Five Years of Monster Blogs (by sarah)

This year the monster blogs are 5 yrs old on average 🙂 So I thought I'd do a little celebration. Mainly I will be trying to finish various projects off.

This month I am starting with the poetry Muse Monster game which I hope to have on sale properly by the end of the month.

I'll also happily write flash fictions for people if you leave a character or some words or even a story starter in the comment field below 🙂

College Induction (by sarah)

So yeah I went to college yesterday 🙂 (without my Drs note as they receptionists didn't know where he'd put it as it isn't a sick note as such and he wasn't in - who would have thought that it could be so difficult :/ ). Anyway - I got there with the minimal of shouting to get myself out of the door - I thought I was going to be late and then got there like an hour before it started so orientated myself and picked up a tea.

I really enjoyed meeting the other students and discovered I know lots of stuff that is relevant to others like the different ways to run planitariums (planitaria?) and a slight astrophotography knowledge, theatre and science and so on... Of course I still can not spell for toffee and babble at people or stammer and my legs hurt from sitting down too much and so on but I am really looking forward to my first lecture now 🙂

Also the insight I gleaned from how others work was interesting and I feel valuable already even though we've not yet done any of the course as such! The library is amazing with all the electronic stuff etc...

My first course is...

Science writing 🙂

I ended up with two free sessions at the end of the day which I used to go and sort out the fact I wasn't appearing on the system but had been sent the welcome stuff etc... as expected it was the issue with my English GCSE cert :/ I lost it in the 2007 floods and didn't know what exam board I'd taken it with - I didn't even know you could get replacements until a despairing update on Facebook got the teachers and ex-teachers amongst my friends telling me how to sort it 🙂 I emailed my old school Gaynes and got no reply 🙁 I phoned them to no avail and got quiet frustrated then I did abit of internet stalking and tracked down one of my old teachers and messaged her - she responded the next day and I sent the form and the cheque off to the likeliest place. They had to go and check weather it had turned up at the college and clear me as qualifications varified - so I should be able to complete registration this afternoon from home and then set things in motion to get my swipe card etc...

This is feeling a lot more organised on the university part than my experiences with either IC or Birkbeck.

After the admin faff I had some lunch and read the print out of the stuff I couldn't yet get too online and did most of my 'homework' whilst awaiting a friend for an afternoon tea. I was in quiet a lot of pain at this point and had to take the pain killers which did not help my tiredness levels but I was still feeling engaged and happy - I was finished with the work I could do there and knitting a teddy bear when my friend turned up 🙂

He helped sort out the bus navigation and things and I headed off to the Bristol Hack space where Alaric goes on a thursday - I was really hoping he could do a 3D printer induction as I found creepers I wanted to print for Jeany's very late birthday party but alas it didn't happen - instead I knitted more bear and he helped someone with an electronics project - I met someone into computing projects for the visually impaired and wibbled on about stuff to do with that (I've done the In Braille exhibition etc... ). Then I went and slavard over the lathe and talking wood work with the guy using it - I also found a design for my monster boxes for the writing game I've made - the hack space now has a little library going on 🙂

Alaric had bought me a packet of sticky tabs and a kitten note book and sparkly gel pen for college 😀

Mine Craft Week 2 (by sarah)

Yep I am still playing and am getting more obsessed!

I built a bedroom and found iron ore in the process so could make shears and go and shear sheep to make myself a bed 🙂 I didn't like the idea of killing the sheep just for their wool 🙁

Then I dug myself a garden with a fence and gate - because of where the stairs are it acts as a one way valve for animals - if I leave the gate open at the top then animals wonder in, jump over the fence and then can't get back out! This was not genius just an accident but a fun one none the less!

But I quickly ended up with too many animals so had to expand - I dug an underground barn for them 🙂

I also mined sand and popped it in the furnace to produce glass blokes to use as windows.

I am hoping to collect stuff to make dye for the sheep and I want to put some sort of system in place to divid the sheep, cows, pigs and ducks (apparently they are chickens but they are lodged in my head as ducks!).

I have also been hunting cows and got enough leather to make a full set of leather armour.

And Alaric didn't realise you could put torches on the fences 🙂 So I taught him something 🙂

Mine Craft (by sarah)

There is a new craze in the Snell-Pym household - it is a game called MineCraft and it began with Alaric, now me, Jean, Jean's friends and my Dad all have our own worlds which we are constructing homes and farms and mining in.

Initially I was very bad at it, I could not even work out how to look up let alone move and as for fighting the monsters of this almost eden-esk world - that was impossible. But after being attacked by a spider, a skeleton and a zombie, being stuck in a whole, being suspended in the air and drowning.... I finally seemed to master basic movements.

Being me I skipped the tutorial and refused to play in creative as I like there to be a challenge. Anyway I finally after a week of playing managed to construct a one room house. It started off in mud and then I mined cobble stone which I clad the outside and then mined the mid away from the inside.

The idea is that you mine and farm things and make stuff. I started off by making a crafting table, then a chest to keep things in. I was on the hunt for stuff for torches and a bed - but this proved tricky and so I found myself hiding in a dark corner of my house - it had a door I'd made on the crafting table but no light as I need to make charcoal or find coal.

Fortunately no monsters spawns in there with me - this was why it was all still earth - a monster called a creeper did blow my house up from the out side though which hacked me off! (I may have said a rude word).

Eventually I found the resources to make my torches - I had to build a furnace. So now I have light, food (due to killing poor unsuspecting cows and cooking them in the furnace), shelter, a crafting table and a double sized chest but still no bed! This means I can not sleep during the games nighttime which is annoying.

The game is made of large pixels and I can only play a bit at a time as the motion on the screen gives me motion sickness!

I also keep accidentally hitting the left hand toggle as a button instead, this changes the perspective of the little avatar - not helpful when you are fighting zombies!

I am really enjoying it - even more so as there is a quest to be completed!

Each world is a new generated one - mine is called Gaia, Alaric's is Genesis, Jean's Bob and Dad's one is the un-named My World. If I remember I may post the world seeds (the code that other mine craft players can used to generate the same world though devoid what you have built in it!).

Cheltenham Poetry Festival 2012 (by sarah)

Last week saw the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

I started off by going to see Domestic Cherry - so funny. It was Michael Scott and Hilda Sheechan in the personas of a Swidon Chav and a hyper kitch Housewife.

The I headed out to dinner with one of the stewards and then onto Slak Bar to see Mab Jones and her Welsh Rare Bits - these guys are amazing! Laughter until tears stream down your face. Unfortunatly I had to leave this event early due to illness.

The next morning saw me up bright and early and sitting in The Muffin Man sipping tea awaiting to share my poetry. I was part of the Poetry Cafe Showcase.

I then stayed on to watch The Stroud Pamphlet Poets.

Then I headed over to Waterstones to watch various poets there

Leeum did like a 20 minute show from memory that had the audience reeling (or in one case wanting to give him a hug).

The next day I had a workshop to run - the Monster Writing Game - it was supposed to be at The Brewery but the weather was just too bad so it was moved to Waterstones.

We stuck around for a Jean to take part in Joy-Amy Wigman's childrens workshop - also on monster 🙂

We stayed on for the Childrens Poetry showcase with Francis Axon - Jeany loves her poetry which she had heard at Christmas in the Brewery. The other poet unfortunatly couldn't attend so I ended up performing some of my childrens poems.

The next day saw me back out early for more childrens workshops - this time it was The Poetry Bees and Their Story Tree. My poor Dad had to walk through Cheltenham with a giant papier mache purple tree - only happens to people who know me 🙂

I then got ready for Occupy Poetry - the last night poetry party bonanza.

Alaric was once more forced to listen to poetry - but this time he had company 🙂

I took arty shots

Then the comedy started with Julie Psycho Jones and Josh plus the performance Poet Ash.

It was a brilliant but exhusting week and I wish I'd gotten to see more.