So, finally, I have something to blog about.
Today, I received my response form for the 2011 census. If you don't know what a census is, then you're too stupid. To exist. Go away.
Anyway, what makes me uncomfortable is that I am required to respond to the census - to provide my details to the British government - by law. If I don't comply, I am a criminal and could be fined £1000. This is really unsettling to me, the fact that I am required, by law, to give over my information to the government.
It's not even that I feel uncomfortable giving over my information - I don't really care if my address is in some sort of database or whatever - what I do care about is the fact that I have to provide this information, and will be punished if I don't. This leaves me with something of a moral dilemma: I think it is unjust to criminalise people for refusing to hand over their details, and in my opinion if you think a law is unjust you should break that law, because if you don't then you're something of an unjust person, so I should probably provide them with my info. On the other hand, I don't really want to get fined. What should I do?
Friday 25 February 2011
Monday 6 December 2010
Raffles and Introspection, Biscuits and Booze
Band Christmas concert today (if, for some reason, you're reading this and don't already know me, I play Tuba in brass bands), which was nice. New band, but apart from that christmas concerts are pretty much the same, but strangely enough it hasn't put me in the mood for the season. Maybe because it's so early, but then again I did get a surge of excitement in the last week of November, which has since dissipated as we have moved into December. Perhaps the head down, full speed charge through the last week of uni attitude is setting in, and I'm oblivious to anything outside of that. Hopefully I'll feel more in the mood for Christmas when I'm back home with all that's familiar, family and friends are, after all, what I most associate the season with.
In other news, I won three bottles of booze and some biscuits in the raffle at this concert, so not a bad result all in all.
I'll give more reflections on my first term at uni this time next week, when I'm back home and the whole thing's over (if I'm still writing by then, that is), but just had a moment of introspection that I thought I might share with any readers I may have.
There is a person at university who I have met, and become friends with, with whom I feel I have a particular rapport, something of a connection that makes me feel particularly friendly towards her (nothing romantic involved here, just to have it said), if you know what I mean. That isn't meant to sound creepy - I hope that doesn't sound creepy.
Anyway, I was talking to her just now, and she's one of those 'I don't feel for people' types, and - in short - it emerged that she doesn't feel any sort of affection for me, that she considers us friends but doesn't think that we have that much in common. And, well, for the first time I considered that we were perhaps not destined to be great friends as I had decided early on, and further more, I did consider the idea that maybe we don't share as much of a connection as I had believed.
In conclusion, this little bit of introspection made me realise that the people I'm friends with now quite possibly won't be my friends for all time; and yes, I'm sure more experienced students are laughing at my making this incredibly obvious realisation, and whilst I had heard it said before and comprehended it on an intellectual level, I don't think I considered it emotionally until now. And even more than that, I realised that, perhaps, I don't want the current group of friends that I have thus far accumulated to be my permanent group of friends for all my student life - maybe.
This, I think, is an optimistic idea to punctuate the end to my first term at uni - although it may feel that things have developed into a routine, this current state of affairs is far from permanent, and can and will change.
I like that idea.
In other news, I won three bottles of booze and some biscuits in the raffle at this concert, so not a bad result all in all.
I'll give more reflections on my first term at uni this time next week, when I'm back home and the whole thing's over (if I'm still writing by then, that is), but just had a moment of introspection that I thought I might share with any readers I may have.
There is a person at university who I have met, and become friends with, with whom I feel I have a particular rapport, something of a connection that makes me feel particularly friendly towards her (nothing romantic involved here, just to have it said), if you know what I mean. That isn't meant to sound creepy - I hope that doesn't sound creepy.
Anyway, I was talking to her just now, and she's one of those 'I don't feel for people' types, and - in short - it emerged that she doesn't feel any sort of affection for me, that she considers us friends but doesn't think that we have that much in common. And, well, for the first time I considered that we were perhaps not destined to be great friends as I had decided early on, and further more, I did consider the idea that maybe we don't share as much of a connection as I had believed.
In conclusion, this little bit of introspection made me realise that the people I'm friends with now quite possibly won't be my friends for all time; and yes, I'm sure more experienced students are laughing at my making this incredibly obvious realisation, and whilst I had heard it said before and comprehended it on an intellectual level, I don't think I considered it emotionally until now. And even more than that, I realised that, perhaps, I don't want the current group of friends that I have thus far accumulated to be my permanent group of friends for all my student life - maybe.
This, I think, is an optimistic idea to punctuate the end to my first term at uni - although it may feel that things have developed into a routine, this current state of affairs is far from permanent, and can and will change.
I like that idea.
Saturday 4 December 2010
The Worst Torture
Oh wow, second post! Who ever thought it'd get this far?
I did succeed in staying up all night, and I have concluded that sleep deprivation must be the worst form of torture - not that I've ever experienced anything extremely painful in my life, so for all I know one of the more painful ones could be worse. Regardless, at this moment I think sleep deprivation is a torture I could least stand. It is like a literal compulsion, I think, when one really needs sleep, and attempting to ignore it obviously feels pretty horrible.
Still, I did succeed, so I'm eagerly awaiting an early night tonight, and hopefully a more sensible sleeping schedule. This situation, then, leads me to reflect what happens when I'm lazy: namely, I tend to loose all sense of what is a reasonable amount of work not to do, and go back to bed. I'm really very bad with work, I tend to go to lectures/seminars etc. only if I have to (most of the time) and almost always leave work right until the last minute. With all that in place, it really doesn't take much of a slip to put me behind in my work.
Why am I like this? Bad habits, in all honesty. Without wanting to sound elitist or anything, I never had to put much effort in at school, and so I got used to being lazy about things. The funny thing is, this style has never failed me - well, I mean, it almost did this week, but beyond that I've done rather well in life. I got four As at A Level and am now at a top university, so I suppose it's not all bad. I think I'll change if I ever have to - my current attitude to work was born out of circumstance, so I think I could create a new attitude if necessary. For now, though, I sort of like things like this, 'Work gets done in its own time,' has been my motto for a while, and it has held true so far.
So, what's my conclusion here? 'I'm terribly lazy, but it hasn't really harmed me so I quite like it,' about sums it up, I feel.
I did succeed in staying up all night, and I have concluded that sleep deprivation must be the worst form of torture - not that I've ever experienced anything extremely painful in my life, so for all I know one of the more painful ones could be worse. Regardless, at this moment I think sleep deprivation is a torture I could least stand. It is like a literal compulsion, I think, when one really needs sleep, and attempting to ignore it obviously feels pretty horrible.
Still, I did succeed, so I'm eagerly awaiting an early night tonight, and hopefully a more sensible sleeping schedule. This situation, then, leads me to reflect what happens when I'm lazy: namely, I tend to loose all sense of what is a reasonable amount of work not to do, and go back to bed. I'm really very bad with work, I tend to go to lectures/seminars etc. only if I have to (most of the time) and almost always leave work right until the last minute. With all that in place, it really doesn't take much of a slip to put me behind in my work.
Why am I like this? Bad habits, in all honesty. Without wanting to sound elitist or anything, I never had to put much effort in at school, and so I got used to being lazy about things. The funny thing is, this style has never failed me - well, I mean, it almost did this week, but beyond that I've done rather well in life. I got four As at A Level and am now at a top university, so I suppose it's not all bad. I think I'll change if I ever have to - my current attitude to work was born out of circumstance, so I think I could create a new attitude if necessary. For now, though, I sort of like things like this, 'Work gets done in its own time,' has been my motto for a while, and it has held true so far.
So, what's my conclusion here? 'I'm terribly lazy, but it hasn't really harmed me so I quite like it,' about sums it up, I feel.
So this is me
That is, Scott.
Yeah, A Clockwork Orange reference, I'm really blowing minds now.
So, I thought I might start a blog, because I read a blog recently and thought to myself, 'Maybe I should do that, it might be good.' I'm also currently attempting not to sleep all night, in order to correct my sleeping patterns.
Yeah, let's talk about this. On Monday I finished NaNoWriMo which, for those of you that don't know, is an event that runs every year that sets the following challenge: write a 50 000 word novel in thirty days, November 1st-30th. I did it, writing 50 681 words in 29 days, but left behind me the most stressful and exhausting month of my life. Not only was I attempting to write a novel in a month, but I was (and am) in my first term at university, which alone is more work than I've ever done before in my life. Having exited this month, then, I went what could be described as 'a bit mad'. I skipped my lectures on Tuesday. I only deserved it, I thought, after the month I'd had. Then, I did the same on Wednesday. I only had one hour though, I rationalised, so what difference would it make?
You can pretty much apply the same to Thursday, and then came today. Today, I actually had an engagement that marked me on my attendance, and I ended up sleeping right through it. This is when I knew I had a problem - I had got into a cycle over the past few days of going to bed at about 5am and waking up about 2 in the afternoon.
Stupid, stupid, stupid and entirely my fault.
So, here I am, staying up through the night so on Saturday evening I can go to bed at a reasonable time, and restore some semblance of a normal sleeping pattern.
I think I'll stop there, that's a little slice of my life, and I want to save something interesting for the future.
So that is me, that is, Scott, at this moment. Maybe I'll continue this blog, and maybe some day people will actually read it. Who knows?
Yeah, A Clockwork Orange reference, I'm really blowing minds now.
So, I thought I might start a blog, because I read a blog recently and thought to myself, 'Maybe I should do that, it might be good.' I'm also currently attempting not to sleep all night, in order to correct my sleeping patterns.
Yeah, let's talk about this. On Monday I finished NaNoWriMo which, for those of you that don't know, is an event that runs every year that sets the following challenge: write a 50 000 word novel in thirty days, November 1st-30th. I did it, writing 50 681 words in 29 days, but left behind me the most stressful and exhausting month of my life. Not only was I attempting to write a novel in a month, but I was (and am) in my first term at university, which alone is more work than I've ever done before in my life. Having exited this month, then, I went what could be described as 'a bit mad'. I skipped my lectures on Tuesday. I only deserved it, I thought, after the month I'd had. Then, I did the same on Wednesday. I only had one hour though, I rationalised, so what difference would it make?
You can pretty much apply the same to Thursday, and then came today. Today, I actually had an engagement that marked me on my attendance, and I ended up sleeping right through it. This is when I knew I had a problem - I had got into a cycle over the past few days of going to bed at about 5am and waking up about 2 in the afternoon.
Stupid, stupid, stupid and entirely my fault.
So, here I am, staying up through the night so on Saturday evening I can go to bed at a reasonable time, and restore some semblance of a normal sleeping pattern.
I think I'll stop there, that's a little slice of my life, and I want to save something interesting for the future.
So that is me, that is, Scott, at this moment. Maybe I'll continue this blog, and maybe some day people will actually read it. Who knows?
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