End of May Extravaganza

It’s the last day of May so it is time to look back at the past month and also respond to some of the things you’ve been saying to me!

The Comment Parade!

Niamh: You are correct it is Mean Girls that has a Burn Book! :D

I’m kind of disappointed in myself that I got that right. I watched the movie because it was on the TV on our coach when I was on a school trip when I was somewhere between 13 and 15. I have quite an impressive memory. But still, I doubt many other twenty year old straight guys would know that…

XanthusKidd: Ok, the combination of Doctor Who, Mario, Kermit, and cheese in your header is a huge plus. Props to you, sir. I can relate to everything in this post, minus Being Human and the comics. I'm really intrigued by the Marvel and D.C. universes, but I really don't want to get sucked into them, so I've steered clear.

Thank you! I have been sucked into both the universes, especially the DC one. I am very excited because I have a whole pile of comics that have been delivered to my home address just waiting for me to read. That will be a good afternoon! I didn’t think I would be sucked in, but in the end I was. Perhaps they are not for everyone but they are definitely are for me!

Susan [on Put a Ring on It]: Whoa! How cool. Were you able to touch the birds as a volunteer? Or was that left to the ringers?

(This is about when I went bird ringing. See the post for more details) Actually the ringers were volunteers, they don’t get paid for doing it. I was just a witness I suppose. We were able to touch the birds though. Quite a few people held birds and released them, though unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to do that.

Niamh: You can tell you want to be a teacher; "I don’t know why he thought that was a good idea. It wasn’t." Sounds just like a teacher!

That was my fave comment in quite a while! I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not but it made me laugh.

theTsarita: Skrillex sucks, but dubstep isn't just noise pretending to be music. I love dubstep remixes of popular songs. Check out "Too Close," by Alex Clare aka the song from the IE commercials. It was stuck in my head for weeks, super catchy tune.

Don’t even let me get started on dubstep. I could write a whole post about it! And I’ve probably checked out Too Close already. *Checks database* Yes I did, my thoughts are in this post.

Raz: …I would also like to say that I enjoy reading all of your "Brit-isms" (being American).  Particularly, the frequency of the word "quite" and the use of the word "maths."  I have never understood why we Americans say "math," like there's only one. Still not sure what a "uni" is...

I hope I amuse Americans with my Brit-isms. I probably write more British than I sound, which in turn is more British than most other Brits. I like to think of myself as an English gentleman complete with a moustache and monocle. “Uni” is short for university which is the British equivalent to college in America. I do try my best to make my blog internationally-friendly but if ever anything is confusing I will happily explain it if someone comments.

Thanks for all your comments this month, sorry that there just isn’t room for them all! I read every one I get and love them all!

Minion of the Month: An easy choice this month! It goes to Niamh who has been regularly writing quality comments and even contributed a guest blog post! Thanks for being so wonderful and lovely Niamh!

The One Post You Should Go Back and Read: I’ve written some pretty entertaining posts about my life this month and one of the best is “Evacuation”. I love it because it has all sorts of crazy things happening in it AND has a cliff-hanger. I wanted all of my posts to have cliff-hangers but then I remembered I am not living in a soap opera.

Blog of the Month: Unfortunately I’ve been struggling to keep up with all the blogs I read without having my home internet connection. I’ve been opening all the posts at an internet location and then taking my laptop home to read them. This means no comments I’m afraid. Blog of the Month goes to “Splendor in the Lemongrass”. In it Susan talks about being an American living in Thailand and travelling around Asia. It’s really interesting and fantastically written. I even recommended it to a friend in person which is a very rare thing indeed. Go and check it out, it is a brilliant blog.

And as usual to end on my personal review of the month. Wowie, what a month. It dipped a little in the middle when I was working hard to get all my assignments done but apart from that it was brilliant. I had a couple of fantastic weeks doing fun things with my housemates, particularly Josh, and then another fun week when my best mate Chris came so stay for a few days. I did all sorts of fun things which I’ve written about on this blog. Plus I got back three assignments which all had great marks and finished my second year of university. I’m thinking this is the best month since some point in 2010. It was wonderful and I hope the year just gets better from here!

See you in June!

The Wanderer

Hello there! I am currently counting down the days until I return home for the summer. It’s a bit dull here to be honest. At every other holiday I go home quite early and everyone has loads of fun without me. This time I thought I’d hang around a bit, only to discover that summer is the one holiday where everyone goes home as soon as possible. I know three people that are still in the city and they are all busy with their own things anyway.

What’s more frustrating is that not only do I not have internet access in the house but also the navigator button on my phone is broken so I can’t do anything of that beyond reading and replying to messages. My brief internet times have come when I’ve been to the university library or the local Starbucks. I’ve sort of become addicted to Starbucks. The staff in this branch are always nice and I’ve now got a usual table and a usual beverage. Every time I go in there I have a “Frappuccino” (an ice drink) which is a Mocha Cookie Crumble. They are the best things ever! Originally I went into Starbucks just to get internet access but that has now transformed into going to get a Mocha Cookie Crumble and internet access being an added bonus.

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy where possible. I purchased a new 3DS game yesterday, Mario Tennis Open, and it came with a free tennis-ball shaped stress ball which I was more excited about than I probably should have been. I’ve also been going on lots of walks to make the most of this lovely weather while it lasts. On Monday though a man thought I was a jogger. I’m not sure how I should take that really. Firstly, do I look like I jog? I look like I need to jog but I certainly do not look like a jogger. Secondly, are my clothes that casual that they look like jogging clothes? I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts so I suppose I can just about forgive that one. But worst of all was the fact he thought I looked like I’d just been jogging. I may have been a bit hot because it was a hot day and my hair was probably a mess because it always ends up that way past lunchtime. But really, I looked dreadful enough to look like I’d been jogging on a really hot day? Thanks Mr. Random Old Man, thanks a lot.

Exciting news about Martha the Moorhen. (For more on this story see here and here). Martha’s eggs have hatched and the chicks are out of the nest. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to see them and see if all five are still ok but yesterday I saw Martha hanging round by a bush on the edge of the water and when she went in it I could hear some chirps so I know the chicks are around. Clearly Martha is doing a pretty good job at having them hidden away. I have seen some other Moorhen chicks though:

^{I very much love in this photo how the chick on the left is copying Mummy only to discover it has no feathers yet…}

Yesterday I decided to go for a really long walk which is kind of what the title is about. It turns out it was only a couple of hours but it was exhausting in this heat. I’ve got a heap of photos from then and a few other trips out that I took so I shall end with some of the best of them. Hope you like them!

^{A fantastic sunset.}

^{A couple of beautiful river shots. I love Britain at this time of year.}

^{A duck and a swan.}

^{A tunnel I had to walk through. Fantastic brickwork.}

^{A damselfly I saw. Different from a dragonfly, though similar. Damselflies tend to be more fragile looking and they sit with their wings closed whilst dragonflies sit with their wings open.}

See you all soon!

Chart Chasers #17

It’s Monday and so it's time for me to check out the newest entries in the UK chart. This week we have SIX new songs to check out.

Our first track today is by some guy called Martin Solveig. I’ve heard of the chap before but never heard anything he’s made. The name implies he is Scandinavian which implies it will be either very weird or cheesy pop. Here is The Night Out.

Well that was more towards the cheesy pop direction but it is not ridiculously cheesy. In fact I really like this tracks. Catchy and very pleasant to the ears. 4/5.

Uh oh, there’s a Timebomb about to go off. And a timebomb in the form of Kylie Minogue’s new single. It’s gonna explode (maybe)!

It’s a typical Kylie pop song. It’s certainly not her best work but it is enjoyable enough. 3/5.

We have another mysterious artist next. It’s some guy called Gavin Degraw. What a horrible name that is, it makes me want to vomit. I don’t think Gavin likes it very much either as the song is called I Don’t Want to Be.

Oh, this track has something to do with One Tree Hill. The theme tune perhaps. From what I have seen about One Tree Hill, this fairly rubbish song is an appropriate theme tune to a rubbish show. It’s a pretty rubbish song. 2/5.

Uh-oh. The next song is by Pitbull. I think it might well be part of the Men in Black 3 soundtrack as it is called Back in Time. I am not a fan of Pitbull’s previous work and I highly doubt I will like this one very much.

Well I was right about Men in Black. I don’t think the Men in Black look works with Pitbull. The “chorus” is ok but that’s only really because Pitbull isn’t in it. Though actually this is probably one of Pitbull’s better efforts and I very nearly like it. But I don’t really. 3/5.

And in case you hadn’t had enough of him, it’s time for some more Pitbull. This time he is featuring on Jennifer Lopez’s new single. The combo seemed to work fairly well for “On the Floor” so have they recaptured the ‘magic’ with Dance Again?

Well that was pretty lame. I just got bored by it. It is no-where near as good as On the Floor. 1/5.

A great track next by Paloma Faith. I’ve heard this a few times on the TV as Paloma has been doing a fair bit of promo for her upcoming album. It’s called Picking Up the Pieces.

Wow, I really love that track. Paloma is properly insane but none the less has created a great song with a fantastic chorus. This is the rare time when a charting song is genuinely full of emotion. I can imagine at certain times in my life this song might mean a lot to me. 5/5.

And our final song for today is by The Wanted and is called Chasing the Sun. I think Chasing the sun is a silly exercise as you will never catch it and even if you got vaguely close you would melt. As much as I want to hate The Wanted and their legion of fans on Twitter, I kind of like their traditional boyband pop songs. So this one might be quite enjoyable.

That is certainly what you could describe as a typical Wanted song. Despite myself though I still quite like it. It’s a bit cheesy and is pop nonsense but it’s somehow still quite enjoyable. It’s not as good as some of their other tracks though. 3/5.

And that’s it for this week. See the UK chart and links to my thoughts on all the songs on the Chart page!

Eurovision 2012

Ah, Eurovision! Where the continent is brought together for a load of cheesy music. I have blogged about this for several years now and this year is no different. Actually the format is a little different, as I am writing this live. Yep, I’m sat in front of the TV and shall be sharing my thoughts as they come. Hopefully I’ll manage to get some photos in it by the time this post goes live tomorrow.

So this year’s Eurovision is in Azerbaijan. No, I don’t really know where that is either. They’ve got two fairly attractive female judges and have built an arena especially for it. It seems they’ll probably be decent hosts. Not that you can really be a bad host of Eurovision!

The UK entry, Engelbert Humperdinck is first. He’s described as a “crooner” which means he was famous a few decades ago. His name is as weird-looking as he is but the song is actually a decent ballad. It seems pretty unlikely we’ll win with it though.

Can’t ignore the Albanian entry. It’s hideously high-pitched and I feel like my ears have been abused. The singer also looks a bit weird…

I think this show is demonstrating which countries don’t have very much money. Lithuania have a song called “Love is Blind” and it’s just one guy who took off a blindfold half way through. I think they probably could only just afford the blindfold!

 

Russia have a group of grannies. Really. It’s hilarious. But also somehow amazing. It’s this sort of thing that Eurovision is all about. I’m tempted to vote for them. Here’s the performance which you HAVE to watch. It starts of dull but just wait and see what brilliance it brings.

A couple of average songs have just been on. Cyprus have produced the hottest woman so far. France have brought in their Olympic gymnast team. They are two months early and have confused Azerbaijan with London, which is a surprisingly common mistake.

I think the Italian entrant is a lot like Amy Winehouse:

Well apart from the fact she is more Italian and less dead.

As Norway sing a generic pop song, I wonder if any of these songs will appear in the next edition of Chart Chasers. Engelbet might. I’d love it if the Russian grannies made it into the charts. You’ll have to turn up here on Monday to find out.

The interviewer is interviewing Engelbet. To me he seems a bit tipsy. I wish I was. *realises there is vodka in the fridge*. Why the hell not? Looks like I’ll need alcohol to get through this dull Azerbaijan song.

Apparently I missed someone moonwalking whilst playing the bagpipes when I went to get a drink. Greece are on now. They can’t really win as they could barely afford to send five people to Azerbaijan, let alone host the competition. The song is called “Aphrodisiac”. I’m tempted to make some tasteless joke about how the singer could be my aphrodisiac. I won’t though. She is pretty though.

Oh my goodness. What on Earth is this Turkish entry? This is what they look like.

The singer is dreadful and is sort of dressed like a sailor. The dancers are throwing their coats all over the place. I think this might be the worst song so far. It’s close between this and Albania.

Spain are on now. She was supposedly told not to win because Spain wouldn’t be able to afford to host it. It’s a pretty dull song so she probably won’t win, unless the European citizens decide they’d like to see Spain have even worse financial problems.

Malta was just on. I genuinely quite liked their track “This is the Night”. My fave song so far. Here it is to listen to in all it’s wonderful cheesy pop-ness. Plus I love the guy at the decks’ dancing and his trousers. I reckon I could do his job. 

For the second year running X-Factor losers Jedward are back on Eurovision representing Ireland. It’s a frustratingly cheesy pop song once again. Almost likeable. Almost. Whatever you think of them, the twins always put on a good performance. It was way more entertaining than many of the other songs.

After some people pretending to play a trumpet and the Moldovans being as weird as usual, that’s it in terms of performances. 15 minutes of voting so that’ll be about half an hour of drivel on the show and then we’ll eventually get to the results which go on for ever. Maybe Engelbet will win. I doubt it.

A ridiculous amount of time later and the results are in. A dance track by Sweden won by over a hundred points. As usual the UK did not do very well and finished second last with 8 points. Considering Sweden had over 300, this was pretty dreadful. Poor Engelburt. He’s getting a hug in the background as the winner walks through. Stockholm next year then! At least they can afford it. That was good fun but the results were even more dull than usual. Come back in a year for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest!

Fun in the Sun

Hello there. I hope you are all well. I am. Since I last wrote properly all sorts of amazing things have happened. I shall now excitedly tell you about these things.

So my best mate Chris arrived on Tuesday afternoon for an week of hi-jinks. Our first plan was to head to the cinema, which was an awesome idea but easier said that done. The nearest cinema which is any good is a train ride away. This would be fine were it not for the fact that we are in Britain. For those not in the know, British trains are renowned for being unreliable. There was supposed to be a train every twenty minutes but we had to wait for nearly an hour for a train to arrive. This meant we had to rush from the train station to the cinema in the hope of still catching the start of the film. Of course the screen we were going to was around lots of corners- that cinema is like a labyrinth. Fortunately despite the fact that we were half an hour late we still managed to catch the start of the film and indeed a couple of trailers.

So the film? Marvel’s massive superhero team-up that is The Avengers. Technically it’s called “Marvel’s Avengers Assemble” in the UK so as to not be confused with a 70s police drama. I have been desperate to see the Avengers for a long time but this is the first time an opportunity has arisen. It was definitely as good as expected. There was a great combination of comedy and action and Joss Whedon managed to make all the Avengers come off as equal, which is quite impressive really. The fight scenes were epic including those between Iron Man and Thor. The highlight though had to be where the Hulk smashed Loki across the floor and called him a “puny god”. All in all it was immense. And it made me want to throw things around. Like a hammer, or a shield or a puny god.  

After that we had the obligatory McDonald’s, although Chris was denied the free cheeseburger he should have got for being a student. There we met with our friends Louise and Lewis and we all went bowling together. I was dreadful. For some reason I could not find my usual bowling skills. Normally I can get around the 120 mark but on this occasion I could get no more than 95! Even my usual charm and cool jokes weren’t present. Perhaps it was because I’d had next to no sleep for two nights.

This week it has been really sunny and hot, reaching 25 degrees Celsius most days. That’s pretty hot for the UK! After a long walk in the sun during which I nearly melted, Chris and I hosted a barbecue on Wednesday night. We bought loads and loads of food for next to nothing at the supermarket and I invited lots of people round. Despite the fact that no-one really has that much to do anymore because they’ve all finished uni, most people were ‘busy’ and so there was only five of us in all. Five was a pretty decent number though and the barbecue was a resounding success. Our courtyard has barely been used since we moved in here so it was awesome to put it to good use. We had a table out there and a load of chairs surrounding the two little barbecues and had my iPod speakers playing out of the kitchen window. It was perfection and the company was lovely. It was truly probably the best night of 2012 so far because it was so simple and relaxed and was a great group of people to be part of.

The following night was not as good and that was probably because it involved alcohol. It’s pretty much guaranteed that something will go wrong when alcohol is involved. The plan was to have a few drinks. Originally we were going to go to a club but because it was so hot we decided it might be better just to get drinks and sit outside. Two of our party went to the corner shop two minutes away to pick up some alcohol. They were gone an hour and a half leaving the remaining two of us sat their wondering where they were gone. I wasn’t too worried I was just quite annoyed that my alcohol hadn’t arrived. Eventually though they did turn up and once I’d managed to deal with the inevitable issues this entailed I drank some more alcohol and things picked up.

Once the others had gone myself and Chris decided to go the park. It must have been about midnight by this point. I’m not entirely sure how or why, but we ended up lying in the grass. As it was night-time the grass was pretty wet but we didn’t really mind. I can’t really remember what we talked about but we were there for some time. A bit later we headed to a bench near a river that we went to last summer. There we chatted some more and tried to be cool as lots of girls went past on their way home. Quite what we were really hoping to achieve there I do not know. It was pretty unlikely that we were going to pull sat on a bench near a river at 2 in the morning even if everyone that walked past was pretty drunk. Still, some talked to us so we were more successful than usual.

Predictably not a lot happened yesterday because I especially was quite hung-over, which was exactly what I had wanted to avoid happening. I wasn’t as bad as many other times though. As this was technically the last day of term I had to go and collect the results from all the assignments I did at the start of the week. Heading to uni to collect an assignment is always a slightly anxious walk but that was tripled this time as there were three assignments to collect. I could not have been happier with the results. I was a little concerned about a maths assignment and wasn’t even certain it would get the 40% mark required to pass. It turned out our presentation was good enough to get 54% which is a grade of a 2.2 rather than a Third. My solo history presentation got a huge 68%, two per cent of a First and therefore my highest written assignment so far. And the group history presentation got a huge 76%, a reasonably secure First and the my highest mark at uni so far for anything. I knew from the moment we’d decided to work together that we had the potential to do pretty well. Part of me did think that maybe I didn’t have a lot to do with that mark but actually several bits of the feedback were about my ideas so it probably did have something to do with me after all.

Eventually the time came when Chris had to leave and we headed down to the coach station. The coach station is right neat a huge statue of King Alfred the Great and as we were waiting a pair of Germans started talking to us. Here is the “conversation” that took place:

German Woman: His name is Alfred too!

(Both Germans laugh)

Me: Oh, right…

German Man: He is Alfred the Great but I am Alfred the Greatest!

And with that they walked off. It was very bizarre but very funny. Unfortunately there was little chance for me to mention the war and see if I could get away with it.

All in all it was a wonderful week and it was great having Chris here visiting. It felt a bit weird last night when I was sat alone at home. So thank you to Chris for being here and making it a great week and to everyone else too. Long may this lovely weather continue!

I’m now getting quite excited for the fact that the Eurovision Song Contest is on tonight! I shall be tweeting about it periodically (@zotwot) and there will be a full blog post mostly dedicated to awful songs, terrible dancing and cheesy outfits. Come back in 24 hours for all the fun!

Guest Post: The Fandom Complex

Unfortunately our internet contract has finished and so I can only get internet access on my phone or by going somewhere which has wi-fi. Plus my mate Chris is here this week and I’m busy doing fun things. Fortunately today we are lucky enough to have Niamh here writing an awesome guest post about fandoms. It is awesome.

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Fan·dom [fan-duhm] - noun - fans collectively, as of a motion-picture star or a professional game or sport.

Origin: 1900–05, Americanism; fan² + -dom (Source)

So you think you like Harry Potter? That's what I thought I mean I'd read the books (even things like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages), watched all the films, played at being a wizard, been to Harry Potter birthday parties and had a tonne of Harry Potter Merchandise. But knowing what I now know I have realised that I was only dipping my toe in the ocean of the Harry Potter fandom!! But it's not just Harry Potter that has a huge fandom (though obviously it's one of the best ones...not that I'm biased or anything! :P )...oh no! I mean there's the older (or should I say longer lasting) ones like Star Wars and who hasn't heard of Trekkies?! And there are the more vocal fandoms like the Twihards (Spellchecker wanted to change this to Wizards...mwhaha...wizards for the win!) and the newer ones like The Hunger Games! But of course I can't forget ones like Doctor Who!!  So this post is going to be a guide into fandoms...now I don't claim to be an expert (there's no way that I could ever claim that if you saw some of the dedicated fans out there!! o.O) So let's begin...

Source

I think this picture provides a pretty accurate example or most fandoms! But let's start with some important fandom terminology...

• Shipping - verb - meaning to ship - Fandom uses this word as a verb to denote their interest in the possible (and perhaps more often impossible) romantic relationship between two characters in a piece of fiction belonging to any medium. Just think of "shipping" as short for "relationSHIP". Source. Example: "I ship Dramione" Which would mean that this person believes that Draco and Hermione should get together (trust me there is a lot of Dramione shipping which I personally find weird!).
• Fanfiction - When someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, TV show, movie, etc., and create their own story based on it. Sometimes people will take characters from one movie and put them in another, which is called a cross-over. Source.
• Cosplay - It is a word that has its root in costume play. It is both a noun and a verb. Cosplay can mean the actual costume, as well as the action of wearing it. Contrary to popular belief, many cosplayers (well over 98%) do not believe they are the characters they are "cosplaying" as. Source. This is Dr. Who Cosplay...

Sources: here, here and here

But let me tell you where I come into all of this...well up until last summer I think it's safe to say I was just your average HP fan, well maybe not average, I mean they were always more than a book series to me but I think since then it's safe to say I've got worse! Why? Well I finished this little thing called the International Baccalaureate (understatement of the century methinks! Life consuming, soul sucking monster might be more accurate...ahem moving on) and suddenly found myself with a whole lot more time on my hands! :O Which obviously meant that I HAD to spend more time on the Internet, didn't it now?! Which led to my discovery of Pinterest which in turn led to my conversion to Tumblr (I once wrote that I didn't see the point of it...I do now...for finding pretty pictures which I can put on my Pinterest...clearly the purpose for its creation!) but the thing that really sent me falling head first into the Harry Potter Fandom was Pottermore. I think I became obsessed overnight...I just knew I had to get into it!! I had to be one of the first million people who got early access!! And let me tell you it was stressful!! But oh so worth it! Finally I knew for definite which house I belonged in (Hufflepuff in case you were wondering) and what my wand was (Pear and Phoenix Feather, 14 & 1/2 inches, quite flexible) and all that information about that characters that only Rowling knew like the whole of Professor McGonagall's or Mr Ollivanders life stories! It was heaven for a Potterhead like me!

It was after this discovery that I started investigating the Potter Fandom because, trust me when I say this, there is a wide range of things in this fandom, in fact I think it probably has to be one of the most diverse! If you've ever been slightly interested in Potter you might've heard of sites like MuggleNet or The Leaky Cauldron which are sites run by fans for fans, then there's the new kid on the block MyHogwarts which will be where you can take classes and meet other HP fans from your area (and which unsurprisingly I also managed to get early access too! :P ). Then obviously there’s the fanfiction which has sort of overflowed into Youtube...there's the sort of "normal" videos like Shit Potterheads Say but then there are also some really weird ones. If you've ever spent a certain amount of time on Youtube you might've stumbled across the "weird" side of Youtube, where all sorts of odd videos lurk and I hate to say it but there are most definitely some HP fan videos which fall into this "weird" category like this one. Words cannot describe how weird that is! Anyways moving on...did you know that there is also something called Wizard Rock or Wrock with bands like Harry and the Potters?! :D Who sing about Harry Potter stuff!! Then there are conferences like Leaky Con, which obviously involve cosplay, but the things I really want to do are....play muggle quidditch!! :D Which yes you can do, there’s a proper International Quidditch Association and it looks awesome!! And ultimately visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and going on the studio tour!! :D

So that's an insight into one fandom, and I think you can probably see that it's rather easy to get lost in one quickly but you see most people aren't just involved in one fandom...oh no! Now I wouldn't say I was actively involved (or at least not to the extent of some people) in fandoms but I definitely sit on the beach and dip my toes in few fandom oceans (I have no idea what is going on in my brain today but it seems to be obsessed with churning out these dodgy, water related comparisons...I'm sorry!) like Doctor Who, Sherlock (the latest mini-series aired on the BBC), The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, general Disney-ness and recently The Hunger Games (you would not believe the amount of time I have spent on Youtube watching Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson being interviewed and if you did know you would probably recommend that I seek help! :L ). And it's all thanks to the Internet! I mean obviously fandoms are not a new thing, the definition I used at the start says the word originates from around 1900 but I think it's definitely been exacerbated (oooh look at me using posh words!) by the Internet :D Which I think has given fans a whole new way to connect/express their love for that particular thing!

However like anything there are good sides and bad sides of fandoms...welllll firstly lots of fandoms don't seem to always get on. Okay so maybe it's not the whole fandom just people in the fandom. Like quite often Potterheads are set up against Twihards because they're compared a lot (which I really don't understand as they are nothing alike!!) and I for see this could be the case with fans of The Hunger Games as that and Twilight are drawing comparisons (again I've read both series and can't see why?!) especially as lots of Hunger Games fans seem to be Potterheads too! :O But on the bright side (always look on the bright side of life... de dum dee dum...) there are good things that can come out of fandoms like The Harry Potter Alliance which is "an army of fans, activists, nerdfighters, teenagers, wizards and muggles dedicated to fighting for social justice with the greatest weapon we have-- love." and in the Doctor Who fandom a man (or should I say Whovian) with terminal brain cancer was looking for someone to make a TARDIS urn and the fandom came up trumps! Literally banded together to find this man a TARDIS urn, it was all over my Tumblr Dashboard for a while and then it was followed up a bit later by the news that someone had come forward to make him one! :D Yay Fandom Love!! You can read about it here and here!! See isn't that wonderful!!

So I think we'll end there, I've probably waffled on enough now but I hope you enjoyed it and that it wasn't just one long boring read!

That's all for today folk!
Niamh

xxxxx

Source

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If you liked that you should go and check out Niamh’s blog “One Girl and the World”. It is properly awesome. Hopefully I will be back at the weekend with an update on my week.

The End of Year 2

Wow, this is weird. I have now finished my second year at university, assuming I haven’t failed anything- which is extremely unlikely. The past week has probably been the most intense week of uni so far in terms of work.

Yesterday was a group maths presentation. Each group did theirs on one aspect of measure and ours was “volume and capacity”. As you can imagine, it was hardly the most interesting presentation to make. The assignment also involving doing a role play where someone played the teacher and the rest played schoolchildren. You can imagine the quality acting this involved by the people playing the schoolchildren. Fortunately I managed to avoid being in this ridiculous charade by being the narrator and saying all the important stuff. The two other presentations were both about “weight and mass” and were less than exciting to listen to. Apart from the bit where I estimated how much a bag of rice was knowing a potato was 370g. I wasn’t far off either. Our presentation was the worst of the three in our session but it seems pretty likely we’ll at least get a mark that is good enough to pass.

The second presentation of the day was history this morning. This was about organising a school trip and ours was about a submarine museum. This presentation was much better and I think ours was probably one of the best. It was also the one which produced the most laughs, which is probably not something to be proud of. One came when my team-mate said that you’d be “buggered” if you were claustrophobic and went on the tour of the submarine. And another came when I said “there was so much condensation the tins fell off the labels” and my other team-mate corrected me. How I managed to mess that up quite so much is beyond me.

And with those presentations done and my history essay handed in, uni is over for another year. That means I’m now half way through my course and in two years will be a qualified teacher. It’s both exciting and kind of terrifying as that once seemingly unreachable goal comes ever closer. What a year it has been. And I don’t really mean that in a good way. I had a fairly successful placement in school but I have lots to work on in that respect. My assignments have gradually improved and the written ones at least are now getting particularly good marks, though the elusive “first” has yet to be awarded to me. Socially it has been a complete disaster. For most of the year I barely even saw my housemates and even when I did there was various bits of animosity amongst them anyway. At least I sense things might be better next year in that respect. I’ve also hardly gone out socially either. I have only been to to student union nights this entire academic year, which is ridiculous.

That gives me all sorts of things to think about. I guess I have to come up with some goals for next year:

1. Be the best teacher I can be and end up with a report with little or no comment about my classroom presence (unless I get one that says it was amazing).
2. Concentrate more on reading and take books out early to hopefully one or several first class assignments.
3. Attempt to be  more social. Make some good new friends and go out socially more.

Well those three things are things I would like to have achieved in a year’s time. The social one especially is my biggest issue. Lately I’ve become more shy and socially awkward than I ever used to be and it doesn’t make me very happy. As much as I do like spending time on my own I’d love to do more fun things with fun people!

Speaking of which, my best mate Chris will arrive here in a few hours and all sorts of crazy stuff is going to go down. Tonight we’re finally going to see The Avengers and also go bowling and on Thursday we will go out and get drunk. It is going to be awesome. Hopefully. Due to that and the frustrating fact that I have no internet access at home means posts will be limited this week. Having no internet is horrible. Most of my housemates have gone home now so there’s no-one around and I have nothing to do. Without Chris visiting I would be really bored.

And on that note it’s time to end. I apologise for not having many good posts here lately but the last week and a bit has consisted of chocka-block presentation making and rehearsing and essay writing. The summer holidays have started though so its all fun from now on! See you soon!

Chart Chasers #16

Hello and welcome to another edition of Chart Chasers. This week there are EIGHT new tracks in the chart for me to listen subject myself to.

First up today is Skrillex. I have heard a few of Skrillex’s tracks before and my ears have never really recovered. He works in the genre of “dubstep”, a term which means ‘only pretending to be music, a genre which entrails making a lot of horrible noise”. Here is Bangarang.

Well that was pretty much what I expected. As dubstep goes this wasn’t too bad. It had something of a tune at least. I still don’t like it very and feel something unspeakable has happened to my ears. 2/5.

Next is Ben Howard with a track called Only Love. I don’t know what this will be like but it sounds nice.

Well yes, that was nice. It was the thought of song of which TV talent show judges would call an easy choice and say the contestant wasn’t really going for it.A typical quite attractive male singer with an acoustic guitar-type song. 3/5.

Next we have the unlikely combo that is Coldplay and Rihanna with Princess of China. This is one of those tracks that I own but haven’t really listened to. Now I shall.

Hmm, it’s pretty much just a Coldplay song with a female voice in it. I quite like it but it just isn’t quite up there with the awesomeness of some of the other tracks on the album. 4/5.

Our third track comes courtesy of Skepta. He’s a DJ bloke isn’t he? Maybe. I don’t really know. The song at least appears that it will have a good message as it’s titled Make Peace Not War.

Unexpected appearance from radio/TV presenter Matt Edmondson there. That was unexpectedly rather brilliant. Skepta is actually a rapper bloke and it was a good choice of music to rap over and worked brillinatly. It’s not very often I like the work of a rapper but in this case I do. 4/5.

Professor Green is back. I still don’t think he actually is a professor. What university does he lecture at? This tracks is called Remedy. Hey, I thought he said he was a Professor not a Doctor.

Well that was one of those songs where the chorus was vaguely OK and the rest wasn’t very exciting. Apart from where BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnball randomly turned up. Some bizarre guest appearances today! Nothing special but enjoyable enough. 3/5.

You might need to press “read more” for the next few songs!

Friday Hodge-Podge

Hello and welcome to a post which will be a random mixture of things. I felt I really should write a post seeing as though it has been an unusually long period of time since my last one. I might make this sort of post a regular thing if you’d like that. Let me know!

Blog News

Firstly you may notice the shiny new background. The idea is that it makes the site more interesting without making the text itself less appealing. Whether I pulled that off or not I do not know. The second thing I have done is change the comments system to Disqus. This means anyone can now comment more easily. You can use Facebook, Twitter, Google and other things or just use your e-mail address. Blogger users should sign in with Google and you’ll comment with the same account as you would have on the old system. It’s a much better comments section and I suggest you give it a try. So pop down to the bottom of the post and write a comment.

Life News

Nothing much is happening. I’ve finished the essay I had to write and am now preparing for not one but two presentations next week. If you want someone to tell you possible misconceptions when teaching volume and capacity or the sort of things you could do on a trip to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum I am your man. It’s almost like I know what I’m talking about.

Remember Fred II, my old laptop? Well it did a bit of a Jesus and came to life again. Not for long but it was long enough to transfer all my files to Fred III. So that means by some miracle that I have everything back. All the memories in photos, all my old assignments and all of my the novel I have written so far. I have taken this as a sign my novel is meant to be and so have been working hard on writing it once again. Expect an as yet-untitled fantasy story in a bookshop near you soon. Actually don’t. It’ll still take me ages to write and I doubt it’ll make it into bookstores. But you never know. I’m not saying it’s amazing but I’ve read books which are far worse.

And it has this week been confirmed that I shall be spending a week in my old nursery as something which goes towards my course. By nursery I mean a children kind, not a plant kind. You might call it playgroup or kindergarten or something else. I have to do extra placements outside of uni time and I have to spend some time in an early-years setting so I arranged for this to happen. I am both excited and terrified. These kids will be much younger than I’m used to dealing with. I have no idea how it will go.

Wildlife News

Remember I introduced you to Martha, a mummy moorhen currently looking after a nest of eggs. She’s amongst the bushes below.

Well Martha is all fine. I caught a glimpse of one egg the other day but that didn’t tell me whether the rest had hatched or not. At least one egg has not hatched. However, it probably won’t be too long before Martha’s babies arrive because I saw another moorhen mother looking after her chicks yesterday.

^{How cute is that little ball of fluff?!}

Lovely Photos

As I’ve been out and about I’ve been snapping things that look nice. Here are a few of my better photos.

^{It’s a pond. But the colours in it are amazing.}

^{Look how pretty that is!}

^{This sums up why I love the local nature reserve. It is so beautiful!}

Tweets of the Week

I’ve wanted to do this for ages but have never ended up doing it. I spend far too much time on Twitter and here are the best things I’ve read this week.

 

OH. MY. GOD. New favourite thing ever! The Daleks arrive on set for their DWM 447 photoshoot. youtube.com/watch?v=Rm051g… Thanks @gavmr!

— Tom Spilsbury (@TomSpilsbury) May 16, 2012

The daleks arrive on set for their Doctor Who Magazine Photoshoot. Wow.

Kermit the Frog has an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters from New York's Southampton College.

— The QI Elves (@qikipedia) May 14, 2012

I love QI’s random but brilliant facts. And I just love that Kermit has that!

@zotwot im happy with anything man as long as there is alcohol and sexy ladies! lmao

— Chris Kendrick (@DJ_Kendo) May 17, 2012

That was my mate Chris’ best answer ever…

Best stag do prank ever: studentbeans.com/worldweirdweb/…

— Dan(@zotwot) May 18, 2012

Seriously, click the link. You know you want to.

Currently working with Jon Bernthal, late of Walking Dead. I know Shane was a bit of a shit but in real life? Jon is my new favorite human.

— Simon Pegg (@simonpegg) May 18, 2012

Shaun from Shaun of the Dead and Shane from The Walking Dead are working together. That is so much awesome.

I’ve never embedded tweets before so I don’t know how they will turn out. Hopefully they will be OK.

Post of the Week

I got special Post-It notes that look like this through the post this week. FOR FREE! How awesome!

Quite where I shall stick them I do not know. But I shall try my best to put them to good use…

 

And on that note this post is over. All sorts of fun randomness there. Hope you liked it and please go and try out the new comments section, whoever you are. I will be very happy if you do.

Put a Ring On It

The last few days have been particularly unusual and interesting, which is good because I have something completely different  to talk about today.

I regularly go for walks around the local wildlife reserve. Most days if I’ve got time and the weather is OK. I decided to pick up an events leaflet and was surprised to find that there some events of interest. So I took the plunge and decided to book them.

The first event was a bird ringing demonstration. Bird ringing involves catching wild birds and putting a small ring on their leg or recording the numbers if a bird already has a ring. The data is sent to a national  project who then analyse it and find out all sorts of cool things. The event started at 5:30AM. This is the best time for birds and also means the public are not around either. It’s not too bad for me either. I got up and had a coffee and was then buzzing through the empty streets on Winchester at 5AM, able to sing along to songs on my iPod without fear of anyone walking past and hearing me. It was so quiet that a pair of ducks were stood in the middle of the main road, looking slightly confused at my presence.

To catch the birds they put up huge nets which the birds can’t see and so fly into. The ringers have to carefully untangle the birds and then take them to the ringing station (a table) to record their details. They write down the species, gender, wing length and measure the weight too. They do this by putting the bird in a little bag with a whole in the end and attaching the bag to a Newton meter. Once everything is recorded the bird is released to go about it’s business.

^{Weighing and ringing a Blackbird. Those pliers look nasty I know but they just put the ring around the bird’s leg. It’s completely pain-free.}

We saw a fair variety of species, about 15 I think. I’m quite an expert in identifying garden and woodland birds and birds of prey and pretty good at lots of other birds too. But not march birds. Most of the birds were various warblers, which all look very similar. I didn’t know how to tell a Chetty’s warbler from a Garden Warbler. Let alone factor in a Grasshopper Warblers, Willow Warblers, Chiff-Chaffs and Sedge Warblers! But most of the other people there did and I felt really stupid, which was silly really. It was a great morning though and quite exciting because you have no idea what bird you are going to catch next. I quite fancy becoming a bird ringer myself in the future but it takes five years to train apparently!

^{Dunnock, Blackbird and Great Tit in the hand.}

The following morning I was back at the nature reserve for a guided walk around it. This guided walk takes you round the part of the reserve which is closed to the public. It turns out the closed bit is about twice as big as the public bit which I didn’t realised. The walk was mostly focusing on the way they’ve managed the site. It used to be a water meadows and they’ve used the system to make it as good a habitat as possible. We also were introduced to the reserve’s cow herd and saw evidence that an otter had been there. Plus I also got talking to the warden who told me about what activities they do with school trips at the reserve. Part of me is always in teacher-mode these days!

Whilst I’m talking about all this nature stuff, I want to introduce you to Martha. She’s a Moorhen who was decided to nest on a tiny bit of river which flows between a car park and a busy road. It might not seem the best idea but I guess there’s not many predators there and it’s quite safe from humans as the river is quite a bit lower than the road level. Martha’s partner, who I have called Mickey (prize to anyone who can tell what their names are based on), is around quite a lot. Although Martha is on her nest most of the time I managed to see that there are 5 eggs in the best and I suspect they are probably due to hatch soon as I’ve not seen her leave the nest at all. Here’s a quite blurry photo of Martha:

The rest of my time lately has been filled up with doing assignments. This is probably the first time where I have three on the go at the same time. I have presentations for both maths and history next week and I also have an essay to write for history, which I have yet to even start. It’s only a short one though and I’ve done all the reading so hopefully I can knock it out tomorrow. But still, I’m under heaps of pressure to get everything done in time, let alone to a decent standard. In one week’s time though I will have finished my second year at university so it’ll be worth the hard work now! I’ll be back soon by which point I might even be more stressed!

Chart Chasers #15

Today we have EIGHT songs to check out and it’s an interesting mix.

First up today is Jason Mraz’s big hit I’m Yours, which has re-entered the chart this week. I am thinking that this will probably Jason’s one hit that makes him a wonder.

If you’ve not heard this song before, where on earth have you been over the last five years? This was a MASSIVE hit but actually I didn’t like it that much. I mean I like it but I don’t love it as much as everyone else does.  So there. You’ve gotta like it though, it’s a masterpiece of a love song. 4/5.

She’s back with another appearance here! Yep, Justin Beiber has charted a new song which I now have to subject my poor ears to. This one is called Turn To You. Considering it’s only reached number 39 in the chart, I doubt this might even be a song the, ahem, “belibers” don’t rate too highly…

Oh my God. This is a song about how much Beiber loves her mum. Some of the lyrics in this song are hilariously bad. Beiber has once again managed to make an atrocious song. 0/5.

Something better next as Labrinth is knocking on the door. Labrinth, Come In! He’s not coming in, no matter how many times I tell him too. He keeps going on about a natural disaster. That bit was really quite funny if you know Labrinth’s first single. If you don’t, it would have seemed a bit random. Anyway, this one is called Express Yourself. Labrinth doing a cover of a classic Madonna track? This I have to hear…

Oh, it’s not a Madonna cover. It seems really quite different from some of the mythical maze’s (Labrinth…) other songs. On a first listen I quite like it. It’s really very different from anything else I’ve heard lately. That chorus is brilliance. It’s a great feel-good Summer song. 4/5.

Next up is a track by Matrix, Futurebound and Luke Bingham. Seeing as though I have no idea who any of these people are I have no idea what to expect. It’s called All I Know.

Nice hat Luke. And a great track. Where the hell did this come from? Drum and Bass with some great vocals. All I Know about this song is that I really rather like it. 4/5.

Emeli Sande is back with a new single! It’s called My Kind of Love. I hope in the video for this one Sande does not beat a tambourine and then forget to put a tambourine in the actual song. She did it in the video to Next To Me!

Wowie! That’s an incredible track. Full of emotion and great lyrics and well great everything. I love it. Plus it’s refreshing to see a video about being good friends/sisters. This has probably won song of the week. 5/5.

Our next track is another re-entry that you probably know and love. It’s The Temper Trap with Sweet Disposition.

It’s just lovely isn’t it? A great song for montages too. It’s very hard to write about though. It’s just a pretty good song. 4/5.

To continue reading you might need to click “read more”…