Explaining my absence

So, two posts have passed since my period of absence over the summer and I hear you all still wondering: what exactly were you up to?

Well, do you want the short answer or the long answer?

Short answer: Brunei, Scotland, Paris, Leysdown, Crowborough, Roothill

Long answer:

After my two field trips as I've mentioned in my previous blogs, I had a few days breather before flying over to Paris for a short holiday sightseeing. Being under 25 and citizens of the EU, me and my boyfriend spent our time using this to be as touristy as possible at pretty much zero cost. We went round as many art galleries and museums as possible, including the Louvre obviously, seeing the Mona Lisa, Van Gough's amazing artwork including a few of those seen in the Doctor Who episode, Monet's waterlilies, and a huge number of other pieces of amazing artwork, a number of which I spent my time frowning at the plaques, trying to remember if they'd been mentioned in my GCSE art classes. We also went to the Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, a French games shop, under but not up the Eiffel Tower, and I definitely didn't try to visit as many of the landmarks mentioned in "Anna and the French Kiss" as possible....

After Paris, I headed back "home home" to my parents to spend a week with them, visiting family and just generally having 'family time' seen as it was to be the only week of the summer I was free to do that!

I then headed off to Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey to spend a week with United Beach Missions. I had a challenging but encouraging and enjoyable time sharing the gospel in the wonderful Sunday School style of the 2.30pm program and running about playing various games in the morning. Unfortunately, the week was interrupted by the terrible news that a body had been found on the beach preventing the use of the beach and shocking us by the lack of concern in Leysdown. Not to mention that our presence on the football field the previous evening meant that we were all questioned (no, the police don't have a box that neatly describes my hair colour). A sensitive and sad interruption to the week but we pray that it highlighted the importance of the message we were sharing.

On a lighter note, after not quite a week at home, I headed off to Crowborough to lead on the same camp as I grew up going to and led on last year. However, this year, I was on catering, having to make sure there was enough food for breakfast, lunch and supper (thankfully someone else was cooking the evening meals!). The catering went much smoother than I expected, even if we were slightly short on cakes and had way too much milk left over! I had an amazing discussion group, some of whom I had last year and it was so encouraging to see how they had grown as christians. I shared my testimony on the Friday which was daunting but some of the comments afterwards were encouraging and then in the evening the traditional midnight feast ensued. My part involved feeding the campers and one of the leaders various nice and not so nice food items in a taste test style including dog food. Well... sort of... *wink nudge* It got a brilliant response!

After a weekend to recovered from the lack of sleep inflicted by camp followed by only four hours on the last night, I eventually headed off to Roothill Camp, the last long distance trip for Noah the car... (More on that another time...) I initially wasn't going to go to Roothill at all what with it being straight after Crowborough however, how could I miss such an awesome camp?!

We (Beth and I) got there late afternoon on Wednesday, in time for Beth to talk about her trip to India with GBM's Envision program and to enjoy two full days of this relaxing but challenging camp to finish off my summer. The Thursday was the annual visit to Littlehampton and, like most years, we got fish and chips, played crazy golf, went on the Dodgems and the Waltzer. Unlike normal, I managed to lose my glasses on the Waltzer.... Josh was mortified that he had managed to knock them off my face however, knowing I had a spare pair in my bag and after having scratched them the week before, I found the situation rather funny! However, we still had a good look for the flying glasses and, on not finding anything, left my details with the fairground people. I'll let you know if I hear anything but I'm not holding my breath...

So that brings us to now, where I'm back up in London, pretended to be productive but actually putting off doing more of my coursework and dissertation research. Summer over and third year looming over me...

Dolphins in the Deep

Remember where I was at the end of July? No? Well, read this blog post first because this is a follow up from that post and, well, you might get a bit confused....

So, I left you wondering, will I see dolphins in the two days left in Scotland? The second day on Mull consisted of a land based tour and the weather wasn't anything special so we didn't see any dolphins. However, as the title of this blog (totally not nicked off an Animal Ark book..) might suggest, the last day was much more promising...

The third day we were out with Sealife Surveys on their boat, Sula Beag. We had barely started the transect when, someone thought they spotted a dolphin a way off. Sure enough, there were a couple of dolphins swimming parallel to the shore. Awesome! I thought, I've seen some dolphins! The thing is, someone else pointed out some more dolphins, and then another few dolphins and soon we seemed to have 16+ dolphins swimming around the boat, close enough that we didn't need binoculars.

Wow, I thought. No doubting I've seen some bottlenose dolphins and the ten year old in me was ecstatic! However, the dolphins must have decided that they hadn't put on enough of a show. Two dolphins swam alongside the boat, no more than 5 meters away at one point. I was barely containing my excitement. I whipped out my little point and shoot knowing even that little thing could get a photo of these elegant creatures.

I felt 10 again. However, this time, instead of reading about dolphins in an Animal Ark book, living precariously through the eyes of Mandy Hope, I was the one seeing the dolphins mere meters away. It was breathtaking. I'm pretty sure our bird sightings dipped at that point because nobody was looking up, only down!

This is the boat's picture of one of the dolphins we saw that day, much better than any I was taking! I'm pretty sure increasing the shutter speed isn't something I can do on my little camera...

I was ready to go home at that point. I'd seen more dolphins than I thought I'd even see, and all without leaving the United Kingdom, however this was just the beginning.

Less than an hour later, a shout of "MINKE!" came from the other end of the boat and, sure enough, a minke whale was surfacing surprisingly close to the boat. We then saw that same whale surfacing after diving another two times before we eventually parted ways.

Of course, a number of harbour and grey seals were seen along with a plethora of sea-birds however harbour and grey seals are slightly less exciting once you've spent some time in Scotland and have spotted some cetaceans!

Essentially, after the dissapointment of the first boat trip out on Mull, the last day more than made up for it. Sure, we may not have seen a killer whale or a basking shark but hey, you can't have everything.

I'll leave you with a group photo of everyone on that boat, grinning away after such a successful day 'whale-watching'. Can you spot me?!

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Mantis in the Shower

In the crazy business that is my typical summer, I somehow slipped from giving you the occasional update to leaving you in the dark. No, the zombie blog hasn't been killed by a stray mortal, just sleeping while I continued to travel about.

As those of you who have been reading know, my summer started with heading 14+ hours around the globe to Brunei in Borneo for a field trip. This already seems like a distant memory, despite being less than 3 months ago. Nevertheless, it's an experience I don't want to forget and hey, didn't I mention I'd share some pictures with you?

Meeting some friends of friends (and some of their friends!) and getting taken on a tour of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital...

 Trying some of the Local food (this particular morsel tasted a bit like a doughnut..) and in generally being overfed yummy Brunei-an food....

 Finding that THIS was our view for our first week; experiencing the rainforest which is sort of like British woodland but at the same time NOT AT ALL THE SAME. (I mean, so many different sounds, smells, different species of animals and plants where ever you look and an amazing sense of God's creation, despite being surrounded by atheist scientists); and having "ooh! can we catch that?!" being exclaimed every other second in the evenings when insects galore were enticed by the bright lights....

 Getting up BEFORE BREAKFAST to kayak on a swap full of crocodiles, and then heading back out again after a noodle-y breakfast to collect more samples. Oh, and then heading back out in the evening to go searching for crocodiles.....

 Handling tiny bats (this one here is a fruit bat, Latin name of Balionycteris maculata if you care...) and catching, marking and recapturing dragonflies, as well as seeing many other stunning critters everywhere we looked....







Dissecting a fish from the swamp which had a gut length of almost a meter which is about eight times as long as it's body length....

 
Entering C3 forest (basically forest that's so protected we could only going in because we're 'scientists', had permission, and had rangers with us) and seeing hords of termites and ants absolutely everywhere and getting bitten but a number of ants (the smaller being the more painful!)...

Travelling between sites primarily by boat via a mangrove where we saw this cat snake...

Having tree frogs right next to where we were sleeping and finding a giant spider in the bathroom. Apparently the story goes that one of my friends went to the lecturer saying "there's a spider in the bathroom", the lecturer assumed it wouldn't be that big and went up to see it/remove it by hand only to go 'oh...' and go fetch a rather large jar/measuring cylinder from the lab. Side note: that spider then started to spin a fine web at the bottom of that jar as if preparing to lay eggs so we released it pretty rapidly!

Getting up before sunrise so early  (about 4am!) that with the 7 hour time difference, my friends in England were still awake, but not regretting it at all because we got to see the run rise over the canopy and walk in amongst the highest branches...

 Finding a beautiful mantis in the shower and having bats flight mere centimetres above our heads as they were catching the insects attracted to the lights on the walkways....

Watching my lecturers get so excited over the creatures they found, as well as getting excited myself by giant stag beetles and another giant spider spinning a web on the side of the walkway....

Finally, having to leave the beautiful, hot, sweaty, mesmerising tropics, wishing I could have taken more photos and treasuring the memories and few decent photos my little point and shoot managed to capture for me.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"

Genesis 1v1

Cetaceans in the Clyde

Once again, I'm on a field trip. This time in the not so sunny Scotland. For the past week I was on the Isle of Cumbrae at Millport's marine research centre and as of yesterday, I am on the much less sunny Mull.

With two full days left, I've been spending the majority of my time on various boats, looking out across the water recording sea birds, seals and their behaviour, and other marine mammal sightings (which have unfortunately been a lot less abundant than the birds!)

When I was younger, I was obsessed with dolphins. My room in my parents house is still covered in various dolphin paraphernalia and something about the elusive and notoriously playful marine mammals fascinated me. As I've grown up, my obsession has lessened as I've found out about equally (or more) awesome animals however dolphins still trigger that initial childlike obsession.

Unfortunately, I haven't been very successful at sighting dolphins. I've seen a few porpoises (which are close enough) but the spinner dolphin our group saw earlier was on the wrong side of the boat to me and didn't hang around long enough and I was again in the wrong place when a large group of dolphins were seen from the window of the communal area. With only 2 days left, I am very much hoping I fulfil this childhood dream of seeing dolphins but I guess we shall wait and see!

Of course, the lack of dolphins does not mean I haven't had a great time. We stopped off at one of the islands with a tremendously large colony of puffins and the sight was immense. Seeing so many birds fly about in almost a swam and being able to see their behaviour up close (not too close I must add, we didn't want to disturb them!) was incredible. Hopefully I have a decent photo on my camera!

Scotland is lovely. It's nice to be back here however, after almost a month of mainly being away from home, I have to admit I am very much looking forward to going home, being able to go to church on a Sunday (rather than spending it working!!) and spending some quality time with my boyfriend.

So long blogger, I hope to see you soon.

Leaving the tropics

Today is my last day in Borneo. Soon I will be jumping on a canoe then a minibus then another boat to get back to Bandar Seri Begawan before jumping on a long haul flight back home.

The past two weeks have been amazing and it will be weird to go back home but I have to admit I'm rather looking forward to seeing everyone and sleeping in my own bed!

The thing I'll probably miss the most is the abundance of awesome insects and creatures popping up around every corner. Mantids in the shower, massive spiders on the walk to breakfast, giant moths near the laundry room, and tree frogs just beside our accommodation. Everything at home is small and relatively boring in comparison!

However, I have to leave at some point. So, goodbye Brunei and hello England!

Enjoying the rainforest

For the past week and a half, I have been in Brunei, Borneo, on a field trip studying tropical ecology. In fact, I'm still here now, looking out from our accommodation at the rainforest which is currently living up to it's name. Yes, if you hadn't guessed, it's tipping down with rain. Thundering too at the moment but I don't think the name is going to be changed to 'thunderforest' any time soon.

We are currently at the Kuala Belalong field studies centre which means we're in forest pretty much untouched by anyone except animals and biologist. Trust me, it is stunning. As I've been walking around the forest and travelling along the river, it's amazing to see all the beautiful creatures, all the bright colours and vivid greens, how much larger everything seems to be compared to the British counterpart and how much more painful it is when they bite you...

I'm hoping I'll have some amazing photos when I get back to a place with internet that doesn't slow down to snails pace whenever it rains or more than 2 people are using it but for now you will have to take my word. Moths larger than my hand, ants that could rival some of our British spiders in size, spiders that could rival our blue tits and sparrows for size and birds that come in all colours of the rainbow. Oh, and did I mention the bats? So small yet fly so elegantly as they pick insects out of the air.

Sure it's ferociously humid and it took most of us a week to acclimatise fully but I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying myself. Kayaking around a peat swamp searching for crocs, setting camera traps, going into forest barely touched and off limits to the general public, waking up to the sound of cicadas, falling asleep to the sound of barking geckos and almost tripping over a massive moth on my way to bed. Part of me doesn't want to come home.

However, Sunday is fast approaching, home time looming, and I want to enjoy as much more as I can fit in without exhausting myself too much. Canopy walk tomorrow morning at 5am is currently on the agenda!

See you soon England!

We're all going on a summer holiday

My exams are over, and now my summer is spread out in front of me like a wide river that needs to be crossed and I've barely dipped my toes in. If you hadn't already gathered, I have an awful lot planned for the next few months. I think I'm spending more time away from home than at home and I have no idea when I'm going to have a chance to see many friends and family. Nevertheless, this summer is going to be exciting.

I've only ever flown once before (a trip with school to Poland) and this summer sees me doing three return flights, one of which is the long journey over to Borneo. I still haven't quite processed the fact that I'm flying to pretty much the other side of the world in less than a week. I have all the things I need to take, flights are booked, last meeting was today, however, it still seems unreal that I'm actually going to be leaving the UK. Maybe by the time I'm all packed properly it will seem more real. I guess we shall see.

Of course, Borneo (Brunei to be more specific) is only the beginning of my summer. The first of two third year field trips which will both be a mixture of fun and work. I'm currently unsure of the ratio... Nevertheless, these two trips alone take up practically a whole months worth of summer and that's before you include the usual volume of volunteering and a four day trip to Paris. Busy doesn't really cover it.

Unfortunately, this means I'm going to be away from my home church(es?) for most of the summer. At the most I'll have two Sundays in London and the same applies for Kent. More annoyingly, four of those Sundays will be swallowed up by travelling to, from or during the two field trips. I love my university course but I do wish I didn't have to miss so much church to join in on the field trips. On a more positive note, three of those Sundays will be taken up by plane journeys so I can still listen to sermons. Talking of which, can anyone recommend any particular sermons and give me a download link? I never know where to start!

Therefore, although I have only just started getting back into this blogging malarkey, I cannot guarantee regular updates over the summer. Sure, I'll have a lot of exciting things going on but who knows when I'll have time to tell you about them?! Maybe this is the year of the scheduled posts....

Spam-a-lot

In my embarrassingly long absence, I have had a rather large number of comments. Well, by large, I mean more than the odd one or two from friends that I know read my posts. Unfortunately, these haven't been wonderful new people who have discovered my blog hoping for me to post more. Instead these have be spam.

Most spam is just annoying. I don't want to look at your website, even if that link is genuine; what I want is constructive discussions and feedback. Nevertheless, before I have a tidy up and delete these comments boosting my comment numbers (probably reporting them for spam), I thought I'd share some of the funnier ones.

Some of the posts, like this one look like they might be genuine... but it just seems too stilted...

Good dаy! I could have sworn I've been to this website before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it's new to mе.
Anyhow, ӏ'm definitely delighted I found it and I'll be bοok-marking 
and checking back often!

 However, most of them it's just so obvious that they haven't read the post and that, in fact, they are probably a bot.

Write more, thats
all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on 
the video to make your point.
You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on 
just posting videos to your blog when you could
be giving us something enlightening to read?

This one was  posted on Settle ALL THE PLACES! Which, is most definitely not a video... But thank you bot for calling me intelligent... I think...

Ok, it felt like there were most spam post than this but the rest were much of the same, if anything duller. However, after a comment spring clean, I urge you to leave comments. I'd like to think actual intelligent comments will encourage me to blog more... I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Examinate, examinate

Exams are pretty much unavoidable if you want recognition for any form of education. Whether it's a food hygiene course or a university degree, there is bound to be at least one exam. Between May and July, students everywhere can't ignore that fact as they sit at individual desks in sports halls and classrooms across the country, trying to focus on the paper in front of them. Of course, I'm no exception.

At my university in London, everyone has around 8 exams, all approximately 2.5 hours long. If you're lucky, you have them all nicely spaced out over the whole of May; if you're like myself and a number of others on my course, you'll end up with a clump of three in,a row. Always helpful for knowing how to order and organise the revision.

The thing about exams is that I'm never very sure if they're the best way to test the knowledge we should have gained over the year. Sure, they're the easiest way to standardise marks and bulk assess but are the people who get good grades the people who will be the best employees or are they just the ones who are best at memorising and conforming to the system?

I'm not saying I have an alternative.far from it. Coursework can only test some areas and there simply not enough teachers for each student to be individually assessed over the year. However, with the age of the internet, you can find any journal article you need without searching the shelves of the library and a lot of text books are now ebooks, almost eradicating the need to step into a library or memorise facts quite so precisely. There's an ongoing debate whether this is making us lazy or just helping us focus more on what we're really interested in but I have to admit, I'm yet to use the university library for books...

Whatever your opinion on the accuracy of examinations, I think most people agree that they are stressful and unenjoyable. So, as I head home from exam 5 of 8 I'll ask you: is there another way to test our assimilation efficiency?

Brains....

In the silvery light of the new moon, rats scurried over the abandoned tombstones of blogs past. Every now and then, a new stone would appear, already covered in cobwebs, cracks showing through the mist, but no one was there to see them come. The only movements in the whole graveyard were the scurrying and flapping of unwanted rodents, taking refuge in a place long forgotten. A grey mist covered the whole site, hiding the edges. If anyone had been there, they would have assumed that the graveyard went on forever: the shrivelled grass, withered plants, moss covered tomb stones and the deathly silence. Almost everything was thought dead in the graveyard. This dilapidated  deathly place was where blog ended up accidentally  abandoned by their owners and stagnating in the air of forgotten musings.

Today, the graveyard seemed to be the same as every other day. The sun still couldn't quite break through the clouds, the rodents present as ever and the silence almost deafening. Until, a scratching noise broke the never-ending silence. The rodents ran in panic away from the personal section of the graveyard, scurrying in every direction as a grave marked only as hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com shifted conspicuously. The ground began to shake and the ground beneath the grave seemed to be rising up.

The noises got louder and louder. The scratching became a deafening roar, joined by screams and moans. First one hand then another burst through the vibrating ground until a fully formed, yet somewhat decaying, blogger burst through the ground.

"Braaaaaiiinnnnsss" moaned the blogger, slowly but surely heading towards what she hoped was the land of the living. For today was the day that the zombie blogger attacked....

So, technically, this blog is dead. It had an official funeral and everything however, I have decided to bring it back. I mean, I didn't really intend to let it die in the first place however I guess life got in the way and then I got out of the habit and then... well, just imagine your own excuses, they're probably on the long list somewhere.

Technically, I should be revising. I am half way through my second year exams (4 down, 4 to go) with another exam tomorrow afternoon. However, after a very stressful exam this afternoon and a feeling of relative preparation for tomorrow, I decided now was as good as any other time to revive this stagnant blog.

It has been way too long. I mean WAAY too long... I've finished first year and almost finished second year, move from university to (rather leaky) private accommodation and  have been busy with goodness knows how many things.

However, the main reason I've wanted to revive this blog before the summer is because I am going to be VERY busy in the summer and, as this includes going to Borneo, I am hoping to keep some memories of this summer in more than just photos. It would be nice to be able to look back and see how I felt, what I experience when my camera wasn't in my hand, and what events I thought were most important at the time. This is going to be a big summer, not only because I'm doing so much but this is potentially my last proper summer holiday as I have no idea what I'll be doing after university.

So, keep on bugging me and don't let me slip up so badly again!

I hope to see you soon,

Hannahlikessheepbaa

 

Settle ALL THE PLACES!!

As you know, it was my birthday about a month ago and among the meeting up with friends, I got some pretty cool presents. However, my favourite (well, tied favourite with The Fault in Our Stars) and definitely the most well used was the board game Josh got me: Settlers of Catan.
If you haven't heard of Settlers of Catan before then 1) I insist you find a way to play it as soon as humanly possible (although faster would be preferable) and 2) here is a brief summary:
The goal of Settlers is to be the first to reach 10 victory points. You gain these points by building settlements, upgrading your settlements to cities, having the longest road, having the largest army (made up of knights which are a type of development card) or from a development card that specifically says "1 victory point". (As well as being knights and victory points, development cards can also give you other bonuses such as building two free roads, gaining two free resource cards or taking resource cards off other people.)
You build roads, settlements and cities and buy development cards by trading in resource cards in specific combinations of sheep, wheat, rock (well, technically ore but we never call it that), brick, and wood and these resource cards are gained depending where your settlements are on the board and what number is rolled on the die.

 
1) Resource card
2) Development card (here giving you 1 VP)
3) Roads
4) Example of a port where you can trade resource cards if you have a settlement next to one
5) The robber. It is moved when a 7 is rolled or when a knight is played and blocks a hex stopping the adjacent settlements from recieving the resource cards
6) The cards showing how much everything costs and the cards to indicate who has the longest road or biggest army
7) These numbers go on the hexagons and when that number is rolled, the resource of the hex can potentially be collected
8) The smaller one is a settlement, the larger, more church like one is a city
9) A hex. Different ones indicate different resources. For example, this one indicates wheat
10-12) Pretty self explanitary... the board... the rule book, the die...

Anyway, after that not so brief summary, I would definitely recommend playing it. I was introduced by a friend a couple of years ago and since my birthday, everyone I've introduced it to has loved it. It my have a similar sort of concept as Monopoly but Settlers is just hands down better. You still take turns to build and roll the die but you can still collect resource cards when it's not your go, you can still trade cards with whoever is having their turn and your plan can be changed drastically when it's not your go. You can't just pop off to the loo quite so easily without missing anything and it requires a lot more skill and planning than Monopoly. Furthermore, it is much quicker. Monopoly has been known to go on for over 2 hours with people getting so bored once the initial gaining of properties has been passed. However, Settlers requires you to keep focused, pay attention, and a game is usually under the 2 hour length. It's not always clear who will win and things can change drastically with even just the placement of one more settlement in a good place.

Basically, I am obsessed with a great game. I think I've played on average almost once a week since my birthday where possible and I'm still not fed up. Each game is different and different tactics lead to a win each time. Additionally, the flexibility of the board means you can change it so the "best" places on the board are different each time.

I think if I say much more it'll be overkill so I just have one word: PLAY.

Live long and keep blogging =]

Don't interupt me, I'm reading a book!

I tend to go through reading phases. I will go weeks or even months without reading a single book and then I'll read three or more in quick succession. At the momont, I'm going through a patch of high reading density - partly due to "The Fault In Our Stars" and partly because I'm starting to get familure enough with the tube to feel ok reading on it - so I thought I would share some of my thoughts with you.

The Fault in our Stars - John Green
I've been waiting for this book for what feels like forever. So long in fact that I didn't want to start it in case my expectations exceeded the reality however, ohn Green certainly didn't dissapoint. Without giving away any major plot lines, I will say that this book is one of the most heart-felt and full of feeling books I've ever read. It takes a lot to make me cry at a film with all the atmospheric music and even more so for a book yet The Fault in our Stars had me feeling so atatched to the characters, so much part of the plot and I felt like I was going through all the feelings with Hazel almost as if I was her. So great and thought provoking was the novel that I genuinely just sat and pondered for half an hour before actually getting on with anything else. John writes from Hazel's perspective as a teenage girl almost worryingly well and the novel exceeded my expectations and fully deserves the praiee and attention it has been recieving. It truely doesn't forget to bet awesome.

Let It Snow - Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle
After the emotionally heavy nature of The Fault in our Stars, I decided that a light, rather stereotypical christmas romance would be good. However, with John Green and Maureen Johnson as two of the authors, I knew it would be great. Although this book is arguably a typical 'boy falls in love with girl' compilation, there is a brilliant unique twist to these stories: the three short stories all interlink. As you would expect with a book containing three short stories, the separate authors' novellas each stand alone in their own right, telling three wonderful love stories in their own distinguishable styles (particularly noticable if you've read any of their other books) however, the three stories subtly overlap. Whichever order you read them in, after the first novella, characters you've previously met pop up subtly in the other two and the three link together seemlessly. If you often find yourself wondering what happened tothat character that only got briefly mentioned then I think this will be a great book for you! In real life, there are often those people we only know as 'that guy at school' or 'that girl who works at the coffee shop' but this intertwined style of writing makes you think about those people, reminding you that their lives are just as complicated as yours and in fact they don't stop existing the moment you close your eyes.

About a Boy - Nick Hornby
I'm a pretty firm believer in 'read it first' when it comes to films based on books, however, there are a few cases where I haven't found out a film is based on a book until during or after the film and About a Boy is one of those cases. I'm not very far through the book but I can't help but feel that the film has ruined my enjoyment of the book. I can't help but see Hugh Grant as Will and already knowing the ending always spoils a book. I just can't quite read it without many plot based presumptions. Nevertheless, I'm not saying I'm disliking the book. It's a pretty good and easy read and definitely worth the 10p I spent on it at a jumble sale but it is most certainly being added to my list of examples of books/films that back up the argument to 'read it first'!

Live long and keep blogging =]

by the way, some of you might say I've failed on the whole blogging weekly thing however here are three good reasons why I haven't:
1) I haven't gone to sleep yet so it's functionally still Saturday
2) A lot of people work by a Monday to Monday week
3) It's still technically Saturday in some other time zones

Snow?!

For a while, the idea of snow has been batted about. Will it snow? Won't it snow? Will it reach London? Did you see it sleet for two minutes? Well, at the weekend, it finally snowed in London.

It was the first time I'd seen snow in London and to be honest, snow at home is much more exciting. Sure, London looks clean for once directly after the snowfall but before long, the smog makes the ice black and the snow just melts away. Bit anticlimatic if you ask me.

I was on Skype to my parents earlier and they still have quite a lot of snow left in the garden. Here in London, the snow was practically gone before I had a chance to turn around and say snowball fight! Then again, it being London, I wasn't so inclined to have a snowball fight as the snow just doesn't seem as clean as at home. No offence London.

Anyway, I took a few pictures from the hill near my university so I thought I'd share them here. I was also in Soho when it snowed however I didn't have my camera with me then so I don't have any pictures of a dark, snowy Soho or Picadilly Circus.

Live long and keep blogging =]

Helping the Homeless

Yesterday evening, I went to church to give a hand with the night shelter that the church takes a turn with each week during the winter months. At East London Tabernacle, the home groups each take a turn to take charge of cooking the meal and this Thursday, the home group that I'm part of took charge.

As well as giving a hand with the cooking (we'll ignore the incident of the burnt chick peas) we sat in amongst those welcomed into the church for a warm meal and a bed for the night, talking to them or, in the case of the guy I ended up sitting next to, being talked at.

While the guy we were talking to didn't have much education, hadn't been to uni, been expelled from college and had been out on the streets for around 12 years, listening to him gives you a wider perspective on life. I may know more than he'd care to know about differential equations or ecosystems but he knows how to survive on the streets, he knows more than I do about political situations (but then, seen as I know next to nothing that's not hard) and I really think the goverment should take a leaf out of Sherlock's book and use the homeless network to solve the UK's drugs problems and simultaniously getting more people off the street!! Possibly... I never claimed to be the next prime minister...

On a totally unrelated note, I'm going to head off to make a den with Josh, Rosanna and Bradley.

Live long and keep blogging =]