thespaceinvader’s blog

Since I have comments disabled to avoid torrents of spam I’m not sure how to control, if you have any actual comments or questions, you should direct them to the forum thread or dA blog from which you were directed to this post.  If you’re feeling really enthusiastic, you could even mention the place or day code so that I know what you’re talking about.

Day 12/5: Ieper/Ypres
Feeling a bit crappy - stuffy head, sore throat.  Hostel not top-rate - room warm, clammy and smelly.  Towel didn’t dry overnight.  Push-button tap on shower - yick.  Used wash-kit’s built-in mirror, though - not totally useless.  Nice train to Kotrijk.  Crossed track on level crossing.  Realised that should have been photographing station signs - oh well, too late now.  Off to Wipers….
Arrived Ypres 1120 AM - left luggage easy enough and only a short walk to the main square.  Looked around for a cash point (first one at my card - AAAGH! - but nice lady in the bank gave it back - phew - which she’s not really supposed to do.  Should have given up when it was refused the first time…).  Had chips for lunch (yum) and more Bruges choc (double yum) before the tour.  Flanders Battlefields Tours, v. good.  Knowledgeable guide, comfy bus, hit all the spots I wanted.  In Flanders Fields - McRae’s site [[Essex Farm Casualty Clearing Station]].  Langemarck [[German cemetary]].  An odd place - Germans in mass crypts and multiiple in each (flat) headstone.  Gas attacks and Vancouver Corner - nice Canadian memorial.  Tyne Cot - still huge, very moving.  Hill 62 museum & replica trench - a bit downmarket, but good reproduction trench & lots of stereo photos.  Waiting in Markt for Menin Gate ceremony…
Ceremony was good but for the Polish woman who decided it was OK for her to stand in front of the chain and wave her fat arse in Jo’s face.  A helpful passerby helped us get the point across.  In mime.  Platoon of Dutch Army present - one looked like Van Damme.  tHe most worthwhile day of the trip so far.  I’d go so far as to say, 5 days in, the most worthwhile of the whole trip.  Shame not to see the IFF museum, though.  Realised a lot of my memories from my first trip are of the Somme and Vimy Ridge.  Wish we could have done Poeringe and TocH though.  To Brussels!

Day 13/6: Brussels
What a paragon of accessibility, easy navigation and pleasant smells!  It’s pretty, too!  Yeah, right.  You’d think that a Euro Parliament location would have spruced up a touch more.  Nope.  Cobbles EVERYWHERE and not nice flat ones.  Complete lack of decent directions at the station.  And lifts which are public access but only usable for commercial and cleaners.  Only access to metro & tram via escalator.  Which we can do, up and down.  And yet lift to the actual platforms.  WTF!?  Smells of piss (and worse) virtually everywhere.  Horrible to navigate.  virtually no street signs, and ODT officer pointed us to closed and unfindable internet place.  Went to the the Use-It one instead.  Map doesn’t show half the cross-streets are actually frigging STAIRS!  Cooled down a little once travel to Koln & Munchen was sorted.  Had nice dinner in Arcadi.  Found comic museum eventually, after lots and lots of stairs and wrong turns.  It was interesting, though way too warm and a little over-priced.  Lots of Smurfs (Schtroemf) and Tintin.  Decided to go to Mini-Europe and Brussels Parliament next.  Atomium - v. impressive.  huge & shiny.  ZIPLINE!! off the top.  I didn’t.  Bruparc…  V. kitsch.  Absolutely naff.  So crap.  Mini-Europe - a bit of fun.  But not a lot, and not worth anywhere NEAR the 20€ we paid (i think they were being nice to use. Jo got in as a kid, despite us discussing whether she could get away with it within earshot [[of the ticket booth]]).  Strange orange tortoise/dinosaur mascot.  WTF has that to do with the EU?  Good models, but poorly maintained and signed and a bit random.  Where the hell is Bibury?  Fibreglass figures for photos.  Couldn’t get up close with the models.  Overall, nice, but REALLY not worth the money.  We both split our sides giggling as soon as we got out.  Felt a little guilty.  But not much.  Another wonderfully accessible spot.  Wheely entrance only signed from the inaccessible one and is almost a mile away from it.  GAH.  Left a disparaging guest book comment.  Found a decoration matching the one in Buchanan Galleries.  Whistled down the metro to EU parliament.  V. nice, but couldn’t be bothered with it by then.  Found the tourist guide’s car park.  V. good views.  Found Manneken Pis - tiny & vvv. packed.  Booked train to Koln - 13€ each.  A little steepert han expected.  Found a nice place for dinner (Brussels Grill) then back to hotel.  Belgium overall, a bit up and down (literally too.  Bloody cobbles.)  Lots of good & fun stuff, but nothing to really recommend it, apart from Ieper.  Belgium: DONE.

Since I have comments disabled to avoid torrents of spam I’m not sure how to control, if you have any actual comments or questions, you should direct them to the forum thread or dA blog from which you were directed to this post.  If you’re feeling really enthusiastic, you could even mention the place or day code so that I know what you’re talking about.

Day 8 - I/R [Inter-rail] Day 1 - Day 8/1: Travel to Lille
Graham’s [TNS cook] doing Rosbif for the oncoming Fr. [French] hordes.  Long walk in Rouen.  Nice 2-deck train to Lille late on.  Nice hotel for the night.  Saw Rouen Cathedral.  Wrecked in WWII by Lancasters.  Lost Jo’s hat to pigeon attack.

Day 9/2: Lille
Previous hotel closer & better area, this one bigger room, better mattress, free web access - a toss-up.  Lille v. pretty - lots of old/old-style architecture, fountains, parks etc.  Metro wholly accessible! [for those who don’t know, Jo’s a wheelchair user.  There will be a lot of comments about accessibility which may not make sense unless you’re aware of that salient fact]  Sunday, so all closed, but went up to ODT [Office de Tourisme - I will continue using that abbreviation even when not in France], Citadel, Zoo & CDG [CHarles de Gaulle] museum.  Citadel closed.  Zoo nice, but some animals def. not right - rhinos and zebras in particular.  Nice amusement park, though.  CDG museum OK, but a little incomprehensible.  Good day.  Found Loc. for F/Works [fireworks].  Hope they don’t finish too late to reach the hotel.  Early night, cos long day tomorrow, early start Tues.  Surprisingly decent fast food lunch - preped on demand.

Day 10/3: Bastille Day, Lille
Long, lazy morning reading in the hotel room. The Time Traveller’s Wife for the second time in the trip.  Hoping to find an English language bookshop in Bruges tomorrow.  Wish I didn’t read so fast.  Metro’d into Lille centre again.  Walked to ODT to get Monnaie de Paris [collectible souvenir coins.  We gave up on them after Lille], then to square opp. Pl. de la Republique to find a little creperie for lunch.  Vvv. nice - gallette bacon, double choc for pud.  Sat on bleachers for a bit but moved on by police - moved across street to bus stop.  Waited a long time (reading) for parade - it was a fairly standard Milly [military] & police job.  Medals beforehand.  Nice band playing.  But not that interesting.  Broke my sandal >.< people kept knocking the fence.  Screaming child - gah.  Wandered after to find somewhere for dinner.  Ended up back in the same square as for lunch.  Tasty.  Sudoku [on the place mats] and choc mousse.  Now, having finished my book (again) sitting in Champs de Mars waiting for fireworks.  Pops, crackles, bangs, whistles, flashes - people letting off F/Ws [fireworks] of their own.  Fireworks later...  [Later...] F/Ws were beautiful.  but a bit of a crush getting out.  Got metro OK.  Knackered.  Early start tomorrow.  Goodnight.

Day 11/4: Bruges/Brugge
Bit of a cold.  Got metro to Lille Flandres in plenty of time.  Nice train, though not a double decker.  Compartment to ourselves, good.  Smoking driver next door, not so much.  Arrived successfully in Bruges, got bus to hostel.  A little awkward since had to get on the back and go forward avec bag to ask him to tell us where to get off.  St. Christopher’s hostel #1 this trip: seems OK.  Easy check-in, cheap interwebs.  Checked up on fora - they seem to be getting on OK w/o [without] me.  Pizza @ the hostel restaurant (Sacre Couer) for lunch.  Frazzling a bit cos I don’t speak Dutch/Flemish/w/e [whatever].  Everyone speaks English (no locals, only tourists) but I feel a bit off about it.  Cue grockling.  Bought a couple of cheap second hand books.  On yto choc museum.  V. interesting. Made me hungry.  Good demo.  Next, Markt & Burg.  Pretty town.  Nice wander to see Zucchero [artisan sugar/candy shop recommended by guide] (closed} and Madonna and Child [Michaelangelo’s statue] (let-down.  The white choc one [in the choc museum] was better).  Nice canal and performance art (odd).  Bought traditional grockle crap - postcards, magnet, choccy (yum).  To many damn cobbles…  nice horses and carts.  Nice canuck in dorm. - sunburnt.  Did laundry - bit dear.  V. nice chips for dinner.  Bonus - found mobile headphones.  Reading in the park til bed.  Unable to replace sandals.  No shoes for Jo either.

Since I have comments disabled to avoid torrents of spam I’m not sure how to control, if you have any actual comments or questions, you should direct them to the forum thread or dA blog from which you were directed to this post.  If you’re feeling really enthusiastic, you could even mention the place or day code so that I know what you’re talking about.

I should also mention that I will be typing the diary out verbatim, so it may get a little confusing in places (I will be expanding my various idiosyncratic abbreviations each time I use a new one, though).  Anything added to the transcript will be in [square brackets].  But hey, that’s why you can ask questions.  Photos will be linked in at the appropriate points when I’m able to do so.

This diary starts very brief, because I didn’t actually start keeping it until after we left Rouen.  So, in order not to confuse, I’ll give a short explanation.   My girlfriend, Jo, and I went on a month’s holiday this summer, starting with a week on Tenacious (www.jst.org.uk) at the Rouen Armada (www.armada.org).  We showed visitors around the ship and ran the tourist tat/grockle crap - a devonshire word for tourist that I’ve adopted - shop.  Over the week, the ship had around 8000 visitors pass through the gangways and sold around 6000€ in promotional trading and eyepatches (www.eyepatchday.com). We also did some grockling of our own around Rouen.
Day 1: Doctor Who & flat really nice =) [a short explanation in order.  We stayed over in one of Jo’s parents’ friends’ flat in London before getting the Eurostar to Paris.  While there, we watched the Dr Who season 4 finale, which was rather good.]

Day 2: Eurostar, good.  SNCF, not so much.  Very full and warm.  Sat next to Mark & didn’t know he was going to TNS.  Tea - roast pork belly.

Day 3: First O/S [open ship].  Changeable weather,  plenty of visitors.  2358 recorded, though probably actually less.  ~ 500€ P/T [promotional trading].

Day 4: Second O/S.  Warmer & drier.  ~2000 visitors, ~600€ P/T.  Fireworks.

Day 5: Third O/S.  Nice day.  >2000 people, >700€ P/T.  Concert at night [by the Rouen Opera orchestra].  Good, but too long & annoying conductor.  Bolero, Blue Danube, Sabre Dance, Pirates, Carmen, Tannhauser, N/W [New World] Symphony etc.  Fireworks on way back.

Day 6: Fourth O/S.  Crappy weather.  Sold a jacket.  Stayed and read in evo [evening].  Jo went salsa-ing and got a nice [free] hat.  ~1700 people, ~500€ P/T.

Day 7: No O/S.  P/T on quay.  ~700€.  Interview with Journo re. P/T.  Sons et Lumieres @ Cathedral.  Beautiful paintings projected [onto the cathedral] and fire poi.

That concludes our week on Tenacious.  The next post begins our time Inter-railing around Europe.  I’ll begin by seeing how long my first entry runs, in order to decide whether I should continue to update a day or a week at a time.

Yes, I really should have updated this somewhat more recently than I have.  But I didn’t =D

So, I got the place.  I’ll be going back to Cardiff in September to start a two-year MSc course in Genetic Counselling.  Jo will be staying up here, so we get to do the long-distance thing again.  We’ll manage, we have before.  I’m looking forward to it.

In other news, I’ve finally been persuaded to join facebook.  Now I have to avoid it completely taking over my life.

In other other news, I’ll be disappearing for a month on 5 July.  Jo and I are going on the European tour that life got in the way of last year.

In other other other news, I need to find accommodation in Cardiff again.  I’m thinking it would probably be good to just go back to Allensbank - the location was ideal, and the accommodation was decent, if expensive.  I’ll probably go to the housing fair and see if I can’t find some cheaper private residences, though.

I’m going to try to keep this blog a little better updated.  Watch this space, space fans.

It’s taken a while, but I finally got a chance to talk to a genetic counsellor.  He works at one of the hospitals in Glasgow.

I spent some time yesterday writing up a monster list of questions to ask him.  I’ll try to address them one by one, plus add anything I may have neglected to ask, and anything extra we talked about.

First, we chatted about me, and why I want to be a GC.  I basically told him what I’ve said before in this very blog, so I won’t repeat myself.  He said that was a fairly common rationale, and actually was fairly similar to his own reasons for taking that career path.  We went on to talk about the potential courses that I could do to become a GC.  He had done Glasgow’s MSc Medical genetics and another course in counselling and communication, but that was quite a while ago.  He thought it would be best for me to do the specific MSc Genetic Counselling, which was what I thought.  The course is VERY competitive, so I need to sell myself - Treloars is excellent, but I need more than that, so I’m looking, as I planned, for work in a caring position, be it voluntary or paid.  Currently, I’m hoping that Childline will come through, but that might be quite difficult to make work, as Childline wants a year’s commitment, and I won’t be done with their training before October.  So I’ll also look at Community Service Volunteers etc.

We went on to talk about the actual meat of what I was after, which was a general overview of what the job’s actually like.  I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.  There’s paperwork.  A lot of paperwork.  But there was always going to be with the NHS.  And from the sounds of it, a lot of it’s what I would call necessary paperwork - following up appointments with letters, that sort of thing.  Not too much random red-tape crap. The research takes a lot of time, too.  But again, I was expecting that, and that, I think, could be one of the interesting things about the job, so no worries on that score.  The actual patient interaction part of the job is very variable depending on the part of the country you’re in - up here, most of the work is done in one central location, with patients visiting from afar unless that’s not an option.  However in, for example, Liverpool, virtually every visit is a home visit.  And because GC services tend to serve quite a large area, there can be some travelling involved, which I was not aware of, but is not a problem at all - I can drive…

Most of the work is, as aI thought, with adults rather than children.  The amount of patients seems relatively low - a clinic of 20 a couple of weeks ago was unusually high - but the time spent on each is quite high.  Most of the time the hours are full-time, though I’ve seen for myself that there are part-time positions available in some areas.

Finally (for now, until I remember anything else…) we talked about pay.  He said that typically a GC will start in NHS band 6, and move up through possibly to band 8 a-c as their career progresses.  So it’s never going to be a career to make your fortune in, but then I never thought it would be.  I’ll be able, I think, to live comfortably off it - pay the rent and whatnot - which is all that I really need, particularly as Jo will probably end up being a professional as well, so we’ll have 2 incomes.

He’s said that I’m welcome to email him as I go on through the process, so I will probably take him up on that.  First step is to email him and say thanks, and also to email my other GC contact and let her know how I got on.  Then go and follow up some of the leads he gave me.  So I’ll be off now.  Cookie if you’ve read this far =D

So, the time has come.  I sit here, waiting for the email to come in that will tell me my results are posted at Uni.  And damn frustrating it is too.  I swear they said the results would be posted first thing…

Anyway.  I have no real clue as to exactly how well i’ve done.  My imagination’s been running the whole gamut from a 3rd, at which point i would probably cry, to a 1st, at which point i suspect i wouldn’t need my bike, cos i’d be able to get back home in one giant, Hulk-esque leap.  What actually happens remains to be seen, but rest assured, i will let everybody know as soon as i can.

So, it’s been a while since i last posted.  What’s been happening?  Firstly, i spent the past week up in Glasgow looking at flats.  Jo and I have found and put a holding fee down on a gorgeous flat overlooking the Clyde.  It even has a BALCONY!  As soon as the reference checks clear on myself and my guarantor (thanks dad =D) we’ll sign the lease and be officially moved in.

I’ve found a job i really think that i’d like to do for the next year or so.  It’s at the Glasgow Science Centre [link], the Customer Service Assistant/Science Communicator position.  If all goes to plan, i’d hope to start that immediately after graduation.  And i hope to send my application off today or tomorrow.  Alternatively, i have applications for a number of basic jobs-for-money, like John Lewis, Greggs, Morrisons etc.  I still intend to do some work with either the Samaritans or Childline to further my caring experience for the GC position, though i think the Science Centre would be good for that too, since one of the GC’s tasks is to put information across to lay people in a clear and comprehensible manner.

Finally, just yesterday, i had a VIVA interview.  I THINK it went OK, but never having had one before, i couldn’t say for certain.  Again, that remains to be seen.

Now, where’s that damn email…

It’s taken me a long time to work out what i wanted to do with myself. Way back at GCSE, people were telling me i should know what i wanted to do with my life. Then at A level, then throughout Uni. I never really knew, and it worried me slightly. So i went with what i enjoyed, which was biology. Unfortunately, i soon realised once i got into Uni that there are few careers in that area that i would actually enjoy. I don’t want to end up in academic research, because i don’t want to turn into one of my professors, and i feel similarly about commercial research. One thing i did think about was patent law in a biotechnological area, but that, from my research is a VERY high-powered job which i don’t think i have the academic background for.

On thing that has been a relatively constant factor in my life, however, is a desire to help people. From a somewhat idealistic background from as early as GCSE or A level, i can remember occasionally thinking along the lines of curing cancer or other serious diseases. When i went on my GAP year, i picked, more through circumstance than anything else, a volunteer position at a school for disabled children near my home. It was while i was doing interview practice for my Cambridge application that i first really realised the existence of this desire to help people. After one of the practice interviews i was talking to the interviewer, and he mentioned to me that he had noticed the theme in what i was saying. And i realised that he was right.

It was only recently, however, that the idea of genetic counselling came up. As i’ve mentioned before, it’s been on my radar for about a year or so, since i met the genetic counsellor i mentioned in my previous post. But it’s only in the past couple of months that i’ve begun to do the legwork to really find out about it. And i like what i’ve seen so far. I wish that i’d done the legwork sooner, as it might have given me something to shoot for during my final year and provided a bit more motivation, but what’s done is done, and i didn’t.

But from what i’ve seen at www.agnc.org.uk and subsequently at the sites for the MSc courses at Manchester and Cardiff, this could be a career that could get the best out of me, and one which i could enjoy. It caters to my desire to help people, and it would be real, tangible help rather than the somewhat abstract help that can come from a research career. It caters well to my interest in science, thanks to the necessity of knowing about each condition that i would be addressing, its heritability and its effects. I don’t know too much about the pay as yet, but i’d hope that would be reasonable, too =D And finally, it is a career which is highly under-subscribed by men, so i hope that would both help me with the application for the courses, and help me get a position upon graduation.

With regards to the specific courses, i will have to get further information from conversations with my GC contact, and the relevant authorities from the AGNC and both courses. But my preliminary thought is, all other things being equal, to go for the Manchester one over the Cardiff one, for two reasons. First is price. The Manchester course costs roughly half what the Cardiff one does. And second is proximity to Scotland. Since Jo is still 2 years from graduation, and i would be starting next year, i’d want to stay as close to her as possible. Of course, she’ll probably be moving after graduation, so this one is less of an issue.

But yeah, i hope there’s something in this blather that helps me out later. Next step is to email my GC contact and to email the course coordinators to find out what the best jobs would be for me to go for next year. Onwards =D

As some of you may know, i have recently made a fairly major decision about the future of my life. Genetic counselling has been on my radar in a vague ‘I think i could do that’ sense for some time, since i met a genetic counsellor who is on the MPS society board of trustees. But Jo recently persuaded me to get in touch with her again and find out more about it. And so far, i have liked what i have found. So, this is the major decision. I am going to pursue Genetic Counselling as a career.

Now, as some of you may also know, i have an unfortunate tendency, as things get closer, to begin to see only the negative aspects of them, and to try to get out of them because, quite frankly, they scare me. I hope to use this blog in part to counteract that tendency. It is my hope that by writing about my current feelings about this move, i will be able to come back, when i am feeling that way and review what i’ve written here. Thus, i hope to be able to persuade myself that there are positives to this choice, and what those positives are. That’s how i hope it will go down. But we will see.

I intend firstly, in another entry, to expound on the reasoning behind this choice. Then, as things progress, i hope to build on that with updates about my progress through the process of beginning that career. They very first thing will be to talk to my genetic counsellor contact, and find out a bit more about the nitty gritty of how the job works. I also intend to get in touch with the co-ordinators of the MSc courses in Manchester and Cardiff to find out which jobs would stand me in the best stead in my application for entry. Then, on through getting a job, hopefully getting on the course, and from there onwards.

Stay tuned, space fans. I will be bringing you more on this tomorrow, once i’ve sent a few emails. For now, though, i’m going to go to have my 3-days-late-because-of-finals birthday party/Star Wars movie marathon (Eps III to VI in one night =D). Catch you on the flipside.

Lately, I’ve been thinking hard about stories. Since I was very young, I’ve wanted to tell stories. From a very young age I enjoyed books, from the time when i was 6 or 7 when my dad read me and my sister The Hobbit chapter by chapter every sunday morning. Since that time I’ve voraciously devoured literature, primarily fantasy and scifi, though I’ve enjoyed all manner of stories, at a rate that I often find irritating. Where Lord of the Rings, for a well-known example, could take some people a long while, reading steadily, I can make it through in a weekend, and still leave time for other things, or, as another good benchmark, i can make it through the average Pratchett novel in 4 to 6 hours. This can be handy (especially with library books =D) but I’ve also found it very frustrating, and expensive… As a result, I’ve read and enjoyed thousands of books over the years.

As I grew up, I came to comics, and always liked reading them. Starting out with superheroes, and generally staying with them most of the time, I’ve also read many other comics. And frequently I’ve been impressed with the vibrant characters and places on display, from Spiderman to Star Wars. And I have always envied, and been impressed with the skill of the artists involved, and right from the start, wanted to emulate them. More recently I’ve come across web comics, and been wildly impressed, in some cases, with the standard of artwork and writing that I’ve seen. The comics mentioned on my links page are some very notable examples.

From here, i could go into TV and movies, but that’s a WHOLE nother blog entry…

All of which leads me, in something of a roundabout way, to the point of this particular ramble through the braincase of space. I’ve always wanted to tell stories. When I was younger, I thought that this would be by novel writing. I made various forays into short stories when I was younger, some of which I will eventually get around to posting in the Writing section of this very site. Nowadays, though, webcomics are looking like a far more viable option for me. I come to this topic because I’ve spent a while in the last couple of days working on a short comic, based in the same universe as the Colony Ships scifi piece I wrote a while ago.

I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that my ideal medium would be comics, with a parallel novelisation, an idea which came up from a webcomic called Alien Dice, my readership of which has become lapsed. It works for me, because I do still want to write, and I’ve found myself working out scenes which I’m aiming for a visual format in a full text format before i come to scripting, and also because, from a webcomicing point of view, it’s good for accessibility purposes, allowing users of screen readers to enjoy the work.

I run into trouble, however,through want of a story to tell. I have a number of settings, fantasy, modern and scifi and a few characters, similarly fantasy, modern and scifi, some of which even fit those settings. I find it difficult, though, to think of plots to involve them all in. I find that everything I consider seems… off, somehow, inadequate, trite. One of these days, I suppose, I’ll hit on a flash of inspiration, but until then, i might be doing the occasional short comic or story, while plugging gradually away at the ideas as I go.

And of course, all this is currently a sideline to the main part of my life, which is university, and will soon be a job. I hope to find time to devote to it, but I can’t think I’ll have a lot until at least next summer.

Overall, not too sure where this was going. I was hoping something would come up… Oh well…

It has to be written, i suppose, that first post which generally doesn’t say an awful lot. Well, i suspect this will be… exactly the same… It doesn’t say an awful lot, and sets out my current aims for where i’m likely to go with this blog. Which is… difficult to determine. I could write just about anything here. Commonly it will be personal news, about this site, art projects in the works, Uni/work etc etc etc. But i suspect it will also be whatever random ramblings happen to come to mind on a given day. I hope to expand on various thoughts and ideas that have been floating about in my mind whenever i happen to write them.

I hope it will be come interesting and widely read, but i somehow doubt it. And that’s not really the point, anyway…

Oh, and i’m still getting used to this WordPress thing, so excuse any mistakes. And the fact that this blog doesn’t have any of my site’s usual side-links etc. It will do eventually, once i work out how…