Representative democracy, or my right to rant to kingdom come

To all the millions of people to whom I owe emails and LJ comments - some time before the apocalypse.

I am panicking. I never even looked at Politics module three (Features of a Representative Democracy) before today, and it's hundred of pages long - the Prime Minister! his office! his fraught relations with Parliament and the Labour Party! the EU! local government! aargh! - and I will never be able to read it, let alone learn it today and tomorrow, which is all I have in the plan for Politics because I also have two sciences to go over again and my exams are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

And I can't revise Politics. Science is easy, science is always easy, it connects, it makes logical sense, the organic mechanisms are engraven on my heart and soul, it's fine. Even biology is okay. I can do it. I'm not stupid, whatever else I may be. On average, it takes me four hours to revise a science module and an hour to take the exam.

But I can't revise Politics. I can't remember it. I can't.

Yep. Panic.

Specially as I haven't really revised module two (Political Parties and Pressure Groups) either, merely skimmed it.

And they say AS exams were supposed to make life easier. Well, fuck the Department of Education and the horse they rode in on. I bet the current denizens of the Cabinet couldn't pass this exam, whereas I, insignificant seventeen-year-old from Liverpool of all politically significant places, is expected to be able to.

Well, yeah. I'm sure this was a great idea when they were sitting in their incredibly important Cabinet Committees (currently important in policy formulation; an instrument to extend the Prime Minister's power (primus inter pares), means of bypassing full Cabinet sans kitchen cabinets). Let's take a nation of sixteen-year-olds, just slipping off their post-GCSE high, throw them into an entirely new system, new subjects, new everything, and examine them after their first three months, and again after another six months, and expect them to know everything and give up four consecutive holidays in favour of revision. Then, having done that, do the whole thing again at A2. It ain't revision either; we haven't had time to learn it the first time round. This is ridiculous in the extreme.

Oh, yes, and convince everyone this is a good idea by way of the godforsaken EMA. Bribery. Fucking bribery.

Not that I am entitled to said bribery; I don't even get financial recompense for this infringement on my sanity, which by the way I would like back one of these days.

Oh, and while I'm at it? General Studies. The most useless, useless, fucking useless concept in the observable universe. First of all, no good universities will so much as look at it, and in any case, what is the point? Get us all to specialise to four subjects, then make us do General so we'll be well-rounded people. How is one double a week, skived by the vast majority of the sixth form population, going to make us well-rounded people? And even if we do take the exam, as I did, then what? I would like to state for the record that I am a well-rounded person. I'm vaguely intelligent, got eight A*s at GCSE and three As for my first AS modules, and somehow, somehow, managed to get a grand total of 32% for my General Studies module.

In conclusion, it's all crap. I want to be the first person ever to get four As at AS/A2 and a U for General. Which may happen; but most likely not because as I have mentioned, I will never, never, never revise all of Politics and fuck representative democracy.

Bring on the clowns.

In other news, my computer is still fubared. My files are probably irretrievable.

Wizarding legislation

biascut said, "Write a HP fic set in the Ministry of Magic. Assume, against all available evidence, that the Minister of Magic is a democratically elected office, and work out wizard equivalent of the Cabinet, (Minister of St Mungo's, Minister of Cauldron Bottom Thicknesses & Other Export License NitPicking, Minister of Secrecy, Special Secretary with Responsibility for Floo Network...) Then work out how a new bill allowing the licensed ownership and customisation of Muggle vehicles would be passed, who would contest it and how."

And how could I say no to that?

It isn't a fic, it's an essay. And it's incredibly boring. But it was surprisingly fun to write.

( Passing magical legislation; or an extreme lack of politics revision )