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01/23/2008
R.I.P
Heath Ledge died (presumably of Drug Overdose) yesterday.
xXx
I am I really callous, or is the way X walked into the kitched saying...
"He's dead, he's dead, He's dead, he's dead, He's dead, he's dead, He's dead, he's dead. I can't believe he's dead. He's really really 100% dead. All of him... Dead."
... slowly, in a monotone, almost daydreamy voice for FIVE MINUTES.
... isn't that a little amusing?
On a more serious note, it is a sorry waste of a life and of talent and I apologise for my exteme cynacism regarding the situation. I will not however be joing the 1000s of mourners. Just watching various people in my house slowly come to terms with their grief over the next few day and weeks.
11:33 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Back from Recluse
And so this latest batch of exams is over. i have probably worked harder for some of these (in particular C3 MATHS) than any in my life. And yet I still doubt there will be much to show for it save my exhaustion, some absolutely stunning bags under my eyes a few more than offended friends and one heck of a lot of piano playing.
So in RunDown (to save me saying more than necessary):
C3 Maths
Went ok, well even, I answered everything, thought I knew how to do most things. Most of the paper was either proove or solve ... and all my answers fitted, so it should be OK. Of course, that belief has let me down before. I hope that all the practise paid out. I did better than last time and will predict A or B
Unit 2 Chemistry
Again, the paper went ok. With the Edexcel Chemistry mark scheme it is more a question of semantic than words and the "correct" semantics vary greatly from year to year. An A in Chemistry is purely luck not skill... and a C is just careless. Was retaking as a matter of pride more than anything else, but still no idea if the answers will be correct according to A Level - pretty certain of the accuracy from a scientific point of view. Predict A or B
Unit 4 Chemistry
Loved this paper for one mark in a 3 mark question. "Show that Aluminium is amphoteric using ionic equations". Well firstly I read the question and noticed the need for ionic equations (you'd be surprised just how many times I failed to do that on practise papers!) and then I spent at leats 10 minutes of the exam trying to work out the equation for the OH- reaction and managed to get it in the last 20seconds from first principles :D. The rest of the paper was straightforward except for Question 2: name the reactive groups.... could identify not name. But really... that one mark makes up for everything (and yes, the first thing I did back in house was to check my answer!). Again with Chemistry we have the discrepancy between answers, knowledge, science and marks...and I was averaging Ds in practise papers before revision, so I will predict an A or B unless I have be especially stupid.
Unit 4 Maths
Now this would be the paper I shouldn't have taken. My deepest thanks to my Father and Bert for teaching me the course, Sue and Mr Wilson for their patients and Deveson, Anna and Lucy for putting up with my panicking. I was still not ready to take the paper. Everyone came out saying that was the hardest thing they've ever done (they said that after C3 maths as well!) and I am actually inclined to disagree... C3 was harder first time around. Questions 1-5 were fine except for potential silly errors. Quesiton 6 I forgot about the exitence of the quadratic formula (AGAIN!!!), Quesiton 7 I couldn't do, Question 8 asked for an answer to 1dp and I got 0.6 (which seems odd), Question 9a I think I got correct at the last minute (and I will get follow through marks) and 9b... who knows. Integration by parts is always touch and go as I get my signs mixed up when I rush! Anyway... I am babelling. If I get everything I answered fully right I got 81%. If I get everything I wrote down right I got closer to 85%. If I only get the things I know are right, right I got 63%. So I predict B or C
Unit 4 Biology
Home run isn't it? Something like that... Wins the prize on the most orinigal order to answer questions (worse than Chemistry 4 for dipping into each one). Also the only paper to have time to spare (C3 did, but I used it to check :P). I didn't bother checking written answers this year. Theory being that if my logic is correct, I will have written it well, and if it is incorrect I am not going to have a sudden flash of inspiration (more likely to change a correct thing than correct an inaccuracy). It is also so tiresome reading through the long answers when you have just spent 10 or 15 minutes writing them. One long question I didn't have a clue and blagged, a couple of one markers that I guessed the right word. Isn't it strange how the exam paper always seems completely different to the practise ones. I was blagging A's in those without much revision at all... I hope the trend continues. I am going to take a risk and predict an A. Actually I really don't know what this mark scheme will be like (Edexcel Biology is usually very good for science vs marks) and there are a couple I am not sure if I picked the right lines so despite saying A I actually thing A or B
Summer Plans? If necessary (i.e. my average isn't an A) retake C4 maths when I should have taken it. If a low B or C in any of the Chemistry or Biology then retake, otherwise live and know Units 5 and 6 (synoptic) BACKWARDS, SIDEWAYS and in the FOURTH DIMENSION! (Apparently both are far more common sense and application as opposed to rote learning which suits me.)
Lent term plans? Read! Read! Read! Study. Set up the PCR stuff that school bought from BioRad. Work out how to use the machine for any experiment they want to do (not just the prepared kits). Music. Music Music. Prepare for next year. Sort of vaguelly go over the AS level biology and chemistry. Actually, I might just alternate weeks of them - ie. 1 week unit 1 biology followed by a week unit 1 chemistry.... that would work.
On more important matters
MAWKIN ARE PLAYING A CEILIDH IN CAMBRIDGE AND I AM GOING..... EAT YOUR HEART OUT FOLKIES!!
(Love you all dearly and can't wait to see everyone again next summer... probably before if things work out well. Can't do IVFDF I don't think... but there's Cheltenham and Chippenham, and I swore I'd get to a gig that wasn't in Cambridge so see you 'll there! :P)
xXx
11:28 Posted in Complete Random Junk! , FOLK , Fun , Life , School | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
01/14/2008
Birthday excitement
I am sure a slightly more serious post on the subject of an (apparently) upgraded legal status... new and (hopefully not to be used soon) rights... and the wealth of inexperiance I have done my level best to forget over the past 18 years.. 216 months... 6574 days (including leap years!)... 157 776 hours... 9 466 560 minutes... 567 993 600 seconds!!!!
(Note the loss of severity already)
Anyway... I am sillillilllillilllillilly excited about some pressies this year so thought I'd include a few photos. It also takes double to time to write up and format a photo blogpost... I'm all for constant dedicated work for these exams HONEST sir.
For the benefit of non-small family:
Our alien sisters (and honoury small one) in Waterbeach have given me some money which will probably be spent on shoes... or tomato soup! (Or both as there is a sale in Faith I think!). The photo doesn't really show the size: 1 brass champagne bottle (47mm tall), 4 brass goblets (16mm tall), one copper bucket (26mm tall) and one copper tray (60mm diameter... incidentally it is 5mm tall but that doesn't really say much). But anyway very pretty. :D I shall drink a toast sometime, although most likely from a glass champagne bottle (containg Champagne) and set of glasses. -- I am NOT picky!
Also received a lovely boquet of flowers. These flowers are veryh hardy, they have survived... travel, the Granta common room, sitting untended on my desk for 24 hours, being spilled all over the floor, and being rearanged as I keep looking at them from a different angle an decided that the negative space or yellow:purple colour ratios are not quite right. They are lovely though. Do note the picture also contains a rather nice vase. Absoultely gorgeous vase actually :D but I didn't want to sound silly... to hell with that eh? Anyway, it is such a simple design and it is :D *grin*.
Most other items centrered around booze or coffee... along with a complete Hardy collection, Best of Oasis, Winnie the Pooh, 2 seasons of Scrubs, some leather gloves (all you animal rights feinds out there are NOT allowed to comment until you've tried them on... then you can (try) and say whatever you wish) and various other small amusing things such as:
Thank you to everyone, I feel completely spoiled and very :D It has been lovely seeing those of you I did see, and I look forward to meeting up with those of you I didn't see in the next month or so in various far flung reaches of the world.
And to clear one thing up
I DO NOT FEEL A BIT OLDER, MORE MATURE, WISER, MORE SENSIBLE or ANYTHING OF SUCH A DISTURBING NATURE:
Whilst growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional and a mistake.
You have been warned.
Love
xXx
14:48 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
Uses of humour
The Telegraph produced a rather curious article today
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio...
The idea of using ridicule and humour as a defense mechanism for times of conflct is not uncommon. Neither, if you think about it, is to use comedy as an attack and a weapon.
How many people do you know who, when faced with insult or trouble, treat the entire thing as one large joke? Looking around (particularly in England with the "Thou shalt not take thyself seriously (under ANY cirucmstances)" rule) it is easy to see how many people sit behind their comfoting wall of irony, sarcasm, wit and sattire as they move steadily from day to day. Even the worst traumas can be overcome with a few jokes and a laugh - at least to the people watching and that is all that really matters. Appearances are kept up and life kept going by daily injections of stand-up comedy.
Equally, how often so you see ridicule being used to bully and oppress people either in the playground (if you are at school), or the office (if you are at work) or in a family (if you are ... well...)? So often the person with the most power is the one who can simply make everyone else look weaker, and what better way to do this than by comedy, humour and "all in the name of fun". I have seen children cry over direct insult for hours, I have seen children fall utterly silent over ridicule for weeks, months and years.
I am not trying to say use of humour is good or bad or safe or harmful. There is no way it can be caegorised so easily. It is however potent. It can hurt, it can heal, it can make people change how they think and how they act. It is a weapon... how can we use it? How should we use it? Where would it be most effective? Where is it most needed at the moment.
xXx
10:57 Posted in News , Politics , Thoughts | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01/09/2008
Sometimes things don't make sense
when hope is lost, i'll call you saviour
when pain surrounds, i'll call you healer
when silence falls, you'll be the song within my heart
Tim Hughes "When tears fall"
So tired at the moment, which is just silly as I have only been back two days.
One of these day's I will find something so say for myself and not quote others
xXx
16:02 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01/02/2008
~
Great start wouldn't you say....
This year I am 18
I choose University
I sit A levels
And I leave the country...
Among other things I suppose, but those are the key events that are alread booked in.
I don't know why I am writing this as I am feeling anythign but talkative at this current moment. I suppose that it is something to do. Even though I have nothing to do. Sometimes life is a couple of hundred miles beyond confusing and it is less than pleasent to be in that situation. And all you can ever do is go with what you feel best, what you hope will work out best in the end, what you hope will hurt less and cause the least damage. So often you are wrong, but what can you do but keep going on and hope against hope that someday you will be granted just a short respite.
And what happens when someone asks you not to run.... but for once you think you might be running in the right direction?
"I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I dropped it in its sleep
There isn't many memories I'm comfortable to keep
...
Each time I turn around, there's nothing there at all
So tell me why I feel like I'm up against a wall
...
Maybe I can't see
Maybe it's just me"
KT Tunstell
xXx
23:31 Posted in Complete Random Junk! | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this