GCSE choices – argh!

So it’s been ages since I’ve been on here – I hope you haven’t missed me too much?!

I’ve been well busy at school – we have to decide our GCSE options pretty soon and I just can’t make up my mind. It’s a shame there isn’t a GCSE in time travel! Maybe SHARP could take me forward in time so I could meet my future self – he’d probably know which GCSEs I should choose.

I tried googling it, and that’s even worse! They keep going on a bout uni and careers and which subjects you need for which career. Career?! I don’t even know what I want to do next week, let alone for the rest of my life! So then I started thinking about careers and what I want to do when I grow up.

So I’ve worked out a few things – I’d quite like to do something sporty or active, like a footballer (yeah right!), but maybe a PE teacher would be cool, a referee, or maybe one of those physios that run on in matches. So I should probably do biology right? But that’s not helpful cos we already have to do that anyway. Our school only does PE/Sports Science at A level, so I can’t pick that either; and the only other subject relevant to sporty careers is food and nutrition. I totally suck at cooking, and anyway, I’ll be the only boy in the class and I’d never hear the end of it!

My dad really wants me to do history, cos he’s a historian and that, but it’s soooooooooo boring! And I get to learn about loads of history stuff when I time travel. But the maybe time travel would make it easier? Hmmmm.

Mum reckons I should do Spanish, cos so many different countries speak Spanish – but we already have to do French and I find that hard enough.

So then I thought, why don’t I just find out what my friends are doing and then go with them, at least then I have friends to go to class with. But you’ll never guess what Mark is doing —– rap. Yeah, you can do a GCSE in rap! And cos he goes to America with his family and thinks he’s all street and that, he thinks he can rap. I think it’s going to be a lot harder than he thinks, plus he’s going to have to learn all about the history of rap and HipHop music, going back to the time of slavery in America.

Griff’s going to do design tech – he’s even decided what he’s going to make for his end of year project. A rocking chair! mental – I wouldn’t even know where to start!

So here’s my shortlist:

Food technology
Design technology
Rap (ahem, no!)
Spanish
History

I wish I was good at something specific, you know, like music or art – at least then I’d have an easy choice. Music technology might be pretty cool as well. I can;t play anything, but I reckon it’d be pretty awesome to learn all about mics and amps and recording studios and stuff. Maybe I’ll add that to the list as well.

What shall I do? Future Danny, are you out there??

What a year!

OMG! I can’t believe it’s 2013 already, what a mental year 2012 was! I’ve just been looking back and all the stuff I’ve done and thinking about New Year’s resolutions for 2013.

I’ve been so lucky this last year – I got to go to the Olympics and on a sort-of holiday to Edinburgh, not to mention all the crazy time travel missions I’ve been on.

My first mission nearly turned into a massive disaster – I ended up in some weird competition with a nasty little boy called Edward. But I let my competitiveness get the better of me and not only did I nearly make him drown himself in a lake, but I didn’t answer my phone in time and got stuck in 1588!

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/stuck-in-1588-now-what/

When I eventually returned, Kaz had some really bad news: SHARP were having real trouble in the future with a rogue organization called STRAP and I finally found out why they needed time travellers and what the point of all these missions were, but not before SHARP hauled me back to the dark ages in the middle of a frost and I got hypothermia!

I wrote all about it in February:

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/02/

My little brush with hypothermia turned out to work in my favour and I was visited by some really important people from the future – they told me all about the real purpose of SHARP about a mysterious thing that had happened called the Dark Chaos

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/the-real-purpose-of-sharp/

And then, can you believe it, STRAP (the bad guys) tried to contact me and recruit me as a time traveller. I was really confused, but Kaz helped reassure me that I was on the good guys’ team and confided in me that STRAP was trying to recruit other kids to travel back in time to really dangerous places.

That was when I first heard about Alex…

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/who-on-earth-is-alex/

Alex was a time traveller who was working for STRAP, but I needed to find him and warn him about how much danger he was really in, I mean, STRAP had already sent him on one dangerous mission where he ended up climbing up a cliff face without any safety ropes!

But I was too late and by the time I’d got anywhere close to locating him, STRAP had sent him on a disastrous mission; STRAP’s communication lines had gone down and he was stuck in a medieval Scottish prison!

So SHARP sent me to save him…

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/rescueing-alex-mclean/

But even though I’d rescued him, we hardly had any time to talk. I was so busy trying to save him that I didn’t get chance to chat or even get his number. So then I had to start all over again trying to find him. At last, I’d found somebody else who time travels!

It turned out Alex lived in Edinburgh, so after a few failed attempts, I somehow managed to get Mark and Griff to agree to come to Edinburgh with me and it was really lucky, cos Griff’s aunt lived there, so we had a sort-of reason to go.

And then, literally on the way to Edinburgh, I got an awesome mission from SHARP and I went back in time to Scotland during the Great Cause. Which was when one of Scotland’s kings died (Alexander somebody I think) there was no one to succeed him. So the bishops (who were dead powerful at that time for some weird reason) asked King Edward I of England to help them choose – which was always going to be a bad idea! Edward had to chose between John Balliol and Robert de Brus (Robert the Bruce’s grandfather). He chose Balliol and de Brus’ supporters lost all their land and stuff. But then Edward wanted Balliol to fight against the French, but instead, Balliol sided with the French and Edward got really mad and invaded Scotland. He was heading to Berwick-on-Tweed and was going to kill everyone there. So I went back to warn them all…

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/time-travelling-on-a-train/

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/the-english-are-coming/

We had to go to a climbing wall place to find Alex, cos he’s well into climbing – which was awesome. We met Alex and he was really cool and SHARP even sent us on a mission together:

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/double-agents/

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-real-pirates-of-the-caribbean/

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/rescuing-the-pirates-of-the-caribbean/

And then it was the Olympics – having the Olympics in Britain was so cool! We watched loads of it in Edinburgh, and when we got home. I was gutted I couldn’t see all of the Paralympics cos I had to go back to school for the last bits of it. But we did manage to get tickets to see BMX racing – I ended up writing loads of stuff about the Olympics:

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/category/olympics/

That summer was the best ever! But then things started getting weird again: There was another STRAP time traveller, Sarah. STRAP had found someone way too young to time travel, cos it messes up your bone growth if you’re under 12 or 13 or something, and they’d put her in loads of danger too.

So I went on another mission to find another time traveller who was in danger! This all happened around November time:

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/11/

December was much quieter, I was learning some awesome stuff at school and thinking about entering a competition for next year:

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/theres-no-way-mum-and-dad-will-let-me-do-this-is-there/

Plus SHARP were starting to use my blog as a way to contact other time travellers – there’s loads of people reading my blog, all over the word – I’ve had about 2,500 hits in total – I wonder If any of those readers are time travellers too?

Then to top the year off, SHARP gave me an awesome Christmas present, I went back to the first ever football match, which was on boxing day in 1860. It was a bit weird really, but still dead interesting.

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/first-ever-football-match-boxing-day-1860/

What’s crazy though is I get loads of hits on the one they sent me on last year, the Christmas Truce match in 1914 during World War I.  That was unbelievable!

https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/christmas-truce-1915-i-was-there/

So all that happened in just one year!

I wonder what 2013 will bring. Oh, and my New Year’s resolution? To find more time travellers and go on loads of awesome missions – bring it on!!!!

There’s no way Mum and Dad will let me do this, is there?

People probably think I’m a massive geek, but I’m really excited cos we’ve been given this project to over the holidays. In history, we’ve been learning all about the Victorians and the industrial revolution.

It’s crazy how much happened during the 1800s, I mean I know people say how far technology has come in the last ten years or whatever, but this is on another level!

Loads of inventions that we take for granted today were invented in this time period, like bikes and trains. Our teacher says that steam trains are what everyone thinks of when they think of the industrial revolution and that’s what we’ve got to do our project on – steam trains.

And the best one wins a prize!

Sounds boring right? But steam trains are actually really interesting. Everything during the 1800s was powered by fire, cos they didn’t have electricity or gas or anything. Steam trains needed loads of coal that was burnt in a special carriage at the front of the train. The fire heated up water and created steam. The water tank was built in such a way that it funneled the steam into valves in the engine. Once enough pressure had built up from all the steam, it forced open the valve, which was connected to the wheels and pushed the wheels around.

So that’s how they worked, and why they made that ‘chuff chuff’ sound.

Steam power wasn’t just used for trains though; we used it for everything, including machines for factories.

So anyway, we have to do a project all about steam engines and who invented them, what they were used for, etc.

I’ve already found out loads of interesting stuff, like can you believe that the London underground used to have steam engines in it? After steam trains had been invented, they were originally just used for carrying coal and cargo. But then, people realized they could be used for travel and to get places quicker.

All of a sudden London became really busy with people getting the train into the city from outside of town. The problem was, once they’d arrived at Euston or Kings Cross or wherever, then they just piled out onto the streets and the streets got too crowded and no traffic – which was horse and cart back then – could get through.

Sounds a bit like today really!

So they had an idea to build train lines under the city. Can you belive that – steam trains travelling underground – where did all the smoke go? It must’ve been really hot and messy!

But I’ve had this really great idea that might help win the prize. I’m going to travel on the country’s first passenger railway line – Liverpool to Manchester.

I’ve looked online and I can get a train from Nottingham to Manchester and then ride the rail to Liverpool and back. How awesome would that be?

I could take loads of pictures and see if there’s any historical plaques and stuff, like there was in Berwick.

Travelling on a train is gonna be so easy compared to travelling back in time and finding my way around in medieval times, but I can’t really use that argument to convince my parents!

My awesome birthday present

By the time we’d got back from Edinburgh and then watched all the Olympics and all the Paralympics, it was time to go back to school.

For the first couple of weeks I went back to my usual routine. Getting up at 6.47 exactly, which gave me 12 minutes to have a shower, 3 minutes to get dried, and 4 minutes to get dressed.  My bag is already packed the night before, so then I have 17 minutes to have breakfast. If I leave the house any later than 7.24, it means I’m going to have to run to get the bus, cos the damn bus stop to get to my school is, like, a mile away. And even though school isn’t that far away, the bus goes all round the houses and doesn’t usually arrive until 8.26. We normally get 20 minutes to have a kick around before the bell goes for registration at ten to nine.

What a palaver, and that’s before any lessons have even started.

And this is why I’m so happy tonight. I was my birthday yesterday and you’ll never guess what I got? Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandad all chipped in a got me a BMX!

It’s so cool, I spent all today riding around the block and practicing jumping off the curbs and stuff pretty much all morning.

My birthday party yesterday was pretty cool as well. Mum and Dad took us bowling and I was allowed to invite some friends from school, including Mark and Griff. Jenny was allowed to bring a friend too, so all the boys wouldn’t bore her.

Dad’s got a road bike with thin tyres and weird handlebars, so he think BMX-ing is silly and keeps going on about how many gears his bike has, and mine has only got one gear. Mum said he’s just jealous cos he’s too old to ride a BMX. Anyway, Dad said he’d ride with me from our house to school to see if it was safe enough for me to ride to school on my own.

But first we had to go to Halfords and get me a helmet and a bike lock. Like Wiggo said at the Olympics, people shouldn’t cycle on the road without a helmet.

It only took us about 20 minutes to cycle all the way to school. I couldn’t believe how close it was. Still it’s not the easiest route and Dad made us go on quiet roads so it was safer. And that meant that we had to go up this crazy hill. It turns out long hills are really hard on a BMX and you pretty much have to cycle standing up the whole time. By the time I’d got the top Dad was had already powered up there a couple of minutes ahead of me and was standing and clapping as I puffed and panted over the brow of the hill. My legs felt like they were going to explode, but once I’d got over the hill – the happiness that I’d done it without stopping and having to push was just the best feeling ever.

So by my calculations, I could either have an extra 1 hour and 5 minutes in bed, or I could get up at the same time and spend an hour practicing BMX and still have time to play footie before the bell goes.  Hmmm I wonder…