Happy Australia Day!

Three weeks left.

Out With the Old

This is the start of the end of my life. The questions I have will only be solved with time. But I won't wait quietly! I have a lot of other things to do.

While walking along a Budapest street on Friday evening, it suddenly hit me. This xkcd comic (don't worry, it didn't literally hit me), which has always been one of my favourites:

...which always reminds me of this...

Oh yes... balloon room. Such a good night.

The point is though, we are the grown-ups now. We might not be mature, or know what we want to do with the rest of our lives... but the world really is our oyster. It belongs to us. We're at the age at which we can do anything.

In Australia, I live at home (and can't wait to get back and live with my parents again), I get Youth Allowance, and I work part-time (...speaking of, I'll be looking for a job when I get home, so if anyone hears anything about a non-food-related, non-waitressing job, let me know). The time in my life for exploring  caves, trying disgusting spirits just because they're traditional, walking down a street because it looks interesting, getting lost, finding my way again, being sung to in Hungarian while eating dinner, and seeing the world is now.

I love Australia, I love Adelaide (for the people :P); it will always be home, and I want to eventually settle down there. But for now, I have no commitments, I want to travel the world, and see everything.

Dear 40-year-old me: if you didn't take advantage of this time in your life, you're an idiot.

*I've obviously said 'we' a bit here, and I am for the most part referring to me; I know that not everyone is in the same boat. And that's what makes life interesting.

Listening to: haven't done one of these for a while, but this is one of the songs that is on the radio a bit over here. I don't think you can get the official video, so here's a live one - New Age - Marlon Roudette (fun fact: he was part of Mattafix (of Big City Life fame). The lyrics in the title are from Jack & Coke - Alex Day (of Forever Yours fame).



Two exams tomorrow, and my third on Wednesday. Back to the books! (I am trying hard not to throw them across the room... das durch das Zimmer fliegenden Buch...)

#stopSOPA

This is just a quick post as it's nearly 3am, and I have 28% of my battery left.

Lots of sites were blacked out today in protest of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). I've seen some pretty excellent (/ hilarious) graphics, and wanted to just share two videos which make things a littler clearer.


PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.




I really like it when the Internet rallies together to do something. It's sad that it always has to happen because something bad is happening/ will happen. I'm really glad the Australian filter didn't pass (REALLY glad), but this is a way bigger issue, because these acts would break the Internet if they were to pass. Seriously, break it. Yes, there have been (many) times I've wished that the Internet wasn't there, or wasn't as amazing as it is, or didn't have ALL the things on it... but it does, and the usefulness of it definitely outweighs any desire I have to get uni work done ever.

I don't know if any Americans read my blog, but if you can do something about this (like write to a politician), please do.

Ok, I'm off to sleep, and then to Budapest for the weekend!

Moar moaning about the paper... and I'm not even there to read it

Uh, is that not a question, AdelaideNow? Does that not need a question mark at the end to signify that it is in fact a question, and not a poorly-constructed statement?

We all know that AdelaideNow, and its parent newspaper, The Advertiser, are not really so big on publishing newsworthy articles, good journalism, or, it would seem, good grammar.* Though really, this is something we've all known for years. Oh Rupert Murdoch, why do you have the news monopoly in your hometown?

Side note: it irks me no end when qualified teachers fail to use correct spelling/ grammar in everyday life. Sure, I don't see them in the classroom, but why use the wrong 'your/ you're' on the Internet if you are capable of using the correct one? It doesn't make you look cooler. learnyourdamnhomophones.com

It's not often that I go on the AdelaideNow website (for anyone who has got this far and doesn't know what AN is, it's the website of Adelaide's only daily newspaper (The Advertiser - NewsCorp)), but whenever I do, I'm astounded at the *ahem* quality of journalism. Two of the headlines that grabbed my attention in tonight's visit were Booze as bad as burgers for weight gain, and Father Bob Maguire angry over witch hijacking wedding ceremony. The first article's tagline is 'A boozy night could add as much to a woman's waistline as a fast food binge.' - yet the article mentions nothing women-specific. The second 'A witch who went to jail for dragging a policeman 190m with her car has hijacked a wedding ceremony being performed by the reverend Father Bob Maguire.' - though, to be honest, the article makes little sense to me.

Just wanted to share - I know it's about American media, but still relevant.

Back to the books! (By 'back to' I mean 'locate books on bed/ floor/ desk and open them at appropriate pages, then probably do nothing until a stupid hour of the morning.')

*If there are too many commas in my posts, please forgive me. The German rules for commas are pretty much PUT THEM EVERYWHERE YOU POSSIBLY CAN, and although I am blogging as procrastination (exams next week, eek!), I don't really think I should be looking up English grammar rules right now.

PS I've just realised that I haven't posted in 2012 yet, so happy new year to you all! I'll try to do a post soon about my German Christmas/ New Year's Eve experience, but I wouldn't hold your breath ;) ...though, then again, three exams next week with a whole lot to learn, so perhaps there will indeed be posts galore this week (though I'm going to Budapest on Thursday!) (The trip was booked before my exams were set for that week, I'm not that irresponsible.)

2011

Right now, I'm sitting in an armchair, wrapped in a blanket at my host family's (with whom I've been staying for the Christmas break) looking at the University of Adelaide's course planner, trying to decide which subjects to do next year.

This year has seen me travel to more countries than I have fingers to count them on (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Slovenia, Greece), plus see more of my beloved Germany. I've made friends from all over the world, and learned to live out of home and in a different country all at once. I've cried until I laughed and laughed until I cried. I've been so incredibly homesick that I wanted to up and leave, and I've toyed with the idea of staying over here longer. I've watched more tv shows and movies than I have ever before in one year, and dangerously started watching a few new shows. Skype and Facebook have been invaluable in keeping in contact with family and friends, old and new. I've (semi-) regularly attended church and home group, which improved my German, made me learn a whole new vocabulary (but should really learn the Vaterunser (Lord's Prayer)), and helped me make some of the few German friends I have. And you know, spiritual growth.

Although sometimes I've been so frustrated with its stupid grammar I've thrown my book across the room, I've learned a lot of German this year. A lot of new words, phrases, grammar, and slang. I've also improved the knowledge I already had, and occasionally use grammatical formations that I would never have dreamed of being able to use (decide mid-sentence to use passive? WELL SURE, no problem!).

When I stepped off the plane in London a year ago (really, it was a year ago today), I couldn't have dreamed of all the things I've done this year. 2011 has been a year of new experiences, friendships, travel, and I guess a bit of learning. It's the first year that I have not set foot in Australia, and it's been understandably one of the most challenging times for me. But all in all, I'm glad I'm here, because I've also had some of the funnest times over here.

Internet predators

In which Sarah shares her experience of a lying internet user.

As we all know, I spend a whole lot of time online. I'm not even going to pretend it's because I'm a Media student, it began way before that and I'm not going to deny it. It really began with my installing MSN back in 2004. I told my parents I was 'checking my email' because I didn't think they'd be too impressed that I was talking to people online. When the internet usage in our house went up, and they caught me at it, I convinced them that it was fine, because you only add people you know.

In 2005 I got MySpace, and although I'd had Bebo and possibly other previous social networking accounts, MySpace was new and exciting and there was music and you could write to people and they could write back, and it was all wonderful. There were occasions that I accepted random requests, but we all know that MySpace was a climb for the highest number of friends, and I didn't do it that often.

In 2006 I got Skype, and I did get a few random requests that I occasionally accepted for a while until they became creepy, then I deleted them. I thought I was pretty clever, and didn't really worry too much about my online safety. Nevertheless, I didn't give any personal details out, and never continued talking to someone if they had exceeded the creep factor.

In 2007 I was coerced into getting Facebook, and although I was not the biggest 'fan' to begin with, soon I began to 'like' it (see what I did there?), and just as my peers did, abandoned MySpace more and more.

In early 2007 Carly Ryan, a South Australian girl, was murdered by a 50-year-old pretending to be a 20-year-old.

And this brings me to the point of this blog: people pretending to be someone they're not on the internet.

In the midst of all the teenage angst, and the death of my boyfriend, and the drama that's associated with being sixteen, I joined a forum for Simple Plan (a Canadian band who I recently discovered are still making whiny music). I made some good friends on there - there were six of us: me, Alice (also from Australia), Annika (Germany), Allie & Bridget (USA - they were friends in real life before the forum (and still are haha)), and Paige (Canada). We all got on splendidly, and kept in contact long after the forum died and was eventually deleted.

In 2009, however, we discovered that Paige had been lying about... well, basically everything. Not forever, just for a little while - pretty much since we'd all abandoned MySpace, where her real photos were. She seemed to be pretending to be her friend, or perhaps just someone she admired, I'm not really sure. I don't know why she did it, and although we tried to be delicate about confronting her (difficult over Facebook), once she knew we knew, she deleted us all, and that profile. I don't know what's happened to her since.

The experience shook me. A lot. I thought I was smarter than to believe someone's lies, and it was really distressing to think about all the things I'd told her - we'd all told her. Thankfully nothing as terrible as what happened to Carly and countless others happened to us, but it was still a bit of a wake-up call, that actually, you can't trust everyone, there are liars out there. I don't think that Paige was lying to be malicious, probably just because she envied her friend's life and wanted to pretend to have a different life (because let's face it, who doesn't want that occasionally?).

Despite that experience, I'm still good friends with the other girls (I've stayed with Annika twice now), and I still spend a whole lot of time online, talking to people I just do not know.

It's kind of embarrassing to write about this all, I'll be honest. Not just that I was on a Simple Plan forum (though that is definitely embarrassing), but that I was tricked by someone I trusted, after thinking myself so clever and internet-savvy for so long. I was about to say that I'd never do anything stupid like meet someone whom I didn't know, but I have done that, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

I'm writing this now because I just watched a video from Carly's mum, saying that now that it's summer holidays and children are going to be spending more time online, there need to be more warnings going on and so on. Also, it happened a couple of years ago now, so I'm more willing to talk about it. I would also like to say how thankful I am that my parents raised me the way that they did, and that nothing worse than a lying girl in a foreign country has happened to me.

I know that you're all smart, but just... be careful.

The new SACE

Reading about the new SACE (South Australian Certificate of Education; the qualification we work towards for the final two years of high school) makes me annoyed. It also makes me pity the people who have to do it. Not because it's hard, oh no, but because it's so easy. Let's face it, the five subjects that we had to do, while difficult and end-of-the-world-ish at the time, were really not that taxing. Granted, a lot of mine were bludge subjects, but I still did German and Religion which were not easy.

2006 (the year I finished school) was the final year of the Geography curriculum that we all knew and loved; weather, soils, mapping, tourism, coasts... I don't even remember what else we did... probably something about the Dutch polders... anyway, they dumbed that subject down.

And now, instead of the five subjects that we had to struggle through, year 12 students have to do four subjects and a research project. What a freaking joke! I DID THREE RESEARCH PROJECTS IN YEAR TWELVE - two of which were practically mini-theses - and they have to do ONE?! I had to do one for German (though that was really fairly simple), one for Religion ('Does music, with accompanying lyrics, have the power to influence a person's belief in, and understanding of God?'), and one for Geography (it was about earthquakes and earthquake preparedness in South Australia (FYI: we do have a fault-line going right through Adelaide, and LOOK AT THAT, we've had TWO earthquakes since I did my report :O). In fact, for English (Comms ;)) we had to do some sort of major assignmenty things which took a whole lot of time, on top of all the regular work we had to do. With the amount that they've reduced the work-load on year 12 students, I doubt they have to do these any more - they certainly don't for Geography.

The Advertiser's article on it (results come out today) begins; 'a record 92 per cent of students who started Year 12 this year have earned their South Australian Certificate of Education'. Yeah, it's great that more people can get it. An increase to 85.9% got a TER (Tertiary Entrance Rank - though it seems they've changed the name of that as well, to 'ATAR' - Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), and 57.2% of Aboriginal students who completed SACE got a TER.

Yes, those figures are good (despite fewer perfect scores this year). Over-working students doesn't teach anything but resentment and how real life is, but dumbing down an education system to make sure that the lowest common denominator can get their high school certificate and/or get into university doesn't make society better.

I (occasionally) worked hard for this piece of paper!

Awwww yeah; 19, 18, 18, 18, 17

This is one of those times I worked hard, because I know that that was only one lot of flash cards for German.

SCHNEE

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening, a beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland.

Well, there may not be any sleigh bells, but there sure is snow! It's so very exciting! And although it still doesn't feel like Christmas, it does feel like I'm in European winter. I know that that may sound ridiculous, because it's been winter for twenty days now, and cold for a lot more than that, but it's only been rainy and gloomy. It's rainy (well, occasionally..) and gloomy in Adelaide in winter too, and because I'm so used to living here, it just hasn't felt... different.


But since I woke up this morning and it was SNOWING, it's felt as though it's actually winter. And it feels different again, and not exactly what I'm used to. Hooray!

Why are pine cones being sold at the supermarket? Just...why?

Thanks, Qantas. It means so much to me that you made me a personalised e-card! So thoughtful.