Exam panic

I was going to post some photos today, but sadly the school computers are
devoid of camera memory card readers. And to think they call them 'up to
date', hah! So instead I'm going to have to tell you about the coming exams,
although I know I'm going to regret it later. Still, here goes...
First of all come the French speaking tests, or Orals, a little like the
tremor before the main earthquake. So long as you know enough vocabulary this
isn't particularly hard, provided you don't lay on a silly accent. I have my
oral on Friday, so no worries there [insert sarcastic laugh here].
Then come the main body of exams. These are rather cleverly arranged to come
after a holiday, during which the organised pupil can do some manic revision.
The preps (a bit like homework, but not at home) are set aside for yet more
revision and even more panic, until by the end of the week you're a nervy,
frazzled wreck for whom the weekend could not have come soon enough.
Well, at least there's some good news. After the exams, we spend a lot more
time rehearsing for our play, so much more in fact that one of the preps has
to be abolished. What a shame [insert even more sarcastic laugh here]. Not,
of course, that the play won't leave us utterly knackered by the end of term.
But such is life.
Tune in next time, for more fun and (hopefully) photos!

My school - a day in the life

• Time: Early
• Location: My bed, My dorm, My boarding house, My school, Berkshire, England

I wake up, as always, early in the morning. My brain is, to put it lightly, not working to its full capacity. I try and gather my thoughts for several minutes, until eventually the house master opens the door and sweeps all them all away. I am expecting this, as half the doors in the house make an appalling racket and my dorm is near enough to the end for there to be a significant creaking build-up. The curtains are rattled open also, leaving the room bathed in a pleasant light. I haul myself up to sit and peer through the two windows visible from my current position, one in my dorm and one in the room opposite. Both reveal largely tree branches, but the lighting difference is evident. Behind me, the many spreading twigs are flooded from the front with the sunlight, revealing every scrap of lichen and change in colour. In front, a little way away in the opposite dorm, very similar twigs are silhouetted against the bleached white sky. Pleasingly different.

---

• Time: A little later
• Location: See above

The light is turned on, and I climb out of my top bunk blinking.Painstakingly, I tear another leaf from my 'Easy Answers Science Calendar' - or something like that - in search of this morning's enlightenment. I read the day's entry and feel a little cleverer. Then I dress and trudge downstairs for washing, teeth brushing etc. It's a little quirk, albeit quite logistically sensible, that everyone does their teeth before breakfast. With this done, I go to the main common room and attempt to divine which sofa has lost the least stuffing. I sit down and watch the news, which is showing inaudibly on the television in the opposite corner. Soon afterwards we go.

---

• Time: Quite a bit later
• Location: Lower field, just outside the house

The main portion of the school lies a short way from the house, meaning that to get there you have to cut across one corner of the playing field. There is a lot of frost this morning, which is surprising - given the fairly warm weather of late - but not entirely unexpected. It really is quite cold.

---

• Time: Breakfast
• Location: The dining hall

I have breakfast, unsurprisingly. Cereal, some food or other, and toast. Highly nutritious.

---

• Time: Lessons
• Location: Various

Lessons go along nicely, as always.

---

• Time: Break time
• Location: Somewhere

Dull.

---

• Time: More lessons
• Location: Various

As before.

---

• Time: Lunch
• Location: The dining hall

Chinese New Year recently, so Chinese food for lunch today. Chopsticks too. Quite how the Chinese can live with eating implements like that is quite beyond me. I imagine it takes them an entire day just to eat breakfast one piece at a time. I have some unidentifiable curry and some rice. The headmaster says that it is traditional to eat the animal whose year it is, so as it is the Year of the Rat I'm thankful for once that I am a vegetarian. It later turns out to be something mediocre like beef, but not before someone has thanked the kitchen staff for 'the rat'. What a laugh! We also have watermelon, easily the most disappointing fruit known to man.

---

• Time: Rest
• Location: The music school

A quick tinkle on the ivories before the sports session. Practice makes perfect!

---

• Time: Games
• Location: The sports ground

I do sports. Badly. It's a miracle they've actually managed to find people my equal. I am what the more sensitive teachers call 'in it for the enjoyment';, and they are what I call 'wildly overstating'. Putting all that to one side, I do actually enjoy it.

---

• Time: Yet more lessons
• Location: Pretty obvious

Lessons. You know what I mean.

---

• Time: Tea
• Location: Brink of insanity, somewhere in the dining room

This is about the time when I start feeling like throwing myself in the path of a large ballistic missile. I have to supervise one of the tea tables, even though there are probably a number of human rights regulations explicitly banning it. Trying to serve 10-12 unruly school pupils an entire meal, and get them to clean up afterwards, is no easy ride. Take it from me.

---

• Time: Bed
• Location: The house, again

Thank goodness for sleep! One moment you're yawning beneath the sheets, the next an entire new day of pure horror has arrived. Goodnight.

Pics pics pics!

Here's the latest dose of photos from the JakeC album. I haven't got time to include info at the moment, so please be patient.

My favourite: Games

I was going about my daily business recently when I was struck by a thought not dissimilar to the one a couple of posts ago. One-off spurts of fun and stuff are all very interesting, but maybe a little series of posts would be nice? I've decided on a 'My favourite' theme, starting with games...

Aside from all the other things I do, a good game is always a nice break between everything else. These are some I enjoy.

Fancy Pants

If you've ever had the desire to control a fast and agile stick-man in garish trousers around a series of spider-infested levels, then this is the game for you. There are two games to choose from, the original game and World 2, each with its own merits. The second one is more challenging, and you can choose a different trouser colour if you're dissatisfied with your current style. The first level has the advantage of being - in my opinion - a little easier, plus it has an angry penguin at the end, which is always a bonus. Whichever one you choose, they're both a real laugh.

Free Rice

If you're good with vocabulary, like a good game and want to help relieve world hunger, take a look at Free Rice. If you guess the meaning of a word correctly, the site donates 20 grains of rice for use by the UN. There don't seem to be very many different words at any one time, but the difficulty changes according to your ability and it's definitely worth it both for the inner satisfaction and the improvement of your conversation skills. Play it today, for the good of the world!

Nitrome

Somehow, I don't think this list would be complete if I didn't include Nitrome. It's not really a game - in fact 'it' is actually a 'they'. They're a game producer, but they deserve a place here anyway. They produce good games, and they produce lots of them. The ideas are strange but entertaining - squirrels bouncing chicks on a trampoline, cacti in sombreros riding a Mexican handcart, that sort of thing - and the graphics are wonderful. I defy you not to like this site!

Nets 'n' Codes and Microformats

Not long after my last post, I noticed a couple of things. Firstly, I think I may have gone a bit mushy on you, for which I apologise (unless you like mushy, of course). Secondly, I managed to slip the words 'vEvent Microformat' into there somewhere without explaining what that's supposed to mean.

Let's start with Microformats. A Microformat is something that, using nothing more than standard, clean HTML, can tell your computer as much about a web page as the text itself tells you. For example, if the creator of a page has put their contact details at the bottom of it, then any human of modest intelligence can say to themselves: 'Hey, those are contact details!' Fair enough. But if the creator has added a Microformat to the address, then any program that understands how the Microformats system works can also say 'Hey, those could be used in an address book/email/map program! I'll tell my user.' How nice.

There are lots of different Microformat specifications for everything you could possibly need, and a few programs that can deal with them. I, for instance, use the very nifty Operator, a Firefox extension that picks them up and puts them in a menu bar for my delectation. The whole thing works on the mutual understanding that users of the specification will use their HTML elements in a certain way and that a suitable program will recognise them as Microformats. A little like language, perhaps. I could write down whatever letters, numbers and punctuation I liked in this blog, but as it happens I choose to arrange them in such a way that they make English. Similarly, you could choose not to recognise English, but - thank goodness - you decide against it. It's the same for a lot of things, including Microformats.

But I digress. The point is that technologies such as this are the next big step in intelligent automation. It may not be long before your browser can send notifications of an event to those listed as attendees, or can find people - not just on one site but around the internet - who share interests, hobbies, affiliations and anything else besides. Scary, but amazing.

P.S: My mother doesn't think I was particularly mushy in my last post, so I apologise to those who think likewise. I would also like to take this moment to apologise for the extortionate number of apologies I've made. On second thoughts, I apologise for that...

P.P.S: I just realised that, when you're enthusing about something on the Internet, it's always nice to have a link to that something. So...

• Here's the Microformats website.
• And here's what an hEvent is.

Simplicity

The other week, I had a sudden thought which, like any sudden thought, struck me when, where and how I was least expecting it. That is, on a Sunday, in the shower, by means of a small bottle of wildly exotic liquid soap. At first I dismissed it, but then, just the other day, it occurred again, and I felt compelled to tell the world about it.

You see, the soap to which I allude was by Original Source, a company who create soap in the way nature intended (if nature ever intended us to use soap). And it occurred to me that, all things considered, this simplicity was in surprising demand these days. Then, with my rudimentary knowledge of history, I looked back, and found that it hasn't always been this way. For centuries, in fact, fancy Renaissance and Baroque and hundreds of other complex styles have been the height of fashion. Then, with my similarly rudimentary knowledge of prehistory, I looked even further back, and found that, actually, it has been this way once before. Give a caveman a piece of flint and a big stick, and he's happy.

And then (and this is the important 'then') I thought - as I do rather too often - about the Internet, and there was the connection. Give an early Internet age programmer a means of connection and a draft HTML specification, and he's happy. Then later, everyone wants large, impenetrable code blocks that do practically nothing. But now, the time of semantic HTML has come, something that can be read by even the most backward of browsers, that actually makes sense. And I like that, which is why this momentous occasion has been immortalised in a vEvent Microformat, which I like almost as much. The age of simplicity is here for good, and I'm welcoming it.

And then...

...there was a new post! Not the longest or most interesting post, I’m afraid, as I only have until 11:30 or whenever the supervising member of staff leaves. It’s not that they don’t trust us (well actually it is, but let’s pretend otherwise), it’s just that the temptation to wander from the legal path is always there (or so we are led to believe). Talking of supervision, I have to go now. But I’ll be back!

I'm back! Did you miss me? This email posting lark isn't as straightforward as I imagined. Or rather, Microsoft Outlook has a way of making it so. Let me run through the basic stages I have undergone thus far.

1. Open Outlook.
2. Create a new message.
3. Experiment with available editing options.
4. Discover that there is no mode for editing raw HTML.
5. Lessons.
6. Write my post in WordPad and pray that the resultant HTML file can be turned into a message.
7. Curse all things Microsoft.

The next day...

I think I've finally worked this out. By creating an HTML file externally, opening it in Internet Explorer (which, let the record show, I am not very fond of either) and finally selecting the option that allows me to email the page to that magic address. So here it is!

And the moral of the story is... never trust a Windows program unless you're sure you can.