» Family codes and rituals

Points
My father will always ask questions and reward points for the correct answers. Unfortunately the questions are never that simple.

For example

Father F: "What is the name of the pub in that village near where Andy & Polly live?"

Mister.F: "Erm, the Redhouse?"

Father.F: "Correct, but I'm only going to give you 5 points because of the Erm"

Twenty two years of this, and I've never been able to exchange the points of a prize
(Sun 23rd Nov 2008, 12:23, More)

» School Days

Maths
Looking back, we were a bunch of bastards, but at the time it just seemed like a bit of fun.

A new maths teacher came to the school, and with impeccable recommendations she was given the A-set to teach, us.

Unfortunately, not only was she 4' tall and had a moustache, but she was also deaf. To overcome this she would often lip read rather than use her hearing aid.

Once we worked this out, we would cover our mouths with our hands or books while talking so she couldn't work out what we were saying. As the hearing aid was turned up to 11, so would we, a class of 14 year olds shouting, combined with the maximum setting on a hearing aid. Well you can work out what happened.

Also, she once tried to stop my friend Charles from going to the toliet, as he was feeling sick, but she thought he was just trying to skive.

Now Charles was then about 6' tall, and is a lot taller now, so she tried to stand in front of the door to stop him leaving. Remember she was about 2' shorter than him.

Charles couldn't hold the vomit in, and it was projected downwards, all over her. Purely by accident.

He was sent to the Deputy Head for a telling off, who instead found it quite a hilarious tale and sent him back to class, which had been dismissed due to a lack of teacher.
(Sat 31st Jan 2009, 15:11, More)

» I'm going to Hell...

Straight To Hell
I'm going to hell for all the kittens I've indirectly killed.
(Thu 11th Dec 2008, 16:09, More)

» Pet Peeves

Lazy Students
So I'm guilty of not being the most active of students (I can when I want to be).

However this laziness refers to an academic laziness. The type where they expect everything to be handed to them on a plate.

The exact details are inconsequential, but it really grinds my gears when speaking to fellow students about one topic or another, they express amazement that I know something that wasn't taught in a lecture. Then they follow it up with comments of 'how come we weren't taught that?' or 'We didn't get taught it so it won't come up on the exam'. Well actually it might, because, you know, it demonstrates that you're sufficiently intelligent enough to read a book, and put two and two together!

It's because the lecturers do have better things to do than recite whole books at you. We have a library for a reason, it's called studying. Books are written for a reason, to convey knowledge (and to make some money, but hey, we all have to live).

Use it.

Don't just assume that you'll get taught everything about a subject, you won't, subjects are huge, lectures have a limited amount of time. 1 hour.

And they wonder why I'm getting quite good marks...
(Sun 4th May 2008, 18:58, More)

» That's me on TV!

Clapping
This is the story that without fail my dear old Mother tells to anyone she meets.

When I was younger, at Primary School the head teacher was quite high up (maybe President of) in the NUT (National Union of Teachers) or something like that, this meant that our school was often used when BBC News needed some television footage of school children whilst they discussed budget shortages and so forth.

One day they were in and filming our music class, now we can't have been more than 6 or so, and thus weren't trusted with instruments, which meant the whole class was clapping along to a song or something. Everyone managing to do it in time, except for me, which was shown on national TV. Bugger.

My music career has never recovered from that early set back.
(Sun 14th Jun 2009, 13:13, More)