On how apparently Australians can do no wrong

A few days ago, several Australian activists boarded a Japanese whaling ship. They were captured and imprisoned, and are most likely facing criminal charges in Japan. Of course, the Australian government has snapped into action in an attempt to save those poor Australians from being tried by the horrible Japanese whalers.

This really irritates me. Why should they be exempt from criminal charges, just because they were fighting for something? They did illegally board that ship in international waters, and, as my dad pointed out, that is technically and legally piracy.

I don't understand why the it has fallen to the Australian government to get these men out of this situation. It is not the responsibility of the government to exempt men from their crimes, especially not crimes of an international nature.

There was another story a few months ago about a 14 year old Australian boy who was arrested for drug possession in Bali. There was outrage! Why should an Australian be arrested? The government was working towards getting him back to Australia.

While this was happening, all I could think was "Why is it their responsibilty" They knew for a fact that this boy had committed the crimes he was accused of - he had bought the drugs from somebody on the street in Bali. Yet the media was all over every angle of his story.

To all makes me wonder, what is the government's responsibility, and do they really have any right in interfering with the legal system of another country? I also wonder what decides which case to be involved  in - they can't be involved in everything.

To me, in doesn't seem right, and what I really want is for the Japanese government to tell the Australian government to, in more polite terms, piss off, because it honestly is non of their concern, and nothing they can say is going to change the fact that those activists did break the law.

In the memory of Lumen, a fish who I am overly attached to

When I was younger, I wanted a pet. Any kind of pet, that I could call mine and mine alone. My parents had other ideas though. Snakes and turtles needed a 'license', rabbits and rats were vermin, and the cat would traumatise them, we already had a cat so i couldn't get one, I couldn't get a dog. 

Eventually I decided I wanted a bird. My parents didn't neccessarily agree - they think keeping birds in cages is a little cruel, and I have to say I now kind of agree - but I was determined. I started saving my money, and looking at birds and cages in the pet shop.

Somewhere along the line, that bird turned into fish, and I spent the money I had saved on a tank, all the equipment needed and of course, the fish themselves. I had several fish at several different times, with different levels of emotional attachments to them. Eventually, after all the fish, and their replacements and their replacement's replacements had died, I gave up and the tank was retired to the cupboard.

At the beginning of last year, I got a sudden urge to get some more fish. I don't know why, and it'd been years since my last fish, but I dug out the tank, set it up, and evenually ended up with three gold and white goldfish. I was determined to give them perfect names, and as such, I ended up not naming them until about 6 months after I got them - Carlos, Lumen and Danish, all names with significant 'in-joke' backgrounds. In early August this year, the three of them were joined by Beatrice, a mottley gold, black, brown and white fish that I gave my sister for her birthday.

Last night, I walked into my room to find Lumen lying on the floor of the tank, moving pathetically.

It was always a fear of mine, especially recently that I would come home from holiday, or even just walk into my room to find one or more of them dead. Seeing Lumen look so unhealthy was quite hard for me to see, and it made me realise what an emotional attatchment I had formed with those fish over the past almost two years.

I don't know why, but my first reaction was to tell somebody. I think I thought that would make it less of a shock when she died, so I went over to my sister's room and told her 'I don't think Lumen is very healthy'. She came in with me to have a look, and almost instantly I wanted her to leave. As soon as she did, I burst into tears.

I think the worst par was knowing that she was dying, that I would probably wake up in the morning to find that she was dead, and knowing that I didn't know what to do about it. I knew she was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

This morning I woke up to find that I thought my fears were right - Lumen was no longer moving. Unsure what to do, I called my dad, who told me to put her in a seperate jar, so that we could get rid of her when he got home. However, when I went to lift her of the tank floor and into the jar, she started moving again.

So now I have a fish that is still dying, and I still don't know how to stop her. I almost wish she was dead, because then I wouldn't have to helplessly watch her die. I don't know if she is in pain, we don't have the neccessary things to euthanize her painlessly (and I don't think I could do it by myself).

I don't know why I'm writing this down. I don't really want other people to read it, but at the same time, I need to have it written down; it feels like I'm doing something productive rather than sitting around crying and watching her helplessly, and I feel like it's a good way to remember her.

I want nothing more than to go into my room and find her either swimming around, completely healthy, or no longer moving at all. I suspect I know which one will happen.

The End.

Tomorrow I finish Year 12. Just like that. The end of 13 years, an entire era of my life. The end of my compulsory schooling.

It's an exciting time. Most of my friends are like "Yes! No more school!" But I'm of two minds. Sure, it's exciting, but I'm also really sad about it, and just a little bit scared. I'm only 17, and I've been at school 5 days a week for 13 years, with only a small amount of time of, always knowing that I'll go back.

And I like school. I get bored during the longer holidays. I end up wishing for some sort of assignment to do, to see my friends everyday, just through the neccessity of attending each day.

Sure, there's university, but it's not the same. Primary school, high school and college are all sort of linked. They have a similar sort of system, with only minor changes - you stay in the same class with the same teacher, you move to different classes with different teachers, you get more freedom, time off, more choice in classes. Even with all those differences, there's a very similar underlying principal - you go to school everyday and spent all or most of the day in classes.

From everything I've heard, university is completely different. All of the comparative similarity that made the transitions between earlier schooling eaier are gone. I'm finishing something familiar and moving into the great unknown.

Half of my friends are going elsewhere. My best friend is even hoping to move to a different city. Last time I moved schools, from high school to college, half of my friends went to a different school. There were the friends that I sat with every day, and I ended up having almost nothing to do with them, and becoming a lot closer with more distant friends. I'm scared the same thing will happen again.

I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm exited, and I'm scared. I'm unsure about the future, and I have my final exam at 11:30 tomorrow. An hour and a half of biology left, after 13 years.

Dorothy Shoes and Scarecrow Socks

I have a pair of dorothy shoes. That's not entirely relevent, but I love those shoes, and they've played a large role in my life over the past two or three weeks. I wore them to The Wizard of Oz, a musical that I attended with my friend and sister, I wore them when we filmed some footage for a movie trailer about super secret agents wearing them, I wore them to see a Josh Thomas, and I wore the to my friend's 'colour' themed 18th birthday party. That party is what I actually wanted to talk about, and is the reason that I started writing this.

The scarecrow socks were the rainbow socks that the scarecrow wore at The Wizard of Oz. It turns out that my sister has a pratically identical pair of socks, which were worn to the colour party along with the dorothy shoes. There's no real reason that the scarecrow socks were included in the title, I just liked the poetry of the phrase.

I've had several 18ths this month - there was a tea party, a pirate party, an adventurous competivie party and this colour themed party. As this is the year that my older friends will all turn 18, these weren't the first 18ths I had been to, but the one yesterday was the first one at which there was alcohol freely available.

It was a 'bring your own grog' party, and people did. Unfortunately, most people bought slightly more than they were planning on drinking, figuring that 'others could share them'. That's fine in theory, but when everybody who brings alcohol does that, you end up with an excess.

One of my not-so-close friends ended up drunk very quickly - she bought quite a bit to drink, and she drank it all, rather quickly. Another friend was fairly drunk relatively early on. My best friend was just a little bit tipsy when I got there about an hour and a half later, but she was a bit drunk later. The friend that I've known for the longest was very drunk, although she's not the type of drunk that shows it. The worst was another friend who lost every single one of her inhibitions. The last drunk person (out of my friends, anyway) was the friend who turned up late, and drunk quite a bit in a short period of time to 'catch up' to the others.

My friend's (the birthday girl) sister and brother (both younger than her) were completely drunk too.

I had one drunk - a wildberry vodka cruiser that my friend gave me - as well as the occassional sip of something. The upshot of that was that I ended up as the sober one amoung the drunk friends. I wasn't the only one, there were several others, but we ended up taking drinks of people and trying to make sure they didn't hurt themselves.

At one point, the group of them decided I was the 'drink thief', and the only thing that stopped me being slapped was the fact that the girl sent to slap me 'loved me too much'.

That same girl who was meant to 'slap me' kissed another girl earlier in the night. That other girl then decided that she 'was going to turn gay if she didn't kiss a guy, and the her 'lover' wouldn't lover her anymore'. She didn't actually use the phrase 'lover' there, but it's not worth the explanation otherwise - you get the drift. We ended up trying to stop her making out with the only single, straight male at the party, other than the birthday girl's family. We failed, and we had to steal her phone at the end of the night to delete his number - he was a bit of a creep, and several years older than her.

The point I'm trying to make is that I didn't enjoy the second half of that party. Half my friends were drunk, and the other half of us were trying to make sure they were safe. I ended up quite resentful.

However, today my best friend thanked me for being 'so responsible and mature, and making her feel so safe'. She said that she was happy to drink more because she felt safe. So now I feel conflicted - I didn't like having to take care of them, but I couldn't leave them to let them be drunk. However, if I had left them, they probably would have drunk left.

None of them were even hungover the next day.

Moral of the story: I've decided that I'm probably not going to ever get drunk. I've been the sober one worrying about the drunk ones, and I don't think that I want to a) put somebody else through that, or b) do it without somebody there to look after me.

I've just realised that this has practically nothing to do with either the dorothy shoes or the scarecrow socks, other than the fact that I was wearing both as this occured, but hey, sometimes that happens.

Random Facts About Me

1. I eat raw pasta as a snack. When we don't have any snack food, I raid the box of pasta in the pantry. Right now, there is a handful of little spiral pasta next to my computer.

2. I play my flute along with my iPod. I have a good ear for tunes, and provided that I know the song well enough, I can usually play it on the flute. Since my flute teacher moved back to France, everytime I practise, it's with my iPod rather than my sheet music, which I have quite neglected.

3. I watch the advertisments on TV between the programs. I'm interested in advertising, and actually applied to study it at university next year. As I result, I watch the ads, and analyse them based on whether I think they are good or bad, effective or ineffective.

4. I'm confused about my sexuality, and have been for almost two years now. I currently consider myself as bisexual, although I still do refer to myself as a lesbian.

5. Sometimes I feel like I don't care enough about gay rights. I'd like gay people to be able to marry each other, but that's about it. If somebody says 'That's so gay', and another person complains, I'm more irritated at the complaining than the actual event. To be fair, I'm still mostly closeted, and have never experienced homophobia.

6. I like the flawed characters more than the good ones. They're more believeable, and as human beings are fundamentally flawed, I can relate to them more easily.

7. I like photography. I take nice photos, but most of them aren't amazing photos.

8. I have a strange mind. I think of things that most people don't. Luckily I have a friend whoes mind works in the same way. The two of us click, and often we'll think of the same thing at the same time - things that wouldn't have occured to anybody else.

9. I find it hard to talk about my emotions. To me, you feel emotions. You don't say them. The word 'happy' or 'sad' doesn't encompass the full range of specific things that I am feeling, and fail to express how I am feeling.

10. I find it difficult to maintain online conversations, or text conversations. I don't text anybody unless I have something to tell them, and I tend to avoid online coversations. I also don't like calling people, so generally texts are the only way that I communicate with people.

11. I love musicals. Last night I went to The Wizard of Oz, and it was amazing. I want a munchkin, and I know the specific munchkin that I want.

12. I can actually sing quite well, but I don't have the courage to sing in front of anybody else.

My Love of Fictional Characters

I have strange opinions when it comes to fictional characters. Some characters I like, and some I don't. However, there doesn't seem to be any sort of rational characters. So now, just because I am bored, I'm going to share a few of my favourite characters, complete with the reason I like them. Of course, to be fair, I need to share a few of my least favourite characters.

The Broken Well Trilogy

The first lot of characters all fall within the same series; the Broken Well Trilogy, by Sam Bowring. I find it fascinating for a few reasons:

1.  It's a very well written series of novels
2. It's a thought provoking read
3. It's not a sterotypical light-vs-dark story, despite the potential for it to have been just that
   
4. I intensely like some of the characters, while I intensely dislike others

 The basic plot revolves around a the prophacy of the Blue-Haired Man, and the battle between Kainordas (the light) and Fenvarrow (the shadow). In their battle, the forces of the light and the dark, the blue-haired baby is split into two, with each side taking one of the babies.

First of all: the characters that I like. My favorite character is Losara, the blue haired man taken by the shadow. He is thought-provoking, logical and compassionate, with strong morals. He knows that if he were to fail, many people - his people - would suffer. While he does kill in defense of his land, he does not want to. On the flip side, I really hate Bel - the blue-haired child of the light. He is arrogent, self absorbed and violent. He believes that he will win, because he is the prophecy child. He believes himself to be better than everybody else.

Then there's the females: Jaya, the sprite-blooded thief and Bel's lover, and Lalenda, the prophetic mire-pixie, and Losara's lover. I like Jaya. She is a believable character, with fears, motivation and a desire to still fight alongside Bel, not be put safely aside. Lalenda, on the other hand, changes completely. She goes from timid to bold, scared to rebellious. She becomes a different person, and while I don't dislike either personallity specifically, when a single character develops from one to another, it doesn't work.

In general, I like the shadow a lot more than the light, but I can't say too much without potentially giving away some of the plot.Despite disliking and loving various characters, they are still excellent books, and I would freely recommend them to anybody.

The Inkworld Trilogy

I won't go into the detail too much, because I've already written more than I wanted to about the Broken Well Trilogy. Basically it involves characters with the ability to read items and characters out of (and into) books, and features one book in particular - Inkheart.

I don't have strong opinions of the characters for the first two novels, but in the third one, I hate all of the major characters but one. They all become whiny and irritating, except for one, who I like for two main reasons, which I will discuss later.

Meggie complains that Farid prefers Dustfinger over her, Farid worries and pines over Dustfinger, Mo worries about his new identity as a killer, Resa worries about her unborn child and wants to go home, Roxanne worries about Dustfinger and hates Farid for his death.

The only major character that I genuinly like is Dustfinger. He is wonderfully flawed and unreliable, and I have a weakness for the flawed characters. You are never sure what he is doing and who is trying to help at any particular moment, and he has very justifiable reasons to hate both sides. And besides, he's just generally awesome - he's been to Death's realm and back, he can talk to fire and he is an expert in his own world.

Harry Potter

Now I just need to say, I like the books but I absolutely hate Harry Potter. He's an arrogant, self-absorbed jerk, with a bad temper who doesn't know when to accept help. Without every other character, he would be so screwed. I've never really liked Harry. His father was a jerk too, as was, although he may not have been later on, Sirius Black. Lupin was less of a jerk, although he did still play a role.

My favourite characters are Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood. I love the development of Neville throughout the series. He's a wonderful character - not overly smart, good at magic, popular or, at the beginning, confident. He is however (in my opinion) one of the bravest characters in the whole series. Luna is good too. She's interesting, ecssentric, and brave. You can see that all she wants to do is help, and be accepted, but she refuses to change to be accepted, clinging to her beliefs.

I also like Voldemort, but that's for completely different reasons.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (and others)

This applies more the the movies than the books, but my opinion is formed on both.

I love Edmund. He is wonderfully flawed, and as I stated earlier, I love the flawed  characters - they're just more believable. Edumd is flawed - he fell into a trap, and then tried to redeem himself. However, it is his betrayal that makes him so likable to me. His siblings seem so perfect, and judgmental, and I found myself defending his actions on multiple occasasions when we studied the text earlier this year.

In my opinion, Lucy is annoying, Susan is just... well in the later books she denies Narnia, and Peter is like 'yeah, I'm the boss'. He's up himself. I mean, Peter the Magnificent?

Finally I just want to acknowledge my latest fictional crush - a certain Italian assassin named Ezio Auditore de Firenze, living in Renaissance Italy. I don't develop many actual crushes on fictional characters - usually it's just affection - but I think this is reasonable to call a crush. 

I like my last fictional crush was Losara - the same Losara I talked about earlier.

Wow this is long. I think I'm going to stop writing now.

My Thoughts on Racism

Recently I've been hearing a lot of stories related to the indigenous Aboriginals of Australia. They have typically shorter life-spans, they are more likely to develop addictions and, in general, they don't have lifestyles that are as healthy as non-Aboriginal people.

It's always annoyed me a little. I was actually discussing this with a friend the other day, and we were talking about Aboriginal awards. They have awards recognising achievements by Aboriginal people. To me, this has always seemed, well, a little bit racist. I, as a white Anglo-Saxon Australian, could not win that award.

The cherry on the cake was a news story that I heard the other day; the Australian government were going to try and hire a certain number of Aboriginal employees in order to "try and lead by example". To me, that is absolute rasicm no matter what their intentions. If they government was to say "we are going to hire more Anglo-Saxons" or more African Americans, or Asians, then they would be slammed by the media, as being discriminative and racist.

This got me thinking about racism in general. To me, the very concept of racism is essentially racist.

According to the online dictionary, racism is a noun meaning "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races"

The idea of race is labelling people into categories - white, black, Asian, Aboriginal. To put somebody into a category based on where they come from is, in essence, very similar to racism itself.

I also had another thought not too long ago. Early humans (and I mean early early humans) were nomadic in nature. They travelled in groups, and any group of people other than them was a threat to their survival. These early humans were driven by instinct, much more so than we are.

I can't help wondering if racism is a left-over instinct from the days where we relied on natural selection to survive. It may be that it started that way, but is now just carried on through the generations, parent to child.

These are just a few of my ponderings on racism. I've been considering it a lot recently, usually in the hours of the night when I'm trying to sleep. It's probably triggered by the numerous stories I've been seeing related to Aboriginal rights.

I hope that, if anybody reads this, they don't find it offensive. It is purely my view, and I don't expect anybody to take it as me stating a fact.