Jonathon Wardman

A-Level General Studies: How can one define 'British'

In November 2002, as part of my AS level General Studies course, I wrote this essay relating to the term ‘British’. As with the other school work released here, it’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

How can one define ‘British’?

We use the term ‘British’ everyday in all sorts of situations, but can a set of factors, or even one single factor, be identified which defines the term? While there are a number of stereotypes associated with the British, can any of them be applied to everyone who calls themselves British? Also, with such a diverse mix of people calling themselves British, can one culture be identified as one with which everyone identifies with, and what are the defining characteristics which separate the British from the rest of the world? [read more]

A-Level Politics: How can Politics be Defined?

The following essay was written as part of my AS-Level politics course at Halifax New College (which I’m concerned doesn’t exist any more — I can’t find mention of it on the Calderdale College website any more!).  It dates back to October 2002 and discusses how Politics can be defined.  It’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

How can politics be defined?

Politics has not one meaning, but rather a number of different ones depending on how different perspectives analyse it, however, all different descriptions agree – politics is a social animal, one born out of the interactions between different indeviduals and groups, and how decitions are made.   Politics can be seen to be one of two categorys: conflict resolution or control of power.  The former being that politics is a process of removing conflict to produce harmony, and the latter being the ability to control and direct authority. [read more]

GCSE Media Studies: The Internet

This essay was written for my GCSE Media Studies couse in April 2001, and covers the much debated question of the direction of the internet (or, more correctly, world wide web).  It’s released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

Rather than fulfilling its expectations as a place for education and communication, the Internet has become one big advertising channel.

The media hailed the birth of the Internet as a revolution in the way information and education was distributed and shared. A feeling that the Internet was nothing more than a big advertising, moneymaking, opportunity for big business soon superseded this initial reaction. [read more]

GCSE English: An Inspector Calls

The following essay was written for my GCSE English course in June 2000 and relates to the J.B. Priestley play “An Inspector Calls”.  It’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

Who or what is Inspector Goole, and what is his role in the play?

The character of Inspector Goole can be explained in many ways.  It is thought, that he could be a ghost, an angel (sent from God to deliver the truth), a psychic (able to see the future), or simply just a socialist “Crank” – this is what, in fact, the characters in the play believe towards the end, as Mr. Birling says, “That fellow obviously didn’t like us.  He was prejudiced against us from the start.  Probably a socialist or some sort of crank – he talked like one.” [read more]

Old school work

With the recent upgrade of my computer I had reason to copy a lot of data from an old hard disk to my new computer. While doing this I came across some of my old school work, both from GCSE and A-level. [read more]

7th October 2003

I think I understand why this university has the highest suicide rate of universities in this country – when it rains its a depressing place…and it seems to rain all the time.  There are a couple of things which add up to give it a depressing air really, I recon: 1) there is the constant drone of the motorway (the M6) most places you go (admittedly I am on the end of campus that it goes closest to, but you can hear it over most of the site) – you don’t tend to notice it really as obvious, but if you listen you can hear it there, and I’m sure that it has some kind of psychological effect; 2) A lot of the buildings on campus are concrete or red brick build around paved areas (more on the other end of campus, to be fair, there is quite a lot of greenery on this end); 3) The whole place is a bit of a maze of passages and walkways which always seem to be dark (I guess that would be mainly because of the fact that they are surrounded by the buildings, so don’t get much natural light!); and then there is the rain.  So far, in the week and a bit I have been here, it seems to have rained almost every single day.  Alright, it didn’t rain today, but most of the other days it has rained at least once.  When it does rain the place gets even more depressing.  Add to that the fact that there is a lot of development going on (they are building a new science and computing building at one end of the campus, and seem to be doing something with the drains elsewhere), and you have a recipe for depression. [read more]

So this is University?

Well, this is the first of many posts I will be making from here in my university room for the next year!

I’ve been here for 3 nights now (Sunday to Tuesday), and things are going OK.  The room is all right – its about the size you would expect for university accommodation, and its actually not too shabby.  I’ve got a friend, Geraint, who is in the most recent college here, Pendle, and his room is only a little bigger…the only thing which I would really like to swap (in terms of the halls, anyway) would be the kitchen – ours is small and pretty grotty, whereas his is big and nicely fitted out (its even got proper cupboards, which is more than ours!).  Being on the ground floor is alright, but there are a few things which are annoying – it gets quite warm in my room (well, at the moment at least.  I think it might get cold in winter because the window seems a little draughty), so its nice to have the window open to let in some fresh air, but I can’t leave it open when I go out because it would be easy for someone to just climb in and take things.  Also The room is a little overlooked.  My window looks right out at block 10, and the upper floors of that can see into my room, and at my desk, which is a little disturbing. [read more]

Hmm… *sigh*

So she’s gone – she went yesterday.

I stayed over at Natalie’s house on Monday night. I met her at 11.30 (she said 11, I said 11.30 so that I would remember I had to set off at 11 – in the past we have said times like that to meet, and next day I have thought I remembered that I had to set off at 11…so get there late!) and she had a few things to do (some shopping for her mum and something else I can’t remember now), so we did them, and set off back to her house. On the way back we were talking about how this was the last time she would be coming that way for a while…it felt weird because its the last time I would be going that way for a long time as well…I held her hand (I always do…but this time) it felt different – more special in some ways. We got back to her house and hugged a bit…and then she remembered she had forgotten that she needed more passport size photos while we were in Halifax. So we had to go out again. About an hour after we got back, we went out again. Back in Halifax we got some more food and then she went for her photo at the booth in the bus station. Those things never make you look good (when I had my picture taken for university I scanned it in and edited it a bit, then got my mother to print it onto photo paper at work so I didn’t look tooo bad…), but she didn’t look too bad in the end (I don’t think, but I couldn’t make her believe that). And after that we headed back to her house again…back along the way we thought we wouldn’t be going for a long time…this time we wouldn’t. [read more]

We interupt this update for this announcement…

Not that it is being like a really long run of update yet…but I’m working on it

Alright, I’m not going to dress this up because its not worth it – I’m not going to pretend that I have been on the edge of my seat waiting for this day for however long because I havn’t.  I guess its just the final part of my 6th Form College life.  I’m talking about results – they came out today. [read more]

Update 1: That maths story

OK, here we go.  No more putting it off, no more saying I’ll do it and then not doing, this is actually it…I’m going to catch up.  Alright, so last time I posted I was writing about my exams and I had two more to go, and I promised that I would write about what happened with my Maths exams so where better to start…

The background to the story goes back to last year and exams then.  I sat Maths AS level way back then and didn’t do really well (that’s all written about in here, and is all gone now *tries not to remember*), so I decided to resit it this year, and went to my tutor, Joy, to ask her to tell the exam board not to accept my results.  This was a little difficult because I had missed the time that the forms had to be back with the exams office, so I had to go across there and sort it out myself.  Joy rang across and told them I would be coming and gave me the code for the door (amidst much patronising “don’t tell anyone” and “wash it off your hand when you have finished”).  So I went and cancelled the results all ready for this year.  Early this year, aware of the fact I needed to work on my maths, I went to see Joy to talk about some lessons and what I should do about it.  She suggested that I start to come to lessons after the Easter holidays when she would be doing revision groups and that I would get the most out of them having done the course before. [read more]