Helen

12:58 pm: dealing with people we disagree with
ok, so I was going to talk about this in the wake of the racism debacle but it seems more appropriate to start with a discussion of the argument that has developed in the "online dating" thread.

badomen comes back, waving his banner of ridiculously offensive male chauvinism around. none of us agree with it. no right-thinking person could agree with it. but i seem to be the only person on the forum interested in refuting it.

a lot of people say things like "it's so stupid it's not even worth responding to". that doesn't make sense to me. if someone is being stupid, that's when it's most worth responding to them, so that you can hope to get them to open their eyes, to consider other possibilities. what kind of society would exist if whenever someone said something offensive, the only response was to pretend it hadn't happened? in this case it's particularly relevant because what he's saying is so easily refutable. his argument barely makes sense, and to the extent that it does, it's based in generalisations that don't reflect reality.

of course i'm going to fight that. i'm going to keep fighting it as long as he keeps responding to the subject, because for me it is never okay to just say  "oh he's being ridiculously sexist, that's just his way, we'll leave him alone". it's the same reason i was so insistent on criticising the people who expressed racist views.

other people suggested it was time to just ban him. well, from a practical point that wouldn't work, as deedle bums him and deedle has more power than me on the forum. but even if we could, it wouldn't work as a solution to the problem that is badomen. he'd still be out there in the world with his sexist convictions. to say that it's enough to get him out of our sight is like saying we shouldn't worry about the problems in africa because we can't see them (yes, i'm grossly extrapolating...). but more than this, banning people for their opinions is not how we do it at naff. regardless of the opinion. there are opinions that are not okay by our standards - racism, sexism and homophobia the most obvious examples - but the way to deal with things that aren't okay is not to put them out of mind but to confront them. that's how we did it with the racist opinions, and that's how i intend to keep doing it with badomen.

the third argument is that he's just a troll and should be ignored for that reason - don't feed the trolls etc. i absolutely agree that he is a troll in the sense that his only purpose in being on the forum is to stir up anger and annoyance. i'm sure he's rejoicing in the fact that he's managed to get a rise out of me. but i also think that (unlike most trolls) he actually believes the things that he's saying. troll or not, it's that bit i can't ignore.

so if you've been reading the thread and you hate the things he's saying, i implore you, speak up. because i'm fighting it on my own here and i don't think i should be.

11:16 pm: just another reason why i hate party politics...
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7884121.stm

07:36 pm:
so, uh, i have a music myspace? it's one of those things i've been meaning to do for a long time. mostly to encourage myself to make better music, i guess.

on there at the moment (liable to change by the time you read this):
a song by Tea Ho (you might know her) called With All My Heart and Body Parts
a song I wrote a couple of years ago called Wishing I Had Someone To Wait For
a song I wrote within the last year called A Simple Song (its lyrics do not lend themselves to a title but if you have a better idea, hit me with it)
a cover of New Slang by The Shins. be warned: it is high pitched in places.

coming soon: a song which doesn't have a name yet with a lot of minor chords in it.

oh and the link is here: http://www.myspace.com/429805615

08:14 pm: oh man. my costume is going to kick emjo's costume's ass.

;)

11:55 pm: Just an update.

Things are very different now than when we broke up the first time last week. Then it was all, ooh, we're broken up, but we're still going to see each other and talk about our feelings and make out. Now it's we're broken up. We are no longer together in any sense. We have not communicated in any form since last night. And I do not want to be the first to budge. I swear, I have always been so bad at this and for once in my life I intend to succeed at it. Having the self will to not make the first call (/send the first text / email / etc), that is. Sooner or later he will want to know whether I'm still alive, and that is when I will talk to him. Not before.

So I'll let you guys know when I fail at that, I guess.

Other than that today has been pretty good. Spent a lot of time just chatting and eating pancakes with my girlfriends, watched Coyote Ugly with Leanne tonight. It's actually not that good a movie, despite my nostalgic fondness for it. I never realised before how much the "coyotes" are glorified strippers. Seems so blatant now.

Also read a text on Leanne's phone from Luke (not THAT Luke, our friend and Morten's housemate) from a couple of days after we broke up where he said if we got back together we must not realise that it will NEVER EVER be the same again. Well, he was right, I guess. We never really had time to find out.

Honestly, looking at it objectively, I think we could have made it work if we had given each other more time and space in the "break" period. But that wasn't something I was capable of then so I refuse to regret it now. And besides, at the end of the day, he doesn't love me and that's not easily fixed in any circumstances. I knew I was living on borrowed time, I just didn't think it would run out so quickly. But I'm pretty okay about it all right now.

Finally, Karin, I read your comment today and I agree it would be awesome if we could hang out and party together. Shall we meet halfway to each other, in the middle of the atlantic? Sounds like a plan to me!

01:45 pm: what happened to basic human decency?

a couple of nights ago my friends and i were attacked by some local chav kids. one particularly psychotic girl almost ripped my friend leanne's hair out while another guy hit her with a stick. someone else threw a brick at the back of my friend mike's head. they were throwing bricks.
not once were we asked to hand over our money or our phones - this was pure, meaningless, unprovoked violence.

yesterday i was at leeds train station running to catch a train with my boyfriend. we were walking quickly up an escalator, but near the top a woman was standing on the left hand side blocking the way, next to a man with a push chair.
"excuse me," i said politely, "can we get past please?"
"no."
when i tried to explain that the left hand side was for people walking up the escalator i was told that if we wanted to walk we should have taken the stairs.
all it would have taken for us to get past was for her to move one step up and half a metre to the right.

all my life i have had a sense of trust in humanity, that most people are good, and will help you, or at least not hurt you without some kind of reason.
surely it is a basic principle of humanity that helping other people makes you feel good about yourself and makes you feel that your existence is in some way worthwhile? if someone won't even make a tiny gesture to help a stranger catch a train, how can that person feel good about him or herself except in so far as "i have achieved something by making that person's life more difficult"? Where is the reward in that?

i don't think i understand the country that i live in any more; or possibly the world that i live in. something has gone seriously wrong when there are sections of society with no concept of basic human decency. and i don't see a way to correct it.

01:33 pm: a note before neighbours...

Gordon Brown 'pledged to lead a government "of all the talents," refusing to rule out employing ministers from other parties'. Now that would be interesting.  I wonder if that is resulting from the Lib Dems' nod towards a Lib-Lab coalition potentially resulting from the next election. Still, I don't think Gordy would be that kind of leader. I don't think we're going to escape the petty inter-party squabbling and namecalling that easily.

12:42 am: a television review of sorts.

so today, since i was up to date on all the new episodes of my regular shows, i finally got into Heroes. And it's pretty good. The story is reasonably compelling, that Mohinder guy works the Anglo-Indian accent, it has enough Lost-esque mystery to make it worth reading into a bit. But the thing that really makes it is Hiro. I swear if he was not in the show, I would not have been half as inclined to watch it. I have a newfound respect for Franklin From Scrubs (obviously he does not have a real name) for playing that role to perfection.. his nerdiness, innocence and sheer energy just makes him pretty much the most endearing character on tv.
that's all. continue about your day.

08:49 pm: Headline: Soldier Killed In War
not even shitting you, front page of the bbc news website today is the story that a soldier in Afghanistan was killed by the Taliban. Is that even news? I think this country, and the others involved in these lovely post-9/11 wars have lost sight of what a war is. It is the deployment of people to go and kill other people. That is the primary function of a soldier. Big freaking surprise that sometimes they are the ones getting killed!

If you support the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the potential future wars in Iran and North Korea, then you support people killing other people. You also support the people who are trying to do the killing getting killed. If you think that the cause - whatever you may perceive it to be - behind them is worth losing lives over, then you have every right to make that judgement. I'm not trying to start a tirade against the very existence of war. I just think people need to be more clear-minded about what it is. And when one soldier's death in a war zone is front page news, I don't think that's what people are being.

02:04 pm: PLZ TAKE 2 SECONDS OF YOUR DAY FOR THIS QUICK SURVEY
These shoes
y/n?

11:17 am: happy new year!
2007 is going to be SWEET. I can tell.

01:05 am: Casino Royale: a review
It's not that good. Daniel Craig is kind of a robot. Clive Owen would have made a much better Bond in this film.

The end!

05:20 pm: are these shoes the sex y/n
every time i see these shoes i die from wanting them but everyone else i have ever shown them to has hated them. am i crazy?

09:53 pm: got goth?

yes, my pretties, this halloween i am being a Teenage Goth. with any luck there may be more pictures to follow!

04:14 pm: york talk!
one of the many things i love about york: there is so much it rhymes with.

so i'm totally at york. it rocks my socks. i'm staying in a house with 8 other people, in Eden's Court which is a group of 9 houses. we kind of chillaxed last night but tonight is access all areas which should be mad cool.

10:25 pm: aw, crudbuckets
i'm kind of pissed cause i just went to the school website to listen to the recordings of the music tour i was on this summer. for like the first time ever i had a proper solo. and mrs c uploaded the last night's performance where i was mega out of tune and had no tone because, hello, i had sunstroke and was on the verge of collapsing throughout the concert. it's such a shame because the second night went so well. plus she has alicia's version of the same song right beforehand so people will compare and go "what the shit is this girl doing, the other one was so much better".
it's here for anyone who's interested http://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupWorkspaces.asp?GroupId=5456&WorkspaceId=47569 (i am soloing on gloria vivaldi #6... though i do not advise you to listen to it due to aforesaid awfulness)

12:14 am: amazing rain

so i was about to get into bed and go to sleep when i heard a faint noise and i was like... dude, is that RAIN? cause that would be loud rain! so i opened up the window and yep, the same torrential stuff that we've had a lot of this summer. but it's been such a hot day today (considering it's freaking september! it got up to like 30 degrees!) and it was so awesome because the air smelled all clean and fresh and the lightning lit up everything. i wish i could have gone out and sat in it.. i settled for sitting on my windowsill at the open window.

that's all.

11:19 pm: boys are rubbish
amirite?

12:03 am: Enough is enough. I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane!
Yes! I saw Snakes On A Plane today, and it was everything I hoped it to be and more. The cinema was practically empty but you could tell the other kids in there were in on the internet joke, which was kind of cool. It's a little gory but mostly with comedic effect, and it does include some classic moments. I can see that anyone who didn't understand the whole thing was essentially a self-parody might not appreciate it, but seriously guys. Snakes on a plane.

12:06 pm: results/uni stuff
As some of you will know, yesterday was Results Day. I got a lift into school for 10, picked up my results without talking to anyone, went and sat in a toilet cubicle and opened the envelope. I got an A in Politics, a killer A in English... and a B in History. I fucked up on my Ireland paper (or so it seems - I thought the exam went quite well, but apparently not) and my coursework was a C. Which is really quite incredible... I was definitely expecting an A on it. I ended up 5 marks below the A grade overall.

My offer to get into York for History and Politics was AAB with an A in history. I got AAB without an A in history.

So, I started crying, stopped crying, went out to find my mum, ran into some friends, started crying again... eventually we got home and I started calling the York admissions confirmation number on speed dial (since it was so busy it took forever to get through). When I did get to talk to someone I found out that they decided to make me an alternative offer for single honours politics.

So, fast forward to the present... I'm getting my coursework remarked (our whole class was severely undermarked, and the most insanely intelligent and history-fiend-type people you can imagine still only got Bs) and getting my Ireland paper back to see if it's worth remarking. I'm going to accept the offer for Politics on the condition that I can switch back to the joint honours course if the remark yields me an A in history. I also sent off emails yesterday (before I knew about the coursework undermarking thing) pleading my case to return to the joint honours course, which probably won't make a difference, but whatever.

So: whatever happens, I'm going to York! I may be on the single honours course but it's fairly likely I'll be able to switch when I'm there, either early in the first term or at the end of the first year. I feel pretty okay about the whole thing, I mean, it's all bound to work out for the best. The important thing is that I'm going to the university I love.