Singapore and Oz!!

Okay!! i owe everybody a long blog! Actually i doubt anyone is still reading this ... maybe i will have to notify everybody on facebook first .....
ANYWAY! Whats new? well annoyingly i had some wonderful ideas for various blogging subjects whilst i was in various countries and unfortunately didnt have computer/internet access at the time, isnt that always the way??
So this one may be a tad rubbish but hopefully it will be kinda informative (and i plan to put some photos up on facebook as soon as i remember to bring my camera with me when i use the internet! - there are lots that need to go up it seems)
So whats been happening? (I realise i already said that once ...)
Well! We flew to Singapore about ... a week and a half ago, where we stayed for a few days as a stop over - Singapore is AWESOME!! i highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a place to visit, it turns out strangely that i think i like the concept of Singapore more than i like Australia really, the island itself is SO beautiful, and the people really are lovely, really polite and friendly but not in that overly friendly way ... maybe its a commonwealth influence type thing, they were British-ish whilst still being Oriental-ish .... i cant really explain it, you may have to visit yourself, but it was truely wonderful, we toured round the different parts of the main city, Little India, China town, the Government district and the Malay area, i'd learn a lot of info about the country on the plane, social customs, taboos, a little bit of Malay (Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and of course English are their main languages due to the percentages of different nationalities inhabiting the country) we also saw Raffles, the hotel, if you know anything about Singapores history i guess you will understand the significance of visiting here.

Anyway perhaps i am waffling about Singapore now, after all we were only there a couple of days (we will be back there for a day on our way back to England in a months time)

Now we are in Australia (the 8 hour flight wasnt quite as painful as the 11 (?) hour one to Singapore, we got to Sydney at about 6am, having not slept on the horribly uncomfortable plane (Singapore airlines is definately the best airline to fly with though, absolutely wonderful compared to others i have flown with). We finally got to see Grandad!!!! yay!!! Hilarious as always. We were staying at there house for a few days (went to see Sydney - the Opera house, the bridge, all those Sydneyish things) and then also went up to the blue mountains (Awesome, totally mindblowing, the pictures i took really just dont describe it in the slightest), and for the past couple of days we have been in Cairns, we flew up here on Saturday, yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Great Barrier reef (we are staying in Palm Cove and drove up to Port Douglas), we took the boat out to the reef, (yes, i was sea sick .... gross, very gross, almost made it as well, 3 minutes from the platform and bleurgh ... oh well, felt better after that though) we changed into our lycra wetsuits, donned our life jackets, fins, masks and snorkels and were in the water surrounded by fish bigger than my torso (which sneakly kept knocking me over - at first i thought it was Eliot but it turned out it was a double attack by these crafty fish), Alice took some photos underwater which i hope will turn out okay (with a waterproof camera of course) and there are some fantastic ones of us in wetsuits .... Looking at the reef (in very choppy waters by the way) was so so COOL, they are so colourful its crazy, you are mile and miles out in the ocean jumping into the water looking at these amazing reefs with brightly coloured fish swimming around you, possibly the most amazing experience i have even witnessed, totally exhausting (note to self - swimming against the current - impossible!) and i wasnt sick on the hour long (35 knots wind) journey back to shore. Today i am hanging by the beach, searching for crabs in the rocks and avoiding the Crocs (there was a big warning sign - hee hee!) and of course writting this!! (oh Eliot and i ate Kangaroo, Emu, Barramundi and Crocodile steaks for dinner the other day ....)

Well i guess thats a lot of updating there so i might end at this point!
Check out my facebook profile for some pictures at some point!!

Australia!

Took Hilary to the airport yesterday (i was still in my jammies, it was very early) and then spent the rest of the day doing laundry (some how i ended up doing everybodies laundry .....) and cleaning up the camping stuff. Im off to the dentists in a few minutes (need to stay on the NHS register) and then need to do some random things like picking up my contact lenses from the opticians, getting some Singapore and Australian dollars, phoning the water board and such - fun times!
But on a more positive note - im off to Australia on Saturday!!!! yay!! Okay i have absolutely no money left to actually do anything whilst im over there, because, well, hilary made us go to like 5 different countries whilst she was here, but oh well.

Hilarys Visit

Well, after ten years away Hilary is finally back in England, and what a crazy trip we have planned, im sure i will be completely exhausted by the time she leaves, but then i get to rest in Australia for a month so im good with it!!

Today we are heading back to Hampton Court for the flower show, (this will be my third time this year - i should have gotten a season ticket)
Tomorrow will be off to the Isle of Wight via Brighton (apparently its the Folk Festival this weekend)
Then Monday we head out on our trip, to Bath then to Wales (Swansea-ish area) were we are camping for the night
Tuesday will be from South Wales up to Holyhead (thats still in Wales incase you didnt know)Camping there for the night
Wednesday we get the morning ferry to Dublin (Republic of Ireland) and make our way up to Belfast were we have a hotel waiting for us (camping in Wales can be a smelly experience, i know)
Then Thursday after hanging out in Ireland for the day we get the evening ferry to Scotland (Stranraer) where we are camping that night
Friday will be driving the 2 or 3 hours to Edinburgh and hanging out there and camping the night
Saturday we are heading back into England to the Peak district and staying at a Premier inn (Again i figure it will be luxury compared to camping?)
Before heading back to Enfield on Sunday (Hopefully in time for evening church)
Monday we are hoping Kayleigh is free so we can all day trip to France (its been a long time coming!)
and then the last Tuesday will be seeing the sites in London and (hopefully) seeing a play at the Globe (no we're not going to buy a cushion were gonna stand in the peasants section like the commoners we are!

And then off to the airport on Wednesday at early'oclock!

Crazy days!!

Yay and boo

Final exam results came in, i got a first!! Yay!
But Weston has gone home ... i miss him

21st June

It has been quite a busy week, obviously Weston is finally in England (yay!!) and we have been doing a LOT of things (even though for a holiday i guess its been quite relaxed). All of the photos are up on facebook so you most probably have seen them all already. It feels quite strange having him here at last, maybe it was the anticipation? or that these two very separate worlds are less defined now? Im not really sure but it seems like a very definate marker point in ... life (?), Im not sure that that makes sense, just that this summer seems important and like a turning point a kind of 'things will never be like this again' moment (which is true because hopefully it will be the last summer where i dont have steady employment).
Ill keep you updated with any job updates and when the final exam results are posted.

Results are in ...

Results are in! At last! What a horrible wait, my final module results are as follows

Project Dissertation - A1
Eukaryotic Molecular Biology - B2
Molecular Medicine and Biotechnology - B2
Clinical Immunology and Microbial Pathology - B3

That probably wont mean an awful lot to many people so Herts grading system works like this

A1,A2,A3 - These are all first class degree results (A1 is the best, then A2, then A3), they just show how high your first was

B1,B2,B3 - Are all 2:1 class results (again in order)

Then obviously C1,2,3, (being 2:2 results) D1,2,3 (being 3rd class results) E1,2,3,4 (being you just scrapped through / a referred / compensated pass) then F1E,B,C,2,3,DFC,DFB,DFE ( ..... various fails)

For any Americans reading a first is blooming fantastic

So im not so sure what my overal degree classification becomes because it seems the system changed this year and no one seems very sure what that means now, but Karen and i were trying to work it out, it seems that if they go on the old system i will have got a 2:1 (which i am over the moon with) (because my level 3 results average out higher than my level 2 results so the average of the third year results are taken and that is your grade so A1 = 1 point, B2 = 5 points, B3 = 6 points, so 17 ... divided by 4 = which i make 4.25 which is just outside of the 1 to 3.5/4.0 boundary for a first, so its a high 2:1) but if they work it out on the new system (we arent sure on the specifics though so we dont know if we are working this out correctly) which we seem to remember (although it doesnt seem to be in the student handbook) being that you can swap your worst grade for a better one you recieved (of equal credit point value) at level 2 (whether this is irrelevant for me because of the whole average being higher thing im not too sure) in which case i could swap the B3 for an A3 for example (A1 = 1, A3 = 3, B2 = 5, which i make 14, divided by 4 which i make 3.5 - just inside the first class boundary where you dont need the majority of A's to be taken into consideration). So we are a little stumped at the moment, i guess im one of the annoying cases for the university, i seem to remember them telling us that both systems would be used solely this year due to half the class graduating last year if they didnt go on a placement year,
Either way we will find out sometime this week it seems, so thats cool, it makes me wonder though, if this does work out in my favour how annoying it would have been if i hadnt gone to Kansas last year .... strange how things work out

Done!

Long time no post i know, but exams are done with!! yay! im not sure that they all went especially fantastically but thats the best i could have done, so im okay with it.
Now to wait until the results come through, and then for Weston to come visit! and then Hilary to come stay! and then off to Aus! and then ..... well .... graduation hopefully, after that i dont have the foggiest