Finally the end of the first week of school after a period of mind decomposing, knowledge eroding, intelligence rusting holidays. I have that feeling of having run half a marathon at too fast a pace and coming to the sudden dreadful realization that I still have another few kilometers to go. And this isn't even a normal marathon, it is a marathon through a post apocalyptic world.
The academic work that I procrastinated over the holidays has started to catch up. As a maddened blood thirsty hoard they are quickly gaining upon me, mindless and hungry like an insane army of the undead. Not even the shuffling type of zombies but the full on running type, their pale lifeless limbs pounding the ground in a frenzied rush to devour me. They had of course simply been the walking dead at the beginning of the holiday when they were first set but over time they have evolved and very soon, I suspect they will soon learn how to operate basic vehicles and become the cycling dead. Merciless lifeless hunters pedaling away at demonic speed.
It is often said that there is some metaphorical wall that any athlete will come up against during a run, at a certain desperate moment when they seem to have hit their limit and by overcoming this wall they will grow as a person as well as regain a certain energy and sense of momentum. If so, then perhaps there will be such a wall for me in my academic work as well, an opportunity for me to break through and become a generally better grade of human being as well as regain my educational capability.
In fact, I am arguably the very best type of student since, in an attempt to improve as a person generally, I am deliberately conditioning myself to come into contact with that wall of desperation as soon as possible through procrastination and work avoidance. A risky strategy of self improvement that demonstrates my tremendous courage and great aspirations of bettering myself. Hence teachers, as individuals charged with the duty of encouraging the student's growth as a person, perceiving the nature of the student and understanding their motives, should see that I am in fact an exemplary pupil whose current mindset and behaviour should be highly commended not scolded or punished.
Thus I rest my case, though whether the english teacher will accept my logic when inquiring after the distinct absence of an essay on Monday is another matter entirely and one that rests within the fickle hands of the sometimes cruel gods.
Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British. Show all posts
Friday, 9 November 2012
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Within and without
I am currently stranded, trapped within a void. My house is a multistory affair divided into distinctly separate living quarters. My family owns the entirety of the large suburban construction but due to reasons of finance we rent out all but the ground floor. Due to this arrangement there is a hallway shared by all the tenants from which branches off a locked door that is the entrance to what I can refer to as my home.
After a particular alcohol fueled nocturnal excursion about a year back during which I lost my keys. My mother has refused to provide me with a new set which means I cannot enter my own abode unless she is home. In the rare instance that she is away, since I can politely ask one of the residents in the higher floors to come down and let me into the building its self, she usually hides the keys to our actual section of residence somewhere in the hallway.
Today however, she has neglected her duties to do so, hence I am currently sitting in the hallway. I am typing this on my phone, while draped tiredly over the stairs which lie directly next to the door to my beloved home. My sentiments of misery are only excentuated by the fact that the motion sensitive lights turn off every three minutes, plunging me into the evening darkness thus forcing me to stand up and display motion in order receive the short attention and glorious light of the fickle motion sensitive machine.
To further emphasize this feeling of pathetic depression, my cat has run right up to the other side of the door to venture on a campaign of continuous melancholic mewing and sad scratching. It has stayed with me these past thirty minutes, crying from the other side of the solid impenetrable rectangle of wood and despite myself I admit I am rather touched.
Now I hear the light clink of the metal front garden fence and with it the approaching footsteps of liberation. So ends my actually brief but sensationally lengthy stay, becalmed within the void.
After a particular alcohol fueled nocturnal excursion about a year back during which I lost my keys. My mother has refused to provide me with a new set which means I cannot enter my own abode unless she is home. In the rare instance that she is away, since I can politely ask one of the residents in the higher floors to come down and let me into the building its self, she usually hides the keys to our actual section of residence somewhere in the hallway.
Today however, she has neglected her duties to do so, hence I am currently sitting in the hallway. I am typing this on my phone, while draped tiredly over the stairs which lie directly next to the door to my beloved home. My sentiments of misery are only excentuated by the fact that the motion sensitive lights turn off every three minutes, plunging me into the evening darkness thus forcing me to stand up and display motion in order receive the short attention and glorious light of the fickle motion sensitive machine.
To further emphasize this feeling of pathetic depression, my cat has run right up to the other side of the door to venture on a campaign of continuous melancholic mewing and sad scratching. It has stayed with me these past thirty minutes, crying from the other side of the solid impenetrable rectangle of wood and despite myself I admit I am rather touched.
Now I hear the light clink of the metal front garden fence and with it the approaching footsteps of liberation. So ends my actually brief but sensationally lengthy stay, becalmed within the void.
Monday, 5 November 2012
Personification
Tonight I feel, in a word, cold. In two words very cold. In fact, I feel so cold that I could, if the opportunity were to present its self to me, simply go on a long and tenuous descriptive journey purely around the subject of how cold I am. To accurately convey the sheer coldness of my current being, imagine that you are eating a bucket of ground ice, while sitting in a fridge, which is its self situated atop a boat floating in the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Just nearby the Titanic is sinking and desperate survivors are swimming up to your boat for help but you kick them away, I currently feel as cold as your dark twisted heart as you mercilessly dislodge a dying child clinging desperately to the side of your vessel.
If I were to demand to see the cruel individual responsible for my frosty fate, I would more than likely be directed to a mirror since it is none other than my own mind that made the conscious decision to go out and see fireworks at a local park with companions despite the temperature. However what I require at the moment is not the rational analysis of my own poor judgment (especially in not taking my thick woolen trench coat purely for the reason that it still stank of alcohol and punch which would have been a minor draw back with hindsight considering the heavenly warmth it would have provided) but some figure at which to direct my, unfortunately all too metaphorically, burning anger.
I would currently give anything, well, my entire present monetary fortune (which amounts to about three pounds and twenty six pence) for Jack Frost to appear before me, a personification of the natural phenomenon which caused my legs to feel like ready made fish fingers before defrosting and my arms like pain flavoured ice lollies. Though I am not usually the physically violent type, far preferring to psychologically wound the opponent with skillful verbal jousting, I would readily kick the chocolate flavoured soft ice out of Jack Frost to vent my sheer frustration at this bone biting, brain numbing, scrotum climbing cold.
All I can do however is stamp my feet, rub my hands and curse the current climate as well as the rising cost of gas and electricity bills. Two other things I wouldn't particularly mind being personified to manifest themselves before me as a subject of my anger at the generally conceptual, the Price Rise Pig and the Bill Building Bird. Perhaps I could design them, little fable characters for the new age kids living through an economic down turn. Goodbye tooth fairy who takes childrens' teeth, hello the fat fairy who causes child obesity. So long Santa Clause who leaves you presents, welcome Pawnshop Pixie who takes your stuff at night but allows your family to eat for another few days.
So the moral of the story is, its winter so wear a jacket when you go out, even if it does have the repugnant scent of stale alcohol wafting around it like vultures around a dying animal. God, its cold.
If I were to demand to see the cruel individual responsible for my frosty fate, I would more than likely be directed to a mirror since it is none other than my own mind that made the conscious decision to go out and see fireworks at a local park with companions despite the temperature. However what I require at the moment is not the rational analysis of my own poor judgment (especially in not taking my thick woolen trench coat purely for the reason that it still stank of alcohol and punch which would have been a minor draw back with hindsight considering the heavenly warmth it would have provided) but some figure at which to direct my, unfortunately all too metaphorically, burning anger.
I would currently give anything, well, my entire present monetary fortune (which amounts to about three pounds and twenty six pence) for Jack Frost to appear before me, a personification of the natural phenomenon which caused my legs to feel like ready made fish fingers before defrosting and my arms like pain flavoured ice lollies. Though I am not usually the physically violent type, far preferring to psychologically wound the opponent with skillful verbal jousting, I would readily kick the chocolate flavoured soft ice out of Jack Frost to vent my sheer frustration at this bone biting, brain numbing, scrotum climbing cold.
All I can do however is stamp my feet, rub my hands and curse the current climate as well as the rising cost of gas and electricity bills. Two other things I wouldn't particularly mind being personified to manifest themselves before me as a subject of my anger at the generally conceptual, the Price Rise Pig and the Bill Building Bird. Perhaps I could design them, little fable characters for the new age kids living through an economic down turn. Goodbye tooth fairy who takes childrens' teeth, hello the fat fairy who causes child obesity. So long Santa Clause who leaves you presents, welcome Pawnshop Pixie who takes your stuff at night but allows your family to eat for another few days.
So the moral of the story is, its winter so wear a jacket when you go out, even if it does have the repugnant scent of stale alcohol wafting around it like vultures around a dying animal. God, its cold.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Paris
After observing my complete inactivity from afar, out of the range of noxious fumes emitted by pajamas worn all day several days in a row, my mother has finally put her foot down. And underneath that firmly descending foot lie all my hopes, dreams and aspirations of spending a relaxing half term. She has decided she will throw me out onto the streets.However not out onto any ordinary street but the streets of Paris. She has made the executive decision that I will be spending three days of my half term holiday alone in Paris for no apparent reason. She has claimed that her motive behind this illogical course of action is the improvement of my French language skills but I suspect her chief ambition is to simply get rid of me for several days.
I can, of course, vividly picture the disapproving faces of the minority of people who read my blog. Shaking their heads from side to side and wondering what on earth I am complaining about. I am to be sent, after all, with some allowance and organized lodging to what could be considered one of the cultural capitals of the world. The center of art, fine cuisine and fashion (as well as racism, riots and right wing power but those demerits are obviously far outweighed by the positivity of a single baguette).
Though this may, at first seem like a golden opportunity to study culture and fine arts, the one overwhelmingly negative factor is language. I am a being that thrives on eloquent communication, nothing gives me greater pleasure than the beautiful stringing together of an elegant and possibly offensive metaphor. To talk, to tell, to freely swim within the vast seas of vocabulary. To surf on the waves of words or to feel the gentle ebb and flow of a good narrative. To ride on the cheerful back of a pun or word play. These make up about seventy five percent of my will to continue living on this miserable spherical dung heap floating depressingly in space.The French however, typical of their generally unhelpful nature, speak French. A language which spans before me as a dry barren alien plain. Filled with hostile shadows, renegade grammatical irregularities and cunning pronunciation problems, all lurking just outside my peripheral vision, waiting for the first chance to strike the damning blow of public humiliation. In French I am a fish without water or to clumsily construct in the enemy language, like a gorilla with arthritis trying his hand at origami, "un poissons qui n'a pas d'eau"
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Paranormal Activity
It starts gradually, creeping up on its unsuspecting victims with menacing patience. First the signs are so subtle they go unnoticed, then slowly the people begin to sense that something is wrong and it has no intention of stopping. Soon the situation escalates, enveloping all in a whirlwind of negativity and by the time the people realize the full extent of its power, it is already too late. This phenomenon is that which is often experienced several days into a holiday, when a person, suddenly without anything to do, falls into a habit of pure laziness. Unable to even build the motivation to venture to do anything remotely constructive, they spend their days lying motionless, physically and mentally decaying. This is known as, Abnormal Inactivity.Today, in order to break out of that horrible cycle of destructive passivity, I organized a trip to watch Paranormal Activity 4 with two other escapees. I did not have high expectations of the film having seen its predecessor, Paranormal Activity 3 which had been as imaginative in its contents as it was in its title. A pointlessly teasing and dull cinematic endeavor, complete with characters more two dimensional than a hedgehog on a highway and a plot so shallow that even a suicidal infant would struggle to drown in.
There was, all in all, absolutely nothing that could be referred to as a point to the film. No intelligence, no message, no plot, no moral. If I were to, as a sort of charity, attempt to excavate (by ploughing through what is essentially a mountain of cinematic excrement) some sort of moral out of the film, it would be that no matter where you are; be it your bedroom, your bathroom, your kitchen or your mother in law's cozy suburban house; the place, even if it seems perfectly safe one moment, can suddenly be turned into a war zone so you should keep up your guard.
As previously organized, I met Underling Sinister (One of the new girls who entered my school this year. An ever smiling, ever cheerful figure with a scholarly knowledge of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the darker dimensions of Youtube). She too had spent the last couple of days trapped within the confines of her house, aimlessly seeking mental freedom on the internet. Due to prolonged isolation and lack of proper conversation, she had acquired about herself the atmosphere of a long lost sailor who had drifted lost in the seas (left with no one to talk to other than the fish in the surrounding water and his own shriveled testicles whom he called David and Nicholas) to finally reach shore and humanity one again, decades after his sudden accidental exile. In short she seemed extremely elated to be able to have a conversation and more than a little mentally unhinged. 
Third and last to arrive was Doctor Sasha (A polish karate expert with an experience in medicine, meaning he can act as both the breaker and fixer of people. His generally sharp facial features are somewhat reminiscent of either a penguin or an owl, the debate continues.) Finally our trio was complete and preparing to mockingly laugh at a poorly made horror American film, consequently irritating everyone else in the room, we marched confidently into the cinema.
It is common knowledge that there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved with a bit of sugar, except possibly diabetes, hence our natural course of action, having bought the rather overpriced tickets, was to head straight towards the pick and mix stand. There we deliberated our choices for a good few minutes, measuring up weight versus potential flavor and enjoyment. Eventually, after much careful consideration, we collectively bought a packed bag with the same weight and emotional value as a baby.At this point I would like to point out that I do not usually buy things, my primary source of income is to scrounge and beg, my secondary is to steal, this has been my policy for so long that now the very idea of actually using my own money feels like a sacrilege to some ancient religious custom. However today, drowning in the euphoria of not sitting at home crying in a darkened room, I spent money on both my own ticket and even more shockingly, a portion of the sweets.
As we walked towards the screen indicated on our tickets, the gravity of the situation slowly dawned on me. I had, going against every personal protocol, chipped in to communally buy sweets. The only way I could possibly redeem myself, to be able to ever look my scowling self in the mirror again, was to somehow make a profit on the expense of my two companions.
Screeching alarm bells wailed excitedly in my head, accompanied by rotating red lights for further urgency, in response to this, a cacophony of hurried clattering military footsteps began at every corner of my brain to swiftly merge, accumulate and gather within the section of my mind labeled "mission briefing". In a matter of seconds the soldiers of thought all stood in form and rank, neatly assembled, ready for action. After a moment of disciplined silence, the general, a weather beaten man with a greying beard and broad shoulders, stepped forward.
With hawk like eyes he surveyed the ordered crowd before him, his glare cutting through to the heart of every man present, then opening his mouth, decorated with a well maintained moustache, he announced in a gruff voice, "The mission is to consume as many sweets as possible. We have paid for about a third of those sweets, we must eat at least two thirds to have an acceptable profit. Time is of the essence, I hereby commence Operation Dessert storm." In response a determined roar rose from the crowd as one, ignoring this, the General waved his hand for the projector to plaster a quick diagram onto the wall. Then, hushing those still talking excitedly amongst themselves, he pointed at the picture.
Silently cheering on my good fortune and the excellent work of my brain brigade, I sat myself down next to Dr Sasha, deliberately ensuring that there be an open seat next to me where Underling Sinister would naturally sit. My triumph was complete, either the food would soon be held in the confines of my arms which would make eating them efficiently an easy task or Underling Sinister would choose to hold onto them in which case it would eliminate Dr Sasha from the competition.
Just as Underling Sinister seemed to be lowering herself into the seat however, my hungry victorious eye met Dr Sasha's and a quick flash of understanding seemed to run through him like an electric shock, "Oh no you don't" he hissed at me. Then he called to Underling Sinister, suggesting "come sit next to me!"
A surprised murmur ran through the assembled members of my brain brigade, even the General, for a second, seemed flustered, opening and closing his mouth at this unexpected turn of events but regaining his composure a second later. "Doctor Sasha... A true tactician," he murmured huskily, almost absent-mindedly to himself, "He's turned the situation around for himself from worst to best in a single move. Simultaneously ensuring he is closest the food and our unit, Veritable, the furtherest."
The General abruptly stopped his musing as he realized his men were still standing determinedly, awaiting an order. He sighed a deep resounding sigh, "We've been left with no choice," he boomed mournfully, "Move our unit, Veritable, next to Underling Sinister! We have no other option, its this or give up on the sweets."
"Sir!" shouted one of the newest recruits to the mind military, his voice filled with barely contained panic "the enemy has created a blockade! His leg is acting as a reactionary wall across the narrow walking space between his chair and the chair in front! There's no way we can cross!"
"Damnit!" roared the General, "We don't have much time, the film could start any second now!" he paused here, deep in thought, then after a moment he turned to his second in command, talking with slow firm control, "The enemies blockade is predicting and reacting to our movements, correct?"
"Yes sir!" replied the second in command.
Slowly a small smile appeared on the General's ragged features, "This is crazy but it might just work," he paused, breathing in deeply, then "If the enemy is reacting with prediction to our unit's movement, we simply need to take an unpredictable course of action!"
The members of the mind military all slowly looked up, confusion, uncertainty and just a tinge of hope illuminated in all their faces. The second in command articulated all their thoughts with a wavering simple, "Sir, what do we do?"
In response the General's smile transformed into a large vicious grin, he opened his mouth and shouted one word, his voice sending a tangible blast through the room like some form of sonic explosion, "Jump!"
I a third jumped, a third vaulted, a third dived over Doctor Sasha's raised leg. Coat flapping behind me, both legs in the air, I had a second of satisfaction in knowing I had outwitted my enemy. Then the tip of my shoe caught on Dr Sasha's raised leg, tipping my face forward as I rapidly neared the ground. A thinly carpeted floor is still surprisingly painful when it makes contact with your face at high velocity. Nonetheless, with aching features and disheveled tie, I had managed to overcome the defensive lines of the enemy. Shakily I sat myself next a laughing Underling Sinister, deeply exhausted but satisfied in the knowledge that I had avoided the worse possible outcome.As the film started, however, the other two gradually lost interest in the food, choosing instead to focus on the poorly made horror film. In my mind, the General smiled with satisfaction, this was precisely what he had expected, then barked one simple command, instructing a single move that went against all cinema going conventions set before it. A revolutionary act that broke the fundamental laws of battle but nonetheless brilliant. Slowly I reached across with trembling hands and gently plucked the bag of confectionery from the distracted Underling Sinister.
Holding the multi-coloured sugar coated hoard preciously in both hands, I smiled a wide malicious grin, victory was mine, though the battle had been long and tough, it had ended with my triumph.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Badger
The main motivation behind this planned bestial genocide, other than the conservatives looking for a suitable replacement for fox hunting, seems to be that badgers are partially responsible for causing the spread of TB within cattle. Essentially it is Cows versus Badgers, which sounds like the title of a very poor quality monster movie which will nonetheless go on to have quite a large cult following purely because of how ridiculous and cheap it is. A cinematic triumph portraying the battle between two mighty beasts, fighting to determine who is the superior mix of white and black. Perhaps there could even be a high budget sequel in which Michael Jackson joins the battle.
The war however cannot go on forever and at some pint a judgment must be made on which of the two animals should be prioritized. When considering this, there are several factors that should be taken into account and placed gently into the metaphorical scales of justice. No one, not even the people who campaign for the right of badgers, would suggest that cows are fundamentally bad or evil and less deserving of life than badgers. This therefore means that, in terms of base value (since badgers aren't, relatively speaking, especially endangered either) the cow is no worse than the badger.
At this point the scales are even. Then what tips the balance is the addition of financial value to the cow side. The fact that products of cows are considered a source of valuable income for farmer's bank accounts as well as a delicious income for our digestive systems, makes the cow a lot more generally valuable than redundant badger.
However one alternative and feasible method of evening out the balance on the value scale is to make the badger too, like the cow, financially profitable. Perhaps, since if they were farmed for meat it would destroy the entire objective of preventing a badger cull, they could be milked. Although badger milk does sound like some obscure innuendo or disgusting variety of cocktail rather than an actual straightforward drink. Nonetheless there is some hope, coconut and soya beans have both successfully made it into the milk market and comparatively speaking badgers are a lot closer to cows, the alpha within the milk industry, than either of those two examples just by having nipples.However if the idea of lactating badgers doesn't seem too appealing or appetizing, there is an alternate labor market into which the woodland mammals could enter. Furthermore with this way, the extremely loving guardians of the badger can have a two fold satisfaction first in knowing that they are supporting the animal's right to exist by being paying customers and second in the pleasurably amorous service its self.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Personal
As the damp air grows colder and the gnarled trees grow balder, the time is fast approaching the celebrated eve of Halloween. The night of the supernatural, when the terrifying ghosts of the dead are said to wander amongst us and the even more terrifying juvenile delinquents, who are still unfortunately of the living, more than definitely loiter malignantly amongst us, armed to the aggressively gritted teeth with eggs and insults.
I am also, unfortunately, still entirely unsure as to what to wear as a Halloween costume. Last year I wore a dead child, lovingly constructed out of cardboard and red paint, on my head but that has, rather cruelly, been specifically banned by the hostess of this years Halloween party.
Hence I have decided that, in the manner of a true problem solver, I shall procrastinate thinking about the costume until absolutely necessary (that is to say, on the night) and for the time being ponder about the major Western festival proceeding Halloween, the festival of Christmas (entirely ignoring some other slightly minor festivals such as the celebratory burning of the effigy of a dead terrorist bomber. I am not referring to some obscure annual Bin Laden hating celebration, which in all probability exists, in the Southern United States but to the long running British festival of Bonfire Night.)
No other festival in existence places such a damning emphasis on desolate loneliness than Christmas. Not only is it commonly celebrated in union by romantic couples, Christmas also enforces the giving of presents and cards to loved ones, friends and family. Which then automatically marks out, highlights and isolates those with few caring friends or family.
I for one remember one particularly depressing year when I received the grand total of one Christmas card. A cheaply manufactured thing, probably bought en mass at WHSmith but nonetheless treasured by me, occupying the pride of place on my windowsill for the best part of a year, as proof of the fact I was not entirely devoid of amicable companionship within this world.
The interior of the card was, to put it positively, minimalist. A white space occupied by the mechanically printed words "Merry Christmas" under which was written my name, scribbled carefully in the dead and shriveled worm like handwriting of my friend, Underling Book, and another accompanying sentence of well wishing. It was not that much but it was more than enough. The fact a card had been sent to me with intention of being sent to me, proven via the messy writing which would, to the untrained eye, appear like Arabic, was more than sufficient evidence that the sender cared about me.
However the latest card manufacturing companies would deny me even that scrap of happiness because according to their adverts people now need to go to new lengths of personalization, involving adding photos of the recipient and choosing pointless humorous fonts, in order to create a greeting card that proves they care. Which would, by default, suggest that in their expert opinion, the dear Christmas card I received (with Underling Book's near encoded writing of well wishing) is worth very little sentimental value due to the fact that it didn't have a massive photo of me cropped onto it combined with a hilarious punning title in the style of some tabloid newspaper or a poster or some other god forsaken format which has been granted the license of being sufficiently caring and festive in the eyes of the bloated greed-filled executives of greeting card personalization companies.
It has always been the ambition of humans to leave a legacy in the world, some sort of sign of their existence, to confirm their place within the universe, to leave a notable mark in society. The rulers of ancient civilizations did this by creating epic monuments, personalizing blocks of stone to leave as an indicator of their short existence on this planet. Now it seems everyone wants to be in on the act, desperate to make some personal, uniquely distinguished mark of their own on everything from a greeting card to the clothes they wear.
This trend of personalization appears to be spreading like an uncontrolled marketing infection. With decorative stickers being sold to personalize everything from your keys to your phone as if the amount of crudely made glittery diamond shaped plastic you attached to your iPhone case would help reaffirm your place within the world. Perhaps soon there will be a day when everything is personalized, every gift and every possession stamped with your face on it to confirm that the object did indeed at one point belong to you. Sperm given in at a sperm bank, each cell complete with a smiling microscopic photo of the generous man who sacrificed a minute of his time and exercised his hand to make the donation. Or organs given in for transplants, all meticulously engraved with the name and caricature of the now deceased donor. Perhaps even children put up to adoption with a photo of their not very responsible biological parents super glued to their back.
This mad wave of commercially encouraged uniqueness further causes an inflation in the value of personalization and raises the bar indicating what the bare minimum socially acceptable display of caring is. Before the arrival of the customizable cards, the simple greeting or congratulatory cards brought at a news paper agents to have someone's name hurriedly scrawled in must have seemed sufficiently personalized and caring.
Therefore it is only logical to assume something else more personalized than the current cards on offer will soon appear on the market, a vicious cycle that will continue escalating until it is no longer sufficient to just print with normal ink because normal ink is what every non-personal and therefore uncaring people are using in their greeting cards. Then what personalized liquid can you use to write your message? Why not use your own blood? After all, nothing is more personalized than your own DNA. But should you print the message on paper? Paper is what all the non-personalizing cold heartless people are using, why not used the far more personal alternative of your very own skin to show the recipient that you really care?
A truly terrifying image of the potential near future. Indeed at present it seems the one most truly frightening thing in the world is the development of personalized greeting cards which will ultimately and inevitably result in human self mutilation and destruction.
Now that gives me a sudden blindingly bright flash of artistic inspiration, since I have often heard it said that the best creations in horror are based off the real fears of the creators, perhaps I should go to this year's Halloween party dressed entirely in personalized greeting cards. I'm sure such a costume would receive a frightened scream or two.
I am also, unfortunately, still entirely unsure as to what to wear as a Halloween costume. Last year I wore a dead child, lovingly constructed out of cardboard and red paint, on my head but that has, rather cruelly, been specifically banned by the hostess of this years Halloween party.
Hence I have decided that, in the manner of a true problem solver, I shall procrastinate thinking about the costume until absolutely necessary (that is to say, on the night) and for the time being ponder about the major Western festival proceeding Halloween, the festival of Christmas (entirely ignoring some other slightly minor festivals such as the celebratory burning of the effigy of a dead terrorist bomber. I am not referring to some obscure annual Bin Laden hating celebration, which in all probability exists, in the Southern United States but to the long running British festival of Bonfire Night.)
No other festival in existence places such a damning emphasis on desolate loneliness than Christmas. Not only is it commonly celebrated in union by romantic couples, Christmas also enforces the giving of presents and cards to loved ones, friends and family. Which then automatically marks out, highlights and isolates those with few caring friends or family.
I for one remember one particularly depressing year when I received the grand total of one Christmas card. A cheaply manufactured thing, probably bought en mass at WHSmith but nonetheless treasured by me, occupying the pride of place on my windowsill for the best part of a year, as proof of the fact I was not entirely devoid of amicable companionship within this world.The interior of the card was, to put it positively, minimalist. A white space occupied by the mechanically printed words "Merry Christmas" under which was written my name, scribbled carefully in the dead and shriveled worm like handwriting of my friend, Underling Book, and another accompanying sentence of well wishing. It was not that much but it was more than enough. The fact a card had been sent to me with intention of being sent to me, proven via the messy writing which would, to the untrained eye, appear like Arabic, was more than sufficient evidence that the sender cared about me.
However the latest card manufacturing companies would deny me even that scrap of happiness because according to their adverts people now need to go to new lengths of personalization, involving adding photos of the recipient and choosing pointless humorous fonts, in order to create a greeting card that proves they care. Which would, by default, suggest that in their expert opinion, the dear Christmas card I received (with Underling Book's near encoded writing of well wishing) is worth very little sentimental value due to the fact that it didn't have a massive photo of me cropped onto it combined with a hilarious punning title in the style of some tabloid newspaper or a poster or some other god forsaken format which has been granted the license of being sufficiently caring and festive in the eyes of the bloated greed-filled executives of greeting card personalization companies.
It has always been the ambition of humans to leave a legacy in the world, some sort of sign of their existence, to confirm their place within the universe, to leave a notable mark in society. The rulers of ancient civilizations did this by creating epic monuments, personalizing blocks of stone to leave as an indicator of their short existence on this planet. Now it seems everyone wants to be in on the act, desperate to make some personal, uniquely distinguished mark of their own on everything from a greeting card to the clothes they wear.
This trend of personalization appears to be spreading like an uncontrolled marketing infection. With decorative stickers being sold to personalize everything from your keys to your phone as if the amount of crudely made glittery diamond shaped plastic you attached to your iPhone case would help reaffirm your place within the world. Perhaps soon there will be a day when everything is personalized, every gift and every possession stamped with your face on it to confirm that the object did indeed at one point belong to you. Sperm given in at a sperm bank, each cell complete with a smiling microscopic photo of the generous man who sacrificed a minute of his time and exercised his hand to make the donation. Or organs given in for transplants, all meticulously engraved with the name and caricature of the now deceased donor. Perhaps even children put up to adoption with a photo of their not very responsible biological parents super glued to their back.This mad wave of commercially encouraged uniqueness further causes an inflation in the value of personalization and raises the bar indicating what the bare minimum socially acceptable display of caring is. Before the arrival of the customizable cards, the simple greeting or congratulatory cards brought at a news paper agents to have someone's name hurriedly scrawled in must have seemed sufficiently personalized and caring.
Therefore it is only logical to assume something else more personalized than the current cards on offer will soon appear on the market, a vicious cycle that will continue escalating until it is no longer sufficient to just print with normal ink because normal ink is what every non-personal and therefore uncaring people are using in their greeting cards. Then what personalized liquid can you use to write your message? Why not use your own blood? After all, nothing is more personalized than your own DNA. But should you print the message on paper? Paper is what all the non-personalizing cold heartless people are using, why not used the far more personal alternative of your very own skin to show the recipient that you really care?
A truly terrifying image of the potential near future. Indeed at present it seems the one most truly frightening thing in the world is the development of personalized greeting cards which will ultimately and inevitably result in human self mutilation and destruction.
Now that gives me a sudden blindingly bright flash of artistic inspiration, since I have often heard it said that the best creations in horror are based off the real fears of the creators, perhaps I should go to this year's Halloween party dressed entirely in personalized greeting cards. I'm sure such a costume would receive a frightened scream or two.
Sunday, 21 October 2012
24
The number twenty four. First discovered after the number twenty three, the history of the number twenty four is connected deeply with our own. For example the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade was founded in the year 1824 and a failed Soviet coup occurred in the year 1924. Even more strikingly, by the march of the year 2024 I will be 28 and if this wasn't enough evidence to back up the importance of the number 24, those born 4 years after myself will be 24 years old in the year 2024. Coincidence? I think not.
However if it is not sheer chance then who has engineered it this way? Perhaps there exists some secret society, a covenant of 24 followers. A devout cult whose members pray to 24 24/7. And this secret organization has, today, spun me into their conspiratorial web for this is my 24th blog post! (I usually detest exclamation marks, trying to force their enthusiasm or surprise or excitement on the reader without any respect to his/her actual emotional response but today I'm making an exception on the account of it being a celebratory occasion!)
Considering my long winded verbose writing style, these 24 blog post behemoths combined can probably create a good sized book to be sold in WHSmith alongside all the other deeply meaningless celebrity autobiographies (and mine would have the advantage in the celebrity autobiography market of actually being written by me, though this may be slightly outweighed by the disadvantage of myself not actually being a celebrity).
Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I still appear to have minimum readership. Zero followers. Twenty four posts, god knows how many words (or he would know if he existed which is a really rather murky grey area at the moment) and yet, zero followers. What? How? Why? Who? Where? When? With whom? These are questions I ask myself when I see my follower count (although the last four questions were possibly irrelevant but I ask them anyway because I am a thorough individual) which is still a colon followed by a solid stubborn zero, a combination of symbol and number that, incidentally, perfectly mirrors my shocked expression every time :0
I have more than once discussed this issue with my underlings and the response I got was either that I should include more cute cats or cut down the words I waste in rambling. Ignoring the former as I refuse to bow down to the vulgarly low standards of internet popularity, the latter is a difficult suggestion. This is largely due to the fact that my posts are composed of nothing but rambling, cutting away the rambling would leave absolutely nothing behind which, might precisely be the source of all my problems. Namely that my blog, like a broken camera or a child with ADHD, has very little focus.
With a clear focus comes a target audience, with a target audience comes an audience and with an audience comes readership. Therefore what I need is some subject for me to concentrate all my posts on. However I have no job, nothing of interest happens with any reliable regularity in my school or family life and I have no interests that could feasibly involve a blog such as botany or animal experimentation. One topic I could attempt to cover is some social injustice that enrages me, something I find absolutely unforgivable to the extent that I am willing to dedicate my blog to pursuing the injustice's demise. Like a knight fighting a terrible dragon, I could brandish my pen that is mightier than the sword and write aggressive campaigns against the said injustice.
....There is however, one problem. I really have no social injustice I would willingly dedicate this blog to. I am the sort of horribly cynical and unhelpful human being who, whilst being perfectly aware of the fact that there are a multitude of things wrong with the world as a whole, is too unempathic and lazy to feel even the slightest need to do anything. The only things that passionately enrage me are petty day to day issues such as casual Americanizations, blatant marketing, irritating adverts and mild illogical phrasings and ideas. I could make them the main focus of my blog but as social injustices go, they are less of a tremendous dragon to be fought by a courageous knight and more of an irritating worm to be cruelly crushed by some malicious child. There's really only so much I can milk from that petty topic before the metaphorical udders begin to bleed.
Then, as it lies bleeding to death at my feet, where would I be? On the run from the metaphorical RSPCA for needless cruelty to a topic. Unplanned and frantically shoddy writings mindlessly fleeing from the pursuit of the police and the angry animal rights activists (who are exactly the sort of people capable of maintaining a blog about social outrage, spewing out a post per day on the cruelty of eating eggs or whatnot). Soon, apprehended and arrested, I will be forced to stand in a court of law, surrounded by stern animal lovers and bestial romantics.
"And why, Mr Galanthus, did you milk the topic until it bled?" asks the judge sternly, glaring coldly at me from his majestically high oak podium.
"For internet popularity," I mumble ashamedly, hurriedly adding, "your honour."
"So you pushed a meager topic far beyond its capabilities for blog readership you say?" he affirms accusingly, an accusation in response to which I can only give a silent downcast nod, "Then," he announces, "you are indeed guilty."
I sigh shakily and feel tears spill out from the corners of my eyes, my entire body sagging with depression as I await my sentence. The Judge continues, "Guilty of losing your way," an unexpected warmth enters the Judge's deep booming voice echoing around the courtroom, "Why do you need to gain popularity and readership? Why can you not do it just for your own creative entertainment? I for one, preferred it when you were just writing your pointless and unfocused, but nonetheless honest thoughts" With that he smiles slightly, a paternal reassuring grin and before I know it, I'm out of my own defendant box, legs propelling me towards my savior.
Which is why I have decided that despite not having any readership, I will keep my writing style and subject entirely unchanged.
I shall leave my blog completely unfocused, deeply shallow and thoroughly pointless. I will not cut down my long winded meaningless rambling, I will not display any pitiful pretence of social outrage and I will not bow down to compromise for the masses. It may be a lonely road but at least it's my road.
However if it is not sheer chance then who has engineered it this way? Perhaps there exists some secret society, a covenant of 24 followers. A devout cult whose members pray to 24 24/7. And this secret organization has, today, spun me into their conspiratorial web for this is my 24th blog post! (I usually detest exclamation marks, trying to force their enthusiasm or surprise or excitement on the reader without any respect to his/her actual emotional response but today I'm making an exception on the account of it being a celebratory occasion!)
Considering my long winded verbose writing style, these 24 blog post behemoths combined can probably create a good sized book to be sold in WHSmith alongside all the other deeply meaningless celebrity autobiographies (and mine would have the advantage in the celebrity autobiography market of actually being written by me, though this may be slightly outweighed by the disadvantage of myself not actually being a celebrity).
I have more than once discussed this issue with my underlings and the response I got was either that I should include more cute cats or cut down the words I waste in rambling. Ignoring the former as I refuse to bow down to the vulgarly low standards of internet popularity, the latter is a difficult suggestion. This is largely due to the fact that my posts are composed of nothing but rambling, cutting away the rambling would leave absolutely nothing behind which, might precisely be the source of all my problems. Namely that my blog, like a broken camera or a child with ADHD, has very little focus.
With a clear focus comes a target audience, with a target audience comes an audience and with an audience comes readership. Therefore what I need is some subject for me to concentrate all my posts on. However I have no job, nothing of interest happens with any reliable regularity in my school or family life and I have no interests that could feasibly involve a blog such as botany or animal experimentation. One topic I could attempt to cover is some social injustice that enrages me, something I find absolutely unforgivable to the extent that I am willing to dedicate my blog to pursuing the injustice's demise. Like a knight fighting a terrible dragon, I could brandish my pen that is mightier than the sword and write aggressive campaigns against the said injustice.
"And why, Mr Galanthus, did you milk the topic until it bled?" asks the judge sternly, glaring coldly at me from his majestically high oak podium.
"For internet popularity," I mumble ashamedly, hurriedly adding, "your honour."
"So you pushed a meager topic far beyond its capabilities for blog readership you say?" he affirms accusingly, an accusation in response to which I can only give a silent downcast nod, "Then," he announces, "you are indeed guilty."
I sigh shakily and feel tears spill out from the corners of my eyes, my entire body sagging with depression as I await my sentence. The Judge continues, "Guilty of losing your way," an unexpected warmth enters the Judge's deep booming voice echoing around the courtroom, "Why do you need to gain popularity and readership? Why can you not do it just for your own creative entertainment? I for one, preferred it when you were just writing your pointless and unfocused, but nonetheless honest thoughts" With that he smiles slightly, a paternal reassuring grin and before I know it, I'm out of my own defendant box, legs propelling me towards my savior.
I shall leave my blog completely unfocused, deeply shallow and thoroughly pointless. I will not cut down my long winded meaningless rambling, I will not display any pitiful pretence of social outrage and I will not bow down to compromise for the masses. It may be a lonely road but at least it's my road.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Lobotomy
The date is the 19th of October 2012. The starting pistol is fired high into the air, simultaneously I spring forward athletically from my braced crouching position, beginning my sprint down the long metaphorical road. My two fingers (because despite being of the new supposedly technology savvy generation, I never mastered touch typing and can still only competently type with two digits) dance swiftly across the keyboard, each aggressive tap of a key imprinting a pixel articulation of my thoughts onto the blank white screen before me.
The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.
Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.
I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".
It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).
Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.
But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.
Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.
The clock ticks precious seconds away and as the ultimate countdown commences, to my relief I see that the end line, the deadline, lies just meters from my exhausted self. With a final burst of energy I propel myself forwards, the remaining few paragraphs flowing onto the page in a jumbled flood of words. The time is eleven fifty nine. Relieved I have made it, I click the beautifully vibrant button labeled "Publish". Feeling victorious, I close my eyes, I have successfully written and posted another bog within the day. Then as I open my tired eyes to look back onto the screen, a sudden ice age envelopes my heart and the exhausted yawn meets an untimely end half way up my throat. The red box stating "you are only allowed a maximum of twenty labels" lies smugly across the top of the page.
Hurriedly I delete the one extra offensive treacherous miscreant of a label that now threatens to ruin everything I have worked towards. I frantically click "publish" again, the time is midnight, in the distance a clock presumably strikes twelve and I imagine for the few seconds it takes to load my online publication, the deep resonating mournful rings of the ominous metal bell. I grit my teeth in frustration and cast my eyes onto the screen in vain hope that blogger counts midnight, the barren no man's land between two days, to be the territory of the merciful today as opposed to under the occupation of the tyrannical tomorrow.
I let out a slow sobbing sigh, the post is labeled as "20th of October".
It has finally happened, on my last post, I failed to meet the deadline. I'm sure there is a meaning to the term "deadline". Presumably if you go past the deadline you become dead in some way, but as far as I know in most every day situations people aren't killed for late paperwork, unless there exists some evil organization skilfully covering up every unpunctual excel sheet or mildly tardy report related murder (Perhaps entitled League of Uncompromising Beaurocratic Employers or LUBE for short).
Therefore if you miss a deadline, you must be dead in some other slightly more subtle way. Perhaps you become dead to whoever set you the deadline. So as soon as you fail to meet the deadline, your employer or immediate superior or whoever it was that told you to hand in that file by six o'clock in the morning sharp, no longer looks at you with the level of burning passionate friendship that they used to. Instead your employer stares coldly at you, a certain emotional distance appearing between superior and subordinate, an invisible wall suddenly erected to severe the bond of mutual trust that had grown so strong between the two of you before that fateful six o'clock in the morning blunt.
But in this instance I had set the personal deadline of one blog post a day for myself to keep and as much as I might try, it really is rather difficult to keep an emotional distance from yourself. Hence, if I want to become emotionally disconnected from myself, the only possible solution is to become generally emotionally unreceptive as a human being, this may perhaps be achieved by undergoing the great medical process of lobotomy.
Goodbye dear meager wavering mirage of a readership whose existence is more than a little doubtful, the next time we meet, I may have become an empty emotionless husk of a human being but at least I would be a punctual empty emotionless husk.
Very Little
Hold your mind firmly in one hand, tense your muscles and slowly draw back your arm, preparing for launch. Then very quickly turn one hundred and eighty degrees on the spot while strongly swinging your arm, releasing your grip as you do so. In this way, cast your mind back and perhaps you will remember, to the days of your childhood or young adulthood or just your adulthood (depending on what age you are at present) a certain particular juvenile tool of amusement.
An arts and crafts type object given to children by parents in the vain hope of inspiring some creativity, basically consisting of a tube to blow through and a certain plastic paste which, when inflated with use of the aforementioned tube, formed a near (relative to normal soap bubbles) indestructible plastic sphere. This tough, thick, strong, rubbery, plastic, burst-proof bubble is the sort of bubble I mean when I say, "my school is an upper middle class social bubble."
Nonetheless, even this seriously snobbish private school which proudly presents its self as at least in the top five if not one percent, still attempts to make some sort of gesture of compensation for the excessive use of wealth by organizing community service projects. There are many community service projects on offer, ranging from gardening to helping out at a disabled school to serving the aged and statistically close to death. However the one I have chosen to partake in this year, and which I also took last year, is possibly the least socially helpful of the lot.
In no way does it give anything back to those less fortunate than us, at best it is the five percent being mildly helpful to the six percent in a patronizing and self indulgent manner. This most obsolete community service of all is "Minimus", teaching Latin to nine or ten year old children from a relatively wealthy background.
Last year I was given the task of drumming a dead language into the minds of two nine year old girls, Anna and Mia, the former being a bright but irritatingly patronizing individual, the latter being a cheerful air headed snob in the making. To give an example of the difficulty in dealing with these malignant creatures, in the second week of teaching Latin to them (the lessons occur once a week every Friday), Anna, who had clearly not been impressed by my efforts in the first week, gave me a hand written ten bullet point list of "How To Be A Good Teacher". An outline of the skills that I had apparently been lacking, beginning with "be firm but kind" and ending on "Make the subject come alive!"
However, despite my obvious sneering contempt of their existence and ever present insulting remarks which their juvenile brains could only hope to vaguely get the gist of, the two of them seem to have some affection for me. Hence this year, even though they can no longer be part of the Minimus course, they still send word to me via their friends who now attend the classes. It is through one of these friends that I learned something today which truly filled my heart with joy.
Towards the end of the last year, the two children, Anna in particular kept insisting that I give some sort of present to them. Their pestering was so incessantly grating away at my sanity that I relented and, having quickly rummaged through my pockets, I lovingly gave Mia a well worn pencil (so internally fractured that it was probably beyond saving even with the full use of modern day medical technology) and Anna a rusted muddy bottle opener which I'd found on the ground that very day. Mia accepted the pencil as a sentimental gift and made no complaint, however Anna insisted that she deserved a better present. In order to keep her quiet, I sarcastically and dismissively told Anna that the bottle opener was magic and if she licked it, it would grant her three wishes.
Today one of her friend's reliably informed me that Anna had in fact gone home and licked what was essentially a solid chunk of disease roughly sculpted into the shape of a bottle opener. This then directly leading to her skipping school for several days due to severe sickness. The friends accused me of being a malicious liar for telling Anna she would be granted three wishes but in my defense I would argue that, in the fashion of a self fulfilling prophecy, she probably did have her wishes granted. More specifically her wish that her temperature would go down, that her headache would secede and her nausea stop, which of course, after several days of pure sickening agony, it did.
All things considered, I would say that I went above and beyond my call of duty as a teacher. Educating Anna not only about the Latin language but about some key principles in life as a whole, namely "don't unquestioningly lick things that a man tells you to because you will probably get a disease". Now thanks to my compassionate diligence and sheer excellence as a teacher, Anna is far less likely to get oral herpes.
An arts and crafts type object given to children by parents in the vain hope of inspiring some creativity, basically consisting of a tube to blow through and a certain plastic paste which, when inflated with use of the aforementioned tube, formed a near (relative to normal soap bubbles) indestructible plastic sphere. This tough, thick, strong, rubbery, plastic, burst-proof bubble is the sort of bubble I mean when I say, "my school is an upper middle class social bubble."
Nonetheless, even this seriously snobbish private school which proudly presents its self as at least in the top five if not one percent, still attempts to make some sort of gesture of compensation for the excessive use of wealth by organizing community service projects. There are many community service projects on offer, ranging from gardening to helping out at a disabled school to serving the aged and statistically close to death. However the one I have chosen to partake in this year, and which I also took last year, is possibly the least socially helpful of the lot.
In no way does it give anything back to those less fortunate than us, at best it is the five percent being mildly helpful to the six percent in a patronizing and self indulgent manner. This most obsolete community service of all is "Minimus", teaching Latin to nine or ten year old children from a relatively wealthy background.
Last year I was given the task of drumming a dead language into the minds of two nine year old girls, Anna and Mia, the former being a bright but irritatingly patronizing individual, the latter being a cheerful air headed snob in the making. To give an example of the difficulty in dealing with these malignant creatures, in the second week of teaching Latin to them (the lessons occur once a week every Friday), Anna, who had clearly not been impressed by my efforts in the first week, gave me a hand written ten bullet point list of "How To Be A Good Teacher". An outline of the skills that I had apparently been lacking, beginning with "be firm but kind" and ending on "Make the subject come alive!"
However, despite my obvious sneering contempt of their existence and ever present insulting remarks which their juvenile brains could only hope to vaguely get the gist of, the two of them seem to have some affection for me. Hence this year, even though they can no longer be part of the Minimus course, they still send word to me via their friends who now attend the classes. It is through one of these friends that I learned something today which truly filled my heart with joy.
Towards the end of the last year, the two children, Anna in particular kept insisting that I give some sort of present to them. Their pestering was so incessantly grating away at my sanity that I relented and, having quickly rummaged through my pockets, I lovingly gave Mia a well worn pencil (so internally fractured that it was probably beyond saving even with the full use of modern day medical technology) and Anna a rusted muddy bottle opener which I'd found on the ground that very day. Mia accepted the pencil as a sentimental gift and made no complaint, however Anna insisted that she deserved a better present. In order to keep her quiet, I sarcastically and dismissively told Anna that the bottle opener was magic and if she licked it, it would grant her three wishes.
Today one of her friend's reliably informed me that Anna had in fact gone home and licked what was essentially a solid chunk of disease roughly sculpted into the shape of a bottle opener. This then directly leading to her skipping school for several days due to severe sickness. The friends accused me of being a malicious liar for telling Anna she would be granted three wishes but in my defense I would argue that, in the fashion of a self fulfilling prophecy, she probably did have her wishes granted. More specifically her wish that her temperature would go down, that her headache would secede and her nausea stop, which of course, after several days of pure sickening agony, it did.
All things considered, I would say that I went above and beyond my call of duty as a teacher. Educating Anna not only about the Latin language but about some key principles in life as a whole, namely "don't unquestioningly lick things that a man tells you to because you will probably get a disease". Now thanks to my compassionate diligence and sheer excellence as a teacher, Anna is far less likely to get oral herpes.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Themes
Quite recently I was invited to a party. That in its self is a noteworthy enough fact to deserve its own smug sentence (I briefly considered allowing that statement its own paragraph but I suspect that might just go past the realms of mildly milking my good fortune and straight into the chasm of simply pathetic boasting). The very opportunity to actually go to a party is, as you might have guessed, not one that presents its self to me very frequently. So much so that being allowed attendance to a party deserves its own party in celebration which would, in turn, deserve its own party until I would be trapped in an endless nightmarish loop of partying.
However one thing that did come to my notice was the theme of the party. The dress code to which all party goers must adhere to (lest they experience the wrath of the host or the general disapproval of all other guests around them, silently criticizing them for not making an effort) was "cowboys and Indians". Now I am aware that cowboys and Indians is a common theme as well as a game that children often play, nonetheless it occurred to me how the realms of acceptability increase significantly over time because when historically considered, "cowboys and Indians" is a look back on the massacre of many native Americans by the invading settlers armed with far superior weaponry.
I may have not done terrifically well in GCSEs where the subjects of physics, chemistry or biology were concerned. I may have taken Environmental Systems and Societies ( the racially confused child between biology and geography, considered the least actually scientific but nonetheless technically scientific subject you can take with the IB education system) as my science subject. However, in terms of curiosity, investigative desires and the peioneering spirit of an explorer, I am a scientist at heart. Therefore, when I first saw the party theme, the obvious question to ask and attempt to scientifically discern the answer to through experimentation was "If the realms of acceptability grow with time passing since the actual incident, where does the delicate boarder between offensive and inoffensive lie?"
For example to what extent is it acceptable to historically update the party theme? If "Cowboys and Indians" are deemed a perfectly fine dress code; since its within the same over arching theme of morally dubious American historical exploits, would it be considered acceptable if I turned up at a party in a skin colored morph suit splattered with red and pink in parts, stained a dark charred black in others, dressed as the victim of a napalm bombing according to the theme of "Americans and Vietnamese"?
However one thing that did come to my notice was the theme of the party. The dress code to which all party goers must adhere to (lest they experience the wrath of the host or the general disapproval of all other guests around them, silently criticizing them for not making an effort) was "cowboys and Indians". Now I am aware that cowboys and Indians is a common theme as well as a game that children often play, nonetheless it occurred to me how the realms of acceptability increase significantly over time because when historically considered, "cowboys and Indians" is a look back on the massacre of many native Americans by the invading settlers armed with far superior weaponry.
I may have not done terrifically well in GCSEs where the subjects of physics, chemistry or biology were concerned. I may have taken Environmental Systems and Societies ( the racially confused child between biology and geography, considered the least actually scientific but nonetheless technically scientific subject you can take with the IB education system) as my science subject. However, in terms of curiosity, investigative desires and the peioneering spirit of an explorer, I am a scientist at heart. Therefore, when I first saw the party theme, the obvious question to ask and attempt to scientifically discern the answer to through experimentation was "If the realms of acceptability grow with time passing since the actual incident, where does the delicate boarder between offensive and inoffensive lie?"
For example to what extent is it acceptable to historically update the party theme? If "Cowboys and Indians" are deemed a perfectly fine dress code; since its within the same over arching theme of morally dubious American historical exploits, would it be considered acceptable if I turned up at a party in a skin colored morph suit splattered with red and pink in parts, stained a dark charred black in others, dressed as the victim of a napalm bombing according to the theme of "Americans and Vietnamese"?
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Similarity
Shepherd's pie and cottage pie, tangerine and mandarin, Bruce Lee and Jacky Chan. The world is full of things that are so alike they are practically indistinguishable. Though this state of affairs is by and large fine, there are moments where such confusing likenesses can cause considerable harm, such as the similarity between "acceptable banter" and "unacceptable offensive insults" or "people who are capable of verbal battles" and "individuals who give the outward appearance of being able to handle a bit of verbal jousting but are in fact easily offended". These two examples especially, when mixed together, create the perfect cocktail of social awkwardness and disaster (the sort of cocktail that leaves you feeling the sickening rocking storm of extreme inebriation without first allowing you to experience the pleasant gentle drift of mild tipsiness).
In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.
Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.
When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."
To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.
She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.
Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future, had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.
This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.
In terms of the former, I do confess that I have a tendency to lose sight of the metaphorical line in the sand occasionally, inadvertently stepping over it and tress passing in the lands of potentially serious emotional damage. Usually when people chide me, which they inevitably do, concerning whatever harmful statement I've just made, I either: take the attitude of the driver caught traveling at 80 miles per hour in a 20 miles per hour zone near a school (protesting my innocence by pointing out that there are no children out at this time of the day and even if they were I would merely be carrying out the socially helpful process of natural selection by running them over) or take an offensively defensive strategy(viciously chiding the victim of my verbal firing squad that he or she should have made clearer where the boundaries of acceptability lay by say, not just lazily drawing a line in the sand but building some sort of high towering fortress wall coated in anti-climbing paint). This habit tends to frequently lose me a vast percentage of friends out of an already frankly meager supply, hence I try to be careful in limiting and controlling the contents of my speech, monitoring what words or intentions are traveling from my brain towards my vocal cords with the vigilance of a censorship division working under a strict totalitarian regime.
Now, Underling Salmon (though she still refuses to respond to that code name) with her generally withering attitude and bitingly sarcastic remarks, gives all the outward impression of someone capable of trading insults. A fellow human with whom I could exchange shipments of casually offensive yet entertaining remarks without fear of inadvertently straying across the boarders of lasting emotional damage and social awkwardness. However, when during a conversation, I made several insulting quips (to test what looked like relatively promising waters in terms of a verbal battle) the total contents of which, when combined, amounted to something along the lines of "You are a prostitute who, without the intelligence capable of adequately passing exams, must have slept with our spineless excuse of a headmaster in order to get a place in the school" (quips, that I might emphasize, were all made in the friendly spirit of jest) I was rather disappointed by her lack of witty response or fighting attitude, instead choosing to bitterly reference these insults once in a while as if her honor had been gravely wounded.
When I expressed my disappointment in her lack of verbal sharpness and witticism, she claimed she was not yet reacting to or insulting those around her "because I'm in a hostile and unfamiliar environment. So I'm doing what all successful organisms do, observe and adapt."
To this I mockingly replied that since a human being's only advantage over an animal is the human's ability to use creative skills in order to adapt the surrounding environment to his/her needs to a certain extent (by, for example, air conditioning), by attempting to adapt to the environment Underling Salmon had joined the ranks of the animals to be no better than a toad or woodlouse.
She then responded to this by stating that there is no difference between humans and other animals to begin with. Which, in a rather pleasant cyclical fashion brings the topic right back round to similarities and differences. What exactly is the difference between a human being and an animal, two extremely similar things which some would argue are in fact the same (just as shepherd's pie is supposedly the same as cottage pie according to Wikipedia). Indeed, she continued, if the difference between humans and animals was the ability to alter the environment then beavers would be classified as human since they can alter the environment due to the fact that they can create dams, thereby blocking rivers and altering the environment.
Thus my definition of the difference between humanity and animals, which I had been quite confident was a sound argument that would be passed on as a profound word of wisdom, to run from generation to generation till far into the future, had more or less fallen on the first hurdle constructed out of branches and felled trees by a creative beaver. So if this is not the difference between an animal and a human then what is? When I have asked this question in the past, the most common and memorable answer has been "The soul", an abstract spiritual essence of humanity that resides within humans but not in animals. However if I start believing in concepts such as the soul, then I can't help but get the feeling that other illogical concepts (the bastard children born between science and blind faith) like spiritual healing, auras and homeopathy will be just around the proverbial corner, waiting for me, their non-existent over priced arms wide open for a placebo embrace.
This then leaves me with two options, either accept the existence of the soul and every other connotation such an admittance brings into my life with it (like unwanted disreputable associates of an ill-mannered friend, brought in as guests by the single impolite friend who sees the invitation into your house as a simultaneous permission for everyone he knows to also be allowed free access to your abode) or welcome the beaver as a part of the human race. The choice is hard but I have to make it, and though I may come to regret it, henceforth I shall consider all beavers as equal to myself, treating them with the respect I treat other humans (which isn't much) and allowing them all the rights that I receive (which doesn't feel like much either). But if it becomes just too much, if the pressures of drastically altering my world views over night give me a headache, I can at least have the satisfaction of taking a pain relieving pill that is not in the least bit diluted.
Monday, 15 October 2012
Doughnut
I'm certain most people have had the experience of a disappointing doughnut. Obviously I've just made the gross assumption that whoever, out of my very meager readership, is currently unenthusiastically running their bored eyes through this block of text, lives in an area of the world where doughnuts are readily accessible. That is to say, you, the reader, are not at present living in some impoverished mud hut situated within a third world country, clicking the computer mouse with starved twig like fingers and sitting on a chair more three dimensional than you are. However if that is the case, I would recommend that you sell the computer and use the money to buy yourself food, get something nice like some doughnuts. I'm honored that reading my blog is that important to you but would suggest that staying alive is perhaps ever so slightly more vital.
To the other relatively non-impoverished majority of readers, I call upon you to recall a disappointing doughnut. In particular, a jam doughnut. It may be difficult, it may be painful, but try to remember that traumatic moment you felt thoroughly emotionally let down by a piece of confectionery. Close your eyes, let your mind wander back. In fact open your eyes since the act of closing your eyes must have prevented you from reading the proceeding instructions unless your eyelids are somehow translucent like the flesh of a jellyfish. Now, close one eye but keep the other eye open to read the instructions (unless you are the jellyfish man in which case your translucent eyelids allow you to see the instructions near perfectly without your eyes necessarily being open) then relax, think pleasant calming thoughts and allow your mind to drift back like a dead body down a river.
You are a child again, your mind is pure, untainted and innocent. Words like "systematic", "infant" and "abuse" still hold no meaning for you and consequently you would be unable to accurately describe the games you play with your uncle when your parents are out, even if you wanted to. However that is not important at present, you must focus your mind on some doughnuts. Some round jam doughnuts which you assumed are packed full of sweet jam. No, not your uncle's two jam doughnuts, that is a different story for a different time, possibly involving a judge, jury and an anatomically accurate doll which you will be asked to point precisely at.
Back to the jam doughnuts. Spherical balls of fried dough with a fine snow like sprinkling upon its golden coloured surface. You take one in your hand and bringing it to your mouth and imagining the delicious explosion of sugary flavor that will spread through your mouth as the jam breaks free of its floury confines, you bite down on it. Only to find that it tastes of nothing more than slightly sweet bread. You take a second bite, quickly followed by a desperate third, panicked and frantic like a mother looking for her lost child, you search in vain for the luxurious treasure trove of jam that was promised to you from the name "jam doughnut". Finally you find it, not a treasure trove, not a medium sized storage box, not even a shoe box but barely a scientific spatula full of jam.
The unappealing globule of slightly sweet scarlet gel, the same colour and texture as congealed blood, lies sullenly, like some severely angst filled teenager sitting knees up to his chin, in a tiny corner of the doughnut. The same air of vague depression that is being emitted from the pathetic section of jam soon permeates your head, darkly filling the void left behind by the happy expectations which dissolved the moment you took your first hopeful bite. Feeling thoroughly let down by the supposed treat turned traitor, you cannot help but think to yourself, "Is that really it? After all that seemingly important build up, there's so little actual meaningful substance there!"
That feeling, the sensation of surprise, betrayal and vague disappointment, is probably what most of my readership feel at the end of one of my long winded articles and it is more than likely the precise reason why I am yet to gain any followers.
To the other relatively non-impoverished majority of readers, I call upon you to recall a disappointing doughnut. In particular, a jam doughnut. It may be difficult, it may be painful, but try to remember that traumatic moment you felt thoroughly emotionally let down by a piece of confectionery. Close your eyes, let your mind wander back. In fact open your eyes since the act of closing your eyes must have prevented you from reading the proceeding instructions unless your eyelids are somehow translucent like the flesh of a jellyfish. Now, close one eye but keep the other eye open to read the instructions (unless you are the jellyfish man in which case your translucent eyelids allow you to see the instructions near perfectly without your eyes necessarily being open) then relax, think pleasant calming thoughts and allow your mind to drift back like a dead body down a river.
You are a child again, your mind is pure, untainted and innocent. Words like "systematic", "infant" and "abuse" still hold no meaning for you and consequently you would be unable to accurately describe the games you play with your uncle when your parents are out, even if you wanted to. However that is not important at present, you must focus your mind on some doughnuts. Some round jam doughnuts which you assumed are packed full of sweet jam. No, not your uncle's two jam doughnuts, that is a different story for a different time, possibly involving a judge, jury and an anatomically accurate doll which you will be asked to point precisely at.
Back to the jam doughnuts. Spherical balls of fried dough with a fine snow like sprinkling upon its golden coloured surface. You take one in your hand and bringing it to your mouth and imagining the delicious explosion of sugary flavor that will spread through your mouth as the jam breaks free of its floury confines, you bite down on it. Only to find that it tastes of nothing more than slightly sweet bread. You take a second bite, quickly followed by a desperate third, panicked and frantic like a mother looking for her lost child, you search in vain for the luxurious treasure trove of jam that was promised to you from the name "jam doughnut". Finally you find it, not a treasure trove, not a medium sized storage box, not even a shoe box but barely a scientific spatula full of jam.
The unappealing globule of slightly sweet scarlet gel, the same colour and texture as congealed blood, lies sullenly, like some severely angst filled teenager sitting knees up to his chin, in a tiny corner of the doughnut. The same air of vague depression that is being emitted from the pathetic section of jam soon permeates your head, darkly filling the void left behind by the happy expectations which dissolved the moment you took your first hopeful bite. Feeling thoroughly let down by the supposed treat turned traitor, you cannot help but think to yourself, "Is that really it? After all that seemingly important build up, there's so little actual meaningful substance there!"
That feeling, the sensation of surprise, betrayal and vague disappointment, is probably what most of my readership feel at the end of one of my long winded articles and it is more than likely the precise reason why I am yet to gain any followers.
Tuesday, 2 October 2012
Rabid Pet Hates
With a strong determined beat of its abstract wings, the temporal rises into the heavens, soaring ever higher, swooping and ducking as it glides across the skies. Time has flown and it is already new born October, who like a baby is yet to dentally develop but will soon quickly do so and with it, the biting cold start its chilling attack.
The leaves on the tree have shriveled and crumbled, slowly transforming from the smooth beauty of a fair young maiden to the wrinkled repulsiveness of an old man's ball sack. The elegant lushness of the green trees fading to be replaced by the smudge of orange and brown like the finger painting of an artistically untalented child with leprosy.
Indeed the series are changing. The year has driven out of the warm safari of the summer series to travel down the darkening road of the series of autumn and very soon we shall enter the dark cold tunnel that is the series of winter. Yes, that's right, I did say "series of winter" and doesn't that feel unpleasant and perverse? Nonetheless if people are going to start replacing the term "series" with the word "season" then I don't see why I shouldn't do the opposite and see how they feel.
The use of the term "season" when referring to a British television "series" is a pet hate of mine. A pet hate which often growls and strains on its leash while out on walks, very occasionally breaking through the metal bonds to pounce upon any stray Americanization of British Television, sharp toothed mouth violently frothing and aiming for the jugular.
One such recent occasion was when I was walking towards the massive ugly square construction with a totalitarian atmosphere that constitutes the school dining hall with one Underling Sheep (An extremely normal individual, the picture perfect image of the default white middle class boy of average intelligence, wit, athletic capability and social ability) and Hunter Swift (A young lady whose life appears to be governed largely by bridge, botany and bi-curiosity. A fast shuffler, mild stalker and notable as the only female wearing a waist coat). We were discussing the unsatisfactory nature of the previous Doctor who episode in which the Pond's bid their farewell.
"I mean there are so many ways to save them," I complained, listing briefly the many solutions to the problem of Amy and Rory being trapped in Manhattan that I, a mere Earthling of sixteen years, thought of within the first five minutes of the end of the episode. Solutions which somehow the several hundred year old Timelord had failed to find.
"Yeah," agreed Hunter swift, a little way away, across the courtyard, stands the great hall upon whose towering face is embedded a clock. Its horological mechanisms ticking away restlessly, a merciless movement of cogs and gears, tick, tick, tick, tick, "I get the feeling they're going to be brought back in about five seasons." tic- Time stops.
"Say that again," I mutter, clenching my fists. Closing my eyes as I grit my teeth. Underling Sheep, having heard one of my rants before, stops beside me, eyes fixed pleadingly on Hunter Swift to get it right the second time.
"I get the feeling they're going to be brought back," she repeats, a tone of confusion entering her voice.
"In?" I whisper, my blood pulsing through my veins.
"In about five seasons?" Comes the wavering reply from a now thoroughly confused Hunter Swift. Underling Sheep lets out a despairing sigh, letting his eyes fall tiredly to the ground. A moment of silence. I click my knuckles and draw in a deep breath.
"ITS SERIES NOT SEASON! FIVE SERIESES TIME! NOT FIVE SEASONS TIME! I GET THE FEELING THEY'RE GOING TO BE BROUGHT BACK IN FIVE SERIESES TIME!" I roar, voice bouncing off the walls of the Quad, several pupils pausing to look round.
"Oh shut up!" wails Hunter Swift, "I can use season if I want!"
"No," I demand, waving my arms in frustration "It is a British television show, it will therefore be referred to as series and not season!"
"I'll do what I want," she retorts, voice volume almost matching mine, "Besides YOU MAKE WAY MORE ERRORS THAN I DO!"
As I open my mouth to form some sort of retort, one boy in the year above walks by, stating as he goes, "It's FAR more, not WAY more. Far!" Disappearing through a door within the next moment, leaving us to stand speechless.
PS. Hunter Swift later gleefully pointed out "series" is a plural term and hence the correct term was "five series time" not "five serieses". What a petty individual.
The leaves on the tree have shriveled and crumbled, slowly transforming from the smooth beauty of a fair young maiden to the wrinkled repulsiveness of an old man's ball sack. The elegant lushness of the green trees fading to be replaced by the smudge of orange and brown like the finger painting of an artistically untalented child with leprosy.
Indeed the series are changing. The year has driven out of the warm safari of the summer series to travel down the darkening road of the series of autumn and very soon we shall enter the dark cold tunnel that is the series of winter. Yes, that's right, I did say "series of winter" and doesn't that feel unpleasant and perverse? Nonetheless if people are going to start replacing the term "series" with the word "season" then I don't see why I shouldn't do the opposite and see how they feel.
The use of the term "season" when referring to a British television "series" is a pet hate of mine. A pet hate which often growls and strains on its leash while out on walks, very occasionally breaking through the metal bonds to pounce upon any stray Americanization of British Television, sharp toothed mouth violently frothing and aiming for the jugular.
One such recent occasion was when I was walking towards the massive ugly square construction with a totalitarian atmosphere that constitutes the school dining hall with one Underling Sheep (An extremely normal individual, the picture perfect image of the default white middle class boy of average intelligence, wit, athletic capability and social ability) and Hunter Swift (A young lady whose life appears to be governed largely by bridge, botany and bi-curiosity. A fast shuffler, mild stalker and notable as the only female wearing a waist coat). We were discussing the unsatisfactory nature of the previous Doctor who episode in which the Pond's bid their farewell.
"I mean there are so many ways to save them," I complained, listing briefly the many solutions to the problem of Amy and Rory being trapped in Manhattan that I, a mere Earthling of sixteen years, thought of within the first five minutes of the end of the episode. Solutions which somehow the several hundred year old Timelord had failed to find.
"Yeah," agreed Hunter swift, a little way away, across the courtyard, stands the great hall upon whose towering face is embedded a clock. Its horological mechanisms ticking away restlessly, a merciless movement of cogs and gears, tick, tick, tick, tick, "I get the feeling they're going to be brought back in about five seasons." tic- Time stops.
"Say that again," I mutter, clenching my fists. Closing my eyes as I grit my teeth. Underling Sheep, having heard one of my rants before, stops beside me, eyes fixed pleadingly on Hunter Swift to get it right the second time.
"I get the feeling they're going to be brought back," she repeats, a tone of confusion entering her voice.
"In?" I whisper, my blood pulsing through my veins.
"In about five seasons?" Comes the wavering reply from a now thoroughly confused Hunter Swift. Underling Sheep lets out a despairing sigh, letting his eyes fall tiredly to the ground. A moment of silence. I click my knuckles and draw in a deep breath.
"ITS SERIES NOT SEASON! FIVE SERIESES TIME! NOT FIVE SEASONS TIME! I GET THE FEELING THEY'RE GOING TO BE BROUGHT BACK IN FIVE SERIESES TIME!" I roar, voice bouncing off the walls of the Quad, several pupils pausing to look round.
"Oh shut up!" wails Hunter Swift, "I can use season if I want!"
"No," I demand, waving my arms in frustration "It is a British television show, it will therefore be referred to as series and not season!"
"I'll do what I want," she retorts, voice volume almost matching mine, "Besides YOU MAKE WAY MORE ERRORS THAN I DO!"
As I open my mouth to form some sort of retort, one boy in the year above walks by, stating as he goes, "It's FAR more, not WAY more. Far!" Disappearing through a door within the next moment, leaving us to stand speechless.
PS. Hunter Swift later gleefully pointed out "series" is a plural term and hence the correct term was "five series time" not "five serieses". What a petty individual.
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