Musings of a Perfectionist

For those of you who don't know English Language Paper 2 Question 5, it involves having to write out an argument for or against a statement (no sitting on the fence EVER). As this is the mock that we'll be sitting soon, we have been doing a lot of practice writing out answers, and I thought that I'd share one with you (because I'm actually quite proud of it). The statement was this: Schools today should not take children on trips. They are expensive, little more than term time holidays, and in no way educational. I, of course, argued against this (as all children, at least, should). This is my argument:     "School trips should be banned? Who honestly believes this? If it's just bitter old parents who are jealous that their child is able to go to France for a week, have they already forgotten what it's like to be able to go away with your friends? Apparently, school trips are just holidays. Yeah, well, maybe they are- especially for the kids who do...

It's the day of my flute exam (good luck to anyone else doing music exams soon) but let's not dwell on that. Let's focus on better things- like my birthday, which was yesterday! I spent the day at the Good Food show with school, eating lots of food and wandering through great crowds of people. Tilly bought my birthday present there- a white chocolate and raspberry brownie. But I'd just like to say thank you to everyone for their wonderful gifts. For example, a tea advent calendar, or a bucket list of books to read, or a commisioned painting of a cat form my artist friend. My parents got me the best present though: a winter feather duvet! For those who know me well, I am always cold and I do like snuggling under blankets, so this was a brilliant present (and as my Dad said "put it on your blog" when he refused to put the duvet on my bed (although he did eventually), hey Dad!) And now it's Advent, so open your chocolates (or tea in my case) and, ...

Good evening, folks. Today was an eventful day in all areas, linking back to two previous posts-  Geography Fieldwork  and  visiting a Sixth Form . Also, as I'm writing this, my cat is trying to sit on my laptop, so some of this may make no sense. Let's start with the Geography Trip, shall we? Basically, we went to London to research the effectiveness of cycling schemes (hint: not too effective). We had to tally up modes of transport and (the best bit), we had to ask the public questions about their use of the cycles. We ended up getting told that we couldn't talk to people where we were talking to them, which was strange and also funny at the same time. Then we went to the Olympic Park (one of our many case studies is about it) and had a very very quick look around, before we went back home. (I slept on the way back. I'm pretty sure I'm secretly a cat- I woke up when we were about 15 minutes from school, told myself to stay awake, then went to sleep again...

As promised, here is my final post for this series of posts! I'm currently sitting with Eliza in the airport, drinking water (which I haven't had for about 10 hours) and eating Reese's (which are strangely nice). Today started really early, with waking up at 5. This was not supposed to happen (we were getting up at 6) but it did mean that I was very awake when our alarm finally went off. For breakfast, I had a lot of black coffee, a cinnamon roll and a shared slice of cheesecake (it was so good). Then we went to the UN Headquarters on the Metro (where I only needed to swipe my card twice to get through,  rather than my normal seven and then having to jump over the barrier). This was pretty cool, although I was so tired and so I probably didn't appreciate it as well as I could have done. Then we went to Time Square by bus (our group basically took over the bus) and wandered around a bit. Back at the hostel, I was part of the team who were tak...

Last full day of New York! Tomorrow is travelling, and then we get home on Friday (just in time for pizza Friday at home). Today was also a good day though. We had breakfast at this lovely bakery, where I ate an almond croissant, before we walked Brooklyn Bridge, taking some pretty awesome pictures of the scenery. Then we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was also very cool. We only had an hour in there, and I could have spent a whole day, but it was interesting and it smelt like a museum/gallery should do (is that weird? I feel like that's weird). I bought a present for my friend (who keeps wondering if I've got her something, so this is to say that I have) and another bookmark to add to my collection. We then walked through Central Park, where a group of us sang the 'Friends' theme tune (really out of tune) because one of us has never seen 'Friends'. After this, we had a very quick lunch, then we went to the 'Top of ...

Today was a good day. We had breakfast at Starbucks, which,  while not amazing, was decent and the coffee was warm. (Kirsten became Kelsey though *shrugs*) Riding the Subway is always interesting, especially when followed by standing in a queue for two hours. There was a point to this queue- so that we could get on a boat to travel to see the Statue of Liberty and then Ellis Island- but two hours did seem a bit much. Especially as we got to listen to some (pretty awful) covers of songs (they absolutely butchered Wonderwall and Shotgun) by some buskers. The boat ride wasn't too bad (once we got through security) and seeing the Statue of Liberty was amazing. Ellis Island was great as well, with loads of great history and I even managed to buy dine presents for my sisters (they had better be happy). The 9/11 memorial was next. This was such a powerful memorial. It was so sad, and I suggest that you look it up. Then we went to Macy's and did som...

Hello again, sorry this is a bit late. Last night was pretty hectic, and I just fell asleep as soon as we got back to the room. Our last stop in Washington yesterday was to the Capitol building, which was pretty cool. We went on a tour, looking at the crypt that doesn't have Washington's body in it and the room where state funerals are held (Rosa Parks is the only woman to ever have had a state funeral). Interesting fact: out of 100 statues, only 9 are of women. Anyway. Then we had lunch- our little group went to Pret a Manger, and had vegetables and fruit and basically felt very healthy. New York was next, so after a long coach journey, we arrived in the city that never sleeps. Let me tell you this: New York is insane. I cannot actually believe that it's a real place. There are lights and colours and noises and people everywhere. It's so different to Washington (and I definitely prefer Washington). Where we are staying is...interest...

Good evening, you wonderful lot (my phone's autocorrect is really bad and so that did say wistful pot, which is worrying). Today was a very eventful day for us, although we all crashed around lunchtime because there was lots of walking around places. We went to various different memorials this morning, such as the WW2 one and the Vietnam War one. My favourite was definitely Roosevelt's memorial (look it up: it's so cool!) Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum (lots of planes) and had lunch (which was very expensive and didn't taste great anyway). After having wandered around, we walked to the Newseum, which was wonderful and amazing and lots more positive adjectives. I could have spent days in there, exploring each floor and watching the mini-movies. And where are we now, you ask? We are currently (*probably not as you're r reading this though) in our room at the hotel. We played a card game, and we're just resting until we go out a...

Hi everyone! It's currently just past 7 in the morning here, but my body thinks it is just past 12 during the day. It's not too bad, considering. We haven't even had breakfast yet, so I'm currently starving, but Eliza's only just gotten out of bed to have a shower, and breakfast isn't for a good half hour yet. Sad. Anyway, yesterday was eventful, even though we literally just travelled for hours. Coach then plane then coach again (ha, that rhymes). On my boarding pass, I had the 'special' random selection to be searched. So, while everyone else got on the plane, I had to stand with a teacher and have my hands/shoes swabbed and my bag searched. Fun. Washington is pretty cool, from what I can see from our window. The hotel is (no offence to anyone) pretty bad, and the bathroom looks like something out of the sixties. But we've seen all the things that in a classic crime drama set in D.C. will show from its panoramic vie...

Well. Today was eventful. Not. For those of you in my school, and for those of you who may have studied or are studying GCSE Geography, you will know what I am talking about (maybe). For those of you who didn't or don't: we went on a *nice* trip to the beach (Walton-on-the-Naze) to look at the coast. In all fairness, it is for part of our exam, because one of our topics is about coasts and it forms part of our case study questions, but it was a slight waste of my time. The beach itself was pretty unimpressive (but most English beaches are) and I spent more time on the coach (yay: I so do love coaches) than doing any fieldwork. And, of course, we got swarmed by seagulls because someone (I'm looking at you, people from my school) kept feeding them. To be honest, I'd rather do English Language, or Maths, or even my Food coursework (that is due rather soon and I have to cut down on so many words- aghhh). Virtual Reality should have been the way to go today...

Hello everyone- I hope you had a better day than I did (school photos are not fun) (also some of this was written a few days ago, so I did not actually have school photos today). So, a few days ago now, I went to Bletchley Park with some people from school and it was pretty amazing. Perhaps some context is needed. Basically, six people from my year (including myself) won two sections of a science challenge, and our big prize was to go to Bletchley Park. Yay! (My sister also won, with two other people in her year) Yeah, so I went to Bletchley Park. We had a guided tour first of all, although we didn't actually see that much, and then we got to wander around a couple of the huts for a bit. Then we did a codebreaking session, which was pretty cool. I worked with one of my friends, and my sister worked with my other friend (afterwards we decided that she's far too good at codebreaking for her own good...). I worked out that I prefer a monoalphabetic cipher...