Audience of One is the weblog of Matthew Weston, a UK student, Christian, technophile and musician.

Exam pressure and alcohol

This morning a woman wrote into the Independent:

Sir: The same week which brings news of higher than ever exam performance by teenagers, particularly girls, also brings us news of higher than ever alcohol consumption by teenagers, particularly girls. Is it possible to conclude that this generation of young women is under rather too much pressure?

At first I thought “yes, they are”, but realised that I went to school across the road from an all-girls school where a fail at A level meant you didn’t get an A, so might be slightly biased. Still, exam stress was most noticable in the girls of my year. Is there more pressure on girls? That’s the first question. The second is whether or not this is leading to an increase in drinking. Well, among my contemporaries, whichever school they went to, the girls who didn’t drink a lot got the best grades.

My feeling, based on talking to boys and girls from mixed and single-sex schools, is that girls get better grades because they work harder. Boys don’t do as well because they don’t. There are exceptions to the rule, most noticably among those boys at private schools. A friend of a friend got seven A grades at a local private boys school – others in his year were disappointed that they’d only got five, or four. I’d have been ecstatic with two As and a B. Maybe it’s the environment – if everyone’s getting those kind of grades, you work your backside off to make sure you compare to your contemporaries. Maybe that shows why girls get better results – there’s more competition between them, whereas guys don’t care as much. I’m not sure that’s the case all the time though.

As for alcohol, maybe it’s down to a distortion of feminism. Feminism initially said “men and women are equal, so give women more rights”. Now I admit gender equality isn’t quite there in some areas, but there are some areas it shouldn’t be, for example places where the male stereotype has got the wrong idea. What I mean is, women trying to emulate men by drinking too much (so called “ladette” culture) is not a good thing. There are some areas that women should not seek to be like men. (There are also areas where men should not seek to be like women. These issues are probably too complex to be developed here.)

So, is there more pressure on girls to succeed? Is this a result of the feministic drive for equality – that women can be “as good if not better” than men? Is more pressure leading to an increase in drinking among young women, or is this based on a misplaced desire to emulate men? Do girls work harder than boys at school? Is it based on competition among the sexes? What has single-sex or private education got to do with it all?

Your thoughts, please.

Currently listening to Video Killed The Radio Star – The Buggles

Matthew @ 10:04, August 30, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (15)

The Importance of Being Earnest

According to the Wikipedia entry, The Importance of Being Earnest is “regarded by many critics and scholars as being the wittiest play in the English Langauge”. To be completely honest, I’ve only ever seen serious plays with occasional comedic touches (Rhinoceros, Streetcar) so I’m not qualified to say on that matter.

It was a very amusing play, though. I’d been wanting to read/see something by Oscar Wilde for some time – this was a good opportunity, and I came out very impressed with both the script and the acting. The characters are all brilliantly portrayed through their lines, but the actors seemed to have personified the personalities perfectly. The set was well designed, with the switch between acts two and three just rotating the props by a hundred and eighty degrees around the centre of the stage. Algernon and Cecily were particularly good, in fact it almost seemed like Algernon was the main character, not Jack.

As I said when seeing A Streetcar Named Desire, seeing plays makes me want to act. It’s quite worrying – if I see any more plays I’m sure I’ll end up acting in something at uni, and that could end badly. I guess I’ve got the safety net of knowing no director in their right mind would give me any kind of leading role.

Do yourselves a favour and take any opportunity you have to see this play. I don’t know if it’s the wittiest English-language play, but it must be up there.

Currently listening to If I Didn’t Have You – Randy Newman

Matthew @ 12:19, August 29, 2005 to Reviews | Permalink | Comments (2)

Life since school

The freedom didn’t hit me for a few weeks, as straight after school I started looking for work. It wasn’t until I’d had to leave the job and didn’t have the prospect of another for a month at least that I realised exactly how big a thing had happened.

Soon, I’ll be leaving home. It’s exhilarating and scary at the same time. Of course, it’s also a long way off. This next year is going to be a strange mix of the same old security – I’ll not need to cook, wash, shop or clean more than I’ve been doing already, though I’m sure I will choose to – and new experiences.

It’s also the year after the Christian Union at school (which I ran for two years) and before the Christian Union at university. It’s come just as I’ve got completely fed up with the songs we’re singing at my church – I’m not one to get fed up with styles of music, but these songs have terrible lyrics, half of which are theologically unsound. A year for trying new things: a new church, perhaps?

In the next few weeks I have a personal web project to finish (mentioned by benji), a professional web project to finish (I’m designing a website for a business) and possibly an upgrade of this site (which should fix things for you Safari users).

I also have to finish Pride and Prejudice for the second time, add some more Top Fives, try not to spend too much money on iTunes, visit friends (and clients) in London, try and get a job, learn to make a pavlova, start a correspondance course in theology, teach myself enough A level physics to understand how capacitors work, finish teaching myself some more Chopin and move onto Schumann and Debussy…

In other words, life since school has contained quite a few of the things I’ve been wanting to find time for for a long time (and finally don’t have to interfere with A levels). The next year is going to be packed full, as I try and fit everything else around the full time job I’m hopefully getting soon. Then it’s off to uni, and another lot of new experiences.

Thinking about my gap year, I can tell it’s going to be fantastic – however, most of my friends are off to uni. There’s going to be six people I know starting at the same uni as me this October, except I’m going to be here for another year. Something in me wants to go with them.

Currently listening to The Irish Ballad – Tom Lehrer

Matthew @ 16:33, August 28, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (8)

Sacred Diary of a Soul Survivor Goer

Disclaimer: the events in this entry are stereotype, exaggeration and certainly not accurate – on the whole. And yes, I stole the idea of the title. That said, it’s based on reality. The narrator is based on me to a very limited extent. I will update this entry with new entries over the next couple of weeks.

Sunday

Soul Survivor is here again! The spiritual high of the whole year unfortunately only comes once – a week in which to encourage us all to live for God the rest of the year. I still haven’t quite figured out how it does that, as the only things I can remember by Christmas are the amusing illustrations. (“God owns all the doughnuts”… not quite sure what it means, but it sounds good.) It’s still brilliant though – I’d really miss the whole experience if I couldn’t go one year.

So, our group is driving down towards Shepton Mallet, and we get stuck in a traffic jam behind a red Ford Fiesta. In the car with me are Gareth, Emma and Henry (who’s driving), and Gareth turns to me and says “I bet the people in that car are going to Soul Survivor.”

I turn towards the front and look through the back windscreen of the Fiesta. All I can see are two reasonably dark silhouettes, one possibly with long hair and the other reasonably tall.

“How can you tell?” I ask.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Red car, geeky haircut, probably wearing sandals, a guitar in the boot with a rainbow strap – and they don’t have surfboards, so they can’t be going on holiday to Cornwall. They’re Christians going to Soul Survivor.”

I’m struggling to figure out how Gareth has seen the rainbow guitar strap, so I reply: “You’re insane! How could you possibly know? Look at us – there’s nothing to tell us apart from non-Christians, and as for holidays in Cornwall not everyone goes surfing!”

I’m not sure he’s listening though. “Definitely going to Soul Survivor,” he tells Emma. “You can just tell.”

Eventually the red Fiesta turns off on the road towards the camp site, while we carry on towards Castle Carey, the train station, to pick up Liz. As the Fiesta turns, Gareth types the number plate into his phone. “We’ll check out the car park later – I’m certain we’ll find them there.”

Liz’s train is delayed, so it’s late afternoon by the time we turn up to the camp site. Hundreds of tents have gone up already, and we’re left trying to find the right spot for our tents. I can see people playing frisbee in the distance and my heart leaps.

We pitch the tents and set about heating up our first meal. I get out my frisbee and start practicing a new trick, which I’ve been attempting to master for weeks but just can’t manage to. Maybe the spiritual atmosphere will help. Somehow I miss all the preparation, finish eating quickly and miss all the washing up as well. I’ve got to get this trick sorted while I can, though.

As usual, we’ve forgotten camping mattresses.

Early Monday morning

Woken at five by Gareth to go hunting for the red Ford Fiesta in the car park. Mumble loudly in protest, turn over, and go back to sleep.

Monday morning

Gareth’s ill-timed wake-up call leads me to oversleep the early morning seminar, one I was looking forward to. I am woken, this time by Emma, as the rest of the group come back with bleary eyes and pious expressions. Gareth, it turns out, has been up since five wandering round the car park, but hasn’t yet had any fruit from his labours.

After some porridge I head off to the main morning meeting with Liz, who is filling me in on the seminar. Apparently it consisted of one guy telling a load of stories about mates of his who had become Christians just because he started praying for them. It appears that no sooner had he mentioned their names to God that they’d got interested in an Alpha course, joined him on a Sunday and asked Jesus into their lives within a couple of weeks. Good for them, I think, but why isn’t this happening with my friends? I make a note to find the speaker later.

I’d noticed this before but Soul Survivor seems to me like a singles convention sometimes. Not that you can tell from someone’s looks that they’re single, but they’re almost all in groups of girls or guys, with very little mixing. Our group seems a little odd – three guys, two girls, and Gareth and Emma have been going out for years. We find a spot in the main tent, sandwiched between ten or so sixteen-year-old girls on the left and ten or so sixteen-year-old boys on the right. Both groups seem slightly annoyed that we’ve sat down for some reason. I can’t think why – Henry and I may be tall but we’re only blocking their view of each other, not the stage.

“Welcome to Soul Survivor!” The crowd claps enthusiastically and there are a few whistles. “And without further ado, we’re going to hand over to our worship band today, hotfoot from their American stadium tour – “. The announcer is cut off by a huge scream as the band walk onto the stage and find their instruments. The drummer clicks them in, and they launch into their first song.

After about twenty minutes my voice is hoarse with singing, and I’m starting to get slightly bored. We’ve been singing “I could sing of your love for ever” for what seems like forever and I’m having concerns that if this is what heaven’s going to be like, I’m not sure I’m interested. That, and the place smells of dried sweat. Finally, the music dies down and the singer starts speaking. “Lord, rest on us with your Spirit. Visit us with your Spirit now Lord God. Lord, we long for your presence here…” He speaks in a slightly sing-song voice to fit in with the music.

Around the tent everyone is silent, most with arms uplifted, staring at the ceiling. I stand there for a few moments, waiting for something to happen. My mind suddenly goes off at a tangent as I smell burning. Didn’t the Holy Spirit come as fire to the disciples? I start looking around for the source of the burning, and notice smoke above the stage. I think one of the lights has got too hot.

Suddenly the band start playing again with quite a heavy number, and everyone is jolted out of their reverie. Lots of people start clapping and cheering; I decide to rest my voice for a bit, and my thoughts start to wander. The song is far too hard to sing anyway. Sounds good, though. I can’t quite hear the words, the bass is quite loud. Something about dancing? Oh right, the screens have the words up.

I think the video guy must have a crush on the female backing vocalist. She seems to be a permanent fixture as the background to the words.

Pretty girl though.

Ah – they’ve switched to the lead guitarist now for his guitar solo.

Hmm.

…How long have we been standing here? This must only be the fourth song.

I suppose if you’ve got to fit in ten or so chorus repeats and a guitar solo they can take some time.

Another chorus ends and the lead guitar cuts out, leaving the singer on solo acoustic guitar. The sudden contrast causes the crowd to scream and applaud again. I’m sure I hear someone yell “We love you James!”, but they must have said “Jesus” – why would they be yelling out to the singer? This is a time of worship after all.

The speaker comes on soon afterwards and gives a really good talk – we all listen very carefully and take notes, even the boys sitting to our right. (One of them is even kind enough to show his notes to one of the girls to our left near the end of the talk. She reads through them and giggles – must have just understood the opening joke. It was quite obscure to be fair on her.)

After the talk the band take to the stage again, but Gareth gestures me outside just as they start playing. Once we get away from the noise, he says: “Matthew, they’ll be there for another half an hour. We can get twenty minutes car park searching done before lunch!” I sigh, and resign myself to the inevitable, on the condition of no more early morning awakenings.

Matthew @ 12:53, August 27, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (24)

Things to do

Must write:

Other:

Matthew @ 08:23, August 24, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (20)

Music reveals the soul

A few months back I was happily listening to Muse when a friend asked me what I was listening to. Having told him, he had a double-take and exclaimed “I can’t believe you’re listening to Muse! That just seems so unlike you!” I spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out how listening to a band with an amazing lead singer/pianist/composer person in a genre I had always claimed to like was unlike me.

On the same subject, I thought I’d list some famous people and what music I think they’d like. I started writing the entry and realised it wouldn’t work because I don’t know enough famous people, or a wide enough variety of songs off the top of my head. Here’s your challenge, then: come up with songs, albums or artists that you think these people would like.

Matthew @ 16:36, August 20, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (6)

A level results

Bad news
I didn’t get the grades needed to get into my university of choice.
Good news
They let me in anyway.

Matthew @ 13:55, August 18, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (12)

Soul Survivor: before

After years of being critical, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to see Soul Survivor for myself. So tomorrow morning, nice and early, I’m off for Momentum, the new students’/twenty-somethings’ Soul Survivor week. We shall see what I think when I get back – I’m keeping an open mind. I want to think it’s good, seeing as that’s what practically all my Christian friends think. So, mind open, mouth shut – until I return.

Incidently, True Worship is a fantastic book.

Matthew @ 21:30, August 15, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (4)

The third miscellany

In the past month, people have got to this site by searching for:

For future reference, the answer to the final question is no. And lentils mainly come from Canada. And Harry-Hermione shippers are wrong. And interestingly, ecstacy is the street name of 1-(benzo-1,3-dioxol-5-yl)- N-methylpropan-2-amine. And speaking of carrots, I think my supper is ready.

Matthew @ 18:19, August 15, 2005 to Miscellaneous | Permalink | Comments (10)

Things not to do on your first day of work

  1. Ask your boss for the afternoon off as you have a job interview
  2. Turn up late and/or with a hangover
  3. Answer all requests with “Aye Aye, Cap’n!”
  4. Answer all requests with “Sorry, I’m on my [coffee/lunch/biscuit/toilet/exercise/Sudoku] break, can you come back later?”
  5. Turn up wearing a novelty Sesame Street tie

Matthew @ 21:09, August 13, 2005 to Top Five | Permalink | Comments (10)

Biggest mistakes George Lucas has made

  1. Jar Jar Binks
  2. The Ewoks
  3. The dialogue in the scenes between Anakin and Padme
  4. Padme dying of a broken heart
  5. Choosing to direct the prequels himself

Matthew @ 15:27, August 12, 2005 to Top Five | Permalink | Comments (20)

A series of firsts

In the last two weeks, it’s been the first time:

Matthew @ 12:13, August 11, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (18)

Argument over trousers

Property Officer: And if you’d like to sign here, you can have your property back.

A: Oi! You can’t do that! That’s ****ing illegal that is! Them’s my trousers!

B: Shut the **** up, what you on?

A: Who’s them trousers, then? (Points to trousers on B)

B: Mine.

A: Yeah. I sold you them for a fiver, didn’ I?

B: You never!

A: Yeah. Ten quid I sold them you for. But I let you off, didn’ I? Said “Forget it! ’E’s not going to pay me back anyway” and gave them you for free, didn’ I?

B: Shut the **** up, shut the **** UP!

Property Officer: And if you’d like to sign here…

Matthew @ 12:45, August 8, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ashburnham 2005

Let me explain. St Helen’s church, Bishopsgate has a particular small group called the Partnership that somehow my family were involved in – I’ve never quite been sure how and always forget to ask. Each year there is a Partnership Summer School – a week of Bible teaching, relaxation and incredibly late nights (at least for the teenagers). It takes place at Ashburnham Place and so the teens who’ve attended over the past few years (some have been going for all their lives) it’s known as Ashburnham. This is what I was doing last week. But I’m not going to bore you with detailed stories. A later day will come when I will write of some of the things I realised/learnt/discovered etc., but this is not it. Now is the time to tell you all that Ashburnham Place is wonderful, walking round the lake at around one in the morning staring at the stars is a fantastic experience for a city-dweller (you can see the Milky Way!), Malachi is a far more interesting book than you might think (and, as all Old Testament stuff taught well is, amazingly relevant) and there’s always something new to learn from passages you’ve read and studied hundreds of times. Go read Malachi. Or if you’re not a Christian, read Luke instead. I think he quotes Malachi but that might be one of the other gospel writers. Incidently, Luke is the only gospel writer whom one of my generation in my family hasn’t been named after. And on that random note, au revoir. I’m allergic to half of my job, incidently.

Currently listening to Mr Mellow – Maynard Ferguson

Matthew @ 18:05, August 5, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (12)

Third day of work

After a conversation with a work colleague about what I’m allowed to reveal and what I’m not, it transpires that as long as I don’t mention any specific names of people, I’m pretty much fine.

Much as I’d love to claim to be making tea for spies, I am in fact working for the Property department of Thames Valley Police. Items of evidence from police raids, scene of crime (SOC) etc. go past me (in transparent evidence bags) to be recorded manually in a book (and then copied into Excel at a later date) before being stored somewhere in the office or storeroom, depending on how big the item is. This office also deals with lost property and things like that, so today I had to deal with two guns found in an attic belonging to the late husband of the lady bringing them in, for example. So far it’s been mainly repetitive, and would have been much more interesting if I were allowed music, but it’s not that bad really and is very well paid for a temporary job.

Given that I’m allowed to recount stories from work as long as I don’t mention specific names, I leave you with news that someone recently tried to hang themselves off an Oxford bridge. Luckily, the noose broke; unluckily, they drowned.

Matthew @ 13:02, August 3, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (10)

First day of work

I was looking forward to recounting entertaining stories about what I’m getting up to at work (and some of the things I’m dealing with), but unfortunately I’ve had to sign the Official Secrets Act (or something that mentions it at least) and can’t say anything for fear of losing my job and possible prosecution. All that leaves me to say, then, is that I started my new job today, at an undisclosed location, and it is far more boring than it sounds.

Matthew @ 19:41, August 1, 2005 to Diary | Permalink | Comments (8)