Quote of the Week

 Another quote from Agatha Christie! Meet Miss Jane Marple, elderly spinster and intelligent detective...

"You imagined what you would do if you were a cruel and cold-blooded murderer?" said Craddock looking thoughtfully at Miss Marple's pink and white elderly fragility. "Really, your mind-"
"Like a sink, my nephew Raymond used to say," Miss Marple agreed, nodding her head briskly. "But as I always told him, sinks are necessary domestic equipment and actually very hygienic."
                                                      -Agatha Christie, 4.50 from Paddington

Quote of the Week

This quote is by Agatha Christie, an author who I am so wary of that I can never tell whether a paragraph of seemingly innocent description is, in fact, description, or a clue to the whole mystery. I have not actually read the book this quote is from, but I strongly suspect that the key to the mystery is in an unexpected place...



“Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."
"An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.”

-Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

The picture is a photo of Agatha Christie, from pinterest.com

Pi Day

3.14159265358979

What's that number?

Pi. The 16th letter of the Greek alphabet. Used to refer to the ratio between the circumference and diameter of any circle. Also the nickname of the protagonist of the novel and movie Life of Pi.
Pi is an irrational number, so the decimals don't repeat, which is why the number I've shown above is pi to 14 decimal places.

Oh, here it is...for those of you who are trying to forget it in the aftermath of the exams, here is a reminder of what the symbol of pi looks like.

Today, March 14, is Pi Day. (3/14, you get it?)
There are two things you can do to commemorate Pi Day:
1) Draw the pi symbol on the back of your hand or the inside of your wrist
2) Do about twenty sums calculating the area and circumference of circles of varying lengths of radii


 It's your choice.

Quote of the Week

My New Year's resolution is utterly failing, isn't it?

“What's that?" he snarled, staring at the envelope Harry was still clutching in his hand. "If it's another form for me to sign, you've got another -"
"It's not," said Harry cheerfully. "It's a letter from my godfather."
"Godfather?" sputtered Uncle Vernon. "You haven't got a godfather!"
"Yes, I have," said Harry brightly. "He was my mum and dad's best friend. He's a convicted murderer, but he's broken out of wizard prison and he's on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though...keep up with my news...check if I'm happy....”

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

EXAM TIME!!!

Exams are just around the corner.
Obviously, you're either trying not to study or you're taking a break, because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.Or else you're being deeply philosophical, musing over who invented exams.
To help my fellow thinkers and exam-writers, I am posting this.

I, like so many of my classmates, have by now become a veteran exam-taker. So I can now give you five tips for surviving exam time.

Yes, exactly. Exam alert. The exams are coming, so quickly read this and get back to studying before someone finds you...well, not studying.

RULE NUMBER 1:
Don't stay up late. Never stay up late before an exam. Ever. You might be studying, but that is not going to help, because in order to write the exam, you have to be awake. It's not really going to help if you start snoring in the middle of a description of an experiment demonstrating the necessity of carbon dioxide in starch production.

RULE NUMBER 2:
Eat. Yes, I'm serious. Eat before the exam or you will collapse in the middle. Once, in the middle of a math exam, I started having visions of butter-covered potatoes I'd seen on a cooking show. And I'd eaten breakfast! Thankfully, I had finished the paper, but...don't starve yourself.

RULE NUMBER 3:
Try not to freak out. How can you not freak out before an exam? If you can't stop your stomach from turning in anticipation, pretend. Pretend you're perfectly fine. Pretend that you're not on the verge of having a panic attack. Pretend you're calm. You might just fool yourself into calmness and that will become real. Which, of course, means that you focus more on the paper.

RULE NUMBER 4:
Don't daydream. That will take your mind off the test and will cause you to cringe when you see the marks on the corrected paper. The minute you catch yourself daydreaming, bring back your focus to the test. Daydream later, instead of biting your nails and wondering about how you wrote.

RULE NUMBER 5:
Don't think about the exam after you've written it. Because this will ruin your peace of mind for the next exams. If you're thinking, "I wrote that it was active voice but my classmate wrote that it was passive voice, will I lose a mark?" while trying to revise how to find the inverse of a function, it's definitely not going to help you.

Believe me, these tips actually work- for me, but cross your fingers and hope that they work for you, too. Good luck for the exams!
Oh, and as for these tips...you're welcome.

Quote of the Week

First quote of February...


"She can't afford to commit more troops,' Holly whispered. 'The gate is her priority, and she needs to have as many Berserkers watching her back as possible. We are secondary at this point.'
'That will be her undoing,' Artemis gasped, already suffering under the weight of the flak jacket. 'Artemis Fowl will never be secondary.'
'I thought you were Artemis Fowl the Second?' said Holly."

-Eoin Colfer, The Last Guardian

Quote of the Week

Sorry for skipping a week. To make up for the skipped week, I'm posting two quotes now.

"A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."

- Summer Moonshine by P.G. Wodehouse

And...quote number two...

“Who are you?" he asked.

I am the future queen of this world, at the very least. You may refer to me as Mistress Koboi for the next five minutes. After that you may refer to me as Aaaaarrrrgh, hold your throat, die screaming, and so on.”

-Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer