Hiatus

While I do have ideas for future posts I'm not sure when they are likely to be written/posted, currently trying to get my PhD finished so all my writing energy is going into my papers/thesis. Hopefully will get something online at some point.

Not sure if I have any regular readers but if I do then I apologise, thanks for being patient I know I'm not exactly regular with my posts for a good while now.

Thank you.

Amsterdam and other things

Well it seems like a long time ago now but it's only been a couple of weeks since I was away in Amsterdam. I was away for five days with my parents and it was certainly a busy holiday! There was a lot of walking, museums including the Rijksmuseum as well as the Anne Frank House, markets, the city center itself, a canal tour as well as the Amsterdam zoo. We stayed in the Urban Lodge Hotel which I would highly recommend, it was outside the city itself but 5 minutes walk away from the Sloterdijk public transport station. You buy a public transport ticket which allows you to travel on trains, trams, buses and ferries. It was only a short trip to Amsterdam central. The public transport was great apart from the lack of air conditioning. It was particularly warm and sunny when we were there and apparently it wasn't normal for Amsterdam. We got caught out on the first day which turned from cool and very overcast to very warm and blazing sunshine that kept coming and going and we got a bit sunburnt. Amsterdam is a lovely city though the center especially with all the weed shops can be a bit tacky. As for food we certainly didn't go hungry and the food was generally very nice. It was a bit strange being away so early in the summer but it was great to get away and get a change of scene.

As much as I like the idea of another holiday later on in the summer I am coming to the end of my PhD with my funding running out at the end of September so I need to focus on that. I got confirmation today that I don't need to do any more lab work which was both a relief but also a bit anticlimactic! I hope to get the third paper of my PhD submitted for publication soon and will start to write up the next one once I've completed sorting out the data and analysis on the species I'm working on at the minute. Once that paper is written up it will be a case of sorting out the rest of my thesis. I am fortunate that I've been able to write and publish as I've gone along so my thesis will consist mainly of my papers along with an introduction/background chapter and a review/big discussion chapter. I do not envy those who have to do all their write-up at the end of their PhD. As for what comes after my thesis well I will have to do what is called a viva which is essentially an interview where you defend your thesis and go through it bit by bit with internal and external examiners. So all that to look forward to!

Wonder Woman review

I know I'm very late with this but just thought I would share my thoughts on this movie. Is it better than Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad, yes definitely, is it as good as the hype suggests, no. Obviously it has a lot riding on it being the first female superhero blockbuster really, not sure if you can call Catwoman or Elektra blockbusters, it is also directed by a woman. It's hard not to be cynical but you have to wonder if the reason that it is being so highly praised by some people is because of these two factors. It is a decent superhero movie and origin story. Gal Gadot who I thought was overrated in Batman V Superman  is surprisingly good but you do have to wonder why they didn't get her to put on a bit more muscle/bulk up a bit more (not just guys saying that). Not saying she should bulk up as much as Ben Affleck did to play Batman but when you see how some of the other Amazons look it is a bit strange. The action scenes are mostly great, though there is a lot of slow-mo and the cgi isn't great at times. Chris Pine is great as Steve Trevor, but not as fussed on the group he assembles to help them in their mission. There are a number of villains with the two German ones being fairly interesting though there is one scene involving them that is so cartoonish it is cringe worthy. The final act of the movie isn't great and as I predicted the final battle is a bit of a mess. It is a step in the right direction for the DC movie universe that said the more I think about it the more holes I find to pick in the quality of it.

This fight scene was awesome

Hopefully movie studios will see the success of Wonder Woman and make great female led superhero movies, it's a shame Marvel are for once stuck behind with their first female led superhero movie-Captain Marvel not coming out until March 2019. No doubt Black Widow will continue to play a key role in the movies going forward and the Ant-man sequel is titled Ant-man and The Wasp and will apparently give equal billing to Paul Rudd's Ant-man and Evangeline Lilly's Wasp. Warner Bros are apparently going to continue with female led superhero/comic book movies with Gotham City Sirens (female villains) and Batgirl. Lots to look forward to hopefully!

The Meeting

I feel really guilty that I'm so late writing about this since it happened way back in February!

Whilst I have this blog and the Facebook group for those who have Treacher Collins Syndrome as well as being a member of other TCS groups on Facebook I don't have any regular contact with anyone who has TCS in real life. I do have some vague memories of meeting other kids who have it when I was younger but those meetings were organised through our parents. I have become friends with a number of people who have it on Facebook but none of them live in Northern Ireland. However one of them, a young woman called Arti lives in England and we had conversations every now and again. She also helped me and gave me advice on that situation I mentioned before on this blog. She works for the charity Unique which help and raise awareness of people with rare chromosome disorders. She told me that they were organising an event for families with children with rare chromosome disorders which would be held in Belfast. We decided that we should try and meet up and fortunately we were able to to do so! I met up with her at the hotel they were staying in and we had a great conversation. I also met her boss and some of her colleagues.

It was definitely useful for me to sit down and have a conversation with someone who has the same condition I do but who also has had different experiences. We spoke about our home lives, our families, our work and our experiences with TCS. I think she is actually the first person I've met who has a BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid), so it was useful for me to talk to her about that. That said I'm still happy with my bone conductor hearing aid for now. All in all it was a great experience and would make me think about meeting other people with TCS or other facial disfigurements. The only regret I have about the meeting is that we didn't get a picture of the two of us together but hopefully we can change that the next time. She has given me her permission to share her twitter account:-https://twitter.com/Arti_K_Patel, she is much more active on twitter than I am!

Thanks for reading!

Wonder movie

Well this looks cheesy, cliche, inaccurate and overly cutesy, I will not be buying a ticket, not even out of curiosity. I thought Jacob Tremblay was great in Room but think it would've been much better if they actually got a child who has TCS or a similar condition rather than use makeup and prosthetics. I know they claim they were going to have a child with TCS in it but he had to pull out because of surgeries but can't see why they couldn't have got another boy with TCS.

"I've had 27 surgeries to help me breathe (no trach scar, he is very easy to understand when he is speaking), see (???), hear without a hearing aid (what? that makes no sense!),"

No offence to any Americans reading but it comes across a very American, overly cheerful, not very realistic, you know everything is going to work out in the end.

Comic book movies etc.

*|SPOILER ALERT FOR  BATMAN V SUPERMAN AND SUICIDE SQUAD*

Well I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 last weekend. If you liked the first movie you will definitely enjoy the second. I won't spoil anything but it is another great Marvel movie, it's not perfect but it's a fantastic way to spend 2 hours and 18 minutes. Marvel have really got this whole movie making thing down. BUT they can still improve in a few areas
1. Right balance of humour, Age of Ultron was irritating due to the sheer number of quips, not all of the jokes landed in Doctor Strange and Guardians 2 suffers a little bit from this as well
2. Post-credit scenes, they should really only be included if they set the scene for future movies or are really funny (note this does not include Howard the duck who only a minority of the audience will actually know...)
3. Villains, obviously the heroic characters are the focus but the bad guys have been a bit of a weak point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Loki has been the stand-out but he was given more screen time to flesh him out. I was especially disappointed with Ultron, in the comics the impression I got is that he is a massive threat and he never really seemed to be in the movie. He wasn't scary, he just quipped as much as the heroes.
4, A big sticking point for myself and other people who watch the TV shows both Agents of Shield and the Netflix shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist) is the lack of acknowledgement/crossover from the movies. When asked about this the people behind the movies often bring up logistical issues but that is a bit of a flimsy excuse. The people who make the movies may not like the fact that the tv shows are being made but they need to suck it up and do something for the fans.

Really hope they make Thanos seem like a threat and an interesting character at the same time

Speaking of the tv shows, I haven't watched this season of Agents of Shield yet however I have watched all the Netflix shows so far. Daredevil is definitely the stand-out Jessica Jones is good but gets a bit dark and twisted and feels like it could've been a bit shorter. Luke Cage is also good but again probably could've been a bit shorter and the final show down is a bit lame. Iron Fist is probably the weakest shows, Danny isn't the easiest character to root for, the fight scenes aren't that great and the story is a bit all over the place. It doesn't help that it also uses the same group of villains that appeared in Daredevil only for them to feel rather lame in comparison to the original appearance.

Moving onto Fox, here is the review I did for X-men Apocalypse:
https://thegownatqub.wordpress.com/2016/06/03/film-review-x-men-apocalypse-20th-century-fox-2016/
Fox really need to keep making movies like Deadpool and Logan and stop making movies like Fantastic Four (the most recent one) and X-men Apocalypse. Not because Deadpool and Logan were rated 18 or R or whatever but because they were both fantastic movies.No doubt certain movie studios won't make that distinction...

Finally onto DC and Warner Bros. Let me just say that I enjoyed Man of Steel, it has it's flaws but I think it didn't deserve a lot of the hate that it got and it could've have acted as a good spring board for a Superman sequel/a larger movie universe. But of course they decided instead of doing a Man of Steel sequel or another character they decided to jump straight into  Batman V Superman movie which also attempts to introduce Wonder Woman along with other Justice League characters. The problem with having a Batman V Superman movie is that it leaves you in a corner where there needs to be a valid reason to fight and the fight actually needs to be good. Unfortunately neither happened. I was in a good mood when I went to see the movie as were my friends I saw it with but afterwards we were all angry that they had managed to make such a mess of these great characters. I could write a whole blog post about everything that is wrong with it. You have the idiotic things that happen for example the president authorising a nuke to be fired at Doomsday when Superman is literally in the process of punching him way out into space, Batman just straight up murders loads of people in the movie, it's hard to believe he has much a of a rogues gallery left at this point in his career. For those saying he is like this because of the death of his second Robin, Jason Todd (which we haven't seen yet), I would like to point out the fact that Robin was apparently running around with a flipping axe! Then you have Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, apparently Jesse doesn't watch his own movies, so I have to say I'm quite jealous that he didn't have to sit through his performance. I think he would've been perfect as the annoying Riddler such as he is portrayed in the Arkham games but not as Lex Luthor. Also can we talk about how lame it is that the reason he ends up bald is because he gets his head shaved in prison and it goes from a shaved head to completely bald for no reason!

Lots of cools shots for the trailers, shame the movie was rubbish!

Suicide Squad wasn't quite as bad but only because of lowered expectations and the fact the characters aren't as well known. That said it isn't great, Jared Leto's Joker is lame, the other villain is a bit rubbish as well. It obviously tries to copy Guardians of the Galaxy with popular song after song but it just comes off as a bit silly. Then of course their is the finale and the ridiculous slow motion moment. I want all these movies to be good but unfortunately whilst Wonder Woman looks promising other than the fact it looks like it might be a CGI mess of a finale like Batman V Superman, I have low expectations for Justice League. Batman trying to be funny, overly macho Aquaman overcompensating for the jokes about him being a lame character, Cyborg is now apparently an Iron-Man rip off not to mention his body is 90% messy CGI, the over-use of obvious CGI and green screen, and Ezra Miller's Flash. Obviously I may be a bit biased due to being a fan of the TV show but I don't like the movie's armored costume (you would think a CSI who wants to keep his identity hidden would wear gloves...), the fact that his lightning is now blue (why?!) and the fact that it shoots out all over the place like crazy even when he isn't even pushing himself. Also a bit annoying that they seem to be doing the same story that his dad is wrongly in prison for the murder of Barry's mother. I hope to be proven wrong about these DC movies but I fear I won't be.

Can't imagine it's comfortable to run in...

Thanks for reading, I'll try and have a non-superhero post up soon as well.

Halfway to 50!

Well I recently celebrated my 25th birthday and it feels weird to now be in my mid-twenties. To be honest I haven't really done much to celebrate my birthday in recent years, it's hard not to feel that trying to organise people for a party or a night-out or whatever is a chore and then you feel a responsibility to make sure other people are having a good time on your birthday! This year I finished work early and I met up with a friend. We went to see John Wick 2 at the cinema which was brilliant (early afternoon is definitely a good time to go to the cinema as well!) and then went to a bar and did some catching up and played a bit of pool. He then had to go to work so I went home and had a lovely Indian takeaway with my family. We also went out for a meal at a restaurant as is tradition in our family on another night which was very nice.

As to what else I have been up to since my last update in January...I continue to work away at my PhD, unfortunately still haven't managed to finish the current section of work I've been working on but will hopefully have it all written up soon. I have been getting ready to start the next section and have to say I'm rather looking forward to getting back into lab work, though I probably will regret saying that once I'm back in a few days and am knackered from rushing about doing DNA extractions and PCRs. I am going down to Dublin soon for another conference but this time I have decided to give a talk on my work rather than just present another poster. It is a fairly small conference and it is directly relevant to the area I work in however it is difficult not to be nervous.

Our music group where I work/do my PhD is still going strong. The guy who brought us all together very kindly invited us to his house at the start of March so we were all in a room with a drum set, amps and microphones making music which was a lot of fun. We continue to play together on Monday nights and are thinking about trying to write some original songs. In some ways it has helped to revitalise my love for playing music. It has also made me think about taking better care of my instruments so I actually changed the strings of one of my electric guitars for the first time by myself and I have to say it looks a lot better after giving it a good clean.

Picture of me from the jam session, we had a laptop connected to the tv showing chords and lyrics

I know I don't really update as much as I should but I only feel like writing when I actually have something to say. That said I recently bumped into someone I knew from school who reads my blog so it is nice to know that people do read it. I like to think I have helped give at least some people an impression that people with Treacher Collins Syndrome are just normal people. Hopefully people with TCS or other conditions find it useful as well.

Thanks for reading!