned! 
As classes began after an uneventful weekend, my core practical class geared up for our presentations next week. We have to present in our groups four different types of media that for the past month we've been playing around with: TV studio, location TV, location radio, and radio studio. Honestly, and this is no surprise, but the radio studio was my favorite out of the four. And my group put me in charge of snipping out the radio studio parts we want to highlight. So a busy week ahead as I have another essay to write, a radio podcast to record and edit, and a radio studio snippet to create. Oh! And I'm also on air next week for our I, Science radio show. As next week is 11/11, and marking the anniversary of the end of World War I, we're doing a segment about science and war. Stay tuned as I will be talking about the Haber Process and Alan Turing. I promise to include the link for it in next week's blog. 
Until then, hopefully, I won't die of exhaustion, but I'm certainly not dying of boredom right now. 
Plus I need to find a job as well. 
Cheers, 
Kenna