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There was a programme on Channel 4 recently called 'Revelations: How to Find God' which followed a group of agnostics on an Alpha course in Oxford.
The whole thing made me spectacularly uncomfortable and I feel like I have to write about it. The idea of the Alpha course is - of course - to convert people who have joined up hoping that Christianity might offer some kind of support. Conversion is achieved in a series of 10 weekly meetings, where people are fed and chat about Jesus, religion and the scripture, and a weekend retreat where they are invited to speak in tongues (which obviously mostly appears to be babbling random syllables with a beautific expression). This approach manages to recruit one in eight of the people starting the course.
one of the small groups of eight where the chats take place was the focus, with four of the group being followed to the end.
Evangelical Christianity makes my skin crawl. I can't quite express the discomfort I was feeling when the participant who should have been best protected from the concept of 'god' as a psychology student at Corpus Christie - statistics show that there is a negative correlation between level of education and belief in god - was pretty much converted by a note from one of the Christians running the course saying that she had been praying for him and that this is not the time to be passive. It was horrifying to see.

I really wish I could explain how uncomfortable this kind of thing makes me (and probably Richard Dawkins)... suffice to say that it is too hot a day for spending an hour tensed up in discomfort.

Anyway, I'd really like to hear from you on this one - any comments are appreciated

It's over? really? huh...

yup. At the end of fourteen long years of school, including run-ins with spectacularly unpleasant people, totally wonderful people, hundreds of homeworks, dozens of detentions (for not doing the homework usually), probably millions of words of coursework and many, many hours of exams... I'm done. No more school.

Now what?
I'm not sure. So far, it's been just doing very little at home and hoping the open sores on my heels (from walking the two miles into town on Friday in the wrong shoes) will heal up in time for Friday so I can wear the utterly fabby gladiator sandals I got for the ball when me and Tracey - my mum - went to Hereford in the hopes of finding some on Saturday.
Hereford is quite surprising. Considering it's a city, the population is small. My hometown has a population of 110,013 people (according to the 2001 Census) while Hereford, a city, the county town of Herefordshire, has a population less than half the size at 50,400 people. Nevertheless, the shopping is just as good and their New Look store is huge. It has three floors and carries six of the 'extra ranges' including, in the footwear section, wide-fitting shoes. When your width fitting is EE to EEE (normal width is C or D) this is very important, especially when it is a week until your leavers ball and you still have no shoes.

It was a successful trip from where I'm sitting. I got the last few things I needed for this Friday - shoes, a bra whose straps wont't show in my dress, a stole and a purse that will fit in the bag I got for my birthday (Thanks Ash!) because the one I usually use is mahousive - and two tops, a cardigan, and a pair of shorts. We even managed to spend some gift vouchers we'd had for ages - £15 at M&S and £7 at New Look (note for Dee, they were a good present, we just have a crappy New Look).

So yeah, shopping is good! At no point did I feel like a fatty which is unusual when doing clothes shopping and I got lots of nice things for a relatively small amount of money.

Xbox 360 is ruining my life (or, an attack on something many people hold dear)

The original title of this entry was going to be 'Xbox live is ruining my life' but it's got much, much worse. The original title was inspired by the fact that every time on of my dear, dear (um.. no, not really) brothers turned the damn thing on, it destroyed my network connection, preventing me from doing whatever is was I might have been doing on my computer up in my room (because I'm almost invariably using the internet) of course if I was downstairs in the same room, I had to suffer the gun noises, the inane and bloody stupid conversations going on between other players and of course, between my brothers, for instance - "heh, got you there n00b!" "boom! Headshot!" "Ali get off, I want to go on, god!" Kieran why are you using that! that couldn't hit a tank at point blank range" and so on and so on.
eurgh.
Now of course, this is not the only problem. The shouting at each other parts have been a problem with every games console, right back to the playstation, but the Xbox's appeal to the other boys who live on the street means the front room is frequently overtaken by slightly smelly boys aged between 10 and 17, most of whom seem to have no idea that watching somebody else play guitar hero is actually really fucking boring.
Guitar hero I know, is among the favourite games for most of the slightly (and very) geeky boys in my life, both the ones I've chosen to associate with (I know, I know) and the ones I'm forced to spend time with, but, it's shit. Really. Aside from the fact that it doesn't actually make you a rock star, the music is generally... well, horrifying eighties power ballads or totally pointless metal.
The controller as well, alright, guitar shaped, fair enough, appropriate to the game but... well, it makes even more noise than the stuff on the screen, squeaking, tapping...

and they think they're allowed to go on the damn thing whenever the hell they like, despite requests not to because I would rather watch the news, listen to something on the radio, get on with some schoolwork or do my chores without the noise pollution or having to watch them stabbing elves or shooting nazis.
Sometimes I dislike them... no, mostly I think I should be allowed to beat them over the head with a frying pan when they're pissing me off.