From now, I will have no more school for 2 weeks. This has been a long term consisting of 11 weeks, although there was Easter break in the middle somewhere so it was probably more like 10 and a half weeks. Still, the term has been pretty long and has been pretty busy, as you would know if you have read the post from last week.

As far as schools concerned, we haven’t done that much at all this term. Have had 2 assessments in Statistics, which I managed to get an Excellence in, and the other one hasn’t been marked, 1 assessment in Geography, which hasn’t been marked either, 2 assessments in ICT, one passed, other not marked (but will be a pass),  1 assessment in Electronics which I passed and 1 in Physics which hasn’t been marked, but I know I haven’t passed it, yet.

Last day pretty much was mucking around. In ICT, I had finished the test in 2 and a half of the 4 periods given, so I ended up browsing the Internet and playing Minesweeper. In Electronics, I helped a friend try and troubleshoot a computer but it was well and truly fucked, then I started installing Windows XP on another machine and later on helped, which turned out to be actually doing it, installing RAM into another machine. Then last period of the day was the Physics test which was hard. Got to leave early which was a upside, I guess.

I don’t have anything planned for the holidays but it will more than likely consist of my being on the computer and internet doing basically nothing. Two weeks after doing that, school will start again. Not really looking forward to that but it will be nice to get test results back. Hopefully I can think of things to blog about during my holidays to make up for the lack of posts during the school time. HOLIDAYS ARE GO!!!

As you may not have noticed, my blog was updated to Wordpress 2.5 last week, thanks to Peppery. The only noticeable change is in the admin panel where is has been redone to be easier to use and look much nicer. It is taking a little bit of getting use to but after a while, I’m sure I will remember where they have moved things. For a new Wordpress user, the admin panel will definitely be easier to use but for an old user like me, I’m going to have to get fully use to it.

You may have noticed the lack of update in the past week or so. The reason for my absence in blogging is because I have been overloaded with assessments that were due. I had 5 different bits of schoolwork to do. One was a report for geography on the processes of building the new Carisbrook Stadium in Dunedin, which was really hard to do. I’d be lucky to pass because I had no bloody idea what I was rambling about. I also had a Statistics project to complete which was straightforward, just took a little bit of thinking and time to complete and write up. There was also some small bits of homework such as 2 pages of physics questions, some Computing tasks and also an electronics research project on transducers to be completed.

I have finished doing all assignments and hopefully my plate stays relitively clean for a while, especially during the holidays, so I can do what I normally do and not be tied down with homework and assignments to get done. Hopefully there is no homework for me to do over the holidays so I can have a relaxing break without having to even think about school or school work. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Well last time I tried to post, this time last week, something when wrong. I can’t explain what happened and never got round to re-writing the post. I  decided I would take a week off from blogging and in that time school has ended, study hasn’t started, life continues and I think its a holiday. This is going to come back and bite me in the arse, mark my words.

Tuesday was the last day of classes. It was a good day actually. Surfing the internet first period in ICT because I had long finished the assessment that at least two thirds were still trying to complete. Then I had a period of absolutely nothing. Then my final period of 2007, Electronics. Yet again I just wandered around, somewhat pleased with myself for being the only person to complete the course with two periods to spare. Then someone came along and managed to finish aswell, just in the nick of time. Two out of thirty of so people doing electronics actually completing the course in time is an extremely low number. Then it was lunch time and home time.

Prizegiving was also that night. I hadn’t expected to get anything because I have been extremely slack this year and hadn’t achieved very much to be honest. Anyway, I managed to slip in to get a certificate. Surprised me. Wasn’t happy to be there though, would have preferred to be home watching Heroes, Prison Break and Chuck instead.Managed to fit them in the night anyway so I was pleased.

Generally through the week, the TV shows, podcasts and video podcasts stack up for me to watch in the weekend. Since I have been home, that hasn’t happened. I have many hours free and I try to find ways to fill in the time. I should probably be studying instead of checking things off my media list, I’m afraid that the next two and a half months are going to be long, very long. I should probably spend that time watching some of the TV series I have downloaded and stored somewhere else to watch later.

I am running out of ideas on subjects to post about so if anyone has any ideas for me, *cough* Peppery *cough*, they would be greatly appreciated. I can’t wait for November to end so I have that free time to myself and school and exams out of the way. Next year, my final year, is going to be a strange and tough year. I don’t know whether to be scared or happy about finally leaving school.

Today was a strange and boring day at school. This is the last week and all that we do is study before the end of year exams. Three of my subjects that don’t have exams at the end of the year, we are finishing off the last parts for it. In Electronics, I am finishing my tone generator plus amplifier circuit and packaging it. In ICT, I am doing a website assessment. It is stupid, we have to make a stupid little webpage using frontpage. Honestly, no one is ever going to use this so I see no point at teaching it.

The strangest thing that has happened in a long time is a teacher walking out of the class. There was a discussion about a text we read in English and the class started to break into a debate like talk, well until the teacher got fed up and walked out saying that we can teach ourselves. This is not a good thing because we need a teacher to help us or else we aren’t going to do as well in the exam. The class is silly, why did this happen. I suppose next English period is going to be rather awkward, I’m not looking forward to it.

Yesterday my electronics teacher was giving away a broken CD Drive and if someone wanted it, they could take it or otherwise he would throw it in the skip. I decided I would take it and tinker with it and if I could get it working, good for me, if I couldn’t, I’d take it apart and have a look inside.

I opened the case of my sisters computer and plugged to drive into the power supply and saw that the drawer wouldn’t open. I unhooked it from the power and got the screw driver. I took the casing of the drive and had a look around for anything apparent that could be preventing the tray from opening. There was nothing I could see.

I decided to hook it up to the power without the case to inspect what was happening. I saw the problem. The tray motor was coming up as the tray was ejecting which prevented it from doing so. After about 5 minutes to manhandling the drive, fiddling with the screwdriver and various other instruments I managed to get it going. The tray could now freely come out and go back in.

I hooked the thing back up to power and the tray mechanisms were working fine. I reassembled the drive and swapped out the CD Writer to test the drive. I put one of my sisters discs in the drive (not one of mine in case it screwed it) but it managed to function correctly and worked fine. Now I had a working CD Drive and no practical use for it.

There is a small amount of satisfaction in fixing something that wasn’t working that was going to be trashed. Now I have a fully functioning CD Drive and a cut on my thumb from one of the sharp pins at the bottom of the board. If anyone is looking for a CD Drive, a couple of bucks will do and it’s all yours. :p