Another week has come and gone, and here I am, writing this out once more. To say this last week was uneventful would be a lie, but to say it was eventful would be pushing at the boundaries a little bit. Let's get started on the first day of my week - Monday.
Expedition Planning and Skills was a little more focused at us as people rather than learning anything new. Our lecturer wanted to find out what kind of things we as people would like to do on any expeditions in future. For me, as those of you you know me will know, this is pretty much anything where an animal will be that I can film, regardless of what I have to go through to find it. But next week should be better as we'll be having a day out to learn navigation.
There were no hares this time, but what can you do.
Biodiversity on Tuesday wasn't particularly fun - but that was probably because it was a nice day right up until the point where we went outside to look at the different species of tree around the campus and I had no waterproof. But, I reasoned to myself that I was probably going to have to go through much worse than this to film things in future so I bore it without complaint. Other than this it was quite an interesting lecture, and I now know a good deal more about broadleaf trees than before. I could probably pick out oak, holly, silver birch and horse chestnut before that lesson, but now I could show you ash, rowan, beech, hornbeam, sweet chestnut, elm, lime sycamore, maple and hawthorn. And I'm still learning more. Conifers next week.
Wednesday was a bit lame. I went into Penrith on my bike to search for a DVD shop, as Walk on the Wild Side had come out on Monday. I explored the whole town and found only one - Blockbuster - and it didn't have it. Then I went to Morrisons and bought so much stuff that it didn't fit in the bags I had brought. This meant I had to leave it open and hope that the stuff in it didn't spill out.
It did. I lost the carton of milk, as it split all over the pavement. 4 pints of it lost. And since I was almost all the way back I really couldn't be bothered to turn around.
Oh well. At least I had some chocolate Frijis.
Thursday was a busy day. The Media practical in the morning was greatm because we were finally able to get outside and take pictures of random stuff to allow us to get used to the ISO function (just don't ask me what that means.) I got ahead of the game by photographing a pigeon, while everyone else did trees. I also photographed a fire hazard sign and a toilet.
On Friday I went back to Morrisons and bought more milk, as well as some cakes.
Saturday was a great day, because at 12:30 we went to a place called Martindale to look for rutting red deer. It was a little disappointing in that we didn't actually see any male deer smashing their heads together, but this was made up for by the sheer number of deer we saw on the day. There were three seperate herds within half a mile of each other. One had fifteen deer, one had twenty and one had forty deer. I got some great videos of them all trotting across the hills.
And I got back in time to watch Merlin. Hooray!
Today had been rather dull in the grand scheme of things. I was woken up by a groaning pipe at seven-thirty in the morning. The pipe continued to groan, loudly, for half and hour before it packed it in. My other doormates were too far gone to hear it. I blame the alcohol they consumed the night before. And then I cleaned the fish tank. Kurt and Pikachu are doing rather well, although we have to stop one of our dorm-mates dropping Frustration pieces and conkers in the tank.
And that's about it really. See you all. I hope you're all having a good time.
ML, signing off.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Sunday, 3 October 2010
UOC Week 2 - The intro bit
A new week, and I was raring to go and couldn’t wait to get started on my modules – which is something I’m fairly sure I’d never be thinking while still at Trent.
But hold your horses, Matt.
After a relatively peaceful Monday morning of no work whatsoever, I went to my very first university lecture that was actually part of a module. And the module was “Expedition Planning and Skills.” I was all for this one, because it’s no good to know how to film all this stuff without knowing how to organise the trip or get to the area you need or survive the wilderness. And indeed, it does look like we’ll be doing these things in the not too distant future. We get to plan a specific over the course of the next two years that we will actually then go and do close to the end of the second year. How awesome is that? Only problem is, you aren’t allowed to go on your own, so I’ll have to find a bunch of people with similar interests to me.
Fortunately, I have found a good bunch of people on my course. I am particularly becoming friends with Patrick, Paul and another Dan. That’s not to say I’m not friends with all the others. It’s quite a bizarre feeling to be here, because I have yet to meet a single unpleasant person, which is, sadly, more than I can say for Trent, where I picked on for the first five years of my life there.
Monday was possibly my most interesting day, because I saw my first ever Brown Hare outside my window, sniffing curiously at a bike. Naturally I whipped out the camera and got some nice videos of it haring all over the place. And that was not intended to be a pun, but it is an adequate description of what happened.
Tuesday rolled around and after another free morning, I had my first biodiversity lecture (another intro one) and practical, where we split into pairs and tried to use a key (as in the kind with lots of descriptions) to identify three species of plants we were given. I am pleased to say that Patrick and I got all three correct – a bilberry, a bell heather and a ling heather. Nice. I was, however, concerned by the question in the key that said “Is it palatable when chewed?” WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? THE DAMN THING COULD BE TOXIC!!!!
Wednesday – nothing. Laaaaaazzzzzyyyyyyy day.
Thursday – busy. First practice session with a Nixon D90 camera, although we weren’t taking any pictures of animals just yet – just each other so we could get a feel for it and learn what all the buttons did before we broke the thing in the field. Sorry, Conor, but I stole your hand-on-chin pose for the picture of me which is going on the University website. Don’t kill me.
Following this was what was supposed to be an ecology lecture, but it was two more hours on REFERENCING!!!!!!! I HAD ENOUGH OF THAT DURING FRESHER’S WEEK THANKS!!!!!!
Friday rolled around and since I had nothing on then either, and no weekend activities, I decided to pop home for the weekend. This would be quite important, because I’d never travelled such long distances alone before and it was the first time I’d be taking a bike with me. However, everything worked out fine and I cycled to the station, got on the train at Penrith, played Pokemon Platinum all the way to Crewe, got off, ate a panini, got on another train, played Platinum again all the way to Derby and was picked up there.
Then, I had a nice weekend, watched Merlin with everyone else and returned back to uni today.
One other interesting thing that did happen this week, is that my building is now in possession of a pair of goldfish that we keep in a tank in the kitchen. They are two males and we have named the bigger one Kurt and the smaller one Pikachu. And no, Pikachu was not my idea. It was Harry’s, although he pronounced it Pick-achu.
And that’s about it from me, so Matt Leiper, signing off.
But hold your horses, Matt.
After a relatively peaceful Monday morning of no work whatsoever, I went to my very first university lecture that was actually part of a module. And the module was “Expedition Planning and Skills.” I was all for this one, because it’s no good to know how to film all this stuff without knowing how to organise the trip or get to the area you need or survive the wilderness. And indeed, it does look like we’ll be doing these things in the not too distant future. We get to plan a specific over the course of the next two years that we will actually then go and do close to the end of the second year. How awesome is that? Only problem is, you aren’t allowed to go on your own, so I’ll have to find a bunch of people with similar interests to me.
Fortunately, I have found a good bunch of people on my course. I am particularly becoming friends with Patrick, Paul and another Dan. That’s not to say I’m not friends with all the others. It’s quite a bizarre feeling to be here, because I have yet to meet a single unpleasant person, which is, sadly, more than I can say for Trent, where I picked on for the first five years of my life there.
Monday was possibly my most interesting day, because I saw my first ever Brown Hare outside my window, sniffing curiously at a bike. Naturally I whipped out the camera and got some nice videos of it haring all over the place. And that was not intended to be a pun, but it is an adequate description of what happened.
Tuesday rolled around and after another free morning, I had my first biodiversity lecture (another intro one) and practical, where we split into pairs and tried to use a key (as in the kind with lots of descriptions) to identify three species of plants we were given. I am pleased to say that Patrick and I got all three correct – a bilberry, a bell heather and a ling heather. Nice. I was, however, concerned by the question in the key that said “Is it palatable when chewed?” WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? THE DAMN THING COULD BE TOXIC!!!!
Wednesday – nothing. Laaaaaazzzzzyyyyyyy day.
Thursday – busy. First practice session with a Nixon D90 camera, although we weren’t taking any pictures of animals just yet – just each other so we could get a feel for it and learn what all the buttons did before we broke the thing in the field. Sorry, Conor, but I stole your hand-on-chin pose for the picture of me which is going on the University website. Don’t kill me.
Following this was what was supposed to be an ecology lecture, but it was two more hours on REFERENCING!!!!!!! I HAD ENOUGH OF THAT DURING FRESHER’S WEEK THANKS!!!!!!
Friday rolled around and since I had nothing on then either, and no weekend activities, I decided to pop home for the weekend. This would be quite important, because I’d never travelled such long distances alone before and it was the first time I’d be taking a bike with me. However, everything worked out fine and I cycled to the station, got on the train at Penrith, played Pokemon Platinum all the way to Crewe, got off, ate a panini, got on another train, played Platinum again all the way to Derby and was picked up there.
Then, I had a nice weekend, watched Merlin with everyone else and returned back to uni today.
One other interesting thing that did happen this week, is that my building is now in possession of a pair of goldfish that we keep in a tank in the kitchen. They are two males and we have named the bigger one Kurt and the smaller one Pikachu. And no, Pikachu was not my idea. It was Harry’s, although he pronounced it Pick-achu.
And that’s about it from me, so Matt Leiper, signing off.
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