Yes! Indeed, I am writing this just before an exam. Having spent the first half of the day at home, re-wiring James' foil (and I left the door open this time so i wouldn't get high on glue!) and working through Invention No 8. Now sitting at school, blogging, applying for Scout permits, and causing general mayhem on Dakka.
I love exam season, and this probably has much to do with the fact that I don't do much studying. If you pay attention in class, you don't actually need to go over anything except for things like short stories and financial maths (and then I just chundered everywar). This means I end up having a lot of free time which I can use on hopefully making money but more realistically doing what I already do, but more of it. It's what I like to think I'm the best at, actually.
It is SOOOOOOO COLD!!!!!! I don't know how I'm going to survive the next few days, especially when I have to run around doing things in different places. At home, my fingers are literally falling off, and I am wearing a hoodie OVER a jersey. Dammit Capetonians, all your houses that are more than 5 years old have no central heating! Talk about scaring off immigrants....
Outlook for the near future: buy some more Warhammer figurines, get that job at CityRock, go hiking in this forsaken weather, and just keep at the general piano progress/mayhem. Oh yeah, I still have to finish music compositions and a speech for Eisteddfod... Half this stuff I can't even do at home!
Well, at least I don't have any homework.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Monday, 30 May 2011
Bumper Post Today!!
Hello, all you patient readers who have stuck with me through slightly less than a week of daily blog posts (or lack thereof!) and are now reading this. Congratulations, have a gold star! No seriously, thanks.
I'm actually so cheesed off at the lack of internet. Assuming but not conceding that I did use it up the first time watching Lonely Island vids on YouTube, the second time, this time, it is simply not possible! For a start, I haven't ever used the internet in the entire past five days! Anyway, I think I've done enough excusing...
The funniest thing happened to me on Monday last week. It hasn't gone up before as I had been reluctant to post it at first, but eventually I realized, hell, this is my blog, I can do pretty much anything. Besides, I thought you, dear reader, might find it interesting.
Last week Monday was the second round of the interhouse debating, and we were easily beating our opposition. Unfortunately, one of the matrics thought it would be a good idea to get all the newboys out of their beds and get them to come watch, so a huge mass of boarders was soon filling the room. One of them, Minor Player, was pulling the zap sign and mouthing obscenities at me from across the room. We won the debate easily, and Minor Player came up behind me at the end and started hitting me on the back, accompanied with more obscenities. This was cheesing me off so I turned around and slugged him on the shoulder, just to tell him to stop it, because obviously words don't work with people like this.
Uproar! One of the matrics, Psycho-face, decided it was a good idea to try and "attack" me, and get the other guys to hold him back. Whatever, I found it hilarious! Anyways, after the adjudication was given, he was waiting outside the door, and told me to follow him. I said no, I needed to be somewhere, but he eventually stopped me. He then started telling me how I could be charged with assault, taken to the headmaster, etc. There was a lot of swearing, I recall. He punched himself in the face a few times, which I found absolutely baffling. He then said he would tear me limb from limb, to which I responded, "Yeah, okay dude". He then punched himself in the face again... Then he said that I should stop disrespecting him and that he deserved to be respected because he was a matric and a cheerleader. WHAT!?!? Are you out of your mind? This guy is evidently living in some alternate reality where people are respected even if they are completely retarded. And voted to those positions of elevated moronity... what a system we have! Anyway, because I like the look of my face, I didn't say anything, but I wanted to just lol at him at this point.
So I told the guys with me not to worry about it, if I cared then it would be a problem, but I just couldn't be bothered with the likes of scum like Psycho-face. I think I can come up with a more mature and matrix solution to this approach then just "telling a teacher".
But wait, it gets better. Our debating teacher sends an email to the respective housemasters telling them about the situation, without any prompt from me. Oh boy, then Minor Player sends me a (very sloppily written) email apologizing for his actions. Whatever. I replied to him that he only wrote it because his housemaster told him to, that I knew he wasn't sorry at all, that I didn't care a bit, and that he should really make his formal apology letters up to scratch to avoid looking like a moron at his disciplinary hearing. That's exactly how I feel about it!
So, that's what's actually been happening in my life. Oh yeah, then there's the girls front... which is constantly full of new developments. On Friday I asked H if she wanted to try again, she said no. Okay, miffed. Turns out Blondie likes someone else, whom I have not yet established the identity of. I wonder if she's just been leading me on or if she's genuinely just blonde... Okay, miffed again. Extremely Insecure Girl is totally over me. Damn.
What do I do!?!?!?!? I'm so loooonely... Sometimes I just feel like I need a girl-person in my life to keep me company, but I always think about complicated relationships and how complicated their complications can be. Watched Scott pilgrim again last night, and it didn't really help on this fron t although it was totally worth it for the laughs. Ah well, at least I still have time to go, I'm only 16. There's still a lot of breakups and makeups ahead for me.
I'm actually so cheesed off at the lack of internet. Assuming but not conceding that I did use it up the first time watching Lonely Island vids on YouTube, the second time, this time, it is simply not possible! For a start, I haven't ever used the internet in the entire past five days! Anyway, I think I've done enough excusing...
The funniest thing happened to me on Monday last week. It hasn't gone up before as I had been reluctant to post it at first, but eventually I realized, hell, this is my blog, I can do pretty much anything. Besides, I thought you, dear reader, might find it interesting.
Last week Monday was the second round of the interhouse debating, and we were easily beating our opposition. Unfortunately, one of the matrics thought it would be a good idea to get all the newboys out of their beds and get them to come watch, so a huge mass of boarders was soon filling the room. One of them, Minor Player, was pulling the zap sign and mouthing obscenities at me from across the room. We won the debate easily, and Minor Player came up behind me at the end and started hitting me on the back, accompanied with more obscenities. This was cheesing me off so I turned around and slugged him on the shoulder, just to tell him to stop it, because obviously words don't work with people like this.
Uproar! One of the matrics, Psycho-face, decided it was a good idea to try and "attack" me, and get the other guys to hold him back. Whatever, I found it hilarious! Anyways, after the adjudication was given, he was waiting outside the door, and told me to follow him. I said no, I needed to be somewhere, but he eventually stopped me. He then started telling me how I could be charged with assault, taken to the headmaster, etc. There was a lot of swearing, I recall. He punched himself in the face a few times, which I found absolutely baffling. He then said he would tear me limb from limb, to which I responded, "Yeah, okay dude". He then punched himself in the face again... Then he said that I should stop disrespecting him and that he deserved to be respected because he was a matric and a cheerleader. WHAT!?!? Are you out of your mind? This guy is evidently living in some alternate reality where people are respected even if they are completely retarded. And voted to those positions of elevated moronity... what a system we have! Anyway, because I like the look of my face, I didn't say anything, but I wanted to just lol at him at this point.
So I told the guys with me not to worry about it, if I cared then it would be a problem, but I just couldn't be bothered with the likes of scum like Psycho-face. I think I can come up with a more mature and matrix solution to this approach then just "telling a teacher".
But wait, it gets better. Our debating teacher sends an email to the respective housemasters telling them about the situation, without any prompt from me. Oh boy, then Minor Player sends me a (very sloppily written) email apologizing for his actions. Whatever. I replied to him that he only wrote it because his housemaster told him to, that I knew he wasn't sorry at all, that I didn't care a bit, and that he should really make his formal apology letters up to scratch to avoid looking like a moron at his disciplinary hearing. That's exactly how I feel about it!
So, that's what's actually been happening in my life. Oh yeah, then there's the girls front... which is constantly full of new developments. On Friday I asked H if she wanted to try again, she said no. Okay, miffed. Turns out Blondie likes someone else, whom I have not yet established the identity of. I wonder if she's just been leading me on or if she's genuinely just blonde... Okay, miffed again. Extremely Insecure Girl is totally over me. Damn.
What do I do!?!?!?!? I'm so loooonely... Sometimes I just feel like I need a girl-person in my life to keep me company, but I always think about complicated relationships and how complicated their complications can be. Watched Scott pilgrim again last night, and it didn't really help on this fron t although it was totally worth it for the laughs. Ah well, at least I still have time to go, I'm only 16. There's still a lot of breakups and makeups ahead for me.
Sunday, 29 May 2011
No Internet, Part III
Once again, we have used up 145mb of internet in four days, which is absolutely impossible considering that the only thing (literally) that we did was my mum checking her email two times a day. This is absolutely ridiculous, because there's simply no way we can be using that much internet in such a short time... Someone is probably hacking our account(?)
As I write this, I am sitting at Andy's computer, in fact recuperating after an epic climbing session at the gym. Getting back into it after two months of not climbing is rather tough, although I did do this one epic problem which I have been working on for about a year. Endurance routes on the wall caught me out though.
Best thing is, I didn't even damage the environment because we took a bike ride there, which isn't far but it's enough for a warmup. Andy brought along an exchange student (not his) just for fun, and he had a pretty sick time too. Can't wait until I can get my student and take him around, I hope his head falls off because it won't be able to spin around fast enough... (That wasn't literal, by the way. I just meant I do a lot of stuff, okay?)
Otherwise, life is good, I guess. Sorry about the lack of updates and regular posts, but it really isn't my fault this time round.
As I write this, I am sitting at Andy's computer, in fact recuperating after an epic climbing session at the gym. Getting back into it after two months of not climbing is rather tough, although I did do this one epic problem which I have been working on for about a year. Endurance routes on the wall caught me out though.
Best thing is, I didn't even damage the environment because we took a bike ride there, which isn't far but it's enough for a warmup. Andy brought along an exchange student (not his) just for fun, and he had a pretty sick time too. Can't wait until I can get my student and take him around, I hope his head falls off because it won't be able to spin around fast enough... (That wasn't literal, by the way. I just meant I do a lot of stuff, okay?)
Otherwise, life is good, I guess. Sorry about the lack of updates and regular posts, but it really isn't my fault this time round.
Friday, 27 May 2011
No Internet, part II
Yep, I still have no usable internet at home, which isn't cool because readership is severely going down. No fear, by the end of the month this should be sorted. So this is what I have been up to:
Yesterday, I managed to get out of bed before 10 o'clock and actually get some things accomplished. I cycled over to the climbing gym and handed in my CV for a job, and then I cycled back home, grabbed some cash, and went and bought some Warhammer kits. Then I got my hands dirty full of fencing reel and almost took a 20-meter spring to the face! I still have grease stains in my fingers now, despite about an hour of scrubbing with Handy Andy.
Just finished a maths exam, dead easy, and I'm now sitting in the music school, alternatively practicing, composing and blogging, before fencing this afternoon. Once again the school has snubbed us and the only venue we have left is the cafeteria. Needless to say, okes are not impressed.
Hopefully I'll get that job soon, and then be able to spend more money on, well, Warhammer and fencing I guess!
Yesterday, I managed to get out of bed before 10 o'clock and actually get some things accomplished. I cycled over to the climbing gym and handed in my CV for a job, and then I cycled back home, grabbed some cash, and went and bought some Warhammer kits. Then I got my hands dirty full of fencing reel and almost took a 20-meter spring to the face! I still have grease stains in my fingers now, despite about an hour of scrubbing with Handy Andy.
Just finished a maths exam, dead easy, and I'm now sitting in the music school, alternatively practicing, composing and blogging, before fencing this afternoon. Once again the school has snubbed us and the only venue we have left is the cafeteria. Needless to say, okes are not impressed.
Hopefully I'll get that job soon, and then be able to spend more money on, well, Warhammer and fencing I guess!
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
No Internet!!
Apologies to everyone who eagerly awaited yesterday's post... There wasn't one! Unfortunately, my internet had run out, and I guess I'm going to just lay off YouTube in HD. Or just live close enough to the school's network range, because that would work just as well, considering I'm paying the fees.
The funny thing was, I had just spent the past half-hour writing a deep confession to someone very special to me (I think you catch my drift!). I was divided as to whether to send it or not, but I had made up my mind with a cold calculation and the feeling you get when you know a plan is going down the drain. Click "send". Nothing happens. Refresh page, and a little Vodacom message pops up: you do not have enough airtime to continue your browsing session. Wow, talk about a sign! So, confession not sent.
Last night I had an epiphany at about 1.30 am, and for those of you non-Warhammer types, I'll just link it and not write it out here. Basically, I've decided to change my entire army in terms of storyline and what I'll buy next. Suffice to say it has bikes in it. Lots of them. Oh yeah, and my Warhammer blog is changing too. It will now be edited from this profile, and its new address is morebikesmoredakka.blogspot.com.
Not much going on. I mean really, I didn't go to school yesterday (except for fencing practice. Which doesn't count as school anyway.) and I'm not going to school tomorrow, simply because I don't have exams! I love being in grade 10, it's such a nice feeling to know that out there, okes are slaving away while I chill and blog. Well, it is their fault for choosing accounting as a subject...
Contrary to popular belief, I will not be not studying this time. Then again, I won't spend all my time swotting, and in fact I'm planning to do some work at the climbing gym while all the students are studying and therefore unavailable to work. I shall also be playing piano, and in fact my latest exploits prove my teacher's hypothesis that I practice more after exams.
For those of you who are interested, I'm busy learning Fur Elise by Beethoven and Invention No 8 by Bach, both really exciting pieces and both very well-known, so i can at the very least impress people when there's a piano around. In 3 or 4 months I should have them both waxed, and so okes in Canada will be impressed!
Oh yeah, my friend Chloe has linked my blog on her tumblr, so I guess I'll just be returning the favour. Or maybe she'll get really bleak... You never know...
I need the internet to post up something tomorrow!! I'll make a plan, I guess...
The funny thing was, I had just spent the past half-hour writing a deep confession to someone very special to me (I think you catch my drift!). I was divided as to whether to send it or not, but I had made up my mind with a cold calculation and the feeling you get when you know a plan is going down the drain. Click "send". Nothing happens. Refresh page, and a little Vodacom message pops up: you do not have enough airtime to continue your browsing session. Wow, talk about a sign! So, confession not sent.
Last night I had an epiphany at about 1.30 am, and for those of you non-Warhammer types, I'll just link it and not write it out here. Basically, I've decided to change my entire army in terms of storyline and what I'll buy next. Suffice to say it has bikes in it. Lots of them. Oh yeah, and my Warhammer blog is changing too. It will now be edited from this profile, and its new address is morebikesmoredakka.blogspot.com.
Not much going on. I mean really, I didn't go to school yesterday (except for fencing practice. Which doesn't count as school anyway.) and I'm not going to school tomorrow, simply because I don't have exams! I love being in grade 10, it's such a nice feeling to know that out there, okes are slaving away while I chill and blog. Well, it is their fault for choosing accounting as a subject...
Contrary to popular belief, I will not be not studying this time. Then again, I won't spend all my time swotting, and in fact I'm planning to do some work at the climbing gym while all the students are studying and therefore unavailable to work. I shall also be playing piano, and in fact my latest exploits prove my teacher's hypothesis that I practice more after exams.
For those of you who are interested, I'm busy learning Fur Elise by Beethoven and Invention No 8 by Bach, both really exciting pieces and both very well-known, so i can at the very least impress people when there's a piano around. In 3 or 4 months I should have them both waxed, and so okes in Canada will be impressed!
Oh yeah, my friend Chloe has linked my blog on her tumblr, so I guess I'll just be returning the favour. Or maybe she'll get really bleak... You never know...
I need the internet to post up something tomorrow!! I'll make a plan, I guess...
Monday, 23 May 2011
Productive school day
This certainly wasn't one. No, I didn't even manage to get a blog post up before near the end of school.. oh well.
Capitalism is going well, I have made many millions of profits from my business ventures, ie selling study notes. Okes are buying by the truckload! I find it so hypocritical that I'm a socialist, but just because I take advantage of capitalist principles doesn't mean I support them!
Another exciting history lesson, where we somehow managed to get from the American Revolution to what's wrong with SA's government in about 2 minutes. Crux of the matter: if people don't vote, the system won't work. If it is physically impossible to vote politicians out, the system won't work. Briliiant, now if everyone just realized this. Especially the poor people living in shacks.
The rest of my time was spent writing more about my Warhammer army's history, and remember you can check it out here if you want to. But that's actually all from me. Except that there's a debate tonight, so hopefully I'll do well... round 2 of the Eisteddfod debating, against School House. "Apparently you debate better when high on weed": all I can say, it will be interesting. No seriously, I'm scared because the pride of Mallett essentially rests on my shoulders.
Yeah fine and Joe's as well.
Capitalism is going well, I have made many millions of profits from my business ventures, ie selling study notes. Okes are buying by the truckload! I find it so hypocritical that I'm a socialist, but just because I take advantage of capitalist principles doesn't mean I support them!
Another exciting history lesson, where we somehow managed to get from the American Revolution to what's wrong with SA's government in about 2 minutes. Crux of the matter: if people don't vote, the system won't work. If it is physically impossible to vote politicians out, the system won't work. Briliiant, now if everyone just realized this. Especially the poor people living in shacks.
The rest of my time was spent writing more about my Warhammer army's history, and remember you can check it out here if you want to. But that's actually all from me. Except that there's a debate tonight, so hopefully I'll do well... round 2 of the Eisteddfod debating, against School House. "Apparently you debate better when high on weed": all I can say, it will be interesting. No seriously, I'm scared because the pride of Mallett essentially rests on my shoulders.
Yeah fine and Joe's as well.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Sunday at home
Yeah, I'm really winning the bread here. Spent the entire day writing out science notes complete with diagrams as best as I could do them in Microsoft Word. Honestly, sometimes I think I could just switch to opensource. Better still, make an OS based on 'shop. Just how cool would that be!? Anyways, dragging lines around and changing the format on every single one is quite the mission. Not to mention colour, thickness, style, etc. Then group them all together and make sure they don't move around when you continue typing. AAAAAAA!!!!
Some of the content in our "official" notes is so complicated, especially stuff relating to colour mixing. I hope the guys appreciate the fact that I've simplified it as much as I could. Which isn't much.
One of the greatest things I have seen is Lonely Island's We like sportz! video. I love how they just rip into the whole concept of rap music in every single song they do, especially this one. Oh yeah, talking of sports, I took some time to revisit the madskills of the NFL Fantasy Files. I love this concept, I want to do one for fencing where okes do epic hits blindfolded, etc. That should be fun to work on! Although we'll have to see how epic we can actually make it...
Taking some time off to write this, amongst other things, check Dakka and start putting up some pics and the history of my marine chapter on my other blog. Oh yeah, and Facebook. Of course.
Now I should probably go off and do some fun stuff. Before dragging myself back to the history of the atom. Joy :).
Some of the content in our "official" notes is so complicated, especially stuff relating to colour mixing. I hope the guys appreciate the fact that I've simplified it as much as I could. Which isn't much.
One of the greatest things I have seen is Lonely Island's We like sportz! video. I love how they just rip into the whole concept of rap music in every single song they do, especially this one. Oh yeah, talking of sports, I took some time to revisit the madskills of the NFL Fantasy Files. I love this concept, I want to do one for fencing where okes do epic hits blindfolded, etc. That should be fun to work on! Although we'll have to see how epic we can actually make it...
Taking some time off to write this, amongst other things, check Dakka and start putting up some pics and the history of my marine chapter on my other blog. Oh yeah, and Facebook. Of course.
Now I should probably go off and do some fun stuff. Before dragging myself back to the history of the atom. Joy :).
Saturday, 21 May 2011
I am more matrix than you think I am
Rapture abounds! I don't know about you, but no earthquake shook my house, no purge-o officials came knocking on my door, and certainly I wasn't judged before a panel of lawyers in starched suits. That is, unless the people preaching this world end mean 6pm, Hawaii time. In which case, I think I have about two hours left. Perfect. Oh yeah, and apologies for the late post.
***Originally, the following was meant to be at the end of the post, but I decided to increase readership by putting it at the beginning.***
My exchange student replied to my email I sent him recently, and so I decided to finally try and find him on Facebook. Typed in the email he sent me, but Fb doesn't allow you to search by email. Typed in his name, but obviously too common (100 bajillion+ results). So I took about 2 hours finding any decent location filter for Fb friend searches, and dumped "Toronto, Ontario" in there. No luck. All variations of John/Jon/Jonathan/Johnathan/ol' Jono etc. Still no luck. Not giving up yet, though. Try his relatives... no mom, too many dads, and one sister avec unique name. Pretty anti-creeper profile, and I can't see her friends at all. Also, I don't want to friend her until after I've actually met her or something (so as to not appear creep-like. Obviously.)
Fb has a "find friends by email feature", so I quickly added him onto my contacts on my school email, and tried to import that. "facebook is not able to import your contacts from this server". Okay, let's try gmail, because it's also surprisingly not listed as one of the "premier" mail sites. Add as contact, import. Negative, same response. Try again with Yahoo! account. Add contact, this time go directly to Yahoo! list on facebook. Friend of my dad's imported, nothing else. Rack brains and think again.
"Ridley College" in search box, maybe I can find him from the school's facebook page. No luck, although it has a lot of likes, I can't see who those people are. Okay, let's try some built-in search filters. Facebook does have some, but only if you're clever and determined to spend 2 hours finding them. They only allow you to choose location, education, and workplace, so I tried "Toronto, Ontario", as well as "Ridley College" under education, but that didn't give me anything. So I looked at the groups and some random Ridley group popped up. I knew it was from the school, so a quick "View Members" and command-F "jo" showed up negative. Damn.
Other dodgy-looking (wow!) groups were tried, before I finally just accepted the "Bishop Ridley College" that kept popping up. Okes must state categorically whether their school has a BISHOP(S) in front of its name dammit!! Example: Bishops Diocesan College, or just "DC" as the cool cats call it. Honestly, who...? Do we think we're some kind of skate brand? Really...
[Talking of Bishops, I just saw the best (de)motivational poster ever, made by an acquaintance. You are credited, Davi, except that I find your choice of pointy finger disturbing.
]
***Back to the internet hunt now.
Anyways, this still didn't lead me to his profile. Frustration! My mum said I should give up and just ask him to friend me (as there are only 7 like-named people on Facebook) but I was more, ah, relentless. Or maybe resilient is a better word, actually. So I look at the search results, and one of them is a link through to the college website, to a house-master's report. So I check this out, and this leads me to the info that ol' Jono took part in some inter-house event and listed his team-mates beside him. Type in the slavic-sounding names, and eventually struck gold on an unrecurring Asian-sounding (no, in fact it was most definitely Asian) name. Command-F, "jo" is enough, and I'm on his profile. Send friend request, check out his interests etc. Seems like a cool guy!
Anyways, for those of you who actually read this blog for the daily updates, dinner is served:
ModelUN is quite the intense discursive style. It's also overly democratic, and as there are a lot of intricate inner workings, I won't get into it here... Suffice to say that my team has been assigned to represent Eqypt. The topic is "Internet Access and its limitations" or something along those lines. oops ;)
Hmm, today's fencing did not go well. In fact, it went so badly that it kind of ruined the rest of my day. But I pulled through and for those of you eagerly awaiting science notes, I managed to get some done and will be working on more tomorrow. I'll sell what I've got which should be everything.
Talking of linking things, Guy also has(d) a blog which he kept very up to date up until the end of the climbing season, some 3 months ago. I've urged him to get it started again (a bit difficult considering he's not doing any climbing right now) but this is it. Might as well do some advertising if he does some in return...
***Originally, the following was meant to be at the end of the post, but I decided to increase readership by putting it at the beginning.***
My exchange student replied to my email I sent him recently, and so I decided to finally try and find him on Facebook. Typed in the email he sent me, but Fb doesn't allow you to search by email. Typed in his name, but obviously too common (100 bajillion+ results). So I took about 2 hours finding any decent location filter for Fb friend searches, and dumped "Toronto, Ontario" in there. No luck. All variations of John/Jon/Jonathan/Johnathan/ol' Jono etc. Still no luck. Not giving up yet, though. Try his relatives... no mom, too many dads, and one sister avec unique name. Pretty anti-creeper profile, and I can't see her friends at all. Also, I don't want to friend her until after I've actually met her or something (so as to not appear creep-like. Obviously.)
Fb has a "find friends by email feature", so I quickly added him onto my contacts on my school email, and tried to import that. "facebook is not able to import your contacts from this server". Okay, let's try gmail, because it's also surprisingly not listed as one of the "premier" mail sites. Add as contact, import. Negative, same response. Try again with Yahoo! account. Add contact, this time go directly to Yahoo! list on facebook. Friend of my dad's imported, nothing else. Rack brains and think again.
"Ridley College" in search box, maybe I can find him from the school's facebook page. No luck, although it has a lot of likes, I can't see who those people are. Okay, let's try some built-in search filters. Facebook does have some, but only if you're clever and determined to spend 2 hours finding them. They only allow you to choose location, education, and workplace, so I tried "Toronto, Ontario", as well as "Ridley College" under education, but that didn't give me anything. So I looked at the groups and some random Ridley group popped up. I knew it was from the school, so a quick "View Members" and command-F "jo" showed up negative. Damn.
Other dodgy-looking (wow!) groups were tried, before I finally just accepted the "Bishop Ridley College" that kept popping up. Okes must state categorically whether their school has a BISHOP(S) in front of its name dammit!! Example: Bishops Diocesan College, or just "DC" as the cool cats call it. Honestly, who...? Do we think we're some kind of skate brand? Really...
[Talking of Bishops, I just saw the best (de)motivational poster ever, made by an acquaintance. You are credited, Davi, except that I find your choice of pointy finger disturbing.
***Back to the internet hunt now.
Anyways, this still didn't lead me to his profile. Frustration! My mum said I should give up and just ask him to friend me (as there are only 7 like-named people on Facebook) but I was more, ah, relentless. Or maybe resilient is a better word, actually. So I look at the search results, and one of them is a link through to the college website, to a house-master's report. So I check this out, and this leads me to the info that ol' Jono took part in some inter-house event and listed his team-mates beside him. Type in the slavic-sounding names, and eventually struck gold on an unrecurring Asian-sounding (no, in fact it was most definitely Asian) name. Command-F, "jo" is enough, and I'm on his profile. Send friend request, check out his interests etc. Seems like a cool guy!
Anyways, for those of you who actually read this blog for the daily updates, dinner is served:
ModelUN is quite the intense discursive style. It's also overly democratic, and as there are a lot of intricate inner workings, I won't get into it here... Suffice to say that my team has been assigned to represent Eqypt. The topic is "Internet Access and its limitations" or something along those lines. oops ;)
Hmm, today's fencing did not go well. In fact, it went so badly that it kind of ruined the rest of my day. But I pulled through and for those of you eagerly awaiting science notes, I managed to get some done and will be working on more tomorrow. I'll sell what I've got which should be everything.
Talking of linking things, Guy also has(d) a blog which he kept very up to date up until the end of the climbing season, some 3 months ago. I've urged him to get it started again (a bit difficult considering he's not doing any climbing right now) but this is it. Might as well do some advertising if he does some in return...
Friday, 20 May 2011
The world is ending! The world is ending!
This comes from seeing my Facebook news feed stuffed full with okes screaming/complaining/amping for world's end tomorrow. Of course, I googled this and after mistakenly following a Yahoo! Answer that told me that the world should've ended 3 years ago when the LHC was switched on, I finally stumbled on something that would explain it. Not necessarily sensibly. Okay, I admit I am a bit biased, but ebiblefellowship.com is not something I should've clicked on, but at least now I know the bilblical background behind this (Oh, and apparently Satan took over all the churches on May 21st, 1988. What happened in 1988 exactly?). But hang on, what about 2012!?!?!?!?
I don't know about you, but I was kind of excited to see some major fireworks happening next year! I mean, I didn't even know the world was ending tomorrow until, like, now! I haven't called all my shots yet!! Anyways, all this apocalypse nonsense is pure unadulterated bs. Really, so far we haven't had a single piece of evidenc either historical or scientific that anything like this either has happened or will ever happen. I won't lie, I want to experience the giant sinkage of everything, safe on top of Table Mountain with one of those fold-up chairs and a big bucket of popcorn, but I just can't rationally believe this stuff. Same goes for everything else apocalypse-related. Except for the Warhammer ones, they're awesome.
Talking of which, I just can't help being an atheist, because that's what's logically put straight in my head. It's not even that the evidence for creationism and evolutionism is skewed (although of course everyone believes it is to one side or the other), it's just that that's what sits in my head, and you can't budge it. I guess it's the same for religious people as well, but that's kind of the point: it's not about evidence, it's about faith. I have lots of faith, just not in an intangible supreme being.
Heck, if I could believe in something, it would have to be Quetzalcoatl and co. Dude, ritual human sacrifices all the way! Seriously, I think we should play pok-a-tok/"the ball game" as an international-level sport... brutal like heck but seriously fun. Well, you can guess what I'm doing with my money when I'm older...
Hmm, hopefully I'll be able to write again tomorrow. If not, see you in heaven/hell/purge-o/six feet deep in soil, rotting away. Apologies for broken hearts, you know who you are.
I don't know about you, but I was kind of excited to see some major fireworks happening next year! I mean, I didn't even know the world was ending tomorrow until, like, now! I haven't called all my shots yet!! Anyways, all this apocalypse nonsense is pure unadulterated bs. Really, so far we haven't had a single piece of evidenc either historical or scientific that anything like this either has happened or will ever happen. I won't lie, I want to experience the giant sinkage of everything, safe on top of Table Mountain with one of those fold-up chairs and a big bucket of popcorn, but I just can't rationally believe this stuff. Same goes for everything else apocalypse-related. Except for the Warhammer ones, they're awesome.
Talking of which, I just can't help being an atheist, because that's what's logically put straight in my head. It's not even that the evidence for creationism and evolutionism is skewed (although of course everyone believes it is to one side or the other), it's just that that's what sits in my head, and you can't budge it. I guess it's the same for religious people as well, but that's kind of the point: it's not about evidence, it's about faith. I have lots of faith, just not in an intangible supreme being.
Heck, if I could believe in something, it would have to be Quetzalcoatl and co. Dude, ritual human sacrifices all the way! Seriously, I think we should play pok-a-tok/"the ball game" as an international-level sport... brutal like heck but seriously fun. Well, you can guess what I'm doing with my money when I'm older...
Hmm, hopefully I'll be able to write again tomorrow. If not, see you in heaven/hell/purge-o/six feet deep in soil, rotting away. Apologies for broken hearts, you know who you are.
Not the greatest of days
ARGH! Curse you, science test! I actually studied for this one, and yet the intricacy of the questions (or lack thereof) has bested me. Woe, oh woe! This really knocks the rest of my day for six, but I'll just have to pull through and get over it. Plus, I'll do better in the exam, so no worries. I did get a bomber mark in the History test though.
One of the funniest sights I've seen in a long time in the bathrooms at school: Didier Duprez was a matric from 2009. Someone had evidently tried to write his name on the loo roll holder, but had managed to spell it wrong. So what do they do? They scratch it out and write it again below! Honestly, if you're... well, at least it's not penises. Boys' schools these days...
Hah, fencing practice today. I spend the whole week looking forward to fridays, much like some famous singers. ModelUN workshop tomorrow as well, so that should be interesting. Hopefully I'll get a sensible country like Germany, and not a really tough one full of conflict like Sudan. Luck will out...
One of the funniest sights I've seen in a long time in the bathrooms at school: Didier Duprez was a matric from 2009. Someone had evidently tried to write his name on the loo roll holder, but had managed to spell it wrong. So what do they do? They scratch it out and write it again below! Honestly, if you're... well, at least it's not penises. Boys' schools these days...
Hah, fencing practice today. I spend the whole week looking forward to fridays, much like some famous singers. ModelUN workshop tomorrow as well, so that should be interesting. Hopefully I'll get a sensible country like Germany, and not a really tough one full of conflict like Sudan. Luck will out...
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Frustration is mounting...
...and all the political discussion doesn't help. I mean, if people really want change, then vote for someone else. The Cape Socialist Party (I don't even know if it exists!). Anyone!
Talking of which, I rate I could actually start up a Cape Socialist Party, and that leads on to a whole lot of political thoughts and blatant holes in the democratic system. Say I get 20 people to work with me on building socialism. That's easy because you can always find someone out there who believes in a very similar/same thing as you do. Then, I get these people together and motivated, and I get some rich person to sponsor our campaign. That's easy, because there's always a rich person willing to pour money anywhere. Somewhere. Then, you get the public motivated, tell them about how socialism works and how it will solve all their problems. Especially the impoverished who are quite frankly over having a socioeconomic system that doesn't respect them or their interests.
Now ideally by this stage I should be getting about 102% of the votes, having done nothing more than put in about a year and a half of my life into politics. Surely! There's got to be something I've missed...
Anyways, for those of you who are reading this blog and not laughing hard enough, here's something to lighten the spirits:
This what happens when you ask 'shop to auto-crop a picture. There are literally 20+ little squares of grass there, each of which is about a pixel by two pixels.
Okay fine it wasn't that funny. But it's a day in the life of me, so I guess this is the kind of stuff that breaks the monotony every once in a while...
No seriously: if you're like-minded like me, check out this webcomic called Wondermark. It is by far the most legend webcomic I've ever read, and I tend to read quite a few. I wish I could draw like that... The latest series of pictures, that Tinkerer's Handbook is just ridiculously funny.
In the meantime, the target market for my history notes is disappearing. The price is now set at R30, and I'm not lowering it any more than that. Dear me, thank goodness I don't do economics. I can understand matrix things like people on Facebook, but I can't understand them in real life. I also cannot for the life of me understand market forces. Well, once it gets more complicated than supply and demand.
Bleh.
Talking of which, I rate I could actually start up a Cape Socialist Party, and that leads on to a whole lot of political thoughts and blatant holes in the democratic system. Say I get 20 people to work with me on building socialism. That's easy because you can always find someone out there who believes in a very similar/same thing as you do. Then, I get these people together and motivated, and I get some rich person to sponsor our campaign. That's easy, because there's always a rich person willing to pour money anywhere. Somewhere. Then, you get the public motivated, tell them about how socialism works and how it will solve all their problems. Especially the impoverished who are quite frankly over having a socioeconomic system that doesn't respect them or their interests.
Now ideally by this stage I should be getting about 102% of the votes, having done nothing more than put in about a year and a half of my life into politics. Surely! There's got to be something I've missed...
Anyways, for those of you who are reading this blog and not laughing hard enough, here's something to lighten the spirits:
Okay fine it wasn't that funny. But it's a day in the life of me, so I guess this is the kind of stuff that breaks the monotony every once in a while...
No seriously: if you're like-minded like me, check out this webcomic called Wondermark. It is by far the most legend webcomic I've ever read, and I tend to read quite a few. I wish I could draw like that... The latest series of pictures, that Tinkerer's Handbook is just ridiculously funny.
In the meantime, the target market for my history notes is disappearing. The price is now set at R30, and I'm not lowering it any more than that. Dear me, thank goodness I don't do economics. I can understand matrix things like people on Facebook, but I can't understand them in real life. I also cannot for the life of me understand market forces. Well, once it gets more complicated than supply and demand.
Bleh.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Voting Day!
Hah, today I couldn't do anything fun because I was voting.
No seriously, I was actually writing out history notes to sell to my classmates. It's such a nice way of making money, because I'm using what I've got... Science notes are also coming up, but I need a bit more time for that. It's just that exams are next week and I want to get everything done so people are actually willing to buy them as they will have time to study off them.
My good friend Lisa asked me today whether she was in this blog, so, Lisa, yes, you are now! I hope you're happy... No, I just don't want to put all my thoughts about girls here just yet, that's why.
It's not the greatest situation we've got in South Africa at the moment. Like on of my friends said, "If you vote ANC then you're uneducated. If you vote DA you're racist." It's so true. I think this country is severely messed up because no-one knows who to believe anymore. Heck, if the ANC are popular surely they know what's best, but are they actually popular or are they just giving out free sweets so they can be in power? And everyone says the DA are the only sensible ones in the bunch, but some of the things Zille says are so demeaning of the ANC it's not even funny. I mean, honestly, the politicians should really stop focusing on what the others are doing badly, and instead say what they could do better. Saying "Party x isn't delivering" is easy, but you have to be ready to provide a suitable alternative. Considering you're trying to get elected, this should ideally be yourself. But they're not saying that!
I know so many people who aren't voting. Why? I feel the greatest issue is that it's not going to make a difference. The DA will win the Western Cape, the ANC will win everything else. Same as the National elections. That's what people say, "My vote doesn't actually count!". Lol. If people don't buy into a system, it means there's something wrong with it.
I've got two solutions: either listen to me and become a socialist state, or we need to do something about the great divide between the politics and the people. I just don't know how!!!! It's a problem, and I think that if we don't solve it, South Africa will stay the divided country it is. Everyone's saying "we're united now after apartheid" but what does that mean if they're not actually uniting? Sure, we had the World Cup and people were blowing vuvuzelas in the streets. I've got no problems with that; it made me happy to see it. What I don't like is the fact that we can't do it at any other time, especially during elections.
Oh yeah, realized today that a hobo stole my slicks. Damn. Probably at the same time he stole my shoes. Wow, this is getting ridiculous...
No seriously, I was actually writing out history notes to sell to my classmates. It's such a nice way of making money, because I'm using what I've got... Science notes are also coming up, but I need a bit more time for that. It's just that exams are next week and I want to get everything done so people are actually willing to buy them as they will have time to study off them.
My good friend Lisa asked me today whether she was in this blog, so, Lisa, yes, you are now! I hope you're happy... No, I just don't want to put all my thoughts about girls here just yet, that's why.
It's not the greatest situation we've got in South Africa at the moment. Like on of my friends said, "If you vote ANC then you're uneducated. If you vote DA you're racist." It's so true. I think this country is severely messed up because no-one knows who to believe anymore. Heck, if the ANC are popular surely they know what's best, but are they actually popular or are they just giving out free sweets so they can be in power? And everyone says the DA are the only sensible ones in the bunch, but some of the things Zille says are so demeaning of the ANC it's not even funny. I mean, honestly, the politicians should really stop focusing on what the others are doing badly, and instead say what they could do better. Saying "Party x isn't delivering" is easy, but you have to be ready to provide a suitable alternative. Considering you're trying to get elected, this should ideally be yourself. But they're not saying that!
I know so many people who aren't voting. Why? I feel the greatest issue is that it's not going to make a difference. The DA will win the Western Cape, the ANC will win everything else. Same as the National elections. That's what people say, "My vote doesn't actually count!". Lol. If people don't buy into a system, it means there's something wrong with it.
I've got two solutions: either listen to me and become a socialist state, or we need to do something about the great divide between the politics and the people. I just don't know how!!!! It's a problem, and I think that if we don't solve it, South Africa will stay the divided country it is. Everyone's saying "we're united now after apartheid" but what does that mean if they're not actually uniting? Sure, we had the World Cup and people were blowing vuvuzelas in the streets. I've got no problems with that; it made me happy to see it. What I don't like is the fact that we can't do it at any other time, especially during elections.
Oh yeah, realized today that a hobo stole my slicks. Damn. Probably at the same time he stole my shoes. Wow, this is getting ridiculous...
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
A lot is happening...
Fun times lie ahead! I started off today with a maths olympiad. At 7:30 in the morning! It was rather tricky, but it was a senior paper after all, and we now have to compete with matrics and the like, so the questions were a bit more difficult, but I answered all except one. And one other one I probably got wrong. But all in a day's work, not bad progress actually!
Realistically speaking, there's a lot of work I need to get done, but no circumstances in which to do it. I'll start writing history and science notes from today afternoon onwards (Y'all reading, they'll be cheaper than last time and available from Thursday). Today is my school music practical exam, after school, so I'm super amped! I am fully prepared, but I'm a bit worried about remembering my scales. I've done enough practicing though, I know I know what I'm doing, and it should go well no matter what.
Then there's a fencing practice, and after that our inter-house debate, which we have a killer argument for. Also looking forward to that.
Afterwards, home, and then I'll write up that battle report, soon to appear on my other blog. Pictures, too...
Realistically speaking, there's a lot of work I need to get done, but no circumstances in which to do it. I'll start writing history and science notes from today afternoon onwards (Y'all reading, they'll be cheaper than last time and available from Thursday). Today is my school music practical exam, after school, so I'm super amped! I am fully prepared, but I'm a bit worried about remembering my scales. I've done enough practicing though, I know I know what I'm doing, and it should go well no matter what.
Then there's a fencing practice, and after that our inter-house debate, which we have a killer argument for. Also looking forward to that.
Afterwards, home, and then I'll write up that battle report, soon to appear on my other blog. Pictures, too...
Monday, 16 May 2011
Evening at home
Phew! So far completed:
80% of piano practice
Eisteddfod poetry entry
To do, still this evening:
20% piano practice
Study for science test
Prepare for tomorrow's debate
Having lots of fun filling up my evening!
Hmm... that blog background looks rather placid, but I don't want to change the colour... Maybe I'll do something arty with a monochrome purple and the smudge tool on 'shop. But later... must focus and not watch Lonely Island videos!
80% of piano practice
Eisteddfod poetry entry
To do, still this evening:
20% piano practice
Study for science test
Prepare for tomorrow's debate
Having lots of fun filling up my evening!
Hmm... that blog background looks rather placid, but I don't want to change the colour... Maybe I'll do something arty with a monochrome purple and the smudge tool on 'shop. But later... must focus and not watch Lonely Island videos!
After Downtime...
Blogger downtime is really not a cool thing... I've been trying to get a new post up for a while (ie since the day after the last one!) rather unsuccessfully, as "Blogger is unavailable at the moment". Not that I'm complaining, I'm all for a temporary downtime if it means addressing major compatibility issues site-wide. Anyway, this is what I've been up to over the weekend:
SCHOOL
Firstly, the usual full days on Thursday and Friday. Rush around, rush around... practice our piece for the prelims with Guy. That actually caused me a lot of stress. We played "Swing Life Away" by Rise Against, me on guitar and Guy singing. I learnt the guitar part while on holiday in Botswana on a friend's acoustic, and kept it going sporadically on Andy's electric back at home, but note the important detail that I don't have a guitar of my own. So, I know what I'm doing. True, right? No, actually.
Guy, on the other hand, is in this event unwittingly, and I only told him about it two weeks ago. In fact, last Tuesday, he didn't even know the song that well (as in 3 months ago I'd shown it to him, saying "Guy, wouldn't this be cool to do as a band or something?"). Anyway, I sent him the song, he spend the next 24 hours of his life listening to it until he knew it backwards. He's in the choir, so it wasn't too difficult re perfect pitching etc.
So we had our first and last practice together 4 hours before the prelim itself. Perfect. Well, nearly perfect, but then again, it is a difficult song. So we go and play in front of the resident guitar teacher, Mr Hoole, the resident awesome teacher, Mr Wrensch, and the resident OD-cum-epic-music-person, Matt Dennis. It went really well and we could tell the panel was if not blown away at the very least moderately chuffed. Hoole asked me who my guitar teacher was, so I told him I didn't have one, and officially I couldn't play guitar. Then Matt asked me whether I had a steel-string guitar at home, so I said "No, I don't have any guitar whatsoever!". They were seriously impressed at this point, so YEAH!
Rest of school was pretty ordinary, everyone busy preparing for exams and we're almost at a stage of doing no work in class but just revising. Yay!
FENCING
This weekend was the third WC ranking competition. Story I tell you, I was going to do just the sabre on Saturday, because it "clashed" with cadet epee. Come Saturday morning (8:30am), there are four entries for sabre, and this means this will take half an hour and so cannot clash with cadet epee. Okay, one hour left. We are in Ottery, the Bishops Armoury isn't that far away. Drive down, get a security guard to open the hall for us, grab every single epee we have (ie six of which 20% work), drive back in time for roll-call (9:30am), do weapons check, get changed, fence.
Long story short, it went well, I came second in cadet epee and third in senior sabre, which is a good result. Then, rush off to a maths competition at UCT at 2pm, finish at 4:30, go to a Scout awards ceremony until 7:00, back to Bishops for an Astronomy society outing to the observatory for a talk about simulating the universe. Get back home at 9:30, practice quick study piece for Monday's music exam until 10:30. Go to bed. And people still say I have more free time than they do...
Sunday comes along, and this time I'm fencing the whole day. Came second to Rob in the cadet foil, and then upset the entire Senior competition by beating Michael Erasmus (currently ranked 3rd nationally). Came fourth in junior foil, and somewhere around 7th in senior. Not a bad haul, I can tell I'm getting better.
LOOKING FORWARD
When going to Poland after exams, I'll definitely buy some more fencing gear. I think I'll be one of those epic people who does all three weapons, but I'm definitely more focused on sabre in my opinion. It's a ctually a really cool fighting style, coming from a background of foil techniques and tactics.
Also, I need to get my rear in gear with exams looming up. Not actual studying, though, I'm worried about writing notes which I can sell. This is where my Warhammer is funded from, plus, writing out notes is good studying practice. Watch this space if you're a potential buyer and reading this.
I just want to let you faithful readers know I'm still here, and it's not my fault that there was about a week of downtime, and I was just as bleak as you are for general lack of posts! Talking of posting, I'll put up a battle report of my test-run of the new Terminators on my other blog, but give me a while to post it up!
Oh yeah. and Joe has unfortunately taken down his (still young) blog. He told me it's because he doesn't want to publicly post some opinions about him being leftist and anti-religion. I said, "But that's what I'm doing!", and he replied, "Yeah, but you don't care what people think!" Maybe he's right, but either way, my blog is still up, and his unfortunately isn't.
Must tell him to at least free up the domain address ;)
SCHOOL
Firstly, the usual full days on Thursday and Friday. Rush around, rush around... practice our piece for the prelims with Guy. That actually caused me a lot of stress. We played "Swing Life Away" by Rise Against, me on guitar and Guy singing. I learnt the guitar part while on holiday in Botswana on a friend's acoustic, and kept it going sporadically on Andy's electric back at home, but note the important detail that I don't have a guitar of my own. So, I know what I'm doing. True, right? No, actually.
Guy, on the other hand, is in this event unwittingly, and I only told him about it two weeks ago. In fact, last Tuesday, he didn't even know the song that well (as in 3 months ago I'd shown it to him, saying "Guy, wouldn't this be cool to do as a band or something?"). Anyway, I sent him the song, he spend the next 24 hours of his life listening to it until he knew it backwards. He's in the choir, so it wasn't too difficult re perfect pitching etc.
So we had our first and last practice together 4 hours before the prelim itself. Perfect. Well, nearly perfect, but then again, it is a difficult song. So we go and play in front of the resident guitar teacher, Mr Hoole, the resident awesome teacher, Mr Wrensch, and the resident OD-cum-epic-music-person, Matt Dennis. It went really well and we could tell the panel was if not blown away at the very least moderately chuffed. Hoole asked me who my guitar teacher was, so I told him I didn't have one, and officially I couldn't play guitar. Then Matt asked me whether I had a steel-string guitar at home, so I said "No, I don't have any guitar whatsoever!". They were seriously impressed at this point, so YEAH!
Rest of school was pretty ordinary, everyone busy preparing for exams and we're almost at a stage of doing no work in class but just revising. Yay!
FENCING
This weekend was the third WC ranking competition. Story I tell you, I was going to do just the sabre on Saturday, because it "clashed" with cadet epee. Come Saturday morning (8:30am), there are four entries for sabre, and this means this will take half an hour and so cannot clash with cadet epee. Okay, one hour left. We are in Ottery, the Bishops Armoury isn't that far away. Drive down, get a security guard to open the hall for us, grab every single epee we have (ie six of which 20% work), drive back in time for roll-call (9:30am), do weapons check, get changed, fence.
Long story short, it went well, I came second in cadet epee and third in senior sabre, which is a good result. Then, rush off to a maths competition at UCT at 2pm, finish at 4:30, go to a Scout awards ceremony until 7:00, back to Bishops for an Astronomy society outing to the observatory for a talk about simulating the universe. Get back home at 9:30, practice quick study piece for Monday's music exam until 10:30. Go to bed. And people still say I have more free time than they do...
Sunday comes along, and this time I'm fencing the whole day. Came second to Rob in the cadet foil, and then upset the entire Senior competition by beating Michael Erasmus (currently ranked 3rd nationally). Came fourth in junior foil, and somewhere around 7th in senior. Not a bad haul, I can tell I'm getting better.
LOOKING FORWARD
When going to Poland after exams, I'll definitely buy some more fencing gear. I think I'll be one of those epic people who does all three weapons, but I'm definitely more focused on sabre in my opinion. It's a ctually a really cool fighting style, coming from a background of foil techniques and tactics.
Also, I need to get my rear in gear with exams looming up. Not actual studying, though, I'm worried about writing notes which I can sell. This is where my Warhammer is funded from, plus, writing out notes is good studying practice. Watch this space if you're a potential buyer and reading this.
I just want to let you faithful readers know I'm still here, and it's not my fault that there was about a week of downtime, and I was just as bleak as you are for general lack of posts! Talking of posting, I'll put up a battle report of my test-run of the new Terminators on my other blog, but give me a while to post it up!
Oh yeah. and Joe has unfortunately taken down his (still young) blog. He told me it's because he doesn't want to publicly post some opinions about him being leftist and anti-religion. I said, "But that's what I'm doing!", and he replied, "Yeah, but you don't care what people think!" Maybe he's right, but either way, my blog is still up, and his unfortunately isn't.
Must tell him to at least free up the domain address ;)
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Looking up...
It's my birthday today! Thus, today is already a good day, before it even started, especially seeing as some of my slightly crazy friends sent me birthday messages before I woke up... all I can say is, you beat my own mother to it!
Got a new schoolbag for my birthday: it's hardcore and has lots of pockets which I can use to store random things such as dead wasps and black holes. But I'm going to be doing lots of fun stuff today, including putting together a new Warhammer kit, practicing with the Pipe Band, and having a band practice in preparation for tomorrow's group prelims. Which reminds me: the band needs a name and a blog. Watch this space!
Also, for a laugh, I've decided to wear a different tie every lesson. So far, two down, four to go, and no-one's actually noticed. Excitement!
This weekend shall indeed be busy, as I have to learn a quick study piece for my piano exam, and in the meantime I will be fencing in a WC ranking competition... busy times lie ahead, but I'll take any challenge head-on, because I'm cool like that. That's kind of my approach to life, and so far it's been working very well.
Thought for the day: Grit your teeth and pull through, and you'll be proud of what you'll accomplish!
Got a new schoolbag for my birthday: it's hardcore and has lots of pockets which I can use to store random things such as dead wasps and black holes. But I'm going to be doing lots of fun stuff today, including putting together a new Warhammer kit, practicing with the Pipe Band, and having a band practice in preparation for tomorrow's group prelims. Which reminds me: the band needs a name and a blog. Watch this space!
Also, for a laugh, I've decided to wear a different tie every lesson. So far, two down, four to go, and no-one's actually noticed. Excitement!
This weekend shall indeed be busy, as I have to learn a quick study piece for my piano exam, and in the meantime I will be fencing in a WC ranking competition... busy times lie ahead, but I'll take any challenge head-on, because I'm cool like that. That's kind of my approach to life, and so far it's been working very well.
Thought for the day: Grit your teeth and pull through, and you'll be proud of what you'll accomplish!
Monday, 9 May 2011
My French Class
...has 5 students in it. This is because we are the only five people in the grade eligible to take French as a second language, which is a severely disappointing statistic.
Sometimes I find myself wondering, why do we actually do second languages? As far as my life is going, I will either go study physics and/or operations research in America or Britain, or worst-case scenario I'll become a games developer at Games Workshop. Neither of these careers require me to know anything other than English. Really. Why am I doing this? Needless to say, I am blogging instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing, ie an oral about my exchange school.
I'm not complaining, I certainly think it's good. If you have the opportunity to learn something, why not? It can only potentially benefit you. But then I think about everyone else, and it becomes a burning question: how much of the stuff we learn at high school actually going to end up helping us later in life? I think you'll find that the majority of people will chuck out all their liberal arts education and become actuaries, doctors, or lawyers, or at the very least attempt it. So why waste the first 13 years of someone's life on learning things they are never going to use, teaching them wasted skills such as geography?
I think it's actually just a question of potential. If you have all your options available in front of you, you can better choose what you're suited for, which is certainly an improvement on the 18th-century schooling system. Like I said, I personally enjoy knowing things, but that's just me. I know for a fact that the majority of people at my school couldn't care less about what they learn about. Hence, they don't pay attention, play computer games, blog, etc. etc. It's frankly quite blatant, and some of the teachers.... Argh! You just want to tear your hair out at the kind of stuff people get away with in class. The teachers must be missing something!! It's reached a stage where you can just click away, oblivious to the outside environment. Seriously, last year, the guy sitting next to me in economics asked me what we had done that term, because he had no idea and obviously wasn't to chuffed about his prospective failing of the exam. Dude, if you want the marks, pay attention in class.
The other thing I don't understand is why, if you had a tough ol' bat as your teacher when you were young, do you replicate his or her bad teaching methods on your students? Surely you understand with a certain retrospective insight that these methods and attitudes don't work! Why perpetuate the cycle? I mean, I've heard about "being tough and building character", but seriously, some of our teachers are just plain boring! And if I'm struggling to stay awake in class, what about everyone else? Who will pass!? We're falling to pieces, I tell you!! I am the only sane one in a house full of madmen!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!
I am such a prophet of doom. Or maybe this has something to do with me being cranky after last night's late-night general ruckus on the internet... Facebook Chat at 1 am is not cool... Either way, internal monologue gets scary when you ask big questions...
Sometimes I find myself wondering, why do we actually do second languages? As far as my life is going, I will either go study physics and/or operations research in America or Britain, or worst-case scenario I'll become a games developer at Games Workshop. Neither of these careers require me to know anything other than English. Really. Why am I doing this? Needless to say, I am blogging instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing, ie an oral about my exchange school.
I'm not complaining, I certainly think it's good. If you have the opportunity to learn something, why not? It can only potentially benefit you. But then I think about everyone else, and it becomes a burning question: how much of the stuff we learn at high school actually going to end up helping us later in life? I think you'll find that the majority of people will chuck out all their liberal arts education and become actuaries, doctors, or lawyers, or at the very least attempt it. So why waste the first 13 years of someone's life on learning things they are never going to use, teaching them wasted skills such as geography?
I think it's actually just a question of potential. If you have all your options available in front of you, you can better choose what you're suited for, which is certainly an improvement on the 18th-century schooling system. Like I said, I personally enjoy knowing things, but that's just me. I know for a fact that the majority of people at my school couldn't care less about what they learn about. Hence, they don't pay attention, play computer games, blog, etc. etc. It's frankly quite blatant, and some of the teachers.... Argh! You just want to tear your hair out at the kind of stuff people get away with in class. The teachers must be missing something!! It's reached a stage where you can just click away, oblivious to the outside environment. Seriously, last year, the guy sitting next to me in economics asked me what we had done that term, because he had no idea and obviously wasn't to chuffed about his prospective failing of the exam. Dude, if you want the marks, pay attention in class.
The other thing I don't understand is why, if you had a tough ol' bat as your teacher when you were young, do you replicate his or her bad teaching methods on your students? Surely you understand with a certain retrospective insight that these methods and attitudes don't work! Why perpetuate the cycle? I mean, I've heard about "being tough and building character", but seriously, some of our teachers are just plain boring! And if I'm struggling to stay awake in class, what about everyone else? Who will pass!? We're falling to pieces, I tell you!! I am the only sane one in a house full of madmen!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!
I am such a prophet of doom. Or maybe this has something to do with me being cranky after last night's late-night general ruckus on the internet... Facebook Chat at 1 am is not cool... Either way, internal monologue gets scary when you ask big questions...
Sunday, 8 May 2011
rush. I told you I had no time on weekends
So the day started off averagely, partly because I only woke up at 11, and also partly because my plans hinged on buying a new model kit this morning. I was so bleak when I got to the shop, and it was closed, not because of Mother's Day, but because of Magic:the Gathering (the lame-o card game people also tend to play at the Battle Bunker) and their launch at some school somewhere. What?!?!?!?! I ended up just lying in bed doing nothing for another two hours, before I finally manned up and decided to do something.
Anyway, off we go with my good friend Daniel (who has never gone climbing before in his life) to one of the most insane crags in the world: Lakeside Pinneapple, in all its glory. Pics will come as soon as my brother gets them off his camera. I managed to look all pro and not use any chalk (like a purist!), and had a go at a hard route after Daniel's arms died (Undercling Route, 19, for those of you who really want to know). Otherwise, a fun day out.
Apologies for being super-bleak today, and for the post coming in so late, and not containing much except for twitter/tweet/twat in general. You can read more of my rantings about the incompetence of M:tG players on my other blog, but if you really don't feel like it then stay tuned for some more social commentary tomorrow, when I should be working in class instead.
Thought for the day: You know you're quite a n00b when you get excited by 66 pageviews (Yay!). No, seriously, thanks for the support so far, especially seeing as most of you are either:
1. clicking "Next Blog>>" and by some quirk of cosmic coincidence arriving at this one, or
2. actually responding to my highly effective and extremely subtle and discreet advertising on Facebook, ie blatantly not my status. At all.
(I try make it less like a Twitter feed every day, because I figured if you wanted that, you'd just look on Twitter. Or, in fact, my Facebook newsfeed.)
I told you I had no time on weekends!! I think tomorrow I will click "Next Blog>>" and severely rip into whatever comes up. How's that for social commentary?
Anyway, off we go with my good friend Daniel (who has never gone climbing before in his life) to one of the most insane crags in the world: Lakeside Pinneapple, in all its glory. Pics will come as soon as my brother gets them off his camera. I managed to look all pro and not use any chalk (like a purist!), and had a go at a hard route after Daniel's arms died (Undercling Route, 19, for those of you who really want to know). Otherwise, a fun day out.
Apologies for being super-bleak today, and for the post coming in so late, and not containing much except for twitter/tweet/twat in general. You can read more of my rantings about the incompetence of M:tG players on my other blog, but if you really don't feel like it then stay tuned for some more social commentary tomorrow, when I should be working in class instead.
Thought for the day: You know you're quite a n00b when you get excited by 66 pageviews (Yay!). No, seriously, thanks for the support so far, especially seeing as most of you are either:
1. clicking "Next Blog>>" and by some quirk of cosmic coincidence arriving at this one, or
2. actually responding to my highly effective and extremely subtle and discreet advertising on Facebook, ie blatantly not my status. At all.
(I try make it less like a Twitter feed every day, because I figured if you wanted that, you'd just look on Twitter. Or, in fact, my Facebook newsfeed.)
I told you I had no time on weekends!! I think tomorrow I will click "Next Blog>>" and severely rip into whatever comes up. How's that for social commentary?
Saturday, 7 May 2011
yeah, I'm tired indeed
Hmm, due to aforementioned factors I am now super tired. Surprise there indeed. Anyways, I'm so over peoples' relationship troubles etc. on Facebook. It's really depressing to think that millions of people are fascinated by others' messed up love lives, especially celebrities, they're the worst. Unfortunately I don't have time for a full rant and rave here now, so it'll definitely come later.
On a more positive note, my hockey match went okay today. I haven't played in ages, and I went to one practice this term. Anyway, Dylan (our coach) put me straight on the team, and didn't take me off for the entire game! So much for a substitute, which I was meant to be according to the original team list. Anyway, it was a 1-1 draw, so we felt kind of "whatever, sick". I hardly managed to get a proper drink when the next team (the 4ths!!) asked whether we had a spare goalie and centre half (defender), so I was brutally thrust forward immediately! Damn that was a far better game, I loved how everyone knew exactly what they were doing, and rotating nearly-seamlessly to mark players when it was necessary for them to do so. Despite the fact that we lost 2-1, I really loved it. Hockey's okay if you play with the right people (Matrics. All of whom I knew really well. Yes!)
The fencing went really well as well. Managed to get lots of weapons and stuff fixed with the help of Jay, our resident awesome person and armoury expert. I also helped out with the little guys; ah what chaos it is! Lots of tiny people running around in fencing jackets and breeches is truly a sight to behold, especially if they're up to no good, whacking each other with (really expensive) weapons. I've been thinking a lot about relative achievement levels in different sports, and I'll blag about it, certainly, but maybe some other day, okay?
Oh, what I really wanted to get to was the fact that my better friend Joe has a blog of his own as well (blatantly plagiarized from mine), but it should be really cool because he's also one of those "alternative thinkers". Anyway, it is here. Enjoy, I know I will.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Tomorrow is another busy day...
And so here I am at the end of the day, having been shot to pieces by katty-launched spuds at tonight's Scout meeting. Tomorrow will indeed be another busy day as I have an early morning hockey match, a fencing competition, a fencing squad practice, an eisteddfod prelim, and then a partay in the evening! Looking forward to it, should be fun...
I don't know if this is just me, but I find that if I'm working non-stop and doing things all day I really enjoy it, and looking back on it makes me really satisfied. There's nothing that pisses me off more than a day during which I've loafed around and done nothing. If I wake up late and not get things accomplished, I'm super cheesed for the rest of the day, and this black cloud just hangs over my head. I don't actually care what it is I'm working on, be it piano practice, homework, physical activities outdoors or even just playing warhammer or blogging, even if it doesn't seem constructive at face value I'll still do it.
I enjoy work, and I detest people who don't. It just makes the whole process difficult if you don't like or at least pretend to like the task you've been set. I know I have trouble with it sometimes, but I pride myself in knowing I consciously put effort into whatever I do.
Productive day tomorrow, then. I just hope I manage to find some drumsticks! Oh yeah, and if I have time, I'll work on my blog design a bit as well. Might as well do something to make it attractive to "NextBlog>>" passers-by (as if the lumo-green and purple color scheme wasn't enough!!!)
I don't know if this is just me, but I find that if I'm working non-stop and doing things all day I really enjoy it, and looking back on it makes me really satisfied. There's nothing that pisses me off more than a day during which I've loafed around and done nothing. If I wake up late and not get things accomplished, I'm super cheesed for the rest of the day, and this black cloud just hangs over my head. I don't actually care what it is I'm working on, be it piano practice, homework, physical activities outdoors or even just playing warhammer or blogging, even if it doesn't seem constructive at face value I'll still do it.
I enjoy work, and I detest people who don't. It just makes the whole process difficult if you don't like or at least pretend to like the task you've been set. I know I have trouble with it sometimes, but I pride myself in knowing I consciously put effort into whatever I do.
Productive day tomorrow, then. I just hope I manage to find some drumsticks! Oh yeah, and if I have time, I'll work on my blog design a bit as well. Might as well do something to make it attractive to "NextBlog>>" passers-by (as if the lumo-green and purple color scheme wasn't enough!!!)
The Next Lesson
I asked Guy what he'd like to see in a blog like this, and after we got over Ismail's "you dying in various different ways", he said I should just put down what I think and people will laugh. Oh well, can't hurt to try. if all else fails I can just dump ads on it and at least earn some money!
Hopefully I will be the next Spud or Adrian Mole. Maybe that's a far call though.
We're chilling in LO now, and we're discussing human rights and human rights violations. Apparently, if our rights are violated, the majority of Bishops boys will just call their lawyers, or let their dads take care of it... small wonder. It's pretty interesting actually, as we're now finding out about how the processes behind human rights violations work, and at least some people are paying attention (unlike in History). WHy does the 1983 constitution get an ostrich sitting next to it, while the other two have dodgy-looking Afrikaans inquisitors next to them? I love government worksheets, the graphics always give us things to laugh about.
Nevertheless, South African history makes me feel like a bit of an outsider, as I don't really connect with otherwise historically significant events like the Truth and Reconciliation commission... I just don't understand why the people sitting next to me would feel more strongly about it, seeing as they weren't around at that time either. It's a bit silly really, but I guess we all need a uniting factor we don't understand on a subconscious level.
I think this blog will just be about life and sarcasm instead of me focusing on ripping into everything like Guy suggested. Maybe intellectuals should read it as well....
Hopefully I will be the next Spud or Adrian Mole. Maybe that's a far call though.
We're chilling in LO now, and we're discussing human rights and human rights violations. Apparently, if our rights are violated, the majority of Bishops boys will just call their lawyers, or let their dads take care of it... small wonder. It's pretty interesting actually, as we're now finding out about how the processes behind human rights violations work, and at least some people are paying attention (unlike in History). WHy does the 1983 constitution get an ostrich sitting next to it, while the other two have dodgy-looking Afrikaans inquisitors next to them? I love government worksheets, the graphics always give us things to laugh about.
Nevertheless, South African history makes me feel like a bit of an outsider, as I don't really connect with otherwise historically significant events like the Truth and Reconciliation commission... I just don't understand why the people sitting next to me would feel more strongly about it, seeing as they weren't around at that time either. It's a bit silly really, but I guess we all need a uniting factor we don't understand on a subconscious level.
I think this blog will just be about life and sarcasm instead of me focusing on ripping into everything like Guy suggested. Maybe intellectuals should read it as well....
more school...
ALmost lunchtime now, but instead of eating I'll have to do a speech prelim. They give us 2 minutes to do it, which is ridiculous! 2 minutes is a class oral, not a speech! Anyway, it'll be about how hobos are going to take over the world... Talk about alternative topics!
History was so boring, we just watched some videos that weren't even related to our topic. We were supposed to get started on the industrial revolution but instead we watched a random video about Oliver Cromwell. Exams are two or three weeks away and we have an entire topic to cover... oh dear.
History was so boring, we just watched some videos that weren't even related to our topic. We were supposed to get started on the industrial revolution but instead we watched a random video about Oliver Cromwell. Exams are two or three weeks away and we have an entire topic to cover... oh dear.
Lolz blog #2
I've already got a blog. A Warhammer one where I publish my exploits in the hobby. You can visit it if you want, but I'm warning you, it's a bit hobby-specific. Anyway, I felt that it wouldn't give me enough to ramble on and on about my life in general, and besides, I want my Warhammer blog to sort of keep my Warhammer life separate for the purposes of sorting my scheduling out. Anyway, I can guarantee that this blog will not have anything Warhammer-related on it, so keep reading!
I want this blog to be a bit like Zombocom, in that you can do anything you want on it. I don't want this blog to be like a Twitter feed, because then no-one will read it (plain and simple!). I just feel I can use this as an opportunity to explore life's deepest mysteries by meaningfully putting them down on (e-)paper.
Anyway, I have to go now. First period is Science, where I will present my expo project which I have been working on for quite a while... It's all about food distribution in Cape Town, and hopefully the teacher will like it!
I want this blog to be a bit like Zombocom, in that you can do anything you want on it. I don't want this blog to be like a Twitter feed, because then no-one will read it (plain and simple!). I just feel I can use this as an opportunity to explore life's deepest mysteries by meaningfully putting them down on (e-)paper.
Anyway, I have to go now. First period is Science, where I will present my expo project which I have been working on for quite a while... It's all about food distribution in Cape Town, and hopefully the teacher will like it!
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