Verbosity killed the cat

[raven]

I am the most verbose person I know.

Seriously. Just looking at my last entry is enough evidence for the point, and since then, I have been writing an English essay on Brave New World, and somewhere down the middle of page four, it struck me that I talk so much while saying so little. I am currently of the opinion that Thomas More is the most verbose published author I can think of - he uses twenty words where one would do - but I'm still guilty of the same thing to a greater or lesser extent.

I'm going to school again tomorrow, this time to KGV. I've been wailing to cucharita about public transport - I'm scared of buses - and have decided I need to actually get out of bed if I want to get into Southport in time to meet hathy_col (12.30 outside Homebase, it is). We will wander on to KGV from there, which will be good as I get to see cucharita, and then both Enid and Colleen have mentioned my "meeting people" so there's that, too. Before I leave Southport, I want to go into WHSmith. I have £25 worth of book tokens to use - I'm planning to get Jingo, Guards! Guards, and Carpe Juggulum. It's rather sad that the Quest is now winding down. I've read nineteen Discworld books and there really aren't that many to go.

I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow, actually. I rather wish I was going to Alton Towers on Friday, so I'll have to come up with something to do that day. Monday is our next meet-up-in-Liverpool day, but I've got a week to fill before then. And I know I could do some work, but hell, no. I've done one English essay tonight, and there's another one to do, which I can't do because like an idiot I left my anthology and notes in school, and then there's a Biology write up (I wrote in my diary, "Write up WP experiment", and it took fifteen minutes' concentrated thought before that resolved into "water potentiality", so I think I ought to do that soon) and I think I have a Chemistry test after half term. So yes, I ought to be working. I have four modules in January, so I ought to be thinking about those.

But no. Right now I'm still engaged in the fine art of doing nothing, and besides, I resent a system that involves taking five sets of board exams in two years. I can't revise for those modules when I still haven't been taught most of what's on them, so I get the feeling that there's something wrong somewhere. I'm looking forward to getting out of here. It's half term now - I'm one twelfth of the way through.

God help us all.

Comments

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

You're not verbose, precisely, because that connotes excessiveness, and I don't see your entries as ever being excessive. (And I would know, too, because for more than three years I've been in an environment that breeds "filler writing" -- a euphemism for b.s. -- in everyone. I am attuned to these things. *grins*) I enjoy having such lovely long entries from you.

One-twelfth? When do you get out?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad. I speak the same way as I write and have occasionally been specifically asked to use words of one syllable or less(!)

One twelfth of the way through, yes. I do my A2 modules in June, 2005. Two years, six terms, and this half term marks halfway through the first term, so that is one twelfth if my maths is right. They all say it'll fly by. Let's hope so.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Well, that's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I envy you, in fact-- I am reduced to a complete blathering idiot when called upon to speak.

I do my A2 modules in June, 2005.

Oh, oh, I see. The problem was that I am used to taking my life year by year, so I couldn't fathom the idea of looking ahead that far.

What exactly are "modules," by the way?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*takes deep breath*
If you run away screaming in the middle of this, I totally understand.

Until about two years ago, the system was very simple. After your GCSEs, you did A-levels. You'd pick three (or four, if you were bright) subjects you liked/were good at, and do the the advanced course (that's what the "A" in A-levels stands for) for two years, after which you'd take the exam and get your grade (no A*s - just A, B, C, D or E).

But now, it's all different. Some Bloody Misguided Person in the Department of Education has decided that the previous system is somehow lacking. The old A-levels have now been divided into two sections - AS (Advanced Subsidiary) and A2. Now, we pick four AS levels at the beginning of Lower Sixth. An AS level is divided into three modules. For example, the Biology modules are "Core principles", "Microbiology" and something else I've forgotten. The English one I'm doing is "Text transformation." They're just sections, really, each devoted to a topic.

We have a choice. We can take all three modules in one go in the summmer after our first year - that is, June 2004 - or, we can take one module in January. That's what I'm doing for the majority of my subjects - I've got four modules to take this January (yes, on my birthday!) and the rest will be taken in June.

If I pass all those, I'll have four AS levels, which are qualifications in their own right, as well as being half of an old A-level. Following on from that, I can choose to either drop one subject or carry on with four of them, and do another three modules for each subject, which are called A2 modules. These modules build on what we learnt for AS,

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Weird. It didn't post the whole of it. Where was I?

These modules build on what we learnt for AS, and again, there's a choice to take some of them in January, which I will probably do. Finally, in June 2005, I will take all of my remaining A2 modules and emerge from school having four full A-levels (AS and A2).

Then come university applications.

Seriously, that's why I'm so angry with the system in general. If you count my GCSEs, which I did in June 2003, then that's me doing five sets of board exams in two years. It's a widely accepted fact for teachers and pupils alike that the syllabus is much too big and unwieldy to cover in the time we have. They'll probably scrap this system next year or the year after next, which is too late for us. I'm more or less desperate to finish with it and get out. But there's still so much time to go...

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I did not, in fact, run away screaming in the middle of that, because I have a perverse interest in strange educational systems. Possibly because I'm stuck in one right now.

However: yours takes the cake, and now my head hurts.

[lilka.livejournal.com]

>It's rather sad that the Quest is now winding down. I've read
>nineteen Discworld books and there really aren't that many to go.

Ah, but the joy of it is... he keeps writing more!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is true. They were advertising Monstrous Regiment and Night Watch on the train, of all places. It amused me.