(no subject)
Warwick's open day was, for some reason, yesterday; all of the other unis we're booked to visit had the good sense to schedule at least one of theirs at the end of June / start of July, when the prospective 2011 entrants aren't doing anything else important. I wanted to go because I heard it's good for Maths, and because the other candidates I was thinking about for when I don't get into Cambridge are all either Durham or somewhere in London. I'd rather not have to live in London, all things considered. My accent wouldn't fit in at all.
It was a miserable day. When we set out, it was grey and cold. When we arrived - Coventry is about an hour's drive away from where we live - it was grey, cold and lightly drizzling. After a couple of hours, it was grey, cold, definitely drizzling and windy. After lunch, it was grey, cold, windy and pissing it down. It made me quite glad that I hadn't put aside enough time in between talks for a campus tour, and so we had an excuse to lurk indoors drinking complimentary cups of tea; we ended up using the wrong exit from the Arts Centre and covering half of the campus anyway.
In total, we sat through one nondescript talk (the very first one, a run-of-the-mill introduction where the guy's fancy presentation kept doing things he didn't intend it to), two that were really very good (an overview of the Physics courses and a sample Maths thing) and one rubbish one, albeit done by a man who admitted he wasn't actually a lecturer. I didn't take many notes, although I was a bit put off by some of the people we saw lugging giant folders around, but I did write down a handful of things I'd missed reading in the prospectus, like the size of tutor groups (5) and the fact that the Maths/Physics degree is handled by the Physics department even though half of it is taught in the Maths building, so the standard offer is a bit lower (AAA, not A*AA) and there's no mention of STEP. Hooray!
Apart from the horrible weather, I came out feeling quite happy about the day. The campus isn't ugly like I'd feared, the courses would be fantastic if the couple of lecturers we listened to were anything to judge by, and it would be nice, certainly. Plus, we found three ducks. Two were asleep, one was up-ended but came up as we walked past and made duck noises at us.
What annoyed me, generally, was the mother, shockingly enough. She failed most of her maths exams at school, and can't wrap her head around pure maths at all - she got confused as soon as the maths lecturer guy mentioned exterior angles, of all things - so she likes to extrapolate that women can't do maths or physics at all. This isn't a new thing; she said while I was doing GCSEs that she'd change her mind if I got an A*, because she didn't think I was capable, but after I got an A* she started saying that, well, GCSEs are easy (which at least is true) and that she didn't think I could get an A overall at AS level. After the first maths talk, she worriedly asked me what the binomial theorem was (it had been mentioned in passing) and, after I said a few things about algebra and combinatorials, she said "Are you sure you can understand that? I don't understand that."
It's annoying because, you know, I'm not a walking calculator. I'm all right, because if I didn't know I was all right at maths I'd be an idiot for not having dropped it, but I'm not good at everything, and it's infuriating how people like my mother will take my not being good at everything as somehow representative, because it puts stress on me as well as being pig-headed. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say "Hello, I have a decent head for algebra, I can think logically and systemically except when I don't concentrate and forget what 2 minus 0 equals, I dislike drawing graphs by hand and everything about statistics except probabilities which I find okay, and that says absolutely nothing about anyone else of my gender"? I do follow a handful of feminist sites, of course, and it's not as if I don't have any emotional reaction to stories of people who are far less privileged, but often the feeling can be a lot more... abstract. Some days more than others bring these issues closer to home.
In other news, there was an election, and it's all very confusing at the moment. This district, along with pretty much the entire county apart from the city proper, has apparently been safely Tory for ages, which is a terrible situation for a young left-leaner to put up with. To the mother's credit (more or less), she didn't vote for them, although she was thinking about it at one point. She voted Labour.
I found it funny in our school's mock election (that I didn't vote in due to throwing up snot on the day) how the votes broke down. The final results looked startlingly similar to the actual results, but they also showed us that the staff voted overwhelmingly red, the sixth-form were overwhelmingly yellow and most of the lower school went blue. Commentary is left as an exercise to the reader.
Also meme!
♪ If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new question.
♫ Tag 8 people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
#01 What song are you currently addicted to?
I've had "My Best Friend's Girl" by The Cars playing in my head for about a week. I can't even remember why I know that song.
#02 What was the last game you played?
One of the Flash versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the BBC website somewhere. I thought I should get around to it someday. It's friggin' sadistic with a walkthrough!
#03 What was the last movie you saw?
I dug up our old tape of The Lion King! ♥ I wasn't expecting to cry at it again, but I did. More than once.
#04 What song is stalking you, ie. you somehow hear it everywhere?
If by "everywhere" you mean "in five different places over the course of five days a couple of weeks ago", "Haven't Met You Yet" by wossname Bublé.
#05 What was the last thing you stepped on?
A squishy green pound sign that has "Student Finance" printed on the side. I brought it back from the higher education fair and gave it to my brother. You know, everyone talks about nicking millions of free pens from those things; I didn't see any.
#06 What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
Well, I - I've been obsessively checking the BBC's Election 2010 page since Thursday evening. *shuffle* It very nearly made me forget about John Flansburgh's birthday (although it didn't. Tee hee, he's old).
#07 Are you a cat person or a dog person?
Cats, clearly.
#08 What's your favorite food?
I don't know at the moment, because I have a cold and nothing tastes right (although I've not been spitting out food in front of small children or anything).
#09 What was the last thing you bought?
Sausage and chips for lunch yesterday. It was awful, but eh, school college food.
#10 Would you rather date a good singer, or a good cook?
A cook, because I get competitive if it's something I think I can do, but I've already resigned myself to several years of instant noodles.
#11 Something that made you laugh today?
Nick Clegg on eBay.
#12 What do you do to change your mood?
Listen to a happy song or look at pictures of fluffy animals. This is a cureall.
#13 What was the last meal you ate?
Toast with margarine. While I buttered it, I got a really neat idea for a novel about superheroes and supervillains, even though I don't actually read comics. I've written two paragraphs of it now, which is ridiculously fast turnaround for me. (It won't get any further now I've said that.)
#14 Countries that you want to visit?
Canada, Norway, Australia and/or New Zealand (but I might accidentally get killed). And countries I've visited already: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden (properly this time), America (I've got it into my head that I'd like to visit Boston someday, but revisiting New York would be good too) or Japan (OMG AKIHABARA).
#15 Any plans for today?
I've got to hand in a practice exam question on language and gender tomorrow. I may half-ass a bit tonight and rush the rest tomorrow lunchtime.
#16 Open your mp3 player of choice. What is your most played song?
It's out of battery and charging, so I don't know. iTunes' most-played song is They Might Be Giants' "Kings of the Cave", but since I don't use the Mac for playing music (or anything else, really), that was with a grand total of 18 times.
#17 Favourite TV show that DOESN'T contain giant robots?
Sheesh, people, what point is there in liking a TV show if it doesn't contain giant robots? Err, well, I guess most of the Mythbusters' robots are sensibly-sized...
#18 If you could change one thing about your job (or whatever you're up to if you don't work), what would it be?
Exams? No more essays! I realise that making the English exam multiple-choice would defeat the objective, but do it anyway!
#19 What was the last book you read?
Wintersmith purely because of You. And the chicken scene, which is beautiful, but that's very much related.
Tagging you, you, you, you, you, you, not Caryl, you, you.
It was a miserable day. When we set out, it was grey and cold. When we arrived - Coventry is about an hour's drive away from where we live - it was grey, cold and lightly drizzling. After a couple of hours, it was grey, cold, definitely drizzling and windy. After lunch, it was grey, cold, windy and pissing it down. It made me quite glad that I hadn't put aside enough time in between talks for a campus tour, and so we had an excuse to lurk indoors drinking complimentary cups of tea; we ended up using the wrong exit from the Arts Centre and covering half of the campus anyway.
In total, we sat through one nondescript talk (the very first one, a run-of-the-mill introduction where the guy's fancy presentation kept doing things he didn't intend it to), two that were really very good (an overview of the Physics courses and a sample Maths thing) and one rubbish one, albeit done by a man who admitted he wasn't actually a lecturer. I didn't take many notes, although I was a bit put off by some of the people we saw lugging giant folders around, but I did write down a handful of things I'd missed reading in the prospectus, like the size of tutor groups (5) and the fact that the Maths/Physics degree is handled by the Physics department even though half of it is taught in the Maths building, so the standard offer is a bit lower (AAA, not A*AA) and there's no mention of STEP. Hooray!
Apart from the horrible weather, I came out feeling quite happy about the day. The campus isn't ugly like I'd feared, the courses would be fantastic if the couple of lecturers we listened to were anything to judge by, and it would be nice, certainly. Plus, we found three ducks. Two were asleep, one was up-ended but came up as we walked past and made duck noises at us.
What annoyed me, generally, was the mother, shockingly enough. She failed most of her maths exams at school, and can't wrap her head around pure maths at all - she got confused as soon as the maths lecturer guy mentioned exterior angles, of all things - so she likes to extrapolate that women can't do maths or physics at all. This isn't a new thing; she said while I was doing GCSEs that she'd change her mind if I got an A*, because she didn't think I was capable, but after I got an A* she started saying that, well, GCSEs are easy (which at least is true) and that she didn't think I could get an A overall at AS level. After the first maths talk, she worriedly asked me what the binomial theorem was (it had been mentioned in passing) and, after I said a few things about algebra and combinatorials, she said "Are you sure you can understand that? I don't understand that."
It's annoying because, you know, I'm not a walking calculator. I'm all right, because if I didn't know I was all right at maths I'd be an idiot for not having dropped it, but I'm not good at everything, and it's infuriating how people like my mother will take my not being good at everything as somehow representative, because it puts stress on me as well as being pig-headed. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say "Hello, I have a decent head for algebra, I can think logically and systemically except when I don't concentrate and forget what 2 minus 0 equals, I dislike drawing graphs by hand and everything about statistics except probabilities which I find okay, and that says absolutely nothing about anyone else of my gender"? I do follow a handful of feminist sites, of course, and it's not as if I don't have any emotional reaction to stories of people who are far less privileged, but often the feeling can be a lot more... abstract. Some days more than others bring these issues closer to home.
In other news, there was an election, and it's all very confusing at the moment. This district, along with pretty much the entire county apart from the city proper, has apparently been safely Tory for ages, which is a terrible situation for a young left-leaner to put up with. To the mother's credit (more or less), she didn't vote for them, although she was thinking about it at one point. She voted Labour.
I found it funny in our school's mock election (that I didn't vote in due to throwing up snot on the day) how the votes broke down. The final results looked startlingly similar to the actual results, but they also showed us that the staff voted overwhelmingly red, the sixth-form were overwhelmingly yellow and most of the lower school went blue. Commentary is left as an exercise to the reader.
Also meme!
♪ If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new question.
♫ Tag 8 people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
#01 What song are you currently addicted to?
I've had "My Best Friend's Girl" by The Cars playing in my head for about a week. I can't even remember why I know that song.
#02 What was the last game you played?
One of the Flash versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the BBC website somewhere. I thought I should get around to it someday. It's friggin' sadistic with a walkthrough!
#03 What was the last movie you saw?
I dug up our old tape of The Lion King! ♥ I wasn't expecting to cry at it again, but I did. More than once.
#04 What song is stalking you, ie. you somehow hear it everywhere?
If by "everywhere" you mean "in five different places over the course of five days a couple of weeks ago", "Haven't Met You Yet" by wossname Bublé.
#05 What was the last thing you stepped on?
A squishy green pound sign that has "Student Finance" printed on the side. I brought it back from the higher education fair and gave it to my brother. You know, everyone talks about nicking millions of free pens from those things; I didn't see any.
#06 What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
Well, I - I've been obsessively checking the BBC's Election 2010 page since Thursday evening. *shuffle* It very nearly made me forget about John Flansburgh's birthday (although it didn't. Tee hee, he's old).
#07 Are you a cat person or a dog person?
Cats, clearly.
#08 What's your favorite food?
I don't know at the moment, because I have a cold and nothing tastes right (although I've not been spitting out food in front of small children or anything).
#09 What was the last thing you bought?
Sausage and chips for lunch yesterday. It was awful, but eh, school college food.
#10 Would you rather date a good singer, or a good cook?
A cook, because I get competitive if it's something I think I can do, but I've already resigned myself to several years of instant noodles.
#11 Something that made you laugh today?
Nick Clegg on eBay.
#12 What do you do to change your mood?
Listen to a happy song or look at pictures of fluffy animals. This is a cureall.
#13 What was the last meal you ate?
Toast with margarine. While I buttered it, I got a really neat idea for a novel about superheroes and supervillains, even though I don't actually read comics. I've written two paragraphs of it now, which is ridiculously fast turnaround for me. (It won't get any further now I've said that.)
#14 Countries that you want to visit?
Canada, Norway, Australia and/or New Zealand (but I might accidentally get killed). And countries I've visited already: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden (properly this time), America (I've got it into my head that I'd like to visit Boston someday, but revisiting New York would be good too) or Japan (OMG AKIHABARA).
#15 Any plans for today?
I've got to hand in a practice exam question on language and gender tomorrow. I may half-ass a bit tonight and rush the rest tomorrow lunchtime.
#16 Open your mp3 player of choice. What is your most played song?
It's out of battery and charging, so I don't know. iTunes' most-played song is They Might Be Giants' "Kings of the Cave", but since I don't use the Mac for playing music (or anything else, really), that was with a grand total of 18 times.
#17 Favourite TV show that DOESN'T contain giant robots?
Sheesh, people, what point is there in liking a TV show if it doesn't contain giant robots? Err, well, I guess most of the Mythbusters' robots are sensibly-sized...
#18 If you could change one thing about your job (or whatever you're up to if you don't work), what would it be?
Exams? No more essays! I realise that making the English exam multiple-choice would defeat the objective, but do it anyway!
#19 What was the last book you read?
Wintersmith purely because of You. And the chicken scene, which is beautiful, but that's very much related.
Tagging you, you, you, you, you, you, not Caryl, you, you.