The Topic of Great Randomness

[Agent M]

Hee Hee Hee. Umbridge was funny... All those stupid rules. lol.
But what happened with her and Peeves?

[Peter Murray]

More spoily stuff, since OotP isn't out in paperback yet:
<span class="ev_code_WHITE">Remember the Weasley twins' parting words to Peeves? "Give her ****, Peeves!" He obeys, making a real mess of the castle, and finally borrowing McGonagall's walking stick and chasing Umbridge out of the castle, hitting her with a stick.

Can't you just imagine Rik Mayall doing that?</span>
Ok, who stole all the words out of my post?

[Aurora]

Whoever wrote about the gym exam-

Dude, I'd like, FAIL that exam. ^^ i'd have run in either over twenty minutes or I'd have passed out halfway. I'd hate that! I'm not taking gym again, ever. Because I'd pass out if I did. Passing out isn't fun.

[Agent M]

OMG!!! How could I have forgotten that?!?!??!?! That was like my favorite part of the book!!!! How could I have forgotten it????

[Zgirl]

I never pass out, but I hate gym!! It's really annoying! My gym teacher embarasses me. She always pitches underhand to me!

[Agent M]

I've never passed out. But gym is actually kinda fun. Hey Z, do you go to a public school? Because I think the Governor or the Senator or someone is trying to get rid of gym in public schools. I can't imagine why...

[Zgirl]

I love the govener and senator! I lovelovelove them. Okay Agent M, I've been to a private school your things are fun. Ours are really hard! I don't know about your school but in ours we have to:
Run 1 mile
Run 2 more miles that same week
Do 1 mile of hurdles
Do high jump
Basketball, soccer, tennis, pilates, volleyball, baseball, (a lot more.)

[Agent M]

eesh. *shudder* We play sports and games... lol. And then there's the Fitness Test. We have to run a mile then. I think we do it twice a year and we have to do the warm up the week before. But it's pretty easy. But the unfortunate thing about private schools, church. Ugh. zzzzzzz...

[BelieverInWizardry]

I HATE, CORRECTION, LOATHE GYM! I'D USE EVERY EXCUSE POSSIBLE TO GET OUT OF IT. One time, we finished all the stuff we had to do in gym early, and our teacher forced us to run around the ENTIRE field! I could barely breathe when we finished. And my EX-bff has athsma. She nearly passed out. I wonder what they'd do to me if I refused to do gym...

[Birdhead]

*puzzledly* You know, I hate, detest and abhor PE, Physical Education, which is our gym-equivalent, but- surely getting rid of it is, well, stoopid, particularly in (I don't need to remind you) the fattest country in the world? We all have to take it except in our last year, and yeah, it sucks, but it was good for me and kept me a lot healthier that I would have been.

[Zgirl]

People actually pay attention to that? Wow! It's so funny to me when I see like commercials and stuff that say Americans need to go outside more, mostly because I'm not overweight. And none of my friends are overweight. Have you noticed that mostly only children are overweight? I think that if you have siblings you need to ration enough food!
I can imagine every country in the world thinking:
America is the...
richest
fattest
stupidest
evilest
most horrible
country in the world. And it makes me feel sad that other countries might be saying that! Everybody says NZ is really cool! Hey Tui. Can you please tell me for sure is this what ppl think about americans?

[Aurora]

I hate phys-ed, but that's because I'm somewhat anemic and don't have iron supplements anymore. ^^ Iron deficient. Yes. That's the word.

Gym is important to keep you in shape, but in Canada, we don't have to take it after grade 9. Except by then, most of us are doing extracurricular activity. I do archery, and I can run (sometimes), and swim and so on.....

[Peter Murray]

Hmmm. Do I really want to get into this?

If a TV show here wants to do something on obesity, they do tend to show very overweight people (adults, not children) in Florida or somewhere. That doesn't mean, of course, that everyone in the US is overweight, or that everyone necessarily thinks that, but they do give that impression.

(Maybe you think I wear a bowler hat or "derby" because I live in England? I don't know. No, you were here recently, weren't you? I've never even seen one for real. It's easy to get the wrong impression about foreign countries.)

It doesn't help that it was in the US that the term "couch potato" was invented, either.

One big problem, which I think is now worrying the US government, is the trend to "supersizing" portions - a normal portion now is a lot bigger (twice? thrice?) than it would have been in the 60s. (Hey, I'm old, I'm allowed to talk about the 60s!)

Oh, and NZ is supposed to be more like England than England is, except that it's overrun now with Orcs. Or possibly Aucks.

[Birdhead]

Uhm... Z... I really don't know what to say. It's not that I/we/those outside America think Americans are evil or, fat, or whatever... but nor would it be honest for me to say that we're all the USA's greatest fans. Uhm, how can I put this... speaking for mysle,f it's not Americans I mind- some of my best friends are American ( :eyeroll: )- but I'm not, in the most general terms, all that fond of America, the institution. America presents itself as having a monopoly on democracy, and then- because it is a rich country, even if most of the people in it aren't particularly well-off- doing whatever they feel like on an international scale. Most painfully obvious example at the moment is, of course Iraq.

As for the fat thing... statistically, sorry Z, America is the fattest country in the world. I'm allowed to say this, because IIRC New Zealand is the third or fourth or fifth fattest country, okay? Partly this is because we're all first world countries and so most people have enough to eat- and this is a GOOD thing. In a time that is our healthiest, I think we're in a fairly good position if one of our problems is that there's too much to eat. Howver, it gets a little too much sometimes- heart disease, diabetes, plain old unfitness... to me it's not the state of being fat (I'm not) that worries me, it's the problems that potentially go with it- I am under the average wieght for my height, but I am incredibly unfit. That's a problem for me just like my dad being overweight is a problem for him, with heart disease in his family.

To sum up: it's not like the rest of the world hates America. But we don't always agree with what you do, and because the USA is a - the - superpower, there isn't anything the rest of the world can do about it. That rankles.

oh, but at least we don't think you're evil. Some individuals, maybe, but we always remember you didn't actually vote them in... (kidding!)

No, Peter, we keep the Aucks were they belong. No JAFAs here, believe you me... orcs, though, maybe. And we're not all thqat English... we definitely used to be. Very much. But we're growing up quite a lot quite rapidly. *nods*

[crookedfrog21]

Tui!!!