This is nothing to do with my career shenanigans, but I'm cross and I need a rant. I've just booked a ticket, single from Burton on Trent to Basingstoke, 18th Dec. It's 3 bleeding changes and costs £21.45, and that's with a railcard. I don't think that's too expensive, and I like getting trains so I'm not too fussed about the journey. However what I DO object to is all the random fees that the trainline adds at the last minute.
You've gone through the hassle of finding the right train, weighing up whether you can make the connections, if there's any better way to do it etc etc, you finally get to the paying stage and you find that the TrainLine has added a £1 booking fee. FOR WHAT????
Then you choose your payment method. You can either pay with a debit card (risky) or pay with a credit card...for which there is a £3.50 charge. FOR WHAT????
I was talking with a friend the other day about crime, and he said something about the difference between crimes that rich people make and the crimes that poor people make. It strikes me that these stealth charges are a prime example of this. We just accept them because there's no other option, and we don't complain because it's a clever steady drip-drip-drip of taking our money and the more it happens the more we become numb to it. In the meantime the credit cards and banks are making loads of money and giving themselves £1 million bonuses. What can we do about this ridiculously unfair system? Nothing.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Friday, 27 November 2009
Two weeks to go
I'm cooking stew, so I thought I'd do an update while I was waiting for it to cook. The carrots are just about there but the swede is still pretty solid.
There are two weeks until the end of term. It's got cold, and we've finished 4 out of 5 of this semester's modules:
- Sustainable Energy Systems
- Solar 1
- Wind 1
- Biomass 1
The next module is Water, and then Christmas! And my sister's wedding, which I'm sure will be fun too :) I've been existing without cake (and other Bad Stuff, but it's the lack of cake I feel most) over the last couple of weeks so I can fit into my dress which at the moment is on the snug side. Not sure if I've lost weight yet, and I won't know until I go home in a couple of weeks and try it on. The anticipation is unbearable.
Looking forward to the end of term as the two-week cycles of modules are quite stressful. However in a way I'm not looking forward to it because then it's only a short spell away from exams, which I hate. Over the last couple of weeks, when I should have been concentrating on Biomass, I've mostly been trying to get my head around aerodynamics, so I don't panic when I start to revise it. I think I've managed it now, just about.
We went for another field trip on Tuesday, to somewhere very exotic...Burton on Trent! We visited the anaerobic digestion plant in the Marmite factory. It was actually really interesting, and also pretty cool to see the insides of a factory I've been past hundreds of times. Here's a picture of their explanatory text in case you want to know more:
Having thoughts about my project, which I think we have to have worked out just after Christmas. I think I'll probably end up doing something about Biomass, unless I get inspired by the Water module. I like anaerobic digestion, and all the human factors involved as well - like economics and process waste. If I make up a really interesting project, the last part of this course could be really good fun, and maybe even produce something useful.
In other news, I'm still doing the clarinet lessons, and getting on really well with it. Also still singing, and our concert is a week on Monday. Yikes!
And another bit of news...I'm going down to London next week to demonstrate at the Wave. My first march. It's a march to support the Copenhagen Summit, which is happening from 7th-11th of December and will set the goals for CO2 emissions reductions until 2012. If the reductions goal isn't high enough, then it will be pretty bad for, well, the world. I wasn't sure about going but then I saw The Age of Stupid yesterday and decided it was Important. I'm a bit nervous about it and hope that the police don't start getting handy with their superior weaponry and combat skills.
There are two weeks until the end of term. It's got cold, and we've finished 4 out of 5 of this semester's modules:
- Sustainable Energy Systems
- Solar 1
- Wind 1
- Biomass 1
The next module is Water, and then Christmas! And my sister's wedding, which I'm sure will be fun too :) I've been existing without cake (and other Bad Stuff, but it's the lack of cake I feel most) over the last couple of weeks so I can fit into my dress which at the moment is on the snug side. Not sure if I've lost weight yet, and I won't know until I go home in a couple of weeks and try it on. The anticipation is unbearable.
Looking forward to the end of term as the two-week cycles of modules are quite stressful. However in a way I'm not looking forward to it because then it's only a short spell away from exams, which I hate. Over the last couple of weeks, when I should have been concentrating on Biomass, I've mostly been trying to get my head around aerodynamics, so I don't panic when I start to revise it. I think I've managed it now, just about.
We went for another field trip on Tuesday, to somewhere very exotic...Burton on Trent! We visited the anaerobic digestion plant in the Marmite factory. It was actually really interesting, and also pretty cool to see the insides of a factory I've been past hundreds of times. Here's a picture of their explanatory text in case you want to know more:
Having thoughts about my project, which I think we have to have worked out just after Christmas. I think I'll probably end up doing something about Biomass, unless I get inspired by the Water module. I like anaerobic digestion, and all the human factors involved as well - like economics and process waste. If I make up a really interesting project, the last part of this course could be really good fun, and maybe even produce something useful.
In other news, I'm still doing the clarinet lessons, and getting on really well with it. Also still singing, and our concert is a week on Monday. Yikes!
And another bit of news...I'm going down to London next week to demonstrate at the Wave. My first march. It's a march to support the Copenhagen Summit, which is happening from 7th-11th of December and will set the goals for CO2 emissions reductions until 2012. If the reductions goal isn't high enough, then it will be pretty bad for, well, the world. I wasn't sure about going but then I saw The Age of Stupid yesterday and decided it was Important. I'm a bit nervous about it and hope that the police don't start getting handy with their superior weaponry and combat skills.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Childish but funny
As I have discovered how to post pictures, I thought I would add this pic of my breakfast which amused me greatly the other day:
It's a pair of pants! :)
It's a pair of pants! :)
Field trip
We had a field trip last week, to the house of a local eccentric entrepreneur called Tony Marmont who lives just outside Loughborough. He’s what my friend Dave would call a ‘survivalist nutcase’ as he’s got a totally off-grid power system, but makes it reasonable by having constructed it a very long time ago and explaining that he wanted to see if it was possible. Tony is 70+ and still full of ideas and very active in the world of renewables.
The system consists of:
- two boreholes that supply water
- a big lake with two little water turbines
- a huuuuuuuge hydrogen generation and storage unit (this is a way of storing power, like batteries, but needs very expensive kit to use)
- two 2-blade wind turbines
- three 20-tube solar water heating arrays
- a massive bank of solar power modules
- a water source heat pump
Solar power
Electric car
Electric car 'petrol cap'
Tracking solar power
All this runs a house for two people, a farm and some offices. It’s a bit overkill :) However, it was great to see because it’s basically what everyone on my course would love to do. As a piece de resistance, at the end of the visit we were greeted by the man himself who presented his idea for replacing aviation fuel to us (combining hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make hydrocarbons) and as a special treat showed us his helicopter. Yes, helicopter.
Tony's helicopter
The system consists of:
- two boreholes that supply water
- a big lake with two little water turbines
- a huuuuuuuge hydrogen generation and storage unit (this is a way of storing power, like batteries, but needs very expensive kit to use)
- two 2-blade wind turbines
- three 20-tube solar water heating arrays
- a massive bank of solar power modules
- a water source heat pump
Solar power
Electric car
Electric car 'petrol cap'
Tracking solar power
All this runs a house for two people, a farm and some offices. It’s a bit overkill :) However, it was great to see because it’s basically what everyone on my course would love to do. As a piece de resistance, at the end of the visit we were greeted by the man himself who presented his idea for replacing aviation fuel to us (combining hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make hydrocarbons) and as a special treat showed us his helicopter. Yes, helicopter.
Tony's helicopter
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Let the music take you…high above the hillside…and away from all this ridiculously hard maths
I had another choir practice yesterday and enjoyed it so much that I came back home completely hyper. I stayed in for half an hour, had a cup of tea to calm down and then went for a walk around the campus.
It was about 10 o’clock when I was out and still really warm. It’s been so warm these last few weeks, and I’ve been amazed by all the foreign students that live in my building complaining about how cold it is. I’m wondering if living in Wales has made me a bit more hardy. Especially after last winter, which Rhian and I spent huddled in front of our gas heater in the lounge. People actually came round to our house solely to warm themselves up, because it was warmer than their house. At the same time I got the cold from hell which came with an incredibly irritating and painful cough that lasted for three weeks. Cough cough cough. Cough cough cough. Cough cough cough. COUGH COUGH COUGH. And so on.
ANYWAY…at ten o’clock there’s still a lot going on at Loughborough University. Lots of getting ready to go out was happening and it was a really nice atmosphere walking through the student village, where all the halls are. I stopped and sat down next to one of the many sports pitches on campus, on which three teams were practising – girls’ football, men’s lacrosse and girls’ lacrosse. It was all pretty confusing, probably because they weren’t playing proper games. They only stopped playing at 10.30, I was amazed that they were out so late.
Anyway…the choir practice was great. Here’s a rundown of what we're doing, and if you want to hear us there’s a concert in Loughborough on 7th December:
• Handel’s Messiah: And the Glory of the Lord, And He Shall Purify, Glory to God, His Yoke is Easy, and His Burthen is Light, Hallelujah
• O Magnum Mysterium
• Go, Tell It On the Mountain
• Riu, Riu, Chiu
• Here is the Little Door
• Gaudete
• Lullay my Liking
They’re all very nice apart from Go Tell It On The Mountain which is terrible, mostly because there’s a horribly embarrassing attempt to make it ‘cool’ at the end where the sopranos tell everyone to spread the Word on Facebook... *shudder*. O Magnum Mysterium is the best of all of them followed closely by Lullay my Liking. All the tunes that aren’t Handel’s Messiah are old Christmas songs, and they’re very lovely even if they look funny and unfamiliar :)
I’m having a clarinet lesson tomorrow, and going to a Church Orchestra practice on Sunday (it’s a short but boring story!). I think all the music playing is a bit of a reaction to the incredibly hard work I’ve been doing, and needing to get out of the house. And possibly also because there’s so much sport going on that I can’t take part in (I have back problems because of a slipped disc – it’s not a day-to-day problem but it means I can’t do anything to aggravate it like running). So music it is!
This week’s module is Solar 1, and I’m in the middle of writing up a very exciting lab report studying how temperature and irradiance (amount of sunlight) affect photovoltaic cells. Definitely not as bad as the Sustainability module, but still pretty difficult, and lots of very hard maths! We’re going on a field trip tomorrow, to a PV lab and then to a PV installation.
I went to a careers fair in Liverpool last week, which was basically as I was expecting (a big corporate affair, not really the sort of thing I’m interested in at the moment) but I did manage to pick up a bit of information that was useful. I also managed to pick up loads of free sweets and even scored some cake at Dundee Renewables :) I’m starting to get an idea of what I want to do after…something involving people I think. That’s as far as I’ve got at the moment! Well it's a start.
It was about 10 o’clock when I was out and still really warm. It’s been so warm these last few weeks, and I’ve been amazed by all the foreign students that live in my building complaining about how cold it is. I’m wondering if living in Wales has made me a bit more hardy. Especially after last winter, which Rhian and I spent huddled in front of our gas heater in the lounge. People actually came round to our house solely to warm themselves up, because it was warmer than their house. At the same time I got the cold from hell which came with an incredibly irritating and painful cough that lasted for three weeks. Cough cough cough. Cough cough cough. Cough cough cough. COUGH COUGH COUGH. And so on.
ANYWAY…at ten o’clock there’s still a lot going on at Loughborough University. Lots of getting ready to go out was happening and it was a really nice atmosphere walking through the student village, where all the halls are. I stopped and sat down next to one of the many sports pitches on campus, on which three teams were practising – girls’ football, men’s lacrosse and girls’ lacrosse. It was all pretty confusing, probably because they weren’t playing proper games. They only stopped playing at 10.30, I was amazed that they were out so late.
Anyway…the choir practice was great. Here’s a rundown of what we're doing, and if you want to hear us there’s a concert in Loughborough on 7th December:
• Handel’s Messiah: And the Glory of the Lord, And He Shall Purify, Glory to God, His Yoke is Easy, and His Burthen is Light, Hallelujah
• O Magnum Mysterium
• Go, Tell It On the Mountain
• Riu, Riu, Chiu
• Here is the Little Door
• Gaudete
• Lullay my Liking
They’re all very nice apart from Go Tell It On The Mountain which is terrible, mostly because there’s a horribly embarrassing attempt to make it ‘cool’ at the end where the sopranos tell everyone to spread the Word on Facebook... *shudder*. O Magnum Mysterium is the best of all of them followed closely by Lullay my Liking. All the tunes that aren’t Handel’s Messiah are old Christmas songs, and they’re very lovely even if they look funny and unfamiliar :)
I’m having a clarinet lesson tomorrow, and going to a Church Orchestra practice on Sunday (it’s a short but boring story!). I think all the music playing is a bit of a reaction to the incredibly hard work I’ve been doing, and needing to get out of the house. And possibly also because there’s so much sport going on that I can’t take part in (I have back problems because of a slipped disc – it’s not a day-to-day problem but it means I can’t do anything to aggravate it like running). So music it is!
This week’s module is Solar 1, and I’m in the middle of writing up a very exciting lab report studying how temperature and irradiance (amount of sunlight) affect photovoltaic cells. Definitely not as bad as the Sustainability module, but still pretty difficult, and lots of very hard maths! We’re going on a field trip tomorrow, to a PV lab and then to a PV installation.
I went to a careers fair in Liverpool last week, which was basically as I was expecting (a big corporate affair, not really the sort of thing I’m interested in at the moment) but I did manage to pick up a bit of information that was useful. I also managed to pick up loads of free sweets and even scored some cake at Dundee Renewables :) I’m starting to get an idea of what I want to do after…something involving people I think. That’s as far as I’ve got at the moment! Well it's a start.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Helen is hardly working
I’ve just finished a very stressful project so I’m very happy, and I thought I’d do an update before heading off to the pub. I’m celebrating by eating cake and drinking coffee whilst sitting listening to Super Furry Animals (the right kind of multitasking!).
The first module in my course was all about sustainability, which is about ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. I was glad it was first because it’s something I’m really into, and it sounds like a good way to start the course…then I realised how the course was going to be marked…100% group coursework, 8000 words, in a week and a half. Urrrrrggggh. Blimey I’ve had the same thought many times over the last couple of weeks, which is that if you gauged my stress levels with an emergency light on top of my head (signalling ‘danger’) it would have been going off constantly for 10 days. I had a lovely team but we had some very unfortunate miscommunications at the start (a poor Spanish guy called David has had a baptism of fire into the English language, I don’t think he’d be out of his depth at a football match with the expletives that I’ve uttered over the last few days, sorry David). Couple the miscommunications with reams and reams of information to gather, assimilate and make sense out of and you’re starting to get the picture. I’ve been working for all the 16 hours of the day several times, was in the library until half 11 last night and I didn’t spend one minute staring at the ceiling feeling bored. On the up side:
- I can write references in my sleep
- I’ve learnt quite a lot about the Greek language and
- I’ve learnt that when an Indian person shakes their head they actually mean yes. Oh how we laughed about that one.
- I’ve probably lost a couple of pounds through stress. Although I’ve undoubtedly put that on again through cake.
We finally handed our coursework in at 4.20pm this afternoon, having had a last minute panic because our PDF file was too big to upload (honestly, they could have told us there was a 2MB limit at the start). Luckily our Nigerian group member kept his head and while the rest of the group was running round frantically trying to reduce the file size he calmly downloaded a file compressor, compressed the file and handed it to me, at which point I uploaded it and sat back. We’re all still friends amazingly. And apparently we weren’t the last people to hand our work in :)
Time for the pub I think!
The first module in my course was all about sustainability, which is about ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. I was glad it was first because it’s something I’m really into, and it sounds like a good way to start the course…then I realised how the course was going to be marked…100% group coursework, 8000 words, in a week and a half. Urrrrrggggh. Blimey I’ve had the same thought many times over the last couple of weeks, which is that if you gauged my stress levels with an emergency light on top of my head (signalling ‘danger’) it would have been going off constantly for 10 days. I had a lovely team but we had some very unfortunate miscommunications at the start (a poor Spanish guy called David has had a baptism of fire into the English language, I don’t think he’d be out of his depth at a football match with the expletives that I’ve uttered over the last few days, sorry David). Couple the miscommunications with reams and reams of information to gather, assimilate and make sense out of and you’re starting to get the picture. I’ve been working for all the 16 hours of the day several times, was in the library until half 11 last night and I didn’t spend one minute staring at the ceiling feeling bored. On the up side:
- I can write references in my sleep
- I’ve learnt quite a lot about the Greek language and
- I’ve learnt that when an Indian person shakes their head they actually mean yes. Oh how we laughed about that one.
- I’ve probably lost a couple of pounds through stress. Although I’ve undoubtedly put that on again through cake.
We finally handed our coursework in at 4.20pm this afternoon, having had a last minute panic because our PDF file was too big to upload (honestly, they could have told us there was a 2MB limit at the start). Luckily our Nigerian group member kept his head and while the rest of the group was running round frantically trying to reduce the file size he calmly downloaded a file compressor, compressed the file and handed it to me, at which point I uploaded it and sat back. We’re all still friends amazingly. And apparently we weren’t the last people to hand our work in :)
Time for the pub I think!
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Thursday, 1 October 2009
End of week one
It’s been a very easy week but I don’t expect it to stay that way for long, so I’m enjoying it while I can. This week has been mostly about remembering names and getting to know people, and a few lectures about things like how to find information, what research the department does, how to use the careers service, and what the renewable energy sector looks like at the moment.
My course has about 50 people doing it, and we sit in the same room for all our lectures. The room is short and wide, and has two projectors in it, which is good for being able to see but must be a bit disorientating for the lecturers. I’ve been sitting at the back (like the ‘trouble’ element of the class that I am) and have noticed that there is a microphone above where the lecturer stands and a camera pointed there too. This is presumably a feed for the Distance Learning students, so have been making a mental note to remember this and not stand in front of the camera and scratch my bum or something. Being a lady I’m sure I won’t do that anyway.
I went to the first choir night on Monday and got hopelessly lost in Handel’s Messiah. I’m hoping I’ll start to get the tune after a few practices. It was really really busy, although thinking about it I think the choir at Leeds Uni was the same size. We sang some other tunes as well, can’t remember the names of any of them now. Anyway we’re doing a Christmas concert which I imagine I’ll drag my folks to some time in December. If I manage to learn the tune that is.
Loughborough Uni reminds me a bit of Butlins (I went there once for a festival, so it wasn’t the proper Butlins experience but you got the gist of the place). All the halls are on site and have nice little courtyards between them. It’s full of youngsters running round being sporty and they get ushered around in packs by other youngsters, who are their hall committee presumably. Luckily they know better than to try and involve the postgrads in any of their foam party/coloured tshirts/hanging round in packs nonsense as we are much too mature and refined for that kind of thing ahem ahem.
My course has about 50 people doing it, and we sit in the same room for all our lectures. The room is short and wide, and has two projectors in it, which is good for being able to see but must be a bit disorientating for the lecturers. I’ve been sitting at the back (like the ‘trouble’ element of the class that I am) and have noticed that there is a microphone above where the lecturer stands and a camera pointed there too. This is presumably a feed for the Distance Learning students, so have been making a mental note to remember this and not stand in front of the camera and scratch my bum or something. Being a lady I’m sure I won’t do that anyway.
I went to the first choir night on Monday and got hopelessly lost in Handel’s Messiah. I’m hoping I’ll start to get the tune after a few practices. It was really really busy, although thinking about it I think the choir at Leeds Uni was the same size. We sang some other tunes as well, can’t remember the names of any of them now. Anyway we’re doing a Christmas concert which I imagine I’ll drag my folks to some time in December. If I manage to learn the tune that is.
Loughborough Uni reminds me a bit of Butlins (I went there once for a festival, so it wasn’t the proper Butlins experience but you got the gist of the place). All the halls are on site and have nice little courtyards between them. It’s full of youngsters running round being sporty and they get ushered around in packs by other youngsters, who are their hall committee presumably. Luckily they know better than to try and involve the postgrads in any of their foam party/coloured tshirts/hanging round in packs nonsense as we are much too mature and refined for that kind of thing ahem ahem.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
A stoodent again
It feels like I've been waiting forever but I'm finally here at Loughborough - back to the student life again! I'm even living in Halls but this time around it's a beautiful and very plush Postgrads-only hall. I've got my own bathroom so it sort of feels like I'm living in a hotel. For some unknown reason Loughborough Uni have decreed that we had to get here on Thursday, although I haven't got anything that I need to do until Monday. So I've been generally mooching around and discovering my new surroundings. So far I have unearthed:
- the Uni pool
- Loughborough's Saturday market in town
- a bike shop
- Sainsbury's
- the town library
So not doing too badly. Have scoped out the choir situation - there is one that practices on Monday evenings, starting next Monday, so I'm going to go to that. According to the website, 'New members are welcome at any time - there are no auditions, no previous experience is needed, and there is no requirement to be able to read music'. In other words, 'We're a bit shit'. But then I can't really read music, so I'm a bit shit too, and it's clearly the kind of choir to which I should belong. I sort of wanted to join a wind band or something but I can't actually play
anything so I've had to knock that idea on the head. Choir it is!
I'm missing Mach quite a lot, all the familiar surroundings, and all the lovely people. I went into a health food shop today (a phrase you would *never* have heard me utter before I moved to Mach) and the smell made me so nostalgic for the Hippy Wonderland of Machynlleth that I almost burst into tears. Luckily the sight of muesli brought me round (which for some reason makes me angry. I think it's because it's so relentlessly tasteless. Don't get me started).
I had a lovely holiday in the south of France before I came here, a pilgrimage to see the Pont du Gard near Nimes. It was very impressive, and I had a great time practising my French and exercising my language brain. Also ate a lot of lovely food (sharp bread, smelly cheese, bloody steak) and managed to avoid stepping in a single dog poo for the whole trip despite there being plenty of opportunity for me to do so.
Off to the pub now with my new flatmates!
- the Uni pool
- Loughborough's Saturday market in town
- a bike shop
- Sainsbury's
- the town library
So not doing too badly. Have scoped out the choir situation - there is one that practices on Monday evenings, starting next Monday, so I'm going to go to that. According to the website, 'New members are welcome at any time - there are no auditions, no previous experience is needed, and there is no requirement to be able to read music'. In other words, 'We're a bit shit'. But then I can't really read music, so I'm a bit shit too, and it's clearly the kind of choir to which I should belong. I sort of wanted to join a wind band or something but I can't actually play
anything so I've had to knock that idea on the head. Choir it is!
I'm missing Mach quite a lot, all the familiar surroundings, and all the lovely people. I went into a health food shop today (a phrase you would *never* have heard me utter before I moved to Mach) and the smell made me so nostalgic for the Hippy Wonderland of Machynlleth that I almost burst into tears. Luckily the sight of muesli brought me round (which for some reason makes me angry. I think it's because it's so relentlessly tasteless. Don't get me started).
I had a lovely holiday in the south of France before I came here, a pilgrimage to see the Pont du Gard near Nimes. It was very impressive, and I had a great time practising my French and exercising my language brain. Also ate a lot of lovely food (sharp bread, smelly cheese, bloody steak) and managed to avoid stepping in a single dog poo for the whole trip despite there being plenty of opportunity for me to do so.
Off to the pub now with my new flatmates!
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
A night at the opera
I went to a Cymanfa Ganu on Sunday, which is hymns in Welsh, sung by everyone. It was at the Tabernacle and part of the Machynlleth music festival, and because it was special they got a local Welsh male voice choir in to sing along. They were absolutely amazing so I decided I’d come back to hear the proper version, a full male voice choir concert, which was tonight.
The choir was from Anglesey so I don’t think it was the same one but they had a trick up their sleeves which was that they’d got in this fantastic tenor called Gwyn Hughes Jones with them who was absolutely superb, or iawn iawn iawn as the compere said. The first song he did nearly brought me to tears, it was so absolutely amazing, lots of soaring notes and a really long high one at the end. The choir did loads of lovely Welsh songs, none of which I can remember the name of obviously, apart from ‘O Cymru’ which is a song all about how wonderful Wales is.
I was stuck at the back craning round a head-mover in the first half (you know the type, he’s taller than you, he’s got a great big head and just as you’ve found a position from which you can see round him, he shifts to the other side). After a cup of tea and pink wafer (!) in the interval I returned to find my seat had been swiped by an old lady who said she had been sat at the front but it was too noisy J So without delay I took up her spot and spent the rest of the concert being blasted full on with tenor and male voice choir, fantastic.
The tenor did a trio of songs that he said were ‘a tenor’s staple’; these were Nessun Dorma, something else and ‘O Sole Mio’ (I think that might actually not be called that though). Unfortunately I am such a pleb that whenever I hear ‘Nessun Dorma’, I hear the beautiful tune and words but in my head I still hear the insistent cry of Robert Newman in the Mary Whitehouse Experience singing ‘and let go flat my fizzy drink! Fizzy drink!! Fi-zeeeeeeee DRINK!!!!’. The Mary Whitehouse Experience were a comedy program around at the time of the 1990 World Cup and did a parody version of Nessun Dorma complaining about irritating people that leave tops off things (toothpaste, fizzy drinks). I guarantee that anyone else who was between 12 and 21 at the time will have exactly the same problem. A similar problem also applies to ‘O Sole Mio’ but this time it’s a gondolier punting around Venice singing about Cornettos (triumphantly finishing ‘from WALLS ice cream!!’).
Despite my plebitude the evening was marvellous. I have decided I’m going to try and join a choir when I go to Loughborough.
Speaking of Loughborough, I phoned them up today to check my accommodation had gone through, and got some details about what I was meant to bring. I can’t wait to go now, it’s less than a month until I move, and only 2 ½ weeks till I go off on my trip to France. Woo hoo, something’s happening!
Footnote: England won the Ashes on Sunday, hooray! A victory that was fully deserved given that we played brilliantly in the last test, which is not at all like us when the chips are down. Flintoff did an inspired run-out of Ricky Ponting, which I watched on YouTube in the library today because our internet’s down at home. A dangerous thing to do if you’re going to whoop and holler at the end of the clip.
The choir was from Anglesey so I don’t think it was the same one but they had a trick up their sleeves which was that they’d got in this fantastic tenor called Gwyn Hughes Jones with them who was absolutely superb, or iawn iawn iawn as the compere said. The first song he did nearly brought me to tears, it was so absolutely amazing, lots of soaring notes and a really long high one at the end. The choir did loads of lovely Welsh songs, none of which I can remember the name of obviously, apart from ‘O Cymru’ which is a song all about how wonderful Wales is.
I was stuck at the back craning round a head-mover in the first half (you know the type, he’s taller than you, he’s got a great big head and just as you’ve found a position from which you can see round him, he shifts to the other side). After a cup of tea and pink wafer (!) in the interval I returned to find my seat had been swiped by an old lady who said she had been sat at the front but it was too noisy J So without delay I took up her spot and spent the rest of the concert being blasted full on with tenor and male voice choir, fantastic.
The tenor did a trio of songs that he said were ‘a tenor’s staple’; these were Nessun Dorma, something else and ‘O Sole Mio’ (I think that might actually not be called that though). Unfortunately I am such a pleb that whenever I hear ‘Nessun Dorma’, I hear the beautiful tune and words but in my head I still hear the insistent cry of Robert Newman in the Mary Whitehouse Experience singing ‘and let go flat my fizzy drink! Fizzy drink!! Fi-zeeeeeeee DRINK!!!!’. The Mary Whitehouse Experience were a comedy program around at the time of the 1990 World Cup and did a parody version of Nessun Dorma complaining about irritating people that leave tops off things (toothpaste, fizzy drinks). I guarantee that anyone else who was between 12 and 21 at the time will have exactly the same problem. A similar problem also applies to ‘O Sole Mio’ but this time it’s a gondolier punting around Venice singing about Cornettos (triumphantly finishing ‘from WALLS ice cream!!’).
Despite my plebitude the evening was marvellous. I have decided I’m going to try and join a choir when I go to Loughborough.
Speaking of Loughborough, I phoned them up today to check my accommodation had gone through, and got some details about what I was meant to bring. I can’t wait to go now, it’s less than a month until I move, and only 2 ½ weeks till I go off on my trip to France. Woo hoo, something’s happening!
Footnote: England won the Ashes on Sunday, hooray! A victory that was fully deserved given that we played brilliantly in the last test, which is not at all like us when the chips are down. Flintoff did an inspired run-out of Ricky Ponting, which I watched on YouTube in the library today because our internet’s down at home. A dangerous thing to do if you’re going to whoop and holler at the end of the clip.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Double bad blogger update
I'm resolving to write this blog a bit more because things are finally getting a bit more interesting. Since the last post I have:
- Installed a lovely solar water heating system on Cottage 1 of the Site Community buildings at CAT (how come these buildings have such bland names? Get thinking, CAT community people!)
- Had a midday naked swim in the reservoir at CAT, after a very hot installation day outside cottage 1 in May. I now consider myself a fully-fledged hippy, having also discovered a herbal tea that doesn't make me want to throw up and having uttered the immortal words 'it's a nice space' when describing the decor of a house or building
- Sorted out the move to Loughborough
- Spent another week at Glastonbury, and had a Moment of Great Importance watching Blur. That's what it felt like anyway, could have been the special 'cocktail' I was drinking, gin with white wine mixer. I've since realised that this is basically a Martini, we should call it a Blur Martini or something. It was horrible anyway so I doubt it'll go much further in its fame than me and Ellie (who I shared the Moment with).
- Got older and had a very nice cocktail party to celebrate (I learned how to make Martinis and the rest of the evening is a bit hazy)
- Worked on Reception at CAT. I have seen a lot of families and a very large range of human behaviour, ranging from puke-inducingly nice to tear-inducingly dispicable. I have learned how to make my voice heard over 15 people talking at once, control school children (get their teacher to do it), and how to win over the angry old couple who have had a shit journey to get there and are presenting us with an invalid 2-for-1 voucher (give them free tea tokens). Fun but tough, and exhausting.
- Moved house and been introduced to the delights of sourdough bread which my lovely housemate Tom makes
- Become obsessed with Manu Chao
- Been rejected by the Leonardo Project, who didn't fancy my engineering and German skills. I was meant to be going June-September, but instead have earned some money, built on my promising people skills, had one last summer in Mach, and been to Glastonbury for free, not a bad compromise eh.
- Made Bara Brith
- Sold Sid the Mini, having spent a week at home with my Dad sorting out all his (Sid's) problems. I sold him to a girl in London who was just about to go to University...poor thing, she doesn't know what she's in for. Although she seemed to be loaded so will probably take better care of Sid than I did and will hopefully have fewer problems.
So, sorry I missed out on reporting all of that...I'll try and do better now my career is progressing a bit.
I've been musing a bit about what's going to happen after my course, which will take me until Sep'10 to finish. I'll have about 5 months before I have to get back to the Engineering degree with OU which I'm still planning to finish. I'd like to get a job as a Wind or Hydro specialist, or perhaps go into research...we'll see. Only three weeks till I finish my job, then about 2 1/2 weeks until I move to Loughborough. Hopefully going to France in the gap between. Meravillieux!! Or something like that :)
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Bees
I learned all about Bees And The Art Of Beekeeping yesterday. A friend at work keeps them, and gave me a short summary which was very good of him and is the way I absorb information best, in about 10 minute spurts. I am a child of the MTV generation after all. Bees have a weird and wonderful community, they're very neat and tidy and they make honey obviously which is lush. Apparently the bee population is declining because of bees being infected by mites that have been imported from other countries. I thought it was something to do with wireless, which is what I've been telling everyone for the last two years (based on a story in the paper about a guy who had a bee problem in his loft until he installed wireless and they all left). Sorry everyone.
Anyway, if you want to know how a bee hive works, read on...
It's a very organised community, all the bees have a job. They live for 6 weeks, but for the first two they can't fly, so they're nursery bees and they feed the larvae. When they can fly they make honeycombs from wax and honey from nectar, for all the other bees to eat. The Queen Bee makes and fertilises eggs. All the bees are female and work very hard, except the drones who are male and sit around all day eating honey. Every now and then they shag a Queen bee from another hive, after which they die.
So that's bees. It's one of those kind of things I've learned on a day to day basis being here, and it's easy to take for granted because it's all around you. I feel like I should have added details of more typically Mach things in this blog, , like clothes swaps and swapshop and freeganism and herb teas and people doing spells and 5 rhythms dancing and people making up their own songs and making jam and critical commute. I'll try to put a few more in. One thing is, I'm reading a great book at the moment called The Transistion Handbook. It's a bit heavy (which is why I don't pick it up much, har har) but worthy reading. Transistion towns paint a nice positive picture for the future. More about this later once I've read the book, if I remember :)
I've decided what I'm doing next year - I'm going to Loughborough to do the CREST course. Am really chuffed to be going back to the Midlands.
Anyway, if you want to know how a bee hive works, read on...
It's a very organised community, all the bees have a job. They live for 6 weeks, but for the first two they can't fly, so they're nursery bees and they feed the larvae. When they can fly they make honeycombs from wax and honey from nectar, for all the other bees to eat. The Queen Bee makes and fertilises eggs. All the bees are female and work very hard, except the drones who are male and sit around all day eating honey. Every now and then they shag a Queen bee from another hive, after which they die.
So that's bees. It's one of those kind of things I've learned on a day to day basis being here, and it's easy to take for granted because it's all around you. I feel like I should have added details of more typically Mach things in this blog, , like clothes swaps and swapshop and freeganism and herb teas and people doing spells and 5 rhythms dancing and people making up their own songs and making jam and critical commute. I'll try to put a few more in. One thing is, I'm reading a great book at the moment called The Transistion Handbook. It's a bit heavy (which is why I don't pick it up much, har har) but worthy reading. Transistion towns paint a nice positive picture for the future. More about this later once I've read the book, if I remember :)
I've decided what I'm doing next year - I'm going to Loughborough to do the CREST course. Am really chuffed to be going back to the Midlands.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Bad blogger update
Oops, a whole 2 seasons have passed and I haven't written anything! Well a fair amount's happened and my plans have changed a few times but I think I'm pretty settled on things now, so I thought it was about the right time to write it all down.
I left CAT in August and spent the next few weeks, well several weeks really, working hard, revising for my exam, and working through a book about how to study. By the time I got to the exam I was pretty fed up of engineering mechanics and really just wanted to empty my brain. The exam didn't go brilliantly - I missed an entire question, grrrr - but luckily I was well versed enough to get a Distinction which I feel smug about.
The day after my exam I started working for a small engineering company in Mach called Perpetual Energy, which was fun and eventful, and moved me on a few steps because of things that happened while I was there. Firstly, I had an interview with PE and was all excited about maybe becoming a consultant a LOT quicker than I'd been hoping. I didn't get the job (it turned out there wasn't a job anyway!) but it started me thinking again about my Plans. A couple of weeks after I started, a guy called Jon started working there too. He told me all about the MSc he was doing, the CREST course in Loughborough, and I started thinking about doing an MSc full-time, from Sep 2009.
The upshot is that now I've applied for the Loughborough course, and two more in Southampton and Edinburgh. I've been accepted at Loughborough and Southampton, and still waiting for a response from Edinburgh. I'm going back to Uni!
I'm also planning a bit of fun before the course starts, doing the Leonardo project, which is a work exchange program between Wales and other countries in Europe, and going to Berlin for three months. Hooray! I'm really looking forward to it, but I can't get too excited because I don't even know if I'm going, until May. I'm still getting excited about it secretly though :)
I left CAT in August and spent the next few weeks, well several weeks really, working hard, revising for my exam, and working through a book about how to study. By the time I got to the exam I was pretty fed up of engineering mechanics and really just wanted to empty my brain. The exam didn't go brilliantly - I missed an entire question, grrrr - but luckily I was well versed enough to get a Distinction which I feel smug about.
The day after my exam I started working for a small engineering company in Mach called Perpetual Energy, which was fun and eventful, and moved me on a few steps because of things that happened while I was there. Firstly, I had an interview with PE and was all excited about maybe becoming a consultant a LOT quicker than I'd been hoping. I didn't get the job (it turned out there wasn't a job anyway!) but it started me thinking again about my Plans. A couple of weeks after I started, a guy called Jon started working there too. He told me all about the MSc he was doing, the CREST course in Loughborough, and I started thinking about doing an MSc full-time, from Sep 2009.
The upshot is that now I've applied for the Loughborough course, and two more in Southampton and Edinburgh. I've been accepted at Loughborough and Southampton, and still waiting for a response from Edinburgh. I'm going back to Uni!
I'm also planning a bit of fun before the course starts, doing the Leonardo project, which is a work exchange program between Wales and other countries in Europe, and going to Berlin for three months. Hooray! I'm really looking forward to it, but I can't get too excited because I don't even know if I'm going, until May. I'm still getting excited about it secretly though :)
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