Musicalmidget’s Blog

Hello everyone, remember me?

What a week I seem to be in the middle of. I’ve had so much stuff to do with university, driving and various other personal things over the last few days that I’ve hardly spent any time online at all.

Anyway, first things first, let’s rant about what’s happening now at this very moment. It’s almost 2am and there’s a police helicopter flying around outside. Lots of light, lots of noise, not easy to sleep through. Ontop of that, I’ve been having trouble sleeping because of some nasty toothace during the past few nights, mostly due to wisdom teeth…painful little things.

Apart from the university stuff and the driving stuff, I’ve been sorting though lots of music for the party coming up this friday night. In total I need enough music to keep everyone happy for about 3 hours. That’s not as easy as it sounds. I think I’ve got enough music now to last that long, but obviously different people like different kinds of music, so there’s always going to be somebody unhappy with what’s playing. It’s very hard to please everyone. I’ve got lots of the music arranged into mini playlists now so as I can at various points set a list playing in AtomixMP3 and then leave the deck playing, giving me time to walk around enjoying the party. Usually I wouldn’t do that at a disco (unless I was feeling really lazy :P), but as this one is a farewell party mostly full of my own friends, I figure I’m allowed to on this occassion.

Damn helicopter, it’s right above the house now.

Other events this week included a rather interesting day out on Saturday. Firstly, the wheel trim on the front left wheel fell off on a roundabout and was immediately hit by a lorry, therefore transforming it into several hundred gears. On the way home, the clutch decided to brake just as we joined the motorway. After coasting at 50mph for about 3/4 of a mile (hey, that’s actually quite impressive! :P) we came to a halt at the top of the exit ramp where we had to wait two hours for a recovery truck to arrive from a depot so close to where we had broken down that we could see it! To top things off, the place we had to sit to wait for the recovery vehicle came free with a dead animal, attracting swarms of flies around where we were waiting. I’d loved to have sat somewhere else, but leaving the car unattended in it’s current location was not exactly…advisable. On the upside, it didn’t rain all day!

I expect to have a busy day tomorrow too. I have another driving lesson booked, I still have lots of party things to sort out, plus we should finally be ordering the parts for my brothers new computer tomorrow, meaning I’d better actually draw up a list of what those parts are. :S

Until next time…

As you can probably imagine, things have been a little busy since getting my A Level results last Thursday. Since then I’ve had heaps of forms to fill in and send to the university, student finance company and various other places, plus I’m still getting ready for my driving theory test which is coming up soon. As such, my time online has again been limited over the last week.

I think that most of the forms for the university and student finance company are out of the way now, and I’m not expecting that many more. Although time consuming and not particularly exciting, I know that all this form filling and sending will be worth it in a few days. I already know when I’m starting at university, I know which room is mine, where everything is, how much money I’m entitled to ( ) and pretty much anything else relevant before I start. The only things left for me to do now are to buy a cable lock for my laptop (just to be on the safe side when leaving it in my room) and check that items such as my laptop, saxohpone and various other “mobile” items are covered by the insurance policy before I go. The last thing I want is for something to happen to an instrument or piece of equipment and find it wasn’t covered, as I simply wont have the money to replace anything. Having said that, having no money is what being a student is all about, so…

As for driving, my theory test isn’t for another week or two yet but I really need to pass otherwise it’ll mean I still can’t book the actual practical driving test yet, and that’s not too good because I’m leaving for university on the 10th of September. Looks like I’ll be coming home at weekends for extra driving lessons until I actually get to my test…whenever that may be. After that I should finally be legally able to drive and possibly be in a position to buy a very cheap car…unfortunately as I’m male and under 21 I’m instantly a bad driver in the eyes of insurance companies, so I doubt I’ll be able to afford any insurance, meaning I still wont be any better off as I still technically wont be able to drive. Good job I’ll be getting a student rail card eh?

Anyways, that’s just a quick glimpse into my current goings on. I have a feeling you’ll probably be seeing an entry from me sometime over the next few weeks about a day doing the treasure hunt at Alton Towers. It pays £100 to the winners and it gives me another excuse to go there for the day.

It seems the last two years have finally paid off. I did much better than I expected in my A levels gaining exactly what I needed to get into my first choice university in September!

I managed to sort out the problem regarding proof of taking my saxophone exam…they’ll accept the “unofficial” confirmation I was given on the day. Suprisingly I got straight through to the university without any long queues on the phone…what a suprise.

As planned I’ve spent most of the morning and the start of the afternoon in the pub next to school. I’ll be returning to the local later tonight for a bit of a celebration.

So, todays results mean that in four weeks I’ll be moving away to continue my education elsewhere. Not to worry though…internet access is standard in every room.

Some of you may have realised that I’ve not had much time to come online over the last few days so firstly, hello, I’m still alive.

It’s Monday now, meaning there are only three days until A Level results day. I’ve suprised myself so far in how I’ve managed to get on with things without letting the thought of results day bother me, although I’ve noticed the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about it a little more.

I’m expecting thursday to be chaos. I need to track down some form of proof that I passed my recent exam on my saxophone and show it to the university. Unfortunately, I doubt that the “I Passed” entry on my blog is a valid form of proof. Also, if I just miss my expected grade in music I need to ring the university to check that they’ll still take me…that doesn’t sound fun. As the whole country get A Level results on the same day I expect that university phone lines will be quite busy, thus adding to the overall stress of the day…not good.

To be quite honest, I think I’ve got results that my chosen university will accept, but the whole business of providing various forms of proof to them is the hard bit and I seem to be worrying more about that than my actual results. The A Levels aren’t a problem, as the relevant exam boards will pass the results direct to the university. The saxophone exam however is more difficult as the results come direct to me, and the official certificate of proof is unlikely to arrive any time soon. It’s that certificate that I need to pass on to the university, so as you might imagine, it’s all getting a little complex.

I’m sure I’ll find time to post an entry on thursday. Hopefully it’ll be good news. Once I’ve posted don’t expect to see much of me for the rest of the day. I plan to go straight to the pub once I’ve collected the results and made any appropriate phone calls. I imagine I’ll be staying there for most of the day…hopefully to celebrate.

Untill thursday, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Wow, no updates in a week…doesn’t seem that long.

Anyhow, the family are back now, so the house is no longer my own. Nevermind, it was fun whilst it lasted.

I’ve been upto a few things this week. I’ve spent the last couple of days playing around with the plugins system in MyBB. What better way to test than to actually make a few plugins? I’ve run into a few problems but most so far have been the result of little mistakes in my own coding, not bugs in the system…isn’t that always the way.

In terms of learning to drive, I’m both happy and very annoyed at the same time. I’m happy that my driving has picked up a lot recently and it seems I’m making much more progress. I’m annoyed because the waiting list for driving theory tests has suddenly risen from a week to damn near a month. That means I can’t book my practical test until well into September, by which time I’ll be starting at university. On top of that, tests go up today to £45.50, or £55.50 for a weekend test. That is a huge amount of money for what is in comparison a very short test. I certainly hope I manage to pass first time or else I’ll feel robbed having to pay for another.

I’ve also managed to find some time this week to get a little bit more composition done. Admittedly not much, but I’ve finally come up with an ending for a piece I started a long time ago. I’ll probably be publishing it on Sibelius Music sometime in the future, so I’ll be sure to link to it when I do.

What else do I need to post about? We’re having a new back door put in tomorrow. Isn’t that exciting?

The only other “big” thing happening at the moment is that in eight days I’ll be getting my A Level results. Those are the results which basically decide where I go next year. I’m pretty sure I’ll get to go to the university I’ve chosen, but nothing in this world is set in stone so I’ll have to wait and see. I’ll post more on results when they eventually come through.

We managed to achieve a new personal record at Alton Towers yesterday. Three rides on Rita: Queen of Speed on a peak day, beating the record of two rides on a “quiet” day. We were unable to beat our record on Nemesis though, which currently stands at seven rides in one day, six of which were consecutive.

That probably gives you an indication of where I was yesterday then. I dare say there will be more personal record attempts in the not too distant future…

I’ve spent the last few days restoring my computer to a state similar to how it was before reinstalling Windows XP last weekend. I can’t quite believe it’s taken me so long, it seems I had more installed than I seemed to think.

Today I managed to get my local server back up once again, this time running Apache 2, and PHP 5 as opposed to Apache 1.3 and PHP 4 which I had previously. Additionally, I’ve installed an SMTP server on localhost too which makes testing certain mail related scripts a lot easier.

I’ve still got a few things left to install, including Microsoft Office, but those things can wait a little longer I think. I’m hoping to be able to play with the new version of Sibelius soon too, which I ordered not too long ago. The new version looks to have some interesting new features.

So, back to installing things for now. Maybe I’ll have a slightly more interesting post soon…