Monday, August 29, 2011

An inspirational "About Me" if ever I saw (read) one

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about reblogging...but here goes.
I found this on http://www.summerlandish.com/ and it made me stop and think. About life, about how I think and feel, about everything.
It just made me think.

“Well, I’m Tyler Tidliery (don’t worry, no one ever can say that right the first time) and I run cross-country and track for a University in Georgia, but my heart is in Gainesville (my hometown) with the Florida Gators. I’m completely random. I get distracted very easily. Many would say I’m rich, but if you took it all away I’d still be the same. I can’t sit still for more than 2 minutes.I don’t want to slow down, I love my life/style, but the right girl could easily hold me down. Now is not the time, but I can’t wait to have a kid of my own. I am sarcastic.I run just because I can, but won’t run away from my fears. If I have a shirt on, it’s inside out. I walk around without my shoes on. I don’t understand why being naked is socially unacceptable. The beach is my home. I use Dove body wash, but get dirty easily (not sexual). I swim against the current in lazy rivers. I am easily amused. I don’t have a favorite color. I’m guided by the hand of the Lord. I believe in destiny. I want to make a difference.I’m scared of sex. I’m comfortable with who I am. I wish I could meet everyone.I laugh at everything. I always find something to do, so I’m never bored. I’m old enough to know better, but too young to care. I don’t want to grow up. My sheets do have Spongebob on them, he pretty much RoCkS. I suck at taking any kind of test. I’d rather watch a chick flick than a porno. I’d rather deal with the pain than have someone else do so. I appreciate the little things. I remember everything. I wear a dime around my neck. I’m old fashioned. I rarely get angry. I like having passion in my life. I believe there’s only one true love. I miss my dog, Traci (God Bless her). I think way too much.I wonder if the person in the car next to me loves their life. I like waking up early to a new day.I wouldn’t change a thing about my life, but I understand that it will. I believe I’m changing with every new second. I am normally shy, but don’t want to be. I get in these moods where I’m goofy as hell and won’t shut up. I love learning. I can just listen.It’s never about me, and I’m fine with it. I just want to put people in a good mood. I have a hard time saying no (except with drugs). I don’t understand why people start to smoke. I Love my family and friends. I have nothing against gays. I want to get rid of all discrimination. My best friend is black, he taught me how to dance. You have my trust, but if you break it, you lose it. I want to see it all, unfortunantly there’s not enough time. I believe in life after death. I don’t judge people that I don’t know. I respect and support our troops. I believe in the Butterfly Effect. Well, there’s more to me than I could write, so just ask.”

I feel myself wanting to find this guy and asking him about his life and knowing him. Alas, i cannot but i kind of hope i meet someone like him one day. 

Books, Lit and Culture = *angry face*


All I want to do is sit down on the couch and read a God damn book of my own fucking choosing (Harry Potter to be exact), instead I have to plonk myself at my desk, pouring over extracts from the Tempest and write my essay.

Then I have to study for my culture test. If I wanted to learn about culture I’d go to the fucking country (and I will one day). What is sitting in a classroom going to teach me? Why is it necessary to teach us “about the culture”? I get it that we shouldn’t be ignorant blah blah blah but that doesn’t make history compulsory or politics or legal studies so why should those of us who are trying to become less ignorant by, hey LEARNING a foreign language be subsequently forced to learn about a culture that I don’t rightly believe can be “taught” anyway.

I reckon there’d probably be an astounding number of people who have no idea about the Holocaust. Why isn’t it necessary to teach everyone about that in effort for it to never be repeated ever again, but it’s necessary that I know who Berlusconi is and what he’s up to?

I know that the culture is a part of the language, especially when it comes to the diversity that is the Italian language, but making it compulsory is so not cool.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

The ramblings of someone who doesn't know where they are going, or why....

Stuck in a routine. We wake up on a monday go to work or uni, look forward to the weekend. Get to the weekend, prepare for the week ahead. Focus on that test we need to pass, that assignment that was put off all week. Then monday comes and we realise we have wasted the weekend away. Promise not to do it again. Monday morning is spent wishing for the weekend again and it starts again, we finish that test and the must prepare for the next one. When the holidays finally come we don't know what to do with ourselves. We spend so much time wishing for free time that when it comes we aren't quite sure what to do with ourselves. We spend so much time doing this or that, so when we have no priorities at all we feel guilty or uneasy about doing nothing. Life feels like we area heading towards a finishing line and check points, but what do we do when we get there? Will we feel any different to how we feel now? I have no clue right now, but today's Sunday and i have homework to get done, I'm putting it off to tomorrow, Monday, when i will be wishing i had done it today, while looking forward to the weekend, wishing it was the holidays, wondering if anyone else feels just as pathetic at i do right now moving in circles, enjoying those small moments of happiness while wishing they would last longer and all along feeling guilty that i can live my life so lazily when there are others who aren't as lucky as i am, yet seem much more happy than i probably seem on the train to uni on a monday morning......

Friday, August 19, 2011

Try something new

Sometimes the best things in life are just stumbled on across by accident. For example the the classroom thats always open at uni with an old upright piano tucked up behind the door that i only found by trying a new route to my lecture theatre early one morning.
Well just last week i did my RSA certificate, and even though it wasn't meant to, it finished an hour early. With my lift not due for another hour and no way of contacting them without credit on my phone i went to seek shelter from the cold. I ended up at the indoor Basketball courts, and stumbled across Social Badminton. It looked like a bit of fun, so after doing my research, which basically involved reading a poster on the wall, i organised a group of people to try it out last night. What i thought would be about and hour of hitting a shuttlecock around turned out to be 3 hours of fun and positive feedback, coming to the conclusion that it would be a regular event.
It's for these types of happenings that i love to explore and wander off the beaten track. I have no clue where im going in life half the time, but i think that as long as i do things i enjoy, and find new and interesting things to try, i will end up being content in where i end up, not wondering what would have happened.
So i encourage our small fanbase to try something different today, whether its taking a different route home or just going to a different restaurant/take out for lunch, or even read the local notice boards, because you will be surprised what you will find.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

"You Are Passing Another Fox"


I always liked to think my blog would be informative as well as just rants/stories of my life and now I know they are. This probably isn't everyone's cup of tea but it is something I am passionate and interested about so I decided to share.

When I started up this blog with Han, I never thought I'd be making a post about a truck I drove past on the freeway…but here I am.
I'd prefer to think of it as making a post about an Australian icon though, even if that Australian icon is a transnational logistics company.

It always makes me smile when I see the back of a truck adorned with the slogan "You Are Passing Another Fox". I don't think I can exactly explain why…maybe 'cause I'm obsessed with all things Australian.  I think it's because of what it represents. I can't remember when or how I learnt about LinFox, whether I asked my mum, learnt about it primary school or watched some documentary on TV. Somehow, I just know that LinFox is Australian. It's the embodiment of the Great Australian Dream of making a better life for yourself.

This admiration for LinFox led me to do some Googling and what I discovered is it was created by a man called Lindsay Fox who dropped out of school when he was 16 and built his logistics empire from the ground to what it is today (FYI it's a billion dollar transnational company). Pretty good for an Aussie high school drop out if you ask me. He started off with a second-hand truck in 1956, delivering soft drink in summer and fuel in winter which he then built up into the empire we know today.

LinFox was the logistics provider of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney which was Australia's biggest peace-time logistics operation. 

However building his empire has not been without its hardships for Lindsay Fox and his family. He lost one of his six children in 1991 to suicide, prompting him  to advise both the federal and state governments on youth suicide. He is also on the board of the National Advisory Council on Suicide Prevention.


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Survival of the Selfish

We all like being liked. I'm not really talking about Facebook here, where everyone like everything so often that its nothing special. I am talking about having other people take an interest in you. Everyone loves that feeling when they know someone else finds them attractive. The attraction doesn't have to be in a romantic way, just in a way that you feel as though you are interesting in a unique way. It doesn't matter if we are in a relationship or single, but each and every one of us does one thing or another to make ourselves more appealing.
It's one of those selfish human traits we have. We will lead a man/woman along, even if we are in a great relationship that  we have no intention of ending, just so we still feel adored. We don't really think about the emotions of that other person, and neither do we feel like confronting them because we don't want to ruin a relationship that we enjoy getting attention for. This is one of the many things i was thinking of for the past week. Everything that we humans do to survive is, in one way or another, selfish. Survival of the fittest, it's how many animals have evolved and survived. However being 'strong' and only looking out for ourselves as individuals is not how we can survive. Every way we look we are ruining our chances for survival. We are slowly destroying our environment, abusing it in an unsustainable way, but we don't care for we will be dead before the next mass extinction.
I have always thought about how everything is connected in one way or another, and i guess the way we think as individuals about the most mundane things like looks and personality, can reflect in our population as a whole.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Harry potter and the.....

So it has been a while since I've blogged about anything. It's not as though i haven't had things to blog about, i sure have, but to tell the truth i just haven't felt like writing it all down. I find it is the same with everything; you have moments where you are obsessed with something and other times where you are just not interested. Periods of love and hate differ from circumstance to circumstance. For example i went through a obsession with harry potter when i was younger, back in the days of play acting where you would get together with your friends on playdates and pretend you are at hogwarts making potions and

just a pause in the story, ready steady cook has just come on the tv. For those of you who dont know, there is a new host on the program by the name of Colin Lane, better know as Lano from Lano and woodley. For those of you who dont know who im talking about, you have some research to do. And for those who do, don't get excited because this is almost as bad as them breaking up. You think a comedian hosting a programme will lighten it up? I haven't heard one joke.

back to harry potter
casting spells. And then you grow out of that stage and harry potter isn't cool anymore, and you pretend you don't know all the characters names let alone having the audiobooks on cassette tape. But then the newest book is released and you are back to obsessing with them.
It was strange when i found Zo blogging about harry potter because that was something that i wanted to blog about. After seeing the last movie it was hard to believe that it was over. I couldn't figure out if that sad feeling was because it was the last one or if it was because it wasn't as close to the book as i wanted it to be. I was kind of disappointed that the last fight scene wasn't in the great hall and that Neville didn't kill the snake in front of everyone, or that harry's death with dumbledore was a bit boring. Why didn't Harry repair his wand before destroying the other? and the 17 years later part just didn't work. In a way i know it isn't finished. I know there will be something else. Whether it is a play or a musical or even an anime and manga. just the other day i saw this most amazing manga drawing (below). I suppose that was the story of our childhood, just like starwars was for others, and there will be many more to come. I wish i could just wipe my memory of these books and read them again. But would i like them like i did when i was younger?