English: Philosophy with handcuffs, expression with a restraining order.

For clarification, by ‘English’ I’m referring to School English, because if there’s one thing I’ve noticed this year doing English as a school subject… it’s that it’s quite flawed in the way it expects you to answer as analytically and as to-the-book as possible… while at the same time asking you to somehow express yourself, without expressing yourself.

Handcuffs by jodylehigh
Handcuffs by jodylehigh

“Ben must have chosen to use a picture of handcuffs to imply a sense of entrapment. The lack of colour describes a lack of joy for his writing when writing at school. The vignette closes in on the center of the picture – suggesting that he wants people to see what’s right in front of them. When metal is cold, it is very rigid – just as Ben stands his ground when he hasn’t warmed up to someone yet.”

“No, I needed a relevant thumbnail.”

I’ve received multiple marks telling me that I need to tone down my use of metaphors, and to calm down on the expansion of my ideas. Even in assignments that are supposed to be ‘Reflective’ pieces. You want me to reflect my thoughts? This is me reflecting my thoughts. How can anyone insist that I’m not following the task correctly if they’re asking me to reflect?

The irony is the hypocrisy that lies within the very essence of the course. Here is some educational organisation telling me that I need to refrain from my philosophical thoughts, in particular, I need to stop expanding the wrong ideas. All the while they follow the same train of thought. I mean for crying out loud, if you can figure out how to devote an ENTIRE YEAR’s worth of secondary education to a single word (“belonging”)… you’re either really good at philosophy, insane or have a fetish for repetition. If you constructed this English course and you’re reading this; don’t worry, it’s a multi-choice infliction. So take your pick, the minimum choice is 3.

Any question that says, “What do you think the author means when…” should be an instant A+ upon answering it. If I’m telling you what I think the author means, then I’m answering the question correctly. Even if it’s something as simple as, “Well, I think the author was just tired and wanted to finish the story, so that’s why the pig’s name is Bore.” That should be correct! But no! It’s not! “Elaborate!”, “Criteria 1”, “Link back to your text.” Why?

I’ve never actually given such an answer before, but I have given a serious ‘what I think’ response and received a whole lot of Criteria-charged flack in return. If you want me to write what you want me to write, then say, “What do we want you to think the author means when…” Much better. Straight to the truth, bypasses the confusion and no identity issues when trying to figure out if a thought is mine, or theirs.

Yes, I get it. This author did a good job on a book, this other author did a good job too. You love these authors and think that they’re trying to tell us all a deep message and that they’re all linked together in perfect harmony. Well, hate to break it to you… but often the deep messages you think you see are total bull excrement.

All the connections we’re making with the stuff we’re watching and reading – hardly any of it is intended. It’s the way humans work. When we look at things for too long, we end up seeing things that aren’t there. We go pedantic with all these tiny little ideas. It’s the same thing as when you’ve packed your bags to go on a camping trip and you think that you’ve forgotten something. The more you think about it, the more you begin to worry and question your own actions. “Did I shut the back door? Did I lock it?”

School-taught English in a nutshell.

For your entertainment, I’ve written a mark for this blog post based on actual marks I’ve received. I don’t mean to offend my teacher – obviously they have to mark to the criteria that’s given to them. They’ve told me they enjoy my writing, but they can’t mark it higher based on the ‘students must think like this’ system the education department have in place. 😉

MARKER’S COMMENTS:

“This reflection should be your own, don’t use ‘we’ , ‘your’, ‘you’re’ – don’t ask rhetorical questions of your reader.”

“Keep the balance. An abundance of original ideas.”

“Refer more specifically to ideas that require judicious evidence.”

“Write in first person.”

“Only use italics for a publication.”

“Elaborate on why you don’t like reflecting.”

GRADE: C-

Ben Screen of Death

Ben Screen of Death

I could be dead. Or at least that’s what some of my YouTube subscribers have suggested in my absence. A video showing how busy I am would merely be procrastination… this post for example is bordering on that very line of motivation…

But no, I’m not dead as of yet, though I don’t deny that I am most certainly heading in the general direction of death. It’s the kind of thing you sorta can’t avoid once you come across it on life’s road.

The real reason for my disappearance from the internet has been a particularly disliked, but required, ToDo list. On it are many tasks with a varied array of interest.  Unfortunately, interest doesn’t always overcome the necessity of a due date… otherwise this ToDo list would be a little more fun.  I’d love to be doing the ‘Design Graphics for Client‘ or ‘Play the Walking Dead by Telltale‘ tasks, but unfortunately all the tasks that are due earliest are the ones involving large word counts and overly-overdone (because just overdone isn’t enough) topics.

For some reason the people in charge of English education in our country have the idea that ‘belonging‘ is a topic worthy of an annum of revision. Something to refresh the mind every now and then would be lovely, but instead, we’re being fed the poorly ‘intended-to-be-subliminal-message’ that our generation needs to get more in touch with who we are on a consistently regular basis.

I could elaborate more on this… but I’m running out of brain at the moment, so I’d better get going. It’s going to take a while for me to process this list.

Yours Truly,

Ben (Not Dead)

(P.S. I mentioned that I’m ‘Not Dead’ – however, given the longevity of the internet, it’s highly possible that I could in fact be dead by the time you read this. Any time after the year 2076 is a safe bet. In which case, forget my previous remark of not being dead. I’m clearly a liar.)

The Endless Race

Yes, I’ve changed the website theme again… but shhhh…. just trust me.  I think this theme will be staying for longer than any of the others.  Currently the website is looking exactly how I want it to – plus – everything is actually working!

The New Look
The New Look

For those that are reading this post sometime in the near future – here is what the site looks like currently.  If you’re reading this post when the site does look like this… then WELL DONE! You’ve just experienced website-ception.

Don’t keep your hopes up though, you know how crazy I am about changing things.  So expect a completely new style and layout in a week or two.

Seriously though, I reckon I’m going to be keeping this for a while.

Right, enough of that.  Because it’s time to ramble on for a little bit about something that has been becoming increasingly prominent in my life at the moment: the panic of trying to get things done.  It seems as though I have too large a plethora of tasks to complete – and of course, a majority of these tasks are simply self-imposed goals.  Things like, ‘Yeah! Let’s make another YouTube Channel!’ come to mind when I say… self-imposed goals.

Inside the mind is a whirring box of ‘Things to Come.’  To the population of thinking humans on Earth – that should ring loud and clear.  I have all these ideas of videos, books, stories and podcasts (yes even podcasts) that I want to create and share.  The issue here is… we come up with ideas faster than we make them into something.

I’ve written them down of course – but by the time I revisit them I worry that my original flare for the idea may be an extinguished one.  An idea that was gurgled around a bit before being spat out of my mind and straight onto a path that I’ll never walk on again.

Does anyone else feel like there’s just this rush to get everything done?

I’ll be talking more about this in a vlog soon, so… stay tuned…. goons…  I’m such a brilliant rhyme artist! WOW! *insert sarcasm here*

Anyhow, I’ve written the equivalent of an English essay tonight so I’ll be off! TIRED EYES, gah.  Go check out the other pages I just wrote up – the About, and YouTube page – if you’re interested of course.  Other than that, thanks for reading!

 

The Body of Control

Water, nice cold water. Ahh, sorry about that, slightly distracted.

SO! First day back at school, and it was relatively warm, and since I’m incredibly organised I didn’t bother buying a new drink bottle or cleaning one out in time. Hence, I spent the day in a roulette of thirst, all dependent on which classrooms had the air conditioning on.

[Just noticed because of a typo that, add a ‘H’ to ‘air conditioning’ and you really do get quite a different sentence.]

This isn’t a post about surviving thirst, there’s not going to be an elaborate story that includes snake skins and a full bladder and a non-existent gag reflex. I’m talking about when I finally was able to purchase a bottle of water from the shop at the end of the day.

Now my Society teacher would probably ask me to add what I just wrote to our first work unit on, “What living standards are like in Australia,” as: being able to purchase clean drinking water, but again… this isn’t a post about that either.

What I had in mind is more do with our body’s control over us. “Ben, have you taken your medication today?” I’ve mentioned something similar to this before, where I spoke about how in sex education they the informed us thoroughly about sexual feelings, and how much it seemed to me like the body hanging a carrot on a stick trying to get us to breed like rabbits… I wonder if the carrot hanging on a stick has something to do with the rabbits insane breeding patterns? …Anyways.

As I poured the icy cool water down my parched dry throat, I found it curious that it felt incredibly relieving, how it made you feel good. I noted that it’s almost like your body liked the fact you were finally giving it the water it ordered numerous hours ago when it initiated it’s dry throat protocol, and was rewarding you for it by releasing endorphins.

Could this be the case? Could our sub conscious really be our ACTUAL body? We’re like taking the reins of this moving living thing, and the sub conscious is just making sure we drive it right?
“Hey moron! You left the tap on! NO YOU NEED FOOD NOW! Yuck, why did you eat this, this isn’t good for you at all, take it back!”

Think about it, it sounds pretty plausible, I mean, we don’t choose to throw up food if we eat too much, or something that doesn’t agree with us, sure, we can force ourselves to throw up, but our body can do it by itself without shoving anything down our throat. Our body decides when to sweat, breath, blink, yes we have some control over some of these things, but still. If the body ever needs something it fires the alarm, something to let us know, almost as if it can’t directly communicate with us, but it can let us know via different methods.

What do you think?

Is your body running the show?

Thanks for reading yet another insane post (I don’t mean as in AWESOME…)

Ben,

your alt textyour alt text

Sexist TV Shows

Now before someone thinks, “Oooh! I’m going to like this post!” just make sure that you have read the title properly and that you haven’t mis-read it. It is Sexist TV Shows.

Right.

This whole thought started after watching two TV shows on ABC a moment ago, now I’m not saying ‘Let’s take legal action’ or any of that jargon, everyone seems to think it’s a normal fine TV show, but whenever I come across a TV show with this stuff I find it offensive.

What is it?

It’s how boys and girls are always fighting over which one is the best or who is the smarter, and always ends up favouring the girls.
And no, this is not a boy throwing a tantrum, this is a boy typing up what appears to be a tantrum but is really a lot of thought pre-defined then packed into 7 odd paragraphs.
I’m not saying to make girls appear the stupid ones, nor the boys be the careless ones, because either way I find it offensive, stop picking on one another!
I’ve said it in the past, but neither one is better than the other.
And neither one is ‘dumber’ or ‘stupider’ than another, the words are quoted because kids at school always use these to express people.

No one is ‘dumber’ or ‘stupider’ or ‘smarter’ than anyone, being smart isn’t always dependant on your knowledge, but how your brain sees the world and how you cope and react in different situations. A person could know a lot, but be very lacking in the social area and may faulter under pressure, where as a person who doesn’t know that much may have a large strength in social activity and can easily go under pressure.
There is a lot to take into account before you go name calling ‘dumber’,’stupider’ or ‘smarter.’

And TV shows make boys act completely idiotic and always seem to want to ruin everything the so ‘perfect’ girl heroes of the show do, but always fail because the girls somehow have some other way to counter attack it.
Gah! It’s a mongrel nuisance! Boys aren’t so bad once you start hitting High School aye girls, nah! But no, that’s the way the train rolls down the hill.

Hmmm, I feel like Selby in a way talking about how not all dogs are drooling hairballs chasing after sticks in the backyard . . .

Anyways,

You get the message,

Stop picking on the different genders!

Or am I the only civilised one.

(With many minor spelling issues)

Doctor Who Dreamland!!! What a disappointment!!!

I do not believe it.

That was possibly the worst Doctor Who episode that I have ever and will ever see in my entire life. It was absolutely terrible!!! How on earth did they think of making such a thing?

The image above is a snapshot of the Doctor Who episode called ‘Dreamland.’
It’s an animated episode of Doctor Who made by BBC, It was an absolute disgrace to the proper Doctor Who show!!! It was terrible!

It was like watching Jimmy Netron on steroids with plastic surgery.

The show contained too many chases and ‘action,’
The Doctor gets away and then he’s caught again, he gets away, and gets caught again, he gets away and gets caught again. It’s too repetitive!!!

And the animation was choppy in some parts and really, it doesn’t work.

Doctor Who + Animation = Absolute Rubbish!!!
The images above may look good, heh heh heh. It’s not, once you watch the show you get the full gist of it, sometimes the voice doesn’t seem to go with the character, the voice and lips move at the same time but it just doesn’t seem right.
It takes place in America, it seems to me that doing the episode in animation is because America would never let Britan ‘mock’ America.

I cannot believe that I watched it, I’m pretty let down now.
The voice of the Doctor is David Tennant’s but the animation, the show just doesn’t work unless it’s the real David on set.

I rate it a -2/10, Yes I’ve gone minus!
If this was an audio tape or a radio thing I may rate it higher because the sound is as good as it gets.

On the bright side BBC released their new 2010 Doctor Who Logo:

They are going to use it on the last 3 special episodes of David Tennant’s series.
Then from 2010 onward with the the new role Matt Smith they are going to use the logo and insigna.

For more on the logo and insignia CLICK HERE>

Thanks All.

Benaball,