h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know I have not been around much, but I've mainly been lurking about the place, and with exams coming up, not likely to be around then

But, I hope to get back into the old h2g2 writing stream again... I do have some Entries on the board to get done!

Ditto to all points.

Are your exams AS too? I seem to remeber you writing a very good entry on Mary Shelley, so I assumed you were doing Frankenstein, which I am doing as part of my english AS. Do you see my logic? Its an assumption I know. Good luck anyway!

Actually our lot are doing Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native, which I will probably write a Entry on, but with exams and stuff

Hope your exams go well too!<

Have you had any yet? I've had Psychology, General Studies and Spanish oral.

In English, what are you doing for drama? and what do you think of the poetry anthology?

Sorry to be nosy, tell me to butt out if you like!

I've had a few Maths modules so far, which have been okay so far...

For English, we're doing 'A Streetcar Named Desire' ("STEELLLLLLLLAAAAAA!" - sorry, just had to do it ) by Tennessee Williams... I quite like the Edexcel anthology this time, compared to the GCSE one we had.

Less tripe, more poets

What's your drama? Personally, I would have preferred to have done Frankenstein for the closed book exam... then I could have rolled off some of the stuff in my entry...

Maths? Not my cup of tea at all....

My brother's doing Streetcar too. I'm doing Translations which is pretty good.

I know, the anthology is so much better than last years. Some people you've actually heard of (Ok, I'd heard of Armitage, Duffy and Hughes, obviously, but not most of the others. Whic are your favourites from this year's?

I quite liked the Romantics and the Victorian poets anyhow, but this anthology has increased that to TS Eliot (thanks to Prufrock), whose poems consisted mainly of the musical Cats (shows how much I knew before...) as well as Thomas Hardy (better poet than novelist from what I've seen, IMHO)Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Can't stand the Gillian Clark poem though So I hope that one doesn't pop up

Marged? What's wrong with it? I like Ulysses myself.

So what did you think of the papers?

The papers were quite good, actually. When I saw the Frankenstein questions and the questions for The Return of the Native, I was so tempted to do the Frankenstein question instead

Marged just doesn't really click with me. Perhaps it's because it was the last poem we studied and we had to go back over the play again Didn't matter anyhow... chose the Coleridge and the Plath and had a cracking time writing it

My hand is killing me though. Three hours was not good, even with a break between the papers...

We didn't go through them in order - the last one we did was "To a Skylark". I did question 2 - the one about poetry being used to express experiences that couldn't otherwise be expressed, and did Skylark, God's Grandeur and a bit on An Arundel Tomb, none of which I thought I would ever do on the exam.

The Frankenstein ones were quite good, I did the one about Shelley's preentation of the creature. What's Return of the Native about?

Return of the Native is basically about how people have the choice to choose their fate, but when they pick the wrong path, they generally wind up in a spot of bother - sort of like a modern soap opera with Greek theatre, complete with family feuds, beautiful women who are headstrong and dream of getting the love they wanted, and death, because it's a tragedy

I'd say it was a harder book to get through than Frankenstein (mainly because it's Hardy) but it is quite good. I might write up an entry on it after the exams have finished!

Are you going to be taking Lit next year too?

Yep, and I'm intending to do it as a combined degree with history too. How about you?

Return of the Native sounds good, I might have to read it! Would you recommend it?

I'd recommend it but don't get too caught up in the 1st chapter, it's not all that bad

I'm not taking Lit next year. Too much work with the subjects that I want to do But it'll give me more time to write up more entries on other books that I have to read... and *not* have to dissect!

What subjects are you doing then? Did you get really sick of having to write to the AO's all the time? I know I did.

Double Maths, Chem and Biology.

I can't be bothered to write to AOs. But I think in the end you just do it out of instinct. And they do have them written on the back of the exam paper, so that's okay

Are you doing any other subjects? And didn't Johnny Marray do well against Lleyton Hewitt at Queens' today!

He did indeed, I was very impressed. I'm really annoyed I missed the Question of Sport Wimbledon Special last night though. The first time they do one, and I missed it.

Despite (or perhaps becasue of) the withdrawals, SW19 looks like being very open this year.