So, guess what I've not been doing lately?
It's blogging. I haven't done it for a long time. What a dramatic begining this is.
It's to be expected I guess, I have had Uni staring up again, and so by dfault it becomes important that now, with less time on my hands than ever, I spend double the amount of time I normally do with my head in a book. And by books I mean novels, not textbooks.
I've been re-reading old favourites like Kushiel and Black Jewels, and starting new series' which could prove to be interesting. I have so far found some okay books that looked like they were going to be terrible, which is probably high praise for me since the only books I've ever loved are the aforementioned trilogies. I also am very fond of Isobelle Carmody, a great Australian author and I have a soft spot for the irritating yet quaint Traci Harding, although every new book of hers seems to fall under what my friend and I like to call the 'Harding curse'.
But I digress, my point is, between attending lectures, going to the gym and for some reason believing I could play netball, I haven't had much time to sit and write on a useless website that I can almost guarantee will be read by no one until I make some tremendous spelling and grammar errors at which point everyone will read and laugh. <-- hows that for a bad sentence ;)
So I have a lot that I should write about, and yet, I will write only tiny amounts about relevant topics and far more about random things. Like that funny Lionel Ritchie poster at Uni that says "Hello?" *picture of Lionel's face* "Is it me you're looking for?" and has little bits of paper underneath that you can take. It's things like that that make Uni worthwhile. If your reading this, Lionel Poster Man/Woman, know that I love you and your postery witt.
What I don't love, is my own sense of humour, which leads me to laugh at innappropraite moments. Take for example my tutorial this week, in which we discussed reinforcement and punishment.I kept laughing when people asked what I deemed to be poorly thought out (read: stupid) questions. Highly innappropriate and an awful thing to do, but no one really noticed until I came out with this gem:
Tutor: What's an example of Positive Punishment?
Random Blonde Chick: A smack.
Tutor: good.
Random Curly-Haired Guy: Wouldn't that be reinforcement?
Me: laugh hysterically.
Random Guy that Always Comments Annoyingly: Why would it be reinforcement?
Me: It was a joke.
Random Curly-Haired Guy: No it wasn't...
See I'd thought he was being particularly witty and making a (quite clever) S and M joke. Get it, because you like getting smacked so it reinforces the behaviour. But no, he just didn't understand the concepts. Whatever.
I told my friends about it too and I was like "isn't that what you would have thought?" and they were like "no". huh. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why you shouldn't read Kushiel before going in to a tute. I also thought when the tutor was talking about addiction problems and mentioned that "it's something teenagers do all the time on the weekends" I thought she was talking about sex addiction. And then everyone else was like "binge-drinking." huh. Seriously, I'm not reading that book anymore.
Here's something else crazy, in the past 2 days, guess how many spiders have landed on me?
5. Five spiders have landed on me, the ultimate arachnaphobian's nightmare. Is arachnaphobian a word? I not, what is it? Arachnaphobiac. That's a bit of awesome right there.
But anyway, this spider thing was causing me great distress, so instead of reading the academic papers I was supposed to, I watched St. Trinians 2 and read fan-fiction. It was at that point that I decided to try and write a book again. It'll last for a few days, where I'll write and think it's okay (I never aim for good, I only need tweens to like it after all and their not fussy) then I'll read over it again and notice that it's really really awful. Re-end of writing career.
Anyway, I really really need to do some homework now, so I'll have to bid you farewell, and as well as that, bid farewell to my friend Em who is going to Europe next week (Have fun...bitch.) and to both Jess and Em I say Happy Birthday!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Shoe Game
I was reading my favourite blog-esque thingo (I don't know what it is classified as, not being up with online lingo and that) and it inspired me to write this blog about an important part of my life. The blog 'Hyperbole and a Half' is awesomely hilarious all the time, and one of the most recent posts was about playing games in childhood, Allie explaining that she used to play 'Wolves' with her friends. Wolves, it seems, was just like hide and seek, except one person hid and ws sought by the wolves, who then viciously attacked the person in hiding.
My childhood game was absolutey nothing like this. Although there was one involving similar levels of pain, but I'll get to that a little later. First I want to talk about The Shoe Game. This probably best exemplifies me both as a child and now; when I'm bored, I make things up to do with what I have around me and force everyone to join in.
The Shoe Game came about on a day when everyone was too lazy to play chasy (not abnormal) and there were no places to hide for hide and seek. We decided to make our own superior game, which we played for many years to come.
I decided it would centre around shoes. This is because we all had shoes and they were there and so that's what I thought we'd use. That's how my head works, creatively lazy. So we all took off our shoes and put them on the trampoline, which was the place that we held our meetings.
We decided that one person would start of as 'it'. They had to go and hide the shoes around the yard and could freely go anywhere in the yard except for the trampoline which was a safe base. All other people started at the base, and the object of the game was for them to retrieve shoes without being tagged by the 'it' person. The game is won only when the team retrieves all shoes and has no members tagged out.
Here's the illogical twist:
When a person was tagged, they join the team of the 'it' person until their team mates can afford to 'buy' them back - with shoes. Nice, huh?
The 'it' person was allowed to price the caught person at as many shoes as they believed them to be worth in ability (anywhere from 1-4 shoes) and the team could choose whether or not to pay it.
The problem with this game, aside from the impossibility of either team winning (although I shouldn't say that as once the team actually managed to triumph and also once at a declared end time the team had no shoes making 'it' the winner) was that it doesn't work for kids.
Have you ever tried to convince a kid to change teams (in the non sexual preferecney way)? Once in primary school a bunch of kids were forced to change sports teams from Waller (blue) to Sheean (green), named after Collins class submarines in case you were wondering...
Anyway, all of the Waller kids, after complaining non-stop, threw all their events on sports day in an effort to help Waller win. Kids are one-team people. So you can understand that it was super difficult for kids to switch from being part of the team to being 'it' in the shoe game. Not that it really mattered, since the game was stacked a bit in the it persons favour, but it was a bit of a silly concept to put into a children's game.
Similarly, quickly everyone became worth 4 shoes. Once one kid cheats, all kids cheat. And eventually someone does. Hell, honesty rules never work in any way with kids. My sister used to cheat in every game of Monopoly, so I would cheat too. I didn't really need to, I normally won through strategy, but it was the principle of it.
Anyway, despite its flaws, we loved The Shoe Game and played it happily for many years, and I thought memories of such a game should be preserved. To show how much I haven't changed, recently when bored with my cousin over Christmas, he and I decided we would invent a card game. It started out as a simple game of luck; cards were flipped over one by one and whoever flipped over the five of diamonds was the loser (there was no reason for that by the way, I just picked a random card).
It quickly became a very complicated game of luck. Every diamond became worth a particular point value, and points were accumulated until the end of the game (the 5 of diamonds). Later, random cards had arbitrary 'powers' like King's switch (switch your cards with another player) and Eight's mate (tell a mate to do something non game related for you) etc.
There was no logic to it and we only remebered it by writing the rules down. And yet, it wasn't only fun to create, it actually turned out to be absurdly fun to play (for as long as one can play a game with no apparent ability to use strategy). So there you go, the things that work as a kid still work as an adult, I guess.
Oh right, I said I'd tell you about my equivalent games to wolf pack. Well the first that comes to mind is the game 'closet' which I used to play in primary school instead of going to classes. Basically one person is put into a closet, then those blocks that schools have (the ones covered in cloth that are used for drama and such) were piled up against it (all of them) and everyone else sat on the blocks. The person in the closet simply had to try and get out. For the record, I was ace at this game.
The next game was a pool-based game called 'the coil', centred around a large blow-up coil shaped pool toy. There were two teams - usually boys v girls - and one team had to cling to the tube and the other had to get them off. Some people pulled at the other teams fingers or tickled or pinched. Not me, I was a clever child. I held people's heads under water for short bursts, gradually getting longer. Water torture as a child. classic.
Last but not least is a game involving jelly crystals. By now you can probably guess what I called this game. For thos morons out there, I called it The Jelly Crystal Game. This game features a person who lies down and then opens their mouth. Others then pour jelly crystals until a) they cough and reflexively sit up, or b) their mouth overflows. They then have to eat the crystals in their mouth. Photos are a good idea for this game, and while icing sugar is a viable alternative to jelly crystals, it also turns to glue when wet and is far more difficult to clean.
A window into both my childhood and current life right here. Don't pretend you aren't a weirdo to. Most of all...
don't pretend you don't want to play =)
My childhood game was absolutey nothing like this. Although there was one involving similar levels of pain, but I'll get to that a little later. First I want to talk about The Shoe Game. This probably best exemplifies me both as a child and now; when I'm bored, I make things up to do with what I have around me and force everyone to join in.
The Shoe Game came about on a day when everyone was too lazy to play chasy (not abnormal) and there were no places to hide for hide and seek. We decided to make our own superior game, which we played for many years to come.
I decided it would centre around shoes. This is because we all had shoes and they were there and so that's what I thought we'd use. That's how my head works, creatively lazy. So we all took off our shoes and put them on the trampoline, which was the place that we held our meetings.
We decided that one person would start of as 'it'. They had to go and hide the shoes around the yard and could freely go anywhere in the yard except for the trampoline which was a safe base. All other people started at the base, and the object of the game was for them to retrieve shoes without being tagged by the 'it' person. The game is won only when the team retrieves all shoes and has no members tagged out.
Here's the illogical twist:
When a person was tagged, they join the team of the 'it' person until their team mates can afford to 'buy' them back - with shoes. Nice, huh?
The 'it' person was allowed to price the caught person at as many shoes as they believed them to be worth in ability (anywhere from 1-4 shoes) and the team could choose whether or not to pay it.
The problem with this game, aside from the impossibility of either team winning (although I shouldn't say that as once the team actually managed to triumph and also once at a declared end time the team had no shoes making 'it' the winner) was that it doesn't work for kids.
Have you ever tried to convince a kid to change teams (in the non sexual preferecney way)? Once in primary school a bunch of kids were forced to change sports teams from Waller (blue) to Sheean (green), named after Collins class submarines in case you were wondering...
Anyway, all of the Waller kids, after complaining non-stop, threw all their events on sports day in an effort to help Waller win. Kids are one-team people. So you can understand that it was super difficult for kids to switch from being part of the team to being 'it' in the shoe game. Not that it really mattered, since the game was stacked a bit in the it persons favour, but it was a bit of a silly concept to put into a children's game.
Similarly, quickly everyone became worth 4 shoes. Once one kid cheats, all kids cheat. And eventually someone does. Hell, honesty rules never work in any way with kids. My sister used to cheat in every game of Monopoly, so I would cheat too. I didn't really need to, I normally won through strategy, but it was the principle of it.
Anyway, despite its flaws, we loved The Shoe Game and played it happily for many years, and I thought memories of such a game should be preserved. To show how much I haven't changed, recently when bored with my cousin over Christmas, he and I decided we would invent a card game. It started out as a simple game of luck; cards were flipped over one by one and whoever flipped over the five of diamonds was the loser (there was no reason for that by the way, I just picked a random card).
It quickly became a very complicated game of luck. Every diamond became worth a particular point value, and points were accumulated until the end of the game (the 5 of diamonds). Later, random cards had arbitrary 'powers' like King's switch (switch your cards with another player) and Eight's mate (tell a mate to do something non game related for you) etc.
There was no logic to it and we only remebered it by writing the rules down. And yet, it wasn't only fun to create, it actually turned out to be absurdly fun to play (for as long as one can play a game with no apparent ability to use strategy). So there you go, the things that work as a kid still work as an adult, I guess.
Oh right, I said I'd tell you about my equivalent games to wolf pack. Well the first that comes to mind is the game 'closet' which I used to play in primary school instead of going to classes. Basically one person is put into a closet, then those blocks that schools have (the ones covered in cloth that are used for drama and such) were piled up against it (all of them) and everyone else sat on the blocks. The person in the closet simply had to try and get out. For the record, I was ace at this game.
The next game was a pool-based game called 'the coil', centred around a large blow-up coil shaped pool toy. There were two teams - usually boys v girls - and one team had to cling to the tube and the other had to get them off. Some people pulled at the other teams fingers or tickled or pinched. Not me, I was a clever child. I held people's heads under water for short bursts, gradually getting longer. Water torture as a child. classic.
Last but not least is a game involving jelly crystals. By now you can probably guess what I called this game. For thos morons out there, I called it The Jelly Crystal Game. This game features a person who lies down and then opens their mouth. Others then pour jelly crystals until a) they cough and reflexively sit up, or b) their mouth overflows. They then have to eat the crystals in their mouth. Photos are a good idea for this game, and while icing sugar is a viable alternative to jelly crystals, it also turns to glue when wet and is far more difficult to clean.
A window into both my childhood and current life right here. Don't pretend you aren't a weirdo to. Most of all...
don't pretend you don't want to play =)
Monday, February 7, 2011
New Blog
Why on Earth would someone create a new blog, when they don't even write on the old one, you ask? Well, I felt like it. See this blog is for my occasional incoherent ramblings, wheras this new blog will be about my one shining ray of light; Asian Drama.
Why do I need a blog dedicated to asian drama you ask? Well, this is why. After recently becoming addicted to Korean drama, which ties in nicely with my 3 year obsession with Japanese drama,I was appalled to note that whilst there is a very nice website called dramabeans which (helpfully) reviews Korean drama, there doesn't seem to be any of the sort for Japanese drama. Not that I have the capacity to write something as extreme as dramabeans...
I simply thought, there is a void that I can fill for myself and myself alone, because, as previously mentioned, no one bar myself reads this blog. Still, there is a sense of satisfaction at creating something potentially useful to someone, as opposed to simply random drivel my head comes up with or, as I generally prefer, constant, vicious complaining.
Unfortunately, very few people (my friends included) have any interest whatsoever in foreign television, let alone the obscure J and K dramas I love to watch, so a new blog where I can complain and celebrate all I like is just the ticket. I'm sure by now my endlessly patient friends are tired of hearing the next crazy plotline that entrances me like nothing else on Earth can, so this is my solution.
Aside from this new revelation, not a whole lot has happened in my life, except for my country of residence turning into a natural disaster zone, featuring flooding, cyclones along the east coast and bushfires along the west. Never have I been so glad to live in the boring South. I guess boring really does have its upsides, I feel like I'm having an arguement with someone over their boyfriend:
"I don't know why you stay in Adelaide! It's so boring."
"It's not boring it's safe!"
But anyway, it's a massive tradgedy, with many people losing loved ones and homes, particularly during the initial flooding of Queensland. It was a scary time for myself too, as one of my close friends had decided to travel to her previous home in Towoomba just before the floods struck, leaving her in a potentially perilous situation. Luckily she was fine and returned to us safely.
The government is taking steps to rebuild after this extreme devestation by proposing a natural distater levy, a tax to help rebuild Australia. However, there are many people who disagree with such a tax, my good friend Tony Abbott, opposition leader, leading the charge (I'm so hilarious). Tony thinks that the government doesn't need to raise money to help people, he thinks they should simply scrap unnecessary budget items, such as the National Broadband Scheme. He has even offered to 'help' with said budget cuts. How generous.
And let's be honest, who wants current technology anyway, right Tony? certainly not me. Considering Coalition policy leading up to the election was to scrap the plan, it's not surprising they are continuing on this path. They must have realised their only voters are old people who don't know what the internet is.
Anyway, through all this disaster, I've been donating money in between numerous holidays and fun-filled get togethers with friends. I travelled to the Grampians, Port Vincent, Port Elliot and Renmark, all in the last few months. I've also been to the movies, played laser skirmish, been to the gym, had a movie night, hit the town, gone kneeboarding, attempted wakeboarding and, as previously mentioned, filled my empty days and night with asian drama.
It's times like these you can't help but feel pretty damn lucky.
Why do I need a blog dedicated to asian drama you ask? Well, this is why. After recently becoming addicted to Korean drama, which ties in nicely with my 3 year obsession with Japanese drama,I was appalled to note that whilst there is a very nice website called dramabeans which (helpfully) reviews Korean drama, there doesn't seem to be any of the sort for Japanese drama. Not that I have the capacity to write something as extreme as dramabeans...
I simply thought, there is a void that I can fill for myself and myself alone, because, as previously mentioned, no one bar myself reads this blog. Still, there is a sense of satisfaction at creating something potentially useful to someone, as opposed to simply random drivel my head comes up with or, as I generally prefer, constant, vicious complaining.
Unfortunately, very few people (my friends included) have any interest whatsoever in foreign television, let alone the obscure J and K dramas I love to watch, so a new blog where I can complain and celebrate all I like is just the ticket. I'm sure by now my endlessly patient friends are tired of hearing the next crazy plotline that entrances me like nothing else on Earth can, so this is my solution.
Aside from this new revelation, not a whole lot has happened in my life, except for my country of residence turning into a natural disaster zone, featuring flooding, cyclones along the east coast and bushfires along the west. Never have I been so glad to live in the boring South. I guess boring really does have its upsides, I feel like I'm having an arguement with someone over their boyfriend:
"I don't know why you stay in Adelaide! It's so boring."
"It's not boring it's safe!"
But anyway, it's a massive tradgedy, with many people losing loved ones and homes, particularly during the initial flooding of Queensland. It was a scary time for myself too, as one of my close friends had decided to travel to her previous home in Towoomba just before the floods struck, leaving her in a potentially perilous situation. Luckily she was fine and returned to us safely.
The government is taking steps to rebuild after this extreme devestation by proposing a natural distater levy, a tax to help rebuild Australia. However, there are many people who disagree with such a tax, my good friend Tony Abbott, opposition leader, leading the charge (I'm so hilarious). Tony thinks that the government doesn't need to raise money to help people, he thinks they should simply scrap unnecessary budget items, such as the National Broadband Scheme. He has even offered to 'help' with said budget cuts. How generous.
And let's be honest, who wants current technology anyway, right Tony? certainly not me. Considering Coalition policy leading up to the election was to scrap the plan, it's not surprising they are continuing on this path. They must have realised their only voters are old people who don't know what the internet is.
Anyway, through all this disaster, I've been donating money in between numerous holidays and fun-filled get togethers with friends. I travelled to the Grampians, Port Vincent, Port Elliot and Renmark, all in the last few months. I've also been to the movies, played laser skirmish, been to the gym, had a movie night, hit the town, gone kneeboarding, attempted wakeboarding and, as previously mentioned, filled my empty days and night with asian drama.
It's times like these you can't help but feel pretty damn lucky.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Children's Television and the Up and Coming Election.
Tonight, I should have been doing homework, in which I am quite behind, or at the very least trying to finalise the ordering of my senate votes. It's the first time I will ever vote in a federal election and I want to maximise my vote's implications. Parties I am considering giving my vote to include the Greens, the Australian Sex Party, the Secular Party, the Socialist Alliance, and Labor. The order of these (or in the case of the Secular party and the Socialist Alliance, whether they are preferenced near the top at all) is something that is still a bit of a puzzle for me, but I have to say, for maximum impact, my vote will probably go to the Greens, despite my misgivings about some of their policy...I have much stronger misgivings about Tony Abbott's insanity and Julia Gilard's right-wing pandering.
Unfortunately, I did none of these, instead giving into my love of all things children and inviting a friend over to watch 'Power Rangers: Dino Thunder' with me. While it was enjoyable as usual, we decided to go on a quest to try and locate a copy of the original power rangers. This proved to be extremely difficult as the original series was recorded on VHS not DVD, and alas, we failed in our search...for now. But we have a plan to continue looking, and we decided to tide ourselves over with the second disk of 'Dino Thunder' where Tommy (the original green ranger) as an adult becomes the new black ranger. What a twist!
After my friend left, I promised to save the rest of the watching until later, and have now been watching 'Another Cinderella Story' which is a crap musical version of the original version with the new Disney girl. She is in almost all of their movies, including 'Princess Protection Program', the last Disney live action movie I saw before this one. You may be asking yourselves, "why does she watch these awful films?" The answer: I don't know. I just can't get enough of that dodgy Disney magic. sigh.
Anyways, I've got time to waste and Disney to watch...
Unfortunately, I did none of these, instead giving into my love of all things children and inviting a friend over to watch 'Power Rangers: Dino Thunder' with me. While it was enjoyable as usual, we decided to go on a quest to try and locate a copy of the original power rangers. This proved to be extremely difficult as the original series was recorded on VHS not DVD, and alas, we failed in our search...for now. But we have a plan to continue looking, and we decided to tide ourselves over with the second disk of 'Dino Thunder' where Tommy (the original green ranger) as an adult becomes the new black ranger. What a twist!
After my friend left, I promised to save the rest of the watching until later, and have now been watching 'Another Cinderella Story' which is a crap musical version of the original version with the new Disney girl. She is in almost all of their movies, including 'Princess Protection Program', the last Disney live action movie I saw before this one. You may be asking yourselves, "why does she watch these awful films?" The answer: I don't know. I just can't get enough of that dodgy Disney magic. sigh.
Anyways, I've got time to waste and Disney to watch...
Monday, August 2, 2010
Umpires: They Are Never Right
I am a football lover. I love the game, and used to play the game, until I broke my nose. Now I watch the game. By football of course I am speaking of Australian rules (as if there's any other kind). I love fotty more than any of my other friends, and consequently know a lot about the game. Various other friends of mine have passing interest in fottball or in soccer, but mainly the name of the game is Video for my friends, thus I have no one to vent my football anger to.
One of the things I hate at the football is fighting. Football is an agressive game, it is one of the few games that actually requires strategy and a range of different skills while still allowing tackling and bumping. Sometimes this combination makes the crowd think that they are equally as tough as the fottballers, which leads to swearing, snide remarks and sometimes fighting. The most common supporters to start fights are Collingwood supporters, but I guess when you have the biggest supporter base you also have the biggest annoying supporter base.
The other week though, the supporter was an Adelaide Crow, at the showdown, who was understandably upset that his team, the clear favourites, where not performing to standard. In his anger, he grabbed the flag of an elderly port power supporter and snapped it over his leg. Completely out of the blue. The man was furious and tried to run at the man, but my father and another man held him back and called security, who promptly threw the crows supporter out of the grounds.
It irritates me that these people give a bad reputation to all footy supporters. I am very level headed, and the only time I lose my cool is when the umpires make a dangerous mistake. This happened in the most recent game I attended, Port Power V Hawthorn. As a supporter who sits on the less popular attacking wing (for some reason one wing at Aami is heavily favoured over the other) I had a clear view of a violent fight which broke out between what seemed to me to be Cyril Rioli of Hawthorn and Paul Stewart of Port Adelaide.
Now when I say, 'a fight broke out' it implies reciprocity, but this fight was more awful as it was only Cyril Rioli holding Stewart on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the stomach as he tried to get away. None of the umpires noticed this, even after the crowd near us began screaming and pointing to draw attention. Even then, in the time that it took between Cyril Rioli's first hit and the umpires' subsequent noticing of the fight, Hawthorn had take the ball from centre half forward and moved gradually forward to score a goal (around 1.5 mins). The umpires only noticed after several players had joined the fight, with Port players attempting to pull off Rioli and Hawthawn players attempting to pull of Port Players. None of the initial fight was seen by umpires or caught on camera.
Later in the fight, it is my understanding that Cyril Rioli hit Nick Salter, which resulted in him being offered a one match ban. One match. Because the umpires didn't notice the start of the fight and the cameras didn't catch it. What a disgrace. About 5 years ago, Port Power player Byron Pickett scored a SIX MATCH BAN for a dangerous bump, a bump that was perfectly within the rules, but which was deemed 'dangerous.' Cyril Rioli, for beating another player, got one match, because the umpires weren't paying attention, and the AFL didn't wish to draw attention to the incident.
I have a great deal of respect for the umpires, but out of six, ONE should have noticed the fight. After noticing the fight, the goal should have been discounted. There were many other poor umpiring decisions, including the failure to pay a mark OR call a head high bump, when a Port player marked the ball and then was forced to drop it after a Hawthorn player collided dangerously with his head.
It's things like this, more than anything, that make me feel disgust at the AFL system. If they won't protect the players, football will quickly become a violent, violent game, and what we love about it, will become what we hate about it.
One of the things I hate at the football is fighting. Football is an agressive game, it is one of the few games that actually requires strategy and a range of different skills while still allowing tackling and bumping. Sometimes this combination makes the crowd think that they are equally as tough as the fottballers, which leads to swearing, snide remarks and sometimes fighting. The most common supporters to start fights are Collingwood supporters, but I guess when you have the biggest supporter base you also have the biggest annoying supporter base.
The other week though, the supporter was an Adelaide Crow, at the showdown, who was understandably upset that his team, the clear favourites, where not performing to standard. In his anger, he grabbed the flag of an elderly port power supporter and snapped it over his leg. Completely out of the blue. The man was furious and tried to run at the man, but my father and another man held him back and called security, who promptly threw the crows supporter out of the grounds.
It irritates me that these people give a bad reputation to all footy supporters. I am very level headed, and the only time I lose my cool is when the umpires make a dangerous mistake. This happened in the most recent game I attended, Port Power V Hawthorn. As a supporter who sits on the less popular attacking wing (for some reason one wing at Aami is heavily favoured over the other) I had a clear view of a violent fight which broke out between what seemed to me to be Cyril Rioli of Hawthorn and Paul Stewart of Port Adelaide.
Now when I say, 'a fight broke out' it implies reciprocity, but this fight was more awful as it was only Cyril Rioli holding Stewart on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the stomach as he tried to get away. None of the umpires noticed this, even after the crowd near us began screaming and pointing to draw attention. Even then, in the time that it took between Cyril Rioli's first hit and the umpires' subsequent noticing of the fight, Hawthorn had take the ball from centre half forward and moved gradually forward to score a goal (around 1.5 mins). The umpires only noticed after several players had joined the fight, with Port players attempting to pull off Rioli and Hawthawn players attempting to pull of Port Players. None of the initial fight was seen by umpires or caught on camera.
Later in the fight, it is my understanding that Cyril Rioli hit Nick Salter, which resulted in him being offered a one match ban. One match. Because the umpires didn't notice the start of the fight and the cameras didn't catch it. What a disgrace. About 5 years ago, Port Power player Byron Pickett scored a SIX MATCH BAN for a dangerous bump, a bump that was perfectly within the rules, but which was deemed 'dangerous.' Cyril Rioli, for beating another player, got one match, because the umpires weren't paying attention, and the AFL didn't wish to draw attention to the incident.
I have a great deal of respect for the umpires, but out of six, ONE should have noticed the fight. After noticing the fight, the goal should have been discounted. There were many other poor umpiring decisions, including the failure to pay a mark OR call a head high bump, when a Port player marked the ball and then was forced to drop it after a Hawthorn player collided dangerously with his head.
It's things like this, more than anything, that make me feel disgust at the AFL system. If they won't protect the players, football will quickly become a violent, violent game, and what we love about it, will become what we hate about it.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
It's Not Rational...It's Mystical
There are times when I am especially glad that I am an atheist and as such do not hold any religious bias, aside from an obvious bias against all religions. Studying a science must be next to impossible for those of a religious background, with knowledge and customs from childhood conflicting so strongly with later knowledge and research at academic institutions - and by this I refer to universities and non-religious high schools. Once, a friend of mine was telling an acquaintance of mine about a feild trip they had gone on for Geology, involving looking at fossils. She had been explaining how interesting and informative fossils were (each to their own, right?) when the acquaintence snorted and said "Fossils were only put in the Earth by the Devil to trick us."
Wow.
You always kind of think "surely not?" and yet time and again, evidence is dismissed. I feel very lucky that I had no such influences and pressures on my childhood, although I do know of a contingent of people that became involved in religion in their teens, which seems even more bizarre as by this age people are obviously old enough to have recieved alternate scientific explanations. I can always understand why older people 'find God' as studies have shown that people become more religious-like when they are forced to contemplate death, but teens? That never made sense to me.
Here's something else that doesn't make a heap of sense. Last week on Wednesday I attended a Psychology lecture regarding intercultural psychology, and let us just say that I don't have enough pages to write the problems with this lecture. Many people walked out due to the culturally insesitive nature of the lecture (ironically enough), others were horrified at the clear lack of scientific theory.
Thelecture was based on Jewish psychology, delivered by an Israeli professor, which initially promised to be quite interesting despite the fact that the lecturer's voice quite cutely reminded me of Eurovision song contest. Alas, it was not to be. She began by listing off four pscyhologists, Freud, Addler, and two others whom I don't really remember because Freud was definately the focus, due to his relatively undeserved fame. These psychologists were mentioned because they were all jewish (personally if Frued were in any way related to my religion I would be glossing over it, not highlighting it, but there you go).
After expaining this, she commented on the dominance of Freud's ideas in western society (what?!) and how very recently an Israeli psychologist had come up with an alternative (alternative to what? Freud stopped being taken seriously about 50 years ago!). This psychologist, Something-berg, suggested that in Israel, the alternative theory, 'Tsum Tsim' or 'Contraction' was based on collaboration, rather than the competition that capatilist western societies were based on. She continued to outline that instead of the competitiona and fighting advocated by western society, Israel had a community focus.
Tsum Tsim is based on the Holy Bible, which of course, she informed us, was the source of all absolute truths (or something bizarre like that) and in Israel, the more you read the bible, the more you will enjoy life. Tsum Tsim is revolutionary, because the only way for everyone to reach heaven is for everyone to pray for each other, because only by praying for each other will the Israeli people be rewarded, praying for yourself does not work (or something along those lines).
After a whole heap of Westerner bashing and religious babble, she began to talk about differenced in cultural perception, which are accounted for in Tsum Tsim, which says that many things in life are not rational...they're mystical, and therefore cannot be dealt with by traditional psychological methods due to their spiritual nature. She went on to give an example.
"If I told you that a man heard the angel Gabrielle's voice every night before he went to sleep, what would you say?"
I'd say he had some symptoms of schizophrenia. She followed up with this:
"Now what if I told you that, according to Judaism, we believe that when you go to sleep, angel Gabrielle is on one shoulder, and angel Michael is on the other. Would you say he is crazy?"
Possibly. No, probably.
"No, he is simply very religious. It is not the way westerners understand."
Here's a note: Western countries have religion, and if they here god talking to them, they still are considered potentially schizophrenic. There is no 'Get out of psych ward free' card for religious people. Here in the western world, we know that people who show signs of schizophrenia can be dangerous to others as well as to themselves.
This atrocious lecture managed to have everyone in the lecture theatre slightly amazed, largely horrified and in the end, trying to muffle their laughter. In one lecture, Psychology managed to strip from itself the little standing it had with other sciences, undoing years of entirely empirical research to try and be taken seriously as a scientific discipline.
Well done University, that was the most hilarious lecture in my life, and it makes me damn glad that I'm not religious, so that there is nothing blinding me from the truth, so that I can always make an educated decision based on fact, not feeling when it comes to other people's health.
But hey, maybe I'm just not mystical enough to suceed in life...
I've got to get myself a unicorn.
Wow.
You always kind of think "surely not?" and yet time and again, evidence is dismissed. I feel very lucky that I had no such influences and pressures on my childhood, although I do know of a contingent of people that became involved in religion in their teens, which seems even more bizarre as by this age people are obviously old enough to have recieved alternate scientific explanations. I can always understand why older people 'find God' as studies have shown that people become more religious-like when they are forced to contemplate death, but teens? That never made sense to me.
Here's something else that doesn't make a heap of sense. Last week on Wednesday I attended a Psychology lecture regarding intercultural psychology, and let us just say that I don't have enough pages to write the problems with this lecture. Many people walked out due to the culturally insesitive nature of the lecture (ironically enough), others were horrified at the clear lack of scientific theory.
Thelecture was based on Jewish psychology, delivered by an Israeli professor, which initially promised to be quite interesting despite the fact that the lecturer's voice quite cutely reminded me of Eurovision song contest. Alas, it was not to be. She began by listing off four pscyhologists, Freud, Addler, and two others whom I don't really remember because Freud was definately the focus, due to his relatively undeserved fame. These psychologists were mentioned because they were all jewish (personally if Frued were in any way related to my religion I would be glossing over it, not highlighting it, but there you go).
After expaining this, she commented on the dominance of Freud's ideas in western society (what?!) and how very recently an Israeli psychologist had come up with an alternative (alternative to what? Freud stopped being taken seriously about 50 years ago!). This psychologist, Something-berg, suggested that in Israel, the alternative theory, 'Tsum Tsim' or 'Contraction' was based on collaboration, rather than the competition that capatilist western societies were based on. She continued to outline that instead of the competitiona and fighting advocated by western society, Israel had a community focus.
Tsum Tsim is based on the Holy Bible, which of course, she informed us, was the source of all absolute truths (or something bizarre like that) and in Israel, the more you read the bible, the more you will enjoy life. Tsum Tsim is revolutionary, because the only way for everyone to reach heaven is for everyone to pray for each other, because only by praying for each other will the Israeli people be rewarded, praying for yourself does not work (or something along those lines).
After a whole heap of Westerner bashing and religious babble, she began to talk about differenced in cultural perception, which are accounted for in Tsum Tsim, which says that many things in life are not rational...they're mystical, and therefore cannot be dealt with by traditional psychological methods due to their spiritual nature. She went on to give an example.
"If I told you that a man heard the angel Gabrielle's voice every night before he went to sleep, what would you say?"
I'd say he had some symptoms of schizophrenia. She followed up with this:
"Now what if I told you that, according to Judaism, we believe that when you go to sleep, angel Gabrielle is on one shoulder, and angel Michael is on the other. Would you say he is crazy?"
Possibly. No, probably.
"No, he is simply very religious. It is not the way westerners understand."
Here's a note: Western countries have religion, and if they here god talking to them, they still are considered potentially schizophrenic. There is no 'Get out of psych ward free' card for religious people. Here in the western world, we know that people who show signs of schizophrenia can be dangerous to others as well as to themselves.
This atrocious lecture managed to have everyone in the lecture theatre slightly amazed, largely horrified and in the end, trying to muffle their laughter. In one lecture, Psychology managed to strip from itself the little standing it had with other sciences, undoing years of entirely empirical research to try and be taken seriously as a scientific discipline.
Well done University, that was the most hilarious lecture in my life, and it makes me damn glad that I'm not religious, so that there is nothing blinding me from the truth, so that I can always make an educated decision based on fact, not feeling when it comes to other people's health.
But hey, maybe I'm just not mystical enough to suceed in life...
I've got to get myself a unicorn.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sky High
I like the idea of blogging. Not because it is a good idea, no, it's actually a bit stupid. But guess what's more stupid? Writing a diary, or if you want to retain a semblance of pride, a journal. Because when you write a journal, you are writing solely for yourself, no one else is supposed to read it...so what's the point? So you can go back and read your own life story? Niiiccceee.
The fact is, blogs are written so that other people can read them. I don't really expect anyone to read this, nor do I really want anyone too. It is effectively a journal that no one will ever find, that is under a semi-fake name and that contains very little information about me anyway. So I can maintain the facade of not being an egotistical prick, but still write about my life, and as an added bonus, I can pretend to myself that someone would find it interesting.
Yay for self delusion!
I can't deny that I enjoy the idea of having a fake name equally as much as I enjoy writing. My particular fake name "AngeAttack" is not particularly inspiring. It is based on the character of Zach, or "ZachAttack" from the film Sky High. Say what you want about that film, your opinion doesn't matter, and the film is awesome. You come out of it knowing that it's crap, but still loving it and wanting to watch it over and over. I watched it just the other night and enjoyed it greatly.
It's not uncommon for me to enjoy what is in essence, a big waste of cinematic space. I laughed harder in GI Joe than I have laughed at any comedy movie for years, - with the exception of In the Loop, which I watched on the same night. I love you Jamie and Malcolm!!! - I actually fell out of my chair. I also love shitty dance movies, like "You Got Served" and "Step Up 2", not to mention my love of Disney films.
In fact, this whole blog is really a big waste of time. I'm talking about a heap of nothing. Here, now I will talk for a time on yoyos just for amusements sake and because I can.
I remeber attempting yoyos as a child. I was proficient at the basic yoyo movement, but definately never mastered any of the complex moves, such as "Walk th Dog." My yoyo was never special, with shiny bits or flashing lights, and I valued it's simplicity. I always had the secret thought that if my yoyo was flashy, people might believe that I posessed some talent in using said yoyo, which would have resulted in awkward demonstrations of ineptitude.
My cousin who was older than me by a good many years and who was actually born when yoyo's were popular, used to brag about his yoyo skills. He always showed off his yoyo skills and commented on his knowledge of yoyo tricks. It was Andrew who introduced me to "Round the World," the craziest yoyo weapon ever invented.
Andrew prepared to demonstrate the move, and I waited anxiously to improve my yoyo knowledge. A serious, bordering on grim look crossed Andrew's face. Lightening quick, he allowed the yoyo to drop...but rather than flick a wrist and spin the yoyo back up, he proceded to swing the yoyo around his head and run around the back yard. Needless to say, this was not what I had expected, but I quickly grasped the finer points of this wonderous technique.
1. Trick friends - I used the same trick on my friends, and they all loved my "amazing" yoyo skills, "Round the World" always got me a few laughs.
2. Use as Weapon - a swinging yoyo hurts. Trust me.
Ah, the joys of yoyos.
The fact is, blogs are written so that other people can read them. I don't really expect anyone to read this, nor do I really want anyone too. It is effectively a journal that no one will ever find, that is under a semi-fake name and that contains very little information about me anyway. So I can maintain the facade of not being an egotistical prick, but still write about my life, and as an added bonus, I can pretend to myself that someone would find it interesting.
Yay for self delusion!
I can't deny that I enjoy the idea of having a fake name equally as much as I enjoy writing. My particular fake name "AngeAttack" is not particularly inspiring. It is based on the character of Zach, or "ZachAttack" from the film Sky High. Say what you want about that film, your opinion doesn't matter, and the film is awesome. You come out of it knowing that it's crap, but still loving it and wanting to watch it over and over. I watched it just the other night and enjoyed it greatly.
It's not uncommon for me to enjoy what is in essence, a big waste of cinematic space. I laughed harder in GI Joe than I have laughed at any comedy movie for years, - with the exception of In the Loop, which I watched on the same night. I love you Jamie and Malcolm!!! - I actually fell out of my chair. I also love shitty dance movies, like "You Got Served" and "Step Up 2", not to mention my love of Disney films.
In fact, this whole blog is really a big waste of time. I'm talking about a heap of nothing. Here, now I will talk for a time on yoyos just for amusements sake and because I can.
I remeber attempting yoyos as a child. I was proficient at the basic yoyo movement, but definately never mastered any of the complex moves, such as "Walk th Dog." My yoyo was never special, with shiny bits or flashing lights, and I valued it's simplicity. I always had the secret thought that if my yoyo was flashy, people might believe that I posessed some talent in using said yoyo, which would have resulted in awkward demonstrations of ineptitude.
My cousin who was older than me by a good many years and who was actually born when yoyo's were popular, used to brag about his yoyo skills. He always showed off his yoyo skills and commented on his knowledge of yoyo tricks. It was Andrew who introduced me to "Round the World," the craziest yoyo weapon ever invented.
Andrew prepared to demonstrate the move, and I waited anxiously to improve my yoyo knowledge. A serious, bordering on grim look crossed Andrew's face. Lightening quick, he allowed the yoyo to drop...but rather than flick a wrist and spin the yoyo back up, he proceded to swing the yoyo around his head and run around the back yard. Needless to say, this was not what I had expected, but I quickly grasped the finer points of this wonderous technique.
1. Trick friends - I used the same trick on my friends, and they all loved my "amazing" yoyo skills, "Round the World" always got me a few laughs.
2. Use as Weapon - a swinging yoyo hurts. Trust me.
Ah, the joys of yoyos.
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