Saylor

And yeah! I will buy a map or something (although I am terrible at map reading). You can get travel books so I would hope that would give me good suggestions on where to go in that haha. ^^ Oh yeah! I heard that the streets in New York are all like in rows and columns so I'll try to be careful I don't do that. I guess it must make things a bit easier anyway! And oooh hehe, well I am sure it is amazing. ^^ And yeah we're going on the boat tour, too! It's so exciting haha! :x

Awesome yay! I think I might be free on Sunday because I'm at my dad's house on Saturday! I can't wait to play haha. What weapon do you use in Splatoon?

Ohh no! Well good luck on trying to work out where you wanna go to university, I am sure you will work it out soon, sometimes it just takes a bit of research to help (WHICH I should be doing). And yeah it really sucks, I made my UCAS account (the site all English people apply for universities through) and have been filling in my personal details and searching for courses, and I can't even FIND the course I want to do? It's really weird and stupid haha, but to be honest I will talk to my mentor about it, since we all get assigned one and they help us through the process which makes things much easier. She's my English Language teacher, too, and I really like her, so I'm quite happy she's my mentor. ^^

Yeah they do! And I mean I wouldn't judge their exam systems either to be honest when I know nothing about it. Honestly, we do have a lot of pressure and challenges to face, too, I think we all need to be supporting each other during such hard times, even if we live in different countries. Yeah omg!! I hate that! xD Although apparently in the future students will be allowed to use Google? I don't see how that is fair, really, since you could cheat, unless they manage to filter the search engine... But even so that seems a bit unfair to me. I do think it would be better if we could use like computers or laptops to type things up though in our exams, it would make things much easier (and would save paper), especially since we all use computers nowadays.

I am sure it is very terrifyingly high up, but it must be beautiful to see the whole city from that high up! And no I think it's really down to us what we do! Last year the media students made a music video to Taylor Swift - Welcome to New York, it was really cool! xD But I would want to do something a bit different. Everyone in my media class is very energetic and funny so we'd probably wanna make something that would make other people laugh.

And yeah, I saw you added me! If you ever want to join me in a match of Splatoon then just feel free to, or maybe we can just organise to have a match sometime on the weekend since that might be easier!

Yeah! Well maybe that could be something you could do whilst you are there. :3 I need to work out the directions to the store though so that I don't get lost whilst I'm trying to find my way there. Although our hotel is right in the city and I mean there are probably signs everywhere (like there is in London) so it would be impossible to get lost! xD And yeah that's true! ^^ Ooh really? I was talking to a waitress at a restaurant about going to New York, and she said that the Statue of Liberty was beautiful, but also disappointing? She said that she thought it was going to be a lot bigger than that. I mean, I suppose when you see it in films, they shoot it at like lower angles so that the statue seems a lot bigger than it is. Still, I want to see it anyway, I wanna be able to do all the typical tourist-y things. :'3 And ohhh no! D: I do hope that you get to go up it next time, and maybe your mum will be brave enough to go up it, too? ^^

Yeah well I mean a lot of American people on Tumblr seem all shocked by the fact that our grade boundaries aren't so harsh and lol, we get lots of older people in the UK saying that students are doing worse than usual and it's "not like it was in my day". xD There is a lot of pressure on students! I mean, I've just gone back to school after being on study leave for my exams, and already teachers are making us start our application process for universities, and I haven't even looked around any yet! I do know that I want to go, because I want to study Teaching (so to be a teacher you do have to get a degree), but it is very scary and stressful. I don't know how I have managed to make it this far in life sometimes! :x And wow that seems really harsh! And doesn't make sense. What's the point in testing you on something you haven't done in half a year, and on something that you've already done? It's totally pointless. That's really harsh!

Lol sorry about the double message, I only just noticed that designed was autocorrected to drained at the last minute, and I guess my fixing it while the page was loading caused it to post twice.

Ooh, I get you. It's still really cool that you designed it yourself, but I hope you get a more playable one soon.

Ooh, I get you. It's still really cool that you drained it yourself, but I hope you get a more playable one soon.

Yeah, I think the potion ocarinas they have are even smaller than the rupees, so props to whoever can play those lol. Yeah, the design of some of their more professional ocarinas is really neat! They're pretty expensive, though, so I wouldn't want to just buy one on a whim.

That makes sense! It's still a neat hobby, no matter what. Do you design all of the things you've built, or did you use someone else's to help you?

The problem with the rupee ocarina is that it's really tiny! Everyone always tells me my hands are small, but it's still kind of weird holding it. It's also only like six holes compared to the Ocarina of Time's 12, so to get some of the notes out you have to cover half a hole. It just feels really weird to me, but it is a cute little instrument. Where did you buy yours from? The issue some people have with OoT replicas is that the game actually didn't get the ocarina shape right (no flute or flute family instrument can be held like that lol), so they all look backwards, but it's not that big of a deal IMO. I'd like to practice some more and get the Fairy Ocarina from them sometime, and maybe work my way up to the more complex ones.

Ooh wow, that's really impressive! My dad likes to build stuff too (he's not a carpenter though), but I've never really been interested in building stuff on my own, for the most part. Have you ever thought about building stuff as a type of job?

I got an ocarina for Christmas! Actually I got two, because STL Ocarina has a special where you can buy an Ocarina of Time replica and get a rupee ocarina along with it. I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to practice, so I'm gonna resume soon. What type of ocarina did you have?

That's really neat! Did you build it out of wood?

That's pretty cool! Our school has a piano in pretty much every fine arts room, but I've always been afraid to touch them because the choir teacher doesn't like hers being touched and our old director didn't like us messing around with us instruments we weren't trained in. I'm sorry your family didn't let you practice. Practice makes you better, though, so I don't understand why they wouldn't let you play if they thought you were already bad at it lol.

I've been playing the flute since I started 6th grade, so I guess it's been almost seven years now! Tbh I think learning any instrument can lend itself to learning others, especially if you go from a wind to another wind. That's super cool! I wish we had done neat stuff like that in my physics class. Have you built any other instruments?

Oh that sounds nice. ^^ And yeah that sounds good! I want to go to the Nintendo World store (if it's not too far away) when I go to be honest, since I love Nintendo and I wanna buy all the cool stuff there that I can't find anywhere else. I think it's good to just not plan everything at times and do whatever you want on the day, because you can often find really cool little things you otherwise wouldn't have time for, but I think I do want to plan in advance what I want to do in my free time so I don't waste a day whilst I'm out there. I think we're seeing a musical one evening, having a tour of the city, going up the Empire State building, seeing the statue of Liberty, so all typical tourist-y stuff. But since I'm going with my media class we're going to spend a lot of time filming things whilst we're in the city so we can produce a short film. And I'll probably be the one filming since everyone likes my camera haha xD And yes, I hope you do get to see her!

Wow... You guys do a lot of exams. D: That sounds really tough, and like a lot of hard work. Although I suppose it's easier if you have an exam like half way through the year, you have much less to remember than perhaps if you did your exams ALL at the end of the year. Like for my GCSEs, I started studying for some of them in year 9, and did them in year 11! That meant I had to revise 3 whole years worth of work in some subjects! D: So it was really really hard work. It felt like it was impossible to memorise stuff. But in some ways it would be better to have exams like more often because you have less to memorise so you can focus on it more.

Hopefully so! Anyway you have your summer break now so you don't have to worry about doing any more work or exams so. And yep, exactly. :\ That's why I find it so ridiculous when people are so quick to say that students aren't as smart nowadays or that we are getting good grades even though we don't deserve it. Or if we do badly in a test, it's just that we are of a lower standard. But obviously there is some deeper reason behind that! Most students want to do well in exams and tests, so we do try our best. People just seem to forget that teaching methods have changed over time so that's why it may seem like things are "easier". But really, they are difficult! Also, if students aren't doing well, then there is obviously something behind how well the teacher is teaching their class, or the exam was too difficult for them.. You can't just blame the students!

I've wanted to learn the piano for awhile now, but I'm not so sure that'll work out since we don't own a piano or anything. That's really cool! I sort of self-taught myself the mellophone (more so the ocarina, but I already play the flute so it's not a terribly huge switch), but I had a friend help me out a lot, so I really admire that you could do that haha. And wow, you built it? Do you like to build stuff like that? And are you interested in learning any other instruments?

I'm sure you're not that bad! And I'll let you know, but if you ever see me online you can invite me to a game or something, and I'll probably be ready to play.

Yeah, I hope so too! I got to go to Shedd Aquarium when I went to Chicago on a band trip two years ago, but since it was a school trip I didn't get to spend as much time in it as I would have liked to, you know? And that's cool! I've been wanting to learn an instrument from each of the musical families for awhile, and I think it'd be neat to learn the harp as a string instrument. How long have you been playing the ukulele? And I'm sure you're not that bad. o: Are you self-taught?

Right now the only Nintendo Network capable game I have is Mario Kart, but I'm planning on getting Smash sometime soon. Tbh I'm not super amazing at Mario Kart and I'll likely be terrible at Smash (I've only played like once lol), so if we were to play, you'd probably mop the floor with me.

Oh that sounds lovely! What do you plan on doing whilst you're there? It would be funny if we ended up going to New York at the same time, although I doubt we would bump into each other since it's so busy. I haven't been to America since 2009, and I went to Florida then! And both of those places are totally different so I am looking forward to going somewhere new. And I will do! She's stopping off in London whilst on her 1989 world tour and my dad bought me a ticket to go because he keeps telling me I need to go to a concert! And ohhh I do hope you get to see her someday! ;w; Taylor Swift is such an amazing person, gosh, maybe if you somehow got in contact with her she'd send you a ticket, she is definitely the sort of person who would do that!

And wow that sounds lovely and like a lot of fun! I'd love to work at a place like that! I guess it's a lot of hard work looking after little kids at times, but also a lot of fun because you get to play and stuff too. :'3 And thank you again!

And well, we take our exams at the end of certain years/grades. So at the end of year 11 (age 15/16), we take GCSEs (which I did last year), and then at the end of year 12 (age 16/17) (what I did this year) we do our AS levels. Year 13 (age 17/18) we do the second 'half' of our AS exams, I suppose, and then we get a combined grade from both of those. I will find out what grades I got for my year 12 exams, though, but I still have to keep working hard so that I can then maintain that grade for when I get my year 13 grade added to it! So yeah, you just have to keep working really hard. But I mean from years 7 - 10 you don't really do any official exams which is quite nice! I hope that makes sense haha. xD I know it's very different in America! I think you guys take exams every year of high school don't you? D: That sounds really tough and like a lot of work.