laughylolly (Offline)  

I've had a cold too, it's that time of year. Everbody seems to be getting ill. Hope you feel better

I thought I'd enjoy Physics at a more advanced level but after studying it last year I just couldn't wait to be done ith it so probably a good thing that I went with maths in the end.

Well I guess going to international schools has helped as they tend to have a larger emphasis on languages. Oh that would be great! I have a book on Japanese scripts and I have a learning kana workbook. Been working through them. I think we only learn katakana and hiragana in the beginners module but kanji so far seems a lot more straight forward than I thought it be. But thanks for those links

Eek, hope my hotel isn't flooded. Although its a bit north of Durham.

Cool, well I'll be the girl who probably looks like shes a bit too blonde to be studying maths with excessive amounts of pink stationary etc. haha. Or well you'll probably recognise me better from my picture ^ ^

Oh and ave you done the diagnostic test yet? Howd you find it? I did it the other day, wasn't quite what I expected it to be.

(Now that I'm over the flu and apparently not rebooting my computer mid-message, I can reply...)

See, experimental physics is the one reason I didn't want to do it as a degree. Experiments sound cool, but I usually just find them so boring... it's all "do this exactly as it says here, be careful, blahblahblah". The type of experiment I like is on things like Universe Sandbox. Where you can make a new solar system with three Jupiters and an Earth orbiting one of them, except it doesn't properly because of the multi-body problem so you try and fix that, then you give up, speed up time, and switch the masses of Earth and the Sun so you can watch the whole thing collapse. That's an experiment I can handle!

Wow, sounds like you have a lot more language experience than you mentioned! If you like I could lend you some Japanese textbooks/other books? I'll get a selection out - dictionaries etc are always handy, or you could check out these sites if you don't already know them:
http://jisho.org (brilliant dictionary for both words and kanji)
http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/icampus/u/akanji.jsp (kanji stroke order lookup)
http://www.jgram.org/ (grammar)
There's also things like Anki which are a huge help memorising things. Seriously, after half an hour of Anki a day, my teachers thought I was magic... combine it with a database like core2k or core5k (i.e. core 2000 vocab items) for best results!

I'm going down on Sunday now it seems - was going to go on Saturday but a) our hotel flooded and b) I got the flu so we called our replacement hotel to give notice to avoid the fine

If you wanna spot me, I'll be a tall and tired guy with a dark ponytail (which hopefully narrows it down at least a little!)

Sorry for stupidly late reply, got back from holiday and just went into uni-prepare-panic mode. Hopefully better late than never

Hmm... then I'll definitely put down the Data/Stats one and maybe change in second term. Thanks! Earth science is like geology and volcanology-kinda thing? Gotta admit that sounds interesting, but I'm kinda more interested in the out-there theoretical stuff A bit miffed we have to wait until second year to get started on proper mathematical physics...

Have you ever done a language? If you did OK at it then you should be able to do pretty well. Japanese and Mandarin are similar and different in different ways... with Japanese, the grammar can get pretty devilish and the writing system is a mix of three alphabets, but two of the alphabets are pretty simple and the third is literally just Chinese. Mandarin grammar is simpler but you have to deal with the thousands of characters, while they're generally optional in Japanese (but very, very often used IRL), and the tones. In the future maybe Mandarin means business, but Japanese is good if you're a nerd. I can play Pokemon in Japanese before it's translated ^^

Economics? Personally, just personally, my experience with Economics A-level is... no. Just no. I hated that kind of essay, so it was generally an bad experience. Your experience may vary!

Getting really excited (and a bit nervous) to get there now

I'm at Collingwood, at least we're both on the hill I'm planning to do some Qs on the plane tomorrow (which explains if I'm rude and stop replying soon - sorry!) but just wanted to say hi really

Oh, other thing! Have you decided on your optional modules? I'm thinking of the data analysis one or perhaps a programming one from the Comp Sci dept (I like computers), plus a French module if it lets me spend a year in Switzerland (but that's really up in the air, not sure if my French is good enough at the moment... the requirements aren't clear.).

Hey congrats on getting Durham! I'll be joining you there - which college did you go for? Have a go at any of the problems from the letter yet? :P

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFLkou8NvJo

I've inboxed you XD

UAE-Dubai Still live there, but at boarding school in Edinburgh
Saudi - Riyadh. Only for a few months, didn't even enrol in a school
XD

UAE, Saudi and Scotland