stolen from my lovely friend...

... over at thegkdiaries.blogspot.com
This is a 30 day quiz. Each day you write about different things with the schedule as follows:

Day 1 – your favourite song
Day 2 – your favourite movie
Day 3 – your favourite television program
Day 4 – your favourite book
Day 5 – your favourite quote
Day 6 – 20 of my favourite things
Day 7 – a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 – a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 – a photo you took
Day 10 – a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 – a photo of you recently
Day 12 – something you are OCD about
Day 13 – a fictional book
Day 14 – a non-fictional book
Day 15 – your dream house
Day 16 – a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 – an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 – my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 – a talent of yours
Day 20 – a hobby of yours
Day 21 – a recipe
Day 22 – a website
Day 23 – a YouTube video
Day 24 – where I live
Day 25 – your day, in great detail
Day 26 – your week, in great detail
Day 27 – my worst habit
Day 28 – whats in my handbag/purse
Day 29 – hopes,dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 – a dream for the future

Soooooo Day 1.

My favourite song.
It all depends what mood I'm in. When I'm working, it's Mozart's Horn Concertos. I love them. they're amazing to work to.
Otherwise, there's a whole host of them. Harvey Andrew's The British Soldier just seems to sum up the troubles in a way nothing else I've heard does. Then there's Frank Turner's Long Live the Queen , or indeed any of his, but that one... It's about his friend, and when you listen to it, and watch the video on YouTube, you can tell that they were friends. Jim Morey's Leaving Australia and I'll Go List For a Sailor- in fact all of his Low Culture album is good. As is Imagined Village. Amazing Album. It was described to me as folk gone wrong. Maddy Prior and the Girls: I've listened to that so many times I know it word for word. The Great Divide is the best there I think. Who else? David Bowie, Steeleye Span, La Oreja De Van Gogh... so so many. It's hard to choose just one. But my all time favourite song is actually not a song. It's George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. That's my Pick-me-up-calm-me-down piece that I can never get bored of. The clarinet at the start and the rushing of the piano...

wittering is a lovely word...

So, finally I find myself in the mood to write again, as this blog has become not so much as a comment on my life as the random witterings of my mind.
I've not really been in the mood to write since... well for a while. And now, even though I'm not entire sure what to write about, I've got the itch. So here goes.

Somebody asked me what it meant to be fey the other day. And I had to stop and think to remember, and that got me thinking, isn't it funny how words go out of fashion so quickly, Almost as quickly as the clothes we wore when we were saying them. I pick up on fads with annoying- sometimes very annoying regularity. At the minute, I'm trying to wean myself off of saying like at the end of sentences. I hate it when I will just tag like onto the end of a sentence. 'So do you just want to make some more MRD like?' or 'No. He wants it in for Friday like.' The people I work with are currently finding it amusing, and are at the stage of gently twitting me about it. I just want it to stop. I have no clue who I picked it up off of and I'm half dreading the next influence that comes along. My vocabulary, well, it's quintessentially British: It picks things up wherever it goes, whoever it sees and whatever I read. The same for accents. Although, they'll usually get mashed good and proper before I'm done.

There are even examples in this post; further up, I wrote the word fad. I have one moment that has stuck in my mind for some strange reason, where I mentioned some passing craze to my sister. Apon me saying the word 'fad' she curled her lip in that way only she can (I have never seen it reproduced) and informed me that people had stopped saying the word fad in the 17th century, duh. Everyone knows that...

But there are people like that, aren't there? the ones who know exactly what clothes are in fashion, and exactly what phrase or word is the current big thing. You'll be talking away to them and you'll just be blindsided when someone turns around to you and says wow! last night, I got completely drained. And you'll look blank. If you don't know what's good for you, you may even say what? And then you get that look that says don't you know anything? My ten year old sister knows this, whilst they'll say, a bit slower than they normally talk, You know. Drunk.

Language. Just keeps on evolving like some pond sludge turning into a beautiful butterfly.

Imagine if we had to talk to our great great greats. Would they be able to understand us? Would we them? The rate of change of slang in a language is meant to be an indication of how alive a language, how much it is still bending it's self around the people who speak it. It's like a surprise every day. adds a bit of spice to life...

...I'm getting carried away. And trying to imagine a chav, one of the many that populate the town where I went to school trying to talk to one of their triple-greats.
'What you looking at innit? You think it's funny? well your MUM is what's funny.'
'You what? Get out of me way you glocky dollymop'

I'm still giggling. Seriously. Glocky dollymop. And yet, at the time, that was a perfectly acceptable phrase.

I've learnt something today.
I've learnt what it is to have a few days off of work and nothing planned. I've also learnt what it is to have to work Monday to Friday 9 to 5. Even though this isn't a true representation of work. I know I'm going to stop and I'm going to become a student again. Doing what I think I truly love best. Learning. I've been lucky in that I've enjoyed my placement and I know what I want to aim for when I finish. Which also luckily means I know what needs to be done and what to aim for next year.

Which mean I might actually get there. I need something to aim at. Something, preferably just inside my ability to do. Because when I get there, all boundaries reset themselves. And to be honest, there is something to do today. I pick up my keys to move tomorrow. And the packing isn't quite finished. But Mum doesn't get here till about 4 ish. and somehow that becomes go time and the rest of today, well I've done bits and bats, but it has mostly been aimless wondering since then. And since I have been most remiss in writing my blog, well, here it is.

I'm gonna miss this place. I'm also really not going to, but this house has seen a lot and taught me a lot too. For the first time in my life, I have brought my own food properly on my own and not in a group. I've paid bills, I've had to call in repairmen and I've learnt to cope with things that are lopsided shabby and plain wrong. Combined with working for a year and learning how to get on with work colleges and actually having to sort out my finances, this house holds a lot of memories.

On the other hand, things are going to be good next year. I'm going to be living with a very good friend, in a house which isn't falling down around my ears, and without ants everywhere. I'm going to be moving into my final year at university, and the view has opened up some. Not much but the houses across the way are further away. And best of all, my fiancée is a lot closer now that he has moved to town too.

All in all things are looking up. And to stop me looking out of the window every time a car comes in the hopes that it is my mother, even though she isn't due for another hour, I'm off to play World of Goo.

Failure.

But this time I have an excuse. Kinda...
I tried to upgrade to win7 a couple of three weeks ago.
Note the tried. I failed miserably.
I've managed to get a copy of vista working on it but now there is no internets (writing this from work.). Hello warranty. Lets see if Tosh can fix it.
So yeah. Lack of posts till I actually have a working computer again... Unless I write them at home and post them at work when no-one is looking.
So, chaciao for now.

Elephants.

Did you know that duel core processors come from elephants?

It's true. what you do is, right, take your elephant. It has to be a bull elephant, the hormones in the cows mess things right up, and the Bull has to be over three years of age, otherwise there is not enough magic smoke accumulated the the body of the bull. (by the by, I am still talking about elephants. Males and females are the same as cattle.)

So, You have your three year+ old bull, and you get a dirty great syringe One of the really really HUGE ones. It helps if you have a fairly fat elephant, because there is then a layer of fat between the epidermis and the muscle of the 'phant. This helps because the stuff you're after is much the same colour as the muscle but, is situated right underneath the epidermis. It also has some very strange properties wherein if you apply pressure to it, it turns into a liquid: kinda a reverse non-neutonian solid.

So you've got this odd liquid. About 5 ccs is enough for one processor here. Now you need to centrifuge it at about 14000 gravities for twenty-six hours.

The liquid will have separated into three distinct bands. the upper layer, about one cc, will be a straw yellow colour, and it may be cloudy. This is just plasma, carrying nutrients and stuff too and from cells. The bottom layer is about two cc and should be a reddy brown colour. This is the iron that this liquid we want seems to trap Discard it. And there may well be a white pellet in the bottom. This will just be the cells and the organells of the cells. Discard this too. It is the middle layer you want. It is a bright emerald green, which under pressure turns grey. With 5 CCs of starting liquid, you will have about 2ccs of this green liquid left.

So You've separated the liquid you want. now you need to centrifuge it again, for 36 hours and 20,000 gravities. After this you will have a colourless liquid and a grey pellet at the bottom. Discard the liquid.

Put the grey pellet in a mixture of sulphuric acid, iso-propyl alcohol and milk. Ensure the base of the container has the shape of the processor etched into it, and leave.

Eventually all the liquid will evaporate off and you will be left with a hard plasticy shape which you can put through the rest of the processes a processor goes through to become a processor. Magic, if you ask me...

And you thought that elephants were becoming extinct because of the ivory trade.

The productivity of moaning.

Company is a funny thing. Sometimes you crave it and other times you really really don't. Sometimes all you want is to be left alone to do your own thing in your own way at you own pace.

I have just shifted labs at my placement. I have gone from the biggest lab in the building, where we used a good three quarters of it to one maybe a quarter of the size. I had only just gotten used to where everything was: we moved there so our fume cupboard could be replaced, and now, having to find where everything is again and spending what feels like half my time apologising for getting in the way of the other people in the lab. Thing is, I hadn't realised just how much time I spent distancing myself from the rest of the lab: I would move to the furthest bench to do my work, and usually end up with my back to them all whilst I worked.

Thing is, in the new lab I physically can't. And I'm becoming more and more aware that I'm having to stop short of biting the heads off the other two placement students.

Don't get me wrong, I'm managing, most of the time, but sometimes it is hard. And when I'm not concentrating so hard that if I so much as think something else I'll lose count of the colonies on my plate and have to start again, I'm more than willing to interact with the others, help them out if they need it, and hold conversations with them (today it was history and the feasibility of empires)

How do teachers cope having to give all of their attention to twenty-five plus students at a time? I couldn't do it. I'm glad I recognise that now though, at one point I was thinking of going into teaching.

Why am I so antisocial at work? Maybe part of the reason is that we have moved and I'm having to re-adjust to where everything is and whats going on. Another part of it may well be that work has picked up and we're getting more jobs in more often now, and I'm more likely to be leaving at half five, six or even later than half two/ three o clock.

I think that the two have combined to feel like I've started a new job, and everything is all a little bit new and overwhelming again. Maybe when I've settled down in the lab I'm working in for the rest of the year it will get better.

And I'll stop being such a grumpy cow. And I'll not be so tired that I want to come in from work and curl up and sleep straight away, and actually be able to do something with my evenings.

I can always hope...

Realistically, work isn't so bad. I'm enjoying it, and my supervisor isn't constantly on my back about every little thing. I just didn't realise I was so set in my ways. And that changing them would be so hard.

This post has turned into one giant moan. but I'm thinking clearer and feel more relaxed, so it was a productive moan. And it is the weekend. and I'm running the first session of my game come Sunday. I'm certainly looking forward to that. Spirit of the Century is full of shiny win.

I'll leave you with the thought that I have just looked up and seen AIDS, Ebola virus and Algal Scum staring at me from the mantle piece. And I think Ebola just waved.

Africa-sat Calling Earth...

Earth View from Africa-sat1
picture taken on the17th Aug. about 5ish in the evening.

Take a look at the link above. The earth. Taken from a satellite orbiting the earth. Now, when I saw it, it was in darkness, except for the creeping dawn line on the right of the picture. In other words, it looked like a crescent moon. And that got me thinking again of old childhood fantasies and wishful thinkings. Now, when I was younger, like many other children, I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to go in to space, work on the ISS, the Hubble, see the stars without atmosphere getting in the way (apparently, it's an amazing sight). And most of all, stand on the moon.

And, I saw that, and realised, actually, I still want to be up there. I want to stand on the moon and look at the earth, as it now, and I want to see it changing. I want to see what it will be like ten, twenty, fifty years down the line.

So many of us have dreams we give up without a fight. We dismiss them as fantasies and pipe dreams and carry on with what we consider reality with out a backwards look. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes you stop and think. What if... What if I had pursued my dream? Finished my A-levels, gone on to aeronautical training, applied to NASA or ESA? Where would I be now?

Well, a lot fitter for one and I wouldn't have had the chance to meet all the truly amazing people I have up here. Would it have been the right choice? what would I have done whilst I was groundside? And after I was too old to fly anymore. This crosses my mind sometimes, but usually it is just the silence, the beauty, and the fact that I can't imagine it that keeps it boiling away in the back of my mind. Maybe being in space is my pipe dream, but you can be sure, given the opportunity, I would do it.

But that's what dreams are for. To help us reach for more. To advance and evolve as a race and an individual. We just have to be sure that in reaching for our dreams, we don't miss what we have in our reality.

Grab your dream and hang on hard.
But be sure to keep a hand free for reality.