(no subject)

Nice day today...
First we had a Latin exam, which was Pliny literature and was pretty easy; easier than the Ovid, not as easy as the Language, only an hour long and I only had about 5mins at the end (Ovid I only just finished). It was about half the length I was expecting it to be, so afterwards (after running past the Latin teacher lurking at the door... how am I going to get the textbooks and papers I do still have back without getting caught not having the two I've lost?... and collecting my Psion from Amy who was technology-sitting for quite a few people it seemed) I got invited to Costa by Danni for the 'end-of-Latin party' she and Katherine Odell were trying to organise.

As I had nothing to do for an hour I followed them into town, and ate a slice of 'Banana and chocolate loaf' (very nice - calories are your friends!) whilst chatting about exams and random stuff. At about quarter past eleven I went off to try and locate the Sath, who was (obviously) ten minutes late (so I sat on a seat outside a bakery-place and ate a buttered roll from there - well, it saved me having to mess around eating the lunch I'd left at school). When I was just ready to give up on them, Sath and Liz leapt out from behind a pillar-thing and went 'Ra!'. I jumped.

For want of anything better to do we wandered back to Costa to see who was still there (Danni had left but most of the others were still around), and Liz got sent to fetch drinks; they didn't have the drink I wanted (the only thing I could spot that was neither fizzy nor hot) but Liz did bring back chocolate covered cherries so I just munched on those while we got asked crossword questions and Sath, well, enjoyed the view...

Liz had to go back for an afternoon exam, and Naath had told me in the morning that she was free at about 12 and would phone me - she did, I said where we were, Liz went off to get changed into her school uniform to take the exam, Liz reemerged and Naath still hadn't turned up, and a Savage Garden track started playing (Affirmation) so we stayed to listen to that track on Sath's insistance, then started out - and I got attacked (well, hugged) by Naath just outside Costa. Then we all went back to the school for me to fetch my stuff (my bag is almost as impractical for traipsing around town with as my school shoes), Sath's mobile phone charger, and drop Liz off for her exam.

We charged up Sath's phone in my form room and then worked out how much time we had and went to find Ms Hayler - we actually found her today, to be told that there were more people who wanted to do the computery community-service thing than could do it and we have to fill in an application form. Ah well. By the time we'd found her, it was about time to set off back to the train station.

I'm going to post this and start another one about the train journey, a whole story in itself.

(no subject)

The train system was on top form today...

After getting to the station we had about 10 minutes left until the scheduled time of my train, so I got a ticket and we found some seats. Five minutes or so later I checked the board, noticed the train was due to be about 10 minutes late, thought 'oh well', and went and sat to chat with Sath again. Not so long after that we saw a mass exodous from Platform 1 to Platform 2, and an announcer said that the London trains had been diverted to Platform 2. When there was 5 minutes until that time left, I went and looked at the board again, and it was only one more minute delayed, so I hugged Sath goodbye and went up to the platform (noticing there was yellow and black striped tape across the stairs to Platform 1, and that my train was scheduled for precisely the same time as one apparently going to Platform 1).

I waited a while on Platform 2, and a train for London came and went, and my train was next on the board. Then it disappeared without arriving, to be replaced with one for Ipswich. Eventually when that turned up I decided to take it, 'cos it was stopping at Witham which was at least in the right direction and I thought I stood a better chance of getting to Braintree from.

So after getting off the train at Witham, I saw on the display that the next train on the correct platform was the one to Braintree I wanted, and it was only 22mins delayed which didn't look like it was at all bad, given that they had a trackside fire at Colchester and one at Chelmsford (on Platform 1 apparently although I couldn't see any evidence from Platform 2 which is only just across the track) and a freight train broken down to cope with. So I sat down and prepared to wait. Not so long later the person on the bench next to me asked (well, yelled at) the guy sitting in the office-thing about where the train to Braintree was, and it'd been delayed another 9 minutes. About two or three minutes later it'd been delayed another 5 minuites. I began to have serious doubts it'd ever get to Witham.

Eventually a train was scheduled to turn up at Witham, but they were planning to just turn it straight back round 'cos the Witham-Braintree service obviously just isn't that important to them. So we (as in, all the people who wanted to go to Braintree, or rather me and a random girl and the yelling guy) cornered the poor old guy in the office and demanded to know how we were meant to get to Braintree now. We were told there was a 'service bus' we could use our tickets on coming in about ten minutes, or coaches arriving in about half an hour. We gathered up all the others trying to get to Braintree and went to get the service bus (I kind of talked to the random girl, traditional essex-girl material (well, the socks were sane, but apart from that) who said 'innit' a lot and swore quite a bit and was smoking a cigarrette and wielding a teen magazine thing, well when I say talked I mean I let her moan at me and reminded her where the bus stop was 'cos I'd actually been listening). The bus got very full, but I got a seat eventually (not to start with tho).

At about 3:15 I phoned my mum's work 'cos I thought she was working late today there - no, that's Thursday, today she was in Colchester, so I confused the person that answered the phone a bit and then rang home, where she was. I thought (silly me) that the bus would be sane and because it was a 'service bus' we could use our tickets on would go to Braintree Station at least (I didn't hope for Cressing). No, it left us at the bus station and I proved I still can't get between the bus station and the train station in Braintree (I think I know Chelmsford better now... scary). Thankfully my mum phoned and rescued me, but it was a less triumphant return home than yesterday's - under much more adverse conditions tho, and I could have got home easily, just not to the station where I'd sent my mum.

All in all, it took two hours to get home...

(no subject)

Hmm, Jenny's LiveJournaled another random survey/questionnaire/profile-thing. Not as good as the last one IMO, but I can't resist anyway.

Typical Stuff

Your Name: Cassia Julia Caeser Draconia. That's 'princess' to you.
Your Age: I lost count. Seriously.
The Age You Seem To Be: Older than my physical-age normally online (although I like to pretend to be 6)
Your Zodiac Sign: The Small Uninteresting Group Of Stars (from the Discworld)
How do you feel about the sign you are? Wheee (cos I made it up)

Fashion Sense (of which I am thankfully devoid)

What is the coolest piece of clothing you own? Has to be the Taelon Trousers, I think, narrowly beating my brightest blue t-shirt.

What does your most comfortable shirt look like? I'm pretty sure I don't actually own *any* 'shirts' - blouses and t-shirts yes, and pretty much all of them (especially the enormous long t-shirts) are very comfortable 'cos I wouldn't wear them otherwise!

What is more important, to look good or to be comfortable? See above?

What is the most uncomfortable piece of clothing you own? Those wretched school jumpers... hmm, do I still own them or are they on their way to the dump even now? (yay, no more icky school uniform after these stupid exams!)

What are your favourite shoes? The white-and-purple trainers (for colour *and* practicality *and* comfort)

Do you follow trends? Only to deride them.

Are you a trend unto yourself? Only a downward one :-)

Musical Tastes (mmm, lollipops with those penny-whistle things in them...)

You have the power to rid the world of one genre of music, what do you choose? There are several deserving candidates, but I'd have to say 'rap', simply because it wipes out Eminem, and his destruction is a worthy cause if ever I heard of one.

What music have you been listening to a lot lately? I've just got enough CDs ripped into MP3s to make my music listening quite, quite random. Keep forgetting to put it on, tho.

Do you dig classical music? (pedant mode engaged) Yes, I excavate sites rumoured to contain this rare substance constantly... (pedant mode returned to normal(it never gets disengaged)) Not really. Don't like 'culture', and generally only like music if it has words. (Classical music pieces just go on for *sooo* long, too. I quite like the first couple of minutes but when they fail to end after that I get bored. Yes yes I know, attention span crippled by modern entertainment and similar yammering.)

How about Jazz? As far as I've heard, 'Jazz' = 'let's forget about having a decent, solid tune and just make it up as we go along, adding as many annoying twiddly bits as possible'.

The Opera? If I want to hear people screech in a foreign language, I'll go torment some foreigners myself, thankyouverymuch.

Define an eighth note: Half of a quarter note... *grin*

What is the piece of music you are embarrassed to admit you once liked? A whole range of stuff from the Spice Girls, Steps, All Saints, and other such bands, occasional tracks of which I still like, although I've discovered that most of them were orignially by other people and done much better by the other people.

What are your feelings about 80s music? I don't have any.

What is the best musical act of modern time? Marnie and Tag performing 'If I Were A Butterfly', for sheer entertainment value. Must be seen live, tho.

What was the first concert you ever went to? Delerious? (in the KEGS school hall. And yes, the ? is part of the band name.)

What song annoys you lotsandlots? 'Oops, I did it again' by Britney Spears - it was one of about five music videos played constantly on one of the channels on our TV in Portugal (and the TV spent *far* too much time tuned to that channel).

Lay some hep lyrics on me and prove you are a cool cat: 'Hep' is not a word, and I'm actually quite warm at the moment.

Of Historical Importance

What is your favourite historical period? Now. (Maybe a decade or so ago, when computers were first appearing in a widespread way, I'd've liked to have been a student then...)

What group of historical people do you find most interesting and why? The Romans. Probably because I was forced to study them as part of Latin and therefore know too much about them.

What is your favourite mythological story? Daedelous and Icarus - the way Ovid tells it, including the bit about Daedelous throwing his nephew off the city walls for being cleverer than him.

Of the following historical weapons, which looks the coolest:
1)The Egyptian Khopesh
2)The German Two-handed Flamberge
3)The Scottish Claymore (Pre-basket hilt)
4)The Japanese No Dai Ichi
5)The Chinese Tai Chi
6)The German SMG-40
7)The Russian Barrel-clip Rifle

It's a close run between the Kopesh and the No Dai Ichi - the ones I know what they look like don't look particularly cool, and those are the coolest names (the first one just looks cool, the second one sounds like Fake Esperanto).

Who's more evil? Hitler or Vlad Tepes? Never heard of the latter.

Who looks more insane? Rasputan or Millard Fillmore? I'm sure you're making these up. (Especially Rasputan, the lesser-known sibling of Rasputin...)

Howard Taft vs. Dick Cheyney in a fight to the death. Who wins and how?
Hmm, not knowing who these people are is probably a consequence of trying to do a question-thingy that origniated in America.

Who's the best president EVER? How should I know, especially as you're probably being all American-centered and thinking only of Merkin presidents...

Who's the worst? If you're talking America, then the present incumbant stinks pretty badly.

Oddities (As if the rest weren't)

No, I'm not answering the rest of this. It's just not interesting enough and I can't be bothered. I'm going to read my much more interesting email.