The Popularity Problem

I’ve noticed that quite a few of my fellow bloggers (specifically: Rain, cream kisses, tiannangel) have recently been commenting on this interesting social issue. Therefore, I have decided to join in. That’s what the blogosphere is all about, right?

A very happy Boxing Day to you all; furthermore, happy birthday to Jason W. (today) and Tony (next Tuesday)!

Popularity is a social phenomenon that appears to be experienced in all communities. It is the driving force behind democracy, the catalyst for peer pressure, and the aesthetic quality that many people use to evaluate their own self-worth.

“Would you rather date a girl/guy who was good looking and nice and popular, or a girl/guy who was good looking, nice but a complete and utter social reject? “

— tiannangel

The status quo is that people tend to place a lot of value in being popular. Popular people are often seen as superior, “higher up on the social ladder” than those who are not.

Defining popularity

“I think the key to being ‘popular’ is that people envy you for one reason or another.”

— tiannangel

From my observations, there are two ways to define popularity:

1. Popularity is a measure of how widely appreciated and well-known somebody or something is. If you’re famous and people like you, then you have a form of popularity.
2. Popularity is a rank or status that has been granted to you by association. If you’re associated with the people, activities, behaviours, etc. that are well-liked, then you have a form of popularity, because you’re associated with those well-liked things.

If used as an adjective or adverb, “popular” usually refers to the first definition. If you are popular as a person, your popularity is an attribute that has been bestowed upon you because it’s clear that you’re well-liked and well-known.

If used as a noun, “popular” usually refers to the second definition. If you are a popular, then more often than not, you’re accepted as belonging to a group of individuals that has already been labelled as “the popular ones”, often because they are associated with what has already become well-liked and well-known.

Of course, it is possible to have a combination of these attributes:

Becoming (a) popular

“I’ll help you be popular! You’ll hang with the right cohorts, you’ll be good at sports, know the slang you’ve got to know…”

— Popular from the musical Wicked

Becoming a popular seems to be a very natural pathway to becoming popular as a person. It can be seen as standing on the shoulders of giants (as per Isaac Newton), but in a social pursuit, not an academic one.

If I wanted to be a popular, I would hang out with people already established as being popular, and in doing so, share their interests (e.g. DOTA, hip-hop music, anime, PSPs). I would then be able to better relate to them, and empathise rather than simply sympathise with them. Ultimately, I would be accepted, and I would have a sense of belonging. Et voilà, I’d have become associated with the group of individuals already labelled as being the populars.

However, to become truly well-liked and well-known, I would have to be something unique and valuable, while still retaining my status as being a popular. Perhaps my amazing good looks and nice clothes will attract everyone, or perhaps it’ll be my fantastic break-dancing abilities.

In fact, often, there is so much pressure on populars (as in definition #2) to be popular (as in definition #1) that they need a combination of these. It’s almost like having so much competition finding a job that you’re getting qualifications that you technically don’t need, just so that you’ll be that little more outstanding, in the literal sense of the word.

Unpopular populars

“Here’s a question: are all guys attracted to the pretty popular vixens at least once in their high school lives?”

— cream kisses

It’s not unusual for populars (as in definition #2) to be even less popular (as in definition #1) than those who are not populars. There are cases where populars are seen as superficial, corrupt, deceptive, manipulating, and selfish.

Admittedly, sometimes it could just be a case of Tall Poppy Syndrome (i.e. jealousy), but I believe there is a much broader and much deeper reason for the curiosity of unpopular populars.

Fame turns into infamy out of a false sense of security. What can happen to populars is that they start to believe that they can do anything, having are already been associated with what is well-liked and well-known. They might start behaving in a way that communicates a sense of arrogant superiority, leading to hatred from the people who are not populars.

Because they have already been labelled as being populars (by definition #2), they will still be populars. However, they will not be popular people (by definition #1), because they have lost almost everything that resembles admiration or respect from others. Nevertheless, they will generally retain their close relationships with each other, and thus will be spared from the cruel situation of being loners or “rejects”.

The percentage of populars who are unpopular varies, depending on what community you’re looking at. Interestingly, in my grade at school, almost all the populars (definition #2) are popular (definition #1).

Popularity without being a popular

“… I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung to each other as a way of validating of all those social people.”

— Bill Gates at Harvard University Graduation Ceremony

Throughout this text, it’s been implicit that typically, you would have to be a popular to be popular as a person. However, this is not necessarily true; consider, for example, Bill Gates, who (as demonstrated in the quotation above) was popular among the non-populars.

Gates demonstrates that popularity (definition #1) doesn’t need to involve any associating with pre-existing populars at all. Popularity can be earned independently through universally-appreciated traits such as leadership, charisma, kindness, and interest in other people.

It’s also important to remember that popularity is dependent on what you define as your community. If you’ve already found your place among people who are not populars, but who like you and know you well, then you are, by all means, a popular person. You’re just not a popular.

So, where do you stand?

“I don’t wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.”

— Ali Javan

In many ways, a person’s popularity is like an ATAR. All the small things add up (but in different proportions) to approximate where they “should” stand on the social hierarchy. There is, however, an important difference: ATARs are crunched out by the University Admissions Centre, an authoritative entity, while your popularity is whatever your community thinks it should be.

For both systems, the idea is basically to place everyone on a one-dimension continuum, where the only directions are up and down:

It is my opinion that popularity is just one part of a person’s identity, and a relatively insignificant one at that. There is so much more to you than what other people think of you.

“When you are in a mindset that is preoccupied with pleasing other people – not that this is inherently a bad thing – you will automatically be ruling out a lot of potential avenues, projects, and opportunities for you to be a better person.”

— Chris Nahm

In dealing with other people, we should aim to strengthen our relationships with individuals, not to strengthen our relationship with a social popularity system – whose existence we cannot deny, but whose importance we can defy. ∎

This is the last blog entry before Christmas! How nice.

It’s always an interesting time if you live in a place that is heavily influenced by Western culture. First the shopping malls start decorating with coloured tinsel and spheres, just to remind you that it’s almost Christmas, so you better start spending more. To economists everywhere, Christmas is that strange period of time when demand suddenly rises … but supply rises even more, resulting in a surplus of candy canes, plush reindeer, and Santa suits in all the two-dollar shops around the capitalist world.

Then you start seeing Christmas lights adorn streets, witness people exchanging various items of greeting, and hearing people say “merry Christmas” more than “hello”. Even the town hall gets a Christmas tree!

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of that stuff. I don’t mean to sound sarcastic at all, and it’s truly sad that written/typed text can’t express sincerity very well. If these typical Christmas-y things are bad, then I’m the guilty one. Christmas means something to everyone – family, Jesus Christ, money, friends, and/or Santa. And/or even getting spammed with wrapped goods, although I’m certainly tired of that (c’mon guys, let’s drop the commercialism!)

To me, it’s historically been a secular celebration to warm up for the new year, and to my family, it usually means an outing to some outer-Sydney place (although I understand that this is not the case this year). But recently, after getting a bit Christian about things, it also mean Christ’s birthday and the beginning of the salvation of humanity. I haven’t dropped all that other stuff, but new perspectives definitely do make themselves apparent. What’s funny is that exactly a year ago, I was sitting on the fence about the whole Christian perspective, and almost condescendingly, too.

Anyway, regardless of what this whole Christmas deal means to you, I hope you have a great one. And an awesome 2010 too, although I suppose that’s a bit later on…

The last week was a really nice one. School was unusually fun in the last few days of being a junior, and I’m told that the Cadets annual was awesome too. I feel really guilty for organising the grade photo right after the cadets left – it sucks to get good ideas, but with bad timing.

Thanks to Andrew & Peter, Bryan, and Moby for the cbbox Outing. It was extremely fun, and a particularly big waaaave! of appreciation to Bryan for organising it. Yay.

Moving on, there’s something that’s always bugged me about sarcasm, and no, it’s not about expressing it with written words (which I’ve already ranted about tonight). It bothers me that sarcasm is always given an overly vague definition, like “witty language used to insult” or “mocking with irony”.

I want to propose a definition of sarcasm that just works, and hits the target more directly:

Sarcasm is when you make a deliberately weak attempt to appear to agree with an idea, and then exaggerate the flaws of the idea to the point where it seems ridiculous.

So, let’s test this definition with a typical use of sarcasm:

Lyndsey Nagle: Do I detect a note of sarcasm?
Professor Frink: (With sarcasm detector) Are you kidding? This baby is off the charts mm-hai.
Comic Book Guy: A sarcasm detector, that’s a real useful invention.
(Sarcasm detector explodes)

- The Simpsons, episode AABF18, “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”
(Image Copyright © 2009 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, used for illustration purposes)

Now, in this case:

1. Comic Book Guy makes a deliberately weak attempt at appearing to agree with the notion that a sarcasm detector is useful, by stating it, but with a bitter, almost angry tone (that cannot be conveyed in this text quotation)
2. The flaw – that the sarcasm detector is not very useful – is exaggerated by emphasising the word “real”, which is used in this instance as an adjective.
3. Therefore, Comic Book Guy is being sarcastic. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I’m probably missing something vital here, but it was sure fun to write that part of tonight’s entry. Until next week, dearest good people, and joyeux Noël! :)

I have to admit that the previous blog entry about intellectual property was kind of, well, stoned, for lack of a better word. I’ve been feeling a bit unwell over the past day or two, and it’s really showing.

What I find really cool is that my Saturday entries from this year are in line with my Friday entries from last year due to a very awesome coincidence. So, for example, we can actually rewind to 12th of December, 2008 and see an entry made on that date. Yay.

I notice that around this time last year, we were watching a lot of movies in class. Weirdly, the same can’t be said about this time this year, although we’re not really being much more productive. Notably, however, we did watch Devil Wears Prada in Geography, because it totally explores the growing gap between social classes. The film is a comedic exaggeration of the fashion industry, and also portrays the less attractive side of having a elite career.

In the past week, I have also had the pleasure of experiencing European dining yet again, as I had last year at The Little Snail. This time, it was at the Eiger Swiss Restaurant in Petersham. There were no snails this time, although the food was delicious regardless.

What Eiger lacked in polished steel and glass on the building facade, it made up for with hospitality. What it lacked in modern interior design and bright lighting, it made up for with authentic culture, and a display at the back of the restaurant, where the Australian and Swiss flags were displayed side-by-side in a beautiful gesture of multicultural harmony.

It was extremely heartwarming when the chef greeted us when we entered the restaurant, in both French and German. This wasn’t just about fine dining; it was truly about understanding European culture. It was almost sad when we had to say au revoir and auf wiedersehen.

[ABOVE: Apple Strudel; pasta. Edited photographs.]

Finally, I notice that this week last year was the week of Presentation Night. I was far less proud about my award this year, particularly as I was expecting to come first in History (only to find out that I would have come first had it not been for the fact that the HSIE department counted assessment results from last year).

However, for me, Presentation Night 2009 wasn’t really about the awards. I had spent the week before staying up to about 2AM on some days compiling photos, resizing photos, re-colouring and re-toning photos, and synchronising music to make the school life presentation to be shown to the audience at the end of the night. It was a tedious process, and I had become almost obsessive about it. In fact, I would say that half the reason I even went to Presentation Night was to ensure that the video worked smoothly.

At the end of the night, I was so much happier that I had been for a long time. Not only did the video work perfectly (thanks to the dedication of the awesome sound and lighting team – particularly Denise, Alan, and Claudia), but I was also pleasantly surprised by the many kind people that went up to me afterwards to compliment me, on what they actually thought was an enjoyable video. Those people, as well as the many people who have commented on the video on Facebook, have totally made the whole thing worthwhile. Thank you all.

On another note, I’ve realised that a sort of apocalypse is coming in about four days. The results of the 2009 HSC are to be released on the 16th of December, 2009; for the first time, I will be one of the results recipients. Best wishes to everyone else who is expecting HSC results soon – the tension is about to end. =)

N.B. This blog entry be dedicated to Suvarna, who is in France right now. I hope l’hiver de la France isn’t too froid, ma copine.

I came across this interesting part of my school’s most recent newsletter about students whose laptops had been confiscated:

I hope that all these students learn about ethical computer practice, about the spirit of regulations as well as the actual words used in the rules. Some were guilty of the theft of intellectual property. Most offences were relatively minor in impact, but major in intention.

Intellectual property is a very broad term, covering copyright, trademarks, moral rights (e.g. the right to claim that your own work is actually your own work), patents, and trade secrets. Of course, in this context, most of these can be ruled out – I highly doubt that high school students would be accused of misusing corporate trademarks, stealing patent documents from the patent office, or conducting industrial espionage to find out what KFC’s eleven secret herbs and spices are.

I’m sure what the principal of our school is referring to is the activity commonly known as piracy, a dysphemism* for the making copies of data/information that you don’t have permission to make copies of. The students were acquiring data that they didn’t have the right to acquire; a mental image of a student with a laptop watching Family Guy in a library comes to mind.

But if piracy means getting copies of data/information that you don’t have authority to use, then most of us are pirates to one extent or another.

Sure, a typical pirate is a pirate because they deliberately download music, videos, etc. that they haven’t purchased, but you don’t have to use BitTorrent, or even download files to your storage media to be a pirate. The definition of piracy means that if you watch a YouTube clip using music that the copyright holder hasn’t authorised, you’re a pirate (although you probably won’t be taken to court over a YouTube clip).

Here’s a comic to illustrate the sheer scope of what the term piracy covers:

You’ll notice that, at the end of the comic, there is an allusion to human rights. While I certainly don’t agree that there is a universal human right to copy data and information, the link between the concept of intellectual property and ethics is one that leaves a deep laceration in societies and economies around the world.

For most people, ethics is linked closely with the law; if it’s legal, it’s ethically correct. Capitalist legal systems (i.e. most of the nations of the world) lean towards prohibiting unauthorised copying of copyrighted material, because capitalism, by its very nature, is about honouring property; it’s interesting that this contrasts the communist concept of “property is theft”.

The law tells us that piracy is wrong because it believes that data and information are similar to physical goods. We’re literally reminded that “you wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t steal a handbag, you wouldn’t steal a television”, so why should films and music be any different? For the majority of cases, the response to this is that the extra copy isn’t preventing anyone else from using the material. If you steal a car, the original owner of the car can’t drive it any more; that’s not the case with unauthorised file-sharing. Economics is basically about meeting unlimited demand with limited resources, but the spread of data is not limited.

The counter-argument is that unauthorised copies go against the creative capabilities of artists and authors, that by not paying for content, one deprives the author of an income and hence makes it difficult for creative work to continue to be published.

Of course, what is legal is not synonymous with what is ethically right. Law is established to keep people in a society that functions, while ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with beliefs about what is right or wrong. The laws you follow are determined by others; the ethics you follow are determined by yourself. Social issues are not the same as ethical issues; apples are not the same as oranges.

Ultimately, this comes down to the individual, the “Joe Blow” and “Jane Smith” in their living room computer, faced with the opportunity of downloading a film for free. The law can say what it wants; likewise, it can react to their decision however it wants. The fines are enormous; likewise, the chance of being caught is enormously low.

But society and law aside, when it comes to what is right and what is wrong philosophically, it’s up to Joe and Jane to decide whether or not pirating would be ethical.

* The opposite of a euphemism. Giving something a bad name when a nicer name would suffice.

No, not Newton. He was an awesome guy, but apples falling from trees have very little to do with what I want to talk about tonight.

To start off, let’s talk about teenagers. I’m guessing that most of the visits to this place are from teenagers, probably because I’m one myself, and you guys are mostly just my friends from real life. We’re an odd bunch of people. We want to save the planet, when we can barely save ourselves if we were forced to be financially and emotionally independent; we want to give to the poor, when we have nothing to give that is rightfully our own.

But most significantly, we have so many aspirations and dreams, but we’re also the biggest procrastinators. If we get a month to do an assignment, we’ll get exponentially more busy on it, until we’re staying up to 2AM in the morning, half insomniac, half braindead-silly, because of the damn thing. And when we finish that assignment, boy does it feel good.

Whether or not you’re a teenager, I’m sure you know what it’s like to procrastinate. Who doesn’t find it hard to get started on something? To illustrate the point better than I could myself, here’s a quote from The Energies of Man by William James:

Every one is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. Every one knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked.

I believe the problem is a lack of motivation. People are lazy; people want to sleep through life and still get their daily dose of food, water, shelter, entertainment, and happiness. However, on a more sophisticated level, they realise that they actually have to do stuff to get those things. This sounds painfully obvious, but without establishing this, the rest of this entry won’t make any sense.

So, in order to get yourself from a lazy state of “I want to spend my evening on MSN and Facebook while drinking lemonade and listening to loud music” to a state of “I might actually have to do something tiring and boring so that the future can be a good one”, you need to be moved.

When people speak of something that was “cool” or “awesome”, they’re enthusiastic, and they’re quite happy about it. When someone says, “hey, Glee is so cool!”, or “hey, Twilight is awesome!”, they have this general positive feeling about the thing they’re mentioning. But if someone says that they found something moving, then it has done something to them. It’s fired up the mechanism inside them that takes them from the person that they are to the person who is actively doing something to become the person they want to be.

So really, the first step is to convince yourself that you need to mobilise and get into action. But how can you find motivation?

Everyone finds it in different ways, I suppose. I have been inspired by everything from neat designs to speeches by Bill Gates. I have recently been inspired by books, such as (and I know some of you will laugh at me) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and How To Get Things Done by David Allen. A bit of encouraging fluff, no matter how fluffy, doesn’t hurt. Indeed, just reading about the great feeling of being efficient and productive makes me want to, you know, actually be efficient and productive.

I mention all of this as idealistic. I am, in a way, quite hypocritical for talking about this, because I am far from successful, like J’ko and Jinghang and all those award-winning academic gurus. But I’ve just shared with you what I want to be like, and hey, it feels good.

Got anything to say about being motivated? Comment plz!

I still find it hard to believe that I got a grand total of three hours of sleep last night; or rather, I would find it hard if it weren’t for the fact that I feel mentally numb. If this is what sleep deprivation feels like, I never ever want to pull an all-nighter.

The Lemontage formal was very fun. Because of various social and ethical issues, I’m not going to say any more than that =D so here’s a picture of delicious caek.

Aw, would you look at that, it is image-noisy. In some ways I quite regret shooting in ISO 1600 the whole night, resulting in a whole bunch of grainy photos. But the world needs less flash and more warm colours.

Now, it’s back to work. I need to work out how on earth Powerpoint 2010 can export to WMV in high resolution. Rawr!

(And yes, I’m well aware that I sound insane or at least mildly stoned.)

You know that you’ve been blogging for a very long time if you start finding yourself on Google.

(You have got to be kidding me.)

Surprise and shock aside, I admit that I was kind of expecting this, even in some far-fetched way. Google has some of the best internet searching technology available – that’s probably why most people use it. Besides, I have always realised that this blog is publicly viewable. I suppose this find is a good wake-up call to remind us all that the blogosphere is truly open, and privacy is effectively a thing of the past (unless you take some rather extreme measures).

Monday and Tuesday by the beach was the best camp ever. Who needs giant swings and flying foxes when you can have newspaper fashion shows, movies about robots, and the chance to make new friends? I have also learned never to try to build a sandcastle (or any sand structure for that matter) when surrounded by people playing ball games (because the ball might just end up in your face). The highlight of the two days away would have to have been Jinghang and his imaginary-steroid-induced-head-twitching-spasms – all for the sake of drama, of course!

Yesterday was a really busy day. I had the privilege of visiting a university for a day – specifically, this one:

Those who know me are already aware of why I was allowed to visit this place; thanks again for all your kind words of encouragement. You really do keep me flying high. Sure, it’s a bit of a weird award, but I am quite happy about it.

This is going to sound really geeky, but as a typography fanatic (i.e. someone with an unhealthy obsession with fonts and typefaces), what really struck me about the University of New South Wales was that everything used the Optima typeface. There seemed to be a heuristic that if it’s text, it’s typeset in Optima. Interesting, a quick Google search shows that this is indeed UNSW policy.

At UNSW, I was somehow able to meet an old friend of mine; it was awesome to catch up on four years’ worth of hectic life. A big shout out to Michael L., if he’s somehow reading this. Every day is a great day at Bau-! *shot*

It was really relieving when the rain started coming down. Suddenly, the 40-give-or-take-a-few-degrees weather was washed away, and being outside was bearable again. Thank goodness. It was the perfect meteorological phenomenon to faclitate for an evening away:

(Disclaimer: I support responsible drinking. Actually, who cares about responsible drinking – that’s just Coke Zero in that glass anyway.)

There was something seriously funny about witnessing everyone get all fancy, dressy, and suity in order to spend four hours raving to the not-so-formal musical delights of Low by Flo Rida. The night was filled with plenty of laughs, Jinghang’s proudly loud voice declaring “I LIKE IT!”, guys competing to get as many girls as they can to pose with them on stage, jumping up and down to the beat of the drum, delicious caek, and – of course – a platoon of photographers armed with cameras and flash lights.

It was such an awesome experience, and I’m really grateful to Alex, Mr Googly-face, and company for organising the whole thing. Our school might have been a bit devious for doing it all in our school hall, but in hindsight, it just wouldn’t be the same otherwise. Looking forward to next Wednesday. =)

Sometimes, I just feel terrible. I don’t know who I am, or maybe I do, but that’s not who I want to be. It really helps to have friends like you pick me up when I fall down. Thanks for putting up with me.

Somehow, sounding sentimental just doesn’t work on this blog. To all a good week.

It is 2:56 PM on the 14th of November 2009, and I have returned to blogging, because a certain person called Elena told me to. I did say that I would be back. I have so much to talk about. A big shout out to anyone else who has been telling me to blog – encouragement, in all its forms, are the best kind of appreciation.

In order to symbolise this oh-so-significant event, I have changed the header image to an image of cute little chickens in a box. Yes, in a cardboard box. Any suggestion that I myself am a chicken is absolutely coincidental. (Insert shifty look here.)

To be honest, I have actually had quite an interesting time even making the decision to come back here among all those other self-publishing services (a fancy name for blogging sites).

WordPress is nice, but as Spidertran pointed out, it is quite limited. You can pick a theme out of a limited pool of pre-designed themes, but you can’t customise them beyond colours and header images. So you guys and girls with Blogspot or Blogger blogs – I really envy you. In fact, I would have moved to Blogger, were it not for the fact that I have quite a history with my WordPress blog, and I don’t want to lose it. I also have a bit of paranoia about Google, but Spidertran managed to convince me that it was mostly irrational.

Over the past month, I have been in this strange cycle of end-of-year exams. If I remember anything about this year, it’ll be that this was the year when I was  effectively in three different grades of high school at the same time, for different subjects.

I think I have, at least temporarily, learned the value of not procrastinating. Locking yourself in your basement to do past papers is a traumatic pastime, to say the least, especially if you’re under pressure to do something like three or four papers in one day. It really bothers me that my results are still only just a tiny notch above average, or maybe even on the dot of average.

One side-effect of this month of studies is that I have seen the Board of Studies logo about a gazillion times now. For those who don’t know, the Board of Studies is an organisation that facilitates all the big scary exams for high school students in New South Wales, Australia. They have an insanely large collection of study materials on its website, mostly past exam papers, and I had been accessing it like crazy.

This is what their logo looks like:

Hey, their logo looks pretty nice when it’s not in black and white (which it usually is on their published documents). As Moby pointed out, it seems to be a weird simplistic appropriation of the Rising Sun badge used by the Australian Army:

(Bahaha. I knew all those KFF hat photos I took would be useful one day!)

It personally reminds me of raisins, because I was eating a lot of raisins while studying, and also because of the brand of the raisins I was eating:

(Australian “Owned”, indeed…)

On a related note, I have noticed that I have seriously weird procrastination and motivation (or lack thereof) issues. I find it very strange how it is so hard to have the mental energy to do anything constructive, yet it is so easy to do something that is a complete waste of time. Incidentally, the fun things in life are also the most constructive. That’s probably why little kids like to play with Lego blocks.

Moving on, I thought I’d tell you all about a funny Ag lesson we had at one stage. Walking into the classroom on a hot Friday afternoon, I noticed that someone had drawn a Dalek on the whiteboard. For those who don’t know, Daleks are a race of genocidal cyborgs from British television series Doctor Who, and look something like this:

(Image by zir.com, licensed under CC-BY)

What amused and horrified me was that nobody else in the room knew what a Dalek was! However, some people’s interpretations of the drawing provided much entertainment, including:

• A dress
• A lampshade
• A shuttle cock
• An astronomical observatory
• A lighthouse

I believe it was the same lesson in which I started complaining about my wearing of a jumper to school on such a hot day, leading me to utter that “a jumper is like a commitment”, and subsequently having the girl known as nuttx comment that “you’ll never get married with an attitude like that!” I will miss these lessons so much.

So, I figure, after writing 700ish words, I should close off. It has been really fun making this entry; salutations and appreciations to Elena for telling me to blog, and thanks to you! for reading it. If you’re feeling bored, please comment – or, if you’re extremely bored, Rickroll yourself. Adios, amigos!

Yes, that’s right – I’m putting The Big Box on hiatus.

I realise that this is a great outlet for my thoughts, whether for letting my friends know that I care, rambling about schoolwork, or just releasing a stream of conciousness. However, I feel that can no longer sustain this commitment in the face of other stuff (like those freaking exams!) and so, until my life turns into a bit more of a “structured situation” and not just a mess of teenage hormones, this blog will no longer be updated.

Thanks to all those people who gave me support in this project. In the words of Arnie the Terminator … I’ll be back.

Words are the building blocks of communication. Words are what make up this entry. Words are my way of trying to sound slightly more interesting on my blog, like Pandora does in her entries and their poetic-ness.

Words are what I look for at the end-of-term BBQ when my year 12 friends are about to leave. Words are what I try to use to express how much I’ll miss them. Words are what fail me for the very purpose for which they were designed.

Words, like “anaphora”, are what we use to describe the fact that I keep starting every sentence with the same… well, you guessed it, word. Words can be long, like “superfluous”, or short, like “lol”. Words can be debatably not words are all, but three-letter-acronyms.

Words inspire people, words demotivate people; words challenge, words conform. Words can make you want to change the world, or maybe just change yourself. Words can make you fall in love, and words can make you fall in debt.

Words are what you use to study for your three weeks of exams next term. Words will fill your exam papers. Words will be how you describe your performance in said exams. Words are how you plan your next moves after those exams when they’ve finished. Words are what you’ll put on your CV. Words are what you’ll be making in your future career, whether you’ll like it or not.

Words are printed in size 6 text in a book we call the bible, words are rendered in size 10 text in a book we call Wikipedia. Words can be spoken, words can be read; words can be written, words can be said. Words can rhyme like that, but they usually don’t…

And words are how we got to know each other. Words are how we became friends. And here’s a word for you, because friends do things to show that they care about each other, even if it’s something as random as…

And finally, words will tell you that I’m feeling too sentimental tonight. I hope you all have a lovely holiday.