Archive for August, 2008
August 31 2008: It’s Just A Little Bit Of History Repeating
Filed under Life with 18 Comments
Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen acquaintances of mine who are entirely clueless when it comes to history (ancient, modern, and everything in between). Totally fucking clueless. This is the history of their world, and they simply dismiss it as being irrelevant? There’s nothing more relevant than history because it’s what’s happened in the past, that shapes the society we are now.
I really can’t understand this kind of ignorance. Not being able to name Charles II’s main mistress and the number of children they had together, or the date that Vasco de Gama sailed to Asia…yeah, that I can understand. It’s not crucial information, it’s simply an interesting tidbit. However, not knowing the general details of the War of the Roses (two royal families fighting for the throne!) or the American Civil War (Confederates and Unionists fighting each other over emancipation of the black slaves!), or general facts about any large historical event is simply ignorant.
The butterfly effect of world events means that if there’s a civil war in one corner of the world, you’ll be feeling the repercussions of this a hundred years down the track in the opposite corner. Don’t understand why petrol prices have risen? Go back in history to when Anglo-Saxons aggravated racial and religion tensions in the Middle East by relocating an entire culture, tensions that have carried through to the present and triggered the incompetent “War on Terrorism” carried out by the Bush administration. So want to blame someone for high petrol prices? Blame your ancestors for playing God in the Middle East.
Didn’t learn history in school? Not an excuse. In the modern information age, everything is at your fingertips. Type “world history” into Google and you get a billion and one results. You don’t even have to delve into the thick and fact-filled historical tomes that I favour, as the proliferation of novels and novellas that dramatise historical events (think any novel by Phillipa Gregory) means you can read about history in easily-digestible fictionalised terms. In fact, you know what? Start reading Terry Deary’s “Horrible Histories” book series aimed at elementary-age children. There’s well over thirty different books in this series now, all dealing with a different event/country/era of world history. They’re not large on the details, but they’re great for providing facts in amusingly-phrased bite-sized morsels. It’s not too mind-taxing (it is aimed at ten-year-olds), but it will give you a good overall picture of history.
Whatever you read or watch (movies with a historical basis are notoriously bad with details, but they’re a good place to start), just start educating yourself. No one wants to be an ignoramous.
August 30 2008: I’m Actually Not 1337
Filed under Online with 12 Comments
Believe it or not, I’m actually aware of the fact that this blog might actually need a severe makeover, of the “hey, haven’t you had this lameass blue layout since March?” variety. There are numerous reasons why I haven’t even attempted to tweak the layout, or create a new layout, but they can all be summed up in a single word: apathy. I’m apathetic. I got out of the web design (with ‘design’ being a debatable concept in the case of my layouts) scene a long time ago. It wasn’t even a conscious decision on my part, but rather something that happened organically over time.
I was talking about it with the dude fella, and I came to the conclusion that originally, my constant drive to improve my 1337 designs and coding skillz0rz (ha!) was for one simple purpose: to impress. I wanted to be a top honcho in our little corner of the interwebs, and to have everyone look up to me, or at the very least, to look to me for an opinion on X, Y, or Z.
Then I lost that ambition. I didn’t care about becoming the most 1337 person on the interwebs anymore. I became realistic, and understood that it wasn’t going to happen because I simply don’t have an eye for design, nor do I have a steady flow of creativity. On the bright side, I figured out there was something that I can do, that very few others can. I can blog daily, telling the story of my life, and yet still manage to keep the large majority of my entries entertaining and worthy of a read. Beat that!
(Doesn’t solve the problem of a much-needed new layout though!)
August 29 2008: I’m On “So You Think You Can Dance”
Filed under Media with 12 Comments
Surely I can’t be the only person who becomes part of whatever situation they’re a spectator to?
I watch the Olympics, and I become a swimmer, a diver, a gymnast, an athlete. I watch football, and I become the first female professional footballer in the Australian Football League. I go to a concert, and I become an awesome musician. I watch/read Lord of the Rings, and I became an elf. I watch/read Harry Potter, and I became a witch.
I watched So You Think You Can Dance? on Wednesday night. Australia’s only just getting into the final eight contestants of the last American season, despite the fact that the season already finished in America weeks ago. Yes, I know Joshua won (Wikipedia, thank you), but I like to watch it for the routines anyway.
Anyway. I become an awesome dancer in all styles whenever I watch the show. I dance jazz, I tango, I crump, I disco, and I even dance Bollywood as good as Katee and Joshua did. My lines are perfect, my footwork is impressive, and I am the best dancer in the world.
Then the show ends and, well, I’m not. Not anymore. I’m back to the dancer I really am - a really average dancer at best, a “well, the best thing I can say is that at least she doesn’t trip over her own feet” dancer at worst. Fantasies are good while they last though.