I have found that i have not blogged anything for a while. You think that i would have, after having an amazing trip to bali, an entertaining and slightly controversial christmas, a fun new years, camping and a couple of awkwardly hilarious gigs. And i am only choosing to write now when i am stuck at home bored, unable to find a job, waiting for uni to return.
Its during this time that i think about the mistakes i have made throughout the years.
There are those mistakes that you regret almost straight away, and there are those where the consequences happen much later and are harder to undo, and therefor harder to admit to making.
The one i have been thinking of lately was not getting a job while in highschool. At the time i was so preoccupied with my music and art that i hardly thought of it. A few of my friends had jobs, but many didn't. Its not like i never did anything. I played in a band and still do, but there isn't really any money in that, and i did babysitting for a year. I have experiences and skills, but they arent what people are looking for anymore. Why hire someone who has had no formal experience when they can pay someone who is underage for less? I am hindered by my second problem....i have no car, and therefor must use public transport. Which highlights the fact that i should have started learning to drive earlier.
I could blame it all on my mother and say its her fault for convincing me to focus on my studies, and made me nervous about learning to drive, and for her unwillingness to drive me anywhere now.
But it is my problem and my fault. I was lazy then so now i have to work harder to fix it now.
It is a lesson learnt. I dont need a job now, but i may need money in the future. I have started trying to get experience for the future. I want a job in science, so this year i am volunteering to teach science in schools. The more experience i gain, the more contacts i form, the easier it will be for me when i finish my degree.
 Some lessons i know i will never learn, such as starting my assignments before the night before its due. But this one i never forget.

I don't wear makeup.

It’s not because I think I’m so beautiful I don’t need it, because I doubt any woman does.

I am well aware that makeup does make me look prettier, it makes my blue eyes *pop*, it makes my skin look smoother, it makes my lips look fuller.

I don’t wear makeup partly because I’m lazy and I don’t think it’s worth the extra 15-20 minutes in the morning but mainly because I don’t believe I should have to alter my appearance to impress you.

I don’t believe that in order for a guy to ask me out or hit on me I need to have thick black eyelashes, shimmering eyelids, accented eyes, a flawless complexion and sparkling lips.

If you’re going to love me, I want you to love me for who I am not for who I make myself up as.

That’s not to say I never wear makeup because I do, on special occasions, my Deb, year 12 Formal, Valedictory, the occasional birthday party or nights out, a christening or confirmation.

I just think that a much better picture of who I am is trackies, a singlet, bright coloured socks and wet hair watching T.V. at home on a Saturday night than dressed to the nines, all made up and out at 1am on a Friday night.

Eventually I’ll find someone who appreciates that and he is the one I’ll dress up for, put in the effort for. 

One day.

Wildy ♥

An amazing and inspirational man passed away yesterday.

A teacher, a father, a husband, a son, a friend.

He taught me, and countless others, so much more than was useful inside a classroom.
I havent seen him in 2 years but I remember him as always being positive, funny, intelligent, caring and kind, someone who most definitely did not deserve to have their life cut short by a disease that claims so many lives.

I am amazed, though I really shouldnt be, by how many people he so obviously touched. My Facebook feed was flooded with at least 30 people conveying their thoughts of his family, RIPs and memories  and that's just my friends, let alone all the other people I don't know that loved him just as much as everyone else.

He was a beautiful man and will be remembered as such by all who knew him.

Rest In Peace, Adam Wild, you're with all the other Angels now.

♥♥♥

Tu me manques :(

Dear French,

I. Miss. You.

Zoe

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!!