There's always UWS, right?

University of Sydney Live Open Day. I didn't want to go initially, stuff to do and things to catch up on, like Bio and Chem pracs, but at the last minute I changed my mind and decided to go. And it was definately worth it. For those who did not go, like Gough (he's going UTS), it was like a huge expo where you could go to hear lectures on university life, courses and such. My main aim was Medical Radiation Science and it was quite packed. Still good info was delivered.

Since I decided on the spur to go, I planned to initially meet up with Charles and co at Redfern 10:30am. They had changed to 9:30am Central. So off I went pretty much alone. I did try to stay in groups but it didn't last very long. Everyone wanted to go to different lectures at different times and so more often then not, groups were split up. On cool lecture was Dr Karl's hour-long on about science. He spoke generally about science, instead mixing amusing anecdotes and hilarious commentry. One funny piece was his three ways to destroy the world:

1. Drop the big one (massive EMP bursts)
2. Do nothing
3. Destroy the innocence of kiddies

Number 3 was cool. He was talking about Santa Claus' trip to kid and using the law of physics to show that it was basically impossible. A few things that popped up was that Santa has to visit at least 380 million kids, at 1,000 visits/sec, travelling at 1,000km/s with basically 500,000 tonnes of payload and consuming 3,000,000 million litres of drink. Now that's what I call applied science.

Now a whole bunch of Seftoners and other familiar faces were there, but again I was so wrapped up in going places that I didn't notice them until a second later and by then they had moved off somewhere. So here's a quick list of people I saw or thought I saw:

• Charles
• Lesley
• Raymond L
• Yang Lu
• David V
• Andrew
• Anderson
• David T
• Tan
• Harry
• Richard
• Julia
• Susanna L
• My Hoa
• Nam
• Carolyn
• Danny
  
• Land (fairly certain but not sure...you were walking with some guy and went to Dr Karl's lecture at 1pm?)

Now I'm sure there's probably more, but that's a hella lot of faces in one place.

I spent some time looking for Lesley and Charles, and cursing the fact that I didn't ask for their phone numbers. Apparently they went to to some net cafe called City Hunter to play Battlefield 2. I was about to search after them, but tired I decided to head home.

So how was other people's experience at USyd?

My name is Tran. Henry Tran.

What do you do when you're trying to procrastinate? Steal quizzes and stuff from other people, in this case, Land's blog, cos no one else had any quizzes up.
On another note, the "official" skit for year 12 concert is done. Heavily revised to be shorter as other acts are eating up time. Casting dates and info are to be announced. Jack, Sophia and Anderson are on, so we have star power for our skits. Kind of like having Academy Award winners on a movie project.
And, err, ignore Henry Tran. That's my alter ego for browsing the deep, dark recesses of the Internet.

A drive in the country

Pushing one-ninety down the open road,
Guzzling thirty litres a minute, with wind blowing through my hair,
Cops in the mirror, sirens screaming with double demerits,
But I don't care, all for a drive in the countryside.

Jack & Steven

Poem that Jack and I pumped out during English Adv. We were annotating Skrzynecki's A drive in the country and Levick had us brainstorm what images came to mind for a drive in the country and then got us to write a poem. With Tom away, Jack and I actually had to think, well, think a little harder than usual. Jack wanted to put all the negative stuff to mind into th poem, but it ended up with a positive spin. Everyone else's sounded better though, especially the haikus.

Jack had proposed that when he turned 18, he wants to go barhopping. I think that's a good idea, but someone's got to be the designated driver. Currently list stands at:

• Jack (when he turns 18)
• Me

I think Phuong and Ricknam celebrated their birthdays today, but they are only turning 17, not in time to get drunk when Jack turns 18 or after HSC.

I got conscripted into writing skits for the year 12 concert. Or did I volunteer? Right now, I have a basic outline with 5 skits each around 5 minutes or so. Jack, Sophia and Anderson want in, so I can definately say we have some star power on it. Should be done next Monday, with character biographies and script with stage directions. If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it properly.

Physics Prac ReTrial is on tomorrow. Classes are F3, F4 and A4. Dunno which one to go too, but Gough suggests to troll the hallways. Period 1, so I miss out on my free period. Luck to the people who needed. I intend to get there early and jump up to see if I can see the equipment, but I won't be telling anyone. So there.

Happy Birthday to me

I'm very happy to say that on this day, I have survived 18 years in this world. And hopefully more years to come.

Trail HSC is Over...not really...

Maths 2U: Did pretty well, completely screwed by last question.
Maths Ext 1: Screwed, hoping for a pass.
English: Meh...it was alright.
Physics: Very confident
Biology: Can I say aced? No, I can't, but damn close I say!
Chemistry: Urrgh...not very well hoping for 70%
Pracs: Aced Bio, screwed Chem, Physics need to redo

Yes, so these are my feeling for the trial HSC. It was alright overall and it definately helped to show my weakness. Tomorrow I will take steps to prepare to address them. Procrastination, what can I say?

When the Physics finished, Fearnside announced that there had been possible malpractice inthe prac exam, involving 8-10 people. I guess most of us first thought it was some sick joke, but it wasn't. So now we have to redo the prac exam on Friday 18th. But if they have identified the cheaters, why can't the cheaters get their marks reduced to zero? Why a retest? Now the cheaters will get away with it. I think the science faculty suspects malpractice, maybe circumstantial evidence, but can't definitively prove that malpractice had occured. If I had be on the ball, I might have asked why marks weren't cancelled. I have my suspicions on who cheated, but it's all a moot point right now.

So I sure everyone did well in at least one subject. I heard Lesley was really good at the speeches. So good that he made Tom look bad. Is that possible? I'm not sure, but I have good info from MiG.

Rest up and prepare. There are 70 or so days to HSC.