Oh Dear,

Sometimes, I start reading things for essays - particularly opinions or articles posted on the internet, and the only thing I can think is, oh dear, just oooooh dear. This essay is proving to be worse than most.

I'm writing about 'hate speech' and whether or not it would be a threat to our freedom of speech to restrict it. It seems like it ought to be simple to answer - surely anything which dictates what we can or cannot say is a restriction on our freedom of speech, but then again, that is dependent upon a few other factors. 

Freedom of speech doesn't actually define speech as flapping skin, bone and muscle to form intelligent (or unintelligent) noises which other people can understand (or try to), neither does it simply refer to this and the written (or typed, in this day and age) word. When you read 'freedom of speech', your brain should instead insert a phrase such as 'freedom of expression in any auditory, visual or physical form that is not more harming to others than the restrictions would be to the person who wishes to express in such a format', but that's a bit of a handful to write or type at once, and textbooks are large enough as it is. 

Now, why do we define the 'speech' part of freedom of speech in this way? Probably because we like to protest pretty loudly, and actions apparently 'speak' louder than words. If one person who disapproved of the war in Irak and Arghanistan spoke up, we wouldn't hear it, if ten spoke up, we still wouldn't hear it, but if hundreds marched along the streets of London, we would begin to hear it. The loudest shout from this was of course the burning of poppies, which caused public outrage

BUT...

restrictions on freedom of expression etc. must be neutral, so we can't say that burning poppies is not okay, we'd have to say that burning all symbols is not okay, but then we would need to define symbols. There's also the problem that it could be seen as restricting protests against the government, even though most would see the action as a disrespect to the military. 

Freedom of speech is one of the those tricky ones, because I would love to say that Nick Eriksen wasn't allowed to say that any kind of rape is much like chocolate cake, but if that was a law, he'd possibly be holding political office as well as his controversial views. We could also be talking in the language of 1984 saying this band is double plus good, whereas war is double plus ungood. 

Whilst it's true that the Westboro Baptist Church upset grieving families at funerals across America, as well as other activists of an opposing view, the fact is that their idiocy sparks a debate that can only be a good thing. Of course we know it is nothing more than assertions of someone who is completely ignorant and deluded to say that soldiers deaths are caused by America's lax attitude to homosexuality, but then again, we only know that because the debate is there and the thought is there. That line of thinking has changed people's views, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Still, watching the Louis Theroux documentaries about the Westboro Baptist Church, My Hometown Fanatics by Stacey Dooley and reading both The Londonist and Daily Mail's take on the Eriksen blog, I can't help but thinking it would be at least double good if people couldn't say all these horrible things to each other, because in the end, we just trade insult for insult and inadvertently teach children that it's an okay situation to be a part of. 

Forwards and Backwards,

For those of you who have never had to deal with me in the flesh, you may not realise that there is one thing I really don't do very well at, and not, it's not staying healthy for more than a few hours at a time.

More than anything, I really don't deal with change. But a lot of things change. 

There are a lot of things changing in my life right now, but I'll only mention a few. The biggest one is probably my housemates changing.

If you're not careful, and you're not particularly good at keeping up with people (guilty) then your flatmates can become very much the make up of your social circle, or at least the inner ring of it. Let's face it, if you're sharing a house, you're going to be spending either a lot of time together or a lot of time locked up in your room. 

I will admit as quickly as any of us that there have been ups and downs, but the saying 'better the devil you know' exists for a reason. I've conducted a couple of viewings around the property, and it feels a little bit like I've walked in to a bar, kissed the first available (and willing) stranger, then asked them to marry me, and I don't really know how to do anything other than that.

Another big change is to my timetable. All of a sudden there's a 30 credit module which I have no lectures and no exam for. That's kind of a scary thought. Whilst I have no intention of leaving my dissertation until the week before it is due, it is still scary that there is no weekly structure for such a large part of my degree.

Something which terrifies me is that - as I have been saying for a few months - the Craptop is on its way out. It's terminally ill, and clinging on to dear life. What's dearer? The laptop that I think I want instead. And what's so wrong with that? 

Well, other than the price tag, there are other drawbacks. The biggest drawback simply has to be that I have limited experience with buying laptops. The first and last laptop which I have ever purchased/had purchased for me was the aforementioned Craptop, and it never really made it up the hill for it all to go downhill from there. I would love to be able to put enough trust in a sales assistant to walk in and say 'I want a fast, reliable, but reasonably lightweight laptop with X amount of memory and Z programs already installed. Go,' but I work in retail and I know that not everyone has the attitude that I do towards it.

And lastly, I'm going to be on the verge of finishing university in about 13/14 months. That is just terrifying, and the people I started with - well, the vast majority of them are graduating this year. 

I know not all change is bad, but all change is slightly nerve racking. No one has a crystal ball, but I guess you just have to put your feet together and jump. 

Wired for Sound,

Over the last few months, my GP has been investigating just why my heart hasn't appeared to be working very well over the last year or two, and so far conclusions have been..., I'm going to go with mixed. 

The first test they decided was necessary was a blood test, which would have been fine, but I really. hate. needles. Thankfully the nurse was lovely and I managed to get through it, only to find out that my iron level was significantly lower than what it ought to be. My doctor had a small eureka moment, and decided that was to blame for my palpitations, but sent me for an ECG just in case. 

After a whole month or so long episode of my GP and the hospital losing my report in translation several times over, a copy finally arrived that said cardiology wanted to do some more testing. Oh, and since I'd finished the iron supplement tablets I had been on, could I please have another blood test?

I was all 'it'll be fine' until just before they were about to stick me with the needle, at which point I turned into nothing more than chicken manure *exchange for the ever popular, yet vulgar insult you all know and love* and was convince I couldn't do it. Little voice in my head goes - do what? You sit there and hold your arm out. What precisely do you have to do?, but I, of course, didn't listen and proceeded to say Sod it to Keep Calm and Carry On, and went straight for panic station at the ready. I'm sure the show was hilarious. 

So that lead me to another ECG - which I find really weird if I'm entirely honest. I guess I just don't understand people when they say 'and relax' and expect that those words are going to bring you to a relaxed state. Also, I'm a naturally nervous person. I'm not sure if I've ever encountered this thing you call 'relax' and if I have, I can't identify it - but this time I got another test thrown in for free, and got to have an ultrasound scan of my heart, too. It's a boy, hence it's lazy and sometimes a little slow. (I jest, I joke...) 

And with all that coming up clean, the last resort is to stick me to a monitor for 48 hours and see if anything crops up.

We woke up at seven this morning to get to the hospital for nine, and it took less than five minutes for them to attach the monitor, give me the paper work and a few instructions - thankfully they also gave me spare connector pads, because my skin has already had a reaction to one of them! I'm still really glad that Ben came with me though, because I was not feeling awesome this morning. If you think they are lying when they say that asthmatics ought to stay in doors, you are wrong - believe me.

The monitor thing is like lugging around a 90s Nokia brick, but for some reason, if I have it in my pocket, I think I have my phone (subsequently leaving the phone in another room) and then I wonder why it's not gone off for a while. Suffice it to say, my acquaintance with the bloody thing has got off to a rocky start, at best, and I've got to find some way to get to sleep with it on. I have a feeling this is going to be a fun night.