Busy busy busy

Busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy busy.

Get the message? It feels as if I don't even have enough time to blog properly. And yet I still manage to waste ever so much time doing I don't even know what.

Grrarrghghggghhh!

Gah

I think I have handed in a few to many cruddy essays this year. :S And I only do the one essay subject. Possibly due to the lack of argument in the majority of said essays, and the lack of enthusiasm to write said essays. And the temptation of procrastination. Poemmmmmmmmms....mmmmm. And I have good excuse to be playing the clarinet lots and lots and lots and lots over the next two or three weeks. (Arrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!! Grade 8 is way too soon and I don't know any scales!! Gahhhhhhhhhh.)

Naomi's sleepy. *yawns*

Haven't posted for a while...

...and so will now. :)

The week so far (and the few weeks coming up) have (and are expected to be) rather hectic, which isn't so great, especially when it's weeks on end. Ah well, it's Friday afternoon sleep time of year now, which makes it slightly more bearable.

Sunday saw me spending the day in Hillel House in Euston, in the morning for orchestra, and the afternoon for an aj6 Oxbridge interview preparation type thing. I didn't mind that: the day was enjoyable; it was getting home. There's no met line between Harrow on the Hill and Aldgate at the weekend at the moment, plus no Jubilee line between Neasden and Stanmore. For anyone who doesn't know, I live on the Met line and the Jubilee is pretty close too. To get to Euston I can also take the Silerlink, but when we finished on Sunday I went to Euston Station, and I would have had to have waited for half an hour for the next train to Kenton, which I wasn't really up for. So I went and took the tube, taking the Jubilee line to Willesden Green, and then taking a rail replacement to Northwick Park. This was all fine and dandy, until walking home from the tube station...which took twenty-five minutes! (This walk normally takes eight, so twenty-five is quite a bit longer.) It was dark, and there were scary drug gangs on the rape bridge, so I walked the long way home. But it took a long time and I got wet and cold. :(

Monday I went to the dentist in the morning (my teeth are fine :)), and then went on to school, and in the afternoon I went straight from school to Raleigh Close shul for Andrew and Rosa's sheva brachot. Which were wonderful, except there was something up with the PA system, which meant we did a much much shorter set than planned (although how they expected to quite fit in the full set, I have no idea). I liked all the balloons and party poppers and bubbles!! I love bubbles. :) (Little things please little minds.)

Hmmm... Tuesday. I went in late, did the maths challenge, went and had chemistry explained by Mr. Dawson (our new head of science, who knows what is in the syllabus, unlike my other chemistry teacher) and had English and orchestra in the afternoon. It just seemed busy, despite the late start. (Possibly due to not returning home until about 6.15pm.)

Today I don't overly remember, apart from having further maths and maths, but no other lessons. And I don't seem to have done enough work tonight either. Gah. Damn having four essays for the same subject at the same time. *silly teachers*

Responses to the American election.

The front cover of today's G2.
I rather liked this. The Guardian didn't do anything overly impressive with their headlines in the main newspaper, unlike the Independent, which had a cool spread of war photos, etc. with a black background and the words "FOUR MORE YEARS" between each row of photos, but I thought the cover of G2 was even better. Especially since they did so little with their headline of the main paper. All I can say is, at least Bush won legally and with the popularity vote this time. Better than the last. That doesn't mean I'm happy he won, just happy that he won slightly more fairly than last time. (Although I've heard so much about their campaign, which was sneaky.)

Second offer!!

*jumps up and down*
*jumps again*
I've received my second offer! *jumps and squees* This one is for Birmingham and I need to get the grades AAB with an A in English literature. A bit scary, but then, it is an excellent university. :D I'm very happy about that one, as you can probably tell. ;)

Oooh, and I received a letter yesterday inviting me to interview at Manchester. :) The only scary thing about that is that I now have to prepare for a maths interview. (I've applied for joint honours in maths and English at Manchester, straight English everywhere else.) I'm borrowing the maths university interview folder from school tomorrow and checking out what it has inside. ;) Still a little scary.

*dances* I have another offer! *dances and jumps* *grins*

Late night poetry writing, photos and stuff...

Poem first, methinks. (I wrote this last night, or maybe on Saturday night.)

Words
Fabricated fecundity
Impressing the reeling eyes and the seeing mind,
Not sure where
or why
or how
or who
Its meaning both clear and confusing
At once understood and uncomprehended.
Intending one thing,
Meaning another
The author's ideas confounded
And compounded by the reader's interpretations.

Why each particular word,
Each sy-lla-ble,
Each l-e-t-t-e-r,
All significant:
nothing doesn't have a reason.

And yet, wade in too deep
And you'll be lost,
Lost in a world of analysis,
Unable to see the wood for the trees.

If you just take a step back,
Not a mile,
Not a kilometre,
Not a metre,
Just a single step,
Look at what's in front,
what's behind,
and where you're standing,
The whole picture, the overall meaning,
How the colours blend to make the masterpiece
The notes to make the symphony
Then you might just realise
That there's no poınt at all.

Second: photo news. In August I blogged from Israel, on Torani machane: one day we went to Tel Azeka, and I whined that I had forgotten my camera and requested a copy of the group photo from there from anyone reading this with a digital copy. Well, Jonny Lipczer (*waves to Jonny*) "stumbled upon" my blog, read my plea and sent me the photo! Here it is:

(For those who have forgotten, Tel Azeka is where the Biblical story of David and Goliath happened. David was up where we took the photo, Goliath down by the road which you can't see in the photo.)

And other stuff...
I'm currently trying to find two essays that are vaguely decent and I don't mind talking about at interview to send off to Oxford (they sent me a letter asking for essays on Shabbat, as well as a separate letter with college allocations).

I'm rather annoyed that I didn't go to Limmud tonight (one-to-one Jewish learning), but I thought it best to appease my father. The only thing is, is that there is no Limmud next week, as it is sheva brachot (a big meal (party in this case) in the week after a wedding where the seven blessings from the wedding ceremony are repeated at Grace after Meals)- where I'm playing in the band. :D Lots of fun.

My grade 8 is scarily soon (within the month) although I still don't know the exact date, as they gave me a Saturday (grrr) so I'm going for cancellations and there haven't been any I could do so far.

Hmmm... I think that's about it. I'm sure there's other stuff that I've forgotten, but then I keep forgetting things of late.

Painting late at night

I painted this late last night, in celebration of finishing the first draft of my coursework, and just for some relaxation too. As with all my paintings, I'm not sure which way round it looks best. If you rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, that's the way round I painted it, but then, it doesn't always look best that way.


This is another photo of the same. I used acrylic paint.

'Hecuba' was good yesterday. :D I was rather shocked that one of the bodies in a body bag was an actual child as opposed to a manikin, and it was rather gruesome, but then that's Greek tragedy for you, I guess. Unfortunately when we got there they only had standing tickets left, so we stood for an hour and twenty minutes watching the play, which wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. And it was an excellent excuse to go and sit and have coffee for a long time afterwards. (I am beginning to worry that I'm addicted to coffee. I needed a drink the other evening and had some of my parents' decaffeinated coffee, and it just didn't do the trick. I had to have another drink afterwards. :S) And I finished the first draft of my coursework. :D

Procrastinating.... again

To the extent that I am actually writing this at 11.34pm, not 11.04 when I supposedly started writing this. Now that's procrastinating procrastination, which I think is pretty impressive.

Darn English coursework. It isn't that I don't like the text, but I don't like the essay. It just isn't nice. I mean, I reckon it is the better of two evils and I actually couldn't think up my own question or subject to write about, or else I would have, but still.... mrrgrhhrahhggh. (And no, I don't know what that sounds like, apart from like mrrgrhhrahhggh.) I've written almost 1600 words and I know there's more to write, but it feels so bitty and mrrgrhhrahhggh. I like that word. Mrrgrhhrahhggh. Mrrgrhhrahhggh. Mrrgrhhrahhggh. That felt good. And I want to paint some silk, except I don't have any plain silk in the house and I can't be bothered to go all the way to Greenford just to buy some silk. And I have lots of work still to do. A poem critique, maths and oodles upon oodles of further maths (an entire chapter of exercises on something I vaguely understand and then I have to teach myself another chapter, which is supposedly "easy". Yeah right. If it's easy, then I'm a Dutchman).
Not to mention the coursework. (Wha..? Did I mention something there?)

Theatre tomorrow. :D
(I like this font.)

A photo

Sara (my sister) and I at Nanny's 70th birthday party. (Nanny is my grandma. She turned 70 on the 20th September this year. Belated online birthday wishes.)

Going to see 'Hecuba'... anyone want to join us?

Kajal and I are planning to go to see 'Hecuba' at the Donmar Warehouse on Thursday ; we're planning on the matinée at the moment (it starts at 2.30pm). If anyone would like to join us, please let one of us know by Wednesday night. We'll let you know where we're meeting if we're meeting before or anything like that, but it should be good and has had some good reviews. For the Donmar's website, click here.

Oooh, I'm also planning on going to see 'The Tempest' at the Bloomsbury Theatre next week if anyone wants to come to that with me. I think the Saturday night is the only night with tickets left at the moment that I can make (it's only running for three nights, Thursday has sold out online I think and I can't do Friday night), and it starts at 7.30pm. Less is likely to come of going to see 'The Tempest' than 'Hecuba', as Kajal and I are definitely going to see that on Thursday. Let me know if you want to come to any. :)

New shoes!

I went shopping and I bought...

Smiley all over :D

I received my first offer today. :D:D:D Well, a letter informing me that I will be receiving through UCAS the offer of a place to study English at Leeds and inviting me to an open afternoon. :) So I'm incredibly happy and smiley, even though Leeds isn't my first preference, just because I've heard from somewhere and I've received my first offer. :) Despite not knowing what the conditions of the offer are, and silly UCAS don't know about it or haven't updated their site yet. *sends vibes to either Leeds to inform UCAS or UCAS to update their site*

Poemmmmmmmmms

The poetry I ordered on Amazon arrived on Friday. And that's two weeks early, which makes me much much happier and grinning all the time. Except it arrived on Friday morning (and my mum was lovely and texted me to let me know the good news) and then I didn't actually go home until Saturday night, which was rather upsetting as I wanted to read my new stuff! (Roger McGough's 'Collected Poems', by the way. As wonderful as expected.)

Yes, shiny new books. :) (I bought 'Titus Andronicus' too, but that is less exciting in comparison to the poetry. But it is also very good.)

Schoolwork. Lots of.

Don't you love how you have no work for ages, and then all of a sudden nearly every lesson is a test of some sort and you are set hours upon hours of work each night? And this always happen to coincide with consultation evening? Well, at least, I do. Chemistry, maths, further maths and English. Lots of work from each. With an essay set last week just 3 days after our coursework was set, and the essay (or at least my essay) approached 3000 words in length. Plus all the other stuff. And I'm convinced it's due to the fact that it's consultation evening tomorrow. Funnnnn. Humph.

Ill

Ugg. Damn doing too much in so little time it makes you ill.
I hate colds.

It always rains in London on Succot

Whatever one says about English weather (or whatever I say), however supposedly unpredictable it is (for example having blazing heat forecast and then it snowing- and that did happen), it always always always always rains on Succot. Always. And nearly always on the Succah crawl. (Although I am amazed that Jon managed to play 'captain's coming' in my garden, on the grass, in the rain, with little kids slipping over. But he did, and well done to him.)

Unfortunately, the roof of the rabbi's succah collapsed or fell in or broke on the second day of Succot, which managed to *slightly* change our plans, since we had an oneg (a programme thing) planned for the youth there (which was relocated to the Coopers') as well as all the groups going there on the Succah crawl (we sorted something out. More groups went to each of the succot we were already using). (Think pub crawl, similar but going round succot (the strange leaf-roof hut/tent things we build this time of year) and instead of getting drunk (we wouldn't provide alcohol to minors now, would we?) eating sweets, playing a game or few and possibly trying to teach them something. <- a Succah, except it's meant to have walls too. And there's a cute model one here.

But mrrrh, there's going to be lots of work to catch up. And I keep forgetting what I want to say. Hmph.

Ah, Hebrewisms.

Haha. I was searching the net for a movement shirt (the shirt I wear as a leader of my youth movement), thinking perhaps if I ordered it myself from Israel it would be cheaper, and came across an advert for בלוגים- transliterated to 'blogim'- which when I clicked on appeared to be a whole load of Hebrew blogs. Oh I do love how they use an English word (not even a proper word! A shortened word!) and then add the Israeli ending. Haha. :) *muses* I wonder what the plural of telephone and fax are in Hebrew. Hm. Anyone know? And how do they know if the word is masculine or feminine if it is stolen from another language?

New year, in more ways than one.

Not only have we just begun a new school year, but the Jewish year 5765 started 10 days ago, which translates into much missed school for Naomi and a 25 hour fast today. Funnnnn. The missing school aspect of Jewish festivals is definitely the con, due to the large amounts of catching up of work that needs to be done. It wouldn't be so bad, had I not chosen to go on a Spectroscopy day at UCL on Tuesday as well, and the fact that many classmates conveniently forgot to bring in their notes from the days when I was away, despite having 'phoned them the night before to remind them to bring them in. Ah well. I think I have notes to try to digest from all my missed lessons now. I even understand some of them. Now that's something.

Today was good. I even managed to refrain from reading anything secular for 25 hours this year, which is quite an achievement, I thought. I stuck to reading R' Aryeh Kaplan (z"l) last night before I went to sleep, and another of his books during the services, when admittedly I should have been praying, but there's so much, I mean, it's all day. I arrived at shul this morning at 9.30, and didn't leave the building 'til 8pm. And I didn't eat or drink. And anyway, reading some Aryeh Kaplan is better than reading say, 'Lord of the Rings', when you are supposed to be focusing on religion and getting close to God and stuff all day. Especially when the book is about finding God, and why He created the world, and why everything we do is for Him.

I went to the Rabbi's question and answer session during the break (our services don't quite take all day, so we had about an hour's break. It was supposed to be longer, but the services overran a bit) and there was the annual "why don't we wear leather shoes on Yom Kippur? And can we wear leather on any other part of our body?" question, along with a few other questions, including one about "Shabbat lifts" whereby there are some hotels (or high rise buildings) which have lifts that either (i) go up and down on their own, stopping at every floor, or (ii) have someone inside pressing the button, and is it okay to use them? (For anyone who doesn't know, we are not supposed to use electricity on Shabbat, and that includes pressing the button in the lift.)

Hmm. Well, I'm tired, so I'm heading bed-wards. Night. x

Woo! Home early. :)

General studies this afternoon is only for those who chose to do UAP last year, which meant I could leave at 10.20. :D Had a rather surprised Shirley at the door just now, who couldn't understand why I was home. (Haha. Her boys went to Habs, and apparently they weren't allowed home if they finished early, which I think is cruel.) She delivered some very nice flowers for my parents though. :) It's their pearl wedding anniversary tomorrow. And my dad retires (for the first time, as he keeps saying) today, so we are having a kiddush on Shabbat, which should be nice, if not just because my brother and sister-in-law are coming to Kenton for Shabbat, and so I can see them. :)

Anyway, off to enjoy my unexpected freedom for the rest of the day (it's sunnyyyyy).

School

We've been back at school now for... *goes to find diary so can count the days*... 5 days, with 2 being pointless time-wasters, one of which I could have spent much more productively making chicken soup and banana crumble (don't ask. Just never put cinnamon in, it ruins it) for 50 peopleand 3 days were lesson filled.

In true HBS style, they've been decorating and refurbishing through the holidays and have managed to not finish by the time everybody returns for the new term. Oh, I do love my school. Having said that, the drama department is now the bright zingy yellow that I wanted for my bedroom and was never allowed, and now having seen it on walls, it only confirms in my mind that that was the colour I wanted in my room. I would be able to jump out of bed in the morning with the strength of a lion (Shulchan Aruch) and would not be able to remain depressed for long. Also, yellow has that positive energy thing. You know, the thing which is shown through the fact that football teams that have a yellow strip often do well. (Not all though, I think. I'm not much of a football expert, I just remember reading the yellow thing somewhere and that being used as an example. I think Brazil are an example of this.) The common room (sorry, the blue room in the loft) is a lovely blue colour, a bit nicer than the one in the room I'm sitting in now. (The 'study' or Daniel's old room, as it is otherwise known.) Further examples of typical HBS-isms are the way in which some rooms now have interactive whiteboards. Which would be great, were there the electric sockets for them to be plugged in and a working computer system would help too. All forms of electronic registration are apparently down, and so we have had to resort to signing in to little blue books.

Work-wise Naomi is feeling alright at the moment. I actually did the English summer work over the summer, and so don't have to rush to finish it in time now (I finished all of my thingies, as opposed to just the first one, which is what we had to have finished) and so far we haven't been set any more, which is rather nice. (Although of course reading is going on... just no set written work or anything.) Maths hasn't been too bad: we've been given work to do, but not too much, which is always kind on the body. Further maths felt really intense: we had just three of us in the class- almost like a private school! Chemistry has become rather scary with quite a bit of work (or in comparison to my other subjects, anyway ;)), with a big table of ions to learn (although I know lots of them already :)) and a whole chapter worth of questions (which is quite a bit, as you have to bother to read the chapter to be able to do the questions).

Anyway, to bed with me. I'm leaving my personal statement for the day.