The Into Geek Awards 4#

Hello and welcome to the Into Geek awards, my monthly feature that will essentially highlight my favourite things of the previous month. You’ve been given exclusive access to the Into Geek May 2011 awards because you are reading this blog. So let’s give away some awards shall we?

Best Day: A nice easy choice really because though May has been a fairly good month it has been a dull one so there were only a couple of days to choose from. I am choosing the 21st May, which incidentally was the day that the world was supposed to end. It didn’t which was reason enough to be pleased. But I also got to spend the day with my two bestest buddies who I rarely see these days and we had such a good day!

Geeky Exciting Thing: This goes to Doctor Who again. Not only does series 6 continue to be amazing (what with Neil Gaimon’s “The Doctor’s Wife being a particular highlight) but I ended up going on the Doctor Who locations tour and that was really awesome. I am more obsessed with Doctor Who than ever before, which is saying something.

 

Movie of the Month (this is the best movie I saw this month, not necessarily the best movie that came out this month): Now this is probably somewhat controversial considering the reviews it got but I am going to say Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I saw it at the cinema and unless a film is awful that in itself makes it movie of the month. But I really enjoyed it, as much as the previous ones in the series, if not more. And I had the theme tune in my head for ages afterwards.

Song of the Month (again, my fave song during the month, not necessarily one that came out during it): Well seeing as though I bought Lady Gaga’s album as soon as it came out there was always a strong likelihood that I would like one of those songs especially. And I did, The Edge of Glory. It’s really catchy and doesn’t have any of that “ra-ra ga-ga” nonsense in it like some of Gaga’s other songs. Plus it hasn’t been over played yet so I can like it without finding it annoying.

Website of the Month: An easy winner this week. It’s Tumblr, which calls itself a blogging site but that’s not really how I would describe it. I would probably say it’s Twitter with pictures. I’m really enjoying going on there though and there are loads of awesome people and whovians on there. My “blog” can be found here if you would like to follow me.

Person of the Month: I am actually going to give this to my friend Stefan who is in my uni group. As much as I take the mickey out of him, he is still my mate and he’s probably one of the people I’ve spent most time with this month. I’ve not really felt like being that sociable actually. But our group will be split up next year so no more all day breakfast Panini's with Stefan in between lectures. It was fun.

Minion of the Month: I am giving this to one follower who has demonstrated such faith and loyalty this month. When I accidentally wrote “this blog is now over” rather than “this post is now over” ishashime  seemed to be very worried. So thank you so much for that and I assure you, this blog will not be finishing any time soon.

Blog of the Month: This goes to “My Little Journey” by SJ, who incidentally was a guest poster this month. She has recently changed URL’s from an old blog and her blogs have always been excellent so I wanted to tell you all and give her a nice little bit of promo along the way. It truly is an awesome blog.

And that’s this month’s awards done and dusted! You can see all of May’s posts and what they are about on the “Last Month” page! Enjoy!

Zombie Apocalypse Plans

This is a question that seems to come up quite a lot. If the zombie apocalypse comes, what would I do? There are many possibilities and I am going to discuss as many of these as I can in this particular blog entry. You are welcome to use ideas here if the zombie apocalypse does one day arrive. I suggest you bookmark this page for easy reference. Then it’ll be just one click away when you see the undead skulking along your street.

OK, so there are two main options once the zombie apocalypse has arrived. You could shack up somewhere and make it into some kind of fort. Possible places include bunkers, prisons, hospitals and police stations. Now unless you want to risk your life and limb going on regular raids to pick up weapons, food and other supplies you need to have a place that is full of such supplies. This is quite a challenge as you need to find this place before it gets overrun by zombies or taken over by some gang of evil madmen. More on rogue survivors later. Essentially you need a stronghold which is difficult for hoards of the undead to break their way into. You probably want shutters on the windows because some more intelligent types of zombie will know your in there if light comes out. Either way, it would drive you crazy seeing crowds of zombies outside your window every night. You also need a last line of defence in case there is a massive zombie attack. UV lights are a useful defence against certain types of zombies and mines and various explosives would be useful against any type of zombie.

There is a question as to how many entrances to your hideout you need. One is easier to defend but harder to escape from. So you probably want an escape route. But how many entrances is good? You need enough so that chances are one will be free from zombies but not so many so that zombies can break in from lots of different places. It’s an impossible dilemma and without extensive research into which is the best way to defend from zombies one that has no obvious answer.

The other main option is to roam around travelling from place to place collecting resources. The main advantage to this is that you can’t really run out of supplies because you are constantly collecting more. The main disadvantage of course is that you are in constant danger from zombies. However, if you have enough weapons and ways to escape you will be fine. Now I have issues with how I would get hold of weapons here. The UK is extremely different to the US in the sense that guns are much harder to get hold of. I would have to use garden equipment such as chainsaws to help me travel to army bases and country shops where I could pick up weapons. It would be a real pain but I guess it would be possible. If I was going through the rural areas the number of zombies would be pretty low so I would be fairly safe until I picked up more weapons.

The other issue all apocalypse survivors have to deal with is other survivors. In  “Lord of the Flies” style, human beings tend to go a bit crazy when this sort of thing happens. Some people become really evil and take over a gang of survivors, meaning they have a private army with which to go their bidding. Sadly there is little hope for these people and they need to be got rid of with the weapons that have handily been collected. The evil guy’s minions though tend to not be evil so you need to psyche them out and make them realise where they are going wrong. You also get the crazy individuals who think that because civilisation has broken down they can do what they like, whether it be rape, theft or murder. These people are unlikely to change unless you have an amazing psychiatrist in your midst so you will have to blow their brains out too. Sad but necessary in this new world you find yourself.

And finally there is the issue of a cure. Chances are that if you survive you will be immune to the zombie virus. Of course there is also a weird likelihood that a lone scientist locked in a laboratory somewhere trying to create a cure. If you survive you need to find this guy to be in with the slightest chance of saving humanity. Make this the overall priority in the zombie apocalypse. As well as eating and not getting bitten.

Adventures in time, space and Cardiff

Today was a bit weird really. My friend Louise was taking me somewhere but it was a surprise so I didn’t know where the hell I was going to. I ended up in Cardiff and on the tour of locations used in Doctor Who. It was run by a fan who has been lucky enough to have been in the show five times. He has been electrocuted by the Slitheen, gassed by the Master and disintegrated by the dalek’s. Lucky guy! This blog will mostly be made of pictures of places I went, which appear in order of when they appeared in the show.

This is the church where Reaper’s appeared in “Father’s Day” and the spot where Pete Tyler was hit by a car and died. Ironically we nearly got run over here. The church itself is actually for sale now. How cool would it be to own a Doctor Who location. I think I will have to raid my savings.

I am stood on the step where the TARDIS landed in “Boom Town” which later became a lift down to the Torchwood Hub in the spin-off show Torchwood. It’s pretty cool!

It still says Bad Wolf here. This was the playground that appeared briefly in “Parting of the Ways”.

The TARDIS was parked just in front of that climbing frame in “Army of Ghosts”. It’s in a really horrible estate though.

Watch out for krafayis' behind that window!

The Doctor does exactly this on this spot in “Vincent and the Doctor”. Couldn’t resist.

And finally this is the place they use as Leadworth in series 5, which is actually called Llandaff. I’m doing pretty much what Rory does in “The Eleventh Hour”.

I shall leave it there because otherwise this blog entry will be ridiculously long. I had a lovely time though it involved a lot of travelling. No doubt I shall be spending most of tomorrow in bed!

Savvy?

Hello lovely person, thank you for stopping by for a little read. That’s very lovely of you. Today I shall be telling you about my day of doing history and my thoughts on the new Pirates of the Caribbean film as well as the odd other thing too!

History Day

As I am studying to become a teacher, I have to learn all the subjects and how to teach them. That means that every Thursday for a while I had an entire day of doing one subject with today being the turn of history and the subject day.

History is the subject I am specialising in so I was excited for this day to finally arrive. We began by talking about how you can use portraits to teach children, with a particular focus on Elizabeth I, though the tutor was wrong with a couple of facts but it let it slide because I didn’t want to come across as pretentious. After that we looked at how we assess history which was pretty useful.

Next we walked to the Hampshire Record Office which is conveniently nearby and a nice man told us about the activities they do with children. We did one of these activities ourselves and followed a Mr Samuel Gillen who was apprenticed to a baker on leaving school in Basingstoke. It seems that 1832 was one hell of a year for Sam. First he had to leave Basingstoke and move to Whitchurch because he impregnated a woman. He of course had to marry this women to prevent the child being a bastard and this happened in July. Shortly afterwards his child was born, a girl called Mariett. It must have been a happy time but sadly it did not last for long as Sam’s wife died in September followed by his three month old child in October. Not cheerful at all. According to the census he stayed with his wife’s family in Whitchurch for some time after her death but by 1863 he had moved to another town where he was no longer a baker but a labourer. I find personal stories like this one fascinating and over the Summer I am planning to do some huge digging into our family history which will hopefully provide some further fascinating tales.

Next we had an ICT session where we had to plan a series of lessons based on evacuation in World War 2. I enjoyed this and I now have a whole half-term of history teaching ready to be taught which will no doubt come in very handy in later life. After a quick stop for lunch we learnt how to sue photographs and artefacts and played a few games with these. All in all it was a really good day and now I’m really excited to start having my specialism history lessons from  September!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The other day I went to see this film and I was pretty pleased with it. I liked the other Pirate’s films and this one was more like the first one, which was clearly the best. It centres on a quest to find the legendary fountain of youth but of course it is not as easy as simply going there. Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush continue to be excellent in their roles as Jack Sparrow and Barbossa respectively but Blackbeard and his daughter weren’t really that awe inspiring.

There were some excellent escape scenes like we are used to, especially one across London and the mermaids scene was brilliant. I won’t spoil it but basically mermaids are similar to sirens and lure sailors to their deaths with their beauty. The first mermaid is played by a woman called Gemma Ward who I think has become my new celebrity crush. She is beautiful!

So all in all, a fantastic continuation of the series without the over-complicated plots of the second two films. Oh and that theme tune won’t leave your head for days.

Random Bits

• I got another assignment back and rather than the excellent mark I was hoping for I got moderate 53%. Rather disappointed.
• Tonight there was a special rock and roll bingo game where you could win £100. I didn’t win a thing all night which was very frustrating.
• I have had a good week in terms of compliments. I have been told I sing well, am funny and even that my little beard looks good. Oh and that I look more manly. My favourite is being “funny”. There are few things better in life than making other people smile.
• This blog is now over. Bye.

Guest Post: Business by SJ

It’s Wednesday guest post time! This week one of my fave bloggers, SJ talks about starting up a business.

When Dan asked me to write this post I had no idea what to write about at all but then he suggested one of my passions so here goes...

I have owned several blogs over quite a few years my first blog about my life was: http://justasmalltowngirluk.blogspot.com/ however I decided to completely restart it as tidying it up would be too big a task this led to the creation of: http://sjmylittlejourney.blogspot.com/ my brand spanking new blog about my life. I have a couple of sideline blogs too my business blog which hasn’t been up dated for a while: http://www.lessonsfromabusinessclassroom.co.uk/ and really needs to be sorted out and tidied up and made active again (life just got busy). I’ll introduce you to my final blog a bit later...

My biggest passion in life is business and one day I’m going to own my own business and I have a few ideas as to what I’d like to do, either owning my own holiday park (along the lines of Bultins, Haven etc) or my own bars and nightclubs.

Lately the television program The Apprentice has been back as a new series. This year the prize is slightly different instead of becoming Lord Alan Sugar’s apprentice the winner will start a business with him and he will stump up the start up cash for it. Pretty good opportunity if you ask me!

Thousands upon thousands of people start their own businesses but many of them don’t know what they are doing or understand what starting and running a business actually means. For me I’m hoping to launch my own online business in the next couple of weeks (the blog I was talking about earlier)... http://uni-2-know.blogspot.com/ . I’ve been working on this for a while and it’s slowly getting to where I want it to be although there is a lot of work still to do on it! I’m hoping that eventually this blog will in fact become a source of income. I plan to offer hard to find information from various sources to current and prospective university students as well as trying to get students to write articles for the blog and offer their advice and experiences to other students. Whether it will work out, I don’t know but it’s a learning curve and if it doesn’t I can work out why and have another go until it does.

Anyone can create a business some will earn the creators millions others will just scrape a profit, you may already own your own potential business but you don’t realise the opportunity you have! There are plenty of source of inspiration around for the budding entrepreneur you just have to find it and make the opportunity work for you.

How lovely. I love The Apprentice so I’m pleased that SJ wrote this. Back to the norm tomorrow!

A River, A Dialect and a Monkey

Hello there. This is going to be a good blog entry, I promise. I am now back at uni after a weekend at home and a lovely weekend it was too. I actually arrived back this morning and went pretty much straight to a lecture which I find rather weird. Life continues to be hectic but this is my last full week of lectures so it’s all drawing to a close. Anyhow, time to write this blog entry!

Fact Finding Mission

So yesterday I accompanied a small group to my local country park for our assignment. Basically we have to imagine we are running a trip to this place and work out what subjects could be taught here. We also have to do a risk assessment which is always great fun. The time there was a little weird because three of the group are practically complete strangers to me but they are lovely people so it wasn’t too bad. We basically went around the play trail and had a go on the odd thing while discussing what we would do for the presentation. It all went fairly smoothly.

I decided I would cycle from my house to the country park and though a lovely ride it was quite tiring and my bum still feels a bit numb now.

That’s me in cycle-mode. Note the fact that my beard has grown considerably over the last week. It’s actually a proper beard now. Still not sure how much I like it though I shall be keeping it for a few weeks at least.

And those are a couple of pictures of the River Avon along the way. It’s so beautiful!

This afternoon the group met again and we successfully agreed what we would each be doing. This group seems to be working much better than the other ones I have worked in this year which is really pleasing!

Today

What else has happened today? Well mostly I have been organising folders and doing work which is not very exciting at all. But I did have an English seminar for which we had to write a short story and then in the session read them out to small groups. The tutor listened to mine as well and I seemed to stun him and the rest of the small group with my work. Whilst I do like to think of myself as something of a wordsmith, I’m not really used to getting such a compliment about my work. Once again I felt terribly embarrassed as I always do when anyone compliments me. But on the rare occasions that happens I become full of self-confidence for a few hours which is a feeling I don’t get that often. I am rather pleased with the story though and am going to use it as a basis to a novel which will be one of my Summer projects. Hopefully it can become a masterpiece.

Dialect Vlog Challenge

I found this on another blog and decided to do it. Info of what I had to do is below the vid!

Read these words:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theatre, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pyjamas, Caught

And answer these questions:

• What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
• What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
• What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
• What do you call gym shoes?
• What do you say to address a group of people?
• What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
• What do you call your grandparents?
• What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
• What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
• What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Super Monkey Ball 3D

Thanks to me keeping an eye on promotional offers, I managed to blag a copy of Super Monkey Ball 3D, for 3DS of course, for free. It is just like any other Super Monkey Ball game where you have to guide a monkey inside a giant ball across a course without falling off, collecting as many bananas as you can along the way. Doing this with the circle pad is pretty easy but it’s fair bit harder doing it with by tilting the machine. I don’t think it brings anything new to the Super Monkey Ball series apart from slightly better graphics (they are still not brilliant though) but as someone who is new to the series I enjoyed it a fair bit, though I only wish it could be longer. The racing mode is annoyingly bad compared to playing Ridge Racer 3D. Still, it’s an OK game if you can get it cheap from a supermarket somewhere!

End

Now that was a longer and better blog post was it not? Tomorrow I am going to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film so I’ll have my thoughts on that as well as a bunch of other stuff. See you then!

The Day the World Didn’t End

Hello dear minions. It’s about time I properly wrote a blog entry. Let’s do it then shall we?

Today I was very brave and let my good friend Chris take me out in his car. Now Chris has only been legally allowed to drive on the roads a few weeks so the I was a little apprehensive about his driving skills. They appeared to be satisfactory though and we made it all the way to Southampton where we were supposed to pick up my friend Mike. The only trouble was is that despite having Google Maps directions we really couldn’t work out where we were going. So after an age of driving around the less pleasant areas of Southampton, of which there are many, we decided to head to the shopping centre and met Mike there.

Of course I couldn’t be in a city with a comic book shop and not go in so I dragged the Chris and Mike to Forbidden Planet where I finally picked up the first issue of Flashpoint, the new DC Comics series centred around the Flash. I haven't started reading it yet but it looks like awesome. I look forward to following the entire Flashpoint series for many a month.

After wandering around and visiting a few other shops, Mike took us to his halls of residence which turned out to be quite nice. Unlike me, Mike is living in a huge block with loads of rooms in rather than a house with only a few. It’s pretty nice and has various features that I am jealous of such as vending machines and baths. He then took us just down the road to his uni campus which is also pretty nice though a fair bit bigger than Winchester’s. Plus there were a lot more bars and a pub providing many more opportunities to get drunk then we have. I left filled with jealously but of course I do love Winchester uni despite what faults it may have.

For our last few minutes in Southampton we used the wonderful invention that is Facebook to check out each other’s female friends. Both me and Mike managed to display a fair few attractive women which was fun. I don’t get to have discussions about the attractiveness of girls very often so it was fun to do it.

Oh and I cannot finish talking about the day without mentioned Chris’ parking. His driving may be fine but his parking is not so good. In the shopping centre car park we were parked so far over the line it was ridiculous. And when we went to Mike’s halls we had to park at the side of the road though Chris’ car was so far away from the kerb I’m not sure you could actually class it as being at the side of the road.

All in all it was a brilliant day.

Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh

DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS- CONTAINS SPOILERS

Wow, this series continues to be particularly good. In this episode the TARDIS lands at a factory where the workers use doppelgangers or “gangers” of themself to work with dangerous acid. This is created from a living substance known as the Flesh. A solar storm causes the gangers to become separated from their human counterparts yet they still have the memories and feelings of the real humans. The humans want to destroy their ganger counterparts and vice versa and the premise of a civil war began to build. The episode ended with a ganger of the Doctor appearing, which I found to be really unexpected!

It was a good episode with a fabulous cliff hanger. I enjoyed it perhaps more than some of the other episodes because it wasn’t overly complicated, it didn’t need to be. And Rory wasn’t killed in this episode which is unusual though he did joke about it. Very enjoyable and it is clear that the write of 2006’s “Fear Her” has greatly improved in that time!

Being at Home

It’s nice to be at home again, with the family. And nice to get away from uni, enjoyable as it is most of the time. Watching old sitcom Porridge earlier made me realise how similar our student halls feel to being in a prison. The rooms, though a lot nicer, are a similar size and are in rows. People can come and go fairly freely to your house whether you want them to or not. And most of the time you go out, in my case anyway, is just to have lectures which is not unlike prisoners leaving their cells to have lessons. OK, so uni is nowhere near as bad as being in prison but with a lot of the similarities it does affect you. It affects all of us. Which is why I shall be looking forward to going to our new house so much. Life will be much better there.

Oh and the world was supposed to end today. It didn’t. Surprise, surprise. These end of world theories are always ridiculous. The world is likely to last a few million years and human kind are OK for at least fifty before global warming has taken a huge effect and fossil fuels have run out. So I won’t believe any of these theories until then.

Time to end this entry methinks. It’s really late I know, I’m sorry. I’m not that motivated to write at the moment but I shall endeavour to try my best. Over and out.

Falling Underwear and Destroying a Computer

Well, well, well, what a busy few days it has been. So it must be time to share all the latest happenings!

RS Day

As I am studying to become a teacher, I have to learn all the subjects and how to teach them. That means that every Thursday for a while I have an entire day of doing one subject with today being the turn of Religious studies.

I have mixed feelings about today really. I find learning about religions really fascinating and I learnt all sorts of new things today, particularly about Sikhism and Buddhism which I knew nothing about before. But the only trouble was the day was pretty dull. Sat in a room and talking is fine for a bit but after many an hour the concentration levels drop hugely. But still, I have to say it was largely enjoyable. I think that as long I read up on what I will be teaching, the teaching of RS should be fairly straight forward. And it can be really fun if done in the right way.

Placement Chaos

I ended up going into my placement school on Tuesday for a special Australia day. Basically I spent the day hurtling round like a mad thing helping all the activities such as “get the water across the desert without spilling it” run smoothly. The afternoon climaxed in a “bush tucker trial” where the children were told they were eating items liked Sheep’s brains, Koala eyeballs and Roo Poo. These were actually raspberries, lychees and prunes all of which have the texture and feel of what they were representing. Many children looked rather ill during this activity but it was hilarious. I arrived home absolutely exhausted after zooming around for most of the day. But it was fun and a great introduction of the topic of Australia for the kids.

Sadly I had to get up for placement on Wednesday as per usual. I haven't really mentioned placement much because I can’t really talk about it but it’s going really well. I’ve had a lot of fun and learnt a lot. I feel that my confidence is much higher than it has been and I even raised my voice the other day. I properly managed to take control of a rowdy class and it was such a brilliant moment where I was glowing with glee as I realised I had come out of my shell and shown some authority.

House 24 Madness

There are very few dull moments when you live in our house. This evening Josh’s boxers accidentally ended up falling out of a first floor window and our..erm man-sausages were named. Mine is called Leonard apparently. Don’t ask. No really, don’t. It’s an odd thought that our first year of uni is rapidly drawing to a close but that means the fun of living in a new house draws ever closer, as does the Summer. The summer holds some work, a holiday somewhere, some camping with friends, the odd party, the odd friend meet-up and some family tree research. It’s going to be really fun!

Goodbye Craptop

I have now transferred my iTunes music to my new laptop and so it was time to destroy my old one which is affectingly known as the craptop. I went at it with a screwdriver and some brute force, taking out the bits various circuit boards and the fan because they look cool and anything I might be able to sell like the battery.

I love the way circuit boards look, they are so awesome. These will be going into some piece of home-made artwork in our new house when we finally move in. I also took all the keys off and created this for my door:

How awesome is that!

End

I think I shall end this post here. I am really tired as I seem to permanently be at the moment. I barely seem to have a spare second most of the time and it really is exhausting. In one final piece of news though, I now have a Tumblr account. If you like this blog and have Tumblr you really should follow, it’s really fun. Click here to visit and I shall see you ever so soon!

Guest Post: Simply Kate

It’s time for another Wednesday guest post! What fun! This week Kate answers my questions.

1. Tell us about you and your blog.

My blog, Simply Kate, is as the title suggests; it is simply about me. I’m Kate! I write a personal lifestyle blog that is filled with photos, quirky thoughts and nerdy posts. I’ve been known to make incredibly embarrassing videos, and have even written notes to inanimate objects. My blog is like an extension of my soul, and I am constantly sharing my views, ideas and stories.

2. What makes you a geek?

Let’s see… what makes me a bigger geek? Maybe that I have played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess nearly ten times from start to finish. Maybe the fact that I love Lord of the Rings so much; I learned Elvish and did a high school research paper on how they created Gollum for the movies. (I got an A, by the way.) Maybe I’m a geek because I blog on a daily basis. Whatever the case, I’m a geek and I’m proud to be so!

3. This is your last day on Earth, how are you going to spend it.

I would gather all of the people that I love around me. We would play games and laugh. We would have Lord of the Rings in the background, of course, because I would need Lord of the Rings on my last day on Earth. I would want to spend my last hours in the company of those I care about most, laughing and leaving them with memories that would last forever, even if I’m gone.

4. Tell us about your favourite place in the world.

This would probably have to be Red Cloud Loop in Dry Fork, UT. Especially in the fall [autumn for us Brits-Dan]. The leaves turn the most brilliant colours. There are beautiful hiking trails, and there’s a wonderful glade that is perfect for thinking or reading, or writing. It always smells so fresh and crisp and the creek babbles peacefully nearby. It’s such a beautiful spot.

5. What is the most important thing in your life.

As cliché as it sounds, I would have to say Love. Love is the thing that keeps me going every day. Whether it’s the love of my boyfriend, my family or my friends, without it, I would feel empty and life would have no meaning.

6. What is your favourite type of cheese?

Monterey Jack for sure! Mozzarella and Cheddar mixed together into a perfect amazing slice? Is there anything more amazing?

7. If you could be a ghost for a day, what would you do?

I would probably spend a few hours haunting and tormenting the people that really bother me. I would totally go all Paranormal Activity on their behinds!

That would be awesome. Then I might pull a Patrick Swayze and have a really romantic afternoon with my boyfriend.

8. The post is over now. Did you enjoy it?

Of course I did! Surveys are fun! Guest posts are fun! Blogging is fun!

Thanks for letting me post on your blog, Daniel! I had a great time!

 

And thank you for doing the guest post Kate. Go follow Kate’s blog, it’s awesome! Tomorrow I will tell you about my crazy few days. See you then!

Dan’s Writing Gallery

After the fun that was my art gallery I have decided to do something similar but with bits of writing instead. Now I am reasonably good at writing so this should seem better than the art one. All of these came were written in an English seminar today which was about writing.

Traffic Jams

We were given a minute to write this one.

Two miles in two hours! It would be quicker to walk. In fact it would be quicker to ride on the back of a giant tortoise. You can feel the anger amongst fellow drivers and passengers as their destination comes no closer.

Stars

We were given two minutes to write this one.

The enormous silvery ship was headed directly towards one of the hottest stars in the universe. The crew had only minutes to live. The engines had failed but in space of course this doesn’t mean you stop moving. 30 seconds to go! The sweat pours off Captain Holly Small as she desperately tries to come up with a solution. This was worse than the attach of the wamneg warship!

I really like this one. I quite fancy carrying it on a bit more.

The Girl’s Thoughts

We had to imagine what a sad little girl in the playground was thinking and write it in five minutes. I came up with this:

I am fed up of living the poverty-stricken life I am forced to live. None of my clothes belong to me, not really. The shoes came from the cousin who grew two sizes in a week, the trousers were hand-me-downs from my elder sister, the top was made out of old curtains and my pink monstrosity of a hat was found on the street. It was picked up, washed and plonked on my head. I havn’t had a haircut in years and I have to have my hair in a long ponytail. I hate this life.

D of E

In this task we had ten minutes to write about someone else’s object. My friend bought in his collection of Duke of Edinburgh Award badges. Here’s what I came up with:

Five years, three badges. Many an expedition with dodgy navigation and campfire cooking. Many a skill enhanced, many a community enhanced and many a pound shed.

By the time of the silver expedition it seemed normal. Our navigation skills had much improved. We knew what we were doing and where we were going. The sun was shining but the temperature wasn’t too high. We were happy. But then disaster struck.

We’d sat down for a short break and John had said he was going to pee behind a tree. A few seconds later our conversation about Mexican racing car drivers was interrupted with the unmistakeable cry of John, from not so far away.

The next few minutes passed incredibly slowly. We all got up and started to walk in the direction of John’s scream. We came across a cliff top and suddenly it became horribly clear what must have happened. Alice turned away with a tear in her eye. Thomas put an arm around her and led her back to our bags. It was left to me to peer over the cliff top to see John’s crippled body lying sixty feet below. It was a sight which will haunt me until the day I die.

As the Land Rover drove us away for some counselling, we swore that we would redo this expedition and carry on through to the gold award, in memory of our excellent friend John.

A bit morbid I know. And the end was a bit rushed. But apart from that it was a decent little bit of writing.

End

Though the writing is pretty decent, the content is quite concerning really. None of those was exactly what you would call cheerful. Still, there was more emotion and drama this way. Let me know what you think, as per usual. Tomorrow I have been requested to go to my placement school’s Australia Day. They must want me for something. I will let you know what that something is later in the week but it should be a good day!

Eurovision 2011

As something that seems to have accidentally become a tradition on this blog, today I shall be discussing this year’s Eurovision song contest. But first it’s the weekly Doctor Who segment!

Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Wife

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS, SKIP TO NEXT SECTION IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS

Neil Gaimon's masterpiece saw the Doctor receiving a message from a Time Lord who was apparently outside of the universe. On arrival the TARDIS' soul is put into a woman and it appears that the message was not from a living Time Lord but a message from a dead one. The asteroid they land on has a consious and is known as "House" who feeds of the energy of TARDIS'. When House learns that the Doctor's TARDIS is the last one in existence he steals it with Amy and Rory inside. He heads towards the universe and the Doctor and Idris have to build a TARDIS out of scrap to catch up. They land in the old control room only and House tries to kill them by deleting the room. They are transported to the main control room and the TARDIS leaves the body of Idris and returns to where it belongs, where it destroys House.

All in all, it was fantastic. The Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS became much stronger. We have always known that the TARDIS is a living thing rather than a machine but this episode took it into new territory. Surranne Jones was fantastic as Idris as was Michael Sheen as the voice of House. Plus I liked seeing the TARDIS corridors and seeing the old control room one more time.

There was another bit of mystery with the TARDIS looking into the future and saying "The only water in the wood is the river". One presumes she means River Song. And the only issue I had was Rory being killed again, albeit it briefly this time. Rory is quickly catching up with the daleks in the number of times he has been wiped out but still comes back. But apart from that is was a cracking episode that fans will truly have loved!

Eurovision 2011

Ah, Eurovision. A contest where each European country puts a song forward , most of them being very cheesy and then vote for their neighbouring countries songs. What fun!

So, randomly, Azerbaijan won. I’m not really sure why. The song is OK but is nothing special. But most people seemed to like it so why not?

They were a bit too lovey-dovey for me really but nothing against them.

The UK’s entry from Blue, a band who are fairly well known, did rather well, for us. We were in the top half and that is always an achievement. So well done Blue boys, even if you have fewer brain cells than an amoeba.

There was even a moment in the result when we were top of the table. It was a short-live moment though.

Our friends in Ireland did a little better thanks to the spiky-haired twins known as Jedward. They are famous for being on the UK X Factor so it was little surprise that we gave them 12 points. Whatever you think of them, at least they put everything into it!

My personal favourite though has to be Moldova, simply for the absolutely brilliant head gear. The UK gave them 8 points for sheer comedy value I think.

I actually want a hat like that. It would be so cool. Speaking of which…

And on that note I shall end. Thanks for reading. Why not write a comment? You know you want to!

It’s Friday, Friday, Friday

Hello. It’s been a few days since I last posted. In fact this week has been a bit of a rubbish week for being able to blog. The uni internet was down for the first few days of the week and Blogger has been down for the last few days. It’s like there has been some sort of conspiracy to stop me posting. But do not despair, I am now back and this post will be a super-duper update of all the fun things that have happened this week. Let’s do-oo-oo it!

Music Morning

As I am studying to become a teacher, I have to learn all the subjects and how to teach them. That means that every Thursday for a while I have an entire day of doing one subject with the odd one split into two sessions. Music is one of those split ones and I had the second part this morning.

Getting up early for music was not an appealing thought but somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed and go to it. Perhaps it was because once this session was done we have no more music sessions for the rest of our time at uni. Thank goodness. The session was mostly spent “composing” a piece of music. We had to choose a picture to make a musical story. Our picture was a river so we had the idea of a boat travelling down the river and facing a massive storm. I was on xylophone with which I created a neat little melody. The storm came along with a bottle-lid instrument, a tambourine, a thunder-maker and a cabasa (also played by yours truly). We created a musical masterpiece that seemed to satisfyingly hit the desired effect. And then music was over and we were all happy little bunnies.

Assignment Feedback

Thursday saw another assignment returned to me, this time it was the maths one where we had to write a guidance paper on the various mental calculation methods. I wasn’t very pleased with how it went so i was really just hoping to get 40%, enough for a pass. I got 44% which fit that bill perfectly, so I was happy. I then went on to read the feedback to see what the marker thought about my work. They started this feedback by calling me David. Now as far as I am aware my name is Daniel and also has been so quite where they got this from I don’t know. Can I trust how able someone is to give the correct mark when they can’t even get my name right in the feedback? The mind boggles.

Friday Lectures

The lecture hall was unusually quiet on Friday morning thanks to the event known as “carnage” happening the night before. Basically carnage is where you can go to a city and travel between the clubs which all give you cheap drinks. Of course this causes everyone attending to become absolutely hammered, leading to major hangovers the next day. Hence the quietness. So whilst I paid attention the rather interesting lecture about how to set up a classroom and what should be in it, most people were either in bed or feeling worse for wear in the lecture theatre.

The seminar session today was pretty good too as we got to go outside! It made sense really seeing as though it was all about outdoor learning. The basic summary of said seminar was that if you don’t mind doing the paperwork, take children outside at every opportunity that possibly presents itself. It was all rather nice.

Pictures

Here are some fun pics from the last few days:

I went to the nature reserve where there is a board where people write what they have seen in the reserve and it’s titled “April Highlights”. Some clever person amusingly had written this:

And here is a lovely swan I saw:

Randomly on the bus back from Tesco there were load of steam engines in Winchester high street:

At Tesco I bought some Lego which makes three different vehicles. I spent a fair bit of time making these this afternoon:

E-book and End

And that is it for today. But first I have to announcement the fact that you can now download my first e-book. It’s a collection of the best bits of this blog from 2009 and 2010. If you like this blog I would have thought that it is a must-read. You can get this present absolutely free from tomorrow! Now this blog really is over. I will be back telling you my thoughts on Eurovision 2011 in the next entry. Laterz!

Carbon Neutrality

Now I spoke about this yesterday but today my blog is becoming carbon neutral. I am very passionate about looking after the environment and trying to slow down climate change in any way I can so this must be a good thing. Every time someone views this blog a tiny bit of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere thanks to that little bit of electricity it takes to view the blog. Now there is a programme which plants a tree in the Plumas National Forest in California which will effectively take in the carbon dioxide which is being released due to this blog. This means that the blog becomes carbon neutral and green. Though it is currently blue. But it will be blue in a colour way and green in an environmental way.

So all I have to do is write this post and put this logo on the blog.

Done that. Oh and send them a quick e-mail. And now this blog will be carbon neutral and I will be a happy bunny!

Before I go I feel I have to inform you that my day on placement in school was absolutely fantastic. I had a moment, which I havn’t had for a long time, where I felt like I am living my purpose and I will go on to do brilliant things. And that is a wonderful feeling!

Guest Post: Jodie-Ann

Time for another guest post seeing as though it is Wednesday! Today’s is by Jodie-Ann who introduces herself and her blog. Enjoy.

Hello, everyone! This is Jodie-Ann, creator of the awesome blog(well, I’d like to think so) …The Run-On Sentences of Life… Don’t forget the three dots. J No, the six dots. Because three plus three equals six. *feel proud of self*

So, basically my blog is about my daily life.  I just blog about what happens everyday. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad but hopefully always amusing! :D From pictures of my friends to talking about having an accident in tights in the third grade(was it really third? I can’t remember.), I blog about everything. My musings, rants and pet peeves(most of the time, my rants and pet peeves go together) and whatever else I feel like rambling on about. Most of the time, you’ll have no clue what I’m going on about and other times, you’ll…

Okay, you’ll probably never know what I’m going on about. 

But, about me: I’m a pretty cool person, I guess. I love to talk. I honestly feel sorry for people who are around me most of the time. I talk and talk and talk… But, no one ever complains. So,  *shrugs* whatever. So, because of my super talking skills, I want to be a therapist. :] I’m 15 and female(you should have figured this out by now) and I love acting, writing, dancing… watching TV, blogging… eating. 

Did I mention I love eating?

So, yeah. See my blog! :D

You really should, it’s really rather good. Now I have no more guest posts waiting in the wings so I desperately need some more. I’ve enjoyed having guest-posters so if you want to be one, it’s easy! Just click here and follow the instructions!

And because you have been good little minions lately you’re getting a second blog post today. Aren’t you lucky! I shall see you for that later!

Things I have Learnt…

Over the last few days!

- That Family Guy is addictive. It is on late at night on BBC 3 and the other night it was on literally all night. And I kept saying to myself “just one more” but kept watching. This led to a very late night.

- That this week is going to kill me. I have an early start every day until Saturday and full days pretty much every day. Every single thing has come up in one week. I will be be so tired by the time we actually finish.

- That teaching phonics can be really fun. A teacher from a nearby school came in to visit on Monday and told us about someone of the things he does to teach phonics in the classroom.

- That writing about children’s books gets dull after a while. I have written about about 30 odd books but still need to write about another twenty. I think I will be spending the next three year’s writing about children’s books!

- That we definitely have a house for next year. Today we signed the contract and after some debate we worked out which rooms we are going to have. I shall be in the basement bedroom and it shall be known as “Dan’s Dungeon”. I am really excited about the whole thing now.

- That Iceland actually sell my fave ice cream. The creme egg ice cream I had at home was brilliant and I have been searching all over Winchester for some. And I have found some now! It is literally my favourite food at the moment and it’s so good to be able to eat it again.

- That I have a day off next Tuesday. I am living for this day off right now. I am so busy and tired continuously.

- Hopefully this blog will soon be carbon neutral. More on that tomorrow.

.- That this is as much as a blog entry as I can manage in my nearly-dead through lack of sleep mode. Another guest post is appearing tomorrow which will be good. See you then!

How to Write a Children’s Book

As part of my course I have had to read fifty children’s books this year and I have been writing notes about them along the way. Looking back at this I have realised that there are a lot of similarities between them along the way. So here is a compulsive guide on how to write a children’s book. This is meant to be humorous though the tips probably are pretty accurate based on the current market.

Re-tell a Classic

This is a nice easy way to write a children’s book. You don’t really have to use too much imagination or put too much effort in. There are loads to choose from what with all those fables and fairy tales that have been written. You must make it your own in some way though. You could do this by putting it into the form of a play or perhaps modernise it a bit. Make Cinderella live in a house in suburbia where she is forced to put clothes in the washing machine whilst her ugly sisters sit upstairs playing Xbox and watching Jeremy Kyle and you have a bestseller. (This was entirely my idea by the way).

Write a Picture Book

This involves slightly more effort because you have to come up with the idea yourself.  You need to work out a message that you want to come across, perhaps about treating people with respect or saying that you can do anything. Select a main character which is an animal, preferably a badger. Then the animal/badger needs to wander through the forest/other habitat and meet lots of other animals. To save time and effort use the same conversation over and over again and just use “Find and Replace” to insert the name of the relevant animal. End with all the animals meeting and that nice message you came up with. Then find someone who draws nice pictures to illustrate it and you’re onto a winner.

Write an Older children’s Book

Can you really be bothered with this, that’s a lot of words you need to conjure up. Create a main character, preferably a boy of around 12, and make sure you start the story shortly after his parent’s death. After some kind of revelation (the “You’re a wizard” moment) the kid must travel to some sort of school or organisation where he meets some other children. Make two of them his best friends and one of them a girl. Then use other kids to tick the political correctness boxes by making several of them have different ethnic backgrounds and if you can legitimately give one a disability then you are doing well. Have a fun bit where not much happens and gradually introduce the baddie, probably the person who killed the main character’s parents. This baddie is a threat to either the organisation the kid is part of or even the entire world and after some kind of epic battle the kid wins and all is fine. You could make a series of books where this happens over and over again and the main character defeats the baddie for good in the last one. This plot is pretty much the plot for all of the following, with the occasional adaption: Harry Potter, Alex Rider, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Edge Chronicles, Artemis Fowl…the list could go on.

Write a Book for Teenage Boys

There are two ways of doing this. You should stick to the formula of the older children’s book but make the main character a bit older and the threat of death a bit higher. There should either be lots of guns and explosions or lots of demons/werewolves/other terrible creatures which rip people apart on a regular basis. You can make the girl character a love interest and make sure you focus on the main character’s thoughts a bit more than you would in an older children’s book with lines such as “he couldn’t believe this was happening” and “he was so furious he was shaking” being obligatory,

Write a Book for Teenage Girls

This is pretty easy at the moment. Make the main character a girl who fancies a guy, who happens to be really attractive and brilliant. Make him a vampire. Then tell the story of their relationship over as many books as possible. Perhaps make the either the girl or the boy or both fall for a different boy/girl, make parents a massive obstacle and generally make life hard for your main character. End with the prospect of a wonderful life together. You can even shove in a sex scene if you are feeling particularly saucy.

Or alternatively…

Be original! This involves a lot of effort and imagination and most authors can’t be bothered because they are too lazy. Only do this as a last resort or if you get really bored. 

I hope this helps you to make a shedload of money and put a smile on a load of children’s faces. I shall be back with the usual randomness tomorrow!

Free Comic Book Day

Sorry for the delay in posting but our internet was down all day yesterday (I was going out of my mind). Still, here is the post I wrote about the events of my weekend.

Yesterday was free comic book day across the world and I headed to the nearest comic store to grab my freebies. I couldn’t resist an opportunity like this now could I? So what free stuff did I get?

DC’s contribution was a story from Green Lantern: Secret Origin where Hal Jordan is given a ring by a dying alien which lets him construct anything his imagination can conjure, making him the Green Lantern. There is also a quick preview of DC’s exciting new story Flashpoint, a series which sees the Flash take prominence in a world where time has been altered. The preview is no more than that though if the series is available nearby I may well start purchasing it regularly. I really liked this freebie from DC though, even if it was a bit heavy on the promotions.

Red 5’s main story was an Atomic Robo story which is where a robot who is a scientist fights a dinosaur with guns. It’s brilliant and really funny plus has a Doctor Who reference which please me greatly. Red 5 also had a preview of their new comic Foster Broussard which is about a thief in the gold rush. I didn’t really like this one so much. And the third was Moon Girl which was all a bit weird really. All I could gather was that the main character, Moon Girl was fighting her former mentor but why and what on Earth they were talking about I have no idea. And I didn’t really like the art style. But I loved the Atomic Robo story so that makes up for it.

And I also got a rather weird looking comic book called “Human Diastrophism” which is a “Love and Rockets” book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet but it focuses on place called Palomar and appears to have a lot of nudity in it. I shall eventually let you know what I think but it seems really bizarre.

All in all I was pretty pleased at this stuff I got for free at the beginning of my fairly new obsession. If the local shop sells some decent comics I will start buying them and try to get into a series. And I am also working on my own graphic novel in my spare time. I have some awesome ideas but I would need an illustrator to be able to take up the project properly. Maybe one day…

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS.

The Doctor, Rory and Amy arrive on a pirate ship to find that whenever someone gets a cut they are destroyed by a siren, who lures them with it's singing. At first the three aren't welcomed and Amy has to save the Doctor from walking the plank by having a sword fight. As the episode progresses it appears that the siren can travel through reflections and eventually the Doctor realises that they must let the siren take them as she is teleporting her victims rather than killing them. It turns out the siren is actually a doctor and is making these people better aboard a space ship. 

There is a tiny bit of story arc at the end too. Amy thinks about the Doctor's death and wonders about telling him. And the Doctor uses the TARDIS to scan Amy for a pregnancy test but the screen keeps flicking between positive and negative. What could this mean?

Well this episode was everything we would expect from pirates on Doctor Who. A bit of swash-buckling fun and an alien "preying" on pirates who actually turns out to be a force for good. It's not exactly that ground-breaking but it was fun and lighter than the previous two episodes of the series. Very enjoyable.

Dan’s Art Gallery

Welcome to a rather special and unusual entry. Today I am going to show off some of my art work to you. Now I often speak about my lack of artistic skills so this post will demonstrate that or possibly prove it entirely wrong. Probably the former of those. To make it more fun you can put the music on that used to play during the UK kid’s TV art show Smart on whilst looking at the artwork, by pressing the play button on the player below!

The Made-Up Plant

This was an activity I started in science the other day and decided to finish it at home. Basically we had to design a new type of plant and this is what I came up with:

 

It had to be uploaded in two parts, that’s why there is a gap in the middle. I call it the Death Bowl or “Viscious Bowlus” as it’s (pretend) Latin name is. It is a carnivorous plants which captures insects and small creatures and digests them for energy. Read the captions in read for more detail, if you can.

My Aboriginal Artwork

This is what the kid’s in my placement school are doing right now and I promised I would have a go at home. Basically they were making a piece of artwork in the style of an aboriginal art with a focus on animals and lots of dots. Here is what I managed to create:

It doesn’t quite show up perfectly on this scan but you can get the general idea. I guess it’s not too bad for me but many people could produce something much better.

Doodles

I thought that I ought to put something else in this tiny gallery so I did some doodle and here is what I created:

There is quite a host of things there. You will notice a cat, a train, a moon and what is supposed to be a sun, a gravestone, a fish, a yacht and a tortoise amongst the odd other thing. It’s quite the miscellany.

And that’s it for today. Let me know your thoughts on these random pieces of “art”. Am I really as bad as I think I am? Feel free to be brutally honest! Tomorrow I am going on a secret geeky mission but all will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog entry. It’s more fun this way. Plus I like keeping secrets, it helps me live my childhood dream of being a spy…

Music Afternoon and More

Thank you for the music, for giving it to me ABBA: Thank You For the Music

Music Afternoon

As I am studying to become a teacher, I have to learn all the subjects and how to teach them. That means that every Thursday for a while I have an entire day of doing one subject with the odd one split into two sessions. Music is one of those split ones and I had the first part this afternoon.

Music is famed on our course for being the least enjoyable of all the foundation subjects. Today, though not brilliant, was a mild improvement on the sessions of last semester. We spent a fair chunk of it playing the glockenspiel and practising how to play some of the songs we have done. For some reason myself and my partner were sent to “the cage”. We intrepidly followed the directions and discovered why this room had been given the name the cage:

Here I managed to perfect such tunes as “Little Arabella Miller” and “Mrs Night had a fright” which I’m sure will be a great use in my teaching career (note the sarcasm here). We eventually returned to the classroom where we had a musical session with a load of different instruments with a song about various size clocks ticking faster the smaller they are. However, all clocks tick at the same speed otherwise they would tell the time wrong so I do believe I have found a massive flaw in that song.

I guess this music session wasn’t too bad in the end but we still have another one to get through next week!

The Picnic

On Sunday myself and my housemates randomly ended up going on a picnic. We wandered aimlessly towards the golf course hoping to find a piece of pleasant green land in which to set up our picnic. This didn’t really happen but we eventually came across a little clearing in a bit of woodland and decided to picnic here due to a lack of finding anywhere else suitable. As per usual with our housemates this fairly mundane event turned crazy and brilliant with tree-climbing and the like happening, as this small selection of photos demonstrates:

Crazy Uni Times

Here are some odd and fun things that have happened at uni over the last few days:

- During our science session we were randomly told to go and hide a sultana outside. We then continued with the session as if nothing had happened and began to wonder why on Earth we had hidden the sultana in the first place. We were finally told at the end that it was an activity you can do with kids which represented squirrels hiding nuts and some not finding them, as of course little kids would not find them. Of course we have to use sultanas in case of any nut allergies. I am still not entirely convinced that this was a worthwhile thing to do. My sultana still lies on a little barrier in the middle of the uni.

- I have had another assignment back. This was the one I dreamt that I failed a little while ago. Then last night I dreamt I got a grade “B” for it which is odd because you can’t get letter grades on uni assignments. It turned out I got 58%, a significant improvement on my last assignment, ten per cent higher in fact. There were loads of things I could have easily improved though so hopefully my next assignment mark will be hugely improved. Another 12% higher and I get a First so that is the target for the time being.

- As I arrived to music today there was a fair chunk of our class waiting to go in. Suddenly someone mentioned my T-shirt and that it was good and next thing I know the entire crowd is looking at me and most of them are agreeing with the quality of said T-shirt. This was too much I got quite embarrassed. I’m not sure why I struggle to take compliments of any kind though. I guess I just get on with things and when I do something good it surprises me, especially when someone else says that. It’s all a bit odd.

- During my placement at a school yesterday (which I don’t usually blog about I might add) I was asked to make a few bits for a display. Now this is a massive challenge for someone like me, who drastically lacks any artistic skills. However, I managed to successfully make some lovely letters and also something a little more special. It’s a giant map of Australia and to make it I had to project it onto the wall, draw round it and then take it down and cut it out. It took two attempts but the second is truly a work of art. It really is good!

The AV Referendum

Today in the UK there was a referendum about changing the voting system to AV. Basically this means that instead of just choosing your favourite candidate and the candidate with most votes winning you rate each candidate in order of preference and the winner is then carefully calculated. Now here’s where I start talking a bit politically. I do think that AV is a probably a good thing, though it won’t make much difference to either of the constituencies I live in because there is such a huge majority to one party. But as I say, it would make the voting system fairer and that has to be a good thing. But I voted no for one simple reason: the cost. At a time when the government is cutting budgets to everything, schools and charities included (which I have massive links with), they cannot justify spending millions on setting up a new voting system. The best thing to happen in my opinion, is for the referendum to come out with no and a new one in the future, when the financial crisis is properly over, to say yes. But we shall have to see what happens!

New Look

Wow, this has been one long entry but I have had so much to say! Before I go I can tell you to check out the new look. It’s all blue! And even has a new header, which is something that hasn’t happened for a long, long, long time. The background is the time vortex from Doctor Who of course! I really like this it being all shiny and new looking. Let me know what you think about it or anything I have spoken about in this entry!