James Robson's Blog

Well, revision has been going quite well; however, I did absolutely none yesterday. This was for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I'd got to sleep at 5 AM, having gone to a party the night before- my friend Suzy's. It was very fun- I didn't know too many of the people there, but I'm good friends with her boyfriend, James, so I wasn't totally stuck for people to talk to. We played Rock Band- it's like Guitar Hero, except it's got drums and vocals as well as bass and... whatever the main guitar is called. Tenor? I have no idea. I failed miserably, mainly because i have no sense of rhythm and the drums are HARD. I'm okay at the guitar bits, they're more like a traditional rhythm game in the way that they walk- I was hilariously bad at the singing. In retrospect I probably wasn't drunk enough, as it's definitely something you need to not have any self-consciousness to enjoy. It was enjoyable though.

The original plan had been to put a bunch of tents up and sleep outdoors, but they only got as far as putting one up before the rain started, so in the end we all stayed indoors. At one point we managed to get everyone inside, but it was hilariously uncomfortable.

At around 12, the people who weren't staying left, and I had a go at Portal, the game. This is fantastically fun, incredibly bizarre, and technically wonderful. It's essentially a First-Person Puzzler, in that you only have one guns, and it shoots portals. Two kinds! Perpetual motion for the win! I OWNED the second law of thermodynamics. Okay, so I couldn't get past the fourth puzzle. The point is, it was completed in the end by at least one person- it's quite short, anbout two hours long. The ending is wonderful though.

So at around 2 AM went to bed, but didn't sleep for ages, just talking and that.

Woke up at 8, having got 3 hours sleep. James gave me a lift back to my dad's, though I just popped to the Post Office to collect my new mp3 player, of which I have previously written. When I got to Dad's, I found my new keyboard (which my dad bought half of because he wanted me to adopt a more healthy typing position- go concern!) had also arrived. Didn't have time to play with them, though, because after I'd had a shower, we went out for a family outing all day.

My stepsis was a little grouchy at points, but all in all it was fun, scrambling over rocks and that, and then we spent 2 hours building a wooden shelter thing in the woods. So it was fun. Went to a pub near the car park for dinner, had scampi and chips- small portions, but very delicious. Played a game of pool, lost miserably. When we finally got back to the house, it was half 8.

So then I spent the next 3 hours fiddling with my mp3 player and keybaord getting them to work. The keyboard needed new batteries, the ones that came with it not functioning correctly, though the included mouse was fine. They're wireless, so that's good, but not bluetooth, thankfully, because that can be a little buggy on Linux. However, I haven't got any use out of the special function keys on it, for the simple reason that they're a monster to configure in Linux and i don't really need them. Keyboard works great, nicely "clicky" which is always good.

MP3 player took rather longer to configure, as predicted I had MTP issues. Actually, Feisty is meant to support them out of the box, but I believe that's where my problem lay- as I had upgraded instead of fresh installing, the revelent permissions files hadn't been installed properly. Essentially, only root could detect the player. I found a new config file on the internet, put it in, player worked like a dream. Music transferred, slowly- video I only got to work today because it needed converting specially. The sound is great, the case and screen protector work excellently (though there's a small speck of dust trapped between the protector and the screen- can't remove it. Ah well, it's as near to damn perfect as I require.

So, I am now going to revise revise revise today, had a lie in so I'm raring to go! Yay! Break for Doctor Who tonight though- meant to be the best episode yet, as I can believe because, well, Moffet!

Sadly couldn't go to Fruit Bowl yesterday, as I had to go on that outing. Ah well. Going next week, most definitely.

Right. Yes. Revision.

Labels: 30th, doctor who, drums, drunk, early, failure, guitar, guitar hero, james, late, linux, mtp, music, revision, rhythm, rock band, singing, sleep, suzy, tents

Posted by James Robson at 14:43 | Permalink | Comments

Well, about two months ago, it was my birthday. I got, mainly, a lot of cash- which has been since sitting in my bank, furthering the capitalist system- though not by much, it's the Co-op Bank. Still, such reasonable use of my money angered me, so yesterday I bought a new MP3 player.

It's a Creative Zen 16GB- this is quite a good make, and I didn't want to get an iPod because, well, they're pretty costly and I'm on Ubuntu anyway so no iTunes for me. Zens work by using MTP, which is Media Transfer Protocol- it's designed for Windows, but, of course, it works with Linux. The player, a screen protector, a case, and a totally unrelated book all sum to £127- a very nice deal. They should all arrive in about a week- pretty decent.

The book is "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell", which is a book I keep seeing referred to as being good, my kind of thing, so I went ahead and bought it.

Should get another book soon- "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", which a friend has ordered off Amazon for me as a late birthday present. Recommended to me by Sean, I am quite looking forward to reading it as it sounds very interesting.

Hee! New stuff! Woo!

Additionally, Summer is coming and Woodcraft events with them. Verre verre excited.

Labels: birthday, book, creative, money, mp3, mtp, new, norrell, perks, sean, strange, summer, wallflower, windows, woodcraft, zen

Posted by James Robson at 19:45 | Permalink | Comments

So: my exams are now halfway over, some of the biggest ones in terms of revision are out of the way, so I'm going to do a breakdown of how I think I'm doing so far in each subject.

Latin:
-Translation went okay- not brilliant by any means, totally flubbed some bits-but I did that in my trial and got an A in that section, so who knows? I reckon I've got either a high B or low A here.
-Poetry comprehension went wonderfully- the bit that came up I knew tip-top pretty much perfect: as a result, this, which I was very worried about failing completely, has been one of my best exams so far. I got a few bits a tiny bit wrong, but that's a few marks out of 60- not a worry. Prediction here- A*, maybe A if I've done much worse than I think, but that's unlikely.
-Prose comprehension didn't go quite as well as the poetry, but it went better than the translation and there's a lot of easy marks to mop up here. Pretty much a good, solid A.
-Coursework is A*, I reckon- I know it's at least 80% and it's very likely to be more.

So: final prediction for Latin? My reckoning is: A, a high-ish A, maybe an A* if I'm lucky.

RE:
-This went pretty well; I felt I answered erery question fully, logically, and effectively. However, the mark scheme here is brutal thanks to a combination of paired marking and a 90% grade boundary. Still, it did go well- A* but that's not a definite, maybe A.

RE there's only the one exam, so final prediction is an A*, possibly an A if I've flubbed some questions, but I thought I managed to do okay on this regard.

Maths:
-The first Unit, the coursework, I got an A* in, way back in Y9. Can't remember too much more details right now though.
-The first exam, which I retook recently, I got a solid A* in- it probably won't compensate for a lower A, but it certainly won't pull my average down.
-Stat. coursework- my only A, a high A, and this is only 10% of the course.
-Stat. exam- got a A*, eesay, which provides an average of an A* in Stat. overall- but it's all modular, and the Y11 exams are 50% of the course.
-Non-Calc. went amazingly. Surgically, which is when you are so sure of the answers that you could get any mark you want just by surgically answering the answers. I am 99% sure that's an A*, and possibly full marks if it went as well as I think.

So, for Maths, I still have the Calc. paper to do. However, I really only need a high B to still get an A* here. If I do even close to as well as I think Non.Calc went, definite A*. So, that's my prediction for that.

English Literature:
-Not sure about coursework here, as I'm not sure which ones were English and which ones were English Literature. I got mostly A*, but I got an A in Under Milk Wood which will be literature, so I'll say an A for coursework.
-The exam went solid, not super amazing style but pretty damn good all the same. I hate these interpretation questions because there are no answers, really, but I did my best and used my extra time to my full advantage. I'll say an A, though, to err on the side of caution.

That means a solid A for English Literature, which reflects well my interest in the subject. Fingers crossed an A*, but I doubt it.

Biology:
-B1a/B1b were both nearly full mark A*'s. Not sure what it is in UMS but it won't be too low. This is an A* here, and a high-ish one at that.

-B3 I know exactly, 92 UMS marks, A*, but a low one. I can't count on this pulling up my mark much but it's there and done, which is the main thing.

-B2 I did today. It went... alright, I guess. I think I may have gotten my plant minerals confused and I had no time to go back and check any of it- however, ultimately, the grade boundaries are very nice here- I need to lose 12 marks to get an A, which I'm fairly sure I haven't done. So, I'll say A*, but I'm not absolutely sure of this.

Overall then, in Biology, an A*, I'm fairly certain, a low one, maybe a high A if I did very bad today, but I reckon I did alright. So, A*.

Round-up of estimates:
Latin: A/A*
RE: A*/A
Maths: A*
English Literature: A
Biology: A*/A

Which is pretty much on target so far. These are just estimates- no way of telling till August. I may cry then, I may laugh- I'll certainly compare this post to my actual results.

Labels: biology, english, english literature, estimate, exams, grades, latin, literature, Maths, RE, results, science

Posted by James Robson at 20:07 | Permalink | Comments

Pondering things today on my worldview, or distinct lack of a coherent one thereof.

For someone who ascribes to logic the utmost importance, I don't respect it much when it comes to thinking about gelling views together. An example:

I was talking the other day to Sean about his "nth-wave" philosophical idea. At it's core, more or less, it says that "Just because you can't think of any argument that refutes a claim at knowledge doesn't mean there isn't one." Now, I pretty much agree here. (An interesting aspect of this is that it in itself doubts itself.)

However, I was then talking about the way you have to ignore this for some things. Sean's recently been disillusioned by science, Physics in specifics, I suppose because of this basic problem of knowledge and proof. But I, regrettably, see no problem here. I see the two thing on completely separate levels: OK, yes, we can't prove anything. But let's pretend we can. What then? And so on.

I feel I have failed somewhat to fully set out my feelings here. Essentially, viewing the world in this way, layered, not caring about the implications of the foundations being non-existent and continuing to pretend as if they do exist, and are made of granite: it takes a certain detachment from the world. Is this healthy? I'm not sure... it's fun though!

I think the best metaphor I have for this way of thinking is like viewing the world as a toy. Like a Rubik's Cube, but every face is a different puzzle, and they're all fractal-shaped- you can get lost in the intricate details of one part while ignoring the rest of the whole- or, if you choose, you can regard the whole. Does it even exist? Can we prove it? No matter- the toy is fun anyway.

So yes... that's pretty much what I think. As you can see, it's a little incoherent. But then, that's how I began.

Labels: detachment, epistemology, foundations, incoherance, logic, nth wave, philosophy, physics, science, toy, world, world toy

Posted by James Robson at 18:48 | Permalink | Comments

Well, this seems as a good a place as any to start of my bloggin': with a generic question! Yay!

Well now; what good things HAVE happened to me lately...

I'll do this in reverse chronological order.

Firstly, today, I ACED my Latin Verse exam. For those not in the know, I was shitting bricks about this, to turn a phrase. (DAMN YOU, 4Chan!) This is due to my inability to learn things by rote, being more of an organic learner. HOWEVER: the two sections of Book 4 of Virgil's Aeniad that came up in the exam were, by chance, the two bits which I absolutely knew SOLID. So I coudl do every question EASY AS FIDDLE. Which made me very very happy.

RE, two days ago. Also quite an easy exam. The combination of that and Latin has made me feel very confident about the exam season ahead, though I still have some doubts.

Last Saturday, I purchased an excellent book on Philosophy, which is sort of disguised as a children's adventure novel. As befits a book on philosophy, the main plot twist is so bloody weird it makes a twisted kind of sense. :P

Now now now... what else good has been happening. I can now use the climbing wall at Virgin Active, meaning with that and roller-skating I probably won't survive past my 21st birthday, if that. He he he. Helmets are /optional/. I did have to sign a waiver form though...

On the subject of the gym, I've now started going regularly every Thursday. Need to build the muscles what what, and much more importantly make sure I can run more than a few meters without dying. I'm exaggerating, of course, but I would like to get more aerobic fitness and what not. Ooh, look at me with the posh words. Translation: out of breath less.

Now... not much else really good has happened. I mean, things have been dandy, don't get me wrong, but nothing stellar...

Ah! Yes, I suppose. About... a month ago now, I suppose, more or less, I came out to my parents. Wasn't a big dealio of any kind, they were fine with it, blah blah blah, but it's just nice to have done it. Bit of a weight off my chest and all that. On a related note I've started going to a youth group called Fruit Bowl on Fridays: this is quite fun, and having always complained that I do too little socialising this is an excuse to do just that. I sometimes wonder if it's weird that I'm not more bothered about being gay, but I suppose that it's not, mostly.

Generally, things have been looking up. Which is good. I'm excited about moving to Silverdale,of course, but that's out of the scope of the question, so it'll have to wait. Doing a lot more philosophic thinking recently, enough that people have been telling me to shut up about it, so that's always a good sign.

How do you end these things, anyway? Ah well. Peace out? I guess... maybe?

Labels: climbing, coming out, exams, gay, gym, latin, philosophy, RE, Silvedale, virgin, xanga

Posted by James Robson at 19:42 | Permalink | Comments