'Guns don't kill people, people kill people' But they tend to find it a bit easier with a gun in their hand...

 

      Alright.  I know, I know, that you were probably being lulled into a false sense of security- there have been two articles in a row which is probably some sort of record. But alas, the short-lived golden age is over. Because I’m back, crazier than ever. Basically, I decided that I could either sit around being tired and basically drowning in a sea of teenage hormones, or I could pick myself up, stop feeling sorry for myself, and inconvenience you lovely people. Lucky, lucky you.
 Anyways, amigos (noted that 'amigos' makes it sound like we're in a badly made Mexican film) it may come as a surprise but I have a gripe. I am using the word 'gripe' because I feel that it makes my unreasonable anger towards something that doesn't concern me seem slightly more trivial and slightly less... psychotic. In fact, if I call myself 'passionate', it doesn't sound quite as bad... does it?
 Now, I speak as a Briton so I don't really have a grasp on culture across the ponds, although I have, of course, watched more than my fair share of badly made American sitcoms - if it hasn’t got Sandra Bullock in it, I’m not watching it. So maybe I’m being a bit dense (it wouldn't be the first time). And I understand that with the government, it's not as cut and dry as we'd all like it to be. But for god's sake, how many children have to die before something is done?
  The brightest of you may have realised that I’m speaking about America’s gun laws. It is taking an incredible amount of self control to not just facesmash the keyboard in anger, so you should count yourself lucky that I'm actually going to the effort to form some sort of coherent sentence - it's more than I do in most lessons. But I’m going to level with you - Columbine, Virgina Tech, Dendermonde Nursery - all of these done by young people with relatively easy access to guns, and all of these causing unbelievable trauma and upset to everyone involved. These events are horrendous, and that is the only work for it. Reading about them makes me feel sick to the stomach, because the idea of a teenager getting to the point where they are prepared to kill innocent people... it just doesn’t quite sit right with me.
 And I understand that the government can’t change the number of mentally ill teenagers - god knows the U.K probably has roughly the same amount of teens who would be willing to commit atrocities. But the U.K, thank goodness, doesn't have high-school/university shootings in the same way that America does. And I hate to be that girl who states the obvious, but the only startling different between the two countries is the gun laws.
 Again, maybe I’m being simple, because I always tend to be - but surely it's a lot harder to shoot somebody if you don’t have a gun? I don’t know, maybe I’m being traditional. But if you tighten your regulations, then maybe the number of shootings will decrease. Maybe the simple act of receiving education won't have danger attached to it any more.
 So yes, the gun itself doesn’t kill people. The person holding the trigger kills people. But maybe if you take the trigger away, it will be harder to kill people.
 Okay you lovely lot, the growling in my stomach has got to such a volume that I can't even hear the odd few thoughts flutter through my brain, and so I must leave you. 

 E.C

Have you tried turning it off and then back on again...?

               Right. So seriously, let me just point something out to you. This is literally my second article in like an hour. I finished the whole weird Congo thing, saw the news, and then basically ran back to my computer. Just to reiterate: MY SECOND IN AN HOUR. Not that I feel overly pleased with myself for something that cannot even be vaguely regarded as an achievement. But two. In one hour. On the trot. Bang bang. Okay, gloating over. But it took a monumental amount of effort to actually begin to type again after what seemed to my hands like 'War and Peace Unabridged'. But I don't think that a tiny thing like the U.S government deciding that they were gonna end the shutdown warrants an article on a blog the claims to also include politics and not just historical and opinion pieces plagued with the weird ramblings of a girl who doesn’t really know anything about anything. So here is that article.
 You might be wondering why I only just found out about this whole thing. But I haven’t even turned a T.V on in the past few days, let alone sat down for long enough for the rambling presenters to get over whatever other ridiculous story counts as 'news' today and actually get on to the good stuff. And, shockingly, no-one mentioned it to me. I feel as if i should have been greeted with it as I walked into school, just to keep me in the loop. But no. I have been left more woefully ignorant than usual, which is saying something. And I know that there are Americans out there who read this, and I reckon we've been neglecting you a little bit at Nonsuch HP. So here's a little article (I mean little, my hand feels like ive just sewed the Bayeux Tapestry) for you. And hey, well done with the whole 'fixing the government' thing. Give yourselves a pat on the back.
 For those of you who don’t know what has been going on in the Land of the Free, the government shutdown as a result of the Republicans and Democrats disagreeing over Obamacare and the debt ceiling. Basically, Obamacare is like a free healthcare system, which the Republicans don’t want (I’m not going into why, because my opinions will come out, and that is never good). But this thing called the 'debt ceiling' which regulates how much money America can borrow from everyone unfortunately is close to being reached and Obama wants to change this. In order to do this, the Republicans have to agree with it, which they said that they wouldn’t unless Obama agreed to scrap Obamacare. As a result, government spending stopped. Public parks were shut, the NASA website didn’t operate, and, as a girl in my class woefully pointed out, the ‘bins didn’t work’. Quite how this is possible I don’t know. But, bins aside, anything that was paid for by the government simply ceased to work. But a vote was passed to end the shutdown, and put off the whole debt-ceiling thing until February. So for now, the bins can work again. But who knows what will happen next year..
 I apologise for the appalling quality of both this article and my knowledge of American politics, but somebody had to post something about America, and unfortunately for you, that task fell to me. But thank you for reading for so long, and I’ll post again soon!
E.C

The History of Homework

Homework is the bane of my life. I always end up sitting in my study every day trying to work through a mountain of it, only to find that I get another hundred pieces when I turn up at school the next day. So, naturally, I decided to write a blog entry about it. I was a little disappointed when I couldn’t find anything about the history of homework in the UK, so I’m afraid that you’ll have to settle for how homework came about in America.

Traditionally, homework was frowned upon in America as few people went into higher education and their parents wanted them to do chores instead (I still have to do chores anyway). This caused California to abolish homework in 1901 for anyone in kindergarden (Year 1) to the eighth grade (Year 9). However, America’s involvement in the Cold War managed to bring back this form of mental torture. Oh yes, in order to keep up with their Russian counterparts, homework made a comeback in the 1950s and by the 1990s, homework was seen as a good thing for students of all ages.

So as you’ve all probably guessed, I’m now wishing that I was born in the 1900s in California so that I no longer have to procrastinate because of my homework (apart from History homework of course).

P.S. If you're wondering where the excuse 'The dog ate my homework' came from, here's your answer!

JG