Oooh a title box!

So for the first time today I played a sport called Lacrosse. For those of you who don't know it's basically throwing and catching balls with small nets on sticks. Kind of like those mini nets you get at the beach but more structurally sound. This was 'interesting' and a lot more vicious when you're playing with over-excitable, competitive 16 year old guys. Yes, I am getting to my point. So afterwards my friend told me a little fact about this 'sport'. You can LEGALLY kill people in it. Apparently because of the hardness of the ball, and the fact that you're flinging it at high speeds at head height it's fine.

So that got me into searching weird rules and then into weird sports, here are my findings!

• Ferret Legging: a sport where competitors tie the bottoms of their trousers, shove a ferret down there and pull a belt tightly around their middle. Whoever can last the longest with the ferret in their pants wins. Why would people choose to participate in this?? You'd have to be crazy!

• Wife Carrying: Men carry their wives on their backs through an obstacle course, the woman doesn't even need to do anything. A closer look at the rules shows that the wife doesn't even need to be your own!! To be honest this sounds like a lot of fun! I need to get married and find a crazy guy to do this with!!

• Rock, Paper, Scissors is an official sport... wait... I can win money doing this?

• And of course Quidditch, which I already knew existed in the 'muggle world' and fully intend to find the nearest team near me! Which is apparently the East Hampshire Quidditch Team:    Petersfield, Hampshire | South East England. I need to see this!

Fairy Tale Faux-pas

So it seems that while everyone was watching the football (a terrible play by Chelsea by the way but at least we won the FA Cup final) I was busy procrastinating through a method I like to call nostalgia. After a friend sending me an old Disney song (I won't say I'm in Love for those who are wondering) I decided to go watch some old Disney movies. The ones where the animation was amazing and you could see how long they worked on it. Soon afterwards I remembered reading this:

‎"Jasmine was in a forbidden relationship with Aladdin. Snow White lived alone with 7 men. Pinnochio was a liar. Robin Hood was a thief. Tarzan walked without clothes on. A stranger kissed sleeping beauty and she married him. Cinderella lied and sneaked out at night to attend a party. These are the stories our parents raised us with and then they complain our generation is messed up?"

To be honest, I couldn't disagree more! It is typical of our generation (me included) to blame others for our own mistakes. Saying that beautiful old movies like these influenced our behaviour is like saying that every kid who played Pac-Man spends every day running around in a dark room listening to repetitive 8-bit music and popping pills. The media does have some influence over our lives; but not this much. Don't blame Fairy Tales that taught us to love people inside and out, to believe that we could achieve anything, that there is always the possibility of a happy ending. 

This isn't who we are, as kids these stories were what kept our imaginations fresh, it is only now that we look back with our naivety gone that we realise such things. Just remember that we were innocent. That these stories were just a way to make the world seem like a better place.

May The Fourth Be With You!!

Okay, so maybe this post isn't about Star Wars, but who can resist that pun?

Stress: the body's reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response.

Signs of stress being:

- Staying up till stupid o'clock to finish coursework
- Banging your head on the desk until unconscious
- Holding your revision at arms length whilst shouting 'WHAT ARE YOU???'

Nowadays that seems to be all my life is full of. Every waking minute I have my ICT teacher breathing down my neck, pressuring me for work I have already produced, deducting stupid amounts of marks for forgetting the hyphens in 'one-to-many relationship' once. Not to mention the amount of numbers I have to analyse, blaring from my screen: mountains upon mountains of Olympic running times for my statistics coursework. Then people tell me to 'relax'!

Tell me. How do you expect me to 'relax'?

know GCSE's aren't meant to be that big of a deal and that A levels are meant to be 'a lot more important' but they are to me. I can't seem to help but want to succeed in life. I don't know whether or not it's some sub-concious need to please people or whether it's just instinct. But in a way (a really weird way mind!) stressing out over these sort of things IS my way of relaxing. I know that if I actually relax in the proper way things would never get done and I'd just end up watching Lord of the Rings back to back or enjoy a Big Bang Theory marathon. Stress is good for you. No matter what they say! Stress somehow manages to get everything done.