COMMUNE
Monday 20th Feb AM
During our journey to Brighton we engaged in some knitting as a group (led by Anne). I had never knitted before so this was a new experience for me. i did find it quite difficult tot follow the instructions that Anne was giving us because each step is as important as the rest in knitting especially if you are a newbie. I found that because i messed up previous steps i struggled with the rest. Anne tried to help me but sooner or late i decided that knitting wasn't for me and gave up. The rest of the group knitted in silence while i engaged in continuous line drawings.
Monday Feb Jan PM
Today has been disastrous. We arrived at the hostel at about 3pm pleasantly surprised by its close proximity to the beach. As we walked in we were greeted by an unwelcoming smell. We checked in and headed upstairs to lay eye on our home for the next 3 nights. We found dust, bloodstained pillow cases, holes in the wall and damaged flooring 'repaired' with black tape.
After packing we took a slow stroll by the beach, we took photos and found a Japanese restaurant called Pho along our way. Due to my high levels of distress i decided to treat my self to two starter and main and a drink. I had fried chicken wings with suracha, prawn crackers with a sweet chilli dip, wok fried noodles with chicken and prawn, and fresh apple mints lime and ginger juice. My food would have come to a total of £21.15 but i found plastic in my noodles so the manager waved the price of the noodles off the bill hehe. After this we went to a ice cream cafe and chilled for a while until i started having a mental breakdown about our accommodation so i called my dad who comforted me lol. Upon our return to the hostel and our climb up the stairs we smelt strong whiffs of maruajana. There were creepy men downstairs so we legged it up the stairs and typed in our code as fast as we could to get into our room. I don't know how well i will sleep tonight but i have learned a few things today:
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR (our accomodation is £15 a night)..
You must appreciate where u live
I want to go home
Tuesday 21st Feb
Today we walked to the town centre because we didn't have a valid bus pass as yet and we wanted to take photos of the surrounding scenery. *All photos can be found in my sketchbook*. We popped into an old bookstore which had a weird smell, i guess because all the books and the carpet were all very old. What i found most interesting about the bookstore was how ordered they were and the fact that they were all hardback and from the same musty colour palette. Later on we went to the Royal Pavilion. The building was historic with an ancient architectural high ceiling build. We visited here to comply with the word for the day 'order'. The building had rules for example no photography and a required fee for entry. We decided it would be more value for money to send £5 and visit the Brighton Art Museum instead. The museum was huge value for money and it would have been even cheaper had i not forgotten my student identification card at home. There was a lot about the fashion trends in previous decades within Brighton. I learned that Brighton was a very pioneering town for the LGBTQ community.
Wednesday 22nd Feb
Today we visited the Seven Sister's cliffs. It took us an hour and a half to get there but there was a lot of interesting sights to see on our bus journey. We walked for over an hour to get to the cliffs mainly because we kept stopping of to take photos. We were able to connect with the natural environment and be free from technology as we all subconsciously chose to hardly use our phones. This gave us a great opportunity to build and develop our relationships. Our original plan was to climb some of the cliffs but by time we got to what looked like the first cliff we were all exhausted. To this day I'm not sure if we even walked far enough to see the the first of the seven sisters cliffs, i guess we will never know.
THURSDAY 23RD FEB
Words couldn't describe the height of my happiness this morning when I packed and stepped outside the door of the hostel. We walked all the way to the town centre with our suitcases because none of us had money to pay for a bus journey. We stopped off at waitrose on the way because we wanted to get our free tea as a reward for walking so far. We finally made our way to the station and caught a train at about 2pm. Our train ticket only permitted us to travel on the 7:58pm train but we couldn't stand staying in Brighton any longer.
OVERVIEW
This week has been very insightful, enlightening and memorable. I was exposed to a way of living that i have never experienced which has made me extremely appreciative of what i have. I have told many people about my stay in Brighton partially because I was disgusted but mainly because I am proud that I was able to push through and survive the 3nights. Initially i was sceptical about going on this trip because felt that spending a long period of time with the same people would get on my nerves. I was pleasantly surprised that i experienced the complete opposite. As a result of the commune trip we are now all a lot closer and have taken a lot away from the trip with us; physically and mentally. I believe that this trip as a form of research has been extremely beneficial to me as we were surrounded by a fresh environment for 4 whole days and 3 nights. The research we undertook would have been vastly different if we had the opportunity to go home every night because we would have returned to normality which would have acted as a refresh button , when in fact research is best when you continue to delve deeper. Additionally spending so long with a group of people makes you expose who you really are which results in you acting more naturally and thus allows the space for ideas to be developed naturally. Being undoubtable me at all times is something that is very important to me. I feel that when people shy away from who they are or act in a different way to the way that they naturally want to act it has an effect on their happiness and freedom. It's true that you cant always be completely yourself but for example on the commune trip, If I didn't feel comfortable to be my natural self (e.g giving my honest opinions/farting/crying) in a place where I felt very uncomfortable it would have seriously affected my mood even more. Subsequently I will conduct my Unit 7 project on encouraging others to be and behaviour according to who you are as I want others to join me on this journey towards freedom.