Look, It Hasn't Cut My Hand Off!

In Physics there was possibly the funniest quote of the term. Greenwood was showing us how light get reflected/refracted in glass using a laser and suddenly waved his hand in the beam and shouted, "Oooooh! Look, it hasn't cut my hand off!" So unbelievably random! Maths was a bit unfair. Griffths made a point when he handed back my h/w that he had actually written more corrections, then I had done work. I'm sorry but he blatantly hadn't. Then again, he did point out that I was the only one who did any algebra - sorry, rewrote what was in the textbook, not knowing that it was right!

Geo was a test, the third in about as many weeks. Again I'm pretty sure that I mucked it up. Then at lunch we went down to KFC. I was amazed/shocked at what happened on the way back. Alan collects circus posters (no comment...) and saw some guy putting some up. So he asked for a couple, then the guy gave him some free tickets to the circus, then I made a disbelieving sound, and he gave me some too. What??? I probably won't go anyway, but still. Chem involved some more lasers, and some diffraction...

Damn Greenpeace.

I don't 'love my Mac', but I do think it is bloody good. I mean how can you love a computer? Fools I tell you! Ok, that's not the bit I don't like. It's the second bit. The very thing I'm typing on is a toxic time bomb waiting to explode any moment now? I don't think so. Anyway that website was probably designed on a Mac!

Assembly was another one of those stupid language assemblies. No, I don't care much for languages, in fact if I could I probably would have dropped them in Yr8. Oh yeah, and someone had an idea to say 'The Lord's Prayer' in German. Give that person a star! (Pause) I was a bit annoyed in Geography. I'd spent ages getting my film done in time for today's lesson, then we're told we have another week. Physics was a double looking at the CD. After doing this Ken and I began looking at ways to make loads of money fast, like making a material which was light but massively strong. It's a killer plan. Then in Chem Pearson realised no one knew how to do the Avogadro work. Oh yeah, and there was more badminton...

Punching You In The Face.

I haven't posted for about a week for two main reasons:

• My MacBook (which is awesome) finally arrived.
• I have had tons of homework to do.

Chemistry was funny. There was quite literally a hole in the bucket, and we managed to flood a fair bit of the back bench. Maths was doing some factorising malarky. Physics was mostly spend listening to people trying to reason with Greenwood and I think Ken put it best, "It's like you're cornered into a corner and Greenwood is punching you in the face!" Geography was a cover, which is unusual as I didn't think you got covers in the sixth form and as we didn't have a cover teacher. Surprised no one just walked off...

The Wonders Of Microsoft PowerPoint.

Assembly was half decent today, not because Mr Ham admitted that all he ever does is walk around the corridors, but because of his 'Science College' presentation. Admittedly it crashed, and we had to watch the same photo slideshow twice, but still. It is Mr Ham.

Chemistry was finishing the last lesson's experiment, ie. weighing the crystals and Pearson thought we had done quite well getting something like 80% of what were were meant to get. Right. Maths was doing some crazy factorising rubbish. In Physics Greenwood kept randomly walking out of the room mid sentence which was rather disturbing. Finally in Geography we hardly did any work, much to Service's annoyance. Oh yeah, and Mrs Gray was impressed I still had my library card and how new it looked (ie. I haven't used it in five years!)...

Strain, Stress, Strain.

Geography was first and there was a test. It seemed incredibly pointless as the big ten mark question no one had ever done, so why waste our time to do it? Physics was difficult to understand. Strain, stress, strain, stress, tensile - all lesson. Chem was doing an experiment with Pearson. I like the way that we get to use the new 'Science College' equipment and yet we don't have any tongs. Instead we have to use a sheet of paper to lift a conical flask full of boiling liquid. Oh yeah, in games we improved on last week. 'Yoda' only beat us 14-5 this time...

It's Showtime!

Ok. As it was pointed out to me yesterday there is an amazing, super duper, totally exciting Apple event today. I didn't mention it after last time. No iPhone, no new iPods, no new MacBook (I've given up waiting, it should arrive end of this week/start of next). Well ok, it is a bit better than last time. The major new stuff is a seriously revamped iPod Shuffle (wow, I actually want one) and a new aluminum iPod Nano (I want one). I can't believe that made the Nano thinner! Any thinner and you will be able to actually fold it in half!


The Shuffle looks amazing, so small and it lasts for 12 hours! No seriously it is freakin' tiny!


I'm a bit annoyed with the new Nano. My £18 Nano is coming shortly and it's already out of date. Oh yeah, and you can now buy movies from the iTunes (Music) Store. Shame it isn't availible in the Uk (yet - at least).


Oh yeah, today's house assembly was a joke. Birke wasn't even there. Maths was ok, and Griffths showed us a 'cool' way of solving sequence problems. Why weren't we told this earlier??? Then four hours of nothing. Really. This I thought would be good, but no. There is nothing to do really. The sixth form centre is so poor. Chemistry was 'scary' again. We were told that we had to be able to do some complicated formula number thing by next week. Oh...

Start As You Mean To Go On...

Sweet. Full marks in the first Chem test, although it was only on ionic charges. But still, start as you mean to go on. Chem was surprisingly better than Maths. I had seemingly lost my ability to do surds. The funny thing was that Girdler was talking as though we were going over stuff that we had already done last year and were good at it, but we weren't. Another funny thing is that whenever she goes around asking people to solve problems on the spot, it just so happens that when it comes to me I get a simple one. I'm not complaining!

Physics was doing a couple of experiments on materials. Well I say experiments, we had to pull copper wire apart and quickly look at the end under a magnifying thingy. Then with some plastic and with some plasticine. Geography was pretty funny, we watched a video on rural MEDCs and LEDCs and it was so obviously MEDC biased. Out of two minutes or so only about 20 seconds were on LEDC and when the section came up funny music played. Disgraceful. Oh, and Service said I was close to an A*, but maybe not close enough to appeal. Never mind...

Ah, A Head...

Something rather unusual turned up today during my stint in the charity shop. A Head, sans a body. It did have hair however. Why on earth would we want a head? I didn't see the person who dropped it off, but they almost certainly knew we don't have much use for a head.

Oh yeah, and I installed the amazing Physics program from the CD and guess what. It filled my laptop with crap. 'Scion Image' and 'Cool Edit' are to name but a few of the programs now wasting space on my hard drive. 'Scion Image' seems to be a messed up paint, and 'Cool Edit' simply isn't cool. I couldn't even get it to install first time without some part refusing to install, but I was luckily, second time lucky. This CD better get me an A...

Carbon 60.

I didn't particularly want to be, but I was late to Physics. All because Bunting wants me to do some 'Young Engineers Course', which might look good on my CV, do I might as well do it if I can. Well Physics was funny because Greenwood asked us what forces were measured in and stood there for over a minute waiting and no one answered! He had to say it wasn't a trick question, then it was obvious it was Newtons.

Next was Maths with Griffths. First up, he isn't nearly as bad as people make him out to be. Yes, you did read that right. There are some funny things like a hoover in the corner and things like 'if you aren't dressed properly you won't be taught', but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be. In contrast the Geo test was as bad as I thought it would be. I won't have done well at all.

Chemistry was scary. We were given a warning before we began that if we didn't try hard enough we would get shouted at. Then we watched a film on carbon 60, which was interesting. I want a Nobel prize...

I Still Don't Like Heights.

I can see why we only have a whole school photograph every few years. It is simply chaos. For the first half an hour we kept going back and forwards, with some people being moved further back to the short end by one prefect, then five minutes later being moved back by another. Eventually we finally got to the actual scaffolding thing, then I released one small problem which I had overlooked. I don't do heights - period. Well I had to, reluctantly.

Possibly making up for it though was the fact that the old man who did it last time was still there and made a complete idiot out of himself. I didn't hear it myself but he apparently said, "Think of someone you like." I didn't hear it cos his megaphone wasn't very 'mega', it didn't seem to work at all.

Geo was ok. We just went over what we will be doing, and also began some work on rivers. Oh yeah, and we have a rivers test tomorrow. Girdler was more laid back than usual in Maths, which was rather surprising. We did some stuff on surds, which was good because I couldn't do them, and now I can, well sort of. Finally there was Physics in the computer room. We just had to watch and listen to the tutorial of the CD, which was funny when the narrator said, "This program has one big problem." Great...

Oh, no...

So this was the first proper day back. It sort of followed the same format as the last few years. We were given an awful lot of confusing and complicated paper and had to somehow find our timetables from it. Well I eventually got it, then we had to copy it out twice! Assembly was slightly unusual, we were 'upgraded' (ie. told to go and sit on the stage). It's actually worse than before cos there was no room leg room at all! You can't see anything either, except the back of people's heads.

Oh yeah, the reason for the title. My timetable isn't exactly the best thing in the world. I won't talk about the teachers, but I don't get to go home early on any day! To make things worse on Tuesday I have nothing on sections 3/4/5/6/7 and for the first bit I can't go out either!

Physics was first with Greenwood. He sees good, and we spent the whole lesson looking at what we will do (or at least attempt to do, not possibly successfully!). Chemistry was with Pearson. Pause. We went over some of what we will do, and also went over some Year 11 work. Games was badminton, which was cool. It wasn't though when Derek or is it Dave? Well we call him Yoda (he's short and flies about), when he decided to play against Chris and me. We lost pretty spectacularly...

The Year 12 Induction Day.

Today didn't really seem to have much of a purpose. We went in and (in the usual fashion) we were warned to work hard or we would fail and face an untimely death at the hands of an axe wielding chipmunk. Ok, I added the last bit, but it was sort of like that.

Well after a lot of talking there was a 'buffet lunch' (read:dodgy sandwiches) and an icebreaker (read:pointless sheet, which no one in our form seemed to do properly). Oh yeah, I'm now in 12D with Burcher, so that's quite good.

Afterwards there was rounders. Yay. How fun (sarcasm). Also the caretakers have put a second bench in the Drama office, so we now have our own space for the shiny new iMacs. Just got to wait for some plugs though...

R.I.P. Steve Irwin.

Damn stingrays. This morning one killed Steve Irwin. I have to admit I always thought he lived life a bit on the dangerous side, but still, stupid creatures. I loved his 'Crocodile Hunter' shows, though they haven't been on for a while. They'll probably show them again now.


Today I had to get a new blazer, which involved waiting for ages (ok, 1/2 hour at the most) in the foyer. All the teachers seemed to be in, as quite a few of them walked past smiling nervously at us. Well a couple did come over and say 'Hi' to me and a couple even told me 'Well done!'. I was a bit surprised at this, as I seemed to be the only one they were saying it to and although I had done 'well' it wasn't exactly outstandingly well.

Anyway it's the sixth form induction day thingy tomorrow. Should be 'fun', yeah, an hour and a half of rounders. I can't wait...

The Bustard Inn.

Ok. So a bit has happened in the past few days. Well I had a birthday. I thought I'd make a list of what I got:

• Cycle lamps
• Money

That isn't it, but technically that is what I got. What's coming is a MacBook. Should arrive in a week or two. Then knowing my luck it'll get updated.

Oh yeah, I also went to Stonehenge. We left pretty late, so decided to get some lunch beforehand. It was suggested to me to use my laptop with Autoroute and the GPS thing to find somewhere to eat. Well that failed. Nothing nearby for miles. So we just decided to go down some random roads hoping to find somewhere. Lo and behold, we did, right at the end of the road next to a firing range. The Bustard Inn. What a name, I had to double take when I saw the name, but it's apparently a type of bird, whatever.

I was pleasantly surprised, for something in the middle of nowhere the food was no half decent. On the way out the landlord informed me that it was 'The Smallest Hamlet in England to Have a Pub'. Wow. What an accolade. Anyway after the honour of visiting 'The Smallest Hamlet in England to Have a Pub' we went back to Stonehenge.


I have to admit it's looking good for 5,000 years old. Still I'd prefer if the builders had actually finished it. Boom boom!!! Ok. That was terrible. It was pretty good for a couple of stones, the audio tour wasn't bad either. Well that was until I seemed to have skipped a bit and the person started rambling on about the 'Blue Stones'. I can't see any blue stones! I took quite a few pictures, in the vain hope I might get something decent to use as a wallpaper for the MacBook. I think this is the best one:


So that was it, I foolishly suggested that we went back via Thurrock, so I could go to Borders to get a Mac for complete idiots type book, but this was a mistake. It took five hours to get home, while only two to get there. Still at least I got to read it, and finish it before I got home...