Point To Point

At Dean Close school we are coming to that specific point in time where everyone is stressed out, locked inside their own personal bubbles, something which comes around about once every term. On Saturday, it is Commem, the whole school event where we have a large chapel service, speeches by the Governors of our school and a concert which involves the Orchestra and Jazz band. At this point in term, there are exams for most of the school, and numerous other commitments; all this basically means that school is manic, and all the people in it are close to breaking point. This morning, I woke up at 7:30 to my housemaster banging heavily on the door, shouting:

“Will, GET UP… It’s the house photo this morning; get to breakfast FAST!”

I didn’t really manage to get a word in before he moved on to my friends room, right next door, and I heard the vibrations through the wall. The only problem was I had a prefect meeting at exactly the same time of the photo; oh well, they wouldn’t mind if I missed that, I presumed. I ate my breakfast and went to the Seminar room early to ask if I could miss the meeting. I found the Deputy Headmaster waiting, and asked:

“Sir, I have a house photo at 8:15, could I please miss the meeting?”

to which the curt response was:

“No, you don’t have a house photo, you have a prefect’s meeting, so sit down. This takes priority!”

Thats all fair and well, but you have to wonder where people’s manners disappear to when they are stressed out; what triggers the change from happiness to angry and uncommunicative? I can understand that everyone has a lot on at the moment, but to be fair, so do I… do any of the teachers have AS levels and numerous extracurricular activities to attend to? No, I thought not….

1. Family- Without them, I would be nothing, and going nowhere- they have taught me everything I need to know about being a decent human being, and much more besides. They are there to give praise when I deserve it, and also to step in when I am out of line. We laugh together, argue together, and live together, and because of this my character is a weird mixture of theirs.

2. Friends- My friends have made my life at school much easier than it could have been, and my teenage years would have been very different without them. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ended up buckled over on the floor because of laughter: from the time one of my friends jumped onto his bed and was promptly bounced off it onto the floor, or when someone in my boarding house made the stupid statement that “Slipknot are more talented than Mozart”.

3. Health- This really should be #1, as without it I wouldn’t be able to experience any of the things on this list. I am lucky enough to be physically and mentally healthy, which takes a lot of strain off me and my family; illness and death are horrible things, which I am lucky to have hardly experienced thus far in my life.

4. Culture- As an expat child, this is really important to me: I think it is essential to respect other peoples beliefs and heritage, something which I learned going to a set of international schools as a child. Being worldly-wise is an essential trait to have in the 21st century; it opens up all sorts of pathways as to what you can do with your life.

5. My Upbringing- My parents (and siblings) have brought me up to be aware of those around me, in terms of respecting their feelings and also how to deal with problems such as arguments and bullies. At my time at this school I have never lost my rag, and I don’t hate anyone (although I am sure there are some out there who hate me). It doesn’t bother me that as teenagers many people choose to go along with the crowd: I judge a person on how they respond to me individually, not on what someone else says about them. (more…)

I lived in Houston, Texas for over 4 years. Hailing from rainy, boring old England, it was a bit of a culture shock when I arrived in Houston and the first person i saw had an ass that couldn’t fit into one seat in a bus. I remained shocked on the way to our hotel; we traveled on the I-10, which is the main highway at 20 lanes wide! And then our first meal at Macaroni Grill, where I was treated to free refills and more food than I could possibly eat, leading to the food being given to me in a doggy bag at the end of the meal. Needless to say, I adapted as a true Texan would, expanding my stomach and becoming rather chubby over the ensuing months.

The point I am trying to prove is that in Texas, everything is Big. It seems to be a thing that Texans are proud of, which I find a bit weird. Bear in mind that when I say big, I mean excessively, heart disease inducing big. Now, you’ve probably already guessed that the main thing I am pointing towards is obesity. It’s not hard to see why many Americans, and Texans in particular, are overweight. The driving age in Texas is 16, and once you’re in your car you don’t have to get out: there are drive in facilities for Macdonalds, Banks, Pharmicies and pretty much everything else you need on a daily basis. Even when you do get out of your car, everything is done in the maximum comfort: malls are permanently air conditioned to sub-zero temperatures, and some cinemas offer freshly cooked food and drinks that are brought to your seat (Alamo Draft House). And then you move to the numerous restaurants that are dotted along the I-10. Ranging from the nuevo Chinese of P.F Chang’s to the Meat Feast that is Fogo De Chao, the food in Houston is excellent. (more…)

I have always been puzzled by how it is possible for cigarettes to still exist. Containing over 50 known carcinogens and 3000 other man-made chemicals besides, a cigarette is a horrible concoction of addictive substances, sweeteners and ‘filters’. And yet despite the in-your-face warnings on every cigarette box and billboard in the country, smoking still exists as a part of the United Kingdom’s culture. Given the huge amount of exotic names that smoker give them (from coffin nails to lung darts) it is obvious people are aware of the dangers, so why do they still do it?

As a British School kid, I have obviously tried a cigarette, although it wasn’t in my lower years: in fact it was fairly recently. After a night out I decided to find out what all the fuss was about; I had never really felt the urge to try smoking before. And you want to know how my first and last cigarette went? It wasn’t anything special: I didn’t cough out of disgust, or from the smoke, and I actually thought the taste wasn’t that bad. In fact, I realized in that moment how cool smoking was, and I stand by that feeling to this day. But even at that point in time the pros and cons were running through my mind: what’s being cool when you’ve got lung cancer or heart disease at the age of 35? I would rather live my live to the full by doing something dangerous that isn’t guaranteed to kill me, especially when you can pay upwards of £2000 a year to feed you nicotine addiction.

So why do people do it? Well, there is obviously the power of addiction: I have never experienced the cravings so I wouldn’t know how hard they are to shake, but I believe that if you felt strongly enough about it, you could beat your addiction, however strong it is. Or is it the fact that its ’sociable’. I really don’t know who came up with that idea: how is having yellow teeth, bad breath and smelling like a dustbin “sociable”? I hope that the bans that are being imposed in the near future will help to rid the United Kingdom and in time, the rest of the world, of what is a disgusting and harmful habit.

I have just finished my first day as a prefect at Dean Close School. For those of you who don’t know what a prefect is, at my school a prefect is a person with a small amount of authority, and supposedly the right moral values, a person you might look up to, if you will… I’ll let you into a little secret, prefectship runs in my family: my sister was Head Of School, and my brother was a prefect during his last year at this school as well, but I as I have said before, I am a weird mix of both of them. So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I was invited for an interview at the Headmasters house for the role, just under three weeks ago, including a request for me to prepare a short speech about my strengths, experiences and my hopes for Dean Close. After a bit of fervent preparation, I walked over to the Headmaster huge Edwardian House with the two other guys in my house who had been offered an interview. We were invited into the large drawing room to wait, and that was when I started to sweat. Because the prefect role is quite a big deal at my school, there are a lot of rumours and stories concerning the interviews and the questions they ask you: there are stories of how there are 15 people in a circle around you, each grilling you in turn as to why you should get the job.

After a short wait, I was invited into what is usually the Dining Room. But at this moment in time there were 8 stony faces staring at me across a large oak table. In reflection, I am sure they were probably all smiling at me, but it appeared to me at the start as if they weren’t interested in me at all. The Headmaster then suggested I do my speech before the questions, which I did, and then I settled into my seat for the inevitably hard questions…. They weren’t hard…. Not at all…. The questions I was asked were all really personal, and therefore if I answered truthfully, which I did, it would be easy. And it was: I actually really enjoyed my 15 minutes in that room; I’ve never really been in that kind of an interview situation before, so it was a good learning exercise, if a tad tense. About 5 days later we were informed of who had been selected from the 25 interviewees to make up the 17 strong prefect body. I was really relieved when I found out I had been made one, but I now realise that there is actually a lot of responsibility involved. (more…)

I’ve just been reading through the bbc news online, and saw that inevitably, Prince Harry would not be sent to Iraq due to ’safety issues’. Its a shame that they have been going on about how he would be one of the first Princes to actively serve in a war, and it is obvious that Harry was very keen to actively serve in Iraq. He is said to be extremely disappointed, but the question is, who gets to make the decision for him? As only the second in line for the throne, I believe Harry should have been able to make his own choice concerning the matter.

The Ministry Of Defence have stated that the ‘insurgants’ were planning to target Harry, and that his photo had been circulated around, in an attempt to ‘kidnap or kill’ him. This is strongly possible, considering last month the Ministry issued an official release saying that Prince Harry would be going to Iraq as an armed reconnaissance officer. But despite all these dangers, I still believe Harry should have been able to make his own choices about his career, and ultimately, his life…

As much as I love the current Macbook, I am desperate for an update. I have been seriously considering buying one of these beautiful machines for a while now, but was turned off it by the outdated integrated Intel graphics card. It is the only shortcoming in what I know (my room-mate has one) is an excellently designed laptop, which runs well on both XP and Tiger to boot. So today, after speculation that a new brand of Macbook with the Santa-Rosa setup would be released on the general public, Apple had the audacity to release the same laptop with the same configuration, other than a .16 GHZ increase in the processor speed. I mean, come on, was it really worth it? It probably cost Apple more buying all those new chips than they’re going to make in this silly move.

I really respect Apple as a company- they create innovative, beautiful products which have become more affordable of late- but they must realize that they need to hold on to the popularity they currently have. Sure, people are avidly awaiting the iPhone, but I personally don’t think it can possibly live up to the expectations of the world; (more…)

I’m at the point in my education when I am expected to go out and get a job with some local supermarket/boring company and sit there for 3 weeks so I can ‘have their name’ on my CV… but thats not enough for me. Over the last couple of days I have made a serious effort into applying for work experience that is relevant to what I want to do, mechanical engineering. The companies I have emailed include BMW, Mercedes-Benz, McLaren, Honda and Aston Martin. And what do all these have in common?

They’re car companies, I can hear you saying. No, they’re all similar in that they’re bloody hard to get into contact with. Out of the 10 or so companies I have contacted 1-2 times each, I have had only one reply. Thats wouldn’t be so bad if the reply BMW sent me had anything to do with what I was asking for.  Instead, it gave me a phone number for someone else, when the email I had sent was delivered straight to the BMW UK careers department. So why is it so hard nowadays to get some relevant work experience? Especially considering I am an aspiring engineer, which I know for a fact there aren’t a lot of these days…

So, just as I posted my last bit about the sports day, the heaven’s opened, as if a sign from God that I was right. I can just imagine everyone who was forced to go to the Prince of Wales stadium, absolutely soaking, whilst I sit here cosily in my warm, little room. Why does it feel so good to be right? Is it that sign of pure disbelief on your best friends face when you tell them that: ‘The answer is 12.5, not 3000, you noggin!’. Or the fact that it makes you the go-to guy in lessons, when in actuality all you have done is belittle your best friend?

The way that our societies work is pretty weird: in this case, your intelligence is rewarded more if you use it to make someone else feel small and stupid. Personally, I never maliciously try to prove my friends wrong, although we do joke about stupid errors amongst ourselves.

At Dean Close School, today is Sports Day… yes, that big waste of an afternoon that happens year-on-year, that you are forced to go to even if you are not competing, and even if the ‘all-weather’ track has now become a river. The good news is that today, for the first time during my education at Dean Close School, Sports Day is not compulsory, due to the constant rainstorm that has surrounded us for the last 10 days. Yet the weird thing is that on the one time that it is canceled, the sun is shining strongly… oh well, I’m not complaining- a free afternoon it is then! This whole ‘compulsory’ thing is a real source of contention with me… if you are not good at something or don’t enjoy it, why should you be forced to do it? I agree that when you are younger, it is good for character building, but as you grow older there should be a choice element involved.

I can’t wait to go to Uni and get to choose what I want to do, and when I want to do it….