Archive for May, 2007
Y11 Social Ball (‘prom’)
So, after the debate the long awaited (for some people) end of year social was tonight. I just got back and I’m writing about it all now before I forget, so a summary: I am glad I went and I do not think that it was unpleasant, but I would say that it was rather dull for the majority of the time. This is because the activities for the main part were just talking to people and dancing: the former is great for a while but you do run out of things to talk about, and I’m hardly going to be involved in the latter. I opted to leave roughly an hour early ready to revise tomorrow – study leave it not a holiday, and of course I’m right at the forefront of revision 
I had a large number of photographs of me taken, with others etc. as it is a big surprise to see me in anything but school uniform. I hope to get a copy of a good few of them off the ‘net as it will be something to remember, in general. There was a leaver’s assembly earlier in the day and at that lots of awards etc. were given out and presentations were made about each form and the members of. I was called the philosophical friend of 11E, and I am told the cheer (and unfortunate chanting) were louder than everyone else, except perhaps Steven Wilde the notourious trouble maker. This assembly definately got better as it went on – at first the ominous pile of certificates seemed a bit meaningless but the presentations made by pupils were well done. However, at the end of the day, I’m not leaving, which kind of takes something out of it. I do respect though the fact that for many people it is a lot more important as either them or their close friends are moving on.
One thing that I am very unhappy with was the amount of pre-event drinking (and perhaps during) that had clearly been going on. Despite the assurance that alcohol was being watched carefully by the teachers, it could be smelt on people and clearly due to their behaviour they were somewhat intoxicated, to varying degrees (apparently the limousines they had come in had supplied them). This was a shame but I am told that smoking was an issue in the past, but very strict rules this time meant that this was kept to a minimum and then the people went outside. I guess at 16 they are actually allowed to do it, to a certain extent. Interestingly, the teachers have quite a time of it when dealing with these two drugs: apparently they had gone round ferreting out alcohol that was stored in bushes etc. around the site. Unfortunately for them, it is of course the unintelligent ones that do it and so finding it was not too hard, I am told.
There was at one point a presentation of certificates that were voted on by the whole year, as in all wrote down their nomination. I didn’t so much want any of them but I did not get the one most people there (it seemed) and myself expected: most likely to be prime minister. I did however receive most dedicated to the school, and this came as a surprise. I am extremely annoyed that I didn’t ask to make a speech and then denounce the school for such an award – it didn’t occur to me at the time. Now, this may sound rather unfair and strange, but let me explain. Essentially, the award made sense. I do put forward the impression that I work for the school with the library, debating society and of course general hard work. That’s granted. The issue comes with the fact that I am not dedicated to the school as I am not happy with the education I received, but was simply trying to improve things while the staff did not (or so it seemed).
The event on the whole was pretty well organised and they had got a photographer and food etc. organised. I am told it went well compared with others in years past, but I can’t really comment since I’ve only been to one. However, I was annoyed with the overpriced drinks (or so I was told – I just had tap water) which was rather capitalist and many fell for it. Niche marketing like that is so, so, evil, and is another reason why socialism benefits everyone. The food that was provided wasn’t bad and they organised it pretty well to ensure it wasn’t a mad rush, so I wasn’t hungry. At one point I was going to go in and attack the bar staff for their capitalist ways but decided not to at the last minute when I realised they were actually quite nice and probably didn’t deserve it.
Afterwards as I left the main room to get my coat from the cloakroom, I was asked what I thought about the five years by a deputy head. I hope that I didn’t offend him too much because I did of course employ brutal honesty in my response: I attacked the fact that my education has really been far worse than it should have been. Elaborating, I think that things such as setting and behaviour could have been dealt with by the school better. I don’t really think that I’ve learnt anywhere near as much as I should have done, and in some subjects am teaching myself a lot in revision rather than revising it as it wasn’t taught to me at school. I am and have been bullied throughout the five years and the school have made it pretty difficult to deal with this – the systems are way too inefficient. There are some positives such as various friends, the library, the debating society, but overall I’m pretty unhappy with what’s happened, which is why I spoke the truth to this teacher, since he did ask the question.
So, that’s the end of normal compulsory schooling… onto next exams and then next year.
Life update
I haven’t posted for a bit due to the fact that I seem to get busier and busier at the moment as exams draw near. I keep neglecting IRC for days at a time and then having to fight through piles of away messages, most of them unintended for me (I have a watch on the word Sean, which causes trouble as there is another Wikipedian called Sean who loves IRC…). My Wikimedia duties are becoming a bit backlogged, particularly IRC cloak requests because due to the data not actually going into the database for a while, I have a bunch of memos with no matching entry in the request system, which means I’m going to have to go through and attempt to seperate out the ones I can deal with (which I have mostly done) and those that I can not and gently apologise to those people for the mixup. Worse still, my memo box filled up and so memos weren’t being accepted for a bit, making it possible to have two possible invalid types of request, if you can get your head round that, meaning that checking if I can complete a request is made twice as hard. I plan to write an apology memo and send it to everyone who I can’t help, in the hope they’ll pick that up reasonably quickly.
Another issue related to Wikimedia is a new policy which has come into force, meaning that all those under eighteen cannot handle personal information, meaning I have to abandon my work as part of the e-mail response team for a year and half. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as I’m pretty sure there is an easy-ish way round it: with freenode, I handle a great deal of personal info and I am able to because we are using non-disclosure agreements which are legally binding; getting a parent/guardian to be involved in this can ensure that responsibility can be brought where appropriate. It seems like an easy way out simply to ban all minors on the part of the foundation.
There has been a bit of a build up of other news relating to my life due to the fact I haven’t posted in a while, on a subject I rarely blog about: real life. Exams are approaching and I still get the impression I’m really not doing enough revision. I break up officially on Wednesday but for the two weeks following I will be in school almost every day for revision sessions and in the case of history every normal lesson (which will result in a lot of time wasted travelling back and forth) due to the fact that we have not yet finished the course, which is concerning as the bit we have not completed is the bit our second paper will focus on entirely, which is obviously quite concerning. I’m not sure who to blame for this as the teaching hasn’t been too bad, but the course is designed to be completed in the time allotted, so it’s mad that we haven’t got to that point. In other school news, the sole topic of conversation among the masses at the moment appears to be the upcoming Y11 Social event, which I really have no interest in. As you know if you read this blog with any regularity, I am going because I lost a debate and otherwise would not be. I do not plan to stay as late as 11:30pm, so I’m working out my plans for getting to this obscure hotel and then returning at the moment. In addition to this as a general topic, clothing seems to be the most important thing. Who cares about what people are wearing? The girls waste money on various dresses that may be nice piece of clothing but really don’t matter at the end of the day, and every single boy (except, of course, me) will be wearing a ‘tux’ as they like to call it. I have been asked what I am going to wear a lot and I really don’t think it matters.
On the topic of exams I have completed one of them so far, my French oral. This was the one that I was least looking forward to and in the preceding week I put a lot of time into preparing my answers for the general conversation, the worse section. I don’t at all like how the exam works, as there are roughly one/two sentences you cannot prepare for through pure memory. Unlike the mock exam, I was even able to take in my prepared role play with me, which I’d been trying to memorise in my ten minute prep time. A complete waste. I was told that I got an A* (hopefully) and also that my coursework marks have again risen to A* level, and so I’m happy to leave it. I do not think that I am over-confident by saying that I basically have my A* French, as listening and reading exams are very easy, especially the latter which is often just matching up.
As for non-school activities, Dungeons and Dragons had it’s final session of the year with regard to normal, after school sessions this week. It was pretty fun as we had a huge battle to defend a small town, but the older players including myself didn’t find it as good because it didn’t have a lot of freedom and real player interaction or roleplaying, which was a bit of a shame. Hopefully this situation will be improved when we start again in September and perhaps in any sessions that get organised during the holiday. OUr aim of chronicling all adventures is continuing as I have set up another blog which will contain the regular updates as recorded by Jonathan, who is hopefully going to continue writing up the sessions as we do them.
Over the past month or so my ringing confidence and general fluency with handling a bell has come on quite dramatically, and I have started on call changes, which means changing the order of the bells according to someone’s calls who is keeping track of all the bells. Some changes are more difficult than others: it’s easier to slow down and wait than to cut in and ring faster. However, I’m improving in general and so I’ve asked to get hand bell ringing started again which is significantly more mentally challenging, or at least it is in a different way as the physical ringing of the bell can be learnt in minutes, but you are changing two bells at once which is more difficult. I’m glad that I’m finally getting better at a reasonable pace and I’m becoming more interested in the mathematical theory. I suspect I’ll always be better at this than bell handling itself, assuming I get good at either!
We had a cracking last meet of the debating society with socialism vs. caplitalism. There were some very intelligent points going around and plenty of people attended, but unfortunately, socialism lost in the end, which was a shame but was not unexpected at a school like Silverdale. There were a mixture of ideological views from Mr Moore-Bridger and economical attacks and rebuttals from me with various other intelligent, philosophical points coming in. The other side only won on the vote, in my opinion, converting more and ending up higher at the beginning and end. It was good to see the debate continuing out into the corridor afterwards – this is exactly why I started up the society. After a year or so I’m pretty pleased with it (especially since a friend at High Storrs is starting one up too, and we can have exchanges as the schools are so near) as it’s got people talking about these issues more often, despite the fact we have ended up with a core group of regulars and few people outside of Y11, which is why it has ended now for the year. That will change to sixth formers next year, hopefully.