Citizenship

What does it take to be a good citizen? An A* in GCSE Citizenship that's what.

Last year, I was offered the chance to take this extra subject, which would increase my GCSE tally to 11 and give me a chance to add another shiny A* to my currently small collection (it'll be bolstered in a months time I hope).

Having "studied" (I use the term very loosely) the subject for a year, it's hard to take it seriously. The course mainly deals with human rights, diluted politics and current affairs; topics that can be learnt from simply watching the news. As long as I can still recognise Tony Blair, the exams shouldn't pose a problem.

Here is a sample question from one of the citizenship past papers:

You have found a caterpillar in a sandwich you have bought. Who do you complain to?

A. The government
B. The police
C. The supermarket

Apart from being ridiculously simple, citizenship is only a half course so if I should achieve an A* grade, it would only count for a C grade's worth of UCAS points (these precious points are needed to qualify for further education). So basically, citizenship is micky mouse.

And I've done fuck all in lessons. The teacher has been on leave since having a mental breakdown so I've just been sleeping and playing cards every lesson.

Oh well. It's only citizenship. My exam is a week today.

Le Francais

Remember when I said I'd do a post for every subject I will be sitting this year? To start, I thought I'd do a post about French, a subject I did a year early and miraculously got an A* for.

Next week some of my friends will go for their french orals - They'll experience the same dread, the same fear, the same pain I went through. And I won't be sympathetic - I'll laugh, and make inappropriate jokes, and I'll fill them with horror stories (I'm not fucking with you! They made me translate french passages of Jules Verne into english I swear!). I'll do exactly what they did to me a year ago. Oh how revenge is sweet.

There was a time when I was afraid French. I was afraid it's subtle accents and gendered nouns, afraid to read out passages of TriColore, afraid of the embarrassment generated from calling a friend copine instead of amie (or vice-versa, which one meant girlfriend again?). But what I feared most of all were the French Orals.

You probably find it amusing that a language can have such an effect on me, and you're probably thinking up jokes involving the French and orals as we speak. But laugh all you want, the mere thought of French reminds me of that day. The day of my dreaded GCSE French Speaking.

Instead of doing some frantic last minute preparation, I came into school and just sat in a corner pondering. Why oh why did I have to take French? Sure, the language sounds damn sexy but was it worth three precious years of my life to learn?

I could of learnt Spanish (a lot easier) or Latin (a whole lot more useful) but instead I chose this! A language spoken by a bunch of baguette wielding anglo-hating beret-wearers who wouldn't even give me directions to the Louvre! (I had to learn the hard way - being stranded in a Parisian street filled with hobos). And what made me choose to take this a year early? I'm too young and stupid! I'm not ready yet to face the cruel rigours of examination, I want to frolic in the Sun without a care in the world!

I waited in the corridor for what seemed like an eternity, with those doubts racing through my mind - I entered the room, I did my oral, and I can out a changed man.

Whenever I recall those moments in that room, I sound like a Vietnam veteran: "you weren't there man! The silence, the flickering lights, that disconcerting smile... Oh God! In those split seconds your mind goes blank, and you can feel the pressure build and you're sweating like a pig... Never again! Never again... *incoherent mumbling*..." I would gladly face the might of Xerxe's Persian army rather than go through that ordeal again.

But I got A* so I can't have been that bad.

Getting Better?

I knew I wasn't on blistering form in terms of maths results, but I must have been on crack or somethin' when I took that test. I won't post the results since I don't want you all to think of me as some kind of mathematically-challenged, numerically-braindead cretin, so let's just use the euphemism "could have done better".

I feel bitter - like a former beauty queen who's grown too old. I can't quite come to terms with the fact that I'm no longer number one and I'm ever hopeful of clawing my way back to where I truly belong, and that's at the top.

These are dark days indeed. The Gods of calculus are fickle beings - As soon as you start believing you are Blaise Pascal and can solve every Millennium Prize problem, they taketh away and you are left with nothing more than an empty feeling and a half factorised quadratic equation. I wish the Gods would restore me to my former glory, especially since my actual additional maths exam is in a few weeks time.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Things are getting better.

My English abilities have improved tenfold - I know the blog doesn't quite show this, but my English results beg to differ. I think it's because I now know "Of Mice and Men" off by heart, and my poetry analysing skills have vastly improved. The only thing holding me back now is my essay structures (which can be easily remedied).

I suppose I should be glad, since it's not hard to improve maths (it's all about practise and memorising equations) but how on earth does a person go about improving their English? The only way is to read a lot of books, or have the natural ability. Both can't be done the night before, which makes me feel somewhat better after screwing up the maths exam.

So whilst Maths ability has fallen, English ability has risen. Since English counts for 2 GCSEs, and Maths is some kind of post- GCSE, pre- A-level qualification thingy, perhaps this is for the best. Nevertheless, I will be working night and day to improve those maths results.

As I come nearer and nearer to the GCSE exams, I'll probably do a post on every subject I'll be sitting for. There's two weeks to go before things kick off with my Citizenship exam (just to ease into things).

Stick around. Things are soon to get exciting.

No More Coursework

Oh the relief...

Over the Easter Holidays, I have been fretting for many an hour about the marks of my coursework. If I do well then I've got a head start for my GCSEs, and it'll boost my chances of a high grade. Do poorly and I'll have condemned myself to shit grades before I've even sat the test.

I'm not sure if they have a similar system in other countries, but the UK assesses their students with GCSEs at the end of Key Stage 4 (I'll be sixteen when I sit my exams, so just think the equivalent). Part of the assessment is coursework, which contributes to a percentage of the grade (the percentage depends on the subject. At the moment I'm not even sure the exact percentages for each subject).

Coursework was the governments idea of getting students to think in a different way and experience what "real life" is all about - Normally the coursework involves some kind of large project that then needs to be documented like a kind of extremely diluted thesis or somethin'. It's stupid because marks are determined by the amount of effort the school/teacher is willing to put in, and how willing they are to "bend the rules". It's also incredibly easy to plagiarise since there's a million resources on the Internet.

That's why the government has decided to scrap it. My year will be the last to ever do it.

So anyway, I'm really rubbish at coursework for some strange reason. Something to do with my lack of ability to write reams and reams of waffle. I have spent hours and hours re-writing and correcting coursework, only to have it handed back to me with even more agitated scribbles and red pen. To have finally put coursework behind me is like a weight off my shoulders.

But there's still the actual GCSE exams to think about, so it'll be a stressful two months ahead...

I probably won't be able to blog as much, so don't cry for me if I'm not as active online as the date approaches (apologies in advance if I don't comment on your blogs).

In other news, I had my mock interview today. I'll probably do a post on that later. I also realise I've been tagged twice and haven't gotten round to doing them - I apologise. I've been incredibly busy.

Last thing to add - Go to Torquer's blog. Find out about the guy I constantly slag off.

Sefton Park

The phone starts ringing.

Oh God no, not again. I really should have learnt from the last time I left my cordless phone in my room. The room was basked in a golden glow as I groped for the phone.

Robin: Can you make to Sefton Park today?
Jingo: What? At this hour?
Robin: It's half ten, Jingo. It's hardly the early hours of the morning.
Jingo: (checks watch) Oh right... So what's this talk about going to the park? It's 6 weeks before the GCSEs! I'm not jeopardising my future just to have a frivolous game of football.
Robin: So? Stop being a loser.
Jingo: I have a study routine going on here, I can't abandon it! I have a future to work towards!
Robin: Seriously dude... You're beginning to sound like Torquer...
Jingo: What? No!
Robin: Even he's showing up...

As I was on the phone, I drew back the curtains to reveal a perfect spring morning - The radiant shimmering sun-drenched landscape of the outside world a perfect contrast to my depressingly dingy bedroom. I realised it would be criminal not to capitalise on such a fine day.

So I had no choice - I went to Sefton Park. We spent hours there kicking the ball around until the point where we couldn't move because of cramp.

I also learnt a valuable lesson - never wear glasses when playing football. Torquer somehow managed to smack the ball at my face from point-blank range, and my glasses managed to somehow dig into my eyes and fly off my face simultaneously. I stumbled around on the glass groping for them while he laughed in my face, feigning concern.

I was on my hattrick as well, the bastard.

So all thoughts of revision flew out of my mind. I may fail my GCSEs but atleast I got a decent game of football.

Thank God Easter's Here

This week has really drained the life out of me - I've been chasing coursework deadlines, depriving myself of sleep and generally fretting over the GCSEs that loom over me like a dark cloud. At this rate, my health will slowly deteriorate and I'll waste away as I walk further down the road to self-destruction. Will there be any respite?

Thank God Easter has come. It really couldn't have come sooner. I think the American equivilent is Spring break, which has always conjured up thoughts of bikinis and beaches and excessive fun (I have been watching too many American teen movies). It's depressing to know that I'll be spending "Spring break" sleeping, procrastinating and doing casual revision - so there'll be not an ounce of fun.

(I'll probably invite that party-animal wild-child Torquer to mine sometime in the holidays. He'll probably bring his potted plant photo collection to ease the boredom or somethin')

The Easter holidays gives me two weeks to recuperate, then there'll be just a month before I start sitting my GCSEs, something I've been working towards in the last few months. These two weeks will be devoted to working towards not screwing up.

In other news, I badly want a Nintendo Wii. Since I can't afford a PS3 and I hate all things Microsoft, I'll probably save up for one of these in the Summer.

Grand Theft Plagarismo

The panic has set in. I've decided to barracade myself in my own room, with nothing more than a Budweiser, some Danone Activia apricot yoghurt and a brioche to keep me through the long night ahead. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I might even have to cancel watching Prison Break tonight.

Yes, I'm willing to make sacrifices. All for the sake of a few extra marks on my coursework. Is it even worth it? Would I do just as well in my GCSEs without a few measly extra percent? Unfortunately, this may have a massive effect on my future and I'm not willing to take any risks.

If only I had Torquer for guidance. He is a coursework-writing genius and seems to be able to achieve 100%s effortlessly, while I on the other hand toil night and day, writing reams and reams of the stuff only to have it sent back to me covered in red pen with little yellow post-it notes that read: "This is pure drivel and has all the literary value of a Harry Potter novel." or something along those lines.

Alas, it seems the only way I'll get 100% in my Business Studies coursework is if I commit an act of Grand Theft Pagarismo and ransack his computer harddrive, making copies of the Business Studies coursework he has worked so hard on.

Or I could just work hard on my own. Maybe I should do that instead of contemplating ways of stealing Torquer's work and getting distracted by this blog.

I've just noticed my Budweiser has been replaced by a bowl of cherry tomatoes. How very strange...

Litter Picking - Part 2

Another month, another session of litter picking. If you need reminding as to why I go to Prince's Park on a Saturday morning, deprived of sleep and bereft of joy, this is the reason:

I care about the environment, and I care about the local community. Sure there are scumbags who live round here that are incapable of disposing their disease-ridden syringes and empty cans of beer, but someone's go to clean their mess and I care about them enough to waste my Saturday morning doing it. God will smile at my acts of charity, and hopefully award me bonus points for the afterlife. When parents see me striding purposefully through the mud and rain, picking litter, they'll point to me and say to their young children: "There's a hero, a role model, a saint." Oh yes, it's just one small step on the road to Sainthood.

For the real reason, click here to read the first instalment of litter picking.

So to start off me and Torquer were dropped off at the entrance to Princes Park where we were joined by Rob to complete our trio.

Last time we had simply been handed our equipment and forced into the harsh terrain to fend for ourselves (and collect litter). This time however, we followed a procession of middle-aged people who also claimed to be "friends of the park" but while we had the simple task of picking litter, they had the difficult and infinitely more challenging task of observing architecture.

As we were given our litter-pickers (the poles with the grabbing thing at the end) and big black plastic bag, the organiser shamed us all by announcing to all the "friends of the park" the services we had done and how awesome we were. They all smiled and clapped (one woman even filmed us), we smiled and felt embarrassed.

During our expedition, we discovered two syringes and a beer can with beer that had congealed disgustingly. There was even a tree that had roots which had grown around a piece of pipe; we spent a good ten minutes trying to remove it until we realised that the tree and the pipe had become one.

And only last week, someone had actually died in the park (probably drank too much congealed beer). For all we knew we could have been tampering with key evidence, stuffing it into our big plastic bags never to see the light of day. They only told us this after we had finished.

After being overwhelmed by the fragile beauty of it all, I decided to take this picture (Notice how litter free it is). Had I known there could have been a mass murderer on the loose I would have thought twice.

But there was a dark side to what we were doing, a dark side not shown by the photographic evidence we took. Every act of charity was done to look good in front of the camera; once the cameras were no longer pointing we went back to our selfish, careless ways.

We took a picture of Torquer putting up a bird feeder that had fallen to the ground, but as soon as it had been taken he slung it back in the mud looking for the next photo opportunity. And on one occasion I snapped a young sapling for no apparent reason (after taking a pic of us righting a fallen tree), and trod all over some sprouting daffodils (Torquer dived to protect them).

We were trying to take a picture of me in the process of stepping on the shoots, but Rob preventing me (which would have shown how conscientious were were of the environment). However I inadvertently trod all over them once the picture had been taken.

It was all a sham! The pictures didn't tell the truth of it all! (I would post some of them, but that would compromise my anonymity)

Once we finished, we strode through the fog back to Rob's house (Did I mention it was so foggy I couldn't see my own hands? It was also damn cold as well and Torquer refused to give me his spare gloves. His SPARE gloves! Something about me infecting them...). Had anyone been filming us, it would have looked very impressive; the three of us, striding across the lawn, appearing through the mist and fog, imaginary atmospheric background music playing in the background...

It was at Rob's house that we were re-vitalised with a hot mug of tea and listened to the Liverpool vs Everton match. Later on, I took Torquer to Tesco to enquiry about job opportunities (They took one look at Torquer and said No).

Another month, another litter picking session. I look forward to the next; The time will just fly by.

(Now go over to Torquer's blog and read his account of the events. DO IT!)

Intelligent Design: Should It Be Taught?

Note: I am so pissed off right now, not because of Intelligent design but because of Blogger. I wrote one of the longest posts I have ever written (with thorough research and everything) and what does Blogger do? It completely fucks up the whole post and deletes half of it. All that time... lost. Now I have to write this post again... What motivation do I have now? How could I possibly match the quality of the deleted post? Shitty Blogger...

But anyway, to the post:

Despite being a man of science, I am very tolerant of religion. I respect what religion can do to peoples' lives and the purpose it brings. However, there are many aspects of religion too far-fetched to ignore and one of these is Intelligent Design.

There is a teacher in my school who is one of those crazy religious nutcases. Except he is armed with science and has been brainwashing all the students with tripe about Intelligent Design with scientific justifications for years.

It began with Christian Union, he would preach every week to an average audience of three about religion and science and how they are linked. He once declared that anyone was allowed to argue against his beliefs on Intelligent Design. My and my friends decided one day to ask him "How can you believe in Intelligent Design with the evidence around you?"

We were bored at the time and he had practically invited us to have an argument with him (when would we get another opportunity to do that with a teacher?). Before we knew it we were stuck in Christian Union listening to an hour lecture on how religion explains science or some other shit along those lines.

At first I was enticed by the idea of intelligent design, even though I still believed in evolution no matter what it all seemed to make sense. But later, when some thought was applied, it was a load of bullshit.

An example of such bullshit was: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

Apparently this refers to the Big Bang theory. It seems to make sense, after all, the Big Bang theory explains that the Universe was created and that time, space, everything was created in that one moment and began existing. Is that not what the first line of Genesis says? That God created everything (the Heavens and the Earth) at once?

Of course anything can interpreted as anything. The Bible was created by the Vatican (who picked and chose Gospels which benefited the them) and the Big Bang theory is just a theory and subject to change. If the Big Bang theory was disproved what then? New interpretations would be found no doubt.

But anyway that was just one example. Most of you are no doubt thinking, you stick to your beliefs I stick to mine. This post wasn't written to criticise Religious people (most of whom accept Evolution). It was the fact that my teacher went to the BBC and lobbying for Intelligent Design that sparked this post.

Now to the point of this post, should Intelligent Design be taught in schools? Is there any educational value?

The answer is no.

Firstly, Intelligent design is all based on faith while Evolution is based on something more substantial (e.g. DNA, Natural selection etc.). Most people (even the religious) accept Evolution and there is overwhelming evidence for it.

As The Now Show put it, any students fortunate enough to get Intelligent Design for A-level would get remarkable results:

Q. What happened during the Big Bang?
A. Something we do not understand caused by a thing we don't know.

Q. How did organic molecules develop the ability to self-replicate?
A. By some unknown force doing a thing we cannot understand.

Q. Explain the mechanisms by which species develop through random
mutation?
A. By the interference by some intelligent thing that is more complex than anything we know and yet, can never know.

As you see, if Intelligent design were put in place we wouldn't learn anything. Teaching Intelligent Design is such a waste of time and would just contribute to science in this country going backwards.

Secondly, there are a lot of clever, but impressionable, young people in my school. The influence my chemistry teacher has over them is massive. He has converted a fair few to Intelligent Design and they are not even religious. How can you believe in it if you don't believe in a creator? Most people don't understand and those that "teach" it are highly persuasive.

So to conclude, Intelligent design contributes nothing to education and it doesn't even count as a science, it's not in the curriculum for a reason. If we bow down to these evangelical lobbyists we'd become more and more like America. Does anyone want that?

Back to School

Alas half term is over and we are condemned to another month or so of tedious, tedious learning. At the moment I feel totally demotivated; Y11 seems such a repetitive and useless year, the only thing of note being GCSEs.

Having learnt roughly the same subjects for around 4 and a half years now I'm sick to death of subjects I know would not benefit me in the future whatsoever. Having got over the fear of GCSE results last year (2 A*s in Maths and French oh yeah) there is just nothing new or interesting to look forward to or even anticipate this year I hadn't done the last. And on top of that, the school I go to is absolutely shambolic and seems to have no funding whatsoever.

So here are just a few other reasons why I did not look forward to the new school term:

Tricentinary Appeal
Schools half-arsed attempt at raising money for a state-of-the-art outdoor field to celebrate Bluecoat's 300 years of educating scousers has backfired horribly. The school was planning on raising 2 million until it realised that was impossible. So they lower it to just 1 million. It's been half a year and the school has raised just over 400k. I expect to be constantly harangued for my preciously earned money over the next year or so.

Physics and Chemistry
Both subjects I will definitely be taking for A-Levels. Both utterly boring with pathetic teachers who have taught me very little. Both subjects I will definitely need to do Medicine. I'm growing more and more frustrated over the inadequate teaching I have received and these subjects are difficult enough as it is. Therefore I'll have to make up for lost ground and do extra work (scandalous I know) if I'm to receive even decent grades (and I want so much more).

French
Having revised night and day for my hard-earned A*, the school promised to make my french lessons a kind of "free" where I can do other things such as talk, revise etc. with others like me (and Torque) who were capable of completing the course early.

I soon discovered at the start of this academic year that these were lies. Filthy lies.

I now have to do work for a subject I never liked and I earn no qualifications for doing it. To make matters worse I must even be subjected to talking to the French Assistant Momo. It's all so tedious and unnecessary.

The Library
Full of Catch 22's and bureaucracy. And I am never allowed to print coursework. Oh and all the books are shit (and aimed for an audience of 10 year olds - Peter Pan, I mean wtf?).

Coursework
It seems never ending and consumes learning time.

So expect my life to be pretty miserable over the next term. Oh and I have mocks to look forward to. There is a silver lining after all.

The Secret to Success at GCSE English

What an English lesson! I didn't even care that I had to watch the shitty 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet with that git Leonardo Di Capprio in it. I didn't even care when I mis-pronounced melancholy so that it sounded like an italian pasta.

The fact is, I got an A*. For my first draft. Only me and Robin managed such a feat. Life is now perfect... for the day anyway.

The Essay was on Frankenstein and is now adorned with pleasing comments down the margins like: "fantastic!" and "very good point". I might keep the crumpled essay as a trophy of accomplishment so that in later life, I can tell everyone how kickass at english I was.

But the thing that irritates me the most is that I completely bullshitted through it. The result completely undermines my opinion of english analysis because I was just taking the piss at times. I don't think there's a chance in hell that Mary Shelley meant half the stuff I wrote about.

As if Victor suffered Post-Natal Depression. As if Teen Pregnancy relates to Frankenstein.

But to be honest, I couldn't care less because I now have an A*. And I've discovered the secret to success at English:

No matter how irrelevant the point, how absurd the opinion, how ridiculous the links. Write it and back it up. This is what we call "original interpretations". Teachers dig that shit and give A*s for that kind of radical thinking.