Poetry control (3)

As you likely remember, last week on Thursday I had a super-long day at college because I had an English exam followed by Sociology (here and here). Today, I received the result from my piece.

I scored 12 marks out of a maximum of 15. It's not as high as I've acheived in the past but it is the result that I both hoping for and expecting. With everything that has been happening lately - and because I am a relative newbie at analysing poetry - I'm pleased with my marks. I do not have any complaints.

Dangerous ice

It snowed for about half an hour while I was at college this afternoon. The snow looked beautiful on the various buildings and cars around the vicinity of my college. By the time it came for me to leave, most of it had melted.

Unfortunately, some of the snow became ice. The uphill road and walkways to my house were covered with slippery black ice and I was forced to almost skate through parts of it to prevent myself from falling. The ice had transformed the concrete from a regular walkway to a dangerous uphill ice rink. If one wasn't careful, they would slip.

As it turned out, I was fine. I returned home without injuring or making a fool of myself on the ice. That being said, I hope that much of the more risky parts of the ice will melt tomorrow.

Nottingham in the distance

This isn't a great picture but it's of Nottingham in the distance:

Obviously, the city can be seen in the upper left corner of the image as Nottingham is not an empty field. I was on a bus that was leaving the city when I took this photograph.

Back to the radio

Yesterday evening, I listened to the radio for the first time in over a month, which ended my longest spell of not listening to the radio since I began listening to it back in December 2004. The main reason for my stop was because of the presence of my relatives but also because I was sick and didn't feel up to listening.

I am enjoying hearing pop music again. I don't appear to have missed much since my radio break, which started roughly in the middle of last month. I recognise most of the songs and many of the news ones I had heard of during my rest.

Uncles

My East of England uncle is staying here for the week. This follows my Hong Kong uncle visiting here and staying for a week. So why this second visit?

My East of England uncle will be travelling abroad in a couple of months' time. He is self-employed and is up here on a test run to see if he will be able to help his customers from a distance. So far, his test has been fruitful; at least it has as far as I know, anyway.

This is the first time I've shared a house for a week with one of my uncles only to have another visit the week after.

Nottingham, Sheffield and Lincoln

I was present in three British cities today: Nottingham, Sheffield and Lincoln. I have pictures from two of them:

 Here is Sheffield's city centre from a distance while the vehicle was in motion.

Here is Lincoln Cathedral from a distance while the vehicle was stationary.

I was travelling with my East of England uncle and cousins; my uncle was taking my cousins/his children back to their respective universities.

Nottingham centre, early year

I photographed the Nottingham Council House in the city centre this afternoon:

Two of my cousins and I went out for part of the day. I had some shopping to complete (fancy dress searching), as did they, and then we went for a late lunch. We had a pleasant afternoon together.

A useful app

My mother recently discovered an incredibly useful app for our phones: an app by our mobile provider that informs us how much data and how many minutes and texts we've used in our allotted amount per month. Rather than having to visit and log into our provider's website, I can just look on my phone. The information between the app and the website is synchronous because the app logs you into the servers.

The only drawback with the app is that it only works as long as we remain with our current mobile provider. If we moved to another, the app would be rendered useless. Fortunately, we have excellent service with our provider so we have no reason to change.

Poetry control (2)

Today was a shockingly easy day. While I narrowly completed my poetry analysis in the allotted time, I think my work was of more-than-decent quality; I'm not sure how well I analysed the two poems but I am sure that my work will be regarded as well-written. I hope I wrote enough about assonance, metaphors and similes, as well as the messages that each poet was conveying! Regardless of what my result for this control will be, I'm satisfied.

The two poems we had to analyse, if you're interested in knowing their names, are "Who's for the Game" by Jessie Pope and "Dulce et Decorum est" by Wilfred Owen. If you enjoy poetry, I recommend reading them.

I wasn't the only one from my class who was present in the control; one of my friends has unavoidable work tomorrow and had to re-arrange, like me, to undertake the control today. Due to the huge gap between our control and Sociology, we had a chance to talk. I ordered food from the cafeteria today.

As for Sociology, it was no more or less difficult than usual and it was an enjoyable lesson. The only problem with Sociology today is that we were forced to vacate our usual classroom due to the loud maintenance work taking place on the building's exterior. When we moved to another room, everyone - save for me - found it too cold!

Overall, I enjoyed today. I'm in a good mood.

Poetry control

I will experience a long day at college tomorrow. I have Sociology as usual in the afternoon but at 9:00am my next English control (or test or exam, if you prefer) will take place. This control is one that has worried me, as it involves analysing poetry; in particular, poetry from World War I.

Poetry analysing is something that I hadn't done until attending college, so this is part of English is new to me. Unfortunately, due to our being behind in English the poetry lessons were rushed and I would have preferred more time to learn about analysing poetry; what also doesn't help is that the control lasts one hour and twenty, which is forty minutes shorter than the previous two controls (a radio script and a fictional story).

As hard as this control will be, I will navigate my way through it and complete it, as is expected of me. English is still my strongest subject and I am noted for my skills in that area...one tough control won't change that!

"Blog", "blogging" and "blogger"

I've already mentioned this elsewhere today but Blogger.com's spellchecker does not recognise the words "blog, "blogging", and "blogger"; instead, it recommends that I change them to "bog", "blagging" and "logger", respectively. Wait...what?

It's bizarre that the program doesn't register a legitimate noun/verb, a verb and its own name/another noun as real words. As I also said elsewhere today, imagine if Microsoft Word's spellchecker didn't understand the word "Microsoft" and recommended that the user change it to "micro" and "soft".

Limited high pitch

As I'm sure you remember, I contracted a powerful cold a third the way through last December. I lost my voice after my first college term ended and I was ill for the remainder of the year. To declare my cold an inconvenience would be an understatement.

Over a month later, my voice has returned and I can talk again without any problems; I am no longer coughing all the time and I'm not having to carry tissue boxes with me wherever I go. Still, despite all my improvements, I'm not completely free of the cold: I am having difficulty making high-pitched noises. This evening, I handled a hot bowl of casserole and when I reacted in pain, my mouth opened but nothing came out.

Granted, I'm not in any desperate need to generate high-pitched sounds but my lack of being able to do so is evidence that some effects of my cold remain. Plus, as I said above, all my other symptoms are gone; I should also note that I haven't been contagious for weeks. Look for positives.

When do you take them down?

My parents usually take down their Christmas decorations in the early New Year and my grandparents are the same with theirs. On the other hand, I have observed some houses and stores that are still decorated...more than three weeks after Christmas, now.

When do you take down and put away your Christmas decorations? 

Liveland History: 17 January 2012

On the 17th of January 2012, I wrote the second part of a two-part series, titled "In the year...2112". I wrote the pieces in response to an article on the BBC regarding 20 predictions made about the year 2112.

http://airnicetolivelands.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/in-year2112-part-2.html

The first part is here and the BBC article can be found here. I highly enjoyed writing my opinions about the predictions; I found it a decent challenge.

Blue Lagoon

I find it hard to believe that the class Christmas party was almost a month ago; so much has changed since then. Here's a picture of what I drank on that night:

It's a Blue Lagoon, which is a cocktail. My sense of taste was reduced that night but the drink was sweet enough for my senses to detect and the alcohol was soothing for my throat.

This enjoyable drink contrasts from the other Blue Lagoon about which I wrote.