Some people wait barely weeks to start driving lessons after their 17th birthday. Me, I waited a year and a quarter before I finally thought about sitting behind the wheel for a change rather than yapping in the passenger seat. So I decided to pip for the AA driving school following a recommendation from a friend (who learnt really quickly and passed on her first go) and went on their website to do some booking.
It was a palaver. It took several attempts to go through but I got two accounts set up for me and received two welcome packs - I had to call them up and refund 24 hrs worth of lessons on one of them. But I can't sign into their website either because verifying my details doesn't work during registration. Looks like another call is in order. Come on, a company as big as the AA should be able to find some IT nerds who know what they're doing!
But lessons are another matter.
Now, my only previous experience of driving before has been those electric bricks in Legoland when I was about six. And even then I missed the brake and slammed down the accelerator (and obviously there was no clutch), thereby ramming into the car in front of me. The supervising adult there was not impressed.
So I was a bit nervous about driving for the first time. However, it has all gone relatively well...up till today. Er, more on that later.
Driving is scary when you're a beginner and no-one on the road has any sympathy.
It's scary because of the amount of damage you can cause to your own vehicle (*cough* the learner car), other people's vehicles and actual people themselves. Now, I've been neurotic enough for the former to be the biggest problem. It's like the left side of the road is one big magnet and of course I'm in a car with lovely a ferromagnetic steel body! Cue premature grey hairs for my poor instructor. So I've been doing some nice grinding on the left wheels by scraping the pavement oh-so-lovingly during and after left turns, and I've had more than a couple of close calls with parked cars.
It's also scary because you can't screw up in the middle of the road. I can screw up Bach on my violin bad enough to wake up the dead and it wouldn't cost me or anybody else a penny; screw up on the road in a car and somebody's (most likely me) gonna pay with an arm and a leg at least.
Before driving, I didn't know anything about the clutch and wasn't at all interested in finding out what it was. Well, I can't get away from the topic of clutches now.
I am constantly moaning about clutch control and clutch coordination and putting the clutch down to stop at the right time (or else you coast or stall) and putting the clutch down to change gear (or you...er, break the car) and then letting go of the clutch veeeery slowly especially for 1st gear (or you stall or kangaroo-hop) and not resting your foot on the clutch pedal because it's a bad habit and will wear your car's bits out faster...
In short, I am a clutch klutz.
The only clutch related thing I don't moan about is bringing it up to the biting point. (Why is it called the biting point?)
Does anyone else forget the handbrake? Or not bring it up far up enough and drift?
What happened today was not good. I could make excuses; yesterday I had a pernickerty violin lesson where nothing seemed to be right and everything seemed to be not good enough; today morning I had a senior maths challenge which was (expectedly) really bad and didn't do anything to boost my morale (I would rather have had a maths lesson. Specifically, a mechanics lesson), blah di dah... and I was just hoping that my driving lesson at least would cheer me up (this kind of mentality is always dangerous)... No, I just wasn't focussed. Not just unfocussed. I was painfully s-l-o-w. I also think my instructor overestimated my abilities. Bless. He is lovely, really. Probably thinks I'm an idiot though. I would if I was him.
I think the problems came mainly because we started roundabouts. My god, it was more stressful than going into my A2 physics exam and that is saying something. There was SO MUCH to think about. It didn't matter whether I had gone 70 mph down a dual carriageway the day before; that was a lot easier! There were no parked cars, the road was wide and it was straight; there were no nasty turns and no consecutive signalling... In the city there was so much to do all at once... I can't observe signs and traffic and check my mirrors and check my speed and slow down and signal and change gear and control the clutch and steer at the same time like everyone else can.
Every shred of competency that I had gained in my previous lessons disappeared into thin air. Today was when I forgot about the clutch whilst trying to stop more than once. Today, I slowed down to a near halt without downshifting (you can guess what happened as a result), and I kept lifting it way too quickly and stalled and lurched around like a lunatic. I almost bashed into a parked car because I stole a quick glance down at the gearbox (a driving sin). I managed more pavement bumps and scrapes than in all my previous lessons combined, held up traffic behind me several times... and I stopped at a green light. "Why have you stopped?" I'm not colourblind. Just what was I thinking? There were too many palm-to-forehead moments to count. That's even discounting the time where I got honked at from behind and when I stalled when the light changed to green and then and left the car behind me there when it turned red as soon as I passed it.
Every cloud should has a silver lining. Well, I improved in the last 10 minutes or so. When we weren't near any roundabouts. I also did 2 seconds of good creeping. So... there's one nice thing to hold onto.
After all this I have to confess that driving well is quite an art and I like it. After years of condemning driving as a mundane, boring, polluting activity, how's that for an admission of defeat?
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Personal Statement Woes
It's that time of year again.
Summer holidays end and school, work or university starts, and apart from the lucky peeps who are starting something new, like uni, for the first time, it's back to the doldrums of boulot-metro-dodo of term-time life... or if you're a night owl like me, it's back to sleepwalking.
Autumn. The season of love, believe it or not, as statistics show that there is a slightly higher number of people getting pregnant at this time of year... And I'm beginning to feel that I can attest to that, seeing as I haven't been pining for men quite this way for a long time... Oh, don't be alarmed by that. It's no less innocent than a 12-year old's infatuation for every boy they pass in the street. Well, ok, maybe a bit less innocent. But not much more.
If you're entering the last year of school, it's application term from hell. The most stressful term you'll possibly ever have in your life. Not easy, is it? Especially for those of us who have got everything to lose. It's crunch time now, time to prove your worth to the higher circles of society. Exams are one thing. Personal statements and interviews are another. The former you HAVE to get right. The second... depends on your subject a bit more. Now, imagine going through it twice.
This is my second application term from hell. I am getting stressed out by it and I need to vent. Oh, the joys of taking a gap year after applying for the wrong subject and pulling out. I've got my A-level results already, but like I said, the personal statement's a different ball game. It's difficult because it's objective. Two tutors of the same subject of the same speciality will have different opinions on personal statements. If you get one that doesn't like yours purely because you've talked more about your academic abilities more than their average applicant, that's just tough luck. Even worse is when every sentence sounds banal and cliché to yourself.
Guides don't help much. They encourage a list-like approach where you answer their questions like some sort of survey. And there's that problem of starting every sentence with 'I' or 'my'. But you can't use the passive form too much; that's just as bad. But you can't say anything factual about your subject either. I can think of one thing that satisfies all the requirements: a blank sheet of paper.
One of the most important things you have to include is why you are applying for your subject. Fair enough, especially if your mother died of Alzheimer's and you want to reach the top in research to find a cure. Fair enough if you want to save the world from climate change and have done summer work placements for the past six years studying it. Fair enough if you've wanted to be a doctor since you were 3 weeks old when you waved your dad's stethoscope in your pudgy little hands with delight and have never even contemplated applying for anything else.
I don't have any noble reasons for wanting to study chemistry. I just like and I'm proud to say that I like it. That's the only thing I'm sure about. But that's not enough. 'Like' and 'enjoy' are wishy washy terms. 'Passionate' is cliché and way overused. So too is enthusiastic. All those words are glossed over.
Well, here are my reasons anyway, in no particular order, with no attempt to perfume any sentences or words:
Why I want to study chemistry:
Summer holidays end and school, work or university starts, and apart from the lucky peeps who are starting something new, like uni, for the first time, it's back to the doldrums of boulot-metro-dodo of term-time life... or if you're a night owl like me, it's back to sleepwalking.
Autumn. The season of love, believe it or not, as statistics show that there is a slightly higher number of people getting pregnant at this time of year... And I'm beginning to feel that I can attest to that, seeing as I haven't been pining for men quite this way for a long time... Oh, don't be alarmed by that. It's no less innocent than a 12-year old's infatuation for every boy they pass in the street. Well, ok, maybe a bit less innocent. But not much more.
If you're entering the last year of school, it's application term from hell. The most stressful term you'll possibly ever have in your life. Not easy, is it? Especially for those of us who have got everything to lose. It's crunch time now, time to prove your worth to the higher circles of society. Exams are one thing. Personal statements and interviews are another. The former you HAVE to get right. The second... depends on your subject a bit more. Now, imagine going through it twice.
This is my second application term from hell. I am getting stressed out by it and I need to vent. Oh, the joys of taking a gap year after applying for the wrong subject and pulling out. I've got my A-level results already, but like I said, the personal statement's a different ball game. It's difficult because it's objective. Two tutors of the same subject of the same speciality will have different opinions on personal statements. If you get one that doesn't like yours purely because you've talked more about your academic abilities more than their average applicant, that's just tough luck. Even worse is when every sentence sounds banal and cliché to yourself.
Guides don't help much. They encourage a list-like approach where you answer their questions like some sort of survey. And there's that problem of starting every sentence with 'I' or 'my'. But you can't use the passive form too much; that's just as bad. But you can't say anything factual about your subject either. I can think of one thing that satisfies all the requirements: a blank sheet of paper.
One of the most important things you have to include is why you are applying for your subject. Fair enough, especially if your mother died of Alzheimer's and you want to reach the top in research to find a cure. Fair enough if you want to save the world from climate change and have done summer work placements for the past six years studying it. Fair enough if you've wanted to be a doctor since you were 3 weeks old when you waved your dad's stethoscope in your pudgy little hands with delight and have never even contemplated applying for anything else.
I don't have any noble reasons for wanting to study chemistry. I just like and I'm proud to say that I like it. That's the only thing I'm sure about. But that's not enough. 'Like' and 'enjoy' are wishy washy terms. 'Passionate' is cliché and way overused. So too is enthusiastic. All those words are glossed over.
Well, here are my reasons anyway, in no particular order, with no attempt to perfume any sentences or words:
Why I want to study chemistry:
It’s fun and I enjoy it
I like it
I like practicals and I like making stuff in the lab (like azo dye and silicon putty)
I like molecules and thinking about molecules (or giant structures)
I like thinking of micro phenomena and relating them to macro phenomena
It’s challenging (but so is everything else)
I AM enthusiastic about it, no matter how cheesy that sounds :@
I feel well-suited to it…
Er, I think I’m good at it? I mean, if you look at it the other way round, I wouldn’t exactly go and do a subject that I am BAD at. Being good at it generally means that goals are met and there is a feeling of superiority satisfaction…
I get excited about learning new stuff
It uses a broad range of skills, memorisation, mathematical, spatial... I am a well-rounder so I’d like to use all my skills
Broad course but lots of opportunity to specialise
Good job opportunities
Lots of roles where you can contribute to society, solve problems of society e.g. climate change and pharmaceutical stuff; therefore plenty of motivation and purpose
I think I can get a fun job in the future, either in research or connected to industry or combining it with art and becoming a conservator (or easel paintings)
Chemistry is very fundamental, can use it to explain more complex systems studied in biology, allows you to figure things out using first principles rather than having to remember facts
Those are pretty much it. I can list less for wanting to be an artist or musician even though I would probably rather be one of the latter, only I'm not good enough to get very far. And somehow I have to put all (or some) of that into about a paragraph in my 4000 character personal statement and somehow it's got to be different from the thousands of other applicants who also want to do chemistry. Somehow my reasons are better than theirs. Somehow, I'm better than them. Or not, in the case of rejection.
The bottom line is: I think personal statements are the biggest pain in the arse I have ever experienced - much more so than any coursework, and they're entirely stupid, even more stupid than interviews - at least I can see good reasons for having the latter. That, and also the fact that you can technically pay someone to write one for you and the tutors wouldn't know any better.
Damn this personal statement! I'll never see the end of it. At the end of university, it will suddenly morph into a slightly different but altogether familiar form: the cover letter.
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Ice Cream!
I finally made some ice cream! Last weekend, I went and bought Ben and Jerry's ice cream book. It was surprising how simple all their recipes were. I went and combined the Butter Pecan and the Maple Walnut recipes, simply because I love maple syrup and pecans. The sautéed pecans were simply delicious, and we got so carried away with eating those that there was precious little left for the ice cream! Anyway, the problem came with the churning. After about 20-30 minutes, like the booklet had suggested, I went and checked the consistency of the ice cream and it was soooo liquid and slushy. So I left it for longer. Trouble is, I left it for too long, and the ice cream actually started to melt whilst being churned, since the cooling agent had also melted and warmed up. So I quickly stirred the mush and the liquid and transferred it into the freezer in a plastic tub. We think the freezer just wasn't cold enough.
So, the texture was a bit of a flop. But it tasted very good. A little more sugar (which I skimped on) and it would be great. The pinch of salt with the pecans really gives it an extra something. Here is a photo; I am sorry that it isn't a whole cone, but as you can imagine, I was too busy devouring it to think. And that's my third of the day.
One day I am gonna get hold of some dry ice (using my dad as leverage) and freeze ice cream that way. At approximately -78 celcius, it should freeze pretty quickly and give us lovely little ice crystals that we can't feel on our tongue. The next step after that would be of course be liquid nitrogen! Or perhaps it would just be better to by a proper ice cream maker with a built in freezer instead.
I am currently reading Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon in his... ginormously long series of books. Man, he throws you in the deep end. He's so imaginative, and has the whole thing thought out in so much detail, but he doesn't explain it; you're left to figure things out for yourself. There's also a lot of suspense. Now, I like Ganoes Paran, but I actually have no idea if he's going to die on the next page or suddenly become a very minor character. You can't feel safe about anything (unless you've read the blurb of the latest book and gleaned the names of people who haven't died up till then). It's exciting and gut-wrenching at the same time!
On a different subject - just what is so goo about Gok Wan? Why does he even have a fan base? For one thing, not only does his name sound like a noise that chickens make, he ain't very endowed in terms of his face and he really makes me squirm! It's not because he's gay at all; I was freaked out by him long before I knew he was gay. He is just like Alan Carr but the big difference being that Gok is not funny. That ain't good. (Personally I find Alan Carr quite endearing). I don't get it; I think he said he was half Chinese but he certainly doesn't look it. Eurasians usually have a strange "I can't put my finger on it" look to them. He doesn't.
So, the texture was a bit of a flop. But it tasted very good. A little more sugar (which I skimped on) and it would be great. The pinch of salt with the pecans really gives it an extra something. Here is a photo; I am sorry that it isn't a whole cone, but as you can imagine, I was too busy devouring it to think. And that's my third of the day.
One day I am gonna get hold of some dry ice (using my dad as leverage) and freeze ice cream that way. At approximately -78 celcius, it should freeze pretty quickly and give us lovely little ice crystals that we can't feel on our tongue. The next step after that would be of course be liquid nitrogen! Or perhaps it would just be better to by a proper ice cream maker with a built in freezer instead.
I am currently reading Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon in his... ginormously long series of books. Man, he throws you in the deep end. He's so imaginative, and has the whole thing thought out in so much detail, but he doesn't explain it; you're left to figure things out for yourself. There's also a lot of suspense. Now, I like Ganoes Paran, but I actually have no idea if he's going to die on the next page or suddenly become a very minor character. You can't feel safe about anything (unless you've read the blurb of the latest book and gleaned the names of people who haven't died up till then). It's exciting and gut-wrenching at the same time!
On a different subject - just what is so goo about Gok Wan? Why does he even have a fan base? For one thing, not only does his name sound like a noise that chickens make, he ain't very endowed in terms of his face and he really makes me squirm! It's not because he's gay at all; I was freaked out by him long before I knew he was gay. He is just like Alan Carr but the big difference being that Gok is not funny. That ain't good. (Personally I find Alan Carr quite endearing). I don't get it; I think he said he was half Chinese but he certainly doesn't look it. Eurasians usually have a strange "I can't put my finger on it" look to them. He doesn't.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Gender Bending
I have noticed that my sketchbooks are filled mostly with drawings of guys - that is, as opposed to girls, which are few and far between. (I don't draw cars, boats, houses, aliens, animals etc...because I can't) This includes both drawings from imagination and observational ones.
I am female, if anyone was inclined to ask...
I do find it much easier to find good references of guys. (Oh how I wish there was a word that encompassed both boys and men and in between!) This is because guys don't tend to plaster themselves with make-up and they are not obliged to make themselves look overly sexual in every single picture. Thus they look more natural, and make better drawing subjects.
I don't like it when people claim to feel uncomfortable without make-up on. It's not an excuse to put it on, I tell you! Learn to live with yourself first!
Of course, the preference could just be biological.
And I've included a painting by John William Godward just because it's pretty.
All the old masters of the past were male. What was the majority of their art? Women. Why? Men like women (correct me if I am wrong (!)). This is as opposed to the belief that women are the fairer sex which is just totally and utterly and completely UNTRUE.
Well, at least, that's the opinion of a girl who has just turned 18, and has just come out of an all girls' school after seven years (and no, this does not give you a good all-round education about the opposite sex). That statement was bound to have been first made by a straight man. And note that this is not a serious, in-depth discussion of the roles of the sexes in art history.
Personally, I don't really give a toss whether people prefer to draw men or women really, as long as they can do it well. That's me included. This obviously leads on to another long story which is not necessary right now...
There seems to be a trend amongst female artists to draw very girly boys. Now, this ranges from boyish faces (which is nice) to - well, how shall I put it? - something akin to a woman's head on a nine year old's body, and a claim that the person is in fact, male. Then there's also the pack that draw men as huge and as ugly as possible but hey, at least that feels slightly less morally wrong!
I don't think women have anything against pretty (as in feminine pretty) boys in real life. I think it's the opposite; it seems to be considered cute because it's child-like, and maybe it just brings out the motherly side of us. Let's face it, who would you rather be stuck with: Yuki Souma from Fruits Basket, or Wolverine????
Now, I definitely have the problem of drawing girly guys, which I want to get rid of, though not for the other extreme. My drawings (from imagination) no longer look like drag queens; they do look male, but I cannot for the life of me seem to draw anybody who looks over the age of 20 (the very maximum).
This is a teeny watercolour, a year old, that I actually like, but this is what I mean. He is not meant to look quite that young. The age problem has improved only somewhat since.
*******
I took my broken ice cream make back to John Lewis today (it broke on its own; I hadn't even used it yet) to try to swap it for a functional one. I got another one, it was easy peasy and the guy was very nice about it, and I didn't have to have a receipt, although I don't know how they verified that it was originally from JL (so I hope my friends didn't make a mistake. I doubt it!). But yes, I brought it back home and the motor turned nicely, and quite a bit faster than the first one did before it broke. The noise was different as well; the new one was higher pitched and had a whirring sort of sound as opposed to the other one which was a low pitched constant buzz. So the other one was sort of dead even before it broke.
As you might expect, I was all excited when I got back home again, ready to start making ice cream. But there was no room in the freezer! And then my mum came back with a load of shopping and stuffed the freezer again. Which means there was even less space! And the bowl, though it only makes a pint of ice cream, is HUGE! She promised that there would be a clear-out in the weekend but let's say that a bag of frozen peas will not be enough.
I am female, if anyone was inclined to ask...
I do find it much easier to find good references of guys. (Oh how I wish there was a word that encompassed both boys and men and in between!) This is because guys don't tend to plaster themselves with make-up and they are not obliged to make themselves look overly sexual in every single picture. Thus they look more natural, and make better drawing subjects.
I don't like it when people claim to feel uncomfortable without make-up on. It's not an excuse to put it on, I tell you! Learn to live with yourself first!
Of course, the preference could just be biological.
And I've included a painting by John William Godward just because it's pretty.All the old masters of the past were male. What was the majority of their art? Women. Why? Men like women (correct me if I am wrong (!)). This is as opposed to the belief that women are the fairer sex which is just totally and utterly and completely UNTRUE.
Well, at least, that's the opinion of a girl who has just turned 18, and has just come out of an all girls' school after seven years (and no, this does not give you a good all-round education about the opposite sex). That statement was bound to have been first made by a straight man. And note that this is not a serious, in-depth discussion of the roles of the sexes in art history.
Personally, I don't really give a toss whether people prefer to draw men or women really, as long as they can do it well. That's me included. This obviously leads on to another long story which is not necessary right now...
There seems to be a trend amongst female artists to draw very girly boys. Now, this ranges from boyish faces (which is nice) to - well, how shall I put it? - something akin to a woman's head on a nine year old's body, and a claim that the person is in fact, male. Then there's also the pack that draw men as huge and as ugly as possible but hey, at least that feels slightly less morally wrong!
I don't think women have anything against pretty (as in feminine pretty) boys in real life. I think it's the opposite; it seems to be considered cute because it's child-like, and maybe it just brings out the motherly side of us. Let's face it, who would you rather be stuck with: Yuki Souma from Fruits Basket, or Wolverine????
Now, I definitely have the problem of drawing girly guys, which I want to get rid of, though not for the other extreme. My drawings (from imagination) no longer look like drag queens; they do look male, but I cannot for the life of me seem to draw anybody who looks over the age of 20 (the very maximum).
This is a teeny watercolour, a year old, that I actually like, but this is what I mean. He is not meant to look quite that young. The age problem has improved only somewhat since.*******
I took my broken ice cream make back to John Lewis today (it broke on its own; I hadn't even used it yet) to try to swap it for a functional one. I got another one, it was easy peasy and the guy was very nice about it, and I didn't have to have a receipt, although I don't know how they verified that it was originally from JL (so I hope my friends didn't make a mistake. I doubt it!). But yes, I brought it back home and the motor turned nicely, and quite a bit faster than the first one did before it broke. The noise was different as well; the new one was higher pitched and had a whirring sort of sound as opposed to the other one which was a low pitched constant buzz. So the other one was sort of dead even before it broke.
As you might expect, I was all excited when I got back home again, ready to start making ice cream. But there was no room in the freezer! And then my mum came back with a load of shopping and stuffed the freezer again. Which means there was even less space! And the bowl, though it only makes a pint of ice cream, is HUGE! She promised that there would be a clear-out in the weekend but let's say that a bag of frozen peas will not be enough.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Johnson Matthey
Even more ChemNet. Even more chemistry. Even more freebies.
We visited a site owned and used by Johnson Matthey, a chemical company that makes... a lot of things. It's primarily in the inorganic 'realm' of chemistry and they make catalytic converters and catalytic soot converters (CSF, but I don't know what F stands for), metal salts, and even opiates. All I knew of them beforehand is that they are the sole worldwide suppliers of cobalt stannate, a blue-coloured salt that is the colour Cerulean Blue, a pigment that I want to add to my already stupidly large collection of watercolour paints.
The factory for coating substrates with platinum catalysts had a very tall ceiling and was basically very expansive. And very noisy with the pneumatic robotic arms and all the rest that goes on at the same time. But it didn't smell and was pretty clean, but nevertheless rather scary.
This also means I've just received another bag (no periodic table though), notebook, pen, highlighter and mug (the same one as before, but in yellow) all courtesy of ChemNet. I've decided that those mugs are just not cool to drink from, being plastic and all; my mum cleverly suggested that they can be used as pen-pots which I may well end up doing, unless someone wants to scoop out washing powder or rice with it first (unlikely).
I wonder how much of the same freebies I will have accumulated by the end of next year when my ChemNet membership ends (to pave way for a student affiliate membership, mwahaha).
I AM producing SOME artwork. Hopefully they will be posted soon, but I really need to get a move-on!
We visited a site owned and used by Johnson Matthey, a chemical company that makes... a lot of things. It's primarily in the inorganic 'realm' of chemistry and they make catalytic converters and catalytic soot converters (CSF, but I don't know what F stands for), metal salts, and even opiates. All I knew of them beforehand is that they are the sole worldwide suppliers of cobalt stannate, a blue-coloured salt that is the colour Cerulean Blue, a pigment that I want to add to my already stupidly large collection of watercolour paints.
The factory for coating substrates with platinum catalysts had a very tall ceiling and was basically very expansive. And very noisy with the pneumatic robotic arms and all the rest that goes on at the same time. But it didn't smell and was pretty clean, but nevertheless rather scary.
This also means I've just received another bag (no periodic table though), notebook, pen, highlighter and mug (the same one as before, but in yellow) all courtesy of ChemNet. I've decided that those mugs are just not cool to drink from, being plastic and all; my mum cleverly suggested that they can be used as pen-pots which I may well end up doing, unless someone wants to scoop out washing powder or rice with it first (unlikely).
I wonder how much of the same freebies I will have accumulated by the end of next year when my ChemNet membership ends (to pave way for a student affiliate membership, mwahaha).
I AM producing SOME artwork. Hopefully they will be posted soon, but I really need to get a move-on!
Sunday, 6 July 2008
My Birthday
Hmm, now that was really a very prissy post of mine. I have now sobered up, and hopefully I won't go into hysterics and melodrama any more.
On Saturday, 5th July, I went down to London for a ChemNet event where lots of universities participated and put up small exhibits to get people to study chemistry at their place. It was very good, and very useful, and it was probably a very good thing that the really prestigious, popular universities like Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL weren't there, and other respectable universities could make their mark.
The best thing was the freebies! I am a cheapskate, and therefore always a fan of freebies. Pens, notebook, bags, leaflets, prospectuses, bookmarks... Look at this bag that York gave people:
Now THAT is cool. I have no shame in saying it! Yes, I am the kind of person who would take pride in strutting around with "Chemistry" printed right across my bag for all to see. Screw those poor souls who think I'm a freak; they don't know what they're missing.
I would also like a bag like that with the periodic table. In fact I would probably take anything with a periodic table on it. Which is why I was so pleased when Southampton gave me a mouse-pad which had a periodic table printed on it! I love it! Pity that I can't actually use it as a mouse-pad, because we have an optical mouse and it works better than any ball mouse, banged up though it looks, with its silver paint layer being slowly corroded away by my corrosive sweat on my hands... I swear I have very corrosive sweat. It even made my violin bow's metal winding come undone.
Now, you're thinking "geek alert!", I'll bet, and actually I'd take that as a compliment. I'd quite like to be a proper geek, because that means I actually know stuff. At the moment, I really don't know anything.
We also got this stupid little mug, which I say with affection, which only survived my journey through London due to the fact it was plastic, not ceramic like any self-respecting hot drinks drinker would want, otherwise it would have got pretty smashed up on my journey home what with me dropping my bag and also clunking it down on the floor not so carefully.
Say, wouldn't you want to take this to your sixth form common room?
Don't worry, I was being sarcastic this time.
Now, as for what my friends gave me for my birthday, which incidentally was also on the 5th. I got a small and long box of chocolates which look very tasty, a bag of Thornton's chocolate covered toffee, a bottle of Winsor and Newton's emerald green ink which I can finally use with my nibs which have so far been collecting dust (because I am a lazy artist) and an ice cream maker! It was the Magimix Le Glacier 1.1L. I had been saying that I wanted one for at least the best part of a year, most definitely driving my parents mad, who have now reached an age where watching their waistlines has become a high priority. But now I can finally make ice cream (and I am a huge fan of ice cream!), and it's even more perfect that this is the summer holidays. so I'd like to say THANK YOU to my friends, who didn't ignore my silly whining about ice cream makers.
There was just one problem. It broke. The third time I switched it on whilst testing it, nothing happened. The motor hummed very softly, but was definitely not turning.
Oh dear. That's just one more thing to sort out this summer, as well as trying to pry the recipe from my friend's mum for the absolutely delicious chocolate cake she made for her daughter's birthday... ooh, just thinking about it makes me happy....
On Saturday, 5th July, I went down to London for a ChemNet event where lots of universities participated and put up small exhibits to get people to study chemistry at their place. It was very good, and very useful, and it was probably a very good thing that the really prestigious, popular universities like Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL weren't there, and other respectable universities could make their mark.
The best thing was the freebies! I am a cheapskate, and therefore always a fan of freebies. Pens, notebook, bags, leaflets, prospectuses, bookmarks... Look at this bag that York gave people:
Now THAT is cool. I have no shame in saying it! Yes, I am the kind of person who would take pride in strutting around with "Chemistry" printed right across my bag for all to see. Screw those poor souls who think I'm a freak; they don't know what they're missing.I would also like a bag like that with the periodic table. In fact I would probably take anything with a periodic table on it. Which is why I was so pleased when Southampton gave me a mouse-pad which had a periodic table printed on it! I love it! Pity that I can't actually use it as a mouse-pad, because we have an optical mouse and it works better than any ball mouse, banged up though it looks, with its silver paint layer being slowly corroded away by my corrosive sweat on my hands... I swear I have very corrosive sweat. It even made my violin bow's metal winding come undone.
Now, you're thinking "geek alert!", I'll bet, and actually I'd take that as a compliment. I'd quite like to be a proper geek, because that means I actually know stuff. At the moment, I really don't know anything.
We also got this stupid little mug, which I say with affection, which only survived my journey through London due to the fact it was plastic, not ceramic like any self-respecting hot drinks drinker would want, otherwise it would have got pretty smashed up on my journey home what with me dropping my bag and also clunking it down on the floor not so carefully.
Say, wouldn't you want to take this to your sixth form common room?
Don't worry, I was being sarcastic this time.Now, as for what my friends gave me for my birthday, which incidentally was also on the 5th. I got a small and long box of chocolates which look very tasty, a bag of Thornton's chocolate covered toffee, a bottle of Winsor and Newton's emerald green ink which I can finally use with my nibs which have so far been collecting dust (because I am a lazy artist) and an ice cream maker! It was the Magimix Le Glacier 1.1L. I had been saying that I wanted one for at least the best part of a year, most definitely driving my parents mad, who have now reached an age where watching their waistlines has become a high priority. But now I can finally make ice cream (and I am a huge fan of ice cream!), and it's even more perfect that this is the summer holidays. so I'd like to say THANK YOU to my friends, who didn't ignore my silly whining about ice cream makers.
There was just one problem. It broke. The third time I switched it on whilst testing it, nothing happened. The motor hummed very softly, but was definitely not turning.
Oh dear. That's just one more thing to sort out this summer, as well as trying to pry the recipe from my friend's mum for the absolutely delicious chocolate cake she made for her daughter's birthday... ooh, just thinking about it makes me happy....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
