It’s midnight, and I’m at a friend of EB’s house. Halfway through a film I’m not following, someone jolts us all out of our daze and announces ‘the results are up’.
I’m not the best person with nerves, I’m not going to lie. Especially when it comes to exams. During two of my maths modules for GCSE, I broke down into full-on tears – a difficult feat to hide in a silent exam hall. This time I’ve been just as bad; recurrent nightmares about results envelopes that won’t open, never ending corridors at college and trying to ask people where I can find my results, but no one will listen. The worst one by far involved me getting straight Ds.
So it’s with a jittering stomach I sit down at TG’s house to check my results, logging in seems to take years, and I swear this iMac is taking longer on purpose...AAAC. AAAC. AAAC. I literally could not believe my eyes, is there a mistake? I check the page again. This looks like my account, but it must be wrong, I could never have passed. As the moments pass and it sinks in, I cast around for my phone and ring home. A groggy voice answers, and I tell my mother my results – ‘oooh, well done Claire’. Dad’s reaction is hardly more encouraging – ‘oh. What was the C in?’.After that overwhelming enthusiasm, it’s a little uncomfortable breaking the news to the rest of the group. I text round a few close friends asking after results, but the only a few give me friendly responses. The only sincere-sounding congratulations come from S.C, who takes a 2-year course so didn’t get any results.
As the early hours of Thursday morning creep further upon us, I ponder my results. It becomes clear to me how tactical I have been with my subject choices of English Language, History, Sociology and Philosophy. They all play on my number one strength – the ability to bullshit. These subjects don’t really require facts, to an extent. They require 2 hours of sitting stiffly with a pen jammed in your hand, arguing your point with whatever the hell you can think of you can back it up with. Sociology is basically writing whatever comes to mind, and backing it up with made-up sociologists; ‘on the other hand, Rememdoo had a theory which suggests the opposite...’, blah blah blah, bullshit bullshit bullshit. History and English Language are basically the same feat, they just need a few technical terms and dates thrown around for good measure. Philosophy, my grade C, needs reasoning and counter-arguments – clearly my downfall. I can still remember reading the paper 2 question now, ‘how does art illuminate our experience?’, and thinking to myself ‘jeez, how the hell do I get out of this one?’.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to undermine my results to make you feel better about yours. I am just pointing out that everyone who took Maths, Chemistry, Physics and the like and making a vital errior. There is no leeway to lie, debate and fabricate your way through an exam. So for everyone who’s kicking themselves for their Ds and Es, take a lead out of my book and invest in some Sociology.
Add a pinch of praise, a dash of humour, a cup of sarcasm and two sugars.
19 August 2010
01 August 2010
Shoreditch 1234 Festival: 24th July
It’s a sunny afternoon and EB and I are heading out to London a little later than planned due to an unfortunate food poisoning incident, or just too much curry. After wondering around Shoreditch for a while, we found our way to the festival – one thing that occurred to me on our journey is how scummy places like Shoreditch seem to contain so many 'hipsters'. It’s pretty odd. It might have just been because of the festival, but for every balding overweight bloke who stared at my tits, there was a nicely dressed, skinny specimen who would glide by on his/her fixed-gear bicycle.
Seeing as my companion wasn’t in a good way, we didn’t get to see too many bands. We missed the wonderful LA SHARK and Pull in Emergency, which was a great shame. Nevertheless, the bands we got to see weren’t a disappointment and the festival was money well spent. Here’s my highlights
Toddla T
The first time I saw Toddla T was in some sort dingy of gazebo, in an event organised by Tate Britain. It was about 2 years ago, and as I recall, I was having a nice little dance until the entire sound system cut out and some crazy big black woman got on stage and started belting out gospel-esque ballads.
With the sound system fully functional, Toddla T was great to watch and got the tent moving pretty well. He doesn’t just produce standard dupstep, it’s got quite a lot going for it. Just the right amount of auto tune and a fast tempo are what gets everyone moving for Toddla T, and he seems it have got the perfect recipe for dance success. It’s more EB who’s into the crazy-MC music, but it’s really easy to get into in that kind of atmosphere. I’d recommend checking out Toddla T to anyone, no matter their music taste – a mix of jungle, dupstep and electronic bleepy noises, his music is fun to listen to and even funner to watch the bunch of nutters in the crowd.
A1 Bassline
Previously known as one half of the gimmicky band Partyshank, A1 Bassline gave a far better set than I expected. Seeing as his previous band made their music with nothing other than children’s toys, it was refreshing to find A1 Bassline has gone in an entirely different direction. Halfway through the set, a girl and a boy start sniffing a dodgy looking brown powder off someone’s hand, and start sneezing a few seconds later – I have to admit I secretly hoped someone had sold them pepper just for LULZ.
Admittedly the music is better than Partyshank’s, but it still got a bit the same-y after a while. It was quite cool to dance to but nothing I would go home and listen to. It’s basically slightly different variations of the same thing on a loop – then again I guess this doesn’t matter if you’re ‘off your nut’ snorting pepper, does it?
S.C.U.M
We only saw these from afar, but they’re a pretty good band. Sounding fairly like a mix between the Horrors and Joy Division, they were good to sit down and watch in the hot July sun. They don’t have a lot of music out at the moment, but Amber Sands is making a splash on the underground music scene and I expect we can expect great things from the ominous-sounding band.
The Dum Dum Girls
Another shit band name but a pretty decent band. Unlike quite a few bands we heard whilst milling around between tents, the Dum Dum Girls managed to produce an interesting, catchy set which has lead me to listen to more of their music. I recommend Jail La La, and will be keeping a close eye on these in future.
These New Puritans
Being the biggest band playing at the festival, we were pretty excited to see TNP. For one thing, they were pretty much the only band we both agreed were good enough to watch. The crowd were pretty hyped as the first song – one of the new ones – started playing. But of course this was all too good to be true. Halfway through the first song, the bloody microphone breaks and TNP sidle off, looking dazed and confused. About an age later, they try again but have the same problem, and this time the crowd are pretty rowdy. Another age and a half later, some beefy-looking bloke comes on and says the band will not be returning, and the now-angry crowd pelt him with cups and loose articles of clothing. Not coming on because your mics broke twice? Pussies.
Fucked Up
Far from the cowardice of These New Puritans, Fucked Up gave a completely mental, lively and exciting set. We only caught a few songs because of dithering over TNP, but the end of the set was a good watch. There’s no better way to round of a day out than to watch an angry, bald, fat man jump on a crowd of scantily-dressed, skinny hipsters.
Seeing as my companion wasn’t in a good way, we didn’t get to see too many bands. We missed the wonderful LA SHARK and Pull in Emergency, which was a great shame. Nevertheless, the bands we got to see weren’t a disappointment and the festival was money well spent. Here’s my highlights
Toddla T
The first time I saw Toddla T was in some sort dingy of gazebo, in an event organised by Tate Britain. It was about 2 years ago, and as I recall, I was having a nice little dance until the entire sound system cut out and some crazy big black woman got on stage and started belting out gospel-esque ballads.
With the sound system fully functional, Toddla T was great to watch and got the tent moving pretty well. He doesn’t just produce standard dupstep, it’s got quite a lot going for it. Just the right amount of auto tune and a fast tempo are what gets everyone moving for Toddla T, and he seems it have got the perfect recipe for dance success. It’s more EB who’s into the crazy-MC music, but it’s really easy to get into in that kind of atmosphere. I’d recommend checking out Toddla T to anyone, no matter their music taste – a mix of jungle, dupstep and electronic bleepy noises, his music is fun to listen to and even funner to watch the bunch of nutters in the crowd.
A1 Bassline
Previously known as one half of the gimmicky band Partyshank, A1 Bassline gave a far better set than I expected. Seeing as his previous band made their music with nothing other than children’s toys, it was refreshing to find A1 Bassline has gone in an entirely different direction. Halfway through the set, a girl and a boy start sniffing a dodgy looking brown powder off someone’s hand, and start sneezing a few seconds later – I have to admit I secretly hoped someone had sold them pepper just for LULZ.
Admittedly the music is better than Partyshank’s, but it still got a bit the same-y after a while. It was quite cool to dance to but nothing I would go home and listen to. It’s basically slightly different variations of the same thing on a loop – then again I guess this doesn’t matter if you’re ‘off your nut’ snorting pepper, does it?
S.C.U.M
We only saw these from afar, but they’re a pretty good band. Sounding fairly like a mix between the Horrors and Joy Division, they were good to sit down and watch in the hot July sun. They don’t have a lot of music out at the moment, but Amber Sands is making a splash on the underground music scene and I expect we can expect great things from the ominous-sounding band.
The Dum Dum Girls
Another shit band name but a pretty decent band. Unlike quite a few bands we heard whilst milling around between tents, the Dum Dum Girls managed to produce an interesting, catchy set which has lead me to listen to more of their music. I recommend Jail La La, and will be keeping a close eye on these in future.
These New Puritans
Being the biggest band playing at the festival, we were pretty excited to see TNP. For one thing, they were pretty much the only band we both agreed were good enough to watch. The crowd were pretty hyped as the first song – one of the new ones – started playing. But of course this was all too good to be true. Halfway through the first song, the bloody microphone breaks and TNP sidle off, looking dazed and confused. About an age later, they try again but have the same problem, and this time the crowd are pretty rowdy. Another age and a half later, some beefy-looking bloke comes on and says the band will not be returning, and the now-angry crowd pelt him with cups and loose articles of clothing. Not coming on because your mics broke twice? Pussies.
Fucked Up
Far from the cowardice of These New Puritans, Fucked Up gave a completely mental, lively and exciting set. We only caught a few songs because of dithering over TNP, but the end of the set was a good watch. There’s no better way to round of a day out than to watch an angry, bald, fat man jump on a crowd of scantily-dressed, skinny hipsters.
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