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Well, goodbye 2009. I wish all of you the best for 2010. Here's to the new year!
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Well, I haven’t posted on this thing I ages. I shall have to remedy that (because a bunch of stuff has happened since my last post back in July) but in the meanwhile, here’s a shorter and more honest version of the latest steaming pile of Twilight-related movie crap, New Moon… FADE IN: INT. ROBERT PATTINSON’S FAMILY’S HOUSE KRISTEN STEWART is celebrating her BIRTHDAY with ROBERT PATTINSON’S FAMILY. KRISTEN STEWART Thanks for this incredibly creepy party everyone, but I’m really not in the mood to celebrate. Every year I spend in these movies makes it that much more difficult for me to get any other acting role. ROBERT PATTINSON But you’re the founder of the “dull angst” method of acting! Stare blankly when sad, bite lip when happy! KRISTEN STEWART (stares blankly) ASHLEY GREENE Hey Kristen! Open my gift first! It’s a bag of ecstasy, now you can be just as obnoxiously bubbly and wired as me! KRISTEN opens the gift and cuts herself on the wrapping. KRISTEN STEWART Ouch. Zoom in cameraman, I got a papercut. ROBERT PATTINSON On wrapping paper? How is that even possible? Suddenly, JACKSON RATHBONE pretends he’s a SNAKE and makes SUPER COOL SNAKE NOISES. He lunges at KRISTEN. ROBERT PATTINSON Don’t worry Kristen, I will protect you by hurling you against a wall and into a glass table! KRISTEN STEWART My hero! (bleeds profusely) JACKSON is sent to his room. ROBERT PATTINSON Kristen, my family is dangerous. I mean, a single drop of blood whipped them into a hilarious frenzy. KRISTEN STEWART I noticed. So do I just avoid coming over for a week every month or something? ROBERT PATTINSON What I’m trying to say is, I think we should break up. Please don’t do anything stupid. And yes, Taylor Lautner counts as a stupid thing. KRISTEN STEWART No! I’ve been dumped by my high school boyfriend! The only natural reaction is to have violent night terrors, sit in my room and mope endlessly, and detach from my friends entirely! INT. SCHOOL After a while, KRISTEN STEWART starts talking to her friends again. MICHAEL WELCH I heard you sat and stared out your window for three solid months. That seems like a pretty clear sign of a mental imbalance, which I’m apparently attracted to. Want to go see a movie? KRISTEN STEWART Sure, lets go see Face-Punch. Apparently the trailer tag line is “Pow pow, punch faces.” MICHAEL WELCH I know it’s a joke movie, but that actually sounds a hell of a lot better than this steaming pile. MICHAEL and KRISTEN go see a movie, but she invites TAYLOR LAUTNER as well. TAYLOR LAUTNER Hey Kristen. I got super ripped since the last movie. By the way I’m totally not a werewolf. KRISTEN STEWART You should make fun of the poor schmuck who invited me to this movie since he’s not as ripped as you. MICHAEL WELCH You know what? I don’t need this shit! I may not be Robert Pattinson, but I’ve still been in the Twilight movies! Michael Fucking Welch pulls trim, okay? TAYLOR LAUTNER Pattinson is never coming back, Kristen. You should get over him and go out with me. KRISTEN STEWART I dunno, I was really looking forward to another three-month spinning camera shot. Wanted to know what I’d see outside my window for “March”. Not sure if I’m ready to date someone else. TAYLOR LAUTNER (points to abs) KRISTEN STEWART Good point. Would you be okay with me stringing you along and using you to fix some motorcycles I found so that I can get an adrenaline rush that reminds me of Robert Pattinson? TAYLOR LAUTNER Hmm. Maybe if I show you how loyal I am and offer you an endless supply of support without any kind of pressure you’ll eventually come to rely on me and that reliance will slowly morph into romantic feelings! KRISTEN STEWART Maybe! That’s worked for lots of guys, just ask any forum on the internet! TAYLOR LAUTNER Great. I will never, ever leave you. (pause) By the way, I am a werewolf after all. I can never see you again. KRISTEN STEWART Wow, so this movie series is going to ruin werewolves too? TAYLOR LAUTNER Yep. Werewolves are telepathic and like cliffdiving. KRISTEN STEWART I’m going to be really disappointed if the next movie doesn’t have rapping Frankenstein monsters or chess-playing mummies or something. KRISTEN hangs around the WEREWOLF FAMILY. No WEREWOLF SOCCER is forced upon the AUDIENCE. KRISTEN STEWART Is there any particular reason you guys never wear shirts? I mean besides generating revenue for panty manufacturers? TAYLOR LAUTNER We shred them when we turn into extremely poorly animated wolves. KRISTEN STEWART Oh. Then is there any particular reason you guys still wear pants? TAYLOR LAUTNER You ever see a dog’s penis? KRISTEN continues cockteasing TAYLOR and eventually the phone in her house rings. TAYLOR answers it. TAYLOR LAUTNER Hello? Do I have Prince Albert in a can? That joke doesn’t even make sense anymore, how old are you? Asshole. (hangs up) KRISTEN STEWART Why the hell are you answering other people’s phones? Seriously, who does that? Suddenly, ASHLEY GREENE bursts in the door. ASHLEY GREENE Kristen! That was Robert Pattinson who called, and since you were unable to answer the phone he naturally assumed you were dead! Now he’s going to kill himself! KRISTEN STEWART Wow, what a complete rip-off of Romeo and Juliet! ASHLEY GREENE It is, but since earlier the movie acknowledged that play exists, it makes it an homage! Hey, it smells like wet dog in here. TAYLOR LAUTNER What the fuck, are all vampires raging dickholes? ASHLEY GREENE Kristen, Robert is going to walk naked into the sunlight in Volterra, Italy. If he does this, the Volturi will have to kill him! KRISTEN STEWART Because then the city would know that vampires are still around? ASHLEY GREENE No, because then they’ll see him all glittery and know just how lame vampires are in Stephanie Meyer’s universe. We have to stop him! KRISTEN STEWART This movie isn’t going to try and pretend it’s an action flick in the last 10 minutes like the last movie, is it? It IS. KRISTEN and ASHLEY take a continental flight to ITALY to try and stop ROBERT. EXT. TOWN SQUARE – VOLTERRA, ITALY KRISTEN and ASHLEY arrive just as ROBERT takes his shirt off to step into the sunlight. KRISTEN STEWART Robert, no! Holy crap, is that what you look like without a shirt on? Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of sex symbol? You look like a white Urkel. ROBERT PATTINSON Kristen, you’re alive! I love you more than anything could love a loved thing! Please ignore the fact that I’m still glowering at you as I say this. KRISTEN STEWART Of course! Hear that, girls in the audience? When the boy you love dumps you, it means he loves you more than ever! Don’t give up! ROBERT PATTINSON And if he thinks you are going to die, it will force him to express that love! ROBERT, KRISTEN, and ASHLEY are apprehended by MICHAEL SHEEN, who is the KING VAMPIRE OR SOME BULLSHIT. MICHAEL SHEEN I’m going to kill you now, Robert. My wife loves these movies for some damn reason and if I have to sit through “Breaking Dawn” so help me… KRISTEN STEWART Don’t kill him! Kill me instead! MICHAEL SHEEN I think it was assumed that we’ll be eating you after we kill him, but whatever. Let’s use our super cool vampire powers to look into your future. They look into the future and see KRISTEN and ROBERT prancing through a meadow in slow motion. The BOYFRIENDS in the AUDIENCE ruin their chances of getting laid by laughing uproariously. MICHAEL SHEEN Well that was fucking embarassing. Go on, get out of here. And please send in the huge group of American tourists whose disappearance somewhere in Italy surely won’t garner the attention of every major news network. KRISTEN, ROBERT, and ASHLEY go back to WASHINGTON. EXT. WOODS KRISTEN and ROBERT are walking through the woods when they encounter TAYLOR LAUTNER. TAYLOR LAUTNER You’re back with the vampire? I thought you were falling in love with me! KRISTEN STEWART Guys, think about this a minute. Isn’t the fact that I’m only attracted to dangerous monsters an indicator that I’m not actually attracted to who either of you are, but what you are? Clearly I just have some kind of serious mental issue. TAYLOR LAUTNER Yeah well, stay away from her Robert. Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. ROBERT PATTINSON Right, because you turn into a cartoon dog. KRISTEN STEWART This is the classic “person likes popular kid but is loved by best friend” storyline used in virtually every high school movie ever made, huh? TAYLOR LAUTNER Yeah, except unlike every other movie that has used this cliche, you actually wind up with the popular kid and I stay a chump forever. TAYLOR leaves. KRISTEN STEWART I asked your family to vote on if I’d be turned into a vampire and they voted yes. A vampire society is nothing if not a group that respects democracy. ROBERT PATTINSON Fine. I’ll convert you after two more books on one condition: you marry me. KRISTEN STEWART Er, did a 109-year-old just ask a teenage girl to make a lifetime commitment? Classy. GIRLS IN AUDIENCE (swooning) No wonder boys hate Twilight! Nobody can be as perfect as Edward! BOYS IN AUDIENCE Are you kidding? We love Twilight! It teaches the next generation of women that, the worse their men treat them, the more in love they should be. GIRLS IN AUDIENCE You’re right! Want to buy me another movie ticket? BOYS IN AUDIENCE Buy your own goddamn ticket you stupid cunt. WOMEN IN AUDIENCE (swoon) END |
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Well, last night's Carlisle LARP game went...interestingly. I think three players characters dead and/or missing is the highest turnover of any session to date. I guess this is what happens when a long and (some would say needlessly) convoluted conspiracy to remove one Kindred becomes public.
To paraphrase, there was one Ventrue (X) who decided that another Ventrue (Y) needed to disappear. He attempted to hire the city's Gangrel Scourge to do the deed. The Scourge went to the Lasombra antitribu Prince, who did not grant him right of destruction but instead told him to keep watch on the ambitious young Ventrue. The mScourge enlisted the help of a Malkavian to do this. The Malkavaian decided that the death of Ventrue Y would be quite profitable to him, and so hired a Lasombra bounty hunter for the job.
When the deed was done, the local Giovanni discovered that there had been a death thanks to a funky little ritual of his. He knew that rumour had been circulating over the potential assassination of Ventrue Y, and proceeded to inform the court at large that a Kindred had just been slain. The Giovanni sends a ghostly servant to investigate the scene of the death, and said servant returns with the numberplate of a burned out car present at the site. At this point the city's third Ventrue (Z) makes some phonecalls and discovers that the vehicle was registered to Ventrue X. He formally accuses his Clanmate of violating the right of destruction. The Prince takes Ventrue X and Ventrue Z aside and begins to interrogate them. Ventrue X admits to conspiracy to murder, but says that the assassination took place outside of the city limits and thus is not under the Prince's juristiction. The Prince decides that this then becomes a Clan affair, has Ventrue X staked and hands him over to Ventrue Z, but not before Ventrue X admits to the involvement of the Malkavian.
The Giovanni, aware of what has happened due to his wraithly servant watching the meeting, tells the Malkavian that he had best get out. The Malkavian flees under Obfuscate, but is later tracked down by an Abyssal Entity summoned up by the Prince, which beats him into torpor and possesses his body, walking him back to the Prince's holding cells and leaving him there to await judgement.
The result? Two thirds of Clan Ventrue and half of Clan Malkavian gone within one night. To be honest I was fairly pissed off about this, as all of the characters involved had a fair bit of plot attached to them which I'm now gonna have to find another way to implement. Still, as an ST I can't really interfere in PvP activity, and if I did that would be railroading. If nothing else, this spate of deaths has caused a shitstorm among the remaining PCs, and I doubt that anyone will attempt any overt assassinations in the near future. Current Mood:  indescribable |
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I should have made a post about this much earlier, because it was rather awesome. As foretold, I went to see the Walking with Dinosaurs Arena Spectacular the other week. Suffice to say, it ROCKED. Life-sized animatronic dinosaurs stomping around the stage was enough to bring my childish sense of glee to the fore, and all in all I had a fantastic time. My only disappointment was that the lighting in there was not exactly photo-friendly, and most of the shots I took didn't come out too well, despite playing around with the camera settings beforehand.
Still, here's a couple of the better ones:
 
 
So those are just a glimpse of what the show was like. The full collection of my better photos (and at least one of each of the dinosaurs on show) can be found here.
Oh, and here's my official graduation photograph from Monday's ceremony. The robes I can handle, but I will never get used to that sodding mortarboard cap.
Anyway, that is all.
see more Lolcats and funny picturesCurrent Mood:  accomplished |
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Okay, it's been five weeks since my last update and rather a lot has been happening in that time.
First up, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) morticutor and his GF spent some time up here in Carlisle, which was certainly fun. I managed to get my long-running Sabbat chronicle off to a suitably fitting end (at long last), though in hindsight I feel that the final session maybe wasn't one of my best. While it was certainly epic in its scale and repercussions, I didn't feel as though it was one of my personal glory moments as an ST. All the same, it felt good to finally lay what has been a very epic and long-lasting Vampire game to rest. That is not to say, however, that the ripples generated by what happened during those final three sessions will not be felt elsewhere. Since all of my World of Darkness games are run in the same continuity, it means that the Carlisle LARP game is feeling some of the fallout, as many of the PCs are coming to realise that there are at least one and maybe as many as three active Antediluvians in the world...and wondering what horrible plans these ancients have in store, since they do not seem to have chosen to repeat the godzilla-style rampage that Ravnos undertook in the Week of Nightmares. All I can say is that thanks to one Sabbat pack's activities in Cairo, there's gonna be fun times ahead for the LARP group.
While morticutor & co were here, we also partook in another Star Wars RPG, set in the KotOR era. I tried a character unlike any I've previously played, but which didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. I was playing a mid-rim planetary governor who had just about held his world together through the Mandalorian invasion and the following Jedi/Sith war. The game was set at a point where there were maybe a dozen Jedi left in the whole galaxy, and after the destruction that the Sith Crusade caused, there is a fair bit of anti-Force-user sentiment around. The character I was playing took this idea a bit further; the kind of personal power wielded by the Jedi frankly terrified him, and upon seeing how easily the Force lends itself to acts of destruction in the hands of its supposedly enlightened users, he was convinced that the galaxy would be better off if common people didn't have to look to these angels of death for their moral guidance. Within the Star Wars universe this viewpoint is of course objectively wrong, and it is largely based on ignorance of the codes which seperate the Jedi from the Sith. However, I believed that given what the peoples of the galaxy had witnessed over the last two decades that it was a perfectly valid stance to take, and I was interested in roleplaying the philosophical aspect. I thought that some very interesting debates could be had with the Jedi character in the group, and it was my plan for the character to eventually become much more sympathetic to the Jedi cause. I'd say this was slightly hampered by the presence of a fucking ex-Sith character in the group, who reacted to most situations with shouting, threats and the sort of arrogance which - as far as my character was concerned - thoroughly justified his standpoint on Force-users. I think as a player I had some difficulty with the fact that the barely-reformed mass murderer was treated with greater moral legitmacy than someone who genuinely cared for those around him, but disliked the fact that the Force only really revealed itself to a small cabal of very dangerous individuals. Still, no matter. I guess that of all the games which are designed to encourage moral philosophising, Star Wars is just not one of them. I'll take a different tak next time.
We also played quite a bit of Arkham Horror and A Touch of Evil, both of which were great fun. Arkham Horror I've played plenty times before, and still love it, while Touch of Evil was new. It essentially boils down to every Hammer Horror film in boardgame form, with a band of slightly cheesey heroes hunting down and facing off against a very cheesey uber-villain in order to save a creepy, gothic village. Along the way there are various minions to fight, mysteries to solve and secrets to uncover, and it is generally a good laugh. The four main villains in the basic game are the Vampire, the Werewolf, the Scarecrow and the Spectral Horseman. Each one causes the game to play out very differently due to the different minions and events they can use. I particularly remember the game we played against the Vampire, in which we eventually defeated the dark creature, but were essentially left with a village over-run with bloodthirsty Succubi. Nice.
With my regular tabletop group, I've been takinga back seat from ST'ing for once and playing Cyberpunk instead. It's been fun so far, and the character I'm playing is essentially a cyber version of Victor Creed. It's nice to just be a casual monster some times, without thinking too hard about the implications. Every other inhumane character I've played has had justifications which at least make sense to them and have some kind of Greater Good in mind, while my Cyberpunk character is a pure mercenary. What can I say, it's good stress relief.
I've also taken my group through character gen for CthulhuTech, which I have to say I'm looking forward to running. The group has created a decent spread of characters and I can see great things for this upcoming chronicle. Unfortunately, one of the group has recently developed an insanely childish competitive streak. We really need to sit him down and talk to him about that, because it is impacting on other people's enjoyment. If we were a less sympathetic bunch we'd just kick him out, but better to at least try...
Quite a bit has also been happening outside of the world of gaming. Primarily, I graduated my Bachelor's degree yesterday with a 2:1. Despite being more than good enough to get me onto my MSc place in September, this is not as good as I had hoped for. The annoying bit is that I know I would have got a first had I not accidentally emailed in the wrong fucking file for the major essay of my Bioethics module. The result was that I got a zero for that project, failed a 20 credit module and thus had my degree dragged down by an entire classification. I take some solace in the fact that it was a clerical error on my part, and not my academic knowledge which is at fault. I wouldn't care, but I put quite a lot of effort into that essay. It's here for anyone who cares to read it:
( Ethics of Trophy Hunting and Conservation )
So there's that. On the other hand, a 2:1 is still not a bad degree by any measure. It will get me onto my MSc course (Wildlife Conservation & Management), and ultimately it just becomes one more stepping stone in my drive towards a career in conservation biology. The ceremony itself was very ritualised, all pomp and circumstance, as one would expect. The university faculty looked like they came straight out of Harry Potter in their various colour-coded robes and hats, and truth be told we students didn't look much different. There were speaches from the faculty, and giving of awards, and a procession involving my favourite (Dutch, and undeniably crazy) lecturer marching onto the stage while carrying a geuine freaking sword. In addition to my BSc, at the informaI priozegiving afterwards I was awarded the university's Jeremy Paxman Award for Most Awkward Questions Asked and Sustained Interrogation of Lecturers. I appreciated that one, and it got a round of laughs from the audience. I got a bunch of photos taken which I will upload in due course, and all in all yesterday was a pretty good day.
And on another note, I've just learned that a friend of mine has given birth. Apparently her baby girl came out at 6lb 5oz and is perfectly healthy, which is fantastic. Anyway, I shall have to get going.Current Mood:  awake |
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Looks like I haven't updated this thing in quite some time, and the last four weeks have seen a bunch of stuff happening.
For starters, my undergraduate degree is now finished. Over. Complete. The last deadline has been met and all I can do now is stomach the agonising wait until graduation day on July 20th. I'm looking forward to that, with no small amount of trepidation.
Anyway, my final project of the year was a report on the field trip to the island of Great Cumbrae, in the Firth of Clyde. We (the Marine Biology class) spent six days on the island from Saturday 31st of May to Thursday 4th of June. While there I carried out a brief project on the feeding and interspecies competition dynamics of the local shorebirds, which was quite relaxing as the data gathering mostly involved sitting on the beach with a pair of binoculars and a clipboard. In the end, however, less than a week's time in which to gather data was simply not enough to build a watertight project. While this is true of pretty much all of the projects which were being carried out there - not just seabirds - it was still kind of annoying as the final report was essentially full of holes. Well, whatever. It's over now and I still think the final work I submitted will earn me a decent enough result.
Sadly I can't say the same about Bioethics. For what should have been one of the easiest modules to score highly in, it turns out that when I submitted a report which was worth 50% of the module, I accidentally emailed in the incomplete version of the file. By incomplete I mean just the freakin' introduction, which means for the first time in my life I have actually failed a module. Part of me laughs at that. I kind of feel like getting "The only subject I ever failed was ethics" printed on a T-shirt of something.
Not that it especially matters, since I've been given an unconditional offer from Newcastle University regarding an MSc position to begin at the end of September. Originally the course I applied for was Environmental Consultancy, but I've requested to change this to their Wildlife Conservation and Management programme, which somehow I missed when I was looking through the list of postgraduate courses at Newcastle. Well, hopefully they'll change my application, since the two MSc programmes are both run by the school of biology anyway.
Outside of uni, it's now not long to go until morticutor and his GF come to visit Carlisle. I've been looking forward to this for ages, and have a whole pile of gaming planned for the time they're here, among other things. It's Hel's birthday while they're here, so there's likely to be some kind of barbecue or party type thing, which should be fun.
Anyway, I'm gonna stop typing now because my head is aching like a bastard. I seem to have come down with some kind of cold which reduced me from feeling well to sick and shivering in about the space of an hour last night. It hasn't abated, so I'm off work today. Only the third sick day from work I've ever taken in my life.
Jun. 14th, 2009 @ 09:35 am
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| » Nearing the end of an era |
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Three weeks since I last updated, and it feels quite a lot longer. Still, some significant things have happened recently, so I may as well write them down.
First and foremost, I got my dissertation finished and handed in. I finished work in good time and went to get the thing printed and bound a good 24 hours ahead of the hand-in deadline. As things turned out, it cost me £21 to get the damn thing printed (colour sheets are bloody expensive it would seem), and took almost as long waiting by the printer for it to finally get through as it did for me to write the final conclusions. It seems that one of the Northumbria University schools (the built environment/engineering school I think) had its dissertation deadline that very day, and as a result a metric fuckton of students were all waiting to get their stuff printed off as well. The result inevitably being printers struggling to cope with mile-long lists of print jobs.
Anyway, eventually I got the thing onto paper; some 87 pages, of which more than half consisted of raw data appendices that nobody in their right mind would ever want to read. As for the stuff which will actually get marked...well let me say that 7000 words is a totally unreasonable upper limit. I ended up scrapping the gender abundance and body weight analyses altogether, as well as vastly trimming down the sections explaining why I actually conducted half the statistical tests that I did. Minus results tables, appendices and acknowledgements, the thing still came to about 7600 words. Fortunately, I'm informed you can exceed the upper word limit by about 10% without anyone getting too pissed off. Still, it;s annoying when you can't write as much as you want to about a subject you're passionate about. I loved working with caimans, and really want to follow up this work when I do my PhD, so it irritated me when I couldn't use everything that I had gathered during my data collection.
But that's over and done with now; I can but wait to receive my final grades. Which, unsurprisingly, is what will determine how I begin my MSc in October. All my applications are sent now, but they can't do anything further until I supply transcripts of my final degree classification, so now i'm just waiting for July. Which is really annoying, because I don't want these last weeks of my undergraduate life to just disappear. The last three years have been utterly fantastic, and while I know that I'm probably going to enjoy doing my Masters, I've gotten quite settled in Newcastle.
My first choice of MSc is Conservation and Biodiversity at Lancaster university. This followed by a similar course in Exeter, or Environmental Consultancy at Newcastle. in terms of the course on offer, Newcastle is the least appealing, which is a bitch considering I love the city so much. Still, at least if I get Lancaster I can keep my current weekend job and continue to run the Carlisle LARP game. All the same, I'm going to miss Newcastle, and the excellent Cities in Darkness society.
Before any of this, however, I have two exams coming up and a project on seabirds which will take me to the sunny (I hope...) Isle of Cumbrae, off the coast of Scotland. While the field trip will no doubt be fun, I can't say I'm looking forward so fervently to the exams. The first one is on the 19th, and it is Animal Biotechnology, a topic which is not remotely as interesting as it sounds. It mostly involves a lot of genetics, which brings the usual tirade of tedium, and I don't think any amount of revision is going to make me particularly confident about it. The second one is Ecology and Conservation, possibly my favourite module of the year, but my results in Ecology modules over the past two years have not been brilliant, despite the fact it's my chosen subject. One can but hope, I suppose. So yeah, you've probably guessed by now that this whole "end of university" thing is really dominating my life at the moment. I'd talk about how well the various LARP games I'm involved in are going or something, but I'm feeling exhausted right now. I'll write down something along those lines at a later date.
May. 14th, 2009 @ 09:35 pm
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| » Work, play and occasionally rest |
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So...the happenings of the last fortnight.
Well, on April 6th I turned 22, which doesn't feel all that different to being 21. However, I am assured by many that it's all downhill from here. I didn't do anything spectacular for my birthday, but this Friday I have a night out in Newcastle planned which should be fun providing enough people turn up. Seems that three of us in the Cities in Darkness crowd have birthdays in April, so one big celebration at the end of the month seems the most expedient way to deal with that.
My dissertation is nearing completion now. I have the discussion to finish, and the acknowledgements to write, and that's about it. I'll be glad when it's over...this project has consumed a lot of my time and energy, but whenever I'm working on the writeup I try to remember just what an awesome time I had doing the field work last summer. I know I should be thinking about financing my MSc (And PhD the year after that) but once this year is done I really feel like I should spend another few months travelling somewhere. Peru was lovely, but Egypt looks rather awesome as well...
I had to take a break from my dissertation last Friday to get my final Bioethics project done. It's a treatise on the ethical acceptability of big game hunting as a means of conservation. What it boils down to is thus: Trophy hunters pay lots of money to shoot animals, ergo they can be of great help to rural African villages in safari lands, and in order for hunters to keep hunting, the animals that they like to shoot need to be preserved. Problem is that hunting is not very well regulated by most African governments, and is instead the domain of private lodges and companies, whose primary motivation is making a fast buck. Also, while pro-hunting lobyists claim that "true" and "genuine" sport hunters have great respect for their prey and feel a connection to nature's cycle as a result of their activities, the fact is that many people who pay for hunting safaris are essentially looking for a Savannah Shooting Gallery, where wildebeest and buffalo are basically like fish in a barrel. If these people were such great white hunters, I'd love to see them dumped in the middle of the African plains with no weapons or equipment and find out how long they'd last.
On a non-university note, my much beloved UnMet chronicle has finally come to an end. The characters followed the trail of clues out of London to the ancient city of Cairo, where they finally tracked down the dark cult whose schemes they have been swept up in over the last leg of the story. There they faced down murderous fanatics, corrupt megalomaniacs, arcane mystical technologies and a being of godlike power which they discovered to be an incredibly ancient "pure breed" vampire, undiluted by the need to infect a human host. In the end they couldn't actually kill this monstrosity, so they trapped it in a cavern under the desert, sealing it away from the ages...
Finally, I received word yesterday that morticutor and his GF are coming to back Carlisle for a few weeks this summer! I have to say that is awesome to hear, and I have begun planning the various RPGs I can run while the old gang is back together again, at least for a little while. There's Angel, Pirates, CthulhuTech...maybe we could even break out the old Sabbat characters for a new adventure. Fun times await.
Apr. 19th, 2009 @ 09:45 am
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| » Funnies |
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Probably the best thing to ever come out of the godsawful Twilight franchise: the abridged movie script! (courtesy of the editing room)
FADE IN: EXT. WASHINGTON KRISTEN STEWART goes to FORKS, WASHINGTON. KRISTEN STEWART (V.O.) Once upon a time, there lived an enchanting girl named Stephenie Meyer, er I mean Kristen Stewart. She was so awesome that her awesomeness couldn’t be contained in Arizona, so she moved to Washington to stay with her father, who was totally lame and not cool. BILLY BURKE Hey honey. I’m super lame. I got you a car, but it’s totally uncool because I’m totally uncool. KRISTEN STEWART Thanks Dad, or whatever. Time for my first day at a new school. Since every coming-of-age story requires the main character be a social outcast, I suppose I’ll have to endure being the unpopular new girl until I do something that proves my worth. KRISTEN goes to school and is INSTANTLY POPULAR AND BELOVED.
ANNA KENDRICK Oh my God I love your hair you’re so pretty will you be my new best friend? GREGORY TYREE BOYCE Can I take you out sometime since you’re so awesome? MICHAEL WELCH No way you asshole, I saw her first! KRISTEN STEWART I’d rather watch “The Messengers” than date either of you. Why don’t you go ask Anna instead? ANNA KENDRICK Ohmigod I’m getting Kristen’s rejects that’s so awesome! KRISTEN STEWART Wow. I guess this is what it looks like when the unpopular fat girl’s pathetic daydreams get written down and published into a bestselling book. Aren’t well-written characters supposed to have flaws? ANNA KENDRICK Flaws? Oh, well, um, I suppose you could argue that you’re a little TOO perfect and amazing. But I don’t think so. Let’s make out. Suddenly, ROBERT PATTINSON enters. The paleness of him and his family members reach blinding levels while the squeals in the movie theater reach deafening levels. KRISTEN STEWART Who’s the albino Wolverine? ANNA KENDRICK Oh, him? That’s Robert. He’s universally acknowledged as the hottest boy in school but he doesn’t date anyone because no girl is good enough for him. KRISTEN STEWART No girl is good enough for him? Man, the excuses closested homosexuals come up with these days… KRISTEN sits next to ROBERT, who nearly vomits in his mouth and leaves school for a week. Eventually, he returns. KRISTEN STEWART Hey, where did you go? Because you are exceedingly mean to me, I find myself attracted to you. ROBERT PATTINSON Sounds like textbook daddy issues, you fat cow. KRISTEN STEWART (swoon) ROBERT PATTINSON You have a bright career as a stripper ahead of you. ROBERT and KRISTEN continue not quite interacting with each other and having no chemistry together. KRISTEN STEWART Hey, your eyes are changing color from gorgeous to ultragorgeous. What’s going on? ROBERT PATTINSON Alright, you got me. I was acting like a jerk because I secretly totally love you. KRISTEN STEWART Of course! This also explains why the captain of the football team always acted like he hated Stephenie Meyer! ROBERT PATTINSON There’s more. I want to eat you. KRISTEN STEWART Holy shit, really? I need to go home and do some waxing first, but… ROBERT PATTINSON No, I mean literally eat you. I’m a vampire. KRISTEN STEWART Hmm. The only way I will believe you is if you carry me up a mountain using special effects from the 70’s. He DOES. KRISTEN STEWART You really are a vampire! Does that mean that garlic, stakes, and sunlight kill you? ROBERT PATTINSON Don’t be stupid. All of that lore is far too interesting for this movie. Being a vampire just means I get superpowers. It’s like being Spiderman, but sexier. Also, I sparkle in the sunlight. KRISTEN STEWART So that’s why why your family moved here, because it’s always overcast! ROBERT PATTINSON That’s right everyone, this whole movie is a 2-hour-long setup for a joke about the Pacific Northwest. KRISTEN STEWART So if you’re immortal, how old are you anyway? ROBERT PATTINSON Over a hundred, but to be fair I’ve spent most of that time working on my hair. The two of them GAZE into each other’s eyes with UNCOMFORTABLY HUGE CLOSEUPS for 80% of the rest of the movie. INT. KRISTEN’S BEDROOM KRISTEN wakes up to find ROBERT watching her sleep. KRISTEN STEWART Holy fucking shit! If you weren’t so hot I’d have you arrested! How long have you been doing this? ROBERT PATTINSON 2 months. KRISTEN STEWART But I’ve only lived here one month according to the script. ROBERT PATTINSN Yeah, the script was written in six weeks. Don’t get hung up on shit like that. KRISTEN STEWART Oh. Well, as long as you’re here I guess we could have sex. ROBERT PATTINSON No, I can’t have sex with you! I’d be unable to control myself! I’d bite you and turn you into a vampire! Also I ejaculate boiling venom, so I’d need to wear like fifty condoms. KRISTEN STEWART Wait, we can’t have sex at all, and you can’t suck my blood? How can you make a vampire movie without anyone sucking blood? ROBERT PATTINSON It’s alright, I think this movie already has more than enough sucking. INT. BILLY BURKE’S HOUSE BILLY BURKE is cleaning his gun and drinking a beer while listening to country music. KRISTEN STEWART Dad, my boyfriend is coming over to pick me up. Try not to get dork all over him. BILLY BURKE Okay, let me meet him after the movie makes the film industry’s ten billionth joke about protective fathers disliking boyfriends. KRISTEN STEWART Alright. Oh and also he’s a 100-year-old vampire, don’t say anything racist about vampires, okay? ROBERT PATTINSON Hello, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kristen has said absolutely nothing about you because you’re so lame. BILLY BURKE So I hear you’re a 100 years old. And interested in my 17-year-old daughter. So, mathematically that’s like, what, a 40-year-old dating a 6-year-old? ROBERT PATTINSON Ummmmmmmm… BILLY BURKE Yeah, so my friend Chris Hansen would like you to have a seat right over here. KRISTEN STEWART Dad, you’re embarrassing me almost as much as my acting does! I’m just going over to his house to have dinner with his family, I’ll be back before 11. Unless the ravenous vampires murder me, of course. BILLY BURKE Alright, just bring this pepper spray with you. It’s literally the very least I can do to offer it to my teenage daughter. KRISTEN STEWART Daaaaad! Stop being such a loser, I don’t need this! BILLY BURKE Really? Weren’t you almost raped by four guys earlier in the movie? KRISTEN STEWART Yeah but I have a BOYFRIEND now, which means I no longer have to be independent of physically capable of doing anything on my own. GOD! ROBERT and KRISTEN go to visit ROBERT’S FAMILY MANSION in the middle of the woods, because of course the FANTASY MALE should be rich, too. INT. GLASS MANSION KRISTEN meets ROBERT’S VAMPIRE FAMILY. KRISTEN STEWART Jesus, this place is paler than an Anne Rice book signing event. At least it doesn’t smell as bad. PETER FACINELLI Welcome to our ridiculously expensive home. I’m the father figure of this family because I’m the one who turned them all into vampires. There’s something disturbing about the idea that I’ve only turned teenagers into vampires, but let’s ignore that. KRISTEN STEWART Wow, you guys are so close. What keeps this family together so well? PETER FACINELLI Funny you should ask. Let me tell you about Count Joseph Von Smith. One day a vampire named Moronula appeared to him and told him to find these golden stakes buried in a coffin… NIKKI REED Knock it off, dad. So, Kristen, there must be something really special about you for Robert to take such a liking to you and risk the lives of his entire family. Tell us about yourself. KRISTEN STEWART Me? Oh, no. I’m just a hollow placeholder for all of the teenage girls in the audience to project their personalities onto. I have none of my own whatsoever. NIKKI REED Oh. Well what do you like to do for fun? KRISTEN STEWART Mostly smoke pot on my porch in front of the paparazzi. What about you guys? PETER FACINELLI Vampire baseball. KRISTEN STEWART Ha ha, no seriously. PETER FACINELLI Really. Vampire baseball. We even have uniforms. Want to come watch us play? KRISTEN STEWART Actually as it happens the very last thing on Earth I or any other sane person would want to watch is vampire baseball, but go ahead. They play vampire baseball, which looks exactly as stupid as it sounds to all of the males in the audience. The game attracts the attention of some EVIL VAMPIRES, who actually do the type of shit vampires are supposed to, like fucking kill boring humans. One of them, CAM GIGANDET, notices KRISTIN. CAM GIGANDET Oh man, that looks great, are you gonna finish that? ROBERT PATTINSON Stay away from her or my family will have to kill you. Specifically, we’ll have to hiss at you like fifth graders pretending to be Dracula, and then kill you. CAM GIGANDET Murder, eh? That’s one hell of a family activity. My family usually just plays scrabble. PETER FACINELLI The family that slays together, stays together. CAM tries to eat KRISTEN, a poorly directed action sequence ensues, and eventually he is defeated. PETER FACINELLI Kristen’s been bitten! She’ll be turned into a vampire within minutes unless you suck the venom out! I can’t do it for some reason or another. ROBERT PATTINSON Since the whole novel this is based on is just Mormon propaganda for abstinence and bloodsucking is a metaphor for sex, what exactly is this advocating? PETER FACINELLI Look, all I know is that even though it’s going to be REALLY HARD, you’re just going to have to PULL OUT of her before CLIMAX. The climax of the movie, I mean. He DOES. It’s very DISSATISFYING. INT. HOSPITAL KRISTEN wakes up in the hospital, and ROBERT wakes up after her. KRISTEN STEWART I thought vampires never slept. ROBERT PATTINSON Script. Six weeks. Remember? KRISTEN STEWART Right. Well, thanks for saving my life after endangering it by inviting me into your dangerous world. Let’s go to the prom together. ROBERT PATTINSON Actually, I think it would be better if we broke up. To keep you safe. KRISTEN STEWART From vampires? ROBERT PATTINSON No, from being typecast forever after this series is done. I’m screwed, but it’s not too late for you. KRISTEN STEWART No. No, you can’t ever leave me. Never. No matter what. We must be together forever and ever and ever. ROBERT PATTINSON Holy shit, you’re a clingy psychotic bitch. Maybe we have a realistic high school relationship after all. They stay together and go to the PROM. KRISTEN STEWART I want you to make me a vampire so that I can be with you, even if it means sacrificing my own life as a mortal. ROBERT PATTINSON So, the next generation of young women is currently flocking to see a female lead starring in a movie by a female director based on a bestselling book by a female author, and in this movie the main character wants to become completely submissive and self-sacrificing for a male. KRISTEN STEWART I love you. Put a baby in me. ROBERT PATTINSON At least the other three books can’t possibly be more misogynistic and depressing. They ARE. END
Apr. 1st, 2009 @ 01:02 pm
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| » My Inner Child just passed out from excitement... |
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Looks like WALKING WITH DINOSAURS is coming to Newcastle. Fifteen life-sized animatronic dinosaurs will be present at the Metro Radio Arena in July this year, as part of a £10 million show spectacular, so the website says.
Well, I'm going. I don't think my conscience would allow me to miss it.
Mar. 19th, 2009 @ 11:34 am
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| » Friday 13th |
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It would appear that Comic Relief Day is taking place on the accursed Friday the 13th. How strange.
Part of me feels as though I should do something to raise money, but truth be told I've never really been into that kind of thing. I'll probably just make a donation without resorting to fancy dress.
Oh, how I'm looking forward to having next weekend off work. Cities in Darkness regional LARP event on the saturday (which I've been looking forward to for ages) and then I'm not sure whether I'll come back to Carlisle on the Sunday or just stay the weekend in Newcastle. Given that Sunday 22nd is Mothers' Day I should probably head back and see my folks. There'll be the usual card/gift giving and whatnot, though I don't have a clue what to buy her this year.
Something else has hit me recently; I only have three more deadlines to meet (+exams) and my degree is over. Actually finished. I'll be hopefully starting an MSc in October, but I still haven't chosen which university. I've had an encouraging email from Exeter about their course in Evolutionary Biology and Conservation, and I'm currently giving serious thought to Newcastle's Environmental Consultancy course, and then there's half a dozen others I've applied for...right now, the chances of me actually staying in the North East after September are fairly slim. Universities elsewhere offer courses more tailored to what I want to do with my career. Even then, the MSc is a pure stepping stone. Where I really want to be is back in the Amazon, studying for my PhD and working with Caimans again. But that's at least another academic year away.
Mar. 13th, 2009 @ 10:13 am
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| » Stuff |
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Kind of busy at the moment. Assignments to complete and work to do; I actually have a deadline to meet on Wednesday, which is a sure sign that the respite is over. Still, it's nice to feel motivated again. Newcastle LARP tomorrow night as well, and I'm looking forward to this one. The Carlisle game last night went brilliantly.
I've recently uploaded a load of the better photgraphs from my travels in Peru last year and the Indo-Pacific back in 2005/06 onto my facebook page.
Check them out here: [Amazonia 2008] [Indo-Pacific 2006]
Mar. 2nd, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
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| » Not sure what to say... |
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Well, I haven't updated much over the last fortnight because...well...not much has really been happening. I'm back in the swing of university life, and it's that time of year that's comfortably before the deadlines start building up, so personal stress is minimal at the moment. Still have the dissertation to contend with, but I'm getting extra tuition with the damnable SPSS statistics software on Thursday, which should help me to progress with that. In the meantime, I need to keep refining my introduction and background work.
On the upside, I just today received feedback on my Marine Biology presentation and peer evaluation projects. Presentation netted me a fantastic 85% and the peer review got me 76%. Suffice to say, that has left me feeling awesome.
LARP is going well, in both Carlisle and Newcastle. I'm not getting as much Tabletop RP done as I've wanted to, but I'm still running UnMet as often as circumstances will allow. I plan to continue that with my current gaming group until about Easter time (I figure I should have climaxed the metaplot for this chronicle by then), after which I plan to have a try at GMing a CthulhuTech game.
Feb. 9th, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
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| » Okay, It's Been a While |
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Haven't updated this thing in three weeks, it would seem. Well, here goes a run-down of stuff that has happened;
My exam season for this semester is over. I had a presentation to give on bioethics in defence of a project submitted earlier in the year. My chosen topic was deforestation and the exploitation of natural resources in the Amazon. Rule 1 of academia - when offered a range of subjects, pick the one with which you have personal experience - certainly held true here. The presentation went as near perfectly as possible, my only worry is how the written side of the project will hold up. According to first reports, my work may have been lacking in explicit ethical discussion compared top the amount of scientific/background information presented.
This is an issue. The problem is that there is no such thing as universal ethics; was is considered "right" and "good" in the western world does not necessarily hold true in, say, the Middle East or in China. People's cultural upbringing colours their perceptions of the world tremendously, and the morality that we come to accept during our childhood is one that is often almost impossible to alter in later life. As such, in a world where cultural/societal norms prevail in different areas and nations, any notion of ethics that I as a scientist apply to a given situation boil down to nothing more than my opinion...and opinions are not supported by data. I depserately wanted to avoid expressing the opinion in my project that because my values are not always the same as the values held by starving settlers on the rainforest frontier, then I cannot say that my proposed solutions to the problems at hand are the "morally right" ones. It feels like a trivial point, but it is still an irritating one.
I also had an exam on plant biotechnology, which was just awful. I concentrated my revision on an area which I was certain would be prevelant, and it just didn't come up. I doubt I've got a mark higher than the 50% bracket for that whole module.
Still, life outside of exams isn't doing too badly at all. The other week I went to visit morticutorand household down in London, which was immense fun. Went shopping in Camden town and got an awesome new coat (£400 downt to £95, sadly only because the shop was closing down) visited the British and Natural History museums, ate good food and generally had a good time.
The Carlisle Masquerade LARP game is going swimmingly. Major upheavals are due next session, so I'm eager to see how the PCs handle it. No doubt it will be disastrous. Requiem LARP in the North East continues to be very enjoyable as well. Tomorrow night is the Durham game, a city notable for its many demons (speaking of which, the latest White Wolf release, WoD: Inferno, is the best thing they have published in a loooong time).
Much to my joy, I've also been running Unhallowed Metropolis with semi-regularity over the winter holidays. It's been great fun, though that game now has the highest character turnover of any game I've ever ran. And I love it.
Okay, that will have to suffice for now. Today's music video is Bela Lugosi's Dead, by Bauhaus. All 7 minutes of it.
Jan. 26th, 2009 @ 09:50 am
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| » New Year begins... |
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Well, I think it's fair to say that over the holiday period I damn near ate myself to death. Much exercise will have to be in store for the next few weeks. Christmas and New Year didn;t go badly at all, it was nice to see morticutor</lj> back in Carlisle and the family gathering in Sunderland wasn't a disaster in the slightest, despite my fears.
So what now? The search has officially begun for MSc and PhD positions to begin in September. Obviously I can only take up one of the many places I'm applying for, but for now there's no harm in writing to as many institutions as I can find in hopes of being accepted. While I still want to graduate my BSc with a 1st, I'm set on getting nothing less than a 2:1 whatever the cost. My only conflict is whether I really do want to do a masters course come September. The dilemma is thus: if I begin a PhD I know that I sure as hell do not want to do it in this country. I want to work in South America, or Africa, or Australia, definitely in a tropical climate and ideally with crocodilians, which after working with them last summer are pretty much my favourite group of organisms. And if this guy can do what I want to with my life, then I'm pretty sure I can.
But before that, I have a trip to London coming up on Monday which will last until the following Friday. I haven't been to the nation's capital in over fourteen years now, so it will be nice to go and see what is new and what hasn't changed. Not to mention a chance to catch up with the morticutor household and their misadventures.
Speaking of misadventures, my life in Roleplaying has been interesting of late. I hadn't done any tabletop RP for a few months when I decided to start running Unhallowed Metropolis again over the hols. I had been storing up inspiration for a while, so it was exciting to once again be storytelling my beloved neo-Victorian horror fest. What happens? Two sessions in and two of the three central characters are no longer playable. All three have gone their seperate ways after being forced on the run by the police, and of those, one is going the route of the insane reanimator building an undead army for the sake of vengeance, the second is disappearing from society and assuming yet another alias while trying to overcome his newly-acquired state of delerium, and the third is hiding out and building a new identity for himself while trying to rein in his burgeoning spiritual corruption. The third one is th only one who will be continuing the chronicle as a player character; the other two are all but certain to show up as NPCs sooner or later, however.
I also decided to try out something new in the form of Cthulhu Tech, which turned out to be a lot of fun for me as a GM. First time with a new setting and new system, so I decided to run an adventure loosely based on the brilliant sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, which seemed just right for a game of spacecraft and Elder Gods.
Carlisle LARP coming up on Sunday...I really need to get the downtimes finished. At least I can write them while watching ITV's new supernatural drama Demons, which looks pretty funky.
Jan. 3rd, 2009 @ 04:22 pm
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| » So this is Christmas |
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Well, once again the holiday season has begun to roll around. the Christmas markets in Newcastle are up and running this week, and all the shops are playing that god-awful music that they play at this time of year. The weather is cold but bright, and all the shops are having their sales a month early because thanks to the credit crunch nobody wants to buy anything! The other benefit of this time of year is that by this point nearly all of my university project deadlines have passed. I still need to email in my bioethics project (we were given a week's extension on that one, much to my annoyance after working my arse off to get it finished) and the dissertation casts its ever-present shadow, but all in all things are going quite well. My Marine Biology presentation on Monday went as well as I could have hoped it to, and I reckon I'll have scored pretty highly on that. All my Investigative Biology stuff has been handed in, and I'm personally glad to have nothing more to do with it; its not that it was particularly tedious or difficult (cos it really wasn't), it's merely that with all the other stuff going on, IB seemed like an irritating thorn in the side that needed to be removed. Anf fortunately, for this semester it has been.
Newcastle LARP was a blast last night, though it left me with the feeling that I really shouldn't invest so much emotional energy in my character - by the end I was completely burned out and starting to get annoyed with people. The game itself was awesome though; the Prince of the city became possessed and as a result my character attempted to stake him - and actually freakin' succeeded. I was very pleased, though what happens from there is anyone's guess.
But in the wider scale of things at this time of year, who am I really to complain? Christmas is certainly my favourite Pagan festival, and I'm looking forward to another few weeks of shamelessly eating like a pig and watching DVDs while the weather outside does its level best to freeze everyone to death.
Happy holidays, people!
Dec. 10th, 2008 @ 01:22 pm
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| » Snowed Under |
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So, seems like much of the country has just been hit by heavy snow, and here in the North East it's no exception. Fun stuff I have to say; I do enjoy snow and despite my general dislike of being cold it's kinda fun to actually have a winter that feels like a proper winter. Of course, it meant I was covered in the stuff by the time I finally walked into uni two hours ago. Thank technology for providing me with my extremely warm cashmere/wool trenchcoat, which has yet to let me down.
Christmas shopping is almost done now, with only three people left to buy for. I know what two of those gifts are going to be, still working on the third...meh, I'm sure I'll come up with something. On the other hand, work has only slightly abated. Plant Biotech project is nearing completion, and on Monday I'll be putting together the final presentation along with the rest of my group. I think we finally have all angles covered, from the transgenes to be inserted, to the plasmid vector being used, to the insertion method (rapid bombardment of cell culture with gold microparticles) to the final expected result and why we think it will work. Of course it's all hypothetical at this point (the idea of the assignment is that it prepares us for having to make presentations to grant committees), but when all's said and done bioluminescent plants are the sort of crazy, useless thing that would probably sell very well if someone went ahead and started manufacturing them.
Marine Biology presentation is done, and I'm just waiting now to actually present it.
Bioethics poster needs ammending today. That's perfectly doable.
Need to write three more feedbacks for Investigative Biology project. I hate giving feedback; the temptation to be a harsh bastard is right there, but on the other hand I know how I would want an assessor to mark my own work and I can't help but wonder if that's being too kind. Marking other peoples' work requires a very subjective judgement on fairness, and I'm not sure if my judgement is appropriate. I suppose really that it doesn't matter too much - the other members of my group are never going to find out how I rated their work - but when all's said and done I still like to think I did a decent, professional job of it. Seriously, give me a nice 6000-word essay over a group project any day. But then, if I'm going into a career in wildlife conservation then I guess I should get used to this crap.
Middlesbrough Requiem LARP on Tuesday night was a barrel of laughs. Since Duncan wasn't giving lifts this week the three of us that were heading down there from Newcastle had to get the trains there and back. The train there wasn't any issue at all, but the return journey involved a 25-minute wait in freezing Hartlepool station. At least it presented plenty of time to plot and scheme with my fellow players, which is the bread and butter of a vampire game. Myself and one other player have come up with a simple yet brilliant line of personal plot to implement over the next few months which is likely to screw both our characters over in the long term; a pity because it seems we work together with a scary degree of efficiency.
Anyway, I should probably get on and do some work, so here's a snow-filled music video of Nightwish's wonderfully angsty Nemo:
Dec. 4th, 2008 @ 10:55 am
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| » So there really is a flying car... |
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This looks kind of shiny. Grossly impractical if you're not a multimillionaire, but still pretty cool.
Nov. 30th, 2008 @ 08:48 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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Yesterday I got my Investigative Biology project handed in. I know it wasn't as good as it could have been; what worries me more is that I seem to be the only one in my group (yeah, it was a group project) who actually had trouble not going over the word limit. The project writeup had an upper limit of 2000 words, and that just feels like nothin to me. every time I hit a word limit I feel like I can't possibly have gotten enough information in there to earn all the marks.
That, and I know that my annotations of my sources were pretty shite. But then, we haven't ever been shown how to question the findings of an academic paper in anything close to a scientifically literate way. It more or less boiled down to highlighting sections and writing inane little observations.
Then there's my Bioethics poster, which I'm due to receivie feedback on this week. So far we've only been asked to submit a draft version, but I know I'm going to have to change a lot of things (starting with actually putting some in-text citations in). I also need to use a bit more ethics-specific terminology and maybe choose a couple new references to add.
Plant biotechnology is going at about the same rate. Today we need to get a method written up for the group's hypothetical gene transfer project. At least I've managed to dig up some relevant literature to work from. Couple that with the fact that I need to prepare my powerpoint presentation on mangrove ecology for Marine Biology a week on monday and this is going to be one hell of a busy week. That, and I've done little work on my dissertation since I wrote the first draft of my introduction. Roll on the Christmas holidays...
Nov. 25th, 2008 @ 01:38 pm
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