This Is Not A Book - 1. This Is A Recording Device

On Wednesday this week, we had our annual Christmas party at BUSOM.  We went to see a couple of our members in a local pantomime of Aladdin, which was very funny and we were noted as bringing the energy to the audience participation.  We also had our Secret Santa present-sharing.  I received (from one of my friends but I don't know which) a book called This Is Not A Book by Keri Smith.  This is a type of journal which provides the reader with different tasks which often involve the book itself, which prove that it is not a book and finds innovative ways of using it for other purposes.  I then had the idea of documenting my experiences with This Is Not A Book in the format of a vlog on YouTube for each different task.  Unfortunately, I'm not that much of a person for being filmed on camera and I don't feel confident that I'd be able to keep going with a vlog.  Meanwhile, I find writing blog posts much easier, so I want to now try to document this new adventure here as part of this blog as regularly as I can.

Without further ado, this is the first challenge:

"This is a recording device.  Record the events of your day in point form here:  Make a mark for every time you enter a room."

I'm not going to make a new point for every time I enter a room as I will be entering a lot of rooms today, but these were the events of my day on Friday 11th December 2015:

• I started my day VERY early in the morning with finishing off my posters and bookmarks for the Christmas Fayre at uni today.  I then organised my music folder for carol-singing and my pocket money for anything I want to buy at the Christmas market.
  
  
  

  

  Mickey Mouse poster made using a Mickey Mouse drawing
   tutorial and adding a hat!

  
  

  

  Reindeer and sleigh poster made using stencils!

  
  
   
• My best friend and I explored Waterstones and the new Broadway Shopping Centre for a couple of hours.  We discovered glitter spray in The Body Shop, clothes in a variety of sizes at Marks and Spencer, and lots of Terry Pratchett books in both Waterstones and WH Smiths.  I think it definitely woke us both up and cheered us up.
• The BUSOM (Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals) stall is full of handmade Christmas cards, hats, scarves, Christmas decorations, candles, mice, posters and bookmarks.  For group photos, we have all been using the hats, and some of us have also been buying the hats.  I've bought five Christmas cards, most of which have buttons on them, one of which is of a female same-sex couple kissing under the mistletoe.  Other stalls include Heather's Jewellery, The Art of Conversation by the chaplaincy team, a Prince's trust stall that is selling adult's colouring books called Don't Judge A Book By It's Covers, and some food stalls too!  We also sang a selection of Christmas carols at both 1pm and 3pm and drank warm, spiced apple juice.
  
  

  

  The BUSOM stall, including Christmas decorations, homemade candles,
  bows, bookmarks and earrings.

  
  

  

  Christmas cards, mice, posters, scarves and hats!

  
  

  

  Warm, spiced apple juice

  
   
• I watched some of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog with both of my two best friends from uni, but we had some problems with the Internet connection and buffering, so we played The Hobbit: Love Letters card game and talked for a while.
• The evening ended with a BUSOM mini-Christmas party for eight, at which we ate food, sang along to You Can't Stop The Beat from Hairspray, Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, Skid Row (Downtown) from Little Shop of Horrors and Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent, amongst other songs, and found out that two of our members have just got engaged!

This was my haul from our stall, which cost me a total of £5 (£2 for any 5 cards and £3 for any 3 Christmas decorations)!  The card with two girls kissing under the mistletoe is part of a set of cards designed by Zainab Ojulari to support LGBT couples, which is something I fully support!

Christmas cards

Christmas cards by Zainab and Elina

Christmas decorations by Zainab, Elina and others

So that is now my first task complete.  I'll update you with task 2 in the next few days, once I've caught up with writing some other posts!