Flyer Machine

Yesterday I was very busy campaigning for the Green Party. From 10 to 1 (with a short break to grab a sandwich and vote myself) and from 4 to 6 I was standing on Houghton St handing out fliers for various candidates, or spending unbelieveable amounts of time in the copy shop running off another stack (partly it just takes a long time anyway, but it wasn't helped by my not realising that instead of counting out 100 sheets of green paper then putting them in the photocopier's tray, I could just take a great wodge and put back what was left- since of course the photocopier counts out the copies). I was pleased at how quickly I could get rid of flyers- 25 or 50 in 10 minutes- and I'm afraid that, even though I really wanted the Green candidates to be elected, at the moment that I was actually doing it it was just a challenge of rate of distribution to me. The candidates, who were all handing out flyers themselves, were quite impressed by how fast I managed to get through them, I think, and seemed gratefull- one of them said 'You're like a machine!' (in a good way), and I was quite pleased about this, as, although I didn't say anything, I'd been thinking earlier that in fact, for the Green Party's purposes I was like a machine- I'm not politically talented or gifted at campaigning so the ideal use to put me to, from their and my point of view, is one of carefully programmed machine-like tasks: put posters up in these places, give out these flyers, make 100 copies of this. So I liked the coincidence of ideas, even though his comment wasn't suggesting, as I was, that that was all I could do. I'm not quite sure what allowed me to go so fast- I'd like to think it was due to my astute Philosophy of flyer Giving, which shares some aspects with my Philosophy of Bucket Shaking (which gets to be applied around Christmas when my mum's brass band* plays outside supermarkets and non-band members are needed to collect money for charity and for the band (instruments are very expensive)), and is basically 'Smile. Make them feel happy about the encounter, and most importantly, since their minds will be on other things and not fully on you, you can convince them that you're doing them a favour for long enough that they've already taken the flyer by the time they realise it's the other way round'. The hypothesis that it was indeed my Philosophy receives some support from the fact that more people took flyers when I really remembered to work the smile, with eyebrows and all. But in reality it's likely that people were more willing to take something from a new face than someone they recognised as a veteran campaigner who'd probably try and talk them into something and not let them get away. Of course, that brings up the other reason for my being faster- I was barely talking to any of the people I handed flyers to, while the candidates were getting into quite a few discussions, during which of course they weren't leafletting. To be fair to myself, many people were in a hurry and probably wouldn't have let me say anything to them even had I had some kind of spiel prepared. But since I would always be looking for the next person as soon as someone took a flyer, it's likely that my body language discouraged some people who would otherwise have asked questions.

I didn't really think about this at the time, as I said, but I worried about it later. At 6 we had the weekly People and Planet meeting, and this week someone from the main office came in to give a workshop about effective campaigning, and I began to compare my earlier activities and see how little they measured up. We had to discuss in pairs an effective and an ineffective campaign then report back to the whole group, and someone actually mentioned some of the Students' Union election campaigns as examples of bad ones (though without saying which), saying that some people were just trying to hand out as many pieces of paper as possible and weren't trying to engage people in discussion about their campaign issues, thus not leaving voters with an idea of what the candidate stood for. This obviously struck home, and I began to wonder whether my campaigning efforts might not have had a negative impact on the Green candidates' chances. So I was very relieved to hear today that all six were elected- at least any negative impact was not fatally so! Only one was just narrowly elected, and one, a first year student, beat the other candidate for her post by a long way- since he was the Students' Union Societies Officer this was quite a feat. She was endorsed by ISoc, the Islamic Society, as well, though, so that probably had a lot to do with it. The other candidate still got on, as there were two spots, but apparently his face at the election count was a sight to see. I didn't go to the count, though CMCC mentioned it was going to be good and asked in passing if I was coming, partly because I was shy, partly because I didn't want to be following him around, and mostly because I was shattered and really hungry (my brain wasn't working in the People and Planet meeting). But I did take the time before I went home to pick up all the flyers I could find on Houghton St- not just Green Party ones, but ones for all candidates- though there were some accumulations behind benches that I couldn't reach. There was barely room to squash them into the big paper recycling wheely bin, but I did manage. I also picked up a few from the entrance of the East Building, and some more in the hall of St Clements Building (a lot actually). There were loads on the floor of a lecture room people were coming out of, but there were still loads of people in there and I didn't quite like to go in. I had to go up two or three floors before I found a corridor with a paper recycling bin (I didn't want to be going back and forth along Houghton St). Then I took down the posters I'd put up at 8.30 in the morning (which felt like a few days ago)- as a bonus I got my drawing pins back!- and some that candidates had put up themselves- these were mostly in the ground floor corridor of St Clement's, as apparently election posters aren't allowed on Houghton St. I did all this because I felt a responsibility for making a mess by leafletting, and that it wasn't the cleaners' job to deal with extra mess other than every day accidental dirt, because I didn't want to be a hypocrite (given my views that the paper-throwers should clear up what they throw), and because I didn't the Green Party to be seen as unenvironmentally-friendly if large amounts of green flyers and posters were in evidence around the place- I believe that if they got the Green candidates elected, the consumption of paper would be more than balanced by reduced consumption due to the candidates' actions in office, but I didn't expect everyone to see it that way.

Talking of paper-throwing, I still found time to get to the Union General Meeting at 1 (all the candidates went too). There wasn't nearly as much paper thrown this time- only about half or one bin bag (of course they still didn't clear it up...) but this didn't give the satisfaction you might expect because it paled into insignificance when pretty much the same section of the attendance actually got the meeting stopped after just half an hour by no-confidencing the Constitution and Steering Committee- with no C & S the meeting couldn't continue. I voted against the no-confidence motion, but even had I thought it was a good idea, I can't see what would have been the problem with leaving the no-confidence motion till almost the end of the meeting, after debating as many of the motions on the list as possible. Especially considering that the motion that the no-confidence one interrupted was in support of the demo against fees on Sunday- and I don't think any student present was in favour of fees.

The reason they no-confidenced C & S was to do with the elections. There is a column in the Beaver called Union Jack which reports on the UGM, giving students it mentions derogatory pseudonyms (like Camp Tam or Tammy Girl for the General Secretary, Jimmy Tam), and not taking the whole thing very seriously. Some of it is rather malicious, and it does seem to treat one side of the political spectrum rather more unfavourably than the other. This week (maybe every week?) there was also a short box that I'd missed untill I went back and looked at the paper after the meeting, called Hacktavist, which was similar but was more focussed on gossip about various candidates (all from the side treated more harshly by Union Jack) rather than the UGM. Two people (both Green Party candidates) complained about these pieces- I think because it was election week and they worried that this was painting them in a bad light to the average student who may only have heard of them through reading the Beaver, I don't think they'd complain on grounds of finding it offensive in the normal way of things. Given that Hacktavist mentioned one of the candidates (with her name altered only in the first letter of her last name) as complaining of having too much work to do in her current role as Residences Officer, and queried why she wanted to run for another post in that case, this does seem likely to be prejudicial to her chances.

The problem was with the response of C & S (and the Returning Officer and Communications Officer) to the complaints. They decided that in order to make redress and balance out the possible harm caused to their election campaigns, PuLSE FM, LSE's radio station, would read out the candidates' manifestos on air. But PuLSE FM is played in the Quad Cafe, and campaigning is forbidden in the Quad (as that's where voting takes place), so it was claimed that C & S had basically been out of order. I'm not quite sure on the technicalities- after all, a booklet with all candidate manifestos was actually being handed out at the voting desk (mostly because one candidate's manifesto had been missed out of the Beaver election special), and I can't see how a booklet of manifestos is so very different from a radio reading, apart from the booklet containing all candidates' manifestos, and people having the option of reading the booklet but not of listening to the radio. So it would seem as though 'campaigning' meant the actual candidate coming in person to try and convince people, or handing out flyers, or putting up posters. And someone mentioned that C & S and the other people involved in the decision can take whatever steps they feel necessary to redress a wrong in a situation like this, and that that may override the rule about not campaigning in the Quad. But if C & S really were making the PuLSE station head violate the election rules, I'm not sure that no-confidencing them was necessary. If they'd made a string of bad decisions, yes, but for one error? No-one was suggesting that the editor of the Beaver should be removed from office for the mistake in judgment that the original complaints were about, after all. Now a whole new committee needs electing.

Still, as the meeting finished half an hour early, that was another half hour to hand out flyers, and though I started off feeling very annoyed, the effect of all that smiling was to restore my good humour.

Next up, though, was making a start on the Group Project for Computational Statistics. It was indeed dire. The questions were quite tough- not in terms of programming, but of interpreting the formulas to work out just what we were supposed to be calculating. It was the Mean Square Error that gave us difficulties. We couldn't work out whether we should put the same value of a particular variable into the sum for each term, or whether we should use a different estimate of the variable each time- and we couldn't even work out which of the bits of the sum was supposed to be which of the variables we had. It would have been bad enough on my own trying to work it out, but I would have just made a decision and gone for something after fifteen minutes or so of staring at it, and seen how that worked. With four of us we spent more than an hour with two opposing schools of thought, and with no consensus we couldn't programme anything. It's going to be tough.

Today was more leafletting- not elections this time, but a schedule of events for Climate Change Awareness Week. It was still organised by CMCC though. I was in the Quad cafe from when my lecture finished at 10, as I thought maybe that's when we were going to start, but as there was no sign of CMCC I had a croissant and a cup of tea** and tried to do some Principals and Methods- the excercise I should have done for the lecture I just had, except that I'd been spending my time leafletting... At least they're not handed in or assessed. Normally I 'd just go on to the next excercise, but we haven't been given that yet and actually this time the lecturer hasn't gone over all the questions yet. Plus I found out*** that we're having a test next week- not part of our mark but still- so I really need to go over everything. Not going to be easy with all that's going on this weekend and next week... I didn't have a lot of success with the questions I tried, though with the third one I found that where I thought I'd reached a contradiction (1/4 + a/36 = 1/4 or similar) I'd actually proved that a = 0, which I realised when I looked at the notes, and this actually turned out to be the main step towards the main thing I was trying to prove. So it wasn't as hopeless as I'd thought.

CMCC arrived at 11, and I was able to hand over his copy card (which he'd given me yesterday to print some more flyers while he wasn't there but which I hadn't thought to give to one of the other candidates to give to him). We didn't start leafletting at that point though- the things had to be printed first. Since they were double sided, this amazingly took the best part of an hour. With only one copy card, it was a one person job and I was sitting doing more Principles (actually the third question mentioned above), happy to have the extra time but slightly worried he might have come past without my realising and decided I wanted to be left to work, as it seemed an incredibly long time for a bit of photocopying, even with my experiences of the last two days. I also realised halfway through that I needed the loo, but didn't dare go in case he finished while I was away and didn't know where I was. In the end, I came to a bit of a full stop with Principles and Methods and went up to the copy room to see how it was going. I considered saying I was just popping to the loo, but somehow didn't quite get as far as actually doing it. Then when we were finally on our way out, it seemed silly to take time then when there'd been all that dead time earlier. It wasn't too urgent!

It was cold today. After four or five weeks of the perfect temperature, I was actually chilly. But I noticed it more when I was waiting in the Quad Cafe than while leafletting. And it was better than yesterday, when my bag was really heavy and dug into my shoulders.**** I'd only been at it ten minutes or so when CMCC decided we'd stop and go and have lunch in the Quad. This was because, amazingly, people were actually less ready to take these flyers than the candidate flyers for the election, in spite of the latter being propaganda, and today's just advertising events. I suppose they were all flyered-out.

It was nice to have lunch with CMCC (you know my views on him, though I've managed to become non-obsessed in the sense that I no longer think about him (much) except when actually face to face with him), though there were other people that he knew around. It was also nice when, today and yesterday, he gave me a hug at the end to say thankyou. I mentioned, I think, that he's a very tactile person. And of course, what with him having a girlfriend, there's nothing in it. But that doesn't stop my enjoying it- though more retrospectively as on both occasions, at the time I felt a little surprised and awkward, since I don't tend to hug people (unless of course they are hugging people and they hug me). And maybe it's an indication that he didn't suspect I had an ulterior motive for asking about him and the Residences Officer? I thought it was horribly obvious at the time, but surely, no matter how much of a custom it is with him, he wouldn't hug me if he thought I had a crush on him?

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. After lunch we went out and handed out more fliers, getting the one o'clock changeover. This had been something CMCC was particularly keen on doing, though I didn't quite follow his logic. Yes, there would be more people then, so that it would be a good time to try to give them out. But he was suggesting earlier that we stop handing them out and conserve them for the changeover, as he didn't want to hand out too many but keep some for later in the week- and I don't understand that- surely if you hand out another 20 earlier, say, then even though you have 20 less to hand out at the changeover, you'll still have given out the same total and I don't see why those flyers are better used on people who are around at the changeover than people wandering through in between. I mean, it's the number, not when you hand them out, right? (Within reason- I mean I get the point about keeping some for next week as if you don't people may intend to come then forget about it).

We were through after less than half an hour. He asked me what I was doing next; I would have loved to have given some answer that let me continue to tag along with him, but mindfull of not wanting to be seen as following him, and more importantly aware of how much I had to do, I went off to the library for a long session on the computers.

Four hours later, I had emailed SC2 to say both I and Flatmate 7 would be busy that evening- when she had suggested we meet to work on the questions for the quiz- I'm sure I told her before we weren't free, printed out journal articles for Surveys and Experiment Design (or whatever the course is called), and come up with four rounds of questions, by dint of long internet research. I was worried at the beginning that I'd end up with all questions based on one site (which is uncomfortably close to plagiarism...) but by the end I'd just naturally used about fifteen different ones- all referenced at the bottom though I don't suppose there'll be a chance to talk about sources at the quiz. :-) I had great problems finding stuff for the round about efforts that are already being made to combat global warming though- there was plenty of stuff about countries like the UK reducing (or not reducing...) carbon emissions, but the round was suggested by the co-ordinator of the sustainability champions when we were talking to her after the environment forum, and she was talking about local efforts in the poorer countries most affected by things like sea level changes and drought, and I couldn't seem to come up with anything on that. That's what I have to look for next... then I have to make a leaflet with stuff I've researched plus listings of the LSE events... sigh. But it's all worth it!

I did fit in some socialising too- today was the day that L and I went to the Korean restaurant, with Flatmate 7 and a friend of L's (from Iceland!) who turns out to live in the flat across the corridor from me though I've never bumped into her. Sadly Flatmate 3 couldn't come as she got the time wrong and turned up at 6.20 instead of 7, wondered where we were, went back to halls to get Flatmate 7's mobile number (I still haven't put mine on the helpfull list Flatmate 3 put on the kitchen door...), and understandably didn't want to come out again. At least with a party of four it wasn't hard getting a table. At one point it looked like there'd be 8 of us, which might have been a problem as we couldn't book due to having forgotten the name of the restaurant... The food was actually really nice, though quite simple. I just had vegetables and rice with an egg on top in a hot bowl, but the vegetables were really tasty- they'd been marinated or cooked in something. Hopefully we'll have another outing like that some time. I want to go to a Japanese restaurant, and a Taiwanese or Chinese restaurant (what with Flatmate 7 coming from Taiwan), but L's friend wants to go to a place serving traditional British food! I suggested we go to a pub that serves food instead- more likely to have something I can eat!

*As in 'the brass band my mum plays in', not 'the brass band my mum conducts' or 'the brass band that belongs to my mum'

**I didn't have any breakfast today as I overslept rather (though I was still in time for my lecture). Though I've taken to having a tea and a croissant before nine o'clock lectures when I arrive early enough anyway, and just having yoghurt before I set out. Today and yesterday I had to take the bus as the wheel of my bike is not very well. It may just need pumping up- or there may be a deeper problem. But I haven't had time to deal with it yet.

***Technically he may have told us in a previous lecture but I didn't really take it in...

****I think it's also responsible for mysterious aches that I woke up with today- all that stooping for flyers on Houghton St with a heavy bag making me bend in unusual ways must have used different muscle groups to my average day...