Wait, I still need to do some other homework...

If I ever have a child, I'm giving them the middle name of “That”. That way, whenever anybody they want to impress says something, they can say “That's my middle name!” without lying or exaggerating.


One thing I have to say about this peer evaluation thing – I think it's a little bit unfair to have it handwritten in a certain amount of space. At least with a word limit, or character limit as UCAS has for personal statements, you can be sure that everyone is getting an equal amount of text in which to sell themselves. This system seems to favour people who have friends with small handwriting.

I've almost got it done and it's not half bad, even if I say so myself. Like I've said before, pressure seems to make me work better and, since it's for tomorrow, I've managed to produce something that makes Jesus pale in comparison to Samuel Burns Potter. I worried a bit that it would come off sounding a little forced though I think the only problem area is the bit about the first words that come to mind when I think about him.

I truly hate those kinds of questions, because any truly honest answer is not going to be suitable (“World of Warcraft”, “freckles”, “Halo”, etc.) and anything you try to make up sounds fake. I had the same problem with my personal statement and any other writing of this sort, where you have to talk something or someone up. Maybe I'm being a little perfectionist since this could well affect a good friend's whole life. As he pointed out today, with the necessary exams and his SATs out of the way, whether or not he gets accepted is now completely beyond his control and this evaluation is the last little piece of the puzzle. Perhaps not the most important, but nevertheless...

Anyway, like I said, I don't much like doing this stuff but, when push comes to shove, I can doctor spin fairly well. All this reminds me of when I had to do personal writing for English, doubtless the thing that I hated the most about the subject. I used to rage and fume for days at the absurdity of it all, the pointlessness of it and the assumptions that had been made. Several times, when I'd reached the point where I just didn't care any more, I'd write something humorous, something making fun of the whole concept.

I've just looked at some old essays like that. There's the one that's meant to be about “the real me”, where I just compare myself to a Linux distribution and spout some clear nonsense. My favourite is the one where I had to write about a situation from which there was no escape. I ended up writing about my inability to escape from doing the essay itself. Both were handed in, though I suspect neither did all that well.

Not that it matters much. I grabbed a B in English many months ago and now I'm done with it. And I'm also very nearly done with this peer evaluation too, so goodness only knows what I'll be complaining about having to do next week. For now, I need to go and copy my draft on to the practice form, just to check it fits, and then watch the latest episode of Heroes.

Have a nice day.