the joy of study leave

Study leave is surprisingly unexciting, which hopefully will explain the absence of overly regular blogging. This unexciting blogging is made more exciting by Simon and also my baby nephew (who is still unnamed, photos may follow, but email me if you want to see one sooner). Saw 'Garden State' on Sunday night and ate pizza with artichokes (mmmm... artichokes), also saw baby on Sunday morning (he's so gorgeous!). Am getting steadily more and more bored with revision (what a surprise!) and am also in need of the January 2005 P6 OCR paper, which I wasn't given at school and I know is around. If you have it, please please email it to me! Or at least let me know you have it and a website where I could find it... please? This is an everything-in-one-paragraph mushy blog, as I'm clearly not thinking straight. English dinner that was planned for tonight is not happening tonight, as not enough people contacted Ms Fink to find out what was happening.. or something like that. If anyone from my English class is actually bothering to read this, and you still want to go and do something as a class, then email Ms Fink and let her know. Possibly email everyone, so we can all mull it over too, I guess. So, instead, I'm going out for dinner with my mum and sister, which should be nice (anything to get away from revision is rather nice, although I don't like the word "nice"). Ummm... any more unexcitement from study leave? Hmmm.. I'm not sure. I'm sure I will update again soon.

Spot me in the paper

The Jewish News, this week. Photo. Have a look. Ain't a great photo, but hey, what can you do?

Auntie Naomi

As of last night, I'm an auntie to a little boy. :) Very exciting news, and mazel tov to Daniel and Rachel (I think you sometimes read this, anyway). :) Photos, names, news etc will be posted as soon as I have/know etc. (In Judaism, baby boys are named at their circumcision, which is at least 8 days after birth. Photos are just as soon as I have digital ones.) Exciting wheeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. :D

Happy birthday to Netta, and I hope the cake was yummy. I wasn't up for hanging around for two hours for cake, when I could go baby present shopping and stuff. :) Hope the day wasn't too bad. :)

First exam today, P2. I thought it was a nice exam. Lots of "show this=this", so you know when you've got the right answer. The last question required a couple of minutes thought before writing, but wasn't too bad. (Would have been better if I had realised that t was time in days, not seconds. Doh. Ah well, all the maths was correct so I should get the marks.*hopes*) In usual HBS style, one of the maths teachers couldn't tell the time and so told us we had 5 minutes left when we actually had 15. That was funny. You'd think a maths teacher would be able to tell the time. It's worse than the history teacher last year!

Rather surprisingly (or, at least, we were surprised), the Kenton Youth Board won the 'Volunteers are US' award for young group this morning. We received a badge and the Chief Rabbi's new book. All very exciting. :)

First exam tomorrow morning: P2. Not overly worried, considering it's a retake and I've since taken P4 and studied for P3 and P6, so P2 has been seeming rather easy when I've been revising.

Not much is news, really. I had a nice Shabbat, where I left the house at 9.15am and returned at 9.05pm, having gone to shul (the synagogue) in the morning, out to a friend's for a really nice girly lunch, back to shul for BA (the youth group I lead at) and then back to the same friend for se'uda (evening meal thingy on Shabbat). And then I went home, only to discover that Simon had beaten me to it to getting there. :S Ah well, I arrived only two or three minutes after him (or so he claims). Very very very nice evening, which was goooooood. :) :) Thank you you. :) And then this morning we went off to this awards ceremony thingy, where we surprisingly won in our category. Anyone would think I don't have an exam tomorrow.

Oh, how procrastinatory I am. Lalilalilalilaa. *whistles*

Oh, and I've remembered that I wanted to grumble a teeny bit about the leavers' party- or more the fact that I left with my hair stinking of smoke :( which isn't nice, and makes me angry. Grrr. Damn (anti-)social smokers. Silly things.

It's strange. Often, I have the inspiration and the urge to blog and I'm all "ooooh I want to blog that", and then by the time I've switched the computer on, it's loaded and managed to connect up to the internet and I've logged into blogger, the inspiration just disappears into thin air. *puff* Which could explain the infrequency of blogging.

Update since my last post: well, I've had my last lessons at school, and am now on study leave, the boredom of which is being relieved by this here blogging and other things. We had our leavers' party on Sunday night at Cubana, which was good. They serve very yummy cocktails there. :) Photos from my last week and the leavers' party may well follow, as soon as I have a scanner or find one to use. I've got back photos from my last week, which are a mixed bunch, mostly nice, with several copies of the huge one of the whole year.

I'm currently being annoyed rather by certain friends whose exams start a good two or three weeks after mine, and yet seem to think they have the need to revise "crazily". *rolls eyes* Silly girls.

I tried revising in the garden this afternoon, only to discover that the sun kept going behind the clouds (okay, yes, I do know that it's actually the clouds moving in the line of the sun, but shhhh) and making me all colllllld, so I went back inside after a while.

Revision is happening, with plenty of maths and getting stuck on one question for ages and then giving up and stopping... I really shouldn't do that. And when I say stopping, I mean stopping revising that module and starting on something different, like reading some literary criticism or making more chemistry posters or doing a different past paper. But then, that's the joy of still doing three subjects with lots of modules.. I can switch when I get bored. (It's also a reason I like the idea of joint maths and English next year.. I shouldn't get too bored with either, as I *hopefully* won't do as much of both.)

Anyway, I've just been called down for dinner, so off I go to eat. Followed by revision, methinks. Chemistry tonight. w00t.

Last week

Headache is still resisting disappearance, and wisdom teeth are starting to make an appearance. Extra pain. Woo.

Reminded by a comment, although I was going to blog on the matter anyway (of course, don't doubt it), this week is my (along with all other year 13 HBS girls') last week of lessons, and I suppose what they call last official week of school. That translates into a week full of random flashes (there are way too many cameras around, although I shouldn't complain too much, considering mine is one of them, but I don't take that many photos), message writing (and mine are long.. it took me about an hour to write in Laura's book, I think), crying (okay, that hasn't overly cropped up yet but I'm sure it will and people are bewailing leaving and things like that), parties (yay two today- science party at lunch time and Ms Fink brought food in as well as a couple of others in English today), games of hat (a game similar to taboo, except instead of a word, it's a famous person or character, and there are no words underneath that you aren't allowed to mention, just the name), little work (like we would do much work in our last week.. although some people have been claiming they had four mocks this week, which I consider rather evil. I have had the one) and looking through the year book (which was around today, but everyone is receiving their copies tomorrow, I think, only a few were around today. Apparently I have the "Most funny laugh". I didn't realise it was that amusing, ah well). There are probably many other things too, but I forget simply because there are so many.

Off now to do a little work. :)

That "1 comments" thing that blogger does still bugs me. Mrrr.

Annoying headaches that last for a long time (whoever heard of a 3-day headache? It might even go on for longer, who knows. Anyway, I've had one for three days so far) also bug me. Especially when I'm the one suffering from it.

The majority of the weekend was spent in bed due to aforementioned annoying long-lasting headache. Funfunfun. :)

*shock*

Before I start, Simon, that does not count in the tally! It isn't spoken. ;)

(Just in case I consider reapplying if I get really good grades in the summer,) I was checking the Manchester University site to see if they are offering Maths and English to start in 2006... and they're not! *shockshock* (That doesn't count either. Please.) So that would mean either going to do Maths and English and getting money (yay I love how they give you money for studying there if you get good grades and do a rare subject) or reapplying without the possibility of going to Manchester to do the wonderful joint honours course. Gah. Gah. Gah.

Polling day

A delightfully memorable date, handy if your kid is born today or you get married- nice easy anniversary that is hard to forget. Also a (possibly memorable date for an) election. I was rather amused by the Labour bus, which passed me this afternoon when I was crossing Finchley Road near the O2 centre, megaphoning "Labour, Labour, Labour! Vote Labour! Don't let the Tories in by the back door! Vote Labour!" It amused me, anyway. My dad informed me that Hampstead and Highgate (or that constituency, anyway) is quite marginal, so that may have been the reason for the bus.

Surprisingly few posters and "for sale" type placard sign thingies supporting the various parties in my area. A few Labour ones spotted on the way down to the polling station and a fence that had Conservative (aren't I good? Nah, we all know them as Tory) posters pinned on to it.

Hopes for the outcome? Well, it would be rather nice if Labour did have a lower majority (come on, we all know they're going to win, or at least they're the better of the two evils), but at the same time I don't want Howard to have gained too many extra seats. I think it'd be good if the Lib Dems gained a few more seats (which they're expecting, I believe, although obviously not enough to be the Opposition or win or anything silly like that) and I think it'd be nice if the Green Party won that seat that has been reported that they may well win (Brighton somewhere, I believe. People walk down the street and shout across the road to the Green candidate, "I'm voting Green!". No Green candidate in my constituency, though).

Yesterday's school mock election was just funny, with the choice of candidates (well, not the individual candidates themselves, I rather mean the parties they represented) being rather... different, shall we say. In true Communist style, Anna (the Communist candidate) rigged it, voting many more times than she should have, and was consequently disqualified. Rather amusing idea, though. April and I were apparently the only year 13s to vote (we were heading out of the building, and I suggested going via the hall, so we did), and we both voted very differently to how we did today. Not that I know how she voted today, but she said yesterday that it would be very different.

Which reminds me, happy birthday April! :) (Eat lots of chocolate. :D)

Curtains, postcards and films

As promised yesterday, here are some photos of my new curtains and postcards:

[edit] I've just updated the photos with clearer ones: I fiddled with the camera a bit and realised they didn't have to be quite so blurry as before.


The curtains.


The detail on the curtains.


My postcard wall.

Right, and the film. Well, it was disappointing when compared with the book, but then few films live up to the book (or radio plays in this case). However, it was better than all the damning reviews made it out to be. And despite Marvin's physical appearance being really really wrong, I liked his voice. And the voice of the computer of the Heart of Gold. And the appearance of the Vogons. Arthur Dent was alright, but I didn't like Zaphod. He was full of himself and smarmy enough, but his heads were all wrong. I mean, there weren't two separate ones! Yes, it would have been difficult to have two completely separate heads, but video trickery and what-have-you these days must be capable of it. And how is one head meant to be able to talk to the other? Or lean on two separate headrests at the Restaurant at the end of the Universe? I liked Stephen Fry (the voice of the Guide) lots, and was thoroughly amused by the singing dolphins. Catchy song, too.

New Curtains!

Excitement of the afternoon is that we put up my new curtains, which are lovely. A photo will follow as soon as I can be bothered to find the digital camera and take one and then put it up on here. But it will. And at the same time maybe I will take a photo of one of my postcard walls, which has new additions. :)

Going to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tonight; my opinions (if it causes any, which I'm sure it will because I already think Marvin looks all wrong) will follow, I'm sure.

Pesach (Passover) is over, which is nice, mainly because of the fact that I can now go out and don't have to take all my food with me, being unable to buy much apart from fruit and some veg. Although I've been eating Pesach biscuits today, as they are rather yummy. And we have a surplus of yummy fruit juice in cans, which is good for the school front. Mmmmm. 8 days of lessons left at school! Scary!