The following essay was written for my GCSE English course in June 2000 and relates to the J.B. Priestley play “An Inspector Calls”. If you’re studying the book then a great copy to have is the Penguin Modern Classic version An Inspector Calls and Other Plays.
Who or what is Inspector Goole, and what is his role in the play?
The character of Inspector Goole can be explained in many ways. It is thought, that he could be a ghost, an angel (sent from God to deliver the truth), a psychic (able to see the future), or simply just a socialist “Crank” – this is what, in fact, the characters in the play believe towards the end, as Mr. Birling says, “That fellow obviously didn’t like us. He was prejudiced against us from the start. Probably a socialist or some sort of crank – he talked like one.” [read more]
With the recent upgrade of my computer I had reason to copy a lot of data from an old hard disk to my new computer. While doing this I came across some of my old school work, both from GCSE and A-level. [read more]
I think I understand why this university has the highest suicide rate of universities in this country – when it rains its a depressing place…and it seems to rain all the time. There are a couple of things which add up to give it a depressing air really, I recon: 1) there is the constant drone of the motorway (the M6) most places you go (admittedly I am on the end of campus that it goes closest to, but you can hear it over most of the site) – you don’t tend to notice it really as obvious, but if you listen you can hear it there, and I’m sure that it has some kind of psychological effect; 2) A lot of the buildings on campus are concrete or red brick build around paved areas (more on the other end of campus, to be fair, there is quite a lot of greenery on this end); 3) The whole place is a bit of a maze of passages and walkways which always seem to be dark (I guess that would be mainly because of the fact that they are surrounded by the buildings, so don’t get much natural light!); and then there is the rain. So far, in the week and a bit I have been here, it seems to have rained almost every single day. Alright, it didn’t rain today, but most of the other days it has rained at least once. When it does rain the place gets even more depressing. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of development going on (they are building a new science and computing building at one end of the campus, and seem to be doing something with the drains elsewhere), and you have a recipe for depression. [read more]
Well, this is the first of many posts I will be making from here in my university room for the next year!
I’ve been here for 3 nights now (Sunday to Tuesday), and things are going OK. The room is all right – its about the size you would expect for university accommodation, and its actually not too shabby. I’ve got a friend, Geraint, who is in the most recent college here, Pendle, and his room is only a little bigger…the only thing which I would really like to swap (in terms of the halls, anyway) would be the kitchen – ours is small and pretty grotty, whereas his is big and nicely fitted out (its even got proper cupboards, which is more than ours!). Being on the ground floor is alright, but there are a few things which are annoying – it gets quite warm in my room (well, at the moment at least. I think it might get cold in winter because the window seems a little draughty), so its nice to have the window open to let in some fresh air, but I can’t leave it open when I go out because it would be easy for someone to just climb in and take things. Also The room is a little overlooked. My window looks right out at block 10, and the upper floors of that can see into my room, and at my desk, which is a little disturbing. [read more]
So she’s gone – she went yesterday.
I stayed over at Natalie’s house on Monday night. I met her at 11.30 (she said 11, I said 11.30 so that I would remember I had to set off at 11 – in the past we have said times like that to meet, and next day I have thought I remembered that I had to set off at 11…so get there late!) and she had a few things to do (some shopping for her mum and something else I can’t remember now), so we did them, and set off back to her house. On the way back we were talking about how this was the last time she would be coming that way for a while…it felt weird because its the last time I would be going that way for a long time as well…I held her hand (I always do…but this time) it felt different – more special in some ways. We got back to her house and hugged a bit…and then she remembered she had forgotten that she needed more passport size photos while we were in Halifax. So we had to go out again. About an hour after we got back, we went out again. Back in Halifax we got some more food and then she went for her photo at the booth in the bus station. Those things never make you look good (when I had my picture taken for university I scanned it in and edited it a bit, then got my mother to print it onto photo paper at work so I didn’t look tooo bad…), but she didn’t look too bad in the end (I don’t think, but I couldn’t make her believe that). And after that we headed back to her house again…back along the way we thought we wouldn’t be going for a long time…this time we wouldn’t. [read more]
Not that it is being like a really long run of update yet…but I’m working on it 😛
Alright, I’m not going to dress this up because its not worth it – I’m not going to pretend that I have been on the edge of my seat waiting for this day for however long because I havn’t. I guess its just the final part of my 6th Form College life. I’m talking about results – they came out today. [read more]
OK, here we go. No more putting it off, no more saying I’ll do it and then not doing, this is actually it…I’m going to catch up. Alright, so last time I posted I was writing about my exams and I had two more to go, and I promised that I would write about what happened with my Maths exams so where better to start…
The background to the story goes back to last year and exams then. I sat Maths AS level way back then and didn’t do really well (that’s all written about in here, and is all gone now *tries not to remember*), so I decided to resit it this year, and went to my tutor, Joy, to ask her to tell the exam board not to accept my results. This was a little difficult because I had missed the time that the forms had to be back with the exams office, so I had to go across there and sort it out myself. Joy rang across and told them I would be coming and gave me the code for the door (amidst much patronising “don’t tell anyone” and “wash it off your hand when you have finished”). So I went and cancelled the results all ready for this year. Early this year, aware of the fact I needed to work on my maths, I went to see Joy to talk about some lessons and what I should do about it. She suggested that I start to come to lessons after the Easter holidays when she would be doing revision groups and that I would get the most out of them having done the course before. [read more]
Guess what I mean…yes, blah, exams! Well that’s all that I have left now – General Studies, and two Physics exams. I finish on the 26th (I think it is – a week on Thursday), and then that’s it until uni (this is the plan at least, lol). I had computing today, but I’m not going to talk about it…its not worth it, however well I did will be found out in the middle of summer.
The problem with not talking about exams though is that it doesn’t leave much to talk about, because I’m not doing much else at the moment. About the most exciting thing I can talk about is the weekend…so here we go…a detailed account 😉 [read more]
Ooooh, did I do the failing to update again? Hmm, oops 😉 I have an excuse though…exams and things! Well then, if this works, here we go…
I think today might have decided the rest of my life. I had 6 hours of exams – Politics and Maths. My uni offers both take these A/S levels into account (to different extents) as well as my full A-Levels. The thing is I’m not too worried about my A-Levels (hmm, he says) because computing is alright, and Physics has got better since I had my extra private tutor…but the A/S levels have been kind of rushed, in fact, I have had no maths lessons at all this year. Anyway, I found out yesterday that I had a timetable clash with maths and politics this afternoon (long story, I will tell it some other time), so we contacted college and they arranged for me to do the politics exam this morning and the maths this afternoon and be supervised over lunch (so I didn’t go telling anyone who was doing the politics at the proper time what was on the papers). Not so much fun to say I had a day to revise the hardest paper for the hardest subject I’m doing (the Pure Maths module this is). [read more]
Yep, I did go and see the film (he says almost a month after writing about going to see it). I really liked it, and I am trying to find a time to go again, but its not really on at very convenient times anymore (at least not or bargin days, lol).
Yes, I know, its been too long again, and I have been meaning to write this for about a week now, but just have never got around to it. Im making myself catch up now while I have the time to spare – I’m sitting in college trying to fill in the time I have spare from my cancelled physics lesson. [read more]