RL Achievements and ToW-split 2/16/09

[Madge]

We sell those bars for $1.50 each at our clubroom, just FYI... the vending machine down the hall tries to make you pay $2.20!

Chocolate's friggin' expensive.

However, the club makes money. I'm not entirely sure WHY we are making money, because we have no goals, but what I do know is this: CAPITALISM FTW!

[ladynight6]

Thanks for the explanation Jazzy. Now I shall educate ya'll on the "wonderful" delights of the IB system:

-PYP: Primary Years Programme, I don't know about those didn't do it
-MYP: Middle Years Programme which is from the age of 12-16 and during that time we complete the Personal Project, which is this huge research project on anything we want.

-IB Diploma Programme. This is basically the system used by international schools, which is the same as the A-levels, SATs and etc. It gets you your high school diploma and the IB Diploma, you don't need to do the IB to get your high school diploma though.
- We take 6 subjects (the nuts take 7), three are Higher Level and three are Standard Level. You need to take (at my school atleast and I think at any other IB school) two languages (one must be english), one science, maths, and then you can choose either arts or social sciences. My courses look like:
Finnish A1 HL, English A2 HL, German B, Math Studies, Biology SL, History HL.
- You study these intensely for about 2 years and also you take part in the CAS programme which is Creativy, Action and Service and you need 50 hours of each to pass, cumulated over a 2 year period. And TOK, which is like a philosophy kinda thing, but not really.
- Extended Essay is a large research paper in one of your subjects, that can not exceed 4,000 words and along with the TOK essay it can get you up to 3 extra points.
- At the end of your two years you take your IB final exams, which are divided into parts so one subject has atleast two papers, higher subjects and sciences are three. Except in languages it's only two. And there are other requirments such as Oral presentations and so on.
- And if you meet your requirments of the university which has gotten your application off you go.

And woe: My extended essay first draft is due next week so now I must go work on that along with finnish and german. o.O

[AngharadTy]

Very big woe, for me: My main computer (which is a laptop) is dying, dying, dying. The screen turns off at frequent and random intervals. Even in bios. So it's probably a physical problem. However, Derek spent an hour trying to open it up to even see the video card, but he couldn't get at it in any way. It's a Dell Inspiron, but there seems to be no online help for "how to open your laptop" for this brand. I can't send it to Dell, either.

So, we're looking at new computers. But Alienware doesn't have the video cards we like. Which will probably result in Derek building his own new computer, and I'll get his old one. Which is several years old, so who knows if that too will develop a fatal problem.

Nothing like getting sick, missing an important vacation, and then finding out you have to drop a couple thousand dollars or so.

So much for moving to California.

[Fjorab_Teke]

Ty - try http://www.newegg.com and/or http://www.zipzoomfly.com. My computer was made of muttly given parts plus very nice new components ordered from ZipZoomFly. ZERO problems, and we've had it almost a year.

WOE: My husband is gone overseas. I won't see him again until April, and at that only about 2-3 weeks, and then he'll be gone again for who knows how long. *whimpers*

Achievement: This will be good for us in the long run. Money has been a massive struggling point for us until recently, and it's good to finally stop digging the hole...perhaps we'll be able to start rapidly climbing out of debt soon.

[AngharadTy]

I know Derek was browsing newegg last night, but I've never even heard of zipzoomfly--thanks, I'll aim him in that direction! ^_^

[Madge]

Jazzy, Meghan - I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, but when I was a fresher I spent several hundred dollars on text books.... which I never used. (I literally spent $110 on a physics text which I only opened twice, and that was for information I could've got from the lecture notes; $60 for a second hand Java text that I only opened once, and that was because I thought it might be interesting; and $100 for a Calculus text that I used slightly more than the other texts, and was good for four units (calculus bridging, two first year maths, and half of second year maths...)

Now I don't buy text books; most lecturers will say you don't need them. In fact, my multivariable calculus lectrurer pretty much abused the book and said that he was going to teach things differently because the book was way too basic for his taste.

Basically, I find that when a text book is set for a course, you generally DON'T need it, unless the lecturer says you do (even then...) or you're having problems. If you end up needing it, at my university at least there's ads on all the pin up boards of people selling second hand books.

Of course, as we can see, education works differently for all sorts of places, so it could be that these text books you're buying are absolutely vital - in which case, that sucks! You need money to party party party hard!

[Tom]

Laura, two colleges in my local area offer the IB. Though I went with the traditional AS levels, I'm pretty sure the government is keen on pushing the IB in colleges, as both of those colleges have only offered it in the last couple of years. We were told they have the weight of around 4.5 A-levels, and as I'm doing 5 when I get to that stage, theoretically, it wouldn't be worth it for me. Also, I don't think the IB would be able to fit around the courses I want to do. However, I suppose it makes sense to push it, with the languages, I suppose it would bring a greater sense of European unity. I also know at least France does it, so I suppose it's more widely accepted across the continent.

[Spivsy]

I'm starting college in one hour, leaving the house in 20 minutes.



...PANIC

[DamionDarkheart]

LIFE UPDATE!

I got a job at a bar last week. One of the managing Bills said he would train me to be doing bartending stuffs so I can make MAD BANK (yo). Right now I'm just hosting for $8-9/hr. It's by far the easiest job in the world; even when the bar is at it's busiest, almost no one comes in for the restaurant so I essentially get paid to stand around and watch baseball and football (but not rugby). It's like 4 miles away which sucks because I have no money for the wonderful subway-esque T. However, I'm getting paid today. Sadly, I don't get to keep any of that money. But YAY JOB

[oogabooga]

I got a job too - at Walgreen's, in the photo department, which means I got an instant 50 cent raise when I walked in this morning because she'd only just decided to put me there.

This is my first ever real job, so it's kind of exciting. Kind of.

[Fjorab_Teke]

About two hours ago, my sister had a baby girl. So I'm an aunt for the first time without the tag "in law."

[ladynight6]

Laura, two colleges in my local area offer the IB. Though I went with the traditional AS levels, I'm pretty sure the government is keen on pushing the IB in colleges, as both of those colleges have only offered it in the last couple of years. We were told they have the weight of around 4.5 A-levels, and as I'm doing 5 when I get to that stage, theoretically, it wouldn't be worth it for me. Also, I don't think the IB would be able to fit around the courses I want to do. However, I suppose it makes sense to push it, with the languages, I suppose it would bring a greater sense of European unity. I also know at least France does it, so I suppose it's more widely accepted across the continent.

Well the IB has so many subjects, my school is just stupid and offers the basics. My friend, had she moved, would have been able to do Film Studies and psychology. Then again my school's a bit sucky. The other thing is I don't think the IB should replace the national education system. The IB is mainly meant for International Schools, because students apply everywhere around the planet. My best friend is applying to Korea, another to Japan. So if we went with the Dutch system, they wouldn't be able to do it. Also France has their own diploma programme, which the IB was partially based off of. A lot of countries have the IB, but it's usually just the international schools.

Back OT:
yay: I finally figured out which universities I want to apply in the UK.
woe: So I need to start drafting my statement. Crappers. :S

[dandelions]

Personal statements are fairly straightforward - sure, they're intimidating at first, but just remember that a) you know and like what you want to do and b) there's an incredibly strict character and line number count, and it'll be fine. Most personal statements are just why you want to do the subject, what you've done outside of class that's relevant, how your studies relate to your chosen degree, and then a bit about unrelated hobbies and interests. Since people are almost forced to apply online with UCAS now, it really is the case that you can spend almost as long attempting to get rid of single letters, line breaks and those long words at the end of lines which wrap, forcing a newline, as you do actually writing it.

What're you applying to do, and where?

[ladynight6]

Personal statements are fairly straightforward - sure, they're intimidating at first, but just remember that a) you know and like what you want to do and b) there's an incredibly strict character and line number count, and it'll be fine. Most personal statements are just why you want to do the subject, what you've done outside of class that's relevant, how your studies relate to your chosen degree, and then a bit about unrelated hobbies and interests. Since people are almost forced to apply online with UCAS now, it really is the case that you can spend almost as long attempting to get rid of single letters, line breaks and those long words at the end of lines which wrap, forcing a newline, as you do actually writing it.

What're you applying to do, and where?

Thanks for the advice. At our school they like to hype things up, and of course they tell us about the American College Essays at the same time, so it's all blaaah!

I'm applying for Creative Writing with some possibilities of other courses combined with it.
The schools that looked good were:
Bath Spa
Bournemouth University
Kingston University
Middlesex University
Roehampton University

[dandelions]

Warwick also has a good creative writing course, since you've only five unis there and are usually allowed to apply to six (it doesn't cost more to apply to more, you just have to stick to the limit of six). Bath Spa is in a lovely town (I'm going to the University of Bath at the end of this month) though my cousin didn't like the actual university because the people there were a bit disruptive, and he transferred to Southampton.

American college essays seem more difficult than UCAS statements - from what I've heard, they're supposed to be longer, for a start. My UCAS statement was about 650 words or 3900 characters, which if you put a line break between paragraphs as you're meant to is about the longest they allowed - the limit is 4000 characters. They also seem to make you respond to specific questions ("what event has defined you as a person", that kind of thing) whereas UCAS is completely open-ended.

A tip I was given - which I didn't use, but my friends did - was to start your personal statement with a quotation relating to what you were going to study. For example, say you wanted to study history, you might start with "History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought -- Etienne Gilson" and go on to discuss it a little (say, in History lessons you found how history repeats itself, the consequences of action and inaction, and the need to take lessons from the past). Should be fairly easy to do with creative writing; for pharmacy, which I picked, it was a bit less so