4th of July 2013 - A sort of Timestamp

On the way to school I listened to the U2 song 4th of July on repeat, which I didn't do last year. Today was better than I anticipated; biology went smoothly and chemistry was actually one of the best lessons of the year! Maybe slight pessimism does pay off... Today also marks one year since my school prom, so I've been reminiscing a little, but not too much - that was then and this is now and, although the event was wonderful, I'm happy where I am now. Tomorrow I will return to the city of blue-and-dreams-come-true to check out the university, which should be fun.

Mark Owen concert!

Last night, we threw ourselves away... but we made it out all right.

Yesterday my mother, Emily, Joe, Daisy and I attended Mark Owen's concert at the O2 Academy in Bristol. We got to the queue an hour and a half before the doors opened and my feelings, as we waited, were more of awe than excitement; I couldn't believe we were actually going to see Mark Owen live! The O2 priority queue extended much further than our non-O2 line, but we once the doors opened we managed to find a decent spot. The support act, Animal Kingdom, came on earlier than we anticipated and we enjoyed their songs, but the early start lead us to believe there would be another support act to follow. It turned out there wasn't; we realised this when we watched the rug, which Mark picked up from the set of Alan Carr: Chatty Man a few weeks ago, being laid out on the stage. The excitement continued to bubble up, then at 8:50pm the lights went down, the music began and Mark appeared! He started off with a couple of songs from the new album, which we weren't very familiar with as our (super deluxe, signed) copy had only arrived a few hours earlier, then he launched into the new single, "Stars" (available to download here), before Take That favourite "The Flood". By this point I was getting really into it, and still in disbelief at how close we were to Mark Owen, when a very familiar tune started and tears formed in my eyes as I realised we were about to hear one of my absolute favourite songs: "Makin' Out"! I put my all into singing along and dancing, while Em trustily filmed the song, and it was glorious! The rest of the show was the perfect mix of Mark's older solo hits, songs from the new album, and rousing Take That anthems, which were lovely to hear and sounded wonderful even without the other 3/4 members. "Shine" was another song which made me well up: I have so many memories attached to that song, which I didn't fully realise until we were there, hearing it live and dutifully singing along. Over all, it was an absolutely fantastic night that I will never forget!

Exam free!

At exactly 3pm today I put the pen down for the final time on an AS exam (unless I have to retake next year, but I hope I won't). Psychology 2 was a pretty good paper, I was happy that the twelve-marker was on stress because that meant the other stress questions were shorter, and the abnormality section was as good as I'd hoped it would be. I sat psychology 1 two weeks ago and it was all right, but I much preferred today's exam. This Monday I did biology 2, which was my least favourite of all the exams, but I had a good go at it. Chemistry 1 occurred 13 days ago and it was great (for an exam); I finished with 25 minutes to go, but of course used that time to check, and I'm confident I got at least a B. The second chemistry test was always going to be worse, but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, and the question based on the pre-release document was fine. I now have four days of peace before returning to school to begin year 13, but even during the first week back I still have Animal Crossing: New Leaf and seeing Mark Owen in concert to look forward to!

Show of a Lifetime

On Saturday 11th May 2013 I was one of roughly 5,000 concert-goers to witness the spectacle that was The Big Reunion tour, when it hit the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff. I woke up that day buzzing with excitement, so much so that waiting forty minutes for the bus, trying not to gag while having to sprint through underpasses and only just arriving at the bus station on time hardly phased me. Promptly, we boarded the coach, and after 1 hour and 20 minutes of delightful tunes in my ears and serene thoughts in my mind, we arrived in Cardiff. Becoming instantly windswept, we quickly headed over to the shopping centre and spent most of the afternoon there. I purchased seven CDs from That's Entertainment for £5.99, including Honeyz's Wonder No. 8, Liberty X's second album and two 911 albums. We also bought loads of food for lunch and tea, half of which we didn't end up eating, for reasons which will become clear. By 5:00pm we had finished shopping, so ambled over to the arena entrance and a little bit further round the corner where, to our great surprise, we spotted the tour bus parked up ahead! We took a few pictures including the one below, and decided to join the other people standing there for no particular reason.

OMG tour bus!!!

The placement of barriers perplexed me, and my sister continually pleaded that we go somewhere warm, but the atmosphere was pleasant enough that we decided to tough it out, because you never know. If nothing else, it was exciting to know that the groups we had flocked here to see were only metres away… but then something happened. The people standing at the other barrier started to screech with excitement, and we soon realise why: Ritchie from 5ive was there! I couldn't believe it. Not only was a member of 5ive stood a few metres away; he was also my favourite member, back when I was a 5-year-old! I became rooted to the spot and could hardly speak, but did manage to take a photo of him before he returned to the venue.

Ritchie!

Soon I noticed another figure approaching, who looked vaguely like Lee from 911… and he was! To our surprise, he came straight over to our side, and my sister and I both managed to get pictures with him! 

My photo with Lee!
(That is me, I just don't want to properly put my face on here)

I was really hyped up now and couldn't stop grinning as we watched Lee meeting fans on the opposite side. A little bit later we saw Abz from 5ive, then at 7pm it started raining, so we decided to head into the venue.

Abz!

We bought some merchandise then headed into the arena as "Price You Pay", the new song by Honeyz played. We found that row DD really isn't as far from the stage as we thought, and settled in for a phenomenal evening! I was on video camera duty while Emily took pictures including these ones:

5ive first set

B*Witched first set

911 first set

Honeyz first set

Atomic Kitten first set

Liberty X first set

Honeyz second set

911 second set

Liberty X second set

B*Witched second set

Atomic Kitten second set

5ive second set

And finally... the finale

It was certainly a night to remember!

Prüfungen machen mir Spaß!

My summer exams got off to a pleasant start today with the German Listening, Reading and Writing paper, and this post is the only place I've written "Spaß" today! Some of the questions were difficult, but I persevered and answered them all. The essay topic I chose seemed to be the most popular among my classmates and I found it fairly easy to write about, but I really don't know what grade to expect, as many of my answers seemed to be only half right. My next exam isn't for eight days; in that time I intend to revise (naturally) and complete my post about the incredible Big Reunion concert I attended on Saturday!

Party girl

Last week I attended a friend's birthday meal. We were meant to be eating at Nando's, but a potential wait of over an hour put a stop to that notion. Thankfully, Frankie and Benny's was able and willing to seat the ten of us, providing we had vacated the table by 8pm. Swift service ensured that occurred, and my Mediterranean veg burger and mixed lemon and mango sorbet were delicious. Afterwards we popped in the arcade, then left. The birthday boy waited until Sunday to open his presents, and apparently preferred the card my sister and I made for him to the present!

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

"Früher habe ich meine Deutsch sprechende Prüfung gemacht."

That should translate to "earlier I did my German speaking exam", as that is what happened at 9:15 am today. I won't go say anything about it's content because some students won't have done it yet, but I was very happy with the cards I had and actually didn't feel too nervous!