May 31, 2002

woah-k tired

It feels so weird to be sitting down to write this now. For the past two days I have been out on the go with my mother, taking full advantage of Andy being gone on a 4 day school trip. Yesterday we got up early, and grabbed the bus to Oxford, because I've stayed there three times and my mom had never seen it, so we decided that could be fun. On the bus the lady behind I us had one of the five pound notes where the serial numbers rub off, and we had to tell her that it was okay, that the bank would still tke it, and that it's worth up to £40 if she sells it. She didn't really believe us, but I think that was mostly because the driver got her into a really foul mood.

In Oxford we hit the museum first because it decided to start pouring rain. It was a surprising big museum, and the exhibitions of Roman marbles and the one on ancient Egypt were really good, the musical instruments and European paintings were okay, and the coinage exhibition was dreadfully boring. After that we walked around and saw two of the colleges where I had stayed (St Annes and Keble colleges) and had lunch. At some point we ended up at a special 'History of Oxford' presentation which was nothing more than a sicking promotional package. Then we walked down to the High Street, saw Merton College where I applied, and ended up having a coffee, served by a Canadian waitress. It doesn't sound too busy but we saw a lot and walked even more. I was so tired that I fell asleep on the bus home (which was very difficult considering the man opposite us kept yelling into the mobile about directions from Victoria Station to Heathrow).

Today it was up again early to drive out to Costco, because usually it's much quiter during the early morning, although today with the long jubilee weekend, there were loads of extra people stocking up for trips out. I didn't get much. I got a 4-port USB hub for my computer because I have 5 regularly used cables and two ports. However, I old have two power sockets and the hub needs one too so I'll have to go buy a plug extention tomorrow. I also picked up three books (Planet of the Apes (Boulle), K - Pax (Brewer) and the Salmon of Doubt (Adams)) which should be fun and 16 pots of flowers that resemble daisies but are either white with blue centres or purple with black centers. Althought I haven't seen the old Planet of the Apes withe Charlton Heston, and despite being disappointed with the newest one, the book is sufficiently different from the movie as to be more believable so far.

***

Argh. I can be such a idiot. I saved half, came back to edit, wrote a whole big section more and then refreshed. I'm starting not to trust myself to write entries late at night.

***

After we got back I went out grocery shopping with my mother. Andy has a hockey tournament in Bracknell this weekend so he and my parents will be out until late each day so I'll be in charge of food. Yeah! That and we got to use my 'bug money'. Last Friday we returned the cookie bug (mysteriously named Georgie) to Tescos who seemed quite shocked. Well the deputy manager did. The bakery manager, after hearing over the phone what it was about refused to come over to see us. They said they were sending the bug off to be tested, and that they'd contact me. Today I got a letter of apology saying they didn't know how it ended up inbetween my cookies and that they would like to give me a £10 gift voucher for their groceries.

Then it was planting all those flowers, but I realised I should have gotten some other ones too because the flowers in the hanging baskets and in the pots out the front of my house were all dead. So it was out again to the nursery to buy some more. Must have been my luck that today was a one day sale of 10% off everythink. I ended up also buying two plants for my room; a spikey one, and a venus fly trap. Not that I have flies, but I thought it was neat to have sitting in my window ledge. I'll take pictures tomorrow when the light is better.

Now I'm off to bed because I am dead tired. I'll be glad when the long weekend is over because things will have settled down, my friends will be back from the graduation trip, and I'll be able to have some down times (Yeah lazy summer!).

Posted by Laura at 10:51 PM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2002

About a boy

I went down to the cinema with my parents to day to finally see 'About a Boy'. For once my mom was really excited to go because we had both read the book last year. We ended up sitting in the cinema watching the 'Odeon' light travel around the ceiling for 35 minutes before they came in to tell us that the projector wasn't working, and offered us refunds on any snacks and tickets to see Star Wars, the Majestic, or Panic Room. The closest showing wsa Star Wars, so we ended up collecting our drink money and doddling around the cinema for 45 minutes before seeing it. Needless to say I still would really like to see 'About a Boy'.

Posted by Laura at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

May 28, 2002

whoops

I just got an e-mail from Queen's univeristy congratulating me for my offer of admission for 2006?! Well up until now I thought it was 2002. In any case, I guess I should e-mail them back. Heh.

Posted by Laura at 11:23 PM | Comments (1)

today

This morning I finished the yearbooks pages, three friends and I were making together over at my house yesterday. They were basically two facing pages of photographs from the past four years, some common/funny phrases and a cartoon of each of us that I made using my tablet. It actually turned out really well, despite all our problems. At first, we decided to us Photoshop, but the the scale of the image, when using A4 size was messy, so we decided to use illustrator. Of course, using the 'place' function to link all the pictures to their scans meant we ran out of memory really fast. We got around that by copy pasting the pictures in. Then we saved the illustrator file as an eps (and pdf because on of the pictures was misbehaving) opened them in photoshop and then saved them as .tif files. With all those pictures and a resolution of 300 dpi each of the pages was about 34mb each. Since they were so huge I had to run them into school on a zip disc, to copy over onto the school's server. It was weird to be back in school like that, but mostly because it was so quiet with all the younger grades (9 and below) out on discovery weeks, and 10 and 11 doing their year-end exams.

After that my mom and I had to get our pictures taken for our new visa/passports, and get them sent off to the Home Office. Hopefully, because we're getting different standing this time it'll make it easier with my UK university forms because they're being really sneaky about my being (or not being) a home student despite having four years residency.

Then we headed off to Westminster to pick up some stuff left at Dean's Yard from the graduation cermony. It was unbelievable how much stuff was left. In any case. We brought back an empty guitar case, a really nice coat, and graudation clothing with I will have to take into the school so people can pick them up. I guess there's no rush considering most of the people are on the grad trip to Spain leaving today. It's amazing though, how carrying a guitar case, everyone seems to be drawn to you for directions.

Just now I watched Spy Game, which was a pretty cool movie, although from the trailer it wasn't really what I thought it was going to be. There was only one scripting flaw with it, right at the end which bugged me because I caught it, but no worries. I won't spoil it for you.

Posted by Laura at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

Identity theft

It's sligthly worrying, but we're having a case of semi-indetity theft. Since we've lived in this house, we've occassionally gotten mail to our address but not for us (right address, wrong name). I mostly assumed that this was because there was another address pretty similar on my street; # roadname and # roadname close. About a month ago, we got a delivery of Tescos groceries to our address but to a man named Fredrik di Gusto. Now that we know our neighbours, the person living at the similar adress is an old Lady, not named Fredrik di Gusto. Last week when I bought my graphics tablet down at Tottenham Court Road, when they asked for my postal code for shopper registration because of the price, the name 'Fredrik di Gusto' showed up as making purchases from our house.

We're going to contact our landlord, but it's kind of strange finding someone who is actively using our address.

Posted by Laura at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2002

Well so much for that.

Well so much for that. My plans for the day were pretty screwed over in the end (yeah, I know, greeaaat mood) for some other people's plans. So basically this is a ditto.

Posted by Laura at 11:51 PM | Comments (2)

frustrating

Ugh... I just wrote up a long post about the whole weekend, and it just got deleted. Very frustrating. I'll try and write it again in the morning, because I'm really tired right now.

Posted by Laura at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2002

Yeah!

Today after the book-drop, which was not as much about 'exams' as I had anticipated, I met my mother to go down to Oxford Street (Today was a 'big sale' at Debenems). After that we headed down to Tottenham Court Road to look at some computer stuff. We bought (it's partially graduation present, partially my paying), a Wacom, graphics tablet. So no doubt the first thing I did when I got home was plug it in and start playing with it. So far it's just been signatures and doodles. I'm getting used to the pen so then I can start doing more artwork on my computer, in less time.

Other than that, a special thanks to Sebastian who sent me a C.D. which I got in the mail today.

Oh, and I think I've been turned off chocolate bars too now. Heh.

Posted by Laura at 04:51 PM | Comments (5)

book return day

Today my school, to get back text books is having a 'book return coffee'. I get to give back my math text book, french text books, and some of the books we had to read for English. I say some for English because I'm keeping the ones I enjoyed reading and don't have a copy of, even if it's only two books. I'll be happy to hand over all the rest. The only thing is that all the teachers will just be asking questions about the exams.

Posted by Laura at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2002

YUCK

Yuck.

I was down in the kitchen making pizzas for dinner tonight, when I spied some fresh cookies my had bought from tescos. Now these have got to be some of the best cookies, ever. Today however, as I had bitten into a cookie, I pulled it apart from a second one and this huge bug (at least an inch) falls off onto the floor and starts crawling around. After throwing the cookies in my hand, spiting out what was in my mouth, screaming and killing the bug I called the manager.

So tomorrow I have to take the bug (in a ziploc bag and very much dead) and the cookie container back to Tescos.

Needless to say the whole thing killed my appetite.

Posted by Laura at 12:58 PM | Comments (8)

May 21, 2002

over!

I can't believe it (really, I'm in some kind of denial!). It's all over. My I.B. is finished. When I handed in my last paper, I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. I chose laughter though, and have been similing like a dork all day. Well, after the exam, we all talked to the chemistry teacher about it, and we all seemed to think it went pretty well, then decided we didn't really want to hang around much longer and left school. Then was the post-chemistry 'party' where we played some games and sat around talking. It didn't quite feel like relaxing because, it feels like I still have more studying to do, or that any day I'll be back at school or that I still have work that needs to be done; even though I know there isn't. I guess to that respect I'm still waiting for it to hit me.

Tonight in celebration of finishing my exams my parents took me out for Thai food (at the Blue Lagoon, which was my favourite restaurant I think on an old Friday Five). It was really nice, even though I still haven't gotten my appetite back yet.

I really have so much to say, but I'm just so tired I'll leave it until tomorrow and go to bed really early tonight.

Posted by Laura at 09:48 PM | Comments (5)

May 20, 2002

Almost there

Well the good news it that chemistry papers 1 and 2 (higher level) went much better than expected. I honestly didn't expect much after making the mistake of reading through a past paper before I left. Well that wasn't so much a mistake as the choice of paper to look at, (in case you ever come across it, November 1999 was a killer, and if you did it... My sympathy). Yes, and I'm of the opnion that I definately didn't fail.

I'm also looking forward to tomorrow. The bit I feared is mostly over, and tomorrow is when most of us get to start relaxing. For some there's a mini-post-exam party happening, which sounds be good fun. For the people who finish Wednesday, there's another 'official' party, and for those people who finish Thursday. Well, I guess they get prom.

So before I hit the books again for tomorrow's paper three (and happily my very last exam!), I'm sharing the joy with you, while I munch this congratulatory cookie. Thanks for all the good luck!

Posted by Laura at 06:21 PM | Comments (2)

Time left

24 hours.

Posted by Laura at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2002

worried

I'm worried about the chemistry papers. I've been studying like crazy but somehow it never seems to feel like enough. It's just way more memorization then any other subject I have. Instead of remembering how to apply stuff, I also have to remember the stuff to apply. And that's four binders worth of notes.

It's just so frustrating.

Posted by Laura at 10:41 PM | Comments (2)

dolt

I can be an idiot. Over the weekend I was wondering why I wasn't getting a reply to an e-mail I sent off a couple weeks ago. Today when I logged into an old hotmail account (which I had been using with that person for three years, although because of the amount of spam coming in I'm giving up), at the end of the spam list was an e-mail from myself... "From: Laura Bakerville suject: "Heya!"" At first I was annoyed because I'd gotten spam that said it was from my e-mail adress before but never one that used my last name. Then I open it, and realised that somehow, in a fit of stupidity I managed to send the e-mail to myself instead of my friend. So now I'm the one who's bad at responding!

Posted by Laura at 08:42 PM | Comments (1)

this girl

Pssst. My brother has spent the afternoon chatting over the internet to and text messaging a girl in his class. I think it's sweet.

(He thinks I'm annoying and should leave him alone right now =)

Posted by Laura at 06:28 PM | Comments (3)

Done

Less than 48 hours and I'm done. All done.

As for studying. That just seems to go on and on.

Posted by Laura at 06:06 PM | Comments (2)

May 18, 2002

Tired

For some reason, I am seriously tired, so I think I'll just head off to bed early. *yawn*

Posted by Laura at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

Chemistry

Most of today was studying chemistry (and looking for a set of my past paper 3s). In the morning, I went down to High Street Kensington with mom mom and Andy to find him some dress pants to wear to my graduation. Poor kid was tired and grouchy and compained the whole time about how many pairs of pants we were making him try on.

Afterwards because it was raining we ducked into Gap and I found a really sweet "Audrey" (Hepburn) A-line skirt on sale, so the morning was made a bit brighter. Then... Chem, chem, chem.

Posted by Laura at 08:11 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2002

Graduation

Today I spent most of the day down at Westminster getting the class and individual pictures taken. When I actually get them I'll scan them in. One of the school staff made us each a little goodie bag full of sweets which was really appreciated. Afterwards we had a rehersal of the actual ceremony which will be in a week. I can't believe it's so close.

Posted by Laura at 06:23 PM | Comments (1)

The Friday Five

The Friday Five (returns!)

1. What shampoo do you use? Either Fructis for long hair if I'm letting it dry normally, or Nicky Clarke 'Hydrating' if I'm straightening it.

2. Do you use conditioner? What kind? Fructis for long hair, or Nicky Clarke 'Hydrating'... I buy shampoos and conditioners together so the're of the same set. I also use Nicky Clarke leave in conditioner for frizzy hair.

3. When was the last time you got your hair cut? Yesterday, and I got 5 inches chopped off (a bit more in the front).

4. What styling products do you use? Well, the only time I use them is when I'm straightening my hair. Then I use, L'Oréal FX 'Straight' and Fructis 'Polishing Wax' together.

5. What's your worst hair-related experience? When I was 11 and had really long hair, I didn't brush it for 3 days and this huge knot developed underneath, and it took me and both my parents 3 hours to get out.

Here.

Posted by Laura at 11:09 AM | Comments (2)

M Jackson

Apparently on VH1 today, it was Michael Jackson day. The only bit I watched was the extended video for 'ghosts'. It was long, although that might have been just because I managed to miss exactly where the song came in.

Posted by Laura at 12:13 AM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2002

edited

I've just edited it out, but in that last post I was a bit comma happy. Heh.

Posted by Laura at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)

exams

I think it's the going trend with me now, that the second papers always go much better than the first. It went that way wth business, math, and now french. I just hope tomorrow ITGS paper goes that way too, not that the paper 1 went badly.

The French was okay. The texts weren't very hard although some of the questions tripped me up. I answered everything on the text handling questions, so I just have to wait and see how many of they were right. The essay went loads better because there were some good questions. I ended up writing the last entry in a journal of a woman who subsequently had amnesia. The actually gave a list of items found in her hand-bag, so those were worked in as well. Usually I prefer to write structured essays because I usually have a pretty clear idea of how I did when I finish. Oh well, so long French (for a while).

After the ITGS exam, some of us went to a friends house and we played some video games, which was all good fun. I can't wait until the chemistry exam is over because then we can all relax completely. I'll also be greatful for the time I can spend, earning money instead of studying.

Posted by Laura at 07:05 PM | Comments (3)

go team!

And they won!

Posted by Laura at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)

Leafs

Go Leafs! I'm cheering for my 'home' team!

Posted by Laura at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2002

please

I am going to be pleased beyond belief when the French exam is over. I've never been good at the language, which makes it more painful having to drag it out over all these years. My brother is also fairly poor at French, but does really well in German, so maybe I'm like him? Until tomorrow afternoon though, I just have to forget how bad I am at French. Heh.

Posted by Laura at 11:17 PM | Comments (3)

Star Wars sickness

Sick you will be:

The new Star Wars movie could cost the US economy more than $300 million in lost productivity. On May 16, more than 2.6 million fans are expected to take a day off or phone in sick so they can watch Attack of the Clones. Chicago-based recruitment experts Challenger, Gray and Christmas made he prediction based on the fact that 5.7 million people turned up to see The Phantom Menace on its opening day. Assuming that viewers comes from a random cross-section of the population, 46 per cent would be in full-time employment earning an average of $123 per day.

From New Scientist

Posted by Laura at 10:50 PM | Comments (2)

explorer

My computer's misbehaving, or more importantly, internet explorer is being wonky. It won't load any pictures!

Posted by Laura at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Wasted time

Well, I got bored today since I was stuck up in my room, so I made a new design! I'm pretty sure it works fine. Over the next couple day's I will fill in the link section (I never did before), but I don't have any more time to do that just now.

(Okay, I've noticed some people linking to the direct path to the weblog [www.divingrocks.net/?z=blog.html], but that won't work now because it's not php based anymore. All links directed at just the domain will autmatically load the weblog. Thanks...)

Posted by Laura at 06:26 PM | Comments (6)

Question 9

If you could only eat one thing, what would it be?

Posted by Laura at 06:22 PM | Comments (14)

celebrity

Sometime celebrities make me laugh. Yesterday I read this article on the Beckham's party. Now I found the whole thing sort of funny, but when I got to the bit:

"Fans disappointed by the publicity blanket were consoled by signed photographs of Mr and Mrs Beckham, which were handed out among the crowd."

Seriously.

Posted by Laura at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)

housing

My mom and I were supposed to go look at two houses with the real estate agent today. I was actually looking forward to it, because... well I think that sort of thing is neat. The agent just called though, and the people said they need to go out today. We had to reschedule, but its for I time I can't go along.

Posted by Laura at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

ICQ

Well my ICQ has rebelled again, and suddenly in a middle of a conversation, decided it can't work because all of it's information has been moved. (??) So, I have to reinstall it. *sigh*

update: mutual hate I think. I'll bother with it later.

Posted by Laura at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 13, 2002

Library

The other day Jeremy left a comment about the Atlantic as an intelligence divide.

Today at the library, looking for books, there was a sign above the entrance to the children's area reading: "These books are for the use of children. Adults should use the adult book section for reading."

Posted by Laura at 04:26 PM | Comments (1)

English

The English paper 2 was one weird exam. I had memorised some quotes, and reviewed the plays; Who's Afraid of Viginia Woolf (Albee), A Man for All Seasons (Bolt), An Ideal Husband (Wilde) and Antigone (Sophocles). Basically, you get 2 questions specific to that type of writing (novel, play, etc), and 5 general questions.

The questions I found were really bad. I ended up writing about character presentation / interaction of Martha in WAoVW, and Sir Thomas More in AfAS. It didn't go badly, it was just really difficult to start writing about.

At least now, subject-wise, I'm halfway through my exams!

Posted by Laura at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

Sleep

Must go to sleep. Have exam tomorrow. Must wake-up and stay awake for exam. Eek!

Posted by Laura at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)

Bias

When I was reading through one of the Sunday Times supplements, there were two particular articles I noticed. A double page on Spiderman, followed by a double page on Star Wars.

The Spiderman one, was pretty basic. It was talking about all the money it raked in when it opened in the US and about all it's virtues. Somewhere before I hit the end, the article lost it's steam. I think an article of only praise has it's limits. Plus, although I know I want to see it, there's got to be someone with a contrasting opinion. I found this opnion, however, on the following page, although dealing with a different movie.

The Star Wars article was something I was surprised to find in a newspaper. It was a flame, by someone who seemed to have lost the point of movies in general, and also seemed to think himself witty in the various ways in which he could put it down. For crying out loud it hasn't even been released yet.

I was really disappointed with both, just because I didn't have any clear idea of what the issue of the article was, or anything about what the movie was about. The thing about movies, as with most things in life, you have to take them as they come. I refuse to believe anything is without a 'good' point.

Posted by Laura at 12:05 AM | Comments (6)

May 12, 2002

music take-over

I don't know why, but everywhere seems to be playing Bloodhound Gang ~ Bad Touch, all of a sudden. I turn of the TV for the first time in ages, and on three different chanels the video (and a live concert version) is playing. I leave the house to buy groceries, and the radio on my walkman starts it. When I get into the store and take off my headphones, and it's playing there too.

It's like some kind of twilight zone.

Posted by Laura at 10:46 PM | Comments (1)

Lomo

I really need to get the film from my Lomo camera developed soon. I got it just before Christmas, and took a bunch of pictures from the New Years ski trip. I really want to see the pictures, and this will be the first roll developed from the camera. (someone said it wasn't going to turn out. Grrr.)

I just need to take three more pictures. Wasting film is one of the most annoying things!

Posted by Laura at 08:07 PM | Comments (0)

Adverts

I can't help but smile at the Nokia radio adverts.

'After discovering the internet, Susan signed up to nevertrustanyone.com and got caught up in the world of conspiracy theories. Cutting off contact with the outside world, she now refuses to talk to anyone unless they are willing to discuss her growing concern that the universe is secretly run by pigeons.'

Posted by Laura at 01:19 PM | Comments (1)

goodie

My mom wants a new computer, preferably a mac, because hers is dying. So my dad suggested buying her one of the new iMacs, but that she take my computer, and I would get the new one. I like that suggestion. Heh.

Posted by Laura at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2002

day wasted

Today instead of being a productive studier, I went down to Oxford street with my mom. I don't go out of my way to do much shopping, and today when I was out, I realised why I especially avoid doing it with parents. I swear this is some golden rule that sales persons must always agree with parents, and start off in some little discussion of the virtues of said object (without caring what you think either way, heh).

Later, I ended up spending two hours in Starbucks (making a juice last rather long) waiting for my father to get off work, listening to the couple beside me fighting.

"You shop too much."

"I explained it all to you. It's something I need."

"I want you to try therapy."

"The only therapy I'll be doing is retail."

However, the whole day wasn't wasted because I rented the movies for 3 out of my 4 English plays.

Posted by Laura at 11:48 PM | Comments (2)

May 09, 2002

an idiot

Yes, you who drifted in here by searching for, "idiots called laura", I can't stop laughing.

I love you, I really do. =)

Posted by Laura at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

Sleep

Why, oh why, can't I just go to sleep!

Posted by Laura at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2002

lipstick

I can't believe anyone could try to market a lipstick as being "high-tech". Maybe I'm missing something.

Posted by Laura at 10:24 PM | Comments (2)

business

My hand is still recovering. That was one long exam. Most of section A was 6 or higher point questions, and section B was long too. I was in such a mind to finish though, that at two minutes left I asked for even more paper and wrote a whole side (granted if I wasn't writing so fast it would have been smaller). Not that it went badly, because I don't think it did.

Just too long.

Posted by Laura at 05:54 PM | Comments (6)

Yeah!

Well that (math paper 2) went better than expected!

Posted by Laura at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

May 07, 2002

math studying

Argh. I hate math... Some small relief in knowing hopefully will never have to touch some of this stuff again, but very, very frustrating. Maybe one of the last things I should have looked at before the exam was past papers, because I'm gettting flustered when I don't know the answer.

Posted by Laura at 10:30 PM | Comments (2)

math

Blech, math! I have no idea how that exam went. I'm pretty sure I got certain ones right, but others I have no idea. The worst is when I got out of the exam and everyone is going over their answers and I can't remember some of mine! (Well maybe that's better than remembering them and not having the same answers as anyone else). I'm still glad it's over.

Now I've got to really study for math (II) and business...

Posted by Laura at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2002

water

The more water I drink the thirstier I'm getting.

Posted by Laura at 11:15 PM | Comments (1)

Nature

I think nature's really got it out for me. First the sun thing, mold in the fall, and now the hayfever. This is the second set of medications I've been put on for hayfever, but after my exams I'm going to have to try something else. After exams only because the stronger stuff is all drowsy. Heh.

I still love the outdoors though.

Posted by Laura at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)

Darkside