Prince's Trust Charity: Wild UK Challenge

As part of my NY resolutions to do more community volunteering and challenge myself, I have signed up for the Wild UK challenge. I have set up a new page to keep track of this event but please please help me raise funds by sponsoring me.

Please click here or click the Wild UK button above for more details.

Many Thanks

Please don't forget to “like” me on Facebook if you haven’t done so already! Thanks for your support!

Bee.

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Rock Climbing Addiction

“There are only three real sports: bull-fighting, car racing and [rock] climbing. All the others are mere games.” -Ernest Hemingway

With the beautiful weather upon us this weekend, I thought getting out there before the snow or rain returns was a wise idea. Weird that I ended up being indoors most of Saturday morning to early afternoon. Not lounging might I add. If you hadn't figured out what I was doing from the title of this post, I had one of the best indoor climbing sessions yesterday.

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Windows Phone 7 Application Development - Sink or Swim.

Shhhhhhh! If you sit quietly you can almost hear me sigh in relief to a nicely paced start of the week. Last week was very long and gruelling involving a lot of late nights in the office trying to finish off a project which had a tight schedule.

Ok, so let’s start from the beginning. I did a short course on Windows Phone 7 development at the end of last year and I when I got back to work after the Christmas holidays I was immediately informed of an upcoming project on WP7. You can imagine my excitement as I have been really keen to join such a project to the point where each time I sent an email to scheduling about upcoming projects the email had such a line “…if there are any WP7 projects please please please let me know”. I also made a point to join WP7 projects alongside those scheduled for me. Volunteering to test or adding small features nothing major but a great platform to learn from.

Finally got onto this project and boy was it at the deep end! Be careful what you wish folks because you just might get it. The project had a rather tight schedule and involved a lot of Sprints(Agile Methodology). These sprints made getting work done a bit of a task as some of the designs were still being changed as I was coding. In a way the tight schedule and the fact that I was given something totally new made the project even more challenging and in doing so I had to force myself to quickly grasp some of the ideas about object oriented programming concepts in relation to WP7 that I have been contending with for a while. With the deadline looming I called in some reinforcement to help me out as there was no leeway on the deadline. I had a WP7 Pro come to my rescue. I learned a lot more in a week than I would have in a month by collaborating with Mr WP7 Pro. Just because I was working with a Pro does not mean the Bee is now a Pro, although I am working on that. I learned so much as well as things that made the process easier such as getting the flow of pages before dwelling down into the data binding of the project and a lot of other WP7 specifics that the device emulator can and cannot do. The project was handed off on Friday for testing to another team so just about made the deadline.

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The Power of Self-Compassion: be kind to be more effective

A trying a week had me re-evaluate some of the challenges or projects I would like to take on this year. Having had a rather busy January, I am starting to wonder if I may have set myself unachievable goals. Although achievable, but unachievable in the sense that I may have taken on way more than I will be able to complete this year or that I will complete all of them but have left no room to actually reflect,  which I think is important. One of the biggest obstacles we all come against is ourselves and I have found that over the years I have found myself demanding a ridiculous level of perfection and just really being hard on myself which in turn can be counterproductive.

I used to keep journals a long time ago and a couple of months ago I happened to look through some of my books from university and came across one of my journals from my teens. I read through private thoughts and recalling just how keen I was to study away from London and the all amazing things I was going to do with freedom from prying family eyes. In reading some of the pages I realized that journaling offered a bit more than blogging does, in that because they are private so you can be as honest and cheesy as the moment calls for and talk about any and everything without censoring your written thoughts.

One of the reason I wanted to get back into writing (blogging rather) is that writing is said to “help make emotional transitions and help us process information about circumstances we find ourselves in”. With this in mind, blogging also offers the opportunity to keep track of one’s development as well the ability to be able to easily look through some of the milestones and the process of your journey in reaching your destination; that of the goals or life circumstance you go through. Reading through some of the journal entries brought back memories of a girl that always used to get lost in the clouds. I am a bit of a day dreamer. It was almost like watching a movie of snapshots into my life at different points in my teens into adulthood.

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The Outdoors Show - Climbing Techniques, bargain hunting and more

To mark the last post of January, I will finish January off with my review of the outdoors show at the Excel London. I went to the outdoors show on the 15^th January but couldn’t open some of the pictures I took as the files got corrupted. This is possibly due to the fact that I have been speaking rather disparagingly about my Samsung camera so maybe this is to teach me a lesson about being loyal to my gadgets.

Traversing the wall

I had a couple of sessions booked with the DMM stand at the show but in the end I only did one as my poor fingers were sore after a technique masterclass I did with Libby Peter. I did pass on my other booked sessions to my friend. The masterclass session started off with a chat with Libby asking the group what we wanted out of the session so as to tailor it to our needs. I mentioned that I wanted to get advice on getting the balance between keeping the body close to the wall and efficient use of energy by keeping arms straight when moving to different holds. There were three other people I climb with who were also booked on the session.

Libby Peter

                                       

Starting off with traversing from one side of the wall to the other to get warmed up while Libby looked on. After a couple of minutes she gave tips on how to efficiently conserve energy by keeping the body low, close to the wall and aiming to keep the arms straight. At which point she gave a demo of what she meant. Watching her climb slowly with such grace from one foot hold to the next made it look so easy but trying it out was off course a totally different story.

Over all the session was brilliant and I picked up a lot from just watching her and trying out some of the techniques she was showing us. Like many things, climbing is one of those things that you have to put in the time and practice in order to improve technique and gain body strength. Sometimes I find that on a climbing route I tire quickly because I am either rushing the climbing or straining the grip on the hold because my arms are slightly bent. One technique I picked up from the session was to rest into the wall that is, making a few moves then resting by leaning into the wall. This allows you to rest your hands enough to allow you to climb for longer than you might otherwise do by rushing into a climbing route.

                                                        Bike show at the Animal Stand.

The session was meant to be for an hour but it went over a little which we totally didn’t mind nor did we even realise as we were too engrossed in the fun of climbing. Overall I am even more excited to do more technique sessions both for lead climbing and techniques. Some of the sessions I do at the Reach Climbing Wall means that I can climb with different people so this still gives me the opportunity to learn from some of the experienced climbers in the climbing group. Sometimes I get stuck on a route and end up screaming at the belayer at the bottom to give me a hint on how to make my next move to the next hold and if all else fails I do a rainbow climb just to get over the hard move. A climb that involves a minor cheat or using holds from another route just to get over a hard section is what I call a rainbow climb as you will mix the colours of holds you use rather than stick to the one grade or route you started with.

As you can see some of the pictures that I managed to save are slightly dark, hence why my Samsung needs to be replaced by a younger and newer model. I can’t complain too much though as its saved me well even when my iPhone camera died on me. Other than my techniques course I managed to blow some cash on some climbing goodies and try out the world’s longest indoor zipline at the Go Ape stand.  I also came away with some Red Chilli shoes, DMM slings, screw gates, nut key. I didn't spend as much as I thought I would as I still came back with half the amount I took with me. Again, no complains with that one!

Longest Indoor Zip Line

Hope your NY resolutions are still going strong. As I am currently learning how to develop for the Windows Phone 7 don’t be surprised if my next few posts in February are about programming.

Please don't forget to “like” me on Facebook if you haven’t done so already! Thanks for your support!

Bee

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