It was fun. I feel like I should run around with a plastic gun in my hands firing lasers at my friends more often, really. Not to mention gorging myself on pizza, something that I always love. But then again, there are lots of things that I feel that I should be doing but just can’t be bothered to.

At the moment, I feel slightly… directionless. Like there was something more to the whole sixth-form routine that I’ve simply forgotten in the chaos of university applications. Which, I have to say, are looking good. I’ve got a conditional offer of AAB from Durham University, and have interviews/visit days for Manchester, York and Bristol coming up.

Then, the Cambridge interview. Which will be at Churchill College, some time between the first and fifteenth of December. I’m less nervous than most people seem to be, mostly because I actually look forward to the interview. The thing is, I love talking about computers and most of my friends (even those who take Computing alongside me) don’t really keep up enough to have a proper discussion with.

I’m not talking about “Hey, what do you think about the new iMac? Do you want one?”, I’m talking about Biocomputing, Quantum Computing, Computer Vision. The cool things that I’ve been imagining could be possible since I first heard about them. There are plenty of gadget geeks and programmers, but nobody who likes the theoretical side. So yeah, I look forward to an interview.

I should be in bed, really. The next couple of days are going to be packed. Tomorrow, I need to be in Hecky for 10 to do some maths interview practice. Sunday, I’m buying a suit and practising a set which hopefully I’ll be performing at Matty’s open house in a week. Monday, I’m competing in the Senior Team Mathematics Challenge, in the regional final.

And being busy is probably a good thing, because then I can’t spend hours sat at my pc doing nothing before deciding to write a blog post at gone 1am in the morning. Whoops.

~ Godders.

It’s something that is extremely important, especially for the next four years. In the long term, choosing between some of the best universities for Computer Science in the county is not going to make or break my career prospects if all else remains the same. But whichever I go to will be my home for at least three years – if I don’t enjoy it, it’s going to suck.

I’ve tried rationalising it all with numbers, but that’s the problem really – Numbers are, in this case, no replacement for good old gut instincts. I know what you’re thinking: “You’ve not even applied yet! You don’t even have to choose your five until September!” (October if my AS results are sub-Cambridge standard, in which eventuality the five would choose themselves thanks to the lack of Cambridge)

But it’s something I can’t help thinking about. Oh well. The provisional order is thus:

1. Cambridge
2. Manchester
3. Durham
4. York
5. Bristol

From my point of view though, the more I think about Cambridge the less appealing it seems really. I mean, why do I want to apply other than the university snobbery? It’s more than just a name, but if I graduate with a First Class Honours degree from Manchester, Durham or Bristol it’s not going to make the slightest bit of difference.

My favourite course is Manchester’s or Durham’s, depending how much weighting we give to the Industrial Placement, and I like Durham most out of all these cities with Cambridge and York close seconds. I like the idea of a collegiate uni (i.e. Cambridge and Durham) though ideally, I’d want to be close enough to home that I can visit but far enough away that I’m not expected to often.

Then there’s costs to factor in, but I can find no consistent standard to compare them all to. I really don’t know what to think really. So tell me, what do you think? Any comments are much appreciated.

~ Godders.

So, Challenge of Management. I can hear the outrage already: “He’s doing the topics mentioned in the reverse order!”. Live with it. Basically, it’s a business simulation – we ‘took over’ a Biscuit-making company, and we had to make the decisions about Advertising, Employment and Stock. It was interesting and my team not only won our section, but had the best results out of everybody. Go us.

We were all mixed up though, rather than in groups of friends, and there was nobody in my group that I actually speak to. They were nice though, and I’ve made a couple of friends. Not to mention that our supervisor was a bit ace.

This leaves Durham, which I visited last Tuesday. The city is absolutely magnificent, I can’t rate it highly enough. I could quite easily see myself living there and enjoying doing so. The Computer Science course they offer, however, didn’t seem quite so great. I’m not saying it looks like a bad course – I’ll definitely be applying for it – but the lack of a chance to do an Industrial Placement means that I’m leaning towards Manchester.

Other than the aforementioned three topics, I took the opportunity to watch most of the tennis and play lots of Xbox 360 this weekend. Managed to do all of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the hardest difficulty, and saw Federer outlast Roddick in what was really an epic game.

This post was supposed to be up earlier, but I’m a slacker. More catching up will be posted tomorrow.

~ Godders

Thursday began at 5am, getting up to go to Bath University. Now, I fully expected to love Bath, but it left me feeling a bit flat to be honest. It had none of the buzz that seems to accompany the cities with old universities, and they spent far too long trying to sell me the sports facilities and not enough time trying to sell me their course. The city itself is pleasant, but a bit too hilly and a bit too touristy. I’m fairly sure it’s not going to have a place in my Top 5 universities even if any prospects of getting into Cambridge go down the drain.

On Friday, I went to Bristol and visited the university there too. Wouldn’t have made any sense to have two 5+ hour journeys when I can visit both. I really liked Bristol – it’s undergone a large urban rejuvenation quite recently and there’s plenty to do. I was annoyed when we went into the Arnsdale Centre and the second shop on the left was a perfume store though (allergies, how I love them so.) but I’ll remember to avoid that entrance if I’m ever there again.

On Friday evening, we went over the Severn and visited my Nan in Wales. I adore Mid Wales, even if there’s no internet, no decent TV and hardly any phone connection to be found. Unfortunately, I was stuck inside all day watching tennis because the weather was horrible.

On Saturday, we wandered down into the town nearest to my Nan’s to do a bit of shopping. Nan suffers from arthritis, so my mum goes down every other weekend to help with the everyday things that she’s beginning to find difficult.

Sunday was a little boring, I basically just sat in front of the TV all day once we were back in Yorkshire. Still, it’s all a bit hectic at 6th Form at present so it was a welcome break.

Today was… chaotic to say the least. Which is strange considering I only had an hour’s worth of lessons all day. Computing in Periods 1 and 2, which I used doing some coursework and then messing around in Fireworks (whoops).

In Periods 3 and 4, we had a talk on Research Skills and using the 6th Form’s library, which was obviously thrilling. Then, in Period 5 a bunch of us had to go get the bus into Leeds for a visit to the Brotherton and Edward Boyle libraries (part of Leeds University), which we’ve been granted access to for our Extended Projects. I’d have been impressed except the Computer Studies and Mathematics sections were relatively tiny.

Then, I had to come back to Hecky for Hockey practice, which in this kind of heat was a bit unpleasant. And I bashed my knee falling over like an idiot.

I find it slightly outrageous how we’re actually scheduled for lessons at the moment, it’s utterly pointless. I missed 80% of today’s lessons, I’m going to visit Durham University tomorrow and then from Wednesday lunch onwards we have the Challenge of Management course, which then consumes Thursday and Friday. That makes a whopping four hours of lessons in total over a whole week. And then there are people who aren’t actually in for a single day next week. Pointless.

So, there may or may not be an update tomorrow, pending on how knackered I am after visiting Durham. I’m really looking forward to it though.

~ Godders.

(PS: Over 600 words on a blog post. Five thousand for my Extended Project seems like nothing at all, haha.)