The Challenge

 Today, in a small lecture hall situated within Kingston university, myself and several other youths graduated from "The Challenge". I feel that it aptly summarizes "The Challenge" that during a period in which we were confined within a room and encouraged to mingle, the background music provided had been found (as it became painfully obvious when we looked at the screen of the computer attached to the speakers) by going onto the music streaming site Spotify and typing "gangster" into the search bar (I promptly went on to find and play "Gangam style" to the general gratitude of the juvenile community within the room, proving that despite my lack of knowledge concerning pop culture and trends, I am still more "down with the kids" than the people at "The Challenge" being paid to be exactly that).
 The Challenge is a patronizing program for the youth, based on the assumption that young people will, if not kept off the streets by camping trips and community service, inevitably go feral and commit racially motivated murders or something. The obvious flaw, which still appears to not have been noted by anyone running the program, being that no one likely to be committing such offenses would ever be caught dead taking part in something like The Challenge (they would, presumably, instead be caught literally dead in a crossfire between two street gangs or some other equally horrible incident of self implementing social Darwinism).
 The entire program, like any well thought out devastating master plan, consists of several phases. The first phase is a week spent in the remote countryside participating in team building activities (such as walking, rock climbing, walking, camping, complaining about all the walking, raft building and walking) whilst living in a repulsive youth hostel that would be awarded black holes if any lodging rating organization were to visit. The second phase consists of a week spent inhabiting a block in the Kingston University campus, which felt like a palace compared to the youth hostel (though a palace infested with scuttling insects that I could have sworn had gone extinct several thousand years ago), while the youths study a particular art (be it media, drama or photography). The third week is devoted to planning several community serving projects (like fund raising or litter picking or euthanasia)and the fourth phase, a few weeks later, allows the juveniles to implement these projects. Then finally, after all this, comes the graduation.
 As the team organizer(the figure of central authority who, annoyingly, had a lazy eye so no one could be quite sure who she was angrily shouting at) stood up to give a final speech, I recalled all the character building activities we had taken part in during the course of The Challenge. Like the time when myself and Sergeant Salt (the very picture perfect image of a white middle class boy, nonetheless proud of his self-proclaimed working class up bringing. Complete with the political views of an ultra conservative, the accent of a private school student, the education of a state school and the vocabulary of an American gang member, he still somehow possesses a certain inane charm.) had a deep meaningful conversation whilst camping, discussing such topics as the meaning of life, humiliating anecdotes and who in our group were attractive. Blissfully unaware, until the next day, that the walls of our tent were very thin, the camp site quiet and our voices loud.
 As I vacantly listened, the team organizer stood at the podium began to recount of how the team had been entertaining as well as occasionally problematic, or rather in terms of the latter, not the entire team but more specifically, myself and Sergeant Salt. Even going on to reflect about the time when we deconstructed our team mentor's bed and the occasion when we created a wall of toilet paper with which to block the door of another group during the night.
 One such event that stood out in my memory was a particular evening when two male French students wondered into the campus area occupied by The Challenge proceeding to, in a hormone and probably drink fueled course of action, attempt to hit on the teenage girls from The Challenge residing in the building. The natural reaction of myself, Sergeant Salt and one Cedric (An aggressive widely built and crude American, that is to say, a stereotypical American) had been to shout abuse, utilizing every piece of French we had ever managed to scrape off our linguistic educations, at the two students. Shouting, then, because we were situated on the ground floor and facing the courtyard, swiftly closing the defensive window for fear of a French invasion into our kitchen. When this failed to drive the intruders off, I took several small tomatoes from the fridge as ammunition and threw them as hard as I could, pathetically displaying in the process why I had never got anywhere in cricket. This then escalated into a vegetable war, with an arms race that meant the projectiles became ever more damaging, transforming from small tomato to large tomato to carrot to potato. By morning the courtyard had looked like a post apocalyptic farm, a state of affairs for which I and my comrades were punished.
 After a few dull minutes, the team organizer stepped down from the stage and another member of the Challenge staff began to hand out certificates and take photographs of the proud youths. Youths who had contributed to the community through their own personally designed projects. Our group had decided to do a film festival for the community in order to bring the people together. Though we managed to purchase eight short films to be watched and a site at which to show them, a sports hall belonging to Ricard's Lodge school,  none of us had thought to advertise it thereby meaning that no one turned up. Since none of us had any particular interest in cinematography, we watched three of the eight short films, for which we had collectively had the council pay eighty pounds, and spent the rest of the time stealing food from surrounding groups and abusing each other with the school's carefully maintained sports equipment.
 Finally it was my turn and as I held the certificate, frowning at the camera whilst I did, a thought hit me, a thought suggesting that though I may have done a lot during The Challenge such as: drinking tea containing tomato puree, rebelliously kicking over a bowl of flower, accidentally summoning the fire service numerous times, jumping through a window, microwaving an egg and so forth, nothing I had done had even remotely been helpful to the community. And this thought pleased , and still pleases, me to no end.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

 The dark robed man glided slowly across the dead earth of the graveyard, its soft soil transformed into a quagmire by the pelting rain. He stood in front of one grave stone scarred with the words "Entrepreneurial Confidence". Lifting a thick leather bound book before him as if preaching to an invisible congregation, he began to utter a series of deep ominous words with a rhythmic droning rumble that would drill fear and uncertainty into the mind of any who heard it. His tone, the speed of his immaculate pronunciation and the volume of his voice simultaneously rose as he snapped the book shut, raising both hands violently skywards to be blindingly silhouetted by the sudden and vibrant flash of lightening. A moment of silence punctuated the scene, then a slow trembling shudder ran through the ground, gently at first, like a colossal beast shaking its self awake from slumber. As the quake reached its climax, the ground before the gravestone cracked then, after a moments pause, exploded upwards. Fragmented soil flew through the rain, pelting the old necromancer with a mixture of mud and water but he continued to smile, transfixed by the figure climbing out of the fractured wooden coffin.
 ...That was not how my entrepreneurial confidence was resurrected today but in terms of the dramatic mental impact it had on me it could be comparable to the slightly over extended and tenuous metaphor above. For my confidence as an entrepreneur has been dead a fair few years, ever since a school competition titled the Social Entrepreneurs Project (SEP for short, I do feel its shame they didn't title it the Entrepreneurial Social Project in which case the abbreviation would be ESP giving the misguiding but nonetheless interesting suggestion that it is some program associated with psychics) whose basic aim was to raise money to help children in Africa.
 A friend, called Faisal, and I decided we would buy sweets cheaply then resell them at school at a far higher price. Since Faisal lived in New Malden (despite being Pakistani, or more importantly, not Korean which meant he was treated as an immigrant within a community of immigrants, like some sort of Matryoshka doll of mild racism) we decided to buy a vast quantity of penguin bars (about thirty pounds worth of confectionery in total) from his local Iceland as well as some Japanese sweets called "Haichu" (A chewy fruit flavored sweet which gave you happiness and diabetes in equal quantities). Our ploy went a little like this, "The people at school shall all become addicted to Haichu and penguin bars, relentlessly eating and buying, trapped in a vicious cycle of sweet consumption and craving (cue evil laughter)"
 However, as if to prove there is some karmic justice within the world, both Faisal and I promptly became addicted on our own stock of foods (I on Penguin bars, he on Haichu). Like hunters who had been ensnared and captured by the sheer excellence of their very own traps we had finished off our entire supply of teeth torturing treats by the end of our first day of business. However we still had our pride as businessmen, and as true vendors we could not allow our customers to not pay, even if the customers were ourselves. Hence we paid for our ridiculously over priced confectionery (while being bitterly aware that it was over priced and even more bitterly knowing that we had already paid for it once) thereby successfully making a profit on paper but in reality making huge losses in terms of money, dignity and confidence in enterprise. At the end of a tough week of being social entrepreneurs we had actually gained nothing apart blood sugar levels and weight.
 From that crushing tragic defeat forth, I had never thought I could ever be a, entrepreneur. It was one potential aspiration which had become less of a career path and more of a 120 mile per hour career motorway utilized exclusively by trucks, the middle of which I would have to walk, trying to deftly dodge the metaphorical vehicular executioners lest I be splattered thinner than my chances of becoming a successful businessman. However, on this very day, my eyes were opened, then kept open with a contraption of metal wires as I was metaphorically put through the entire Clockwork Orange experience (though generally more positive and pleasant) to a whole new possibility of career for me.
 Today, at my school, it was Make A Difference Day, abbreviated with self deprecating humor to MADD. A day dedicated to charities of all kinds (ranging from childrens' hospices to cancer research to helping infants in Africa) where the school grounds are littered with sweet vendors, coconut shies, sport competitions, buskers and various other fairground style activities all raising money for charities. The day also gave permission for students to come in dressed not in the usual suits but in their own home clothes. So there I was, dressed in my lavender colored shirt, violet trousers, purple tie, jet black top hat and billowing dark coat, feeling thoroughly misanthropic as self righteous charitable souls walked around smearing their goodwill in people's faces.
 Then as I was harassing a group of buskers by tunelessly joining in on their singing, one of the people running MADD approached me with a tray full of sandwiches in their hand. Apparently there was an excess of sandwiches and she, along with several other tray bearing laborers, were now attempting to rid themselves of the sandwiches by distributing them for free. I, like other great business leaders before me such as Lord Sugar or Steve Jobs, in one inspired entrepreneurial move exclaimed "I'll take the whole tray!"
 Quickly I began to run amongst the crowds, attempting to sell my sandwich to passers by for just twenty pence while also eating some of them myself as I hadn't had lunch. However, despite the fact I did everything to make them seem appealing (verbally promoting them, rotating the tray seductively, threatening potential customers with violence) none of them seemed to sell, perhaps due to the recent economic downturn or the fact that the sandwiches were getting drier and drier by the second, losing what little appeal they originally had or the fact that there were other people going around giving out identical sandwiches for free.
 Very soon my legs were tired from running, my voice hoarse from shouting, my heart heavy with despair and my stomach heavy with sandwiches yet I hadn't sold a single sandwich. I sank to my knees, my will (like a "shatterproof" ruler in the forceful hands of a curious child) on the verge of breaking, was I to lose at this first hurdle on the road to business success? To be defeated like other business tycoons before me? Defeated like Murdoch by the Leveson Inquiry, Woolworths by the economic downturn and Steve Jobs by cancer?
 As I sank deeper and deeper into emotional submission a voice called out to me, a lifeline cast from the banks of the river, a blond, stupid and gullible lifeline called Hugo Speak (An individual whose bar of chocolate I once snatched and ate after he said "I wonder what it would be like to live in a lawless society") and his clueless words echoed in my grateful eardrums like the tinkling of gold coins on a marble floor "Oh, how much are those sandwiches?"
 "Twenty pence," I replied cautiously, hardly believing my luck but grasping onto it with all my strength nonetheless.
 Now, the brilliance of a charity event where many things are being sold for charity is that people instantly assume any goods being sold are being sold for charity. Example one, Hugo Speak spoke to say, "Well I'll pay fifty pence since its my donation." Donation to my wallet, I thought but did not utter. "Oh my money's in my bag" he announced and began to slowly unzip his bag. However even as he did so, I realized there was someone walking behind him, a tray full of sandwiches identical to the ones I had in every respect except his were completely free. If he were to call out to Hugo at this moment the entire deal would be blown. Silently willing the blond haired idiot of a customer to hurry up and take out his money, I watched my competition edge ever closer, sweat on my brow, the tray shaking in my nervous hands.
 Then, with a sudden clink of a fifty pence coin and the swift selection of two triangular sections of bread, the transaction was complete. I had a fifty pence profit and my customer had a dry tasteless sandwich he could have had for free. Of course he had the benefit of having the emotional satisfaction of thinking he had given to charity, a benefit I destroyed with a few smug words. I proceeded to quickly flee across the school with a very disgruntled customer behind me, a tray of sandwich in my arms, a profit in my pocket and a bright future in business ahead of me.