Tattoos

Well, the title says it all... Got two tattoos at Topmark Tattoo in Stirling today, here they are: 

Left wrist

Right collar bone

Living off the streets

Saturday was spent in Glasgow, hunting for photo opportunities for a university assignment. The topic: Living off the streets - i.e. buskers, homeless/jobless people, fundraisers, painters,... It was a group project, and we had to produce two edited photos each, which were then arranged on a photo board together with a short article on the subject. We managed to photograph quite a wide range of subjects, more than I had thought possible after spending only a few hours on Glasgow's high streets.

Here are my own two photographs (to enlarge, click on them, although somehow they aren't as sharp as the originals):

An accordion band in Stirling.

An Asian tourist filming a Spanish guitarist with his iPhone.

Here the entire photo board.

Postcrossing

If you - like me - love to receive snail mail from all over the world, you might want to have a look at Postcrossing. It's quite a simple idea really, you are matched with random people from all over the world, send them a postcard, and in return receive one from somewhere else. A friend of mine has already sent more than 500 (!) cards, and received just as many (thanks to her for showing me Postcrossing). That's probably enough to decorate an entire room with them :)
Postcrossing is free, you only have to pay for your postcards and stamps. Even though I've only just started, I've already sent cards to Belarus, Belgium, Russia and Germany, and received my first one from the USA.
For those people who love statistics and numbers, there's a whole range of ways your postcrossing history can be displayed - in a map, in tables and diagrams - showing how long the cards took and what distance they travelled. Quite impressive, really. And I find it very tempting to follow my postcards and visit all those countries in person one day.

My new room

I just moved into my lovely room in Stirling's Midpoint Apartments. It's the best student place I've lived in so far, especially because of the ensuite bathroom and the lovely big bed.
Here are a few pictures:

View from the door

The amazing 3/4 bed (half-way between a single and a double)

The pinboard, waiting for a few more postcards

The desk, nice and large - and already home to a few plants

The small bathroom - but it's all mine :)

Art in soap stone

Another thing I made in rehab. The sculpture is made from soap stone, which looks a grey boring colour at first,  but after polishing it it becomes a vibrant green in this case. It took me quite a few hours to make this little thing, but I think in the end it was worth it...