Alright, alright, I haven’t blogged in ages. And I know I keep saying I’ll blog more often, but it requires being in the right mood, having something worth writing about, and having the time to write it.
The past month for me has consisted of more ups and downs than an alternating current. This is a long, boring and condensed overview of the last two months. So grab yourself a cuppa, sit back and relax.
Around a month ago we sat our mock A-Level exams. They were an absolute disaster. Over 70% of the maths group managed to get a big fat U on their paper, and as amusing as turning it into a smiley face was, it was still a U. According to my IT teacher, I managed to achieve the highest mark in the IT mock paper; I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I’d done very well in that paper, so to find out the result filled me with a little confidence. Physics is horrible, it really is. The test basically contained things we had never (and still haven’t) covered, but I still managed to get a D, which although it sounds pathetic, wasn’t too bad comparatively.
I’m really starting to get a little worried about A-Levels now. The pressure is really on; these pesky little buggers are much harder than GCSEs. It doesn’t help that our old, bubbly physics teacher has temporarily been replaced by a really old teacher who seems to have the incredible ability to actually slow down time when she talks. The lessons really are torture, they’re the kind of lessons where nobody seems to get anything at all. And at the point of writing, we still haven finished the course and the exams are next ruddy week!
On the eighth of December we had to present our marketing proposal business presentations. The business teachers are great; as long as you get the work done you can really work with them which is of course very beneficial for the project. My presentation consisted of presenting a fictional range of Microsoft computers with Microsoft software to combat Apple.
I’m a very strong believer of the look smart, think smart phrase. I’d say I normally dress relatively neatly, but for my presentation I decided to don a grey suit, blue shirt and purple tie (complete with golden tie clip). It did get some weird looks from some people. But I don’t care about them, they can fail their presentation and go back to their crack house to write depressing music. I was slightly late for my presentation due to printer problems; the school system is pretty bad.
When I arrived Mr Chittock was just taking Mr Webb’s position as the judge, if that’s what you call it. Think of it like X Factor but with a business presentation rather than a fat girl strangling a cat. I drew my magical pointer pen and I presented my presentation as best I could, I had ten minutes and only ten minutes to get through and read 30 slides of condensed information. I didn’t think I was going to fit it all in, but evidentially I did as I was told it was “a fantastic presentation” definitely worth “13 or 14 marks out of 14”. When people asked me what I got I chose to relay the lower mark, I didn’t want to boast and I certainly didn’t want to risk telling people I got 14 and them find out I only got 13. However, I did actually manage to get 14, only one other person (a girl in the other group) managed to get top marks. Thankfully, there’s no looming exam in business as a lot of it is coursework, which is very good for me.
Business lessons are easily the most enjoyable of the week. Although, I often end up being provoked into some long rant about weird, awkward and uncomfortable matters. Before the Christmas holidays something I said was misinterpreted and related to women’s breasts in the lesson. I launched into a humorous defensive rage, whilst Mr Chittock also decided to join in the fun and relate the hand movements I was making to the subject matter. Indeed, business lessons are certainly an interesting variation on a stereotypical lesson.
Physics, on the other hand, has been exceedingly difficult. The substitute teacher has been teaching us for about a month, but she hasn’t actually been teaching us, if you catch my drift. She’s the stereotypical old teacher who spends the lesson writing work on the board for us to simply copy down. I honestly cannot think of a more ineffective or inefficient method of teaching. Our learning has further been restricted by many unforeseen circumstances, we’ve probably missed a good month of teaching, and due to the recent weather and snow days STILL have yet to finish the course.
December the eleventh was my birthday. I love birthdays, it gives me an excuse for being smug and childish. I was wished a happy birthday by many and given a couple of presents and a couple of cards. A couple of birthday wishes were addressed to ‘Maxwell’, the name Lauren calls me by despite my full first name just being ‘Max’. Everybody made it fantastic, and I started to arrange a get-together closer to Christmas to celebrate my 17th with a small selection of my closest friends.
Amidst the chaos of the Christmas period (Bah! Humbug!) there was a Christmas party. Whilst not usually in my nature to attend such social festivities I decided I’d give it a go, afterall, it was the first party in sixth form I actually had the opportunity to go to. I even bought a rose for one of my closest friends who’d been a good friend when I was feeling down the previous week. I got the bus to the party, I sat with Chris Minns, he’s a great guy to be around. The bus journey was rather wild, and consisted of the majority of the bus shouting “You slag!” which was apparently an amusing line (which is entirely matter of opinion) off a TV show everybody watched apart from me.
I envisioned a prom-like event. I envisioned wrong. It was more of an overwhelming drugged up hippie rave that had an all night soundtrack consisting of music that was less imaginative than the stuff you’d hear in a lift (or elevator, for my American reader(s)). I arrived and basically didn’t do much thereafter. I was duel kissed several times, first by Sophie and Lauren T, and secondly by Chris Minns and Lauren C. I mainly stuck with Ben, Nico or Chris S during the evening; it wasn’t really their scene either.
As the night went on I became more depressed and miserable, and regrettably, so did basically everyone else whom I care about. It was the worst of times. But here’s a snapshot of of the party, I’m in there somewhere!
And here’s the party when it really got started. Not really my scene, and the people who urge me that it’s actually fun to join the sweaty bundle of human flesh on the dance floor and dance like a moron are ruddy liars. Pfft! Parties!
After the party, it was the bus journey home. I taunted a couple of drunk people before I left though, why not, they’re not gunna remember a thing. “Do you know what the cure for a hangover is? Nothing, so you’re all screwed!” I sat next to Tom Cook on the way back, yet another person who was feeling miserable, I think we were probably the only sober people on the bus.
Thursday, the day after the party. Now this was an interesting day, almost everyone was recovering from the previous night. It was snowing pretty bad, I don’t really remember too much of it. Long story short, school was closed the next day ’cause of the snow. Usually a day of school is cause for celebration, I didn’t look at it that way. I hadn’t given anyone a card or present as I’d (like with everything else) left it to the last minute. The party and snow day made the week come to a very anticlimactic end.
None-the-less, Christmas was looming over head. A season for good will. No, I’m only joking, it’s really the season for big companies to get idiots to spend more money and mess up our economy even more. But I, as you do, entered the festive spirit and got my closest friends presents.
I spent a good chunk of time finally sorting out something to do with friends to finally celebrate my 17th birthday. I kept trying to sort out a date that suited everybody, and I eventually came up with the 20th. Finally, things looked promising, I had got rough confirmations from everyone saying they were gunna make it. A couple of people were coming over and the others were meeting as the cinema, as we were going to watch New Moon.
Lauren was the first to arrive, after which we went up to the summer house along with my sister. Chris also arrived. We all chatted for a couple of minutes and then we set off to the cinema to meet the others. We were a tad late but still go there in time to see the film. I gotta admit, the Twilight Saga is one of those things that has sparked massive controversy, and I think a lot of people dislike it purely because it’s caused such a mass following of obsessive fans. However, having said that, I thought the film was good it had a good story, but part of it and possibly it’s main flaw was that some parts felt as though they were specifically catering for fans who wanted to see all sorts of weird romances in contained within. I’d say it was a good film though.
As we came out of the cinema I suggested we all went and got a coffee. Although, in retrospect, this wasn’t the best idea. The paths were lethal, blankets of ice had settled there. Staggering through town, taking one step at a time, we found that the coffee shops weren’t open as it was a Sunday. I texted my dad to come and pick us up, at least I think I did, I’m still new to this mobile form of communication. We made our way back to the cinema, when I’d arranged pick-up. I walked close to Lauren on the way back to act as support as her shoes had literally no grip at all. All in all it was a pretty pointless walk, but I quite liked it. Oh yes, and Eliza had me believing she was a part time prostitute for half of the journey.
On the way back home we stopped for pizza. How many teenagers with more than adequate intelligence does it take to order a pizza? We all went in to order, it wasn’t very successful but we came to a conclusion on the food in the end, thankfully Eliza seemed to take charge and order what we’d all decided on… Then I added lots of other stuff. During the waiting period my delightful dad came in and went out of sight, and walked back out again. Seconds later, the waitress came out asking “Where’s Max,” at first I thought it must have been another Max. I was caught out and given a Pizza Hut cardboard chef’s hat and some colouring pencils with which Lauren and I decorated the hat. Hm, thanks dad.
Once we made it home with the pizza I directed the gang straight to the summer house. We chose to watch The Hangover, Eliza told me it’s hilarious and will only make me feel a “little” bit awkward. The large white sheet isn’t on the wall for no reason though, we have a projector to project the film onto. Nifty. Everything set up and boom. The projector didn’t work. Ben fiddled around with some stuff like a resident engineer and I phoned dad to come and help, during this time, Lauren went and got it working.
The Hangover was a pretty hilarious film. Most of the funniest parts were just based around general stupidity, for example when a Holocaust ring is mentioned, the comeback is “I didn’t know they gave out rings at the Holocaust.” It’s the things you don’t expect that make it funny, and the film is filled with those bits. The credits were… awkward. I had to jump for the control to turn everything off.
My parents then walked in with cake singing me Happy Birthday, before we dealt out the party bags. The girls preferred the contents of the boys party bags though; pirate gear. It was a fantastic evening, I still believe it was probably the best night I’ve had in years. But pictures or it didn’t happen, right? Well, lookie here!
I got to wield the knife to cut the cake. I always have a tendancy to be really childish when weilding sharp objects, it not the best combination. Time had flew, the cake was the metaphorical full stop of the penultimate chapter in the evening. As Ben and Chris were picked up, I gave them a small Christmas present. I went with my dad to drop off the Chloé, Lauren and Eliza after exchanging Christmas gifts with them too. And that was that, a thoroughly enjoyable evening with five of my closest friends. Everything seemed to go great, I wanna do a gathering again at some point with the same people; it just seemed to work.
Over the next few days leading up to Christmas, I really got into taking the dog for long walks in the snow. I always moan as I’m going out, but when I actually get outdoors I kind of like it. Yes, for reals. I don’t know why, I think it just gives me peace and quiet to mull over things that’re on my mind or going on in my life.
Christmas was one of the best this year, it just went really well, we all got great presents and all enjoyed ourselves. In my family, we spend Christmas as a family at home, it’s pretty traditional and that’s how I like it. I’m quite a traditional chap, see? When everyone was up we all went down together to see what Santa had left us. I got Modern Warfare 2 as my main present and haven’t been able to stop playing it since. Stunning graphics, great gameplay, fantastic story, what more does a growing boy need? I had so much to eat on Christmas day, and the days after. So much chocolate!
Then there was the inevitable interlude whilst we awaited New Year’s Day. I kept busy though, started work on my new website design (which at the point of writing is live) and met up with Andy. Andy had texted me asking if I wanted to meet up and see a film. Eager to socialise I agreed and set off that night to go see the new Sherlock Holmes film. It was great to catch up with Andy, I hadn’t seen him during the holidays. Sherlock Holmes was a decent film, certainly is not the stereotype though, but I still haven’t entirely decided whether that’s a good thing.
I didn’t really do much else. I spent most of the days sleeping and feeling like an anarchist everytime I was told to get out of bed and didn’t. A couple of days before New Year’s Day, I received some tragic news about a close friend, I won’t go into it, but it made me feel pretty upset.
The night of New Year’s Eve (I don’t even know whether that requires capital letters), my family and I watched the new Star Trek film. I ordered it ages ago but hadn’t watched it. Have you seen it? It’s amazing. It really is five star material. I was so in the zone that it prompted several days on sitting downstairs and just watching the original series of Star Trek.
Holidays seem to go faster and faster now-a-days, the Christmas holidays went too fast. Before I knew it I was back at school for the physics revision session. As we were all so far behind and in a last minute futile effort to attempt to prevent failure, physicists were told to come in a day early for a quick run through of what we should know. It didn’t really help that much, but the guy teaching it was great, a real eccentric physics guy with a green laser pointer. Incidentally, green lasers are very cool, as soon as I got home, I ordered one.
Tuesday was the official day everybody went back to school. It was good too see everybody again. Business wasn’t the same, but it was still rather fun and had the usual characteristics of a typical business lesson which I’ve spoken of. Lauren says I look like and remind her of David Mitchell, a guy who was on The Big Fat Quiz of The Year (especially when I didn’t dance in such a way that apparently happened on the program). Peter agreed with with this, but I don’t really see too much of a similarity. It’s not the first time this comparison has been bought up at school, I don’t even watch enough TV to know. I was sent a link to said person and compared it to my Facebook profile picture…
The afternoon was the first real physics lesson with Mr Halls. His lessons are great, Ben and I sit on the same table and the majority of sarcastic, witty and humorous comments spawn from there. In fact, after showing Mr Halls an XKCD web comic, he decided to give me my own small section to put up things related to physics that I found funny. The wall or area will be called ‘Max’s Wall of Exceedingly Eccentric Nerdy Things Vaguely Related to Physics’. Mr Halls is one of those teachers I think I get on pretty well with, he told me about his iPhone which now just makes me want one even more. Below is a picture of epic physics lesson!
The rest of the week went pretty slowly, I won’t go into much detail as there isn’t much to talk about. School was cancelled for a day and a bit due to the weather. It absolutely chucked down the snow snow. The week has pretty much been cramming for exams that are starting this Monday (tomorrow). I don’t know how I feel about the exams. I know I’m pretty much screwed for the physics one, but I think so are many others. We have yet to finish the course, and have had no real practice or advice. I see a resit there.
During the week I hired not a just a but THE voiceover man for my website, which you will have probably heard on the homepage of this website. His name’s Peter Dickson, he’s a great guy and gave me quite a bit of extra material to work with. Once I had these files I launched the final version of the website which uses CSS3 to achieve shadows and rounded corners rather than images. Internet Explorer still doesn’t approve and messes it up but in every other browser I think it looks pretty professional. In case you didn’t here it or just wanna hear it again, here’s the voiceover!
How the new design SHOULD look in a half decent browser.
I think that’s pretty much given a swift overview of my last two months. I’d love to say I’ll update more often, but as history shows, I’ve broken that promise before. I might write a blog moaning about exams next week. Who knows?
Admittedly, this blog was slightly rushed and it is almost 3,500 words, so if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies bung me a quick message and I’ll fix ‘em up.
