End of the Weekdays!

Didn't manage to update on yesterdays field trip, I was just so tired . . maybe because of the long bus ride and I was wearing my waterproof again so it was HOT! BOILING even! Of course I should've take 'em off but I'm just too lazy to do it so the blame is on me boohoo~ so yeah we went to the Lelant Station to see the estuary.

From campus to Lelant Station

On Google map it says 38min by car, but I swear it feels like ages! I think the bus was a bit too slow. But yeah quite a long one this time. And we just found out that the group who did this field trip the week before went to a different place and it was crap. They were there for technically 10 minutes and then went back to campus due to heavy rain. What a bummer! It wasn't raining during ours yesterday though, which I'm thankful of ^^. But I must say it was a bit boring, at least for me, maybe because we're not there to ID but rather to investigate the population behavior and learn the techniques to count large populations and such. Just a tiny bit too technical for my taste . . but as a conservationist of course I need to know these stuff to analyse populations and know what's best for them. That's what I come here to learn anyway so I shouldn't be complaining. 'm sure I'll get use to it sooner or later. *thinking positive* And oh yeah we didn't spend much time there, maybe just about 30-45min or so, so I didn't take any pictures, got some from the internet though. It'll be really nice to just sit there and watch birds all day :)

Yup right at the platforms with binoculars watching birds feeding in the estuary. I would imagine the people waiting for their train would be really surprised to see a bus-full number of students being there lol. I would've been. And it was gloomier than shown in the pictures, gloomy but dry. Then back to the lab and do more counting from a video to calculate the feeding rate of shelducks? hmm can't remember lol. One thing I'm really proud of is that I'm able to ID some birds or ducks without looking at guide books now :D *proud face* I was really hungry after we're done though, so me and Lindsay got a HUGE jacket potato for lunch, mmmmm mmmm YUMMY! got mine with tuna mayo on top, couldn't finish mine at one go so got it for take away.

Unfortunately I'd fallen asleep during my BIO1409 lecture, really I just couldn't keep my eyes open! Maybe it was a long day and it was really warm in the chapel too . . but then about 3/4 in the lecture (after drifting in and out of reality lol) I heard my lecturer saying something that ends with " . . . the ones who are sleeping.", right then I snapped out of dream world, aware at last. Honestly I was a bit scared if I'm gonna be blacklisted or something but it turns out I'm not the only one who had fallen asleep, but it wasn't my first time in his lectures especially . . let's just hope for the best for now +.+

That's the end of yesterday's story, continuing with today's story . . nothing especially interesting, got a 10am lecture, BIO1409 again and I was wide awake :P then the usual phenology walk around campus with the group (nothing really new pops up) and a debrief on the Kennall Vale trip in the lab. Good news is we're going rock-pooling next week and it's not gonna start till 12pm (normally it's at 9am) YAY!!

There is this video that Ziqah showed me, something about sustainability and saving energy and stuff HAHAHAHAHA love the first one about saving water!!! BRAVO to the person who edited Ziqah's running scene ^^b I salute you! I tried so hard keeping from laughing out loud since I was in the library. . ok that was an excuse it was the 'study group area' IN the library but you can make noises there. There's a separate quiet bit right next door, so yeah just don't wanna be seen as a maniac laughing in front of her laptop lol. That video cheered me up though so thanks a lot dear sis ♥


I wanna find a movie to watch as tomorrow's the weekend! Gonna have breakfast out with the Bruneian girls tomorrow at about 8am-ish though. I know it's a bit early, will talk about it tomorrow. Ok that's a wrap people! *always wanna say that :p* 

Kennall Vale Field Trip

As promised, update on today's field trip. Hmm maybe it's just the season for rain this time of the year, at least in Cornwall. Good thing I came prepared for it today *proud* :p I finally wore the pink waterproof! lol which really helped a lot for me to bear the trip today. It was quite a short journey too which I'm thankful of, as I'm not that good with being in a car for too long. Carsick problems :/

Tremough to Kennall Vale

A lil' bit of background history on Kennall Vale : it was an old gun powder mining site. It's a bit weird that a gun powder site would be in the middle of a WET and SOGGY area but it was the best site possible. Wet and humid means that there's less possibility for an explosion to happen. May sound safe now but there were fatal cases before; an accidental explosion due to a spark stuck on a lady's skirt carrying potatoes for the hungry workers in a building full with gun powder. Hmm my instructor told us about this story . . in a very dramatic way too. The workers' actually saw the spark when she came and they just froze cause it was too late . . the spark was on it's way reaching the gun powder  . . . and then KABOOM!! I can't seem to recall what the outcome was, I mean if there were any deaths or survivors? Yeah Google is your answer ^^.


And also that it doesn't look like what it used to be before they made the mining site. They'd made branches to the rivers there to power up about 30 water mills for electricity. And the results benefits them as well as the place become MORE humid. 


Snapshot time! Some of them are blurry due to the RAIN of course, no surprise there but yeah such a pretty place!

love the streams!

old mill ruin

Just awesome, wish there were otters

small waterfall

Would love to go there on a nice weather. I missed the Dipper though (a type of diving bird which spends a lot of their time in the waters searching for food). That was a wasted opportunity *sigh* Will have some other chances, but the weather was a bit of a bummer I think, that's why no animals were out (as of my opinion :p) I didn't jot down any of the species that we learned today cause my books were getting wet so yeah. I'll just recap a bit on what I remember, bear with me :p : long-tailed tit, coal tit (just the bird song), otter poo lol, money wort(similar to navel wart but kidney-shaped), St. Johns wort, pendulous sedge ( 'w' outline), liver wort, navel wort, hart's tongue fern, normal polypody, fig wort (square stem) . . that's a short list! hmm no worries there's a discussion about the trip on Friday anyway :)

Have another early morning tomorrow, or should I say 'earlier' since it's at 8.45am instead of 9 lol. Yep another field trip but for a different module, hopefully it'll be all sunshine, amin~ ^^ Continue watching 'Kaichou Wa Maid-sama!' and fall asleep in the process? like last night lol.. Tomorrow will be a better day ^^

The Lizard!

Finally got the chance to actually go there :D We are gonna go there sometime later for our field trip but it's nice to see the place first ^^. Unfortunately I didn't wear my waterproof again today and it was raining at uni -.-' We almost canceled our trip as the weather was horrible but Lindsay insisted on going since she didn't plan to at first but came in the end so~ YAY Lindsay, good call! And the good news was it stopped raining when we got there and the SUN was out! Wohoo~ It was about an hour drive to get there or so I think lol

The journey from Tremough to the Lizard 

I was too excited already seeing the cliffs and the sea lol. But the wind was no joke, AGAIN! Oh well that's to be expected when you're here and near the coast, even uni can be windy some times. Love the scenery though. I was so 'sakai' seeing the place that my jaws were hanging lol :p 

They might be stone paths but man they're slippery

The scene that WOWs me

The waves were massive today, or so said the others who had been there before. They said that they've never seen the waves this bad but it was pretty all the same. Some of the waves creates foams that floats towards us. Got splat by one right at the cheek haha. I thought they were frog eggs at first when I saw 'em on the grass, it was quite far from the waves too, must've been a huge one :o

Since this was a plantsoc trip, let's do some recap on what I learned today :

honeysuckle

ahh need to refer first

barren strawberry?

sea thrift

yarrow

plantain?

honewart i think or is it sea carrot?

bristly ox tongue

ribbed wort plantain

Will need to sharpen my ID skills. Watching Dream High episode 12 at the moment and I have a field trip tomorrow at 9am. So an early night is on the way. Will update on tomorrow's trip soon. Nighty nite~

The Walk to Swanpool~

I didn't get to post about this last night due to being misunderstood to be a spam-blog, for whatever reason I'm not sure about. But oh well it's back on now so here goes. .

So I did go to the beach yesterday, although a bit later than when I'm supposed to head off but it was a nice walk all the same. Here's some of the pictures I took:

The view of the sea

The moon was out already even though it's just about 5++pm 

A view from the cliff - scared me a lil' bit

On my way back, and it started to pour rain -.-

I didn't get to take much pictures of the ducks as I was video-ing them instead. I'd post the video up too if it was any good BUT it's too shaky even I got a headache watching it! So no no can do lol. *am still dizzy even now*

A coot

A male tufted duck

I'm so in love with the ducks now, they're just so cute!! especially the mallards! lol being a weirdo I guess but the ducks and birds here are so much more colorful than the ones in Brunei . . or is it just because I've never paid any attention to the birds in Brunei ? Hmm will put it in my to-do list when I get back home *can't wait!* One - pay more attention to birds and the ENVIRONMENT for a change. Wasn't much of a nature fan back then :p Two - go on a trip to Temburong ? Still thinking about it, might drag someone to go with me muahaha xp Three - find out if I could get some sort of attachment job in my field of expertise *.* But but we need to enjoy first~

Hmm ok I need to start on my essay soon, got a bet with Cally and Lindsay to finish the essay by tomorrow or else buy them chocolate treats lol. I'll finish them by tomorrow, ganbatte! Ok 1 last episode of 

Kaichou Wa Maid-sama! then I'll start. Annyeong~

Depression to a Productive Day!

Heeya~ Haven't updated on here for 3 days now I think lol. Due to various reasons like : just found out what my last exam results was on Friday - not what I expected and I went volunteering yesterday and was really tired so . . .

Anyway my results were 72, 60, 58 for Microbiology, Genetics and Zoology respectively. *sigh* I thought I did quite well for my Zoology but oh well there's not much I can do about them anyway. Just gonna do good on this term's modules. I can do it!!! Hwaiting!! So yeah I was depressed so I just spoiled myself with a marathon of YongSeo Couple episodes haha from episode 10 or something to episode 40 last night wohoo 30 episodes with little breaks in between lol. Gonna continue watching the next 4 episodes later ^^. I feel much better now. Much, much better. But I'm quite proud that I'm one of the few people that got the highest mark in Microbiology, the big 72! At least if I'm not mistaken lol but yeah. Just be positive and we can get through the hard times of our lives.


And yesterday I went volunteering for National Trust. Not really sure where the location was at first and it turned out to be Trelissick Garden! I've always seen the 'Trelissick Garden' sign when I'm on my way to Truro using the bus. And was thinking that I should visit some time . . but I did already and it was such a beautiful place; spaces of open  field, the big trees, the view of River Fal . . too bad I didn't take any pictures of my own (work come first?) but here's one from the internet.

Journey from Tremough to Trelissick

One of the things that caught my eye

We carried branches up a hill with mud in between, a lot of them haha. And then we had roasted jacket potatoes for lunch! with butter and cheese on top, Yummm~~y :D by the bonfire that we made too. Ahh that was the life lol. Then continued with the work; since we finished with the branches, we helped the others to carry twigs to the bonfire. By the end of the day I was all muddy, tired and sore (am still sore now) but it was all worth it. All in all it was a productive day. Would love to go there again.

Alrighty, planning to go to Swanpool later today and think of  a collection idea for BIO1407 which will be 50% out of the total module! hopefully will get some inspiration. Might update on it later tonight, till next time.

New Discovery!

Nothing much happened today in uni. I just had a lecture from 2-3pm, and then I'm off lol. We went to Tiqah's place to learn how to make 'sambal belacan' for the 'nasi lemak' that Santi's planning to cook for her boyfriend tomorrow. We went to Tesco to get the ingredients and all and before that went to Bayside grills to get Santi's 1kg raw chicken wings for just £2! I was a bit surprised we thought it's gonna be expensive since Shamsa (our housemate - will post a pic of her sometime soon too) said that she got 3kg of chicken breasts for £12 or £15 so definitely wasn't expecting for that! 

On our way to Tiqah's place, we met Tiqah right in town coincidentally since she just finished gym-ing. Then I just found out about the other way to get to Beacon Road (trying to avoid her massively steep hill lol), a really scenic one too hehe. Might use that path from now on, at least during the day or afternoon.

AND we're not sure why but The Natural shop was still open (it was about 8pm, time at which most shops are already closed). So we went in, and we discovered shrimp paste! a.k.a 'belacan'! muahaha I was so happy that we found that there. We can also get tamarind paste there, plus chinese oyster sauce and coconut milk. I got all of those (I'll post the pictures later). Will take a picture of the shop too when I have the time ^^. But yeah technically we can get asian stuffs here so alhamdulillah~ no complaints there . .  except maybe they're a bit expensive? not that  I know the usual price for them somewhere else. Will compare with the prices in Birm.

So yeah then when we get at Tiqah's place, we get to work with the 'sambal'. Too bad I didn't take any pictures but the 'sambal' was A.W.E.S.O.M.E! I haven't tasted that taste for such a long time! haha but the chilli smell was a bit too strong that we got like sneeze fits lol. Anyhoo that's basically what happened today and I still haven't do much work unfortunately *sigh* I need to straighten my motivation up. Ok I can do this! 

I'm watching We got Married YongSeo couple at the moment so after this episode I'll sleep first and wake up early tomorrow to do the diary thing. But I'm glad that we discovered a lot of good stuffs today. Till next time~

'Fun' Day at Godrevy and St. Gothians

It was a really tiring day today! Went on the field trip to Godrevy and St. Gothians near St. Ives (I think?).

From Tremough Campus to Godrevy

Turns out I've been there before for my first birdwatching trip with Ecosoc a week before, at least the Godrevy bit. But WOW! the wind was extraordinarily strong today, and COLD at that. Well I was a bit under-dressed I think. I should've worn my big puffa jacket! Anyhoo good news IS~ we saw seals today!! About 80 odds of them yeah~

The Grey Seals!!

Since I mentioned about the birdwatching trip, might as well post some pictures from then ^^. Love the weather that time, SUNNY side up :D

 Compared to today's weather . .

GLOOMY~ It was really windy and the cold didn't help at all! Especially at the cliffs where we see the seals, the wind can literally blow you off the cliff, no joke. If not for the fence, I won't be brave enough to stand so near the cliff face. By this time I was too damn cold and wet (both me and my books) to continue taking notes of the species that were there so let me do a quick recap of what i remembered seeing . .

Hmm cormorant, shag - like cormorant with the added mohawk-like hair, razorbill - like cute little penguins, carrion crow, meadow pipit - we saw 2 of them searching for food in the field, skylark - have a very distinctive way in flight (jumping-like?) and have quite a temper when disturbed making 'angry' noises lol, and also oystercatcher - really fast moving little creatures. I think that's all that I missed out but I did hear some of my course-mates saying they saw fulmars and gannets as well. I'm pretty sure I just can't see the gannets amongst the gulls flying around or it's just that I've given up ID-ing birds that time lol.

After all this, the end result was~

A new WARM and WATERPROOF jacket!

Haha I wasn't supposed to buy anything anymore but I just bought it on impulse after the trip plus~ it was on clearance SALE! The original price was £69.99 and I bought it for just £29.99! Ok it's still expensive but I'm happy nonetheless. Now I don't have to worry about getting wet during field trips ^^. 

Alrighty, I'm gonna continue watching 'Dream High' episode 11 and maybe 'Paradise Ranch' episode 2 onwards. I'll try to do some work tonight which hopefully I will so until next time~ adios.