A Day of Free Fun - Colloquium in Birmingham

Birmingham  is said to be the shopping center of the world And now I believe it because I have never seen so many shops in my life!! There was an old church in the middle of the bullring shopping center and it was funny cause it was a direct contrast to the modern buildings surrounding it. We roamed around for a bit and went into the Birmingham museum. There was a special exhibit of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and reading about each specific drawing was fascinating. He dabbled in such a wide variety of subjects and he was so great at all of them! I want to be that intrigued by so many different areas of study!  Next we went to the BBC studio located in The Mailbox. We began our tour at noon and our two tour guides were Tim and lee. I had no idea all that is involved in broadcasting a single radio show. Quite literally every second counts and you cannot leave a second of dead air time or overlap by even a second without getting in big trouble.




Things I learned:
- how they screen callers for the air and to protect listeners in audience
- how cameras use wide angles to make very small studios seem larger
- how weather is the elastic in a news broadcast and the weather forecasters learn their scripts and are told seconds before they go on how long they get. Talk about talent!
- how to make all kinds of different sound effects

My favorite part of the tour was exploring The Archers studio and learning how they make all the sound effects for the radio show. It comes on every day for fifteen minutes and is about a regular country family. Examples are the horse hooves disappearing in the foam outdoor room and the three different sounding stairs in one staircase and Legos for ice cubes in a glass and hot water sounds different than cold water. So many things I had never thought about or realized before! An ironing board sounds like a gate and they recorded every sound of an actual car and that a bucket of old film touched gently sounds like the ocean. Stacy and I took pictures in the car and we actually realized that it was set up like an American car with the steering wheel on the left side.

Then at the end of the tour we got to record our own radio show with actors and sound effects. I was one of the actors and it was hilarious. I wish I would have exaggerated my Texas accent!  I will hopefully post in on here in a few weeks cause they are sending it to shilcutt. I can't wait to write and produce our own in a few weeks for our final project for the class.


The control room of the tour was also incredible because each person had such a specific role and if you hit one wrong button then 6 million people see your mistake on tv!!
Stacy was super excited all day because there was dr who stuff everywhere! I am watching it with her soon so I can understand all the insider info. It's kinda like if you have read Harry potter or not, you just plum do not 
understand what people are saying if you are not in the know.




We found the  cheapest place I have ever seen for lunch today and it was fantastic food! I got a jacket potato with cheese and beans which doesn't sound that incredible but I can promise you it was! I was sad to finish the last few bites cause I knew I wouldn't have any more after that! We even went back before we left to grab a baguette for the ride back :) it doesn't get better than a 99 pence sandwich baguette.

Then we went to the Birmingham cathedral and it had huge marble pillars and stunning red stained glass. I took another picture of the colored light reflecting through the glass like in the Prague castle cathedral and they are my favorite ones now. That stained glass blog is in the making!!Especially since I stumbled upon an exhibit in the museum all about stained glass! 
I learned that each pane of a window is called a "light". And every window was explained with the time period, what was depicted and what style of glass. I played a little game with myself to see if I could guess what I was looking at. I got alot of them and Iearned a whole lot more! Yes I am a nerd. I admit it and accept it. New bucket list goal: make my own stained glass window. It will happen.

I also wandered into a tent of all fair trade tables and Stacy got fair trade chocolate - in her words "you can taste the fairness" so cute! I also met a very interesting young woman who started a project to help a group of women in Ghana use their own trade to use scrap materials to sell and support themselves. Beautiful handmade bracelets and necklaces and I had a great conversation with her about how she got it started all by herself after volunteering in Ghana. I asked if I could email her if I have more questions because I am interesting in learning more about Non profits like that and seeing how it relates to my upcoming trip to Honduras. I feel like God is teaching me so many new things in this area and there are so many possibilities.

I spotted a huge rubber duck on someone's desk with big recording headphones on it and it was killer that I could not take a picture cause it was in a restricted area.  :( I'll find one for myself someday!

All in all a wonderful day!!