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 =]

Happy Birthday [Insert name here]

On Saturday, it was the 21st January and yours truly reached the age of 19. The last year of being a teenager is upon me and I feel absolutely no different. Not surprising really but seen as at 19 nothing particularly exciting happens such as driving or anything becoming legal or anything like that, I shall tell you about my Saturday.

For my birthday, I went pottery painting and for a meal with a few of my friends who were around. I say a few but I was pleasantly surprised how many were able to come what with half my friends now being at university. I had a great day and it most certainly went by WAY too quickly.

Our pottery painting included a lot of fantasy, sci-fi and just general nerdiness as you can tell:

This is the inside of Jennie's mug that she painted. I'm still not quite sure how she managed it considering it was one of those tall thing mugs rather than a chunky one.

I kept on with the TARDIS theme, breaking away from the heavy sheep theme of my previous pottery painting trips....

 However, not completely... Still some sheep and still some plagiarism... sort of ;) I'd say it falls under "fair usage". I also got everyone to sign the back of my plate just to make it that little bit more special :)

 And of course I can't end this blog without introducing you to my parents. Here you have my mum and dad. Note how my mum has part of my sister's pudding in her left hand and is attacking my dad's with a spoon in her right hand. Maybe someday my mum will get her own pudding rather than nicking everyone else's!!

Live long and keep blogging =]

Whale watching

I'm currently sitting in the gallery above the mammal room in the natural history museum that famously contains the blue whale. There are five massive whale skeletons hanging in front of me and it really makes you realise just how small we are. A single jaw bone is longer than I am tall and its backbone is easily thicker than my leg. It's amazing to think that these creatures are swimming about in the oceans.

Even after a morning of filling in a worksheet for my evolution module, I can't help but see God's amazing creation in the creatures all around me. I can't help but ask how could any of this come about by chance? The creatures are too beautiful and too precisely designed for birds to have come from dinosaurs or mammals to have come from lizards. As I look at the bones of the whales in front of me, how could this gigantic creature come from a microscopic, boneless organism? The world I see just doesn't fit with the history I'm taught in lectures.

I know many don't agree; many will say I'm the crazy one for saying evolution didn't happen but I've tried seeing it from their view and it doesn't fit, so maybe they should try see it from mine?

Live long and keep posting =]

Fort Paradox Returns!!

Yesterday, Fort Paradox, a cross continuity web comic run by Matt, Tim and Sarah, for which I am occasionally allowed to draw, started up again in all its confusingly wonderful glory.

The first post back is actually one of the "Behind the Scenes" posts that have been going up on Tuesdays and this particular one returns with a plan of part of the Fort.

This caught my eye as there is one bit of concept art missing from the post. Yup, and the reason is that it was drawn by Matt on the back of the script for an episode I was in the process of drawing back at Roothill 2011. I actually have the simple (and slightly scruffy...) pen drawing stuck up on my wall at uni and I thought I'd share it with you in the light of the most recent post on Fort Paradox. Admittedly, it looks like a hand-drawn version of on of the diagrams, nevertheless, here it is:

I hope, if you don't already read Fort Paradox, this will wet your appetite and encourage you to head over to www.fortparadox.blogspot.com and catch up on the back story before the webcomic begins reposting actual episodes.

Live long and keep posting =]

Cello Wars!!

I don't want to finish First 12 for '12 and then just disappear again so I'm going to try keep up the blogging. Whether It's something fairly brief or a whole long rant, I don't want to disappear for three months again. Yeah, sorry about that...

So I thought I'd post the video I mentioned in a comment on one of Sam's blogs. It's basically an epic mix between a Cello duet and Star Wars. Oh, and who doesn't want to see Darth Vader playing an accordion??




Live long and keep posting =]