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.