If life were a bowl of cherries... - folk

This is going around the folky people...

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:36:05 +0000

"please, please, PLEASE sign this petition! the government are trying to pass a "violent crimes reduction bill" which will illegalise buying swords generally. unfortunately this also applies to dance swords! rapper, longsword, highland, etc. also possibly morris sticks. there is a exemption for sporting activites and historical reenactment, and the petition is to get dance included in this exemption.

please sign this, and pass it on to anybody you know who might be interested. we can't let our wonderful culture die out!! they can't do this to us!! note: closing date to sign is 25th june.

petitions.pm.gov.uk/dancers

please sign!"

Right... so I read the bill from 2005/6, but I can find no details of what the amendments actually are. Questions: "surely dance is classed as a sport?" and "aren't most dance swords not weapons anyway as they lack both a blade or a point"

Martial arts and fighting sports I assume are classed as sport.

and WHY CANT THESE THINGS BE MADE CLEAR AND UNDERSTANDABLE AND MORE IMPORTANTLY

ACCESSIBLE

Oh yes, then we might actually be able to contribute.... I forgot that.

Here's to Democracy,

xXx

Mistake

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:10:27 +0000

I have just realised that most of my friends, and all the people who I have been wanting to see for six months will be at IVFDF next weekend.... and I AM NOT.

This is silly

I am going :P

xXx

Back from Recluse

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:28:30 +0000

And so this latest batch of exams is over. i have probably worked harder for some of these (in particular C3 MATHS) than any in my life. And yet I still doubt there will be much to show for it save my exhaustion, some absolutely stunning bags under my eyes a few more than offended friends and one heck of a lot of piano playing.

So in RunDown (to save me saying more than necessary):

C3 Maths

Went ok, well even, I answered everything, thought I knew how to do most things. Most of the paper was either proove or solve ... and all my answers fitted, so it should be OK. Of course, that belief has let me down before. I hope that all the practise paid out. I did better than last time and will predict A or B

Unit 2 Chemistry

Again, the paper went ok. With the Edexcel Chemistry mark scheme it is more a question of semantic than words and the "correct" semantics vary greatly from year to year. An A in Chemistry is purely luck not skill... and a C is just careless. Was retaking as a matter of pride more than anything else, but still no idea if the answers will be correct according to A Level - pretty certain of the accuracy from a scientific point of view. Predict A or B

Unit 4 Chemistry

Loved this paper for one mark in a 3 mark question. "Show that Aluminium is amphoteric using ionic equations". Well firstly I read the question and noticed the need for ionic equations (you'd be surprised just how many times I failed to do that on practise papers!) and then I spent at leats 10 minutes of the exam trying to work out the equation for the OH- reaction and managed to get it in the last 20seconds from first principles :D. The rest of the paper was straightforward except for Question 2: name the reactive groups.... could identify not name. But really... that one mark makes up for everything (and yes, the first thing I did back in house was to check my answer!). Again with Chemistry we have the discrepancy between answers, knowledge, science and marks...and I was averaging Ds in practise papers before revision, so I will predict an A or B unless I have be especially stupid.

Unit 4 Maths

Now this would be the paper I shouldn't have taken. My deepest thanks to my Father and Bert for teaching me the course, Sue and Mr Wilson for their patients and Deveson, Anna and Lucy for putting up with my panicking. I was still not ready to take the paper. Everyone came out saying that was the hardest thing they've ever done (they said that after C3 maths as well!) and I am actually inclined to disagree... C3 was harder first time around. Questions 1-5 were fine except for potential silly errors. Quesiton 6 I forgot about the exitence of the quadratic formula (AGAIN!!!), Quesiton 7 I couldn't do, Question 8 asked for an answer to 1dp and I got 0.6 (which seems odd), Question 9a I think I got correct at the last minute (and I will get follow through marks) and 9b... who knows. Integration by parts is always touch and go as I get my signs mixed up when I rush! Anyway... I am babelling. If I get everything I answered fully right I got 81%. If I get everything I wrote down right I got closer to 85%. If I only get the things I know are right, right I got 63%. So I predict B or C

Unit 4 Biology

Home run isn't it? Something like that... Wins the prize on the most orinigal order to answer questions (worse than Chemistry 4 for dipping into each one). Also the only paper to have time to spare (C3 did, but I used it to check :P). I didn't bother checking written answers this year. Theory being that if my logic is correct, I will have written it well, and if it is incorrect I am not going to have a sudden flash of inspiration (more likely to change a correct thing than correct an inaccuracy). It is also so tiresome reading through the long answers when you have just spent 10 or 15 minutes writing them. One long question I didn't have a clue and blagged, a couple of one markers that I guessed the right word. Isn't it strange how the exam paper always seems completely different to the practise ones. I was blagging A's in those without much revision at all... I hope the trend continues. I am going to take a risk and predict an A. Actually I really don't know what this mark scheme will be like (Edexcel Biology is usually very good for science vs marks) and there are a couple I am not sure if I picked the right lines so despite saying A I actually thing A or B

Summer Plans? If necessary (i.e. my average isn't an A) retake C4 maths when I should have taken it. If a low B or C in any of the Chemistry or Biology then retake, otherwise live and know Units 5 and 6 (synoptic) BACKWARDS, SIDEWAYS and in the FOURTH DIMENSION! (Apparently both are far more common sense and application as opposed to rote learning which suits me.)

Lent term plans? Read! Read! Read! Study. Set up the PCR stuff that school bought from BioRad. Work out how to use the machine for any experiment they want to do (not just the prepared kits). Music. Music Music. Prepare for next year. Sort of vaguelly go over the AS level biology and chemistry. Actually, I might just alternate weeks of them - ie. 1 week unit 1 biology followed by a week unit 1 chemistry.... that would work.

On more important matters

MAWKIN ARE PLAYING A CEILIDH IN CAMBRIDGE AND I AM GOING..... EAT YOUR HEART OUT FOLKIES!!

(Love you all dearly and can't wait to see everyone again next summer... probably before if things work out well. Can't do IVFDF I don't think... but there's Cheltenham and Chippenham, and I swore I'd get to a gig that wasn't in Cambridge so see you 'll there! :P)

xXx

These boots were infact made for dancing ...

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:20:00 +0000

The first thing I must say, is that much as I enjoy travelling by train (freedom to move and stretch etc...) the pleasure is more than somewhat marred by two somewhat unnerved family members, one of whome is highly aggitated. It was after such a journey that I arrive in Sidmouth and have to carry a rather heavy backpack up the hill to the campsite telling my younger sister fairae stories until she is scared and asks me to stop. (Yes, maybe my patience had worn a little thin, but it was only a standard seelie/unseelie adapted folk tale!). Pitching camp in the dark heralds two rather arduous days of not doing much until the festival kicks in properly. And here comes the real news...

First on the list is the Anchor Garden's Celidh. And the first dance is a variation of a Circassian Circle and here I met Peter-Paul and Manon (although I don't think my failure to spin out correctly after year without dancing impressed them :P). I also renewed friendship with Bob and Steve (Towersey folkies) and generally found my feet (both left ones on occasion). A note for anyone attending next year, bring outdoor dancable shoes... gravel is painful in bare feet and I will pay anyone large sums of money if they manage to dance the willow tree sucessfully in flipflops!!

Chadwicks. and Jen arrive making the total in our camp 11 and the total number of people at the first concert 13 (Fiona and Joy)... Fiona proved a highly useful addition to the party, for along with all her natural charms and the delight of her company, her disabled status allowed us some truly spectacular seats for both Show of Hands and the Spooky Men's Chorale. If you have not heard either of these groups, do so. They have the remarkable capability of making me wish I were male simply so I could be part of

the gritty and powerful sound of Show of Hands - female voices can do a lot, but that variety of sound and gravel is beyond even th strongest female singer
t testosterone drenched genial bufoonary - (I hope I quote correctly) - of The Spooky Men, who had me laughing so much I couldn't speak later on!

The week went on and more people turned up... old partners and a few new partners formed a nice group of "people I can bump into and say hello to..." Ran into Peter-Paul and Manon again at an LNE... was not recognised much to my amusement and apparently his embarassment... until Emma turned up and introduced me properly {yes w*are*sisters). Also met Brendan (dragged up to dance with me by one of the Hammersmith Morris Men who I had been chatting to but had hurt his leg). And of course there is Tom, who never ceased to make me laugh, and whome I first saw at the lunchtime Mawkin concert although I doubt he will remember that. (I have a strange memory sometimes).

In general my days consisted of dancing a collection of English, Contra and Ceilidh (no scottish :( )... and anyone with any idea how I ended up in the display sets for Enlish dancing, please enlighten me! :S It was very scary being surround by lots of disparaging hawks who seemed certain I was incompetant... When they realised I wasn't they tended to assume I was professional which was a little entertaining. The week started well with my presence being noted at both the 9:30 workshops and the 1am Late Night Extras and I never wanted for partners. I believe my record to be 5 dance partners lined up which was very confusing when I had to remember who I'd agreed to dance with next.

The breakfast workshop was started midweek at Steve's tent... and put an end to all early morning activity for me - replacing exercise with good conversation, bacon, tomatoes and very fine coffee. I have to confess I became a regular, and intend to remain one.

Time passes, and feet become steadily sorer... Tom leaves us for the petie world of work (poor man) and a delightful afternoon is spent shopping for drinks and a black tie for Steve to wear to the BlackTie Ceilidh - there is always one, and in this case I feel my sister beat him with her rather interesting combination:

halter-neck black dress
black bow tie
fancy shoes
black and white stripy socks
blue cumberbund

The French dance was a source of great amusement as I struggled (and in the end managed to a degree) to learn French dancing off the hoof so to speak. Apologies to Edward, Peter-Paul and Jen for all the times I stood on your feet. :( I promise I will practise before the next dance! I will have to add here that I have a new love for French dance... it is beautiful. :D Especially when we end up dancing around the Ham concert marquee to Le Bébert Orchestra. :D

And if anyone can dance and wants to come as a partner to the next dance in Norwich I would be more than enternally grateful!

I can think of little to note for the rest of the week except for exciting cream tea workshops, envigorating swims, enjoyable dinners (with amusing waitress service) and enthralling conversations as well as copious quantities of dance. Morris Men with Fire... scary and very pretty :D My sister made friends with the Spooky Man... stole his hat and in return he stole my Bacon bap :(. Most parties went on till 4 or 5 am so there wasn't really a dull moment for the entire week. And thanks to Justin and Joe for their continuous supply of lemonade and good conversation - Renaissance music, science and computers, good food, good drink....

And needless to say I managed to sleep in the car on the way home.

Although I did end up in London the next day to meet up once again with Peter-Paul, Manon and Edward... the wisdom of this can be discussed seperately and at a later date.

Here endeth the Sidmouth post. And leaves me just to say, "It was a great holiday, thanks to you all and I hope you all feel the same, I shall see some of you at IVFDF, the rest of you next summer and hopefully, some of you before then... Take care, look after your feet and remember, it isn't a Celidh until someone has shouted "NO! THE OTHER LEFT!" "

Love to you all

xXx

Home again

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:02:14 +0000

]Home again, for ummm..... 2 and a half days :D in which I must!:

Sew on MANY nametapes (JOY!) (may take to sizewell... not sure)
Finish buying such stationary as I can not buy at school
LEARN the rest of the: Motzart oboe sonata, my piano scales, Leighton, Brahms, ;ast few bars of piano pieces!
Finish mending my clothes.......
Pack for sizewell
Clean, hoover and remove boxes of Mum's and Heather's stuff from room
FINISH THE ANNOYING MOSAIC PUZZEL WHICH I HAVE SPENT THE LAST WEEK DOING (indulged myself and bought the "Tough Puzzles" Logic Puzzle book which is awesome, some easy, some just long and some difficult but all very good at keeping me in some semblance of "sane-ness")
Write to: Auntie Jean with photo of ball dress
At least draw out the patterns for some of the gorgeous skirts and dresses I found on holiday - festivals are so good for inspiration and a lot of the stuff is done in random patchwork which is good because I'm not short of materal scraps - open beg for red/orange/green/ maybe blue material scraps people might want to to dump on me
Finish reading "The Hinge Factor" - can span into term time - excellent book, thought provoking, intelligent and fun
Sleep (optional!)

Anyway... just back from Towersey Folk Festival which was amazing fun. Updates on that along with the Soul Survivor ones, pros and cons of being overly analytical and the notes on the very good sermon we had on the Leviticus food laws we had about 9 months ago :P Short summery: dance, dance, singing, Spooky Men's Chorale, Craig;Morgan;Robson, dance, good weather, amazing amounts of *interesting* drag, good friends and little sleep.

Thought:

In all relationships there are difficulties where people disagree and argue causing tension which needs to be resolved. How often do relationships break down between two people because friends sit there telling x that they did nothing wrong and must wait for y to apologise. Unfortunately x's friends will hear the story from them and the same for y's and both sets of friends will invariably go (as good friends) "But that was so wrong of them" and if either listen fully to their friend's advice then both will refuse to accept any responsability and the relationship crumbles. It doesn't really matter what the disagreement is, whoever's fault it is, it needs to be resolved mutually if you want to continue the relationship.

Obviously in some circumstances one party may need to give way more than the other either to stop doing something that is deliberately highly antagonistic or to start doing something that will build a relationship they want to keep, but the agreement still has to be mutual, and therefore both people have to be willing to make allowances and move on.

Second Thought:

Almost all songs can be classified into one of 3 catorgories:

Sex
Death
God

However there are a few songs (Wonderful World, Kestrels Shanties :P, a few nursary rhymes, Wind Beneath my Wings...) which I really can not fit to these catorgories... Any sugestions?

Ok: to the list above add: tidy kitchen and pick blackberries - if anyone wants some dont hesitate to ask!!

Must go and do something now

xXx

Misc

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:29:10 +0000

I am a
Daisy

What Flower
Are You?

"You are just a sweet person. When a friend needs a shoulder to cry on, you are happy to offer yours with a box of tissues as well. Once in awhile, you wish you could be a little more dramatic but then sensibility sets back in and you know that you are perfect the way you are."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

heh these things are always highly enlightening. Learn things I never knew about myself :P

oh well... ummm, no big updates on Soul Survivor yet (sorry to those were perstering me!) I've made myself ill and am decidedly not in the mood to think and create meaningful comments... so tough

Away to Towesey with friends (Chadwicks) which will be awesome.... 5 days of music and dance and really nice clothes available!! :D hehe! Nah will be good, little sleep and ca,ping again but I've never really objected to either of those 2 things. Hope I get better quickly though otherwise I will not be amazing compnay, and I don't want to make all of my partners sick or there will be no one else to dance with. Plus I'm sure its not that appealling dancing with a girl who keeps tripping up over her toes because she is feeling too groggy to concentrate - particularly in Polka.

Argh.... on that note, why when you say you cna dance do people *assume* you can lead! I am female I never lead waltz or Polka (always seem to find a partner :S which drives Em nuts!) so please don't expect me to be able to dance the male part and get it right - incidentally, the fact that I can dance Celidh and Scottish both ways is UTTERLY irrelevant as they dont involve chaging hand positions, or having to lead.

Anyway, rant over (and much better for it thank you), this weekend should be amazing, and ther are some good bands playing :D not that I can remember who, blue murder I think are there, and Eliza Carthy.... and some Australian band or some sort :S oh well I'll look at the program sometime.

Results tomorrow.... could be interesting.... (anyone who is feeling particularly vunerable over exam results stop reading now, I am *not* going to change what I write for your sake).... I'll settle with As in everything, just would like to get A* and it would be depressing to miss predicted grades just because in everything else I've always beaten predicted grades. I did get a form from connections through, they asked for all my grades once I know them, but havn't left enough space which was amusing.

Why do you never get news you don't want in little chunks. It always comes all at once on the same day just one thing on top of another. Then you just have to ignore it all and find som way to somehow let one thing out at a time so you can actually deal with it instead of being swamped. Or you bury stuff, let it grow, and *then* become swamped and overwhelmed. Neither way is particularly good (the first option being imposible and the second making you look pathetic and both hurting you).

I'm sounding terribly optamistic here aren't I? Oh well, I'm sure you'll all live.

Isn't it strange how, in perception 1 mile becomes 10 and 100 miles becomes a 1000 untl the shortest distance becomes an unbeatable barrier. The more you want something the greater the struggle to attain it. Absense does not make the heart grow fonder, absense makes the heart grow stronger as we take each day and make another effort to do without the people we wish we could be with, the friends who carried us through the worst. They say time heals all wounds, and maybe eternity would see these scars would fade, but until then I stand, seeing the road extend before me unable to move and unable to stay.

xXx

let's face the music and dance...

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 01:05:00 +0000

heh. Such a good evening full of folk. I went to the Scottish Ceilidh and then the Junction 24 (Who are AMAZING) Ceilidh for 45 mins then a jamming session till about 12.30 :D But I seem to have remembered a lot more of my scottish than I anticipated which is good and had a partner for every dance which was great - only one girl/girl dance the entire evening. Apparently I dance well enough for people to think I'm reasonable :D so yey! I'm going to properly start scottish when GCSE's are over... I've missed dancing so much and I cant survive on the odd festival. Will also get on the Round mailing list to find out about Cambridge Ceilidhs! :D

The second junction 24 thing was great :D Chris introduced me to a friend of his who I danced 2 dances with... and he reminded me how to spin - I can not believe I forgot! twas so fun! - and I did not fall over, not even once. Recovered perfectlty each time!! Annoying though.... danced the last dance (Circassian Circle - no changes) with a greta partner who *could* polka (for anyone unfamiliar ballroom hold and basically fast setting/waltz step - alternating one two three, one two three - LRL RLR LRL) which was great! Then finished and the band started the official polka but considerring this a student gig and the circle was the second of 2 long dances and I have a boyfriend I couldn't really keep with the same partner... which was annoying because the next guy could not polka and decided to sidestep instead, and didn't turn me! So I jad to add a double step to keep in time and on the right leg, except whenever I did that he added a double step too!! (WHY?) Ah well... twas a very good evening.

Met up with friends too :D many of them from Sidmouth - I recognise too many people now! But some good friends were there and I shall join them tomorrow :D - rapper with Black Swan (WOWOWOWOWO!!)I did at Sidmouth and will do now. But they are trying to persuade me to go to Sidmouth and whilst I doubt Mum would let me go to a week festival I might be able to go for 2 days.... maybe. BRING ON TOWSEY!! (-hopefully)

Very sore feet now :(

they WILL be better by tomorrow

lol.... so much fun! and there's a brithday Ceilidh coming up - and I want to organise a summer one! :D

Ooooh yeah another funny dance with a whole load of hyped up people/lots of alcohol/good band/late... a version of strip the willow which involves stealing other people's partners... some (ahem) interesting variations. :P

I am pretty certian most people assumed I was about 19.

lmao... anyway... I intend to be at churhc at 9.30 tomorrow... so I might go to sleep now.

xXx