A heapin' helpin' of unbridled rage
I know, I haven't updated Corbett's Fiction. I've been busy with Super Paper Mario, which I'll discuss at greater length once I've played it more. I'll probably do it on Monday, since I have some stuff planned for the weekend. Which don't include a woodle, I've just realised.
Have I mentioned that I'm doing Maths mentoring at school? I think I might have, but it basically involves heading along to a class with younger pupils and giving some particular ones help whenever they need it. I help out with S2 Maths once a week and other people in my year do something similar for their respective classes.
I have a funny story about this, actually. I, along with the rest of my class, got asked to help during the first week of term. Pretty much all of the class volunteered (my Maths teacher turned one guy down on the basis that it would be “like the blind leading the blind”) and we've been going along ever since.
Then, a few days ago, the whole year got told to stay behind after assembly so that they could sort out the rota stuff for other classes. I was already doing Maths but I had to go along anyway and I thought I might do something else as well, like Computing or Physics. Well, I like to keep my Monday fairly bare (one lesson, allowing for what is pretty much a three-day weekend with one day spent playing video games in the common room) and I didn't want to have fewer than two study periods any other day. So anything after Tuesday was out.
All the good stuff for Tuesday got taken and I had to stay sitting there while they spent ages going over each lesson of every day. Colossal waste of time.
Actually, assemblies in general tend to be a colossal waste of time. They thankfully reduced the number of them this year (two a week instead of four) but this means they have to cram more nonsense than ever before into each one. Today was the day they decided to have every single office-bearer in the school (Head Boy and Girl, Art/Sports/Music/House Captains, their respective deputies, all prefects, etc.) come up to get a badge and a handshake from the headmaster.
This, along with two long announcements and several other awards, ended up taking about half an hour. Half an hour. With most of the school sitting on the hard wooden floor of the gym hall, squished up against each other, bored out of their skulls. Half of first lesson missed just so that some Sixth Years could walk slowly up to the front, get some half-hearted applause and a badge and then walk slowly back again.
If it was just the Captains and the Heads of School then maybe it would be tolerable. It might be good for the school to know who those people are. But all 40-odd prefects? Nobody wants to or needs to know who we are. That's why they give us the freaking badges! No little primary 7 kid who's lost blood flow to his legs cares that I'm a prefect. I barely care that I'm a prefect. Maybe if every single person in the year wasn't a prefect or a captain of something, it would be more feasible. Maybe then the positions and badges would actually mean something, instead of representing easily shirked, part-time duties that you can lie about on your university applications.
Every one knows the Heads already. Anyone who needs to know who holds any other positions would presumably know now already, if they've been paying the slightest bit of attention. Nobody cares about the prefects. They could have just left a bag of the identical badges sitting on a table at form time for people to take.
But no, everything has to be overly ceremonial, time-consuming and meaningless. I hate stuff like that. In theory, disliking stuff that wastes my time is a good thing. In practice, I just get angry at an awful lot of things that I'm largely powerless to change. And that makes me even angrier.
This rant has gone off at a complete tangent. But I like letting off some steam like this now and again and that's kind of what TWToday is for. I hope it made you think or at the very least made you laugh, either with me or at me.
I'm gonna post this now and I'm not sure I can even be bothered spell-checking it. I'll probably read it over tomorrow morning and either laugh at myself for getting so worked up or just get angry again. I think “anger” is my default mood.
I might write more about what I'd intended to write about tonight, tomorrow. Until then, have a nice day.
Have I mentioned that I'm doing Maths mentoring at school? I think I might have, but it basically involves heading along to a class with younger pupils and giving some particular ones help whenever they need it. I help out with S2 Maths once a week and other people in my year do something similar for their respective classes.
I have a funny story about this, actually. I, along with the rest of my class, got asked to help during the first week of term. Pretty much all of the class volunteered (my Maths teacher turned one guy down on the basis that it would be “like the blind leading the blind”) and we've been going along ever since.
Then, a few days ago, the whole year got told to stay behind after assembly so that they could sort out the rota stuff for other classes. I was already doing Maths but I had to go along anyway and I thought I might do something else as well, like Computing or Physics. Well, I like to keep my Monday fairly bare (one lesson, allowing for what is pretty much a three-day weekend with one day spent playing video games in the common room) and I didn't want to have fewer than two study periods any other day. So anything after Tuesday was out.
All the good stuff for Tuesday got taken and I had to stay sitting there while they spent ages going over each lesson of every day. Colossal waste of time.
Actually, assemblies in general tend to be a colossal waste of time. They thankfully reduced the number of them this year (two a week instead of four) but this means they have to cram more nonsense than ever before into each one. Today was the day they decided to have every single office-bearer in the school (Head Boy and Girl, Art/Sports/Music/House Captains, their respective deputies, all prefects, etc.) come up to get a badge and a handshake from the headmaster.
This, along with two long announcements and several other awards, ended up taking about half an hour. Half an hour. With most of the school sitting on the hard wooden floor of the gym hall, squished up against each other, bored out of their skulls. Half of first lesson missed just so that some Sixth Years could walk slowly up to the front, get some half-hearted applause and a badge and then walk slowly back again.
If it was just the Captains and the Heads of School then maybe it would be tolerable. It might be good for the school to know who those people are. But all 40-odd prefects? Nobody wants to or needs to know who we are. That's why they give us the freaking badges! No little primary 7 kid who's lost blood flow to his legs cares that I'm a prefect. I barely care that I'm a prefect. Maybe if every single person in the year wasn't a prefect or a captain of something, it would be more feasible. Maybe then the positions and badges would actually mean something, instead of representing easily shirked, part-time duties that you can lie about on your university applications.
Every one knows the Heads already. Anyone who needs to know who holds any other positions would presumably know now already, if they've been paying the slightest bit of attention. Nobody cares about the prefects. They could have just left a bag of the identical badges sitting on a table at form time for people to take.
But no, everything has to be overly ceremonial, time-consuming and meaningless. I hate stuff like that. In theory, disliking stuff that wastes my time is a good thing. In practice, I just get angry at an awful lot of things that I'm largely powerless to change. And that makes me even angrier.
This rant has gone off at a complete tangent. But I like letting off some steam like this now and again and that's kind of what TWToday is for. I hope it made you think or at the very least made you laugh, either with me or at me.
I'm gonna post this now and I'm not sure I can even be bothered spell-checking it. I'll probably read it over tomorrow morning and either laugh at myself for getting so worked up or just get angry again. I think “anger” is my default mood.
I might write more about what I'd intended to write about tonight, tomorrow. Until then, have a nice day.
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:40 PM
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