29/12/2006
It's a strange time this... in many ways the most peaceful, calm bit of the year, and yet so much stress of families... Even yesterday, going to see the greatest adopted grandma anyone could have had a downside: 6 hours crammed into the car with all of my family, trying to disappear...
I did have some support in my attempts to escape though: my brand new, ever-so-special iRiver H320 was there to take my mind off things. I wont argue that it lives up to the iPod in sexiness, but apart from that it's superior in every way :-D. It'll play ogg vorbis files (which is my preferred format for music cos it's completely free [as in speech, and as in beer]). It has better EQ and higher audio quality, according to the hard-core audio geeks (tho it is hard to tell normally). It has the ability to record, both from life and from the inbuilt radio. It can view text files, images and some video formats. It cost a little over £100. And, most importantly, it mounts as a regular external hard drive. That probably needs some explaining... Most mp3 players require some obscure software or drivers when they connect to a computer. This makes it very difficult to get them to work on Linux. The iRiver acts just the same as any usb drive, so it's an absolute walk in the park to get it going happily. To me, of course, this is essential, because there's not a lot of point having a mp3 player if you cant put any music onto it...
As I write, it seems there have been more arguments between the juvenile parents... I'm off to go and see what I can salvage ;-)
23/12/2006
I don't believe that anyone could have spent a more geeky couple of days than I have... I've reinstalled everything on both my server and my main desktop from scratch, with the recently released new versions of Slackware and Mandriva. Slackware 11.0 is very nice - version 5 of MySQL is included, which was the package I was most worried about before the upgrade, I've managed to get my mouse working in the X environment (something which had evaded me while I was using 10.2), and all in all my server is desperate to be set loose on the world. The only thing holding me back is still our ISP. I can't believe how hard it is to find a time when we can change providers - my mum has flat-out refused any situation which would result in her being offline for more than a day... And I'm the geek in the house - how come everyone else is more obsessive over the internet? :-(
Mandriva 2007 seems to be less impressive so far. Firefox 2 isnt there by default, and it doesn't automatically detect my USB drive, which the previous version did. Other software I often use has been updated - OpenOffice.org 2 is there, as is amaroK 1.4 - but even the new slackware (famed for being a long way behind on programs, in order to ensure stability) has amarok 1.4, so that's nothing special. I'm not going to go back to Mandriva 2006 - that would be taking it too far for little reward - but unless 2007 starts impressing me rather more I'll be working on installing 2006 on other computers.
OK, enough of that. HAPPY CHRISTMAS :-)
16/12/2006
Blimey... more than a month since I last posted something real. <In the style of Jesse from the Fast Show> This month I 'ave been mostly doin':
Flute exams
I took grade 7 in March, and (in my great wisdom) decided that I'd take grade 8 at the end of this year, and that I'd do the associated board exam. The reasoning for this made sense at the time: AB exams are harder than the county exams I'd done before, and since grade 8 is the highest of the grades, once I'd taken it I wasn't going to do any more exams. I got the fear that if I didn't take the harder exam I'd always wonder whether I'd have been able to, and so I decided I'd make life difficult for myself... I tracked down the one person in the world who could make me work hard enough to get through it, a fantastic music teacher (tho not a flautist) who ran the choir I used to sing in. That plan to make myself work was far more successful than I'd ever imagined: effectively for the last month or so before the exam I had no real free time, because whenever I wasnt working on something I felt that I should be practising... It was a really interesting experience, because I've never really practised as much as I should, so doing an hour a day and thus makintg it such a huge part of my life was actually very rewarding, and I could feel that I was making good progress. However, given how far off the standard I'd been when I began I really needed to make progress, and it was by no means sure whether I'd make it in the end... The exam felt a bit shoddy, especially in terms of the scales... but I did pass :-D In fact it was fairly comfortable in the end: 113/150 where the pass mark is 100.
University interviews
After the mad dash to the finish with the flute these crept up on me a little, which wasn't really very clever of me... I've had interviews at Durham and Cambridge (and an open day at Sheffield, which I discovered I dont really like that much). The Durham one was really relaxed - essentially me and some nice chap in a cafe having a chat... and it obviously worked, because I've got an offer :-D. The Cambridge interviews (there were 3) were rather less impressive... the general interview was fine, largely I suspect because the interviewer (not being a theologian) couldn't pick apart my thinking on the subject that I've applied for... then there were two subject-specific interviews, the first of which went horribly, every thought I had stopping mid flow, leaving me with nothing at all to say. The second was a little better, but the interviewer there was obviously not convinced that I was particularly interested in theology. I'll hear from Cambridge in the next few weeks, but to be honest I'm fairly sure I know what they'll say and it ain't gonna be complimentary... :-(
Christmas Concerts
The first was with the new flute choir, and was superb... we played two pieces of real music and played them well (at least in comparison to other things I've done). And, as a bonus, I got to listen to all the other groups who rehearse at the county music centre on wednesdays... and some of them are just insanely good... Even the brass ensemble aren't the usual horror that a brass group would be. And the bassoons are, ermm, memorable too ;-) Thereafter came the school Christmas Miscellany, which is probably the biggest of the 3 regular school concerts, so it felt kinda significant to realise that I've now done 14 of them, and that I'll never do another one... All sorts of "lasts" happen in year 13... But on a related note quite a major first is planned - apparently, rather than the usual end of year leavers concert there's going to be a massive outdoor extravaganza, and it's looking ratehr exciting. Tho not nearly as exciting as the musical (Les Mis) is going to be. In which, by the way, I'm going to play Valjean! :-D
So yes, overall life is pretty good.