Hey Readers!

 Sixth form has messed up my sense of time. Year 7 happened yesterday. This morning was a year ago. My blogging sisters*, are you feeling me?

 I want to tell y'all about my first week and half, but blurgh... There's so much and so little to tell.

I've discovered a real life bigot. I have managed to produce the worst school photo ever. I've taken part in feminist vandalism (I'm hoping to retrieve the picture from my friend soon). I have finally been able to tell people about all some of my pathetic feelings. I've also realised that I'm basically Olive in Easy A. I have managed to attract no attention from boys, despite being around a gazillion of them (but that's cool: I'm a strong independent woman who likes to shove her feminist beliefs down everybody's throats).

Gwendolen

*I swear there is no XY interest in blogging

Life at a pretty standard school.

Hey Readers!

 I haven't blogged much lately- mainly due to the effects on my body caused by my return to the scholastic establishment. Or should I say start? For those who were wondering (although it was pretty blatent), I've decided to go the boys' school.

 Starting a new school kind of reminded me about the stuff I always forget about, and the stuff that is the same everywhere, and even some stuff I've never realised:

• Popularity is maintained by everyone else believing someone is popular.
• "Popular" doesn't actually mean popular.
• When somebody says "Top State School", what is actually said is "Top [despite being a] State School [but still not as a good as private schools]"
• One can be saved from geek-dom by being good looking.
• The geeks are always the best.
• Teachers pick on you to answer questions if you make eye contact.
• Teachers pick on you to answer questions if you don't make eye contact.
• Homework will always be set for tomorrow.
• Staring is a terrible wooing tactic.
• Gender stereotypes regarding gossip and being two-faced are completely wrong.
• The snooze button is too conveniently placed.
• The only thing you want to learn in another language is insults.
• The year above is always terrifying.

The back of my hair, taken by my Dad

 Gwendolen

Diary of a Socially Inept Hermit: Just slightly overdue Part 4

Hey Readers!

 Yesterday I realised I never did the final part of my Diary of a Socially Inept Hermit (follow the links to locate parts 1, 2 and 3) but luckily I also remembered I did more than usual detailed diary entries about that so I'll just write that here! Woo!

Day 4

 You join me on a trip to UEA with the top IB state school in the UK.

Tuesday 2nd July 2013

10:45pm 

 It may come as a surprise to you to learn that I am currently writing from flat NC24E at UEA.Technically, I should be asleep right now so I feel a little like a naughty school girl having to turn off my lamp whenever I can hear a teacher moving downstairs. The light I'm currently writing in is very harsh, like I'm being inspected however the isolation and silence of having almost no one in the same building makes the atmosphere perfect for writing.

 Being the only student from my old school coming on the trip, I wasn't really sure what to expect socially, but after the three days last week, I wasn't expecting it to be this awkward. All the girls from here are very cliquey and so it's been difficult to intergrate, however the external students I have met are lovely (although I can't remember their names), while the internal students have been a bit of a mixed bag.

 In the flats next door it's very clear the boy-magnets definitely not my type of person generic popular girls have taken up residence as there have been hoards of boys going in and out throughout the evening. I had the unfortunate task of socialising with them in our break and although most seem OK there is this one girl seems to have taken after her name, in that she has a name that just has an annoying sound.

 But it's not all bad. I came up on the coach with a group of girls and we talked (very energetically) for the whole journey, much to the annoyance of the rest of the coach who clearly just wanted to sleep.

 Activity wise we had a tour around campus (as warned,UEA really is just an ode to concrete), had a talk about why we should go to University (they had a really hard time convincing me), 'group bonding activities' (one of which involved making a symbol that represented our group [ours was people holding hands] which then had to be presented. I was nominated to speak, which I think went alright as pople laughed and remembered me for it) and of course, lots of school propaganda.

 I really don't know what to do in regards to sixth form. I still maintain that the IB is a superior qualification to A-levels, but it's not as the latter is completely awful. However at the boys' school I felt immediately comfortable, while it's taken me a while to relax here and get used to the atmosphere (it was better around boys). Unlike the other school where I will be genuinely sad if I didn't see anyone I met again, I don't know if I can say the same for here. 

Day 5

Wednesday 3rd July 2013

1:19pm

  I am currently almost half way through my journey home (I'm leaving early due to prom) but no closer to my decision about sixth form.

 I see no point in lying and I am not afraid to admit that at some points yesterday I had pretty made up my mind that I would be going to the boys' school. I felt very out of place and could not see myself immediately settling in. Although I am not 100% of the way there, it was much more enjoyable today, although I was not necessarily sad to leave early. 

 Waking up was hard this morning (the alarm went off at 6:45am) but I was packed, dressed and ready to go within about fifteen minutes of finally leaving my bed.

 I ended up being much further ahead of the group I found myself in yesterday when getting breakfast, so I did have to sit awkwardly by myself for about ten minutes, but luckily acting has given me enough techniques  to relax when I am by myself and feeling like all eyes are on me. The girl with annoying name and another girl in my house were at the table next to me and so I spoke with them for a bit. I am warming to her, since she has come under the much misguided to conclusion that I'm good at sport. Ha.

2:30 pm

I've just changed trains and am now on the one that will take me right back to my joyous home town and may I just say I feel very cool. To begin with I am wearing a very pretty dress, however I have paired it with my boots, my red leavers hoodie, and a number of bracelets, but it's my UEA wrist strap that gets me free food that makes it. On top of that, I am traveling through London by myself with The Wombats for my soundtrack. I love having independance.

After breakfast we went up into Norwich to do a rt race a.k.a. exploiting the internet. As part of this we had to go around and take pictures of gorillas. Which was a fairly good bonding experience, despite the face I can't remember anyone's name.

After that I needed to leave and get the rain, which brings me to now. 

Gwendolen

Theatre Review: "The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable" (Punchdrunk)

Hey Readers!

 What would you do if you were invisible for a day? Well last night, my Mum and I went up to London to give it a try in the coolest theatre experience ever.

 Punchdrunk is a groundbreaking theatre company  that works within the emerging theatre genre "immersive theatre" in which the audience is given the ability to run free around the set and explore the story as much or as little as they like. Sounds confusing? It is. Sounds fun? It definitely is. Their latest production "The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable" works with National Theatre and recreates Temple Studios, Hollywood's London outpost until it closed for unknown reasons in the 1950s. Inspired by Buchner's "Woyzeck", Punchdrunk combines (limited) dialogue, (stunning) dance

Source

and a (masterful) sound design.

 I first heard about the company in a Radio 4 documentary "It's Fun, But Is It Theatre?" and so it was a no brainer when the collaboration was announced that we would get tickets. They were expensive, about £50 each, but it was worth it.

 From the beginning the experience was great. I mean, those loos! And because I'm under 18 I got to wear a visitors pass and feel super special. But then we went in, and were immediately confront with a pitch black corridor, which my Mum had serious trouble navigating, before we encountered other audience members (who I thought were actors originally). From there, we were given masks and shown into an old school lift with the doors that were opened manually by an actress. Inside the scene was set: it was the 1950s. We were going on a tour of Temple Studios after they had just finished filming their latest film. We had been given complete access to the studios but were advised to not go into the surrounding neighbor hoods. The door was opened by the actress and we were guided out. When I say we I mean my Mum and I, because the door was immediately slammed, and the rest of the group continued up, whilst we were left to explore on our own.

 I now encounter a problem writing this review as I don't really want to write about what happened. Even though I know my readers are strewn across the globe, and therefore won't be going to see this production, it's as if it a secret. Because everybody really does have different experiences (some scenes are performed to just one audience member) it feels like an exam. You can talk about the things that everyone had (in this metaphor, the questions), like the amazing set, which no matter how hard I tried, I could not find a fault with, but you must never talk about what happened to you (answering the questions) as it will leave other people questioning themselves and worrying they did it wrong.

 What I can say is that I don't think it was supposed to end for me like it did. I think the visitors pass meant that actors couldn't take me off by myself, but one did. Was that slightly illegal?

 If you ever find yourself at one Punchdrunk's productions (they are currently running Sleep No More in New York) don't hold back. Go everywhere, follow whoever you like (I would have liked to focus on the story slightly more as I became a bit too excited by my independence and flitted from character to character, floor to floor) and enjoy it, because you will never have the same experience again.

Source

My experience: 4*
Set: 5*
Performance: 5*
Technical: 5*
Overall: 5*

Gwendolen

I think I should be Education Secretary.

Hey Readers!

 As you may have been aware from my last post, or if you live in England and have any exposure to the news/facebook, you will know that on Thursday many teenagers got there GCSE results. I'm pretty happy with mine.

Stereotypical happy, smiling, pretty blonde girl receiving results. [source]

 But of course, the Government isn't happy. Which isn't surprising considering that the GCSE curriculum is often mind-numbingly dull and patronising, filled with exam technique and little room for learning really great and interesting things for the sake of learning. It really is time for a re-think in regards to what we're learning. But hold up – this is the Government. They don't care that school is a place for learning and exploring knowledge, they're obviously exam factories where the only mark of how good they are is the number of A*s  achieved, and if this number isn't at some target imposed by people who left school long, long ago and don't what it's like to be a teenager in the 21st Century, then clearly something is very wrong. Naturally, the only way to deal with this catastrophe is a continual fiddling with exam system and grade boundaries.

 I'm not saying that grades aren't important – they definitely are. But how much does that A* I achieved in Drama really tell you? Does it tell you about my passion for the subject? All the hours I put in reading drama books and plays? Does it tell you about how my political beliefs and understanding of world was slightly altered? At the end of the day, does it even tell you if act or do lighting? The majority of the population will have no idea about what is involved in doing GCSE drama and so realistically an A* will mean nothing, other than that I reasonably good at the subject; a subject which most people don't take seriously, nor understand the sheer amount of hardwork and commitment involved.

 Contrastingly, my "useful" A* in ICT will tell them almost nothing about what I actually know about computers. Does that A* say that I can write a line of code, or design a half decent looking page on a website, or do an IF statement in excel? I would love it if I could. Instead that A* means that I am fully qualified in taking screenshots. I can honestly hardly remember anything I learned, meaning that I realistically I am no better a candidate than somebody without GCSE IT in applying for a job. And what if I could remember something? How about I put it like this: if science is supposed to inspire us to become astrophysicists or chemical engineers, then the ICT course is clearly designed for us to spend our lives in an office doing admin.

 I'll admit that in the sciences we do usually learn useful things. However when you look closer and compare to other subjects you begin to realise that there is a political agenda at play. We have to learn almost continuously about the environment. I understand and completely agree that the environment is one of the most important issues we face as a species, but by the time we have had it shoved down our throats in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, Languages and even Religious Studies (all of which are compulsory or highly popular subjects), it just becomes boring, and my mind switches off the moment it is mentioned. We're just going to loose interest. It will loose it's power to shock. And while I sit there writing about how a Muslim would feel about recycling, I look towards our politicians and see very little action being taken. It's time we stop learning the theory, and start implementing it.

  When students are still leaving school without achieving "5 A*-Cs including Maths and English" it is clear that the priority should not be on how hard it is to gain certain grades, but creating a curriculum that is more engaging than mobile phones or bunking off school. One which can engage teenagers no matter what their background is. One that can challenge and stretch every pupil, top and bottom. One which is worth more than an A*.

Gwendolen

Good Luck!

Hey UK Readers with results tomorrow!

 I want to wish good luck to anyone getting results tomorrow. This is most likely to be GCSEs, but it could your driving test... Or an STD test.

 I find with these types of things its best to go in with a negative mind set so your bound to be happy with how well you have. Or very prepared to deal with the fact that your future is looking iffy to say the least. So as the fantastic blogging friend I am, I have decided to take inspiration from the Romans and install a "prevention not sure" way to deal with your on coming depression due to said results. I suggest that when you open your results letter and realise your life is completely screwed, before the first tear even leaves your eyes I suggest you watch this [see below]. It may not start off as funny. But the second time you watch it you should be giggling like a giggly thing. Eventually you shall reach my unfortunate state where it is not funny, but hey.

 And remember: no matter what happens, your results can't be as bad as the current layout.

Gwendolen

 P.S. For a song that is genuinely uplifting, I suggest you head right on over here

WARNING

GWENDOLEN IS CURRENTLY PLAYING ABOUT WITH THE DESIGN OF THE BLOG AND DUE TO HER LACK OF ARTISTIC SKILL IT WILL BE LOOKING SUPREMELY UGLY

To my wondeful blogging friends: can anyone give me a CSS code to make the background semi-transparent that works? Nothing I can find seems to :( Or a possible reason as to why this may be the case?