(no subject)
Odd happening of the day: computer simply restarting itself. Just like that. It’s working fine now.
It’s ever so slightly irritating that I was halfway through a very long eljay post about things that have made me happy recently when it decided to reboot, though. Ah well.
So. Things that have made me happy recently, in bullet form:
Ө The meetings about university and Oxbridge yesterday. My English teacher, it seems, has enough faith in my potential strength as an Oxbridge candidate to seek out my parents to talk to them afterwards and discuss it, which makes me very happy.
Ө In fact, Mr Pedroz seems to be behind a lot of my happiness yesterday. He put me forwards for an utterly awesome weeklong residential creative writing course at Villiers Park: my application form will be in the post tomorrow morning.
Ө He also made me very happy by telling me about the English A2 course. The current plan for our set is to study Paradise Lost Books IX-X and Contemporary Drama (post-1945), which is awesome in itself; but it is the coursework that is the real killer. Our coursework portfolio can be 3000 words long, and at A2 it can be made up of a single large essay. The constraints on this essay are thus: it must be about post-1914 literature, and said literature cannot appear elsewhere on the syllabus.
That is it.
We can do, pretty much, whatever we want. Mr Pedroz even said that he would prefer the fiction to be post-1990, although that’s not essential, and we are allowed to make our choices individually. Banks and the Culture? Classicism and Romanticism in Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrel? A Study In Emerald? The construction of fictional cities - Ankh-Morpork, London Below, New Crobuzon , Unlondon - in modern fantastical literature? The use of mythology? There is so much scope and so much that will be fun to play around with…
Ө I went driving with my grandfather during the holiday, which was lovely. It was also occasionally frustrating, (he wouldn’t let me drive any faster than 40mph, even when the speed was unrestricted) amusing (when I had to drive back to Welwyn again because he’d left the keys to his car at home in his jacket) and vindicating (because he stalled as many times as I did - once).
(That ended up being the last occasion on which I drove for a while, because my father managed to break the car by accidentally pulling off the handbrake; but that’s another story…)
Ө I now have Tigris back, which is rather good news. What is even better is the fact that it works.
Ө On Thursday the weather was lovely, so Rose and Paul and Todd and I decided that we would join our pet upper sixth-formers in the park for a picnic. We bought our sandwiches as usual, and then on the way back we made a brief stop at the fruit stall, because I made the executive decision that if we were having a picnic because it was pretending to be summer we had to have strawberries and therefore bought some. I ended up buying more than I intended because it was only fifty pee more to buy a second punnet; as a direct result I spent a wonderful few moments wandering up through the school offering strawberries to startled staff and suspicious students.
Ө Also on Thursday, I got the new edition of Emag. ‘Nuff said.
Ө Also also on Thursday, I babysat for the cool babysittees at very short notice, which involved a number of unexpected things. Being lent a rather interesting book on epistemology was one of them. Beating Harry at Worms wasn’t, because despite the fact that I only ever play against him I still manage to do so every single time we play - but what was surprising was the fact that when I sat down on their sofa it shouted ‘exterminate!’ in a distinctly metallic voice. This happened, rather disconcertingly, every single time I shifted position even slightly: they obviously had a Dalek voicebox down the back of the sofa. Win.
It’s ever so slightly irritating that I was halfway through a very long eljay post about things that have made me happy recently when it decided to reboot, though. Ah well.
So. Things that have made me happy recently, in bullet form:
Ө The meetings about university and Oxbridge yesterday. My English teacher, it seems, has enough faith in my potential strength as an Oxbridge candidate to seek out my parents to talk to them afterwards and discuss it, which makes me very happy.
Ө In fact, Mr Pedroz seems to be behind a lot of my happiness yesterday. He put me forwards for an utterly awesome weeklong residential creative writing course at Villiers Park: my application form will be in the post tomorrow morning.
Ө He also made me very happy by telling me about the English A2 course. The current plan for our set is to study Paradise Lost Books IX-X and Contemporary Drama (post-1945), which is awesome in itself; but it is the coursework that is the real killer. Our coursework portfolio can be 3000 words long, and at A2 it can be made up of a single large essay. The constraints on this essay are thus: it must be about post-1914 literature, and said literature cannot appear elsewhere on the syllabus.
That is it.
We can do, pretty much, whatever we want. Mr Pedroz even said that he would prefer the fiction to be post-1990, although that’s not essential, and we are allowed to make our choices individually. Banks and the Culture? Classicism and Romanticism in Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrel? A Study In Emerald? The construction of fictional cities - Ankh-Morpork, London Below, New Crobuzon , Unlondon - in modern fantastical literature? The use of mythology? There is so much scope and so much that will be fun to play around with…
Ө I went driving with my grandfather during the holiday, which was lovely. It was also occasionally frustrating, (he wouldn’t let me drive any faster than 40mph, even when the speed was unrestricted) amusing (when I had to drive back to Welwyn again because he’d left the keys to his car at home in his jacket) and vindicating (because he stalled as many times as I did - once).
(That ended up being the last occasion on which I drove for a while, because my father managed to break the car by accidentally pulling off the handbrake; but that’s another story…)
Ө I now have Tigris back, which is rather good news. What is even better is the fact that it works.
Ө On Thursday the weather was lovely, so Rose and Paul and Todd and I decided that we would join our pet upper sixth-formers in the park for a picnic. We bought our sandwiches as usual, and then on the way back we made a brief stop at the fruit stall, because I made the executive decision that if we were having a picnic because it was pretending to be summer we had to have strawberries and therefore bought some. I ended up buying more than I intended because it was only fifty pee more to buy a second punnet; as a direct result I spent a wonderful few moments wandering up through the school offering strawberries to startled staff and suspicious students.
Ө Also on Thursday, I got the new edition of Emag. ‘Nuff said.
Ө Also also on Thursday, I babysat for the cool babysittees at very short notice, which involved a number of unexpected things. Being lent a rather interesting book on epistemology was one of them. Beating Harry at Worms wasn’t, because despite the fact that I only ever play against him I still manage to do so every single time we play - but what was surprising was the fact that when I sat down on their sofa it shouted ‘exterminate!’ in a distinctly metallic voice. This happened, rather disconcertingly, every single time I shifted position even slightly: they obviously had a Dalek voicebox down the back of the sofa. Win.