Challenging Pople at Physics

No, this is not the name of a new ITV quiz show. It is in fact the sound I can hear behind me as I type this. Well, no, now I can hear my uncle singing “Relight My Fire”, but you get what I mean.  Singstar informs him that he is “bad!”. Good to know. I, by the way, am the family champion with “Singstar Superstar”. But that’s not what I wanted to blog about.

Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a film that was on Nick yesterday. It was a Mary-Kate and Ashley fiasco, as they pitifully attempted to pretend they were enjoying a road trip. 

It wasn’t even as good as Britney Spears driving around singing “I need time, love, joy, I need space, I need…mey”. (This does not count as a typo as that’s how she sings it.)

Anyway, I thought I would come on and ask you, if you were going on your ideal road trip…

1. Where would you go?
2. When would you go?
3. Who would be the person going with you that is possibly or possibly not a murderer?

Also, if you had to do one of those things where you need a job so you work for the summer picking fruit, and then you like the farmer and fall in love with his son/daughter and it turns out that a local businessman wants to buy the orchard and it is an uplifting tale of community and hope in a small town…

…what fruit would you choose to pick?

Part I

“So Mary and Joseph schmuddered to Bethlehem.” Schmuddered? Travelled, maybe? “And upon their SCREECH they SCHREECH…”

Hmm. Interesting. A child-sized donkey with its head facing backwards bowed down to the baby Jesus, its nose pointing in the air. Several tinsel-laden angels were rustled off of the stage by your stereotypical Sunday-school teacher. I leant forwards at a rather uncomfortable angle to prevent the little girl behind me from setting my coat on fire with her candle.

Yes, this was Christmas Eve, and I was amongst the 600 people crammed into a Biggleswade church to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Not because this was something I really wanted to celebrate. Not because I believe in God, or had an uncharacteristic desire to watch smallish children stumble their way through another nativity performance (although it was pleasing to see that the middle angel from last year had been upgraded to Mary).

No, I went because my family were going, and I go every year, and, well, I have a new policy of GOING to things. And so I was part of that group of people who only go to Church at Christmas and are therefore hypocritical and smelly. But it’s nice to be part of something.

Part II

After a space has been found for the bread sauce and the sausages, the carrots and brussels sprouts have been pushed onto one dish and the potatoes have been counted and shared, we progress onto our discussion of our 3 annual topics.

Supermarkets:

“I got these in Safeways last year and they were very good”, “So I had to go back downtown to get the giblets”, “Oh, I know Asda. I went to one in Yeovil once.”

Timing:

“So then I had got the turkey in the oven by 9:30″, “And I’ll have to be at the station by half past two”, “I think we’d better leave at six o’clock.”

And the firm favourite for the past 5 years: Charles and Camilla. Like every year, Dad jokes “there were three in that marriage” in a convincing impression of people sitting at the table. They, of course, take him seriously, leading into round two: We Hope He’ll Never Be King. Leading to my grandmother’s description of the time she saw Prince William’s chest, then the “documentary” she saw about Charles and Camilla. Mum points out it was a drama. Grandma says that nobody denied anything. Dad says “haven’t we been lucky with the weather?” I say “shall we download the Queen’s speech podcast?” Both of us are ignored. Now a new variation on the same topic: was Diana’s death accidental? “He was three times over the limit.” “But they did the DNA tests on the wrong person’s blood.” “I don’t believe in DNA tests.” “Charles might not be Harry’s father anyway?” “Did you know he’s actually called Henry?” My comment is neither ridiculous or controversial, so I am ignored. “I just hope that Charles is never king.”

Part III

We have handed out the cold turkey sandwiches, decided who has to sit on the stupid fold out stool and poured the wine. My dad raises his glass.

“To King Charles!”

This does not go down well.

Part IV

My Grandfather looks at me. “Are you sending love letters?”

“No.”

“Love letters to your boyfriend?”

“No, Grandpa, this is an iPod. You can’t send messages. You can just listen to music.”

“But you haven’t got any headphones in.” He looks at my Grandma. “She’s sending love letters again.”

“Look, this is just an iPod. You can listen to music, or play games, or look at photos, but you can’t text and you can’t email and you can’t send love letters either!”

“Look, she’s sending love letters. Little girls never used to have boyfriends when I was young.”

Which I know for a fact isn’t true.

Part V

Snow White is being suffocated by her corset, but all the birds do is pick her up and skate across the ice with her.

The little boy in front stands up, completely blocking my view. I don’t care. This is the biggest waste of time. Ever.

My mum looks across at me. “What do you think?”

I don’t answer, but pretend to be engrossed in the boy’s head in front of me.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s sending love letters to her boyfriend.”

HOW? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? WITHOUT THE AID OF ANY MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. I AM NOT SITTING IN A THEATRE, STARING AT RUSSIAN GIRLS IN BIG DRESSES SKATING AROUND AND SENDING TELEPATHIC MESSAGES TO MY BOYFRIEND!!!!!

And so that was my Christmas, ladies and gentlemen.

Happy (Christmas + New Year) everyone!

My favourite Christmas traditions:

• The drawing of the Sophies on the bus timetable plastic
• The Christmas decorations walk around my grandparents’ house
• The visit to Gill’s Mini Market
• Singing “Last Christmas” The “I broke my toe” version in maths
• Rosie has a cold, sniff snuff
• Miracle on 34th Street

One year I watched a film called Station Jim about 10 times during the holidays. But it was just recorded onto video, and I’ve lost it. I’m going to go and try to find it on Amazon. 

Have really great Christmases everyone! 

Hello!

I thought you would love to see the picture of what I did in food tech yesterday, and of the Christmas cake decorations I did this evening. Wouldn’t you? WOULDN’T YOU? 

That’s better.

Observe the alien wise men and slightly poked-with-a-cocktail-stick baby Jesus.

Observe the queasy-looking penguin and yeti-resembling Christmas trees. They look like something out of Monsters Inc. 

Anyhows, this was a fun test in whether marzipan or fondant icing was better to work with. The marzipan won by a long shot.

I was listening to an old CD I made whilst I was sculpting, and everything was happy (Walk Like an Egyptian, Man! I Feel Like a Woman, etc.) and cheerful, but then I forgot that I had put Fix You on the end. Which inevitably reduced me to tears on the kitchen floor. I then got black food colouring on my face, and some of it still won’t come off. Which just goes to show…well, nothing, really.  

Today, I had the best food technology lesson in the history of the world.

Vicki had brought in some marzipan (my favourite food, by the way) to make some snowmen. Only we ran out of white and has loads of spare yellow, red and green. So we made a multi cultural marzipan snowman nativity scene!

I made alien wise men snowmen. We also made a duck-like baby Jesus snowman, which I then stabbed with cocktail sticks in my attempt to make a manger. We opted to make straw with the yellow marzipan and a garlic crusher thingy instead.  

We also made red snowmen. Mrs W said “are they going to be Father Christmases?” and we said “No, they’re snowmen.” Then she said “but they’re red” and we said “we’ve made it multi cultural to appeal to a larger market.”

She didn’t really seem to appreciate it.

But anyway, it was the best thing we’ve ever made. Vicki took photos with her camera, so I’ll post them here once she emails them to me.

Sophie

P.S. I also got an A* in my mock!

Ha! Abbi “I will crush you” Davey is under the impression that I will be writing out an exam board style apology letter and upgrade her mark to an A*. However, I will not, because:

A) She was mean to me, I do not enjoy crushing

B) I don’t want to upset James, he is marking the quiz

So the new results are

Jen - 113 - A*

James - 60 - B

Abbi - 45 - E

Now lets never crush Sophie again. Grebleeee! 

This year it was pleasing to see an increase in the number of candidates writing about Lord of the Flies, although the drop in the number of candidates choosing Of Mice and Men was disappointing.

Those of you who have read the AQA examiners reports know what I am on about.

So here is the examiner’s report for the 2006 examinations series Christmas Quiz: 

Question 1 was answered incorrectly by most candidates. Jenna received the full 25 points for correct item and spelling, although did not know that the animal was a goat. Abbi was awarded 5 points for her correct identification of Luke and Lorelai standing underneath it.

Question 2 was answered correctly by all candidates, although Jenna will only receive 8 points as it was in fact built outside Lorelai’s house, not the Dragonfly Inn. Abbi’s description was most accurate: “a small ice rink, being skated on by an upsettingly slim girl, outside one’s house, probably done as a romantic gesture, under a tree, in the snow.” Jenna correctly identified that this was following Lorelai’s break-up with snow.

Question 3 was also answered correctly by most candidates. James receives full points for his identification of the Santa Burger, and his recognition of it being horrifying. Jenna receives an additional 10 points for her seamless reference to “no-one has ever made me anything quite this disgusting before.” Abbi only receives 15 points for not having the phrase “Santa Burger” in her answer.

Question 4 was designed to challenge more competent candidates. James receives 10 points, as his answer was correct, although irrelevant. Abbi receives 0 points. Jenna receives full marks, although I think that Mark Ruffalo was still downstairs in the beam of light at that point.

James received 20 marks for being the first to reply, Abbi received 15 for being second and Jenna received 10 for being third.

Therefore, the results are as follows:

Abbi - 45 - D

James - 60 - C

Jenna - 113 - A*

If you believe that your paper has been marked incorrectly, join the queue.

Ha! If you read the title, you may be under the impression that your knowledge of Christmas will be of some use to you in this quiz. It won’t. The task is, you need to name each of these items that no-one has ever made for me. There will be points awarded for their difficulty. Creativity is, as always, encouraged, although correct answers will be more highly rewarded.

Oh, and as Jen has a huge advantage, there will also be points awarded for how quickly you respond. Just because I like comments. If you’ve sent me an email so that nobody copies your answers, post a comment to let me know please!

Also, please do my quiz.

Question 1 (15 points for answer, mark out of 10 for spelling)

Question 2 (10 points)

Question 3 (20 points)

Question 4 (40 points, the answer is not Reese Witherspoon)

Good Luck!

Got home from school. Opened planner. 2 homework items: maths and statistics.

Started my maths. Finished my maths. Started my statistics. Actually understood statistics. Finished statistics. Did some more textbook questions for fun.

I now have a whole weekend, and no homework. I am in shock. Mendel says GASP.

So I actually have time to do crazy things like watch a film and read a book and do some scrapbooking and eat pizza and watch Strictly Come Dancing and listen to music and blog and buy Christmas presents and get my hair cut (which admittedly I was going to do anyway).

Yay! I can play endless rounds of Solitaire and not feel guilty about it. Yay!

Also, I can go shopping for patterned papers! Yay!

And update my quotes book! Because at the moment it is being deprived of the brilliant line “is that a reference to kissing?”

Anyone who was in biology can verify that I actually fell off my stool I was laughing so hard.

If Judy Blume could hear the voices in my head, she’d wish she was writing it. 

Hang on. Yep, she’s still alive. Present tense is good.

So, I feel like cliched pathetic teenager of the year. Not something I’m going to go into in detail. But here are the bits I can tell you: I am still completely oblivious to any pendulum knowledge that might be floating around in my head; I am listening to the BBC Last Night of the Proms collection (Jerusalem, to be specific); I think I am still using these semicolons wrong; I am not going to give birth out of my ear. 

My lovely hormones are having fun today. What I want to know is, shouldn’t they have settled down by now? Also, they are effectively proteins, yes? Why can I not just simply attack them with heart-shaped scissors?

Grr. And all that jazz.