So when my English teacher was a teenager, she began having more and more interactions with the opposite sex, as did her sibling(s) (I can't remember how many). Her grandmother found this quite hilarious and would always tease them about it whenever they saw her. One day they decided to ask their grandmother about the teasing and she said to them this "Well you know, I'd much rather go to bed with a nice book than any person..." which is, I think, a very funny quote. I mean, reading is cool after all, and reading late at night before you go to bed is even cooler, so this is a very cool quote. In fact, I think that quote would go great on a T-shirt, especially if accompanied by a hunk-ish man in Speedos or a woman in a bikini.
For today's entry I'm going to write up a funny little anecdote, as I've done before, except this one doesn't actually really involve me at all, it's just a funny story my English teacher told me when I was showing them my coursework one day, and I was reminded of it just yesterday when I was riding on the bus with a good friend of mine. I'm pretty sure my teacher wouldn't mind this story being included in my blog (I was allowed to use it in my coursework after all) but just in case I suppose I had better not put their name.
So when my English teacher was a teenager, she began having more and more interactions with the opposite sex, as did her sibling(s) (I can't remember how many). Her grandmother found this quite hilarious and would always tease them about it whenever they saw her. One day they decided to ask their grandmother about the teasing and she said to them this "Well you know, I'd much rather go to bed with a nice book than any person..." which is, I think, a very funny quote. I mean, reading is cool after all, and reading late at night before you go to bed is even cooler, so this is a very cool quote. In fact, I think that quote would go great on a T-shirt, especially if accompanied by a hunk-ish man in Speedos or a woman in a bikini.
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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Translated by Ralph Parker)9/28/2011 This book is exactly what the title says it is, one day in the life of the character Ivan Denisovich (who's based on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) and Denisovich is a prisoner in a Russian gulag during the reign of Stalin.
I think that it does rather well in the way that it conveys just how poor the living conditions of people were there and how monotonous their lifestyles were. Through the characters you learn about the little habits of the prisoners (which, as the author was himself held in a gulag, are highly likely to be accurate representations) all of which are very interesting to read. The ways that they all keep their morale up through their interactions with one another are especially good. Also, I don't know why, but I always seemed to feel a little cold when I was reading this book, I guess a sign that the author has written about snow covered winter Russia rather well. However, as always, I shall say something bad about this book. My main problem with it is that it is actually rather boring, I'm sure at the time of its publication, people would have found it totally shocking and a real page turned, unable to believe that people had been treated so harshly under Stalin. But today, everybody knows that Stalin was a very bad person and so l guess the 'shock factor' it had upon publication has been lost with age. Furthermore, as I said in the title, this really is just one day in the life of a prisoner. There's no real story and you just read how one day plays out, which can be a bit disappointing if you're expecting some interesting plot. But then, in a way, by doing this, it has done well by not glamorising gulag life, and the final paragraph suggests to me that it may have been written to intentionally make you feel just as bored as the prisoners... But probably not. In the end, I would rate this book as a 6/10. I hope this review (or any future or past ones) doesn’t sound too critical, I force myself to say something bad about every book I review, but I still did enjoy reading every one. (Buy it here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Denisovich-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141184744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317249976&sr=8-1) I've mentioned the internet series Jake and Amir several times before on this blog, and I'm sure you can tell I'm quite a fan of it. As such I've decided to use today's entry to make a shout out to the internet series TwinShadie. This is a relatively new series that has really only just started out, so hopefully this entry will get them a few viewers. Basically, the series has a similar sense of humour to Jake and Amir but, at the same time, is different enough to be unique. So I would suggest you check them out, even if you just watch one video.
Here's the link Most of my friends have left to go to university which means that I haven't recently been going out with people, and so also haven't been gathering any more stories to write in my blog. Luckily, next week is my Fresher's Week so I should be able to get one of two entries out of it! Although, having said that, these entries are usually about situations are rather unpleasant for me... Maybe I shouldn't be hoping to get new post material.
Anywho, as my friends were all night owls (or in other words, they liked to party all night long) it often meant that I would be walking home alone in the middle of the night, usually going through some dark alleyways too. Now, despite what newspapers would have you believe, the outside world is not crawling with rapist paedophiles when you're outside (or maybe it's just Corsham). Indeed, I never have encountered any strange people at all on my walks home at night... Except once (effectively making that last sentence a lie). On that one occasion I had been happily strolling home as usual (around 12 a.m.) when I turned around the corner in a small dark alleyway. On the other side of this corner was a rather strange looking old man who was just standing there, I thought it was a little odd that he wasn't moving but assumed that he was a harmless drunkard and decided to carry on my way home. However, once I got a little closer to the immobile old man he moved out towards me, blocking my way down the path. I had been very surprised by this rather alarming turn of events, but decided to try and carry on walking. He was, however, rather efficient at blocking, making it rather hard to continue on my way. A few seconds later the old man reached his arm out towards me and carried on towards me. It was a rather odd situation, but I quickly formulated a way to get passed him without seeming rude. I took the man's hand, shook and said "Good evening!" with a big smile and, as I did so, pulled him a little out of my way so that I could carry on walking home. The old man gave a kind of slurred response that made no real sense to me, and once I was pasted him I increased my pace somewhat and strolled on home. I'm not entirely sure what the old man was trying to do, maybe he was actually just looking for a handshake and his drunkenness made it appear somewhat creepy, or maybe he was so far intoxicated that he couldn’t see me and was randomly just stumbling towards me... Who knows? Either way it's (I hope) an interesting story. For today's entry I have decided that I will write up my argument for there being in existence a Universal Language known innately to all human beings. I'm sure it's a rather flawed theory with little grounding but I hope that it will at least be interesting for you to read.
I take it for granted that all human beings (aside from those with serious neurological impairments) are able to think. Now if you think right now it's most likely that you'll be thinking in your first language. But is the ability to speak really essential to be able to think? After all it is, as some people would say, talking in your head. But I don't think that that is the case. Imagine if there was some big calamity that wiped out a whole significantly large area apart from one baby. Now also imagine, through some string of increasingly unlikely events, that the baby survives and eventually becomes a fully-grown male. Don't you think that this fully functioning adult would be able to think? He'd have no reason to learn to talk as he'd never have to communicate with any other humans, but why would he not need to think? He may notice dark clouds forming in the sky and mentally plan a day that will ensure that he remains in places that'll be moderately dry. But how can you mentally plan without being able to think. As such, I believe that there is a universal human language known innately to all members of that species. We get conditioned when we learn a language so that we think using that language rather than the Universal Language which we would think with before we learn to talk. I imagine it would be rather different from current spoken language as it would never actually have to be spoken, merely thought, and so not limited by vocal capabilities. But it's all just a theory, most likely flawed due to my lack of scientific knowledge, but nonetheless, as I said earlier, I hope you've enjoyed reading this. I apologise for not making an entry yesterday, due to problems with internet connectivity I was unable to write and post an entry yesterday. So this week I'll post today instead of Monday and then the same as usual for the rest of the week.
Several months ago I had been warned by my history teacher that I would be having to write an essay in exam conditions (along with the rest of the class). Unfortunately it just so happened that this practise essay was going to be taking place around the same time as an English coursework deadline and a History coursework deadline (History was broken into two classes, Tudors and Soviet Russia, it was a Tudor essay and a Russian deadline), as such my time went towards working on the coursework rather than revising for the essay. Now, History was a subject that I scraped Ds in when I did revise, thus meaning that if I didn't revise the overall grade would inevitably be unimaginably low. As such, I decided I had no need to take this practise exam particularly seriously. However, I wouldn't like to set a bad example on this blog, so nobody should ever do what I did in this test, revision is always very important, please bear that in mind while you continue reading. Anywho, about five minutes into the test I decided it was time to take action to ensure that this wouldn't be an entirely boring waste of time for me. I made a subtle glance towards my teacher to be sure that she wasn't looking in my direction and then used the hand that I wasn't writing with to reach into the pocket of my jacket. I clutched something that was highly useful and slowly pulled it out. In a minute or so I had my Game Boy Pocket out and was playing a game of Tetris. I know that there is in existence a persistent myth that males are unable to multi-task and I hope that this story provides some counter evidence to it. I continued to write my essay with my right hand while playing Tetris with my left. This was actually my second attempt at playing Tetris during a History lesson; the first had gone rather poorly. I'd been happily playing away on Tetris when my teacher said "Adam can you please put your phone away and stop texting" I made a narrow escape due to her misidentification, but still it was no success. But this time was different, while a few of the other people writing the essay noticed my little escapade, the teacher remained entirely ignorant of it. In the end I was able to write a four page essay and to clear a considerable number of lines in Tetris (I've forgotten the exact amount). Now, I have a feeling I know what you're thinking and that's that the essay must've been rather poorly written and mostly nonsense, but on the contrary, this was the highest grade I ever got for a practise History essay (a low C/high D, I did, however, manage a C overall in the subject). So perhaps playing Tetris was so stimulating that it made me think more clearly and so therefore I was able to write to a higher standard than before. Who knows? What I will say before I end this entry is that had this been a subject I actually enjoyed (say English or Philosophy) I wouldn't have been so reckless with a practise essay! A few years ago, during the time of my GCSE exams, I was sitting in the exam hall and preparing for my Food Technology exam. The exam itself had some extremely easy questions, for example the multiple choice question "What can you expect to buy in a coffee shop?" the correct answer being 'coffee', but the easiness of this exam isn't what today's entry is about.
The exam board has some rather strict rules about their exams, basically boiling down to one rule which is 'If you have anything on you, or talk to other people, you will be disqualified' and it just so happens that I realised my iPod was still in my pocket while the invigilator was explaining the procedure of the exam to everybody. When she got to the point where they said "Please double check your pockets for any items and put them in your bags at the front" I got up and did just that... Or at least I thought I'd done just that, it turns out that somebody else in the exam happened to have the exact same bag as me and I had absentmindedly put my iPod in their bag. Unfortunately this didn't become apparent to me until much later in the day. When I did find out I was, obviously, very shocked. It was still moderately new back then and I used it practically all the time, thus meaning that I'd have to pay £150 odd for a replacement if it was lost. I used Facebook to ask everyone in my Cooking class (who I could remember) about whether they'd suddenly found an iPod in their bag, but none of them had. Indeed, none of them even said they had the same bag as me... I almost gave up hope of finding it again, but then, after one of my other exams I was strolling past the cooking room on my way home. As I did so, my cooking teacher knocked on the window and gave me a signal to come in, so I did. When I came in, I was happy to see my iPod in her hands. I expected to hear that somebody else in the class had heard about it and then found my iPod in my bag, but then she explained to me how one of her Year 8 students had found an iPod lying in the middle of the school field right before one of her lessons and given it to her, not knowing what to do, she had heard of my iPod going missing and kept it for when she next saw me. But there's no explanation as to how it ended up in the middle of the school field, or who the other bag belonged to... I guess I'll never know. Due to complaints about my 100th entry being rather unfantastical, I've made this picture of myself and three of the people commonly featured in the blog anecdotes celebrating the blog reaching it's 100th post in a nightclub. From the left: Ben Wood, I've drawn him how he's commonly known to look rather than how he actually looks, myself, a picture I drew taken from something else, Elliott Egan, he's very hard to draw, this was the best I could do, but there he is tearing up the dancefloor, and then there's Dalfino who's... Well.
Today will be the hundredth post on this blog. When I started writing this blog I didn't imagine that I'd end up writing personal anecdotes, but now it seems that they're the most popular kind. So I hope you've enjoyed reading about my interactions with the frightening perverts in ChatRoulette, my narrow escapes in the night clubs and the other fooligan related nonsense on here! I'm especially happy about the number of people who visit this site each day; Weebly tells me that it gets between twenty and forty views a day, with it even going as high as one hundred and twenty-five views one time!
So I thank you all for reading, I very much appreciate it! On Friday there'll be an actual blog entry too, as opposed to using an unimportant milestone to write some filler! Today I took my Driving Theory Test, and for anybody who is planning on taking it anytime soon, I'll tell you that you'll almost certainly find it rather easy. You'll probably be able to pass with a rather minimal amount of revision (still revise though!), best of luck!
While some of the questions are a little complex and require actual knowledge of driving and The Highway Code, there are other questions that're particularly easy and, in my opinion, if they're gotten wrong I think it should merit an automatic fail. Now, I think this may sound a little harsh, and maybe it is (I hope not) but perhaps I should give you a flavour of these questions: "What is the best thing to do if you're angry before driving?" the correct answer (if I remember correctly) is "Listen to some calming music and try to relax" which is fair enough, but here are two of the incorrect answers (I forget the fourth choice): "Drink some alcohol to calm yourself down" and "Confront the person and show them how angry you really are". Personally, I think that if somebody chose either of the other two, they're likely to have serious problems and not be able to do many things (let alone driving). Drinking alcohol while angry is likely to magnify this person's feelings of anger and hatred and plus, it'll give them confidence, perhaps the confidence to go and attack the other person or something else crazy. But "Confront the person and show them how angry you really are" sounds like a downright frightening answer to me, I can imagine an enraged person shouting to his friends "I'll show him how angry I really am!" as he heads off with his murdering axe. But that's not all; another question I remember is one about a sheep herder asking you if you can stop for a few minutes while he gets his sheep across the road. There were four choices about how to react, one of them was "Ignore him; he has no authority over you!" (Okay, I did add the exclamation mark), but are there really that many rude people out there for whom this is a reasonable answer? Do people really only do things for others if the others have authority over them? But what was the worst thing about this question was that there was no option to do what the herder asked you! The correct answer, I think, was the continue driving, but slowly (most likely so that most of the sheep can get across and you'll only run down one or two). Finally, one of the questions was about the effects of alcohol on human beings, the three wrong options being "Increased concentration", "Heightened Reactions" and another trait found in these people who've supposedly become superhuman by drinking alcohol. If there really are people who think that these are correct choices, perhaps learning about the effects of alcohol should become part of compulsory education? Though, perhaps the people who wrote these questions decided to have a little fun by including totally absurd answers to straight questions. I really hope that's the explanation (I imagine it'd be the only fun that question writers have in their job) because if it's not, it's a sad reflection of some people... |
About the AuthorAdam Randall is the author of the blog. Is he a good or bad writer? Who knows? Why not read a few entries and make a decision! New to this Site?
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