The fire alarm got a bit overexcited yesterday and went off three times in the middle of the night. Which was kind of cold and annoying.

More whining about Advanced Dynamics: ( Read more... )Physics Ball tomorrow, which probably means I will end up walking about three miles in my prom dress and heels. And probably my enormous blue raincoat, because it very well might rain. How glamourous I am.

Really really want it to be academic summer already. Maybe this time I really will do all the Wholesome and Productive things I always plan to do every summer.

Isn't summer just... marvellous?

You Are "ctrl"

Some people might try to say that you're too controlling. And while there is a controlling aspect to your personalty, you like to think you're competent. You are an expert in many fields. You tend to really know your stuff. You tend to take the reins whenever it's needed. You like to lead, and people like to follow you.

Soon I am going to have to start the day's astro revision...

Christmas again.

I was really ill last night. I had a fever and shivers all over my skin. And didn't really sleep. So now I am very very tired. But I woke up just about better and went up to christmas with some actual optimism that turned out to be completely unfounded. I don't like christmas. This christmas was particularly mediocre and depressing.

Maybe once my family shifts a generation I will like christmas but for the moment I do not like christmas.

I'm sorry.

The Sonnet Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLD) Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed? Sonnets want Love and have high ideals about it. They're conscientious people, caring & careful. You yourself have deep convictions, and you devote a lot of thought to romance and what it should be. This will frighten away most potential mates, but that's okay, because you're very choosy with your affections anyway. You'd absolutely refuse to date someone dumber than you, for instance. Lovers who share your idealized perspective, or who are at least willing to totally throw themselves into a relationship, will be very, very happy with you. And you with them. You're already selfless and compassionate, and with the right partner, there's no doubt you can be sensual, even adventurously so. You probably have lots of female friends, and they have a special soft spot for you. Babies do, too, at the tippy-top of their baby skulls. Your exact female opposite: Genghis Khunt Random Brutal Sex Master Always avoid: The 5-Night Stand (DBSM), The False Messiah (DBLM), The Hornivore (RBSM), The Last Man on Earth (RBSD) Consider: The Loverboy (RGLM)

Link: The Online Dating Persona Test | OkCupid - singles | Dating

I'm waiting for stuff to stick itself on my pen drive so I'll do this.

Choose a singer/band/group
- Answer the following questions using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group
- Tag 7 more people.

I'll do Ladytron.

1. Are you male or female? Playgirl
2. Describe yourself. True Mathemetics (because I, uh, like maths)
3. What do people feel when they're around you? Evil (not really. this was just the only one that fit)
4. How would you describe your previous relationship? Cease2xist
5. Describe your current relationship. I'm With The Pilots (this is a very weak link)
6. Where would you want to be now? International Dateline (i would like to go there. alaska/russia)
7. How do you feel about love? Another Breakfast With You
8. What's your life like? Nuhorizons
9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish? Blue Jeans
10. Say something wise. Zmeyka

Well that was only very slightly entertaining for me and no doubt not at all for you.

Having joined the ultra-predictable brigade of people getting a laptop just before going to uni, I have spent the last three hours sorting out my music collection. I am so disorganised. I have about... god knows how many... single tracks pooling in a big puddle in the My Music folder. Those are all sorted out now. Now I have to ferry a 256mb pen drive back and forth transferring it all.

I promise that I will keep this new computer nice and tidy. Maybe.

Going off to university. The Future. At the moment I feel as if I am grinding up against the Future, almost there but not quite yet, the promise of soon suddenly being immersed in it.

Well I'm back. We didn't actually get rained on that much in Wales, due to the fact that most of the time we were actually walking around in a rain cloud. It was wet, but not rainy.

The plan was to follow what turned out to be a bit of the Cambrian way, wild camp the first night and then camp at a youth hostel the second night. Sadly, due to being in a cloud we got slightly lost and camped on top of a mountain instead, 850 metres in the air, which was very windy and worrying. After finding civilisation again the next day we decided not to leave it for the rest of the trip.

Well, it was OK. But I know that's just my brain filtering out the worrying bits. But it was really just due to being in a cloud, if there had been no cloud it would have been fine and ace. It was just annoying that the whole point of walking up a mountain is to be able to look down and see how high up you've dragged yourself and if you can't see any further than ten metres in any direction it kind of defeats the point of going up there in the first place.

Things I would do differently next time:

1. Not go when it's cloudy. Just wait and wait and wait until there's a nice clear window of weather.
2. Get a laminated map that doesn't start disintegrating in rain.
3. Get a coat that is actually waterproof. Mine wasn't. At all. Even though there was no rain all the clothes I was wearing got soaked from being in a cloud.
4. Not take a gas stove or cooking pans as I didn't actually use them at all.

We're gonna get rained on.

Howard and I are expeditioning to Snowdonia next week, to walk around a la D of E. Maybe one day I'll be able to climb Snowdon without it being at the wettest part of the summer, but apparently that won't be this time. I really hope my tent is actually waterproof. It did come from ebay.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll survive. Although maybe that ought to be Survive, capitaled.

I think building a plot is a lot like building any other structure. If it starts to look a bit wobbly and unstable you stick some supports in. If bits of it start to look like all they are is supports and are rather messy you scrap that entire leg and bring in a new design.

I went to boundry mill today and got a few things, mostly basics from marks and sparks but also a dress that was apparently originally sixty pounds but was down to twelve. So I've been sewing bits of that this evening. So that's moderately exciting.

I'm reading Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson at the moment which is good and readable.

We've been making jam. Too much tasting during the boiling process has made me feel a little bit ill.

I finished Dune. Deeply unimpressed by the ending. Unoriginal, predicatable, boring.

I need to do more writing. I used to be able to do 2k words all in one go easily, it just fell out of me and now... I'll stop whining now.

I went to see Radiohead for the second time on the 29th. I was stood some way back and I really really wish I'd just set up camp right at the front six hours before. It's just not the same when you're not all pressed up against other people and you stop being a single entity, just one huge seething mass of humans. It would have been really ace. I remember when I got the I Might Be Wrong live recordings and I thought how amazingly amazing it would be to see Idioteque live. And now I have and it would have been amazingly amazing, but wasn't.

I spent five days in Driffield. Went to see the penguins at Bridlington, but they were quite unimpressive having become accustomed to a Western lifestyle. They refused to dive for the fish and had to have them dropped directly into their mouths. Unimpressed. But I liked the emus which tried to peck my bag and also a ninja squirrel that kept wriggling through a hole in the parrot's cage and eating its seeds.

I came back on the train. I was sitting contentedly reading at Bolton waiting for the third train to come and take me home to be told that it had been cancelled. I was advised by the tannoy to make "alternative travel arrangements". Well, thanks for that. Very helpful advice there. I had to hop from Preston to Blackburn and then get the bus from there. Apparently all because one person had dropped out of working that night and they couldn't run the train without that number of staff. Disappointing.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ.

( Read more... )

I've had quite a productive day today. I went into Clitheroe to get back my deposit money for my physics CD and promptly spent it all in charity shops. I got some frightening four inch heels from Oxfam and also some interesting trousers that I may have to modify and a skirt and a jumper.

Then I went home and cooked some vegetable curry while wearing the scary heels and I've realised I'm probably not cut out for them as my feet now hurt. But my curry was quite good. I'll add it to my list of things I can cook.

I have to sort stuff out. I really need to work out when I'm going to Wales and things. Time to start scrawling on my calender. I also need to learn how to drive at some point over this summer too.

I had quite a nice day today. I cycled to Clitheroe, on my own, and spent about two and a half hours going through the contents of every charity shop there. This is only really fun if I do it alone, because if I take anyone with me they will just whine at me. I found a really nice skirt that was too small and a really nice shirt that was too big so sadly I didn't get anything exciting, just two books and another enormous tshirt that I can sleep in. It is black and has the history channel logo on it.

I need to be more productive, I think. I have my physics AEA tomorrow, which I will fail, but hey. Optional exam.

I found my iceberg poster which is also good.

I'm reading Dune at the moment, after about three years of it sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I'm about a third of the way through. The whole spice/sandworm/desert planet concept I really like, I think that's ace, but the way he keeps writing "And then she thought: blah blah blah is starting to irritate me slightly. So, all in all, so far it's been OK but I wouldn't say that overall it is that awesomely great, simply because the writing is so flat. But apart from that it's good. And those are my thoughts on Dune so far.

Urgh now in addition to telling me to get the pink patch and some device to tone my stomach up, Facebook is now telling me to have cosmetic surgery for summer. Does everyone get these, or do they just think I am ugly and need to be targeted?

I hope I'm not being too arrogant/incredibly dim in revising for general studies, but not physics.

This is going to be one of those entries that offers nothing to people who aren't me. You'll read the words. They'll make sense, because you've probably had your own lot of goodbyes to contemplate. But this is mine.

At this moment I'd say I had eight people in sixth form who were my friends. Eight. I'd say it was quite a good number, not too big, not too small. Obviously some of them I'm closer to than others, but I could draw a clear line between those nine and others, aquaintences who I wouldn't be too fussed about not seeing again.

Some of them I'd hope I'd stay in contact with whatever happened. Being across the country won't matter. Some of them will be coming with me to Manchester. But the others, that will be it. Optimistically, you can say, oh, we'll stay in touch. But realistically, we won't. And that will be it. And then maybe one day in the future we'll meet again and it'll be two strangers making strained conversation knowing there should be some sort of bond but not feeling it.

I heard somewhere that men are disposed towards collecting objects, whereas women collect people. There just isn't enough space in anyone's life for too many people. And there's a near-endless supply of people out there. Maybe you're predisposed to be compatible with 1% of the population. That's still a hell of a lot.

I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that I'll miss my friends. Terribly. And somehow it makes it worse that I won't notice them getting further and further away. Visibly, they won't. They'll always be sitting there on Facebook (most of them, anyway). On MSN. And I'll have new people who will be just as good in their own right, but won't be the same.

I'll miss them.

On revision and exams:

I've run out of Panic. I only have a few dregs of it left sloshing around in my mind. I used it all up a few months ago and now I don't have any left and I'm just... exams that will dictate how I spend the next four years of my life? Meh.

So time to kick myself into doing stuff. I don't think I'll understand induction motors this year, which is a shame. The whole electromagnetic machines bit of the physics A2 is actually really interesting, although its probably the most difficult. Makes me kind of wish I was doing engineering, although only for a few seconds.

I'm going to have a go at being Topical and offer my thoughts on all this impending economic doom.

I kind of like it. It's a dreadful thing to say, I know. And the prices of necessities like bread and eggs have inflated about 10%, which is sad. But falling house prices? Great. At this rate I might actually have a hope in hell of owning one one day. Rising fuel prices? Doesn't affect me. And bad luck to all the ones it does, but it's encouraging people to stop buying enormous cars and hopefully discouraging them from driving pointlessly round and round showing off making revving noises.

The Guardian have kindly provided me with a free periodic table poster. Although I already have far, far too many posters, I shifted some around and made space for it. I've wanted a periodic table poster for ages. Probably that doesn't reflect that well on me, but nevermind.

I seem to be giving foods up at an alarming rate. I've given up juice (or I will once I've drunk the remaining cartons in my locker). I'm giving up bread, apart from desperate mornings when there's nothing else for breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, everyone must eat breakfast.

I finished reading the world without us. This book is very good. Go and get it from your local library, or, if you are extremely forgetful or simply anal about owning books, go and buy it. It is about how the world would change if every human vanished, leaving everything behind. It goes into how houses rot and fall down, how our selectively bred livestock would rapidly get eaten by predators without farmers to protect them, and de-evolve back to their original form. Most interesting, and most disturbing, was the description of most plastic eventually ending up in the ocean, in a huge vortex, spanning a thousand miles in the Pacific Ocean - the great pacific rubbish dump. Because addition polymers are a new thing that nature has never seen before, every bit of plastic every created is still somewhere on the planet, lying in landfill until it's blown out to sea. Once in the sea, it's battered down in the same way rocks are battered down to sand. The oceans are filling with tiny bits of plastic, suspended in the water, some of it small enough for even zooplanktoon to swallow, killing them quickly.

So. Interesting. Read.