Hello,
For the sake of PDP and my own academic standing I shall continue my blog.
A lot has happened.
I passed the second year. I spent the summer broke and couldnt get a job to save my life but ironically managed to complete a work placement (even though it wasnt a paid one). Third year started and now I have multiple assignments and a new job working at Odeon Cinemas.
Juggling the uni work with the making-money work is quite difficult and annoying. I have to deliver a minor presentation pitch of my script Over the Hill in a few weeks (cue cards and Powerpoint-led materials included) and also have a fleshed out Dissertation Overview to accompany the genesis of my dissertation question/topic/subject area. I have to do all this research and prep whilst working four-five days a week and fitting in uni lectures at the same time. It's not easy and it's not working.
First of all, Odeon is a place that you think would be a cool place to work, but it isn't. It quite frankly sucks. It's boring and frustrating, and so are the people there. A few hot girls is a plus, but not a compensation. So, I plan on quitting after my next paycheque, to make room for my research and preperations. I seem to find it difficult walking and chewing gum at the same time, so I suck really.
Anyway, my minor piece is all about elderly residents breaking out of a retirement home and causing havoc (like The Great Escape meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the elderly and retired...). I need to block that presentation out so I summarise adequately all the details from plot synopsis, to marketing potential, to target audiences, to hypothetical casting etc. That might just end up being simple enough, on top of the development material required to complete that particular unit.
As for the dissertation, I have struggled to find a topic or subject area that excites me enough to waffle on for 10,000 words. I thought narrative was a good entry point for me to start off on but then I completely collapsed under the weight of not having a clue what to do with that. So I stopped thinking about it. Until, that is, I realised that working shifts at Odeon was beginning to force me into working on my uni projects more because I had less time to dick around now. So, in a way, the juggling of two seperate kinds of work, one financial, the other academic, somehow galvanized my on-going problem of leaving things to the last minute. So as of now I have a pretty solid Dissertation Overview worth redrafting. I have chosen to discuss the tv show 24 and the political ideologies behind the character of Jack Bauer, incorporating elements of Fox News Network's politcal bias, the torture debate, the real time narrative structure, post-911 media and the causal "Jack Bauer Effect" in the real world, and it implications. So, I'm excited about researching and writing about that subject area.I'm not sure if I have picked something too broad to cover, but fuck it, desperate times call for desperate measures, and 24 is a good way to encapsulate that phrase regarding my dissertation.
Sooooo, I am in the midst of pulling my finger out. I have met with my dissertation supervisor, who has been very helpful, and I have volunteered for recording my writing process for my major script onto an mp3, providing a series of soundbites that can accompany my final script for following years on how I wrote and developed my script. My major idea is something I have been developing for three years now, so it better turn out good, otherwise I'll feel like I wasted all that time.
It's been a strong start to the year so far in terms of my work ethic and drive to work hard, it's just this job at Odeon is beginning to distract me from more important things. But making money is still very important in itself. I have a dilemma. But somehow I'll work it out. After all, it's not a matter of life and death.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Wednesday 6 May 2009
Triple AAA - Averages, Apathy and Anger.
Well, it's been a while. Hmmm, where to start. I got a first on my last script which was very nice. 75%. It was my first first. So, yay for me. It hasn't gone to my head though, unfortunately. I could do with an ego boost.
My grades on the whole have been shaky this year. They've been averaging out in the late fifties and early sixties, nothing particularly impressive but then again, nothing particularly terrible either. But I am sure when I look back at the end of this university experience I will regret very much the fact that I did not do the Rocky/Stallone thing and "go for it" more. Hindsight. At least I have it now before the third year. That's a plus.
The word is - Average. Anyone and everyone can be average. People want to be exceptional and to excel at something they're good at. But if you don't go for it then it is simply wasted potential you will one day look back on and regret never having explored thoroughly enough. The problem with the kids these days is they just don't have any follow through. I may be young, but I am not stupid. I know what my problems are and what most students problems are, and it has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. It's about laziness. Pure and simple.
So here I am on this blog now at 12 in the afternoon writing my thoughts down for PDP like I have done on and off for the past year and a bit. This time last year I had very set plans and this year I feel like I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Whatever happens I realise that nothing is going to be impossible to achieve on this course if you want it bad enough. The thing that stops so many students (and like I said I include myself in this) from achieving that potential is their own apathy and laziness. This unfortunately is very much built into our generation. We are fucking lazy, and then some. Worse than that, we expect and demand things like we are entitled to them, yet we have not earned them. Half the students I know have never even had a fucking job before in their lives yet see fit to protest about the prices of Costa Coffee as if that is an important cause. The price of a cup of coffee drew more passionate debate and investment then making an effort with the Easter break workloads. This pisses me right off. Over privileged students who do not work to earn their bread mouthing off about rights and wrongs of money. It's the funniest and cheekiest irony I can think of. If they are so concerned by paying an extra thirty pence here and fifty pence there then they should go out and get a fucking job, or better yet, stop spending their precious pennies that they don't have enough of on going out and getting pissed every time there is a "themed" party night at elements.
Students are wankers. Full bloody stop. I have no sympathy for their selfish, "me, me, me" mentality and insincere politics. When I was 18 I thought I knew everything. Now I realise I know nothing. But a large majority of students are aged, regrettably, between 18-21. Thank fuck I am not officially in that age group anymore.
Here is a case in point about the students being lazy, moaning dickheads - the media theory essays were set to be done over the Easter holidays, right? Fine and dandy by me. If the deadline is a few days after Easter, then so be it, that is the deadline. I worked hard on these last two essays. The hardest I have worked on essays since I started the course, not because I suddenly had a new found respect for them, but because I wanted to see if the time I invested would pay off in marks. I wanted to know if it was just my laziness that was making me average in the work I was producing. The most likely answer is yes. (Although this has yet to be determined as I have not yet gotten the marks back for them).
Anyway, back to my rant. Lecturers surely must understand this, even if they do not want to admit it, they secretly must think it. So if they won't say it, I damn well will. And I have said it to anyone who complained about the deadline. So we come back from Easter - we had ALMOST A MONTH to complete these essays. Here I am, Mr. Cynical Lazy Asshole Man, having motivated myself to research, write and complete my essays and allow time to refine and rewrite them, and I did this without complaint or a sense that it was unfair. It was a very reasonable timeframe. Jesus, if I could invest the time, and I am a seriously lazy fuck, then why couldn't ANYONE else.
We came back on a Monday and wthin the first few hours of being back it was clear that every single stupid student in the room had left these very IMPORTANT essays to the last minute. We literally had four days before the hand-in date and somehow, SOMEHOW, these smarmy little shits managed to wring an extra TWO WEEKS out of the deadline because we had a series of workshops during the day for three days that coincided with this very same deadline. Well, I'm sorry, but this is the point of university, is it not??? They were given a month to do their assignments, and if you had not produced even a first draft by the third to last day before the hand-in then you are obviously not taking your course or your education or your future seriously enough. And we're supposed to feel sorry for them? Boo-fucking-hoo. Half of them have never worked a dead end job. They don't know that university is their time to forge a future beyond all that 9-5 hellish crap. They are naive and selfish and expect the rules to bend to their laziness because they don't know what waits for them if they fail.
This in my opinion was unacceptable. The lecturers should NOT have given in. Discipline is a more effective tool in shaping up apathetic idiots then leniency. I had no sympathy for these kids who spent their Easter's fucking about. Someone said to me "Yeah, but I was seeing my family and stuff." And I was like "What are you 12? Grow the fuck up. Surely you weren't in the company of your family 24/7 for the whole holidays. What are they, a family out of The Wicker Man?" There were no valid excuses for why the work had not been done, there were just enough of them who simply had not been bothered enough to do it. These like-minded moaners banded together and inundated the course lecturers. They used that "Life's a Pitch" workshop (which was shite by the way) as a get out of jail free card.
I may have been lazy in the past. I may even have at one point been just as bad as some of these other people I am bashing. That makes me a hypocrite. But I really don't give a shit. This is the truth. Students are dicks. They don't work hard enough and they don't listen to what is being said. I don't care if that is a generalisation because I am indeed one of them. Maybe this is just a development thing. Maybe this is just what happens when you grow a bit older. Last year I might have been just as arrogant. Fuck it, I sound arrogant enough now, but at least I am on the side of sense. And truth. In the words of a classic detective, "In a town full of lepers, I'm the man with the most fingers." Amen to that.
Work hard and reap the rewards. Don't work and suffer the consequences. This should be the message being sent out to students. But by doing what they did, the lecturers inadvertently sent out this message instead - Work hard if you want, but if you don't it will be okay because if enough of you make enough noise, we'll bend over and take it up the ass as hard as you care to give it. My advice, don't let the patients take over the asylum because for the last two weeks it seemed very clear to me that the students were in control of Weymouth House. Not the lecturers.
Rant over with. Hopefully someone will read this and take note. If not, well, I guess I'll have to get a soapbox and start my own Costa coffee-like campaign. But really, I just can't be bothered. ;-)
p.s.
Just a note about swine flu. This is such a croc of shit. I really hope people are not buying into this crap like they did with the SARS virus and bird flu a few years back. This is how the world ends you know, not by biological holocaust, but by the stupidity and gullibility of a mass panicked global public. Fucking idiots. STOP WATCHNG THE NEWS. You'll find more truth up my ass then on the box. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
This blog is rated PG-13.
My grades on the whole have been shaky this year. They've been averaging out in the late fifties and early sixties, nothing particularly impressive but then again, nothing particularly terrible either. But I am sure when I look back at the end of this university experience I will regret very much the fact that I did not do the Rocky/Stallone thing and "go for it" more. Hindsight. At least I have it now before the third year. That's a plus.
The word is - Average. Anyone and everyone can be average. People want to be exceptional and to excel at something they're good at. But if you don't go for it then it is simply wasted potential you will one day look back on and regret never having explored thoroughly enough. The problem with the kids these days is they just don't have any follow through. I may be young, but I am not stupid. I know what my problems are and what most students problems are, and it has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. It's about laziness. Pure and simple.
So here I am on this blog now at 12 in the afternoon writing my thoughts down for PDP like I have done on and off for the past year and a bit. This time last year I had very set plans and this year I feel like I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Whatever happens I realise that nothing is going to be impossible to achieve on this course if you want it bad enough. The thing that stops so many students (and like I said I include myself in this) from achieving that potential is their own apathy and laziness. This unfortunately is very much built into our generation. We are fucking lazy, and then some. Worse than that, we expect and demand things like we are entitled to them, yet we have not earned them. Half the students I know have never even had a fucking job before in their lives yet see fit to protest about the prices of Costa Coffee as if that is an important cause. The price of a cup of coffee drew more passionate debate and investment then making an effort with the Easter break workloads. This pisses me right off. Over privileged students who do not work to earn their bread mouthing off about rights and wrongs of money. It's the funniest and cheekiest irony I can think of. If they are so concerned by paying an extra thirty pence here and fifty pence there then they should go out and get a fucking job, or better yet, stop spending their precious pennies that they don't have enough of on going out and getting pissed every time there is a "themed" party night at elements.
Students are wankers. Full bloody stop. I have no sympathy for their selfish, "me, me, me" mentality and insincere politics. When I was 18 I thought I knew everything. Now I realise I know nothing. But a large majority of students are aged, regrettably, between 18-21. Thank fuck I am not officially in that age group anymore.
Here is a case in point about the students being lazy, moaning dickheads - the media theory essays were set to be done over the Easter holidays, right? Fine and dandy by me. If the deadline is a few days after Easter, then so be it, that is the deadline. I worked hard on these last two essays. The hardest I have worked on essays since I started the course, not because I suddenly had a new found respect for them, but because I wanted to see if the time I invested would pay off in marks. I wanted to know if it was just my laziness that was making me average in the work I was producing. The most likely answer is yes. (Although this has yet to be determined as I have not yet gotten the marks back for them).
Anyway, back to my rant. Lecturers surely must understand this, even if they do not want to admit it, they secretly must think it. So if they won't say it, I damn well will. And I have said it to anyone who complained about the deadline. So we come back from Easter - we had ALMOST A MONTH to complete these essays. Here I am, Mr. Cynical Lazy Asshole Man, having motivated myself to research, write and complete my essays and allow time to refine and rewrite them, and I did this without complaint or a sense that it was unfair. It was a very reasonable timeframe. Jesus, if I could invest the time, and I am a seriously lazy fuck, then why couldn't ANYONE else.
We came back on a Monday and wthin the first few hours of being back it was clear that every single stupid student in the room had left these very IMPORTANT essays to the last minute. We literally had four days before the hand-in date and somehow, SOMEHOW, these smarmy little shits managed to wring an extra TWO WEEKS out of the deadline because we had a series of workshops during the day for three days that coincided with this very same deadline. Well, I'm sorry, but this is the point of university, is it not??? They were given a month to do their assignments, and if you had not produced even a first draft by the third to last day before the hand-in then you are obviously not taking your course or your education or your future seriously enough. And we're supposed to feel sorry for them? Boo-fucking-hoo. Half of them have never worked a dead end job. They don't know that university is their time to forge a future beyond all that 9-5 hellish crap. They are naive and selfish and expect the rules to bend to their laziness because they don't know what waits for them if they fail.
This in my opinion was unacceptable. The lecturers should NOT have given in. Discipline is a more effective tool in shaping up apathetic idiots then leniency. I had no sympathy for these kids who spent their Easter's fucking about. Someone said to me "Yeah, but I was seeing my family and stuff." And I was like "What are you 12? Grow the fuck up. Surely you weren't in the company of your family 24/7 for the whole holidays. What are they, a family out of The Wicker Man?" There were no valid excuses for why the work had not been done, there were just enough of them who simply had not been bothered enough to do it. These like-minded moaners banded together and inundated the course lecturers. They used that "Life's a Pitch" workshop (which was shite by the way) as a get out of jail free card.
I may have been lazy in the past. I may even have at one point been just as bad as some of these other people I am bashing. That makes me a hypocrite. But I really don't give a shit. This is the truth. Students are dicks. They don't work hard enough and they don't listen to what is being said. I don't care if that is a generalisation because I am indeed one of them. Maybe this is just a development thing. Maybe this is just what happens when you grow a bit older. Last year I might have been just as arrogant. Fuck it, I sound arrogant enough now, but at least I am on the side of sense. And truth. In the words of a classic detective, "In a town full of lepers, I'm the man with the most fingers." Amen to that.
Work hard and reap the rewards. Don't work and suffer the consequences. This should be the message being sent out to students. But by doing what they did, the lecturers inadvertently sent out this message instead - Work hard if you want, but if you don't it will be okay because if enough of you make enough noise, we'll bend over and take it up the ass as hard as you care to give it. My advice, don't let the patients take over the asylum because for the last two weeks it seemed very clear to me that the students were in control of Weymouth House. Not the lecturers.
Rant over with. Hopefully someone will read this and take note. If not, well, I guess I'll have to get a soapbox and start my own Costa coffee-like campaign. But really, I just can't be bothered. ;-)
p.s.
Just a note about swine flu. This is such a croc of shit. I really hope people are not buying into this crap like they did with the SARS virus and bird flu a few years back. This is how the world ends you know, not by biological holocaust, but by the stupidity and gullibility of a mass panicked global public. Fucking idiots. STOP WATCHNG THE NEWS. You'll find more truth up my ass then on the box. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
This blog is rated PG-13.
Tuesday 24 February 2009
Sto Lavorando
A lecturer on my course asked me the other day why I spent so much time thinking about doing work but not actually doing it. He said it in a jokey way but I knew what he meant. At the time I couldn't think of an answer that sounded good, in retrospect now, this is what I should have told him:
Ludovico Buonarroti was Michelangelo's father.
He was a wealthy man but he was also a snob. Ludovico had no understanding of the divinity in his son, so he beat him. No child of his was going to use his hands for a living. So Michelangelo learned not to use his hands. Years later, a visiting Prince came into Michelangelo's studio and found the master staring at a single 18-foot block of marble. Then he knew the rumors were true that Michelangelo had come in every day for the past four months, stared at the marble, and gone home for his supper. So the Prince asked the obvious, "What are you doing?"
Michelangelo turned around and looked at him and whispered, "Sto lavorando". "I'm working."
Three years later, that block of marble was the Statue of David.
That story would have made him laugh his ass off, but it's my excuse for not doing work for the moment. If you ever need an excuse to justify sitting around and not applying yourself to the task at hand just say to people "Sto lavorando" - you may not be making the Statue of David, but thinking about how you are going to do the work is work too.
Ludovico Buonarroti was Michelangelo's father.
He was a wealthy man but he was also a snob. Ludovico had no understanding of the divinity in his son, so he beat him. No child of his was going to use his hands for a living. So Michelangelo learned not to use his hands. Years later, a visiting Prince came into Michelangelo's studio and found the master staring at a single 18-foot block of marble. Then he knew the rumors were true that Michelangelo had come in every day for the past four months, stared at the marble, and gone home for his supper. So the Prince asked the obvious, "What are you doing?"
Michelangelo turned around and looked at him and whispered, "Sto lavorando". "I'm working."
Three years later, that block of marble was the Statue of David.
That story would have made him laugh his ass off, but it's my excuse for not doing work for the moment. If you ever need an excuse to justify sitting around and not applying yourself to the task at hand just say to people "Sto lavorando" - you may not be making the Statue of David, but thinking about how you are going to do the work is work too.
Sunday 2 November 2008
The Dodgy Second Act
I'm back at uni for my second year and so far I am under-whelmed. We have lots to do, don't get me wrong; a tv series to develop, a theoretical essay on authorship, a script editing exercise followed by the real thing plus various other stuff. But I feel incredibly unexcited about it all.
My trip to Australia was great and made me think in a way I had not thought before. Not to say I had a 'profound' experience or anything, it was just enlightening and eye opening. We rented a dilapidated van and drove across South Australia from the mountains of Jindabyne to the deserts of the fabled Australian outback, getting into a series of mishaps and unexpected detours. What it did, in a lasting sense, was make me want to move on from where I've been standing still for so long. I have been in Bournemouth way too many years now, and this course is another thing, another reason, to stay in a place I'm really starting to resent. And the work is just not holding my interest enough to compensate this feeling of lethargy. It feels as if I am losing my faith in scriptwriting. Like I have known for years the reality of the industry but refused to wake up to it. These days I'm more inclined to accept reality rather than reimagine it through rose tinted spectacles.
Just to clarify - the only thing I have ever wanted to do for a living is write. I'm not one of these fresh faced 18 yr olds who decided at the last minute to be a writer because their English teacher once told them they wrote a good short story about some shit no one cares about. I know that makes me sound like a total arsehole, but it is true. Half of these people don't have a real long term investment in writing, its just an option they took because a) they thought it'd be easy, b) they couldn't get onto BATV production or c) they wanted to be involved in a predominantly creative course as opposed to an academic one. I am not one of these guys or girls who made a choice at the last minute. I have always written and told stories. It's my only skill worth developing. I used to be an idealistic dreamer, these days I'm more of a dickheaded realist. But for some reason I am losing focus with this course because I have itchy feet and want to move on from a town that I no longer want and that no longer wants me.
The three years of uni abides by the three act structure we have been taught. Act One is the set-up and introduction to the characters, arena and plot, Act Two is the meat of the story where the decisions and major events play out a and the third year falls into the climatic Act Three where everything comes to a head. Let's just say I'm getting bored of Act Two and I want to just skip to the end so I can leave the cinema and hop the fastest train the hell outta of there. That said, I have no ill will toward the actual work on the course itself. It may be incredibly disorganised in general but it has its merits. This is about Bournemouth, the wretched shit hole that I have spent too many years festering in. This place is driving me crazy and the fatigue of living in such a small, same old shit, different day type of town is affecting the enjoyment of the course which admittedly diminished long ago.
Travelling in Oz taught me a few things - always consider your options carefully before you get behind a decision, never drive down a sandy mud hill and then try to turn around, never be afraid to ask for help, read A LOT, your closest friends are like gold dust (treasure them) and make sure to be honest with yourself even if you can' be honest with other people. Ha, maybe I should write the sequel lyrics to Baz Lurhman's Class of 99 Wear Sunscreen song. Jesus, I'm turning into a pretentious, piss ant student more and more everyday. Look at this blog. Read some of the crap I’ve written about. Blah, blah this and blah, blah that. I hate students. Hate them. they represent all that is naive and moronic and arrogant in this country. They party hard, pissing their precious pounds down the toilet and into their gullets in the form of wine, vodka and beer (before throwing it back up again) and then spend their days acting like their shit don’t stink and how much smarter, or better they are at talking about bullshit than anyone else. Now I am one of them, and I feel ashamed. I take a cold shower once a month to wash away the dirty feeling I get after a day at uni.
I guess this makes me a snob. I guess I should suck up my snooty observations and just do the bloody work which I am paying 3+ grand a year to do. I am more confident about how I am going to be a writer and avoid the pitfalls I have always feared I may trip over and disappear down. Australia gave me the direction I was hoping it would give me, it's just that it happened to point me in a direction I was not entirely expecting. This dodgy second act will continue to be reported for PDP purposes so that when this is all over this blog will show an evolution and development of my thoughts. From day one, entry one I was a cynical twat, when this course finishes by the final entry I will still be a cynical twat, only hopefully with a degree.
My trip to Australia was great and made me think in a way I had not thought before. Not to say I had a 'profound' experience or anything, it was just enlightening and eye opening. We rented a dilapidated van and drove across South Australia from the mountains of Jindabyne to the deserts of the fabled Australian outback, getting into a series of mishaps and unexpected detours. What it did, in a lasting sense, was make me want to move on from where I've been standing still for so long. I have been in Bournemouth way too many years now, and this course is another thing, another reason, to stay in a place I'm really starting to resent. And the work is just not holding my interest enough to compensate this feeling of lethargy. It feels as if I am losing my faith in scriptwriting. Like I have known for years the reality of the industry but refused to wake up to it. These days I'm more inclined to accept reality rather than reimagine it through rose tinted spectacles.
Just to clarify - the only thing I have ever wanted to do for a living is write. I'm not one of these fresh faced 18 yr olds who decided at the last minute to be a writer because their English teacher once told them they wrote a good short story about some shit no one cares about. I know that makes me sound like a total arsehole, but it is true. Half of these people don't have a real long term investment in writing, its just an option they took because a) they thought it'd be easy, b) they couldn't get onto BATV production or c) they wanted to be involved in a predominantly creative course as opposed to an academic one. I am not one of these guys or girls who made a choice at the last minute. I have always written and told stories. It's my only skill worth developing. I used to be an idealistic dreamer, these days I'm more of a dickheaded realist. But for some reason I am losing focus with this course because I have itchy feet and want to move on from a town that I no longer want and that no longer wants me.
The three years of uni abides by the three act structure we have been taught. Act One is the set-up and introduction to the characters, arena and plot, Act Two is the meat of the story where the decisions and major events play out a and the third year falls into the climatic Act Three where everything comes to a head. Let's just say I'm getting bored of Act Two and I want to just skip to the end so I can leave the cinema and hop the fastest train the hell outta of there. That said, I have no ill will toward the actual work on the course itself. It may be incredibly disorganised in general but it has its merits. This is about Bournemouth, the wretched shit hole that I have spent too many years festering in. This place is driving me crazy and the fatigue of living in such a small, same old shit, different day type of town is affecting the enjoyment of the course which admittedly diminished long ago.
Travelling in Oz taught me a few things - always consider your options carefully before you get behind a decision, never drive down a sandy mud hill and then try to turn around, never be afraid to ask for help, read A LOT, your closest friends are like gold dust (treasure them) and make sure to be honest with yourself even if you can' be honest with other people. Ha, maybe I should write the sequel lyrics to Baz Lurhman's Class of 99 Wear Sunscreen song. Jesus, I'm turning into a pretentious, piss ant student more and more everyday. Look at this blog. Read some of the crap I’ve written about. Blah, blah this and blah, blah that. I hate students. Hate them. they represent all that is naive and moronic and arrogant in this country. They party hard, pissing their precious pounds down the toilet and into their gullets in the form of wine, vodka and beer (before throwing it back up again) and then spend their days acting like their shit don’t stink and how much smarter, or better they are at talking about bullshit than anyone else. Now I am one of them, and I feel ashamed. I take a cold shower once a month to wash away the dirty feeling I get after a day at uni.
I guess this makes me a snob. I guess I should suck up my snooty observations and just do the bloody work which I am paying 3+ grand a year to do. I am more confident about how I am going to be a writer and avoid the pitfalls I have always feared I may trip over and disappear down. Australia gave me the direction I was hoping it would give me, it's just that it happened to point me in a direction I was not entirely expecting. This dodgy second act will continue to be reported for PDP purposes so that when this is all over this blog will show an evolution and development of my thoughts. From day one, entry one I was a cynical twat, when this course finishes by the final entry I will still be a cynical twat, only hopefully with a degree.
Sunday 4 May 2008
Enough Procrastination... onto the Land of Oz
Time to tie up loose ends (mafia-style).
I've talked about the course, my feelings, 24, screenwriting, my thoughts about the future and now the time has come to bring this seemingly endless journey to an end.
My grades have been good overall. From my images assignment through my narratives, and soon I will (hopefully) discover my audiences unit marks (script and essay). Its taken a bloody age to get this last essay back and I personally am running out of patience with the waiting (over a month and almost a half). So when those votes are in I shall know how this year has panned out for me. Have I improved? Have I grown as a person? Will I vote Tory? Blah, blah, blah. The trick is not what grades you get in the first year, but how you learn to improve from your mistakes the next time. I get that part of the learning process. It's why I came to uni. And I reckon it has been well worth the experience (maybe not the thirty grand) but certainly the people I've met, the advice I've been given and the confidence I have gained have been worth the price of admission.
The academic year is coming to a close - a lot of people dropped out, more than I was expecting, plus a few unexpected quitters - but ultimately when it came down to the nitty-gritty I put my effort in. However, on the images unit script into production, I suffered a grievous error in judgement. My group failed to hand in a finished film product to achieve 10% of the unit's weighting. I felt bad and took most of the responsibility for the group having failed, although I was saddled with people who were generally enthusiastic but fucking lazy. I include myself in that by the way. I did learn something more valuable, one could argue, from the whole experience; enthusiasm does not get the cake baked, nor after he falls off the wall does it put Humpty together again. So to redeem my actions of failure I have taken the initiative with my Summer Project Group (who have been enthusiastic AND proactive) by writing their material from pretty much the word go. That way we got a head start in the production and the project schedule. I wrote three scripts, all being produced and I am assisting with the production (in an actorly capacity) and with the website's content. If that's not an example of active redemption in action, then I don't know what is. I'm enjoying the collaborative process as it happens.
But the biggest thing going down for me right now is the fact that in a moment of impulsive insanity I booked a flight to Sydney, Australia. My friend Dicker, moved out there last month and invited me to stay anytime. I said I'd go at some point but never thought I really would. Then I was passing by Thomas Cook and just thought; "why the hell not?" Within an hour I had bought and paid for a return flight. I'm gonna be gone on the 25th of June to the 3rd of August. So I'll be missing the end of term by like one week. It's hit me how soon I am going - I have started getting my slow, hairy ass into gear. My workload is the priority this month - once I get the summer project finito'd by June 2nd I believe, then I'll complete my PDP stuff for a June 11th hand-in, kiss my peeps goodbye, bang the girl next door, and boom - I'm leaving on a jet plane and when I return I'll be a new man - ready for a second uni year, and this time I'm gonna kick some academic ass.
Part of me gets so attached to routines, I get sentimental when they come to an end - even when I hate them (like my old insurance job) but I always find the cathartic side to every long goodbye. To this blog, and to this year, farewell. You've been good to me and we shared a lot. Until we meet again....
Number of people who read this whole thing: (zero) but diaries should be private on public communication forums. Ha, see what I did there?
Peace out.
I've talked about the course, my feelings, 24, screenwriting, my thoughts about the future and now the time has come to bring this seemingly endless journey to an end.
My grades have been good overall. From my images assignment through my narratives, and soon I will (hopefully) discover my audiences unit marks (script and essay). Its taken a bloody age to get this last essay back and I personally am running out of patience with the waiting (over a month and almost a half). So when those votes are in I shall know how this year has panned out for me. Have I improved? Have I grown as a person? Will I vote Tory? Blah, blah, blah. The trick is not what grades you get in the first year, but how you learn to improve from your mistakes the next time. I get that part of the learning process. It's why I came to uni. And I reckon it has been well worth the experience (maybe not the thirty grand) but certainly the people I've met, the advice I've been given and the confidence I have gained have been worth the price of admission.
The academic year is coming to a close - a lot of people dropped out, more than I was expecting, plus a few unexpected quitters - but ultimately when it came down to the nitty-gritty I put my effort in. However, on the images unit script into production, I suffered a grievous error in judgement. My group failed to hand in a finished film product to achieve 10% of the unit's weighting. I felt bad and took most of the responsibility for the group having failed, although I was saddled with people who were generally enthusiastic but fucking lazy. I include myself in that by the way. I did learn something more valuable, one could argue, from the whole experience; enthusiasm does not get the cake baked, nor after he falls off the wall does it put Humpty together again. So to redeem my actions of failure I have taken the initiative with my Summer Project Group (who have been enthusiastic AND proactive) by writing their material from pretty much the word go. That way we got a head start in the production and the project schedule. I wrote three scripts, all being produced and I am assisting with the production (in an actorly capacity) and with the website's content. If that's not an example of active redemption in action, then I don't know what is. I'm enjoying the collaborative process as it happens.
But the biggest thing going down for me right now is the fact that in a moment of impulsive insanity I booked a flight to Sydney, Australia. My friend Dicker, moved out there last month and invited me to stay anytime. I said I'd go at some point but never thought I really would. Then I was passing by Thomas Cook and just thought; "why the hell not?" Within an hour I had bought and paid for a return flight. I'm gonna be gone on the 25th of June to the 3rd of August. So I'll be missing the end of term by like one week. It's hit me how soon I am going - I have started getting my slow, hairy ass into gear. My workload is the priority this month - once I get the summer project finito'd by June 2nd I believe, then I'll complete my PDP stuff for a June 11th hand-in, kiss my peeps goodbye, bang the girl next door, and boom - I'm leaving on a jet plane and when I return I'll be a new man - ready for a second uni year, and this time I'm gonna kick some academic ass.
Part of me gets so attached to routines, I get sentimental when they come to an end - even when I hate them (like my old insurance job) but I always find the cathartic side to every long goodbye. To this blog, and to this year, farewell. You've been good to me and we shared a lot. Until we meet again....
Number of people who read this whole thing: (zero) but diaries should be private on public communication forums. Ha, see what I did there?
Peace out.
Friday 28 March 2008
Fight the Future
This is a short essay about why I hate technology. It came from a discussion during one of Claudia's theory seminars. I had to get some of this stuff out there.
BARGAINING
Mankind has built barriers and set boundaries around itself for a reason. We have clearly forgotten why. It would seem these barriers are beginning to break down. Some would argue that the barriers are there to keep the many imprisoned in their primitive beliefs and close their minds to the idea of the possibilities in science. The argument between science and religion shall exist for as long as men and women dominate the planet, but the answer is not so clear cut as to who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes the argument extends beyond a mere ideological debate and tussle for control between the two opposing sides. I pose the idea that a new faction splinters this ages-old struggle between science and faith. I like to call it The Humanist Factor.
Did we draw lines in the sand so we could work towards crossing them, or to understand our own limits? Technology is growing ever more dominant in the modern world and we are becoming ever more reliant on it in our day to day lives. Progressions in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, automated machines, medical breakthroughs and the evolution of interactive entertainment are primary focuses of the new world we seem to be embracing. The public think positively about the benefits they will reap in the future. It has been sold to us as a potential catalyst for a harmonious utopian future of relaxed and easier living, but what of the consequences? What of the price that comes attached to the bargain we are making with science?
We have always encouraged the explorations beyond human means and the endless possibilities of new frontiers to reach and conquer. We landed on the moon. We dissected the atom. We created a communication tool that has spread across the world and into every home. We have achieved greatness in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Taken risks and invested time and money into discovering answers that could help benefit the world. Or even change the world. The vision of the future has been the pinnacle of 20th century optimism and hope. Our curiosity has accomplished amazing progressions so fast that perhaps we have yet to really consider the downside to all this.
Imagine a virtual entertainment system that puts you inside your favourite television show or blockbuster movie. Where you have a panoramic view of the entire fictional dimension the characters you love inhabit. The barrier between the viewer and the fictional world has always been the screen, whether it be a TV screen or a laptop monitor. There is a clear divide between realities. If that barrier were to be broken, where would people go then? Where does the clear line that separates truth from fiction exist if we can literally enter these worlds without apprehension or psychical effort? Reality ceases to be tangible. It then becomes that of a human integrated video game capable of preoccupying the minds of everyday people for days at a time. Who would want to leave this virtual construct? Who would want to return to the land of painful heart beats and under paid employments? The hook is escapism, only in this instance we are taking that term very literally. Could the mind survive such regular visits to the unreal? What happens to the body? Inside the virtual world we are Gods of our own making, in a sense we reject the reality of natural life given by the Earth and become slaves to the convenience of complacency. This is part of our bargain with embracing the future. In a sense, laziness will be not only encouraged, but inevitably demanded from us.
Now imagine automated work stations and a new industrial revolution where people become obsolete because a computer is created that never sleeps or takes a sick day. It manages complaint calls and never loses its temper, it sorts out your bills at the restaurant so mathematical skills become redundant as to how to split the payment, it does the labour in the factories and never wears a frown upside down at the tills in Tesco (we have already been given the self-serve tills. A day I remember first using one was the day I knew this was the beginning of the end). What does the working stiff do when he is replaced by a programmed student of perfection? That is the word I suppose that counts really. Perfection. Man is far from perfect yet we believe we can create something that is. An entity that will be controlled to make our lives easier, yet in the same instance what will it take away from us? Self-driving vehicles will also disaffect people and turn the imposed self-survival of daily living into complacency. While the machines and computers do all the work, what will we be doing? Entering our virtual domains no doubt. The material world will disintegrate as we disown the pain and purpose of living and breathing because downloading our fragile minds into a box or tube of wiring is so much easier then facing the troubles and trials that life brings us. And like the masses that already worship at the altars of daytime television we will slowly become addicted to this complacency until all we are then, is human meat hooked into wires and microchips that reprogram our emotions to a digital plane of little ones and zeros. We become complex binary codes simplified into something no more impressive then that of a human barcode.
What of the soul? Spirituality is not religion. Spirituality is something deep within a person that exists in the heart and mind. It could be classed as a feeling, or a way of being. Some people believe in a soul but not in God. Some people believe in neither. But let us hypothesise that the soul is a real thing. Does it exist in the mind? If so what happens to it when we jack in? Does it corrupt like a downloaded file off of the Internet? And what of our children thirty years from now? How will they cope without their new Ipod upgrade which by then can fit into your ear, acting as both a phone, computer and entertainment system rolled into one? Lunchtimes will no longer require playgrounds because kids can simply plug themselves into a socket, close their eyes and surf the web over their closed eyelids. Children will become more and more disconnected from what it means to strive and experience real emotion. Techno-literates and Futurists (the optimists of the techno-age) see only the good. That evolutions in Internet and communication technology will bring people closer together. Knowledge will be accessible to everyone and anyone. But wisdom is not gained from simply knowing. It is gained from actual life experience. People do not grow from simply knowing, they must interact, learn and exorcise that knowledge in the real world in order to understand it. What would John Lennon think these days? Now we no longer envision the world linking hands and singing “We are the World.” Now we can envision an online community of growing numbers where we can practice democratic freedoms without censorship or control. But make no mistake, corporations run everything. Not governments. Where the money is, is where the power is. Where else does the funding come from to invest so much research into these new process’ and products? This is all about consumerism. Science may have good intention, but the road to hell is always paved with those, and we know how that can end. Witness Hiroshima. Witness NASA’s Challenger disaster. Witness biological warfare. Witness man’s inability to control his own future. As soon as something is invented and proved to work, it is patented, mass produced and sold at a costly sum until other companies follow in the footsteps and create cheaper models that bring prices crashing down. Then people consume the new technologies, eating up every last crumb of a fad fashion of the time just to say they have the latest piece of junk hardware that contains the most out-of-this-world graphics and vision quality. Corporations are not out to benefit mankind. They are out to benefit themselves, and we all know this. Technology is not simply about breaking down boundaries, its about breaking our banks to get our money so it may be invested in other assorted materials. I consider it a rape of our souls. If you believe in a soul that is.
For those of you who don’t, let’s look at a different aspect. Consider western governments consistent encouragement that pushes us towards “a brighter tomorrow.” Anyone who has seen an apocalyptic sci-fi movie will know phrases like that are always promptly followed by a big downfall soon to come. Orwellian distopian futures are not simply sci-fi cynics looking to get kicks out of dissing everyone’s favourite new religion. It’s just as possible we could go down that road. Flying cars for everyone? First we have to avoid economical breakdown, natural disasters possibly caused by increased global warming and everyday crime that sucks the money out from tax payers arses like no man’s business. If we want state-of-the-art flying cars and public pornography hologram suites then it will come by way of hugely increased taxes. Nothing is for free. If the government thinks it will be beneficial for all then they will add it to the already rising costs of daily living. What’s the everyman gonna do when a computer takes his job? How will he afford to pay for his new solar power heated toilet seat? What then? And speaking of crime, forget drug running, soon we will have a whole new evolution in criminal techno-theft and smuggling. The criminal element has already latched onto the lucrative idea of using technology for financial gain. Imagine when we have all kinds of pirated products falling off the back of lorries and into the hands of the laid-off, pissed-off everyman. Will a new faction rise up against Techno-literates and Futurists then? It will probably be too late. Could you imagine computer prejudice one day becoming a crime? Maybe I am getting a little too fantastical for some people’s tastes, but I am merely following in the footsteps of the “better tomorrow” optimists, only I want to see the other, much darker side to it all. The process of technological change has already begun to shape our world substantially.
Government research into stem cells and cloning has stirred controversy on more than one occasion and I understand why. Whether you believe in God or not, for human beings to cosmetically manufacture life in the attempts at pushing our limits as mortal creatures is clearly a symbol for how man’s ego has grown since the early 20th century. It is more than playing God. It is playing with the fabric of moral law and mother nature‘s design. And mother nature certainly exists. Hurricane Katrina proved that. The Tsunami in Thailand was no day at the beach either. Anyone remember those storms in 2006 that whipped our British summer into a flood fest? I do. Mother Nature was pissed off. If you believe in a force beyond human means then surely that could be taken as a warning? Don’t fuck with the natural order of things. Don’t try to break free of the confines of our own mortality. It was designed that way for a reason. We are born, we live, we die. Cloning, cryogenically freezing or downloading conscious thought into a computer are ideas beyond the realm of exploration and are simply about man’s need to extend his natural existence unnaturally because he is afraid of death. Afraid of the unknown. This is not about conquering frontiers, this is about fear of extinction. Fear of destruction. Our own self-destruction.
“Man is the most dangerous animal of all.” - The Most Dangerous Game
Most dangerous indeed. Human nature is self-destructive. With all the positives that come with new technologies and research into sciences of the body and mind, how can we possibly handle the overwhelming design of such dangerous avenues when primitive man used a simple rock to smash in the head of another man? In our hands we cannot wield anything without causing our own destruction or the destruction of others. We feed off chaos in order to continue surviving, or else, where does this compulsion to dream of a utopian future come from? It is our light at the end of the tunnel. But the light is just a train passing through. The tunnel is dark, and long, and possibly never ending. There is no future except for the ones we are living now. The only thing that counts are the human lives that exist in the here and the now and the blood that binds us all together. Human morality must continue to exist. The Humanist Factor is what separates us, whether it is our souls or our collective morality, from the machines built from plastic, metals, wiring fused together to create artificial existence to brainwash and tangibly disconnect us from each other.
I for one do not wish to be around when the mite of armies resides in the hands of a self-manned computer without conscious or compassion. Then again, we do already have George Bush. J
Keep The Humanist Factor intact. It might eventually be all we have left to hold onto. Fight the future and thanks for reading.
BARGAINING
Mankind has built barriers and set boundaries around itself for a reason. We have clearly forgotten why. It would seem these barriers are beginning to break down. Some would argue that the barriers are there to keep the many imprisoned in their primitive beliefs and close their minds to the idea of the possibilities in science. The argument between science and religion shall exist for as long as men and women dominate the planet, but the answer is not so clear cut as to who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes the argument extends beyond a mere ideological debate and tussle for control between the two opposing sides. I pose the idea that a new faction splinters this ages-old struggle between science and faith. I like to call it The Humanist Factor.
Did we draw lines in the sand so we could work towards crossing them, or to understand our own limits? Technology is growing ever more dominant in the modern world and we are becoming ever more reliant on it in our day to day lives. Progressions in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, automated machines, medical breakthroughs and the evolution of interactive entertainment are primary focuses of the new world we seem to be embracing. The public think positively about the benefits they will reap in the future. It has been sold to us as a potential catalyst for a harmonious utopian future of relaxed and easier living, but what of the consequences? What of the price that comes attached to the bargain we are making with science?
We have always encouraged the explorations beyond human means and the endless possibilities of new frontiers to reach and conquer. We landed on the moon. We dissected the atom. We created a communication tool that has spread across the world and into every home. We have achieved greatness in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Taken risks and invested time and money into discovering answers that could help benefit the world. Or even change the world. The vision of the future has been the pinnacle of 20th century optimism and hope. Our curiosity has accomplished amazing progressions so fast that perhaps we have yet to really consider the downside to all this.
Imagine a virtual entertainment system that puts you inside your favourite television show or blockbuster movie. Where you have a panoramic view of the entire fictional dimension the characters you love inhabit. The barrier between the viewer and the fictional world has always been the screen, whether it be a TV screen or a laptop monitor. There is a clear divide between realities. If that barrier were to be broken, where would people go then? Where does the clear line that separates truth from fiction exist if we can literally enter these worlds without apprehension or psychical effort? Reality ceases to be tangible. It then becomes that of a human integrated video game capable of preoccupying the minds of everyday people for days at a time. Who would want to leave this virtual construct? Who would want to return to the land of painful heart beats and under paid employments? The hook is escapism, only in this instance we are taking that term very literally. Could the mind survive such regular visits to the unreal? What happens to the body? Inside the virtual world we are Gods of our own making, in a sense we reject the reality of natural life given by the Earth and become slaves to the convenience of complacency. This is part of our bargain with embracing the future. In a sense, laziness will be not only encouraged, but inevitably demanded from us.
Now imagine automated work stations and a new industrial revolution where people become obsolete because a computer is created that never sleeps or takes a sick day. It manages complaint calls and never loses its temper, it sorts out your bills at the restaurant so mathematical skills become redundant as to how to split the payment, it does the labour in the factories and never wears a frown upside down at the tills in Tesco (we have already been given the self-serve tills. A day I remember first using one was the day I knew this was the beginning of the end). What does the working stiff do when he is replaced by a programmed student of perfection? That is the word I suppose that counts really. Perfection. Man is far from perfect yet we believe we can create something that is. An entity that will be controlled to make our lives easier, yet in the same instance what will it take away from us? Self-driving vehicles will also disaffect people and turn the imposed self-survival of daily living into complacency. While the machines and computers do all the work, what will we be doing? Entering our virtual domains no doubt. The material world will disintegrate as we disown the pain and purpose of living and breathing because downloading our fragile minds into a box or tube of wiring is so much easier then facing the troubles and trials that life brings us. And like the masses that already worship at the altars of daytime television we will slowly become addicted to this complacency until all we are then, is human meat hooked into wires and microchips that reprogram our emotions to a digital plane of little ones and zeros. We become complex binary codes simplified into something no more impressive then that of a human barcode.
What of the soul? Spirituality is not religion. Spirituality is something deep within a person that exists in the heart and mind. It could be classed as a feeling, or a way of being. Some people believe in a soul but not in God. Some people believe in neither. But let us hypothesise that the soul is a real thing. Does it exist in the mind? If so what happens to it when we jack in? Does it corrupt like a downloaded file off of the Internet? And what of our children thirty years from now? How will they cope without their new Ipod upgrade which by then can fit into your ear, acting as both a phone, computer and entertainment system rolled into one? Lunchtimes will no longer require playgrounds because kids can simply plug themselves into a socket, close their eyes and surf the web over their closed eyelids. Children will become more and more disconnected from what it means to strive and experience real emotion. Techno-literates and Futurists (the optimists of the techno-age) see only the good. That evolutions in Internet and communication technology will bring people closer together. Knowledge will be accessible to everyone and anyone. But wisdom is not gained from simply knowing. It is gained from actual life experience. People do not grow from simply knowing, they must interact, learn and exorcise that knowledge in the real world in order to understand it. What would John Lennon think these days? Now we no longer envision the world linking hands and singing “We are the World.” Now we can envision an online community of growing numbers where we can practice democratic freedoms without censorship or control. But make no mistake, corporations run everything. Not governments. Where the money is, is where the power is. Where else does the funding come from to invest so much research into these new process’ and products? This is all about consumerism. Science may have good intention, but the road to hell is always paved with those, and we know how that can end. Witness Hiroshima. Witness NASA’s Challenger disaster. Witness biological warfare. Witness man’s inability to control his own future. As soon as something is invented and proved to work, it is patented, mass produced and sold at a costly sum until other companies follow in the footsteps and create cheaper models that bring prices crashing down. Then people consume the new technologies, eating up every last crumb of a fad fashion of the time just to say they have the latest piece of junk hardware that contains the most out-of-this-world graphics and vision quality. Corporations are not out to benefit mankind. They are out to benefit themselves, and we all know this. Technology is not simply about breaking down boundaries, its about breaking our banks to get our money so it may be invested in other assorted materials. I consider it a rape of our souls. If you believe in a soul that is.
For those of you who don’t, let’s look at a different aspect. Consider western governments consistent encouragement that pushes us towards “a brighter tomorrow.” Anyone who has seen an apocalyptic sci-fi movie will know phrases like that are always promptly followed by a big downfall soon to come. Orwellian distopian futures are not simply sci-fi cynics looking to get kicks out of dissing everyone’s favourite new religion. It’s just as possible we could go down that road. Flying cars for everyone? First we have to avoid economical breakdown, natural disasters possibly caused by increased global warming and everyday crime that sucks the money out from tax payers arses like no man’s business. If we want state-of-the-art flying cars and public pornography hologram suites then it will come by way of hugely increased taxes. Nothing is for free. If the government thinks it will be beneficial for all then they will add it to the already rising costs of daily living. What’s the everyman gonna do when a computer takes his job? How will he afford to pay for his new solar power heated toilet seat? What then? And speaking of crime, forget drug running, soon we will have a whole new evolution in criminal techno-theft and smuggling. The criminal element has already latched onto the lucrative idea of using technology for financial gain. Imagine when we have all kinds of pirated products falling off the back of lorries and into the hands of the laid-off, pissed-off everyman. Will a new faction rise up against Techno-literates and Futurists then? It will probably be too late. Could you imagine computer prejudice one day becoming a crime? Maybe I am getting a little too fantastical for some people’s tastes, but I am merely following in the footsteps of the “better tomorrow” optimists, only I want to see the other, much darker side to it all. The process of technological change has already begun to shape our world substantially.
Government research into stem cells and cloning has stirred controversy on more than one occasion and I understand why. Whether you believe in God or not, for human beings to cosmetically manufacture life in the attempts at pushing our limits as mortal creatures is clearly a symbol for how man’s ego has grown since the early 20th century. It is more than playing God. It is playing with the fabric of moral law and mother nature‘s design. And mother nature certainly exists. Hurricane Katrina proved that. The Tsunami in Thailand was no day at the beach either. Anyone remember those storms in 2006 that whipped our British summer into a flood fest? I do. Mother Nature was pissed off. If you believe in a force beyond human means then surely that could be taken as a warning? Don’t fuck with the natural order of things. Don’t try to break free of the confines of our own mortality. It was designed that way for a reason. We are born, we live, we die. Cloning, cryogenically freezing or downloading conscious thought into a computer are ideas beyond the realm of exploration and are simply about man’s need to extend his natural existence unnaturally because he is afraid of death. Afraid of the unknown. This is not about conquering frontiers, this is about fear of extinction. Fear of destruction. Our own self-destruction.
“Man is the most dangerous animal of all.” - The Most Dangerous Game
Most dangerous indeed. Human nature is self-destructive. With all the positives that come with new technologies and research into sciences of the body and mind, how can we possibly handle the overwhelming design of such dangerous avenues when primitive man used a simple rock to smash in the head of another man? In our hands we cannot wield anything without causing our own destruction or the destruction of others. We feed off chaos in order to continue surviving, or else, where does this compulsion to dream of a utopian future come from? It is our light at the end of the tunnel. But the light is just a train passing through. The tunnel is dark, and long, and possibly never ending. There is no future except for the ones we are living now. The only thing that counts are the human lives that exist in the here and the now and the blood that binds us all together. Human morality must continue to exist. The Humanist Factor is what separates us, whether it is our souls or our collective morality, from the machines built from plastic, metals, wiring fused together to create artificial existence to brainwash and tangibly disconnect us from each other.
I for one do not wish to be around when the mite of armies resides in the hands of a self-manned computer without conscious or compassion. Then again, we do already have George Bush. J
Keep The Humanist Factor intact. It might eventually be all we have left to hold onto. Fight the future and thanks for reading.
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