Monday Maths Madness 24

I think it's time for some more puzzles. I got these ones out of a book called Mathematical Puzzling by A. Gardiner. I have no idea where this book came from. I think my mum gave it to me... Anyhoo! Puzzles :)

1. Take your house number and double it. Add 5. Multiply by 50. Then add your age, the number of days in the year, and subtract 615. The last two digits are your age, and the first two are your house number. Can you explain why?

2. If all the stars stand for the same number, can you complete: (*/*) - (*/6) = (*/12)?

3. If you start with the number 2 and stick an extra digit 1 at the beginning you get 12, which is exactly six times the number you started with.
Can you find a number so that when an extra digit 1 is written at the beginning you get 3 times the number you started with?
Can you find one so that the number you get is 5 times the number you started with?
Can you find one so that the number you get is 9 times the number you started with?

4. In the multiplication 6 x 2 = 3 all the digits are correct, but they are in the wrong places. The equation should be 2 x 3 = 6 (or 3 x 2 = 6). In each of the next three multiplications all the digits are correct, but some of them are in the wrong places. Can you put them right?

28 x 1 = 44

43 x 2 = 14

76 x 8 = 41

That's it for today. I'll try to get the answers out on Wednesday, but it may be later depending on how well my assignments go.

2013: Week 4

This week saw the snow begin to thaw. It's just as well, the ice rink outside my building was starting to be a bit treacherous.

And I think I've been wearing my gloves maybe a little bit too much...

I don't have any pictures of this, but on Tuesday I got to sing my first proper solo for a Glee performance. I sang Skyfall by Adele and everyone said I did it really well. One person even told me I gave her goosebumps when I sang it in the practise! I've never given anyone goosebumps when I've sung before, so that made me really happy :)

I didn't feel quite so happy after my first tutor meeting of the term on Thursday. It's bad enough that I had three assignments all due in that day, as well as almost 6 hours solid of work starting at 9 o'clock in the morning, but during the tutor session we had to describe our strengths, weaknesses and skills we learned in the modules we did last term. I hate doing that sort of thing. I actually cannot do it. It made me feel like I hadn't learned anything. And then I had a bit of a panic attack that I wasn't good enough for the course, and poor Apollo had to deal with me being all depressed and grumpy. So the next day I came up with a plan. It involved a quick trip to Wilko's, and lots of colourful pens.

Hopefully with this extra work I plan on doing, I will feel more confident that I can actually do maths at Warwick standard.

After a very long week, and with our kitchen having power back in the plug sockets again, I made myself a hot chocolate with marshmallows and a crushed flake I found in my snack box.

It was good :)

Monday Maths Madness 23

This is going to be a short one today, as I have a lot of assignments due in on Thursday, and not a lot of time to do them all in.

Consider a set, I shall call it A. A is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves.

If A is not a member of itself, then by definition it is a member of itself.

But if it is a member of itself, then by definition it can't be a member of itself.

This self-contradictory definition is known as Russell's paradox.

And it makes my head hurt.

Ponder on that for a while :)

2013: Week 3

Basically, this week it snowed. A lot. And I took a lot of bad pictures of it.

I was trying to take a picture to show how heavy the snow was falling, and how pretty it looked. Didn't work... All this snow, however, meant that it was time to get out the cosy socks, crank up the heating, and have a hot drink.

I finally got round to using the whiteboard (wipeboard?) side of my super grown-up chalk board set.

The chalk board also came in handy when designing my rollercoaster for my Geometry and Motion homework. No lie, that was one of the questions. It actually sucked.

Apollo helped me to plan out a story line for my flash video UWC challenge.

Apparently it is a lot warmer inside my room than it is outside. I have a small lake growing on my windowsill...

Also, all of my posters appear to be cowering (or bowing down to) the sheer awesomeness that is my Catwoman poster. They keep falling off the wall. It is quite annoying.

Even my original Catwoman poster can't face the awesomeness!

So that was my week. Just ended it perfectly with a take out curry with the rest of my kitchen. I am looking forwards to left over lunch tomorrow, I can tell you!

Monday Maths Madness 22

I was debating whether to call this number 22 or 23, but I decided Christmas Maths Madness was a different thing, so I'll resume from where I left off. Because you really wanted to know that.

This is one of those internet memes. Normally it says "*something* is too damn high". I like two damn pi though. I wish I had two damn pies. That would make me very happy right now. *end random tangent*

Complex numbers (erm, relationships?) gotta love them.

I love it when people answer silly questions completely literally. This guy clearly put a lot of thought into his answer, and it kind of makes sense!

Well that's it from me today. I might actually write something worth reading on the next Monday Maths Madness. You never know. You'll have to stick around to find out... :P

2013: Week 2

This week has been all about getting back into Uni life.

 The first few days were spent on solid revision for the exam I had on Wednesday. I found this really hard for a couple of reasons. The more I revised, the more I realised that I didn't really know a lot of the content for one of the modules in the exam. The more I realised this, the more I stressed out about it. The more I stressed out about it, the more I wished I was still at home with my family. The more I sat there missing my family, the more I realised I was wasting precious revision time. It was a vicious cycle. I managed to do a load of revision. I went through two revision guides, and filled half an A4 notebook with notes and exam practise.

So you can imagine that when it got to Wednesday evening, and I could tick off the exam, a huge weight lifted from me, and I began to relax back into my Uni routine.

I even managed to polish off a big plate full of pasta. I was meant to take a picture before I ate it, but I came out of my exam REALLY hungry!

I looked up at my desk and noticed that Pascal seems to look happier than usual. I'm not sure why that is...

I no longer have ducks outside my building in the morning. Instead I have Canada Geese. And let me tell you, they are huge. Quite terrifying really.

My new chalk board has been put to good use already. I actually really love it. It is the coolest thing ever. Makes me feel proper geeky :)

I got woken up at 3.40 this morning by a fire alarm, and had to stand outside in the freezing cold for 10 minutes. In my pyjamas. I was meant to be asleep -.- I did however get to go to archery for the first time since the beginning of last term (oops!) today. I think I'm actually quite good at it, for a beginner anyway. My arm wasn't so convinced though...

It's amazing the damage a piece of string can do! I had fun though, and can't wait to go again next week :)

So that was my week. More pictures and hopefully blog posts next week!

B is for Oh Bollocks!

I was really looking forwards to our B date. Apollo and I were going to take the train to Birmingham for the Christmas Market. We booked train tickets, and planned what we were going to do. We were both excited and ready to go.

Until the morning of the date.

I woke up feeling really sick. My chest hurt, I couldn't face eating anything, I had a headache and felt generally really grotty. Unfortunately we had to cancel our date, in case I barfed all over the train. It turned out that I wasn't sick (thankfully, I hate being sick), but I spent the rest of the day in bed either sleeping or playing Tomb Raider.

Liberty came round later and said she was feeling just as bad as me, and so we were quarantined from my grandparents who were coming over for a Christmas meal. By the time it actually got to dinner I was feeling much better. Still not great, but well enough to join in the festivities. This cheered me up a bit as I was feeling really upset that I'd ruined our date.

The rest of the day was probably spent back in bed watching TV, but I can't actually remember. I've been putting off writing this post in favour of other things, so it's been a long time since the 'date' actually happened!

So yeah, B date did not go as planned. And I was really looking forwards to it :(

Highlight of the date: Mum made me and Apollo a heart shaped pie to share for our Christmas dinner :)
Lowlight of the date: Apollo missed the perfect opportunity to sing Soft Kitty from Big Bang Theory to me.

Home

I  knew being back at Uni was going to be tough for me. I won't say I have trouble settling in as such. The people I live with are lovely, I have friends who are also lovely, and I enjoy going to my lectures. My biggest problem is that I get really homesick.

My family is probably the biggest part of my life, and I don't just mean the size of it! To sum up (maths pun alert!) what family is like for me, let me tell you a story.

Over holidays, I was trying to see what my younger sister, Addy, thought about Christmas. Now most little kids are really excited about presents, but when I asked Addy what she thought was the most important thing about Christmas, she said Christmas dinner. We then asked mum, who was also sat with us at the time, what she thought was the most important thing about Christmas. Mum said family. Addy then basically shouted at mum, saying "that's not the most important thing about Christmas! That's the most important thing EVERY day." For a 4 year old, she is pretty wise. But that is what family is like for me.

Don't get me wrong, my family is far from perfect. We have our ups and downs like everyone. In fact I've pretty much all but lost my relationship with one of my sisters. But I'm hopefully that we will get it back, and I look forward to the day we do.

I'm not sure why this year particularly, but I've also grown a lot closer to Apollo's family. So much so that I didn't even think twice about spending Christmas day away from my mum for the most part, which is something that I've never done before. I love having them as my second family, or rather an extension of my first family.

When I'm at Uni, I miss my family like crazy. I miss singing Wicked with my sister. I miss the balls of hysteria we become when I play Bubble Bobble with my mum. I miss Addy coming up to me, tapping me on the shoulder and then pretending it wasn't her. I miss my little brother riding into the room on an upside down ironing board horse. I miss my Step-dad making enchiladas for a family dinner. I miss having Apollo just there to enjoy these things with me.

But now that I've finished the exam I've been worrying and stressing about and revising for for the last few  days, I think I'm ready to be able to enjoy surviving without them for a little while. I know that I'm never really without them. They are always there to support me. But I don't want to have to always depend on them for every thing.

That said, I still think, in the words of Laura Ingalls from the Little House on the Prairie...

Home is the nicest word there is.

2013: Week 1

The first week of the new year has been a very mixed bag of emotions for me.

On New Year's Eve, it was my younger sister's birthday. She turned 16, so naturally, my 4 year old sister thought it would be appropriate to decorate a white chocolate snowman as a gift. She's so thoughtful. She did end up eating most of it though, as the birthday girl was more interested in the jelly sweet things around it.

I went after-Christmas-shopping with Apollo, Mum and various siblings. I got a cool new chalk board (which yes, it does say ages 3-8 on the box). Apollo bought me some DVDs to take back to Uni with me, and I bought a couple of posters because they were two for a fiver, and I had finally found the Catwoman poster I've been looking for basically since I saw it when The Dark Knight Rises came out in the cinema.

Isn't that just the most beautiful poster you have ever seen? Apollo wasn't so please with his Spiderman poster however...

I think I laughed for 3 days after he unrolled that. Best £5 I've ever spent!

We had a marshmallow, or 'Mashmallow' party as a farewell to me before I went back to Uni. People seemed to enjoy smearing toasted marshmallows on Justin/Spiderman's face rather than eating them. Can't imagine why...

My Step-dad also tried to impersonate the pose. Didn't really work did it?

Then came the time for me to go back to Uni. Mum, my Step-dad and the babies took me back on-route to visiting a friend in Swindon, so me and Apollo got an extra long goodbye when he stayed with me instead of going to Swindon. We built my chalk board up, which then got loads of messages written on it.

Apollo and I spent the rest of the evening, after putting away the tonne of food my parents kindly bought me, watching Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Grahame Norton and finally Juno. In between enjoying spending my last day with him, I kept bursting into tears thinking about him and the rest of my family leaving the next day.

My parents and the babies returned the next day with lunch. After food and a drink, we went back to my room, had a little chat then said goodbye. I cried, again. I hate it when everyone leaves. It's so hard knowing that everyone I love isn't just downstairs, in the next room, or even on the other side of our small town.

I'm going to miss these two munchkins like crazy. And my Mum. And Apollo. And singing with my sister. Instead of all the mad things we do together, I have to think about taking an exam on Wednesday, and trying to survive on my own for four weeks before I can see Apollo again. And trying not to cry all the time because I miss them. I'm not doing a great job of that so far...

I love you guys.

2013 Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone!

2012 was an interesting year for me. I finished my A-Levels and started University. I passed my driving test. I turned 18. I got drunk for the first time, twice (both because of my boyfriend's mum's cocktails...) I celebrated 3 years with my boyfriend Apollo, who recently made his own blog here. I worked in a charity shop over the summer. My best friend's brother died (I didn't say it was all good). I joined a Magic Society, a Glee Club and an Unofficial Writer's Club. I started this blog.

The last two points bring me to my resolutions:

1. In an attempt to make me more comfortable and better at writing, Carole and Liberty challenged me to do a diary-like post in either words, pictures or both. Obviously just pictures won't help with my writing, but if I can't think of any words, then pictures is better than nothing. I tend to hit a writer's block and then don't post for weeks. Not good. So hopefully posting regularly once a week will help me to post about other things as well.

2. I have had Flash on my computer for absolutely ages. I have made a few animations with it, the one I'm most proud of being an advert I made for my Young Enterprise group a couple of years ago.



I won our group a trophy for that, and they let me keep the certificate which I still have hanging in my room :) Anyway, the point is, I really want to do a new animation. So, my next resolution is to make one. I have no idea what it's going to be about, how long it will be, if it will have talking or just music. I'm meant to be coming up with some ideas for tonight's UWC, so hopefully they will be able to point me in the right direction.

3. I want to write a new song. Most of the time, I come up with a really good idea, and write a chorus, or a couple of lyrics, and then I get stuck. I never managed to write a song for our band. Although we don't play together so much anymore, I'm hopeful that we will again, and I want one of my songs to make it into the set list. Everyone else in the band managed it. I want one too.

So that's it. For now. I may come up with some more things, but I'm actually meant to be revising right now. I have an exam next Wednesday :( I hope you enjoy the new year, and hopefully the things my blog will be bringing!