After at least one request from Helen, and me slacking off for two months under pressures from just about everywhere else this term I've managed to get round to an update. So here's the autumn term.
Bath university was a really good day out on Wednesday, really nice campus at the top of a big hill, up which I should probably have caught a bus instead of walking and then on the way back should really have learnt my lesson from the walk up, but it was good exercise and nice to see the city a bit.
The people at Bath seemed much more open about real life at the university commenting on a photo of the artificial lake "lovely in summer, freezes easily in winter." There was a nice tour of the campus where all the students seemed friendly and the other applicants seemed much more normal and encouraged by the prospect of university than some of the other places.
Photos of the trip to Bath:
From UCAS I've received 4 offers so far from St Andrews, Bristol, Nottingham and Warwick all AAB, some with additional criteria and the Warwick offer with a short book detailing possible additional criteria to be met in certain combinations.
I'm still waiting for offers from Bath and Cambridge, though I hope an offer from Bath will come soon, and something from Cambridge just into the new year, hopefully an offer!
I've had a look round Bristol, Bath and Cambridge and going to the other three early next year. Bristol had a very informal interview, there weren't any maths questions and I think it was more a time for us to ask questions on a more individual basis. The Bath interview was a bit more formal and was mainly spent on me explaining what the 1/SQRT(2pi) is for at the front of the normal distribution and why it's 1/SQRT(2pi). The guy seemed friendly though and was good a guiding me through.
I hadn't expected Bath to be as good as it was, the city is beautiful and there's a really nice campus. The students and other applicants there on the day all seemed friendly and just like normal people!
Late last week I was out suit shopping, the first of two recent expensive shopping trips -- the other to get me a new bike -- for my Cambridge interview at Emmanuel. It seemed to go strangely well, I'd expected hard maths questions, like the STEP questions really and they ended up being questions that needed more thinking. In the first interview there were quite a few geometry questions to which I liked as I've read a few books in preparation for the interview on various bits of maths, mainly projective and algebraic geometry, though the interview questions were more Euclidean geometry.
Maths has taken up a lot of time this term, Mr Thomas has run weekly sessions for interview preparation which have been invaluable and really helped me in preparation for interviews. Early on we were asked to do a talk on some topic in maths and Chris and I have tried to keep going weekly giving each other talks on something. Generally it's been reasonably successful, though these last couple of weeks it's fallen apart. I've done a few more talks on geometry, Riemann's zeta function and a few problems and Chris has presented algebra and number theory problems.
That's one thing that particularly impressed me about Bath - how open they seemed to be about their research. The guy who interviewed me wanted to talk to me about what he'd been writing papers on recently, but at Bristol they seemed much more closed. I guess understandably at Cambridge the interview process was more formal so there wasn't the opportunity to talk in the same informal manner.
Outside of university applications I decided to just take the piano exam this November and wait until Easter to take guitar. The exam didn't go so badly though I haven't been able to practise as much as I've have liked. Earlier this week my teacher rang me up and told me I'd got a merit which was nice! The piano in the exam wasn't particularly good. Catherine had warned me about it and was put off as two of my pieces were quiet ones. Seems I was lucky though, my teacher said the examiner seemed a bit harsh and Cat failed :-(.
It's now been a year since I started Welsh lessons and hopefully I'll keep going next term though Wednesday isn't such a great day for lessons as it's when all the universities have their open days. Welsh lessons have been quite good, Will's got enough signatures for his Duke of Edinburgh gold and earlier we played a lot of tennis, though within the last half term I'm not sure we've both been to the same lesson at all. With Will's posh job at Netherhall we might be able to get a court for free though I guess in winter the outside courts might be a bit lethal.
Thinking of near-fatal experiences I'll return to my bike. Since September the whole bike front has gradually got worse and these past few weeks I've been stuck in one gear and my bike rides accompanied by an assortment of unhealthy clunks leading to me getting a new bike this week. It's a Dawe's horizon, and looks quite a bit like this.
Over a month ago now my mum had a really bad week as Auntie Margie and Auntie Edna both passed away in the same week. I didn't know Edna, and I don't think Auntie Margie was a suprise, she's been ill for a while and was rather ill, though that didn't make it much easier. Going to her funeral was strange to, as I didn't know anyone there.
To return to something more mundane I've got lots of updates to AS/A2 notes sections which I need to get round to turning into PDFs and HTML then uploading, so should be available soon, hopefully all up to date by the new year or Christmas, by which time I'll also have done my Christmas shopping. Working means I haven't had half the time I'd like to have spent really, especially for hard-to-buy-for relatives.
Thinking of work less some annoyance over having hours moved around so they have to pay me less over Christmas work's been quite good. Still working the same hours, the past few Saturdays have been really busy, it's really coming up to Christmas and I'm hopeful I won't be working Christmas eve or the 23rd, looks like it will be rediculously busy.
A few links to assorted bits and pieces:
