Roxy highlights her choice for the perfect guys to look for this summer.
Roxy looks at whether the "other woman" is always in the wrong.
This week, Roxy's all about getting back to the animal inside.
But as I sit here typing this, I am sat across from the most annoying and aggravating woman I have ever met. It took me a while to realise what it was about her that grated on me – it wasn’t my usual ‘oh look, a person I’ve never met before, I shall hate them unconditionally until they prove themselves to me’ routine.
Was it the way she insisted on wearing Topshop everything, even though she must be kicking 40? (When I spoke to my mum about this we agreed Topshop + Over 25 = Bad). Was it the way she was overly nice? Was it her annoying little-girl telephone voice that made me want to shove the phone down her throat?
To be fair, it was partly because I’ve been sat in an office for the last couple of weeks, staring at a computer, and doing 9-5 days, but that couldn’t have been all.
And then it came to me; she annoys me because she is stupid. Not stupid in a way where someone might stupidly forget to record that-show-I-adore on Sky+. Not stupid in the way that I’ll probably make a few grammatical errors in this piece (that I’m sure you’ll be helpful in pointing them out for me if I do). Not even stupid in the way that if I asked her what Pi was she wouldn’t be able to recite the whole thing in 2 seconds flat – although I highly doubt she could do that.
No. She was just really stupid. As in, I’ve spent my day showing her how to use the scanner, again and again. She even took notes on how to use it, and then forgot again - I guess her notes didn’t have enough pretty diagrams to keep her entertained.
And it’s driving me crazy. In fact, it’s always driven me crazy.
When I was in high school, I refused to listen to any of my teachers because I realised at that point that I was smarter than them. Even in primary school, it was a case of just playing by their rules, doing what they wanted, and then going home and bitching about them to my mother. I was ten forchristsake! Surely that wasn’t supposed to happen?
I guess I’ve never understood it because I’ve always just assumed that people have some sort of capacity to be smart. I think it used to annoy me when I thought people were faking dumb for popularity, or to get boys to like them. Now I’m pretty sure that some of them probably were just really, really dumb.
And it begs the question – how can people be that naturally stupid? I’m assuming I didn’t come out of the womb quoting Shakespeare (although sometimes I think this may be the case), but even at a young age I developed a love of books. My first words were ‘read it’ – not the conventional ‘mama’ or ‘dada’ – obviously I cared more about inanimate objects than those slaves forced to read book after book to me (my parents).
Maybe there is the answer – my parents. They would read to me, they would give me educational toys, and play educational games in the car. They’d have maths tapes on to entertain us over long journeys, and we’d do them. We weren’t forced to do them; my mum didn’t tie me to the kitchen table until I’d done my homework, because she didn’t have to. I’d get home, pull out my homework and go to town on that bad boy. And once I was done? I’d grab my brothers, and do his as well.
It makes me wonder, are some people just born smart and some not? I can’t for a second believe this. I’m not talking book smart - I’m pretty sure anyone can grab GCSE’s if they open a book once in their lives - I’m talking having sense, I’m talking about not having to write down every little detail of your life on pieces of paper because you forget things, and then forgetting where you put those pieces of paper.
Either way, stupid people annoy me and always will. Say what you want, because you’re all intelligent people - I hate you for other reasons, not because you’re stupid – but I simply do not understand it. Just don’t be all, ‘I worked hard to get here and it was difficult’ because, guess what, I worked my ass off to get into this university, that doesn’t mean I am stupid, that doesn’t mean that you are stupid. I reckon effort is only part of the answer.
Harsh, #20. Roxy's blogs are a bit like the proverbial sign in a field that reads 'Please do not throw stones at this sign'. I find her writing pretentious and without style in terms of her craft, and her subject matter frequently inane, and I am going to say so. I can assure you that I am not missing some hidden silvery thread of satire or humour here.
Maybe #20 should read the rest of Roxy's atrocious, vapid blogs before deciding she's worth defending.
#20. You can 'literally' feel the world spinning, can you? How exciting!
Anyway, lighten up. All writing should be subject to robust criticism. That's how writers improve. Like you, for example. Now that I've taken the piss out it, you (I hope) will think twice about using 'literally' in that fashionably dopey way! Literally.
#20 "I'm still trying to get my head round this."
What's there to get your head around? Roxy wrote a spectacularly shit article (no surprise there) which has provoked a fierce response from the readership, who would like to see a better standard of writing from a student-run publication. It's sort of a tradition - Roxy produces shit, we bemoan the fact that she produces shit and urge her to improve the quality of her writing, Roxy writes more shit, etc.
But presumably you thought the article was well-written? If so, what the hell would you class as a badly-written article?
Hilarious; both the article and the comments!
Roxy is clearly writing for attention and the commenters are giving it to her, which proves that she probably is relatively intelligent (and somewhat manipulative).
I totally agree with #25. It's just funny.
It would make her intelligent if she was a half decent writer! The content is for attention, but she's not putting on being a crap writer!
Oh come on...we're ALL relatively intelligent. In the context of writing for a publication associated with a very good university, Roxy can't be said to demonstrate intelligence in her blog. Unless intelligence has become the ability to annoy people hoping to find decent, interesting, thought-provoking writing here? How is that intelligent?
"I like different kinds of guys! I don't mind dating guys that cheat! Now I want an older man! Now I hate stupid people! Now I feel a bit lonely!"
Yeah, she's a frickin' genius...
I am sat across
Why even print this? If you see a post by Roxy, don't waste your time reading it
#25 How is this article remotely funny?
In terms of disecting Roxy's motives: either she's actually very smart and knows that Pi is an irrational number, the proper uses of a semi-colon, and so on, and this is some elaborate self-parody and the joke's on the readers who rise to the bait; or she really is this bad and simply puts very little thought and self-editing into her articles. In either case, it's a bit insulting to expect people to read the end result.
"Either way, stupid people annoy me and always will. Say what you want, because you’re all intelligent people - I hate you for other reasons, not because you’re stupid."
In no sense could the above be interpreted as the work of an intelligent person. It might work as first-person narrative in a novel about a psychopath or a social misfit, but is not representative of any type of journalistic style or considered writing that I have encountered. It's petulant, infantile and weak, surely?
why do you no longer write?
I guess there's only so much hate a person can deal with. It's kind of sad, when you think of it. Such a vibrant personality (love or hate it) having bowed to the cutthroat tendencies of the critics.
Alternatively, Roxy has more sense than we credited her with and has settled down to her degree now. Speaking of which...
Or alternatively she paid heed to the criticisms and stopped doing something she was bad at - writing. Most of the crit here is saying that it's awful writing, although obviously the content was always going to take a kicking too.
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