Archive for February, 2007
Argument status: lost
For the past few weeks I have been locked in a deadly debate which, unfortunately, I have lost. Now, the very fact that I am calling this a “deadly debate” is part of the reason why I failed, as I will attempt to explain. The argument is over the Y11 Leaver’s Social event (aka the American Prom), which is something that for years I have had no intention of attending because I’m really not interested. Interestingly that point still stands, which shows the convoluted nature of this debate. Indeed, by the end I was really starting to lose track of what either side has said.
As the said event has drawn closer (it occurs in a few months but the deposit is due in this week), more and more people have been trying to persuade me to go. This is surprising – it is only in the past year or so that I have actually gained some friends outside a very small group. This is entirely unintentional because I’m not someone who worries too much about that kind of thing, as I just let it happen, but I don’t think this would have panned out in quite the same way had it been a year ago. It worked down to myself and another (who I will not name just in case she is concerned over privacy or anything) having a long and complicated debate that started before half-term and continued until the beginning of this week.
Essentially, several key arguments held the most ground, although we both had several others (mine were more numerous). On my side, there was always the fact that I’m really not interested, and then later on the fact that I don’t want to endorse something that I suggests a nice “we can just laugh about it” end to a education system that I think is in a total mess. I further explained this one by saying that the sixth form equivalent may be a different matter.
On the opposing side were the points that I should experience it so that I can argue about it more effectively, and that I should go for the other’s who want me to go, because they have supported me in the past. This relates to my thoughts above over this amount of friendship that I never really knew I had. Strange.
Well, I’ll go, and try and ask people beforehand not to bother me too much, and we’ll see what happens.
Google Alerts
Christel recently said that she spent a few hours every day reading through the results of Google Alerts searches on herself and freenode. I decided to start using the service too just to see what was going on around my name; I didn’t expect to receive many mailings. The idea of the service is that it sends out mailing every time the search terms you specify have new results, although I have it set to one e-mail digest per day. It’s quite a nice little idea to see how the blogosphere is treating certain topics. What it came up with for me, however, was rather surprising. The closest to Internet fame I’ve ever got was being Wikipedia’s 1000th admin and what I have received this morning therefore surprises me. Okay, so it may only be two mentions other than mailing list archives, automated pages and stuff I’ve written, but it was still a surprise.
First, there was the fact that I apparently have a cabal. I refuse to say any more than this sentence on the subject, due to the very nature of the situation 
Secondly, there is a mention in the summary of the WMF’s discussion list that I prompted discussion on something. All in all, an interesting experience. I shall remain subscribed!
Happenings
Well, I got my last mocks result and I don’t think I’ll post it on the other post because it’s a failure. I received a B in statistics; I originally thought it was an A according to the mark on the front of the paper but unfortunately I misread. I did expect it, but I really need to sort it out because I want to do double maths next year. These mock results are okay, and I’m now pretty sure of how much revision I need to do in order to replicate them – some of them are very surprising and I’m not sure I can achieve them again. To be fair, many (but not all) of the mock papers we sat were reasonably easy and we’d seen some of the questions before. In other aspects of school, I’m doing rather well with completing the ridiculus quantities of coursework that we have to do. I’m very much on target and often ahead in the ones I have left. My ICT concerns me slightly because there is a lot to do and I don’t want to make any mistakes.
I’ve finally got DnD started again at school and this is good because I am getting several more people into the game. Things have gone well so far: we have a lot of roleplaying going on with the rather stereotypical party, and combat isn’t really an issue – this is good for me because I don’t have to pretend to have a strategic mindset for the monsters, because I’m running things. We’re having just over an hour once a week and this is a sensible amount because we can get a reasonable amount done. I’m never sure, however, what to do about the largish number of people I have who would like to join, because more people can slow things down to such an extent that the game stops being particularly entertaining. This is why I’m limiting numbers quite strictly and we may have two people playing one character to a certain extent.
Yesterday two teams of two, including myself, were supposed to be going to the regional heat of the Oxford Schools Debating Competition in Bradford. This failed miserably. It’s a rather long story, but adult after adult pulled out of taking us and eventually the snow finished off the last (I don’t blame her – there were severe weather warnings out and she was ill). This meant that we couldn’t go and attempt to win something, which was a real shame. We are however not giving up and are continuing our practice sessions for the british parlimentary style of debating after school on most Fridays to prepare for other competitions, which there will be.
I’ve been thinking about the collaborative nature of blogs, or rather how much more so they are becoming. I’d really like to make this blog more about a general topic or something rather than me personally and what I get up to, but of course to do such a thing you need a very focussed interest that you can find enough to write about – I don’t really have such a thing right now. Ah well – there is always the possibility of splitting this blog into more than one. Another point is that this site is personal, and it’s under the domain that it is. Whatever the case, I do need to update more – this most is reasonably convoluted due to the fact that I have had a build up of things to say. I think I need to make it habitual.