UniBlog: Never Normal November!!

Welcome to November ladies, gentlemen and those inbetween!

Time is absolutely flashing by, and I can't believe it's the third month (will be third on 21st Nov) that I've been not only studying at University, but living alone/independently.

With the rambling done, let's get straight into it!

Sunday 1st November, 2020

55 Days. 55 Days until Christmas. Where has the year gone? It's insane - and what's a little more insane is that there's a lockdown in Britain until the 2nd December - meaning all non-essential shops will have to close on Thursday - meaning if you haven't done your Christmas shopping already, you've got to sharpen up come December - because there's no guarantee that the shops will open back up - should they remain closed...that's going to be incredibly awkward for those wanting to by stuff for friends and family.

As for the things I did on Sunday? I can't exactly remember...but that means it was incredibly lazy if nothing of significance happened! Probably just some analysis, that shiz.

I remember listing the amount of (endurance) podiums each Kabort driver has had whilst racing for us.

A Lucky Escape

During the brief period that the UK was not in lockdown - Wolverhampton (and Surrey for that matter) were in Tier 2 (non-essential businesses opening in June, the tier system coming into affect in October)

In short, some had 5 months of "freedom" with fewer restrictions. In this time, I went to my first race meeting and went to the zoo with Jya - which, looking back was incredibly lucky - especially compared to the amount of time we were in full-on lockdown - and the time that we will be in lockdown in the coming months.

Oh, I also set off from Africa in my incredibly odd AVRTATUL Series (A Virtual Road Trip Around The World) on Google Maps - but more on that later.

Monday 2nd November

Monday came around, and the start of another week began - this day also started very well, as I had discussed the problems (Re: Friday Night) with Annie, asked her out and we're officially now dating!! Just remember - my relationship not yours, so please, don't get involved because were working on it - I'm not even 20 yet - I haven't even lived a quarter of my life - so there's plenty of time to iron everything out - but hopefully during "attempt 2" of our relationship - we will know what pisses each-other off, and can avoid this. Annie herself says she'll work on the things I find difficult - and I will do the same.

Even though I wasn't "heartbroken" then, I realised how much we had going for us - and was saddened in the fact that it all just blew a bit crazy.

The Lecture - Newswriting

I've all but run out of paper in my notepad so I've had to find inventive ways of squeezing every last letter in, but today we met a new professor/lecturer who'd be in quite a few of my lessons in the future.

The main theme of this lecture was about feature writing

To start off, we went over the differences between feature writing and news/story writing.

The main difference being that feature writing is a lot more in-depth, whilst News Writing is much shorter, "punchier" and gets to the point immidiately.

Feature writing is a lot longer and takes a longer to get to the point of the article and usually focuses on a particular subject rather than a general area.

Our task was then, to once again, return to the story of Rawan, the missing girl (third time returning to the story after focusing on "active sentences" previous time we visited the story) and our task was to write an intro in the style of a feature piece (instead of a breaking/news story) - and I came at it at a slightly different perspective.

"It’s 1pm on a beautiful summer’s afternoon – the sun is high in the sky, the birds are tweeting and there’s a small breeze coming through the kitchen window.

You call your daughter to come for lunch…not a footstep or call in response. Curious, you call again…still no reply. You walk up the stairs to see if she’s unable to hear you as she’s in her room…but as you open the ajar door your heart stops.

Rawan is gone. Rawan is missing. This was the heart-wrenching reality for 35-Year-Old mother-of-one Aisha yesterday afternoon in Kingstanding. Rawan’s phone still pings as notifications come through from those concerned about her welfare. You immediately call the Police..."

To my utter surprise, they liked it and were incredibly supportive of it and showered it with compliments. This was especially rewarding as I was taking a little bit of a risk with "going inside the house" of where the incident first took place.

During this lecture, we also found out about the structure of a feature piece and how to structure this in our own writing. I found this incredibly helpful as I was a little stumped as to where I could start my feature piece.

This gave a lot of clarity.

We ended by discussing our own feature pieces and it's fair to say there was quite a vast amount of variety.

I'd be doing mine on if racing is just "skill" based or weather there's an element of luck, money and genetics - I was thinking (okay fine, I thought it up whilst writing this blog on 4th November) the title could be "What Constitutes To A Great Racing Driver?" - but I'll see how that comes along.

Others' were about addiction in the local area, (domestic) abuse during lockdown and mental health in students - rather the stark comparison

I also gave my laptop a little tidy, putting files into folders and pictures and files - just so it's a bit easier to navigate.

Monday and Tuesday I had some truly great meals - on Monday, some nice breaded cod, and on Tuesday some lovely breaded chicken goujons which were Lushh!

I also had some heated (cooked?) meatballs on the Sunday prior.

Tuesday 3rd November, 2020

Alllrightt! Yesterday! (I love this false illusion that I've caught up on the blogs - it's so fun!)

Yesterday was a pretty wild day!

Yesterday started with a little bit of confusion as the session/lecture that would normally start at 2pm was not available to join on canvas...I'd try again multiple times, but the little "join" button would not appear.

It was only shortly after 3pm in the afternoon when I could finally join it - scrolling up the chat, It appears that it had only been up for the previous 15 minutes.

10 Minutes (at best) after I joined, the lecture for the day finished, which was somewhat annoying as I had not the foggiest clue what happened. Fortunately this was cleared up and there was a piece of work to do!

The task was to watch Shattered Glass, and then within 48 Hours after watching it, you'd have to write a film review - about 600 words.

I'm saving my energy for the actual "homework" - but in short, it's about a journalist called Steven Glass who gets in a little bit of trouble for lying and everything sort of turns upside down. /review

Granted, I watched it, wrote some thoughts down and then slept on those thoughts, but as of 1:13pm on Wednesday morning I still have 30 hours remaining - so I am keeping an eye on the timer, but will write it after this blog (#Priorities)

A Perspective On Life

Following this, I decided to do a little bit of "stalking" (not stalking because everyone has access to it) on one of my former drivers - just seeing his results, when he started endurance racing etc. and something struck me.

Winner's Name & A hyperlink to a results page

"There's 14 names here" is what I would've said before yesterday - but this is so much more than just a list of names. These are real people - each one with families and loved ones - parents/guardians - maybe one or two have children of their own.

As I type, there are 3160 people online - roughly 3/4 of them racing or about to race...it just blows my mind how we can so easily dehumanize these people - treat or see them like AI (Artifical Intellegence) and Robots.

Before today not a single one of you has heard of Kosaku Ikeda - but I want to tell you, my audience, that they, like myself has won a race.

Granted, they've won 71, and as a Licence D, that is pretty damn good - especially as all 71 have come from 2020.

I'm only using Kosaku as an example - take this name and either replace it with your own, or someone (close) you know.

It's so easy to think about celebrities and well-known people as people because they show their face all the time and you can see they are a human because they show it off - but there's guys, girls and those transitioning underneath the metaphorical autumn leaves that are living and existing - but just because they are one in a thousand - or ten thousand, they blur into "a group" or "oh it's just another racing driver/AI"

What I'm trying to say is - don't treat people like AI (Artificial Intelligence) or NPC's (Non-Playable Characters) - weather gaming or real life...give people respect and love - because unless some celebrity is reading this (why would they), you are just like the person that you are talking to - unknown. Just another name to them, just another AI Competitor or NPC to them - so if you treat them like a person - they'll treat you like a person.

I admit, that before people join Kabort, I viewed them as AI as just another person, but once they joined Kabort I could see them as more than just that.

On the list, there were only 14 names. Let's ramp it up - everyone who is online now appears on that list, further still, everyone with an iRacing account - let's keep going everyone with a computer or internet access - you can see that quite quickly, despite not having faces, these people that have never appeared before - are seen by you - to you you know who they are - next time you see the name "Kosaku Ikeda" you can automatically associate that with iRacing - with this blog some AI, non-important, one in 7 billion wrote.

I myself have only one win, and barely a handful of podiums, but like Kosaku, I hope that one day, some stranger approaches me and says "I like you and I appreciate you, and think that you're a good racer"

Kosaku will not find this blog. It's as simple as that - I highly doubt their first language is English, and nor do they have any reason to randomly search "Kabort Motorsport" in Google off a whim - but that's like you and I - no-one needs, wants, or will know who we, the normal people are - but that doesn't mean we don't matter - we do still matter a hugely great deal - to my family, friends, relatives, loved ones, I'm incredibly important - and the same applies to Kosaku - their family, friends, loved ones and relatives love, care and cherish them - and, hopefully, they are incredibly supportive of their hobby. He may only be a Class D now, but one day, I'm sure of it, just like myself he'll go up to a Class A.

You still care and matter, even if the world can't see you - you are not just a stat or number or a "part of the population" You are unique, a human - from me to you - I love you and care about you and wish the best for your future endeavours, whatever they may be.

~

Tonight's meal was not as fancy as the previous nights'... as the fridge was empty with the exception of butter - and half a dozen (not quite) packs of pasta in the cupboard - I had to settle with pasta and pesto....not because I was particularly hungry as such, more down the the fact my stomach was imitating the new Bugatti Bolide and demanded something. Well, I rather it make a racket then not waking up the next morning and realised I've died of starvation - so good job body, but I can last a little longer than half a day without food thank you! XD

Wednesday 4th November

Alrighty - Only 12hrs 09 mins behind - welcome to TODAY's blog!

I have quite a few things on my to-do list, so I'll try and keep Wednesday's short and sweet. This blog (over the last couple of days) has been one of the biggies, so, to give that a tick is already a massive positive.

Also planned for today is an interview the Adam Christodoulou for an assignment, as is an essential trip to ASDA to get more meals as well as completing the good old film review (film is from 2003 - good? Not so much, old? definitely)

Finally on the list is to potentially watch Glee - but with Annie having a broken laptop, we'll see what happens there.

This morning has been pretty calm, woke up, had breakfast, y'know the normal shenanigans.

And I think, with that, I will leave it there - thank you so much for reading, I greatly appriciate all your support and reads etc. - tomorrow is Fireworks night....but I doubt anything will be happening with that other than in-garden parties for those that have gardens.

British GT was also supposed to be heading to Silverstone this weekend, however, since it's classed as non-essential, it'll be run behind closed doors and without spectators....just like BTCC on the 14th - 25th Nov...

The general consensus is that any "Elite Sport" is still allowed to run, but behind closed doors. Looks like GT Cup was my last motor-race - and only motor-race for that matter - of 2020 - Which means I should really start looking towards 2021 and fill out my calendar for then!

On that note, whilst I enthusiastically scribble down my 2021 dates (that HAVE been confirmed), I wish you well and farewell until the next one - Thanks for reading and see you on what will be a very disappointing Bonfire Day. -RT