What?

Yes, it is true. I'm actually posting something! Yeah, well it's been about a month since the last one, and I guess I'd better do a general update.

I'm now off for half term, and now that I have a week ahead of me, I've realsied how little free time I actually have. I'm working three half shifts over the Monday-Saturday course, which amounts to a staggering 15 hours. Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday would be the days. Then, random Diplomacy games and cinema trips are also being drawn up as I type so it sounds quite busy.

As for the first half term of sixth form, I have to say that I am enjoying it so much more than 5th form. Maybe it's the fact that I only have to do 4 subjects that I actually like, maybe it's getting great teachers, heck, maybe it's the fact that the other guys in my year started up a fight club in the lockers a few weeks ago but have since been stopped (you can tell that they're very mature)... I dunno, whatever it is, I'm definitely enjoying it more.

Recent techno news: Firefox v2 is out, I'm enjoying using it, and if you don't have it already, you can download it here. I've also installed Ubuntu on the computer, and since about 2% of people will actually know what that is, I'll leave it at that for now. Ahm... ZoneAlarm has gone, with Outpost and AVG taking its place. And yeah. That concludes the update.

Joe and Janet Campbell, a married couple from my church, have taken 4 years out to go and live in Nepal... definitely nothing but respect for them. They have their own blogger blog - you can keep track of their time there at http://viewsfromahighland.blogspot.com/.

Other than that, not much else to report. Prize Day was on Friday, so once again we were punished for doing well in school by having to stay in for another half day. Although, to be fair, Mark Simpson's speech was actually really good, the best Prize Day speech I've heard so far. Until next time (which may be another month), bye!

There is no other stream

Looking here, I haven't posted for almost a month! To be honest, not much has happened, lower sixth definitely has a larger workload than GCSE but I think I'm coping alright. Oh yeah, was my birthday last Tuesday so I started driving, first lesson was quite scary really but the second one much better as I learned to differentiate between the handbrake and gearstick (yeah just picture that).

Anyway, during my amass of study periods I've been reading some books, one being a collection of C S Lewis' writings, just excerpts from different works. The very first one was really good, in my opinion, of summarising Christianity.

The Silver Chair
Chapter 2

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realised that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

"Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.

"I make no promise," said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

L6th

After 2 full days back, the confusion of the whole new reality that is sixth form is starting to subside. To be honest, it's a bit like being back in first year, with all the new stuff you have to learn. Note for any young'uns... 8:10am --> 4:10pm out of house for school and 5 -->10 at work don't go together very well. I'm wrecked.

So yeah, for those of you who don't know, I'm doing economics, chemistry, computing and maths. After a bit of a confusing start in all 4, things are starting to look a little less confusing. I particularly enjoyed the entire half hour that was taken up by Mr Boreland's question... "What is maths?"

On the other hand, the school have completely screwed up the lunchtime arrangements. 2 main things...

1) lunchtime split into 2 halves, year 11-14 have half an hour, then go to class, and while we're in class years 8-10 have lunch. This is the one I could live with.

2) we now have to stay inside the dining hall the entire time! What the flip!

(There's also the fact that the dining hall now only serve water and milkshakes, but this doesn't warrent another number).

I've also just found out from 3 different sources more or less at the same time that Hendy is now in hospital after a bad car accident... guys, thoughts and prayers should go out to him.

Is Summer ending... or beginning?

With the exam results finally out of the way, it's unbelieveable how much pressure is off. With less than a week left of the summer holidays before I start back to school on Tuesday, I've suddenly realised that Summer has gone so fast, with so many things happening that I really did lose track of the days and weeks. Summer Madness, work, Gartan, Holiday Bible Club, friends, family, exam results, X-Men (:P)... everything has suddenly ended, and now only 5 days (well, 4 and a bit) remain until the start of 6th form. It'll be a new stage of my life, a vey different one, as so many things have changed over the past two months. Chaotic at times, at others very peaceful, and all the time trying to see God in evey situation. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's staring you straight in the face, but the answer is always the same - He's there, whether you feel that it's a good idea or not.

Spore

With the Holywood Bible Club now over, I'm focused on the next big thing event - exam results. So in under 4 days I will know how I did in 10 out of 11 GCSE subjects (for the 11th, German, I will get the result on Thursday). Even though the last two academic years have been building up to this, you might be surprised to hear me say that in the grand scheme of things it isn't that important. OK, for A Levels, uni choice, etc they will play a role, but in God's plan for my life, I'll get just the grades He wants me to get, and whether that's 11 A*s or 11 Cs, disappointed as I may be at below-par results, I know that this is the way God wants me to go with my life. Check back with me in 3 days time to see if I'm still as relatively calm as I am now :)

On the less serious half of this post, I'll do a brief rant on a new game I've been hearing about a lot recently in the news - Spore. At E3 (a gaming convention), it was voted the best PC game of 2006, you can read about it here and here. Basically, the game "takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space". I suppose it could be compared to The Sims - it's made by the same company after all. Maybe a crossover between The Sims and Civilisation. Hum. Anyway, I can imagine myself wasting hours on this game, just because it looks quite addictive. The release date is set for 'Fall 2006', no exact day as of yet.

I must be off now, away to Esporta then a Chinese and cinema trip later. G'bye.

After Gartan

Right now I've returned from the place known as Gartan, more details on that to follow in my next post but most probably not too much detail. If you want some photos you can access David Grieve's Flickr site through his website (in the links section). As for displaying my own photos, I should be getting about 300 pictures from Jonny Boyd, so a select few of those will be going on my Flickr page.

As in other areas of my life, as many people don't want to be reminded, our GCSE results come out in 9 days time. Shock horror scream collapse. I'll have a panic attack a couple of days before, but at the moment I'm not really that fussed. Nothing I can do, so not bother worrying. Obviously nearer the time I'll be taking a slightly more irrational approach to it, but I'll leave it til then.

School in two weeks! Holidays have gone much too fast, I haven't even finished watching X-Men or House yet! On the note of TV shows, Prison Break, Season 2 kicks off in America on Monday so I'm looking forward to that. I still wish they ended it with one season. Ahh well.

The next week of my life looks to be pretty hectic, Monday to Friday (minus Wednesday for the orthodontist) I'll be taking the Holywood Bible Club in my church, every morning from 10am to 12 noon. I know most of the kids quite well now so hopefully it won't be too stressful. None of them come close to the annoyingness (is that a word?) of my brother so I've dealt with a lot worse. I'll be looking forward to the fact that dodgeball games will be played every minute of the day.

Well that's all from me now, need to go and get some lunch. Then I'll watch some X-Men. Good ol' X-Men.

The Gizmo Project

I haven't done a computery type post for quite a while, so here's something I happened to stumble across while reading some news today that I was presently surprised to find out that it worked... flawlessly.

How often have you heard on TV about 'TalkTalk', the phone company with whom once you sign up, you'll be able to talk to other 'TalkTalk' customers for free? The Gizmo Project works along the same principles, but just look at what you can do. I'll make a run through of what I did.

1. Download and install the Gizmo Project (link is in the name of the program).
2. Create an account (username, password, e-mail address).
3. Log in.
4. Go into your profile and enter your home and mobile telephone numbers, with international and national area codes (e.g. for my home number it was +442890****** and for my mobile number it was +447810******).
5. Get your friends to do the same. Add their username to your contact list, not unlike how you do in MSN Messenger.

Now here comes the cool part. Go into your contact list - you will see all of your contacts with their home and mobile numbers listed. Click on one of those numbers. I should have mentioned at the start you require speakers and a microphone on your computer. Voila... you have just called that number... free. Any landline. Any mobile phone. Any internet phone... free. All that is needed is that you create a Gizmo account, and you only need sign in when you want to make calls. Now, if they invent something that means you can send text messages for free, I (my parents) will save a lot of money.

As an extra note, you could be sneaky and create multiple accounts for yourself, each with one of your friend's phone numbers. Then all you have to do is call one of your 'contacts', and you will get a free phone call. It's good, innit?

First Day of Work

Yes I, David Lyness, have succumbed to the daily work routine... for a fair wee while now I'll be working at the Spar garage, a 30 second walk from my house. First day was terribly exciting, I learned the basics of all the till work (so many things to see how they work) and on top of all that there was a power cut and everything was going mental with the computers... definately a strange first day of work. But I enjoyed it all the same, it's convenient as its just down the road from my house (well, literally it's down the road, make a left, follow the lane, 180 degrees turn and you're there) and they have all the electronic stuff there as well, learning to use that will be good for later life experience and all that stuff. I'm going in tomorrow as well, have to sign all these company policies, better make sure I'm not signing 30 years of my life away as a shop assistant or anything. I still haven't been paid for today yet, mental note to ask them about that...

Summer Update

It’s now official… I’m very bored. I am actually struggling to find something to do. I’ve completed the first 7 levels of BanjoKazooie completely over the past couple of days. But Rusty Bucket Bay (Level 8) is a personal hatred of mine so no more N64 for a wee while, even though I’ve only done one today. Though not having much to do definitely has its advantages, there’s no real time limit on doing bible reading, so that’s definitely good.

In my vast amount of spare time at the moment I’ve been watching various comedians perform… namely, Billy Connolly, Jimmy Carr, Peter Kay and Eddie Izzard. They’re all very funny, and definitely a good source of humour when there’s no-one else around! Hmm, I really do need some more social interaction this week, though I’m not exactly feeling like seeing large groups of people (at the moment I would probably consider that more than two people at once) and so that does place me in a bit of a dilemma. Ahh well, it’ll work itself out eventually!

Summer Madness Review Part II

Sunday
Sunday morning was the Communion service during the morning worship, which although less well organised than last year went off without a hitch I believe. Sunday morning also appropriately saw the start of our daily Sunday School routine… singing Sunday School songs! I don’t know how many we clawed up from our childhood memories, but I knew almost all the songs so I think I was paying attention in Sunday School all those years ago at least a little bit! We were planning to go to a seminar or two on Sunday but alas we were too tired to go and just couldn’t be bothered. Sunday was spent again relaxing and reading, so that passed quickly enough, and unfortunately we would not again find the table tennis tables unoccupied to there went our chance of another tournament! I also went home to have a shower, since I didn’t want to go any longer without getting washed properly! Evening worship… again, no pillow… double underline with a cherry on top to bring a pillow tomorrow! Sunday’s summary isn’t very long but it is supposed to be a day of rest, so there!

Monday
This morning, wow of all wows, I remembered to bring my pillow to the worship session in the morning, and it was very comfortable! Tim Hughes had his SM 06 debut this morning, and all things considered I think he was better than Johnny Parks… his whole style suited my mood better methinks. After the worship session, our group had another of our own Sunday School (Monday School?) sessions, which was enjoyed by all. For lunch today there was a BBQ for Strandtown Baptist people, hot dogs and burgers for everyone. I myself had three. Don’t tell anyone. Shushh. The early part of the afternoon was spent lounging around the tent area reading books, lying on waterbeds, etc. The latter part involved a mini-waterfight erupting in which yes I did get soaked but that’s what made it so enjoyable. In the evening Tim Hughes was playing again and he was great, as was Mike Pilavachi, he did possibly the most hilarious bible study I’ve ever heard, and I’m not sure if there was anyone there who didn’t laugh when he started on his whole “the two other disciples” tangent. The late evening involved chatting randomly in our lounge for a few hours! Me and David were quite early to bed (relatively) and we missed such banter as a gate being laid in front of the girl’s 12 man tent. We did hear screams of laughter though.

Tuesday
Not much to say here! We got up, packed up our stuff, had a bit of breakfast then took down our tent. Soon came the morning worship, again led by Tim Hughes also with Tim Collins taking the last talk of SM 06. Was very emotional, referred to by some as "the most exciting part"... I thought so as well. Soon enough everyone (those who weren’t doing Streetreach that is) were heading off to the car park to be picked up, and I had my first ride in my granddad’s new car, though he has had it for over a month now.

And so ended my Summer Madness experience of 2006, 2007 will see Summer Madness and Streetreach more intercombined (did I just make up that word?) and so I guess I won’t be able to avoid doing it next year even if I try! It is going to last from 29/06/07 to 0707/07 next year and for those of you who are below primary school age that’s 9 days, might be too long for some people, I’ll know I’ll be exhausted after it all!

Summer Madness Review Part I

Well I did promise a Summer Madness update, so here are the details to go along with the photos... this is Part I, including Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with Sunday, Monday and Tuesday following in Part II tomorrow.

Thursday
We journeyed down to the King’s Hall to set up our tents. Out group (Strandtown Baptist Church) found that we were in ‘The Square’ subcamp, quite a nice wee place actually. Well we did finally get our tent set up, no thanks to the girls who kept insisting that we weren’t setting it up right and that it was going to fall down… I suppose that George in particular was partly right, seeing as she did make the front bit collapse twice from falling into the tent after 1am! After our tent had been set up I pondered along to the Londonderry Hall where the guys from 1st Holywood (my church) were setting up theirs… as they were inside, they didn’t have to worry about any rain we got during the event, but since their tents were put down with a limited supply of bricks rather than tent pegs they did have a tendency to… well… just blow away. A special note to the ‘Party Dome’s’ complete outer sheet which was completely taken off by the wind by the return on Friday. Other banter was had such as convincing Emma McNeely that all the wee things around the edge of the Londonderry Hall were urinals (when in fact they were water outlets for horses or whatever usually stayed in there). The journey back to Holywood was just as eventful, Dani getting a bit of road rage and not having a clue where we were… but we managed to get home fine.

Friday
We all met down at the King’s Hall at about 4pm, got our wristbands, of which I put mine on too tight and it was kinda a pain for the rest of the event… I still have a mark on my hand from it! Even with all the rain the previous night our tent was still standing, and dry. Friday was the night of getting to know others a lot better in the camp, since as yet there were no deeply spiritual things to ponder. All too soon the evening meeting came and Tre Sheppard was the main speaker with Johnny Parks leading the worship. To be honest, the standard of Johnny Parks wasn’t as good as last year, or maybe there just wasn’t the mood for his style as much this year as last. So yeah, I can’t actually remember what the talk was on, though it did include a story of his infamous father trying to put out some kind of forest fire. Actually, now I’ve just remembered some stuff about the talk… it was Peter’s declaration of Christ and then the bit after that where Peter rebukes Jesus. I remembered as I connected it to the Yoda comment. As a side-note, any of you with good memories will remember that Tre used exactly the same talk at Summer Madness last year! We were in the 2nd row in the centre sitting on the floor, I made a mental note to bring a pillow next time to sit on! After the worship I found out that Strandtown Baptist and Christ Church had our own building to use – a lounge, TV room, kitchen, toilets, the works! Very, very useful! Plus, free breakfast, lunch and supper for the duration of the festival! What more could you ask for? (Don’t say free dinner.) Friday saw the one and only table tennis tournament in which I think I got a bit over-excited in. Anyway I think Kathryn Boyd deserves the winning merit for beating all of us at least once. Silly girl. Only joking Kathryn!

Saturday
Saturday dawned too early at 5:50am with guys in the tents next to us being very noisy. And I want to stress here that me and David Grieve were not making all this noise… all we did was ask them if it was possible to get flavoured lipstick! Don’t ask us why. So then the girls blamed me and David for waking them up, etc, etc, etc. So we were up quite early and in good time for breakfast. The morning speaker throughout the festival was Phil Collins, and he was a pretty good speaker, some stuff he said really hit me at the time, but since it’s been… what… a few days now… and since it was in the morning I think I was still half asleep during them so I can’t honestly remember what they were about! From Saturday to Monday most of the girls in our group were away at Feet First, a youth club type thing where primary school children could be taken care of while their parents / carers went off to morning worship. I would have been completely up for it, having so, so, so much experience with working with children that age (I’ve done child protection training, what, four times now…), but I decided not to because that would mean missing the morning worship, and I thought that was more important! So yeah, me, David Grieve, Sarah and Vicky all labeled ourselves the ‘selfish Christians’ (jokingly) since we decided not to help with Feet First. Ahh well, what’re you gonna do? People helping out there did get their rewards though… the ability to use the showers in the morning for an hour before everyone else! Saturday, Saturday… that seems to be a bit of a relapse in my memory. I remember going to the Teen Suicide seminar, the guy who was taking it, Dr Paul Millar, put it across very well, and although I knew him from before Summer Madness I didn’t stop to chat! We tried to get Ricky McNeely’s birthday announced with the texting service that SM provided this year, but unfortunately they ignored us! Ahh well, there’s always next year… and the next… and the next… The rest of the morning was spent I think with me and David reading our books under the shady shelter of the gazebo and Wade running about with his shirt off. Was a bit of a distraction, but I’m not going to lapse here into the insults that were hurled during the time from Friday to Tuesday! Saturday evening saw Tre and Johnny take stage again, doing more of the same thing. I really do apologise that I can’t remember what any of the early talks were on, though I did really enjoy them! Again, no pillow was brought to the evening worship, made an underlined mental note to bring one tomorrow! Saturday evening saw the appearance of Sing-Star. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a game where you attach microphones to the PS2 and then you have a karaoke competition with someone else… was very fun! Especially Sarah and Blunden strutting their stuff! I didn’t have a go on it, no prizes for guessing why! (I can’t sing very well… I would only embarrass myself a lot!) So then David and I had our daily / nightly uber serious talk and he had the nerve to fall asleep right in the middle of it!

Madness Photos

A full update will be posted either later tonight or tomorrow, but for now you can view my flickr account which has most of the photos I took while I was there... click here to view them. Hope you're all enjoying your summer holidays... I pity those who still have to do their GCSEs!

Let the Madness Begin

I'm taking time now out of my busy schedule packing, eating breakfast and watching Spiderman to make a quick post here... in a few hours I'll be going off to rainy, rainy Belfast for possibly the rainiest Summer Madness yet. I'm hoping that the tent we put up last night is still there and has not become waterlogged, though I suppose I'll know by this afternoon. So 5 days of staying in a tent with Mr Grieve, should prove fun enough, we do have a 4-man tent for the two of us so we shouldn't be pushed for space.

When I get back I'll post whatever pictures I have on Flickr and if there are any somewhat interesting videos I'll put them up on Youtube. It all depends on what photos I can get my hands on whether I make a compilation video of it, but that's all in good time, Summer Madness is today!

Spiderman 3 Trailer

Anyone who knows me well knows who my favourite superhero is... and although Spiderman 3 isn't due for release until 4th May 2007, a trailer has been released for the film... you can view it here. All I can say is, for fans of the films, it looks amazing. Even better than X-Men 3 did. So yeah.

My first week off has been very relaxing... I've watched the first season of Prison Break and without spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it / is watching it, I really enjoyed the entire series... apart from the bit at the end. Gah. Second season is scheduled for August (USA viewing), I think Fox are just stringing it out to make more money out of it now. But when were they not?

I had my first day of summer work today, was just down in my dads shop cutting an insurmountable number of keys. Then I got called half-way through the afternoon to climb in through a security window in the Shell petrol station next door as they had locked themselves out of their office. Was quite funny, although I now have a small rip in my sort-of-tight white t-shirt that Mr Grieve oh-so-likes.

And now with less than 2 days until the start of Madness, I'm starting to look forward to it, looking at photos and videos from last year and hoping, praying that God's presence will be felt as much as it was last year... and that He would guide me as to what I'm meant to do, as I'm feeling kinda lost at the moment.

Finally Over!

Well this post is a day late but yes the exams are finally over! I'll never have to do as many exams ever again! And now I'm on my summer holidays! Now all of you who finished last week can stop mocking me!

U+1

Well I was down in Moira park on Saturday for perhaps the third time ever, and it was a brilliant day. Worst part was probably the getting up to be down at Strandtown for before 10am, espically with having a physics exam the day before! And then Eye-Spy on the bus which I was quite obviously too tired for but soon had everyone stumped with my mystery word (they didn't even guess it was 'driver').

The first four bands, which I think were 'band of brothers', 'supervision', yFriday' and 'Titus', in my opinion, all sounded exactly the same... it did indeed seem like one very, very long song all through the morning and early afternoon! Brian Houston was next, with his usual folk-style music but I quite like that so in my opinion he was good... I got a signed poster and CD off him later so that wasn't too bad! After him was my favourite act, Johnny Parks, all the usual summer madness songs plus a couple of new ones. Note to Johnny Parks: stick to the old ones. They rock. New ones which nobody knows are really not good. A special note to Chris and Sam, who amazed us with their, er, original dancing. Very good.

After Johnny Parks there was a wee break in all the music stuff, then it was Mannafest time. Axiom kicked off, announcing that "this will be the last time they will be performing at Mannafest". After the act ended there was much cheering... but whether for their act or because they were gone I don't know. I didn't really like them that much though. After them were Bluetree, tied second with SONiCFLOOd for the best act. They had their usual songs and I like them (Dancing Generation, Seek Ye First and the Happy song to name a few) and the crowd loved them. Then there was the talk... and yeah I wasn't really listening very well. Something about the Titanic. And Luke Skywalker. And someone being an incredibly stupid child. Anyway, if I'd listened better I probably would have got more from it but as I didn't I just chatted and did other stuff. It was at this point that I almost fell on top of Hannah but then did a spectacular stumble for about 10 metres without falling. Apparently it was hilarious to watch.

Evening time came and the only band left was SONiCFLOOd, who did quite good songs although I didn't know a couple. Once they were over and the random dancing, backflips and the like were finished, it was back on the bus back to the church. And so it was a very eventful day with many pictures on the camera, half of which were of Vicky whom David decided to just keep taking pictures while we talked. Theres a couple of good ones in the bunch actually.

So now it's Tuesday with a Physics exam tomorrow and a Chemuistry exam on Thursday and then it's overrrrrrrr... finally! And no-one say it's going to be a massive anti-climax because it's not. Two years of work finally over! YEsterday I put in a job application for the Spar garage which is like 60 seconds walk from my house, not the best job, actually most probably one of the worst, but it'll get me started with experience and stuff. I'm not going to go work for my dad again - I have to put up with him enough at home!

John 14:2

This is a poem I did a couple of days ago, quite different from the usual depressing ones! But yeah I was just doing a bible study on this passage and was pretty cool and I started writing about it.

John 14:2
"There are many rooms in my Father's home,
and I am going to prepare a place for you."

=-=-=

There is a place, made just for me
Where I know I'll be truly free
This place not touched by a human hand
But was created at the divine command
Of He, the Father, the start and the end
My childhood guardian, my lifelong friend.

A place of peace, of love, of rest
Founded and kept at my Father's request
Not just for me, but for everyone
Who profess faith in God's only Son
Everyone having their own special place
Where they can feel the warmth of God's embrace.

To this room in my Father's house I'll go
And upon me He will bestow
A cure for my sadness, a relief from my fears
Giving me happiness through my tears
And finally in this Heavenly place I'll see
Joy and fullness - guaranteed!

=-=-=

New RSS Feed

I've updated my RSS Feed from Blogger to Feedburner, so hopefully that will make it easier to keep up with the RSS for those who are having problems. I might do a tutorial or something soon, but for now, you can click the link below to be taken to the RSS feed, or if you have (i) the Firefox browser or (ii) the Google toolbar for Internet Explorer, you will notice an orange RSS icon up in the address bar, just click that and subscribe to feed... now in your bookmarks or favourites you have a live bookmark which will display my most recent posts... fascinating!

Ich muß eine deutsche Prüfung nie wiederholen!

Ich habe keine deutschen Prüfungen überhaupt wieder! Die ist die aufregendsten Nachrichten, die ich alle Woche gehört habe! Ich habe noch die zweite Geschichte Prüfung morgen, aber ich interessiere mich nicht, keine deutschen Prüfungen!

===
Translation
===

I have no German exams ever again! That's the most exciting news I have heard all week! I still have the second history exam tomorrow, but I don't care, no more German exams!

Exam Update

Biology exam today and honestly it went much better than the first – even though it was supposed to be the schwieriger paper, weil it had all the long questions on it. So talking to Dr Fox after about it (while handing in my textbook, I don’t make a note of going to talk to teachers after an exam) and she said that the 2nd paper had a 55% weighting on the examination score. My immediate thought was “Joy, I’ve only crapped up 45% of my result”. Biology out of the way, good way to see it go actually, with an exam which I thought went well.

From the previous paragraph you can probably tell that I have German tomorrow, reading and writing, an even more joyous occasion. Yes, that was sarcasm for those who don’t pick up on it sometimes when used on the Internet. That’s resulted in a few awkward conversations.

So yes exams more than half way over now and in a couple of weeks the GCSEs and two years of work will be over, who knows after the 2nd Chemistry paper (last exam) I may just break down in tears like I did at the 11+. Hmm that was five years ago. It doesn’t seem all that ancient actually. So I’ll leave you now with some German revision, which is the German verb ‘anbaggern’. It means ‘to approach with sexual intentions’. I’ll try and use it tomorrow.

Website Launched!

Today is the official launch date of the website! Finally got a few minor issues sorted out and now it can replace the blog. Maths exam today I found very easy… definitely what I needed after the horror that was the Biology exam. So now, just over two weeks until the end of the GCSEs! Woo!

Introduction

Alrighty, this is the blog I'll be using from now on, I'll set my old blog to automatically re-direct to this page. Not much introduction necessary here I don't think, but yes for the technically minded people out there I've finally worked out what was wrong and you can subscribe via RSS to the blog content, the site feed URL is http://breathingthebreath.blogspot.com/atom.xml. Happy reading!