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Decisions Decided April 27, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School, Thoughts , add a comment

That big ol’ decision has now been made.

After speaking with the band it was made quite simple. They are serious about Opium Toad and want to try and get somewhere with it and after presenting my predicament they pretty adamantly told me to stick around, in as many words.

That was it really. Nottingham it is.

More than that, I have now gone through the accepting and declining of offers process, there is no going back now, no way to change my mind. If the band collapses tomorrow I will still have to live with the decision. If they decide they are better off without me during the five or sixth months I’m going to be away then Nottingham will still be where I’m going.

For better or for worse, so long as I get my grades, I won’t be leaving Nottingham (save for sixth months in the US of course).

That’s that then.

The biggest decision so far April 21, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School , 1 comment so far

In the next two weeks I am faced with finally making the decision of what university offers to accept.  This is a decision that has an unbelievably massive bearing on my future for at least the next 5 years (gap year + 4 year masters degree).

Ultimately, it looks like this.

I have four offers out of my five applications, Cardiff: BBC, Loughborough: 300 points (BBB but could include AS levels too), Leeds: BBB, Nottingham: BBB.

At this point I have written off Loughborough because of its sport centric vibe and the fact that whilst it is moving away from home it isn’t really going anywhere particularly new as Loughborough is just a small town really not very far from where I live now.

I’m sure that I’m going to pick Cardiff for my insurance because they have given me the lowest offer. It’s a nice university in a nice place but not attractive enough to warrant giving up the other places.

Now comes the indecision.  Leeds or Nottingham.  Their differences as universities are equal and opposite almost and the major differences in other aspects also put neither in a direct lead in any sense.  In terms of the university themselves I think I would have a great time which ever I go to.  The main difference comes here and is indeed where the massive difficulty comes.

If I go to Leeds I effectively give up all my friends here.  Yes, I would still see them from time to time and of course in going to university I will inadvertently meet a lot of new people and make friends there.  It would guarantee the end of my place in Opium Toad, possibly the band entirely but I doubt that.  Still, it’s something I’m really beginning to enjoy and not something that I want to let go of lightly by any means.

Of course, university is the first time that a person really has a chance to escape from where they grew up and going to Leeds would mean a whole new city to explore and get to know and everything that comes with it.

So there it is, leave friends for a new city or keep friends and stay in the old one. I mean, it’s not like Nottingham is a bad place, it has areas I don’t really want to visit but overall I feel a lot of affection for it and perhaps unlike some of my peers isn’t somewhere I necessarily want to just run away from.  Of course, if I choose Nottingham to stay with my friends and then the band splits up and everyone goes their separate ways then I may be left feeling like I made a bad decision.

I know that, whichever I choose, I’m going to feel bad about it in a sense.  There is always going to be a regret, all I can do is to try and minimize it.

I’m going to a Leed’s accommodation open day this Saturday but I really doubt that anything there will change the decision I have to make.

It all comes down to a few questions; do I think Opium Toad can achieve any reasonable level of success? if so, could I be a true part of such a success? How would issues such as our Bassist’s lack of commitment and effort effect the future or possible success of the band? Will I find people at university that I feel more comfortable around, people more special than the ones I have here?

I’m not sure these questions will ever have answers and knowing that I’m making a decision that may well decide the way the rest of my life goes (a basically unchangeable decision) and there really is no obvious choice.

I suppose I will just have to take comfort in the fact that, in some parallel universe, a version of me will take the other choice, so that in some ways, I will know both paths.

Fire! April 3, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : School, Scraps , add a comment

As I was coming home this morning (from school, I only have a lesson first period) I saw a fire engine going past, followed by a lot of smoke coming a house next to the train tracks. I don’t really know what had happened but a small crowd of pensioners had gathered to watch the team of firepeople (that’s the politically correct version fo sho) put it out. I couldn’t really tell what was going on but when I went back into school after lunch the fire was out and it looked a little charred but if you hadn’t seen the smoke or fire engine you probably wouldn’t realise.

This kind of event qualifies as high drama round here, fire is very exciting.

In other news I have a parents evening tonight, I don’t think it will be much use really, I think I can predict quite well what all my teachers will say but I won’t be there for very long anyhow.

Exams - yucky May 22, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School , 1 comment so far

So yeah I’m on exams at the moment, not much fun. I had my critical thinking exam on Friday which I think went well, particularly the argument paper as I am more inclined to the analysis of arguments given how many there are on this big ol internet. Today was my psychology exam which was pretty tough actually, a few days ago I realised how unprepared I was for this exam and I really wasn’t the only one. I didn’t hear anyone saying they felt good about the exam before or after. To me I’m just glad to have gotten rid of it and I’m just not going to worry about it anyway, which is quite a relief.

My next exam is English literature on Friday, which should be er…fun? I somewhat doubt that I will do particularly well but there isn’t that much I can do about that, except reading the texts and learning quotes. In reality I don’t really care that much about it, I will make some effort to learn some quote for the poetry as I can already remember quotes for the play (Cat on a Hot tin roof). Other than that I will be doing some reading with a bit of daily lit. Quite a helpful website, shame it doesn’t have more books that I am interested in.

It was my sixth form’s may ball on Friday, meaning that lots of people got drunk (including one of my best friends) and it was generally a lot of fun, raving and such. Although I enjoyed having some alcohol and was sort of on the verge of being drunk at one point I managed to avoid it despite having drunk nearly a bottle of wine, a baileys and a malibu with coke (the latter two being one of my friend’s suggestions that I just went along with). The idea behind it is generally a leaving do for the year 13 so it will be “ours” next year. I look forward to it.

Yarr Mateys! May 1, 2007

Posted by Sharny in : Life, School , 1 comment so far

Well lets see, last Friday I went to school dressed as a pirate. Now, you must understand this is by no means a normal thing, it’s not normal for me to decide “why, today I think I’ll be a pirate”. No. In fact for me it was quite a big thing really, finally facing head on my self consciousness. I enjoyed it. Sure, there were maybe some things I could have done differently but unlike most things in my life I really don’t have any true regrets.

The response from people was really great, most people just said it was awesome (or some variant) with a few saying I looked stupid or whatever. I can happily say that I have no care for the opinion of the latter, I laughed at most of them actually. It’s a shame I don’t have any pictures of me in the costume, it was a really good one actually, unfortunately my camera decided to go missing so I couldn’t get any. It’s a nice feeling, being able to laugh at people in that way. When I was younger I didn’t have that, I couldn’t laugh at myself, not at all. I actually think it almost destroyed me, it wasn’t until I realised how this works (and that actually laughing at myself can be pretty funny) that I recovered out of the shithole I was in at the time. I don’t know who said it but I remember hearing at some point someone said “if you can’t laugh at yourself you really can’t laugh at anything”. So damn true.