Monday 22 August 2011

Leeeeeeds ♥

On the 17th I spent most of the afternoon waiting for the clock to strike 5 just to check if University of Leeds had vacancies on Graphic Communication.
When it struck 5 the course was not on Leeds' vacancy list. Meaning the chances of me getting in was slim seeing that I felt that I didn't perform too well at all in my English Language exam.

On the 18th, roughly 7.30am in the morning on Twitter I had already read that my friend had gotten into Leeds for Graphic Communications - she woke up at 6am to check, lucky betch. So I rushed to UCAS Track to check, but alas, every other teen in the UK heard of UCAS Track opening since 6am and therefore everyone had rushed to the site, crashing it. So I was sitting there for an hour in anxiety before I decided to leave the comp to carry out my morning rituals.
I needed to get my A-level results from school before 10.30am.
Around 9am I decided to check again, UCAS Track was down. FML.
UCAS could've at least done something about the traffic, surely before the day even came they would've realised that the site would experience a high volume of visitors coming online to check results. In order to improve its efficiency and to satisfy all university applicants they could've at least improved the site. UCAS fail.

So I left the house to grab the 9.40am bus to town, this little old lady who was also waiting for the bus said that the 9.40am bus already went (FML) and then asked if I was getting my results because she kept hearing about it on BBC News. Luckily the bus wasn't gone yet, it came around 9.55am...it was extremely late...
Normally it takes 10mins to get into town, bus people kept getting off at every stop on the way, making the journey longer than usual...I had planned on catching the 10.10am bus from town to my 6th Form, but the late bus arrived at the bus station just when the 10.10am bus to my 6th Form left. Literally, I got off, the bus to my 6th Form was still there, I walked towards it, it closed its doors and drove off FMLFMLFML.
It wasn't a good start to the day, I had a very bad feeling about my results and whether or not I got into Leeds.
So I ended up waiting for the 10.30am bus...*sigh*

Luckily when I got into school at 10.40am they were still able to hand out the A-level results. I took the envelope, quickly ripped it open walked out of the library where the teachers were situated - didn't think I would need to talk to em, and saw a list of codes and grades...which I couldn't decipher. I couldn't tell which were my overall grades since the list had shown my AS level grades as well ==;;;
Quickly I headed back in to ask my head of year to translate it for me.

He underlined an A*, which made me think 'oh my God he must've underlined it wrong'.
But then he went: "The grades next to the GCE codes are your overall grades."
I glanced at the A* once more and noticed that it was indeed next to a GCE code, for Media Studies. Holy shit. I must've been dreaming was what I thought.
My face turned grim when he underlined a B next to Art and a C next to English. He had also underlined a B for my EPQ.

So overall my A-levels were:

Media Studies: A*
Art: B
English Language: C
EPQ: B

The head of year commented that I had done very well. He must've been talking about the A*. I don't see how that C is a good thing.
Dear God, that B in Art, it made me feel like shit. Turns out that this year in my art I got two C's...Therefore it cancelled out my two A's from last year into a B *creys* I worked so hard this year for my Art as well...fuck sake.
English Language was a given. I already felt that I didn't get a B in the exam, perhaps a B- at the most. But no it was a C, didn't help my D for English coursework at all.
EPQ...I didn't really care about, the uni's didn't really care much about it either.

As for media studies...I was chuffed. I didn't think it was possible after getting constant C's in my past media exams (GCSE and AS) - I thought it was a curse. Plus I only got a B overall last year, I thought I needed an A from last year in order to get an A* this year! But I guess not. Studying YouTube paid off.
71/80 on my exam.
77/80 on my coursework.
I thought I fucked up on section A of my exam, I waffled hard on question 1. My answer for question 1 (8marks) was a whole A4 page whereas question 3 (12 marks) was a measly 1/2 of an A4 page...
I was fairly confident with section B as it was based on New Technology - though I felt that I didn't write concisely enough. Cos you see, before I even got into that exam I decided to not even bother answering a representation question (we pick 1 question to answer out of the 2 representation questions and 2 new tech questions), so I revised HARD for new tech. Besides, I loved the topic I chose for New Tech - YouTube, it was my coursework topic as well. Hours before I entered the exam hall I re-written my notes and structured something that contained both facts, evidence and theory. I didn't think that I would end up using it in the exam, but I did. Too bad that the version that I wrote in the exam was an extended/waffle version of the concise one that I had written earlier. The question topic was to do with how new tech encouraged/improve democracy in the media.

Here's the video I had produced for 1/3 of my coursework grade. Apparently my essay (a report about how YT could potentially wipe out the TV industry) was A* worthy *grins*
Yes, the video that took 1 day to film and edit. I am never doing that again.


Called mother to tell her my results, half chuffed and half filled with grief over the C and B. She was happy with the A*.

I visited UCAS Track again on my phone, it still was down. Fuck.

I got into town and decided to go shopping in order to take my mind off it. First stop, Dorothy Perkins. It was a bad idea that I stepped in there, there wasa buy 1 get 1 free sale...FML.
Left the store with these:
Tops: £5 (buy 1 get 1 free)
Waist Belt: £3
Left the store to wander around more, on the way out I saw a pair of flats that looked really nice, but I stopped myself when I saw the £12 sticker, even if it was reduced from £25.
I ended up coming back later to purchase it, it was stuck on my mind ever since I left the store...
Brogue Flats: £12
Total expenditure of the day: £20 *walletcreys*

Before I zoomed back into DP for these flats I already asked my friend to check UCAS Track for me if I got into Leeds. Straight after buying the shoes I got a text from her saying that I got in, but was offered a changed course to do New Media. Not that much of a biggie, I was planning to perhaps ask for New Media if I got into Coventry (insurance) instead.
Cos I loved Leeds that much.

But when I looked at the specs I was devastated. I had to do web pages and HTML *sobs*
Everything else looked okay. I loved Media theory from A levels anyway, it should be fine...
Sadly it appears a lot more harder than Graphic Communication, more written work FML.

Got home, called department for more info.
Decided to go for the course change, sadly there was no option to accept the course change on UCAS Track...another UCAS fail.
Tried calling up UCAS, but I was constantly put on hold and for some reason the phone line kept getting disconnected :X
So I gave up.
Tried later that evening, saw the reply to offers button and BAM.
Everything's sorted :"D

Got my letter of confirmation this morning (more like yesterday *stares at time*).
So yeah, I'm heading off to Leeds next month \( ^ o ^ )/