Pancakes!

Woo! I ended up with 8 nice pancakes, having eaten 2 or so along the way.

Here are some photos of me at work in the kitchen:

















The pancakes were delicious.

I also burned my finger quite badly on the pan handle due to a stupid design flaw.

To see a video of me in action, click here.

My brother is currently working on a second batch right now.

I'll be enjoying them soon enough.

RJ

Shrove Tuesday

Happy Pancake Day everyone!

I myself am about to go downstairs into the kitchen and make some pancakes. I haven't made any for about a year probably, which would make sense, as one year ago (give or take a few days) was Pancake Day.

If you want to try making some pancakes yourself, this is the recipe I'm using, only without the lemon or sugar at the end. Probably just some syrup. Sweeet. Hopefully I won't blow anything up. No guarantees though.

So tomorrow is the first of 40 days of Lent. I myself am not going to be giving anything up as, to be honest, what is the point?

I mean, if some people want to give up chocolate for Lent, good for them, as long as they keep it up. But I wouldn't be able to do it, so I won't bother trying.

I would like to know your thoughts on Lent and giving things up, so post a comment and tell me if you're giving anything up or not, and if you are, tell us why.

Back to pancakes, I'm gonna go make some now. May have to pick up some supplies from Sainsbury's first, but that's only 5 minutes down the road, so not too hard a task.

I'll post again in a few hours to let you know how it went.

RJ

Sex Talk

Well then. It was pretty interesting.

A few months ago we were given a big talk on drugs by a woman called Leslie, and she came back today to give us a big talk on sex.

The first bit was talking about various laws concerning sex, such as it is illegal for people under the age of 16 to have sex, but it is legal for people under the age of 16 to purchase condoms and stuff like that.

I can't remember if she talked about something else after that, but then she talked about condoms, and that lasted for the last 1 ½ hours (the whole thing being 2 hours).

It was interesting. For example, did you know you can buy singing condoms??

Me neither.

RJ

Sex Talk Tomorrow

Title says it all.

Leslie's back.

RJ

UK Intermediate Maths Challenge

We did it about a month ago or so.

Results came back some time last week.

I came 3rd in my year, with 92 out of a possible 135, which is a safe gold, as a gold certificate was awarded to marks of 72 and above. Kyri Papolouca came 2nd with 97, and Robert Daw came 1st with 104. I never really knew he was that good at maths, but I guess he is. Good on him.

Me, Kyri and Robert have qualified for the Olympiad, and the 7 (I think) people below me qualified for the Kangaroo, that's Jack, Tristan, Florence, Lauren and some other people who I can't remember at the moment. Good luck to all in their endeavours.

I'd quite like to get my paper back to see which questions I got wrong and what not, but that never happens, so I'm happy as it is.

I've managed to uphold my tradition of getting a gold in every maths challenge (first round) from year 5 on.

RJ

GCSE French Mock Exams

Got the oral results back today. I got 45 out of 50 which becomes 88 out of 90 as a UMS mark, which sucks as 46 and above gets the maximum possible 90, so I'll try to improve it for the real thing in 6 weeks or so. Not too far away thinking about it now.

I ended up with a UMS mark of 354 out of a possible 360, which is good, but I may have got a higher total of marks than someone who got 360 UMS because different papers have different boundaries to get the maximum 90.

Argh.

50 out of 50 in the writing, which I'm proud of.

Still, I did quite well. 320 was an A*, so I got that quite safely.

We'll see how it goes when the real thing comes.

RJ

Not much...

Not much today really.

I spoke to my last year's maths teacher, Mr Morley (one of the greatest teachers ever) and he told me the Intermediate Maths Challenge results have been received, but he didn't know exactly what I got, but he told me he remembered seeing my name somewhere near the top, so here's hoping I got a gold!

I asked him if Sergei, a year 9 guy who went to Templewood (my primary school), got the Best in School certificate which means he beat everyone in his year, my year (year 10) and year 11, and Mr Morley said that he thought that Sergei did get it. Bastard (Sergei).

But I won't know my mark officially until Monday, when I have my next maths lesson. I should be told it then by my current maths teacher Mr Oldfield, who's OK, but can't really be compared to Mr Morley.


The year 9s on the Spanish Exchange went to Pamplona today. They had to get up at about 4 am. I remember doing that and it's not nice. But it is a laugh, so it's OK. My letter to Irene may not have been given to her yet as I don't know when Joel will actually meet her. They live about a 45 minute car drive away from their school, where the English people are picked up from. I also hope Joel doesn't just forget to give her the letter. I don't know him well, so I don't know how reliable he is.

Hopefully I'll speak to Irene on MSN tonight and she'll tell me whether or not she got my letter.

RJ

Snow!

It was snowing for most of today.

The ground was too wet for the snow to settle though, and it wasn't quite cold enough.

So no time off school.

Everyone's hoping it will snow heavily and constantly through this weekend.

Keep prayin'!

RJ

GCSE French Mock Oral Exam

Well, today I had my GCSE French Mock Oral Exam, as the title suggests.

I was watching TV last night when I suddenly realised it was 10 o'clock and I hadn't looked at my presentation at all, let alone memorised it! 10 o'clock however is when Jay Leno is on so I decided to watch the first 10 minutes of that before getting down to memorising my presentation.

I was going to bed last night when I suddenly realised it was 11 o'clock and I hadn't looked at my presentation at all, let alone memorised it! So I printed an extra copy off in case I left it at home instead of putting it in my bag, so I read it over twice in bed, got bored, and put the light off and went to sleep.

My presentation was just about school, a fairly simple subject so I managed to memorise pretty much all of it from last night, so didn't really look at it again until 5 minutes before my actual exam.

My exam was at 12:15 today, but Miss Mooney (Mrs Sweeney) was running a bit behind on the exams or something, not sure of the exact reason, but my exam started at 12:35, just as lunch was starting.

I said enough of my presentation to do well, I don't think I got much/any of that wrong, and the B roleplay was fine. I messed up the first question of the C roleplay, but I did the rest quite well.
I forgot the word amusant at one point, which annoyed me and I mouthed a rather obscene word, which I believe Miss Mooney saw, but just laughed at.

I haven't got my exact marks yet, but after I had finished, I asked her at a guess roughly what mark I had got, and she was pretty sure it was an A*, so I'm pleased with how I did.

Got some crisps on the way home. Pretty good.

RJ

Letter to Irene

Two nights ago (Tuesday) I wrote a letter to my Spanish exchange partner, Irene. I can talk to her on MSN when I like, but I thought it would be a laugh.

The reason I chose to write her a letter is that the current year 9s are going on their Spanish exchange tomorrow, and Afro-guy (Joel Morrison)'s exchange partner (Uxua) is the sister of my Spanish exchange partner. So I wrote the letter, gave it to Joel's Spanish teacher who will give it to him, and when he arrives at their (massive) house he can give my letter to Irene.

Free Postage & Packaging. Score.

It was a bit of a random and pointless letter, with the first section being in French and then changing into Spanish smoothly.

So tomorrow evening I should find out if he completed his task, or if the Feds got to him first.

RJ

The Great Gig in the School

Not bad.

Tickets cost £3 each, not too much and all the money goes to charity, so I had no problem in chucking that amount away.

I'm not doing a review here, I'm just commenting on and scoring everyone who performed.

There were quite a few bands who played, but a few of them were mainly the same people with a few people changed around. They were all OK, but I think the best was a year 8 band, only consisting of two people! I don't know what they're actually called, but I like the name Short & Fat. They were great.

Most of the singing was alright, but nothing especially good, but all the instrumentals were excellent. Dan Mulligan - Brilliance. Playing the trombone, Dan really got the crowd going.

Dr Davison angered everyone by having the lights turned on every so often and issuing a warning about safety and how people were being too enthusiastic. Cretin. The tickets said the gig would last from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Obviously, it wasn't going to be exactly that long, and it actually ended at 9:20 pm, apparently as a result of Dr Davison getting too agitated and calling and end to the fun.

Then everyone went outside. Sam was cold, I gave her my scarf which she wrapped round her cold tummy (in her words), and she still has it, so I'll get it off her tomorrow.

And then there were three.

RJ

EDIT: The gig was meant to end at 9:30 pm, but the wrong time was printed on the tickets. So I assume Davison didn't really call it off, there just wasn't enough material to keep going. But what there was was good.