stephstellar

My best mate of about 13 years before we lost touch 4 or 5 years ago just found me on friendsreunited

Generally stuff from here: http://my.netian.com/~choong2/ktpaper.htm or Sailor Moon. I have a cool Bad Batz Maru james bond one at the mo.

Lighters with no gas and pens with no ink... I don't know why they dont get chucked, but when I need a pen or a lighter I always end up trying at least 6 before I find one that works!

My whole family is going to Skegness next month... we went last year for the first time and liked it. To be fair, we actually stayed in Chapel-St.-Leonards which is a lovely little place. The cool thing is that you've got that sleepy little village, the huge fair and market in Ingoldmells, and all the stuff that goes with a big resort town in Skeggy - all within a stretch of 5 miles - it's like 3 different holidays in one! Surprised nobody's mentioned Cleethorpes - actually, no, I'm not that surprised! Been every year for the past 23 years (I'm 27 now) and love the place. It's rough, it's tacky, but it's full of happy memories and there are lovely bits, like the bit of beach at the yacht-club end where all the power-kiters go, and sitting on the tops at sundown watching the ships is my idea of heaven. My whole family dreams of a chalet on Fitties one day!

It sounds like you ought to be looking for a different IT-related job - there's no harm in applying for things, and if you tick 'do not take up reference before interview' your current employer need never know til its too late! At the minute it sounds like you'd be just as well working in a call centre in terms of experience - what when a prospective employer wants to hear all about your duties and responsibilities in yr last job?? I may be wrong on this, but wouldn't employers think someone who's basically paying to train themselves sounds like a good bet?

Mum claims he just about WAS Billy Casper, but without the kestrel.

seen it, read the book (5 or 6 times), and my mum went to primary school with the boy who plays Billy Casper!!

Pah, alright for you to say. I study in Wolverhampton and I've had to see their smug faces all day!

Nope, but Adam may have been the common ancestor of chimps and humans.

http://www.evilheartedme.co.uk

I have to agree about the difference good teachers can make! I started 6th-form at a girls grammar (in the midlands - long story) but the teachers were absolutely awful. One Biology teacher would just stand at the front and read out of the textbook in a monotone. Of course, the school was selective so most girls got good results - but I wasn't used to the style and was predicted D, E, N for A-level. I transferred to a local comp which had fantastic teachers, really brought their subjects alive (kind of tough to do in physics!) and came out with A, B, C and A in gen st. I felt like the teachers at Queen Marys Grammar had pretty much written me off after the first half-term - having come from Foulstone Comp in Barnsley I really wasn't settling in too well!

Dropped out of BSc Genetics at Sheffield, didn't like the place, too many stuck-up Southerners. Mind you, my stuck-up southerner best friend thought the same too! Eventually did BSc Science Education at Hallam - much better. I'm now doing MSc Computing in Wolverhampton, which I like cos it reminds me of Hallam quite a bit!! (BTW, got AABC at A-level so Hallam was by no means the 'best' I could do!)

Space 1999 - love that show so much! I have no idea why.

Networking Protocol Is there a standard for this? TCP/IP? My thoughts race faster than my ping rate, data transfer is (I hope) a duplex system - two way; always on not a ring, a star, a hub but a simple one-to-one, no routers needed here when every data packet goes straight to my heart. I wrote this for my BF Ryo - it seemed kind of appropriate cos we met on the 'net and we still email every day we don't see each other.

Exactly what I was going to say! Nov '91? The band came out front to watch Shonen Knife play - guess who was standing right next to them I was 15 and very impressed at the time.

Exactly what I was going to say! Nov '91? The band came out front to watch Shonen Knife play - guess who was standing right next to them I was 15 and very impressed at the time.

I don't get scared by horror films. I went to see the Exorcist at a special screening about 8 years ago and nearly got kicked out the cinema for laughing. I just find the special effects hilarious. The Others was brilliant, and I love the original 1950s versions of The House on Haunted Hill, and The Thing. I think you can get much more tension out of a spooky story well-told than some special effect that you know has to be fake. It's easier to suspend your disbeleif. I do remember getting spooked out of my wits by a Disney film called 'Watcher in the Woods' when I was about 8 - anybody know that one?

You can't fight in here, it's the War Room! "Do you want to come up for a coffee?" "I don't like coffee." "That's OK, I haven't got any."

She was in the maths dept. 'Exam Factory' means that the school isn't interested in turning out well-rounded individuals, just staying at the top of the league tables. She says the kids are just constantly pushed all the time - but not to actually learn the stuff or develop an interest in a subject (let alone anything extra-curricular!) just to memorise what you need to know to pass the exam. (there's a subtle difference between learning and memorising) Of course that's only one person's opinion and there's nobody more idealistic than a student teacher... Maybe if you can arrange to look round then you'll get some idea of the atmosphere of the place.

Besides, a biological weapon which only kills 4% of its victims is hardly efficient, is it? There are more than 6 billion people on the planet. a little over 300 have died of SARS. That's, what, 0.00005%? Back to the drawing board...

A colleague did her teaching practice there and absolutely hated it - she says it's just an exam factory. OK if the only thing you care about is good grades, I guess.

I've made a few good friends, both local and around the world, as well as meeting the love of my life (who I would have been unlikely ever to meet in 'real' life), on the net (friendsreunited personals is a good site). I've had no problems either - you can usually get a feel for what someone is like from exchanging emails, plus with email there's handy things like block sender if someone makes you feel uncomfortable.

I know what happened to the hole in the road - they cut it up into smaller holes and distributed them all over the City's roads...

Do you mean the Peace Guesthouse, which used to be near the bottom of Brocco Bank by Endcliffe Park? I think it shut down a couple of years ago - or maybe the sign just fell down?!

...and also for a kebab in Walsall!