Another update – involving television!

Another update! :O

I’ll get right into it.

Had a physics exam yesterday (well, today, but by the time you’ll have read this it’ll be yesterday), and I think I went pretty well. Certainly didn’t get the marks that I’d want at the end of the year, but we’ve got about 70 days until then, so I’ve got lots of time to study. I think that given this fact, I did pretty well!

We sat 3 papers (2 and a half, really, because we hadn’t learned some stuff in one particular paper), which were demonstrating understanding of wave systems, demonstrating understanding of mechanics, and demonstrating understanding of electrical systems. My weakness is definitely electricity; I never really did quite get my head around how the fine details work, and this certainly reflects with the more advanced curriculum this year. Due to this, I feel that I should focus quite a bit of attention onto this particular paper, because I know I can ace it if I really put my mind to it.

Today (tomorrow, w/e) I’ve got a calculus exam, which also has three papers: integration, differentiation, and complex numbers / algebra. I feel pretty damn confident about integration, slightly less so about differentiation (mainly due to the fact that we finished differentiation a couple of months ago), and complex numbers are a mixed bag for me. I was pretty ill while we were all learning complex numbers, so I missed out on the whole subject more or less. I’ve been learning it in my own time and I certainly feel proficient enough to get at least a pass at this stage in my study, but I don’t think I’ll do quite as good as I will in the other two papers.

The day after that, I have two exams – Japanese and English (interesting juxtaposition). English I feel relatively confident about, although I always hated how English is marked. There are no real “definite” answers, like there are in maths and physics, but instead there is a subjective system where how the teacher interprets your work is a major influencing factor.

Japanese is my bette noir – I’m atrocious at it, frankly. I don’t see myself passing it this year all too well, and that’s a shame – but it isn’t really something I can remedy in the immediate time I have. Because learning a vocabulary is a cumulative process, it simply isn’t something which can instantly be bolstered – the repertoire takes time to fill. I think I’ve just been gradually slipping behind with each passing year, and this year is no different. Ah well. See, the thing which really does depress me about this is that obviously I don’t like failing, but I’m not even able to say “I tried my hardest, and it simply wasn’t for me”. Thing is, I really -didn’t- try my hardest, and this is what causes the problem in the first place. I get melancholic about the subject because I don’t try hard enough, so I don’t try any more because I think it’s more or less hopeless, which only adds to the problem. I think Japanese is an important lesson, and it’ll definitely be a major regret of my high school experience. I think that, looking back, two years ago I should have dropped Information Science (the most bullshit joke of a class you could ever come across) and Japanese, and replaced these with Biology and Chemistry. There’s most likely room for this stuff as an idle interest in university next year, but I do think that I would have enjoyed these last few years of high school a lot more if I had done the aforementioned changes (not that I haven’t enjoyed the last few years of high school; quite to the contrary, but you know what I’m saying).

So, on to the television stuff.

I don’t really watch television very often, but I try to make it interesting when I do. This is my general modus operandi.  I temporarily abandoned this tried-and-true rule of the thumb to watch “New Zealand’s Got Talent”, which was an interesting experience. Based on what I saw, we really don’t. XD

There were a couple of people who were impressive (a showdog and her trainer who did all sorts of amazing tricks, a matron who did a nice Opera piece, a group of self-proclaimed cheerleaders who did a really cool routine (especially given the fact they’re all 9-15 years old), and a couple of blind brothers and their best friend who did a pretty decent rendition of James Brown’s ‘I feel good’), but for the most part the entrants were simply atrocious. Not that I could do any better, but surely you can spare us your crude parlour tricks and barbaric singing. I suppose I do enjoy these entrants, because none of them are really serious, and just want to have a laugh (I know I certainly had a laugh, mostly at their expense =p). I suppose the show was entertaining to watch, although I know that I could have been doing many a thing that would have been more beneficial to me (like studying! XD). One thing which really annoyed me though is that whenever anybody made it to the next round, they’d lower the fps of the camera, show a scene of the people hugging one another or whatever, and played “It’s a beautiful day” in the background by U2. It really wasn’t called for XD

Actually now that I think about it, that show was pretty awesome. There was this one contestant who had these tap gumboots on, and was dressed as a farmer doing a little jig (aiming for the Kiwiana angle), and that wasn’t received too well by the judges. But then he got a tiny black kune kune pig called Porkchop and had it nudge a rugby ball off of a tee. How fucking awesome is that.

I was then alerted to the fact that immediately after this show, there was a mini-series rendition of “The Colour of Magic”, by Terry Pratchet. I read the book and really enjoyed it, so I figured how bad could this be.  I watched it, and it was fantastic! Quite hilarious, and it even had John Cleese as a magic talking sword! They’re going to show the second part, “The Light Fantastic” at some later date in the near future, so I’ll make sure to watch that.

And because YouTube is television of a sort, and you’re all into Anonymous and stuff, I’m sure this’ll rile up a few feathers:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/massive-takedown-anti-scientology-videos-youtube

I look forward to seeing the internet’s universal outcry.

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