freshbytes

So, I’m done.

No more school, ever.

We’re going to be continuing with the “I don’t want to leave school” theme, ‘cos after reading some comments on previous “I don’t want to leave” posts, I found I have some more things to say…(a rare occurence, indeed).

So if you’re too lazy to click the links, Jawapro said:

What’s really odd is coming back to your old school after a few years have passed. There’s a few faces you remember (who were much younger when you were at school) but it’s just not the same.

5 or 6 years later – and so much has changed that it’s hard to imagine. Teachers have moved on – classes have changed buildings (so has one of my old schools) – and only the very youngest people you knew are still around as students. It’s quite moving – and slightly depressing. That place you remember as being the best part of your life (if it was) no longer exists, and never will again.

I’m not sure if this is true, but really. I’d hate to see Calvin turn into some unrecognisable place, just another blot on the kingston landscape.

Now that school’s over (for college students, as well as year 10s), I have a lot of time to do a couple of things that need to be done.

I have made a facebook account. You can search for me, I’m Benny Ling, obviously. Add me as a friend, invite me to join a cool group, whatever.

I’ve heard that Social Networking is the best thing since sliced bread… I’ve also heard that it’s highly overrated.

I won’t make my decision until I’ve experienced more of facebook, though. It’s currently very cool, and a HUGE step in terms of interacting with friends. All sorts of friends.

I’m yet to figure out any sort of “facebook code of conduct”, which contain rules on who you can become friends with, what sorts of groups you can join, etc. Actually – I just saw this on Digg: Facebook Etiquette: Five Dos and Don’ts. Nice! Perfect timing. After looking over the list, I realise that it’s more or less common sense anyway – the only things I didn’t know where about business friends… Pfft.

Initial impressions of facebook include: hard to get used to. Complex interface makes simple tasks more complicated than they have to be. Far too many configurable options. A hell of a lot of Ajax and Javascript powers those pages. After a full day of facebooking, still unsure about certain features. Still unsure about the chat system. Ram usage high, or that could just be me. Facebook app on iPhone is awesome. Don’t understand how people would use both Twitter + facebook at the same time – seems like an overkill of social networking, if you ask me…

Oh well. The night is still young.

A quick shout out to Joe W – congrats on your 18th. Hope you didn’t get too smashed.

Radi8 news: apparently, my non-attendance has been marked. Apologies – I was working.

Our Year 12 Leavers Dinner is tomorrow night. Should be good. Afterparty? Meh. Pics to come (either on facebook or here, haven’t quite decided yet). Also need a camera.

I think that’s it. Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, digg, facebook, formal, iphone, iphone 3g, myspace, radi8, School

[Quick shout-out to the last episode of season 4 of The O.C – The End’s Not Near, it’s Here]

So I had my last day of formal school last friday.

Last day of school – for ever.

For ever – it means no more BBQ Bonanzas from Bakers Delight, no more Ronson, no upper common room superiority, no shouting obscenities at innocent passers-by, none of that.

To think that I won’t ever run another assembly at Calvin again, nor ‘just hang’ with my mates outside the common room, taking in some serious sunlight.

Unless I see bump into my friends in town or something, I probably won’t ever see them again. I can guarantee you that there will be people from my year that I will never, ever see again (after the formal, of course).

Everyone says that they’ll stay in touch, but they never do – this is a proven fact.

It’s no secret that I’m really disappointed about leaving. Hell, I doubt you’d want to leave a place filled with people who care about you, a place where you’ve experienced the highs and lows of the best friendships of your life, or the place where you’ve never consumed so much junk food in any single day.

We say we’ll look onwards and upwards to Uni, or whatever we’re doing next year. In truth, we probably will, but we’ll never forget how good the upper common room smelled, how it felt, what kind of a vibe it had.

We say we’ll keep in touch, but the sad truth is that we almost never do. If we happen to bump into each other in the street, sure, we’ll stand in the middle of the road and catch up, but we’ll rarely go out of our way to dedicate some time to really catch up – usually because we’re far too busy doing our own things. Besides, that’s what FaceBook is for Speaking of FaceBook, I’ll be getting one sometime after exams. I detest MySpace with a passion, though, so I definitely won’t be getting a MySpace.

Alternatively, you can contact me through various ways – the easiest is to shoot me an email (bennglingbling [at] gmail [dot] com), but you can see other ways to contact me here.

Anyways, freshbytes is here to assist you in keeping in touch with your mates from Calvin – for those who aren’t into the whole “social networking” thing at all, freshbytes is here for you.

Visit the forums, or simply post comments on posts. I’d appreciate it

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, bonanza, calvin, facebook, forums, myspace, ronson, School

Last Thursday, I went to a Documentary Drama preformed by the Year 9/10 Drama class. The docu-drama was entitled “The Cult of Celebrity”, and it investigated how celebrities affect our lives today.

Besides featuring a song by Britney Spears herself (to their credit, it was well choreographed – thank goodness), it was actually very entertaining and though-provoking. For those of you that weren’t there, (“It’s too cold”, “It’s raining”, “I have homework to do” – slackers, all of you) there was a scene where a couple of guys were doing a court session, where they argued the for and against points of having celebrities influencing popular culture. What they said was largely lost on me, but the ‘court case’ was eventually dismissed. We like our celebrities just as they are, thank you.

Anyways, the main storyline revolved around the preview that the class showed in assembly earlier that day – a “My child’s a star” contest between two child stars (forget their screen names, apologies), Megan Hopper and Emily Jansen. Emily won with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, and the rest of the story revolves around from there…they meet years later in a bar (with a hilarious bouncer), their friends comment on them behind their backs, while meanwhile fan-sites get a straight-A student seeing a shrink because she just isn’t coping…

If you weren’t there, you missed out. Luckily for you, there’s another Drama presentation on this Thursday 3rd July – this time, it’s a comedy by the Student Theatre Company, the excellent Drama class that runs after-hours. It should be excellent – please make an effort to be there!

On the freshbytes news front, you can now post comments in pages. Apologies this took so long to implement – I never realised it was so simple! So, if you’ve been wanting to comment on The Merchant of Venice, the Virtual Game, or even the funky Garageband tunes, you now can! In fact, I encourage you to do so.

One last thing – Radi8 on the weekend was awesome as usual, with an upsized Radi8. I am a little disappointed that the Radi8 website is now a MySpace page, but I do understand why it was done that way. Don’t worry, dear reader, freshbytes will remain WordPress powered for a good period of time – we will reach our target audience eventually

Anyway, in lieu of the Radi8 static-to-myspace downgrade, I’ve got a video for you all… The Radi8 Digital Scavenger Hunt videos from November 2007! This video is Tim’s team which included Tim P, Gemma V, Brendan J, Billy T and Callum M, but fear not – I’ll be posting the other videos each week, so if this isn’t your team – one of these weeks, it will be!

A little background: similar to the Wild Animal Safari held a fortnight ago, we were sent out in teams to do crazy things in Kingston/Hobart – things that included having your whole team in a tree, kissing chickens, singing YMCA with a whole bunch of strangers, getting strangers to spell weird words, walking out of an elevator backwards… the list went on forever. Enough from me, I’m dead tired from the Physics practical write-up, so I’ll shut up and let you watch the video. Comments below, as usual

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, calvin, celebrity, cult, digital, documentary, drama, Freshbytes, hunt, myspace, radi8, scavenger, School