I'm finally back!
It's been quite a long while since the last post I made on this blog, so how about (hopefully) a return to form? Let's begin!
At the beginning of June… well, it was still the half-term holidays. As can be expected, nothing much happened then; mainly just me playing games (I think I was mostly playing Minecraft then? Not entirely sure.)
There was of course Maia's birthday on the 7th - she's now twenty years old! We gave her presents from us when she came home a week after, on the 14th.
There was of course Maia's birthday on the 7th - she's now twenty years old! We gave her presents from us when she came home a week after, on the 14th.
And then, Monday. In this case, Monday, the 11th of June. Hello, trainwreck... I'd just finished the Biology 2 exam. Not too bad, not too bad! But the thing with Geography 3 is that students were given a handout. Several months prior. And I think we were expected to memorise it.
I lost mine the night I got it.
The first part of the paper was… difficult to do due to that, but still not impossible; we were given a new copy of the handout in the exam. But that was not to last. Because with each question completed, I came a step closer…
…to question five.
Before that, though, some background:
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
We went out on a 'fieldwork trip' for Geography. It was split into two parts - part one was about measuring longshore drift (basically things moving along a shoreline) at a beach. That was doable.
But part two was about asking people questions to figure out the effects of migration on Portsmouth. I'm not sure if I've ever said this, but I had extreme social anxiety. As in, I can hardly even go to McDonald's alone anxiety. (Not sure how, but in the intervening months, I feel like it's gotten a lot better.)
HOW do you ask someone such an invasive question as "are you an immigrant?" without seeming absurdly prejudiced, or worse, racist?!
Well, I know I couldn't! So I didn't, the end. 😔
…anyway, I eventually forgot all but a few key points of the first investigation. THEN, in the exam, question five naturally asked you about it.
Sure, I was able to sort of answer the part based on 'physical geography' (landscapes, physical processes, etc.) But never in a million years would I be able to answer anything based on the other part!
It probably wasn't helped by, erm… not coming up with a conclusion? (Oops.) 😐
ANYWAY, the rest of the week went fine.
Earlier, I had applied to a job at my local Tesco (because I need money!) and I eventually got a phone call (well, voicemail. I didn't notice the call.) back on Tuesday afternoon, telling me there was an interview on Friday morning. Great! Except…
Friday was Physics 2, my last GCSE.
it took me a day to get back to them (remember my social anxiety?) but I managed to get through in the end. Although the interview couldn't be rescheduled - it was a group interview - I managed to get it noted that I couldn't attend, so if nobody was eligible for the job, I'd be called back for another interview.
On Tuesday, whilst Maia was still at home, me and her went for a sibling day out in Reading! We had lunch at IKEA and did a bit of shopping after that. With all of the walking we were doing, I ended up having a hypo, but it was quickly and easily treated.
We ended up being in a mad rush for the train twice - once when going to Reading and once when going from Reading.
We, erm… didn't make it either time. We had to wait. 😞
…anyway, for dinner, the whole family then went to TGI Friday's to celebrate my GCSEs having finished!
I lost mine the night I got it.
The first part of the paper was… difficult to do due to that, but still not impossible; we were given a new copy of the handout in the exam. But that was not to last. Because with each question completed, I came a step closer…
…to question five.
Before that, though, some background:
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
We went out on a 'fieldwork trip' for Geography. It was split into two parts - part one was about measuring longshore drift (basically things moving along a shoreline) at a beach. That was doable.
But part two was about asking people questions to figure out the effects of migration on Portsmouth. I'm not sure if I've ever said this, but I had extreme social anxiety. As in, I can hardly even go to McDonald's alone anxiety. (Not sure how, but in the intervening months, I feel like it's gotten a lot better.)
HOW do you ask someone such an invasive question as "are you an immigrant?" without seeming absurdly prejudiced, or worse, racist?!
Well, I know I couldn't! So I didn't, the end. 😔
…anyway, I eventually forgot all but a few key points of the first investigation. THEN, in the exam, question five naturally asked you about it.
Sure, I was able to sort of answer the part based on 'physical geography' (landscapes, physical processes, etc.) But never in a million years would I be able to answer anything based on the other part!
It probably wasn't helped by, erm… not coming up with a conclusion? (Oops.) 😐
ANYWAY, the rest of the week went fine.
Earlier, I had applied to a job at my local Tesco (because I need money!) and I eventually got a phone call (well, voicemail. I didn't notice the call.) back on Tuesday afternoon, telling me there was an interview on Friday morning. Great! Except…
Friday was Physics 2, my last GCSE.
it took me a day to get back to them (remember my social anxiety?) but I managed to get through in the end. Although the interview couldn't be rescheduled - it was a group interview - I managed to get it noted that I couldn't attend, so if nobody was eligible for the job, I'd be called back for another interview.
On Tuesday, whilst Maia was still at home, me and her went for a sibling day out in Reading! We had lunch at IKEA and did a bit of shopping after that. With all of the walking we were doing, I ended up having a hypo, but it was quickly and easily treated.
 |
| Lunch at IKEA - always the same thing and always delicious! |
We, erm… didn't make it either time. We had to wait. 😞
…anyway, for dinner, the whole family then went to TGI Friday's to celebrate my GCSEs having finished!
 |
| I… might have been slightly spoilt that day. It was also delicious. 😃 |
Then, on Wednesday morning, I went downstairs to discover another voicemail from Tesco! I called back within ten minutes (suddenly social anxiety was very much lessened!) and had a one-to-one interview set up on Friday, in the early afternoon.
Friday morning was my leaving assembly - and even though she had left a term before, Michelle still managed to show up to see us off from school! It was an amazing day and one I know I'll remember for a long time. Sadly, Louise - a TA who started just before I was diagnosed with diabetes and who has been INCREDIBLY supportive of me - wasn't there, as she had booked the day off before learning it was the leavers' assembly, but she had given me a card on Friday the 15th:
Then, after having lunch and bidding farewell to everyone, we sped off back home quickly to grab a couple of things, and off we went to Tesco!
Friday morning was my leaving assembly - and even though she had left a term before, Michelle still managed to show up to see us off from school! It was an amazing day and one I know I'll remember for a long time. Sadly, Louise - a TA who started just before I was diagnosed with diabetes and who has been INCREDIBLY supportive of me - wasn't there, as she had booked the day off before learning it was the leavers' assembly, but she had given me a card on Friday the 15th:
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| This is Louise's heartfelt and lovely goodbye to me. Thank you, Louise! |
The interview proceeded fine - I think it went quite well - and I was told that I'd get feedback from the interview over the weekend.
Well, I didn't get any feedback.
But then on Wednesday (the 27th) I checked the applications page as I routinely did, and saw this:
(well, I didn't think I would get the job, but even still…)
I was actually in the middle of messaging Maia - who we'd taken back to uni on the PREVIOUS Wednesday (enough relative dates yet?) - when I found out, so she was the first person (apart from me) to know.
I might possibly theoretically have spent the rest of the day moping? To be fair, it was mostly about the weather:
⛅ - ☁ = 😠(<- that's me)
Also…
This time, I think I've really expressed who I am in a way I haven't in previous blog posts. The humour (and the rants) are definitely much more 'in line' with how I act. My… new new plan for this blog is to post once a month - at the end of the month - with a highlight of all the things that happened in my life that month.
You know, like a blog.
(I did say unfinished, after all! I only posted it as an excuse to delete the original post. 👍) but either way, that's all I have for all of you today.
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"You thought you'd get this job?" |
I was actually in the middle of messaging Maia - who we'd taken back to uni on the PREVIOUS Wednesday (enough relative dates yet?) - when I found out, so she was the first person (apart from me) to know.
I might possibly theoretically have spent the rest of the day moping? To be fair, it was mostly about the weather:
⛅ - ☁ = 😠(<- that's me)
 |
| I opened the door one day. The sunlight... burned. 😨 |
 |
| Oh dear. OH DEAR! …good thing I have blackout curtains. 😀 |
I even have a story from this very morning to share! I got up as usual, went on the computer… right, taking a long time to load, that's nothing new. But then, when it did load, I noticed two browsers on the desktop I know I never installed (Chromium, an open-source version of Google Chrome; and Opera, a… generic browser. 😐)
This immediately raised my suspicions, so I launched Malwarebytes right away (it's a program that finds and deletes malware from your computer.) How many individual pieces of a program did I find?
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| This is it being split over Chrome, Chromium, the Windows registries, the appdata folder, and everything in between! |
It was a program called 'PremierOpinion', designed to invade Internet browsing with ad after ad after ad. Fortunately, it has been completely deleted from our PC, so hooray!
It seems the adware secretly installed itself onto Google Chrome while I was browsing yesterday, using that as a foothold to spread all over the computer. At any rate, it's all over now, so thank God for that!
This time, I think I've really expressed who I am in a way I haven't in previous blog posts. The humour (and the rants) are definitely much more 'in line' with how I act. My… new new plan for this blog is to post once a month - at the end of the month - with a highlight of all the things that happened in my life that month.
You know, like a blog.
Also, here's the entirety of my unfinished blog post 'History of the Earth: The Devonian Period'!
Green! That is all.
…Anyway, welcome to this week's blog post! Today, I talk about the time when plants covered the land (well, they still do, but I mean when they first covered everything.)
So, we're roughly 419 million years ago. So that means there's still nearly half a billion years until this blog is created.
…oh.
…oh.
Have a wonderful day, everybody, and I'll see you at the end of July!