Stroke on the Water

See what I did there? You've no idea how long that poor pun took me. To get an idea, take a look at the date of my last post.

For the first time in over a month, today, I rowed on water, instead of one of the machines. It felt great to be back on the water, though I think my skill has depreciated somewhat.

I finally received my SAT results this week:

• Critical Reading: 650
• Math: 800
• Writing: 650

Hopefully that should be enough to get into either MIT, Harvard, Princeton or Stanford, but I'll bet 2090 is below their average intake's overall score. Still, I'm counting on my foreignness making up for that.

Night all!

Production and Reproduction

So, there was a point today when I thought to myself "this is the least productive day ever." Actually, upon further reflection, I feel I've produced enough to call today a win. I enjoy doing anything I can on any given day to tick it off as a win; today's winning qualities are as follows:

• I finished sewing my custom shirt
• I cut up some trousers
• I ventured to Sainsbury's with little brother Owen
• I bought copious amounts of food, including some drink and snacks for Friday night's poker
• I logged onto the XKCD IRC channel and had a thorough discussion on mammalian breeding patterns with a complete stranger, as well as sparking some conversation about SATs and contributing to Tetris-related nostalgia

Of course today was a win! On the subject of SATs, by this time tomorrow I will have my score. 2400? I doubt it, but, oh my, how excellent would that be? They'd better be good: they'll be sent to MIT, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

As you'll be no doubt pleased to know, the reason humans don't have a mating season is because they have supreme intelligence which allows them to imagine the future. Thank you, #xkcd.

Despicable!

So, tonight I ventured to the land of feature-length commercial entertainment once more to witness the enjoyable animated 3Dness which is Despicable Me. Great voice work from Steve Carell – who I'm not often a fan of, however, he is rising in my estimations – and Russell Brand as a Emmet Brown-esque mad scientist.

Having the day off school let me catch up on some work, or, at least, finish one piece of work. Annoyingly, I still have some left to do, but half-term should give me enough time to finish all school-work as well as my essay for Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. I have a brilliant idea!

That'll be all for today. Things on my mind tonight include almost exclusively applications to my big four Universities. I mean, if I get these right, I could be offered a place at one of the greatest academic institutions in the world. That's the previously mentioned three and MIT. Exciting stuff!

Good night froods! I'm watching Lie to Me, Sky1. Tim Roth is brilliant.

9.6 seconds

I finally beat my original 2000m indoor rowing time today. After missing my lift from Bob due to a peculiar dream that kept me dormant until 1120, I eventually got to the club at 1150, after having some much needed bacon. Within a half hour, I was on the machine, and rowing the best I've ever rowed on one, cutting my time from 8:21.0 to 8:11.4. That's the 9.6 seconds you've read about.

In other news, my attempted install of Ubuntu server failed. This is due to a lack of support for my i686 infrastructure. I may have to use 8.04 or 8.10 instead. The ideal plan is to get a new build, then use this laptop to connect to the server, not as the server itself.

I've begun work on the Common Application today. That's America's answer to UCAS. It'll cover my Harvard, Princeton and Stanford applications, hence speed up my progress with the flowchart of academia, which now covers my entire whiteboard.

My mother certainly deserves commendations for another brilliant Sunday roast, with mashed potato, sausages and all. It's thanks to such a dinner – and my progress in rowing and completion of the flowchart's primary function – that overall, I'm in a pretty good mood today. I've been edgy as of late, for which I do not apologize. Edginess is a fine component of the human condition: a truly excellent defence mechanism.

Goodnight all!

Maverick can be my wingman...

On Thursday I was filled with adulation, having completed my UCAS application, and, hence, my Cambridge application. Unfortunately, dealing with Britain's top academic institute is never that simple! I have to fill out the SAQ, which, much to my relief, isn't too long. That'll be sent away by Tuesday, and then I can concentrate on MIT, Stanford, Princeton and Harvard.

Tonight, I've downloaded – thanks to wget and Oxford University's Open Source Software mirror – Ubuntu Server Edition 10.10, known colloquially as Maverick Meerkat. Lovely. I'll be trying that out on a wee laptop soon, so expect complaints of a total failure in tomorrow's post!

Regards,
Love and kisses,
Yours sincerely,
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Robin James

Le retourne de Jeudi français!

Demain, je dois avoir envoyé mon application à UCAS. Aujourd'hui, j'ai le fait. Maintenant, j'ai 79 jours jusqu’à je dois envoyer un application aux universités Américaines. Ce sera un propre application pour MIT, Harvard et possiblement des autres.

Ah, oui. J'ai oublié de me désoler pour ne pas avoir poster en français le semaine dernière. J’espère ce soir rends tout meilleur.

Bonne nuit!

The Lie-in, the Book and the Whiteboard

All right, so maybe 0800 isn't that much of a lie-in, but the C.S. Lewis reference wouldn't work nearly as well with anything else.

As for the book, that's real. I'm referring to the Harvard Prize Book I was awarded on behalf of the Harvard Club by my school today. No Small Matter by Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides. I also won the award for French in my year, and received the certificate for the Open University course I completed last year.

Finally - and, man, this post is short - I come to the 1.2m*0.9m whiteboard which arrived today! I bought it on Monday, on eBay, and it's ridiculously big.

I've got a month left to finish my UCAS application, due to the early Cambridge deadline. 108 days to go for MIT and Harvard.