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.

The Dreaded Pictures

Are you in the mood for pictures? I certainly am. I've included some photo data on these ones as well in case anyone's interested in that sort of thing. Enjoy!

A typical Portuguese seafront Taken: 11:55 2008-01-09 Focal length: 9.6000004 Exposure time: 0.00125

A beach board walk Taken: 2008-01-09 Focal length: 15.8 Exposure time: 0.0020000001

A birdwatcher's paradise Taken: 14:27 2008-01-09 Focal length: 51.799999 Exposure time: 0.00125

My sister by the pool Taken: 2008-01-06 Focal length: 13.1 Exposure time: 0.0040000002

No, I do not know how the camera has managed to measure these statistics to sub-atomic accuracy. Nor do I have any idea what units it has so precisely measured them with. At a wild stab, the focal length is in millimetres and the exposure time in seconds. If anyone knows the real answer, I would be intrigued to find out. Although to be honest, I just like taking pictures.

A True Inconvenience

If I say 'a good deal later', I'm afraid I mean it. Rather than sweeping the problem aside in the hope that it might go away, however, I shall give you the low-down on my sporadic posting here and now. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Being at school, my periods of freedom are as follows:

• Weekends (every week, lasting 1 1/2 days): With any luck, I should be able to post at these times.
• Exeats (every three weeks, lasting 3 to 4 days): In the absence of more pressing matters, I will definitely post.
• Half term (8th - 17th February): Much the same as exeats, except I might post several times if I'm feeling really daring.

Any period between these renders my blog inaccessible for school rule reasons, as far as I...

...WHOA! If the effort is not too much, erase all previous bad news from your mind. I stand completely and utterly corrected. Let me take this new revelation in for a moment... [Several hours later] OK, I'm just about ready now. Basically, I just found this, which says that I can email new posts to a special address, from whence they shall be published to these very pages. Pretty obvious if you bothered to read the manual, you may say. But really very useful. My school rules state that bounding around the web is forbidden, but emailing at specific times of the day is not. Problem solved. Now let's take a look at the revised timetable of freedom:

• Every day (11:00 - 11:30): If I remember.

Happy now? I certainly am.

It's goodnight from me...

As the year draws to a close, I'm afraid I have some sad news... What, are you going to continue in the new year? Shut up, I didn't ask you. Keep your hair on! As I was saying. I have some sad news. Tomorrow we are going on holiday, and I will not be able to sustain my usual torrent of online wit... Who're you kidding? Do you mind? I'm busy. Anyway, on my return I would be able to start posting again, but I start school again on the same day. So until a good deal later, it's goodbye. See you in the new year!

Part Eight: The spiritual side

 A little while later, Mr. Torrall – the R.S. teacher – made an announcement in the staff room.  “The police are letting this matter get out of hand, so I’ve hired someone decent to clear this whole shambles up.”  “They won’t stay for long,” warned the head sarcastically. “As soon as they see what’s happened to me, they’ll be off in a flash!”  “Unlike your idea, headmaster, this one can be carried out in the safety of the school building,” retorted Mr. Torrall acidly. “I’ve hired a medium to find out who and where this killer is.”  “A medium!” spluttered the headmaster; spraying the tea he was drinking all over the staff room. “Don’t tell me you believe in that airy-fairy spiritual stuff!”  “I’m an R.S. teacher,” Mr. Torrall replied simply, “it’s my job.” And at that he walked out, looking slightly put out.

More on the Internet (or How to get the best out of your connection)

One of the main problems, or sometimes attractions, of the Internet is that it can do very strange things to your life. One of the strangest things is that it can be a help and a hindrance almost simultaneously, being both the perfect organisational, social and recreational complement to today's world and the distraction that can completely and utterly ruin your freshly organised, socialised and recreated world. It takes a gargantuan attention span not to wander even slightly, at worst close to indefinitely, from a task involving the world wide wonder, and - as I have found out several times to my cost - it can push everything else off your schedule pretty quickly. Having said all this, it's only fair that I put forward the other side of the argument, namely that one of the main problems/attractions of life is its strange effect on the Internet. Everyday goings on fill blogs worldwide, social networking sites allow similar people to come into contact, consumer demands cause more businesses to plunge into the age of the web. And, although it may not always be safe, it will remain interesting for evermore. The Internet may well doom us all, but who can imagine a more enjoyable doom?

The Perils of the Internet

Yes, perils. Small innocuous-looking web pages and features that, within milliseconds, have reduced your browser to a heap of smouldering code. Basically, what I'm trying to say in a rather roundabout and vastly exaggerated way is that I have, on this very day, been a 'victim' of a minor peril of my own. From this site, no less! Before I begin, I think I ought to say that I bear a grudge against neither Google nor Blogger. It would take somebody saving my life (or possibly paying a large amount of money into my bank account) to push either of them off the top of my 'people I didn't know about until they made a fairly large impact on my life' list. But I digress. On with the story! Actually, there's not that much to be said. For a few minutes, Blogger had a little panic and decided that the great evil hacker hordes had swept down on me and converted me into a super-fast, super-intelligent and undeniably evil piece of malware. Google soon cottoned on to this however. With the great, automated hand of Internet justice, they redirected me to their specially set-up apology site where I could view the aforementioned information but do no harm to the peaceful, law-abiding citizens of Google-ville. Eventually their system let me back on, none the wiser. Like all good stories, there is a moral to this cautionary tale. If a site doesn't like you:

1. It's probably not personal (although you never know).
2. If you wait, the problem may pass.
3. There are plenty of other places to go, if all else fails.

I'm back again...

...and I'm angry! Well... not exactly. I'm certainly worn out. But, after a hectic first few days of the holidays, I think I'm just about ready to settle back into the old routine again. So, let's tackle the important parts one by one, shall we? After my customer satisfaction survey, I find myself looking at a veritable mountain of comments. Then I switch back to my own blog, and see absolutely zilch. Such is life. Secondly, you may be interested to learn that I am touch-typing this entry. Not particularly special, you may say. But considering that none of my other entries are thus typed and that my WPM was, last time I checked, absolutely appalling, I think I'm doing OK. It's more like 'snail on caffeine' than 'snail on sedatives' now, at least. Thirdly, if all goes well, I will be blogging a little more frequently from now on (i.e. I will actually be blogging). This is because it is on a little list of things I would like to do. So now, you can enjoy my wonderful posts at any time! (Don't get carried away - Ed.*) Bye for now! * OK, so I don't have an editor, but I can dream, can't I?

Some questions

I'm sure you've all been waiting for my next post with great anticipation. You've lost sleep over what I was going to say next, yearned for something to happen. Your need for my witty and intellectual observances has led you up to, perhaps beyond, the bounds of sanity... Who on earth am I kidding? If anyone has anything better to do than read this, I don't blame you. If you're still with me, however, read on... I've decided that, if I'm going to get anywhere, I need to know who's actually going to be interested in where I get. So, it's Customer Satisfaction Survey time!

1. Are you, have you ever been or do you intend to be affiliated with any Communist organisation? (optional)
2. How long have you been reading this blog?
3. What led you to this blog? (e.g. link, friend told you, unfortunate accident etc.)
4. What do you like/not like about this blog? (this is not a trick question)
5. How often do you visit this blog?
6. What sort of content would you like to see on this blog (within reason)?
7. Would you recommend this blog to someone else?

Answers on a postcard (although comments are easier).

Part Seven: Things get moving

Chapter 2: The Awakenings

 “What’s happening? I came as fast as I could.”  “I’m not sure. I think he’s waking up!”  “That’s a relief, he was looking absolutely awful!”  “…find him!”  “Good heavens! Is that you, headmaster?”  “Good God, my leg feels…WHAT!?” The headmaster was up like a shot, staring around in horror. “What the dickens happened to the pavilion?”  “You passed out rather badly.” Said a member of staff, unrecognisable through the head’s haze of concussion. “We found you the next morning.”  “Oh.” Said the head, feeling distinctly drained. “What day is it?” “Thursday.” Replied the teacher, now recognisable as Mr. Barnston, the football coach. The head groaned and desperately tried to will himself back into unconsciousness. Not Thursday! That was when the school council met up, or was supposed to meet up. If it weren’t for the ISI, they probably wouldn’t even have had a school council. As it was, they did have one, but they got around the hassle of holding meetings by never having any. After all, they only said you had to have a school council. But this Thursday there was an inspector coming round, so they would have to have a meeting to avoid any Awkward Discussions. One thing always to avoid with school inspectors was an Awkward Discussion, as the head knew from bitter experience. If the head had his way he would probably just ditch the whole idea and turn to oligarchy, it was just so much more efficient. He wondered whether it was worth asking which Thursday it was, but decided that if someone had been unconscious for that long then there wouldn’t be much hope left for them. Then suddenly a thought hit him.  “You don’t happen to know what infernal device managed to put me out of action for so long?” he queried.  “As a matter of fact, we do.” Replied Mrs. Reander, one of the other staff present. “The police said they were going to send an expert round to look at it, but it’s still here.” She pointed to a battered-looking contraption in the corner of the room. There was something strange about it, but the head couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It wasn’t constructed as such; it looked more as if the necessary parts had gravitated into roughly the correct positions. However it had come into being, it certainly looked murderous. Even more worrying, it was still loaded with its ammunition of cricket balls. The head winced. “The D.T. teacher tried to take it apart on Tuesday;” added Mrs. Reander, “he woke up a few hours before you did.” This was more than the head could stand. Clutching various items of furniture as he went, he staggered out of the room.

More pictures

Here's some more photos for your consumption. These are from a family trip to London: The London Eye A boat, as seen from the Eye A squirrel A small bird on the Eye The pictures are much better quality now, because they were taken with my new camera. I'm very pleased with them, and I hope you like them too.

Some photos

I think it's time we had some pictures here. These are some that I took on a visit to my grandparents. A lone cow. The local poplar plantation (one of many). A lone sheep. I would make these pictures bigger, but Blogger doesn't like me uploading them any larger than 'small'. It's probably for the best, as the camera used for these shots is getting fairly old (for a camera). Anyway, enjoy!

The marvels of technology

As people go, I'm quite good at hoarding the most ridiculous pieces of junk ever seen by man.* One of them, however, has become rather a favourite of mine. In essence, it is an ancient static electricity generator. By pumping the handle on it as hard and fast as you can, you are supposed to be able to generate a very pleasing spark between two pieces of wire quite close to each other. For reasons unknown, it no longer works, but for reasons even less known you can still get a fair zap out of a strange and presumably meaningless piece of protruding metal that I swear wasn't there before. It will quite happily give a mild jolt to anything vaguely conductive which, to my not-entirely-pleasant surprise, includes me. With a bit of hard work I found that I could create a most satisfactory arc between the metal and my finger, albeit quite painful on my part. Although it's all very well being able to charge yourself up from time to time, I wouldn't recommend it. Not of course, that everyone has a pump-handle-spark 'n' shock-generator. * Or woman, for that matter.

Part Six: The head volunteers

 Late that evening a figure crept furtively up to the pavilion, grumbling as it went. The headmaster rubbed his hands together and half-heartedly attempted to bring down a curse on all teaching staff. He’d never seen such a bunch of wimps! It was amazing; he thought bitterly, how quickly someone could contract a contagious disease.  Eventually, he reached the pavilion and cautiously peered in through a knot in the wood. There seemed to be someone – or something – in there, but he couldn’t make it out what it was. That didn’t matter, he would teach the blighter a lesson anyway. Drawing deeply from his courage reserves, he stormed in.  “Come out of there now, you filthy scoundrel!” he cried, with a commanding air that surprised even him. “I know you’re in there!” he added as an afterthought. Suddenly, there was a loud crack from the doorpost beside him as though something had hit it. Whatever had hit it, it then proceeded to hit the headmaster’s leg. “@§%¶¿ªǂɿ!” He yelled, utilising the author’s character set to its full extent. Slowly the pain in his leg turned to numbness, lifeless numbness that spread all through his body. As it reached his head, he gradually slumped to the ground.  “That bounder is going to pay for it when I…” Then a loud thud. Then silence.