The Summer Break and Looking Forward

So now that I'm back in London it means that the summer break is over and I'm only a week away from starting my 3rd year. 

It's been 16 long weeks that right now feels like some sort of crazy dream. Performing in the Olympic Opening Ceremony was one of the most amazing things I have ever done, Greenbelt was a wet weekend of hilarity and hard work, my holiday to Morocco was the perfect balance between relaxation and activity. I also completed 10 weeks of work with National Grid. This was a great opportunity to earn some money and also gain some real working experience. Among all of this I also found time, though not nearly enough, to see most of my home friends. 

This summer was amazing but now I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of uni life and settling into my new flat. It's been nearly six months since I properly went to Wind Band and Choir and I've really missed them both. I'm also on a number of society executive committees, including the chair of SSAGO (which is both terrifying and exciting at the same time), so I've spent the last few days organizing things for Freshers Fair and the start of term. I also can't wait to properly catch up with all my uni friends. I haven't seen most of them since the start of May and it'll be great to see them again as well!

Also I finally get to choose some of the modules that I'm going to be studying and by the looks of the timetable I have far fewer nine o'clock lectures! This should be a great improvement on 2nd year (which I'm really really glad is over.) I'm also taking up French again, which should be an adventure considering I haven't done any French for four years.

And believe it or not I'm already looking forward to next summer. I need to find an internship with an aerospace company and I'm hoping to attend LeakyCon 2013 in Portland at the end of June next year. However there is a lot of life to live before then!

Anyway this morning when I was procrastinating I came across this quote that I think perfectly describes my summer:

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

12 of 12 September 2012

I'm in Morocco.

Audiobooks

I love audiobooks. 

There was a time when many people seemed to think that audio books were just for little kids as bed-time stories and were dying out because of the cost of putting up to twenty hours of audio onto CDs  but not anymore; websites such as audible.co.uk have made digital audiobooks cheap, easily accessible from any device with PC connectivity and most importantly acceptable entertainment for adults.

I have always loved stories and books and was a sort of bookworm at school however as I grew older there were other distractions and things to occupy my time and I began to read fewer and fewer books (and those I did read were usually fairly abstract science books, 'The Science of Doctor Who' being a particular favourite when I was about fourteen). And so for my fifteenth birthday my parents gave me a year long subscription to audible and I have been hooked on audiobooks ever since. 

They're great to listen to at any time and although I do have to admit I do most of my listening when falling asleep I have also listened to them whilst cleaning, in the car, on an aeroplane, whilst performing menial tasks, just chilling in my room. Basically you can listen to them whenever, where-ever and the best thing is you can listen whilst doing other things. Perfect for a busy life.

Not only is it the convenience that is so great about them you get some proper good old fashioned story telling. There is nothing like being wide awake at two in the morning terrified and gripped by a reading of Sherlock Holmes or laughing out loud to Stephen Briggs reading of Good Omens. The means of being read a story means atmospheric music can be added, the characters can have different voices (or even be read by different people) and you can fall in love with the readers voices (I have a particular soft spot for Neil Gaiman on that front).

In my opinion an example of an exquisitely done audiobook is Gareth Malone reading is non-fiction book Music for the People. The book introduces different types of classical music and plays samples of pieces alongside the reading. Just perfect. On the other hand you do get some poorly read books. A recent example in my opinion is the audiobook of Game of Thrones. This was recommended to me by audible but however hard I tried the reader just bored me and then it became a phenomenon and I just find it boring. But trust me I have listened to over 100 books and this very rarely happens.

So what am I listening to now? Well I've currently got the 35 hour epic space opera Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton on the go (I'm fourteen hours in and loving it!) and for something a bit lighter I have just finished listening to Mockingjay, the last book in the hunger games trilogy. 

I'll always love reading a good book when I get time but I hope I convinced you that audiobooks are great and I would urge you to give it a go. As a helping hand here's a link to audible and a free trial month with a free audiobook (though I would imagine that Fifty Shades of Grey possibly wouldn't be the best to start one to start with).

http://www.audible.co.uk/at/FRYB_at?source_code=BIG30DFT1Bk000YMA032112