HPNet

I’m going to Brussels now, until early Monday morning. I hope it will be a really good experience, and that I do not get too lost.

I have unfortunately just discovered the exam timetable for the summer (pdf). This does not look very nice. The first week I have two Physics on Wednesday, then C4 and two Chemistry on Thursday. The week after I have at least one exam every day: FP1 and S3 on Monday; Physics Synoptic on Tuesday; FP2 on Wednesday (I am not looking forward to this); Chemistry on Thursday; and FP3 on Friday. Why must that one week contain all the hard units from each of my subjects? At least it seems everyone is facing a bad two weeks this summer.

Have a happy New Year, and good luck in any exams or anything else important in January.

I have just returned from Midnight Mass, and it’s Christmas! Have a very merry Christmas, and forget about the January exams for a few days.

I just received a phone call. I have been given a place to read Computer Science at Keble. I am not sure of the conditions yet, but they do not matter that much. I am very, very happy with the news - and it was so soon after the interviews. It least it means that I can now look forward to going, which should be great if it is even a tiny bit like the interviews. I am currently in a state of shock, even though everyone said that I was going to get an offer and I think the interviews went OK and I was sort of expecting it, it has still not set in.

I am now back from my four day interview marathon at Keble, although I am missing it slightly. I had five interviews in total, on Monday I had one at Keble; three on Tuesday at Keble, University (my third choice college) and Balliol (my second choice college); and one today at University. I think they all went quite well, and it was really good to be able to have engaging discussions with really intelligent people, both in the interviews and speaking to other applicants. Hall was brilliant, the room itself was amazing, with a really high ceiling and stained glass windows. There was a waiter service, although that took some getting used to.

After the interviews I am now really tired, even though I spent a lot of time just waiting around for news about interviews. Visiting and spending a lot of time at Keble has made me even more sure that I want to go there, if possible, however I would settle for a different college. Now it is a matter of waiting and refreshing Track (again, I had gotten over that) and getting all excited when there is post - at least it should not be more than a bit over a week.

People called for silly for not liking flash, impressive (and in my opinion, useless) new technology, such as TFT monitors, wireless keyboards and mice. It turns out I was perhaps not quite so silly about wireless keyboards: it seems some quite popular ones can be sniffed quite easily. This proves my point that you don’t need new technology like wireless keyboards, and in fact they make things worse instead of making things better.

It seems some batches of a children’s toy contained a slightly modified chemical. By replacing pentanediol with butanediol, a difference of only one carbon (and associated hydrogens) turned a harmless toy into a coma inducing drug. This is slightly worrying, I have been known on occasion to accidentally find some children’s toys work their way into my mouth. It seems the UK version (which is advertised on Cartoon Network, as my siblings will tell you) is not affected by the modification, but as some articles seem to say only certain batches were who knows if some dodgy [Why is this not in Firefox's dictionary?] ones were sold here.

Today UCAS emailed me to say that my application has been updated. I logged into track and found an offer from Warwick waiting for me. So if I get AAB they are perfectly happy to have me read Computer Science. I am quite pleased to have gotten an offer so early in the application process, and to such a good University - even if it is not my first choice.

As the title suggests this post contains spoilers.

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