Ben Nevis - Part 1

I made it up the mountain!

On Saturday, 6 of us: Matthew, Steven, Maude, Patrick, Hakim and I left Glasgow for Fort William. We planned to stay the night and hit Ben Nevis the next morning. We got a little bored that night...

Here's us after dinner. We had the one dish that no one can screw up - spaghetti bolognese...

Can you believe it? Daylight saving was good for something. We actually got an extra hour of sleep that night, as we turned our clocks back an hour. October 25 marks the last day of British summer - which was slightly ominous for us.

Apparently it's not safe for novice hikers (ie me) to go up Ben Nevis from November onwards. Hence why we went on the last weekend of October =). While Saturday was a day of absolutely wild weather, the forecast for Sunday was relatively better:

The sun was out as we hit the trail at 9am. Note: that isn't Ben Nevis in the background. It's actually to the right of the picture, but the bridge was on the left. Don't ask why...

My housemates and their friends... easily identifiable by their blue waterproofs

Matthew still in a good mood =)

The Ben Nevis Inn, and that night's dinner.

View from the walking path:
Maude and Steven
Glen Nevis is incredibly scenic. These ppl were on a morning walk...

Took about an hour of solid walking to get to this point. Models: Matthew and Patrick


Patrick and moi
Maude and Hakim - those sticks became very useful later on...
I was enjoying the walk thus far - weather was great =)

And then I turned around...

It was 1 hr 30 mins into the hike...I actually can't remember whether I was looking at the rain slowly coming to us (see below), or just gasping for breath. Or maybe I'd realised something: we still hadn't got to the saddle by the Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe. The Lochan's only 570m above sea level. The mountain's 1344m high...

In some countries, you get the four seasons. In Scotland, you can get four seasons in a day, localised on the same mountain... this was the wet season coming in.
On a sidenote, the wonderful thing about Scotland is that you'll never die of thirst. The saying "water, water everywhere" comes to mind.

Once we rounded a bend in Glen Nevis, we could start seeing the slopes of Ben Nevis. The summit was obscured by clouds (the cloud line's 800m up)

1 hour and 50 mins into the climb, we finally reached the Lochan (570m). I was happy. It was sweltering actually, as I had 4 layers on. In hindsight, that was a good problem to have.

Anyways, this was the easy part of the ascent... I'll leave the part where I thought I was going to die for the next post =)

Nic

Ben Nevis

I'm going to hike up Ben Nevis (translated: 'the mountain of heaven') tomorrow. It's the highest mountain in the UK, which isn't saying much as it's 1344m high =P

Having said that, I'm not underestimating it. Apparently 13 ppl died there over a 5 year period... time to put on the lucky underwear (and then some: it'll be freezing). Seriously though, my housemates and I will have to be careful. The weather's likely to be foul up there.

Will update once I get back.

Love,

Nic

ps... Bryan can have my guitars if anything happens =)

Paranoia

Today's MLH lecture started with our lecturer mentioning the formative essay. I may be paraphrasing, but if so I apologise in advance for any negative interpretation anyone may make. After all, I don't intend to commit a libel against anyone.

You may wonder why I started this post with that clause... let me restart:

Today's MLH lecture started with our lecturer mentioning the formative essay.

"It's generally a good habit to hand in the essays on time"
so far so good... i thought - after all, I handed it in on the revised deadline of Monday

"Rather than simply posting about them on your blog"
I'd swear that he looked directly at me when he made this statement. Mind started running at a rate of knots...

I suspect the percentage of students who blog in that class (there's less than 20 of us) is fairly low. I also suspect that the percentage of students in that class who were as aware of the law of defamation such as to mention their lecturer in a post is significantly lower.

Maybe I could be paranoid. After all (and I checked this later in the Workshop), there's no direct link from my student data to this website; and I suspect Dr Finlay has better things to do with his time than Googling his students. In any case, looking at the post, I don't think I libeled him

Another possibility presents itself: my lecturer uses Facebook =)

Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts - William S. Burroughs

Someone's looking out for me

God's awesome. Did you know that?

I was at a pretty low point over the weekend, having to grapple with my studies, finances, and worries about cell and church back home. I couldn't sleep last night, in fact. I'm one of those people who lies in bed thinking at night. Last night, there was just so much to think about that i just couldn't rest. Compounding it, I'd had one of those weeks where a lot of the small aspects of life which you take for granted decide to go wrong (eg a bike chain slipping off the gears - twice). Almost like death from a thousand cuts =P

Eventually, around 1-2am, I got up, went on my knees and prayed. There was just nothing else to do. I just went to God with my worries .

Today started like any other Monday in Glasgow. Woke up at 8am, fixed breakfast and went to class. To be honest, I didn't feel like gymming today but went out of force of habit. I came home pretty tired, and finished off last night's dinner - beef stew with carrots, celery, onion, spring onion, garlic, ginger, tomato and lettuce =)

Some of the guys from GCCC had asked me to play badminton tonight. To be honest, at 3pm, I was so tired I wanted to pull out. Instead, I figured I needed to defuse and so at 740pm, Vong (one of the guys from GCCC) picked me up (it was freezing outdoors) and we set off to the Scottish Badminton Centre.

Looking back now - that was ridiculously fun. Don't get me wrong - I played pretty badly. We all played pretty badly (except Wei Yao, who's several classes above us). But we had some hilarious rallies (including one where at every shot, the sound of racket frames rang loud), and it was just great to laugh, and hang out.

A piece of advice: Don't gym before badminton - doesn't help you when you're looking for that extra few percent of effort.

After the game, Vong fetched me back. On the way I mentioned that I was planning to hike up Ben Nevis this weekend. Upon hearing that, Vong insisted on detouring to his place and giving me some safety equipment (ie a safety bag, and a whistle). We ended up hanging out at his place for a while.

On my part, it was great just to be able to relax and talk to someone. Also (and don't laugh too hard here), he even gave me a jar of this stuff:

I'm sitting in my room reflecting on my day now, and I've just realised that sometimes God will just cheer you up through sending people at the right time. Random acts of kindness aren't actually so random after all - often they're God-inspired, no matter how random they seem at the time (a jar of kaya?).

The next time you feel you should do something to help someone...


Jokes aside, I'm absolutely serious on this point. Let God use you as His hands and feet. You'll be surprised at the impact.

I'm inspired because my God cares.

Amen.

How not to spend a tuesday/wednesday

Tuesday
930am - Wake up, shower, breakfast (cereal)

1030am - Walk to uni for my International Private Law lecture

1100am - Run into Mikey (classmate who also does Medieval Legal History)

Me: "so Mikey, started your MLH essay yet? I'm gonna work on it today."
Mike: "Yeah started on the weekend"
Me: "It's due Friday right?"
Mike: "... err no actually it's due tomorrow"
Me [frantically checks course outline]: "... shit... you're right"

At that point, the lecturer walked in and you can guarantee that I absorbed very little in that class. I was frantically planning an essay.

1200pm - After IPL, I rushed straight to the library and proceeded to, in a panicked fashion, research stuff that would help me answer this question:

"A Roman Lawyer without Canon Law is worth little: a Canon Lawyer without Roman Law nothing". Discuss.

At this point, some of you will say - why didn't you read the course outline properly? Well, page 1 of the outline stated that the essay was due Wednesday (Week 4's lecture). However, on the very next page, the actual essay question said that it was due in week 7. Don't ask how I thought it was due Friday Week 4. I'm a genius. Not.

Anyways I managed to get some scratchy research done, after lunch with Jacklyn. Eventually, at about 2.30am Wednesday morning, I completed the crappiest essay I've ever written in my whole life (and this includes my Standard 2 essay about "siapakah pemandu kereta yang paling teruk?"*).

Wednesday
230am - I went to bed.

730am - woke up for the 9am lecture...

900am - front up for the lecture half-dead with way too little sleep. The lecturer's first words:

Dr John Finlay: "I know the essay's due today [pauses]. However, I won't be in this whole week... so just hand it in Monday"

Me: "......" [clenches fist furiously under table]

To be honest, I can't really blame him... after all i should have read the outline properly - but it did kill my day.

1000am - All i could manage after the lecture was to stumble to the library after class to try to catch up with some readings. There I ended up napping for an hour (ask Elie).

1100am - I gave up on the study and went home to sleep.

300pm - woke up and went to the gym...**

What a day. Then again, cell was great that night (see earlier post).

PS: I've just finished the essay =)

* translation: "who's the worse driver" - how prophetic eh Kristine?
** re the gym - you can now see where my priorities lie.