Year 12

Ok, it's offical: Year 12 BLOWS. I mean, really, who would have thought that 9 months (not even a whole year) of hard study to be so much hard work? But then there's the assignments, the mock exams, exam revision, and that's just school!

Add to that Venturers, Queen's Scout Award, sport, trying to keep a semblence of a social life, part-time job... It all gets way too much.

So anyway, since i'm doing the IB (aka Hell), here's a few things to make you titter:

IB Final Exam

Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions. Time limit: 2 hours. Begin immediately. What you do counts for 5% of your grade; how you explain what you've done represents 95%. Don't forget to make connections to all the other subjects in every one of your exams and to cite every single book related to the answers or you will lose points for every source not cited. This test is out of 10,000,000 marks. 2 extra marks will be awarded to candidates who can explain why the hell they are called marks.

Public Speaking: 2500 riot-crazed Aborigines will storm the classroom in four minutes. When they arrive, calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

Medicine: You have been provided with a razor blade and a bottle of scotch. Remove your appendix. You have fifteen minutes.

Creativity: Create a perfect replica of the statue of liberty with Chinese chopsticks and macaroni. No glue is allowed

Biology: Create life. Compare your artificial life to the natural one. "I don't have a life" will not be taken as an excuse.

Mathematics: By substituting 2 for 1, find the exact value for 1+1. Hence prove that 0 = 1 and derive an expression for an infinitely null existent non-existing value for theta. You have pi minutes to complete this exam, which is simultaneously an infinite and null value of time.

Alternatively, find the equation of a line that does not exist (hint: let a = 7) and prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a kangaroo court that said line trisects a certain point (which also doesn't exist).

Sociology: Convince sociologists from Brownsville that Global Warming exists.

Physics: Given that E! = MC^2 solve by proving with induction that ((x - E) / (-1+1)) > ((0.5Mv^2)/pi). Use the answer to this question to work out how long you have to do this exam then complete all pages except for 1, 4, 6, 0.5 and 87. You will lose all marks and your soul if any answers are not stated to 19.3 significant figures and the variable simply known as "panda" is not present in your answer.

Physical Education: Throw a basketball. Write a paper on the trajectory. Next, using the areas of interaction, explain the deeper meaning of a football and how the history of the shin pad symbolizes the American dream.

English: Cite all of Shakespeare's plays word by word, but omitting the letter "e".

French: Outline all three French victories in military combat against Germany. "There were no French victories against the Germans" will not be taken as an answer, even though it's true.

German: Outline all 500 German victories against the French in military combat. Your test will be invalidated if you use any German word that is more than 7 letters in length.

Pathology: A volatile strain of smallpox will be released in New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles in half an hour. Contain the outbreak; no more than 500 smallpox related deaths will be acceptable.

Political Science: There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Then discuss in a 50 page essay the effects, if any, of the war.

Epistemology: Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your stand.

Philosophy: Something Happens. Why?

Art: Your have 5 minutes to look at and memorize a picture of the Sistine Chapel. Create a perfect replica on a 1:3 scale. Use the marble stones and other supplies you were required to bring to the exam.

Law: Create a new amendment and have it added to the United States Constitution. Extra points will be awarded for getting previous amendments repealed. Preferably number 8 (No cruel/unusual punishment).

Astronomy: Create a medium-sized black hole on your desk.

Theory Of Knowledge: What is the meaning of life? Be specific and concise. Please answer in meters per second.

Religion: Prove that God is real.

Spanish: Locate a poor child in Honduras and have him lead you to a buried chest of Aztec gold. "There were no Aztecs in Honduras" is not an accepted excuse, even though it's true.

Engineering: E-mail me your exam when complete. You may not use a computer.

OR

Create a time-machine and hand this test in ten minutes ago.

Chemistry: Construct an illegal biological weapon of your choice. Using Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, or Nitrogen is forbidden.

Or

Create Lysergic acid diethylamide using only your body excretions, once produced, then consume the LSD-25 and proceed to maintain your lucidity and write a 20 page lab report points will be deducted for any answers containing the words "gnomes, flying, Jesus, red elephant, or etc" also no points will be given for bad trips.

Geography: Find where Osama Bin Laden lives, giving the excuse of "We are bringing liberty to the people of "x" country". Meanwhile searching is absolutely prohibited

Jamaican: Dissect a Punani. Extra points for dissecting your own.

History: Write your entire history syllabus in 45 minutes. Dates for every event and crisis are essential. You will get no marks if etc. is found on your answer. A minimum of 7 and a half pages is required. You will not be able to finish the exam; if you manage to finish it in time, name Hitler's dog.

Or

Write a 5000 word monograph using only consonants, and all historical figures should be referred to as Wilde. Any dates NOT before 6000 B.C. will result in failure. Your monograph will then be graded on historical accuracy.

Music: Play Bella Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra from memory on a penny whistle. While doing so, write out a copy of the full score of Beethoven's Eleventh Symphony. "Beethoven didn't write an eleventh symphony" is not an accepted excuse.

NOTE: Most schools will not have "hands on" exams composed of objects supplied by the school, but focus on more theory work. It teaches students to make more, with less.

~Coops

Fear the Bass

Just a warning to you all - Big W, aka my beast of a '96 Hyundai Excel, now has new speakers. These speakers are, in the shortest statement awesome. Just to show you how awesome, here's a picture:


Pretty sexy, eh? That's the power of two 12" Pioneer bass speakers (aka Subwoofers), coupled with two 6" JVC in the front. And to cap it all off, I have a Sony Xplod head unit that not only has a gorgeous Aux input for my iRiver, but can play MP3 Discs. I am happy.

Have fun all ye people, a meaninful post will be up soonish.

~Coops

Defence Budget Boom

One of the chief issues haunting the majority of the Western world's minds at the moment is, no doubt, defence. Despite almost 6 years having passed since the out break of America's "War on Terror", there seems to be little resolution, either in capturing the primary culprit, Mr. Osama Bin Laden, or in reducing terrorism cases worldwide. in fact, if anything, terrorism has increased, mainly due to the huge publicity which any act of terrorism is now awarded. Throughout all of this, defence now becomes an issue, and hits ever closer to the Australian home, with events such as the Bali bombing, continuous threats from various groups and the ongoing faux pas with David Hicks - although, that event might finally be resolving itself.


But still, this is only an introduction. The Australian government has announced a new $22 billion budget for the Defence Force this year, which is in fact the largest build-up in Australian military spending since Vietnam. So far the Defence Forces shopping list is as follows:

• Increase Army size to 30,000 troops by 2016 - $10 billion
• 24 Super Hornet fighters for the RAAF - $6.6 billion
• Military Aviation - $1+ billion
• Troop lift helicopters - $430 million
• C-17 heavy airlift transports - $240 million

Also on the books for production are three new air warfare destroyers, which are hoped to enter service in 2013.

Out of the $22 billion committed to this budget, $14 billion of has been taxpayers' money.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not against the federal budget in supporting the Defence Force. I am in fact very supportive - I just have to ask, is the Government spending this money for the right reasons? Indeed Australia has one of the smallest armed forces in the world, and the current skills shortage in the civilian job stream isn't making recruiting any easier. Unfortunately, throwing money at the ADF will not make more people jump at the chance to become a soldier, seaman or pilot. Nor will it cause more people to want to enter the ADF as an urgently needed tradesperson. Australia does need a Defence Force - and so far, it has almost been living up to its name. However, the argument that Australia is defending its own interests by involving itself in other countries' affairs is beginning to wear thin, especially with the unresolved Iraq war. Fair enough, when Saddam Hussein was in power he could have been perceived as a threat to the Western world, which does include Australia, but my question is what are we still doing there? The despot is dead and buried, with the full story about how he managed to procure these Weapons of Mass Destruction still being kept behind closed doors - in fact, where were the weapons anyway? Have they even found them yet?

I am not saying we should pull out of Iraq... yet. I just want to know why we are still involved. Why, despite the fact that Australia's security (from Iraq, at least) has been assured, we are still fighting what began as, and always will be, an American conflict? Is there some unknown reason? Some hidden glory? The argument has been put that the ADF needs to 'make a name for itself'. Well I think that point has been made - the Australian SAS is arguably one of the top three Special Forces in the world, and considering the other two are the British SAS and the Israeli Mossad, that is quite an achievement.

But returning to the budget - high-tech weaponry can only do so much. Sure, dropping one precision weapon that can level a palace is cool, but the fact is any army will always need soldiers on the ground. There is only so much that unmanned surveillance can tell the command group, and even now we can't guarantee that what it does tell the commanders is entirely accurate. Add to that the fact that a home-made explosive cost a few hundred dollars at most can be used to write-off a $4.3 million tank, and it becomes fairly clear that technology does not have all the answers. This is even seen within the ADF, as Special Forces, although supplied with the best weapons available, often use far more primitive tools to carry out their missions - and one squad of SAS troopers can often accomplish what an entire battalion of infantry could not.

So maybe the emphasis should be better training and facilities for our troops and the expansion of our elite soldiers, instead of buying lots of new shiny things that the ADF can play with and show off.

~Coops

Edit: for those of you who argue that the British SBS is in the Top 3, bite me. The British SBS is pretty much the SAS with emphasis on boating as opposed to airbourne training. For those of you who argue that a US "Special Forces" group is in the Top 3, grow up.

A New Beginning...

Well greetings once again to those of you who follow the world of blogging! Whilst it has been a quite enjoyable sabbatical, I realised that despite all the other things going on in my life (Year 12, Rugby, Venturers...) I still have a desire to publish my thoughts in the hope that someone will listen.
Needless to say, this blog will be quite different from my last. Mainly I will not be updating as regularly as I used to - a few times a week at most. Also I plan to share with you some of the great wonders of the internet which have previously been unnoticed by many - just interesting little titbits that I pick up here and there. So to begin, a quick summary of life so far this year, ups and downs:

• New relationship
• Winning 1st VIII Head of the River 2007
• Realisation that Year 12 is a bitch
• Seymour Formal 2007
• Ruin of aforementioned relationship

Also, I came across this, as a summary of the year that has (not so recently) gone by:

"At the end of 2006 I looked back on the year and thought a lot about what I’ve learnt. No doubt you will have made some of these discoveries yourself, but I thought I’d share them with you. I’ve learnt that you don’t need to earn big money to be happy with your job – during my time spent at Woodside I saw this over and over. I’ve learnt how good it feels when you give everything you have and come out winning – my time in the 2^nd VIII taught me you don’t have to be the best to feel good about what you do. I’ve learnt that losing isn’t so bad and can in fact make you stronger – both the Nationals and my rugby season showed me this. I’ve learnt that while first love is the sweetest, it’s also the most painful and can teach you the most. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve learnt to appreciate what I’ve got, take every chance I can and always pick myself up after a fall – and if I can’t, I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made who will."

Obviously I've missed a fair bit out, but these grey areas can be filled in later. More importantly, the present is what counts. Sure, our experiences in the past help us, nurture us, make us grow, but much of these experiences remain ours and ours only.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a quote that isn't mine. It’s something that you will also notice on the side of my blog. A truly inspirational quote, from a truly inspirational man.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

~Coops