Hello there! It's Halloween coming and I've just finished my half term visit to family. While we were there, we went key jumping (for those people who don't know, it's quite literally jumping about 2 metres, maybe less, into the sea). We've been there before, years ago, but I have always chickened out jumping off. It sort of felt only right that I returned now to jump off and it feels great to have done it now. It actually wasn't that scary although when I was in mid jump the first time I was thinking "heck, there's not going back now". It wasn't that high, but hitting the water did hurt quite a bit if you didn't hit it right! Here are some photos from the day: (All photos taken by my uncle with a phone, so the quality isn't great.) First jump of the day, let's go! Cheered on by some friendly passers by and trying not to hit my sister (Emma) as I'm jumping. Just climbing out, the ladder was more scary than the jump. What a lovely view, wishing I lived in one of those houses. #notsponsoredbyoneill Warming up before the next jump. It was freezing ok! But so worth it. Ayeeeee into the water we go. Emma: Ok, three, two
- I jump - Emma: WAIT FOR ME! Many jumps later, it was time to go and have a shower and now I'm writing this blog, getting ready for school tomorrow. Ah, damn life, back to the daily grind. :D
0 Comments
Story time! I had a lovely experience at climbing last night. So recently, I’ve been trying to climb using a harder set of holds, not because the previous set were too easy (there are still many I am unable to complete) but because I wanted to challenge myself even more. So, for the last 3/4 climbing session I’ve been climbing “purple” (where I climb, white is the easiest, then green and then purple). I haven’t completed many yet. I just started climbing another purple. It was a weird one, you had to put your foot up REALLY high on the wall to start, but I managed to (somehow) get to the one that was one off the top. Now, it was a massive swing up to the last hold. (Bare in mind this is written in my perspective and anyone that is actually good a climbing would find this easy.) I had one foot on a hold, one hand on another, and I had to pull up about a metre to the last hold. I kept trying and touching it with my finger tips, but not grabbing it. I keep trying and my sister (who was climbing next to me) says “I don’t want to scare you but there are a crowd of people watching”. So I, of course, look around and what seemed like a lot (but was probably no more than ten) people below watching me climb! This is quite normal for the climbing wall because you climb a bit, chat a bit and watch other people climb a bit, but it had never happened to me before. I think they were watching because they were all being really lovely and cheering me on - but I was sort of shaking in embarrassment. I kept trying, and failing, but I knew I had to do it with that many people watching me. So then this coach dude comes over and tells me that I need to put my foot in a different place to help me pull up (bare in mind I am currently about 3 metres in the air with no harness or anything). I am so grateful to him because after taking his advice (and a couple more tries) I got to the top! It was just such a great thing for those people to do because I would have definitely given up if it wasn’t for them. I was still shaken for embarrassment afterwards though! I’m not sure why it happened (because many people struggle with holds but not every time do people gather around) but I’m so happy that it did. I'm glad I finished the climb and I’m glad that people made sure I got to the top even though I’ve never spoken to them and probably never will! (Old photo of me climbing months ago.)
Currently, I am studying French. It’s hard finding (free) ways of learning this languages online, because I’m not going to pay money for it! I’m currently using three main websites to help me learn. These three ways really work for me and my style of learning. However, I don’t think that these will work for everyone are everyone learns differently. Just for reference, I normally like to be able to hear things and say things to help remember them. I also like keep testing myself until I get it right as that’s, personally, the best way for it to embed into my brain. Ok so here are the three websites (click on the image to visit the website, it will open in a new tab) Yes, the first one is good old bitesize. This is good for the basics as well as simple explanations for grammar rules. There are also some videos that really help you with your listening. I love duo lingo because you can get it on your phone and it’s a really nice interface. It’s also not timed (unlike memrise) and is a testing app. The one thing that I don’t like though, is that on your phone app you don’t get explanations for grammar rules. This makes them almost impossible to learn. But the grammar explanations tend to be really good! Also, it has a speaking tool which is great as it means you actually speak the language. I love memrise quite a lot as it works well for me. There are a lot of languages on there which is awesome! It uses really nice audio which really helps me learn. I like the steps it takes you to learning words and the phrases. However, I’m not so keen on the way that it’s timed because that really stressed me. But I think that it will be good exam practice for the future to have that time limit - it’s just not good when you aren’t taking an exam!
Saturday was a very exciting day for me and my friend and I went up to London to see new Scientist Live. It's basically a massive Science event where we just get to listen to various lectures and then look around some "stalls". So Siân came to my house and off we went to the train station to get on the train to London. After a long train journey, 2 tube lines and a shorter train journey, we arrived at the centre. We went straight away to our first lecture which was on life in the deepest parts of the ocean. (All of the photos are screenshotted from my story because I forgot to take any of my own) We learned some really cool stuff about the ocean. Mostly that life in the deepest ocean isn't actually that weird. Most of the fish look the same as "normal" fish apart from the fact they are 100% cuter. There were a lot of fish murder videos though. The next lecture we had was on black holes. It was interesting to see how the data was collected but I must admit I got very bored in this one - sorry! It was time for lunch which wasn't a great affair. I lined up at the River cottage place for ages and then when I got to the front, they announced that they'd run out of veggie food. So I had to settle with an "ok" salad instead. Their cake was good though! We wanted to go to a lecture on memories but we were doing this scanner thing instead where you could see the artery valves beating and so, by the time we turned up, it was impossible to get in. Instead we did an engineering lecture and I hate engineering. I was actually very surprised. It was really good and was talking about the way that cities could repair themselves. It turns out that the roads aren't actually solid which is crazy. Also, there are these bugs that are placed in walls and when a crack comes they eat their way out by pooping! Then they die, poor bugs. Then we went to a talk on robotics. Personally, I'm not a big fan of robotics but it was still so interesting. We learned about how robotics and humans should work side by side and also had a few live demos. One was a robot doing press ups and let me tell you that they could do it a lot better than me. Also, we saw a robot getting its balance right to go over difficult terrain. I was literally falling asleep in the last lectures but it was finally time to go home. I would highly recommend the New Scientist live and I hope to go next year. It was a great atmosphere and I loved all of the stands and seeing so much cool stuff. Next year, I'd try to have more time to look around the stalls as there was so much to see and not enough time to see it!
|
Hi, I'm Zoe
I'm a teenager and this is my blog. I update it roughly every other day (I'm a lazy teenager, sometimes I'm too busy wasting my life on YouTube or with fan fiction). Archives
January 2018
Categories
All
|