This Week In School: Walking in a Winter Wonderland....

            

       Somewhere beneath all of this lies the BBC's School Report image from previous Weeks!

ITS CHRISTMAS! Well okay we still have got a good portion of the Month left but with all this Snow you can't help but get into the Xmas 'spirit'. Is it just me, but is Christmas seemingly coming earlier and earlier for these past few Years? Not to mention its also getting colder and colder (Day after Tomorrow style apocalypse coming?)! All this bad weather we've been having has put all the Schools in France into a massive standstill. I hear its just as bad in the UK, so I hope you guys aren't freezing to death over there! Bit of a mixed feeling here cos' 1: Yay because less School! And 2: Damn because of more Homework and all of the catching up I'll have to do and the (seemingly endless) amounts of Tests which will start spewing out onto the floor! Luckily that hasn't happened yet, as we've only had two days off so far. But just you wait...

Monday, despite being broadcasted to be a complete snowy blizzard turned out to be just a normal day in School (much to the dissapointment of my Class), although when I got up in the morning it was pushing -8! It was so cold the AIR had frozen! No Ice on the roads though, those Bastards had gritted it. I was breathing out smoke all day (many smoking jokes were exchanged the playground). Nothing much happened to be honest, German was a bit tricky (we're studying how to say the time at the moment, I'm fine untill you have to use words like 'Es ist Funfundzwanzig nach Funf...' and so on), Science was a bit boring (We are currently studying carbonised wood of all things!), Art was fun (still working on that map from last Week) and I got a whopping 16/20 in Maths! 16/20! Can't believe that, so far my Results have been bad, good, bad, bad, bad, bad, good, good, bad, and good! Didn't help my Score though, unfortunately only the first five Tests in Maths counted in the first Trimestre and seen as they were mostly (par one) terrible my Overall score in Maths is 8,45/20. C-R-A-P. Not the worst in the Class though, the lowest score was 6,24/20 if that counts for anything. The Teachers comments are that we are a nice Class to work with, but half the time we don't understand a thing and refuse to ask her for help. Basically we're about as smart as a bunch of sticks...could have been worse. In Geography we were each tasked with creating a fake Holiday Brochure (directed to the Amercains, who apparently know NOTHING about Europe) and show off what this continent had to offer Culturally, Religiously and languistically. I came up with the idea that seeing as your average brochure offers several different languages, and I am fluent in English and am sufficient enough in French, I should do a Brochure with both languages being available (cos' when you think about it, this is supposed to be aimed at Americains, they don't understand a word of French), I could have done a German language on it as well, but that might have become a bit too hard so I decided against it. Its going well so far, I hope the Teacher likes the whole multi-languages thing. The Test (also in Geography) went well, except when the Teacher tells you learn every country in Europe off my heart...and you do exactly that....you would think she would ask you to currectly put on a map the name of every country in Europe for the Test? I only had to put a few countrys on the map (approximately 15 out of the 27 countrys I had learnt). Bit annoyed, so I didn't really have to learn all of them did I? Another thing that Grinds my Gears (here we go again) is that she told us to put all the easy  names on the Map, like France, UK, Spain ect... EASY ALERT! In French the Dictation went very well (I think I only made a few mistakes) so that was all good. FLE aka French Language Education (every Monday I have a 50 minute lesson with the Science Teacher that is designed to help me with my French) was a real shocker, Mme Philippe (the School Headmaster) came into the deserted Classroom and asked the Teacher with he had some cables he could hook up to a Car battery (I think one of the Teachers cars had broken down and he was the only teacher to have them in his Car) and he left WHILE Mme Philippe tutored me in his abscence! The Head? Teaching me French? On my own? It could have gone better, she had this very loud growl every time I got a question wrong...

After Monday, Tuesday was more of the same: We were still studying the time in German, still working on the Brochure in Geography (Plus in History my Overall score for this Trimestre is 18/20 which is the highest score in the Class by the way *ACCEPTS APPLAUSE*), doing endless exercises in French (I was given my score for this trimestre as well: 9,45/10. Well its French, it was hardly going to be a miracle, was it?) and solving tricky Maths problems in Maths (Okay, In a news program that lasts half-an-hour, three thirds of the programme is dedicated to reporting and the rest of the time is donated to the commentary of the presenter. What is the length, in hours, of the Presenters commentary? Get it right and I'll reward you a gold star). 

Wednesday started off badly, I injured my leg while doing the high jump in Sport and failed BAAADLY. In Technology we had to look online to find a device that could run the houses electricity automatically (ex: if you were to walk into a dark Room, the lights in the House would automatically switch on, and it would switch off when you were no longer present). 

I got up on Thursday to find out that it had Snowed a BIT overnight, the roads were clear, and there was quite a bit of Frost but NOTHING that would stop the School from opening. Turns out, practically NO ONE turned up for School. There was SIX people in my Class that showed up (including me!). Where is everybody? I had no idea, either three quarters of the School are lazy buggers or we must be the only area that isn't SWAMPED in snow. I had to endure two hours of Permanence (some of the Teachers didnt show up as well, even the Maths Teacher was late) and, because the Sport Teacher had made it, one hour of Ping-Pong/Football that I sucked at, and loads of what I would call 'filler classes' where we would watch a boring Documentary about boring things. The Teachers could hardly continue normally with only six of us, so we were playing a board-game in German, a few Maths exercises in Maths and cleaning up classes that need a good scrubbing in the place of Music (basically we were doing errands for the Head). Very pissed off, I mean did half the School just throw their hands up and refuse to go to School, just over a bit of Snow (It wasn't even 5mm thick!)?  
  

Friday, didn't exist, because the School had shut down. I'll put a few pictures up, and email you even more, but its quite literally a WINTER WONDERLAND OUT THERE RIGHT NOW! YAY! SCHOOLS SHUT, ITS SNOWING! *RUNS OUTSIDE LAUGHING HAPPILY* Snowball fights, sleeping (getting up at 8am in the morning is too FAR early for me) and just a general 'Xmas fun' feeling insued! 

Now, I hope the Snow lasts (as everyone), but Im dreading the amount of Homework I could get on Monday! Thats this Weeks recap, Tim. 

         

This Week In School

 
Because of Armistice day and some "other" Christian holiday the School was kind enough to let us off both Today and Yesterday. YAY! So I'm kinda in a 'mini holiday' right now which is pretty neat seen as I've only just come back from another Holiday! As much as they (arguably) overwork us you can't complain about all the Holidays. Good thing too, as Mon-Wed this week was a bit mixed overall. 

German is our first subject on Mondays, and remember that BIG Test last Thursday? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the catastrophe that was *SHUDDERS* 7,5/20 (or 15/40 either way its pretty hirendous)! My class didn't fare too well either...
I made practically EVERY mistake in the book, from spelling mistakes to bad grammer to, well everything! I EVEN GOT THE BLOODY DATE WRONG! The teacher was surprisingly calm with us, and she even gave us a second chance: we're going to have EXACTLY the same Test next week, so all I have to do is learn the corrected Test and I'm guaranteed to get a really good score. So lets just forget THAT travesty as if it never happened...
Next we had a Technology Test, and went spiffingly well (as usual), so no surprises there. The subject matter was boring though, we had to name 3 types of lamp bulbs (i.e LEDS...) and give a justification for each one (ex: LEDS don't take up alot of power but exudes alot less light ect......) so very boring but you just have to learn it and then your guaranteed a good result. After that I got the longly awaited Art Test Result: a good 15,5/20 which I think was the best in the Class! But of course Maths had to ruin it...
Although she hadn't yet corrected all the Tests, she assured us that so far, only THREE out of the NINETEEN people in my Class had a score above 10/20! She then said that she had showed the Tests to the Headmistress and, because the Results had been so atrocious that ANYONE in 4eme with terrible Results in Maths will be, as she put it: "Invited into her office, as well as being offered a place in the Homework class (after school, students who want to can stay behind for another hour doing their homework) and will stay untill they know their Maths off by heart, as the Class clearly doesn't revise enough! Also, because you refuse to work at home...you will now have a short Maths Test every day untill you get your act together!" So, as you can imagine...I was pretty much shitting my pants! We then had to write on a piece of paper why we have had bad bad Maths Results, whether or not we revise for the Tests, our attidude in Class and so on....
So as you can imagine the Maths teacher is cracking down very hard on our Class. I think in general, my Class hasn't exactly been top of the leader board on their Results. In short, I had better get my act together in Maths or I'll be stuck in Homework Class, ARGGHHH! Maths has basically become a living hell now for us!
After lunch, we had an English Test (another 20/20 no doubt), which is still the easiest thing alive.
History was mainly an entire lesson dedicated to preparing you for the big Test on Tuesday. Which was very handy, as the Teacher had said exactly what to learn, how to answer a question properly ect...
French was just doing a stack of French related-exercises and FLE pretty much the same.
So that was Monday, of course I was revising my ass that night as we had the Maths Test (I spent two solid hours alone learning Maths off by heart) and the big History Test.

Tuesday started (of course) with Maths, which simply consisted of us writting down on a piece of paper a Definition. Except she wasn't really that precise on what Definition we had to write (I can't remembeer whether she had asked for a precific definition) so I just wrote down one of (the many) I had leant the previous night. Fingers crossed that I don't get a bad Result. Cos if not...I just hate to think about it!
History was next (two Tests in a row...horay!), and I literary finished it SECONDS before the bell went! I didn't even have time to check if I had made any spelling errors but at least I knew that what I wrote was correct. Phew. No doubt she'll take a few points off for something but I know that I at least did good.
Everything else was fine, except in German we had an unusually sharp leaning curve! We have quite literary gone from learning the basics of the language to writing a full blown conversation that now has to be acted out (in front of the Class may I add) and pronounced correctly! And we weren't even allowed to use 'simple' words, it had to be a proper conversation and be at least 30 phrases long! I decided to write it in French first and then put it all into Google translate (which I have yet to do).


Wednesday was okay, in Sport we are now doing High-jump (so high jump on Wednesdays and bloody Ping-Pong on Thursdays) and was really easy because (obiously) I'm so tall and I barely had to jump (more like step) over the line! When the Teacher put the rope higher though it did get a bit difficult!


Thats Mon-Wed then. Maths is just a living nightmare now and I did make a mess out of the German Test, but overall I suppose it went well...
The end of the first Trimestre is nearly upon me, (two weeks time I think) and so far with the exception of Maths and French I think will be quite a positive report. Or at least it should be, because I've worked my ass off!

Last few days in School....

                     
                           Nice pic of me hanging out with 'Fluffy' last night.


Well It can't technically be called "Last Week In School" because we came back to School after the Holidays on Thursday....

Well it couldn't have started off worse to be honest, I have been suffering from a nasty sore throat and was pushed into School jacked up on painkillers and barely awake (I did not sleep well at ALL Wednesday night, had the highest temperature known to man and that god damn sore throat that hurt every time I swallowed). I hadn't left the house for five days and STILL somehow managed to catch malaria! Of course, the day had to start off with a Maths Test (seriously, whats up with all these Maths Tests?)! It should have gone fine (I had revised hard the previous night) but fell to pieces because I, like the IDIOT that I am revised for completely the wrong thing! I somehow had managed to write down in my book that I had to revise for Chapter 1 in Maths when you actually had to revise for Chapter 2. OOYS! I fell and hit the ground hard as you can imagine, another casualty for the already limping Maths, and the irony was that if only I had learnt Chapter 2 it would have been the only Maths Test that I could have had a good shot at to finally get a respectable score! Poor, poor Maths. Tears and throbbing throats aside, I then went into Sport. Now I hate Baseball and Endurance, but at least I'm good at them, Ping Pong (aka table Tennis) is just about the only Sport that I truely SUCK at. Trying to hit that pong ball is like trying to score 20/20 in a Maths Test (I pray for the day)! And why does it have to be table Tennis? Why not regular Tennis? We've got a Tennis court, so why do we have to do this crap? Trying to catch that ball after it bounces off the table is like performing an obstical course, with it bouncing under other tables, hitting walls and going in the other direction and its path just generally being completely unpredictable! Its hell trying to catch that thing! After that travesty, I went into S.V.T. That Test that I thought went well didn't end up with the Result I was expecting (I got a meagre 12/20, could have been 13/20 but of course I had to spell a few words wrong!), but at least the lesson was interesting (for once), we were studing volcanoes and had to write a short text about the infamous Pompeii fiasco. Volcanoes are cool, mainly because they make great material for Hollywood blockbusters (you only have to see 2012 to be blown away by those great special effects). 

After lunch (having spluttered down a bowl of soup, which tasted like acid with my sore throat and getting jacked up on MORE awful fizzy painkillers), we had another MASSIVE Test in German. Graded out of 40 points, it covered six pages and contained just about every single thing we have looked at in the past few Months, which just by sheer size alone made it impossible to remember EVERYTHING. I filled in a good portion of it, its just another one of those you-either-know-it-or-you-don't  Tests. I skipped a few things, with a few examples of that time when the answer is on the VERY tip of your tongue, but it just doesn't really form in your mind (its so faustrating when that happens! But you can't just write "It begins with a W" can you?). My multi-languistic brain was in overload, as when the Test asked you to translate the German phrases into French you mentally have to translate that into THREE differant languages. MULTI-TASKING OVERLOAD! A bit overwelming, but I should at least get 20/40, which wouldn't really harm my Trimestre Results because I already have a perfect 20/20 in German. After School on Thursday it was pretty much more painkillers and sleep! 

I had developped a headache AND a cold/cough by Friday, adding to my growing list of symptoms (both quite minor, and my nose is starting to clear up a bit now). I must have had every disease known to man by then! I STILL managed to walk into School, although I was careful to stay away from people just in case I infected anyone and turned them into a Zombie! I normally avoid them all anyway, so it wasn't a major change. Friday was okay, the only thing worth noting was my Science Test, which garnered a respectable (although the teacher could have given more) 16/20. I lost four points because I spelt kg and m3 with capitals when they were supposed to have been in lower case, not bothering to draw every single molecule in a syringe (which would have taken ages, and I only had 50 minutes to do the Test) and getting -1,5 because despite writing everying neat and tidy, screwed up on ONE question and had to scribble it out (they take points off if you write scruffy) and getting a Maths question wrong (you had to calculate the mass of air in a container). Apart from the Maths question, I consider most of the mistakes a bit nitpicky and could have garnered a well deserved 18/20. SIGH, Its almost impossible to get a 20/20 in France nowadays!



In other News, I have just watched the latest Episode of Merlin (with my dog Obelix pictured above and below, who enjoyed it as you can clearly see), and quite enjoyed it, and it seems to be really campaigning against Doctor Who. I now liken it to sort of a Medieval DW now. Although the hole "trying to kill the king with seemingly no reason" plot is really a bit tiring now! A bit of variety please?


Well this ends my recap, and I swear that if I see another 'GOD DAMNED PAINKILLER, I THINK I MIGHT JUST SCREAM!!!!'       

Last Week In School

This Holiday is going juuust swell.
Monday, was THE get-up and go-day of the Week as I had two (potentially three just in case I a surprise History interrogation)  Tests to revise for! To be fair, they were in Art and Science, which were the only subjects that had NOT yet given me Tests after Tests after Tests to revise previously. The Science and Art Teachers prefer to give you one big Test at the end of the month rather than lots of little Tests every Week. I personally prefer this type of Test-ing, but there is a negative side to it: you only have two chances per Trimestre to get a great Result, but you F*UCK up on one of them and your score goes down the drain. Luckily, I was prepared (the result of almost FOUR straight hours of revising the previous night, which was a record for me) and I exelled in the Science Test (my first 20/20?) and the Art one went well also. The Science Test was massive, packing in just about every question on what we saw in Class, whereas Art was more relaxed but still had a boatload of pure you-either-know-it-or-you-don't-type questions that preyed on anyone that hadn't revised for it. I don't have the Results back yet but all should be revealed when I go back in early November. After two Ginormous Tests back-to-back my hands were sore, I can tell you!
Then we went into Maths...
SURPRISE MATHS TEST! OH. MY. GOD. I'M. SO. DEAD! 

Literary, I could not have been any less prepared! Just when you think you've got the Test thing sorted, in comes along Maths with a buzz-baton to your back! Don't they understand that I revised for FOUR Hours last night? FOUR HOURS! Well, the Teacher probably didn't know about the other Tests but she could have not have picked a worse time for a surprise Maths Test! I hadn't looked at my Maths book since Friday! Poor, poor Maths. I got 3,5/10 in that Test, and with the exception of one good Test (a 4,5/5) pretty much encased Maths in dog poop for the rest of the Trimestre. I'm truly am gutted about Maths, a subject that I normally have difficulty with anyway but these sudden surprise Tests DO NOT HELP (especially on a big Test day)! 
I was relieved that Monday was over (I can go on for Hours about the Monday fiasco but its already becoming a heavy Blog post), and the School rewarded me with only ONE big Test to revise for the following day. It was in French and compared to my last dictation evaluation should be a real step up (still haven't got the result yet).
Which wouldn't actually be as hard as you think because I scored 0/10 in the last one (in the poem one from last Week I scored a reasonable, but a barely rewardable 8,5/15)!
Wednesday was fine, I had a Sports Test on Baseball (which went surprisingly well, I suppose I don't suck as much when under pressure!).
I'll now discuss my School trip to Rennes on Friday:   

I had to get up at 6.30am to catch the Bus to Rennes at 8.20am. I reasoned that if I went to bed one hour early to get up one hour early all should be fine (how wrong I was). I got onto the Bus half-awake, and it was packed full of exited kids. They didn't shut  up at all until we had arrived there! We was on a day trip to Rennes, (the biggest city near to us) to spend a morning in the Science Labs and to take a visit to the apparently infamous Rennes "Parliment" (although the English wouldn't call it a Parliment, more of a swank looking Courthouse). It was all fine until Lunch Time, we sat down in the Planetarium, saw all the galaxies that made up the Universe ect... Explored the different periods of Earths History and had a brief visit to the "Natural Disasters" area (the seismic activity section was quite boring). Then came Lunchtime...and the headache. Lunch consisting of a Cheese Burger with fries from a nearby mcdonalds knockoff called "Quick". To be quite frank any memories of the rest of the day are shrouded in the pain of that dreadful Headache, I can only remember looking at some exuisite tapestries and ornamental ceilings from the 15th Century in the  Parliment! God the moment I got off that Bus at 6 o'clock I ran straight home and into my Bed, my head was sooo bloody throbbing! After taking one of Grandma's painkillers (which effectively put me to sleep for several Hours).

Well that was the start of the School October Holidays, and out of the frying pan and into the fire couldn't have been a more apt method to describe this last Week!  
Now if you exuse me, I must now get up from my new habitat (aka B.E.D) to experience some modern sensation called "Exercise". Hmmm, never heard of it. Still, I must get up and do it or Dad is threatening to take the Internet away from me if I don't! Hmmm, Dad, now dont get me started on him:

  

"Smarmy arse git!" (as quoted by dear Grandpa)

This Week In School: My Poor, Poor Legs...

Well, I ran (or very slowly jogged) for almost THREE Hours this Week, and as you can tell by the title of this Post, my legs aren't feeling very well at ALL. In fact, there's a tendon on the back of my right leg right now that is just begging to snap (its already been stretched to bits, poor thing). You know I wouldn't be surprised if my leg had actually broken off during that cross country race on Friday: SNAP! Commentator: "looks like Tim's leg has just finally had enough...." I think I might just pull a sicky next Year (or maybe not), because that was bloody soul-testing. Our College and the one from Mauron always join together every Year for the traditional "Cross" race. A stupid tradition if you ask me, and one of the most pointless things in the entire UNIVERSE that exists only to torture both your soul and your poor, poor body (if I ever feel anything below my knee again it will be a bloody miracle). You can check out my in-depth rant about Endurance running in one of my previous Blog posts here: http://thelazyteenagerinfrance.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-you-know-what-really-grinds-my-gears.html. As if the cross country race wasn't enough, I was also swamped with a TON of Tests: two in French, two in German, two in Art, one in Technology and one in Sport (kinda, he'll be evaluating our performance over a period of weeks). If you think thats bad, wait til' you see the Tests next week...  
The German Test was easy, you just had to write down a string of numbers you heard and then recite another string of numbers to your class while making sure that you p-r-o-n-o-u-n-c-i-a-t-e-d every word correctly (may I also point out that these were SURPRISE Tests, the type I particularly hate because its just an exuse to pray on the kids who don't learn there lessons reguarly), anyway I got 20/20 but everyone in my class got at least 18/20 so no big feat. In the Technology Test I got a measly 8,5/10, which is just quite frankly an insult (SO WHAT I FORGOT TO PUT THE "S" ON THE END OF THE WORD! WHY CAN'T NOBODY EVER GET 20/20 IN THIS LESSON GOD DAMMIT??????), the guy clearly doesn't have the guts anymore to give me a 10/10 rating! I may also comment on my teachers name: Mr Bastide! Anyway after the insult of Technology, I should fare better in Art, in which I had to represent 1 second of motion in 25 Images (fairly easy, akin to the famous stop motion techniques of the 50s Sci-Fi B-movies. Not hard per-say you just need to be a good drawer: ex: a man putting his foot down is about one second, so you'll just have to illustrate that mouvement in 25 different boxes). French was a bit of a disaster as you had to study an old poem, which was clearly wrote by homeless drunk man sat on the side of the street somwhere as it didn't make a lick of sense (one minute the poete was walking down the street describing the "shiny" stars, and then it jumped to him riding a polar bear out in the artic desert! MIND F*CK ALERT! And the dictation were you had to write down a text said to you with as little spelling and grammatical errors as possible, and seen as the French language has so many god-damn words that sound the EXACTLY the same (the sound E has multiple spellings for a start, the word could finish by ee, es, ais, ait, aient, e, i ect...), so basically I'm (pardon the profanity) f*cked. Music was really easy, you just had to read a Biography about Jean-Babtiste-Lully to the Class (imagine my surprise when I found out that "Lully" was a man!), and I also recieved a very welcome 17/20 in the Test we did last week....So all in all, a mixed bag, just PLEASE DONT MAKE ME RUN 6 KILOMETRES AGAIN!!!!!!!!
Now exuse me while I rant at my bedroom wall for fithteen minutes: "ONLY GAVE ME A 8,5/10 DID YOU? WHY YOU LITTLE...$%£@*!"  

NOTE: I didn't actually rant at the wall like a madman for fifthteen minutes, it was just me being "funny."

This Week In School: The Germans have invaded!

 

THE GERMANS HAVE INVADED! Well…maybe not like that, but they sure as hell walked in like they owned the place.  This Week the German correspondents arrived,  much to the anticipation of my Classmates (more like nerve racking tension I‘d say). Apparently this is the first time my School has done this sort of thing, because the moment they arrived out of their posh looking bus the French just sort of huddled up in the corner like scared Babies. Which I don’t blame them for doing, as they were (with little exaggeration) F*CKING HUGE! A lot of people say that I’m tall though next to a German I might as well be the size of an ant! They have to physically duck to get through a doorway. And to make matters confusing, you couldn’t tell if half of them was a Boy or a Girl! There’re so thin and gangly and have loooong hair (the Boys had bloody ponytails!).  Much akin to the sorting hat in Hogwarts, they then proceeded to pair the German-ists (the people studying German) with the correspondents based on there likes, dislikes and general personalities. Luckily I had declined the offer to have a German correspondent before the Summer Holidays because we don’t have the space for someone else (although he could have had the blow-up double bed), and some of my Family might have had a few issues with the Germans infamous track-record. The idea of a German staying in my House for a week didn’t really please me either at the time (not to mention the fact that you knew nothing about them before-hand, heck its probably just luck if you get one of the nice kids) so I just sort of accepted it. It was all very reminiscent of the famous evacuations in the 1940s actually. For the rest of this week the Germans were touring Brittany, taking a peek at Josselin ect…. To be honest it just seemed like an excuse for half the School to have some fantastic days out with there newfound German ‘friends’ (arguably). Except they probably weren’t ‘great’ days out because of all the blistering weather. Its been raining over here for four days non-stop (EDIT: just started to brighten up a bit)! I didn’t really have anything to do with them til’ Thursday when they spent the entire day with our Class. For people that know little to no French they were surprisingly good at Maths (or at least better than me). The lessons were of course dumbed-down because they were there, so Thursday was one of those days when you could lie your brain to rest (for once). They completely annihilated everyone in Sport, and of course the French then began to blame anyone in their Team for whatever reason. For losing them the game (back-stabbers the lot of ’em) Once the Germans had settled in mid-day the French got surprisingly nasty towards them. They would make fun of their language, laugh at them, and in one case actually verbally insulted one of them. No doubt due to Sport… All in all despite being the size of a mountain they turned out to be quite normal. We’re supposed to be going over to Germany next Year, we’ll see whether I actually pluck up in the courage to go. In the meantime, I really have to get my head down this week, due to the Germans being here we now have to catch up with the missed lessons (which is generally an excuse to put out more Tests). And this headache I’ve suddenly developed isn’t helping things at all…