Home Bound

So after finally leaving Portsmouth, I'm back at home for a week or so to spend some time with my family.

I'm also having a full health check up. Opticians Monday, Dentist tuesday! Turns out my eyes are fine but I may need a tooth out soon. Meh... cross that bridge when I get to it. Damn Wisdom teeth.

Monday was pub quiz! We came last but we sure nibbled on Nobby's Nuts.

Dan came to visit on the Tuesday, and we went out for dinner to a Thai restaurant in Tarpots, which was really nice :)

Thursday I went to visit Keira in Hertforshire! Went to the Rye House pub and had many drinks and the biggest ice cream sundae ever! nom nom nom nom nom....

Friday I popped into London to pick something up for Dad, and had a random stroll along the North bank from Southwark to Tower Hill. It was a nice day, but suddenly changed dramatically just as I got to Tower Hill. Woop!

So I managed to fill my week quite easily :D

Last Day at Work

I have now finished work, this means I can leave Portsmouth.

HHHHHOOOOOORRRRRAAAAAAYYYYYY

I was actually quite sad to leave work. Happy to hand over to my replacement, but I think I am going to miss the people and the place. My last day was basically chatting to people, saying goodbye and people making the same joke over and over again...

"doing much are we???"

dear lord.

I also got presented with a few leaving gifts from my boss. Some electric candles, a money tree, and a dissertation for dummies book :)

I also got a card, which everyone signed, which was nice.

Broom Broom Broom

I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST

BRRRROOOOOOOOMMM

Couldn't have had a better test! 7 minors.

I had a driving lesson before hand, when my driving instructor decided it was a good time to show me under the bonnet. As soon as he lifted up the bonnet however, the burst of smoke wasn't a good sign, and the engine was chucking out heat like it was the Albert Hall...

Never mind, I drove home, then was picked up again after a short lunch. I have never been so scared in my life. My instructor gave me all this "well if you don't pass then..." advice, which didn't help things. Pulled into the test centre, and my driving tester got into the car. He slammed the door, and said very sharply... "RIGHT DIANA, DRIVE ON...BAY PARK FIRST"

AHHHHH, of course I did what he said out of pure fear, and pulled out of the bay, then back in.

Success!

Next, to drive out of the test centre. Not only is the junction to the test centre on a hill (so hill start) but its onto a 40 limit narrow country road on a blind corner. As you can imagine, a lot of people fail driving out the test centre :P

BUT I DIDN'T HAHA!

(but I did get a minor....meh....)

As soon as we got out of the test centre, the tester suddenly lightened up a bit and he attempted to clear up the whole Essex/Portsmouth/Surrey confusion. He failed... and probably went away more confused than before...

My test was at 1402, and for some reason, there was noone on the road, the Cosham roundabout was empty, and I got green lights pretty much all the route!

I did, however, get stuck behind a cyclist. Not any cyclist, this cyclist had a dodgy back wheel. I'm sure it was about to fall off, and this guy was swerving all over the road. Now, as the road was narrow, I decided to hang back, and not overtake until the road opened up a bit, but the tester got a bit edgy.

"JUST OVERTAKE" he boomed, and after argument I did as he instructed and we zoomed back to the test centre.

Phew...

A few minors for not driving eco-friendly and a few signalling issues, apart from that, :D

Proms

Dan came to the proms with me :D

:D

:D

We decided to go to prom 31, an evening with the National Youth Orchestra. We heard Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat minor, Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra and Respighi's Roman Festivals.

Before that we decided to head up to London early, grab some food in Leicester Square and head to Hyde Park, to enjoy the sunshine and chill out for a bit before entering the Royal Albert Inferno...

The Albert Hall was looking as splendid as ever, but was also as baking as ever... Although being strictly frowned upon, we had to choice but to fan ourselves with a leaflet or suffer slowly cooking.

The performance was awesome, a brilliant performance by the NYO!

Same again next year?

We're going to take a short meal break....

Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom

London Film and Comic Convention

Off to Earls Court 2 we trotted....

We knew we were heading in the right direction when we saw the stormtroopers....

We definately knew we were in the right place when we saw Spiderman....

Yep, all geeks unite for the London Film and Comic Convention. YAAAY. Earls Court 2 full of stalls selling geeky stuff and people in all kindsa Sci-Fi costume. Truely awesome.

I got to hug a Stormtrooper and watch random people from Heroes, Star Wars and Harry Potter be questionned by the audience.

There were many Darleks, and the odd remote control R2D2 hanging around, as well as hundreds of Jedi Knights and Stargate Soldiers.

If I hadn't reached my blog photo limit there would be many pictures.... :(

We got badges that said "Team Jacob", and I got a beautiful copper notebook for Mum for her birthday, which was Harry Potter themed. I think she will really like it :)

Next year anyone??

UKCAT

I'm planning on applying for medicine for next year, so this means apitutude test time!

Most of the universities I'm planning on applying for want the UKCAT, so I decided to take this one.

So off I trotted, down to the Pearson Education education centres, which happened to also be the DSA testing centre, which I had visited a few weeks ago to do my Driving Theory Test. I can't imagine many people end up on the 5th floor of the Venture tower in Portsmouth twice in a month :P

To be honest, I didn't do much preparation for the test, you wern't supposed to. I had done a practise on the net but thats about it (and they don't give you the answers :(... not useful). Some people are given months of private tuition and study for weeks beforehand, but I think this is just unecessary. Either you got it, or you don't....

The test comprised of 5 sections, the first four tested the way you thought, so there was a pattern recognition, a mathematical one, verbal reasoning and a decision analysis. The fifth was a non-cognitive test, and gave you a print out with an analysis of your personality.

It turns out im good with numbers, and making decisions (although a number of people would argue this), but sometimes I can be overconfident... meh....

The test wasn't as bad as I thought, and I found sticking to the time limit the most hardest part of the whole test.

Lets hope it's good enough for Medical Schoo huh??