An Odd Geography Lesson.

Chemistry was poor. We had another test, and although it was ok, Pearson only gave us twenty minutes to complete it, so I don't think anyone had enough time to finish it and check their answers. Later on there was Physics, which I actually like. No seriously, it isn't half as bad as people make it out to be. It's actually quite funny. Every lesson Greenwood walks in and out for the first twenty minutes and today he spent about the minutes convincing us he wasn't handing out a test. Oh, and we played with a dead man's bones. A normal Physics lesson then...

Geo though was another thing. I think saying it was 'chaos' is not even touching upon what was going on. We didn't seem to do anything except laugh, much to Service's annoyance. Oh, and for some reason I was blamed for global warming? Just for the record I don't leave lights on when I do to school, and I don't have a draught excluder in my room. WTF? Who has? Well anyway, we aren't gonna get 'A's if we have more lessons like today's...

Five Years Young.

So the iPod's five years old today! Woooooooo!!! Hey, even I have leart to love the iPod. It might have taken my five years to get one, and anyway I probably wouldn't have one now if there wasn't that super duper massive rebate when you buy a new Mac deal. I wonder if it will still be around in another five years. Who knows...

Yr 7 Dance Day.

It was pretty chaotic to try and get everything set up before Yr 7 started 'dancing'. Then once everything was sort of in place it was off to Geography, about half an hour late. Never mind though, my group still has to present - though I didn't (citing stress, obviously...). At the end though, Service stated that she would be 'dancing' later on in the day. YouTube was suddenly mentioned, which got her quite worried! Well I think saying that the video of her dancing would be on the net by half nine was slightly worrying.

Later on I did some filming then there was break for lunch, where we managed to rip the CD they were using on their laptop without them noticing. I guess it did help that they were eating in thee canteen at the time, but still. Oh yeah, and we tried filming from the trolley, ie. sawood pulling it with me on it with a camera. The results were awesome. Shame we can't really do it in say House Music. Anyway I better upload that video to YouTube...

EES Launch Day.

Well Maths filled you with confidence. Girdler made a complete hash of several questions she was trying to explain to the class. What was that? The blind leading the blind? Nah. She's normally pretty good. Then there was Griffths. He found it 'suspicious' that I had done well in the first few h/ws. Well that's the first time I've seen a teacher frown upon you for trying hard and actually getting (some) stuff right.

Then it was down to the 'Ford Advanced Technical Development Centre' at Dunton for the EES launch day. Overall it wasn't great, though the presentation room was awesome. A massive white wall with like three projectors. I think that this is what we need at KEGS, it would be awesome. Oh, so the hard work starts now then...

OMG! I Made The Team!

Physics is actually pretty damn good, and mostly because Greenwood can be really funny. For instance Ken was trying his best to kill a 'fruit fly' then somehow we got onto the 'killer flies' which were hanging from the ceiling. Maths was ok, I guess. I managed to prove that the textbook was wrong, although originally Griffths didn't believe me. I rock at Maths (um, yeah...). Geography was doing more work on dams. Damn.

Then something amazing happened. I had to go to the Tech Block to find out if I had gotten into the team for the Engineering Scheme. I knew I hadn't, as my interview was a disaster. But amazingly I had. Wow. Then I had to rush down to KFC with Alan. We had decided earlier to go, but then I didn't expect to get on the team, so most of the people that were going to go with us had already buggered off.

Then there was Chem. I got full marks in the h/w! I was actually pretty lucky. I had done a rubbish one side piece, but them heard that Ambe had done three sides!!! So I 'beefed' mine up a bit and added more 'A Level' stuff. Luckily the stuff I added was what he wanted, so sweet. I didn't completely waste my time. Oh yeah, Apple had dropped a nice red iPod Nano, all to do with saving the planet from AIDs. Although this is a really worthwhile cause (and I obviously want one...) they only donate $10 out of $199. So, the planet isn't exactly saved just yet...

Few And Far Between.

I haven't really had a rant on here for a while, so I think it's about time I had one. There are two things bugging me at this point in time, firstly the stupid fire alarm at lunch and secondly House Music. So let me begin.

About halfway through lunch the bell began to ring and it didn't stop, so it was a fire drill? Well this is not normally too bad, you miss some of the lesson you are in. However this was lunchtime and it meant that we missed a fair bit of it, and anyway we had to get down to Riverside, so we were gonna be late. Then add the fact that it was really chucking it down, not a little drizzle, but it was actually raining fairly heavily. So in the end we had to hang around for ages on the playground getting completely soaked and gained very little out of it.

Now for my next topic, House Music. I might as well say beforehand that House Music is actually pretty boring. There are only about 5 things worse watching/listening to, out of a good twenty acts. Filming it is tedious, editing it can be boring (sometimes I think, why can't we hire snipers to simply kill anyone who plays a boring piece during House Music) and generally it is a lot of work. So it's good that I'm away when it's happening! It's not gonna get filmed. Oh wait, it is, but some of the new techies. I'm fine with that, I'd prefer to just keep an eye over everything - considering most, if not all have never done something like this before.

Why are we in this situation? One reason: the people/person who decides when events take place is rubbish at their job. Firstly it gets placed the same day as Rememberance Assembly (any reasonable person can see this simply won't work). Then it gets moved a week later, no real problem with this. Oh wait, they don't consulte the people who are going to have to put in the most work: before, during and after House Music.

We did actually try to get House Music moved to the 8th November (two days before it was originally scheduled to take place), but obviously to no avail. A number of reasons were cited though as to why it couldn't move:

1. It is only a month away, so getting someone to come and judge the event at such short notice may be difficult.
2. It is an 'end of the week' event.
3. It would 'clash' with the Wind Band practice at lunch.
4. It would 'clash' with some other music practice after school.

The first point is true. I completely agree with it. The second point is a bit dodgy. Yes, it is more of an 'end of the week' event, but this doesn't mean it can't be in the middle of the week can it? It would be better if it could be at the end of the week, but it isn't 'the law' that it has to be. Assembly is on a Monday, Wednesday and a Friday. It isn't always, sometimes it's cancelled and sometimes it moves to the other spare days. The world doesn't suddenly go on mass riots, people work around it. The last two points are plain rubbish. So??? Does it really matter if one practice might not happen? Couldn't it even be moved to say, I dunno, another day?

Well that was fun. Tune it next time for: Why I hate Microsoft...

Woot! A+!!!

Assembly was unusually funny. First off, no one knew when the hymn had actually started, so for like a solid minute there was just pure electric organ. That just sounds plain wrong. Then Walker began talking about 'healthy eating' stuff, so I think most people switched off. He mentioned Jamie Oliver. Not that fool again, because of him the canteen is rubbish, the drinks machines are rubbish and I hate him. I actually hate him.

Physics was a rather 'meaty' test. I was pretty annoyed, it wasn't really on calculating stuff like strain, stress or the Young Modulus which I can do. Maths was good, I say that mainly because I got an A+ for the h/w. Woot!!! Probably for the first and last time, but still. I wasn't really paying attention for the first bit of Geography, as I was (truthfully...) trying to work out what the heck was going on on the diagram Hitch had just given us, so when he asked me what happens in the summer I said "snowmelt". I didn't know it was meant to be about the UK! Chem was good, doing a couple of experiments, though there was smoke again (though this time there was meant to be smoke!)...

Hooray For Spotlight!

I thought I'd begin today by talking a bit about Spotlight. Many of you aren't Mac users so won't know what I'm talking about. Spotlight is like a decent search function for your computer, and I mean decent. Not like the Windows, take fifteen minutes then might give up search. This does it in seconds and can actually search in documents. Say I couldn't remember where I put my Geo h/w or what I called it, I can just type in 'rivers' and boom! Sweet.


PSE today was actually decent. The chief driving examiner for Chelmsford gave us a talk about getting a drivers licence. Well it certainly was interesting and more relevant than previous things we were lectured to about. I don't like the look of the hazard perception bit of the theory test though, you really have to be on the ball. Geo was doing more of the river revision/filling in gaps which we should already know. I felt pretty awful after Maths, but hey, it's winter. Physics ended the day, we have a test tomorrow which is bad. Better revise then...

Numb.

Geography was pretty bog standard really, although we were given a bloody large amount of h/w. We do have all of new weeks lessons to do them though, as there is the Iceland trip. Physics was doing yet another (must have been about the fifth time at KEGS for me...) refraction/total internal reflection experiment, although this time we got to use the decent equipment. Chemistry too was doing an experiment. It was pretty funny when Chris and Robert did the opposite of what was on the sheet and their beaker started smoking and Pearson got a bit annoyed. Then again it was pretty funny. Oh yeah, and I sucked at badminton today. I couldn't hit anything really, I seem to go rubbish every other week...

a, a+2d, a+3d...

I'd love to meet the person who arranges and decides when all the school events take place, mainly because they always seem to make a complete hash of it. For instance, House Music this year takes place the same day as Rememberance Assembly. Yeah, like that will happen. So it's been moved back a week, the same time I'm in Shrewsbury measuring pebbles again. So it's not gonna get filmed. Well it's probably gonna move again.

Griffths gave us a bit of a shock today in Maths. We have barely covered anything and we have like three weeks to finish the module. I think its because he keeps asking us if we have done: a, a+d, a+2d..... and of course we just say no and we do it all again every lesson. Oh, and I had the monument free as well, and did the Geography h/w, which involved putting it on the T drive, and naturally people had copied me. I was pretty stunned, by lunch there were three pretty much identical copies of it! What was that, I can delete stuff as well as write...

Death By PowerPoint.

Chemistry was funny as always for all the wrong reasons. Then Pearson says towards the end when she's cutting some 'dangerous metal' that she should be wearing a complete face mask. I can see safety is definitely a priority. Physics before lunch was good, for me at least. I've finally done pretty well in a proper 'equation' h/w, getting something like 25/28. Woooo! Go me!

The final thing was Geography. I finally got to show my film, and I think it was ok. Yes, the music was a bit repetitive and it was long at four minutes (though bearing in mind she did say to come up with 3-4 minutes worth of stuff...). Oh, and I thought I might as well upload it onto YouTube:

Alan had a good go at finding faults with it, for example 'Made on a Mac'. That technically isn't entirely true as it was made mostly on a Mac (my Mac in fact) but converted into something the computers at skl could play on a Windows PC. Then again I had a couple of 'bad points' with his PowerPoint, for example: no music, not a movie, boring!, too much text, no such thing as subsidence farming! and it was certainly DBP (death by powerpoint). Apart from that it was pretty good...