Coz You Gotta Have Faith (faith faith)

You know, sometimes I really wish I was religious. 

I wish I could have the blind faith in something/someone and just believe that someone up there is looking over everything. 

Buuuuuuuut I don’t.

I suppose I believe in some things, fate, everything happening for a reason, soul mates, I just don’t believe that there’s one omniscient being just chilling up there because if he/she/it was…I don’t know how they could live with themselves when strings of natural disasters have killed millions let alone the murders and serial killers that pretty much roam the streets going about their business.

But then again, a few months ago a 2-week-old baby was pulled out of the rubble in Turkey that she’d been buried under for 2 days, so maybe there is a God.

Can there still be a God if I don’t expressly believe in one?  I guess so because others do and I admire them for that. I don’t understand but I admire their dedication and faith all the same.

I wish I had that.

Family=Friends

"Here's to the nights that turn into mornings and the friends that turn into family."

I had one of those instance last night, I sat up with friends last night until morning came, and they are becoming my family.
Sometimes I fight with them like I do my family and I love them unconditionally like I do my family.

Some Things Never Change...

I am 18 and a half years old.
How the hell do I still manage to get pen all over my hands when I write?

Because we can....

I've recently been playing the same online games over and over on sporcle. My favourite is the country naming game. It has become my memory exercise. All it is is a map of the globe with a text box above it. All you do is write names of countries in the text box and they pop up on the map, and you have 15 minutes to write in as many countries as you can, as well as spelling them correctly. I have played it so many times that i know nearly all of them....and there is almost 200 of them. They also have a harry potter game where you name the top 200 mentioned characters and another where you have to name the 50 most mentioned characters without naming any outside the top 50 which is really difficult. I don't know why i love playing these trivial games, but i mustn't be the only one. I have a friend who is really good at memorising complicated lyrics and another who knows over twenty decimal places of pie....why we do these things i don't know probably just because we can. Maybe it is another way in which each and every one of us is uniquely and extremely complicated...

Armistice Day (aka Remembrance Day)

I think that maybe the one thing I actually miss the most about high school isn't my friends, my teachers, the structure, the uniform, the familiarity, it's the Remembrance Day ceremony that Beaconhills had every year. The entire school assembled in the only area that could fit us all, the junior and middle schools in the hot sun of November under hats and their blazers while the senior school got the relative coolness of the shade.

It's not the speeches, the memories or the knowledge shared with us, it's that one minute of complete and utter silence.

Over 1,500 people, the great majority of whom are children (many below the age where they are truly able to understand what Remembrance Day means), totally silent. From 11:00 on the 11th of November there is silence in a school where there is usually no such thing. I don't mean to say that what I love about Remembrance Day is that it's finally quiet. What I love is that for one minute, everyone is thinking about the same thing, about those people who fought and died to ensure that we can live the way we do today.

It may be slightly morbid but I love it, and the song the Last Post in particular. What this one piece of music evokes in people all over this country when they hear it. It's sombre but every time it's heard it reminds us of how lucky we are, and how thankful we should be for those that went to war for us, whether the war was "just" or not.

I think it's so unbelievably important that we pay homage to all the men and women who have fought and died in the many wars that have been fought. It's nowhere near enough to just dedicate one minute  a year to this but in it's consistency, it's a start and I have no doubt that there are people who are personally affected by these wars who think about this every minute of every day.

Lest We Forget.

Just pay your respects guys, at least on this day, it’s the least we can do.

 'The shall not grow old as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them'

- For the Fallen, Lauren Binyon (1931)

I want me some Calvins

Ok, so I know that it's shallow and superficial but half-naked actors, models, athletes etc really is the best way to sell underwear.
And if they're happy to objectify themselves I really dont see why we cant ogle shamelessly.
Why women find abs attractive, why men like boobs, that I can't explain, honestly they're just lumps, but I suppose it comes down to some arcane, primitive, provider thing from way way way back when.
However, this cK ad campaign goes above and beyond in the way that apparently cK does well. I'm pretty sure it's been pulled from the air for being vulgar and "suggestive" but I can't actually find proof.

Take a look for yourself but be warned, if half-naked men and almost-swearing isn't your thing...don't press play.

I get that we shouldn't objectify them, they're real people blah blah but if they are going to pose/do ad campaigns in their underwear it's their own damn fault.
As for the almost-swearing, honestly, they're just words. And cK is obviously doing something right even if they're doing it the wrong way.
This raunchy ad gets people talking and thats all they wanted.

Nonno

In a follow on from what Han said, my nonno wasn't perfect, but when I was little I thought he was.

He wasn't selfless in the same way other people are. But he did ship his family half-way across the world to a country where he didn't speak the language. He did start at the bottom and he did provide for his family.

But he wasn't perfect, far from it.

It's not until I've grown up that I've discovered he's a possessive, jealous, angry alcoholic.

He's still around but he has Alzheimer's so he's not my nonno anymore. He doesn't remember me.

And that's sad but what's even worse is some of my cousins aren't going to remember him the way I do. My little cousin Zara, who isn't even two yet, isn't going to remember nonno taking her to the shops and buying her ice cream. She isn't going to remember "Nonno's bread", she isn't going to get to make her own pizza bases with the off cuts. She isn't going to get the chance to hinder more than help in the garden on tottering toddler legs.

He'll probably be dead before she's even old enough to remember anything about him at all.

So I know that Nonno isn't perfect but when I was 4 and he used to take me up to the milk bar and buy me ice cream when my bratty cousin was asleep, I thought he was pretty damn close.

Even though I know he's not exactly a great person I'm still going to cry at his funeral.
I'm crying now.

Poppy

I just want to write a small paragraph about how selfless my grandfather is.
For the last couple of months he has been looking after my grandmother who had broken her foot while on holiday. She wasn't able to walk on the foot so he wheelchair proofed the house, did all the chores, everything without complaint. He is always fixing things, and many people call him the handyman. He got in the roof on a stifling hot day and installed our home theatre speakers, dug up all our pavers in the backyard and trimmed the roots that had been causing them to lift, he takes me for driving lessons while somehow managing to remain calm, teaches me how to fish and if we manage to catch something big enough he will gut it for me.
He used to be a paramedic, and now after retiring he volunteers with the CFA and helps out at the local funeral parlour. Always giving his time and energy to help others. I recently visited them for a week and in one day he got a call at 5 am on a rainy day for a fire and he went and had got back before i even got out of bed. Then that night he had just gotten into bed and the sirens could be heard in the distance, his pager  went off and he was up and getting dressed. The next morning he was off helping with a funeral. My Poppy is a genuine person who doesn't even realise how selfless he is, and that's why he is my role model.

Money

I have had a big thought on how horrible it is that the world runs on money and greed. How we waste so much money on trivial things and there are people put there who have to worry about being able to feed their kids once a day, let alone three.
I could go on about poverty, but it has been done all too often. The thing is that there are too many charities out there and we cant donate every time someone shows us a photo and shakes a tin.
I just want to tell a story a lecturer told our class.
The other day he told us about a project he had been working on in a small lab. They were trying to find a cure to Alzheimers disease. The first stage of testing involved mice with alzheimers...i wont go into the details of the experiment, but the tests proved to be positive and in order to go onto the next stage of testing they needed more money. So they went through the motions, had a bunch of fancy people come through the lab while they made themselves look busy. But in the end they couldn't get the funding because it was around the same time as the recession and there was just no money for new experiments at that point in time.
This may not be the cure for cancer, but it would be sad if it was and the reason it wasn't found was because we haven't  got enough money to fund it, but instead that we decide to spend the money on our governments five star holiday holiday accommodation and our nails and anti wrinkle cream....Because it isn't just the money, but the greed behind it.
So hopefully you haven't stopped reading because you think I'm going to guilt you into donating money to some dodgy site that claims it will cure some disease or poverty. I don't really have some sort of lesson to be learnt at the end of this post, it was just something I needed to say because as an aspiring scientists it was something that frustrated me. You can now go out on your way and think nothing more of it!

Le Francais♥

Je sais que la plupart de gens qui lit ce blog ne comprendre pas ce que j’écrirai mais, étant donné que je vais quitter le français l’année prochaine, je pense qu’il sois nécessaire de dire « adieu » à la français en français, au moins jusqu’à je retourne en France ou commence les cours de français  ailleurs. 

Le français est une très grande partie de ma vie depuis 7 ans et je suis très triste que je le quitterai. Cependant, il faut que je le quitter. Je n’aime pas le moyen dans lequel l’université de Monash l’enseigne et je crois que je dois arrêter avant que je commence à détester la meilleure langue du monde.

J’ai peur d’oublier mais j’espère que je n’oublierai pas et je vais essayer de pratiquer le français souvent.

Alors, au revoir « français » vous me manquerez. 

Summer

Today i just want to blog about how much i love summer!
In south eastern Australia Summer means anytime from late september to April. The weathers always changing, and the seasons aren't very defined. It never snows and so the only thing enjoyable about the weather is when you hole up in your bed and listen to the lightening outside. Well it used to be fun, but now i seem to be out and stuck on public transport when the atmosphere tries to give use a bit of a show. Winter is cold, the rain is cold, the sky is grey and the days are short. It all leads to a depressed environment, where our bodies put on their winter fat and we just hibernate from society......well maybe not that extreme, but in comparison to summer that is what it feels like.
Today i walked down to the bus stop, the sky a clear blue and the breeze was a warm northerly, and for once the music on my ipod suited my mood. Having just finished my exams yesterday i have almost 5 months until i have to open another book (non fiction of course) so I'm happy and free and ready to have fun. The sun is shining! I can do whatever i want! Picnics, Beach, anything! Coz thats the beauty of summer...theres no limitations. you can go to the drive in cinema and not be uncertain if its going to rain, have illegal water fights, have a camp out, wear what you want, and if it does rain it doesn't matter because its warm and your thin summer clothes dry quickly. Instead of dashing for cover you just dance! Summer is the time of holidays and christmas and being active! The only thing left to do is wait for the rest of my friends to finish their exams and its partytime!!

Darren Criss, I love you.

This song has been on repeat on my iPod for about a week.  
It is is amazing. 
Darren Criss' voice is amazing.  
The emotion he put into this song amazes me, 
It breaks my heart every time I hear it and even though I only have the audio, I can picture this scene and the look on his face.

In my opinion, Kurt and Blaine are Glee's cutest couple ever. 

This scene just gets me every time...but this post isnt about Glee. 
It's about Darren Criss. 

And Darren Criss is epic

*** I have no idea what's up with the formatting on this post:(

The love of a printed book

There is nothing better than buying the most recent book in a series to fill the bookshelf. At first you love their freshness, the pristine quality, you feel like you are the first one to read this new adventure, you worry about it getting damaged blah blah blah. But just as much i love my old books that show signs of reading more than once. Some of my books are so old, found for a couple of dollars in a secondhand store, that you just don't worry about keeping them clean and undamaged, coz they are, well, already damaged. My favourite (well one of since nothing will beat the amazingness which is harry potter) series is the Tomorrow series. For those of you who have stumbled across this blog who don't know what i am talking about, it is an australian series kind of like Red Dawn, but australian. There are many reasons why these are my favourite in my accumulation of books sitting proudly on my bookshelf. One is because as soon as i read the first book i couldn't put them down. Another is because they are the perfect size. A long adventure, broken up into seven books plus a follow on series broken into three, just the perfect size to take when you travel. The other is that it looks the the strangest group of books. I told my grandmother about them and she found some of them at the secondhand bookshelf. Because the book has been reprinted a ridiculous amount of times, each cover is different, their covers bent and torn from the love of their previous owners. So most of the books look dishevelled, but loved (kinda like people in movies after sex), and i love them. They are at the point where i don't feel bad about writing my own annotations in them, or leaving them lying around on my floor to be stepped on. Its funny because i don't feel that way about the old secondhand books i had to read for school (though i quite enjoyed it when the previous owner left annotations for me), but i suppose you have to love the story to love an old cover. I think it is true that we read a book by its cover, and thats why we all like buying books new, looking more fresh and appealing. But once you're past the cover and are hooked on the storyline there is no putting it down, and you can't stop raving about it to people who really care, and even though you know you are alienating them by referring to them all the time, you just cant stop yourself. Same goes with movies and video games and (other). The thing is you want more and more, and unless your ready to wade through pitiful fan-fiction there really is nothing else to do but talk about it and read it over and over again, annotation your thoughts on the old crumpled pages..........

Zoom Zoom Zoom

I am not a car person. No one who knows me would ever describe me as a “car person”.

When I got my first car and my friends asked me what it was I said “red”. Which it was, it’s red. Rosie is red. That’s kind of all that mattered to me. I do now know that i have a 2003 model Ford Focus and have improved, I can name the manufacturer of most cars but I am still not what you would call a "car person". 

However, I now find myself with an irrational desire for a turquoise Mazda 2. I just want one so bad. There’s nothing wrong with Rosie (my car), I’ve had her 18 months and she’s great. I just want a Mazda 2 in that turquoise I see every time I drive home from Monash.

Another thing, I am irrevocably in love with is Dean Winchester’s 1967 Chevy Impala from Supernatural. I am so not a car person but that thing sounds amazing. It’s gorgeous and not just because of the guy who drives it (though he’s freaking gorgeous too). But that car…god that car is epic, the way it sounds...I have never heard anything sound so awesome (outside of a Fast and Furious movie anyway). It's pure American muscle car and I love it. 

Metallicar

When i was younger i enjoyed sport. It was one of my favourite subjects in primary school.
But i never really found a sport that i loved enough to stick to.
The closest thing was cycling and HPV in primary school. I was good enough, and enjoyed it, but then primary school was over, and high school began, and the only thing that being a great all rounder did for me was let me pass sport.
I think the main reason was that i never joined and clubs when i was younger. Many people i know that play sport for clubs have been playing since they were in primary school. I once tried playing soccer in year nine. My friend and i went along to the training sessions between seasons, but we gave up quite quickly. We weren't very good and we didn't know anyone there. About a year or so later another friend and i decided to try cycling. Her whole family (apart from her) loved cycling and were down at the local track every saturday morning training with a whole heap of other enthusiasts. My dad also loves cycling so he agreed to take me along. We lasted a little longer at this attempt at immersing ourselves in a sport, but once again failed. Theres something about riding around in circles that eventually bores you, and having experience riders constantly whiz past you at 100 miles an hour, and to have your family included in those packs of scary riders that kind of shoots your confidence.
So i resided to the fact that sport wasn't my thing anymore. Everyone had found their niche and it was too late for me. I had tried almost everything, i had a small fling with volleyball and cross country. i can swim ok, but have never had swimming lessons, so that was out. Basketball and netball annoyed me, i hated the no contact rules, and i couldn't bounce a ball to save myself. I never wanted to dance, netball always seemed to girly and i never understood the skirts. football was for the boys, the only fun thing about cricket was batting, lawn bowls was in a whole new league of boring.
The main thing was that everyone was stuck in their ways, and i had no friends prepared to start a volleyball team, and i didn't fancy joining a random martial arts club and being placed with all the seven year olds in the beginners class. It was no big deal. I hardly noticed as i moved more into the arts. Into visual arts and my piano i went, and i was happy in my extra curricular life.
But then, out of the blue, only a month ago, i found badminton. I was stuck at Uni for one hour and there it was. Social badminton. No competitions, just a bunch of nets, only six dollars a session with racket hire for free. I was excited, and i managed to get a bunch of friends at uni to go to one session with me. And now we go every thursday and have a blast. And i'm actually improving too. So just when i thought i knew who i was, along comes something new and challenges that image of myself.
Now i am finding myself traveling to uni, even if i don't have a class, to play badminton for three hours.

Another Thing Missed.

Food For Thought.

BHC♥

Share A Laugh

I love how laughter is the same right across the board. 

That is the universal language, not English. 

No matter what race, nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, gender we identify with, when we laugh we all sound the same. 

Reminders of Some Not So Good Stuff

I always forget how deeply  seated racism still is in other countries, America for example. Or maybe it's just such a contrast to my own community, but I don’t think Australia is the country of multiculturalism for nothing.

It is just such an issue and every time it comes up, in TV, books, movies (and I'm talking modern stuff, not stuff from the 60s) it just baffles me. I don't understand. There's no difference between black and white or whatever and I just cannot comprehend how someone could prosecute a whole race of people just because. I mean, I know why I've studied it but still it's like my brain can't reconcile what I'm reading in history books with any form of logical reasoning.

 "Because they were different."

So? You're a boy, I'm a girl, we're different (okay, in hindsight probably not the best analogy) but the point is everyone is different, unique if you will, regardless of any of this other crap.

No one's better than any one else so we should all just be friends already, 'kay?

You say you want a revolution.

Even as a member of gen Y i am not sure how i feel about this technological revolution we are in. Things are moving a such a pace that at the age of 19 i am already finding myself missing the 'old days.' I miss cassette tapes and the times of the walkman. Going to the library to find information for assignments rather than just googling it.
I find it hard to comprehend what changes my grandparents have been through. I know we all laugh about how many of them can't use computers and work phones or stereos without buttons or dials. My grandfather once asked me what the difference was between a laptop and facebook. But knowing where they have come from, i understand how they feel somewhat alienated by computers and the internet these days. My grandmother was helping my cousin with an assignment recently, by answering questions about her trip out to australia. She spoke about her childhood and they world she cast with her words was far from what i know it to be today.
She lived in a small house in belgium in the countryside. At a young age her father died of phenomena and her baby sister died around the same time when she was about six. It was around the time of the war and medicinal supplies were very depleted, not to mention the lack of the medicinal advancements we take for credit today. During the war they had Germans in the town and my grandmother spoke about how a few people in the town went missing over time. They had a little safe house her mother made in the backyard that they once had to use. She remembers he sound of bombs being dropped in the distance. Maybe her prayers were heard because only three houses in her village were destroyed and the occupants weren't home at the time. Her family were poor, as her mother was widowed, and were lucky to have help from friends and neighbours. But my grandmother wasn't able to go to high school, because her family couldn't afford it. This is one of the things that saddens me the most for she speaks about how she was one of the top pupils in her class. So that was the end of her school education and she went to work. I have mentioned here many of the sad things about her life, but she also spoke fondly of other memories. The first television in her village was where she worked, and she learned a little french because that was what was broadcasted. She told us of how she hated goat cheese and milk because her family owned a goat and her mother would make most foods from the milk it produced.
So for people who we may consider sometimes as old fashioned,  boring, and clueless, our grandparents are some of the wisest we know. Just because they won't use a computer doesn't mean they couldn't if they tried. Hell, we children of the nineties maybe able to use one, but how many of us would be capable of understanding how it works?
Its not just technology that has changed since the early twentieth century, but society. What would your grandparents say if they knew you were having sex, not only before you were married, but before you were legally counted an adult? They wouldn't be able to know because they don't have facebook right? Less than a hundred years down the track and you are now considered a minority if your over twenty and are still a virgin in some countries. What more when even the media depicts it as normal, when for the last two thousand years sex before marriage was considered a sin, an abomination, unacceptable in the same countries. Religion has been constantly tested over time, but it has lasted until now. It's probably wise to say that science was the straw that broke the camels back. Now that we have a theory of evolution, we doubt the words of the bible, and the ancient stories passed down over the years. We are given the freedom to choose what to believe and now the world is full of agnostics that choose to believe what allows them to live their life in happiness.
So is the loss of such dominating religions in society bad? or is it ok as long as we keep that morals and values that will lead to a positive future. How do we keep these values without the aid of religion we've had all this time?
These are questions that i think about regularly because in this revolution we can't see where things are going, whether its for better or for worse. I am only writing from my perspective, and those of others may be completely different to my own. Those others may be over the other side of the world or just my neighbours. I love science, i believe in evolution, i love the beauty of religion, but i feel disappointed that there have been so many wars over it because people have forgotten the main reason behind religion, which is love. i don't know if there is a higher power, for science answers no, but yet it can't answer every question. my school Chaplin had a degree in biology, and he raised a point that i have often thought about many times, why can't both exist?
I don't know how this blog ended up on the topic of religion, for after all it was my least favourite subject at school, including maths.
All i can really do in life is my best, appreciate things that i may not love, such as school, for i know that i am able to go places my grandmother couldn't, and live in a diverse world of mixed cultures and advancement of technology. Hopefully one day i can say i have made the correct choices.

♥Outlaws♥Rangers♥Vales♥ROCKETS♥Cavs♥

We joke about other people being club-whores but i'm pretty much up there...5 clubs in 10 years...but 2 of those don't really count 'cause they were concurrent but I have never been happier than where I am now. 

I wish I had a photo so I could show you how much fun we have. But, I wonder if even a camera could catch our Kodak moments.

We amble up the court at our own pace (provided it’s fast enough to get over half court in our however many seconds) chatting away with each other like we’re meeting up for a coffee date not playing a sport.

“You awake yet, Bridge?” I tease as I jog past her.

She just groans in reply but keeps the ball safe before passing it along to Paigey for a nice shot and we’re heading back up the other end again, less than a minute gone on the clock.

Sometimes it’s just as easy as that.

The ball goes over my head but I saw Ames out of the corner of my eye. “Yours,” I tell her 2 seconds after she’s already caught it.

She grins at me before she darts past one of our opponents and lays it up like it’s nothing, which it kind of is for her.

“I don’t want to go get it,” I whine when Bridgette urges me up the caught to pass it in.

“It’s your turn!” she calls down to me, refusing to come any closer than halfway.

A rebound, a long pass and for us, the work is done.

“Go ‘Cin! All the way!” we call from halfway down the court, too lazy, and too wise, to follow her. She’ll get it in, uncontested or otherwise, why waste the energy? On the rare occurrences that it doesn’t pass through the net we make our way up there as she heads to the line or she gets her own rebound anyway.

Bouncing off 3 sets of hands before sailing out of court and everyone blames each other, laughter clear in our voices.

The ball rolling through legs and tripping people up equals more laugher and a hand up.

Missed shot after shot after shot from under the basket results in cheers from down court when it finally goes in, amidst joking cries to “never pass it to Tash again.”

Watching Kailah go to work is amazing. It’s almost like she flicks a switch and she’s layed it up before you can blink. She moves so fast and so effortlessly, I’m glad I’m finally on her team.

We’re pretty much all 18 now, that means licenses and cars and no more parents at games.

“It’s your turn to score Jason!” we tell him, forcing him begrudgingly into a job he’s never had to do before.

There are no positions here, everyone does everything, circa 10 years of experience and a lack of any real competition allows that.

I think it pisses other people off that we’re so whatever about it. But, God, we’ve been doing this for 10 years; we have other more important things in our lives…this is just for fun. And it is so much fun. Weekly laughter therapy.

1 player down the whole game and 3 out or 4 of us not-so-fresh from 2 hours of training in the lead up to finals but still a 20 pt win…it’s days like that I love playing, even after all these years. Other times the 6 hours or so every Sunday I spend at basketball/driving to and from basketball is a gigantic pain in my ass.

I love these girls and I am so thankful for this sport that brought us together all those years ago because I know my life would not be as bright and enjoyable if not for having them in it. 

A friend of a...well, me. A friend of me. My Friend.

I have this friend right, and he is perfect. I’m talking in every meaning of the word, the epitome of, look in the dictionary and you’ll find his name etc etc. He is generous, he’s friendly, he’s funny, I swear he’s some kind of super genius, he’s polite (in a day and age when chivalry is near dead or at least too focused on its walking frame to open doors) and, to top it all of, he’s kind of cute too.

He is such a beautiful person that I can’t believe some girl hasn’t snapped him up already. Or maybe he doesn’t want that and maybe that’s why. I don’t know and I’m not going to ask, that’s his prerogative, his life, his choice. All I wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that he is an amazing person and he deserves recognition outside of quiet conversations amongst our group.

I don’t want to give you the wrong idea or anything, I’m not secretly crushing on this kid and revealing it near anonymously in the illusion-of-privacy that is my blog. I’m just saying…he’s a good egg; he’s an awesome egg. He’s like egg cubed.

But anyway, I’m just going to chill here with my quiet admiration of the most beautiful person I have ever met.

C’est tout.