If you told me this time last week that I'd hear this many cliches, I wouldn't believe you.

Currently I am sitting in my beloved English class, after having the pleasure of attending a whole school assembly which took place during one of my favourite classes. Much to my delight, the assembly did not run overtime into second period, which unfortunately for me is English. But, don't be put off reading my blog just yet- I promise today's entry is not another one of my many rants about my raucous and quiescent English class.



At the assembly this morning, some guy spoke to eight hundred inattentive students about why we should do the forty hour famine. Time flies when you're having fun, so of course his ten minute presentation felt like hours. He must have noticed he was boring us all to tears, so he peppered his speech with a healthy smattering of cliches. He told us not to do it for ourselves, or our teachers, or our school, but for the poor starving children. He informed us of the global food crisis, how one billion people are receiving insufficient nutrition (I have to say I agree with him after watching Top Model), and emphasised the gravity and incomprehensibility of this number. He spoke about the dire plight of one single child, with a dead mother and a blind father who wanders around searching for food all day. He spoke with emphasis, but had nothing emphatic to say. Unfortunately for the recipients or World Vision aid, he made their stories sound more comical than tragic through his worn out speech that has been told thousands of times. He even talked about climate change, the ultimate twenty-first century cliche. His unoriginal manner drove me up the wall. I wanted to rip up my forty hour famine donation booklet and gorge myself silly rather than starve on 21-23 August.

It is said that actions speak louder than words. He should stop trying to make us aware of things we have already been told, and go starve himself. Preferably for a lot longer than forty hours.