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Mega Über-Meister
4032 points
16/M/Bristol, United Kingdom
Join Date: Aug 2005 |
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Hi everyone.
I was very tempted to give this post the title, 'Letter From America', since this is where I am technically located now, although two thousand miles from the U.S mainland in Hawaii. However, the use of such a phrase would constitute plagerism, simply because the BBC have used it for the last sixty years for one of their famous radio features.
As I have already copied one title, 'Greetings From Shitville', a song by the obscure yet exceptionally talented rock band The Wildhearts, for my bebo profile's headline, I thought better of it, and have hence altered this post's title to the unexciting and still probably unoriginal one which the reader sees. Incidentally, don't you dare explore my Bebo profile, its contents are frankly embarrassing since I created it in a fit of rage which soon later disapated, leaving me to feel that it'd been unwarrented.
Anyway, enough of that meandering bulls**t. I'm on holiday, and have been for the last three weeks. We moved to the island of Hawaii from Seattle, Washington, dad having completed his detention sentence in the offices of one Nokia Seamans Network there.
Seattle is a very pleasant city, thick with greenery and coffee shops, with every other object encountered by the pedestrian being either a tree or a starbucks. It is also the home of many prominent entities--Nirvana and Microsoft, to name a couple, and we looked at the house of the former's frontman, Kert Cobain. It being also the place of his suicide, As I stood near the bench riddled with grafitied homages my mind struggled to comprehend that this building was the place from which the talent behind the albums I had enjoyed had come from, but also where it had expired with his death. I recall now how I used the last words of his suicide note in my fairwell speech at my school's leavers assembly: "It's better to burn out than to fade away".
Having walked around what felt like all of Seattle, which is of a similar size to British towns such as Manchester and Sheffield, I spent my penultimate evening there meeting Dad's colleagues at a Brewery near his offices. I can honestly report that these people, though perfectly amiable, showed bugger-all interest in me, and I was sincerely glad when the three hours of social awkwardness were over. Still, I suppose that on a Friday night after a long week's work they were not in an ideal mood to acquaint themselves with someone of half their years.
When my parents and I got to Hawaii our holiday began in earnest. Although the idea of being in a vibrant American city, rather than in quiet and dull rural Britain, had kept my imagination occupied, I'd visited Seattle before and so was glad to present my creative mind with a new stimulus. This was a group of islands not only far from America's mainland but from anywhere else: it is about a thousand miles from here, so I'm told, to Polynesia, Hawaii's nearest neighbour. Geographically I know not which continent I am writing from, though I suspect that if any it'll be Austrilasia judging by where Polynesia is.
To think that, though the presence of all the conveniences that the western world expects, and of course of American culture, often give the illusion that Hawaii is nearer to other countries than it is, the islanders and their society are the only living things besides water and vegetation in this part of the globe. To think that, if you were to go for a swim in the often tempestuous seas around here, and got swept away from shore by a colossal wave, you would be surrounded by watery nothingness...no T.V, no radio, (even the most obscure short-wave station), no internet, no phone coverage...nothing but the swirling currents...I find all this simply amazing.
Perhaps evoking in me an even greater sense of wonder is the fact that, a five and a half hour flight away from the U.S, this place is still a part of it. To be honest, I couldn't say that I am in favour one way or the other over Hawaiian independence, or even that I know whether many of its people have raised it as an issue: after all, it has been recognised as a U.S state for more than a century.
However, every territory on earth which once counted as a country in its own right but now is anexed or is a protectorate, (or whatever you call it), of a larger country seems to have a movement campaigning for liberation. If Hawaii has such a group, then I see the matter from both sides.
From that of the Hawaiian Independence Party, (HIP), if I may so call them, Hawaii has very definitely has a strong indiginous culture that, until descendants of the missionaries that imigrated there in the 19th century apparently introduced commercialism, had little in common with the U.S. Indeed, some of that culture subsists: there is still a small island off the coast of this one who's residence live the traditional Hawaiian lifestyle, though I'm not sure whether that means palm leaves instead of Pizza, canoes rather than cars, etc. But it is the thought that counts, and I know the native language of Hawaii is spoken there.
In addition, there is still a distinctive unamerican nature to the Hawaiian accent, this being a blend of west-coast American and something decidedly foreign. In fact, I was listening to a radio station claiming to play 'Hawaiian Hits', (mainly low-tempo reggae music seeming more in touch with the caribbean than with America), and the accents of the singers and presenters certainly delivered a stronger taste of pineapples, banana trees, sand and surf, than of SUVs, bars and deserts.
This being said, it could be argued that, because the population of these islands comprises descendants of many nationalities; Japanese, Portuguese, Caribbean, as well as the natives Polynesians who travelled here aboard canoes a thousand years ago, the people are not necessarily, as implied, more Hawaiian than they are American, and so that this is not a valid reason for Hawaiian independence.
The hypothetical Hawaiian Unionist Party, (HUP), may further assert that economically an end to Hawaii's U.S membership would be a mistake. "Think of all those impoverished pacific Islands", they would urge, "Indonesia, Jamaica, Cuba...Hawaii might suffer the same fate as them without America's helping hand.
"But we've got tourism on our side", the HIP representatives might say. "Thousands of people visit Hawaii every year and this has enabled business here to thrive. Thus, we will not fall from prosperity without the United states; in fact, think of all the money we might save with the need to contribute to conflicts abroad as an American state is elliminated?"
At this point, an empassioned debate would probably break out about the merrits of the war in Iraq, since the unionists' only hope of avoiding the embarrassment of not having ready a direct counter-argument to this proposition might be to distract their opponents from the subject being discussed. This is understandable--when politicians include controvercial topics in their case for or against something it seems to me to flummox the opposition, who then can not as easily dismiss them without backing themselves in to a tight corner.
When one of the HUP people does come up with something to confront the other party's ascendency, it could be something like, "well, regardless of our oppinions on the wars question, wouldn't thousands of patriotic Americans here feel aggrieved at losing their citizenship if we became a separate nation?"
At that moment, and conveniently for the HIP, a group of about half a dozen cheerful young adults, popcorn in hand, would burst in to the conference room. They would be followed by the panicked manager of the conference centre who'd bluster that their booked time had elapsed, and were encroaching on that of a film convention scheduled for that afternoon. And so the debate would end in stalemate.
And that, my friends, is basically how I feel towards this question;. I have no idea why I started that imaginary conversation between two entities who are very likely non-existent, a trait they have in common with the readers of this journal. At least, with those on livejournal.com, anyway. Well, I'd better be going; all that fraudulently legalistic sounding writing has tired me out. I'll post again soon.
Bye for now.
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Hi all.
Well the good news is that the swimming competition I went to last weekend went well. I was lucky enough to get one bronze medal, two silvers and a gold from the four events I competed in.
I took part in the fifty and one hundred metre breast-stroke, the fifty metre back-stroke and the fifty metre free-style events. I was very nervous in the build-up to the events, especially the first one I took part in, though less so for the others.
The competition was divided in to teams representing each region of the UK, so I swam for the south-west of England. The duration of the competition was two days, and I didn't hear which team won, though I think it was the north-west team, as apparently they have a lot of good swimmers.
That competition took place up in Sheffield in the north of England, and today I went back there again with my parents who were there last week as well. But this time it was to see my aunt in hospital, because she was hit by a car earlier this week.
We don't know whether she'll be ok, and neither do the nurses and doctors we talked to. She's lucky to be alive though, we know that, because the car that hit her was going at forty miles per hour. It wasn't driving dangerously though; it seems likeshe was on her mobile phone and stepped in to the road while talking to someone. She must have been distracted because of being on the phone.
When I heard about what had happened to her, it was a bit strange because I didn't feel sad. If I had been told she'd died I would have, but as it is she hasn't, she's under sedation, to keep her brain less active in order to allow it to recover. The fact of this meant that I didn't cry.
My grandad died last year and I was extremely sad about that. He died around about this time last year actually, just a couple of weeks before. His funeral was a year yesterday. I guess because of having had to deal with losing him I was better prepared to cope with the news of my aunt's accident. I just carried on as normal for the rest of last week. I kept busy, and that always helps you cope with things like this. It's how I managed last year.
My parents said that it was terrrible seeing my aunt how she is now, because she is very still due to being under sedation and bruised. I went to her bedside with my dad, and he was upset about how she looked, so I think I would have cried as well if I could see her. I did feel more sad than I had and depressed.It's a hard time for me and my family. But I know if I carry on with life normally then I'll be ok.
I'll write again soon folks. | |
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Hi all.
I've been on here a lot this week, because it's half-term for me which means I get a week off school. I've enjoyed being able to get on here more than usual.
When I have't been here, I've been to the gym, did some swimming and went for a run this afternoon as well. We went six miles, which was great, though I was a little disappointed that we didn't make it to ten kilometres. We should do that next time.
The swimming gala I'm going to is next weekend, so I was training for that yesterday. My P.E teacher gave me a programme to do, so I've been following that. It has two hundred metres warm up on each stroke, then ten sets of fifty metre swims, the second five faster than the first, then ten ten twenty-five metre sprints. It is a hard programme of course but it's great exercise.
I've just been trying to add a music video to my profile, but oddly it doesn't seem to work. I copied and pasted in some code from videocodezone.com, of the type that it said could be used on blogs and websites. The code it had for forums was just a link to the video, it wouldn't have played anything, which was why I didn't use that. Does anyone have any tips on that? Thanks in advance if you do. Lol it's probably because I'm rubbish with this kind of thing.
Oh and this week I also did a bit of shopping, took back some tile samples we had borrowed to try out for the new kitchen. We've had people around who are helping us plan for that as well. There's gunna be a lot of changes to our downstairs rooms, and straight after they've been completed I won't know my way around my own house. Haha.
I'll write more soon folks. See ya. | |
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Hi all.
I've had quite a bad cold this week. It is nearly gone now though.
We had a party in school on thursday evening because of one of our members of staffleaving. Lol, that sounded like we were celebrating the fact that she is leaving, but nah she wasn't that bad.
My girlfriend has been in hospital for an operation this week. She had it done on monday, and it went better than expected, so that she came out on wednesday. Me and the remaining members of my class, [as we've only got five people including me] phoned her up on thursday in our ICT lesson. I phoned her myself this evening as well, and she said she'll ring me back soon.
I've been writing an essay for English on Macbeth today, as well as going out running. The essay's about how his state of mind changes from act two to act five. We haven't had to study every scene from act two to act five though, just act two scene one and two, and act five, scenes three, four and five. The essay isn't going to bad really, although I can never make my work read like how I want it to, like how professionals write, but I guess that's simply because I'm not one of them.
Running was good as well, I carried it on for five miles this time, and managed a couple of hills. I find those the hardest.
My dad is going on a business trip to kuala lumpar in Malaysia tomorrow, so while he's there I'll be speaking to him through skype and msn. I like skype alot, especially because it is easy for me to use with my screen reader, as it's all menu-based.
I'll write more soon then folks. I'm gunna go and check out some more forum threads. | |
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Hi folks.
Today me and my parents have been out looking at furniture and floor tiles for the new kitchen we are having.
We looked for tiles in three different shops in the morning, and thought about the furniture side of things in the afternoon.
The new kitchen will be cool, and we are changing some of the other rooms in our downstairs too.
I've not long come back from going cycling on the tandom with my dad. We didn't go to far, just a rout that lasted about an hour and a quarter. I'm not very good with the hills though. We cycled to the village of hauxbury upton and back.
Well, if my internet connection doesn't keep going off lol I should be on here for most of the evening. I'll listen to the football at the same time, as Manutd are playing Portsmouth, and winning. Earlier, there was a shock defeat for Chelsea, who are the club that are running away with the premeer league at the moment.
Bye for now folks. | |
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Hey all.
Well I see this site has been redesigned slightly, with the adverts at the top and that. It's a bit strange at the moment but I'll get used to it.
This week we had some other visually impaired students come to us from a school in Dublin in Ireland. They spent a couple of days with us. The reason they came was all to do with a health and fitness programme we are doing.
The students were cool people. We are visiting their school in may of this year. They had fantastic Irish accents.
We showed them the local area to school, including the cathedral in the city centre.
On tuesday morning we went to our local gym, where we met up with a rugby club. The players showed us how they trained, all the kind of exercises they do, like press-ups and wall-sitting. Me and another girl managed to break one of the club records in one of these exercises, where the object was bridging up on your elbow's and balencing for as long as possible. I managed this for two minutes and fifteen seconds, and Hannah was five seconds in front of me.
We also cooked a three-course meal on the monday, which was vegetarian. For starters it was beetroot soup, main course tagliatelli with leeks and parmer ham, and pudding chocolate zookini, which is just chocolate cake with caugettes in it. lol.
On the tuesday evening all of us went swimming in the school pool, and crawled about on the huge inflatable we have there.
By the way, lol sorry this entry isn't in, er, chronological order, it's just my brain doesn't seem to work like that.
Well after the Irish went on the wednesday, we didn't really do a lot. Actually I'm hoping to hear from one of them whom I gave my E-mail address. I believe he has MSN.
I went running after school when I got home as usual. There was another fella running with us today. He did very well, because he was a couple of years younger than me and probably smaller, but he still managed to cover the distance.
I've sent my girlfriend a valentine's card this evening. Was trying to set-up a Gmail account so she wouldn't know straight-away that it was from me, but Gmail told me that it is only available to a small number of testers at this stage. But what I don't understand is that I've seen a lot of people with Gmail accounts, and one of my teachers has one, so have these people really got invitations to test out the service, or is there something wrong with it to make it give me that message?
I kinda thought the latter.
I sent the card off anyway from my hotmail address.
I'll write more tomorrow folks.
See ya. | |
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Hi peeps.
I have been swimming this morning, and went on a walk during which I posted a letter this afternoon.
I got one of my friends signed up for this site today, and showed him how to use it. His name is Elliott. Lol I don't know why he chose his agetwenty-nine, a fair bit older than he actually is, but fair enough lol.
I rang up another friend this evening, he sounded pretty rough. Quite a few people seem to be coming down with colds recently.
Had nut-roast for dinner this evening with baked bananas and icecream which was great. Had a pretty late lunch because I was swimming for a little longer than usual.
I'm trying to get my technique better for breast-stroke, so I can be faster than I am at the moment.I find it quite hard keeping my fingers together in the water like I'm supposed to so it slows me down a bit if I don't.
Well, I'd better go now, because I want to see if I can get to three thousand points by the end of the evening.
Bye for now. | |
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Hi folks.
I have been to the gymn today, and this morning before I went I was chilling out listening to music.
I was listening to a simple plan album mostly, and a bit of nickleback. I don't know whether any of you guys like those two.
While I was in my room listening to that, this bloke came round who is planning the make-over we're going to have done on our house soon. We're going to convert what is now the kitchen in to a dining room, and the room next to it which is a kind of play-room now is going to be the new kitchen. We're also going to have a new heating put in.
After I came back from the gym this afternoon I listened to the rugby which was on, it was a competition called 'the six nations' and so involves the countries in the British Aisles, plus France and Italy. Because of the adition of France and Italy, the tournament actually involves all the decent rugby-playing countries in Europe. All the countries play each other and whoever wins all the matches also wins the tournament. The match that was on today was England V. Wales, and England won, though the comentaters at the game said that the score-line flattered England, it being forty-seven points to thirteen. I hope England go on to win the competition.
I'll write again tomorrow guys. See ya | |
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Hey all.
I've been on a school trip this week. We went to a place called Ironbridge, which in this country is called the birth-place of the industrial revolution. This is because it was the first place in which iron was found and found which things could be made with. They actually made an iron bridge there which we walked across.
While me and my cla** were there we also went to a couple of museums; a n iron museum and a pottery museum. We walked along the canal where the iron was shipped out to be used in big cities.
On this trip we had to stay over night, because Ironbridge is to far away from school for it to have been a day-trip. We stayed at a youth hostel. It was a cool place to stay, there were no other guests apart from us. I think they must have hired the youth hostel out just for us. We played games in the evenings there, hide-and-seek and things like that. When it was my turn to hide they always seemed to find me fairly quickly.
When I got back from the trip I went to a swimming training session, which wasn't actually in the swimming-pool on this occasion, but in the school gym. We didn't train for very long, about twenty minutes I'd say. I used the running machine for most of it, but also spent a bit of time on the rower.
This afternoon I went out running again. Had a good run, went nearly four miles. It felt great to run as I hadn't really done much until then.
Well then, I'll write again tomorrow people. Laters. | |
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Hey everyone.
Went for a walk this morning on our local common, I dunno whether you have that word in America, so a common is just an area of public land where anyone who owns animals can take them to graze.
We stopped for a drink and crisps at the pub during the walk, which was about three or four miles long.
Swimming was allright this afternoon, I haven't done it for a while so it felt a bit tough.
My favourite stroke is breast-stroke, and it is my fastest. my back-stroke is a fair bit slower, and my front-crawl, well lol I just can't do it propperly.
When I go to a competition in March at Sheffield, I'll be doing breast-stroke against people doing front-crawl in the free-style races, so it'll be hard to beat them.
After swimming me and my dad took a DVD back that we hired back to the shop. I didn't watch it, but I think it was this film called acqua-life or something like that.
Well, I think I'll go now and browse some more threads on here.
I'll update again on friday. | |
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