I feel good!

Well my degree is over and I finally got my results last week. I've ended up with a 2:1 degree which I'm very happy with (for those who don't live in the UK, degrees here are classified with 1st being the best, then 2:1, then 2:2, then 3rd and finally pass). It ended up that out of our original group of eight friends doing the degree all of us got 2:1s apart from one who got a 1st. It was a tough and at times long three years but it has been a very good experience and I'm very happy that I chose the subject and even more pleased that my hard work has paid off especially in this years research project which I got a first in.  The only thing left for me to do is to graduate and the ceremony is next week and if my brother's is anything to go by its a rather dry affair but ours has the bonus that one of my heroes-David Attenborough is meant to be receiving an honorary degree and giving a speech which should be great.

Legend! I just hope I get to shake his hand

To add to my good mood I also found out that I have passed my grade 6 guitar exam much to my relief after being quite nervous in the exam. I've been told that my mark was well above that needed to pass which I'm very pleased with. I'm also very happy that I was able to get together with two friends from high school and another student from my music school to perform at my music school's summer concert. It was nice performing and practising with people around my own age rather than having to depend on the teachers at the school who often have loads of pieces to learn. We debated song choices among ourselves before finally settling on Nirvana's In Bloom. I really enjoyed the performance and it's probably the most relaxed I've been, hopefully we can play together again in the future.

How I currently feel

Here is a video of our performance at the concert:

In other news

Whilst the majority of my time since finishing my exams has been spent relaxing, the day after my last one was spent at the Radio 's big weekend festival. It is a 3 day festival and this year it took place in Northern Ireland in Derry-Londonderry. You could only really get tickets for one day and me and my brother went on day 2.  There was the main stage which was outside and also the indoor arena which had been built specially for the city of culture events which more importantly had tiered seating at the back and allowed us to rest ourselves for a bit during a very long day. We saw quite a few bands/artists, Two Door Cinema Club (great but for some reason were bottom of the bill), Laura Mvula (not my usual type of music but decent enough), Foals (pretty good), Conor Maynard (can't see why he is so popular but at least he is better than Justin Bieber it seems), Kodaline (only two songs), The 1975 (seen them once before this year, didn't enjoy them as much this time, their songs seem a bit samey), Kendrick Lamar (not my cup of tea but made laughably bad by the robot/alien backing vocals), Ellie Goulding (ok its just a shame the way she decided to dress with all the young girls at it), alt-J (not sure what the hype is about), The Vaccines (great, but was at an awkward time, sat and had dinner and watched them from a distance) and of course the fantastic headliners Biffy Clyro who we had already seen once this year. It was a good experience but a very long day, with a long drive to start and end the day with. I'm not sure how anyone manages to do a proper three day festival like glastonbury as I was knackered after one day and we didn't have to camp out. Like radio 1 it was a mix of great acts with some not so great acts. The time between acts also seemed to be a bit too long but I guess it was to give people time to move from one stage to the next.

Moving onto movies now Iron Man 3 was awesome, a great follow up to the Avengers. It had action, humour, spectacular set pieces, comedy and great acting. There was a great atmosphere when I saw it in the cinema and people were laughing out loud at several points during the movie. It was a whole lot better than Iron Man 2 and makes me excited to see Thor 2, Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy (all part of marvel phase 2 along with Iron Man 3 leading up to Avengers 2).

Think I prefer the Avengers suit

Star Trek Into Darkness, was also very good but maybe less impressive after seeing the first one and kinda knowing what to expect. Benedict Cumberbatch was very good as John Harrison, he deserves to be in more films now. Noel Clarke (Mickey from Doctor Who) also had a small role which was nice to see. I'll be interested to see how J.J. Abrams manages directing the new Star Wars, hopefully it will have the great substance that the older trilogy had as well as the great special effects and lightsaber fights that the prequel trilogy had.

Stylish and evil, a potent combination!

I also finally got around to watching the Amazing Spider-man and whilst it was decent I thought it could've been a good bit better. I'm sure for those who haven't seen the original movies or those who don't read the comics or have knowledge of the character it is a lot more enjoyable but you can't ignore the old fans just to make new fans. The reason why they made this movie was so as the movie rights wouldn't go back to Marvel (Sony have the movie rights to Spider-man and if they don't make a movie for a certain amount of time the rights revert to Marvel). Sony decided to make a reboot after the mess of Spider-man 3 and this was their first mistake. The fact is they go through the whole origin again rather than say do what Incredible Hulk did and have a montage at the start showing how he came about, I'm pretty sure most people know Spider-man's origin by now. The other main thing I didn't like was the Spider-man humour. In this movie he just comes off as a arrogant jerk and not the guy from the comics who makes light hearted jokes to settle his nerves. I wasn't fussed on the whole outcast/weirdo/skateboarder angle they had going on either or the very cheesy scene near the end.

Hopefully the sequel will be better

An example of how to do a superhero reboot right is Man of Steel which I've just seen. It expands on the superman mythos and it has nods to the past whilst also teasing the future. It is a fresh take on Superman, unlike Superman returns which just tried to recreate the older movies.  It has a great cast and I was pleasantly surprised with how good Henry Cavil is. Some might claim it is too long but I didn't feel like any of it was redundant, in fact they could've probably fleshed some things out a bit more, perhaps a longer directors cut will be released. The special effects are also worth noting and whilst I didn't go looking for trailers I think they kept the best bits for the movie itself, Michael Bay should take notes on how to do spectacle without sending your audience to sleep.

The actual suit was pretty cool as well

Continuing the superhero thread, I watched Arrow season 1, a live action show about Green Arrow (although he isn't really referred to that way). It certainly seems to be inspired by the Dark Knight trilogy, taking a more serious and realistic approach to the character than Smallville (no boxing glove arrows). It also fleshes out the origin across the whole season through flashbacks unlike Smallville which just had one not so great episode. It's a great show and I'm definitely looking forward to next season but I hope they come up with some better original villains and maybe borrow less from Batman's rogue gallery.

You think being how rich he is, he could afford a pair of goggles rather than use the make-up which doesn't exactly disguise him

Doctor Who season 7 has finally finished after starting last September, the mid season break made sense due to the change in companion but it also felt like both halves weren't really part of the same season. It kinda feels like we aren't getting the normal amount of Doctor Who due to these split seasons and I hope once the 50th anniversary is out of the way they go back to full 13 episode seasons without a split. I've already talked about the first half of the season so I'll just say that the second half season was good but also quite mixed at times. The snowmen was great with very funny moments thanks to Strax although the ending wasn't great, The Bells of St. John was great I thought, great banter between the Doctor and Clara and a great baddie, The rings of akhanten was probably the worst episode of the season only saved by Matt Smith's acting, Cold War was decent, Hide was great with some genuinely creepy moments, Journey to the centre of the TARDIS was also good but had potential to be better, The Crimson Horror was decent enough, Nightmare in Silver was good in parts but ruined by the extremely annoying kids and the fact that a cyberman is shown doing something awesome but then for some reason neither it or any of the others do it again, The Name of the Doctor was very good with answers to the season long questions being answered, more questions being asked and a great ending to set up the 50th anniversary special. Of course now that Matt Smith has announced he is leaving after the Christmas special (not a spoiler its been officially announced and you would have to live under a rock to avoid it especially in the UK) there is lots of speculation about who will replace him. Personally I think they should go with someone older, someone who isn't really that well known and maybe someone more serious in contrast to 10 and 11. If they decide to cast a woman as long as they do it well I will probably keep watching that said I don't want somebody like Miranda Hart (too silly), Helen Mirren (too famous) or Billie Piper (for some reason she is apparently in the running for it even though she played a major role in it for a good number of years). I won't even talk about the idiots who want him to regenerate back into David Tennant.

They really deserve their own spin-off show

Thanks for reading.