Alex Pettyfer

So if you didn't already know I love Alex Pettyfer. But thats not the point. My friends lent me the sequel to I Am Number Four, called The Power of Six and it was really good! The ending had a cliffhanger, which totally means there's got to be a new book.

I also found this video on Youtube, if you're a Harry Potter fan you will love this (i think). I nearly died of laughter witching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZW_dwd_WJY . Sorry it's so random but everyone needs to see this!
Yeah, so school started, and I'm so tired all day everyday. I don't know if i'll be able to stay up watching Big Brother for much longer, but it's just so funny. Can't wait to watch it tonight!
Peace out!

Chameleon Circuit

I just realised that I have actually met Charlie McDonnell, and I can cross that off my Bucket List. I think this is more exciting than when I actually met him!
He was at a CD signing with his band, Chameleon Circuit, consisting of Alex Day, Ed Blann and Liam Dryden.
It was absolutely amazing to meet him! When we got there though we had the choice of either getting a photo with them or getting a CD, both signed. Me and Emma (a.k.a Physics Friend) were changing our minds constantly, but we decided to get a photo. So I stood next to Charlie :O. It was amazing. I think he's more perfect in real life, don't care how ;). Then we waited for it to be  printed and we met them again to get it signed. Best day ever!
The shop they were in was called The Who Shop, I told my Mum that it was probably Doctor Who related, but my Dad wasn't convinced. Turned out it was! You could get anything there, even Doctor Who postcards.
We'd been waiting in line for about three hours, with a fear of leaving to buy lunch. After we finally got our photos signed we went to this little cafe and had ice cream for lunch. And it was the most amazing ice cream ever, with chocolate chunks and a flake. A great way to end a great day!

The next day I went to the V Festival, it was awesome :). But i'll do a blog about that once I upload my photos...

P.S. My excuse for not posting is that I was on holiday for two weeks and I still haven't gotten over the shock of meeting Charlie... ;).

Reading and Stuff

Guess what i'm reading?
Harry Potter!
I'm finally reading the books, I feel really crazy for not starting before, but I have tried. When I got Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when I was eight, I tried so many times to read it but never got past the first chapter. Now I can kind of proudly say i've finished it and I've started the second book :). The films are very close to the first couple books but there are little extra magic bits in the book that don't happen in the film, like an extra room to reach Voldemort and the Philosopher's Stone and Garden Gnomes in the Weasley's Garden. It's really fun.
I have seen all the films though, I watched the final part of the Deathly Hallows yesterday and it was really good, much better than I thought it would be. For the past four Harry Potter films I've never really understood what has been going on, but I actually enjoyed the last one! That's another reason why I want to read the books, the films are exciting and I'm pretty sure the books will be better and make the films easier to understand...

This is the only book in the series I own,  my Physics buddy
has kindly lent me the next two ;).

So, it's the summer holidays now. I think i'm too tired and worn out to appreciate it but hopefully after a little break I'll be so happy and desperate to never go to school again!
As well as reading the Harry Potter books over the holiday I've got to read some Biology books. I've just finished Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, it was interesting because it went against a lot of stuff that has been in the media, and has revealed shocking stuff about how scientists have manipulated data to get a positive result to support their ideas, when there obviously wasn't. I'm glad to have finally finished it though, it took a lot of concentration, like Bill Brysons book, but I can actually say i've finished this one :). I've got to read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond now, which looks the same size as Bad Science but it's so much heavier, i'm scared to start it!

Kent

Yes, another open day!

I thought after going to four university open days they would start getting a little boring and basically be the same, but Kent was absolutely amazing! The accommodation was the best so far, it was so clean, so modern and there wasn't a bad thing about it. Even the shared bathroom was lovely! I think it was because they built into a little house/cottage so it was more homely and cosy, rather than there just being a large hall with a few rooms. However, the flats were lovely too! And the kitchen was three times bigger than the one at the houses. It may have been because those rooms were more expensive, as they were en suite.

The labs were nice too, they were open and large. But most of them have been to be honest. I didn't really like UEA though, they were more claustrophobic, still big though.

The grounds were amazing too. nothing like a university, more like a village. There was a giant hill (which meant it was always windy :/) that lead to Canterbury and you could see the Cathedral from there. It was lovely. I think its a 10 minute walk down the hill into Canterbury, so that means a 30 minute walk back up. Might have to get the bus, they wouldn't stop saying how it comes every 8-10 mins, I was a little suspicious.

Pretty sure it looked better in real life...

The Biology course here also has a year in industry.  That's the main reason why I wanted to go to Bath but I can go to Kent now! With Kent you have to arrange the work experience yourself, setting up interviews etc., but at Bath they sort it for you. I suppose the experience of applying to get a job is good, but I'd be so worried about not getting a placement :/.

Kent is a campus university so there's shops on site, but there's also a cinema, theatre, nightclub and a job shop. Loads of comedians went there and are going to go there to perform, like Omid Djalili and Dom Joly, who I love! The cinema is apparently cheap for the students too, which is great, but the films come out there about a month after their release so that could be annoying... The Job Shop sounds awesome. They help the students get jobs and have a list of employers who are good and bad to make sure we get a good job. That could come in handy :).

I have to say Kent is now my first choice. It was the first university I seriously considered and definitely the best I've seen so far.

Heartbeat

Yesterday I completely forgot to mention something amazing that I saw at UEA. There was a little demonstration about birds, I think it was about how the heart is so important and how it develops in the embryo, and there were open eggs under the microscopes. There weren't any properly developed birds, just a web of blood vessels and you could see the heart beating! It was absolutely amazing! It was so small but you could see it with out the microscope too. It was like a little miracle for me, I just thought it was to most amazing thing i'd ever seen :).

UEA

Definitely the coolest named university i've been to so far. I wasn't sure about UEA though, it was at the bottom of my list but going today I realised how much better it actually is!

We went to a Biology talk first, and they kept calling the subject Bio, which I thought was cool because I do that, and then after talking about the course they started to talk about the research they've been doing in the university. It was really interesting. First, they talked about a new drug that could be used to cure a type of skin cancer. They did this by incubating loads of Tadpoles, and in separate samples, place each tadpole into a different chemical solution. They found that one type of chemical, leflunomide, which is in a drug for Rheumatoid Arthritis, could help cure melanoma skin cancer. Trials are being carried out now. There was also more research into a chemical called dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP). It's produced by sea creatures, like phytoplankton and other single celled organisms. I think it was a by-product of some reaction. Anyway, someone wanted to know what happened to it and how the sulphur in the DMSP was released back into the environment. They discovered that a certain gene in a bacterium broke down the DMSP into dimethyl sulfide (DMS). This means the sulphur is released which causes the 'seaside smell'. I thought this was pretty cool, I didn't ever think about what made the seaside smell like the seaside, I suppose I just assumed that was what a lot of salty water smelt like. DMS also helps animals find food, as it attracts them towards the creatures that produce it, it also makes clouds which means more sunlight is reflected thus cooling the Earth. DMS is also found in small quantities in Sweetcorn and in larger quantities in Cabbage, which is why cabbage doesn't smell too nice... And another research project was into getting electricity from bacteria! There are some bacteria that undergo anaerobic reactions and they need to get rid of the negative charge from this reaction so they have little 'wires' coming out from their body made from metal complexes. They then release the charge into the rock. Scientists are trying to find a way to harness this energy.

I wish I had some more diagrams or pictures to explain this, because reading is just boring and with pictures you could see what I meant :P. They had some good ones on the presentation but I can't find any on the website...

After the talk we went to the labs. There were nice and really big. They had just been refurbished so they had big screens above each work station. I had a go with a pipette. It was so cool, and the measurements were tiny. I had to put some dye in this little gap on a machine to separate DNA. Even though not all the dye went in the right place, i'd say I did pretty well for my first go ;).

It's so big for such tiny measurements!

Then I ate lunch. We sat in 'The Square' and we watched a band setting up. It was pretty cool, one member had a green mohican and played the trumpet, and someone else played the Saxophone - he was really good! They still hadn't finished by the time we'd finished but we walked past later and they sounded good.

The Square. It looks so nice when it's so sunny.

We wanted to see accommodation next and so we walked over to the buildings but everyone who was entering was in a tour group so we just joined onto a group as they entered. The guy looked at us weirdly though, I don't think he remembered us being there at the start but he didn't say anything... The accommodation was okay, it seemed a little cramped with not a lot of space to put your stuff, but that could have been because the wardrobes were built into the walls, rather than being free standing and looking very big. I liked the shared rooms, I didn't think i'd want to share but they were very spacious and had sort of separated sleeping places for each person so it wouldn't have been too bad. Plus it was much cheaper! The outside of the buildings weren't very attractive, they were just concrete and old looking but some were so close to the Biology labs I would only need ten minutes to wake up and get ready and make it to the labs!

We also went the library. We got lost. Who names floors 2, 1, 0, 01 and 02. We kept going back to the map and the shelves and couldn't find the Biology books! I think I preferred Bath library though, it was so big and friendly.

I still have two more Universities to visit: Kent and Queen Mary's. It's going to be so hard to choose which will be my first choice!

P.s. Last night I had a horrible dream. It was results day and I did so badly! I got an E in ICT which, to be honest, I wasn't that worried about, but I swear I revised for it. Then I got a D in Biology and I was so scared and worried and upset. I need an A :/. And I got a C in Psychology and Maths, which I need B's in. I was so upset, and everyone around me had done so well. I think I spent the rest of my dream crying, until I had to stop the alien invasion... I forgot the dream when I woke up but a few minutes later I suddenly remembered, and I had a wave of all the emotions I had in my dream, as well as relief that my dream hadn't actually happened in real life! Oh, I really don't want results day to come, but I kind of do because I don't want to keep worrying about what I got. I don't recommend dreaming about results!

P.p.s. My last post showed the London Eye with a missing capsule. I think that's capsule No. 13. That explains why it's missing...

Welcome To London

Today I had one of the best days since for ages!
The strikes meant I had a day off school, so me and my friend Sam were planning to see Bridesmaids because three of our other buddies were going on open days. But her art teacher really wanted her to take the opportunity to go to London to take photos for her art coursework. I was kinda disappointed but when I was looking up places to see graffiti and advertising and all the trains we'd have to get I was getting a little excited, so last night I really couldn't wait to go!
Usually when I go to London, or a place further than 3 miles from my house, I rely on other people because they always know the way, and if they don't they will be much more likely to get us home than I will! But today, as only me and Sam were going and we don't know our way around London, I really had to be careful. I took two maps with me! Every time we got a train we were practically jumping with excitement that we were on the right train when we were looking at the next stop in the map, but by the end of the trip we were actually annoyed at the perfection of our train journeys. I am so glad we didn't get lost though, well on the trains. Finding what roads to go down was hard, my map hardly helped at all, but we never asked anyone for help, we were awesome!
First of all we went to Westminster, and my dad was saying that there were three exits to that station so we were pretty lucky to come out at the one where Big Ben was right in front of us. I was surprised at how tall it was, it wasn't that big last time...

After that we walked across Westminster Bridge towards the London Eye, which wasn't actually on my map, probably because it was made in 1995! I'll have to get my dad a new one for his birthday... There was a capsule on it missing, which was kind of creepy, there was the outer shell left so it looked like it had just fallen off at some point on the way round.

Then we walked to the National Theatre where there's a legal spot for graffiti, and skateboarding. I didn't take any pictures of this because I wasn't the one doing the art project. But Sam will have some pictures on her blog at some point which you can check out here. There were a few skateboarders there, and they were so young! They weren't doing any cool tricks though, which was a shame. Then we started to make our way towards Embankment station so we could go to Piccadilly Circus. We saw a few protesters but the group was so small, and none of our teachers were there. We took some photos of the huge advertising wall screen things they have at Piccadilly. They are so cool, like a tiny Times Square.

I actually took this a while ago, I just couldn't be
bothered to get my camera out this time ;).

By this time it was 11.30 (we left for London at 10) and we were incredibly hungry! We wanted to find a McDonald's but had no idea where to go so we just started walking down a random road and we found it! It was just perfectly sitting there looking perfect - I was really really hungry. The girl that served us was amazing, she was so happy and friendly, if we were having a bad day she would have totally cheered us up. She wouldn't take Sam's 'No' to the sauce as an answer, it was so funny :). After our delicious meal we walked to Hamley's, I'd forgotten how big that was too! There were so many toys and we tried out the head massager and it was the weirdest feeling ever, I don't think it could be called relaxing... Then we went to the sweets and there were so many jelly bean flavours! It was awesome.

Then we tried to find Oxford street, finally we did, Regent Street was long. I hadn't been Oxford Street before, it was pretty amazing, so big and so many stores. I suppose it's like a normal High Street but about 3 times bigger and with more take away stands and phone shops than anywhere! We didn't go shopping, we were just repeating the names of the stores that kept appearing, like H&M and GAP. Oxford Street was so much longer than Regent Street so we were walking it for ages! And there were so many roads to cross. London has the worst roads, they are so confusing and the green man definitely doesn't last long enough! We just copied the crowds. Finally we reached the end and found the Jelly Baby statue, which was strangely placed near a giant horses head, which looks nothing like a horses head unless you see it from the side.

Cute right?

We decided we needed a break so went to the local McDonald's for a McFlurry. And then I asked for a chocolate milk, instead of a dairy milk McFlurry. I'm just too funny... So we ate our McFlurrys next to the giant horses head, where others were sleeping or eating McDonald's like us :). It was a bit cold though, I was starting to believe the shorts might not have been a good idea. We started to see some people we knew around, which we thought was weird because we just commented that we hadn't seen anyone yet. We went to Hyde Park out of interest because we'd finished our to do list for the day and we noticed that there was something going on, like a  music festival thing, which is where we think the people we knew were going. We walked around a bit and found some awesome deck chairs, which Sam was convinced we had to pay to sit on, and sat on them. They were so relaxing, but incredibly hard to get out of! 

We wanted to find the lake in the park but it was so big we decided to go to Tower Bridge, which I confused with London Bridge so we got off at the station and had to walk far. But we did get some photos :)

Then we walked back to the station and decided we would walk up St. Paul's Cathedral, we felt like being crazy. When we got there though it was so expensive to get in. Well maybe not that expensive but for us it was :P so we went to Starbucks, where I got an awesome Chocolate Cream and we sat in the sun to get a tan ;) definitely didn't regret the shorts here. We were the coolest looking people there! Not even kidding!

We went home after this, after eventually finding the right road, and we were so tired we nearly collapsed onto every train. We kinda got lost at Liverpool Street but we decided to get the Circle Line to find a station we actually knew. Then we got the c2c home and almost fell asleep :P.
It really was a great day, I definitely want to do it again. It was nice having the freedom to explore London without a proper plan for the day. So exciting and spontaneous :). I just love London. I might have to rethink where I want to go University!