Audience of One is the weblog of Matthew Weston, a UK student, Christian, technophile and musician.
Coldplay and job news
Well, it might just be because this was the first rock concert I’ve been to, but Coldplay were absolutely fantastic. I’d post their set list but no doubt that’d bore everyone, so I’ll just say they played practically everything by them that I loved, and a lot that I thought was okay but ended up loving because of the way they played it live. I discovered from a close analysis of Chris Martin’s voice that he’s probably a baritone in terms of range, just with an excellent falsetto. This is encouraging as I can almost reach as high as him without falsetto. His falsetto is of course almost indistinguishable from his normal voice in terms of timbre, plus he switches between the two registers incredibly smoothly. They played God Put A Smile Upon Your Face, as well as Don’t Panic and Yellow, all of which I can play on the piano (and sing), and it was great to see how they changed the songs for playing live as it gave me some good ideas for how I could do things.
Afterwards my friend and I got stuck in the middle of a crowd of around thirty thousand or so people wanting to get to the train station, and as a result missed the last train from Paddington to Oxford. I ended up staying the night with my friend, before catching a bus home in the early morning so I could get to Oxford in time for the recruitment day I was attending.
The recruitment day was really enjoyable even on three and a half hours of sleep, but unfortunately I didn’t get the job. I don’t feel that disappointed as I didn’t expect to get it, all the other applicants being English graduates, mostly from Oxford University. So, tomorrow I venture to the Job Centre to see whether they have any jobs for me. Fun. Oh, and I still haven’t slept much yet. They say going without sleep for a certain period makes you behave in a drunken manner – so it wouldn’t surprise me if this makes very little sense. I haven’t yet fallen over but it’s been close. The floor does occasionally look very attractive as a place for collapsing, but luckily I’m sitting down or the wood rising to meet me might make my lack-of-sleep-hangover head feel even worse. G’night.
Matthew @ 17:53, June 30, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (2)
Bear with me in my incapacitance
Apart from a nap this afternoon, I’ve had roughly three and a half hours sleep since I last wrote. In other words, in a period of thirty eight hours I have slept for about five of them, as well as doing a chemistry exam, going to a rock concert and missing the last train back to Oxford, and a five hour recruitment day for a potential gap year job.
Normal service will resume after I can open my eyelids without effort again.
Matthew @ 20:51, June 29, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (0)
Over
My final exam started with a shared laugh, as we were informed by one of our fellow students that, in addition to not being allowed mobile phones or revision notes etc., we were not allowed any drugs. Perhaps they could give us an advantage. Still, it was too late for me, having already taken the hayfever medication.
The first question was quite difficult, but the rest went pretty easily, and I came out free of school and exams forever and ever until uni.
I’m here in the library killing time before my train arrives. Coldplay awaits.
Matthew @ 12:00, June 28, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (0)
Neoclassical Simpsons
While playing a gig at Pembroke College on Saturday, I launched into a neoclassical improvisation on the theme tune for the Simpsons. I also managed to do that at exactly the same time the dinner guests were asked to be quiet and listen to my final song.
A word of advice: to retain any credibility you have gained by playing jazz standards and Coldplay improvisations during the meal, playing title music from a cartoon is not the best idea. Somehow I got it to work, but it was a challenge – especially as I can’t play the tune to save my life.
Matthew @ 19:51, June 27, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (6)
J is for Joker
There aren’t many people who don’t have senses of humour, and of course I’m not one of them. Finding things funny doesn’t necessarily equate to making people laugh though. I like making people laugh.
Round the meal table I’m almost never serious. (Come to think of it, it’s not just at the meal table that I’m hardly ever serious.) My brain is constantly, without me even directing it consciously, looking for jokes and laughs in everything that’s said. It’s rubbed off on my brother too, and he’ll often get the jokes in first.
I could never be a comedian. I’m not funny enough, nor do I really have enough material. I can, however, be the joker in almost any group that I’m in – often at inappropriate moments by accident as well. There’s also very few people who share some parts of my sense of humour, so when I’m with people who don’t I get funny looks.
One of the things that I do a lot is to play devil’s advocate, or deliberately reveal “truths”, or argue heatedly about something which means very little. Often a whole conversation someone has with me, seemingly on equal terms, will involve me revealing nothing about what I really think. It’s all a joke, and I’m just playing for responses. I joke around in conversations not just in an obvious, up-front way, but in ways that no-one notices but me (and occasionally others in on the joke). That’s another reason I’d never be a comedian – too many of my jokes are for me or those who share my sense of humour only.
This is one of the reasons that people don’t think of me as a joker – they don’t notice. I’m never mean or spiteful about it, but most of the time people just don’t notice that I’m doing it. They’ll always figure it out at some point, but it’s often hours or days later.
There’s another side of this that does involve other people that I’ve made reference to already – that of deliberately revealing things that aren’t true. Not in a sense of lying for personal gain but letting people tease me for something untrue and playing up to it. The first time I really noticed this was when members of a particular forum I helped run decided that I had an unhealthy obsession with ducks. At first, I denied it, but subsequently played up to the rumour without ever actually stating anything to confirm or deny it. (Unfortunately it’s now four years later and I still hear it mentioned occasionally.) It’s happened again recently in relation to a particular fictional character and the actress who plays her, and also in smaller situations such as me “admitting” that the reason I wasn’t going punting is because I’m petrified of the water.
Does any of this make sense to you? Just accept it if it doesn’t, because this is how I am, though it may not be visible on this site. If you ever find an entry completely incomprehensible though, I was probably trying to be funny and failing rather publically. I probably wouldn’t care, either. As James Thurber said: “The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself”. I’m certainly good at the latter.
Matthew @ 11:11, June 25, 2005 to ABC | Permalink | Comments (2)
Exclamation marks!!!
Enough of this.
Matthew @ 10:12, June 25, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (3)
Storm!!
After the wonderfully oppressive 31 degrees Celsius of yesterday, the weather decided it was bored of sunlight and gave us a thunderstorm. I was sorely tempted to go for a run in the middle of it, but the window of opportunity has now passed (which is possibly a good thing). I did need to wake up though.
Chemistry went well yesterday (I think) and I’m pretty certain I’ve got the B I need so far (still one more chemistry exam to go…) and hopefully an A. Different questions keep on coming back to me which I’d forgotten about, and unfortunately I seem to have got them all wrong. Or maybe I’m imagining things and it was just a dream. Exams do funny things to your mind. Why, only ten minutes ago I wanted to run out in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Matthew @ 11:18, June 24, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (2)
Mechanical revelation!
On Tuesday I figured out why my bike doesn’t change gear sometimes. Apparently you have to pedal slower as you change to let the chain go smoothly across. I get the feeling this should have been obvious.
Matthew @ 18:11, June 23, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (3)
Panic panic panic
So here I am, sitting in the library, worrying about my chemistry exams tomorrow and doing absolutely nothing to prepare for them. Why? Because though I’m sure there are many things I could be doing to improve my grades, I’m really not sure what they are, and also don’t know if trying to memorise some things which probably won’t come up will drive the things I’ve learnt already out of my mind.
It would really have helped if I’d learnt the stuff first time round, but when you’re given lists of elements that form oxides and have to memorise every single reaction the oxides undergo, it’s hard to find the incentive to learn them. I’m sure there is some kind of pattern or trend that helps you to learn them (there always is), but unfortunately I didn’t/can’t find it and Mr K probably told us in the lesson I missed.
Fun.
So, tomorrow morning I’ve got possibly the hardest exam I’ll do this year. And I’m writing a blog entry.
Matthew @ 13:35, June 22, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (9)
Climate change, Africa, and the shortest entry yet
Go read.
Matthew @ 16:42, June 20, 2005 to News | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sticking to a decision (part one)
Approximately eighteen months ago I made a decision. It took a few months for what I’d actually decided to sink in. Try to understand: I’d made a decision because I believed it was the right decision to make. It was almost like a leap of faith, because it took the next few months for me to come to understand better why it was the right decision. It took the experience to show me that I was right. It was an epiphany, if you like.
It then took a good few months thinking about how hard I should try and get my friends to follow in that decision. I’m still making those decisions today as I see friends so close to falling into the traps I fell into, yet apparently managing to stay out of them, like I couldn’t.
Why did I make this decision? My own experiences had taught me the foolishness of what I had been pursuing. Culture clouded my thinking; I couldn’t see the problem though I had felt its effects. I was blinded by my own selfish feelings, and couldn’t see that I was running away from God. With my lips I honoured him; with my life I dishonoured him. Again, with my lips I said that living God’s way was the best way (after all, as our creator who knows better?), but I had not yet come to realise the full extent of what this meant. I couldn’t see what was wrong, because everyone else was doing it, and I couldn’t see another way. It took a sharp shock to snap me out of it, to bring me to my senses, and since my decision (with complete honesty, one of the hardest decisions of my life), I’ve been living in the light of this new knowledge. There is another way, and it’s ultimately much more fulfilling.
As ever, the here and now fight against the eternal. Sticking to the decision in the light of what’s going on now, however much I know how worthwhile what I’m doing will be, is a daily struggle. I’m learning what I should already know from looking at the cross: sacrifice is a major part of love. Silence can be more loving than words. Distance can be more fruitful than intimacy. And God’s sovereign designs are far more intricate, amusing, amazing, fulfilling and satisfying than any pitiful scheme I could cook up. Sticking to my decision now is more than difficult, but the reward – even in this life – is more than I can imagine.
Matthew @ 10:36, June 20, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (10)
Batman Begins
It was one of those names that whenever I heard it, I thought “cliched slapstick rubbish for kids”. Just the very concept of Batman was ludicrous. Superman I could understand. Spiderman I thought was a bit odd, but could live with. Other comic book heroes did nothing for me. Batman was the most ridiculous though – I watched one of the original TV shows and never watched them again.
The Spiderman films started to eat down my reserve. They were good – much better than I thought they could be based on such implausible characters (though it has to be said, the second one was a lot better). I began to think that films based on comic books wouldn’t all be bad. Still, Batman?
I was surprised recently to learn that the original two Batman films had been directed by my favourite director, Tim Burton, and that they were dark. Not camp, as the TV show had been, but actually Burton-style Gothic films described by one reviewer as “nightmare”. I’m not a fan of horror generally, but when a film uses horror elements in a non-horror plot (especially without the supernatural being involved) I think it adds to the film enormously (and that’s what Tim Burton is best at). So, I thought perhaps they’d be worth watching.
Then Batman Begins came along. A friend was eager to see it, and I was sceptical. I’d probably end up seeing it after the Burton-directed ones, but I didn’t know enough about Christopher Nolan to know how good he’d be at directing it. I shouldn’t have worried. Last night, my parents spontaneously decided that if we all wanted, we’d go and see a film. Batman Begins was the only one on that we all didn’t mind seeing and hadn’t seen already.
It begins in a confusing way, but gradually the back-story is added to and by the end it all makes perfect sense. The mood is kept quite tense throughout, with action scenes being supported by engrossing dialogue and humourous touches. The acting was all excellent, including the children playing the young Bruce Wayne and his friend Rachel.
One thing I hadn’t realised is that Batman in fact has no super powers – it’s all based around martial arts and technology, all spun up in mysticism. I felt this was much better than the spider powers of Spiderman, or the Krypton back-story of Superman, and added to the realism of the film.
The film, as in all comic book hero films, raised a lot of ethical questions about good and evil. Here there was a more subtle point raised as well – that of judgement. Without wanting to give away too much of the plot, there was raised an issue of judgement and destruction (“Gotham can’t be saved from its sin”) and redemption and justice (“Gotham can be brought out of the sin it’s stuck in”). Gotham almost appeared to be a microcosm of the world.
The ending leads into the original Batman film by introducing the calling card of the Joker (Jack Nicholson’s famous villian), but isn’t billed as a prequel, rather ” a complete restart of the Batman series which follows the original comics more closely and promises a more reality-based Batman” according to Wikipedia. So, are they going to remake Burton’s classic? It doesn’t look like it but then why are they saying it’s a complete restart?
Queries over past or future sequels aside, the film was very satisfying and enjoyable. It was far better than I’d expected even from my most optimistic moments. Highly recommended. Oh, and the whole bat thing? It actually makes sense.
Matthew @ 11:29, June 18, 2005 to Reviews | Permalink | Comments (6)
And summer begins with fire
Today is the first day it’s really felt like summer – but what makes it feel like summer? Well, it’s uncomfortably warm cycling for a start. You regret wearing black jeans, or indeed any form of trousers. You get sunburnt if you stay out in the sun too long. (Nuts.) You feel guilty closing the curtains so you can see the computer screen. (You feel guilty merely by being on the computer – hey, I’m sunburnt, I need something to do inside.) You notice itches starting to appear all over your body, as well as flies buzzing everywhere. Your friends decide to buy ice cream, and even though you have no money you get money so you can too.
Or, of course, you could say summer begins when you have the first barbecue. This lunchtime we bought a make-your-own-barbecue charcoal tray from Sainsbury’s, along with some sausages, and had a barbecue in the park. And I was sure we were mainly in the shade. My red arms beg to differ.
Matthew @ 18:57, June 17, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (3)
The Music Tech exams
Today were the first two of my exams since the end of May, and were ones I wasn’t looking forward to. The first exam was film music (I will never, ever, watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves again – I’ve seen it too many times); the second was on popular music and MIDI. They’d be alright if they weren’t so hard to revise for. The latter’s past papers had been easy enough, but we’d only had one practice paper for the former. They change the set films every two years – we were lucky we were doing it this year otherwise we wouldn’t have had any practice papers.
Anyhoo, they were reasonably easy, with just one question on each I wasn’t happy with. I finished the MIDI paper with fifteen minutes to go, whereas everyone had said it was a tough exam to finish in the time we had. Beforehand, I wasn’t confident and thought I’d barely manage to scrape a B. Now I’m optimistic and think my B is pretty solid. (An A is far too unlikely given I got a B last year.)
The best bit of both the exams had to be in the middle of the MIDI one. We were sitting there, concentrating on the computers we were working at, when the door to the computer room opened and the sounds of a noisy class of Year Nines entered the room, along with a teacher. He walked into the room, stared at us, turned to the invigilator and said incredulously “you have an exam in here?” then walked back out. Aah, Mr V. We will all miss you terribly.
Matthew @ 12:48, June 16, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's back!
Everything fixed. After about four days hassle, the system is up and running perfectly again. (Cue something else vital breaking down. MySQL hasn’t gone for a bit, so it’ll probably be that.)
Regular readers must get the impression Linux is unstable. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have edited system config files, reinstalled and upgraded major system components and wiped entire hard drive partitions in the past few days, and the core operating system has never failed. It’s my own stupidity (as ever) that’s got me in this mess (that, and choosing Gentoo, which while it’s absolutely fantastic in almost every way, has a development team that assume you’re almost as clever as them).
So, my wiki’s back. And it seems like I didn’t have anything interesting to post after all.
Matthew @ 18:03, June 15, 2005 to Geek | Permalink | Comments (0)
Desktop screenshot
I just installed Gnome 2.10 which gives me an excuse to post this screenshot.
I was going to write a picture gallery at some point (to include desktops for those interested in such things) but gave up and got a Flickr account, so the screenshots will (occasionally) go here instead.
Matthew @ 14:17, June 15, 2005 to Geek | Permalink | Comments (0)
Grr
I have a wiki set up to run on my computer, so that I can add things to a web page very easily. Why? Well, it’s a centralised place for me to keep all sorts of information that won’t go on my PDA. I have, for example, a list of upcoming ABC entries that I can edit and add to when I want (to mark them as written and posted, for example). I have a collection of links to web pages I visit frequently – a bit like my bookmarks, but seeing as the wiki is set to my home page it’s much simpler to have them there.
I also have a list of blog entries that I’m going to write some time in the future, as well as a list of half-formed ideas for entries. When I want to post an entry and can’t think of anything to write, I go there.
For the first time in about three weeks I needed something to write. For the first time since Gentoo decided to downgrade the version of PHP marked as stable, PHP broke.
Now whenever I go to my wiki, it asks me if I want to download the PHP script that runs the site. Not much good when all the information is in a database that only the PHP script really knows how to access.
Hence this entry. Grr. Now I need to fix PHP. It doesn’t help that I just tried to do something clever (never a good idea when you’re stupid) and Firefox keeps on disappearing whenever I try to go to a website.
Don’t be a computer geek. Or rather, don’t be a computer geek and try and do A levels while being all computer-geeky.
Grr.
Matthew @ 19:42, June 14, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (7)
I is for Inquisitive
inquisitive, adj.: Inclined to investigate; eager for knowledge.
Many of my teachers at GCSE were incredibly frustrated with me because I hated simple work. Or rather, I hated simple work when I’d already understood more complicated things.
I was inquisitive and still am, and found out many things (particularly in physics) that went far beyond what we learnt at GCSE. I learnt about relativity (both special and general), quantum physics (though not in complex detail of course), red shift, wormholes, four-dimensional geometry, imaginary numbers, nuclear fission and fusion, star life cycles, and speculations about gravitons and a unifying Theory of Everything. So when it came to GCSE Physics and we were doing gravity, I expected something more than Aristotle, Galileo and Newton. Where was Einstein? Apparently he didn’t feature until Physics A2 level, and then only briefly. I switched off after that. We weren’t moving fast or deep enough for my inquisitive nature.
It was my inquisitive nature that led me to install Linux, and still leads me in finding out as much as possible about the inner workings of my computer. I am eager for knowledge and always have been; I find chemistry so interesting that I am terrified of forgetting it after I start my music degree.
When people hear I’m only doing one science and am going to do an arts degree they can’t reconcile it with the Matthew they used to know. I was the science geek, who always had questions and was never satisfied, who wanted to go deeper. It’s such a pity that cynicism about exams turned me off that, and directed it away from school subjects. My inquisitiveness towards programming, web design and computing has distracted me far too much from schoolwork, and leaves me now with very little time to revise.
I’m also very inquisitive about theology, and while I’m not doing a theology degree (some of my friends are) I’m still reading books about it avidly (and can hold a discussion full of -ologies with my dad almost without asking what some of them mean).
Learning new things about God and his creation still fascinates me, however technical or geeky the bits I choose to look into are. It’s a life’s work, learning, and one I look forward to.
Matthew @ 15:12, June 12, 2005 to ABC | Permalink | Comments (4)
Car miracle
For a long time we owned one car, and there was no chance of me learning to drive on it. My dad needs a large car boot for carrying around displays as part of his job as a charity director. As a result, our car is quite large, and therefore expensive to insure. As a teenage male I am particularly expensive to insure (in fact, the only people with bigger premiums are teenage males, having passed their tests, who have then been involved in accidents that are their own fault and are re-learning after being disqualified).
My only hope at learning to drive was for us to get a second car with a smaller engine, so that we could afford the insurance. The second car would have to be a manual, not automatic (obviously – no-one drives automatics in the UK), and cheap enough to buy.
One out of two wasn’t bad, but wasn’t enough. American friends of ours who owned an automatic were returning to Michigan. They kindly gave us their car free of charge. It’s such a pity it was useless to me learning, as it was an automatic. (Having learnt to drive on an automatic in the US, this couple couldn’t legally drive a manual.)
So, almost there but not quite. My parents decided to sell the car (which wouldn’t get much) and buy one that I could learn on (and my mum could use while my dad was driving around the country). Where to find one cheap enough though? A couple of days later, we got not one but two offers of cars for sale.
In a period of about three weeks I went from having no idea of when I’d be able to learn to drive, to having a car arriving in the near future. I rushed to get my provisional licence, and a couple of weeks after the car arrived (a small Peugeot) I had my first drive.
Today I’m having my third driving lesson with my dad. A couple of months ago I was expecting this to be happening within three or four years if I was lucky. Then just as my parents and I collectively realised that I should probably start learning now if I was going to learn ever, everything started slotting into place and we now have a second car. We sold the automatic today (thank goodness – not only will my bike be easier to get out but we look far less North Oxfordy now with only two cars instead of three in the drive), after a friend who really needed a car heard we were selling after two weeks of no bites on a newspaper advert. Everything working out, everything falling into place… amazing what God can do, really. You can shout co-incidence all you like. All I know is that co-incidences seem to happen to praying Christians at a much higher rate than to others.
Matthew @ 16:56, June 11, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (8)
Free ice-cream
There must be someone somewhere who finds thinking up relevent entry titles as hard as I do.
Yesterday, after a day’s not-quite-managing-to-revise-because-I-left-my-notes-at-home, I stopped in at church to say hi to some of my friends from the local girls’ school. Xanna organises a small group for them, and I’ve semi got to know a few of them from being around on Wednesdays in the past.
Due to exams most of them were late, so I had a chat to one of the group I hadn’t met before while waiting for the others to arrive. In the process, I was invited to join their group for the day.
Now, I don’t know how much you know about Christian small groups, or what I mean when I say “small group”. What I mean is a group of people who meet together regularly to study the Bible together, pray, and generally encourage and offer advice to each other. Often they’re single-sex groups, just because there are some things you can’t talk about in mixed groups. So for this all-girl group to invite me to join them for their session was slightly different. “Oh it’s okay,” Xanna assured me, “none of them are undergoing personal crises so it’ll be fine”, but I refused to join until the whole group had given a unanimous decision to accept me for the week.
Xanna led a study of Psalm 8, which included a discussion of our role as stewards for the world – in other words, that as humans we are responsible to look after the world. This led onto discussion about George Bush’s recent comments on climate change and aid for Africa, and a general mooting of frustration (“it’s all very well us doing the small things we can, but if people like him don’t do the big things we might as well not bother”). There are of course things that individuals can do, and it was fantastic to see a group of friends that all wanted to live environmentally- and world-friendly lives. Two of them were even planning to instigate a recycling system in their school (“we’ll hopefully put a paper bin in every classroom and collect them up each week to recycle”), and others were raising money to go to a “Friends of Bono” Africa appeal.
It really encouraged me, and made me realise how much I don’t do that I could. A letter in the Independent this morning also did the same thing – one guy was saying to readers “you have no right to complain about America not meeting the 0.7% GDP on aid target if you’re not meeting it yourself”. It’s a good point. As a Christian I believe I should be tithing at least ten percent of my income to charity or church – some of that going towards a political pressure group trying to bring democracy to autocracies in Africa would be a good place for some of it, perhaps.
It’s people like these girls who I’ll really miss next year. I’ll see Xanna still (I know I won’t lose touch with her, and anyway she’s taking a gap year like me), but the others I only see as they’re Xanna’s small group. There’s many groups of people who I see regularly whom I’ll miss and probably lose contact with.
Oh, the title. We started the small group with a social time involving ice cream, in large quantities. The whole afternoon was one delightful surprise after another.
Currently listening to X&Y – Coldplay
Matthew @ 17:50, June 9, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (15)
Too much food
Revising in the city central library has great advantages over revising at home. There are people around from school, so at any one time there’s generally a chemist to ask if you need help – and lunch breaks become much more interesting. It’s also a much better working environment so I get much more work done. There’s just one problem: money.
Whenever I’m in town I end up getting more hungry than my lunch allows for – either because I haven’t made much lunch or because I stay in the library until around supper (and I have a long cycle ride home). Consequently, I’ve spent around ten pounds this week already on food.
Good revision habits, it seems, come at a price.
Currently listening to Square One – Coldplay
Matthew @ 16:03, June 8, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (0)
Phone calls
So who can beat the time of twenty minutes?
I’m not talking about talking on the phone, as I’m sure many people will have talked for longer than this. I’m not talking about the amount of time waiting to get to speak to a real person, as again I’m sure people have waited for much longer (especially if you were trying to get Glastonbury tickets). I’m talking about the amount of time sitting there, with the phone in your hand and the number dialled in, waiting to press the call button. I sat in Uni Parks for about five minutes before getting my phone out and twenty minutes before I pressed the call button. And then I got the mother on the other end.
So who can beat that? At some point in your life you must have done it.
Matthew @ 19:46, June 7, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (6)
My final assembly: part two
The reality is actually far more entertaining than the dream. While the dream was surreal, short and bound to confuse (though enjoyable while it lasted) the real assembly was far too warm, contained bits of both boredom and embarrassment (and plain stupidity), was rather long, and quite excellent.
Some schools, it appears, have prize-giving ceremonies after exams. Ours has the prizes at the end-of-term assembly. I managed not to win anything (thank goodness) but was mentioned (sort of) in the crack about music tech students (“we were going to give an award for the most hard-working student, but there just weren’t any”) and played the piano for a few numbers with the rest of the band.
It wasn’t just prize-giving though, and the videos shown ranged from year nine history classes (including a thirteen-year-old Matthew Weston interviewing someone with a gluestick in place of a microphone) to a staff-created music video (“Is this the way to Cherwillo?”, mouthed by our very own head of year). We also had words of advice for the ball (“Please don’t get drunk or we’ll have to push you home in a wheelbarrow” or something – I wasn’t paying much attention as I’m not going to get drunk). The assembly ended in a rather odd fashion, with “You’ll Never Walk Alone” being played for all the Liverpool fans (who’d just celebrated winning the European Cup) and sung by two ardent supporters at the back, Liverpool F.C. scarf raised high. Most of the year seemed to think it was a stupid idea. Actually, most of the year probably didn’t care, but would have agreed that it was stupid if you went up to them raving in anger about it.
It made all of our other assemblies for the past few years worthwhile – but only because our head of year had also done an assembly on Elvis Presley’s house (which she’d visited). Most assemblies we’ve had have some moral which everyone ignores (or doesn’t quite catch because they’ve drifted off) – this one ended with a “pick your own message”. I picked the “become a teacher because you get insanely long holidays” message, as it was generally more amusing than the other messages (“money doesn’t buy you taste” being the other one I remember).
Anyway, with this assembly I ended thirteen years of regularity, and I can’t say I’ll miss it. From the assemblies at my first school1 through to giving notices at the lower school this year, I’ll miss none of them.
Hmm. Looking back over this entry I feel like I should probably rewrite it to make it more clear, however I get the feeling that if I tried I’d make it worse. Hope it makes more sense than the last entry.
Matthew @ 15:07, June 5, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (4)
My final assembly: part one
We were ushered into the hall – far fewer of us present than expected – for our final assembly ever. The hall was in the process of being prepared for transfer day. Little coloured pieces of card with form group names were lined up along one side of the room, and someone had drawn a little picture of some blueberries on one of them.
Then the assembly started. It was rather different from the talks we’d been given in previous assemblies – a Maths teacher in charge of one of our form groups was giving us a lesson on drinking, involving magic tricks.
He started by getting out a giant beer bottle and drinking from it, managing to down the whole bottle. Suddenly, he held it skywards, and we all gasped as we realised that it was still full to the brim! He then proceeded to break a perfect circular hole in the bottom with his fingers, the beer spilling all over the floor and freezing instantly. The deputy head of sixth form then joined in, by putting on ice skates and started doing traditional Russian dances on the ice (and the empty chairs, the walls, and pretty much everything). The enduring image I will have of him is with both his legs at an 180 degrees angle in mid-air. What a final assembly.
(Yes, I have odd dreams sometimes. I can just imagine Dr R as a Russian dancer though. And don’t ask where the blueberries came from, as I haven’t a clue.)
Matthew @ 12:49, June 4, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (5)
Surprise Employer
The gig we played at last night was good in most respects. Granted, our set was preceded by a man playing music that sounded remarkably similar to what is played when you press the “Demo” button on a keyboard, our drummer arrived late so we had to set up his drum kit for him and almost broke it, and our alto saxophonist dropped his saxophone off the bass amp, denting it. Aside from that, we played well, I tried out some interesting chords (and was surprised to discover that playing an A major triad in G minor actually works), said alto saxophonist did a lot of extended playing techniques in his solos, and we managed to spill water all over the floor.
The audience were receptive, and clapped after most pieces, even though we were supposed to be playing background music for their meal. We had some odd requests (we followed “know any Hendrix?” by a Dave Brubeck number – shortly afterwards the same guy asked if we knew any Brubeck, and was still not convinced we’d played any by the end) and some career advice (the guy playing the cheesy synth stuff tried to persuade our alto saxophonist not to persue a career in music – too late, he’s going to the Guildhall to study jazz), and didn’t get the food we were expecting. Still, we enjoyed it, and the pay wasn’t too bad.
It was in the car afterwards, shortly after the conversation on Leonard Bernstein and just before arriving home, that our driver (eponymous saxophonist’s dad) mentioned that we’d just been employed by the local Masonic Lodge. Hmm.
Matthew @ 12:15, June 4, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (1)
Did you know...
…that cyanohydrins can be used synthetically to make hydroxy carboxylic acids? Neither did I, until I came across it in my text book this morning. It doesn’t appear to be on the syllabus, nor indeed in my notes. So why is it in the (exam-specific) text book? It just confirms my suspicions that, to counter speculation about A levels getting easier, the exam boards are trying to confuse us.
Message to Edexcel: chemistry is confusing enough already. (For example, every single chemical (just about) has two names – an old fashioned one that university chemists are too stuck in their ways to stop using and is no help in figuring out exactly what a substance is, and the new one which tells you exactly what it is but takes about twenty syllables to do so.) There’s absolutely no point in trying to confuse us by changing the mark scheme each year (one year, you don’t get extra marks for saying the colour at the start of the reaction, so the next year no-one does and guess what, now you lose marks for missing it out), or by insisting we learn conditions for reactions where even the professionals can’t agree on the best way to do it (and each text book gives its author’s preferred method). Chemistry’s a hard subject without you making the final grades even more dependent on exam technique.
Apart from all this, my first day of revision seems to be going well. “First day of revision?!” I hear you cry. Mm. Anyway, it’s going well, considering I should have started in April. Never mind, eh?
Matthew @ 16:32, June 2, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (9)
Yoink
It was too good not to pass on.
And just so I’m not entirely relying on others for content:
…and just so I’m not completely Star Wars obsessed for this entry, I want you to place bets (or at least suggest some ideas) about which topic this blog will become centred around in the next few weeks. First it was the election. Then it was Star Wars. What’s next up? Exams are featuring at 2 to 1, with Harry Potter on the outside at 14 to 1. Your suggestions please.
Matthew @ 10:46, June 1, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (12)
