Wednesday 6 May 2009
End of blog questionairre
Sex? Male
What is your degree subject (both if joint)?
Social policy and social care
Does ‘Being Bad’ relate well to the other modules you are taking?
Not really
If so, how? And if not, why not?
I know we were told at the beginning of the module don't expect to learn anything, but i didn't expect it to be literally true. The depth we studied at was not relevant to my other studies, if the lectures were more in depth, such as the psychological side, it would have related more to my modules.
Have you found ‘Being Bad’ too demanding, too easy, or at an appropriate level?
Too easy - 600 words essay. Does 600 words even actually make it an essay, or just a piece of writing?
Do you think the list of topics covered on the module was appropriate?
Yes, however the depth of analyses, i thought, left a lot to be desired.
Are there any topics not included in the module that you would like to see included?
Euthanasia, violence, evil children and child killers, bad parenting would be good and appropriate.
Do you think that the format for classes has worked well?
Yes, however the constant talking from the back was extremely irritating. The lecturers took too long to deal with it appropriately.
What did you think of the module team?
Very good, especially Mark, however i felt what they taught only scratched the surface of what they actually knew.
Do you think it would have been better to have had more:
Small group discussions? NO
Discussion and debate among the class as a whole? YES
Information and talk from lecturers? YES, but more in depth, such as why people behave the way they do, maybe the psychology behind it all.
The approach taken in the module is interdisciplinary (drawing on perspectives from English Literature, Film Studies, Creative Writing, Philosophy, Media Studies and Politics): do you think this a useful way of approaching the topics covered in the module?
Yes, but again, more in depth discussion is needed. We know smoking is bad for you, but why is it such an enjoyable past time for so many?
Do you think that interdisciplinary modules are a good idea? No opinion
Do you think you have benefited from the interdisciplinary approach taken in the module?
Perhaps, but only in the sense i met students who i would not normally meet in class.
Would you like to see more modules that cover this kind of subject matter? Yes, but one subject per lesson seems hardly enough.
Are you planning to take the follow-up module PH2004 ‘It Shouldn’t Be Allowed’ at level 2?
Not decided yet.
Would you recommend ‘Being Bad’ to a friend? Yes, for an easy set of assignments and a laugh, but to learn something, definitely not.
Do you think that the blogs (web logs) were a good idea? Yes, they were new to me and interesting. I have enjoyed filling in my blog, however, do the lecturers really read every students entry on every students blog? Somehow, due to the large amount of entries, i doubt it. maybe I'm wrong.
What did you think of the other assessments (e.g. would it be better to have one longer assessment rather than two shorter ones?)?
600 word assignments are way too short. Should be at least 1200 words. Two of these would be appropriate.
What have you learned from the module? Bugger all really apart from blogs are interesting, and Mark Jones is a funny guy. Also avoid night lectures like the plague.
What parts of the module have you found most useful and why? The blog, because it was a new kind of assignment. Meeting different lecturers was good.
What parts do you think were a waste of time and why? I don't think any of it was a waste of time. I was all relevant, but if i attend all those lecturers, i really expect to learn something.
Are there any other comments you wish to make regarding ‘Being Bad’?
The timing, 6-8 pm was crap, but that's personal preference for day lectures. The lack of discipline in class, ie constant talking, should not have been allowed to continue as long as it did. It was the same people every week.
Saturday 2 May 2009
Politicians
Friday 1 May 2009
Comment on Laura Carlins blog - suicide
Thursday 30 April 2009
Monday 27 April 2009
Moaning
Saturday 25 April 2009
Nasty Comedians and freedom of speech.
Friday 24 April 2009
Bandits and outlaws
I've been told that there is something romantic about people who supposedly steal from the rich and give to the poor, but the number who of real bandits who actually did this must be very few, if any, as most did it to line their own pockets and not help the needy.
Bonnie and Clyde appealed to everyone at the time of the Great Depression. People could identify with them because at the time every one was suffering hardship. The fact that they were shot to death by the police has added to their modern day status and made them into a kind of martyr.
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Mobile phones, trains, and a racist university student
These days no one gives a toss about anyone but themselves and their close family. Most people nowadays don't even know their neighbours so why bother to consult them on parking your car when its a free road? The lack of respect for each other now means no one cares what other people think, no one knows their neighbours or the people on the train, so why bother asking them for permission when its sod all to do with them. These days people do not talk to people they do not know, be it their neighbours, people on the street, train or bus, practically every where, if people don't have a specific reason to talk these days they simply don't bother. This has led to the level of respect between humans decreasing with the years, and mobile phone use on the train is another example of this. Years ago it was the same people catch the train or bus at the same time each day, so people knew each other and chatted about the weather and such like. There was no particular reason to talk, apart from showing respect and not being ignorant.
Tuesday 21 April 2009
Expensive Wolverhampton University library fines and book prices
There is an interesting article in the Guardian newspaper about library fines. Those for the fines say that readers enter into a contract and therefore rightfully should be fined; those against library fines say that they put readers off, which i agree with, but the university library knows us students need books and therefore will borrow books from them and pay the extortionate fines. I think the fines are a bit expensive, especially when the uni claims to understand students struggle financially and offer help with juggling your finances. Can 40p per day really be justified? Another thought i had was does this money actually go buying new books, or to paying the sour-faced security guards who stand around all day?
Monday 20 April 2009
Spitting
Sunday 19 April 2009
Arsonists & scutty families.
Vandalism of this kind really gets me mad because life is hard enough without some little shit setting your car on fire in the middle of the night just for the fun of it. Its like those people who walk around and swipe their key down your car door leaving a massive scratch that's expensive to repair. Do these people have no conscience? or do they have something missing in their tiny, sad little brains that stops them from feeling guilt? What could possibly happen to someone that makes them go out and enjoy burning someones pride and joy? Problems like this, my parents say, simply did not happen when they were younger. So, whats happened to make people act in this evil way? My first suspicion is poor parenting. I'm sure when these arsonists are caught they will be under 18, yet are allowed by their parents to stay out all night with their friends getting up to no good.
We all know that every estate has their rough, nasty family from hell. If you live on an estate without a scummy family like this, I'd say by today's standards you are lucky. Not far from me there is a family, with 17 children, ranging from babies up to aged 27, who are this type of family. They do not control their kids in any way what so ever, and as a result, these kids run feral on the estate, stealing cars, jumping privets, etc, you name, one of them has been arrested for it. What is irritating about this particular family is nothing ever seems to be done about them. There have been neighbourhood meetings and that kind of thing, but they continue to run riot. I'm sure everyone knows that these problems continue down the generations, and with this family, the older kids now have their own children who are now adding to the estates problems.
When is enough enough? The police seem powerless to do anything. This family, if that's what they are called, I'd call it a pack, like dogs, congregate on the same street corner every night, drinking, and doing everything else that unruly kids do. They are sometimes there until 3am but its never the parents who fetch them in. When i was young we were told a time to be in, and that was it, you were late and you were in big trouble.
The big question is what can be done with these types of families? None of them work, they are all on benefits, with the mother having been pregnant nearly every year. Why aren't their benefits stopped until they get jobs? Why aren't they put on community work to try and instill some kind of normal working attitude into them?
Two of this particular families children were sent to court for setting things on fire a few years ago, and it wouldn't surprise if its these two again now. The government claims to be getting tough on families like these, but I'm yet to see any results on my estate. This family constantly get raided by the police for drugs, yet are never evicted. They are always driving round the estate in stolen cars and being arrested for it, but the younger ones aren't old enough to prosecute. I've recently heard the council are evicting the family next door so the scutty family can knock two houses into one so there is more space for their ever growing brood. I'm disgusted by the council supporting these people endlessly, when normal folk have to suffer the wrath of their evil children. Enough said, I'm getting angry.
Thursday 16 April 2009
CIA torture
I will never forget those people jumping out of the trade towers to their deaths, or the horrific news flashes of the planes hitting the towers. These evil, vile, sad excuse for humans are selfish and deserve no mercy what so ever. As far as I'm concerned, its a shame the CIA don't behead know Al-Qaeda 'soldiers' the same way they have killed thousands of innocent people for no reason. As I've said before, bring back hanging for Al-queda murderers. They deserve no mercy, after all, they showed none of their victims any. And on a final note, its these same evil scutters who are growing the heroin that's killing our country, so they definitely deserve what they get!
References
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/torture-memos-bush-administration
http://images.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&um=1
Tuesday 14 April 2009
Poor old Jack Tweed
Saturday 11 April 2009
Something nice for once - Secret Millionaire programme
Friday 10 April 2009
Our wondeful NHS - Comment on Lyndsey Perk's blog
Thursday 9 April 2009
Lying
I have never in my life since met anyone who lied as blatantly as my mate Tim. What used to bother me the most was he had no reason to lie. If he was lying to cover up something he had done, then maybe that would be understandable, but lying for the sake of it was beyond me.
He would lie for lots of reasons: for sympathy (he must not have had any shame saying his mother had cancer), to look better than everyone else (he was one of those who had been there, done it, got the T-shirt, type of guys), for money (he was always saying his parents had kicked him out with nothing so i would borrow him bus fare), to fit in (he once said he had a new bike and agreed to meet us the one weekend but never turned up), to think of it the list is endless.
Maybe it was insecurity that made him lie, but i think he had something in his brain that the average person just does not have. He was unique in that sense and i have never met another liar of his calibre in my life.
Personally i find it hard to understand. He knew his friends would have accepted him no matter who or what he was, so why could he never tell the truth? I was discussing Tim the other day with my brother, who had seen him recently at a family wedding (his aunt has married my uncle), and even all these years later he was exactly the same bull shitter as when we were at school.
He told my brother his sister now lived in Greece (When i know she actually lives in Tipton), that he was just out of the army and had been in it since leaving school (lies because my mom saw his mom a few years ago and she said he had been out of work for nearly three years, no mention of the army), and that he has just bought a £200,000 house in Birmingham for cash (yeah, right).
So why do people like Tim go through their whole lives without changing? Again, i think its psychological and i think people like Tim have an inbuilt mechanism inside their brain that tells them to bull shit every sucker they meet. Whether or not it has something to do with his up bringing I'm not sure, but his sister never lied and shes now a normal nice person.
According to this website (entitled 14 types of people who are most likely to you) there are different kinds of liars who lie for different reasons, but looking back Tim fitted into all of these categories. He lied when jealous, to flatter you, to get money, the list is endless.
If he had a reason to lie then maybe i would understand, but he would lie about stupid stuff that simply mattered to no one. He once said he had a new dog, but when i visited his house and asked his dad where the new dog was, his dad said what dog? Tim was a total twat like that.
Lying to cover up something isn't as bad as lying just for the sake of it. However, lying to people who are meant to mean something to you like close friends or family is just wrong. People won't lie to you if they respect you (that's what I've always thought).
I think that because Tim had an upbringing where his older sister was more his mom (his parents were hardly ever in) meant that he wasn't told off for lying. So in his mind he must not see it as that bad. I mean, what sort of a person lies that their mother has cancer? He must not have felt any guilt about spreading such terrible lies.
When i was a kid if i lied i got a proper hiding, so i quickly learned that it was very wrong. I think that this is the same for most people who have a conscience. People like Tim are rare, and they take lying to the extreme but it just shows that you have to watch who you trust. All kinds of lying is wrong, especially when it hurts someone else.
The Internet is now one of the easiest ways for people to pretend they are something they are not. I can't count the number of times i have read the problem pages in newspapers where people have said they have met their ideal future partner on line, but this person refuses to meet them face to face. I just can't understand why people just can't be who they are and meet people that way. If people don't want to know you for who you really are then I've always believed that they are not worth knowing at all. People who lie online must be very insecure and not happy with their selves. I think the designer models we see on TV and all over magazines plays into peoples fears of not fitting in or being accepted. I know i will never look like Brad Pitt, but at least I'm happy with myself and have no need to lie and pretend to be something i am not. Telling the truth and just being yourself is the key, and i know this is true because i have met some brilliant people at university.
I found this picture which i thought was very appropriate.
I wonder how many people know someone like Tim?
Boring stuff
http://www.howtotelllying.com/how-to-tell-if-someone-is-lying/14-types-of-people-who-are-most-likely-to-lie-to-you
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&um=1&sa=1&q=+lie&aq=f&oq=
Wednesday 8 April 2009
Euthanasia - Wrong or right?
Tuesday 7 April 2009
Proud to be British.
Sunday 5 April 2009
Boys charged with attempted murder
Where have these boys gone wrong? Apparently they have been tear-aways for a number of years and were under the supervision of social services and living with foster parents. It seems obvious that the lack of a stable family home has turned these children feral. They have terrorised the two estates that they lived on in the last few years. So why have things been allowed to go this far and why has no one stepped in before these lads ended up nearly killing a nine year old?
I remember that the killers of James Bulger served less than half of their sentence, which is horrendous considering they tortured, burned and threw paint over a toddler (i think 3 years old) before putting his body on a railway line to destroy the evidence. They had a cushty time in prison, got an education they would never have got had they been on the outside, and to top it off got new names, homes, security and who knows what else to stop them being identified and attacked once they were free.
The Bulger case was definitely one of those times when i felt those two evil little bas****s deserved the death penalty. Anyone who tortures a child should expect the same to be done to themselves. I hope Jon Venables and Robert Thompson (scutters on the left) end up rotting somewhere nasty.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger
Saturday 4 April 2009
Drugs Lecture - LSD
According to the statistics (National Statistics Online), the main drugs that caused the 2,640 deaths in the UK were heroin and crack cocaine, not LSD. Personally, i would have thought a lecture on these drugs would have been more relevant and up to date, especially as the social care students will encounter these drugs once they are in practice (if they work with communities or youth). According to Home Office statistics, the number of people abusing LSD falls each each, with the total number of LSD users being very small compared to drugs like cocaine. In 2002, the statistics show there were 642,000 people per year using cocaine compared to only 79,000 using LSD. I would have thought doing a lecture on the more addictive problem drugs would have been better, also as LSD, according to the drug addiction website is not physically addictive.
References and sites used
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r229.pdf
http://www.drug-addiction.com/what_is_lsd.htm
http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=143174&in_page_id=7&in_a_source=
http://www.nme.com/news/amy-winehouse/36117
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&um=1&sa=1&q=heroin+chic&aq=4&oq=heroin
Friday 3 April 2009
Quick thought for the day.
Absolutely bugger all, except line her own pocket.
Why has everyone forgotten the bad and immoral stuff she did? Why does everyone seem to love her all of a sudden? Am i the only one who has never liked her or her foul mouth?