Chattery II: for off topic generalities

[Becks]

Same to you Sirkana!
Fragile doesn't even begin to describe it.
If I'm honest with you I never really took things all too seriously... And took everything for granted...
I suppose you could say I made the best of a bad situation but it actually doesn't feel like that at all.
Sometimes you have to stray from the path you set out for yourself!

Haha, I just noticed the comments about wearing two pairs of glasses when watching a 3d film. I found this irritating. The 3d glasses kept slipping off my nose and they irritated my eyes, I had to resort to taking my glasses off every so often.
And watching that screen without the glasses on was a horrifying experience.

[Eyes of Wolf]

Hi, Becks! Welcome back. It must have been pretty tough when you hwere still figuring out a new path through the next few years rather than automatically doing what you'd hoped to, but if this course is turning out well then I guess it's all worth it. Good luck with everything

Icelands! I always feel the same when I reread the books. I always forget just how wonderful they are. I really need a reread now, but I have a stupid quantity of stuff to read for school in September. My History reading list contains War and Peace, which is pretty representative of the length of the list too. Sigh.

I just got new glasses which are much larger and more obtrusive than my old ones, so my next 3d film should be an even worse glasses-experience.

German listening was not nearly hilarious enough. Jochen had a "fashion difficulty at school", apparently, which we were told in crushingly slow monotone, but other than that it was actually about normal things. I was deeply disappointed. AS German better deliver.

[Sirkana]

Becks - yes, it's so easy to take things for granted... Here's hoping that your new plans give you a better path to tread (um, sorry, that metaphor may have reached its natural end by now).

The world is clearly conspiring against the bespectacled - nobody considers us. We probably ought to have a revolution, or something.

EoW - ughhh, reading lists. I don't quite have War and Peace (thank goodness), but mine does include two seventeenth century plays. And on top of the prescribed reading, we're expected to read loads around our university subjects to appease the gods of the personal statement. To be honest, I doubt I'll have time to read anything else this summer, and re-reading is a fleeting memory ...

Aww, poor Jochen (and you). At least exams are over, though. Yay summer, and the sooner the Olympics are over too, the better!

[Eyes of Wolf]

Or something. The world is really very lucky that we're mostly lovely, placid people. Of course.

Oh yes, the uni application guilt-induced reading list. xP I have a copy of the one we get given, since I wanted to get ahead of the game and have less to read when it's time to UCAS (to UCAS should be a verb. I henceforth declare it verbed). Needless to say, my plan hasn't quite worked. I hope you're at least enjoying the books...Oh, re-reading! I haven't reread anything for years. W&P is actually good. It's just intimidating, and difficult to carry around. My copy is just about transportable with comfort, and it's 1440 pages long.

Cannot wait until the Olympics are over. The underground is already hell on Earth. Or below earth. It'll be unbelievable soon.

[Sirkana]

Very very placid. And lovely. Yes.

Well, it's still very organised of you to get the reading list so early on! If I'd done that this time last year I doubt I'd be panicking now. Still, you're right, most of what we're meant to read actually is fascinating, so I suppose I can't really complain. Glad to hear you're enjoying War & Peace, at least.

The English language is very forgiving towards verbification, I find ... one of its better points. It's funny, when you study other languages you become more aware of English's advantages and shortcomings - I like how we can say 'to UCAS' or indeed 'verbed' if we want, but on the other hand I often wish we could distinguish between 'you' singular and plural. Bring back 'thou'!

Anyway, yeah ... The tube's always disgusting in hot weather and the volume of people is just going to make it exponentially worse. Are you going to manage to get away for any of it, or are you staying in London?

[EvaBourne]

Whoa. Feeling weirdly nostalgic. Not to throw off the discussion, but it's nice to see some of the old faces still here. I used to write for this fandom, then I disappeared and switched over to... erm, another fandom... and got weirdly popular there, before calling it quits for original fic. I always preferred you guys. That's all. Carry on.

[Eyes of Wolf]

Eva! I remember you. It's nice to see you too! Now I'm intrigued by what this other fandom is... Personally, Pellinor is the one fandom I've ever been proactive in. Obviously, being on a forum about it isn't the most active thing I could be doing - it's not fic or art - but it's way more than I've ever done for anything else. Which is interesting. I've always been happy to return here, really, so I completely have to agree - this is the best fandom. (That I have seen.)

Gotta love the English language's weird, weird grammatical flexibility. Tbh I tend to verb things when speaking German too, but English is uniquely adaptable. But yeah, in some ways I wish it were clearer - meaning in English is carried so often by tone or word order, and it allows for a certain freedom but I wish we could be more subtle with different shades of grammar. We definitely need "thou"!

Ahaaa, my late reply makes this almost redundant, but I've been in Hungary for a week now...however, it is 40 degrees here. Luckily I'm on work experience so I have air con, but the tube is hellish. You?

[Sirkana]

Hi Eva, nice to see you around! You're right that this is a pretty great fandom, if a slightly dead one. :/

Yes, I love the way you can play with German as well, endlessly expanding the words. And you're right that the fact that English is largely not inflected can be a weakness; you can't manipulate word order for effect nearly as much as in some languages.

Forty degrees! Hope work experience was good, though. I've been very busy doing courses, which is why I haven't had a chance to reply. I'm on holiday now, so just relaxing and trying not to think about tomorrow.

[Eyes of Wolf]

Nothing like those crazy sentences you get in Latin verse sometimes, where the verb that relates to a particular subject or object is five lines away from it and you have to work out which it relates to through grammar elimination.

It's cooled down a lot now, but not for long. Budapest is always crazily hot in summer, but this year has broken all the records. It's good - because work experience isn't really a usual thing for students to do in Hungary, I've managed to get myself into an international company in an unofficial capacity, in a way that I'd never be able to in London, because in London there are obviously proper procedures and rules that have to be followed. I feel like I've cheated, in a way, because of course everyone I know has been unable to get a placement in London that they're interested in or which is relevant to their future.

Why, what happens tomorrow? Please relax as much as possible!

[Sirkana]

Haha, yes, that was what I was thinking of.

Wow - at least it isn't that hot any more. And your work experience sounds good; if I'm honest, I think the whole work experience system is rotten through, so trying to escape it by doing something different is no bad thing. It's not your fault if other people can't find such good placements, though I appreciate that it feels that way.

Today's AS-level results day! I managed to get them nice and early online, though, and I'm happy, so now I actually do get to relax. Good luck for next week.

[Eyes of Wolf]

I was at a company that relies on news, though, and for the past few weeks the Hungarian PM has been on holiday, so nothing was happening. It was still interesting, but not much work was going on. (When Orban steps away, all political life of any kind halts.)

Oh of course, I knew it was on a Thursday but somehow I missed that it was THIS Thursday until I saw everyone complaining on Facebook. I'm glad you're happy with your results! You definitely deserve to relax now.

[Sirkana]

That does seem a bit frustrating. Sounds like it was still good, though.

Thanks! Hope you were happy with yours too. I can't believe school's starting in a couple of days.

[Eyes of Wolf]

Unbelievably happy - especially that I wasn't badly affected by the grade fiasco. The whole thing makes me really angry.

It's ridiculous - so much homework already, so little time! I got the absolute worst teachers for both Maths and English, so I'm a little upset about that, and of course my timetable is crazy (1 free period per week!) but I quite like that feeling when we're still putting everything in order, new stationery, etc. Of course, the feeling of organised bliss doesn't quite last, but hey.

[Sirkana]

Yeah, the politicisation of GCSE grades is a real issue - I personally think some of them are too easy these days, but ruining people's lives arbitrarily is kind of not the solution! But well done anyway.

Sorry you don't have great teachers - it's even more annoying at A-level, isn't it? Our school tries to ensure that we have two teachers for every subject, which I think is a good system; even if one is terrible, you have something to fall back on.

Haha, stationery, one of the true joys of girls' schools at the beginning of term! I really like it too, though. Possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen was the entirety of Year 12 stampeding for the folders and file dividers the school provided at the beginning of last year - it's the one thing that really brings out our primaeval instincts.

[Eyes of Wolf]

That's exactly my perspective, summed up nice and shortly.

Oh, I have two teachers per subject too, and I agree it's a good system. But our English faculty is completely messed up. There are six teachers, of whom two are stupendously amazing, two are competent, and two are...not so much. And perhaps I should be satisfied with having teachers who can teach me the course and get me an A this year - but. But. Most of us don't take Eng Lit for another A grade. I took it because I wanted to be inspired and to think and to be trusted to know stuff, and because I wanted to enjoy it. And with these teachers, that's not going to happen. It's too high an expectation to say that every teacher should be inspiring, but it is still a huge disappointment when they're barely competent.

OOOH YOU GOT PROVIDED SOME whoa I'm very very jealous! And have just proved your point about primaeval instincts! Ahaa. I love folders. So much.