That's the Underpath, son. We don't talk about the Underpath.

I have a problem with thinking; that is, I greatly dislike thinking. Not because I’m lazy or a genius, or that thinking is difficult or that I have so many brilliant ideas that trying to express them is painful, nothing like that. But I’m scared.

Everything in the universe is more complicated than we can see; not as in microscopic and too small for the naked eye, but too complex for the human brain to be able to process, so is simplified. For example, the ground we walk on is far more textured in colour than we can process, there is a larger gradient than we know. You might be thinking ‘well duh, we have the light/wavelength scale which proves that, we can only see a very fine range of lights’. While that’s true, this theory would state that the scale (including but not limited to things like UVA rays and gamma rays) is in fact only a fraction of light out there; just to pluck a figure out of the sky, we see about 2% or all known light for example, but all known light could only be 2% of what is actually out there, but our brains shut off those other samples, as they are too complex for our tiny little human brains to process and we would simply implode from trying. Unfortunately, my brain likes to try.

What I often wonder is what if we all see different things? So everyone knows that ‘they sky is blue’ and ‘leaves are green’ and ‘tree trunks are brown’. But what if the colour which you perceive as brown is different to the one I do? You see, how would we know if your brown was my pink, and my pink was your green? If that’s what we’ve been taught to see as the colour, a word is meaningless. We would need a totally independent intelligent life form to convert colours to algorithms and tell us what we’re seeing and confirm if they’re the same as another human. That’s the most simple of my fear-thoughts. They go on to get more complicated, such as our minds blocking and mutating different textures; what I see as a human might be someone else’s image of my alien image, we wouldn’t know because we’ve just been taught that this picture is human and this one is alien, and if we’re seeing different things then that’s just what we correlate to different sights. I feel like I’m not making sense anymore but it somewhat makes sense in my mind, if being slightly jumbled. It’s horribly confusing and I hate thinking about it because I just feel so different and isolated – no one would understand so I’ve never tried explaining it to anyone. I’m just desperately hoping someone who reads this thinks the same. I know other people think about the colour thing because of the song ‘Quiet’ from “Matilda the Musical” – I can’t explain my joy and feeling of normality the day I first heard that song.

The other thing I hate about thinking is when my thoughts grow exponentially. I start thinking about the world and think ‘wow the world is big’. Then I think about the universe, constantly expanding, and here is the first of my horrible conundrums: people think the universe is expanding and everything moving further away from everything else and go to prove this with the light/wavelength thing saying the further away it is the more red it will appear and blah blah blah, but my thoughts ask me if everything is really moving away or if everything is just getting smaller? For if everything is getting smaller, every single particle of every single thing in the universe is constantly getting smaller, we wouldn’t be able to tell for we too would be getting smaller. If the size is slowly getting sucked out of the things in the universe we wouldn’t know; obviously things would seem further away because they’re getting smaller. Space wouldn’t get smaller because space is a vacuum and has nothing, no particles, no atmosphere whatsoever, so it would just be the ‘stuff’ getting smaller, like I said, becoming further apart in proximity to each other, but not their physical placement. This would produce those same light wavelength readings as if everything is getting further apart, but no one could ever prove that, just as if someone had suggested everything getting smaller first, things moving away would never be able to be a valid theory. I hate that I have these thoughts and that no one can ever confirm them.

The next thought I get (these happen really quickly by the way, in waves of about 2 seconds, if that, and I have so many thoughts in my head that I just want to cry, it’s horrible) is that the universe is so huge and supposedly expanding constantly, what comes after it? What comes after the edge of space? You’re telling me that there is nothing else, just space, but what’s after creation? In my head I come up with lots of different explanations which momentarily pacify me- we’re in a shoe box. We’re actually tiny tiny tiny and God is sat there holding us on His lap in this box, maybe with 9 or 10 other Gods of other universes or dimensions, all going “Oh God, you’ll never believe what this one just did- they just disproved we exist!” or “Oh for God’s sake, stop trying to fly to the end of the universe, it’s never gonna happen people!”. This is enough for me, imagining these bearded guys in nighties holding their science experiments, but then I think “oh no, what comes after that?” because in my mind they’re just sat in a room. But where is the room? What comes after the room?! And then my mind zooms out into whatever happens next. What is outside the universe? Doctor Who suggested Silence, but how can there be nothing after silence? There can’t just be it, otherwise how do we exist? How are we suspended in nothing? If there is nothing after that, how is the universe expanding? Then I think ‘oh after the universe is heaven’ but WHAT COMES AFTER HEAVEN? WHAT IS HEAVEN IN? It just makes me fear life itself because I could imagine infinite things to be outside the universe or alternative dimensions, or parallel whatevers stacked on top of each other. It literally blows my mind. I can’t handle it and it makes me want to stop existing. I hate that I have the capacity to think.

The last one I’ve been struggling with is actually a really recent thing, but I don’t have any ways to explain it and it’s just plain annoying rather than scary or mind blowing. How minds work. Okay so you’ve got your brain which has your long term short term memories, sensory processing and recalling, blah blah, learnt in basic terms I’m sure at GCSE and AS psychology. I don’t have problem with the surface processes of how you remember- I’m fine with the processes and what happens when things happen and dejá vu and “glitches”, I’m fine with the fact that the left brain controls the right part of your body and is all creative and fun and your right brain controls the left side of your body and is logical and makes you want to be a lawyer. The hippocampus deals with co-ordination and the corpus-colossum joins your two brain parts. I’ve also learnt in biological terms the components of cells, and while these vary a great deal depending on the function of the cells, I know that they’re all just cells. So how the hell do they remember things? Okay so cells recognise sounds and sensory input. I mean, that’s okay to sort of grasp but once I think about memories, I don’t get how they’re stored- where are they stored? Where do your brains cells literally put the information? I think this episode of Spongebob squared (pardon the pun) the logical solutions pretty well, but of course due to scientific research of dissection and looking at physical human brains, we know this isn’t how it’s done. But how is it? Are there chests in cells with reams and reams of manuscript of your life? I mean, the information can’t just be floating around.

Another thing here that does sort of connect is that when you look at CT scans of healthy brains then look at those of dementia patients, you can see a marked difference in brain capacity – physically. Healthy brain looks like a butterfly, dementia brain looks like a butterfly someone set slightly on fire or trod on around the edges. It’s a horrible thing to see, but is a physical manifestation of the fact that you literally lose your memories. Your brain breaks down, and the memories go with it. Which means that memories are most certainly stored within the cells- BUT HOW?!

These are things that confuse me and today’s blog post title is sort of unconnected to the fact that we do process things differently as humans; I was playing Mario Kart 8 (good game, would recommend) with my brother: on one of the tracks I noticed there were very few people around but I was in 11^th place in this race which had 12 people. I hadn’t been driving badly but couldn’t see more than two players in front of me, suddenly they all came surging out of a crack in the ground and I exclaimed “Oh they went down the under path”. My brother replied about the “lower path being slower but he accidentally drove down the hole”. I kept calling it the Underpath and he mentioned how it sounds like a dark deserted place in a fantasy world.

“That’s the Underpath, son. None return where many have gone.”

Duke of Edinburgh series: How Homework Can Kill You (I Edition)

D of E, for those of you who don't know is a community based, challenge with expedition elements. It's for young people aged 15-25 and you must complete all sections of your award within 5 years. My knowledge, having completed two of the three available awards and being in the process of completing the third, is that the awards are a way to get young people today to interact within their communities and learn new skills. The four standard sections are physical, volunteering, skill and expedition, with the fifth section in the final 'Gold' award being residential.

The naming of this post refers to the danger my friends and I encountered on an expedition for D of E, an extra-curricular activity. Extra-curricular activities include homework, therefore this post will tell you how homework almost killed me.

These posts will be focusing on my expeditions, the first in this series my most dramatic expedition- Silver practice.
For your practice expedition on the silver award you have you complete one overnight and two day hikes, so we did our practice with the Bronze awards on their final. It wasn't a particularly nice day, but we motivated ourselves with songs and jokes. We noticed throughout the day that we were getting further and further behind our schedule, in spite of keeping up pace and cutting out unnecessary breaks. We were exhausting ourselves and it was beginning to rain. We furthered our depleted energy levels with goofy nicknames- the most popular and longest reigning being 'bum'ole'. By the time we got to the camp site the air was feeling miserable and we were getting rained on. Our tent went up in the drizzling English reliable' and we settled down to cook... well, Sam settled down to cook. He was perfectly happy for us to sit in the tent and eat marshmallow fluff, so that's exactly what we did. Later he and his guitar joined us and we had a soggy jamming session with fluff and Ben's legend. Jamaican ginger cake and custard comforted us for desert and we snuggled down to bed. The main reason I decided to finally write this blog post was actually due to another post I wrote where I described my PTSD-like symptoms I get when in the rain these days (which is often as I live in England). If I'm out in the open - walking down a street, between buses or in the middle of a field - and it begins to rain, I can often have a dizzying experience, including racing heart, flash backs and accelerated breathing. These symptoms have dramatically calmed since October 2010, but when I first noticed them, they could be set off by something as simple as hearing the weather-lady mention 'light drizzle'. You see those were the words our teacher used when we asked if the rain we woke up to would continue. "Oh no," she had said, "the weather reports are for 'light drizzle' but it'll stay cloudy all day."
We should have known not to trust her.

So there we were, one hour later hiking up a hilly, uneven road and hoping the wind would ease up, and a teacher roles up in her car. Winding the window down barely 2 inches she shouts that the weather 'isn't pretty'. Wow, you're in your little car with your cushiony seat and heated fans, water proofs that are waterproof and coffee cake and  you're telling us that the weather 'isn't pretty'? Okay. Now, seeing as the routes we were using weren't actually ours but the Bronze award candidate's, it didn't matter so much that we stuck rigidly to them. This was good news for us when this teacher suggested going "through the valley- the wind won't be as strong through there!" We thanked her for her help and cursed her as she drove away, safe, warm and dry because by this time we were in a torrential down pour- and I mean really bad rainfall, not just 'oh I don't want to go to school it's raining'. This was the kind of rain you couldn't possibly drive in*. Little did we know the temperature was dropping by the hour and the rain getting heavier by the minute. To us it was one continuous piss-fest in which we were apparently stuck. We sheltered on our way into the valley to discuss our options (we found a giant pot-pipe which we stood in for a few minutes deliberating). We could go back and run the risk of falling down the hill we'd just climbed on top of having to retrace our steps about 0.75km to the road our teacher took, or power on ahead through this valley and face the ever realising possibility that the wind was in fact channeling through the valley, contradicting what our teacher had said some 25 minutes previously. We took our chances and soon decided we had made the wrong decision of going ahead into the valley. We met an older couple who informed us that the latest weather report was a red alert for rain in the area we were walking, that they were going back to their car to take refuge and that we should do the same. However our teacher was now out of sight and with rules on phone use on a D of E expedition quite clear, our only options was to keep going and hope we saw another teacher at the opening of the valley. We quickly started referring to this place as the Valley of Death and began singing (by which I mean yelling but still not hearing each other) dramatic power ballads including You Never Let Go and You'll Never Walk Alone. After about 20 more minutes, we noticed an ever-forming river running through this valley, which wasn't marked on the map. We wondered whether the map was outdated, but realised that there was fresh, growing, green grass under the raging torrent and that it couldn't possibly be an everyday feature of this valley. This was when it dawned on us that we might be in trouble. For a start, the further we went into the valley, the higher the stream/river/raging-water-beast rose, and the higher it rose, the more disheartened we became. We had to keep going forward as the river had now cut us off from the path we had taken, but in order to carry on forward we had to cross over the river. There weren't any fallen branches around and the water was too deep and quick moving for us to wade through, so we were pushed along the hillside until we reached a cluster of rocks which we used to jump across the river. Now in hindsight I'm sure it was only about 1 foot deep, but it was getting pretty wide and it was absolutely gushing along through the valley. Although not terribly deep, rushing water can unbalance the best D of E-ers. This was the point at which we realised we might actually need our rubble sacks**. The issue with this was that we knew we wouldn't get out of them if we got in, as our energy levels were dropping, bags absorbing water and so becoming heavier and our team spirit hitting an all time low. Sam, our self-appointed chef, decided we needed to stop and have some food before we made the decision to abort the expedition. Ruth, our on-hand animal expert, observed that usually animals (in this case, sheep) would find a hallow to rest in until a storm blew over, but these sheep were climbing to the top of the valley, indicating the storm wasn't anywhere near done and up was the safest option, however after climbing about 25m, we came face-to-face with barbed wire fencing, preventing us from going over the top. One of our team started to panic so we found a mound of grass and rubble back near the river to sit and Sam got out a packet of New York Bagels. They were the loveliest food I've ever eaten- as I can imagine anything would be in a crisis- and we laid down our options again: we'd had to cross the river numerous times and were back on the left hand side (where we had been when the river started forming) and could see a few rocks where we could pass back over, we couldn't stay on this side as there were a good many trees and the wire fence extended down into the valley after this point; going back was totally not an option and neither was going up, so we finished our bagels and resolved to go forward and pray.
Another member of the team and I kept going by setting tiny targets- which felt like miles- "just get to that tree... great, now try to get to that bush... pull into line with that sheep... now get to that big open expanse which has a telegraph pole in the middle of it where we can hear cars in the distance". Wait, a telegraph pole... we're saved! You know those rules on phones I mentioned earlier? They state a phone can be used in an emergency to contact your supervisor. As this was a practice expedition,  we didn't have a supervisor, but were without contact numbers for our teachers. So we used Ben's GPS. And it was a very good decision, because the telegraph pole meant signal, and signal meant showing us where that distant road was, and we could see the road on the map but as we were in an expanse, didn't know which way the road actually was. We got to the road and the phone went away. We met up with a teacher who pointed us the best (safest, most populated and fastest) way to get to the finish point which was now all we cared about. We bumped into another group from a different school who informed us that we were the only school out of 8 who were expedition-ing in the area who hadn't aborted (they were on their way to meet their teachers in the school minibus). After crossing another few roads, the rain had eased considerably (though still present) and we found a group of aging walkers going to the same destination as ourselves. Thinking it was best to walk with company, we kept in the wake of these relatively experienced and apparently high-stamina walkers. It wasn't easy and at one point I almost took my shoes off, thinking it more comfortable to just walk in socks as the only purpose my shoes seemed to be serving was holding water. We walked along a legitimate river which would have been beautiful if not for our traumatized states, then reached a hill. It wasn't an easy climb and at points we had to stop but the lovely group of ridiculously fit over 50's kindly allowed us brief periods of rest.
When we reached the top of the hill, we took a look at the view below us and felt relieved that we'd made it. We were in awe, but probably more for the fact that we were still alive than the beauty (as we were informed by others around us). Waiting for our lift home was agony, as the tearoom- the only piece of civilization for seemingly miles around- refused entry to walkers and the public toilets were without toilet paper, heating or facilities for drying hands. Oh and did I mention that the previous night we discovered my water proofs were actually not water proof?
Ruth's mum picked us up (us being Ruth, Laura and myself) and had loaded the back seat with towels, bath robes and hot water bottles, and brought food and hot Ribena. I wasn't a fan of hot Ribena at this point, but it was amazing to peel off our soaked layers, snuggle into towels, blankets and warm dry seats and drink the first warm nourishment we had had since our Jamaican ginger cake and custard. Charlotte*** took a longer route to stop off at a chip shop and buy us hot, fresh chips. We nibbled these and relaxed for the next I-don't-know-how-long until we reached my house, when Sister brought my own dressing gown and some flip flops out for me to transfer from the car to the house in, but after trying and failing to use my legs, Sister gave me a piggy-back inside and I went straight upstairs for a hot bath.
The next months were filled with anticipation over our second, upcoming practice which eventually was cancelled, anxiety about wind or rain and thoughts of our final expedition. That expedition will be talked about in the next edition of my D of E series, but at our award ceremony for Silver, we found out that the weekend I just described saw 1/3 of the annual average rain fall for that area. So rather than having the rainfall spread over th course of the year, we received 30% in just two days.

And that's how I almost died doing extra-curricular activity.

*Our teacher was going at a maximum of 5mph and later she told us she'd pulled over quarter of a mile along due to the weather reports.
**For those of you who don't know, rubble sacks are bright orange, thick, plastic body-bags which are used in an emergency, for example if someone goes into shock or has a fall and needs to keep warm but can't move. they're also quite useful for keeping things dry in overnight if you're without room in your tent.
***Ruth's mum, aka the best D of E chauffeur ever.


Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are in no way affiliated with the Duke of Edinburgh organisation or charity. Experiences some individuals have on their expeditions do not reflect the nature of the activities, nor are they necessarily common in such activities. This a post about Francesca Grace Hall's personal  experience on an expedition organised by her school through the D of E program and does not represent Duke of Edinburgh awards in any way.

Christmas Glitches

I've been thinking about Christmases past recently, due to the forbearing holiday season which is fast approaching. There are a lot of memories for me surrounding the Christmas period, including many bouts of poor health in recent years (ranging from bronchitis to stomach tissue damage to the good old seasonal flu), but the first one I'd like to hone in on is when I was around 7-years-old and my sister around 9.

1. The time my parents got it wrong

Everyone has relatives who they feel obligated to buy for, just like everyone has the distant 'aunts' and 'uncles' who aren't actually related but always send a £10 voucher for something or other. In the same way, everyone- everyone- has those family members who always buy them clothes. For my family, this is my mum's youngest brother... well, his wife. My auntie, uncle and cousins can always be counted on to send us each a fashionable clothing item; whether a pinstriped shirt for my dad or pajamas for my brothers or matching dresses for me and my sister, there are always clothes for us on Christmas day from those family members. One year I remember very specifically opening some lovely pajamas from my auntie- similar to my sister's but mine were mint green and hers were baby pink. I said "Oh! Pajamas!" to which my parents replied in unison "They're quite clearly day clothes." My sister agreed and no matter how much I protested, I was backed into a corner by three adamant advocates for my auntie's choice of day clothes for our Christmas presents. There were slouchy hip-sitting trousers with pink or green, brown and yellow vertical stripes with pink and green vest-tops with embroidered cats on. I remember thinking they were the flimsiest, least secure clothes I would ever wear and was sure my auntie had picked these by mistake. Then when my parents insisted we wear them for our auntie, uncle and cousin's visit just before New Year, I was powerless to resist and begrudgingly changed from my nightie to these thin, un-winterly clothes. My auntie arrived to find me and my sister stood on a chair in the living room trying to open the french doors and exclaimed "Oh! You're still in your pajamas?" I was mortified that we were wearing matching pajamas as day clothes, fuming angry with my parents for insisting they were day clothes, yet still relatively smug that I had been right all along. I still bring it up sometimes, simply to see the look of horror-struck remembrance at the embarrassing time my parents made me and my sister wear pajamas in the day time.

2. The time my grandma got it wrong

The second Christmas memory I would like to shine a light on took place a few years later, when I thought me and my sister were old enough to stand up to our grandma when she brought us clothes and shoes to be rivaled with. Every time my grandma visits, she'll bring us (my sister and I) something she thought was most flattering in 1955. When she was younger my grandma had a real eye for fashion, due to working a fair time of her adult life as a sales assistant for Next. As a result she would be blessed with end-of-line stock as and when she pleased- which was often, the scrimper my grandma was (and still is). Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid, I know fashion is on a cycle and we're currently back to the 50's-60's with bright blocks and skater skirts and leather jackets and ankle boots. However styles are very different to specific items of clothing and when my grandma presents you with a three tiered white dress which has been sat in her wardrobe for 40 years, you'll be running for the hills faster than a relay with Mo Farah and Usain Bolt. Firstly, I was about 11 and still skinny as a rake, my ever flattering grandma- a solid size 18- hands me a size 16 dress and says "I should imagine this will still fit you if you want it". To add insult to injury the dress was a horrible should-be-white-but-washed-down-to-ecru colour. After a good 10 minutes of me ensuring her I don't suit white, she tried to force the dress on my sister, who tried to accept on my behalf out of spite, but my mum came to the rescue, insisting herself that white did not suit either of her girls as we 'couldn't keep a black top clean'. Thanks mum. This year though, my grandma had brought a bag of old shoes which had been quite the pieces in her day. Unfortunately, they weren't anymore. In spite of us telling her over and over that they would simply be thrown out, we found them after dropping her home on boxing day, mismatched and odd pairs alike, in a huge brown bag. And lo- at the bottom of the bag what do you expect we find? The dress.

3. The time Santa got it wrong

The last is about my parent's undoing at their own hands. Unfortunately, the more children you have, the more complicated the process of Christmas gifts is, especially when Santa has 3bn other children to think about, am I right? So Santa used to do an extraordinary thing- write our first initials on our presents. "Ah, how clever." you may be thinking- not clever enough though when you try to get too organised- matching wrapping paper. There must have been a glitch in the matrix or a mis-communication between my parents Santa and his elves, because as my sister and I got half way down our stockings, it became apparent that I was opening presents for her and she, presents for I. We checked the wrapping paper and sure enough, my pile consisted of 'E's and hers of 'F's. We swapped stockings and continued unwrapping, only to find the same mistake- I was once again opening things she had asked for and her unwrapping things I had asked for. We realised that Santa must have wrapped things in the wrong wrapping paper then and elf had come along and labeled the presents wrapped in my sister's allocated wrapping paper 'E' and those in my allocated wrapping paper 'F'. It was a very exhausting Christmas morning and me and my sister spent most of it trying to decide who got what and our parents helpfully suggesting what Santa might have intended for each of us- without sounding like they knew who's was who's.

At the end of the day, Christmas is about being around people to celebrate what you believe to be the meaning of Christmas and we were doing that. In fact, I'm going to put these mistakes down to the fact that we were probably getting a bit too into the holiday spirit and so got jumbled about presents and recipients, relatives and pajamas, and gifts and bin bags.

Also, if you've ever wondered how slightly dippy Christian children write their Christmas lists, check out my video here, called 'The Girl Who Prayed'.