Knives away

It's now a week since the knife amnesty began across the UK, and over 2 months since the West Midlands began their initial amnesty. In the last 3 weeks, there have been SEVEN high profile stabbings.

A police officer was killed in Wembley just over two weeks ago. In the next few days, a pupil was stabbed to death outside his school one afternoon, in front of pupils and parents alike. The DAY after, a health worker was stabbed to death by a patient. In the last week, two students were stabbed on a University campus, a man was stabbed and died on a train, another student was stabbed outside a school in Birmingham and yesterday, a man died after being stabbed, also in Birmingham. And this is in a period where knives are meant to be thrown anonymously into bins at police stations, this knife amnesty.

I may be wrong, but never can I remember so many highly covered stabbings in such a short space of time. Has the knife attention suddenly glamourised the crime? Are young people with knives vying for their 'slice' of the media limelight? (Sorry about the pun).

If things get any worse, people will be carrying knives around for protection, out of the sheer fear of being stabbed. The irony. And, some groups are even advocating girls carry knives for their protection at night. While in the opposite corner, groups are pressing for up to 5-year jail sentences for those caught in posession. Can't be both I'm afraid. And people using knives in 'self-defence' are always going to be in big, big trouble....

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Exams: one down, hardest one out the way. Went fairly well, I hope, and I mistakenly felt like the pressure was off when the reality is I have 2 in three days this week. Literature is a pain to revise, re-reading texts I'm not hugely fond of. But it being such a subjective exam makes for much less stress.

The stress isn't helped though by having one and a half days (and that's assuming you get up at a reasonable time - which I won't) to revise for Narrative. Even if you've already revised the topics, going back over them is going to feel stressful knowing the exam's the next day. But maybe it's the presure I've needed. I just couldn't get motivated to revise much before a week prior to my first exam. I had to revise backwards, in a way, what with no time to revise Narrative directly before it, and the pressure just wasn't there.

And the weather's getting better! Revision is going to be so hard with everyone else at the beach. But come friday, and it is so going to be worth it. The word celebration will be forever illustrated by the photos that come from friday night's messy, messy affairs.

Interestingly, and quite worryingly, I can distinctly rememeber blogging about exams this time last year. Where have the last 365 days gone?