h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an excellent article, I really enjoyed reading it. When I heard this story for the first time as a kid, as well as being moved by it, it made me want to learn how to make the paper cranes like those Sadako made. If you know (or could find out), maybe you could write a brief entry on how to make a peace crane, which could then be linked to this article.

http://www.netguides.org.uk/guides/origami/Crane.html
The instructions on this page were written out by a friend of mine. They are aimed at 10-16 year old NetGuide Guides, who won't have help from someone who has done it before but will only have the online instructions. The friend, who is a member of NetGuides Rangers, wrote them out as a part of her Community Action part of Guiding. I hope you find them okay to follow.

Sorry, I don't have time to write an h2g2 page on this subject as I am rather busy writing a PhD thesis at the moment. I'm also not at all good at origami.

Ændr (also Asst Guider of NetGuides Brownies.)

Hi Ændr

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my message and for including the link about how to make the cranes. It's one of those weird things I've always wanted to know, so I'll definitely have a try (and get very annoyed with it, no doubt - I'm not very good at origami either! ). I know several people who have written University theses, so I know what a millstone they can be and how they can leave you with little time for anything else (hence the popular phrase: DON'T ASK ME ABOUT MY THESIS!!!). What is your thesis about (ie math, literature?).

So you're into Guiding? Cool. I was a Guide from 11-16 yrs old. Guiding CV: Nightingale PL, Green Trefoil, Guide Patrol Camp Permit. Did you take your Guide Co. to camp this summer gone? If so, do you have any interesting anecdotes from camp? Do your Guide Co. have Camp Hats? We did when I went to camp. It's basically a blue sun hat, which we decorated with badges (some we collected, some we made ourselves) and every day we gained "tokens" - ribbons, or for example Cook Patrol for the day were given a small pot or pan to pin to their hat. We also had the "Wally" award (a pink ribbon with white spots on it) for the person who had been the biggest wally! It was all in good fun though, and gave us a good laugh every morning. The first girl to win it was cooking eggy bread one morning and held up two pieces of *charcoal* and asked the QM, "is this done?"

Oh, and I don't own many hats but I think they're brilliant. My winter hat is a thermal "Adidas" ski hat and it's doing a great job at keeping my head toasty-warm in the cold weather.

Get in touch soon, if your thesis permits you!
Lizzy

Have a go at the other origami bits linked to from that page, I think some of the others are easier, to lead you in.

My thesis title is "The Tropical Tropopause - wave driving of the annual cycle in tropical lower stratospheric temperatures." It's physics/atmospheric physics.

I was a Brownie, then a Guide, then a Ranger, then a Guider (with Guides and Brownies.) I have been a Guider on the Wirral (from turning 18 to going to uni), in London (as an undergrad) and in Oxfordshire (doing my PhD). I was with 10th North Oxford Guides till the end of the summer term, when I buried my head under some last minute research and thesising. My Guides went to camp every summer for the last 3 years, and went to a youth hostel or somewhere similar in the spring term as well. I didn't camp with them this summer, but did the previous ones. We go to Foxlease. This summer we invited another unit from West Oxford, whose leaders don't have a camp licence, to join us. They also came youth hostelling with us in the spring. I visited the camp for one day this summer, to take some suprises along (home made cake and a camp challenge.)

We don't have camp hats, but a different way of displaying earned patrol points each trip. We've done stickers on CDs (freebie/internet access ones glued back to back,) nails in a log (teach them hammering skills,) fancy knots in cord (teaching decorative knotting,) sparkly beads on posh ribbon etc. The older girls look forward to finding out what the method is going to be each trip.

I myself have a camp hat. It has somewhere above 40 pin badges on it, from different places I have been and diffferent badge gifts I have received. The number changes every day at camp. Two days before the end of camp, the girls must guess how many badges there will be on my hat at the end of Guide's Own on the last day. The winner(s) get pin badges appropriate to the location/camp. I personally don't count my badges and won't listen to them counting (which they can do whenever they can persuade me to stand still for long enough.) The other Guiders and camp-visitors join in to add/remove badges. The number is in a constant state of flux. And at one Guide's Own, one patrol tried to "fix" the verdict by incorporating adding badges to my hat to their piece. Of course, the Guiders always have the last piece, and we muddled their count. That hat gets very heavy sometimes.

I have somewhere over 40 hats, but I've lost count and they aren't all in one place to count easily anyway.

Ændr

Thanks, I'll have a look at the page soon, with a stash of paper by my side! I too am under a heap of work at the moment (though only until the end of this week, lucky me). I'm writing a presentation on post-colonial Australia for my "Australian Culture and Literature Studies" course. Which University are you doing your PhD at? My Dad did his physics PhD at Balliol College, Oxford, in something related to nuclear fusion. I'm currently studying for my undergraduate degree in German Studies at the University of Leeds. Do you know what you want to do after you've gained your PhD?

Well I never, do you know I was a Guide in Oxfordshire as well? I was a member of 1st Kidlington Guides, Division City 2. I can't remember whether I've been to Foxlease (although I know the name), but I have definitely been to Youlbury, Farringdon and Symond's Yat. I went to Farringdon to take part in the Oxfordshire International Camp "Folly '95" - it was the best camp I ever went to. I always meant to go to the one in 2000 but I wasn't a member of Guides any more by the time it came round, and I think I'd have had to gone in with the service crew, which I didn't really fancy anyway. Do you also have a camp blanket? I remember some of the girls who came camping with us had really impressive camp blankets, with hundreds of badges sewn onto them.

Oh yes, and what's "Guide's Own"? And which is your favorite hat? (Maybe you should suggest a "hat" smiley!).

ttyl (talk to you later)
Lizzy

What does Australia have to do with German studies?

I'm at Oxford, Brasenose College. Was at Imperial in London for my undergrad degree though.

I know a fair few Kidlington Guides and Guiders - North Oxford is in Division 2 too, you see. Foxlease is one of the 7 national training and activity centres - it's in the New Forest and is where the World Camps were held. It's massive. I went to COSMIC in 2000 - camping in the Division so if you had gone we might well have met (as a Young Guider, I got invited to dinner with the service crew and the Division 2 members of the service crew came to dinner on our subcamp once.) I have a camp blanket, which is getting slowly fuller. The more major trips one does, the more people there are to swap with.

Guides own is the sort of prayer/readings ceremony Guides hold - generally not tied to a specific religion, but with things to think about it in it.

My favourite hat depends on the time of year. At the moment, I tend to wear a navy blue wool/felt hat with a green teddy bear brooch attached. During the summer, my favourite was a light cream one.
You can see both and my badges hat in the top picture here.
http://urchin.earth.li/photopub/range?range=/users/aendr/dormouse/642-644&titlehash=/users/aendr/dormouse/WmBdq3pbjN&style=/users/aendr/down

Menza U51490 already made me a madhatter smiley, back in the pre-Rupert days.
http://www.ox.compsoc.net/~aendr/images/madhatter_smiley.gif

Cheerio

AEndr

In a word: nothing. As part of my degree in German studies, I have to spend a year in a German-speaking country. So at the moment I'm actually studying at a University in Germany, rather than at the University of Leeds. Here I can follow whichever courses I like and one of my Anglistics courses is "Australian Culture and Literature Studies". So there you have it.

What do you think of Brasenose College? Are you enjoying being a post-grad there? Did you enjoy studying at Imperial? I got to know some people who were are UCL while I was living in London over the summer. They were really enjoying their student days, although they admitted that London was really far too expensive a city to be a student in. That was part of the reason why I chose to study oop North, although it was mainly because I wanted to live in the North of England culture. I was already quite well acquainted with it because my family are from Leeds. Where's your hometown "on the Wirral", by the way?

I do remember having Guides Own during camp, now you've explained to me what it is. I'd just forgot the name of it.

By the way, your friend's embroidary underneath the picture of your hats is excellent. Do you have any other hobbies apart from Guiding? I realize already that if you do, you've probably had to put them on hold at the moment. Writing a thesis, I've been told, can seem to put your whole life on hold.

Take care, Lizzy

re Aus Culture - ah! Fun to be able to do something different during your degree. In my 2nd year, I learnt French... technical French

BNC (Brasenose) is okay. But I'm hating academia in Oxford - it's just not right for me. IC was good, though expensive. Rent was about £100 a week where I was living. I find the culture in London very different from that of further North. Oxford is quite London and standoffish but Kennington, the village I live in outside Oxford is much friendlier and people you don't know are happy to talk to you. Oxford itself is pretty expensive too. I'm originally from Wallasey - 17th Wallasey West Guides (now 17th Harrison.)

Not my friend's embroidery - mine. Anna Sofia is my niece. http://urchin.earth.li/photopub/album?album=/users/aendr/all&style=/users/aendr/standard/
is the main page for photos from my digital camera and you can see piccies of her in the Europe trip section - she lives in Italy. I went to Europe for a conference in Nice and my mother came over and we took a trip to visit my brother and sister, who live in Montpelier and Turin respectively.

I also do a fair few other crafts - fantasy film, marbling, glass painting, ceramic painting, pyrography, papier mache, wire sculpting... mainly crafts I can then simplify and take to Brownies/Guides/Rangers. I'm also a Radio Amateur (mainly for Guides on the Air) and I do lots of reading.

I also (with a team of friends) started a special lones unit on the Internet, for Brownies/Guides/Rangers who couldn't get to regular units for any reason. http://www.netguides.org.uk/ While I am continuing with that, local Guiding, in Oxon is on hold at the moment - as is much of the reading and crafts. I am learning to drive though (test in January.)

Are you returning to the UK over Christmas vac? Some of my friends doing years in Europe seemed to have never ending streams of visitors wanting a free place to stay and someone who knew the area to show them around - never got any work done. Is it as bad for you? As a DPhil student in my 4th year, I am taking a very generous whole week off thesis. And taking 7 papers home to read, one a day.

Have you thought about rejoining Guiding as a leader or a Ranger - depending on your area, most UK uni areas tend to be pretty flexible about part time student leaders (some still need educating.) And lots of the NetGuides go on camps and the like with units local to where they live (or parents live when they are at uni) when they can't regularly go to those unit meetings.

cheerio

AE

Hi Ændr

Sorry I've taken a little while to reply. I hope your doing OK in Oxford. If it's any consolation, you're not the only one to not enjoy studying there - my Dad didn't like it either.

Wow - you're certainly multi-talented. What's fantasy film and pyrography, by the way? Like as not I'll have done them as a Guide and forgotten what they're called! When you say Ameteur Radio, do you mean DJ-ing or Ham Radio? What are you reading at the moment? I've just started a new book called "Desert Dawn". It's about a supermodel called Waris Dairie who returns to Somalia, where she was born, to rediscover her family and her roots. I'm looking forward to finding out about Somalian nomadic culture thru reading it.

Thanks for sending me the link to your digital camera web page. I'll have a proper look at it next week, when I've got my presentation out of the way. Your brother and sister are very lucky to be living in France and Italy. Do you think that you'll live abroad for a while after you've finished your degree? What do you think of Turin? I haven't made it to Turin yet, though I had visited another point on the industrial triangle: Milan. I went a month or so ago, so unfortunately it rained all the time, but it is a very beautiful city. My tip if you haven't been there already is to stay for 4 or 5 days if you want to see "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci, as you have to book a ticket if you want to see it and normally they're booked up 2-3 days in advance. Alternatively, you could phone and book your ticket before you arrive.

I have thought about having another go at being a Brownie Young Leader in Leeds. My Uni has pretty good connections with the local Guiding/Scout groups I think - it even has a Scouts & Guides society. I may look into it again when I return next year. However, as it's my final year I'm probably going to be very busy, so I'm afraid it may lose out to other voluntary work I may choose to do which will give me more direct work experience, eg working as a voluntary assistant in a primary school or helping to teach English as a foreign language. I'll have a look at "Net Guides" too, though. Re-joining is always somewhere at the back of my mind. As they say, once a Guide, always a Guide...

Take care and happy thesis writing (if that's not an oxymoron). Here's a cup of and a to help you out.

Get in touch again soon! Cheerio!
Liz

gah been busy. still have a few more pages of thesis written.

Fantasy film is a kind of poymer resin - you dip a piece of shaped wire into the coloured resin and it makes a film over the loop of wire, which then dries to a stained glass coloured see through effect. You then stick lots of these loops together to make flowers, birds etc.
Pyrography is using something like a soldering iron to burn patterns, writting and pictures into wood.

When I say Am Rad, I mean Ham radio - I'm M1FGO.
At the moment, I am mainly reading papers (boring) - and when I get home from writing thesis and reading papers, I really don't want to read books. Desert Dawn sounds deep. Are you enjoying it?

How's your presentation coming along/how did it go?

"Do you think that you'll live abroad for a while after you've finished your degree?"
I would like to, but I have a job offer for the job I really really really want, so I think I'll end up staying here for the time being.

"What do you think of Turin?"
I didn't see much apart from the house, some play grounds, some kiddies shoe shops and a park. We only had a few days and with a 1 year old, what one can do is limited.

Oh yes, always keep re-joining in the back of your mind. Anywhere would be glad to have another member/leader. BTW, the Brownie programme is changing soon - although most of the details are under-wraps at the moment. You might come back and find it all changed.

Oh and ! [perhaps I should request at least a smiley ]

Glad to hear you're making progress with your thesis. Keep going...one day it will be finished!

I finally managed to finish my presentation and give it last Friday. I worked right up to the wire, as usual...I was still scribbling notes forty minutes before I was due to give it! I think it went OK, though it wasn't scheduled for the best time in the world: 4.30 on a Friday afternoon. Not very many people turned up, and those that did clearly didn't rank listening to a talk on post-colonial Australia amongst their most preferred way to spend a Friday afternoon. To be fair, neither do I...though I would have at least have *tried* to look interested. Two girls at the back were playing with 'Kinder' egg toys...honestly!

Congratulations on your job offer! What job is it? I'm sure you had fun in Turin too, even if you didn't get to see so much of the city. Kids are always great.

Merry Christmas!!!
What are you doing for Christmas? I'm flying back to the UK this Saturday to spend Christmas with my parents and my brother in Oxford. Whatever and wherever you're doing for Christmas, I hope you enjoy yourself and have a well-deserved rest from your dreaded thesis.

Here's a and some to help you with your thesis.

ttyl, Liz

Thesis now at 82 pages and chapters 2-4 and appendices a and b given to my supervisor to read over.

4:30 on a Friday is a dreadful time! and grr about the kinder egg girls.

The job title is Cloud and Radiation Research Scientist and is with the Hadley Centre, UK Met Office.

And Merry Christmas to you too
I'm off on the train up to Wallasey on Saturday back to my parents and my brother is coming over from Montpellier on Monday. I'll be driving back next Sunday - my boyfriend's is coming up just to supervise me driving back (on country roads.) My driving test is just a few weeks away I'll be taking some maths home with me, I want to convert log pressure to pressure in a long derivation and I keep getting stuck, but I have a meeting with the head of dept tomorrow afternoon - he wrote the text book and is looking up his notes on the interim steps of the derivation. The phrase "simple manipulation," he said, was a little ambitious on the part of one of his co-authors.

Cheerio, I won't be on h2g2 for at least a week from now,
Ændr

Hi Ændr

From what I can gather (being but an ignorant layman) your thesis has something to do with weather. It sounds very interesting - though I don't think I could convert log pressure, either. Maths was my worst subject at school - I *hated* it. Surprisingly, I quite liked physics though, but then one of the teachers was excellent. She's such a good teacher she won a county award in fact.

Good luck with your driving test. Just give it your best shot, I'm sure you'll do fine.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Have a great time in Wallasey (and remember to take some time off!).

Look forward to hearing from you in 2003.
Lizzy