Promblems

Last night my friends and I celebrated the end of our exams. The theme of our prom was "The Secret Garden" and the venue looked beautiful. The evening was wonderful and the weather stayed fine. People put all their issues aside and everyone had a fantastic time. My friends looked phenomenal in their suits and dresses. I even double-washed my hair and put eyeliner on ((extra effort)).

We celebrated in true Floyd style. There was plenty of dancing and eating and posing for photographs and, most importantly, banter. Although I enjoyed myself immensely, today I feel discontent. Perhaps it's the fact that there is a long summer ahead and I hate the idea of being bored or perhaps it's the fact that I am still hung up on a few things that I can't sort out. I know only boring people get bored so it is more likely to be the latter.

I am of the opinion that a buildup of little things can cause far more damage than one colossal disaster. I don't want to begin summer with grudges but are some things better left unsaid? I have many events to look forward to and, although I know I shouldn't, I have and inevitably will, let some people ruin enjoyable occasions for me. 

Positivity is the key to staying calm and happy but as I have said before, I am very cynical.  I know part of my problem is over-thinking situations but ultimately I may need to eliminate the people from my life that cause me grief and sleepless nights. 

Advice is needed, readers.


nERD

MY FAVOURITE THINGS TO WATCH ON TV 2.

It's the show I look forward to the most. It's funny, clever and BBC Four show a double bill every week. It's Parks and Recreation. 

I started watching P&R on the 6th March 2013. It was the pilot and it was very, very funny. My brother Sam enjoys American TV and we are massive 30 Rock fans so anything with Tina Fey's best friend Amy Poehler in it was going to be watched by us. 

The show is a fly-on-the-wall style mockumentary that follows the Parks and Recreation department in Pawnee, Indiana. The director of the department is the deadpan, slightly morbid Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman) whose life is made complete by "beautiful dark-haired women and breakfast food". Ron is my dad's favourite character and I think it's because he can empathise with Ron's desire to lead a stress free life adorned with simple pleasures. 

The deputy director is Leslie Knope (Poehler) a quirky, larger than life park-enthusiast in her late thirties. Leslie annoys the audience with her naivety and ignorance but those are the qualities that make her the most lovable.  She has a tendency to over-analyse situations and she often seeks help from her best friend Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones). Ann started off as a mildly-peeved nurse who wanted something doing about the giant pit outside her house. She appealed to the P&R department and Leslie and her became close friends. The way that friendship is developed over two seasons is an incredible bit of scriptwriting. At no point does one think "Oh how come Ann and Leslie are so chummy?" The relationship seems effortless and makes for excellent TV.

Ann, at the beginning of season 1, was nursing her boyfriend Andy back to health after he broke both his legs when he fell down the pit. Initially, Andy is the burden and the audience has no sympathy for him. He treats Ann like his slave and appears to be a disgusting slob- I'm sure Chris Pratt had a fantastic time portraying Andy in the period where he is sitting down and munching on nachos in every scene he is in. Andy makes a transformation in the later part of season 1 when Ann begins dating Mark. Andy makes it his  mission to win her back which leads to some seriously hilarious rumours. 

The P&R team include April Ludgate, the surly and complex intern; Jerry, the unassuming fat-guy that for some reason nobody likes...; Tom Haverford, (my brother's favourite character) the happy-go-lucky Asian guy that seeks women and money and is very happy to take "the low road"; Mark Brendanawicz, the city planner and general good-guy and finally Donna who, although doesn't have main part in a similar way to Jerry, joins in with the P&R banter with extreme enthusiasm and can often be found googling her co-workers and bullying Jerry. They are played by Aubery Plaza, Jim O'Heir, Aziz Ansari, Paul Schneider and Retta.  

Particular highlights from season 1&2 for me include DJ Roomba, Tom's robot DJ, the relationship that blossoms between my two favourite characters (sshhhhhh! no spoilers) and finally when April schedules 94 meetings with Ron Swanson on one day. 

P&R is extremely well conceived and laugh-out-loud funny. It's quotable and the characters are acted superbly. It's must-see tv. Soon you'll find yourself singing "This is how you eat it!" in the shower.

In my praise of the show I seem to have forgotten one VERY funny chracter: Jean Ralphio Saperstein. JP is Tom's friend and a complete creep. Ben Schwartz must have endless energy because JP just doesn't stop. Most of the scenes he's in make you cringe but they also make your sides ache. I read somewhere that alot of Jean Ralphio's lines are improvised. Ben Schwartz is a genius.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlLyZEfGQIU WATCH! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rlxxp


If, like me, you have a long summer ahead of you then a boxset of P&R is definitely the way forward. 

nERD

History: The Cold War ~ PART 1 ~ 1945-1956

I feel that, when blogging, it is vitally important to write bout something that one is interested in and something one knows a lot about. The Cold War is part of the module I am currently studying for and although I found it deadly dull when learning the information the first time around I am now beginning to enjoy it! 

My revision began about a week ago and so far I have been engrossed in the Origins of the Cold War and the Crises. For me the most interesting part is the failure of Detente and the collapse of communism. I think it quenches my thirst for rebellion and rebirth. So, I am going to use this blog as a history lesson for anyone who's interested. I intend to throw down all I know in a rambling, extended history essay. Here goes: 

The Yalta conference was held in the USSR in February 1945. Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt attended and they decided to divide Germany and Berlin into four zones, hold free elections in Eastern European countries and ally themselves with the USSR in the war against Japan. 

Things had changed massively by July-August 1945 as Roosevelt had been replaced by Truman, Churchill was replaced by Attlee part-way through and Stalin had broken a promise made at Yalta. The Potsdam conference was intense. President Truman had detonated the Atomic Bomb and Stalin was furious that this level of nuclear technology had been kept a secret from him. (This sparked the Arms Race between the two superpowers which would develop colossally over the next 40 years). There was even more mistrust as Stalin, who had agreed to allow free elections to take place in Europe just 5 months earlier, had set up a communist government in Poland. Truman and Attlee were annoyed and suspicious.  Furthermore Stalin wanted to economically cripple Germany which Truman and Attlee knew would be destructive and malicious so did not condone. The Allies also denied the USSR a naval base in the Mediterranean causing tension and conflict. They did manage to agree on the fates of the Nazi Party leaders and where the German-Polish border would be. The Nazi Party leaders were to be trued as war criminals and the Nazi Party was deemed illegal and the Oder-Neisse river was going to mark the border between the two countries. 

The A-bomb was used to end WWII. 135'000 people died and although the war was over the tensions between the two Superpowers heightened. Stalin thought the A-bomb was a direct warning to the USSR and he captured the best German nuclear physicists he could find and  took them back to the USSR to work on developing their own A-bomb. In addition to this, as soon as Hitler was defeated the Superpowers no longer had a common enemy. They turned on each other.

Communications broke down and Stalin began to conquer Eastern Europe. It was easy for him as he already had Soviet troops stationed in many of the countries. All opponents to communism had either be scared into submission or murdered. By 1948 Stalin had created his Buffer Zone. Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech. It was a warning to Truman. Churchill knew that Stalin's Sphere of Influence was almost impenetrable and could spread even further across Europe. "An iron curtain has descended across the continent". Truman fully understood Churchill's message and set about his policy of containment. This was enforced with the Truman Doctrine and  the Marshall

 Plan in 1947. 

The USA gave money, supplies and military aid to Greece and Turkey to help them restore democracy and stop the Soviets from advancing. The Greek monarchy had been overthrown and Britain could not afford to keep supporting them so the USA took over and prevented communism entering Greece. In Turkey the USA helped with the fight for the Dardanelles and made sure that Turkey remained in control of this passage.

The Marshall Plan focused more on economic aid. George Marshall, Truman's Secretary of State, took a trip to Europe to review the situation. He concluded that the European countries had suffered greatly, especially economically. He thought that this poverty made  the countries vulnerable to communism and so they should be pumped with money in order to help the individual economies recover. Although this was incredibly generous of USA they did it to contain communism and provide themselves with excellent markets for American exports. The USA gave the most money to Britain closely followed by France. It is thought that about $13 billion was given to European countries although not all accepted it. 

To seem fair, and not anger Stalin, every single European country and the USSR was offered Marshall Aid. However, every country in the Satellite States had to decline Truman's proposal as they were new members of Cominform which was a group Stalin had created in 1947 to spread communist messages and keep control of his Sphere of Influence.   He had also set up Comecon in 1949 as a response to the Truman Doctrine. This allowed Stalin to easily co-ordinate trade in the Satellite States but the USSR was favoured above all its other members! 

In 1947 and 1948 Stalin was feeling increasingly threatened by Bizonia in West Germany. The USA and Britain had joined their parts of German to form one large part. In addition to this, many East Germans were going to the West as it was prospering because Britain and the USA did not want to cripple their part of Germany. The French were not part of Bizonia because they were not sure whether they wanted Germany to fully recover. However after some persuading in 1948 the French joined and formed Trizonia. The final straw for Stalin was the introduction of the Deutsche Mark, the new West German currency. 

He took action in the form of the Berlin Blockade. He closed all the roads off around Berlin and diverted all the rail connections. He felt powerless so this was his attempt to push the Allies out of the capital city. For the USA and Britain withdrawing from the capital was not an option so they proceeded to carry out a huge airlift that lasted a whole year. Everyday hundreds of planes would land laden with food, clothes, oil and even building supplies. Everything that the Berliners needed was brought to them and the steady stream of flights meant they never went without anything. On the 16th to 17th of April the Airlift reached its peak when 1,398 flights landed in Berlin carrying 13,000 metric tonnes of supplies. This 24 hour period showed Stain what the Allies where capable of and that his Blockade was extremely unsuccessful. In May Stalin lifted the Blockade and it was a clear victory for the West. This undoubtedly created tension between the Superpowers. Trizonia became the Federal Republic of Germany in August 1949 and the USSR's zone became the German Democratic Republic in October 1949. In the same month China became communist under the rule of Mao Tsetung.    

In the same year as Blockade and Airlift NATO was formed. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation contained the countries of Western Europe and Canada and the USA. It was an important alliance because both Superpowers had the Atomic bomb and no western country had nuclear weapons. The USA had committed itself to the defence of Europe and they could build airbases in Western Europe where they could store their nuclear weapons ready to use against the USSR. Of course, Stalin saw the organisation as a huge threat and although he didn't respond directly NATO was still ominous when Khrushchev was in power and he took action forming the Warsaw Pact.

The 1950s began with the Korean War. After WWII the USA had put Syngman Rhee in charge of South Korea and the USSR put Kim Il Sung in power in North Korea. Korea was divided equally along the 38th parallel but both leaders considered themselves the one true leader of Korea. Relations were fraught and in June 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea. The North Koreans drove the South Koreans into a tiny corner of the country called Pusan. Truman asked the UN to lend its army to help the South Koreans. The USSR were boycotting the UN as they wouldn't allow communist China to join so had no say in the matter. The UN troops pushed North Korea right up to the Yalu river in October 1950. This scared the Chinese as their was a democratic country right on their border so China's People's Volunteer Army joined the war on the North Koreans' side. The UN forces were driven back to just across the 38th parallel and General MacArthur threatened nuclear war on the Chinese. He was immediately sacked by Truman. The UN troops successfully pushed the communists back to the 38th parallel where a truce was agreed at Panmunjon in 1953. The war really ended because the USSR could no longer back the war as Stalin had died on March 6th. 

Truman was worried that the Domino Effect would occur in Asia as well as Europe with China being a powerful communist country. The Korean War was successful containment. 

With the death of Stain in 1953 there was a large thaw and significant improvements in relations between the Superpowers. Khrushchev wanted "peaceful co-existence" and he did not believe in Stalin's dictatorial ways. Khrushchev indicated that he thought people should have more freedoms and rights in the Sphere of Influence and people acted on the signals he was apparently sending. He signed the Austrian State Treaty allowing Austria to become independent. However, as I previously mentioned, he did have a big problem with NATO and so formed the Warsaw Pact which was exactly the same as NATO in its beliefs. The countries included were Eastern European ones. 

One of Khrushchev's most brutal moments occurred in 1956 when he mercilessly crushed the Hungarian Uprising. The people of

Hungary were protesting about their poor standards of living. In Budapest a mob of protesters pushed over a statue of Stalin and dragged it through the city where it got defaced and decapitated. Rakosi the evil dictator that had been in control was forced to step down and Nagy cam into power. He wanted free elections, no more secret police and the Soviet army that was still occupying parts of the country to be removed. Nagy's fatal mistake was demanding to leave the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev could not allow this as other countries would demand the same if he let Hungary out of the agreement. It could of led to capitalism which was not desired by Khrushchev. He could not allow a gap in the buffer zone that Stalin preserved so well. 

1,000 Soviet tanks moved into Hungary and they obliterated anything in their path. Nagy asked the West for help but they were preoccupied with the Suez Crisis. He was captured and shot. 4,000 civilians died and 200,000 refugees escaped across the border. Consequently, no other Satellite State revolted or questioned their communist ruling for 12 more years. Kadar was put in charge of Hungary and although he made the Soviet troops withdraw he implemented strict communism.  

PART 2 COMING SOON!

I hope you enjoyed that little history lesson! I am going to... um... well... do some more revision really. 

nERD

Brutal and Unnoticed: The Western Rape Culture

Undeniably, there is a rape culture in our society. We could put this down to perverted men or women who find the objectification and idea of controlling and violating their victim satisfying and allegedly a turn on. Arguably this has always been present in communities. People get great satisfaction and pleasure out of suppressing others. It gives them confidence. It inflates their ego. They feel like they are in a win-win situation. The alarming thing is the sheer presence it has in our lives. The rape culture is noticeable, it is everywhere you look and it is gathering steam. 

Without doubt social networking has played a huge part in aiding the development and spread of rape-based "jokes" and memes. Rape is available to everyone and can be easily accessed via Facebook or Google. It is truly horrifying that the word rape has been degraded to the extent of the "Frape" (when someone accesses your Facebook account and takes advantage of this). Of all the words in the English dictionary, of all the synonyms for "violate" the word rape has been chosen to refer to a nonsensical, inconsequential occurrence- the victims mainly being 11 year olds who left their account logged on at their best friend's house. It angers me that rape is seen as a laughing matter. There is nothing funny about a woman being taken advantage of in the most brutal and personal way imaginable. Perhaps this very fact is what attracts the sadists that produce memes to do with the degrading of women. The western world appears to be full of WOMEN HATERS.

Misogynists have been in their element with Operation Yewtree spilling all kinds of filthy and indecent images on to our computer screens. In my opinion there is no such thing as a Jimmy Savile joke. Jokes have to be funny. The definition of rape is forced sexual intercourse. One party has not consented to the act. Rape is a vile crime and it infuriates me how regularly this is forgotten. Compared to terrorist attacks rape gets very little coverage. No one has died so why should people care? Almost every person alive is guilty of thinking this inadvertently.  The news stories that people tut at and say "Oh that is terrible", "How sad", "How could one person commit such disgraceful and destructive crimes?" are murders. WE LOVE ganging up on religions and races. Take the incident in Woolwich yesterday. A man lost his life in a terrorist attack and the whole world cares. Rightly so- we should care- there is nothing wrong with that. But what about the girl that just got violently gang raped behind a club in Liverpool- should less attention be paid to her? "There are terrorists in the world plotting against us", you may say, "terrorists could kill anyone at any time!" My response would be: "How do terrorists differ greatly from rapists?". EVERY girl is vulnerable to being raped and it would be sexist of me not to mention the men that are also domestically abused and raped. It is a massive problem and affects the victim for their entire life.        

85000 women are raped in England and Wales every year. 1 in every 5 women has experienced sexual violence since the age of 16. Undoubtedly, you know one of these women. Perhaps you don't know if it was your mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin or best friend but it was probably one of them. Are your actions on the internet aiding the rape culture? Did you pat down your handful of snow onto the already enormous snowball that is gathering speed by sharing that "funny" image of the rape sloth? Are you brave enough to stop this from going any further? It is too late for "nipping in the bud" but it is not too late to give rape victims a voice. You need to protect yourself, your future and your community.  No one deserves to be raped and those adding their likes, their "lol"s, their "lmfao"s are guilty of contributing to a twisted and disgusting society that I am not comfortable living in. 

nERD

MAY the road rise up to meet you

So I have been inundated with exams and studying. Currently I am trying to balance my personal life with work. I would say that I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself to achieve and I want success. My aim for this set of exams is all As and A*s. I think I can do it. I have a motivational quote stuck above my desk that is helping me through. It says: "The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... These are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence." 

Recently I have also been thinking about what I want to do with my life. I am still young and I just feel that I have a lot to share with the world. I want to act and write and present and stand up on stage somewhere and make people laugh. I want to entertain people. Being liked is very important to me however recently I haven't won myself many favours as I have made a couple of huge mistakes earning myself the nickname "Faux Pas Queen". 'Tis I! I think people should be prepared to say sorry more. Let's just say I'll be doing a fair bit of that. 

This month has been emotional. I feel grown up. So far in May I have:

• Missed a bus
• Been to a concert
• Discovered a new band (The Vamps)
• Gained a massive amount of respect for someone
• Put contact lenses in
• Booked a holiday

I hope that you are following your dreams 

nERD

Things that have happened in April so far

It is the 11th of April and already so much has happened this month. I have had an extremely busy Easter break with revision. However I would say that it has been a 50/50 work:play balance. So far this month I have:

1. Rekindled an old friendship

2. Had extreme "beef" with someone who is now an old friend

3. Become a lot closer to an old friend I missed

4. Watched The Dark Knight Rises (w.o.w plot TWIST!) 

5. Written four English essays

6. Experienced the delights Stratford-upon-Avon has to offer ("say no more" it was cold, I was cold end of.)  

7. Let go of something I am happy to see gone

8. Finally decided, four months in to the year, that 2013 is going to be the year for a little bit of the C word. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, CHANGE. 

I have decided to drag the skeletons out of my proverbial closet and to make sure that no untruths pass my lips. This includes avoiding little white lies at all costs. If someone asks my opinion I am going to be tactful but honest. I find that other people don't take me too seriously which is often fine but sometimes can be frustrating. Therefore it is time that I took myself more seriously. I am also going on a diet to lose what Easter has made me put on!

Have you had an enjoyable Easter? 

nERD

MY FAVOURITE THINGS TO WATCH ON TV 1.

In this series of blog entries I shall be telling you, dear reader, about all my favourite tv viewings. The first of which is airing again for the first time in three years this MONDAY!!! Yes I am talking about the highly anticipated Jonathan Creek Easter Special. I can not contain my excitement. Since the age of 11 Johnathan Creek has been one of my all time favourite TV programmes with the likes of Caroline Quentin and Julia Sawalha becoming my idols (even if it was just because they got to work with the quirky and attractive Alan Davies). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rqchz 

Is it the Duffel coat, the geekishness or the genuinely perplexing plots that make Jonathan Creek so fabulous. I reckon it's a mix of all three. I am a hardcore Creek fan and have seen each episode at least 5 times. My favourite episodes are The Scented Room, The Problem at Gallows Gate (both parts) and The Black Canary. I love Jonathan Creek because not only is it incredibly clever it is also witty and sometimes absolutely terrifying  TV terror done right. Thank you David Renwick. 

If you haven't seen Jonathan Creek WOW you are missing out. Check it soon as!

nERD