Ich habe heute meine schließliche deutsche Prüfung gehabt. Leider, habe ich letzte Nacht schlecht geschlaffen. Meiner Meinung nach, waren die Frage aus dem Prüffungsblätte ziemlich einfach. Ich denke dass ich habe denen gut bestanden. Anderseits, musste ich einen 275-300 Wörte Aufsatz auch schreiben. Das war nicht so gut. Ich habe nur c.200-220 Wörte geschrieben, und habe ich in denen viele Fehlern gemacht. Das war 25/60 der Noten, und 1/12 der ganzen A-Level-Noten. Jedoch, habe ich gute Noten in jeden anderen Anteil des Deutschsprachkurs. So Gott will, würde ich doch nächstes Jahr Imperial College besuchen.

eyeflyer’s photos on flickr

Die Schweiz ist die Heimat des größten Gletschers Europas, der ‚Aletsch-Gletscher’ heißt. Wenn dieser Gletscher schmelzen wird, so wird das Schmelzwasser genug sein, um täglich für sechs Jahren einen Liter Trinkwasser für jede Person auf der Welt zur Verfügung zu stellen. Eis für den Gletscher fließt aus vier verschiedenen Quellen und trifft zusammen am ‚Konkordiaplatz’. Hier ist die Eisscholle am tiefsten. Wenn man auf dem Konkordiaplatz steht, so steht man auf 900 Meter dicken Eis.

Anderseits, trotz des furchterregenden Ausmaßes des Gletschers ist es doch zerbrechlich. Seit dem Höhepunkt seines Ausmaßes in 1859/60, ist der Gletscher rund 3 Kilometer zurückgegangen. Diese Auswirkung des Klimawandels wird in der Schweiz überall erlebt.

Ski-Alpin in der Schweiz ist auf dem Aletsch-Gletscher erfunden worden. Heutzutage wird in den Alpen Ski gefahren, vor 120 Jahren war es jedoch noch unbekannt. Der Brite Knocker ist als erste in der Schweiz über dem Eis mit Ski geglitten. Mit 19 Jahren hat Engländer Arnold Lunn in 1908 den Alpin Ski Club in London gegründet. Die Volkstümlichkeit der Skisportarten ist in dem letzten Jahrhundert schnell gestiegen, und jetzt ist Skifahren der Nationalsport der Schweiz und Österreichs. Daher ist Schnee und Wintersport ein teil der Nationalidentität der Schweiz.

Trotzdem, kann Skifahrer nur in einer Höhe von mehr als 1800 Metern betrieben werden. Die Skiorte, die Niedriger liegen, müssen ihre Pisten mit Kunstschnee bedecken. Zusätzlich, beschleunigt die Erderwärmung, und der Klimawandel wird sehr gefährlich für Schweiz und die Zukunft der ganzen Alpenlandschaft. In 2007, fragte die Klimaforscherin Helga Kromp-Kolb ob es sich lohnte, wieder in Beschneiungsanlagen zu investieren. Dazu sagte sie voraus, dass die Skiorte nie wieder Touristen anziehen wurden, wenn es so wenig Schnee gäbe. Wenn ihre Voraussage zu trifft, so müsste die Tourismus-Industrie der Schweiz sich ein neues Image geben.

Der Treibhaus-Effekt hat eine Auswirkung nicht nur für die Touristen, sondern auch für die, die in der Schweiz leben. Oft ist es der Fall, dass die Felsen auf den Bergen mit Eis bedeckt sind. Wenn das Eis schmelzen würde, so würden die Felsen, welche auf den Bergen stehen, in die Täler rollen. Die meisten Menschen leben nicht auf den Bergen, sondern in den Tälern. Deswegen, sind Barrieren auf den Hängen gebaut worden, um die Dörfer gegen Steinschläge zu schützen.

Der Aletsch-Gletscher ist für die Umweltschützer besonders wichtig, weil er in der UNESCO-Weltserbeliste steht. In dem Bericht um Aletsch ist Energieeinsparung gefordert. Jedoch, benutzen Skiorte usw. Doch fossile Brennstoffe und andere Produkte die für die Schmelzung der Gletscher verantwortlich sind. Diese Tatsache stellt die Frage, ob das Naturerbe der Schweiz Klimawandel überleben kann.

I have a huge amount to be thankful for. Four brilliant universities have made me offers. So here’s the rundown, in no particular order.

Imperial College London

MEng Mechanical Engineering with a Year Abroad or MEng Mechanical Engineering

Offer: AAA

Photo: Nuno R.

Loughborough University

MEng Civil Engineering with Sandwich Year

Offer: BBB

Photo: robep

Manchester University

MEng Mechanical Engineering with Sandwich Year

Offer: AAB

Photo: magutosh

Christ’s College, Cambridge

MEng Engineering with Gap Year in Industry

No Offer

Photo: sparkypics

Bath University

MEng Mechanical Engineering and German with Sandwich Year

Offer: AAA

Photo: Nitin Parmar

As you can see, that’s all my unversities accounted for, and I’ve officially been rejected for Cambridge. I am actually quite thankful for that. If God had wanted me in Cambridge, I’d have got an offer. It’s less complicated now, and I don’t have to weigh up Cambridge/Imperial College. I am incredibly keen on ICL at the moment. And God timed me getting an offer from ICL before my rejection from Cambridge. If it had been the other way round, I’d have probably been a bit depressed.

For the first time ever I am proud to be English. This is due to a wonderful book called “Set in a Silver Sea” by Arthur Bryant.

Today I was musing on why university learning has no appeal to so many people. It occured to me that nobody loves wisdom any more. She is like a desperate wife who sees her husband visiting prostitutes and starts to dress like one to draw him back. This country has fallen in love with trivia and raw knowledge. These things are hollow and empty without wisdom, and a love for truth itself. Our educational system has prostituted itself. Education is not about the knowledge received but the man created. We go to school to get a job. We go to college to get a slightly better job, we go to university to get a job that will pay us enough to get a big house and a fast car. There is no longer joy in the creation. In an atheistic society, we all focus on an end goal that doesn’t exist. We do not know where our lives are going, and yet we live in a future that will be every bit as disappointing as the present.

The virtue of the age is originality. The acheivement of a nation means nothing to you unless you are personally involved in it, and it changes your story. Only those who are happy are successful, and a pursuit that no longer feels right must be abandoned.

About.com gives you advice on evaluating relationships:

Is this relationship worth the amount of work required to maintain it?
Is this a person I would choose to have in my life if we just met today? Or have I been holding onto this relationship out of habit?
Does this person make me feel good about myself? Am I uncomfortable around them?
Is this friend competitive with me in a negative way?
Do I like who I am when I’m with them? Or do we seem to bring out the worst in each other?
How deeply can I trust this person? Could I count on them if I needed to? Could I share my feelings freely?
Do we have common interests and values? If not, do I benefit from the differences?
Am I receiving as much as I give?
If I gave this relationship the effort it deserves, would it benefit me and enrich my life?
After answering some of these questions, you should have a clearer picture of whether this relationship is positive or negative for you.
Circle the person’s name if you believe that the relationship is positive and supportive, or if it could be, given an appropriate amount of time and energy. Otherwise, cross off the name.

Well, I hope Jesus isn’t reading that article and thinking about me, that’s all I can say. My old maths teacher had a quote above his board that said,

The Mark of a man is how he treats someone who can be of no possible use to them.

I have now finished my AS Level exams, I will be receiving my results sometime in the Summer. I now have three weeks at college which I will have to be using to prepare for next year. Apparently, I have to start thinking about university now. There also remains the task of choosing courses for next year. At the moment I’m expecting to carry on with all the courses I’m doing, but it does need prayer.

I really don’t know what I will be doing next year. I have absolutely no confidence in my planning ability for the future. God will have to do something pretty miraculous whatever happens, because I am stumped. The choice seems so vast. I’m not sure about any of the courses I wanted to study. Please pray that God would put the right choices on my heart.

On Friday the 22^nd I will be visiting Oxford with Emma and some other people in the College’s able and talented group. I found out today I will also be going to Mark, Jonathan and Alastair’s joint birthday party, which is also a leaving party for Jonathan and Monika, who are heading to Tenerife; and Henna, who is leaving for Aberdeen University. I had previously expected to be returning too late, but it turns out I will be back shortly after 7, leaving plenty of time.

I have started reading “The End of Poverty” by Jeffrey Sachs for my Geography course next year. I’ve never really read a book as part of any course before (except English of course), and it’s an interesting novelty. I feel like a real student or something.

I have a lot on my mind, and I am not doing the best spiritually either. Perhaps it is a good thing that now my greatest desire is to be holy, but it doesn’t feel like it. I suppose I can take comfort in:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Because I no longer have a feeling of assurance. God’s Word is all the assurance we need, but on the other hand, it is nice not to doubt you are saved, but I know I do not seek the presence of God in vain. Even if my sin does stand in the way.

I have gone through such feelings many times, and come out stronger, but it is hard to see that. I know I have nothing to be depressed about, but depression can be a trial like any other, even in the absence of anything to actually be sad about. From an objective perspective, my life is fantastic.

Well, there have certainly been some happenings since I last posted. Although I still haven’t re-read Ally’s post I mentioned in the previous post, I still have some things to say.

[sarcasm] This week at College started positively [/sarcasm] with a geography fieldtrip… To Hanley. Of all places… Hanley. I mean, I don’t like Hanley at the best of times, but in the rain at on a Monday morning/afternoon, it definitely scores pretty low. I have distinct memories of the first time I drove through Hanley, when I thought, “What a terrible place, this is the worst place I’ve ever seen.” I don’t hate the Stoke quite so much nowadays, but if you offered me a house just about anywhere else in the world, I’d seriously consider your offer. I mean, google maps says it all really.

I’ve been tired all this week, and I’m still tired now, so this may be… less than coherant. Sorry. Speaking of tiredness though, I did have officially the weirdest dream ever dreamt by a person (I think this even beats Mark’s famous weird dreams). I dreamt I was camping in a magical land populated by multicoloured mushrooms which were in the shape of unicorns and could fly They had no knees, like Rayman. The land was terrorised by a giant shellfish that had escaped from its shell. It had little versions of itself that bit my toes. The shellfish ate the unicorn mushrooms. I promise you, I have never taken acid in my life.

I think I should just get to bed. I’m too tired to write anything coherant. I’ll get back to this tomorrow maybe…

And congratulations to Mark, who got a first on his final Occupational Therapy placement. Mark was awarded the world’s one and only Peter Roberts obnoxiously large virtual platinum star of commendation, which he later sold to Google for an awful lot of virtual money.

There are a number of things that have happened over the last week. Firstly:

Cake

Now we move onto our next point, which is nameably how I’m progressing with being offline.

The eye removed, or merely temporarily closed?

Well, unfortunately I’ll have to go with the latter. I’m still lazy. And me ending every day talking on MSN is gradually moving away from being other people’s fault to being my fault. Most of the time I’m simply to busy to go online, which is not really a very pious reason for not going online. This has been particularly a problem in the last week, which was a time where I could see definite roots of bitterness and backsliding in my life.

Emma did the second CU session this week, which followed a terrible (not to be too judgemental) session in which we debated whether or not it was possible for God to do something evil. It was a liberal leading. Bad idea.

For those who are not sure whether or not God can do evil, please read 1 John 1:5. I also made my doubts about Limited Atonement probably a little too clear, which I don’t think was helpful. I should’ve shut up. I was debating whether to even go to the first session, because I knew I’d say something I’d regret.

But I digress. The main point was that Emma reminded us of “Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding”, which was something she had found helpful. I thought about this and realised I always have a plan B when praying. I’ll invent a new analogy, which may or may not be helpful:

It’s difficult to get off stilts, but it’s much safer on the ground. Our “Plan Bs” being the stilts of course.

That verse is one of the verses I have secretly and subconciously looked down on as something for people who don’t read the Bible properly, and look for inspiration passages. I’ve been guilty for a long time of a sense of oneupmanship on the Chrisitans who create inspirational calendars that never give any sort of context and gave us Father’s love letter. It’s like how people who have only read small parts of the Bible keep quoting Psalm 23. It’s not that I don’t believe that psalm or think it’s not an amazing passage, but I often feel like I’ve gone further in my spiritual walk than that psalm is catering for. I hate the pride in me, but at the same time I often feed it.

My pride showed up glaring red today when I started complaining to my mum about how my Geography teacher had given me such a low predicted grade (E). Rather than wanting to work hard to prove him wrong, my first reaction is to want to argue that he’s marked my work incorrectly and the marking system is stupid, which I have argued on several occasions.

Anyway, good bye for now. I know the last part of this post was a bit dismal, but I’m often at my most critical at 10, because it’s too late in the day to fix anything I’ve done. Good Night

A rumour has recently been propagated by some of my comrades (I’m learning Russian ^__^) that I am popular. Let’s just clarify something:

One thing is true: I have made new friends. This had nothing to do with me though, mark my words. OK, so it may have had something to do with my unicycle, but there is more than that. Apart from Steve, who’s never around outside of lessons, none of the people I used to hang around with in St. Peter’s have gone to SFC. My old friendship group is not there, so I am thankful to God that I have been able to make a few friends, else I’d be a complete loner.

Most of my friends are in some way associated with the CU. I was really blessed, because on about the third day thewre, I was sitting on my own eating dinner like I have done every day for years, and someone in the second year, Steve, asked if I wanted to play cards. Shortly after, I discovered he was in the CU. He was the only male person in the CU out of 1600 people in the college, so it really was a fantastic blessing that he made friends with me.

Most of my friends are either in the CU, or friends of people in the CU, although I have made a few other friends as well, but that’s because somehow I’ve changed since high school and now, miraculously, have the guts to start conversations with people… Although this is usually after a 15 minute debate with myself, which I always lose. I have prayed about this, so it’s not a surprise, but I really am thankful to God that he’s getting rid of some of my initial shyness. I hope it doesn’t all go though, because of what the bible says about fools shutting up and being considered wise.

Thank you for your time. Good bye

Well, I thought I’d take this opportunity to bring you up to speed on the latest happenings with me.

Frolicking in Flamborough

Slacking in School

God Bless,
Peter

As you can see, I’ve included a post summary at the top of this post. This is as a lesson to Ally, in order to show him just how easily it can be done.
This idea was originally suggested for Alastair’s blog by Matthew Brennan, and is a very good idea. However, Ally, taking his traditional stance of onedownmanship (like how he refuses to use firefox)*, hasn’t implemented it.
Well, bye for now. I know htat was a really short post, but tonight’s studying might have similar properties if I don’t leave.