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.

And yet, I don’t feel stressed at all, which is a tad weird to be frank. I’ve got quite a lot to write though.

For once, we’ll start at the beginning of the day: The Doss Skills Lesson. Was checking out Warwick’s website and it looks like their CompSci course is actually crap. They might be slipping down the list by the time I actually submit my UCAS application. Everyone else was working on Personal Statements because like fools they hadn’t finished their first draft yet.

I can’t be so cocky about Maths coursework though. Draft is in for Monday and I’ve done next to nothing on the writing front. All the maths is there, but I dislike all the wordy crap. Sigh.

We’ve started Mechanics 2 on the Applied side of Maths, but Friction honestly isn’t that interesting – at least not with the examples we’ve been doing so far. I imagine it’ll get more complex soon though.

I was going to get a Statistics 2 book (as I intend to be doing an AS in Additional Further Maths: 3 extra modules which are looking like being Mechanics 3, Statistics 3 and Further Pure 3) but I forgot. Go me. I’ll have to be sure to remember that tomorrow.

At lunch, I had my singing lesson. Which, as always, was great. Absolutely love it, and I like the approach that is currently being taken – start with basic techniques, then get thrown into the deep end, then go back to the basics and realise they’re easy. It works. (Con: I then spent the rest of lunch singing in Room 41, haha)

Chemistry proved, as usual, to be pointless. One week of crappy lessons to go, then it’s done. Thank goodness for that. And Computing was cancelled, so I hung around with Matty B etc. for a bit. We went around finding all of the pictures of Leonidas (from 300) that have been stuck over people’s faces on various posters all over the school.

Period 10 entailed some preliminary work for when I hopefully have my Cambridge interview in the winter. Mr Crowther, despite his awesomeness, doesn’t do computers, but thankfully he has a transcript of a previous student’s CompSci interview and lots of it is logic/maths based anyway.

The questions were quite cool, to be honest. I like the whole concept of thinking on my feet for each question and needing a fairly broad knowledge of my subject. The four questions we covered involved Permutations, Logic, Problem Solving and optimizing the solution and Natural Logarithms, all of which I can deal with. If it doesn’t get any more complex, then the interview could well be a doddle.

I came home and played on Forza Motorsport 2. Getting 115GS in one day is satisfying – I completed the Arcade side of the game (Exhibition Races and Time Trials) but still have a ways to go on the Career side. I’m going to play more of Infinite Undiscovery this weekend though.

Then the cricket highlights. Our tail-enders performed well, Swann and Broad are turning into excellent all-rounders, and I thought our score of 435 was respectable. Then the Aussies came out. I think not bringing in the spinners early was a mistake but then, I’m not the captain. My prediction: High-scoring draw. Unless they fold tomorrow, or we fold when we finally skittle them out.

The day was rounded off with Torchwood. Most dramatic episode yet, but holy crap it almost brought me to tears at the end. It was one hell of a shock seeing their plan go belly-up, and I think that tomorrow may well be the end of Torchwood. I may be wrong.

So yeah… Hectic. And I didn’t even mention everything.

~ Godders.

Now, the English cricket team has frankly been a shambles of late. Our performance in the T20 World Cup begs the question “Why do we not have a specialised one-day/T20 team?” because our Test cricketers are clearly not cut out for the faster pace of the limited-overs version of the sport.

Still, I think we might have a chance of posting a good score if our tail-enders aren’t caught sleeping in the morning. And I’m not sure if starting it in Cardiff was a fantastic idea, but the fans seemed enthusiastic enough even if they are Welsh.

Of course, today wasn’t just about the cricket starting. I went to visit the University of York, and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere there. It had that ‘place of learning’ buzz, but depending on if Warwick’s CompSci department wows me or not I might not be applying.

Visiting York’s Computer Science department was essentially useless other than finding out that they do a 4-year BSc with Industrial Placement, because they’re busy building a whole new section of the University for 2010 which will include a brand-new set of facilities for CompSci.

However, the fact that they have a course with a placement is interesting news indeed. I definitely want to do a year in industry (whether that’s planned with the university or just via a gap year) and they have links with companies such as Intel, IBM and QinetiQ.

Thirdly and lastly, I am absolutely loving the new mini-series spectacular that is Torchwood: Children of Earth. It’s only getting more dramatic and I am really looking forward to tomorrow and Friday’s episodes.

~ Godders.

PS: If you’re reading this, please feel free to comment – I’d love to hear your thoughts and have a conversation.

I’m Godders. I’m an A-level student at the 6th Form of Heckmondwike Grammar School. I study Maths, Further Maths, Computing and Physics. I studied Chemistry to AS-Level but there’s not a force on earth that can make me take it any further than that.

In terms of hobbies, I like to sing, code, and procrastinate from doing real work. Though I’m going to do something about that last bit. I also play far too much in the way of computer games and listen to music 24/7. Of course, most of you will know this already.

The title of this blog, Like The Angel, is a reference to my favourite band on the planet, Rise Against. They’re amazing, and you should listen to something by them right away.

Today, I went to the Open Day at Manchester University. The talks about Accommodation and Student Finance were boring but informative, and the talk on Computer Science was great. Still, I’ve only got Cambridge to compare it to thus far, so I’m not sure where it’ll fit in my list. Also, I’m generally unsure about if I want to study Computer Science by itself, or with Mathematics.

And that will do for this moment in time. More thrilling posts to follow!

~ Godders.