One Small Step for Womankind!

For the past few weeks I’ve been revising my bottom off so that firstly, I could complete my coursework and it’s amendments before the deadline, and more importantly… revise for my driving theory test! Woo! How cool am I?

I know I’m a bit ‘late’ compared to the rest of my year, because they all went and did theirs as soon as they could so that they could take McDonalds outings during their frees to fill up on chicken mcnuggets (and I am not actually joking), but I don’t mind . Last year I mainly wanted to get Jamboree and exams out of the way before actually starting to drive. (Mainly because I wanted to put it off as I was absolutely terrified.)

But thankfully, I passed! Woop! And so Mam helped me celebrate by getting a Chinese! Nom

So you’d better watch out! Because, soon, I might just be getting to a road near you .

Call Me Doctor. Doctor D.

Yesterday I went to the Mini Medical School Practical Session! Woop!

This ‘Mini-medical school’ was basically an event aimed at students who wanted to do medicine, and I think those who wanted to become nurses also benefited from this. I think it has spanned quite a few weeks with most of it consisting of lectures on Thursday nights.

Why did I go to this? I here you ask.

Well another student dropped out last minute, and I was the only one who had even a little bit of interest in taking her place. So I did. And it was incredibly cool.

There were a few work stations we had a go at and this included; taking blood (which I was quite impressed that I wasn’t squeamish about), delivering babies (where we watched an actual birth ) , anatomy and ultrasound (that was done on my neck, so I can now say I’ve seen my own jugular artery and vein), suturing (which was a little bit like sewing), ear and eye examinations (where I got to see an ACTUAL ear drum ), and life saving techniques, like CPR and first aid.

It was really really interesting, and an awesome way to start my Saturday morning!

Things We Forget: #763

Things We Forget: #763: dempsey hill, singapore

This is something that I've literally just stumbled across and it's really struck me. Maybe I'm just of the sentimental sort but the idea of leaving little inspiring notes to help strangers who come across it, really feels so... emotive to me.

Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle

I’m a bit disappointed that, since the start of this school year, I haven’t had the chance to indulge in the things I really love due to the demands of getting a good education. I mean, you can fine well ignore school and act as if it doesn’t matter, but in the long term it’s going to come back and bite you in the bum. (And that won’t be a pretty sight!)

So I finally realised that school was taking over a little too much and I decided that I needed some ‘me’ time, (Even though that sounds horribly cheesy), and have a go on the old faithful piano - which is the actual love of my life, by the way, and the muse for my title.

This might have been the reason behind why I have suddenly lost the last hour and a half of my life.

Why So Serious?

So tonight is Halloween and since late this afternoon I’ve noticed a few people commenting on how they, “Seriously hate children.” and how Trick or Treat-er’s should, “GET. OFF. MY. DRIVEWAY.” Thankfully not everyone holds these same views, otherwise I’d be driven mental by the hatred of a festivity that doesn’t deserve it. I also remember this happening with Christmas, although to a lower degree.

I don’t understand why these people can’t just accept that this is going to happen and that children in particular, will want to make the most of this festive occasion.

I also wonder whether this line of thinking is a product of a need to rebel against a view held by most of society, or whether it’s just the beliefs they’ve established themselves. Because, from past experience, I know I have rejected a view outright- just to be different. Take ‘High School Musical’ for example. I have never seen it but to everyone who mentioned it I would add that I thought it was ‘rubbish’ and the music ‘terrible’. Just because I felt the need to dislike an idea that the majority of the rest of the female population of that age, loved.

For us, our doorbell hasn’t been heard tonight; just like last year and I find myself thinking that if you don’t want to give them treats, then there’s a perfectly willing house over here.

Our Great British Adventure!

So as the title may suggest, my Dad and I have been on quite a few adventures over the last month. We travelled far and wide in order to scout out possible institutions for my future, and I’m glad that we did, otherwise I still wouldn’t have a clue!

Even though he complained extensively, I’m sure that Dad enjoyed himself especially when we got to go first class, with a free ham croissant and brioche for breakfast! Yum! We even indulged in some high quality Costa coffee and crisps and shortbread biscuits from M&S. Double yum!

Most of all I think I’ve enjoyed visiting the various places that I have never been to before and enjoying home-made sandwiches with my Dad because it’s not often we get to have our own little adventures across the country.

I’ll leave you with a photo of a suspicios looking pigeon with, as Dad said, 'one foot!':

Hyper Little Children

Had Beavers again tonight and I’ve got to admit that they were pretty wound up!

So it started with them playing little games to themselves at the top of the room and we were pretty content just letting them have a little run around to hopefully get it out of their system. But noooooooo! Another leader decided to make them sit at the front in their dams, nicely and quietly.

The night continued as normal and I was surprised that their concentration actually stayed with us for most of it. Then before we sent them home we decided to play a few gamey songs.

Which ended up with us giving them back to their parents as hyper as they came in!

Oh, How Time Flies!

Wow, how quickly did that month go by? Everything has just seemed to have escalated since school started again and I haven’t even had time to think about what I could write all over this pretty page.

But now I’ve made time, just for you. I hope you appreciate it

So, tonight I’m going to be presenting a presentation (hah!) on how me and my team earned our Queens Scout Award, exciting stuff eh? We’ve been working towards it for a good few years (unknowingly for me this means ever since I started Scouts in the first place!). What makes this award even sweeter is the fact that this is the highest award you can achieve in youth scouting. Get in!

For this award, each of us had to complete 12 months worth of a skill and physical activity, and show improvement throughout. For me, this was playing piano and tai chi.

Also for an amount of time that I can’t remember but was still a very long time, we had to do an act of service. For most of the members in my group this was volunteering to help our younger scouts. As well as this we needed to complete what has always been referred to as a ‘Residential’. In saying this, I am showing that I actually have no idea what this bit of it’s called. All I know is that the training towards various events that we have took part in in the past – like the Jamboree, Tall Ships Race and trip to Uganda – counted towards it. Mainly because we had to work together with unfamiliar people over a series of weekends.

The last requirement that we had to complete was a whopping four day, three night hike that spanned about 40 miles. It was quite hard, but oh so worth the effort. The feeling of relief at the end was absolutely amazing! Over the four days we walked from Melrose Abbey to Lindisfarne and it was quite good at the end when we were slowly cut off from the rest of Great Britain.

So that’s really all that we’re covering tonight. But tonight I’m not just writing in the safety of my own bedroom, I’ve got to talk in front of quite important Scout Leaders who probably already know most of this anyways.
At least there’ll be nibbles going around..

NLP–By Steve Bavister and Amanda Vickers

I only got up to chapter three in this book before I had to give up. I was not impressed, I must admit. It was published under the ‘teach yourself’ series and I wonder how anyone can learn from that.


Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP for short) is a very vaguely written book. It somehow manages to write pages upon pages of words without actually telling you what’s going on. Here are two of the claims it makes:

• To help you to know what you want and how to get it
• Put you in the driving seat of your life

Tell me this; how can a book tell YOU what YOU want?! How?!?!? It can give the reader suggestions, but it can’t just blatantly say that, YOU want to be a doctor, YOU want a car, YOU want a job, because it’s a BOOOK!!! And the latter just annoyed and bemused me so much so, that I don’t actually know what to say.

It all sounds far too much like motivational drivel to be deemed as scientific. From what I’ve read, there isn’t even any experimental evidence to back it up!

So, in conclusion, if you really, really, really, really want to read it, then go right ahead.

You may get more out of it than I did.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies – Rhena Branch and Rob Willson

Quite an appropriate name really. This book was incredibly helpful in giving the reader a good basis of understanding of what cognitive behavioural therapy actually is and how it’s used, through starting at the very beginning. It also helps the reader gain a greater understanding of emotional disorders as the authors directs their advice and techniques to the reader specifically, as if they had the disorder themselves.

This is extremely useful as then the book can be read by both those who want knowledge (me) and those who genuinely want self-help.

CBT is basically a technique that help you change the way you think, in order to combat negative thoughts and strengthen positive beliefs. It was also said that it could be read alongside professional counselling in order to deal with anxiety, depression, OCD, anger issues and a good few more.

The thing I found, as a reader with not too much interest in the self help side of things, that was quite interesting was the thought patterns explained behind the different emotional illnesses named above.

For example, depression is normally fuelled by rumination. This is a thought process a depressed person maintains by going over and over thoughts in their head. These may be questioning why they feel so down, or ruminating on the events that got them to this point. Rumination results in a low mood and the low mood results in inactivity and social withdrawal, which contributes to allowing the person time to continue ruminating on their problems instead of getting up and distracting themselves from it.

Either way, CBT offers a way of trying to get out of this process of continuous negative thinking by giving a large dose of common sense (and some very nice worksheets to fill in).

Personally, I would recommend this book to those who need it for self help reasons and those who have a genuine interest in the workings of thinking patterns and these disorders. Everyone else, I think, may struggle to maintain interest as it’s not really relevant to them.

Looking Back A Little..

Back in early March, I remember attending a Student Shadowing activity hosted by Newcastle University. I think they’d devoted a whole week to allowing students our age to have a talk with university students who were half way through their course of choice, and we were also given the opportunity on these days to be shown round the University campus. And of course, I chose Psychology because at this early point in time, I didn’t really know for sure that I wanted to do it, so I thought this would be a good way of seeing what I could be learning in a few years, if I decided to take it.

I’m not sure how many Universities do this for their potential candidates, but I defiantly think it was a good idea. Both for those students around our local area to get a good grasp about what living at university would be like and those who would want to go to Newcastle in particular.
On this day, we got split off into groups. Most of the people in it being people we all didn’t know – which was good as everyone had to start from scratch. I think my group had about six people in it, with one third year student. I really regret not being able to remember her name because she was one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met and she did a really good job of putting everyone in our group at ease.

A campus tour gave us the opportunity to learn which buildings could be used most for our lectures and where the some of the accommodation was. This was probably the first time we’d had the opportunity to really speak with someone who’d been through it all and who new about most of the stuff about university and living away from home. Our tour guide gave some rather humorous stories about how she ended up sharing a flat with a psychopath and a dude who liked to go out, get very drunk, come back with a girl and have very, very loud sex in the room right next door.

I suppose that’s all part of university life..

We also got to sit in on a third year lecture. I think it was entitled Sex and the Brain, or something along that lines. The lecture basically covered how male and female brains differ in their capabilities – like men have better depth perception for example – and the possibilities of what could actually be causing this difference. Some of the possibilities included sex hormones, could these be causing the difference in brain size, does having increased testosterone in the blood effect our capabilities? Also within this point were the skills present over the menstrual cycle, an example of this being that a woman’s capabilities increase and decrease depending on the amount of oestrogen present. I found this lecture absolutely enthralling as it was the first taste I ever had of a proper psychological topic.

Anyways, what made this day even better was the free £4 token we got to use at the ‘Bistro’.. Just because food makes everything better.

In the afternoon, a selection of presentations were also given. Mostly about finance and student living. (I must admit I enjoyed the morning a lot more.) But this was pretty much the day that firmly solidified the idea of Psychology at University for me.

You know you're getting desperate...

...When you apply for a paper round part time job.

Yes readers, I could potentially become a paper boy (or girl since.. you know) and I could be delivering to a house near you!

Lol jokes, probably won't.

Anywho's, this is quite the pinnacle of my desperation to find employment and by connection my own money system, which means that I won't have to rely on the parentals for sustance, which in turn is the first step towards becoming a self reliant individual.

Yey! Independance!!

I'm really hoping for this actually, because it's quite flexible and it won't take up too much time from my schoolwork (which is a really, really, really good thing).

If not, then I'm gonna have to plead to you dear reader:

Please get me a job!!!

BLOG POST: August III

Just in case you were wondering (which you proberbly weren't to be quite honest, but I'd like to imagine you were) here's a troublesome duo who you may find an interest in reading about. Clicky clicky on:

Exhibit numero uno:  http://drunkofftea.blogspot.com/

AND!

Exhibit numbero duo: http://thatreallyawesomeone.blogspot.com/


Have a little look see, and you might just be surprised! :D

HELP! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done - By Oliver Burkeman

I’ve only recently finished this book, and let me tell you, it’s well good!

This book is composed of many different articles on the different aspects of so-called ‘pop’ psychology and Burkeman references a range of different sources within these. Ranging from books to blogs, this gives his writing a good sense of depth, due to both these references and his opinion of them.

His style of writing was very amusing, and I believe he took a good, objective, common sense view to many of the theories displayed. However, the only problem with this being that I am not as well read as he is, so I can’t form my own opinion on the topics he’s talking about. The book is good, also, at directing the reader at other sources of information, because of the vast amount of research referenced in it. I have about 4 pages of notes on books or articles that I might find interesting because of this!

Another good thing about this book is that it’s not a book that’s promising a better life because you’ve read it. It’s not saying, ‘This is how I can change your life in 7 days!!’, It’s saying, ‘This is what this person thinks would change you’re life in 7 days, but I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work’. This gave the book a real down-to-earth feel, without becoming totally pessimistic.
The range of topics he covers, I feel, is also a very good thing as he wasn’t repeating the same information over and over again, which normally ends up in making me feel a bit bored. He covered a topic, then moved onto the next one, and this I found kept my attention for longer.
So for any of you out there who wants a good informative read, have a try of this one.
And you might learn something new

Home Sweet, Wonderful, Home!

So, yeah, the adventure is finally over. Our three weeks away as an odd family of sorts has ended, and now we have all returned to our own parents, brothers, sisters and, best of all, beds.


We had a brilliant time away mind, and I’d love to do it again!


First of all we flew to Copenhagen, in Denmark, to spend two days: exploring the city, meeting other UK contingent members, who were also staying in our hostel, enjoying the all day pass into Tivoli (an actual REAL theme park – not something cheap like we’d been expecting), and enjoying what we thought would be our last normal clean showers, that we had access to from our rooms.

The city of Copenhagen itself was quite different to the streets of Newcastle. For example, everything was so clean! I was quite shocked when I got back by the amount of rubbish and gravel that’s covering our paths as I got so used to seeing none of it when I was away. Second of all, the fact that there was a lane by the side of the car lanes, before the pedestrian path, that was solely dedicated to bikes! Like, how much better would life be for cyclists, if we had one of them here?


Well better, I say!

 

Look at that! ^


Doesn’t he look happy?

I think we were very lucky to have sunshine, whilst in Copenhagen, because otherwise, it would’ve brought everyone down, quite a significant amount. Sunshine also has the added bonus of making all of our pictures look absolutely lush! Take a look at this lake (or it could be a canal..):

 

The main event came right at the end of our stay in Copenhagen, where our lovely UK contingent organisers, organised (ha ha) a MASSIVE party for every UK participant going to the Jamboree. Now, that may not seem like a lot, but there were 4,444 people who were going to be attending, and that makes all the difference! So they used a massive courtyard (that locked – in order to keep shady characters entering where they’re not supposed to) and this massive courtyard led into a MASSIVE warehouse with a stage right at the front. And let me tell you, that was quite amazing!! An environment like that really did give everyone the opportunity to meet people who would also be staying at the jamboree. I met loads, and I really regret not being able to remember names, but there were people from our good ole capital, who claimed that we sounded Scottish (it’s called Geordie, by the way) as well as the Welsh who brought with them an adorable blow up dragon. We met people from Somerset and West Sussex, and some who just had weird hair and we thought we should show our approval. 

I did feel sorry for some of the units because they had to leave quite early in the morning to get on the bus to Sweden, and after that party they would have had one heck of a headache.

For us, however, we were lucky because we left as one of the last, at around 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon the next day. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, to get to Sweden. Mainly because of the fact that I live on an island and the only way to reach a different country is through travelling over the sea, I didn’t realise that it was just a bit of a station in the middle of the road where the bus driver paid some money, and then we were through! I just thought it would be a bit more than that..

Sweden decided to have lovely weather for when we got there; nice and sunny for us lugging our bags a rather long distance to our sub camp and for putting up our (should I say) rather gorgeous tents.

Take a look at these bad boys:

Everyone, bar the English, thought they were absolutely brilliant, we, on the other hand, must certainly did not.


We stayed for about a week and a half at the actual Jamboree site. There was SO much going on that you just couldn’t possibly do everything! First of all, the scheduled activities (that changed every day) started at 10 and finish at 3, so that meant that most of your day was gone all ready. Second of all, ‘random activities’ were happening all across the site, for example, each sub camp had it’s own activity that you could try out. Autumn had a climbing wall, Summer had zorbing on water and Winter had its own ice ring. I think I would’ve enjoyed winter’s activity the most, however I don’t think I would’ve been able to find it!

The Swede’s also had on offer a mini on-site theme park too, and it was called Tivoli. Sound familiar? Oh yeah. We thought that was a tad weird too. Anyways, this theme park, instead of being made out of metal and wires it was pioneered, I should mention, out of wooden logs and rope. It was honestly quite amazing! Me and my boyfriend could hardly resist not having a ride or two on them – just to test their effectiveness, of course!

Have a look at this one:

Quite an impressive feat of pioneering, eh?

As well as the structured activities, many other places were open to experience. By this, I mean the food houses and the country tents on time avenue. The latter being a street where the tents along it (as the name may suggest) contain information given by the different countries, about how scouting works for them. Also in these tents, small activities were available. Some wouldn’t have taken more then 10 minutes but they were fun to try out. Examples of these being, in the English tent, mini-golf was there to play, the Indian tent was giving out free henna’s (which many girls scrambled at the opportunity to get – including myself) and the Irish tent was giving out Irish bracelets and challenges for beads. One of these challenges included ‘making 6 new Irish friends’ which just gave more encouragement to those who wanted to go out and make a few more friends have something to work towards.

The food houses, as I mentioned before, also sold… well.. food, obviously. But they gave you a much wider variety to choose from than the shop did, as the food in the shop was aimed towards making meals rather than tasting different food cultures. Quite a few countries had their own little restaurants and cafes, but by far my favourite was the Swedish cafe which sold THE MOST delicious tasting cinnamon roles ever! A close competitor for this title was the Hungarian food house which sold THE BIGGEST PIECE of candy floss, I have ever seen. It was so big that it was actually bigger than my head! (And my head is pretty big mind!)

 

There was also the tower that I got quite a lot of lovely views from:

And that ^ was only a third, maybe a forth, at the most, of the entire Jamboree site.

One of the days I most enjoyed was the Culture Day, this was when camps were advised and encouraged to dress in traditional clothing of their countries and set up stalls outside their camp gates in order to let others taste the food they eat in their country. I really enjoyed this day because I like food, and I like food quite a bit, and having the opportunity to just walk down the road and talk to the different countries about what makes their food so them isn’t an experience I’ve had before, and I doubt I will ever again. With this food feast came cultural dress, our unit dressed up as the coal miners and coal miners wives of the ‘olden days’ (what we used to call it when we were young). The girls from our unit, also had the chance to go and try on some kimono’s from a Japanese unit that our leader had kept in touch with a few months beforehand. They were really beautiful, I’m really glad I got the opportunity to wear an actual real one!

I’m pretty sure I haven’t covered everything that happened at the Jamboree, because there’s just so much to write about! What I am also sure of is that when I do remember something, I’ll post about it. Just for you of course.

After the official Jamboree in Sweden, our unit also had the chance to go to home hospitality in the Czech Republic. This was where we would go to stay with some of the locals, either in a home or a scout hut or even a hostel. One patrol of ours (ten people) already knew where they were going, this was because their Czechs had gotten in touch with them early on in order to tell about the rather specific happenings which would be occuring over the camp that they would be attending. For example, the fact that it was Sherlock Holmes themed, that they would be living in tepee's and that there would be no running water available. The rest of the thirty of us, however, were still quite clueless until we reached the actual place we were staying. This, thankfully, was a scout hut, and we were staying with around eight Czech scouts and two leaders.

Over the next five days, they took us everywhere! (Which mainly involved a lot of hiking!) To the nearest town with a shop, the lake and the national park, which I must stop and just say: wow. It was absolutely lush! 

Take a look!

How beautiful is that?

I’ve defiantly never seen that before in England…

We also had a tour around the local landscape by a park ranger, and he told and showed us about how the plate tectonics had moved and shifted to create the environment seen there today. It really was quite definite. I took a few photos, but they don’t seem to show the depth that was present in reality, which is quite a shame.

Another thing about the Czech Republic, that everyone took advantage of, was the cheapness in comparison to our English pounds. So I have no doubt that many of the unit may be going back there solely for that reason alone!

On our last day we were taken on a 15km hike, to a town called Varnsdorf. The town where our Czech friends come from. This too was also a very pretty place. Here, we had three hours of spare time to shop and explore, which is really where the ‘cheapness’ comes into it, and everyone bee-lined it to the nearest supermarket to fill up on lot’s and lots of nice, tasty, foreign sweeties and chocolates. Including myself of course.

After this they showed us their local churches, school and brewery before we headed back to there scout hut for some much needed rest and potato soup before the long journey back home.

Bring it on!!

Can’t believe it’s almost the end of the school year!

Only three and a half days left and I can’t wait for the summer!!

I also can’t believe how quickly year 12 has flown by, it seems like only a week ago we were choosing what we wanted to do for the next two years and getting our GCSE’s results. It seems so unreal! The arrival of the summer also means that we’re getting closer to our bit holiday to Sweden XD and after that is the AS level exam results XD absolutely terrified. I hope I’ve done well.

Sooooooo…

Bring on the summer!

‘Old chemists never die, they just stop reacting’ XD

It was well cool on Wednesday because our chemistry class got the opportunity to take the day off school and go to Newcastle University for a day of chemistry! Woo!

It was really good actually, even though I’m not a chemistry fanatic, I still found it quite interesting.
In the lectures, we we’re reminded of the ways chemists identify substances (IR and spectroscopy for example) and well as taught vaguely about NMR, which we will need to know about for next year. So that was quite helpful, as normally, the lectures that you attend at university either don’t really apply to what you need to know now or in the near future, or don’t apply at all. So it was incredibly useful to get a bit of a head start. After this we got the opportunity to put it into practice in a tutorial session.

Another lecture that was presented, identified the ways in which a degree in chemistry could lead you to bigger and better things in the future. This was also quite interesting as, even though chemistry is not my preferred choice of degree, I never knew what could actually be done with a chemistry degree. Even though, if you think about it, of course there’s going to be a lot of job opportunities for them, just no one ever thinks about the people behind the scenes of safe paint making and other such things.

What was also good about this was that we also got the opportunity to test out the fancy fancy lab equipment when we performed an undergraduate practical . So we got to use concentrated acid (woop!), working fume cupboards (woop!), and lot’s of other equipment that we wouldn’t have had the chance to use in school, as well as the techniques to actually use them properly.

So we made an ester by adding a carboxylic acid to an alcohol, in the presence of a concentrated acid (I think it was sulphuric) and purified it via adding an ether and shaking it a bit (can’t remember the technical word for it) and distilling it off. At the end we got to print of an actual IR of the ester we made ourselves! So that was quite fun.

During the whole process of making it, a pear-y solvent-y smell started to creep up on everyone, and it made it just a little harder to think. So a word of advice to finish: don’t try and sniff it.

Countdown!

In about a week and five days, I am going on a very exciting adventure.

It may seem like a little holiday, but 40 of us from Northumberland have been saving our little pennies since January of 2010 because we’re going to SWEDEN!!! YEY!!

It’s been so long, and took so much hard work that I can’t actually believe it’s nearly here! After countless bag pack’s (thank you to all who donated) and race nights and card selling and band gig’s, it’s all paid off!
As well as going to Sweden for the main event, we’re also stopping off at Copenhagen on the way for a MAHOOSIVE party in a MAHOOSIVE warehouse somewhere on the edge on the city and Home Hospitality for a week in the Czech Republic where we’ll be either staying with a family (in pairs) or in a scout hut.

Either way, everything going on while we’re away will be a once in a lifetime experience and I intend to savour it to the best of my ability. I think I’m very lucky to have this opportunity as well as to be able to spend it with two of the most important people in my life.

I can’t actually wait!

Just to leave you with an extract from my diary; written on the 19th Jan 2010:

Poo-ta da pasta into-da pan-a!

What is it that makes an accent appealing?

I thinking about this the other day right, when my dad was trying to teach me how to speak with an Italian accent (it didn’t work by the way). And it got me thinking about which accents people prefer to listen to, and for what reasons.

Thinking of accents also reminded me of a question I found floating around on Bookface a few weeks ago and it asked “What is the most attractive accent on the opposite sex?” I can’t remember the results from that particular question, but it got me wondering: do men and women prefer different accents?

Does it even matter to some people?

Is it the actual accent itself that’s seen as attractive? Or the society in which the accent originates from or even the preconceptions people have about that society?

I might have to research this

Just a little bit of book cruelty going on here, no worries!

Anyone else noticed how cruelly psychology is treated at the local library?

Probably not, but I have.

Yes, I am that sad. Just accept it.

Because the thing is, is that I can’t take it as a lesson so I have to read about it on the net (which is quite unreliable if you don’t know what to look for) or in a book. So, I went down there yesterday to have a little look-see and found that it had to share it’s shelves with IT help books. Reason number one for why I was not impressed.

Reason number two was that there were quite a few philosophical and religious books that had smuggled their way in too. When their own shelf was right next to it! They aren’t really ‘psychology’ are they? Some could class these two as similar, but philosophy is not the same as psychology! They are not the same subject!! So why are they on the same bloody shelf!!!

And of the few left, most were self help books so I was left to sift through these to find the decent ones. I think I managed to nab one that looked useful and wasn’t a whacking great big textbook.

Yey!

Just can’t wait to get on the road again!

So what do people normally do to occupy themselves during long journeys in the car?

Many different people have different methods, I suppose..

There’s my mam for one, who doesn’t do anything. At all. It’s really quite strange to me because she’s not even talking to keep herself occupied for the however many hours it takes to travel to our destination. How does she cope?? I just don’t get it.

I also don’t get how my dad can drive for so long either. Say we’re going on a four hour trip down south, we only have one or two stops along the way. What I want to know is, how does he maintain his concentration for so long? I don’t think I could do that, especially without music on in the background.

And then I’ve got a friend who likes to sleep journeys away. As soon as the bus (it’s always normally a bus, or a mini bus) gets going, she just pops her earphones in, rests her head on the window (and occasionally my shoulder) and falls asleep. Like, properly dead asleep. Every. Single. Time. It’s a rarity if she stays awake.

Myself, I don’t normally go to sleep on journey’s there, however I do sometimes have a little nap on the way back, depending on how tired the trip has made me. My normal method of occupation is music. I stick them earphones in and you won’t hear from me for a good two hours down the road. After that’s become uninteresting, dad is normally asked to turn the music in the car up so that I can try to arrange a sing-a-long of sorts that ends when my brother starts to complain about the noise.

I just think it’s quite interesting how different people cope with boredom. What factors of a persons personality effects what activities they do to keep them occupied? Would having an extrovert personality mean that they needed more stimulation, or less?

Just a thought

Teacher training my arse!!

So, yeah. School decided that they were going to give us the day off to complete some incredibly important 'teacher training' stuff at school.

Excuse me, but if you'd seen and heard the amount of bloody racket coming from them right now, you'd be well shocked too!

How do I know this? Because my sun room looks onto this patch of grass located directly next to my schools staff room and I can see with my own two working eyes, school staff having a game of balls (or whatever its called - old men like to play it.)

But I'm not complaining about the day off ;)

Ja x

All in fair in health and social care

The subject of Health and Social Care is a much more interesting subject than most people give it credit for. Especially when taken as a double lesson. So that means not one lot of H&S lesson, but twice as much :) which is fine by me.

After never taking it at GCSE, I didn't really know what to expect as it doesn't really focus on a specific area of work, like Maths or French does. It incorporates quite a few areas of health in general. For example, some of the units we took this year included nutrition and dietetics, which was hugely insightful in terms of what is actually IN our food because, speaking from my point of view, I never really think about what is in the food I eat, as long as it's tasty. :D

Another thing I quite like about health and social care is that it blends into other subjects, like biology and psychology. Biology through the biological molecules mentioned in the unit above, as well as with a unit involving Common Diseases and Disorders and Psychology through a unit called Child Development. This is appealing to me as Psychology wasn't offered at A level, and I will grab at any information I can about it.

I am also looking forward to one of next years topics, which I think we'll be starting in January and it's called the factors and Theories of Human Development. So this should hopefully continue from where Child Development ended. I know it sounds sad, but I genuinely can't wait :D

Ja x

Darn those cute little Beavers

For the past year, maybe year and a half I've been helping out at the Beaver's, with Scouts.
So this includes, mainly boys and a few girls aged between their late 5's up to 8. At first I thought they were so adorable! And I still do really. It's just that, once you get over the cuteness, and after never worked with children before, you start to notice the differences between you and them. For example, the fact that no matter how many times you ask them, they will never sit still, or how if you are lax in their attention only for a moment, their attention will be occupied elsewhere. These differences are not so huge that you can't have a conversation with them, as the things they pop out with are sometimes surprising and occasionally quite brilliant.

Working with children and having the huge responsibility to keep them occupied is more of a difficult task than first imagined, becuase you can't make the activities too difficult or complicated. What may not seem so difficult to you may be hard to understand to them. So every thing needs to be explianed simply and clearly in a way that they understand. This doesn't mean dumbing down words as if they were toddlers, it means simplifying concepts and completing an activity step by step so that those who find learning difficult, are able to still keep up and not feel discouraged.

The insights gathered through working with children of all ages are quite amazing, the transitions of the way children behave and develop as they grow through each section of scouts are incredibly fascinating.
As well as providing me with first hand experience in the development of children, this work has allowed me a, what I feel is a, greater boost at school. In both coursework and exam units in Health and Social Care.

Which I'll talk about later

Ja x

And this is only the beginning!

Well for a first time attempt, this seems to be going well.. Layout is somewhat sorted and I shall be having a twiddled with the buttons later tonight.

Anyway, this blog was created in the hope that I could document most of the experiences that will be appearing throughout my life in the coming years and how they've shaped me into the person I am or will be in the future. 'Twill mostly be a combination of my own opinions and stories that I feel like telling to the strangers that happen across this.. whatever it is.

The content of which will be whatever I want it to be, which is a freedom I've never really experienced before. So this should be enjoyable :D

More shall be coming soon, but I hope this was a good enough introduction.