(no subject)

[anotherusedpage]

I haven't updated this thing in a while. Uh, I had absolutely loads to say, but I don't now remember exactly what. Music tour was fun. Concert was also good. This weekend is the second part of my Grandmother's funeral, the stone setting, and so all my evil Zionist isreali cousins are going to be here. I'm going to have Zionist in my bed *shudder*. Zoe, the one who'll get my bed, is a settler in occupied territories. Nothing like spending time with people that you have nothing in common with and who's viewpoints are so alien to you that there's no level on which you can conect or agree or even really communicate. I find this especially odd as my other first cousins are as close to me as my brother and sister are - we all lived in the same house for huge chunks of time when I was younger. And of course they won't eat in our house, cos we don't keep Kosher, so we're having to buy loads of sealed food and plastic cutlery and plates and stuff. And the entire thing is just so unpleasent.

So, I've been tidying up my room. I also went shopping. I got loads of clothes from M and S on sale - a pair of jeans, a skirt, a pair of trousers and two tops - although mostly what I was after was bras. Had the same old problem as always of all the ones that were big enough and supportive enough to actually do anything at all looked more like industrial architecture than underwear. For some reason, as soon as they put lace and pretty bits on it, they stop bothering to think about how the thing actually holds your tits up. Because only girls with small boobs want pretty bras, clearly. But I did manage to find both plunge and multi-ways in my size and in styles that actually work. My mother (who was with me on account of how she was paying) kept pointing me in the direction of the minismisers. Because, yeah, the one thing about my figure that I actually like I should be trying to make dissapear, right? Clearly. Anyway, that's more than enough on the subject of underwear.

Clearing out for the cousins produced some interesting stuff, though. Pictures I'd drawn and school work I'd done aged about four, and some really rather disturbing stuff that I must have written at the age of fourteen or so, more disturbing than I remember wriuting at that age, and what's more it looks like I must've handed it in to my English teacher as a creative writing exercise, which was kinda freaky to look back on. Later that evening, clearing up at Grandpa's house produced old photos, my dad's primary school photos, and photos of his barmitzvah, and my parent's wedding, and some of me and my cousins aged two and three. Also one or two of my grandpa in the army, and my grandma when she was a model, and the original manuscript of the cookery book she had published. And one of my very VERY pacifist uncle Roland in the Cadets, in uniform and soluting the flag and everything. This amused me. 

Oh, and Mods Results:

Modern Literature - 64

Victorian Literature - 58

Text, Context, Intertext - 58

Anglo Saxon - 72

This confuses me. TCI is about what I was expecting, but Victorian and Modern are both lower, and Anglo Saxon is considerably higher. Although that was the one I was convinced I was going to fail, and I did revise it the hardest.

So. I didn't fail. But I'd never had lower than 60 on any practice paper I'd done. And I dunno how I feel. I mean, everyone who's been saying to me that they think they've done badly has come out with a first.  I didn't think I'd done particularly well, and I'm generally happy with a 2.1. But I worked hard, and I don't feel like I've got anything to show for it. Which is stupid, because a 2.1 is higher than I was expecting two weeks, or in fact even two days before the exams. And I thought I'd got over my feelings of inadequacy when I fucked up (ok, ok, didn't get straight As) for my A levels when my best friend managed five As. But I'm going round exactly the same loop again. And I keep getting moments of being thrilled about the Anglo Saxon, and then even that seems pointless because it's not a skill I need for finals, or in fact anything else in life. (Although my Viking's got an I-told-you-so smile.) 

And my brother's in huge trouble at school. He's been bunking to the extent that they're threatening to prosecute my mother. And they've just started having a yelling match in the living room.

Umm. I'm sure there was more cheerful stuff than that. Heh. I don't remember it.

Comments

[synergetic.livejournal.com]

Meh, your exam situation sounds familiar to mine. Screwed my A levels over after expecting to get four straight As only to get into Oxford on my Polish A (which I didn't expect) and then going into prelims thinking I'd do alreight and yet doing worse then I expected. Anyway, for fuck's sake don't let it worry you because then you'll end up down the road I went down and get all anxious about being stupid at which point you've signed your own self-fulfilling profecy.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know that really. But thanks for the hint. :)

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the people who were saying they'd do terribly were Adam and Ditlev, and if you believed them even for a moment then you were very silly. and me, but we'll just ignore that...

Well done generally, and 'specially well done on the anglo saxon. See sometimes being insane is a good thing... :s Maybe you should switch to the other option...

[fu-manchu12.livejournal.com]

*mumblemumblepeoplenothappywitha2:1grrrsomeofushadtomakedowitha2:2mumblegrumble*

Anyway, well done!

Feelings of inadequacy are annoying. I tended to veer between "Woohoo, I'm reading Classics at Oxford!" and "Oh God, how did I end up here, reading Classics at Oxford?" However, in a more lucid moment it occurred to me that if you're capable of passing Mods, then it must follow that you're good enough to be here. Checking that is, after all, the whole point of Mods.

[synergetic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too about physics. Sometimes it got so bad that I didn't want to waste a lecturer's time because I figured they'd have better things to do with their time then waste it on any of my questions :(

[fu-manchu12.livejournal.com]

Though things have got better since my A-Levels, when I emailed my Latin teacher on the day before the results came out, apologising for wasting his time over the previous seven years.

Obviously, it turned out that this was just pre-results terror talking, and it all ended up being a bit embarrassing, especially since he didn't read it until the following evening. He thus came home, fresh from congratulating me on my results and place at Oxford, to find his inbox full of paranoia and self-pity.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Oh Ed, that's adorable.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Seconded

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

..... apart from the fact that no one really fails arts subjects mods, and we had a promise from our tutor that even if we managed to fail he wouldn't let us be sent down...
But yeah. In general, the thought is true.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

And I am happy with a 2.1 really. Honest.

[awroe.livejournal.com]

Very impressed with the Anglo-saxon mark. Most of the English students I know found the subject very difficult and did quite badly. Can you not do other ancient languages like Old Norse, or is that only for the other syllabus?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

I could do if I was going to do course two, but the thing is I'm actually really shit at languages in general and Anglo Saxon in specific. I found it extremely difficult, and out of the eight tutorials I had in hilary term, I spent six in floods of tears going 'I don't get this'. I got really paranoid I was going to fail that module and revised it super-hard, and even then only got questions I could actually answer by luck. That's one of the reasons I was so bemused by the marks.

I don't want to drop it all together, so I guess I could write on Beowulf later for special author, or do something Anglo Saxon related for special topic, but I don't wanna do course two cos I like the literature side of things, not the linguistics and languages...

[synergetic.livejournal.com]

Do whatever you're interested in. It's easier to last through a course and give a shit if it's something you care about, not just something you're good at. The marks really can be random and all vary by exam...

[awroe.livejournal.com]

Even more impressed then, given how hard you found it.

Two of the english students in my year switched to course two and retook their second year, but then another two dropped out completely, and I think only one of them actually managed to get as far as finals, with the help of medication. I think we had a special year :)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

We have something of a special uear already.
Out of eight, one has dropped out, one is on medication, two have drug habbits, and more than one has mental health issues of one sort or another. And then there's me. And I think that Amy's boyfriend is the only heterosexual person in the entire set. Everyone else is gay, bi or at least bi curious.
It makes things interesting.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

And no-one believes him anyway.

If only I could keep the other guys in your set from trying to seduce him.

[opportunemoment.livejournal.com]

Oooh I need to see things. Lots of things. Clothes and photos and drawings and things, all of them.
And hey, exam-wise it's like my A-levels all over again, only with Anglo-saxon and that other thing rather than History and English.
Kinda squicky about Jonno. Hope they can sort it out without actually killing each other. If you feel the need to escape, come on over, I've got nothing much to do now until the first of August. By the way, do you want to come to a Taverner prom on that day? We probably have a spare ticket.
I love you... and don't you dare make your boobs smaller...

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Will you come on Sunday, hon?
I'll call.
xx

[lucy-lupin.livejournal.com]

It's not always easy for small-breasted girls to get bras we like either. Manfacturers seem to think that if you're an "A," you either want a training bra (like the kind I had when I was ten), or that you feel grossly inadequate and want padded inserts the size of pillows to zonk yourself up to a "D." When really all I want is a pretty, functional bra that will give me a bit of shape and support.

I'm from a different educational system and have no idea what the results mean, but congratulations anyway :)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, having been bra shopping with vampire_kitten, I've seen that too. I'd rather have my bra problems than hers. But still, people come in all shapes and sizes, and you'd've thought that clothes manufacturers would've got their heads round that by now.

And thank you for the congratulations.