Jenno's Blog (real title inside)

[Jenno]

The Incessant Ramblings of an Adolescent British Kid.

Entry 1; 9th September 2008:

This could very well be my first and last entry. Why, you ask? Are you not aware of the slim chance of those crazy Swedish scientists creating a black hole? First of all, if you haven’t kept up to date with these current and random goings on, then shame on you. Well, I have, at least on this occasion. To those of you who have in fact heard about this ‘black hole’ incident, let me clear things up for you. It’s not going to happen. A great number of scientists independent to the case study being carried out have all stated that there is in fact no threat. And if they’re wrong, it wont really matter .

But after clearing up that, I have more to chat about. For one, don’t expect me to update this regularly, or even at all, you’ll find that I constantly fail at reaching expectations when it comes to times and the like. But I will consider this my blog kind of thing, where I’ll post my general writings and what-not. Also, this may not be easy for you to read, as I’m typing how I think of this crap. A small insight into my mind, try not to get to scared.

College college college, today was my first ‘regular day’ and how much fun it was. People talk about how it’s so much different to high school, so much better, so much more fun. Yet I noticed something today. It’s exactly the same except I’m now surrounded by faces I don’t know.

Taking five subjects (one more than the contemporary four subjects) has left me with near enough no free time, a lot of my friends don’t have to be in as much, can come in late on some days and go home hours early on others. But me, what do I get? On Thursday I can go home at 3pm, an hour earlier than usual, oh yay . So that illusion of sleeping in late and going home early was shattered pretty quickly. And the best thing is, all my lessons are boring. English Language, English Literature, History, ICT and Critical Thinking are my five chosen subjects. Let’s go through the list and degrade these lessons shall we?

History, well, there are two teachers, one is old and dull, the other middle aged and, well, the best way to sum him up would be to call him a male genitalia (no, that isn’t the filter, I just avoid swearing when I can). ICT, boring, we’re doing stuff that’s extremely childish and it really ticks me off, I never do it since I think talking to my friend is a more constructive use of my time instead of doing that. Critical Thinking, well, I haven’t really had many lessons yet, but I only really joined so I could have some debates with people, could have gone for philosophy as well, but meh. But one of our teachers is called Richard Head… seriously, no word of a lie there.

And now English Language and English Literature, the two lessons I’m hoping to focus on. And what can I say, I feel like I’m surrounded by idiots. Now, I know that makes me sound extremely stuck up, but my friend in the same class thinks the same. I mean when you’re confronted with comments like ‘all boys are wrong, that’s the philosophy I follow’ and then from a male member of the class there was the absurd ‘love is a simple minded emotion’, I’m sorry but with idiotic comments like that, how can I, with at least some small stirring of intellect, not feel like a genius? True, any debates we have will be fun in the sense that my friend and myself will be able to verbally tear these people to shreds, but it still annoys me, as I do like the occasional challenge, surprisingly. But so far, I’ve been unable to get any kind of debate going as both times I questioned these comments, the teacher merely moved away from the topic :/.

So yea, I see college getting annoying really quickly.

But on a better note, last night I stayed up until about 01:00 in order to finally finish George Orwell’s Nineteen eighty-four. Now, I found this book extremely interesting and in fact I think I might be able to work some of the ideas, phrases or philosophies into Jason’s character, as I really need to give that character more of a defined mould. But whilst this book was a great read, it was extremely difficult to carry on reading, and at times far too easy to put down. But now I have a reading quest before me, my first Stephen King experience, The Dark Tower series. After finishing the His Dark Materials trilogy (also a great read, even though the second book was not overly amazing), I read the first book of the seven book series and I’m already enthralled by the writing style. It’s the first time reading a book that I’ve actually squirmed; I really can’t wait to get into things.

And this train of thought leads me onto my own writing, as most of my train of thoughts often do. Three times yesterday I tried to write something, anything, just writing for the hell of it. I wrote a paragraph for each, read it through and then scraped the idea, because they were just painfully bad. My ability to write with flow just seems to be non existent, I know I’ve got a long way to go as a writer as I’m still pretty young, but even I was surprised by how bad they were. When it comes to this site, I seem to be able to write well enough to get by. I think it’s time I probably start reading what I write instead of just posting up the first draft, that way I might remember some of the stuff I’ve written. I think with the limited time I now have, it’s probably best if I try and push my writing ability on as much as possible, and I need to work on a portfolio for University, hopefully I’ll be able to keep my eye out for competitions to write pieces for. After all, it’s probably a good idea to try and get into the game.

Well, I think I’m all out of things to write. That’s a lie, but I’m tired and lazy, so I’ll stop now before I go over the two page mark.

If you have read this far, you have my condolences, you really must not have a life to read my crap. Also, don’t expect me to remember any of this.

~Jenno

[Jenno]

The Incessant Ramblings of an Adolescent British Kid.

Entry 2; 21st September 2008:

What time is it?

It’s random self indulging blog time!

That’s right, I’ve reached the peak of my boredom and therefore it’s time to write any kind of crap that comes to my mind. So, let’s see. Well, college is something I should probably talk about seeing as that’s the major change in my life these past few weeks. Things are going great; I’ve met new people as well as embarrassed myself in front class loads of people, and the third week’s only just starting. One thing I’m really not jumping for joy at is the early hour at which I need to get up. For the first few days I was able to manage it, getting up at 6 in the morning, leaving me enough time to actually be awake to get on the bus and go to college. But then I kept getting up later and later until I woke up an hour later than originally intended, leaving me with very little time to actually get ready for college.

But still, once I’m there it’s pretty easy to remain active all day. When I’m not in lesson there are usually friends from high school that I can hang with. Or, that not being the case I’ve tagged along with a number of different groups and people so far and it’s been fun. Plus there are people I have yet to meet and what-not.

Tomorrow I’ve got a three hour break in the afternoon in the middle of which I’ve gotta hand in my application to change a lesson. ICT, after only two weeks, has severely ticked me off. I’m actually quite enjoying my other four lessons but this one just makes me feel like I’m in year 7, I’m not learning a single thing and because we’re covering basic things in so much detail, I’m unable to motivate myself to do work and in the process I’m distracting both of my neighbours which really isn’t that kind of me. So yea, hopefully I’ll be able to drop ICT for Government and Politics or, failing that, Philosophy. Either way I figure it wont be as bad as that godforsaken lesson.

Now to go over my other lessons, why don’t we start with History. Dr Anthony Smith is my teacher and at first I thought he was extremely bad. However, with the test that we had on Friday, 15 minutes basically summarizing what we’ve covered in the last two weeks, I realised that I actually remembered everything he taught us. Now, for those of you know me you’ll understand how much of a rare occurrence that is. For those of you who don’t know me who might be reading this blog (and who are most likely in the process thinking ‘I should probably stay away from this guy in the future’) then let me tell you that I never really took anything in before, I get by on luck and my own ignorance, don’t ask me how I survived this long, I really don’t know. But I was quite pleased about this fact and look forward to what else I may learn and actually remember from now on.

English Language and Literature are both… fun. Well, I’m in the same class as Kev for both which means there’s entertainment for everyone throughout. The teachers are alright, but I’m comparing them to Mr Taylor who was by far the best teacher I’ve ever had. I think Dave’s actually quite cool and helpful, Anna’s good I just really feel the same way as I do in Dave’s class. Plus, neither seem to want to allow us to debate, which lessens my opinions of them, being an argumentative person an’ all ^^.

Critical Thinking. This class I really quite like, originally it was Ben, Sam and myself, but now Ben’s buggered off to the IB course, it’s just me and Sam (who seems to want to best me in an argument for some reason, I think I may have built up a reputation of some kind). We just started arguments last lesson, I managed to start one and was just about to get into it when Richard stopped us . But that’s left me with the flavour in my mouth and I look forward to battering my flaps spewing forth wise connotations and getting into a heated discussion. And people seem to get the impression I have problems <<. But yea, hopefully thing will pick up soon.

Anyways, moving on to my writing and once again I find myself plagued by the illness that is writer’s block. I had really wanted to finish this piece for the magazine competition, but it looks like it’s just gonna be filed under ‘incomplete failures’ like most of the stuff I’ve written. I really need to find a way to get rid of this block for good, if there even is such a way, the time between each case of the disease seems to be getting less and less meaning I have very little time to improve my writing, which is something it needs doing. In fact, I believe this blog’s gonna be the most I’ve written in the past week or so.

Now I’ll move onto my fitness which is certainly lacking after having those three months off school. Also, I’m still rather down about my decision not to carry on basketball to further my studies so occasionally I just have to feed the habit by shooting some hoops when the weather’s nice. I’m thinking I should probably join a gym, like Kev has, but I’ll have to acquire that money somehow and also some form of portable music listening device (yes I haven’t got one, some of us don’t have these kind of luxuries). Right now I only have the weekly Karate lesson to stop me from becoming rolls of blubber. I only started regularly a couple of weeks ago and Ollie already wants to fight me, he’s been going in my absence and has more than likely become better than me during my time away from training. I know he’ll have more strength and stamina than I but I just hope my speed hasn’t decreased too much, otherwise I’m gonna get slaughtered.

Hmm, anything else that needs covering? Ah well, I handed in my form for Gamestation the other day. I think that if I land the interview then I’ll have a great chance of getting the job as Sam and other people say they could see me working there. I just need something, as long as it isn’t like that job at the Persia, I was so drained after that, it was just horrible.

And I think that’s everything, I find that during my time writing this people have starting talking to me on msn so I shouldn’t be as bored now this is done, yays.

I’ll write again, it might be in a few weeks, a few months of a year but I’ll write another blog at some point. It’s just the way I are.

~ Adam

P.S. I hate that song.

[Jenno]

The Incessant Ramblings of an Adolescent British Kid.

Entry 3; 24th September 2008:

Three Days Later

So, the 24th is coming to an end and it's only three days since I last blogged. Yes, I don't know why I'm suddenly writing these within a few days of one another, but it can't be good. Then again, I doubt anyone's actually reading any of this junk I ramble on about, which is probably a good thing.

So, stuff to talk about, there's not really that much I can talk about, but let's give it a shot, I can always just rant if I need to fill the page up a little bit.

Right, well, an update on my lessons? Still haven't heard anything about changing IT, but I seriously can't stand that class for much longer, it's driving me insane hour after hour. I just want to get to learning something which is actually important, opposed to covering something that's downright pointless and idiotic. History has been rather easy with Anthony away due to a chest infection, poor guy; History lessons were always amusing with him around. Although today we basically did nothing apart from a word search and completely ignore the video which was playing. Critical Thinking once again proved to be a breeze, I don't think there was ever really any reason to write anything down because so far it's just simple (and there are no damn arguments!). But one thing I've come to dislike are the case/witness studies. Basically, I don't think you can really judge someone just off paper. If you were a part of a jury then you'd be able to get more of a feel for the person, if that makes sense, so they're quickly becoming odd.

Englishes. Well, Language is as dull as always and the fact our creative writing thing has basically been chosen for us has led me to get a tad annoyed. Literature is fairly decent, managed to somehow get a C in the test thing, even though I basically had no idea what I was doing when I was writing the answer. Not bad considering I was getting around the same as those who got As for their GCSEs. I'm quite a clever dumb person.

I recently watched the first two episodes of Heroes (it starts October the 1st over here for us Brits) and I have to say I was a bit sceptical at first but it's been growing on me since I watched it. *Maybe some spoilers* I certainly didn't expect what was in the two episodes, with the title 'Villains' you'd just expect some basic good vs evil fighting. But no, there are a lot of factors added into the equation and I really can't wait to see how this all plays out, it'll certainly be original. *End possible spoilers*

So, what else, ah, my nails. These colourful sources of discrimination have certainly made my life… interesting in the past two days. For a simple/random joking thing, they seem to have stirred up a fair amount of commotion; I actually tend to forget I've got the stuff on until I get the eyes from people. Personally I'm loving the attention, people are all too eager to look at me and judge me without even knowing me, if I was doing a human study I think it'd probably reveal a fair few things. But that's just my weary mind wondering. In reality I'm just after the £3 which will Sam will own me once I win this. I have to say though, the fact my Dad is phased by this little joke (or so my mother said) both amused me and caused a thought for concern.

Moving on to my penultimate subject of discussion, basketball. Those of you who know me will know I love this sport, I might not be amazing, great or even good at it, but I still love it nonetheless. So I'm gonna watch the team play their first match next Wednesday if I'm able to, to see if I will change my mind and actually try and go for the team, I've certainly been finding it hard to suppress the urge to play at every possible moment. I wonder how that will turn out.

And finally, my writing. In the past three days I haven't been able to overcoming my block, meaning that I no longer have enough time to make a decent attempt at this competition entry. With the 1st draft only two thirds done, it was looking pretty sick to begin with and with my overcritical mind when it comes to my own work, I probably should have anticipated this. Entries have to be in by the 31st, and I really don't see me pulling off a good piece and sending it off in time, so it looks like I best search for a few winter competitions to enter, anything to build up a portfolio of work for Uni, since they're probably gonna want one. I love how this always proves to be so darn tough.

Well, that's it, I can't be bothered to write anymore, even though there a few things/people I can talk about, I wont bother.

~Adam

[Jenno]

The Incessant Ramblings of an Adolescent British Kid.

Entry 4; 5th February 2009:

Crash and Burn.

Things are not running smoothly, to say the least. I’ve spent so much time unfocused, so many wasted minutes and I hate myself for that. There are many ways I could shift the blame, I could lay it on my parents, my lack of competent and decent teachers. But that would just be me lying to myself, and I’ve done that enough.

By some God graced miracle my attendance isn’t recorded as it should be. It should be somewhere in the region of 60--70% but instead I’ve somehow got 84%. Perhaps this is meant to be some sort of sign; maybe I’ve been given a chance to make up for all the times I’ve failed to do anything with my life so far. My work is severely lacking, avoiding the subject of the exams I sat, my folly at the moment is with my two English subjects. Language has made no progress after a brief initial success with one piece of work, my teacher’s verdict returned and I haven’t even looked it since then. Literature, I need to read the books so that I can actually answer these essays and complete my coursework, I copied up the notes I’d missed from a few days ago during some of my free time the other day, and through a history lesson I was meant to attend.

It just all comes back to me, it seems I can’t get anything right when it comes to my academic life, I should be storming through lessons and completing my work punctually, like I was the first few weeks of college. Sure my English grades were even worse back then but it was new ground, now I think that the actual progress I’ve made is truly pathetic, if it can even be called progress. I have to hand my first draft of Literature coursework in tomorrow and I don’t have it done, I don’t even have it started, heck I haven’t even read the book I’m meant to be writing the damned thing on.

So maybe, just maybe, it’s time I tried to kick myself in the arse (metaphorically of course) and get things back on track, actually use the time I have instead of wasting it.

So what now then? Well, this weekend, I go to karate, actually start doing things physically once again, today’s massive snowball fight revealed to me how unfit I really am, and how I’m really not used to any amount of adrenaline. Then there’s the work I need to catch up on, Language, Literature, maybe go over some notes from Government and Politics so I actually understand all the stuff I’ve learnt about our uncodified constitution and Parliamentary Sovereignty, otherwise I’ll fail the next exam for that as well. And then, well, before I wrote this I was surfing around a little bit after being momentarily motivated by a friend’s blog in which he was on about a certain writing competition. Then I realised how much I really needed to step up my gain, stop living in this fantasy realm I’ve created in my head and actually write, make things real, make things gritty. Experiment, try to go for angles I haven’t gone for, maybe actually finish these pieces of work, who knows, maybe even send them off, if I strike lucky and get longlisted once then that’ll be enough for me, I’ll know I’m onto something. And if I don’t? If I don’t get anywhere with what I’ve written? Then I’ll just write more! I’ll improve, I’ll reassess what I’ve done, perhaps that will help me.

It’ll do a whole lot more than just sitting around’s been doing for me.

Guess it really is time for change.

~Adam