statement

Firstly, thanks to Sun for the mini-essay. It temporarily saved much more crap from brewing. My commendations for your effort =)

Nextly (no it is not a word. Yes I am still using it.) I removed the autoplay because I think 300 people read it last night and I don't think anyone will miss the autoplay of the violin.

My full statement is below the break.

I am aware that I was harsher than I should've been. I have cut down the cynicism in like the 3 places that I was actually cynical. Now the post is target-free. I believe the only image I am now presenting is that Sun and I had an idea for the Battle of the Bands, and evidently a majority voted against. I do not see why anyone should be upset; you should be proud of your decision and stand by it.

My aim was not to portray anyone as "stupid" or "wrong". Of the non-Prefects that I talked to, I didn't encounter anyone who felt the post was degrading towards Prefects. They read it as just an expression of disappointment. Even still I did have some "uncalled for" sentences, which I have since edited out. Some Prefects (especially the ones that were against BOTB) felt targeted, and I have accounted for that since.
Well actually to be honest I don't know for sure that anyone actually felt targeted. If they did they should've talked to me. But nobody told me they felt insulted. Some told me that my sourness was not justified because of X Y and Z. I listened, and I believe the result of that discussion was that yes, I do have a right to be sour - but nobody else has to be sour, and neither did I ever expect you to.

I felt my post was more to highlight the planning and how awesome I felt the idea to be, personally. Then my disappointment in the rejection and replacement of the idea. I didn't mean to make it like I was hating on everyone for knocking it down.

Yes, granted, as Sun said, we should've confirmed the like-ability of this event from the get-go. Remember that first Prefect meeting where we sat down under the sails, and the topic of BOTB was raised, to which about all except 3 people were like "yeah, why not?". And then on the Etherpad, for like a bajillion years I put a "put your name down here if you are against BOTB so we can stop it right here right now" and we got nobody writing their name down?
Yes, true, we made the mistake of not officially asking in an official meeting, but look me in the eye and tell me that we weren't led to believe that you guys were okay with this.

If I may make a possibly biased judgment, I don't believe my post was as directly insulting and confrontational as some of the comments I received.

I had to ask several non-Prefect friends to help me read it objectively - obviously there is tension between the pro- and anti-BOTB groups. The response I got was that "No the post was obviously not to badmouth or diss Prefects. You were disappointed for having an idea, which you poured time and energy into, which then got shot down. It didn't read very insultingly. You mainly just described the BOTB planning anyway." If you don't believe me, I'm happy to supply chatlogs. I have 5 of them atm. I'm quite sure more than 10. Including a Prefect who was a-okay with the post (even though they were against BOTB). To put into perspective, I've had about 4 Prefects actually talk to me about how it upset them.

One of my best friends was also one of the strongest advocators against BOTB. If you're really bringing "friendship" into this, and think I now hate him, or that I'm even holding anything against him, for contributing to knocking back the idea, then I must ask you to kindly leave my blog, because obviously you don't have any idea who I am.

Whether or not you were on my side, I respected you as a person if you talked to me on MSN. It's nice to see that if you have opinions, you're not afraid to share them =). So to everyone who did this (I think maybe 5 of you) thanks, regardless of whether we ended up agreeing or not.

If you were one of those anons who have a point to make, come run it by me. I am happy to talk to you, and why I think whatever problem you had can be overcome.
I think I've heard about 90% of all the objections, and I have a logical reply for literally ALL of the points I've heard.
If you post as an anon on this blog, though, I don't take you seriously. I bunch you with the rest of the anons on the internet (and as anyone who has visited 4chan knows, are all a bunch of complete douches). Because I can't control who views this blog, and I now actually have no idea who the hell reads this, I will treat all anons with the same condescension and derision.
Come to me personally, or use your own name, and we can have a civilised discussion. Of the two people who were against BOTB and actually approached me, I don't believe we had a particularly heated argument... It was civil. Well at least, I felt the other party was civil, I can't exactly speak for myself. But I felt civil 8D

And I know that shit happens and you get over it. I am not lamenting over the knocking back of the assembly, contrary to popular belief. I'm okay with not talking about it ever again. However, I do believe some of the arguments made against BOTB such as "Omg appeals to such a small audience" and "Nobody likes these assemblies" were poorly founded. I decided to test that out.

In addition I heard "There are not enough bands", "There isn't a big enough band culture in Ruse for this" and "Wouldn't it be better to incorporate multi-talents?". I actually have a decent reply for all of these - If you firmly believe any of these statements, feel free to ask me and I'll tell you what I think.

And the purpose of all my posts is to track my attitude towards life over time. Sometimes important events trigger important posts. Because usually I don't consider my attitudes, unless I'm thinking about blogging it. In doing so, I can track my attitudes after events such as talking to a girl who made the bitchiest and most appalling comment you can ever make in such a situation, going on courses and meeting a control-freak elitist dude, meeting people who enlightened me about how people work, making/losing/repairing friendships, and now the loss of the first big thing that me+Sun were planning to do.

I also wanted everyone else to know what we had planned. It was a pretty good idea, as I've seen people agree. The loss of this idea is quite unfortunate, and a pain shared is a pain halved. Sympathies and etc go a long way.

So in conclusion - I am sorry for any offence taken. It was not to offend, just to inform. Feel free to tell me if the post still upsets you. I attempted to make it all factual. If my way of expressing a certain fact upsets you, please tell me. I will not hesitate to change it as long as the meaning of the fact remains unchanged. And finally, I am not resisting the vote of the majority. I will help and contribute to this performance-gathering-assembly thing, and put the idea of BOTB behind me.

References: "RIP" at http://jwhero.blogspot.com/2011/08/rip.html