Foreign Perspectives

We set out for there this morning and even skipped out on the tailback into Ballycastle by going down a side road as soon as we reached the end of the traffic jam so were pretty much right in the thick of it at the off.

The problem was that “in the thick of it” meant that we could see just how packed the crowds were before we needed to decide on car parking. Way too packed to make it any kind of a pleasurable visit so instead we changed tack and had a nice BBQ along the coast road and had the BBQ area pretty much to ourselves the whole time. Much nicer than packed solid into a mass of people.

The problem with the Auld Lammas Fair is that it was pretty much at full capacity a few years ago yet there are lots more people in Northern Ireland these days and so it looks very much over capacity now. Time for a change to add a few days to it and spread the crowds over a longer period I think.

Anyway, tomorrow is back to school day for the little guys (though John is feeling poorly so perhaps not for him). That means hunting out the uniform (done), labelling it (not done yet), trying to remember where the school bags were dumped a couple of months ago and getting back into the buying something for their snack.

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The final TMA of the astronomy course looked pretty much impossible to do at first glance and seems to be the cause of a substantial number of people seriously considering dropping out of the course if the forum comments are anything to go by.

The big difference between this one and the previous one is that it’s very much into the theoretical physics (ie mathematical) side of the course basically because it’s largely based on the cosmology section of the course where the heavy duty mathematics comes in. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s particularly difficult but what it does require is a completely different way of thinking about the questions. So, instead of looking up how to describe the appearance of a galaxy you get questions like “Using information from An Introduction to Galaxies and Cosmology, estimate R(t1) / R(t0)” which require a major shift in problem solving techniques from what went before.

Once you have flicked over to the mathematical approach, the seemingly impossible questions turn out to be fairly easy, albeit involving scary looking numbers most of the time. Essentially what’s required for most of them is to find a formula in the book which refers to the pieces of information that you’re given and getting out the calculator. Even the most complex doesn’t require more than a relatively simple rearrangement of a formula given in the book and seeing as they go so far as quoting the chapter in the book from which the questions are taken, it’s not too difficult to find the necessary formulae.

What it does show is that the guidance in the “Are you ready for S282?” guide that the “level of maths required for S282 is not high”, whilst true, is rather misleading. No, the level of maths isn’t that high but what it does require is that you are able to think like a mathematician.

That’s the final TMA that counts towards the result. There is a CMA to do but that doesn’t affect the mark so whilst I’ll have a look at it, I’ve not decided whether or not to do it as ’tis time to get going on the revision.

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James left Belmont in June and was to be starting in Strandtown next week with John following two years later which was shaping up to be a logistical nightmare for us for the next few years.

We decided a while back that it was going to be better for them both to be in the same school so had looked into a few options over the last four or five months. However, by the time we’d made our final decision the schools were all closed for the summer so we couldn’t do anything about it ’til earlier this week.

Surprisingly, it turned out to be very easy to change schools. We’d expected some major inquisition, loads of forms and lots of “why?, do you really want to do this?” etc. but in fact it turned out to be basically “OK, no problem”.

Funnily enough it’s the school that was originally towards the top of our list of candidates and the school that my Mum (who we think is somewhere in the photo) started in the year it was built.

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