here we go

long time

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:00:55 GMT

Hello everyone!
Wow, it's been a really long time since I posted.
Just to say I'm alive and my life is generally good with the working as a Garden Designer for my Dad, living in my new flat in Edinburgh and having just had a holiday in Spain. Photos will be posted to facebook but there are many so it may take a little while.

musings

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:07:26 GMT

Anyone else ever just snapped out of love? Suddenly felt very empty where once they were desperately holding onto something which just did a vanishing act? Then had to fight a bubbling nonsensical hatred? Woo for brain chemicals eh?

confused

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:43:23 GMT

Has anyone ever seen snow out of a clear blue sky?
I saw it today and it was baffling. I'm SURE I didn't imagine it.

teaching tefl here I come...

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:04:10 GMT

So I'm starting an online TEFL course thing and it suggests I get some books. I'm gonna look them up on free cycle and such but thought maybe someone out there would like to make some space on a book shelf and there's always a small possibility one of you has one of these:

A Concise Grammar for English Language Teachers by Tony Penston.
Practical English Usage by Michael Swan.
Grammar In Use series by Raymond Murphy.
The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer
Planning from Lesson to Lesson by Seth Lindstromberg & Tessa Woodward
Practical Techniques for Language Teaching by Michael Lewis & Jimmie Hill

If I get radio silence I'll take it as blank stares but I think it's worth a shot if it saves me £60 of books.

In other news I won't be running away in January.

Wintertime blues?

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:42:40 GMT

Super sale from Ryanair!!!!!!!!!!!

Flights for 0.01p and NO taxes!!

I know I sound like I'm trying to sell it to you guys but I think everyone deserves a holiday.
Sale ends tonight (25th) at midnight.

Well that's my good deed for the day

random update

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:41:42 GMT

I'm feeling random so:
It's raining, I got negative monies, I'm stuck at home, I'm working every day and feeling knackered every night cause it's manual labour, I failed my motorbike theory test the other weekend so I still have no freedom, feeling the severe lack of a social life, remembering all the reasons why I left this place for four years, living with parents would be nice if they weren't constantly working so maybe I'd have a chance to spend some time with them and it's very unlikely I'll be out of this country by January.

But I'm happy because the fates like me and I got to talk to her for a whole 20 minutes :-D
Kind of feels like the exact opposite of a kick in the teeth.

update...

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:24:22 GMT

So it's been a while since last time I posted. I think the last thing I said was that I'd finished uni.
Since then I went to amsterdam, found out I got a respectable yet average 2.2 BSc in Zoology, moved back down to live with my parents, started earning the highest wage of my life at £7 an hour working for my dad doing landscape gardening and working really hard to try and get my little album of songs finished in time for the summer solstice.

If anyone is interested in my album I started making a page on facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Donald-James/17201391686

And why the summer solstice? My dad's helping organise a mini festival with live music, bonfire, a burlesque show, cocktails, wacky fun... for the whole weekend of the 21st of this month. Hopefully I'll get to play a bit and give people the opportunity to get a cd. It's a pretty good incentive to finish a 2 year long project. Then I can start on the next one :-)

If you want one let me know. If you like the sound of the party then also let me know. There's plenty of room to pitch a tent or you could just party non-stop.

hopefully I'll get to see you all soon

4 years. where did it go?

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:42:53 GMT

So today I handed in my zoology honours thesis.
It feels really weird. I have a whole mix of glad it's done but wishing i still had time to keep going over it and drafting it that one last time. Ended up handing it in a day late because the printer wouldn't work. Amazing what can go wrong when you really need it. Oh yeah that's called sod's law. Anyway it is done and all i've got left to finish my course is 3 exams and a 5000 word essay. So i'll be finished mid May. Yey!
Life plans for post May include go to Amsterdam for a week of crazy, working for my dad again so i can get up early, get fit and healthy and earn some money, go to spain and learn spanish. It might also be because there is a girl there.
After May i will be able to have a social life again so see you all there. If anyone is a freak and likes reading honours thesis(s) or wants to know what algae do in heterogeneous environments then let me know and i can send you a copy of my thesis. It has lots of pretty rainbows in it too :-)

this is my dissertation:

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:54:05 GMT

I grew an algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in square petri dishes with coloured filters on top to see whether they would swim to the best light or stay where they were and adapt even if it wasn't the optimal colour of light. I used 3 treatments of coloured filters:
shallow = a single rainbow from one side of the dish to the other
medium = two rainbows from one side of the dish to the other
steep = three rainbows from one side of the dish to the other
and a control which had no coloured filters.
This means it is easiest to adapt in a shallow treatment where the area of each colour is in a single large block rather than split up into 3 as in the steep treatment.

The results look like this:

Figure 1: Natural log of the proportion of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells (ln(proportion of cells)) observed at each colour between shallow (dark blue), medium (pink), steep (yellow) and control (light blue) treatments. All data points represent averages with +/- standard error of the mean. The control had all colours available at all locations and therefore represents a random distribution.

Hopefully it looks nice and shiny. My problem is although those colourful lines look very different to one another I'm having problems figuring out how to statistically prove they are different. I don't know if any of you can help but I think i've been over thinking it so I figure someone out there has an easy solution.
Also let me know if anyone actually understands what this shows. That would mean I'm on the right track. Only 5 days till it's handed in. No sleep for me.
D

I'm not often cynical....

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:51:57 GMT

But when I am it's generally about the fact that we're going about things all wrong. I saw this today and it made me smile coz I think they feel the same:

http://www.frozenreality.co.uk/comic/bunny/index.php?id=1089

for people not on facebook and therefore didn't get invite or notified properly, I am definately playing at the forest cafe on Bristo Place on Wednesday 5th March at 9pm as part of a night of live original free music. This makes me happy. If you would like to share my happiness I'll see you there
:-D

good things...

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:14:27 GMT

For some reason january is always a shitty month for me. That might be why my life has just got that little bit better now.

Fourth year is going ok. Loads of time it seems and for the past week i've only been in for half days which has meant lots of sleeping in.

My dissertation on Adaptation to Environmental Gradients is going very well. All the pilot experiments have been working well, the chlamydomonas (algae) haven't died yet, I've got the camera filters ordered and on monday i get to have an afternoon of playing with scissors and glue to try and make rainbow light.

I've been feeding myself proper food again which means not wasting money and all the other things good food does for you.

One of my friends got a 9 track so i've been trying to record some of my new songs. Nothing good enough for general release and i need to finish my first lot of songs off first anyway but it's good fun punching them out and seeing what they sound like.

And last but DEFINATELY not least:

I've got a gig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's part of a night on at forest cafe that happens on the first wednesday of each month so it's called blue wednesdays. I'm playing at the one in March. It's a selection of different people probably up to four each getting their own 30-40 minute set. Don't know who else is playing but it's going to be really good. So I'll try and keep people updated if they're interested.squeeee!

love...

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:41:08 GMT

Love *really* fucking hurts
just an observation

edit: It turns out this particular scenario is an awful lot like the end of the amber spyglass.

dinosaurs

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:15:48 GMT

I hope everyone's christmas was warm and fuzzy. My parents escaped to the other side of the world for a couple of months so i was in glasgow with my sisters. Spent most of christmas lazing infront of mindless t.v. or computer games and eating lots of biscuits and christmas cake. Definately my kind of christmas. My little sister made her own crackers and put cute little wind up dinosaurs in them so i made them into a christmas animation. It's cute and has some of my music in the background.

Now I'm back in edinburgh getting ready to leave for spain tomorrow. Yey! Can't wait. Have been counting the days since september. Hope everyone's hogmanay is amazing fun.
see those of you in edinburgh when i get back.

my music on myspace

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:46:06 GMT

If anyone feels like listening to original music and reading blurb then go to: www.myspace.com/makiboysmusic
I'm pretty happy with what's there but it'll still be a wee while before i have the production sweet. Criticisms are very welcome as it'll be the only way i can make it better.
In other news zoology honours seems to be easier than 3rd year only requiring more reading and less in course assessment which is awesome.
Going to go see transformers at the imax cinema in glasgow today. SQUEE! shall be most funsome.
And I have bought my flight to spain for new years. North of spain where the real spaniards live and there's not tons of british people.
Life is good.
D

catchup

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:31:22 GMT

So i've been distracted for about a month with te whole travelling round india finishing off then getting back and trying to pick up all the pieces and readjust to the 1st world again.

Last couple of weeks were much of the same crazy adventures of lacking money and eating strange foods but i also met one of my friends from edinburgh randomly while i was in Leh who was going on a 3 day motorbike trip to the "world famous" pangong lake. I'll be impressed if anyone else knows it. It's very beautiful anyway and crosses the border with tibet. I got really excited and so changed all my plans to do the motorbike thing. It was probably the best thing i did the whole time i was in india but it meant that i didn't get to see any of srinigar, agra or indore but i don't care 'cause what i did was better anyway.

Getting back to edinburgh became a pretty crazy adventure. I was running out of time and money. Almost had to travel 3 days nonstop by bus to get from delhi to mumbai but was able to pay 3 times the usual price to get a 20 hour train. Couldn't afford a taxi to the airport and had time to kill so I walked the 20km from one end of mumbai to the other to get to the airport. It was a mision walking throught the midday heat of Mumbai and possibly one of the hardest days i had in my whole trip but i would have been really frustrated if i'd had the money and just got a taxi because i'd have had nothing to do all day. Also this way i got to see tons of odd little parts of Mumbai that i bet noone ever goes to. Like the abandoned factory totally take over by trees and plants so that it looked like the jungle temple from the jungle book only without the monkeys.

I've finally sorted out my photos too so if you want to check them out go here:

http://ed.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2122922&l=71134&id=61000567

The adventure to get home didn't finish once i got on the plane in Mumbai. My whole trip in india had been frustrating because i had no means of ready cash. This was doubly troublesome in britain as the rupees i had left were practically useless once i got to britain and exchanged them. My parents were going to buy me some sort of e-ticket but were confised about which day or time i got back. So I turned up at Heathrow on the evening of the 22nd July with no idea how i would get back to edinburgh. My parents wanted to buy me a train ticket but for some reason it is impossible to do over the phone or by internet. So i spent about 3 hours in Euston staion slowly spendng my last few pounds calling home to find a way to get home. Luckily for me i met soe friendly canadians who happened to be going to Edinburgh for the festival. They were able to buy me a ticket north and i was able to pay them back once i got home but i found it interesting that it took a complete foriegn stranger to get me home while every british citizen i spoke to calmly explained they weren't authorized or it wasn't their responsibility and i should ask so-and-so. Fucking country.

But it's good to be back. Had an awesome birthday, have a good thing with spanish chica who i met about a year and a half ago at a random spring festival in andalucia, got hired as a k.p. for doctors but have spent more hours working on the bar, have actually seen someof the festival this year and am playing lots of music :-D

many thousand km in 12 days...

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:37:04 GMT

So i foolishly ended up being stuck in a little tourist trap of a village called bhagsu in himachel pradesh. It was nice because it was totally full of little cafes and hippies and jam sessions and getting drunk and good food. The second night i was there i played at a little open mic night with the most random mix of punjabi folk music, classical indian music, israeli pop and acousticy folk rock. It was totally acoustic which was nice and it devolved into a really good fusion jam session with guitars, tabla, djembe and a washboard. I also got attacked by a scorpion.
What are you supposed to do when you get a scorpion crawling up your leg and you're sitting in a room full of people trying to be very quiet to hear the music? Luckily for me there was a guy who managed to flick it off my back then outside. And it wasn't even small. It was about 4-5 inches. Anyway i survived.
I also got to play my own gig. A whole hour of me on stage. I got some people to play guitar and didge and djembe with me. I got a really good reaction and in fact the whole time i've been in india has been really good for confidence in my own ability.
So i left bhagsu on tuesday and got to manali on wednesday at stupidly-early-am. Left again at 2am the next morning after deciding if i didn't sleep before it then i could sleep on the bus. Then i spent the next 20 hours on one of the most beautiful and 2nd highest motorable road in the world. It really was amazing and nothing could ever substitue the real thing. I can't explain it except to say that if you get the chance and can stand 20 hours in a minibus then do it. It looks like nothing else on earth.
But it means that i've made it to Leh in Ladakh. I've got one more night here before i plan to leave for srinigar then head all the way down to mumbai via amritsar, agra and indore. I'm going to travelling about half the length of india in 10 days and it will be mostly nonstop and on a tight budget. It'll be crazy and exausting but after 2 weeks of over indulgence i need it.

lots of fun

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:05:49 GMT

I had a good last couple of days in kolcata after major stress of two days with zero money frantically trying to phone my dad and then when i got the money i got really ill and had it all stolen. Majorly sucky. But then i spent the rest of my time once i got new money sent out to me visiting the botanics and the victoria memorial which is like information overload because it has everything you could think of from kolcata's past. Loads of old paintings and drawings and photographs and weapons and clothes and furniture and journal extracts and everything. And it is all in this amazing cathedral like building of white stone with huge gardens around it. Really pretty.

I also met a couple of cool people. An irish girl called Lynn, english girl called selina and an english guy called ed. We all went to see the new fantastic four movie which was better than i expected but i didn't need much to enjoy it as it stars jessica alba. All four of us went to see the house of an eccentric old man called the marble palace on my last day. It's full of loads of old victorian art. The whole house is a work of art aswell because every floor is a multi-coloured pattern of stonework. After a while it got a bit monotonous and gaudy but it was good to see. It was also in a totally different part of Kolcata that i'd never seen which was good.

I'm now in amritsar after about 40 hours on a train from kolcata. I arrived yesterday and spent most of the morning and afternoon just around the marble palace. It's the most holy site for the sikh faith and it is literally a temple covered in gold. It is about the size of a two storey town house and is surrounded by a pool of holy water where the sikhs all come to bathe. It is a really happy positive place and there's no begging or people hassling you. Lots of people just hang out under the arches around the side of the pool and sleep or just chill.

I met a guy when i was wondering around who invited me to his village. So we got on a bus and played sardines for 2 hours. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening meeting his entire extended family, playing guitar, riding around on the back of a motorcycle and diving off a bridge into a fairly manky river. May be the reason my stomach isn't feeling too good now. It was really worth it though. The sun going down over the rice paddies looked amazing reflected on the water. The sun went perfectly red aswell in the heat haze but i don't know how to capture that with my camera. It's fairly well burned into my memory but i can't show any of you.

Selina caught me up in amritsar and so we're probably going to head into kashmir together tomorrow. Amritsar is really nice and a very easy place to stay. Especially because they have free dormotories here for travellers and pilgrims as long as you don't stay more than 3 nights. They also have a langar which is the sikh communal kitchen. If you help out with the washing up you eat for free. I think you can eat for free anyway but you just feel better if you help with the washing up. It's all done on an industrial scale and they probably feed a couple of thousand people at each sitting. There's just a really good vibe here. I'm happy.

the rain and the cold

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:19:55 GMT

I'm still in india i promise. It's just dargeeling during the monsoon months.
I bought a guitar for about 40 quid when i was in kolcata. It's a nice guitar and it has inspired 4 new songs to be written so i'm very happy but it means i'm once again running low on money. It has been a refreshing change being somewhere cold and rainy but i'm looking forward to finding somewhere warm again.

I went pony trekking the other day which was really good fun. Quite expensive and i was in lots of pain after but definately worth it. They have a really nice botanical gardens here aswell. I'd recommend anyone who comes to dargeeling to go to the botanics. It's just really tranquil. It inspired one of my songs.

Met some really cool backpackers up here aswell which is nice. And most of the locals are all nepali who are so much happier and friendlier than indians. They asctually smile it's great.

The night before last i got to play in one of the bars to a very noisy audience of american students and lots of other randoms. It was good fun but i wasn't very organised so it was pretty unproffesional. Might see if i can get paid to play when i get to kashmir. Someone was suggesting i at least try to get free food or board in a hotel by playing at night. The indians are all crazy too. They stop me in the street and want their photo taken with me. Apparently the combination of white skin and a guitar is too much for them.

I'm heading back to kolcata tomorrow and from there i'm planning on heading to amritsar to see the golden temple. Then on up to kashmir where it doesn't rain :-)

dargeeling

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:46:25 GMT

Dargeeling is cold and wet but everyone seems so much happier here and there is far less hassle from people in the streets. It is quite refreshing after all the heat from the south.
Last night when i got to dargeeling i decided to go wandering. The town sits on top of a ridge on the top of a mountain and i decided i wanted to try and get to the top. All the way up the views were amazing because it is monsoon season and there is just cloud everywere. Sometimes you look out and you can only see about ten feet infront of you then it is all cloud. It feels like youre floating in the sky because you dont know how high you are. Other times there will be a hole through the clouds and there will be rolling hills covered in green tea plants and in the distance theres snow topped peaks floating on top of the cloud.
Anyway i kept going up through the winding streets and it started to get mistier and darker and i got to this little place with a tumbedown shack and some tibetan flags. It was getting late so i thought about going back when a nepali guy came up to me and said hey and asked me to follow him. He took me further up the hill and into an army camp to see a church. It was just such a warm, friendly, happy place. I went in and sat down and said a little prayer for everyone in my family that believed in god and died and i thought about my mum and granny and i started to cry at the thought that they couldnt see just how happy i was. And i thought it was just such random luck that i would come there and meet that guy and see the church and all because i had just been following my gut instinct. It was amazing. It just made me really happy.

so far...

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 11:59:31 GMT

So i've made it to kolcata. Only problem was the severe lack of money. By lack of money i mean i was down to my last 3 hundred rupees (75 rupees to the pound) when i got here. My bank hadn't sent my new bank card for my flat mate to forward it to me and i'd run out of traveller's cheques. I'd emailed my mum 3 days previously but apparently there was some kind of lag with the emails so she didn't get them for a couple of days. When i was down to my last 100 rupees i had to go to the british high commission and ask them if i could phone home. My mum was surprised to hear from me but like any good middleclass parent sent me money right away. So now i can go gallavanting off to dargeeling for a week.
It's just very frustrating having money in a bank account and not having access to it but my diminishing funds taught me a very good lesson in how little i actually need to spend on food and board.
The first thing i bought with the money was a guitar. It's only been two weeks since i played mine back at home but i met a guy on the street with one and the longing started. I'd had plans to buy a drum but once i'd played a guitar i just had to have one. It's an okay guitar. Not a good one. Cheap and black and seems like it won't fall apart. It's also been mic'd so if i can get it home again it'll be good for open mic nights.
I played it in the street last night and got lots of people staring at me in the "oooo a foriegner. maybe he'll turn blue, grow wings, dance on his head then explode into a million stars" kind of way. They're very good at that stare. It's getting easier to ignore.
Anyway tonight i'm getting a train to the mountains where it's cool. Laters

monkeys and tigers

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:12:48 GMT

So two weeks have gone. I've made it to Orissa in the north east just under kolcata. It's stoopendously hot here although i've been quite lucky and it has been cloudy some mornings. I've almost become accustomed to the occaisional 40+ midday heat and getting into bed with wet clothes so i'm cool enough to sleep.
I came up here because they have a tiger reserve thet's cheaper than the more famous ones and is still open although it's nearly the off season. Got pretty frustrated when the tourist agent in the capital knew nothing about the park but i figured i wasn't going to have much fun if i planned everything so i just got on a bus to baripada, nearest town to similipal tiger reserve.
I spent a day sorting out the trip to the reserve with a very nervous travel agent who kept telling me not to speak to anyone in the town or tell them how much i was paying. his office looked like the inside of a garden shed with childrens furniture and a fax machine but he gave me the best price and i could at least understand his english.
Next day, got up with the sun. My guide was a 20 year old guy with perfect english who actually seemed pretty genuine and not like he wanted to bleed me of money at all. The reserve was really pretty. It will make more sense when i've got all my photos up. But basically there was lots of trees, two amazing waterfalls, eagles, squirrels, loads of langur monkeys, peacocks and deer. I got some really good photos of stags battling each other with their antlers. But i didn't see any tigers or leopards so tomorrow i'm going to the zoological park where they have everything and white tigers too. I don't know whether it's going to be more like a safari or if it's just a zoo. I'll get my tiger fix anyway.
Next week i'm off to the dargeeling in the mountains where it's cold.
And don't get bug bites on your eye lids. It hurts.

india

Wed, 23 May 2007 13:59:30 GMT

Right i've been travelling for about 50 hours but i've reached Hampi and it's lovely. Spent only 5 hours in mumbai waiting for my bus out of there but it was hella busy. Not very nice. Went on an adventure down the back streets, got lost, found a following of children and overheated so much my hands swole up so my joints went stiff. Then i lay out on the bench in the shade of the bus company with about 4 fans pointing at me and still felt like an overheating dog.
The bus itself was an overnight sleeper and i had a bunk. Which was useful because the drive took 17 hours. India really is big. Apparently it takes 36 hours on the train from here to rajastan (sp?).
Anyway Hampi is lovely. There's something like a hundred temples surrounding this little village. Tomorrow i'm going to try and see the monkey temple where i can feed monkeys. MONKEYS!!! :-D My hotel is really nice too. They serve proper breakfast like cereal and really good mint tea.
I'm really enjoying the fact that it's really hot here. I think it's pretty much in the 20s and 30s all the time. I think i'll survive as long as i miss out about 4 hours in the middle of the day.
So far it's been pretty much what i'd expected. Haven't met any really cool people yet but then i only just got here. I'm going to go off and wander the streets for a bit before dinner. Later all
D

here i go

Sun, 20 May 2007 19:58:55 GMT

so I'm basically all packed for india. Getting a coach at half six tomorrow morning to take me down to london. Then my flight is at 10pm from heathrow and i get into mumbai about midday their time and i'm planning to just get a train straight out of there so it will probably be about a day and a half of travelling. I can't wait :-D
I've been thinking i should really be making the most of these cool scottish evenings when in less than 48 hours i'm going to be steeped in oppressively humid heat. oh well. I have no idea how easy it'll be to get internet access or if i'll even miss it you'll hear from me if i'm haing a good time. Hope everyone else has a good summer :-D

so anyway, life...

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:55:12 GMT

blah blah uni work, blah blah bad weather, blah blah feeling meh for months

But since then the sun started shining. Yey! The student roleplaying nationals happened and was a surprising success. I actually enjoyed the responsibility. maybe that's just because nothing went wrong and the entirety of my invlovement was sitting in a room looking after magic players for the weekend. SO obviously i just spent all day playing magic.

Also have been down to my uncles again recording more music. Now have 10 tracks which i'm very happy with. They're still all works in progress and i don't know how long they'll take as it's the first time i've donw this. It's unlikely i'll get them finished before i plan on being in india though. That will hopefully happen middle of may till middle of july just depending on flights and stuff. This trip will be made possible with the remainder of trust fund money from great uncle used to buy flat in glasgow with little sister (which is amazing actually (hmm should post photos)). So yey for all that good stuff.

I have also been playing open mic nights on fridays at the maltings and wednesdays at the 3 tuns and been getting very good reactions from people. played at the 3 tuns tonight with a czech guy called thomas who played djembe for me. It was great fun. It's a really quiet night with hardly anyone there which makes it very easy to get up and play. So i'm going to be there next week again if anyone feels like coming down. It usually starts about half 9.

That's all my news. hence why i haven't posted in months.

ladders go up :-)

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:54:58 GMT

Due to my amazing younger sibling and a great uncle's forsight my sister and I have very nearly almost purchased our very own flat in glasgow. Once upon a time when i was small my great uncle decided me and my sisters should have money when we grew up. My big sister already bought herself a flat in Glasgow a couple of years ago. There was no way i was going to be able to afford anything in Edinburgh so I've invested in my little sister getting one in Glasgow. This means she gets a lovely flat to live in and can rent out a room to get money while i just sit back let my investment grow and one day (hopefully) get a sum of money of my very own to buy my own place :-)
I'm totally not organised enough at the moment to think about mortgages or staying in one place for anything like more than 2 years but i had to do something with my money. This way i get the maximum growth out of it and i don't have to do anything. Although by investing in my sister it means she can get a better flat that is more liveable and will net us more money in the long run. It's a long term investment as my sister has still got a couple years of college and stuff still.
Woot!