Full-On-Panic-Mode. Or near enough.

I hate revision. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I wish it was a physical thing that lived on my desk so I could stab it and not just hate it. It doesn't help that Radio 1 is currently on "Revision Week" so I can't listen to the radio without feeling ridiculously guilty for not revising.
And on top of that when I do finish revising, it never feels like enough and I feel guilty for that as well. And I feel like I'm not panicking enough about the exams and then I panic about not panicking enough and it's just stupid.
All this boils down to "I hate exams and I hope they go through a black hole and then get squeezed out the other end somewhere else in the universe in a horribly mangled state". There are worse fates and I will probably write them all down. Am I slightly mental for imagining torturing revision? Maybe. Probably. But that's what it does to you.

Speaking of mentality, I do actually think I may be cracking slightly. Yesterday I was at home with my sister and I heard the doorbell. Perfectly normal, blah blah blah, but my sister didn't hear it so I look out the window to see who could be at the door. No one there. Fine, they probably just went away.
Later on, my sister isn't in the house and I'm upstairs in my room. I hear a knock on the door and (remembering what my parents have said about not answering the door etc.) stand on the landing, kinda hidden behind a banister. I see a shadow on the floor but no one through the window to cast the shadow.
And then even later on, I hear the house phone ringing but that actually was ringing so that wasn't too freaky.
So, am I going crazy? Am I already crazy? Is this a sign from my mind that I've bypassed safe crazy, gone past GO, collected whatever I need to and gone straight on to Crazy Town, Crazyville, Mars? Feh, if that's the case, it's mildly enjoyable. I'll just wait until I become an axe-wielding maniac before worrying about it. First, I'd need to find an axe.



P.S. Yeah, Sky, I was kinda thinking of XKCD when drawing that. I think there may be a comic like that somewhere early on in the archives...

Meeeee

I'm the one looking like an idiot on the left holding a stick. I still have that stick in the garage...

We were in Cambridge one day...

... and we went to Wagamama's to eat (brilliant restaurant, check it out) aaaaaaand my sister and I got given crayons. I forget whether I actually asked for them or whether the two of us just look very young. Anyway, in restaurants I tend to get slightly bored while waiting for food. The placemats were made of paper, they had a handy empty space, I had crayons... it was inevitable. Short story made shorter, I drew someone dreaming they were riding a dinosaur.
Ta-da!

Equinoxes and stuff...

Recently I seem to be blogging only when things to do with Product Design have happened. Hm... Whatever. Well, I brought my dinosaur home today and I'm proud to report that he does actually move now without any limbs falling off. :) That's it for P.D. news, really.

So, the spring equinox was a few days ago... I thought it was always on the 21st of the months but whatever. This has nothing to do with anything so ignore it; I have no idea what to blog about and I suppose this just counts as filler while my brain dies further. What do the equinoxes even signify? Is there a specific reason for them? Or are they just a way to measure seasons and whatnot? Or an excuse for hippies to be hippyish? Not that I'm complaining about that; I reckon being hippyish is something we could all do with more of. The whole peace thing, not drugs. Because drugs are bad and not good.

How long has it been since I last blogged? A month? Two? Either way, I'm gonna try and blog at least once a month from now on. This probably won't work all that well, but hey, at least it's a goal and one that should be easy enough to achieve...
It would seem that something's sucked out most of the coherent words from my brain leaving only "flargh" and other such oddities so I'm gonna go before I embarrass myself further. Just poke me whenever I'm behind on my shiny new blog schedule or you feel like reading something utterly ridiculous.

Before I leave allow me to point you in the direction of the shiny new album by Panic! At The Disco because it's awesome and I've been listening to it on repeat for a week now. That's how amazing it is. It's called Vices and Virtues so check it out.

Apologies for the crappy photo quality, as always.

Just to show you all that I'm still alive and kicking everything that's kickable with some very cool steel toed boots...

Fear not, minions, this blog is still alive! It's just hibernating 'cause of winter. SO, since I last blogged, school has started again (booooo) but I (fortunately) did not have to come back to mock exams, having done them back in November and freaking out like crazy. The results weren't too bad but I do see that I do actually need to revise. That being said, I don't think I did too badly for someone who didn't actually revise a helluva lot.

Anyhoo, I had a Product Design GCSE resit this week which had me freaking out like crazy for a bit. Fortunately, it's not an exam you can really revise for, seeing as it's called an "Innovation Challenge". Unfortunately, it does require you to come up with some wacky designs and then attempt to make a prototype of one of those designs. It's a good idea to have some completely crazay designs as your first plans, but then you do have to make things a bit more simple so you can make at least a little bit of it function in real life in the prototype.

I preferred the theme we were given for this exam better than last year's 'cause this one was so much more interesting: last year's involved a school sport's day; this year's involved a jungle theme park. Basically, in the Challenge, candidates get given a theme (e.g. theme park, sports day etc.) and then four situations out of which they pick one to design a product for. One of these situations is generally to do with food and as I'm a Product Design student, we leave those alone and run far far away from them. The situations in this case were:

- a 3D way of advertising special events e.g. clowns/facepainting around the park
- a generic uniform for the park staff that can be easily changed to identify different jobs
- a toy for children under 5, which must be interactive

Now, students choose a situation and start drawing their initial thoughts. As they're for a "jungle theme park", the designs do have to be jungle related and look all jungley. I chose the first situation and ended up designing a mechanical elephant that would walk around the park. That idea may have had something to do with the fact that I had just reread Behemoth by Scott Westerfield but shhhhh. I think it was a pretty good idea and I'm quite proud of the fact that I managed to draw it and then (semi)make it. As it was an exam, and I was designing in a booklet, I can't post any pictures of the design or prototype but I'll try and recreate the drawing and then post that sometime. Don't expect it any time soon, though. My friend's mum does want to see proof of the design so I'm going to be redrawing it for her and I'll post it then. Basically, before the exam my friend told me to remember "elephant, dinosaur and post it notes", told her mum that she had told me about those three magic words and then got told by her mum that if I got a good grade (C or higher; I'm keeping my fingers crossed for waaaay higher), she wants to celebrate the fact that "such idiocy shall and will be celebrated". =D

So yeah; such has been life over the past week for me. I'm back to making my T-Rex in P.D. lessons and so far it's going very well! Long post is long and so I think I'll leave it here for now.
I love you all vair vair much and I shall see you next time! So long, my ducklings! =D



P.S. If all (or at least a few) you lovely readers could comment, it would be ever so nice for me. It gets a little bit lonely posting and then not having anything to read afterwords. Love you all lots like Jelly Tots!

IT'S SNOWING!

In the past few days (by that I mean the past like five) I have become a caterpillar, become re-obsessed with the Princess Bride after watching the movie again, quoted the aforementioned movie so many times my dad almost gagged me, made samosas, and finally learnt to play Bukhar which is a ridiculously addictive card game played at all the family gatherings. It tends to drag on for quite a long time e.g. one time, they were playing from eight to midnight. This was one game. It's very fun, as the game leads to all sorts of arguments. XD

In conclusion, the title of this post makes me happy. Also, I am now giving all my friends potatoes for Christmas. =D
Happy holidays, m'dears! Love you lots like Jelly Tots and in case anyone was wondering, I can say that as Jelly Tots don't contain gelatine. YAY!



Yes, that is my garden. Yes, it is a crappy shot because it is dark and I was using the camera on my phone. Yes, my hand is now very cold because I stuck it out of the window to take the picture. Yes, all that snow has fallen in the past two hours or so. And finally, no, you may not stalk me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADI!

Is there any way to turn back time and write this post yesterday? 'Cause this would've been so much more appropriate yesterday...

Well, in any case, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADI! I don't suppose you want the harem resurrected, do you? Anyhoo, hope you had a kickass day and you don't get any wrinkles from being so old!

Love you lots like jelly tots! (and we've been through this issue before so I refer you to the last blog post to see my musings on jelly tots and the debatable issue of whether they contain gelatine.)

The cake isn't a lie but it kinda is...



BYE!