dom.blog

Wow, that went fast. And we’ve only got one more half time till the first round of AS exams (in English and Physics)… [gulp!]

Talking of school, a few weeks ago I wondered why the school couldn’t be more internet aware. Amazingly, today was the first time the newsletter was sent out by e-mail to those who had subscribed. Hooray!

On Monday I’ve got to go in for Physics, but otherwise I’m free for the next week. Well ‘free’ – there’s still homework. And revision. Obviously.

Incidentally, my ancient QBASIC Maths Games has been updated, mainly with bug fixed.

10 PRINT “As Pingu says, the QBASIC fetish is worrying”
20 END

I have a confession to make. I don’t like being horribly mutilated in a car accident, ending up face down in the gutter with blood pouring out of an eye. Being knocked off a motorbike in the middle of a motorway – with no helmet – doesn’t sound much fun either. And I’d like to keep my bones firmly inside my body, my neck free from whiplash, and my limbs at least vaguely connected.

OK, maybe I’m not alone. But I also don’t like hearing about this in a ‘special’ assembly on a Monday morning that seemed to misunderstand my complaint of dullness and trade it for extremely graphic descriptions of how we would die horribly in a car accident. And all this from a driving school instructor!

Fair enough – it’s a good idea to educate people and make them a bit more cautious on the road. But I’m odd in that I’ve never been gung-ho about driving… I expect I will learn how (prediction – after failing the test at least once) but I’m really, really not excited about the prospect of actually going anywhere. I mean honestly, I’m an introvert, and I live in a city with public transport and things so close you could even walk to them. If it’s dangerous enough to even take out your mobile on the streets of London, do I really want to be driving around congested streets in an expensive hunk of metal, with a huge insurance premium that’ll leave me unable to afford any petrol?

So yeah… I actually walked out of the assembly. Sorry, but I needed some water and fresh air!

Also in my life:

• More4 launched. The Daily Show, on TV, properly. Finally! And I’ve recorded A Very Social Secretary to watch at a later date.
• I got a nice comment from fellow NAGTY member Nathan Wong which led me to a few interesting blogs from his friends like Katy Moe and others. See, I was wrong about Aspire, it is cool!
• I love my hosts. They upgraded the email system today, providing IMAP subfolders for the first time.
• And various other things that happened, from tweaking Alex T’s stylesheets at school to feeling vaguely proud of our country (!) after reading today’s death penalty statement.

And finally, yesterday I was at our neighbour’s Christening which was lovely. There’s a Bar Mitzvah coming up soon in the diary too, just for balance!

Touch wood, a force-refresh seems to be successful at bringing back Gravatars at the moment. As you probably know they’ve been having problems the past week or two and we’ve all be subject to ugly black or grey boxes, but things seem to be looking up at last.

Talking of weblogs – I heard today through MSN that someone had been attacked on the way to our school (not by another student or anyone they knew, I understand.) It was a nasty shock, and I hope they’re all right. It actually got me wondering how news like this filters through various communication networks. By the time it reaches you, you have no idea how accurate the details are. The truth will normally come out through the school, but that’s days later in an assembly or newsletter if at all.

Wouldn’t it be good for schools to interact with students more online? Could there be a Queens Park weblog? And it doesn’t just have to be for the rare occasions like this – schools are full of bits of information that could be gathered in one place and discussed online. I mean, it’s 2005 and we’re still using School Councils, noticeboards and Friday newsletters? Why can’t I subscribe to an RSS feed of all this? Why isn’t there a podcast of Governors’ meetings? (OK, maybe that is going too far).

School websites at the moment seem to be very static, circa-2000 sites such as this calendar. As usual, I think they’ll catch up, but it could be a while.

… as I had to attend an English lecture on Othello instead, and while kayaking\canoeing is great fun this was really interesting too. Especially considering I haven’t read Othello and only got a brief summary of the plot beforehand (we don’t start doing it till next term). The lecture (from Prof Robin Headlam-Wells) concentrated on Othello’s ‘clash’ between a heroic culture based on honour, and a civil one dedicated to justice, law, soceity etc. The bit about ‘honour killings’ today got me thinking – how many teenage boys have a set of criteria from which it’s OK to beat your wife? (That’s a rhetorical question, I read the statistics in the Guardian.)

I personally gave up on the whole ‘honour’ thing when I decided survival was a better policy

Edit – Oh, and tomorrow is ‘Progress Review Day’ = A Day Off. Nice.

Double Edit – Today’s fun fact question: What is Tory leadership challenger Liam Fox’s flagship policy on education?

Answer: put a Union Jack outside each school. Good to see he’s got his priorities sorted then!