Outdoor Ice, Indoor Ice

I looked at my blog tuther day and was horrifed (as I'm sure all my avid readers were too) to find that I hadn't posted at all in 2014. My neglect didn't appear to show in my blog statistics however, as (at the last count) my views have steadily risen to 2308. How, I have no idea, but I digress.

Newfoundland is still in the icy grip of winter, despite invoking Daylight Saving Time seemingly earlier than the rest of the planet, and it will probably stay cold and miserable until May. That's not to say that we don't have gloriously sunny days every now and then, but as I've had to explain to my new Italian house-mate, all those days do is get your hopes up that Spring is on its way.

This post is much like my last post where the horrible weather paused for the day and I grabbed my camera and mooched around town. Last Saturday, when it was in the positive temperatures if you ignore wind chill, I dusted off the dust on my camera and set off down towards Quidi Vidi lake to try my hand at some snowy photography. Living in NW England, Scotland and Newfoundland, having too much light has never really been a problem I've had to grapple with before, but I was eager to give it a go. And these are some of the results.

The very same lake where the Regatta is every year.

The Gut looking glorious.

I love the zoom on this camera.

Frozen harbour starting to calve.

Love the colours in this wee community.

What an idyllic setting for a brewery.

Whilst down in Quidi Vidi by the water's edge I managed to grab the attention of the fisherman whom I was inadvertently photographing. He hollered at me to come on over to the cabin and then walked me to his buddy's deck where I was allowed to take some photos of his boat. As lovely as the gesture was I did feel rather awkward and as a result I didn't get any decent photos from the deck, but it was a typical show of Newfoundland hospitality. I might just take the b'ys up on their offer of a fishing trip in the summer.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will never tire
of taking this photograph again and again.

And why just enjoy frozen water outside when you can enjoy it inside, by watching a load of half-toothless-guys running round with knives on their feet, hitting each other whilst also scooting around with a black bit of plastic. That's right guys, I finally went to a live hockey game.

The local team here is the St Johns Ice Caps who play in the AHL, and they act as the feeder team for the Winnipeg Jets who play in the NHL. It had always been an ambition of mine to see a game and last night I had the chance to. And it was just as awesome as I thought it would be. I had been aching to see some live sports, allowing me to shout at people I didn't know with like-minded people who also didn't care for their volume. And i feel it was an authentic experience. There was a fight. I drank beer. I bought a scarf. I lost my voice. I daresay it won't be the last time I go to a game.

Lowry was on the programme cover so he quickly became my favourite player.

Before I moved to Canada I would've guessed a Zamboni was a type of Italian sausage...

Buddy the Puffin violating numerous Health and Safety codes.

Portland Pirates trying the ol' wrap around.

Easy win for the Ice Caps, extending the winning streak to 9 games!

I don't think this is him, but one of the Portland players was called Shinammon.
Like Sean Connery saying Cinammon.

Kudos to the manfriend for being brave enough to come to the game with me.

This post was a little rushed, and although I do have 3 months of my life to catch y'all up on, I think the only thing I didn't cover was that we got a new fridge. I'm off on an adventure to Washington State in the next couple weeks so I will definitely do a post on that when I'm back. Until then, have a gud'un!

Traipsing the Tawd

The weather hasn't been that great in the UK since I've been back for the holidays. Whilst the brunt of it has hit further south causing flooding, travel disruption and power outages, up in the northwest the wind has been the main problem. Thankfully causing no damage round my way, the 40km/h winds are more of a noisy nuisance than anything, howling between the plastic cladding outside of my exposed room walls on the corner of the street. Earbuds have been a frequent accessory to my nights sleep these last few days.

So when today yielded calm clear conditions with a bright blue sky, I seized the opportunity to go and play with my camera again, something I am always eager to do. It also gave me a chance to convince myself that Skelmersdale still has something to offer when it comes to spending time outside. Inspired from a conversation with a dear friend over tapas (and some cheeky sangria) where we reminded ourselves of the fact that we hail from a relatively rural part of the world, with access to beautiful countryside not even outside of the town borders, I donned my wellies, gave the dog a biscuit to ease his impending loneliness, and wandered down towards the river.

Skelmersdale is dissected by the River Tawd, a tributary of the larger Lancastrian waterway of the River Douglas, and a much neglected part of town. Shopping trolleys are a prominent part of the river load both near to and far from the shopping centre. Litter is liberally sprawled along the banks, especially so now thanks to redistribution from the wind. Despite its deserved bad rep, I still enjoy walking along the trail system that runs alongside it, set up in a long forgotten past age. I have fond memories of walking down to the river on a class trip in primary school to explore the environment, and to play Poohsticks at one of the bridges. So while the light was dwindling in the late afternoon I thought the tall trees would offer long shadows and reflections on the river would make for some interesting photos. And I was pleasantly surprised with my results.

Long shadows. Tick.

Rushing waters.

Walk 2 minutes in that direction to end up in a housing estate.

The Poohsticks bridge.

Fabulous reflections. Tick.

Maybe my favourite photo of the outing.

Long shadows of the trees on the overpass foundations.

An artistically discarded Mini Cheddars packet.

Chasing down the light I emerged from the riverside woods into the grassy fields adjacent for some more open landscape shots. Seeing planes in the skies above West Lancashire isn't an uncommon sight with Liverpool and Manchester airports nearby. Whilst watching Cash Cab back in Canada (a fabulous quiz show where you catch a taxi and answer questions for money with the fear of striking out and being kicked out before your destination) I learnt that the stream of white smoke from behind a plane was called a contrail (condensation trail, duh!), and fittingly I saw some wonderful contrails, changing from straight to more chaotic but well preserved lines with distance from the planes due to atmospheric eddies. 

Love the curved projection of the sky in this panoramic.

Contrail may be my new favourite word.

Crossing paths.

Dispersion.

Making tracks.

Tumultuous geometries.

The above photos were taken from the grounds of my old high school, Lathom High. I have excellent memories of high school and walking across the school fields the outline of the rounders pitches brought a reminiscent smile to my face. The subway that essentially marks the boundary of the school premises have seen a dramatic face-lift since I last saw them, with vibrant commissioned graffiti, not ancient local graffiti marking the walls. Super vivid mode was not required.

Framing the sunset with the goalposts.

Trapped leaves.

Inspiration.

My alma mater.

Blues showing my allegiance to Lathom, as opposed
to our green neighbours at Our Lady Queen of Peace.

An hours walk had provided me with some lovely photos of my old stomping grounds, and had succeeded in restoring some hometown pride. So much so that I decided to share the photos as a blog instead of just posting them on Facebook. The photos I took today had a story, one which may only be important to me, but one that I felt worthy of telling. While Skem has more than its fair share of faults, it does have some redeeming features.

The tweeting procrastinator

Jorge Cham of PhD comics fame (in case you aren't friends with grad students who will inevitably post at least one of the comics per week: http://www.phdcomics.com) did a talk at MUN in April this year titled "The Power of Procrastination". Whilst explaining the favourite word of grad students worldwide, he made one point that really stood out for me. It was along the lines of;

"If you are procrastinating then you are spending your time doing something you want to do (i.e. topic of procrastination) instead of something you don't want to do (i.e. studying). So why are you doing something you don't want to do? Surely you should be doing what you do want to do. I (Cham) used to procrastinate by drawing cartoons. Look at me now."

Now, he didn't seem to be suggesting that people should leave grad school and spend their lives looking at videos of cats and sloths. That only seems financially productive if you work as a writer for BuzzFeed or something. But it was still an interesting thought.

Slow Loris videos are also important parts of people's lives.

The main theme of my procrastination is sports. While I try to do work at school, and I largely manage to do so, I will always have the BBC Sportsday live ticker on in the background. I might check it for 30 seconds every couple of hours, on a productive day that is. When not at work this use of my time changes from procrastination to a hobby. Thanks to our TV subscription and the fortunate time difference between Newfoundland and the UK, over the course of a weekend it is perfectly possible for me to watch 5 games of football, finishing at approximately 3pm allowing myself the chance to achieve something in the rest of the day. Until the hockey comes on at 8pm...

I have started to feel guilty about the amount of time that I invest in watching sports. Surely I should be doing something more beneficial or productive like...well, what exactly? Am I enjoying myself whilst watching sports. Yes. Even if my teams lose? Hmm that's more difficult but the rollercoaster of emotions is part of the thrill. Am I learning anything "worthwhile" from this experience? WHO CARES.

For most of my life I've thought my perfect job would be to be a sports journalist/statistician/photographer (all three in one job would be even better). I never sought to pursue any of these options seriously. Pipe dreams really. I fell in love with geology and ran with that instead, allowing my athletic fanaticism to remain a leisure activity. However, recently the possibility has popped up in my head. Thanks to Twitter.

The only thing I use Twitter (@ShtacyPhillips) for is to tweet about sports. Specifically to try and get my thoughts and opinions on the BBC sports live text commentaries. Stemming from the need for my opinions to be validated by someone, even the BBC online editors, and the fear of annoying my friends who watch sports with me with silly opinions that they don't care about (even though I do this regardless), I use social media to give myself a voice (as if mine needs to be louder anyways).

And not that getting published on the website for the rest of the BBC readers to see means that I have deep insights that no other fans have, or that I should pursue a media career, but I get strangely proud when I do get published. Someone has decided that my 140 characters are worth the world's web space. Granted, they do publish the views of absolute imbeciles too. I always fear that I am part of that crowd.

Whatever the editor's motivation, I screenshot my publications. I often post them on Facebook or Instagram (yes I've got an Android now and given into the craze) so that even more people can hear my opinions. This instant gratification validates the time I spend sitting on my couch in front of the TV. And a blog is another way that I can (and will now) broadcast things that people likely don't care about, for my own pleasure.

I tweet about Football...

(This one came true)

Rugby League (this was just an outpouring of emotion
after the Grand Final 2013 come back)

Tennis...

Women's Football..

Rugby Union...

General sporting chit chat..

And Cricket, where I indirectly helped two people outside of the
UK listen to the TMS BBC cricket radio broadcast.

Maybe I'm becoming a favourite of the BBC Sport website (I did get one of my Rugby League World Cup tweets read out on TV by Chappers). Maybe I am a decent armchair pundit. Maybe I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking. Or maybe nobody else gives a damn. Either way, I give a damn about sports. Always have and I always will. Its my procrastination tool. It's my hobby. Maybe one day it will be my career. But for now its how I simultaneously release myself from the real world and display my emotions to it. And it makes me happy. That's all that matters right?

Sports, rocks and cheesecake.

It's been a while since my last post so I thought I'd give an update to those of you that actually still read this! The 23rd of August saw the one year anniversary of me upping sticks and moving to Newfoundland to embark on my Master's. I'm a naturally reflective person, and this landmark made me ponder (dangerously) over what I've done over this last year. I've been to California. Twice. I've presented my work at two conferences. I've eaten cod tongues. All highlighted achievements in my eyes. I won't bore you with my sentimentality though, I'll just let you know what's happened since my last post.

The major event of August was the Royal St John's Regatta. The oldest sporting event in North America (which makes sense as this is the oldest bit of North America...) sees a whole day of rowing races on Quidi Vidi Lake and a general jamboree on its shores. An day not to be missed by a sports fanatic like myself. The day is a civic holiday meaning everyone gets the day off. Only, it's a weather dependant holiday meaning that if it's too rainy or windy for the rowing, you have to go to work. This is complicated by the fact that the night before is the least night of the George Street Festival, leading to many residents playing "Regatta Roulette".

The weather was good for the most part, making me a Regatta Roulette winner!

Not your typical rowing race, as boats are required to turn a buoy at one end of the lake and continue racing back towards the start.

August also saw one of my fellow St Andrews geology students coming over to Newfoundland to do her Honours dissertation fieldwork. Scheduling and general logistics prevented me from helping her with field work but instead I played tourist guide for the days in which she was in St John's. It was lovely being able to show someone around the fabulous place that I now call home, as well as catching up on everything that has been going on in the place I used to call home.

Glorious view of St John's from the Battery road walk.

A statutory visit up Signal Hill where on the way down we find a
British flag flying proudly in the dreary skies. 

After visiting Cape Spear we stop in at Fort Amherst, just across The Narrows.

September means the start of the school term, and my return to TA duties. Once again I am TAing 2nd year mineralogy, and now that I'm somewhat familiar with the syllabus I am much more useful to the kids than I was last year. Unfortunately for the kids though it also means I'm a harsher marker as I understand why stuff is right or wrong now!

As well as helping out in class I also had the opportunity to TA 2nd year field school, which I was super excited about, not only because I would get to see a bit more of Newfoundland, but also I'd get paid more cash! I've helped out in field courses before in St Andrews and found it really fun. I love being in the field, investigating new rocks I've never seen before and trying to pass on a few pearls of wisdom to younger geologists. One of my favourite techniques involves rather minimal teaching, going a little like this: 
"Is this a sandstone Stacy?" 
"I don't know you tell me!" 
"I think it's a sandstone..." 
"Okay why do you think it's a sandstone?"
"(Description blah blah blah)"
"Hmmm okay" *walks off cooly*
"JUST TELL ME THE ANSWER STACY!!!"

Bacon Cove. Our first stop of field school (minus the outcrop behind the grocery store).

The Bacon Cove unconformity; basal conglomerate marking the Pre Cambrian- Cambrian transition.

Local wildlife came to have a gander too.

The main mapping area was on the Northern tip of the Avalon at a place called Cripple Cove. With that name I approached the 40 minute hike into the area with cautiousness and trepidation, not wanting to return to my crippled past. Fortunately the patch was fine and I got to hang back towards the back of the pack, meaning I could gorge myself on the sweet wild blueberries that cover Newfoundland in the summer months.

Cripple Cove and the huge group of 2nd years eager to
make their first geological map.

Beautiful views out to the sea from my hidden
sheltered lunch spot away from the world.

A baby eagle glides over the field area majestically.

Major milestones have been reached in culinary terms over the last few weeks. Spurred on by the end of the blueberry season and my months of all-talk-no-action I made a blueberry lemon cheesecake which was well received by the grad students that were lucky enough to snag some. Then I was given a load of home-grown apples by one of the professors, and being too tart to eat they had to be baked, leading to my finest cheesecake masterpiece in my 9-year career; a caramel apple cheesecake topped with pecans.

 Elaborate, and including my first ever caramel it went down and absolute storm, despite me not being happy with its structural integrity.

I also had my first ever sushi experience. Being the opposite of a fussy eater I had no qualms about trying raw fish and as we were going to the best place in town I had high expectations. I was not disappointed. Surrounded by a group of sushi veterans I sat back and let them order everything whilst I developed my rudimentary chopstick skills, and elastic band helping greatly. Concentrating "harder than I have during my entire Master's" I managed to successfully guide the sushi into my mouth where the taste sensation occurred. More sushi will be eaten during my time here.

The coming weeks are set to be rather busy for me, so hopefully I'll have some exciting stuff to talk about and photos to make y'all jealous. Until next time...