The past whatever, 28 days.
Fun 28 days or so. That mainly orientated around A Level results.
I got a D in Physics (346/600 UMS), a D in Maths (339/600 UMS), and a B in ICT (476/600 UMS). I was quite annoyed with the 4 UMS I was off an A in ICT, but it doesn't matter any more, as I'm going to my first choice university. Which I'm really happy about. Like, ecstatic. =)
Still, my student loans aren't in the best standings. Though I do have a loan confirmed, it's not means tested, so I'll not be getting the grant, so I won't be able to eat. SLC say they're working through stuff sent in at the end of June, so we should have our stuff re-evaluated for the third time soon enough. Hopefully in the next three weeks.
Also applied for a Natwest Student Bank account, I mean - who hasn't? That five year railcard is just so appealing. Thought I'd messed it up by trying to open a savings account which needed me to make an initial deposit from my Natwest account, which I didn't have yet, so I cancelled it, but the forms arrived no problems this morning, so that's all filled in and I've just sent it back.
Starting university in three weeks and two days should be fun, if hectic. I've got most of the things I need now. I'd be tempted to say I've got everything I need. Can't wait though.
One problem with moving in is the mass of stuff happening in the weeks I move in. Namely, Joe Brooks has a gig on the Sunday, The Mission District has a gig on the Monday, Halo: ODST comes out on the Tuesday, Scribblenauts comes out on the Friday. Then two weeks after that, KH: 358/2 Days comes out. Television-wise, The Big Bang Theory and Heroes starts the Monday after I move in, Desperate Housewives starts the Sunday after that, and Ugly Betty starts the same Monday that KH comes out. And Mythbusters starts again in October.
However, I'll be far too busy partying or doing work to care.
Mmm, this is a nice omelette. What a strange word.
Anyway, other stuff.
In the past few weeks, I've been to Chasewater three times and had some nice sandwiches and fed some ducks with friends. Plus we took over the fort and were awesome. I've got some photos that I need to upload actually.
I've also been to Newhall Farm, Mill Farm, Jimmy Spice's, and The Village Lodge. Still can't cope with paying for poppadoms (I care not for the 14 other variations Wikipedia suggests) at that last one. Plus the meal didn't taste very nice. They did do a good keema naan bread though, I will give them that.
Regarding my iMac, ohmigah it died. My HDD started clicking far too loudly, giving me loads of "fun" new error messages. Thank fuck for AppleCare, £5 for a university student was the best thing I bought with my iMac. Got my screen replaced, HDD replaced, and my disc drive too. All within a week.
However, that week was spent on Ubuntu. I hated every minute. I could never just get into it and enjoy it, or be able to use it. It took me about half an hour to install Flash. Anyone who says Linux is the future, is plain and simple wrong, unless you're in very specific circumstances. It's just too un-user friendly.
Anyway, back to Apple products, I'm quite excited over Snow Leopard coming out this Friday. Though it means I'm down £25, it does mean I get some new sexy features and some hard drive space back. I'm probably just gonna stick Snow Leopard on top of Leopard, as it's been installed for two weeks now. I've always got my Time Machine back ups anyway.
Also bought into a 1Password upgrade. Clearly the best application on a Mac, I use it everyday, so £12.62 to keep it running sounds like a good, sexy bargain (The version 3 interface being the sexy component, of course.)
Games wise, I bought two XBLA games and one XBLIG, those being Trials HD, Shadow Complex and I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1.
Trials HD is a wonderful game, I just need more people on my friends list that play it. It's great fun, and infuriating. But it's very addictive game play, really enjoyable.
Shadow Complex was a game I wasn't expecting to buy, but then really enjoyed the demo, so I bought it. Another fabulously fun game, lots of 'splosions and stuff. But anyway, just buy it. =)
Finally, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1 is another fun game. But it only costs 80 MSP. Look at this gameplay. Come onnn, that's like 69p.
This week, I had some sexy free fruit and nuts from Graze.com. I got some grapes, dried pineapple, pecans, and some banana coins. Though it usually costs £3 per box, I used a promotional code (AF8PPXY) and then you get a free week, and one week 1/2 price. You do have to provide a debit/credit card details but they don't charge for a free box and you can cancel anytime. I did. And my box was yummy. =)
Today was the day I learned that Panic at the Disco had lost two of it's members. Which sucks. But Panic! at the Disco (huzzah for retuning exclamation marks) has a new single that is quite awesome. Plus, P!ATD still has the better two members. The members that left and formed a new band also have a new song, but MySpace doesn't want me to be able to hear that one. Ah well.
That's about it.
Apart from Lostprophets!
It was an awesome gig. The Dead Formats were a bit creepy. The Young Guns were okay. Lostprophets were great! Fun songs. Bloody loud though. And lots of jumping. Had to get out by 10.15 as it was really quite hot and my knee started killing me. Bit mad really, but still a great night. Plus Kids in Glass Houses and The Blackout just appeared to turn up. Quite crazy really.
And that's about it. Probably another month of blog silence ahead. =)
The last few days.
Thursday was good fun, went to the pub with Chemistry and Physics teachers and got a free drink and dessert from them, and got a meal for £3.50, which was lovely.
Friday was also fun, as I went to Ikea and came back with some frying pans and a spatula for university, which was exciting.
Saturday was also very, very good fun, as there was lots of bouncing involved. This was because Aimee had a bouncy castle at her 18th birthday party, along with a barbecue and booze. There was lots of bouncing, even to the point where after the party it felt weird that I wasn't bouncing. I'm alright now, though, which is awesome. But it was a fantabulous evening.
Today should be pretty mediocre in comparison, as I'm probably going to end up sitting here, playing Burnout all day, along with sifting through the 120 photos from last night. Alright times.
Wednesday the 17th.
Uploaded a new blog header image that was more appropriate to my current circumstances. Unless you're currently on Facebook. Which is cool. But you're so missing out.
Today was great, went off to Birmingham. Traded in my Wii and an additional remote and nunchuck for £110 trade in at Gamestation, which was nice. I then used that credit to get me a Microsoft Points Card and Lips, with brought me down to £60, which is still a lot of credit that can be spent on some other games later.
Went around, can't quite remember when. But anyway, bought Aimee's birthday presents, bought Alan Carr's autobiography and Russel Brand's latest book, hardcover, £6 for both, which was awesome. Also got some Sharpies to replace the black one that died in November. And they have a fine-liner tip, which I thought was pretty ninja to be honest.
Then we headed home and I played Lips for about five hours. And as expected, spent an entire points card on DLC songs. Got another one coming tomorrow/Friday though, which I'm not going to spend. It's going to sit there until something I actually want comes online.
Anyway, a photo of me revising Physics is shown to the right (or just somewhere on Facebook). Isn't it so fun.
In other news, oh my god Sree is so annoying why don't the bloody housemates nominate him so he can go awayyyy, and they should stop nominating Halfwit as I find him amusing.
That's about it.
Pub today for lunch, pub tomorrow for something. Should be fun whatever happening. Slightly feel a bit bored that I've not got anything planned for Friday. I'm sure I'll cope, I do have access to about five games I want to finish, Scrabble Live, Bejewelled Blitz (if it ever comes back from maintenance), and Zynga Poker.
Oh, and Restaurant City. That's become quite addictive.
I'm bored, or am out of things to say.
Therefore: fareewell!
Happy happy happy! Exam eight.
Oh wow, that exam went so amazingly well. Compared to what I was expecting, anyway.
It wasn't so bad, to be honest. Some questions I just didn't get, and some questions I got completely the wrong answer, but for the majority of the paper I understood what was happening and got some plausible answers.
Happy!
Woo!
Plans for the future include: Clearing out all the crap I've collected from GWPAHS over the past seven years, finish writing this blog post, move the printer downstairs, clear out under my bed, clear out drawers and shelves, box my Wii so I can trade it in, scan everything into Delicious Library, re-read the Harry Potter books, finally finish FFVII and FFXII, tag every photo in my Flickr account (mainly Florida + Vegas, so many untagged), watch all the episodes of Mythbusters I have, catchup with Ugly Betty, catch up with Desperate Housewives, catch up with Big Brother, play The Sims 3 for a long time, sort out the genres on iTunes, have a go at C#/GameMaker, and think of more things to add to this list.
Eheh.
Farewell!
Waste of time: Exam Seven.
C4 today.
Question Two was fine, I do love a good binomial expansion. Worked out quite well and did it quickly, which was awesome. Question Two was also great, trapezium rule and integration, same as other people: fabulous.
Then it went downhill, real fast. Answered only bits of questions from then on. Happy that there was no differential equations question, but the big 14 mark question on vectors was a complete fail.
Which I believe, according to my shaky and approximate maths, I've gotten a D in Maths. Which means I should be aiming for 85/90 (roughly) UMS tomorrow to get a C, to guarentee a place at Derby. Which plainly and simply will not happen, ever. So I just hope I get an A in ICT and Derby like me.
Gonna start revising for PA10 in a bit, which should be fun going through 4 modules. Or 4 and that bit of the optional that everyone had. Should probably find out, to be honest.
23 hours left. Dreading the last two, but can't wait either.
Farewell!
Another fun day.
Woke up at 4.30am today to claim facebook.com/samuel, but was too slow. Therefore, I have http://www.facebook.com/samuel.maycock instead, which isn't that bad.
I then tried to go back to sleep, which didn't happen. Which then set me up to go in to Derby for an Open Day on three or so hours of sleep. Not the best, but it's about normal for me anyway.
Had a letter inviting me to the Great Wyrley Performing Arts High School Oscar's. For my contribution to the arts. I'm not sure where that happened. But I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Very exciting. Click on the image to the right to see the text of the letter.
Left the house late, so we arrived at Derby late, obviously.
Got on an accomodation tour for Peak Court, as it'd be nice to see where abouts my actual room will be in about three months and a week. Turns out it's very nice. Rooms were very similar to York's rooms, just a bit shorter and a bit wider. Bathroom was identical, and the kitchen was bigger, so it's all good. Not far from anywhere either, which is also nice.
As we were late, we had no chance to go talk to the course leader before the talks started, so we decided to go to the Computing talk for the third time. Thought it was great that my mom could identify Project Natal when others in the room couldn't. Talking to the course leader and some students made me feel less terrible about me probably not getting my target grades. Which is still killing me. Gonna try hard to do as well as possible next week so I can get a few more marks. Maybe even a C? That would be nice.
Went into the city centre afterwards to have a look around, which looks fun. Lots of fun shops. Went home. Now I'm home. And off to revise. So I can maybe get a C.
Farewell. =)
Things are going alright.
For once. It's quite great, I do have to say. Had a lie-in this morning, exam was good, I've gained lots of money, my record of achievement has reappeared, and I've gotten two free songs off of iTunes.
ICT went really quite well. Which is obviously the only exam where I'm going to come out thinking that, with C4 and PA10 next week. Most of the questions went really well, apart from a few.
And that database question was awful, mainly because it wasn't normalised! It annoyed me so much.
Anyway, I hope I've got a B there, which will hopefully get me an A overall, the only decent grade from my A Levels. Unless I do get a D in Physics, which is what I'm expecting. Not really a good grade, though. Especially not good enough for my university choices.
Off to Derby again for another open day to go see Peak Court and talk to the course leader.
Weird that in 93 hours I'll be done with exams. Eep, should probably start learning C4 soon.
Farewell. =)
Terrible day.
Oh god, it was awful.
Morning was relatively alright. It was nice outside, a moderate temperature, revision was going well with consistently good marks on past papers.
Then midday.
Went to Tesco, and I had burnt bacon on my sandwich, which disappointed me. I then had PA07, which was truly awful. I then had PA04, which was truly awful. Basically 2 hours and 45 minutes worth of sitting in a freezing cold library, doing relatively nothing at all. However, my predicted awful performance on PA07 has pushed my self predicted grade at a D, which gives me a total self predicted UMS of ADD. Which is 240.
Which is not enough.
After finishing the exam, I was stuck in the rain for 10 minutes, and got quite soaked.
And now I'm here.
And I've missed the first half of coach trip.
How disappointing.
Revision, and exams.
Revision is so boring. Which is quite obvious.
Today I've read through and rewritten notes from two revision guides, along with Jon's fabulous notes in preparation for PA04 and PA07.
Can't wait for the two and three-quarter hours worth of exams tomorrow. Especially that multiple choice paper. Gah.
I know most of PA04, think I understand most of PA07 due to learning it today. However, as I haven't done any exam papers I'll keep quiet for now.
I'll start on the exam papers soon, but I'm quite bored for now so I'm going to play The Sims 3 for a while.
Woop woop. =)
Monday, 8th of June, 2009
I'm not sure if it was the fact that Facebook now posts notes to everyone's home pages, but I had 7 comments in 24 hours. Which were also the first comments I've had in 10 months. Good times. =)
Anyway, today, I officially started revising.
I mainly did PA04 today, and by did, I mean I read through a revision book. I also watch six episodes of Mythbusters and four episodes of American Dad!
I then bought three tickets to see Lostprophets.
I then thought about extending my Wordpress blog to use Facebook Connect to allow anyone to comment on the blog with their Facebook details. In turn, it would allow people to post comments onto their Facebook profiles, and allow me to not have to use Notes on Facebook to show posts. In the end, I had three different plugins tried out, and though each would post, they all produced either: an ugly layout, 404 error messages, terrible speeds due to having to connect to Facebook multiple times, or bad user management.
One of my favourite plugins also allowed people to comment on Facebook, then also posting the comments locally on the blog, and vice versa, which I thought was very ninja. However, it didn't connect with the wall or peoples home pages, which made me sad.
However, at the end of five hours and three plugins, I came back with nothing. Apart from a new favicon. Which, you have to admit: it's pretty sexy.
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Look at thatt. You know you love it.
In other news, whilst doing this waste of time, Apple hosted their annual WWDC keynote, which had a few good and exciting announcements.
Most of it to me, was truly useless.
However, the announcement of Snow Leopard for $29 was an amazing and epic announcement which made me happy, as I expected the price to be four times more expensive. Also, if I were an iPhone user, or a to-be iPhone user, OS 3.0 would make me pretty happy. However, the iPhone 3G S does look nice, but I can't afford it. Which sucks totally.
Now I'm watching Family Guy, and am off to bed (along with watching some more Mythbusters, American Dad! and probably listen to some Lady Gaga) so I can start learning PA07. I truly mean start. We have an awful, awful teacher.











