INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING PICTURES ONTO FTP SITE

You will need an FTP client (based on what type of desktop application you use (e.g. Windows, Apple, Linux) - I only have instructions below for Internet Explorer/Windows, sorry! But I'll try to find some more options.

APPLE/MAC - Not sure, may have to Google to find an FTP client (sorry Herve/Deepali!)
LINUX - Go to Places -> Connect To Server and fill out the details

For those on Windows/Internet Explorer - the ftp address is ftp://shirleyoujest.com.

For those on Apple or Linux, it is - ftp.shirleyoujest.com.

- - -

WINDOWS/INTERNET EXPLORER - URL http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client
(I found this a little tricky, but when you get onto this page, stay within the top orange box and click on "Open Source Software - You are downloading FileZilla ... Problems with the download? Please use this direct link or try another mirror." I used the "direct link".

1) Once you have the Filezilla application, type in at the top:

Host: ftp://shirleyoujest.com
Username: yunnan
Password:

2) You will then see your computer's directory on the lower lefthand side of the application under LOCAL SITE.

3) To create a directory folder: See my example "Shirley Lin's pics".

- Go to REMOTE SITE and right click on the first folder (has no name).
- You will then be asked if you want to create a new directory.
- Click yes and name it after your first and last name.

4) Adding your pictures to your directory folder:

- BEFORE adding your pictures to the new directory that you have created, please compress your pictures folder.
- The best way to do this is to place all your pictures into one folder, then right click and "Send To" a compressed folder. This will help us conserve space!
- Transfer your compressed folder of pictures by simply dragging the folder onto your newly created directory folder.

5) Downloading other people's pictures:

- Simple go to the compressed folder and drag it onto your LOCAL SITE directory! (This may take a while to load, best to walk away and have a cup of coffee and a croissant (French), bowl of spicy noodles and tea (Chinese), Coke and a burger and fries (Americans).

I apologize if this all seems a little confusing, it's pretty straightforward, once you get started. Please email me if this is just too much, we can IM each other and I'll be happy to walk you through it!

Good luck! A big shout-out THANKS to my wonderful Tom for setting this all up!

P.S. I'll keep looking for Apple options.

I've slowly noticed this the past ... month or so.

First it started with a lapse in conversation, a "pardon me? can you repeat that again?", followed by bouts of REDTMT - Repetitive Emailing Due To Misreading Text, and now I have to ask people not to talk, but first to state their purpose and then proceed.

As in -

"Hello, I will speaking to you about [subject]"

"And now I will begin to talk."

Ugh. I despair.

I can no longer process. My brain is like those first computer processors from way back, the ones that took 30 days to intepret a single command, and filled whole rooms in the dusky, dark, buildings in West Philadelphia.

My brain is Atari.
My brain is COBAL.
My brain is dial up.

My gray matter no longer processes linearly, instead it jumps into tangential connections, word associations, linguistic parallels and onomatopoeias.

It's a mass of neural sparks, but missing the connection. Frogger jumping on random logs, but missing the point. Doe is a deer, but not going back to Doe. Choose your own adventure, but skipping the last page.

- - -

It stops here.

- - -

ONE is the magic number. My brain will no longer be jacked up to 11.

REDTMT will die. There will only be one.
Multitasking will die. There will only be one (at a time).
When people speak, there will only be one conversation, one person, one seat.

It starts now.

B: < RUN >

I return. Five forty-five. San Francisco once again.
Deja vu with a fast forward button.

MODE: Hibernation.

Until then...

My first experience on the Caledonian Sleeper, a 7-hour overnight train ride from London to Edinburgh. The only other sleeper I had been on previously was the three-level metal India train, but it was awesome! Sure there were 3 levels of bodies stacked up on metal coroner-like slats, (if you didn't include the people that slept straight on the floor). But it was so cozy and familial to sit next to all those people and just chit chat.

The Caledonian was much more plush, (only two bodies stacked high on actual mattresses with bedding, pillows, tartan woolen blankets)... breakfast, tea, Scots accents and Crown jewels...

Metal

versus

LUSSHHHHH

But each loved for different reasons.

They have this interesting thing here where, unlike the US where the Sunday paper is the one chock full with stuff, here it's the Saturday paper that bulks up the recycle bin and is to blame for global warming... (sorry, have been watching the last episodes of Planet Earth)

And they have an odd "thing" here where they give you stuff with the weekend papers. Not just coupons and comics (which sadly, they do not), but books, DVDs, stickers, maps, ... (!!) They do that with the magazines too, at any one moment, you can get yer Vogue with a little spangley purse or flipflops...FLIPFLOPS!! attached to the front cover.

Still haven't figured that one out yet, but each Brit must have a hidden drawer somewhere filled with a lifetime of chatchkeys. And flipflops.

But it's also that the paper is literally stuffed (10-font) with the most randomly-connected information. Behemouth articles which themselves are an exercise in ocular marathoning, interspersed with wee snippets of information no more than a few paragraphs, perfect for an ADHD's daily intake.

All this really has nothing to do with what I was originally going to write about... the fact that I got complimented on my English when I went to my newsagents guy yesterday. He said, "your English is quite good". It reminded me of another time when I was complimented on my English in Alaska, and THAT was what I was going to write about - the whole international/minority thing in London, but will save that for another time.

Instead, I'm going to do my eyeball stretches and go out and get the paper.

brought to you by:

I suck.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go VOTE!!! - a plea from the other side of the Atlantic...

Mittens, hats, scarves and other such various woolen paraphenalia are slowly creeping into everyday wear.

It has to be said, London is absolutely gorgeous right now. I don't know if it's because of the combination of leaves starting to change and chilly, brisk sunny weather, but there's just something that feels so British-homey about bundling up and trundling down stone/cobblestone, etc.

Man, I'm getting all misty here.

Was wandering through Borough Market down by London Bridge this morning and saw something at the butcher's shop that was, I think, another sign of "Autumnal England".

Dead fuzzy bunnies.
Dead frizzy pheasants.

Yes, dead as in - doorknob, good-bye, glazed eye-look, no more [oxygen] [carbon dioxide] exchange - but in such a Ye-Olde-Just-Went-Shooting-Out-Yonder-And-Look-How-Clever-I-Am kind of way.

I wish I had my camera, but no, so instead I offer you bastardized poetic imagery... they were beauutifully hung upside down in a sort of gaggle (I know I know, gaggle are for geese shut up) of fluffy droopiness. A Farewell Peter Cottontail group hug. So wonderfully poofy and soft looking all hanging together that it made you want to run up, pet them and tweek their little ears... and then, I guess, throw them in a pot and bubble (a.k.a. French Cooking Tips de Attracion Fatal).

I wonder if somewhere in the world, bunny eyeballs are a delicacy.
Probably in China.

Speaking of unique local fare...two words, "wild hog"... scuze me, wild BOAR.

Got one. At the market. Stuffed into a pork pie ... or rather, a boar pie.

(I'm sure there's some sort of lame joke in the word "boar" and "pie" and "stuffed", but I can't think of one just now).

Visual:

I wanted to add something "pig-like" to the pic but all's I had that was close was a very small blue elephant.

Yumpscious, eh? Wait til I break this baby open... 35 minutes at 170C [check!]

I'll let you know how it goes down (but more importantly... out ).

[ ] going to streak crogsland road
[ ] going to fall asleep
[ ] going to learn about the high and low fronts of south america
[ ] going to fold my underwear
[ ] going to blu-tak posters
[ ] going to balance checkbook
[ ] going to take pictures of covert camden graffiti artists
[ x ] going to write senseless blog entry
[ x ] going to charge an extra-ordinary large sum of money for this

I seem to be channeling my Inner Girl (IG) whilst here in London... the cooking, the baking ... Jane Eyre* (!)

I decided to take it to the next level and head over to the London Craft Fair at the Somerset House. Never been there and it just reminded me of one of the things I love about London... the venues. The craft fair wasn't actually IN the building, it was inside the courtyard, but wow! Nothing like being surrounded by a stone fortress while rummaging through the handmadeables.

Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow pictures in the fair (I'm lucky they didn't make me pour out my fluids!) But each vendor had a little card so I made a "live through this picture vicariously" collage...

There was the usual high-end crafty stuff (ceramics, jewelry, etc.), but a few that I thought were interesting:

Mogwaii Design (double plus cuz the the band's awesome too : )
Woolen scarves and cushions... stuff that you'd need/want if you were an iguana and lived in Iceland year-round.

Cathy Miles
Cool little wire-inspired birds. Nice art pieces, whisical...Chachky-esque but interesting.

Rebecca Gouldson
Think etching without the paper. She basically stops after she creates the etching plate and uses that as the "piece". I've seen these before other places, but she has nice colors and sizes.

Uh oh, it's happening ... this blog is becoming too labor-intensive to post... (sorry, I gotta stop here).

There oodles of other interesting vendors, check out the London Craft Fair site, all websites on are there. They are pretty freakin' organized!

On a tangent, I've started my attempts at calligraphy and cardmaking again...

I [heart] ink.

Ok, whoa, that was intense ... I'm going to go fishing to counteract this entry...

*Jane Eyre is currently running on BBC One. Period movies from BBC rock. They just do.

I am going to call it "Four Left Turns".

I have historically been very very bad at "living" where at am, probably cuz of all the travelling.

But no more.

Four Left Turns - London will be pictures of things, people, items, objects all within a block (or so) of my apartment.

Starting...now.

* Shrink-wrapped Man in Orange standing on top of the Roundhouse.

He makes me laugh.
He makes me cry.
He makes me want to stop and stare and wait for the alien to emerge... (really old reference to the "V" tv series when the little half-alien blonde girl made a cocoon and then when she came out she was this leggy blonde woman... who could down mice and other similiar-type rodents like there was no tomorrow.)

I officially bake now.

Never ever though it would happen, esp since the only thing my mom ever baked was chicken. But, see? This is what happens when you:

1) Work from home.
2) Are in a country that seemingly has more types of sugar than beer.
3) Are naturally fidgety.

I made snickerdoodles today!

Uh, but not the typical cinnamon kind... I'm still obsessed with chai spices, so they're Chai Snickerdoodles (all sorts of cardamom, cinnamon, fennel, and clove goodness) ... have a gander...

And I must confess, there are tins of raspberry/blueberry, peach, mango, and hazelnut crumble in the freezer too. Along with almond chocolate marble cake.

Yes, it's on the verge of out of control, but luckily T's a very lean slim bean : )
...for now.

I was walking home from the gym a few months ago, just was wandering around the neighborhoods on my way home and saw this really bizarre looking "flower". It must be because there is so much rain here, but the gardens in London seem to have the most varied collection of random things growing in them.

Saw a bunch of these poking out and and pilfered one... love when things dry and shrivel up, they leave behind the most interest "skeletons", horticulturally-speaking.

I have this pinned to my wall and any day now, I'm expecting to see a little alien schmug jump out of the pod...

P.S. it rattles when you shake it.

I'm sure this isn't a new thing, but like always, it's new to me ... live orchestral accompaniment, (I really need to check the spelling of that word), alongside movies.

I've seen little snippets of this before, I don't remember exactly, but there was an animation thing I went to in San Francisco, it was something like an old cartoon strip (well-known) and a live performance of an old dude with a banjo/guitar/ukele?? playing along with it.

Honestly, my memory is like a sieve.

Anywho, am very excited about two orchestral accompan..., orchestral play-alongs coming up in London.

Metropolis - (1920's version) accompanied by the German Film Orchestra. Silent film which was the basis for the anime remake in.. uhh... 2000..(??)... recently.

Fritz Lang's 1926 futuristic masterpiece was the first ever sci-fi blockbuster, a spectacular work of vision and design, and deservedly one of the most famous silent films of all time. Set in 2000 in the mechanised city of Metropolis, where the rich enjoy life on the top floors while the oppressed workers toil below-deck, Lang's distopia is one of intricate detail, socio-political allegory, and a powerful and possibly redemptive love story.

Peter and the Wolf - Accompanied by the Philarmonica Orchestra.
The prestigious world première of an animated film version of Prokofiev’s much-loved classic Peter and the Wolf, which will be screened alongside a thrilling live performance of the orchestral score by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Mark Stephenson. The stop-frame film (a technique popularised by the creators of Wallace and Gromit) of Peter and the Wolf offers a fantastical and intriguing interpretation of the world famous Russian story.

Am uber excited because this is at the Royal Albert Hall, which I've never been to and it just looks so... big and velvety and red.

But am getting into my inks and nibs again and have decided to really really focus this time and illustrate something. Have had the thought for a very long time, to illustrate a little book for my nephew Brent and have even sort of storyboarded/quick sketched it out, but never really sat down to do it.

No more.

This is going to be my next project.

I wrote a little story for him, (actually I wrote it when I was 10, won some book prize, still have the plaque - aren't I schpecial) ... so may do that (it's called "Oh No I'm Stuck in a Shoe", a gripping story about a mouse stuck in a shoe, doesn't know what to do, all his family members are in similar sticky situations and he saves them all, told in poetic Shakespearean cuplets ... no I lie, but everything does rhyme. gripping.)

Or the other idea is to have my sis write conjure something up, which is kind of a nice sisterly-bonding project we can do together.

Looking forward to it, hope it sticks!

Stay tuned...