Another short post because nothing interesting ever happens in my life

I got a haircut just yesterday! It's just like a bob cut though, I wanted an uneven bob but my hair wasn't really long enough. Also, I tried taking pictures but I looked really weird and ugly in them so that will have to wait until a better time.


Also my bro on impulse bought a new game:

Geistes Blitz 2.0

This is a really fun game, I think it's one of my favourites. It's quick, easy, and still intense. There's a bunch of items: a blue hairbrush, green frog, white ghost, grey bathtub and red towel/cushion, and a pile of cards that have pictures on them. The pictures may have a combination of a, for example blue ghost and red bathtub. The aim is to grab an item that exactly matches anything on the card in terms of object and colour. In this case because nothing matches, you have to grab the item that has nothing to do with the card, i.e. the green frog because there is no frog and no green in the picture. If you get it right, you keep the card. If you get it wrong, you lose a card and so on until the deck runs out and the person with the most cards wins.

It goes by so quick, probably about 15 minutes, and is quite intense because you have to pay attention and work out which item you're meant to grab. Loads of fun though!


Also, I went to this cafe called The Baron for brunch last week. It's pretty cool, probably the most hipster cafe I've been in (although I haven't been to that many hipster places anyway). It's at castle hill and the entrance is on the outside near the KFC entrance. I honestly never noticed it until Shannelle decided it was the place for us to have brunch, but it's actually pretty good.

I had their "Say! I like green eggs and ham!" which, unfortunately, did not contain green eggs.

The picture is from their facebook page, since I didn't take any pictures of what I ate.

It was actually really nice, I was a bit iffy about the pea salad when I ordered it but it turned out really well. The croutons were extremely oily though and even though they tasted delicious I was quite conscious about how oily they were as I ate them.

Despite that, I was feeling pretty indulgent so I tried the sourdough toast (I *LOVE* sourdough) with nutella (because carpe diem and all that). I remember looking at their facebook page for an idea on their menu the night before and I really wanted to get this chocolate affogato with hazelnut praline but I actually forgot about it and by the time I remembered I was pretty full already.

Maybe I'll try it next time.


Also there was this weird article I came across. It's about some guy who supposedly earned 1.25 million air miles by buying pudding.

You can read it to find more details but yeah, pretty interesting how he managed to achieve all that. I suppose also that's why a lot of competitions and rewards and stuff now have terms and conditions stating that the offer is only valid once per customer.


Another thing I saw was this free rice site where you answer questions in a quiz and for each answer you get right, you donate 10 grains of rice to people around the world that can't afford it.

It's part of the UN World Hunger Programme and the money for the rice is generated by the ads that come up each time to go to the next question. You can do quizzes on different topics and they have different levels of difficulty as well because the site aims to provide free education as well as free rice.

In 2008, they reached their peak and donated over 43 billion grains of rice in total but this has decreased quite a lot to about 5 billion in 2013. So you can see it accumulates quite a lot. The first session I did in this quiz thing I ended up going through most of the subjects and donated 1800 grains of rice. It's pretty fun and it feeds hungry people so if you're ever bored, why not?


That reminds me of the game Google created to celebrate it's 15th birthday.

I found it so fun, but I sucked so much at this. Honestly the first time I didn't know what I was doing and just kept hitting the spacebar at random times and obviously kept missing because of it. I also didn't realise there were only a certain number of hits you could do so I didn't think it mattered that I kept missing. And then I got like 40 something... BUT after I realised when to hit it and that I only had like 10 or so shots, I ended up with a high score of about 159 (not sure if I actually reached 160), which still sucks but just goes to show how terrible I am at this stuff.


Finally, I'll end with this extremely cool one legged tap dancer:

It takes more time to think of headings than to actually write the blog

This will be a super quick blog post because I haven't really done much recently!

After reading Wicked, I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz again.

I realised that Wicked actually changes quite a lot of the storyline so it wasn't really a full explanation of how the wicked witch came to be, but anyway... I also found I just hated the Wizard of Oz a lot more than I did originally, obviously because Wicked made me see him as a really evil guy.

Then I started reading the rest of the series, The Wicked Years, with the sequel, Son of a Witch.

It's quite a long book so I'm not fully through it yet but so far it's pretty interesting. I'll talk about it more once I'm done but it doesn't look like I'll be finished any time soon, I've been so busy with assignments and all that!

For business we have 4 assignments spread through the semester and I honestly am so confused. Our first one was on the economic environment and I thought I'd be at a major disadvantage because I don't know anything about economics so I completely made up all 750 words of it. Then when I got the marks back I actually did pretty well and my marker was like "Excellent understanding of the economic environment! Well done!" Yeah... totes understood it.. but I also got 3 referencing penalties and was slightly annoyed. Then I realised almost everyone in class got penalties, some people even got 9 or 10...

I also had a Psych research report to do, and I had to finish it fairly quickly because now I'm doing a 1500 word essay that's pretty much on the Liberal's policies on employment relations. Geez, it's so dry, I've spent ages reading over what they say and I can't even find any academic research because I don't even know what I'm looking for! The subject is such a joke though, but I have to do it to major in HR Management (but now I'm reconsidering since thsi subject is so terrible), which is stupid because I reckon this has no practical signicance to HR.

Anyway, enough about uni...

What can I talk about...

Oh I went on Groupon and I bought these deals for myself! One was a $24 microdermabrasion and peel facial thing and another is a $19 gel manicure! So excited. I also saw this crazy-looking alcohol-themed high tea. It's pretty much like they get cocktails and then deconstruct them down to high tea things. It looks incredibly amazing and I'm so interested in food gastronomy but no one else was interested because it was liek $20 per person so yeah =[


ANNNNNNNNND I also watched The Wolverine:

I expected it to be a lot worse because so many people were saying how terrible it is, but it wasn't that bad. There were definitely a few times I cringed at the Asian acting and other problems I was a bit confused with, but I think these were all erased when I got to the mid-credits scene! I was so excited, it totally leads up to the next film! I can't really say anything about it since it's obviously full of spoilers, but it's extremely exciting!

The next film, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is going to be released next year and it's going to include people from the original trilogy as well as people from First Class! Which means Jennifer Lawrence! And also, Peter Dinklage (a.k.a. Tyrion Lannister) is going to play the scientist Boliver Trask!! AND, as if it weren't already cool enough, it's a time travel film! They send Wolverine back in time! Honestly can't wait for this to come out!


My brother also bought another game, Dominion:

It's a pretty fun game and goes by really quick. At the start of the game, you have a certain number of cards and you need to use these cards to buy more money, which can buy actions, which can help you earn victory points, which help you win. It's pretty easy to understand as well and quite a lot of fun.


Anyway, as I said, this is a short blog post because Uni hasn't allowed me to do much lately.

I don't know if I'm late to the party, but I'll leave you with this song I only just heard today and it's hilarious I absolutely love it!

The Butterfly Effect

So here's my year 9 creative story! I remember it was originally so long that I had to cut it down to 1099; one word under the word limit. As a result, some stuff was not as detailed as I'd liked it to be so I actually edited this story again (and also because some of the phrasing was cringe-worthy).

Anyway, this story was inspired by the scene in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that leads up to the woman breaking her ankle (or something like that, the details are a bit fuzzy) and it reminded me of the butterfly effect which I am in love with (not the movie with Ashton Kutcher but the actual idea of a butterfly effect that relates to chaos theory).

And this story is a bit dark but I spent a long time trying to think of a clever story that would make you want to read it over again.

So here goes!

---***---

Claudia was halfway down the flight of stairs leading from her apartment when she remembered that, in her haste, she had left her door unlocked. Being late was not an option, and so she quickly sprinted back up, as fast as one could in a new pair of stilettos, to clumsily lock it. Although she had always hated the idea of it, she decided she had no choice but to take a shortcut through the small lane behind her apartment.

Little did she know that, at the same time, a group of four men were driving in a ramshackle car looking for some cruel fun. They were incredibly excited, as if they had just won the lottery. In actual fact, they were searching for something when they saw a young woman rush out of the back entrance of her apartment and into the deserted lane just behind the car park.

----------

It was when she woke up the next day in an unusually hard hospital bed, that Claudia met Erik.

For a while, Erik had been visiting this very room of their meeting every day except the day of Claudia’s accident, so you can imagine his surprise when he saw that a young woman was asleep on the now untidy bed. His heart skipped a beat when he remembered the bedside table, sprawled with numerous vases of colourful flowers, “Get Well Soon!” cards, opened magazines and fancy photo frames. A tear threatened to escape his eye’s grasp, and it would have done so if it were not for Claudia waking up at that exact moment.

The next few weeks were a blur of blossoming love. Life was fragile, more so than it was cruel, and thus Erik and Claudia both personally resolved to make the most out of every minute they shared. As the doctors would say, time was running out, for Claudia had previously donated her left kidney to a stranger who really needed it, out of the kindness of her heart.

Now this act of kindness might just be her death.

One day, he learnt that he would never see her walk. She learnt that he had a troubling past, but nothing more. Soon, curiosity grew so strong that she could not resist asking. A little shocked, he hesitated. Inhaled. Looked at his feet, shuffling uncomfortably.

----------

“Wow, just on time,” He thought.
The clock glowed a red 6:00pm.
“10 o’clock, right? Not too late, we need our sleep,” she smiled, looking happily at her bulging tummy. He looked at it too, wondering how safe the baby was with her driving. Getting out of the car he greeted his friends, maniacs in his sister’s eyes. He could feel her judging gaze as she drove off. She had always disapproved of them, but what was she to do? She wasn’t his mother.

Ten o’clock came and he was a completely different man. Angry, proud, stubborn. But she had seen this ugliness before. Once again, he was coaxed into climbing into the car. Once again, her evil trickery was realised as they arrived at her house. But the unusual thing this time was that he became dreadfully infuriated. Too much alcohol, perhaps?

The few minutes that followed were a bit confusing. He was never that violent before. Ignorant, yes. Inconsiderate, yes. But this was a completely different level. There was a depth of hatred and anger previously unsurpassed that would never be realised by the majority of the human population.

If there was any advantage to the terrifying screams and shouts, it was that they served a signal for passers-by to call for the police. Unfortunately by then, it was too little too late.

----------

Maybe if the police came just a little earlier…
No. I’m all to blame. It wouldn’t have made a difference. He thought painfully.
Claudia was unsure of what to say to him. A little satisfied he could trust her with such information, a little disappointed in him, a little regretful she even asked.

She was saying something, but Erik didn’t take notice. All he could hear was the voices of his sister’s doctors echoing in his empty mind.

----------

“Come to think, it’s a miracle the baby survived such a beating”

“She would have to live off one kidney until she gives birth”

“Her blood type is a rare one”

“Good news, we found a matching donor!”

“I’m sorry, but it was a miscarriage”
“I’m sorry, but the transplant failed”

----------

Claudia’s blood type was rare too. She signed up on the organ donors list because she knew that small sacrifices could often make large differences in life. She vaguely remembered the recipient. They found a match the transplant was only carried out a month or so after that. In fact, didn’t she donate her kidney to a recently pregnant woman?

“What a coincidence…” She thought to herself.

----------

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he could see it in her. Claudia’s kidney was failing her, her eyes were dulling, her hair graying, her hands weakening. Overall she just looked sick; unrecognisable.

Eventually he was alone in this cruel world.

Erik visited his friends, whom for the past few weeks he had neglected. He didn’t have to say anything; they all understood. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a Polaroid film. There was Claudia, staring back at him, smiling a care-free smile.
“She’s beautiful isn’t she?” He half murmured to himself.
“She looks strangely familiar…”

And that was when he realised.

----------

It was the day after his sister’s death. Erik was overcome with guilt; he didn’t know what to do. Usually he would drink, but that was what got him here in the first place. He would avoid that option. Although, it seemed almost impossible to resist.
“Ahh, come on, cheer up.”
“Say, let’s just get a few drinks!”
“Yeah, we promise we won’t make you drink too much!”

Sadly, he was the type that was easily influenced. It didn’t help that his friends were the type that didn’t keep such promises. It was morning and they were all heavily drunk. Clumsily climbing into one of their old, worn cars, one friend asked, “Erik, what do you want? We’ll do anything for you, mate!”
“I wanna kill someone. And I want my sister back.”
After much bickering about what was to be done next, Erik started slipping in between consciousness and unconsciousness. He was the weakest in terms of alcohol intake.

It was all a blur but he remembered several glimpses of the main road. And then a glimpse of a narrow lane.

Someone was yelling.

“Shoot a car, Erik!”

A gun was placed in his hands.

“Come on, just pick one!”

As if in slow motion, Erik aimed at a car.

As if in slow motion,

“Wait!”

Erik pulled a trigger.

“STOP!”

As if in slow motion, a woman caught the bullet in her side.

He passed out before the frenzy occurred. Before the driver sped off, almost crashing the car as he narrowly swerve around to avoid the woman’s stilettos around her fallen feet.

Some wicked election drawings (not really)

I know it's only been two posts since the last time, but I already finished reading another book!

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

This is the novel that the musical Wicked is based off, and this book is in itself based off The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. From the title, you can assume that the novel talks about the life and times of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West... obviously.

The novel is split into five sections. The first section, Munchkinlanders, was quite boring because Elphaba was still a baby. After that it starts getting much better and more interesting, with the Wicked Witch of the East and Glinda the Good Witch of the North starting to appear. The fifth section, The Murder and Its Afterlife, starts off with Dorothy landing in Oz. That section was a bit boring in terms of how it was written, because Elphaba is older and the narrative is much more different compared to the previous sections, but it's still quite interesting because it correlates with what you know in the original children's book. I really like how the majority of chapters are written from a perspective other than Elphaba. It's kind of like piecing together the puzzle of Elphaba through the accounts and perceptions of others.

I also really liked the themes in this book, mainly evil and good and whether or not anyone can truly be evil. They have questions like:

“One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil?”

It's so thought provoking because you see how much Elphaba really wants to be good and change the world and fight and protest for minority rights, but because of everything that happens in her life, she ends up broken and eventually gives up, and her actions get all misinterpreted and people start naming her The Wicked Witch of the West.

Wikipedia describes it nicely:

"It also sets the reader thinking about what it really is to be wicked, and whether good intentions with bad results are the same as bad intentions with bad results."

I originally planned to only read this book from its series, The Wicked Years, because I wasn't sure how good and how popular the other books are, but now I think I'll definitely have to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz again, and then follow that up by the rest of the books from The Wicked Years.

And since I was reading it on my e-reader, I've come to really appreciate the NOOK. I think all e-readers have this, but I find it so useful to be able to highlight phrases and if you want (but I never) you can even add notes to your highlights. They also have the ability to bookmark various pages and even look up words in the dictionary, which really helped with this book because my vocabulary is terrible.


Also, September 4th was my dad's birthday!

Since he is a Hawthorne fan, we got him this huge Hawthorne hat along with a Hawthorne mug. Look how happy he is:

Sorry, he was laughing too hard I couldn't get a steady pic of him. Okay who am I kidding, I have Parkinson's when it comes to taking pictures and the fact that I was laughing didn't help at all..


Before I end...

ELECTION TOMORROW!

I'm not sure if you guys heard about Vote Compass, and it's a bit late for this now, but it's a cool thing that asks you questions about your views on different stuff and how this relates to the political parties in the upcoming election.

These are my 'weighted' results:

I'm not sure what to make of this because in the political landscape, I'm closer to Labor, but then apparently I agree more with Liberal... so I'm not too sure...

I really can't imagine Tony Abbott as our Prime Minister, even though that's the predicted outcome. I think I may end up voting for either Labor or Greens first then the other second, then Liberal third but I'll make up my mind on the day once I read all the instructions.


Anyway so lately I've been doing more drawings! I tried to do it every day but I think I skipped out on about a week's worth of drawing, but here are some of my personal favourites (click to enlarge in a new tab):

'A Teapot' (Couldn't help but associate it with Disney):

'An Eye Patch':

"OOOOOOH WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA!"

'A Cornucopia' (I had to! How could I NOT draw something related to The Hunger Games?!):

'Nails':

'Footprints':

'A Starfish':

I'm starting to notice a theme with this set of drawings...

'Fresh Air':

'A Pumpkin':

'Bipolar Pumpkin'

'A Cranky Old Man':

'Mr. Fredricksen's head is too small'

A Song of Ice and Fire/A Game of Thrones!

I've been waiting for quite some time to do this post! And don't worry, it'll be brief, I won't go too hardcore nerd fan over this (and no spoilers except for some links but I'll warn you)!

Firstly, the books that started it all: A Song of Ice and Fire

I highly suggest you read the books! They are infinitely better than the tv show and so interesting!

There are seven in total but the last two haven't come out yet (actually right now they're 1500+ page manuscripts each) and I doubt they are going to come out any time soon because he spends like 5 years putting the final touches of each book in.

Anyway, the books are set in a fantasy land called Westeros and focuses on these different Houses and families in their attempts to conquer the Seven Kingdoms of the land and win the Iron Throne. That one-sentence summary of the series really does no justice to the extent of the multiple plots and how deep and crazy George Martin gets, but I can't really give anything away. The language and content is heavy, extremely heavy. But it's so worth it because it's so interesting, unique, imaginative and unorthodox.

I think the reason I love the books so much is because of what a reviewer from Time said about it (as part of the praise section at the beginning of A Feast for Crows):

"What really distinguishes Martin, and what marks him as a major force for evolution in fantasy, is his refusal to embrace a vision of a world as a Manichaean struggle between Good and Evil."

I think that sums it up perfectly. There's no cliched bad guy and prophesised hero; there's just a whole lot of people doing different things because of the different circumstances they get thrust into. One second you could love character A and hate character B, but then the next second character A makes a decision and you dislike it and you start understanding and liking character B more.

George Martin is such a good writer because he is able to make you absolutely despise a character, only to later write from that character's viewpoint and make you understand and even love them like you never would have predicted.

And that, I reckon, is a sign of an amazing author.

Also, for those who have read the books, a cool thing is this combined reading order for books 4 and 5, since they both occur during the same time period, but each book focuses on different characters. I highly won't suggest it for first time readers though, because I like doing things the way author's designed them to be done but hey, that's just me.


Secondly, the TV Series: A Game of Thrones

When I first watched the show, I really hated it. It was just so terribly slow and confusing and skipped out on a lot of the books' details and stuff (obviously I didn't expect them to put in every single detail but some of the stuff that seem important were skipped out). I only really continued watching because I loved the third book and I really needed to see what it would look like on screen, so I swallowed my way through the second season (which I think is the worst) for it.

The third season was quite good. The fact that they split up the third book into two seasons made it a lot better as they could then include much more detail and a lot more important events in. They still changed a few details though and while they seem minor, I'm not sure if these details may affect the future seasons (after finishing the fifth book I searched up a lot of theories and some plausible ones would be impossible to carry through after the show's changes).

But anyway, the cast is amazing and suits the characters perfectly. I love the actors for Cersei, Joffrey, Sansa and Margaery; they are so perfect for their roles it's insane.

Oh and another difference the show did was the way the Iron Throne was portrayed.

In the show:

It's a normal-sized throne that's just got a really epic design to it.

But in the books, it's described something more like this (and George Martin states this is closer to what he imagines):

Click the picture to enlarge in a new tab!
Which is just epic beyond all words. It's more imposing, dangerous and a much more powerful statement than the one in the show, so I love it. In the books, it's stated that many kings have cut themselves on the Iron Throne, especially Mad King Aerys, and it has even caused the deaths of several people. The only problem with making something like the one George Martin imagined meant that they needed a building the size of a cathedral to house it...


Thirdly, fan sites!

There are so many of them out there but I'll just mention a few. I found one ages ago that was really cool and it had a forum on all these theories and topics. It doesn't sound too different, but the reason I loved it was because you could put in your settings what book you recently just finished to ensure you wouldn't get any spoilers reading the forums! I thought that was so clever and considerate, but alas, I DIDN'T SAVE THE LINK AND NOW I CAN'T FIND THE WEBSITE AGAIN. I forgot what the site even looked like (but I think it was white although that's still very vague) and it was hard enough to find the settings place to put where you are up to in the series and I can't be bothered making an account for each forum site I encounter so I've given up and lost all hope but if someone finds it please let me know even though I've read the entire series already.

Anyway, there's another site that does chapter-by-chapter analyses of the novel, although I'm not entirely sure how far they've gone since they go quite in depth for each chapter.

There's this *SPOILER* Forum of Ice and Fire (lol at the names these people come up with), which has a lot of theories on the books, so don't look at the site yet until you've finished all the books or it may be spoiled for you!

Another site for theories has *SPOILER FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ STORM OF SWORDS* this theory on who Jon Snow's Parents Are. I think this site is done up by a single guy, which is impressive and slightly sad at the same time. Right now, he has only answered questions for the first three books (as in he's finished with both parts of A Storm of Swords) so don't read it, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THE HOME PAGE BECAUSE THE TITLES OF QUESTIONS HAVE SPOILERS IN THEM!!


Fourthly, the George R.R. Martin website.

They had an app for the series but it's not available in Australia or something! So much disappointment!

The website also shows all these cool Merchandises and Song of Ice and Fire related stuff, like Calendars, the History of Westeros, the Map of Westeros, a Cookbook and even Card Games and Board Games!


And speaking of board games...

My bro bought me the Game of Thrones board game! It's supposed to be my early birthday present.

I haven't yet played it but I begun reading the rules (oh my goodness gracious the rulebook is about 30 pages long) and it looks intense! I think I'm only about 1/3 of the way into the rules yikes! I probably won't play it until after semester ends though so I have plenty of time.


There's also all these cool novelty items, like (and I haven't bought any of these yet):

This extremely cool dragon ear cuff that can be bought here:

And these Ten Cool Game of Thrones Merchandises. I love items 1, 4, 8 and 10 (yikes at the $30,000 price)!

I love the House Sigil Shot Glasses, which can be found on the HBO Shop! Don't they look so cool!


Anyway, that's the end of my rant.

The main reason I waited so long to do this blog was because I wanted to wait until I finished my Song of Ice and Fire drawings, but that never happened.

Maybe one day...