.

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.

Holy crap!

it's less than a week til my 18th birthday. It is actually five days until I, me, that is, Leah, will be an official adult.

Scary huh?
not so scary is the prospect of using the new 'official adult' status to go out clubbing and buy my own booze - which probably means there will be a lot more rum drinking going on around here, not to mention the vodka (na zdorovye people!).

That said, it seems my education in booze from my parents is really quite middle class. I know little of what people have in shots and I don't drink alco-pops unless they're put in front of me, but I could tell you about why I like Chilean wine more than Australian, and have opinions on ales based on personal experience.
All the drama classes and youth theatre stuff hasn't helped either. I absorbed the speech teacher's advice like a sponge, so I sound pretty middle class too (and am actually known as 'BBC voice' to some people).

But hey, at least I'm not common!

hey guys!

We've finished school. This means the exams are here. Crap.
On the last day of school we all dressed up - by all I mean only those of us who are comfy in skirts, obviously - including that group of lads who are incapable of taking anything seriously, but are apparently very secure in their sexuality and/or think they're god's gift to women.
unfortunately, considering the circumstances - the historic event that is the last day of class of '09 - my camera decided that after two years of good and faithful service, it was going to give up. 'The coroners report' (courtesy of my 'dear' father) was "it's dead".

Comforting. In all seriousness, I really did adore that little compact. It's macro function may have been a little dodgy, the pictures a little grainy... but I loved it. Hopefully a new one will materialise in time for my 18th birthday party this week - that's definitely something which cannot go unrecorded.

(dudes, let me know you're out there, drop me a comment xx)

I don't get road rage

At least in part because I don't (and can't) drive. If I have to get places and my parents can't drive me, I pretty much have to walk. This means I walked to and from school every day for the last seven years, whatever the weather, done the two-mile walk to and from the centre of town, walked to and from friends houses in four-inch heels. I've dealt with everything the English weather throws at us, roadworks, speeding... and the one thing that still gets me really, really angry - is other pedestrians.
So I don't get road rage, I get pavement rage. Other pedestrians are often spectacularly unaware of the people around them - I was stuck behind a couple of girls the whole way down the alley between the road my school is on and the road my house is on, because they wanted to talk about how they'd rather do something other than go and get stoned in the park because it was raining on Friday.
Who dawdles on the way home from school?! Admittedly these two were year nine or tens (13-15 years old) so they hadn't had the same sort of week I had (your A-levels are coming up! you're all woefully underprepared! You can't structure an essay to save your life!) but there is still no reason to force someone who just wants to get home to listen to your inane conversation.

There are other habits of my fellows in pavement use that piss me off. Stopping, in the middle of the street with no warning or, in fact, purpose. Walking veeerrrryyy ssslllllooooowwwllllyyyy, right in front of me and zig-zagging across the path so I can't overtake you. Also, that perennial non-favourite of mine, cutting me up and complaining when I trip over you because I can't bloody see you shortarse! - that one especially for the lower school who don't realise that you should get out of the way of the damn great sixth-formers because they're bigger and more important than you.
Ahem.

I really hate this exam thing.pressure's on! Two weeks til my first exam, and then it's drama, geography, geography, biology, geography, biology, dram

pressure's on! Two weeks til my first exam, and then it's drama, geography, geography, biology, geography, biology, drama.... urg

The stress is definitely beginning to show in the sixth form - more bitching than usual, more spots than usual (mostly on my chin by the looks of it), fewer smiles than usual. There's truth in those UNICEF surveys that say Britain's a godawful place to grow up, and I'm in one of the nicest parts! (in fairness, those surveys are only of a few countries - it's almost certainly worse to grow up in one of those central African countries where people are killing each other over a racial difference which was arbitrarily decided by white colonists)

On top of the exams and spots thing, there's extra irritations. My mum tells me that before her A-level exams she lost a stone in weight from the stress. I'm gaining weight. Seems I stress eat even as I tell myself not to.

The food itself isn't helping. I usually would have a perfectly normal cereal bowl, filled with cereal for breakfast. On the back of the box, it always says that 30g is the serving size. Figured I might as well find out how much that is.

I got a cereal bowl, and the kitchen scales. Set the scales to zero with the bowl and got the cereal out. 30g of bran flakes is... one small handful. the quantity I usually eat (one, normal bowlful) is more than 100g.

How am I supposed to cope til lunchtime on one handful of cereal? it's possible the portion sizes are mostly to blame for my tubbiness and the more significant tubbiness of my parents, although mum does suspect dad of trying to keep her fat.