Sorry to build up into a disappointing climax, but Physics Practical went really quite well after all. Sure, I forgot the units of resistivity, and used volts instead of millivolts (although Hiten did that too…) but that shouldn’t dent me too much 
and overall it was OK and much better than it could have gone. So yay.
In more interesting news, a fly decided to kamikaze into my eye on the way home!
Right, have had a complaint from Clare saying that she isn’t mentioned often enough on my blog. Sorry, Miss Clariss. Even if you were the shout-outee a mere, ooh I don’t know, 2 weeks ago.
You know what? I’ve run out of things to say. *Posts*
Tunnel visioned, that’s me. I have Physics Practical tomorrow morning. As you can tell I’m really confident about it all 
although actually, I feel ever so slightly better now that I know how to measure with Vernier Calipers in millimetres rather than inches!
As soon as the Practical is over, my mind will turn over to Maths for Monday, and then afterwards English for next Friday, etc etc. Anything else can and will be neglected, exitus acta probat. And yes, that includes you, personal statements! I don’t want to even think about applying to university any more. Not. Interested. Even a little bit. Wait until after AS exams, thank you very much.
However my propencity to be distracted is never ending, hence I am also participating in Babble’s amazing Summer CD Big Swap, which Pingu slyly convinced me to do last night.
Shout out! To Amber, one of the poor Year 8s who now blog themselves, and much better than I do too. There are loads more: Marion, Izzy, Zenobia – more links on her site.
Talking of websites, I’m getting the itch again to do something to my own. Summer holidays, and you never know what might happen…
The (unelected) House of Lords today blocked a bill to allow terminally ill patients the right to be helped to die if they wished. I suspect that most readers of this blog, when weighing up the arguments, come to the conlusion that assisted dying should be offered as a humane and dignified alternative to those patients who want it. I say this because according to Dignity in Dying, a campaign group, over 80% of people agree.
So why has the House of Lords opposed it? Well, there are serious safeguards that would have to be put in place. No one should ever feel a ‘burden’ to the system and the decision to end your own life should never be taken likely. But these are things that everyone is agreed on, supporters and opposition alike. The real challenge comes from the usual culprits – purveyors of persceptive morality.
Don’t forget that there are still 26 bishops in the House of Lords. Today’s events demonstrate why they should be stripped, post haste, from unelected office. These are the same people who opposed contraception, and then opposed abortion, and now they are opposing dignified death out of dogma and the ultimate power complex – the belief that people’s lives should be mortgaged to ‘god’, against their own wishes.
“We are not autonomous beings” said the Bishop of London. So there you have it. We have Lords so you can be serfs.
Taste-wise, this is pretty very low. I apologise, really and truly. But I made it for B3ta and was rather proud of myself, plus I noticed a bit of a spate of wordy blog posts that I need to break up. So, without further ado…
Command Line
Special Update: Good luck with SATs, Year Sixers!
One of the most interesting piece of feedback that floated back from the unfortunate Year 8s who had to read my blog for homework was a certain bemusement about the word geek – specifically the cheap and cheerful declaration right at the top that “I’m a happy 16 year old geek”, as if it was some sort of statement.
It’s true that at one point there was certainly a conscious effort to reclaim the word geek, in a similar way to the gay community reclaiming, well, ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ as positive expressions of identity. Today, however, it’s more second nature than anything – driven largely by the IT industry (Microsoft Geek blogger?) where geeks reign supreme. I like to think that the traditional passion for learning has been taken from the stereotype of the past (bullied kid in the playground, loved to look at his shoes because they were easier to talk to than people) and wrapped in a delicious layer of self-confidence, served in a bright and breezy air.
But that raises an interesting question. Do the ‘old style’ geeks – or nerds – of the past still exist? Did they ever exist, or a bit of a myth delivered through the medium of the American Teen Movie (TM) ?
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Rob Bell on Baby’s first blog: “Congratulations! Sounds like you are really enjoying the first few weeks which is great. Time flies!” Oct 13, 12:59
