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ravenLife is great and life is fine 'cause I've met a girl and no-one likes you...
Yes, the return of the Great Yellow Pages Song, courtesy of Fidan and a boring Biology lesson. I have been humming it abstractedly all day, in between everything else that persists on happening to me. I didn't update yesterday because my insomnia struck back with a vengeance over the weekend and having learnt my medication-of-any-sort-is-a-bad-bad-idea lesson, I just dealt with it the old fashioned way, ie, staring at the ceiling. At the end of the school day yesterday, I informed Mrs O'Connor I was asleep, and promptly went to sleep. I actually felt rather guilty about it afterwards, because I was so deeply asleep I can't remember a single thing that happened during the lesson. They say hearing is the last sense to go on the way down, and I dimly recall whispered fragments about language use in Othello, but more than that I could not say.
I feel much better today, which is good. Tired, but I'm always tired, and not so tired I can't cope. I got myself mentored as usual, philosophy today, and that was unexpectedly enlightening particularly as Miranda and Sam were squawking in the background. Then I went to Chemistry where we may have killed Mrs Miller.
Well, it wasn't exactly intentional. She said, does anyone have a calculation book, and no-one did, and then she asked does anyone have an A2 textbook and two people out of seven did. We can get them from the common room, we said, and she stamped her foot and shouted no-one was going anywhere. She stalked off through the back door of the lab, snarling in a very motherly way that we'd finally driven her insane.
"I think we broke her," I said.
Several people nodded thoughtfully.
Five minutes she came back in. "The photocopier's broken!"
In the end, she put the questions on the board, and we did them and got them right, mostly. No lasting harm done. We didn't actually drive her round the proverbial bend.
Talking of being driven round the bend, I'm rather sick of how my life now revolves around UCAS, and I'm probably boring everyone to death with my form-related trials and tribulations, so a brief explanation of what I'm doing, because I feel the need to be verbose.
UCAS is basically a centralised system for applying to universities and colleges in Britain. You can't apply without going through UCAS and following standard procedure; you get a form that everyone has to fill in. Well, we call it a form out of habit, as it's not paper any more. It's entirely electronic, which is a vast improvement on the days where it was paper and had to be restarted from scratch if you made the barest mistake. You fill in everything about yourself - your name, address, nationality, qualifications, employment, special needs, everything - and where you want to go. You get six choices of where you can apply to, and no more - if they all reject you, then you've got problems. And your personal statement, the most important part, is a free text box in which you explain who you are, why you want to do this course, and why accepting you would be a very good idea.
Then you send it off and wait for universities to either give you an offer or call you for interview. By the time you sit your A-levels, you hopefully have a conditional offer (or more than one) of some sort. You then hope and pray you achieve the grades you were predicted, and then you live happily ever after.
That's how it works in theory. In practice, there are added complications. UCAS opens on September 1st and closed on January 15th - unless you're applying to Oxford or Cambridge, or applying for Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science, in which case the deadline is October 15th. The fact this is two weeks away is doing bad things to my stress level.
My form is being processed as I speak. I do hope there are no more bits to add to my personal statement, as I'm entirely sick of it. I wanted to have everything done before the weekend so I can just enjoy the con.
Talking of which, it's the bright spot on the horizon. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to it. Bring on the geekery and further ammunition for The Colleen Show. I am now going to do this thing we call work. Boo.
Yes, the return of the Great Yellow Pages Song, courtesy of Fidan and a boring Biology lesson. I have been humming it abstractedly all day, in between everything else that persists on happening to me. I didn't update yesterday because my insomnia struck back with a vengeance over the weekend and having learnt my medication-of-any-sort-is-a-bad-bad-idea lesson, I just dealt with it the old fashioned way, ie, staring at the ceiling. At the end of the school day yesterday, I informed Mrs O'Connor I was asleep, and promptly went to sleep. I actually felt rather guilty about it afterwards, because I was so deeply asleep I can't remember a single thing that happened during the lesson. They say hearing is the last sense to go on the way down, and I dimly recall whispered fragments about language use in Othello, but more than that I could not say.
I feel much better today, which is good. Tired, but I'm always tired, and not so tired I can't cope. I got myself mentored as usual, philosophy today, and that was unexpectedly enlightening particularly as Miranda and Sam were squawking in the background. Then I went to Chemistry where we may have killed Mrs Miller.
Well, it wasn't exactly intentional. She said, does anyone have a calculation book, and no-one did, and then she asked does anyone have an A2 textbook and two people out of seven did. We can get them from the common room, we said, and she stamped her foot and shouted no-one was going anywhere. She stalked off through the back door of the lab, snarling in a very motherly way that we'd finally driven her insane.
"I think we broke her," I said.
Several people nodded thoughtfully.
Five minutes she came back in. "The photocopier's broken!"
In the end, she put the questions on the board, and we did them and got them right, mostly. No lasting harm done. We didn't actually drive her round the proverbial bend.
Talking of being driven round the bend, I'm rather sick of how my life now revolves around UCAS, and I'm probably boring everyone to death with my form-related trials and tribulations, so a brief explanation of what I'm doing, because I feel the need to be verbose.
UCAS is basically a centralised system for applying to universities and colleges in Britain. You can't apply without going through UCAS and following standard procedure; you get a form that everyone has to fill in. Well, we call it a form out of habit, as it's not paper any more. It's entirely electronic, which is a vast improvement on the days where it was paper and had to be restarted from scratch if you made the barest mistake. You fill in everything about yourself - your name, address, nationality, qualifications, employment, special needs, everything - and where you want to go. You get six choices of where you can apply to, and no more - if they all reject you, then you've got problems. And your personal statement, the most important part, is a free text box in which you explain who you are, why you want to do this course, and why accepting you would be a very good idea.
Then you send it off and wait for universities to either give you an offer or call you for interview. By the time you sit your A-levels, you hopefully have a conditional offer (or more than one) of some sort. You then hope and pray you achieve the grades you were predicted, and then you live happily ever after.
That's how it works in theory. In practice, there are added complications. UCAS opens on September 1st and closed on January 15th - unless you're applying to Oxford or Cambridge, or applying for Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science, in which case the deadline is October 15th. The fact this is two weeks away is doing bad things to my stress level.
My form is being processed as I speak. I do hope there are no more bits to add to my personal statement, as I'm entirely sick of it. I wanted to have everything done before the weekend so I can just enjoy the con.
Talking of which, it's the bright spot on the horizon. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to it. Bring on the geekery and further ammunition for The Colleen Show. I am now going to do this thing we call work. Boo.
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no subject
on 2004-09-28 11:27 am (UTC)I hope it doesn't cause you too much stress. But I think you'll do fine. I'm not the brightest person, and I only went in for 5 universities, and got conditional off 4 and unconditional off the 5th. So you'll going to do great :)
(plus this was with me only doing 2 science subjects, plus art and ict - they usually like us to have some maths a-level qualification if poss (i quit after gcse, it sucked, and i sucked at it)
xx
no subject
on 2004-09-29 05:33 am (UTC)I also suck at maths, by the way. I was terrible. Used to collapse the fabric of pure mathematics on a regular basis.
no subject
on 2004-09-29 10:12 am (UTC)Then we played consequences during an end-of-year test ;)
Hehe i shouldn't worry about it. Its not very likely to happen, and even if it does there are other avenues (Infact one of my unis after giving me an offer, decided there wasn't enough people on the course. They sent me a letter and asked if i wanted to give them details of another course, of a course at another uni, and they'd sort it out. Thats how i found napier - and was still accepted even though it was I think april or may at that point!
And theres clearing too. There are a lot of opportunities *glomp* But i don't think you'll need to worry about them.
xx
no subject
on 2004-09-30 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2004-10-01 12:19 pm (UTC)xx
no subject
on 2004-09-28 11:29 am (UTC)Damn you, now I'm singing the Yellow Pages song. If I write a songfic about James mocking Sirius because James is dating Lily and doesn't know that Sirius is dating Remus, it's entirely your fault, okay?
I'm looking forward to seeing on Saturday, too. Squee! Sorry about that.
no subject
on 2004-09-29 05:34 am (UTC)Songfic is generally a bad, bad thing, but for this I'll make an exception. Hee.
And, much with the squee. Squee!
no subject
on 2004-09-29 09:15 am (UTC)And yay to squee. SQUEE!!
no subject
on 2004-09-28 12:11 pm (UTC)I do find it strange, though, that you're limited to six schools. Around here, we're advised to apply to between six and nine schools (the traditional formula, which I hate, is "three safeties, two good fits, three reaches," or something like that). But you're allowed to apply to as many as you like. Of course, there is a practical limit on this: how far your sanity holds out. Generally you have to write several essays for each school, although some of them use the Common Application. Actually, I don't really understand the point of the Common App. You still have to write supplemental essays for each school; the only work you're saved is filling out your personal information over and over, and that's relatively mindless.
Anyway, my point was that I would be terrified if I were restricted to six schools... although in fact I did end up applying, by chance, to six schools, and most people I knew applied to between four and eight. I knew people who applied to twenty (mainly because they applied to all the top schools and were trying to put a safety net in place when the inevitable rejections came).
no subject
on 2004-09-29 05:42 am (UTC)It's a good system in many ways - one personal statement for everywhere, which is helpful, and once it's done, it's done and you can then sit back and wait. Which I'm doing now.
no subject
on 2004-09-28 01:01 pm (UTC)twice.
hee. yeah, we weren't so good with the doing of the homework...
no subject
on 2004-09-29 05:44 am (UTC)Our record is our old Maths teacher. Mid-sentence, she just stopped, threw the chalk at the wall and yelled, "That's it! I'm not teaching you any more!"
And that was that for that lesson!
no subject
on 2004-09-29 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
on 2004-09-30 01:28 pm (UTC)and whats song fic plz?
howve u been i? hope thou hast been good. we shud c each other sumtime! i can then poke u n draw on u..normally a fun pastime reserved for em, bt 2day clare got a taste of the poking. ooh n hannahs fun to 'claw' muhahahaha...
wht u applyin 4 btw?
soz for lck of updatin bt i hast been busy n also no clue if im friends only yet cos odd people addin me n i dnt like certain ppl knowin on my life esp the commentin aspect lol
mwah x x x
no subject
on 2004-09-30 01:35 pm (UTC)"Life is great and life is fine, 'cause I've met a girl and no-one likes you..."
Song fic is fanfiction written with lyrics from a song between each paragraph. It is generally very, very bad and not a good idea.
It would be nice to see you, yes. I'm sure you're fed up of reading about my very boring life.
Am applying for PPE at Oxford and York, and Medicine at four others.
To make an entry friends only, look next to where it says "security" at the bottom of the Update Journal page and select "Friends." This means that only the people you list as a friend can see it.
Hope it helps.
no subject
on 2004-09-30 01:39 pm (UTC)ure life amuses me. hehehehehee. =D n whats PPE? again with the shrt frms!!!
medicine wooooooooo...go 4 it. ure allowed 2 cos ure nt competin =)
btw dya av msn? ure_lil_angel@yahoo.com is mine.
ooh so u av 2 do friends only for each entry? n thenonly mates can read?
thankyeee
x x x
no subject
on 2004-09-30 01:56 pm (UTC)PPE is Philosophy, Politics and Economics. I don't actually want to do Medicine; the thought fills me with dread.
I have MSN - iona_bookworm@hotmail.com - but I don't use it much. How did you get it to work with a non-Hotmail address?
Yes, you do have to make each entry friends-only. I don't, myself - my journal is entirely public - but it's easy enough to do if you want to.