Hmmm...

Yeah, I couldn't think of a name for this blog. So what?

A lot of stuff's happened recently... My computer broke, so I couldn't do French coursework, German work or my Art contextual study. I'm borrowing a laptop at the moment, but it doesn't have Word or OpenOffice or any other kind of word processor... good one.

We had our Winter concert recently, which was good. It's the last concert that the Senior Orchestra will be performing in this year (although some people may be playing Rhapsody in Blue in the summer), so that was kinda sad. But I really enjoyed it.

Then this Friday I went on a German trip to Cologne. We stayed there for three days and it was really good fun, as we all knew it would be. The places were good, and the activities were fun, but it was the people who really completed it, just like last year. They made it what it was, cos it's a social thing really. So again, I've made more friends and there are loads of private jokes and it's all pretty awesome.

Then on Monday I went up to Cambridge for my interviews. There were 7 people applying for straight MML (as opposed to Education with MML); of those 5 were doing French and Spanish, and 2 (including me) French and German. They all seemed really nice, although I didn't talk to any of them that much... Which is probably why it was a bit boring. I went from a trip where I had loads of friends and we could already joke around to having no one I knew and not really joking much at all. Bit weird.

The written test was first: an English text that you have to answer questions about (and basically summarise) in another language. It was the specimen off the website! So I'd seen it before. But I'd never really looked at it in any great detail... I'd meant to do it as a kind of 'mock' but I never did. But no one else had really looked at it either, so everyone was kinda kicking themselves afterwards. But I think that went well - I'm generally quite good at writing cos I can spend a long time checking and thinking and things, and I'm pretty sure all my grammar was right and stuff... I answered in German, by the way. But yeah, pretty well I think.

The first interview was in French. That wasn't anywhere near as good. The text that I had to read and analyse beforehand was hard, and I didn't understand bits of it. So when we had to discuss that, it was quite hard and I said some wrong stuff. We discussed it in French, and a lot of my French was quite stilted... But I've always known that speaking is my worst area of language learning. They collected the text in though, which had all my notes on it, so hopefully they read it and realise that I was better than I actually displayed. The stuff we talked about in English was OK though, and I think I answered all of those questions reasonably well.

The second interview was German and that went a lot better. I'd prayed for a better interview, and an easier text, and that's exactly what I got. I understood almost all of the languages, although the actual story was quite hard to follow in parts. I identified (in German, as we discussed the text in the foreign language again) some archaic language, which they seemed quite impressed about, and I was able to correctly guess that it was from the 19th century. I translated (pretty accurately I think) part of it but I didn't have very good ideas for how the story could continue, and I got the gender of 'Liebespaar' wrong. In English we briefly discussed Kant and Freud, which I kinda blagged as I hadn't studied them in any detail, but I was able to say a bit of good stuff about their ideas nonetheless. So overall the German interview was a lot better than the French, but still not great.

I don't know how it went overall. Sometimes I feel that I could have got in, but most of the time I feel like I haven't got in. That would really annoy me, cos I want to go there so much. But I'll just have to wait and see...

Erm then the Carol Service today. I loved it. I always enjoy the Carol Services, cos I love singing Christmas carols. I sang all the tenor parts, and the descants (of which I could reach every note cos my vocal cords were really warm :-D). Awesomeness. I had to read the fifth lesson too, which went well.

Tomorrow there's Prizegiving, for which I have to organise prefects and give the vote of thanks. I have to write that now... I'll let you know how that goes. And then the Corps of Drums Christmas Dinner, at which I have to give a speech about the past year. I'll write that tomorrow, after Prizegiving. Charles Aldridge is the new drum major by the way!

But despite all this happiness, I'm feeling pretty empty inside. I know the reason, but I'm not going to tell everyone. There's no point in lying. Sorry :-) x