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Thursday, April 26, 2012

My Crazy Day



No one in my family does well with change. Like, really. We get panic attacks and medications need to be adjusted. We have to have pans and routines constructed to detail what’s going on down to the half-hour. We don’t do well with change.
I’ve never done well with change. Which is no surprise seeing as no one I grew up with accepted change with anything less than panic. I’ve often chastised myself as lazy because I don’t do some particular things, but whenever I try to do them I get panicky and scared. I can’t even pin point what the fear is exactly, but it’s there, along with the butterflies in the belly.
But I’m trying to change this. I’m trying to look at change as a cool thing, that doing something new can be fun and rewarding.
Yesterday was ANZAC Day in Australia, the day we mourn our fallen soldiers, pray for the ones in active duty, and pay tribute to those left behind. The day is also commemorated with a dawn service just about everywhere in the country. People drag themselves out of bed to their local RSL (retired servicemen’s league) or the beach and stand in silence as the sun rises. Wreaths are laid by fires, the last post is played, and sometimes a prayer is given. While I’ve been to ANZAC Day services before, I’ve never been to a dawn service. See, besides being terrified of change, my family also loves a good sleep in. None of us kids were ever the type to get up early on the weekends to watch cartoons, unless by early you mean 9am. But recently I was thinking that I might as well go to one. This year the stars aligned and not only did I not have to work yesterday but I didn’t have to work today either which meant that if I was overly tired I’d still have a full day to reorient myself before heading back to work.
I almost talked myself out of it, thinking about the cold of the early morning as well as the traffic and parking problems, until I saw Hank Green’s YouTube video where he talked about adulthood. One of the things he said was an XKCD quote “we’re the adults now, we decide what that means”. I’ve seen that quote many times before, but that time it finally clicked. I am an adult now, screw doing the norm! I can get up early if I want! I can be tired the rest of the day and drink too much coffee!
It’s like a light switched on and suddenly I realised how just doing something different can be fun and an experience in and of itself.
The service was very moving and even educational. And while the kookaburras hadn’t stopped their ‘dawn is coming!’ chirping throughout most of the service they all seemed to shut up during the minute of silence.
To keep with the ‘change is good’ song of the day, my friend/roommate and I were watching Sunrise (morning breakfast show on channel 7) and noticed that they were filming just 20 minutes from our house. Not only that, but they brought along one of our favourite local celebrities; Grant Denyer!
What else could we do but hop in the car and drive down. After getting turned around and stopping at the wrong place we finally found a parking spot and started operation: find Grant. As it turns out, operation: find Grant lasted all of ten seconds as we found Grant and a bunch of his PA’s walking towards us. They stopped to get something that was left back as base camp, and I quickly jumped in, telling Grant that we were big fans of him and asking for a photo. He volunteered one of the men with him (Tom?) to take the snap, and my friend and I quickly positioned ourselves on either side of him.
I’ve gotta say, I was quite nervous. Sure, just the other day I got a photo with Wil Wheaton (more on that to come), but that was in the controlled environment of a convention when this was real life. Grant could easily have said no.
That was just the beginning of my amazing day. At 1:45pm I went to see The Avengers in Gold Class 3D at my local cinemas. I’ll write more on that later with an actual review.
I don’t know if there was much of a point to this post. It certainly wasn’t to brag (but it kind of was). I guess if you can take anything away from it, it’s that challenging yourself to do something different can work out to be a very rewarding experience.
Have you had a similar experience to me? Did you go to an ANZAC Day or other commemorative dawn service, or act like a crazy stalker person to track down a celebrity? Please tell me I’m not the only one in the comments!
Thanks,
Kathy

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Blood test

I have to go for a blood test today and I hate them as much as they hate me (whenever I give blood I get really dizzy) so I thought I would look at things that are cute or pretty to cheer myself up:

beautiful shot from the first ep of Once Upon a Time
Prince Charming on his horse
make a wish Emma
pretty wolf...

another pretty shot 

cute puppy sleeping

more sleepy puppies!

Kathy

Monday, April 9, 2012

Be My Kryptonite?

Taken from the Wikipedia page on Kryptonite


The UK group One Direction has taken the world by storm so fast that it's almost impossible to go one day without hearing their songs. And just this morning I heard them on the TV when a certain part of their song caught my attention. The song was 'One Thing', which I don't particularly mind except for this part: "you're my kryptonite/you keep making me weak". 
Yep, the girl to whom he is singing is like his Kryptonite and makes him weak! That’s a horrible thing to say to someone! For those who don’t know, Kryptonite is a mineral from the Superman universe and, while it comes in many different forms among the many different versions of Superman, it always does the Man of Steel more harm than good. After hearing this song I started thinking about this and came to the conclusion that I never want to be someone’s Kryptonite, and neither do you.
  1. Green Kryptonite makes superman weak! Is that the type of relationship you want, constantly bringing him/her down? No way.
  2. Red Kryptonite has a variety of different effects such as paralysis, apathy, selfishness, even hallucinations... in short, it makes superman crazy! Now, we all wanna make our man ‘crazy with love’ but this doesn't make superman more willing to love, at least not one woman if you get my drift.
  3. Black Kryptonite splits his personality! I want my man to be able to trust me with his whole self, not just part of it, and I certainly don’t want to cause him to hide himself from anybody else.


Personally, I'd rather be a Utility Belt. 

Taken from the Wikipedia page on Batman's Utility Belt
Batman's famous accessory helps him in many different circumstances. He doesn't rely on it all the time but he can use it whenever he wants to scale a building or take down some bad guys. Rather than make him weak, the belt makes him strong. Among other things the Utility Belt comes with: but-cuffs, batarangs, master bat-key, batlight, and a flamethrower! Basically, whatever circumstance Batman finds himself in; his Utility Belt can help him out.
So when you’re thinking about your relationship, think about what you give to your partner. Do you make them weak by bringing them down or forcing them to be someone/something they’re not, or do you make them stronger by helping them whenever they need it?
That’s just my two cents; feel free to leave your own in the comments.
Kathy