Aloha folks! As you read this page, I’ll probably be making my way down to Manchester for training, or will be in said training. 3 AM start to make double-safety-sure I catch the train, that’s like… Four hours away. Fun times!
Anyway, hope you’re enjoying the story and the art! Normal service will resume next week, but you’ll not notice as I’ll be queuing up Friday’s comic.
SCIENCE!
Cheerio!
M.
Morning all, just a quick update as I have to dash off to work shortly (I shifted around my sleep schedule so that I had some proper sleep and woke up earlier to finish today’s page).
I found a photo of the float I helped design at the Manchester Day Parade; Rather sadly (or fortunately for the internet at large), I’m at the corner diametrically opposite the camera. It’s not my photo, so I’ll link it rather than copying and hosting it:
http://manchesterclimatemonthly.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/siemens-float-at-mcr-parade.jpg
Morning/Afternoon/Evening all!
What a fantastic day yesterday was! The Manchester Day Parade went off without a hitch, with fantastic weather and a plethora of inspired floats moving along the route. It was so great to see not just so many fun designs, and talented and committed community groups participitating, but also the excellent turnout from members of the public. There’s really no better feeling than wheeling a float along the city streets with thousands of people cheering you on from all sides, young and old alike! The artists who worked on the creations really did themselves a huge credit; All the centrepieces were fascinating, bright and really involving, and the performers along the route did a great job engaging with the crowd. Full props to the School of Samba. The man known to us only as the Dance Commander clearly loves what he does, and has a bitchin’ awesome uniform to boot! 😛
Remember that fantastic and action-packed weekend I was talking about on Friday? Yeeeeah, I think I managed to achieve about 20% of that due to the inclement weather, which made even going to the corner store a trek and a half. Fortunately, that 20% I did manage to get done was jam-packed with awesomeness, due in no small part to the Avengers film.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Marvel studios films I’ve seen thus far, and we all knew that they were eventually leading towards this fantastic, spectacular outing. I’m not going to do a full review here, but here are the pertinent parts:
Hey, check this out!
Yup, that’s Mara, as drawn by various members of the Manchester Drink and Draw meetup. Isn’t it awesome? 😀 I got to draw some other peoples’ characters as well, but sadly I do not have them to hand to show you. There’s something fun about drawing other peoples’ characters for a change, since theire personalities and designs are so different from your own. It’s amazing how much the creative process changes form person to person, and there’s a lot we can all learn from each other as artists and writers!
Today, I’ll be throwing the Science of Electricity at some young kids; It’s half-term holiday, and the wonderful Manchester Museum of Science and Industry has invited some engineering representatives to help educate them in as fun a manner as possible!
In true Me form, I seized upon the chance to do something artistic. There’s something inherently satisfying about marrying Art and Science: To me, that’s what engineering should be about. I just don’t get to flex my creative muscle in my day job as much as I got to at university, and getting to do stuff like this helps remind me why I went into Engineering in the first place.
Whew, what a day it’s been! Had a lovely day at the Chinese New Year celebration this morning, always great to be out and about at a festival. New Year celebrations always make me proud of my Chinese heritage, much as Burns Night makes me proud to be Scottish. The smell of food cooking at the stalls; Delicious! The sound of a thousand voices nattering away in Cantonese and putonghua; Thrilling! The westerner who thinks he’s being worldly-wise by wishing every Chinese stranger he passes by a happy new year; Full marks for effort, but penalties for annoyance!
Forgot to wish you all a happy new year on Monday, so I’m doing it now! Ngoh di pang yau, gung hei faat choi! The reason why I sort of let it slip on Monday is that in Manchester, the focus (as a community) tends to be on the Sunday after New Year. There’s a big festival in Chinatown and it is quite awesome, especially coming from Glasgow where we didn’t seem to have anything like that (although having said that, I did get to spend New Year with my family).
I was quite jealous of one of my friends, who got to spend New Year in Hong Kong, a pleasure I have not entertained since I was very young indeed; I’d love to go back for a big holiday like that. Hell, I’d love to go back to work there (There’s only so much winter one person can take!)
The best part of being an engineer and an artist is that, when asked to participate in events where you get the opportunity to educate the public, you get to have a freakin’ field day. While they say that engineering is a creative industry, that holds true only for certain values of creative; When an opportunity like this comes along, it’s the perfect opportunity to mesh the skills you use in your creative job and the knowledge you’ve developed in your day job.
While the general point of my life is to attempt to work towards a career in illustration and writing, I went into engineering because I freakin’ love applied science. Being able to design and build things using these principles is fascinating and empowering, and provides a unique perspective on everyday life. So when I get the opportunity to share my knowledge with the young, the curious and the enthusiastic, you bet I’ll jump on it!
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