Marvellous March

March has gone so fast! I think it's been a good month overall. Much better than February at least!

Love is patient, love is kind,
It does not envy, it does not boast,
It is not proud, it is not rude,
It is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered,
It keeps no record of wrongs,
Love does not delight in evil,
But rejoices in truth,
It always protects, always trusts, 
Always hopes, always preserves,
Love never fails.

Who would've thought I'd be quoting from the Holy Book! Anyway, a friend gave me one of these bracelets that are made of symbols that help you remember things, (in this case this reading from 1 Corinthians), for my birthday.
Here are the very pretty flowers I was sent yesterday:

Philia

I love my family, I love my friends (including Henry!) and I love life. Today has been truly wonderful. I really don't know what I would do without all these lovely human beans I call friends! They are all super duper amazing.
I'm getting pretty elderly (and senile too), but onwards and upwards: may the good times keep rolling in!

88

Yesterday was the 88th post. Maybe yesterday should've been a lucky day? Haha I felt very Chinese today - I practiced piano and violin!
Today we had cake because my Dad is going to work tomorrow. Here is Hannah, the awesome.

Off With Her Head!

Off with her hair, more like. My hair is super duper short... It's not been this short since like Primary 3.
Today I was actually successful with clothes shopping. I've not had a successful shopping experience in years. I had my hair cut in London, and was planning on going to Chappell's on Bond Street (even though it's on Wardour Street now) to get some Mozart, but it was closed. Should've known - this is like the fourth time I think I've tried to go to Chappell's on a Sunday. Anyway, I then decided I'd go for a wander down Oxford Street. Going shopping in London wearing heels wasn't exactly the brightest idea, but somehow I managed. I bought a lovely dress from Next, and a jumper from Gap. I only realised after I'd bought it that the jumper actually has the American flag as its logo. Nevermind, it's very comfortable anyway. Oh, also on Oxford Street, I met this man who claimed he was from Los Angeles. He was a clothes designer looking for charity shops on Regent's Street. The conversation somehow turned into asking me where I live/what I do etc etc which was pretty weird. Haha he also said that Los Angeles is in a square shape, but London's all wiggly waggly which is too confusing for him. I think the only issue is, London has more than four streets, which is why there is no way it can be arranged into a square!
Anyway, the main point of today was for our physics class to enjoy a meal at WongKei, then go see Dvorak, Shostakovich and Brahms at the Barbican. It was an absolutely amazing concert, and an even more amazing day. Yay for birthday-ing!
Oh, and Henry had a fab day out in London today also:

Ides of March

I've completely missed the Ides of March! For some reason, I thought that it was on March 45th. Yes, the 45th day of March. I somehow didn't realise that March only has 31 days. Anyway, happy Ides of March, even though it was like two weeks ago.
Today was Kruti's birthday gathering. Moulin Rouge was awesome as always. Brings me to tears every time without fail. Also started watching Paranormal Activity. Barely watched any of that. I found the pattern on the cushion better to look at.
British Summer Time tomorrow! Hurray! I think we should celebrate that instead of Ides of March.

For-he's-a-jolly-good-fellow

My Dad's job review went well - his job should still be safe for at least the next five years. Hurray! *Huge sigh of relief*
I didn't go to the Coopers charity gig thing. Maybe I should've? Meh.
School today was poo, but the day is ending well though.

Azo

Physics ISA went incredibly poo. Trying to make a graph that's very obviously a straight line into a curve is not easy at all.
My sister had her Grade 2 violin exam today. She's not too sure how she did. Her feedback to every question was simply "I don't know." Which is fair enough - if she knew, we wouldn't bother waiting for results.
Ah also, the other day when I thought I'd misheard an Australian accent for an American accent, turns out I was actually right originally! I really should trust myself a little bit more.
In chemistry, we made azo dyes. We used phenylamine and benzocaine to make the diazonium ions and phenol and naphthalen-2-ol as coupling agents. I think we were all secretly trying to make explosives, though that didn't quite work...

Finalé

Today, I left my keys at home and was locked outside the house for absolutely ages. Yes, I am clever like that.
Last ever ballet lesson today. Possibly in my whole ever life. What sucks even more is that I couldn't even stay and dance this week - I had to leave for the school's Spring Concert!
Anyway, tonight's Spring Concert was also likely to be my last ever performance with the school choir/ensemble etc. I technically didn't go to any choir rehearsals this term - I'd been super busy with exams, but pretty much at the last minute (i.e. last 10 mins of today), I was invited to sing in the choir and help the altos. It was performed with no music/words. I actually have no idea how I managed to get through that without making it too obvious that I had no idea what I was doing! String stuff went well - Hedwig's Theme, Chasing Cars and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Tomorrow, I will be playing Chopin for House assembly apparently. Mr Baron likes to do this to me - he basically says the week before the assembly: "Cheng, could you play us some Chopin/Beethoven/Mozart/Bach/Debussy/etc etc for us next week? That would be really great thanks!" He kind of thinks I'm sort of some human jukebox that can play whatever composer he can think of with little to no warning. It's not as if I have a huge load of (slightly important) homework to do in my evenings...
Anyway, this is the typical scene pre-choir performance. I did take a photo of post-choir performance, but I don't think I should disgrace the school with that. (Basically everyone trying to grab some chocolate as if their life depended on it!)

Terrible Tuesday

Today I read in the news about the man in China, who was previously a doctor, who killed eight primary school children with a ten-inch knife. He was apparently suffering from mental illnesses. When I hear of news stories like that, I really just don't know what to do. Was there even anything anyone could have done about it? So many lives, so many families lost, and all because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why does there have to be a 'wrong' place or time in the first place?
Anyway, back to my own tiny little bubble, my sister and I now have violin/piano lessons on the same day, which means that both of us (since neither of us practice during the week) require to practice piano/violin in the short hour between school and the lesson. That doesn't work well - I basically went to my lesson without having practiced at all this week. I couldn't even blag it - I have so much stuff on my mind, I really find it difficult to concentrate. My sister, on the other hand, did very well.

Last Ever Parents' Evening

Today was beyond pointless. I was supposed to have:

1. Physics
2. Chemistry
3. Baby String Group
4. Economics
5. Study
6. String Group
7. Maths
8. Chemistry
9. Parents' Evening
10. Orchestra

Instead, I had:

1. 'Go over hw questions, even though she could easily just mark our work herself - there's only 4 of us in the class anyway!'
2. Teacher was poorly, so did cover work...
3. Was 10 mins late for a 20min rehearsal. Eating took priority over listening to Year 7's plucking.
4. Economics teacher was doing job interviews, so set cover work, which I don't really intend to do.
5. Went with Shiran and Layla to give tours for the interviewees. Maybe should've used the hour to study... Would've been slightly more productive at least.
6. Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I'm not even sure if I can make the concert!
7. Had an interviewee take the lesson. I thought she was American, maybe Irish. Turns out her accent was actually Australian!
8. Walked home. Didn't go to lesson.
9. Last ever parents' evening. Not much was said. Pretty standard. Oh, my economics teacher said he was very shocked and disappointed by my January results. Never had that before, but otherwise, everything was okay. I don't see the point in a parents' evening when we only have like 7 weeks left or something ridiculous like that.
10. Holst's Mars & Jupiter, and Dvorak's Symphony 'From the New World'. I think that was the only good part of my day. Oh... haha surprise solo part I had to play. At times, I do wonder why I'm actually leader...

Finally, I come home and find this. My sister really never ceases to amaze me.

Sunday, Funday

Henry had fun in the garden today. Haha to prevent further Chengfail (e.g. deleting my whole Saturday by killing too much time on facebook), I deactivated my account one day early this week. Oh last night was really weird - I slept for 13 hours! (Fell asleep at about half twelve, and got up at half past one) Especially weird compared to the night before where I slept at half four, and got up at half nine. Nevermind, I do look forward to the Summer where I can properly catch up on sleep!
I need to find somewhere that sells Evian face wash - it's definitely been my favourite so far, but I've never actually seen it sold anywhere...
This is old news, but I managed to find that Kaplan Art rosin for Mr Violin. I never thought I could get so excited about a bit of dead tree...
Ohh this is also old news - I took my sister cycling yesterday and saw one of the senior management at my school outside his house. I don't think he was too impressed when he heard my sister complaining at my for not signaling properly!

Caecilius pater est

The most amazing Latin teacher, Mrs Bott (who's now retired) gave each of us in our Latin class one of these amber hearts to wish us luck for our exams. I really miss her actually.

No More Uni

No more university applications, to be precise. Got a phone call from Newcastle explaining that even though I apparently did really well in my interview, they don't have enough space for me, but asked me if I was okay with them changing to the Durham campus. After a bit of research, I found out that it's actually part of Durham university. This is what I found weird - I have offers from (what I'd consider to be) the very top unis in the UK, but rejections from unis that really are in a different class to them. Still good unis, but definitely not as good as the top few.
Anyway, enough is enough - this week has been really quite awful due to all this uni business. It's burdening me down, so to counteract this, I shall burden myself down even more with schoolwork.

LSO + Chengfail = Win

Much to the disgust of Layla, I went to school this morning just for first two lessons. Then walked to Havering Music School. We took the Redbridge coach to St Luke's in London. (We kind of don't have our own coach.) The afternoon rehearsal went pretty well. I'm still in awe of this amazing conductor - Christophe Mangou. After a lot of waiting around, and playing Snap and Go Fish and Bullshit, we then played two concerts. The second was better than the first I think. I was on the desk right behind the LSO players, which was so so cool when they played their own pieces - I was so close to them, I could even read the music they were playing! Kiu's Dad drove us home after the concert. It took almost 2 hours to get to St. Luke's, but only 45mins to get back! Ah the miracles wonderful traffic can produce.
Here is some photostitching, of photos from Percy. Please bear in mind Percy is a little brain-damaged - he likes to change his own settings without warning, so stitching these together was not easy at all.

Nomdo's

I went in Frankie's car for the first time today. She's a very good driver, but she does have the tendency to shout/talk to herself quite a lot when driving. Went with Layla to pick up Nando's takeout for lunch and also went shopping in Sainsbury's, where I bumped into my violin teacher.
I still haven't heard from Newcastle, which means that it's probably a rejection also. I have doubts, and it's stupid.
It's almost Spring though:

Oh. No.

Today, I went for a stroll in the park. Life is not a stroll in the park.

Cows, Cows, Baby

I think I could have a whole new blog dedicated to "Chengfail".
Today's Monday Period 1 was so, so, so cool - instead of the usual falling asleep, we were united as a class of chemistry geeks through singing/rapping to Jedward's 'Ice, Ice, Baby' lyrics written by Francesca about the chemistry behind butter and margarine and performed it to Mrs Ahmad. It was really quite amazing. If science doesn't go too well for our class, I think we could all become world-famous rap artists when we grow up.
I have yet to call up Manchester to ask about my rejection. Why didn't I call today? Oh yes, I've lost my phone.
Oh, today at breaktime, I took my banana out of my bag, I said hi to my banana, I peeled my banana, and then my banana fell on the floor. I have no idea how. No, I do know how - gravity suddenly grew stronger and decided it wanted to have a taste. Anyway, today breaktime, I was banana-less. It wasn't even just half the banana that fell - it was the whole thing!
Haha oh yes, I had a pretty epic conversation with Lauren this morning. Before I got on the bus, I was talking to this man who's a pretty good family friend. (He's Korean btw.) After the bus journey, Lauren asked me if he was my Dad. I said, 'No, he's a family friend. Also, he's Korean.' (I assumed she knew I was Chinese). Then Lauren asked, 'Who's that? Who's Korean?' I then had to explain to her that Korea is in fact a country. Well, two countries to be precise, but I didn't feel the need to go into that this morning. I'm not actually too sure if she understood me in the end. All I can say is, 'Aww, bless her'.

The aftermath of Katrina showing her gangster side in chem

Mothering Sunday

I made brownies for my Mum today. I think they're actually all finished now.
I went to St Luke's in London today for a rehearsal for the Take A Bow concert with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was actually really good. There were only three people in the grade 8+ group, so we were up against about 50 little plucking/scraping violinists! The LSO people were pretty amazing, and the conductor was absolutely epic - he actually looked like Mika! He had a really cool accent... No idea from where. Oh I also thought I saw Johnny Depp on the tube today. I could've been hallucinating though. Haha also, I almost bumped into Kevin. Completely coincidental, but yeah, I think we must've only missed each other by a couple of minutes max. If it wasn't for stupid tube fail today (district, circle and jubilee line all suspended!), we prolly could've met up.

Romfail

I went failed at shopping life in general with Layla in Romford today. We were supposed to buy Mother's Day presents (for our Mums!). That kind of didn't really happen. Layla was asked to buy a pointed cabbage, and I complained about putting on weight due to exams. I also complained about lots of other things/people. Karma doesn't seem to have eaten me just yet... Maybe I'll get the full blow tomorrow. Nevermind... I have Henry. Well, kind of. Henry still needs clothes, which means that I really can't take him out. However, today I thought I'd be adventurous - I took him to the bathroom for the first time!

Ballet Exam

After a rather zzzz day at school, I had my (most probably last) ballet exam! As usual, my hair was scraped, glued then sprayed back, then a brief warm up before it was our time to go in. It was just Nicole and I this time. The examiner was very nice - she gave us plenty of (much needed) rests, and saw most things done in pairs which was good. I ended the pirouettes with the wrong arm in front, and prolly should've turned out my legs and pointed my toes a little more, but all in all, considering the amount of practice that was actually done, I think it went pretty well.
Haha, that was until the Retires and Pas de Bourrees. Basically, my character shoe broke and came off. We continued dancing but found it really hard to not laugh! I was asked by the examiner to try and get it fixed, and all we managed to do was fasten it with a safety pin. Better than nothing, I continued the rest of the exam with a pretty broken shoe!

Rainbow Results

Hurray! I got my results for the January modules today. I took 4 A2 exams, and one AS exam (M2) back in January. From what I remember, and from what I blogged, I really didn't think I did that well. Usually, I come out of an exam not really thinking I did anything in particular wrong as such. Then I get my results and see that I've made a few silly errors etc. This time however, I noted several obvious mistakes in all of my exams. I need at least one A* in maths, physics or chemistry for my Cambridge offer. Since no resits are allowed for A*s, and the grade boundary is 90%, I was genuinely quite worried whether or not I would actually meet the offer. (Obviously I still have Summer exams, but at least I've gone through one hurdle!) Anyway, my results were fine, and indeed I do still have a chance for Cambridge. It does though mean working extremely hard for the next couple of months.
Layla and I worked together in chemistry today. I took a picture of what we did, but it really wasn't as pretty as Claire's, so here is a picture of Claire's pH scale instead:

The Most Eminent Fail

Today was supposed to be my one and only day of the two-week timetable where I could leave home early (i.e. 2.40pm). Instead, the plan is ruined when I find I have my mentor meeting with the Headmistress at 3.30pm (normal break-up time). This really was quite ridiculous - I had to stay until about 4pm on the one and only day I could leave school early! Anyway, the meeting was alright. It went along the lines of:
"How do you find subject A?"
"It's ok."
"How do you find subject B?"
"It's alright."
"How do you find subject C?"
"Not bad."
"How do you find subject D?"
"It's ok."
"Is there anything you need my help for?"
"Nope. Thanks."
"Good luck with your results tomorrow."
"Thanks."
...
*Cheng leaves school and misses bus*

After school I had my last ever ballet lesson before the exam. Quite scarily, Nicole and I are still making things up as we go along. Neither of us feel nervous just yet. I don't think I've actually realised that it's on Friday yet... Mehh... I had that wonderful economics work to occupy myself with.

nom nom nom

Photo Day

Today we had our leavers' photos done. Quite a bit of a fiasco with the computer and camera apparently, but we took it as the perfect opportunity to spam each and every one of us with a little too many photos. (Mrs Ahmad being absent for today's double chemistry also contributed...) So yes, every time we have a cover lesson for chemistry, we almost always have to have a group photo of our chemistry class.
We also finished the card for Mr Burden, the technician who so, so patiently helped us through the chemistry investigations. Today's picture is of Maria working on the card. Maria is amazingly brilliant at art, (and pretty much everything else in general as well!)

Le Collège

Je devrais essayer de écrire en français. Ma sœur m'a demandé si j'étais bonne en français. Bien que j'ai étudié pour quatre ans, je suis toujour très faible en Français. Je devrais pouvoir de aider ma sœur avec les langue, mais je suis plein d'échec.
Aujourd'hui, les classes étaient très moyenne. Le matin, j'ai lu mon email, en espérant que Monsieur Bright aurait écrit pour dire qu'il serait absent. Et il s'est avéré qu'il n'était pas au collège! Mais, ce n'est pas très bien - on doit écrire deux essais; l'un de quarante points et l'autre de soixante ans! Sacré bleu, c'est ridicule! La classe était en état de choc pendant au moins une demi-heure.
Ici mon échec:

"We're going on a bear hunt"

My sister went to a sleepover last night - they slept at 4am, and so lucky for us, we had a very very grumpy Hannah all day today. That was really not fun.
Henry really wanted to go out today so I begged my parents to take us to Belhus Woods. It was a beautiful day and after quite a lot of pestering, they finally agreed to take us. I think Henry really enjoyed it there. It was a wee bit chilly, but otherwise very fun. We haven't been out together as a family for way too long.

Pro-Day

Unfortunately, it's not just pro-day, it's actually short for procrastination day. I did nothingggggg. Layla's in St Andrews. I'm so so jealous! Hopefully I'll get to go in the Easter, if not then the Summer, hopefully. I drew her a map of St Andrews from what I remember of it. Bearing in mind I left St Andrews about six years ago now, it may leave her a little bit lost...
Today the only productive thing I did was send off my CRB form for Cambridge. Not really productive when I could find that I fail to reach my offer (results day on Thursday! Meep!) Also, sending my id documents, i.e. passport etc through the Royal Mail is something I'm really not too sure of. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up in Bangladesh or something.

Lol at my Dad.

Cheer Up Cheng

It's been a weird day today. Almost everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong this week. I hope next week will be better, I really do. I have a completely free weekend for once. I'll take Henry out to play.
I took Percy to the dinner hall today. I don't think he's been there before. You know how Percy's a little bit disabled now after his fall in Austria, sometimes his settings change automatically, and today the flash went off by accident. I like how it makes the kitchen look somewhat holy, like my form tutor...

Byechester

I was rejected by Manchester. Pretty scary considering I thought it was one of my best interviews. (Maybe Glasgow went slightly better...) It's quite likely that Newcastle will be a rejection - my interview was really poo. Possibly Glasgow will be an offer, but would I really want to go there? It's cold, and it's far away. So, looks like my insurance choice may well have to be chemical engineering at UCL, which is really quite FML.
Now to notify my parents of this fail. Oh dear...
Oh also today the bus broke down which really was just great.
Today has been poo.

Day of Deferring Success

This morning I woke up really early, even though I slept late last night. Usually, regardless of being early or late, I always go for lie-in-bed maximisation where T = Late. However, this morning I couldn't sleep at all and so got up and did the usual morning stuff, but about ten times slower.
Today at school, apart from period 2 General Studies lesson (which was really quite pointless), I had no lessons until maths period 6. So, I took my laptop into school and worked on chemistry and economics and got distracted. I also interviewed a few friends about their understand of the meaning of life. Unashamedly, the primary aim of doing so was to pee off my wonderful form tutor who takes our General RE lessons.
We went to Costa Coffee today. I asked for an iced latte, and wasn't charged. I have no idea why - I stood there with my money and my purse, and the guy just winked and me and said "here's your iced latte". I was majorly confused and actually stood there for a good while to see if he would actually tell me the price and charge me for it. Anyway, that didn't happen so I just left, still confused.
I felt bad at the time, but once I'd tasted it, I was so glad I didn't spent £2 on a drink that was actually disgusting. There was barely any coffee flavour and it was just milk (full fat milk as well!) - I don't even like milk that much! It was just cold milk, with a load of ice cubes dumped ontop, and it was ew. Never get an iced latte from Costa. They are really really yuck.
Anyway, the day gets worse - the first half of the period 6 maths lesson I explain to my teacher how to do a homework question, the second half she attempts to explain it to the class and gets it really quite wrong. She then doesn't trust me when I'm explaining to her why she was doing it incorrectly. So yes, maths lessons are fun like this.
Basically, I found today as interesting as this picture:

Marvellous March

I really like March - I love how the Sun punctually comes out on the first day of March, and it looks like it will be staying (hopefully!). February was such a miserable month in terms of weather; it felt like there hadn't been a single sunny day.
Henry got tired after about 300 shots which I'm quite happy with. He's having a good rest at the moment so hopefully I can resume playing with him later tonight.
I think I'll call my old camera Percy. He looks like a Percy. Anyway, when I took Percy out of my bag for like the first time in about four days, he looked so resentful at me, and for a moment, I did feel really quite bad. I apologised, but I think it's better to let him know sooner rather than later that Henry > Percy. Gosh I feel so mean for saying that!

Final Faildine

I did roughly a billion runs of that stupid faildine clock reaction today and I am finally finished! Four weeks of burette-ing, pipette-ing, boiling tube-ing, test tube-ing, water bath-ing, ice bath-ing, stop clock-ing, wash-ing and failing are finally finished. I am so glad to say that I will never ever have to wait for a blue-black/orange/fail colour to appear ever again.
I looked at my results today after school today and they were awful. I will need to do some 'fiddling', as all good chemists do.
I think this picture kind of looks like my faildine clock - blue-black, and orange. (The orange is the major fail bit. I couldn't use starch as an indicator because it turned the solution blue-black before I even added the reagent! So I had to make do without it, and observe a yellow to orange colour change which isn't exactly convenient...)