UniBlog: A FANTASTIC WEEK!!!

Where On Earth Has Time Gone?!? As I sit (kneel) here, looking at my "Academic Year Diary 2020-2021" I am just baffled - lost almost at how it's already the 26th October (As of writing this)...This coming Sunday marks November...like what??! That reminds me, I need to get my Advent calendar for my Advent Calendar....

Tuesday 20th October 2020

Originally, I wasn't going to as far back as the 20th, however it was something I kept under wraps and forgot to mention.

This is a trailer I made for a fellow racer called Markus, who's part of - well, Team Aquiver. The livery was somehow done within the space of less than 48 Hours (don't know how I managed that one), and other than tweaking the colour to Cyan, he absolutely loved it - and as of 26th October, 5 of the team members are using it in Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Thursday 22nd October, 2020

Today (Thur) was the first time since late July (three months) that I heard from one of my fondest Ex-Drivers, Kelson Penn!

To hear from him was lovely, especially as I didn't spam him with "how are you?" messages - he came to me on his own accord, which I thought was very sweet.

I'm pleased to share that both his family and him are all doing very well, though Kelson himself hasn't done too much iRacing over the duration of the year, especially with little one!

Also on this day, I heard back from one of our quieter drivers, Brayden, which was a lovely surprise.

Friday 23rd October 2020

Allrigght, we've made it to this weekend, fantastic!

Unfortunately we start off the weekend with a little bit of sad news, as one of our best and most prominant drivers, Robert Land, announced that he'd be pulling out of (racing for) Kabort Motorsport...he would remain to hang out with the team nevertheless.

Blast From The Past

Friday also saw messages from two Old Drivers of Kabort who used to be a part of the team a fair few months ago.

The first, I spotted on Keyboard's Discord, and instantly recognised the name - it was Daniel Brennan!

Daniel originally joined us in February, however left in March.

It's a tinny weeny little world - and it was great too see/hear from him again.

The other driver I unexpectedly heard from was Tennyson Whitty (Feb - Apr 2020) who asked asked about the team.

Whitty originally left due to going over to the oval side of racing as well as other technical problems.

I finished off Friday by watching the Season 1 Finale on Netflix Watch Party with my girlfriend.

See the other Friday Shinanigans here

Saturday 24th September 2020

Oh Saturday...what a wild, wild day!

I didn't set an alarm the previous night - I wanted to naturally wake up and let my body decide when I've had enough sleep....

I eventually did wake up though, and after going out to ASDA to buy some milk, I returned to the accommodation and put it in the fridge.

During breakfast, I believe something I ate went down the wrong pipe, but following that I had a tickly throat - and because I coughed to try and remove the tickly throat, I instantly thought the worse - COVID.

Throughout the drive - and the day, the tickly throat lessened, and by Monday (Or Sunday evening) it had completely gone.

before heading off at mid-day to start my long road-trip down to Surrey. Initially the plan was to go to Leith Hill and eat Pizza there, but the weather turned on us, so we agreed to just eat Pizza in the car.

Approaching my exit of the M25, I thought It'd be smart to drop by my parent's house first to pick up my camera (and charger) first, just so I wouldn't have to do it late at night on my way back up to Wolverhampton.

As adults do, myself and my mum ended up nattering a lot longer than expected.

I last saw her on the 10th, and she's my mum, I missed her and there were lots of updates to go over.

Eventually, I did hit the road once more, even excruciatingly declining an offer of lasagne due to the plan of having pizza with my girlfriend and Evie.

I was a little late to Annie's, but after explaining the situation (of going to my parents') she understood.

We set off and went to Dorking, before getting a Dominoes there.

(Disclaimer: I did not meet up with them, I found a random side-road road, parked up to check my notifications and they got into my car and ordered to drive to two locations - another house (Evie's) and a Pizza Joint).

I don't condone anyone to do what I did, unless your local restrictions/university restrictions allows you to do so)

Disregarding the disclaimer, (only written for legal purposes and if someone wants to sue/fine me for breaking restrictions) I had a blast with them and the pizza, garlic bread and cookies were delicious.

Annie had to be home at around 6.10pm, so, I dropped both of the individuals off at their requested stops (At this time) and just stopped, and waited. The rain was absolutely lashing it down, and it was dark - I had a good 2 and a half hour journey ahead of me in this - I was certainly not up for it - and that's where my mother chimed in "come stay at ours"...and about 30 seconds later I decided "yup, I'm staying home tonight"

Since that is my Official Place Of Residence aside from University (I go there when uni finishes/christmas break) - this is legally allowed, and I tried a bite of Lasagne (from lunch time) - however with a stomach already full of Pizza (+garlic bread) I couldn't manage it, but I was good - I had a full stomach and was happy.

I would go upstairs and turn on my computer and sit my darling baby rig - it was so good to be home.

I don't know what it is - the thought of travelling all the way down home/Surrey is a bit off-putting - but once I'm close, I'd gladly spend a week there.

Kiara isn't the most fuel efficient, so either when I get home, or I arrive at uni I have less than 100 miles of fuel-range left - meaning a rather prompt trip to a petrol station - and petrol can usually be quite costly.

Unlike the 10th (Oct.) I didn't do an official race...partially because the series I am interested in weren't at particularly interesting tracks (F3: COTA | Ferrari GT3: Laguna Seca | Supercars: Daytona Road) - but mostly because I left my headset in my room (at Uni) - meaning I had to source (steal) a pair of headphones from the spare bedroom.

These...."had to do" - They played audio but didn't like the fact that modern technology allows you to hear more than one sound - so if I were to listen to a music video - I'd here the music but not a single word from the singer...uuf.

For iRacing, it worked (just about) I could hear the engine and tyre squeals - and in AI Racing (and racing against the clock) this is all you need to hear.

After finishing with the Jetta for a secret project, I decided to experiment and set the fuel level for the AI (and myself) to 1% to see what would happen...hilarity ensued.

I had a big day the following day, so I decided to get some rest.

Sunday 25th October - RACEDAY!

I made a conscious decision to go on Sunday - the three support races on Saturday were a Monoposto (open wheel) series, prototype series and a one-make Radical Series, compared to Sunday's Formula Three (F3) and Track Attack support races.

Donington is a good two hours away from Surrey and I didn't want to wake up ridiculously early, so I had a little look at the Timetable and thought of a plan.

Each "series" had 2 - 3 races throughout the day (Track Attack and GT Cup also having qualifying), so I decided to attend the earliest of the last race of every series.

I ensured I had everything I arrived with (and quite a bit more too!), and hit the road.

It was a mostly good journey up there, despite some pretty disappointing amounts of signage to where I was supposed to go/park.

No, but in all seriousness - people will winge, moan and complain about things - but I will put myself above them and offer a resolution to the problem I encountered.

The problem was that outside the grounds of Donington Park...I had no clue where I was going - yes there was signs TO Donington Park, and I (eventually) found the main entrance - but a lot more signage is needed especially if there's a pandemic going around and you are using a different entrance to the ones that people's sat-navs are directing them to.

Initially, my Sat-Nav directed me to the East Entrance of Donington Park - they had signs up saying "NO ACCESS TO PADDOCK" - alright, fine, I understand you want to keep teams/drivers and spectators apart - but either have someone out there, or have set of diversion signs telling me where the access to the Paddock is.

As stated before, I did find the main entrance and was about to go through an Toll Gate (I had already pre-paid), however the man controlling it gave very lose instructions saying "you gotta go up there and turn left"

After touring the midlands (exaggeration, I only drove once around the town of King's Newton - before going back through the main entrance and realising what he meant - but the signage could have been better as it was through an open gate which looked a little bit like it was for authorised persons only, but alas - I went to the car-park and was very surprised....or unsurprised...I don't quite know what I was expecting - but I was sort of expecting it but it still caught me out....

GT Cup's Lack Of Attention Was Made Evidently Clear

The car park was....well, very quiet.

Judging by the evidence (some GT Cup cars being cleared away in addition to the next pictures in the camera roll being of F3 Cars) I strongly suspect I got there at roughtly 12:30 maybe 12:40ish (Yeah, I forgot)

I did a track walk, walked the ins and outs of the track (not the inside of turn one/two) and had a jolly good time.

My highlight of the day was probably the verrry end - when the Track Attack hit the track - I regrettably said to myself "ahhh this is just a McDonalds Car Meet series" as they went around on their warm-up lap - this was mostly because a traditionally Ricer Honda Civic led the field away - but as every single one of them prove it was oh so much more than just that!!

Rice is the name, and Maccy-D's is the game!

This coupled with the impeccable timing of a huge plane flying over the circuit as the chckered flag fell - made it one hell of an ending to an awesome day of racing.

I'd get back in my car, and drive back to my accomodation at 6:28pm, and after missing the previous night's Glee Binge, I let my Girlfriend know that I was up for it.

For some odd reason I decided to get an early-ish night (00:00 or so).

Monday 26th October 2020

Oki Docki! Welcome to today, So I set my alarm, got up when it rang, and sorted some of the pictures I'd taken the previous weekend (deleting, highlighting the good ones) in addition to writing notes on what I wanted in this blog.

This meant that I stupidly missed breakfast, and with nothing else in the fridge...I'd get hungry later on in the day.

I'll try and keep the lecture summary short because I am quite tired and just wanna shower and lie down, but the later I do that, the less bizarre it is for my body.

Lecture - Newswriting: Unwrapping The Assignment

The main gist of this assignment was totally and 100%-edly understand what the assignment was about and what it was asking.

Before this, we had a short recap on writing for different social media platforms.

The Assignment

For Newswriting, there's two Assignments, the first of which, is group work, (worth 30%) and in a group of three you've got to write a newsletter - each student in the group doing ONE article on either: local affairs, entertainment or sport...

The second assignment (worth 70%) is a portfolio of:

A longer version of the article above (local affairs, entertainment sport etc.)
A Profile Interview - looking at the "behind the scenes" or private life of someone in particular
A Specialised Report on a specific subject/topic
A recap of the whole assignment and how the lectures beforehand helped.

After looking at a brief overview of what the assignment wanted us to write about, we looked at the mark-scheme, which was also incredibly useful as it gave something to aim for, or some guidance of where the marks are coming from - things like:

> Organisation

> An Interesting Topic and Interviewee (someone who's directly involved)

> Imagination/Creativity > Variety Of Perspectives (Both sides of story) > Handed in On Time Whilst Meeting Required Parameters

We finished the lecture by looking at a past-student's work - and what an example of the final assignment might look like.

And with that I must end, I'm quite damn tired, and would like a nice, piping hot shower before resting my eyes...sounds like an evening to me!

Alright, Thanks for Reading - See you Tomorrow.