"Not what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities."
Total rip off "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country," but I still liked it a lot. I completely stand by that.
[We're watching it one Fox News, cuz we love America, and they've just commented that Samantha Cameron is "great with child." WHO SAYS THAT?! The Americans... they say that.]
11 May 2010
Hey, David Cameron.
So, after days of not really having a government, we now have a coallition.
David Cameron is now our Prime Minister (a man who may be the poshest man in the country) and Nick Clegg is his deputy (he could well be the deputy poshest man). So, can a posh man who has been to Eton and Oxford and been a member of The Bullingdon Club and accepted honoury membership to The Carlton Club, which still does not allow women members represent me?
Do you know what, I don't think he can. This evening I have talked myself out of supporting the Conservatives with a man like David Cameron at the the head.
I want Gordon Brown back, who didn't go to a private school and who isn't Oxbridge educated. I think he knows what I want more than David Cameron does.
I have a lot of love for Gordon Brown right now - actually I have always said how I like him and thought he really cared about the country. Okay, he wasn't the best PM but he damn well wasn't the worst. He had really crappy situations to deal with. He wasn't smarmy and he didn't spend a load of time kissing the arses of the public, but it's shit that that means he wasn't liked. Yeah, okay, he looked odd when he smiled. Big frigging woop. He's a politician, not a page 3 girl. He was serious about his job. But he did mess things up. I think the economy is partly down to him, as he had been the Chancellor who claimed to have abolished boom and bust.
UGH. I don't know what to think about anyone. I am just distracted by David Cameron's I've-had-servants-all-my-life-what-the-hell-is-a-dishwasher babyface. It makes me distrust him.
David Cameron is now our Prime Minister (a man who may be the poshest man in the country) and Nick Clegg is his deputy (he could well be the deputy poshest man). So, can a posh man who has been to Eton and Oxford and been a member of The Bullingdon Club and accepted honoury membership to The Carlton Club, which still does not allow women members represent me?
Do you know what, I don't think he can. This evening I have talked myself out of supporting the Conservatives with a man like David Cameron at the the head.
I want Gordon Brown back, who didn't go to a private school and who isn't Oxbridge educated. I think he knows what I want more than David Cameron does.
I have a lot of love for Gordon Brown right now - actually I have always said how I like him and thought he really cared about the country. Okay, he wasn't the best PM but he damn well wasn't the worst. He had really crappy situations to deal with. He wasn't smarmy and he didn't spend a load of time kissing the arses of the public, but it's shit that that means he wasn't liked. Yeah, okay, he looked odd when he smiled. Big frigging woop. He's a politician, not a page 3 girl. He was serious about his job. But he did mess things up. I think the economy is partly down to him, as he had been the Chancellor who claimed to have abolished boom and bust.
UGH. I don't know what to think about anyone. I am just distracted by David Cameron's I've-had-servants-all-my-life-what-the-hell-is-a-dishwasher babyface. It makes me distrust him.
6 May 2010
X.
I have twenty minutes before this post becomes not-voting day, and therefore void as a who-I-would-have-voted-for-if-I-wasn't-only-16 post.
Not a big fan of David Cameron. Not at all. I think he is a bit too posh and a bit too baby-faced. As a Prime Minister I would much rather have someone like Gordon Brown, who looks serious and as if her really, really cares about the country. Nick Clegg - I thought he did well in the debates but I can give or take him.
But.
I would have voted for the Conservative Party, partly because their policies most closely match mine, and partly because the man who is running in our area was a rather good and convincing speaker when all the representitives came to speak at our school. Also, he comes from what is deemed a 'minority background' and I feel that MP's in parliament need to be more representitive of the general public - more women, more young candidates and less of the white-midddle class sterotype. I don't like Labour's policies on taxation and I do feel that they have had 13 years in power in which they could have made the changes they now advocate. And I would not support the Lib Dem's because I do not want to go on the euro.
Maybe, altruistically, the best result for me would be a hung parliament/minority government that could hang on for 2 and a bit years untill I'm 18. That would be nice...
I'm off to watch more election coverage. Night!
Not a big fan of David Cameron. Not at all. I think he is a bit too posh and a bit too baby-faced. As a Prime Minister I would much rather have someone like Gordon Brown, who looks serious and as if her really, really cares about the country. Nick Clegg - I thought he did well in the debates but I can give or take him.
But.
I would have voted for the Conservative Party, partly because their policies most closely match mine, and partly because the man who is running in our area was a rather good and convincing speaker when all the representitives came to speak at our school. Also, he comes from what is deemed a 'minority background' and I feel that MP's in parliament need to be more representitive of the general public - more women, more young candidates and less of the white-midddle class sterotype. I don't like Labour's policies on taxation and I do feel that they have had 13 years in power in which they could have made the changes they now advocate. And I would not support the Lib Dem's because I do not want to go on the euro.
Maybe, altruistically, the best result for me would be a hung parliament/minority government that could hang on for 2 and a bit years untill I'm 18. That would be nice...
I'm off to watch more election coverage. Night!
2 May 2010
Why I Hate Being an Only Child.
Let's get this out of the way straight away: If you are not an only child then you will not understand.
End of. It's like, if you're a man you can't experiance anti-female sexism. If you're old you cannot experience anti-youth ageism. It's just not possible. And therefore, I can try as hard as I like to explain it to you, but you will never understand quite how it feels.
It feels really crap. Quite often it feels lonely. It leaves you as an insular child who is sometimes precocious (often described as being 'comfortable in the company of adults' by those parents who have only one child), difficult to form lasting relationships with and is hideously self-absorbed. I am 16 years old and I still feel entitled to everything because I always had everything. I had all my parents time and all my parents love and all my parents attention and I have had to learn the (very) hard way that I cannot have that from everybody else. In all fairness to me, I never had horriffic tantrums - that wasn't my style - but I was bloody used to getting my own way and if I didn't get it I would sulk. I still sulk today, any of my friends will tell you. And before someone points it out, I know not every only child is like this - but a fair few are.
Secondly, it can be really fucking lonely. Sometimes it hits me even today. Yesterday, my friend was telling a story about being introduced as their 'little sister' and yet again I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never have a sister, and nor will I ever be one. I will never know what it is like to grow up with someone and to share your nightmares and your holidays and your illnesses and your arguments with them. When my parents die they will not live on in anyone but me, and I will not be comforted at the graveside by anyone who knows exactly how I feel. I will never have any relationship more than a friend or a lover. I will never be bonded to anyone by blood and DNA. I am cursed to have an absense, eternally.
I struggle with forming deep friendships. I struggled with other children. I still do feel more comfortable with adults, which makes me uncomfortable among large groups of my peers.
Again, I am an extreme case. I feel that I have actually greived the loss of flesh and blood in my time. I have cried myself to sleep over it and it will be a wedge between my parents and I - because yet again they are more people who don't understand. Although, the benifits include the fact that we have a very close relationship.
And, if I hadn't been born an only, I may not have been a writer at all. My 'let's pretend' games where I created alternate families where I had older brothers and younger sisters and pets grew into stories, laboriously recorded in little notebooks that I still have somewhere. I got used to my own company - a benifit and a drawback - and I have grown to be able to detatch myself from emotions when necessary. Clearly there are the benifits, including my parents complete and total love, which I will be ever-grateful for. But, I still wouldn't choose it.
[This is poorly written, but I am sad and I am not at my best.]
End of. It's like, if you're a man you can't experiance anti-female sexism. If you're old you cannot experience anti-youth ageism. It's just not possible. And therefore, I can try as hard as I like to explain it to you, but you will never understand quite how it feels.
It feels really crap. Quite often it feels lonely. It leaves you as an insular child who is sometimes precocious (often described as being 'comfortable in the company of adults' by those parents who have only one child), difficult to form lasting relationships with and is hideously self-absorbed. I am 16 years old and I still feel entitled to everything because I always had everything. I had all my parents time and all my parents love and all my parents attention and I have had to learn the (very) hard way that I cannot have that from everybody else. In all fairness to me, I never had horriffic tantrums - that wasn't my style - but I was bloody used to getting my own way and if I didn't get it I would sulk. I still sulk today, any of my friends will tell you. And before someone points it out, I know not every only child is like this - but a fair few are.
Secondly, it can be really fucking lonely. Sometimes it hits me even today. Yesterday, my friend was telling a story about being introduced as their 'little sister' and yet again I have to acknowledge the fact that I will never have a sister, and nor will I ever be one. I will never know what it is like to grow up with someone and to share your nightmares and your holidays and your illnesses and your arguments with them. When my parents die they will not live on in anyone but me, and I will not be comforted at the graveside by anyone who knows exactly how I feel. I will never have any relationship more than a friend or a lover. I will never be bonded to anyone by blood and DNA. I am cursed to have an absense, eternally.
I struggle with forming deep friendships. I struggled with other children. I still do feel more comfortable with adults, which makes me uncomfortable among large groups of my peers.
Again, I am an extreme case. I feel that I have actually greived the loss of flesh and blood in my time. I have cried myself to sleep over it and it will be a wedge between my parents and I - because yet again they are more people who don't understand. Although, the benifits include the fact that we have a very close relationship.
And, if I hadn't been born an only, I may not have been a writer at all. My 'let's pretend' games where I created alternate families where I had older brothers and younger sisters and pets grew into stories, laboriously recorded in little notebooks that I still have somewhere. I got used to my own company - a benifit and a drawback - and I have grown to be able to detatch myself from emotions when necessary. Clearly there are the benifits, including my parents complete and total love, which I will be ever-grateful for. But, I still wouldn't choose it.
[This is poorly written, but I am sad and I am not at my best.]
26 Apr 2010
17 Apr 2010
This Is What We Are.
I am an A-Level Religious Studies student. I have been studying the Problem of Evil and Suffering as part of the course, and did my mock exam on Friday. A day after the funeral of my Uncle, who died from a very rare form of terminal cancer.
I wrote partly about Irenaeus' Theodicy. He says that suffering is a vital part of God's plan for us. We are born in the image of God (Imago Dei) but have to grow into the likeness of God. Part of the way we do this is through experiencing evil and suffering. The philosopher Swinburne said that this is not a 'toy world' where everyone can always make perfect choices, but a real world where people are faced with real challenges in order to grow and develop as people.
I agree with this. I think grief and pain and agony are the essence of what it means to be human. I have just experienced my first taste of this, and it is horrible. It is hard and it is painful and I have only just begun a life where people I love will die and get ill and I will have to cope with it. But isn't that the point of life?
If I never experience the grief of losing a loved one, then I will never have experienced them in the first place. In the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry rages against Dumbledore after Sirius' death. Dumbledore replies that in feeling something that much, Harry is growing into a man. He says that this pain is being human.
This thought does not really help when you are watching someone you have known all your life disappear behind a velvet curtain. At that moment of course it doesn't help. Of course I thought that God was cruel and hateful and that he didn't care. But the next day I sat in my exam and I wrote about how I agreed with Irenaeus, how I thought that in order to become human we needed to feel the sting of evil and suffering. That's the point, I said. And really, I suppose that it is.
I wrote partly about Irenaeus' Theodicy. He says that suffering is a vital part of God's plan for us. We are born in the image of God (Imago Dei) but have to grow into the likeness of God. Part of the way we do this is through experiencing evil and suffering. The philosopher Swinburne said that this is not a 'toy world' where everyone can always make perfect choices, but a real world where people are faced with real challenges in order to grow and develop as people.
I agree with this. I think grief and pain and agony are the essence of what it means to be human. I have just experienced my first taste of this, and it is horrible. It is hard and it is painful and I have only just begun a life where people I love will die and get ill and I will have to cope with it. But isn't that the point of life?
If I never experience the grief of losing a loved one, then I will never have experienced them in the first place. In the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry rages against Dumbledore after Sirius' death. Dumbledore replies that in feeling something that much, Harry is growing into a man. He says that this pain is being human.
This thought does not really help when you are watching someone you have known all your life disappear behind a velvet curtain. At that moment of course it doesn't help. Of course I thought that God was cruel and hateful and that he didn't care. But the next day I sat in my exam and I wrote about how I agreed with Irenaeus, how I thought that in order to become human we needed to feel the sting of evil and suffering. That's the point, I said. And really, I suppose that it is.
12 Apr 2010
Aaaa-whooo!
Werewolves of London!
I was just listening to the brilliance that is this song, when I remembered being slightly drunk on our last night in The Lake District, wandering around the caravan park in the rain and the dark, repeatedly going:
Aaaa-whooo! Werewolves of London!
Because it was a full-moon. And thinking I was hilariously, side-splittingly funny.
(And, if you are a certain girl with a name beginning with 'A', one of the tags is just for you ;) )
I was just listening to the brilliance that is this song, when I remembered being slightly drunk on our last night in The Lake District, wandering around the caravan park in the rain and the dark, repeatedly going:
Aaaa-whooo! Werewolves of London!
Because it was a full-moon. And thinking I was hilariously, side-splittingly funny.
(And, if you are a certain girl with a name beginning with 'A', one of the tags is just for you ;) )
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