Oh dear. I think I have a motivational problem…I’m never in the mood to write in this at times when I actually can write in this. I have actually thought about it, and wanted to do it quite a few times since I last actually did, but they have all been times when I have not been able to, then when I get back to my computer and actually can do it, I don’t feel in the mood. Its not good. Anyway, I’m here now, and I’m not going to make any more excuses! I don’t even actually remember when I last did write here, but I will try to not miss anything out I haven’t written about before! [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]
Alright, here goes (a lot later than planned, but lets skip over that shall we 😉 ) – the rest of the holiday in a nutshell!
The thing is, I guess the reason why I haven’t written this much over the holidays is because I haven’t been doing that much…so I’ve not felt the need to get on here and write about it. Anyway, the holidays kicked off (well, kind of, it was a little while into it, but it was meant to kick it off…just I finished earlier than a lot of my friends because they are in the year below me) with a party at Ross’s house. Actually, Natalie and I had been invited out to a kind of gathering (does that kind of make it sound like a weird ritual, or is it just me…) at Kathy’s house a few days before, but didn’t go. Natalie went off on a nice cruse with her parents a little while earlier that week, so I would have had to go on my own and things and I didn’t fancy that (not to mention that I didn’t know where she lives and we were only invited like the day before not giving much time). So, Ross’s party was the first real party this summer (actually, the only one thinking about it!). I met Ben a little early as he wanted to get some shopping in Halifax before we went, so we did that, and then had some time to kill. We ended up sitting in the Piece Hall for about 45 mins in the end, just talking (and being hounded by wasps…I think I must look like a flower or something, because I always get attacked by things like that…maybe its the colours I wear :-\ ). That was quite fun, we talked about lots of things. Then we got thrown out because they were closing. So we made our way to the bus station where we were supposed to be meeting everyone. Sure enough people rolled up and we all gathered. When Ross finally arrived there was a great deal of buying of alcohol to be done. It’s strange, I don’t drink, and yet I am always the one given money to buy things like that, and always the one who end up carrying the stuff! I don’t mind, just strange (heh, I suppose I should be honoured people think I look all grown up, hehe). After a rather long visit to the shop (with much lengthy deciding what to buy, and then trying to explain to me so I got it right), we made our way back to the bus station to…well…get a bus. The rest of the night wasn’t much to talk about – usual party stuff – people getting drunk, chatting, messing about, greasy food, computer games (no karaoke this time around), strip poker, loud poor music, and me with my camera to record it all. I love it…other people don’t at the time…but they do the next day 😀 We stayed over that night watching the TV (there are some amusing programs on at night), and I left at about 8.30am while other people were still half asleep and went home. Then I slept. That was a good night. I enjoyed it. [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]
Well there goes another entry (heh, it seems to be calming to write this from college after exams, lol). I should be in general studies now, but I’m not going to go – my excuse is that I’m stressed about the exam I just had (or something…). That’s one thing that is odd – we don’t have exams leave as such. They decided that they would carry on running lessons up to the exams, but we get the day before any exam off so we could revise. I think generally people are taking that as being ‘it doesn’t matter if you don’t go to lessons, no one will complain’.
Anyway, enough with talk of exams (that was the last entry!). Its spring bank holiday next week, hurrah. It will give me chance to have at least some kind of rest, even if I have promised to go into Age Concern at some point over the holidays (rather was nagged into it by my mother, lol). [read more]