Why I Haven’t Been Blog-active

I’ve been working.

I’ve been fighting.

I’ve been stuffing my face in salads

… Okay these are all very poor excuses. And honestly, I for one am sick of the fact that I dropped writing when FYP started and haven’t picked it up since. I’ve always considered writing to have been my main outlet for everything but it seems my brain died along with my social life these past 4 months. And it’s not gotten any better when school ended because project burnt such a large hole in my pocket that all I’ve been doing is trying to earn enough back to patch it up… and it’s resulted in a 5th month of absence from the world.

And I must admit, my computer time has been spent watching the Big Bang Theory and Skins. I breezed through about 2 seasons each, but was left feeling emptier than ever, reminding me why I stopped watching telly in the first place —it does nothing for a person.

That said, I’ve been enjoying my time back at the water park, and getting kicked to smithereens at the gym. Now to start writing and painting  like I said I would then maybe my blog wouldn’t be such a waste of cyber-space.

Till then.

Let the Hunger Games Begin by Alyce Gilligan

Why the story of Katniss Everdeen resonates with so many readers.

The Hunger Games is not the first young adult book series to spawn a film and a frenzied fanbase. It isn’t the first to provide a compelling love triangle or to lure readers into the late hours of the night with its fast-pace and simple phrasing. It isn’t the first to inspire costumes, tattoos and curious fan fiction. But it is the first in a long time to rely not on magic or handsome vampires to captivate its readers; rather, when they escape into Katniss’ head, they aren’t escaping much at all. They are being confronted by the harsh realities of a not-so-unbelievable future, and the responsibilities that it entails.

For those unfamiliar with the story, The Hunger Games is an annual event that recruits children for a public fight-to-the-death in order to win a year’s supply of food from the wealthy Capitol for their district. Though this concept is a new level of savage, even the series’ most adolescent fans can see the links between the dystopian world of Panem and our own. The book makes no secret of the fact that its Capitol and 12 (or 13) districts represent the deteriorating remains of today’s United States. It depicts an exaggerated version of the country’s wealth gap, society’s celebration of vanity and indifference to violence, the poorer classes’ growing unrest and distrust, even reality TV’s perverse and inescapable obsession with watching people destroy themselves and each other. In a time when social causes can become trends and Occupy protests can dominate headlines for months, it is no wonder America was ready for a Katniss Everdeen to step forward.

Concerns have been expressed about the horrific violence of the story—and the fact that its most gruesome scenes involve children and are presented to children. There are no rules “except don’t step off your circle for sixty seconds and the unspoken rule about not eating one another.” But The Hunger Games attempts to illustrate the lengths humanity is willing to go to when it is denied its most basic needs and rights. What are we most willing to sacrifice for and fight to protect?

In Panem, The Hunger Games serve as a cruel reminder of just how desperate and enslaved the people’s hunger has made them—a corrupt “bread and circuses” system that alludes to the cruel practices of the ancient Roman empire . But just as Katniss and Peeta’s journey demonstrates—and as a man from Nazareth once claimed—people cannot live on bread alone. Sustenance may be essential for physical survival, yes. But a deprived people also have greater social, spiritual and relational needs; even the characters whose physical needs are met are often marked by deep dissatisfaction. The people of Panem were hungry for much more than goat cheese and fresh bread. Perhaps that’s one reason the tributes of District 12 have so quickly captured America’s hearts; their struggle for survival brings to light what everyone truly hungers for.

Mantra

Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good
Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good
Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good
Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good
Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good Gotta get bad before it gets good

Coda

The end of yet another era. Three cheers for three years.
Four more for Fatigue’s cure

Addicted to a certain kind of sadness

I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Quatro

<3

Laneway 2012

Was considering writing a full article on Laneway 2012, the same way I did with Foster The People but NO I WILL NOT. I went for fun and it shall remain as the day I got burnt, danced oddly to The Drums, wore a poncho for 8 minutes and cheated ~da wurld~ of … something. Nope, no articles (unless, of course, the awesome Cheryl of 5mm contacts me ^^. I am not a sellout, she’s just really nice, okay?), just memories.

[photos by Russell Ong / Laneway.au]

Superhuman of the Year: Oscar Pistorius

Until recently the story of Oscar Pistorius, born twenty-five years ago without calf bones and now history’s greatest para-athlete, has been, well, just that: a story. Feel-good. Inspirational. All about the limitlessness of the human spirit. Going into the last Olympic cycle, the governing body of track and field ruled comically, tragically, that the carbon-fiber blades affixed to his knees gave Pistorius an unfair advantage against able-bodied athletes—his only real competition. The successful battle Pistorius waged for the right to compete against the world’s fastest men was both epic and Pyrrhic; thanks to time spent in courts and testing labs and away from the track, he fell shy of the Olympic qualifying time by three-quarters of a second. And so Pistorius remained a symbol.

This time it’s for real. It’s not just about inspiration or the questions he provokes about the purity, purpose, and very definition of sport. This time it’s about winning. This time it’s on. In July, Pistorius broke the Olympic qualifying mark, then reached the semifinals of the world championships. If he bests that qualifying time once more between January and June, which he will, he’ll almost certainly be representing South Africa in London next summer in the open 400 and the 4 x 400 relay.

“Don’t get me wrong—it’s a privilege to be an icon for those who were born the way I was or who have been injured,” says Pistorius. “It may sound strange, but I’ve got to focus on the fact that what got me to where I am is my ability as an athlete. It’s about track now.” Which isn’t to say that Pistorius, who recently became the new face of Thierry Mugler’s fragrance, is indifferent to the way he presents to the world. “For walking around, I wear normal prosthetics. During the summer, I go with a more Mediterranean look. At the end of summer, I get them sprayed to lighten them up a little—they now come in twenty-eight different shades. Just for kicks, I go for the ones with the really impressive calves.”

[via]

I am an astronaut

I am an astronaut

my suit, pale grey, almost white

you cannot really tell in this moonlight

my oxygen’s low, my heartbeat sky high

I stand far from humanity, I sleep alone from

—

it’s lonely, sometimes, being stranded up here

too far away from the earths atmosphere

I hear none, feel none, except for my breath

I anticipate nothing but martians and possibly, death.

AnonyMonster

I am in total adoration of these illustrations but can’t seem to find the artist. Anyone??