soup stars and strings

Deadlines mean one thing...

2009-03-21T19:08:00.002Z

So... I need a first draft of my masters thesis in by Monday. And with a beautiful Sunday standing between now and that, I pretty much need to get it done today. And due to our presentations (<-read mauling) being this week and general disorgantisation/poor communication of the masters stuff in general, we're not so near to completion as we perhaps should be. So obviously, it's reached that time of day where I've gone a wander upstairs for a cup of tea and lacking in other forms of procrastination due to nobody else being in the physics department at the weekend, it's time to blog!

Things that I've appreciated today:

1am climbing a random hill on Loch Long to go star gazing. Had a look at the route with Google Maps Steet View . Can't settle on how I'd describe it-amazing/ridiculous/wierd/ useful! In any case, I'm actually beginning to enjoy the wee micra...!

Sun! (maybe summer in geneva wouldn't be as bad as i think if it's sunny...)

Lunch and reading in Botanics

My mug. I painted a picture of a Dalek on it. Though it is a little bit embarrassing sitting next to the group leader at coffee with his mug which has clearly been hand painted by his child when I have mine which I did myself...

WinEdt surprising me by being more useful than TeXnicCentre

Finding my old msn message logs which contained lots of helpful suggestions from my superviser about my project which I'd thought I'd lost.

The realisation that the Kelvin building is pretty empty on sunny saturdays, and could possibly be fun to roller-blade around... ;)

Seeds of Change organic black chocolate with hazelnuts and walnuts- tastes of amazingness!

I'm back

2007-11-15T23:33:00.000Z

More than a year after my last post, I've been inspired by simon to start blogging again. The familiar template made me miss mine, and It's been a great (though unproductive) afternoon looking over all my old posts and stick men drawing. And last year was pretty rubbish anyway, so maybe with no online record of it, it will eventually be erradicated from my memory :)well, onwards and upwards to more bloggage.

good morning

2006-10-28T12:06:00.000+01:00

well, we didn't have any little hypos today...

with excellent white street blood sugar levels of

6.4
5.9
5,2

Can you guess who's is who's??

lack-a-day

2006-08-27T16:12:00.000+01:00

It was a sad day yesterday- after missing our good friend bob the baby geko for a couple of days, kathryn and I were sad vand dismayed to come home and discover...

A squashed baby geko in the side of the door!

But this morning, who did I find at my door again-but Bob! :) There was true celebration in l'abris 121 after this discovery. It must have been Bob's big brother who took on a fight with the hinge and lost.

It's been quite a couple of days for critters-we went into more overgrown rainforest yesterday. however, one bug I'm not overly keen on-the evil spiders here jump! Like properly jump. Kat thought I was exaggerating(as if I'd ever) and ridiculed me about it for days. But they really do! As if it's not bad enough that they have all those legs and run so fast, it's unnecessary to jump too! I'm also more than slightly upset that the one that was sitting beside me in the computer room now whilst I tryied to look it up on the internet to post a picture so you can share in the trauma has disappeared- :( mwhaaa!

We have Gas

2006-08-25T17:50:00.000+01:00

Meet Bob

2006-08-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

He's a bit uncoperative, he ran away when we tried to take a photo with something to show how small and cute he is. He'about the length from the knuckle on my pinkie to the tip.

once upon a birthday

2006-08-25T17:23:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Annette and her family for looking after me on my birthday. Dinner was amazing, then CHOCOLATE BROWNIE BIRTHDAY CAKE! Complete with 20 candles. :) Ad thank you to those who text and emailed and commented. Twas nice to hear from you.

Then we played a charades-like game. I don't know when I have ever laughed so much-I work with some oddballs...

just when you think it's all over...

2006-08-23T15:42:00.000+01:00

Tommorows my last day as miss michelle teaching science and maths. (With tests for them-I'm mean!!)

Tiring as it's been, I've really enjoyed teaching my class. The kids are great and it's been a real privillage. But rather excitingly, I've managed to get myself going on a village visit. So it's bye bye to Yaounde,

Bush taxi to bamenda

Then offiskie to a village where I'll finally get to see some on site translation, and the teaching will continue! This time as a one to one tutoring physics and maths.

(Now start my secret plans to squeeze in a trip south to Kribi, everyone here talks about it as if its paradise!)

perhaps a bit of a waste of an afternoon

2006-08-23T15:33:00.000+01:00

So near and yet so far...

Gottes wort ist felsenfest! Sicher

2006-08-23T15:15:00.000+01:00

Well, yesterday was slightly traumatising, not only was there our second day of no gas(and hence, no cooking, hot shower, doing dishes...or hot chocolate...or even rice!) and the crazy yaounde ants seemed to develop into giant superants in the night and were climbing all over the kitchen, but there was also the constant reminder of how it was my last day of teenager-hood. Yes, there is now no more meaningful singing of the song teenage dirtbag for me.

Another decade was almost stolen from me...Before class, aunt margaret had all the children sing happy birthday to me and proclaimed it was a special birthday getting to the big zero. At this, a mum promptly whispers to me, "oh, so's that you thirty now?" ...

It's been grand so far, pressies and cards from kids and staff, happy birthday in five languages, going to annettes for dinner tonight. And lunch was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazing. properly amazing. Not least after having stale rolls for dinner for the past two days.

However, Katherine seems to have adopted a strange habit of sticking cocktail sticks with pieces of paper on them in things, and calling them candles... here's her version encased in a plaster of paris egg...just what i wanted.

language barriers

2006-08-21T13:32:00.000+01:00

Now, you might have thought living in a French speaking African country, foriegn languages would be your major source of language barriers. But no...the fun never ends when you're a Scot teaching African-american, dutch, swiss-american, more americans, and english children. Every day, I have to spell something to to the kids beginning with a, and every day they think i say e. It's just not funny any more. And after going over several times how a torch works, i was dismayed to still be received by blank faces till one voice says, "uh, aunt michelle, you mean a flashlight, right?" *sigh*

And Kat now uses the words bogging and craic at least once per conversation whether its appropriate or not...I think I may be being mocked...

Yaounde

2006-08-21T13:30:00.000+01:00

The city where taxis are the main form of transport and yellow car is played at a whole new level...

Cameroon

2006-08-21T13:08:00.000+01:00

Not to be outdone by my fellow short term Brit-who after repeatedly and perhaps unfairly branding me a geek has started her own blog and blogged every day I need to blog about cameroon.

So Kat and I live in an appartment together, and have wonderful varied meals every day thanks to Kat's awesome cooking skills(well, their awesome except for the times when she doesn't believe in bleaching carrots or filtered ice cubes)Now, you may think that these two meals both look like plain rice, but you'd be greatly mistaken. The first has maggi, a cameroonian soy sauce type thing. The second has chicken bits in it after our adventure in buying a chicken. (photos of which I don't think are suitable for the internet)

Then there's the delightful debbie who brought us chocolate cake. Tip for life-don't play stop the bus (the game where you need to name items in a list of categories begining with a chosen letter) with a Swiss. They know too many languages.

well...

2006-07-29T00:10:00.000+01:00

yeah, so it's been a while. And the whole plan of getting out of glasgow for a bit at the end of june most decidedly did not happen, and i do not know what happened to july, but it turns out that already i'm now in london and leaving for cameroon in less than seven hours. and leaving jenni's in less than four. (maybe i should go to bed)

so, sincere thanks to callum dish jamie matt and the science centre for their hand in the prevention of severe glasgow-claustraphobic-depression setting in. Especially my surprise picnic and seeing me off at the train. It was a grand last day in glasgow guys-what stars you are!

was such a bizarre train journey down, i actually don't think there was an emotion i didn't go through! Was scared about this full africa thing for the first time. It's been a good couple of days in london though, visiting mac mac mac mac mac in the bourgh, and then seeing the sights of london, such as the science museum and the guards with the silly hats and interesting walk at buckingham palace.

sigh, well i better be off to bed. Though i'm scared and unsure now of this full thing, at least I'm sure of where my help comes from.

psalm 121
I lift my eyes up to the hills-
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
the Maker of Heaven and Earth'

He will not let your foot slip-
he who watches over you will not slumber
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep

email me peeps! i'll try blog a bit, and if you aren't getting my emails and want to, drop me one at michie333 at gmail.com

au revoir!
Psalm 121: 1-2

ideas?

2006-06-17T23:37:00.000+01:00

Right peoples, from between 1.40pm on the 23rd July till 4.30pm on the 27th July, have a nice break from work.Any ideas for what t do with this time? I'd quite like to go away somewhere: prerquisites of suggestions are: somewhere kinda cheap. relaxing, out of glasgow,and preferabley somewhere where I can't feed my habit of checking examsurf like every hour-it's just not neccesary.

Also, check my brother in his prom outfit, it may have topped his purple effort from last year. I want the hat!

i'm walking on sunshine...

2006-06-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

Well, what a sunny past while its been. And due to my lack-of-camera-functioningness, I decided to utilise my amazing graphic design skills and illustrate some of what I have been up to with paint:

Sitting in Brel with the future flat mate in like a million degrees Kelvin with an nice cool beer. *contented sigh* Although, here we did encounter the worst chat up I have ever heard- some guy came up and touched helen's clearly blue tshirt and asked, "is this yellow"?

And there's been lots of snoozing outside the library, reading lots, and listening to some of these and daisy chain making.

And then to round off friday night, there was a pre-west end festival party at the qm and it was ammmmmmazing. four really cool samba drumming bands, capoeira and we danced the night away.

Then sunday saw the post st silas morning crew head to white street for a wonderful barbecue where we were joined by lots of folks obviously drawn by the smell of lunch.

And after a bit of festivalness, followed by a really good refreshing time at the evening service at church, we went for a sing song on ashton lane before the banter and moved to jamies where some of glasgow's fresh young talent wrote such hits as the chewing gum song and the one about the one legged pirate. stay tuned for more info about releases.

it's a mystery...

2006-06-10T11:05:00.001+01:00

I have managed to lose half my ball gown. Not impressed.
and my railcard.
Though i did find my kermit belt:)

bored

2006-06-09T20:03:00.000+01:00

hmm, i think it's time to get back into good old blogging routine. There has been lots of goodness going on.

Like macaroni cheese. I think i like mac(macmacmac) and cheese almost as much as soup.

And cu ball with a wonderful ceilidh band and much banter and dancing and food

and lots of sunny days, and seeping/getting my head round spinning buckets/string theory in parks with relatively(hee) little sunburn.

and slacklining with geroge and ruth. (we almost "mastered" going backwards, touching the rope, and jumping and switching feet position! Bring on leaving uni and joining the circus!)

and buying scary expensive flights to cameroon

and still not killing anyone during driving lessons (test only a few weeks or so away!)

and learning to make even more paper aeroplanes/blimps/helicopters at work.

But then people keep leaving glasgow for summer, or longer, which is quite sad. But they're grand bloggers, so that cool:) And I booked train to London to go visit one hooligan before I jet off rather early in the morning to africa for a wee adventure there.

hmm, beginning to wonder if i've got sun stroke, and that's why I'm typing rubbish when i should be out socialising (and most definitely not watching dawsons creek) seeing as it's friday night!

cute hair

2006-06-01T18:57:00.000+01:00

i was in not-so-sunny-cumnock today to have my mum stab me with some needles and my brother came in from swimming-first time i've seen him without straightened hair in agggggges, and it wasn't so curly before he started straightening it-anyone want to join me in the petition for craig to keep his curls? i think they're sweet!

it's been a hard days night...

2006-05-11T23:33:00.000+01:00

it's been a hard night of work at the science centre-

I had to make my own toothpaste, make three varietys of paper aeroplanes, make a teapot card and sing i'm a little teapot, play team building games with the other science coms, play detective and use forensic science to discover which PA stole polly the sheep, play with cockroaches, snails and worms, and play witht the science exhibits. ;) what a job i have!

new post(by me and everything)

2006-05-04T22:49:00.000+01:00

well, seeing as it's got to the stage where i haven't blogged in so long that other peopler are doing it for me, thought i should say something.

I'm stuck in the library,(was on level 10 for the crazy lightning storm-was very cool, but sadly i found it to be far better viewing than advanced calculus!) it's chucking it down and still thundering away. and i don't have a coat :(

yo ho!

2006-05-02T23:13:00.000+01:00

Hi there,
its neal

song of the day

2006-04-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

well, i wish i could take credit for this-but it is a delightful ditty by amy douglas, with slight modifications. I just thought it had particular meaning for me, ths fine day.

(to the tune of the adam's family)

she woke up this morning,
and felt her throat was burning,
so she went to the bathroom
and coughed up lots of phlegm

Chorus
da da da dathick phlegm
da da da da thick phlegm,
da da da da, da da da da, da da da da, thock phlegm

she knew that it was minging,
but at cu she'd be singing,
so she kept up coughing,
her thick and slimy phlegm

chorus

soon her throat was drained,
but the bathroom sink was stained,
she dreaded the next morning,
that her throat was full of phlegm

chorus.

drving lessons

2006-03-29T12:17:00.000+01:00

My driving instrustor is the best craic in the world! I knew we were going to get on when before driving out of white street, he asked what i studied, a question that normally people either respond with a puzzled, well-i-suppose-somebody's-got-to-do-it-but-doesn't sound-like-my-cup-of-tea, or with-a-view-to-doing-what-afterwards, or perhaps worst of all, is-that-like-looking-at-stars-and-starsigns!!! But as soon as I said physics and astronomy,he rather excitedly replied- "that's soooo cooool!!" And really, it's all been grand from then on. It's sooo much fun-had my third lesson yesterday, and drove in the city centre! Something I thought I'd need to be 40 odd to do, after seeing the fuss my mum makes about having to. It is fairly different from the wee country roads you learn on in cumnock right enough!

Let the sibling rivalry commence-my brother's learning just now as well...

coolio

2006-03-28T00:58:00.000+01:00

i've just finished reading exodus-i'd forgotton that near the end that Mose's face was radiant because he'd spoken with God. How cool is that?T hough I fear that i may have just messed up an opportunity to shine by not being prayerful enough, I've been reminded again that I want to be in such communication and relationship with God that my face radiates His glory.

anyone want to take me shopping?

2006-03-23T16:08:00.000Z

i've totally lost the knack of shopping. I was sad to decide that the holes in my jeans are beyond repair, so i need to buy some new ones. But i'm rubbish! I was in for hours yesterday, and just couldn't be bothered to go into clothes shops. I used to love it! So if anyone fancies shopping, please take me!

hmm, i seem to have a new addiction to blogging!

eek

2006-03-23T14:46:00.000Z

i have an interview for a job at the science centre on thursday....they spent so long getting back to me though, that i'd scheduled the idea of me working there out of my head. Hmm...but i get to do a science presentation.

why we shouldn't bother with lightbulbs.

2006-03-23T14:18:00.000Z

Because candlelit night time showers are the way forward!

snow day

2006-03-23T13:28:00.000Z

How amazing was glasgow with like knee high snow! And how blessed was I that it was a sunday, so wasn't going to do any of the daft amount of work that was due in the dreaded-last-week-of-term-and-so-the-one-with-all-the-deadlines anyway! Soooo cool(no pun intended)

It was like a disney film as well-everyone stopping to chat to each other, helping each other dig out cars, sharing the implement-of-choice-for-sledging, whether that be binbag, sledge, tray, canoe, bath tub!

St silas morning service was beautiful, a smaller simplistic service with such an air of excitement, and a proper mixing of people before it started rather than staying in our own student group.

Then there was the igloo building! Funny after studying nehemiah at church...

Neal-hemiah took charge of the situation. Dave, chief blockmaker along with his fellow vineyarder Jamie went to work and rebuilt the bottom corner, Judith the women of Switzerland, built next to them, and Jo built the adjoining section. Isabell set to work repairing the door and next to her...
There was some ridicule from san-randoms-in-the-park-Ballat, and we set up guards armed with snowballs against them.

Sorry, enough with the silly parallels! Was properly, a really good, if a little wet and cold day! And lets hope we manage to keep bridging the young professional and student groups, from church, and don't just leave it till the next snowyday!
(the black and white photo is jamie's)

stuff

2006-03-23T13:14:00.000Z

I'm rubbish at blogging soon after events! I'm really going to try and get better! But here's some cool things that have been going on!

Amazing hilarious french climbing fun!

And ok, it turns out that maybe I just get invited along to climbing to provide some entertainment due to my lack of climbing ability:) But hey, I got to one or two of my mountains with minimal amount of rescuing required...
Seriously though, it was such a beautiful place. How prilvillaged we are are students to have time time to just pop off to fountainebleau for a bit, with the odd day in paris too because it's too snowy to climb. Awesome!...Though if I never have to eat another baguette and cheese and tomato with...sausage!... again, I won't be too upset

...

2006-03-14T16:20:00.000Z

I saw the most hideous thing ever on the way home from uni today (well, close to it anyway.) Someone had threw a tin of those minging hotdog sausages, and they had splattered all over this poor persons car...sausages everywhere on white street!! It's really quite freaked me out. :(

woosht

2006-03-09T17:06:00.000Z

ever had one of those days that you feel like no matter what you do you're always a minute behind the rest of the world?

amazing new game

2006-03-09T16:38:00.000Z

ok, so yeah, maybe ewan and i have loads of work due in next week, and aren't quite making best use of our lab right now-but this is so much more fun!

Pick two words,go to wikipedia and and see how many links it takes you to get from one to the other, just now our challenge is from cheese to cliff richard.

Ewan managed it in 5!

a grand weekend no.1 (warning, geek rating of this post-pretty high)

2006-03-06T14:03:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of posts to all those avid readers out there... but my laptop was back off to the wonderlap laptop hospital for about the sixty-zillionith time since moving into white street. (ok, maybe fourth time, but close enough)

But as sonja said, news of the astonomy weekend away requires internet space.

So, some weekends ago, this group of fine astronomers went off to a mansion in the middle of no where. (ideal location for not only stargazing, but also sardines and night time running through forest and tunnels)

Soup- was immense, 3 course meals lunch and dinner, with dree wine, cheap bar,no washing up and amazing banter!
Stars-and lots of them! made even more stunning by the 18inch Dobsonian that i need a stool to see into! Orion's nebua, the andromeda galaxy,beehive cluster, saturn and FIVE moons, a random spiral galaxy with dwarf companion were all on particularly fine form.
Strings-During the astronomy quiz (where else do you get exciting rounds such as name that nebula) I discovered someone who got just as excited about string theory as i did!Plus physics chat with phd students and lecturers is amazing!

false hopes :)

2006-02-13T23:43:00.000Z

well, beth and i were in the flat, working away when the doorbell goes. So beth got up to answer it, and lo and behold, a man with a beautiful beautiful bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine! Could it be-one of the mishbeth receiving an early valentines? Alas, the man spoke "does helen aitken live here?" :(

Still-tommorow awaits my first valentine's date in a long time...

just a shame it's with the dentists ;)

woohoo

2006-02-13T17:01:00.000Z

got exam results for physics and i'm still on track for getting into the Msci :)

i'm back:)

2006-02-09T19:16:00.000Z

ok, so kept puting off my return to the world of blogging trying to think of something incedibly witty or interesting or insightful to say...yeah, so that didn't happen.

so instead, here's some a glimpse of the past...howeve long it's been since i last posted.

some highlights:

booking flights to fontainebleau -oh aye,an hour south of paris for four days of pretty cool looking bouldering, with some spot on friends and february campping
lots of climbing:) scary lead climbing:) and even a day of all girly climbing!
reading all the narnia books for the first time
reading about hannah in bible study with halls girls
getting addicted to reading, so reading the interesting combination of richard dawkins the blind watchmaker and lee strobel's a case for a creator
leading worship
captain ewan and captain julie's birthday at the qm
managing to do all the practical side of a physics lab in one session and surving full thing without once bickering with ewan!!!
learning to play poker
winning poker
bats (they're amazing!)

some lo-lights

killer toothache (ok, maye exaggerating slightly...)
killer bill's to get tooth taken out (anyone up for an attempt with liers, or maybe bit of string and a door?)
being out of milk
an inexplicable recurrence of hear'say's, "pure and simple" playing in my head

some slightly-odd-lights

late-boy otherwise known as simon using a quill in lectures
a "friend" with seemingly pyromanical tendicies taking a lighter to my foot in the pub ;)
smashing bricks with a sledgehammer in astronomy lab:)
the academic dress appreciation society meeting.
ewan trying to cross the road, not seeing a car, and instead of getting out of its way, proceeding to do a confused ballet style twirl in front of it
being told i hadve "focal hyperressonance ,"in my right side(or something)

blog-worthy-event

2006-01-24T23:02:00.000Z

Both Dish and I are going to bed...and Beth isn't even home yet!!!

how do they do it?

2006-01-04T23:35:00.000Z

just back in glasgow, and am in the process of making my bed up, am quite excited by sleeping in completely clean sheets in the flat! Now, i did wash my linen last semester i'm sure you'll be glad to know-but why is it so different when mum's wash stuff? i'm wondering if there is a secret mum school they get sent to during pregency or something where they learn things like-how to cook for a family all the time(esp proper mum-cooking), how to get out stains, how to make washing so soft and clean,how to iron properly(an art i've never quite mastered.) and the million other things they seem to know about?? My sheets look soooo clean, and feel so soft, and smell so good! It just doesn't happen when i wash them. In conclusion, mum's are grand.

hogmany

2006-01-03T02:20:00.000Z

it's been a brilliant new year's! Suzanne and I hopped on a train to glasgow, not altogther sure where we were going, but wound up with tickets for george square! So we hung out there with some of suzie's jordon hill crew, watched a few bands, joined in with the 25000 singing old lang syne, proclaimers, loch lomand and the like, and DEACON BLUE were playing! (was very excited when i found that out-one of my favourite bands when i was wee- "Dignity" stopped me from being car sick, so my parents had a full tape just with that song on it for long trips:)

then we met struan and went back to his where we found a wild party in full swing-a six hour monopoly game! Was good craic, and nice to see some glasgow peeps again.

got up for church-(check me-even had to go early to be on the welcome thing) then back off to cumnock for dinner, and i had to mash the biggest mountain of potatoes i've ever seen! There were 15 of us, but think we had enough for all of cumnock, if not ayrshire. Dinner was grand, but best of all the winner or our annual battle of the sexes trivial pursuit was indeed, the ladies:) oh aye.

the night got even better-finally i got good observing conditions, and this year i had a buddy! one of my uncles with geekish tendancies got a telescope for christmas, so we were both out, and there was plenty of planets, clusters, nebulae etc on view.

and for a nice finish to the new year's seaason-went to the killie-hibs game today. Haven't been in ages,(got a bit of a ripping from alex and william over if we still knew who our players were) but they're still quite happy to let us walk in the secure gate for free to play our drums. Was a spot on game football wise, sadly ended 2-2, but was a fair result. And one of my favourite ever footballers Dylan Kerr came on at half time to talk to the crowd! aw, he's such a lovely man:) right, i'm going to stop typing dribble (dribble dribble dribble) and go to bed, seeing as it's 3.30am. Night.

interesting christmas pressie

2006-01-03T01:52:00.000Z

i got a scarf that comes with instructions! :) But when you see the number of interesting and i'm sure fashionable ways it can be worn, you can almost understand why...

i particularly liked the bearded lady look

silly me

2005-12-30T23:02:00.000Z

hee, i thought from the lack of comments, i was either unloved or everyone had suddenly found better things to do with their time. But turns out in a bit of a blonde moment i'd managed to change my profile settings without realising, so i had to moderate comments first. didn't even know i could do that! Dear oh dear, it's not rocket science!

home again

2005-12-30T19:20:00.000Z

Aw- pretty lakes,lots of food, seriously pretty little town,more food,a grand wee pub frequently visited by dad and me, our house right next to lake windemere, beautifully lit church and good service:) all made a nice wee family christmas.

Got back on wednesday just about in one piece. you've never seen 2 cars loaded with so much stuff for less than a week! I blame santa bringing callum his darth vader voice changer, playmobil airport, hotwheels car set, board games, computer games, roboraptor, bowling lane, incredible 4 costume thingy... and one of his toys came to life from the abyss of the boot ever time we turned left. The rest of the nicol's got our fair share of goodie too -climbing harness and binoculars for me:) Already got some climbing dates lined up for the new year(tis a grand incentive to move back to glasgow, and then maybe some studying will get done!) but it's a bit harsh, now i'm home, it keeps raining, (and not snowing, despite being -7) and i want to go play with the telescope and binoculars. tonight there's one weird star taunting me in this random patch of sky in what otherwise is complete cloud coverage. that's just mean. to make up for it, callum and i have been doing some astronomy paintings instead. I would show you if our scanner would work, but sadly it looks as if our works of art will have to remain on display in cumnock.

sleep in heavenly peace

2005-12-22T14:33:00.000Z

*contented sigh* the house is quite for the first time since i came home. my wee wee brother and parents are off to the lake district. so craig and i get a nice day off from callum's uber-hyperness. Honestly, if he's not doing gymnastics, he's singing, or going around hugging everyone or wrestling or drawing on you or tickling you or jumping on you and telling you how many days it is till christmas, or till he goes on holiday. I've done youth and childrens work for over four years now and have never seen such a constantly excited child! He is very cute though:) especially at the school concert when he put on his conducting face(it's a weird half smiling half grimacing face that kinda makes him look in pain) and waved his hands around for the full concert.

and my laptop's just came home from the laptop hospital,complete with free new motherboard:)

daft friday

2005-12-20T18:25:00.000Z

GUU silliness-from 8 to 8, (though waiting on struan, we didn't get there till about half ten:) consisted of...(i'm obviously missing dish-bullet points are about to appear!)

free champagne
hanging out in the many many bars in the GU (it's almost as much of a maze as the kelvin building)
miss dynamite(oh aye, the one an only with gospel? choir.)
boogeying with struan to the big band! easily best part of the night-they were grand.
two fire alarms (doesn't bode well with drunk students and road and girls in dresses and -2degrees c!)
subway(dead classy)
the hive(for like the whole of 15minutes till most of us got bored)
karaoke in the beer bar
ceilidh (fairly ridiculous at first-imagine the number of people spoken about in revelation that was so large it couldn't be counted. Now put something like that into a tiny room, and imagine a ceilidh-but by it finishing at 7am, there was far more room for dancing)
chatting to advanced higher physics legend 9he's up there with bill nye the science guy)mathias-cathie-jamieson-farvardevolden-walked-into-a-poledon
free brekkie
hot chocolate from tinderbox at 8.15am on the way home. :)

well, think that's the transition made...

2005-12-17T17:41:00.000Z

I'm actually nocturnal. The past couple of weeks have been spent hanging out with folks(consisting of ice-skating, pub-age, pantos, banterous carol singing on ashton lane with dave, neal, dish and kirsty, eating lots of food-the weekly soup with struan, and swiss judith's tapas being particular highlights) till 1am-ish, and then working in the flat on labs and essays (or a sneaky watching of star trek voyager) till 4am-ish. But now, i think my nocturnal staus has been confirmed when i came home at 8.30am, whilst the sun was rising behind the uni, and woke up at 3, when it was getting dark. Ah, the post-lecture period of student life is grand.

what a course

2005-12-13T15:43:00.000Z

only in physics/astronomy would you have to write 2000 words about an event which lasted 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 seconds.

a grand weekend

2005-11-28T23:36:00.000Z

And so it has been.

Good things this weekend: the Astronomy-with-a-couple-of-physists-and-extra-randomers-subcrawl-then-cheesey-pop. (that would get you quite a few points if you were allowed titles in -scrabble) tinderbox for the first time this year, beth's sister mary coming to stay, all the cool people i got to hang out with, matching socks on saturday,not getting astronomy assignment done on saturday but still not stressing about it on sunday,neal and me both crying in the kitchen trying to chop onions,craig's comfy sofa,prayer meeting, advent, getting cake at both church services,laura's advent gathering, piza hut, jamie's camera, hanging out with both the swiss and german variety of judiths and listening to german music, a refound excitement of looking forward to each day to see what God's going to do, and learn more of Him, and know Him more, the cute grin from everyone as i went in astronomy late, not setting alarm clock and not getting out of bed till 12, finally buying food, oatcakes and cheese and the way the cheese melts, jenni feeling happy about driving to bibical evangelism conference, the smell of oatakes and cheese, the taste of oatcakes and cheese, the texture of oatcakes and cheese, the way rectangular slices of cheese fit nicely into trianguar oatcakes,

lolights-the stench of bolognaise that haunted the flat for a day and made me feel like if i ever saw a tomato again i might explode in a manner similar to that of a supernova, having to turn the heating on.

Look who's popped in for a visit

2005-11-23T00:16:00.000Z

my brother missed his train home from a gig, so decided midnight the night before her test would be a good time to pop in and see his big sister

the funniest thing i've seen in ages:)

2005-11-14T01:06:00.000Z

ok, so went home yesterday to do the youth work at netherthird-might blog properly about that later- but this credits a mention now. I suppose it was quite an, "you had to be there," moment, but I tried to aid the telling of my tale with some very sophisticated pictures so you can visualise the events.

So, whilst tidying up, ch(yellow head) asks me(blue head) to help her put down the earth ball.

She informs me this will work best if we both assume the same position, so we start lying down.

earth ball deflates, she gets uncomfortable, and sits up on it.

she tells me it'll deflate quicker if i sit up too, so I sit on it and...
Ch is catapaulted into the air in the most comical manner you could imagine
.Whilst I am left struggling for breath due to laughter whilst ch wallops against the wall and under a pew:)

She does now have a massive lump on her head, but she admits, it was funny.

what to do

2005-11-09T21:54:00.002Z

It's a post-cu night and i'm in alone-not sure if that's happened before, and i'm all studied out and i actually don't know what to do!

hmm...

wow

2005-11-08T21:12:00.000Z

I've just found like the best book ever! Well, you know perhaps not the best book ever, the bible and other stuff are pretty good too :) -but this is sooo helpful with physics related courses. Seriously, if you do anything like physics or engineering or astronomy-this book is grand, it's got like every equation you'll ever need,(seriously) and constants and useful stuff that normally you can spend trawling through loads of books to find. I can't believe they don't make you buy this at the start of university-it's so useful. And we even get lectured by the guy that wrote it! Can't believe he's never mentioned it!

time for s photo

2005-11-08T16:14:00.000Z

seeing as my blog's looking dead boring and imageless, here's a photo-me jenni and the bairn at the science centre-incidently, found out there are monthly .plantetarian lectures if anyone's up for it! I'll be going nonetheless-next one's on 24th november

(totally just procrastinating-i don't want to go to the library. You know, i remember who taught me the word procrastination-good old alasdair thomson. it's a good job he did, it's a very commonly used word during term time in uni-funny that)

nice taxi man

2005-11-08T15:52:00.000Z

they do exist! I was having a rubbish day, (you know you really don't want to study when you decide to visit iceland rather than the library, purely because you haven't been in a while and it brings back memories of when you used to go all the time on the way back to good old winton drive!-though they seemed to have moved the bakery stand! Was so gutted! It was great trying to time a visit to iceland in the evening so there was still stuff left but it had been reduced to 10p-now that's proper student shopping) Anyway, so i was on the way home, trying to cross a road, but a taxi man was waiting to turn into that road, so i waited for him, so in turn he gave me a huge wave and smile. Totally made my day.

Sorry for the completely garbage bloggage, but so much time is spent studying these days because of this there's nothing to tell except such exciting stories of how taxi men smiled at me.

childhood!

2005-11-05T00:08:00.000Z

aw, watched watership down with suzanne and fiona last night. so good! Then watched aladin tonight with the flatmates! Now we're listening to the greatest disney hits. :) not quite our usual friday night qm scene.

ah, weekend at last

2005-11-04T21:23:00.000Z

ah, it's friday and about time. my goodness, this is a looooong term. And instead of getting a nice sortof midterm break,(i would LOVE a reading week) our work keeps piling up, and we've more and more to do each week. In a sorta almost stressed out, "we've had enough" way though, about 10 of us missed physics to go finish stupid massive matlab(it's handed in-hurrah!) then went to curlers for pint and a proper lunch before getting bus to astronomy lab.Was so much fun though,i love our class, and can't wait for our weekend away! And we're all going out on a, "subcrawl," in 3 weeks, after the completion of first astronomy experiment. So had good banterful afternoon, despite not knowing how to work bus home, and computers crashing.:)science centre with the brother tommorow! woohoo!

new zealand...

2005-11-01T13:22:00.000Z

to study there next year or not...?

it's late...

2005-11-01T00:57:00.000Z

and i'm sleepy. But got to revise the physics of solids, everyone else in class has done it before in chemistry, but seeing as i never even studied it to the dizzy heights of standard grade, i don't know any of it! Just having a wee break now to blog about giant spider theory.

Now, I can't claim this for my own, but some of the astronomy crew came up with it after a flippant comment by a lecturer that there aren't any 50 ft spiders. Now, how do we know this? Do people ever look up when searching for spiders. Why, no, I hear you cry?! So how do we know there aren't giant spiders. What if their legs are hidden behind trees and if every time we look up and see grey sky, tis actually the underbelly of one of our eight legged friends.

However, I must say, the genius Bill Nye the Science Guy has published a book, rebuking the idea that giant ants exist. If his argument can be extended to spiders, then i am inclined to believe this fine knowledgeable man.

raindrops

2005-10-31T20:32:00.000Z

It has been brought to my attention that raindrops aren't raindrop shaped!(ie tear-shaped) Despite doing my sixth year project that took all year investigating surface tension I've never thought about it! (well, about 10% of the year was spent doing this,nearly all concentrated in the last week. The rest of the time was spent destroying the chemistry lab,(us physicists had no lab:( ) singing "oh calculus" shooting soaked paper towels at each other with noo noo our pet physics vacuum thingy,recreating scenes from monty python, star trek and lord of the rings, and laughing at bodger and badger stevo, walrus geek boy. )

Anyway, back to the rain! So with r up to 1mm, its spherical, r>1<4.5mm face="trebuchet ms">wow ;)

...

2005-10-27T16:56:00.000+01:00

Nothing like a three hour matlab stint to drain one's happiness ;) and after our third such lab, yes, that is right, 9 hours of life gone to sitting playing with matrices on a computer, (really not quite as banterous as good old group experiments)....we're still not finished! bah! Although it's quite interesting how in an attempt to bring some amusement to the lab, silliness sets in, and accidently typing, "the best fit lime," can bring a good ten minute giggle.

Anyway, tis five to five and i've once again only had oatcakes again, so must go grab a sandwich before wondering off to find joint praise and prayer.

Procrastinating

2005-10-25T15:48:00.000+01:00

Yip, well I've finally done what I said I would for months and have joined the wonderful world of blogging. Tis funny how I've got round to it during my, "day of working at the library." Or perhaps not really, seeing as pretty much anything seems more compelling just now than doing any more oscillations work. Seriously, a full course on sine waves, it can be quite hard going. So far in my 3 hours at the library, I have successfully gone through about 3 pages of the course, faffed around on internet, cleared out 2 years of dust from underneath my phone cover so that the 7 button works again, text some folks and stared out of the window. Not terribly productive.

enough moaning though, I think it's time for some recent highlights of life-biggar impact( complete with good banter, discussion, music, scary 35ft pole with chocolate at the top, climbing wall, bonfire, table tennis, soup, and cute baby with personalized impact merchandise), climbing at ibrox and getting a lift home(with new krab and belay device-yay), new wellingtons, purchasing advanced calculus and mathematical techniques at half price, Philippians 4 verse 6, beanscene,and prof brown's musings.