I didn't post a blog post last week, for which I apologise. The only event worth noting is me visiting Christina in Attleborough on the Saturday, it was a great day. I've missed not seeing her since we've been back home for Christmas. She showed me around Attleborough and then we sat and watched a movie. It was great to see her again, it had been too long.
Christmas! Yay! Had a great Christmas this year. Had my sister, brother in law and the kids round for it. It was loud as always but kinda used to that now. I got a sexy new camera from santa this year! The Nikon D5100. I've wanted a proper camera for a while now and finally have one, although since the weather has been pretty lame recently I haven't been able to use it. I'm probably going to go on a walk around Lincoln with it when I get back on Friday. I don't have much to say really about Christmas....it was a while ago now.
Went to see Christina again on Saturday which was awesome. We went to Norwich and spent the day there. I managed to finish The Two Towers the night before so I could start Return of the King on the way there. I do love me a 3hr train journey. We went and saw The Hobbit which was awesome! I thoroughly enjoyed that film, even though parts of it were different from the book but no film is going to follow its source book. Filli and Killi are still my favourite characters, probably even more so after seeing the movie. Christina said she enjoyed it aswell, just gotta show her the Lord of the Rings trilogy! I'm kinda skeptical about how they're going to turn the short book into 3 films...They did expand on Gandalf's part in the book which might add enough to it, but I hope they do it well otherwise it's just gunna seem like padding and shit but I'm sure they'll be fine.
We also went to play bowling but the less said about that the better.
Back to Lincoln on Friday to see Christina and for LSD on Saturday which should be awesome. I'm looking forward to getting back on pitch again, although after eating so much and doing next to no excersise since I've been off means that I'm probably not going to be quite up to scratch but hopefully since everyone's been off for Christmas they'll be in a similar state. I can't wait to get back for both the tournament and getting to see Christina again for more than a few hours.
I have surprisingly little to say considering the events of the past couple weeks.
Catch ya later folks
Monday, 31 December 2012
Monday, 17 December 2012
Reading week...
The title might be a little mis-leading this week as Lincoln Uni don't do the whole reading week thing, however since this week has mostly consisted of catching up with friends I've got nothing to really talk about so instead I'm going to talk about something I take great interest in, reading.
I've spent much of this week reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and well it has been a battle. I started it around the time I was at regionals back in October and just haven't really put any time into it. I mean over summer before first year I finished around 13 books in about 3 months, I'm barely half way through two towers and it's been about the same time. However I have been fully enjoying reading it when I've gotten into it. I have noticed how different to the books the films are though. The battle for Helm's Deep is a very key moment in the film but in the book it seems quite short and almost as if it doesn't matter, despite it being the Rohirim's final stand against the armies of Isengard. I mean I can understand why the film heavily dramatised the moment as it makes for an interesting scene, like the other differences between the films and books, I can understand why they've done it and I'm not complaining they both work brilliantly. The films are still some of my favourite movies and the books are climbing my list of good books.
I think my favourite trilogy of books will forever be The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks as they are just fantastically well written, well paced books. I've read the trilogy at least 6 times over as when I start with one I just can't put them down until I've finished all 3. The way the story develops over the three books is just incredible, it drew me in instantly. Considering I bought the trilogy having never heard of it before, as part of a deal Waterstones were doing (something like buy two get one free) I was not disappointed by them in the slightest. I was kinda disappointed (if that's the right word to use) when I finished the last one and found out that was it. Brent has said that he might be writing another trilogy in the same world following on some years later however he is working on the Lightbringer trilogy at the moment. I've read the first one of that trilogy and I loved it, it was different to The Night Angel books but still a gripping story that I struggled to put down, I've got the second book laying under my bed waiting to be read after I finish Lord of the Rings.
My favourite on going book series has to go to the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. So many consistently good books with a captivating storyline and plot with multiple over arching elements that even after 13 books haven't all entirely come to light yet. I'm dying to get my hands on a copy of Cold Days however it's only in hardback right now and since I've got all the others in paper back I kinda cant start getting hardbacks now, but since I prefer paperbacks anyway I don't mind waiting a while.
I don't know why but I've always had a love of reading. There's just something about it that I find really relaxing. Maybe it's the way you can pick up a book and start reading about another world and just detach from this one. It's amazing the way you can become so taken in by a few words on a page that somehow manage to paint a vivid image in your mind of the events transpiring. Some books even have the ability to make you feel the tension as if you're there to experience it. Books manage to contain so much in so little space its amazing. They have the ability to make you laugh or (depending on who you are) cry with just a few words or pages.
E-books and E-readers will never appeal to me, I can see their pros and cons but I'll never be able to substitute a proper solid book. The idea of staring at a screen for even more hours of the day when we already spend so much of our time looking at them throughout our everyday live be it TV or computer. I can see why commuters use them, they're light and compact and easy to pick up and put down, automatically bookmarking your last page so you don't have to fiddle with a bookmark or whatever other scheme you use to mark your page.
I guess that's all I've got to say, I could talk for alot longer about books and reading but I guess I should call it for now. The weekend ahead should be awesome, traveling up to Attleborough to visit Christina, which I can't wait for, it's only been a week so far but it feels like a helluva lot longer.
Catch ya later folks
I've spent much of this week reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and well it has been a battle. I started it around the time I was at regionals back in October and just haven't really put any time into it. I mean over summer before first year I finished around 13 books in about 3 months, I'm barely half way through two towers and it's been about the same time. However I have been fully enjoying reading it when I've gotten into it. I have noticed how different to the books the films are though. The battle for Helm's Deep is a very key moment in the film but in the book it seems quite short and almost as if it doesn't matter, despite it being the Rohirim's final stand against the armies of Isengard. I mean I can understand why the film heavily dramatised the moment as it makes for an interesting scene, like the other differences between the films and books, I can understand why they've done it and I'm not complaining they both work brilliantly. The films are still some of my favourite movies and the books are climbing my list of good books.
I think my favourite trilogy of books will forever be The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks as they are just fantastically well written, well paced books. I've read the trilogy at least 6 times over as when I start with one I just can't put them down until I've finished all 3. The way the story develops over the three books is just incredible, it drew me in instantly. Considering I bought the trilogy having never heard of it before, as part of a deal Waterstones were doing (something like buy two get one free) I was not disappointed by them in the slightest. I was kinda disappointed (if that's the right word to use) when I finished the last one and found out that was it. Brent has said that he might be writing another trilogy in the same world following on some years later however he is working on the Lightbringer trilogy at the moment. I've read the first one of that trilogy and I loved it, it was different to The Night Angel books but still a gripping story that I struggled to put down, I've got the second book laying under my bed waiting to be read after I finish Lord of the Rings.
My favourite on going book series has to go to the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. So many consistently good books with a captivating storyline and plot with multiple over arching elements that even after 13 books haven't all entirely come to light yet. I'm dying to get my hands on a copy of Cold Days however it's only in hardback right now and since I've got all the others in paper back I kinda cant start getting hardbacks now, but since I prefer paperbacks anyway I don't mind waiting a while.
I don't know why but I've always had a love of reading. There's just something about it that I find really relaxing. Maybe it's the way you can pick up a book and start reading about another world and just detach from this one. It's amazing the way you can become so taken in by a few words on a page that somehow manage to paint a vivid image in your mind of the events transpiring. Some books even have the ability to make you feel the tension as if you're there to experience it. Books manage to contain so much in so little space its amazing. They have the ability to make you laugh or (depending on who you are) cry with just a few words or pages.
E-books and E-readers will never appeal to me, I can see their pros and cons but I'll never be able to substitute a proper solid book. The idea of staring at a screen for even more hours of the day when we already spend so much of our time looking at them throughout our everyday live be it TV or computer. I can see why commuters use them, they're light and compact and easy to pick up and put down, automatically bookmarking your last page so you don't have to fiddle with a bookmark or whatever other scheme you use to mark your page.
I guess that's all I've got to say, I could talk for alot longer about books and reading but I guess I should call it for now. The weekend ahead should be awesome, traveling up to Attleborough to visit Christina, which I can't wait for, it's only been a week so far but it feels like a helluva lot longer.
Catch ya later folks
Monday, 10 December 2012
Home for Christmas
Monday again, after an awesome week I'm now back in Billericay. Highlights of the week? Blood Spatter analysis practical, Frisbee Christmas meal, spending the weekend with Christina and coming home for Christmas.
This week we had two practicals this week, but one of them I spoke about in last week's post so I'll tell you about the other one. This one was on blood spatter analysis. Cool right? Well it would have helped if I'd have attended the lecture on blood spatter patterns but it was the day after Frank Turner and I was still in bed and so I missed it. I was tired okay? Anyways the practical itself involved going round to 3 different mock scenarios and examining the spatter to try and determine what happened. The first one we went to was a bathroom sink scene with red wall paper and a carpet with flecks of red in it, this meant that you wouldn't be able to see any of the blood easily. Normally the application of luminol would be used, however that would require re-building the scene after each time so the lecturers cheated a little and mixed the blood with a fluorescent dye so that you could examine it time and time again with a UV crime light and a filter. The second one however was a white room with spatter everywhere and a chair in one corner. This scenario we had to actually try and figure out what happened by looking at the patterns of the spatter. The scenario was that a man attacked a woman who was seated, cutting her arm and causing spatter to be projected along the walls and floor, that's the long and short of it anyways. The third one was a bit more fun and involved a mannequin laying on the floor as a corpse. This time someone had bludgeoned the victim with a hammer, causing impact spatter on the wall and the person to stumble around then fall over and bleed out. The weapon was supposedly a claw hammer, which I spotted due to the pattern on the floor where the assailant had placed the hammer down to rifle through the victim's pockets.
So the Christmas meal was a great laugh with some great food and even better people. I'd post some photos of it but Adam hasn't uploaded them yet, but I'll upload some of them when I can. Anyways it was a good laugh as it always is with the Frisbee family. Wetty said that it was a smart casual event so everyone dressed up for the occasion, even me but I was more casual than smart as I turned up in a Santa onesie. It was a Christmas party so why not? Not everyone was fully on board with it but hey ho, I checked with Wetty and he said it was fine. We did secret santa which was good laugh too. Some people got some ridiculous gifts such as an escort magazine and some got some serious gifts, I personally got an LED flashing tankard and it is awesome. You push a button on the base to make the lights...light up and its got a couple different settings from strobe to set and well it looks awesome. I personally really enjoyed the night and from what I've heard so did everyone else. There were a couple moments where things got a little tense but otherwise it was a really good fun night.
Friday was like any other Friday during the day. The evening was alot different though. Me and Christina exchanged Christmas presents as we're not going to see each other over the Christmas holidays (it's going to suck!). She got me an awesome Space Invaders t-shirt which I love because Space Invaders are awesome and everyone knows it and I got her the sound track from the movie Spirited Away because she loves that movie. Me, Lex and Amy later went up steep hill to try and raise some money for the club but we did a pitiful job of it, it was pretty pointless standing there for an hour. Really we just got cold and bored so we called it a night and headed for home after raising just 3 quid. So much for the spirit of giving eh? I then headed back to Christina's to chill at hers for the night and relax over the weekend, just enjoying the time before we had to leave Lincoln for Christmas. I met her parents, which I was terrified about seeing as I've never met a girlfriend's parents before but apparently they thought I was lovely....clearly don't know me well enough. She met my folks too, who thought she was lovely and they aren't wrong. It's going to suck not seeing her all over christmas but we'll do our best to be in touch as much as possible.
Well that's pretty much it for now really. Time to settle in back home for a couple weeks before heading back to the hustle and bustle of city life with a couple exams the first week back....can I get a hell yeah? Least when I get back to Lincoln I'm straight back into Frisbee for out home warm up tournament. I'm just hoping I play well and don't get injured....
Catch ya later folks
This week we had two practicals this week, but one of them I spoke about in last week's post so I'll tell you about the other one. This one was on blood spatter analysis. Cool right? Well it would have helped if I'd have attended the lecture on blood spatter patterns but it was the day after Frank Turner and I was still in bed and so I missed it. I was tired okay? Anyways the practical itself involved going round to 3 different mock scenarios and examining the spatter to try and determine what happened. The first one we went to was a bathroom sink scene with red wall paper and a carpet with flecks of red in it, this meant that you wouldn't be able to see any of the blood easily. Normally the application of luminol would be used, however that would require re-building the scene after each time so the lecturers cheated a little and mixed the blood with a fluorescent dye so that you could examine it time and time again with a UV crime light and a filter. The second one however was a white room with spatter everywhere and a chair in one corner. This scenario we had to actually try and figure out what happened by looking at the patterns of the spatter. The scenario was that a man attacked a woman who was seated, cutting her arm and causing spatter to be projected along the walls and floor, that's the long and short of it anyways. The third one was a bit more fun and involved a mannequin laying on the floor as a corpse. This time someone had bludgeoned the victim with a hammer, causing impact spatter on the wall and the person to stumble around then fall over and bleed out. The weapon was supposedly a claw hammer, which I spotted due to the pattern on the floor where the assailant had placed the hammer down to rifle through the victim's pockets.  |
| Ellis was thoroughly enjoying herself. |
So the Christmas meal was a great laugh with some great food and even better people. I'd post some photos of it but Adam hasn't uploaded them yet, but I'll upload some of them when I can. Anyways it was a good laugh as it always is with the Frisbee family. Wetty said that it was a smart casual event so everyone dressed up for the occasion, even me but I was more casual than smart as I turned up in a Santa onesie. It was a Christmas party so why not? Not everyone was fully on board with it but hey ho, I checked with Wetty and he said it was fine. We did secret santa which was good laugh too. Some people got some ridiculous gifts such as an escort magazine and some got some serious gifts, I personally got an LED flashing tankard and it is awesome. You push a button on the base to make the lights...light up and its got a couple different settings from strobe to set and well it looks awesome. I personally really enjoyed the night and from what I've heard so did everyone else. There were a couple moments where things got a little tense but otherwise it was a really good fun night.
Friday was like any other Friday during the day. The evening was alot different though. Me and Christina exchanged Christmas presents as we're not going to see each other over the Christmas holidays (it's going to suck!). She got me an awesome Space Invaders t-shirt which I love because Space Invaders are awesome and everyone knows it and I got her the sound track from the movie Spirited Away because she loves that movie. Me, Lex and Amy later went up steep hill to try and raise some money for the club but we did a pitiful job of it, it was pretty pointless standing there for an hour. Really we just got cold and bored so we called it a night and headed for home after raising just 3 quid. So much for the spirit of giving eh? I then headed back to Christina's to chill at hers for the night and relax over the weekend, just enjoying the time before we had to leave Lincoln for Christmas. I met her parents, which I was terrified about seeing as I've never met a girlfriend's parents before but apparently they thought I was lovely....clearly don't know me well enough. She met my folks too, who thought she was lovely and they aren't wrong. It's going to suck not seeing her all over christmas but we'll do our best to be in touch as much as possible.
Well that's pretty much it for now really. Time to settle in back home for a couple weeks before heading back to the hustle and bustle of city life with a couple exams the first week back....can I get a hell yeah? Least when I get back to Lincoln I'm straight back into Frisbee for out home warm up tournament. I'm just hoping I play well and don't get injured....
Catch ya later folks
Monday, 3 December 2012
21 days and change.....
So it's 21days until Christmas, can I get a hell yeah? No? Fine then. As I've said multiple times its my favourite time of year and I can't wait to get back to Billericay! It's been too long since I've been back there and I kinda miss the place and people. That's not to say I'm not going to miss some of the people from here while I'm back home (Christina most importantly) but I'll be seeing them after a few short weeks and I see them for most of the year anyway. It'll be great to be back home and seeing everyone again, especially since we've all been away for ages and it'll be good to catch up over how the term has gone.
It won't all be fun and games though, got a couple exams on the first week back after Christmas, one of which we are massively under-prepared for as we haven't covered all the content for it yet and we only have two lectures left on it but hey ho, hopefully we can get by on a wing and insane amount of luck.
Had a pretty awesome weekend this week, spent the majority of the time with Christina and then had a pretty good training session followed by playing Halo 4 with a couple friends. The week had its moments too but the weekend was the best part (goes without saying thought really...). I'm really looking forward to this Thursday and the weekend though. Thursday is the Christmas meal with the Frisbee family and this weekend I'm exchanging gifts with Christina as we aren't going to see each other over Christmas. To say I'm excited would be understating it just a little bit. Oh and of course I'm going home on Sunday! How could I forget that....? Long day today.
Spent the whole day in the Lab doing a PCR reaction. The PCR reaction is used to amplify DNA fragments, copying it millions of times over so that it can be put through an electrophoresis gel and identified. In theory you could start with a single hair follicle and end up with a billion copies of that DNA to analyse. It's mainly used in identification and sequencing, however that wasn't going to happen today as the reaction failed and nobody got anything to show up on their gels. So at least it wasn't just our gel that didn't work. We ended up pretty much wasting the day in the lab, I mean yeah it was nice to see the process in practice after working all the theory behind it but it felt a waste to have not gotten any results from it. I did however get to find out my blood type during this practical by doing a simple little home test kit thing, basically a quick prick on the finger and a couple drops of blood onto this card in 4 spots, give it a quick stir and leave to develop. Then you compare it to a little chart thing that shows what each thing would mean and as it turns out I have O+ blood, which isn't all that surprising since something like 46% of the British population has it.
Anyone who reads this on Facebook will probably have noticed that I'm posting a different Christmas song a day again just like I did last year. More often then not I'm taking requests however there are a couple I have saved for specific occasions, so if you've got one you'd like me to dedicate to you then let me know and I'll add it to the list.
That's pretty much it for now....
Catch ya later folks
It won't all be fun and games though, got a couple exams on the first week back after Christmas, one of which we are massively under-prepared for as we haven't covered all the content for it yet and we only have two lectures left on it but hey ho, hopefully we can get by on a wing and insane amount of luck.
Had a pretty awesome weekend this week, spent the majority of the time with Christina and then had a pretty good training session followed by playing Halo 4 with a couple friends. The week had its moments too but the weekend was the best part (goes without saying thought really...). I'm really looking forward to this Thursday and the weekend though. Thursday is the Christmas meal with the Frisbee family and this weekend I'm exchanging gifts with Christina as we aren't going to see each other over Christmas. To say I'm excited would be understating it just a little bit. Oh and of course I'm going home on Sunday! How could I forget that....? Long day today.
Spent the whole day in the Lab doing a PCR reaction. The PCR reaction is used to amplify DNA fragments, copying it millions of times over so that it can be put through an electrophoresis gel and identified. In theory you could start with a single hair follicle and end up with a billion copies of that DNA to analyse. It's mainly used in identification and sequencing, however that wasn't going to happen today as the reaction failed and nobody got anything to show up on their gels. So at least it wasn't just our gel that didn't work. We ended up pretty much wasting the day in the lab, I mean yeah it was nice to see the process in practice after working all the theory behind it but it felt a waste to have not gotten any results from it. I did however get to find out my blood type during this practical by doing a simple little home test kit thing, basically a quick prick on the finger and a couple drops of blood onto this card in 4 spots, give it a quick stir and leave to develop. Then you compare it to a little chart thing that shows what each thing would mean and as it turns out I have O+ blood, which isn't all that surprising since something like 46% of the British population has it.
Anyone who reads this on Facebook will probably have noticed that I'm posting a different Christmas song a day again just like I did last year. More often then not I'm taking requests however there are a couple I have saved for specific occasions, so if you've got one you'd like me to dedicate to you then let me know and I'll add it to the list.
That's pretty much it for now....
Catch ya later folks
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