T-minus 18 days...

18 school days left. Full stop. 18 days. Oh dear *Panics, runs around screaming, falls over*. And the exams seemed so far away such a short time ago. For the moment, at least I'm occupied with lots and lots of lovely maths past papers. There's a thing that's wrong with written forms of communication - the inability to put across sarcasm with its full force. Quite apart from erasing my life, such as it is, the sheer quantity of maths that is being thrown at me at the moment is buggering up any revision I might otherwise have been doing. Oh, and my sanity.
Still, at least I'll be able to safely forget most of it; the stats will be useful, but there's not much call for knowledge of Mechanics in biologists, for some reason... And I have my doubts that physics will be much use either, in the main. Which is a pity, since I happen to be pretty good at it, but there you are; noone can do everything, and that, sadly, is a fact.
Life goes on, as it tends to, because if it didn't it wouldn't be life, would it? Just another day until, one way or another, we humans bring about our extinction. Morbid, me? It's probably the weather; it usually is. At this time of the year the idea of emigrating to somewhere with a less miserable climate really seems attractive. But at least it isn't Norway, or around that neck of the woods. I think I'd curl up in a ball and die of sunlight deprivation in the winter. No wonder so much of the heavier and more depressed sorts of metal come from around there. And thank goodness summer is on its way (he says hopefully).

Useless wireless

Aaarghh! I've been trying to set up a wireless connection at home and it refuses to work! Dammit! Useless piece of crap

Die, evil machinery DIE! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! heeheehee...

Draconianism thrives

The headmaster has finally lost it completely. I perhaps need to explain this statement; he has, in the last week, begun a crackdown on swearing in school. Oh, and "in school" apparently includes walking to and from school and generally any time spent in or around school uniform, or possibly even thinking about school (not that any of us would want to do that too much - bad for the health). No swearing at teachers I can understand. I can even concede the logic of banning swearing when in public in the uniform, since it adds a less than welcome tarnish to the school's image. And of course swearing as in verbal abuse is unwarranted and he is right to condemn that. But what the head appears not to realise is the extent to which casual swearing - for better or (more likely) worse - permeates the vocabulary, to one degree or another, of almost every pupil.
I'd like to make it clear that I realise swearing is not a necessary component of speech and may cause offence to those not usually exposed to it in the same way that we school inmates are. It is simply that the headmaster attempting to prevent it, as he put it, from entering common use in school is not only naive and ever-so-slightly too late, it smacks more than a little of Canute (or Knut, whatever) attempting to hold back the tide. Sorry mate, it ain't going to happen. Whilst I agree with his assertion that we are all capable of "switching from one mode of speech to another" when necessary, and avoiding vulgarities, this seems to miss the point; yes, we are, but a certain degree of use of swearwords is, perhaps unfortunately, an integral part of the parlance, if you will, that we use in relaxed speech amongst ourselves. The exclamation "Oh, fuck" is really not qualitatively different from "Oh, bother". It doesn't even have to signify that the event thus heralded is more of a problem, or that the feelings being expressed are stronger, though it may do; the difference is one of delivery and emphasis, not of diction. Lesser obscenities - bloody, crap, piss, and the like - are barely even considered to be such. I realise that an argument could be made that develping such a calvalier attitude to swearing could lead to their use in inappropriate circumstances, but generally I would argue that this isn't the case. We are, after all, a fairly bright bunch, and are, as the head so rightly points out, capable of switching between modes of speech when necessary, and we do. I certainly do not find myself swearing uncontrollably when around authority figures, or even in public. I realise that some people would be offended or hurt simply by hearing me swear, so I avoid doing so. So, by and large, do my peers, and I find it exceedingly unlikely that any school initiative is going to stop those that do not; if anything, I suspect that it would encourage them.
So, we know how to tailor our language to suit the situation at hand. But the headmaster is demanding more than this; he wants a total ban on swearing in school. As I say, this isn't wrong, but really seems to lack sufficient justification and in any case is virtually impossible, as most of the teachers appear to recognise. However, the biggest gripe I have with his new-found zeal is the truly ridiculous puishments being meted out. One person has been suspended for two days for swearing at someone, having been provoked. Two Days! I've seen physical attacks get less! Another lad has been suspended briefly, and the only reason he wasn't suspended for longer was, it would seem, due to the persuasive powers of a more level-headed member of staff. Another person has been "done" today - though has got off relatively lightly, I believe - for commenting in Design to a friend that his project was "fucking bad, man". I have to take issue with the idea that this is in some way a crime. "Fucking" was inserted for emphasis, just as persons of old might have used "jolly", say, ("My project's jolly good, isn't it") and should really not be treated any differently, given that it was used conversationally, non-confrontationally and in a manner that could hardly be described as obscene. The punishment is effectively a punishment for using modern urban patois, and is nothing more than snobbery and class-based prejudice. That may seem a very strong statement, but I think it is justified. The way we speak at school often includes the use of swearwords with widely differing meanings and implications depending upon context and emphasis, and to blanket ban all such uses, in all contexts, simply fails to recognise this fact. Just because the powers that be object to the use of curse words in this way is not, I feel, sufficient reason to ban them, at least not so totally and with such force.
Ultimately, perhaps the strongest argument against the head's decision is perhaps the reaction that it has garnered. It has been met throughout the school by derision, even by those few - and I really do mean few - who choose not to swear; even they realise that the idea is foolish. The simple fact is that the headmaster's wish to stamp out swearing is impossible, and both the idea, and the ways in which he has conveyed his aims and reasons for doing so mark him as being out of touch. This is, of course, the very worst position for an authority figure to be in, and I can but marvel at his lapse in judgement, which is usually very sound. Most critically, it has gone down badly not only with the pupils, but with - in my judgement - a majority of the teachers. I suspect that even those others who outwardly do not find the idea ridiculous realise that it is a futile gesture. It must be borne in mind that many of the teachers swear (though generally only on occasion) in class, at least when teaching the older years, and so the head's reasoning puts them in a difficult position. More generally, the teachers have had to put up with the response to the move - which is of course near-invisible to the safely secluded head - being repeatedly moaned at by class after class, and having repeated requests put to them for official lists of proscribed words and phrases. We've had quite a few entertaining conversations here, with different members of staff taking different positions in the debate. A few are effectively immune, not being the sort of teachers you have conversations with for one reason or another. Others have seen it as their duty to half heartedly, and with agonised expressions, lend support to the head. Others have trod the politicians way: "no comment", "that's an interesting point of view", "I really couldn't say" and such issue from their poker faces. Yet others have poked fun, overtly or guardedly, or even gone for straight out ripping the piss.
So a misguided initiative enters freefall, as does the head's credibility, and will doubtless soon peter out to nothing. So, so long, and f*ck you all!

Kill all viruses

Ugh. Gone down with something nasty today. Worst thing is that I was already at school by the time it started to kick in. Now I'm stuck here wanting to just keel over and die. Not for the first time I wonder just how much suffering the common cold and similar ailments has caused to the human race. The worst thing is the knowlege that it is being perpetrated by near-inanimate aggregations of molecules. At least with bacterial infections the responsible organisms are alive. Viruses on the other hand... I think I'll just stay in my little world of self pity here. After all there's not really anything I can do about this. Still, I suppose I should be grateful that it's not something worse. I'm not though.

The matrix has you...

Ha! Had a laugh today; a mate of mine holds the not-so-exalted position of library prefect at school, and as such has the password which confers control of the library computer network. Now, in true Orwellian style, school has installed software which allows teachers to instantly spy on whatever anyone's doing from their computer, and even wrest control from the user concerned. So, with the librarian away, we decided to try it out. We convinced a group of year nines that they'd managed to infect their PC's with a virus by typing stuff into the address bar when they were on the internet. Think along the lines of "The matrix has you". Then we spooked another by making him think that he'd been caught playing games. Messing with people's minds is such fun. I only wish I had remote access to the system. Being able to do this from home would open up such possibilities... But this is, alas, not the case.

Right, what drivel shall I write today?

Well, it seems safe enough, after all; no-one reads this vacuous rubbish anyway. Suits me. Half my lessons for the day were cancelled because the relevant teachers were off, which has to be a good thing, hasn't it? I spent one of them arguing; a friend of mine was expressing his conviction that AIDS was created by the US government as a weapon against black people. Using genetic engineering abilities that we don't even have now. Ah yes, came the rejoinder, but the research was done in secret labs, you see. Right, so how come they were that far ahead whilst keeping the entire world in the dark? How did they get that much expertise? Or that much money - I know the US government is rich, but not rich enough to develop technology that is still decades away, officially, I suspect. There are few things that money cannot buy, but time travel is probably one of them. In any case, the technology behind this would be too profitable to be kept secret - why keep it secret when you can make a killing out of licensing at least some of the more basic stuff out? i was informed that it wasn't really the US government behind all this, but the Illuminati. I was then informed that I was a pawn of the media and grossly naive for choosing to read widely around many relatively trustworthy sources rather than obtaining my views from conspiracy theorist web sites. Hmm... is there a flaw there? I'm not sure...
Let's get this straight - I do not believe everything the media tells me, I do read independent sources, and I'm pretty good at analysing the relative merits of information that I come across. The argument "you can't prove that the world isn't run by the Illuminati" carries no weight whatsoever. I can't prove that it isn't run by invisible mutant hamsters, or that Blair isn't an alien (might be something in that one, actually). When it comes to it, I cannot even prove the existence of anything around me. Including myself. But without hard evidence - and it would have to be pretty hard, given the huge claims being made - Occam's razor compels me to believe in the simplest hypothesis; that everything is how it seems, for a given value of "everything", and a given value of "how it seems". Everything should be read critically and intelligently. If you're inclined not to believe something, go and have a closer look, that's wonderful. There's nothing worse than complacency and sheepish conformity. But inventing what is effectively a belief system on the basis of, at best, circumstantial evidence from questionable sources, is pathetic and arrogant. There are many things we don't know about. But I suspect these things have more to do with governmental subterfuge or corporate shennanigans than hyperadvanced evil geniuses in secret labs, or the Illuminati for that matter.

A Post. What do you expect, a decent title?

Well, I'm finished writing about the year 1000 and back to the present day. also yet more maths, as ever. still.. there's now less than two and a half months until the end of school. But then I have exams, joy above all joys. But then... holiday! and then uni, which should be good. No more bloody school uniforms! There is nothing for making it completely clear to someone that, despite whatever they feel about it, they are still relegated to some secondary class labeled "child" than making them wear one of those things. Which is more than a little galling. Though it does at least have the merit of egalitarianism, though I'd of thought that by my age we could probably be trusted to look beyond the clothes that someone is wearing; the exceptions to this will be twats irrespective of dress code, so why not allow us to wear what we want. Though it could be worse; we could be expected to wear suits. I intend to spend as little time as possible in my life wearing a suit, and certainly not a bought-for-school, mid-grey with pastel shirt piece of crap. Rant concluded.
Reminds me of my one single uni interview (nowhere else on the list interviewed) at which prospective economists, historians, biologists and physical scientists were present whilst I was there. The biologists completely eschewed suits, the physicals mostly did, a fair few of the historians wore suits - but all of the economists did. Funny, that. I arrived at the same time as one of them and the poor bastard could barely conceal his horror. Oh well, scruffy old jeans and t-shirt or no, I still got the place. There is an annoying possibility that I might have something to learn from this attention to appearances. What heresy is this? Who cares? Not me.

It's the end of the week as we know it, and i feel fine...

Hell, so it's only two days off. Better than nowt. I've just come back from Cadets, having discussed how exactly I am to be injured. This is what happens when you sign up for First Aid section, I think to myself. Would be doing a stretcher run but the stretcher's already taken, and I draw the line at being carried around like a sack of potatoes by brain-dead cadets, so it looks like this is going to be a static excercise. TK has acquired some disturbingly realistic fake blood and a fake wound kit, normally used for training paramedics. Given that he intends to become a doctor, I find his glee at the whole idea slightly disturbing; that and the high-pitched giggling. And he also ate some of the fake blood gel. Hmm...
The modle aircraft section, meanwhile, has suddenly lost its aircraft; their owner, after half a year or so at uni, apparently returned for them this week. No they have four sets of wings, a comprehensively smashed glider - I and three others attempted to fly it in gale force winds, firing it on its brief voyage skywards with a hundred-metre bungee rope - which we've tried and failed to resurrect, and most of a petrol engined plane with a broken prop. That too was our fault; it being too windy, we removed its wings and sent it wirring around the tarmac. This was great until the wind blew, and the prop, whirring busily, encountered said tarmac and shattered. MC is of the opinion that his expertise is not up to the challenge of fixing the engine; he seems to believe that he will cause it to explode, and to be honest I wouldn't be all that surprised.
I have, it would appear, got a half-hour History talk to sort out for Monday. Oops. I've known about this for three months, but t seemed sensible to leave even deciding what to do it about until now, of course. I'm sure I had a good reason. "Idiot" was the somewhat uncharitable non-constructive feedback that I've recieved about this so far. And this from a year Nine who has declared himself Furby high priest and ruler of the universe.

What's this? A blog?

How strange. Barely even remember my last entry; it's been a while. I'm now in the buildup to exams; have just finished work on a Further Maths past paper. If any one reads this and is considering taking this subject, be warned - when it gets hard, it gets really hard. But it is at least more interesting than normal Maths, though that isn't difficult. Took me five hours, all told, over two days. Given that the exam time is one and a half hours, it is just possible that a little revision on my part may just be called for.
The end of school is nigh; two and a half months nigh, to be exact (more or less). Damn, but that's an odd feeling. Soon, I will have to leave the cosy, safe environment that is the educational establishment - hah - and enter the real world. Yeah right. University here I come. I do not intend to even acknowledge the existence of real life for some time.