Archive of June 2005
Coldplay and job news
Posted at 5:53 PM
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.
Bear with me in my incapacitance
Posted at 8:51 PM
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.
Over
Posted at 12:00 PM
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.
Neoclassical Simpsons
Posted at 7:51 PM
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.
J is for Joker
Posted at 11:11 AM
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.
Storm!!
Posted at 11:18 AM
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.
Mechanical revelation!
Posted at 6:11 PM
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.
Panic panic panic
Posted at 1:35 PM
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.