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01/07/05 - 'Tis a new month and a new start, The Sims 2: Big Brother 3 is now over, thank you to all of you who voted in the polls and viewed the episodes; it was great fun making them and a good way to learn new techniques using The Sims 2. I hope to start making some movies from the game soon, but I don't know if I can guarantee a new series of SimsBB in the near future, but we'll see...

So what else is Huckool Productions moving onto? Well there are a number of things I want to get sorted and finalised with the site. I want to get the Photography section sorted, and with SimsBB out the way, that should be much easier. I need to get Namibia Expedition, Madness Concert and my trip to Buxton on Monday to be put on there. I'm a little nervous about this up coming selection course in Derbyshire for my Malaysia Expedition. Hopefully I'll have the edge with my previous expedition experience, but I feel that I might forget something important whilst I'm there, which will screw things up. I don't know, it probably is just nerves, but there'll be updates next Friday of how it all went. Pray for me...

08/07/05 - Wow, what an eventful week this has been, and I'm not just talking about the news. Well for me, I've been accepted to go to Malaysia! I can finally escape from a country and society, where there are an infinitive number of news reports of 'feral' teenagers attacking middle-aged, middle-classed people... But enough of moaning about that (for the moment), what will I be doing? After my amazing time in Buxton, where I met ten of the coolest people ever (will be in the team pic to be on the Photography section soon...), I have been accepted to do Care Work and Teaching in the Peninsular and in Sarawak, Borneo.

For the care work, I will be working in a foster home for destitute (very poor) children. There are under 100 children and there's also a home set up there for terminally ill children too. It runs on donations and my daily routine is likely to be varied, from teaching some children that don't go to school, to also working with other younger children with Arts and Crafts or music. There are two types of teaching placements involved, one with children aged from 7 to 18 years old, or helping out with a Kindergarten.

The people at World Challenge believe that I'd be better off helping with younger children as they feel I may not have the confidence to deal with older children formally. I personally agree with them on that, I'm not a very formal or fixed person and I'm not sure how I'd do being a teacher, especially with my major lack of experience in teaching. I haven't worked with young people much, but I get along with them well in whatever situation, but I think the experience will be enjoyable and a good way for me to learn...

On with the news... London has the Olympics! London get terrorist attacked... hmm... I don't know what to make of London getting the Olympics. It could be a great improvement for an already decaying society, but I'm not willing to wait until 2012 to find out what good could come out of it. It will be interesting to see how the building work progresses over the next seven years. I have a feeling there could be some delays due to all the mumbo-jumbo paper work that the British like to endure on everything. I believe Paris would be able to get the job done quicker and therefore produce a better quality Olympics. It's a shame Chirac was unwise with his words, but then I'd be in worse trouble for expressing my opinions if I was in such as a high position as he is.

Then there were the terrorist attacks, I was a little shocked that I was actually in London two days before it happened. I was at Euston where one bomb went off 30 odd hours later. My mother was at the Hampton Court Flower Show too, which would have been an ideal terrorist hotspot with all the people round there, but fortunately she and my aunt were safe that day. I just want to see how the people sort the situation out. I've been expressing negative at those expressing their 'support' for the victims by simply typing "London be strong". Shouldn't there be a comma in there somewhere? I think to show support or respect for something you need to put some effort into it, not just wearing some wrist band or following a stupid fashion so you can be satisfied that you've 'done your bit'. I believe that South East Asia needs my help, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm not a fan of hypocrisy or fashion. One day the world will grow up and someone will say that I was right all along...

15/07/05 - Hello everyone, another week has passed... the photos from my Buxton trip are now up, and I've tidied up the Photography section a little bit. I've taken the button for Best Pics off as there is currently no Best Pics section on there, but hopefully I'll get that done some time. Will do my best to get all other Photography related projects up to date on the site before I go to Malaysia, I want this site fine and dandy before I leave...

After moaning about the Olympic bid and the London bombings last week, I forgot to moan about the other big event, Live 8. I said last week that I don't like hypocrisy... well it thrived at Live 8. Lets start with the crowd... most of it was fine as there was no alcohol allowed on site, but it was mainly what lurked in the 'Golden Circle' or whatever it was called, where all the non-performing celebrities lurked. A concert about equal rights for everyone around the world (or mainly Africa) and celebrities are given a barrier to stop them mingling with 'dirty norms'.

What other hypocrisy was there? Oh yes, Mariah Carey existing on the premises. Her, fairness and freedom don't quite mix. She moaned about Madonna having a larger trailer than her when the focus of the concert is about those who don't even have a trailer or anything to live in. But like a lot of media reports have said, some of the performers are there to promote themselves... yes, most likely. I'm sure the divas and rappers and other half-wits would squeal if a starving African child put their hand out asking for a sip of their soda, or by the language that was used, some WKD. The world will learn one day...

22/07/05 - Quite a mixed up week for me this week, a lot of personal problems at the moment. Just to put it in brief, I got a bit upset with my parents having a go at me whilst trying to sort out money. That was on the Sunday but I managed to get everything sorted over the week so all is fine, but I cheered myself up that evening by going to a gig at the Down Town Diner, where I hope to have more pics on the Photography section, will try and get those up soon. Other bad things... someone on my department at work died, which is sad to hear. I didn't know the person very well but she was boyfriend to a friend of mine, who's currently off because of the situation.

So quite a week, but next week is to have a lot more involved. I got Holiday Club at the church on Monday and Tuesday. I'll be helping out there to get some experience of teaching for when I go to Malaysia. Though Holiday Club is all week, I have to go to Buxton again on Wednesday to Friday. They'll be deciding whether I'll be doing Care Work and/or Teaching. I'm hoping I get to do both, but I really need to find out what's going to happen with the Care Work, as I don't want to be in an unhappy environment for three months. World Challenge thinks Care Work would be best for me, but I'm not totally confident on that, but hopefully all will be sorted over at the end of the week. You'll find out in my next Blog what will be happening, and hopefully it'll be good news...

29/07/05 - Wow, what a busy week, and it's only Friday but there's still more to come... so starting off first is Holiday Club at the church. This was basically a starter for what I'll have to go through in Malaysia and what I did in Buxton later on. Monday involved Care Work and Tuesday involved Teaching. Monday I spent most my time looking after Isaac, then on Tuesday I was assisting more with the children in their groups (mainly because Isaac wasn't there that day), but my involvement didn't really make a very helpful test.

So on Wednesday it was onto Buxton, with a five hour train ride... It wasn't that bad of a trip, though the trains were a little stuffy. When arriving, I was subject to an information overload which is still hurting my brain, and I still remain undecided in what I'm actually going to be doing out in Malaysia. I think that I may do both Care work and Teaching on separate occasions. I'm not entirely fond of working with disabled children, due to certain personal beliefs, but I should be having someone with me who's also doing Care work.

So why don't I just do Teaching? Well with no formal teaching experience in me, I found teaching English upon the subject of Directions to a bunch of perfect English speaking young adults a difficult task. I managed to go for 13 minutes, and they were tough, and the time was extended by my pauses in trying to make something up. So I think the Care Work will be a confidence boosting exercise and then Teaching will be the follow on. But it's not just the Teaching that I want, I also want to experience the indigenous of small hill tribe towns. The Care work is situated in Kuala Lumpur so it will be 'Westernised' and very modern, something that I want to get away from. The Teaching will be on Borneo in Eastern Sarawak where there are very few major towns, which I'll find dearly interesting with some great photo opportunities included.

Hopefully some parts of this trip will get sorted throughout the week, but for now, I'm going to a party tomorrow and bring myself back to some kind of normality after feeling a little weird at Buxton. I guess I need to put my mind at rest upon something else after all the info that has been ploughed upon me over the past couple of weeks. Look out for more photos on the site... parties, pics from Buxton and maybe more...