This is a fun story. My Mother and Father are the same age, and the year they both turned fifty my Aunty wanted to throw them a memorable Birthday party. She knew of a nice man who kept multiple varieties of reptiles, arachnids, and other assorted creepy crawlies, and toured them around schools and parties. Although as he told us the average age of those he caters for is about 7; this was the first 50th Birthday party he'd been to.
My Mother and a giant millipede!
We kept it a secret from the parents to ensure maximum impact. I believe it worked. We started at the many-legged end of the spectrum with a giant millipede which felt like garden hose, moved onto 8-legged wherein I left the room... and also had fun with a gecko who enjoys jumping onto things, such as glass (which she slides down) and bodies, so that you can play Pass-The-Gecko.
Little Sister and the gecko
Our final visitor was one with no legs at all, a Boa Constrictor. Quite safe to hold, as long as you don't let them round your neck...
A most entertaining day, which hopefully went a little way towards curing Mum of her fear of surprises, as she did enjoy everything. Throwing excellent parties is clearly a family trait, based on the numerous evidence of my childhood years; I do hope it continues down the line to me.
The furthest away zoo I have been to is Tokyo Zoo. I went with a best friend and our exchange partners, and it led to interesting discussions about the difference between English zoo animals and Japanese zoo animals. Exactly why the Japanese exchange was arranged, I would imagine...
The zoo I visited most recently was Edinburgh Zoo, in late August. It was very cool. The zoo boasts the only koalas in the UK, and the only Giant Pandas in Europe. I learnt that these pandas are in fact only on loan to Edinburgh Zoo for ten years, in the hopes that they will be able to coax them into making lots of adorable panda babies. This is problematic because Potential Panda Mummies can only become pregnant on a couple of days in the year. Therefore, a little routine is worked out for the pair in April, when they are put into what the keepers fondly refer to as the 'Love tunnel' and try to make a baby. Last April, the only issue was that Yang Guang, the male panda, was unsure of where everything was supposed to go... The keeper assured us quite cheerfully however that they weren't expecting miracles on the first try (life lessons, kids) and that they would set up the tunnel of Love for the pair again in April 2013. So, crossed fingers in a couple of months.
My little sister, Tian Tian the female panda, and I
Now that I'm thinking about it, I have visited quite a number of zoos. I remember going to Bristol zoo with my cousins. My exact age I can't recall, but I do remember that I was the exact height of a flamingo.
And of course, Skansen, the world's largest open air museum, located in Stockholm, Sweden. Not precisely a zoo, but with a large section reserved for Nordic animals. There I saw Grey Owls and Lynx being fed, as well as reindeer, wolves, bison... and the hibernating bear's enclosure.
I think I like zoos very much. When they're ethically sound and built for conservation rather than entertainment, it's an exciting, family-friendly form of education about our planet. Knowledge, I am always for. Thank you, Alex, for causing me to relive all these pleasant memories.
As it turns out, I am not very good at posting these every day. My apologies.
French was compulsory at my school for everyone up to GCSE level, which we had to take a year early. I'll just let that sink in. Incredibly, I was one of the lucky ones who, for my GCSE year, had the kindest, most creative teacher possible, who succeeded in actually teaching French about 90% of the time. Unfortunately my French education had been abysmal up to that point so it was difficult for the language to stick, and I can now be sure that I know only a handful of basic phrases. So despite the A Miss Humphries managed to scrape for me from hours of speaking and writing practice together, I am not going to take the liberty of claiming the French-speaking badge.
There are other France-related badges I have achieved, however. The French exchange was in Year 9, I believe, though the photographs of me at that age would lead you to believe it took place in Primary School. I was fortunate to be joined up with a completely sane female exchange partner, who had adorable younger siblings. The same could not be said for my best friend on that trip, but it meant that our partners took us everywhere together. While, in hindsight, they probably did not enjoy the experience, it meant that we had a much more relaxing and enjoyable time.
We spent a whole day in Paris, visiting the compulsory landmarks of Le Louvre and the Tour D'Eiffel. Although I hope to do so again at some point, as I doubt my 13 year old self appreciated them as much as they deserved. The Mona Lisa especially felt merely like I was ticking something off rather than appreciating artistic talent. The Eiffel Tower was much more impressive to younger me. I'd climbed it before and felt like a seasoned tourist, admiring the view of Paris and the long, long way down.
For now, the badges are earned and I'm sure I will visit the sites again in my life.
So I claim the Mona Lisa badge and the Eiffel Tower badge.
I wasn't as quick off the mark as many of my peers at the driving game. As a young one, born in July, many people in my year were already brandishing pink licenses by the time I even turned 17, and I couldn't summon a whole lot of enthusiasm for the enterprise when I already had 1 best friend who could drive, and 2 others not far behind.
Nevertheless, by the time late January rolled around I decided to follow the crowd and booked my first driving lesson with one of the friend's instructors.
It did not go well.
The start was fine. You know, breaks, gears, clutch etc. But when I was taken down a road with a limit of 60 mph when I hadn't even practised 5th gear yet, and was only comfortable going 30 mph, I realised this might not be the teacher for me. Apparently some people respond well to this method of teaching; thrown in the deep end, you soon learn to swim. I sank, and was considering slamming my foot down on the accelerator, throwing us into a ditch and ending any chance I had of learning to drive then and there.
Luckily, there are many driving instructors in my area, and I soon found another. She was willing to go at my baby pace, starting off in the shallows with the armbands. I passed my test about 7 months later, with multiple A-levels and holidays in the middle.
My driving experience was yet more proof, as if I needed it, of how I can't get along with everyone. Times like this will crop up again and again, until I learn to accept that I am just too different from some people to get along with them.
With that, I claim the Driving Badge:
Incidentally, one week after passing my driving test I went to university, where I had to drive in (by myself!) for the first few weeks. Turns out sometimes I can deal with the deep end.
Can we all pretend that I remembered to post this yesterday? Thank you, thanks.
There is a reason that Mount Fuji, Tokyo, is always drawn with clouds surrounding it, like this:
And that is because it is rare to see Fujisan on a completely clear day. (Of course a google search will provide you with every exception).
When I visited Japan in the Autumn of 2008 my class and I travelled on a pirate ship (no jokes) around a lake, to get a good view of the impressive mountain. On an average day viewing Mount Fuji, the snow-cap is obscured by clouds, making it look terribly ethereal and mysterious. Which makes sense, given that that's where the gods live.
A little more unusual was the sight which greeted those lucky enough to be awake on the flight back to London after a week and a half in Japan.
I will never forget the sight of the tip of Mount Fuji poking through the clouds beneath us, while the sunrise drenched the scene in a painfully bright golden-orange glow.
And so I claim the Sunrise badge.
There are other occasions I have seen the sun-rise too, but that was by far the most impressive, and the one I am least likely to forget.
I've mentioned before about my addiction to Youtube, and it is still going strong. Although currently subscribed to 91 channels, I most definitely have my favourites, with content I will never miss. One of these favourites is Alex Day, aka nerimon, house-mate to charlieissocoollike, and straight-talker extraordinaire. Despite their closeness geographically, in my opinion the nature of their videos couldn't be further away from each other. Charlie is often described as 'cute' and 'likeable' and although I'm sure these words are not oft used to describe Alex, he has no trouble gaining followers either (who call themselves the Nermie Army).
The charm of Alex is that he won't pussy-foot around a topic. He just turns a camera on, and talks to it about whatever is on his mind. If his audience is being stupid about something, he has no qualms in telling them so:
He never owns more than four T-shirts and two pairs of trousers at a time, because he said fairly recently that that's all he needs, and he likes to appreciate what he has. These items of clothing are usually faintly outlandish, and it should be becoming clearer why I am an admirer of his...
However, he's not one of these people who takes advantage of the internet and free speech just to spout whatever he's thinking and create controversy. He also creates things which he really cares about. Oftentimes don't need real words this is his music. His fame has come solely from his Youtube channel, which means he has broken records by entering the charts on three occasions. His highest reaching single was 'Forever Yours' which got to No. 4 in the UK top 40, and has an accompanying music video featuring himself and Charlie.
But, and I am arriving at my point here, music is not all that Alex creates. He has recently launched 'Lifescouts', an online version of scouts badges, but with more relevance to the real world. He's chosen topics that might not usually come up in conversation, so that people can share new stories with each other, even if you think you know someone quite well.
I think this is a wonderful idea, not least because the internet has taught me that quieter people often have the best stories to tell, and they are more likely to share them online.
A new badge goes live every day, and it's been running for 21 days already! I'd like to share my badges and their stories with my readers, so I'm going to start posting those I have earned, hopefully on a daily basis so that I can catch up.
Check in with me tomorrow, to read the first of my stories.
