Googling Medical Symptoms

Like anything else that has been mentioned on the internet, Googling your symptoms has also been made fun of, to the extent where I believe the jokes so much that when I Googled my symptoms just before, I trusted all results that came up.

In fact, what started as a strange stabbing pain in my lower right abdomen turned into something wicked, like a washing machine cleaning knives the longer I was exposed to Google search results. My heart skipped beats unnaturally and I began to think something dire was happening to my body. Seven days my eyes read, and then it changed to seven minutes which then switched to seven seconds and it just kept intensifying as I opened and closed and searched through varied medical websites.

Honestly, I began to adopt the symptoms I read about. I had none of them before – I was not vomiting, nor was I nauseas, but when I read that I may have appendicitis my pain escalated and I immediately felt sick. My body led me to believe that Google was right, that I probably have less than seven seconds before something inside of me ruptured, before my insides turned out or before parts of me imploded.

Google may have its benefits when it comes to researching or pretending to research or looking up disgusting things when you are meant to be researching or procrastinating instead of researching altogether, but when it comes to medical uses it can be frightening. My grandpa is a medical freak. Seriously, if there is something wrong with you he will dance on your grave because he loves solving medical problems and talking about them for hours. He will even put your phone number on speed-dial for all eternity even after you recover from whatever it is that you had. Recently, he has been asking me and my sister to Google things like ‘jaundice’ or ‘fatty liver’ or ‘gastro’ or any other possible thing he may be affected with due to his paranoia.

We of course pretend the internet is down or just carry on doing whatever it is that we were doing and ignore his requests, in which case he would interrogate my mother who in turn interrogates him whenever she is feeling medically paranoid. I wonder, though, what it would be like if my grandpa was technologically literate. If like me, he were a digital native. I think he would have more episodes of freaking out like the one I went through before, on a secondly basis. He already does that when he does not feel like conversing about horses and betting and gambling and how men that gamble are better for me than men who smoke, however he will abandon all talk of this nonsense to speak of medical terms.

I know better than to not Google things like this but I cannot help it, especially when my mother gives me a look of concern as though her face is giving me Google results. It is then that I panic even more and panic even more after that when I find more results. The worst thing is being redirected off a medical webpage to the symptoms page, which takes a little more than expected to load. That waiting time ups my adrenalin and I feel even sicker than I am. It all just contributes negatively.

I had one worrying instance when I was at the doctor’s clinic, a female doctor who I had not yet seen before, and as I was telling her my symptoms she began typing them into the Google search engine. I looked at her in awe. How dare she try to manipulate me into thinking that I have some sort of weird disease forming in some part of my body which will kill me in seven seconds? That is my job when I Google things at home, not hers. Her job is to Google things inside her mind which has housed several medical incidents. Apparently not, in this case.

I know better than to trust Google. Googling medical symptoms is like referring to Wikipedia searches in academic writing. It cannot work, and if you do it, it will ruin your life. Well, thinking back on the episode on the toilet that I had before, my life was almost ruined. I thought it was the end of my journey. I sat there on the toilet contemplating who to say goodbye to, and almost dialing Nurse-On-Call, a helpful Australian initiative which works to rewind Google symptom results that all  inhabitants of the world Down Under stumble upon.

So it turns out that, after remembering what I did last week, I had torn a muscle because I decided to be macho woman and carry a heavy box of brand new pots on my right shoulder whilst carrying a heavy bag of cups on my left side. That whipped me right out of alignment and tore a muscle. Well, at least I think so. It makes more sense than what Google told me anyway. And I still have at least seven years in me.

The Price of Life

Sometimes I find myself feeling quite jealous of the wealth of others, particularly those fortunate with fame and popularity. I become jealous of lawyers, doctors, programmers, designers and anyone else who can apparently effortlessly obtain a significant amount of money than I.

Considering my future as a teacher, I also become hesitant on journeying on through that path because of the supposed low pay. In contrast to a lawyer, yes, teachers do get paid less. On a $60,000 annual income, it would take me one hundred and fifty years to make what top lawyers make in twenty-two years - do not even get me started on rappers who curse and cuss and diss and hate and make fools of themselves, or Disney princesses gone wrong sitting nude on wrecking balls and sticking their tongues out so much so it scares the living daylight out of every person who once had fantasised about them - so much so that ice-cream fears for its life when it is called upon by this person.

But the price of life is also important. So many people would give all of their money and more just to live another day, just to remain youthful, just to remain on this planet. Life, I have figured, is much more valuable than any amount of money earned. Sure, life can be made significantly pleasurable with more money but it cannot be made richer in essence. This is probably the basis as to why teachers continue teaching. When they claim that their jobs are 'rewarding' they are not speaking in terms of finances, rather speaking in terms of the joy that comes to them when they see the look of familiarisation and realisation and thankfulness in their students' faces. They can spend days, months, years with the absence of a high amount of money yet they are left with a high amount of joy.

When I become jealous, which happens but on rare occasions especially on those where I find amazing super-cars or muscle cars or any other thing financially unattainable and crave them, I then remind myself that the simple things necessary in life count the most, and everything else is a bonus. I tell myself that so long as I obtain a rewarding job, purchase a reliable car, and find myself the most perfect partner who loves me as divinely as I will love them, then I have the basis of what I want in my life. And when the time comes that I and my spouse have a steady enough income, children will fall into the picture. And when our children are living comfortably and getting their education they deserve, I will see to it that I help out charities which care for children unnoticed. 

I do not value the objects I desire as much as the things I need. I am content with what I have, and I am grateful. This is beginning to sound like a Thanksgiving speech, I know. But what I am trying to say is that living a happy life is possible without large financial endeavours. I am grateful that I am here, wherever that is. I am grateful that I am healthy despite my weight issue. I am grateful that I have the amount of money necessary for my daily survival, and that my family is also healthy and content also. I am grateful for the relationship I have with my mother, father and sister, and for the peaceful situation I am in. I am grateful for my education, for my academic striving, for the impact I have already left on a cohort of younger people, for the impact those younger people have left on me and for many other things that I turn a blind eye to during my moments of jealousy.

One does not need the economical prowess that is money in order for their lives to be fulfilled. They simply need things that money cannot buy, such as love, honour, and kindness. This post may sound like something Buddha would have written had he had his own blog, yet I hope it inspires you, dear reader. Be all that you can become without resorting to being jealous of others.

Instinct is Power

My parrot has been domesticated for the majority of his life. Because of his instincts he has enough guidance that he needs to survive, besides the fact that is is daily presented with fresh food and water, and a few juicy snacks that he would otherwise probably never come across had he been in the wild. He hides from airplanes which shows his fear from larger predators, and he has built a little cave out of his feathers and stuffed toys up on the top storey of his aviary, using it as his bedroom each night. He weaves his sleek green body through the tunnels underneath a blue teddy bear and a stuffed killer whale and makes his way in and out swiftly and can remain unseen and unheard whilst hiding. All this he knows from his sense of instinct. That is the power of it. It is stronger than knowledge because knowledge is merely passed on. 

When I first was gifted him, I thought he was a female because of his behaviour. He is overly protective of his cage, he does not allow anyone to touch him unless he is in the mood to be handled by humans, and he did not talk much - at least, at the start. Then we plucked four large feathers from his rear-end and sent them off to a laboratory which specialises in DNA testing, and they sent us back a certificate deeming him a male. From that moment on, everything became weird. Why was he insistent on building a nest when he did not need it? Why was he fussy whenever anyone touched him each time he did not feel like it? But I did not question his lack of speaking anymore, because there came a lack of shutting up. His feathers began to brighten, and he began to scream a little too much in the mating seasons. All of this gender peculiarity, though, faded when I realised that instinct was at play.

And what an ingenious thing it is. All night last night I kept thinking about if humans and animals had their roles reversed, how humans would barely survive because they do not have that animal instinct. I think many cavemen and women died off by falling off a cliff, or by getting a little too close to the fire. One fine more modern example is that of Genie, or feral child, the little girl who was locked in a room for around thirteen years by her father, experiencing a large dose of social isolation. One interesting thing about Genie was an instance where she was left in a bathtub, assuming she knew when to turn off the hot water - she did not. She sat there burning in the tub and did not know due to no exposure of what society deemed 'hot' and 'cold' that the hot water was hurting her body. She simply could not feel pain, and because of the left side of her brain failing to develop due to the lack of communication, she stayed that way.

This makes me think that without technological advances and without language, and without anything else that makes us who we are, humans would be left with nothing, not even instinct, and it is that shedding of society, of all modernity that differentiates us from animals, that places animals above us in that instance. All of what I am saying are merely claims due to un-researched things. however I simply cannot get over how intelligent my bird is. And to think we negate their abilities to think.

The Proposal: the Starbucks Girl we Don't Notice

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Most people have seen the movie The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock as Margaret Tate, a tough, mean Canadian boss and Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton, her capitalist slave. The movie follows their shaken lives as they fall in love unexpectedly after fears of Margaret having to be deported. She then proposes to Andrew, they fall helplessly in love after a large ordeal back in Andrew's hometown which includes Margaret dancing to Lil Jon's Get Low with Betty White around a campfire, and they enjoy a nice happy ending.

But one key element is ignored in this movie, right at the very beginning, when Andrew wakes up quite late and rushes off to Starbucks to obtain a coffee for himself and Margaret. Once he enters the shop, he is confronted by a large line of sleepy business people, all waiting for that cup of caffeine. Something unexpected then happens, that key in the movie: the coffee barista at Starbucks, who does not even get a name in the cast lineup beside 'coffee barista', catches Andrew as he walks in and has already made him the coffees that he always orders. He is called to the front of the line, walking past all of the hustle and bustle contained within the line, collects the coffees and hurries off to work.

This 'coffee barista' leaves her cell phone number on Andrew's coffee cup, which had to go to Margaret because Andrew accidentally spilled his coffee on his way to her office, thus sacrificing both his coffee and the potential relationship between himself and little Miss Coffee Barista, thus withdrawing all the mental suffering he will go through on his way to Alaska with Margaret. Poor Miss Barista is then denied a mention throughout the rest of the narrative, and the rest of Andrew's short-lived life. And this is key because it symbolises us, those of us who in life which is not always short-lived, are left behind despite our unusually kind efforts to get somebody to notice us.

Knowing that Andrew was running late and that he would never miss a day of work nor his morning coffees no matter what, Miss Barista had already made them and placed them on a take-away tray for Andrew's further convenience, displaying an act of kindness, of utter love and a yearning of attention, acknowledgement, notice, none of which she ends up receiving. Miss Barista is the epitome of all those in life who are forgotten, who are rejected, who perform random acts of kindness only to be left alone in the end. Miss Barista went completely out of her way, risking a morning of receiving indignant remarks from those waiting in line just to be noticed, only to be unnoticed.

And unfortunately in life, this happens to most of us. Most of us are the living, breathing examples of Miss Barista. And there are Mister Baristas, too. The film goes on never showing her again, and that makes a comment on the Mister and Miss Baristas in life - they may go their entire lives performing good deeds to others only to remain unnoticed. 

Boiled Eggs

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Anzac Day: Hanging on by a Thread

Tomorrow is Anzac Day, again. I say this in a sombre manner because it is every year that anyone barely commemorates another day wherein we "will remember them" yet we still send out troops to fight pointless wars - we, collectively, as in we human beings.

We of all nations should know better than to continue the impracticality that is war. War does not solve a damn thing, the hippies were right. All war does is dig even deeper foreign gaps between nations, between religions thus between humans. What will happen when evil aliens come forth from the heavens and demand us to sacrifice our planet? Will it be only then that we all would unite? That the Amazon tribes will lend us their poison spears when people from the white white west run out of ammunition? Would the red Indians of America ally with Australia's forgotten Aborigines in spite of the white white west? I only hope that the aliens come sooner just so I can laugh at the face of humankind's tragedy.

But it was this that inspired me to write such a drab post:

A picture from an Anzac Day lift-out in the Herald Sun Newspaper yesterday, the 23rd of April. It is mirrored because I took the photo on my MacBook, however that element of this picture is unimportant - what is important, though, is the content of the photo, the act of which I am unable to name even despite an extensive search of the name of this act of holding a string that, on the other end, is attached to a soldier holding on, the last grip with their loved ones before they go to a foreign place and clamp their hands around the grips of a gun and hold fast to it even if their grip shakes otherwise the "enemy" might shoot them first.

This is perhaps the most heartbreaking pre-war photograph I have ever come across, in fact each one of its kind is heartbreaking. One can only feel this heartbreak if they place themselves in the position of one of the two people on either end of the string: from the perspective of the soldier, who probably is holding on to the last piece of hope that they will ever see, or the person on the other end - the lover, the brother or sister, the father or mother, the best friend, the daughter or son who might see their father, uncle, brother or son for the last time ever, and this tug-of-war sort of play is the last experience before that soldier has to tug for their lives.

The entire prospect of war angers me. "Lest we forget", they claim, as they take the day off as a public holiday and become intoxicated on beer and fill their guts with barbecued meats as they sit around in the sun in their backyards watching their children play around and feeling the fresh green grass between their toes, while years ago men as young as fifteen risked their lives because they were brainwashed to fight for their country, a sense of false patriotism overridden by a "holiday" claimed by the propaganda, only to find blood, guts and ammunition being fired from every direction at them. In fact, in the case of the Anzacs, most of these young men never made it off their boats without being gunned down, bullets piercing their lungs, their skulls, their legs, everywhere. And what do they get in return? Some unmarked gravestones, some marked gravestones with dead flowers, and some decaying in the sea where they were shot down while all being commemorated with one minute of silence and a red poppy.

The parade showcasing the remaining veterans, some too shell-shocked and traumatised still after all these years to even know what is going on. All they know is that they are in the safety of a wheelchair and they are not wielding guns and running around shooting other young men for the pride and joy of their country. I look at those gloomy eyes and I see pain, I see things no human should go through or witness, and I realise that the fanfare of these parades are not enough to commemorate these men. War should not have happened in the first place. Anything involving the premature taking of lives is execrable.

So tomorrow, while we have that one minute of silence, imagine being on one end of that string and either wishing or being wished a 'bon voyage'. Only then we will know, minus the gruesome details, if war ever was worth being fought. "Lest we forget"? More like, "lest we not drink".

5 Steps Towards How to Conquer Writer's Block

The reason as to why I have started writing daily essays in the first place is partly to cure my writer's block. For as long as I can recall I have wanted to write stories to share and inspire, and for as long as I can recall I have been blocked from doing so, mentally. So, I have devised ways down below on how to conquer, once and for all, the block of writers:

1. Expose yourself to controversial things
That is indeed the best way to conquer writer's block. When you are exposed to controversial news reports, debates, pieces of writing, videos, or any other form of text, you begin to formulate your own internal opinions, and whether you agree with what is being said or not, you instantly begin to want to write down those ideas. That, in itself, gets you one step ahead of writer's block, because you are being active in the literary sense, which is what I try to do on a daily basis in order to invoke within myself something to write about. After one-hundred and fifty essays, it becomes more and more difficult to write about new topics - but the newspapers find something to talk about every single day. How is that for inspiration?

2. Talk to people you hate
Although it is difficult to talk to people you hate because of the reasons you hate them, I bet that one of the reasons is that they do not make sense or that they are stubborn within an argument. Good. Stubborn people feed the writer's very soul because they allow the writer to see things from varied viewpoints and perspectives. I remember getting into a heated argument with an Irish man, who said that teachers were "no good". He kept degrading education to my sister who was selling him his milk and then he turned to me - imagine a really angry face, then imagine that face on top of my shoulders - "why don't you smile?" he asked me, poking his face into my zone of proximity. I replied, sternly, "I'll smile when you leave." So he did. Although this happened over a month ago, I now am thinking of the benefits of that heated conversation, and hey, at least that argument has lead me to include it in this piece, thus upping the word-count.

3. Visit places strange to you
Being in the same place at the same time every single day of every single week within every single year makes it difficult for one to find a muse, or find a source of inspiration. For me, this occurs whenever I am in the city, strolling through busy crowds and looking up at Victorian architecture. It is in observing groups of people that I also acquire inspiration to write, and it also helps me to shape my imaginary characters by looking at real life characters whom I have never met and probably never will - this also helps when you come to write about them because strangers would deem an exact description of themselves by you as pure coincidence and nothing more in the event of you wanting to write about them, instead of you having to write about a direct relative who is "fat" and "repugnant" and "smelly" - imagine having to explain to them that your protagonist is not about them even if they look alike visually.

4. Engage in conversation with yourself
They say the first sign of mental illness is when you talk to yourself - I say the first sign of mental illness is when you do not. If there was a clone of yourself you would get along so well with it, why not clone your mind and pretend that it exists right in front of you and have a conversation with it? You may find interesting things to talk about. When I talk to myself I make up plays on the spot and they become so inspirational that I almost cry about the fact that I forget to record them - every single time. Talking to yourself also has its benefits in that instead of mentally developing your opinions you begin to voice them, forcing you to develop them faster and towards a more finesse outcome: what you voice in your mind may not always make sense, thus when you bring it into the atmosphere vocally it will develop from brain mashed potato into atmospheric potato balls, crispy and sure of themselves. 

5. Have long showers and take long poops
 This may be the weirdest step of them all but weird is good. Trust me, I have tried both these things and I should not speak about them in past tense because they are activities I partake in on a daily basis. Long showers with steam touching your eyeballs and the sound of water trickling down your sides and down the drain may not sound good to your water bills but they will definitely offer you what society does not most of the time: headspace. If you are not too keen on a high water bill, then perhaps just sit in the bathtub and pick up handfulls of water and let them fall through your fingers slowly, recreating that dripping headspace sound. If you hate bathtubs like me, then perhaps the toilet is for you. Enter the toilet, and lock the door. Turn on the noisy fan and pull your pants down, and make yourself comfortable. Make sure there is another toilet available if you live with your family otherwise you will not get much peace. Now, do your business for as long as you please and remain seated until your legs become numb. Make sure you find a focal point in this duration and stare at it senselessly. You will find yourself more capable of writing after this. Try it.

These may not work for you but they certainly work for me. They are interesting ways of defeating writer's block, if I must say. Oh, by the way, I defeated mine tonight by writing about the ways in which I defeat writer's block. 

"I Trust Science, not Miracles!" How L'oréal is Pushing Scientology to Promote its Latest Product

The movie starring Tom Cruise, Knight and Day is on television at the moment. I am sitting with my mother and father watching it whilst peeling an orange, being mindful to peel each white bit away until all I am left with is a crisp, round bright orange fruit. My night has been quite simple thus far, until the movie was halted to make way for the advertisements scheduled to come on and a lady advertising a new L'oréal hair dye appears on the television screen and says that she trusts "science, not miracles!"

My parents, having been born in Lebanon, are still not accustomed to the undertones in advertisements, thus they had not reacted the way I had, leading me to write this. What I heard in an advertisement that was meant to be about cosmetics was a stab at religions which follow God or Jesus or both or neither while glorifying the benefits of Scientology, a religion that of course Tom Cruise is an advocate of. In those allegedly innocent five words targeted towards a larger sale of a mere hair dye made by the already successful L'oréal, a meaning of larger proportions was released - was it coincidental that this advertisement was continuously played in each ad-break for a movie starring Tom Cruise? I think not. Why would a large French cosmetic company with a reputable name and an outstanding net income of over forty-four billion Australian dollars to this day pay for a mere slot at around midnight on Australian television when most potential buyers of this beauty product would be asleep when they could easily afford an advertising slot at a more successful hour? 

Upon looking for links between Scientology and France I only found that in 2012 France sued Scientology for fraud. The fact that a French product is possibly aiming to push for Scientology in the act of subliminal advertising messages is quite possible, because a lot can change in two years, and while France simply believes that Scientology is a cult and considering the French government has adopted a strong legislation against cults, I do not believe that there is not one person within the French government who believes in Scientology, or at least one person in the head of L'oréal. This advertisement is too casually subliminal to not have somebody behind its cunningness. 

This entire cunningness is worrying to me not only because my parents are not accustomed to English enough to think critically but those accustomed to English like my sister who cannot think critically and do not have a background in some general knowledge would, and did, completely ignore the message being sent out in that seemingly innocent beauty advertisement. The outward public demeaning of religions is unacceptable. There are twenty-one religions in the world today, demeaning all twenty-one of these would call for even more wars than we have had. Although the availability of religion may offend free thinkers and scientists, the proper way to approach the stating of one's beliefs is to do it in a blatantly obvious manner, so that one may decide for themselves whether they do or do not agree to what one is preaching. 

My parents, for instance, had no way of defending their opinions from the opinions of the cunning Scientologists behind this L'oréal advertisement. Everyone should indeed have a freedom of opinion, in the same way that I have opinions about why I partially follow Christianity, however I do not use my opinions to demean others. I also do not subtly state them - I either state them in discussions or do not state them at all. While Andie MacDowell, the lady in that L'oréal advertisement does not, according to my quick browsing within Google, appear to be a Scientologist, I am standing by my claim that she might be part of Scientology, otherwise she would have noticed that what she was saying in that advertisement is demeaning all religions except for Scientology. 

Reddit has seen my point, but has made the link from L'oréal to Atheism. I moreso see it linking to Scientology, especially considering the advertisement itself and Tom Cruise were on in the same timeframe. I could be overthinking some coincidence but the way I see it is that it is no coincidence at all. At a time where younger generations are being told to think more critically, Scientology has taken the leap to above and beyond the movie industry to try to convince firstly buyers of cosmetics to place no belief in any miracles. I am glad that that advertisement came on tonight and that I could it red-handed, per se, because after pointing out my interpretation to my parents and my sister I could see them thinking twice in their expressions. 

I think that in order to live harmoniously subliminal messages should cease to exist unless they are presented in satirical instances such as a comedy act wherein the receiver of the messages presented is aware that what they are being exposed to is a cunning opinion and that they also have the ability to withhold their own. 






References

Reddit post:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/13dpqh/loreal_gets_it/]

Number of religions:
[https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005120500015]

Scientology status by country:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_status_by_country]

Scientology news (article about France suing Scientology):
[http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/france/120202/france-labels-scientology-business-not-church]

L'oréal's net income:
[http://www.4-traders.com/LOREAL-4666/financials/]

Monogamy, Heterosexuality and Barbie

When I was a young girl I held tightly onto an image of my future which consisted of a heterosexual relationship wherein I would be as equally in love with my husband as he was with me and that horrible things which exist to eliminate relationships like cheating or lying were things that would never happen in my vicinity. 

I did not necessarily seek Barbie's Ken, nor did I seek Cinderella's handsome young prince. I just sought after somebody who would deem me the apple of their eye forever. And that did not seem as though I was asking for much, I actually thought it was the least I could ask for but it was all I thought I needed - apart from a large farmhouse with blueberry plants and several beautiful horses, especially apaches and palaminos which were allegedly to appear from thin air and not to be bought after several years of economic slavery. 

This idea of my future is changing more than I had anticipated it to. I did not in my wildest imagination think that people would turn out to be so abhorrent, that people who appeared to be loving could be so cruel, and most importantly that monogamy was a thing of the past, or a very rare thing that is likely to result in tragedy and no happy ending. I did not think that such a thing as cheating existed. I thought that whoever one married was the one they were with for life and that thoughts of a sexual nature of others was something found in hell and nowhere on earth. Boy, was I wrong. 

And it is sad that I am. Little girls are still brought up to think the way that I thought as a little girl myself. They still sell Barbies  with preconceived notions packaged in the boxes. I still see young girls pushing around pink coloured prams and little girls nursing baby dolls as if they were their own baby humans. And most shockingly I see little girls playing with hererosexually coupled dolls. They are mislead from their youth to think that it is okay for Barbie to want only Ken and that Barbie and Ken would be together forever and that Ken is okay with being seen rolling around in Barbie's pink car. 

What I am trying to say is that there still lies in our society dark undertones despite some of our best efforts to clean them up. Most young girls are like me in that they are in for a rude awakening when they mature - gay marriage is a possibility, lust is a nasty thing that exists and you might be with Fred, George, Stanley and Lucas before you meet Ken who might not even fall for your gender in the first place. This is why I think identity is such an abstract idea to teenagers. And I do not refer only to young girls. 

Take young boys for example. They are faced with alluring of destructive toys, and are still faced with the idea that if they accidentally step on a piece of Lego it is wrong to cry. They still prefer the colour blue to pink and most likely will not take an interest in playing with Barbies. I know this is not the case with all children, because my family friend's son wears pink tutus and has more female friends than males and is more knowledgable about the world and its diverse people than most children his age because of the introduction of an open mind by his mother.

Society still has a lot of waking up to do. Gender roles still exist and I am still looked at weirdly for preferring to wear track pants rather than skirts. I enjoy warmth, okay?

Chocolate Easter Rabbits

I have told myself that this year for Easter I would not succumb to eating any chocolate despite the fact that it is Easter and it is traditional - no, I thought, I would not give in to the rabbit shaped mounds of delicious melted cocoa. 

And I did not, at least for most of the day. I had eaten small portions all day and was quite proud of myself for doing so. I was also surrounded by allegedly delicious Easter bunnies that my father had bought to sell in his shop, and one in particular which he had opened. I did not succumb to that either and I was rather surprised as even my lactose intolerant sister was eating at it like Easter was going to expire and we were not allowed to have any chocolate any other day. 

So I went the first half of the day sticking to the promise made to myself. I had even begun to lose interest in chocolate. I actually started stopping chocolate the day before just to prepare myself for today. And it worked well. I had then headed over to my grandmother's home at about six in the evening, eaten dinner there and received my own chocolate bunny wrapped in attractive purple foil with an enticing 'Cadbury' logo on the neck of rabbit. I accepted the rabbit from my uncle and had sat it next to me. "No," I said, "I will not be tempted." And I was not, at least not until everyone began to gnaw at their chocolate rabbits. 

I felt as though I had nothing to do. I stared at my phone screen and stared at the television and the space between both consisted of my relatives eating chocolate. My cousin who had fasted chocolate for forty days was eating the most, followed by her brother who ate more chocolate than he did in his lifetime in that hour when I started to eat some - and yes, I succumbed. I admit I was not proud of having done so, however I did not want to disappoint the large-eared figure hopping beside me. 

Yes that figure did not exist but come on, who goes through Easter and does not consume some chocolate? There comes no joy like the joy one feels as they take a bite into the ears of a chocolate bunny and watch crumbs fall into its hollow body. There comes no joy like the joy one feels when they then tilt the hollow body upside down pouring those crumbs into one's mouth and devouring them. There comes no joy like the joy one feels when they realise that everyone else is eating their bunny the same way. Whatever one does at Easter one does knowing that there will be an Easter rabbit made of chocolate to consume very soon. 

And for some reason Easter eggs and Easter rabbits taste utterly delicious compared to other chocolates of the same brands. For example a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate tastes nothing like Cadbury Easter Eggs. They are made of the same thing and have completely different tastes. It is quite bizarre. And today's Cadbury Easter Rabbit tasted even different than both the eggs or the bar. Do companies do this to tempt customers to eat more chocolate at Easter? I am betting that there is some addictive ingredient added to Easter chocolate. Maybe it is Chemical X from the Powerpuff Girls. 

Either way I am not happy nor unhappy to have succumbed to chcolate this Easter. It is better than the alternative, boiled eggs, for at least chocolate does not give me horrid flatulence. 

Where do Grim Reapers get their Cloaks from?

The grim reaper. A cloaked figure, dressed in all black, transcending through realms surrounding life and death, haunting all those in its wake. 

After searching through the internet via Google I have found no means of explanation which tells one about where the grim reaper acquires its attire from. From whence does its cloak come? Has anybody bothered to question its one fashion statement? Do some humans contribute black cloaks to these beings as a form of bargaining so that they may live a little while longer before these beings visit them and take them from their lives and loves? Surely it does not appear from thin air dressed in the way that it is, a neat black cloak covering the lengths it is meant to - perhaps there exists a tailor who creates these cloaks for the price of immortality? 

Perhaps even these beings create their own cloaks. Maybe some reapers reap whilst others sew for those who reap. Maybe even they spawn in that cloak, with one hand carrying a scythe, convenient because they may immediately get to work from the moment of their, if you like, birth. Maybe they inherit their clothing - maybe their time is too up after a certain period of time or after a certain number of reaping and then they pass their clothes onto the next of kin. Maybe the more rustic the cloak, the more ancient and the more experienced it makes the wearer, giving the wearer also a higher reputation earning them more souls to reap than others. 

Grim reapers are too elusive to interview, and that proves problematic because no human can ask it this question. No human thus will ever know where it obtains it's clothing from. And it is worrying because they all conform to one style of clothing which means that there most likely exists a large cohort of grim reapers who each must wear the same things so as to be noticed by another. That also means that the cohort exists, the number within unknown, but may multiply to exceed the number of humans which means that there may be competition between each reaper, which may be the reason behind why humans wage war - maybe they are among us and their cloaks are magical because they transform into that of the president's, or an army lieutenant. 

Either way, it would be of interest to know where their cloaks come from. Maybe they are like Macklemore and they go to the thrift shop to buy our granddads' cloaks. 

How Many Jesus' are there?

Today was Good Friday. Good for me not only because I did not have any scheduled classes which means I get some headspace, but also good because it means that I would be able to hang out with some relatives and play the Bean Boozle challenge, which consists of eating jellybean that either taste like what thy are meant to or the horrible alternative, like smelly socks or booger or puke.

We got to talking, and though we are all of a Catholic or Greek Orthodox descent, me being both, we realised that our Jesus died at different times today. The Churches we went to ran at different times, which means that Jesus can not actually be at or die at three places at once - or can he? Just how many Jesus' are there? 

Each religion claims its own leader or God or whatever, yet each religion believes that its God or leader is the only God or leader. This is the case too with our religions, but it is peculiar that even though we believe in the same God or leader, we kill and resurrect him at different times and at different locations for our convenience. And the funny thing is that we were all wearing black which is the usual colour to wear for the funeral of Christ. Apparently Jesus had multiple funerals today. I wonder how he managed to make it to each one. 

It is just bizarre how religion works and how even the most sceptical accept things like this. I am a follower of Christ yet I cannot fathom why he needs to die and return three times in three different locations to the same followers. Why not make him die at least the same time in different churches if they seek convenience? At least it would be somewhat legitimised in that way. 

I found it to be a source of hilarity. My cousins and sat there discussing the times that 'our' Jesus died. 

"My Jesus died at 3 today."

"Are you serious? Mine died at 5!"

"My Jesus is the real Jesus. He died at 11, just the time every Jesus should die."

I wonder if this is the case with other religions in terms of other celebrations. How many of the same Gods or leaders do they have?

If anything I cannot wait to compete in boiled egg cracking competitions. My red boiled egg will conquer, this year - and that is all I and everyone else in the family will think about. Not the symbolism. Not our three Jesus'. Our boiled eggs, and if they will conquer. And that's the reality behind it all, that despite how much my parents try to push religion onto my sister and I, it always falls through. Like when I asked my mother why it was that we could not consume meat today. There was no decent explanation, nor was there one for three Jesus'. 

So how many Jesus' are there? 

Unknown. 

Do we create him for our convenience? 

Most likely.

Why do we not eat meat on Good Friday? 

Because we apparently commemorate Jesus giving up his life for us so we give up a prominent thing in our life - meat. 

Why is Good Friday named Good Friday?

It has something to do with sacrifices and nothing to do with Nicki Minaj. 

I suppose that while we give up meat today and deem it a Good Friday then so do the poor animals who have to go to the slaughterhouse. But no. We do not remember them because they are not in the chapter of a book written by old men. Not hating, just stating. Maybe one of our three Jesus' will spare the lives of these poor animals. 

Travel Brochures are Evil

Luscious green fields juxtaposed to the trodden dried Australian landscape which lacks rain, large blue voluptuous bodies of water nestling stable trendy huts in contrast to shabby cosmopolitan hotels, and the welcoming smile of all those foreigners as opposed to the unwelcoming glares received by fellow civilians in my hometown; travel brochures are the worst torture devices known to all mankind. 

And the worst thing is that I cannot afford a holiday. Well, I can afford a holiday but I cannot afford a decent one, and I mean that in financial and general terms. What I mean by 'decent' exactly is firstly some place I dream to travel to, such as America, and the length of time I would spend there, probably a month or two or maybe even a year, and in general terms I wish to return with no problems. I wish to come back home to a clean slate, one not rocked by the marks I have left here in terms of my educational pursuits. I know from the observations of others that this is achievable, however I am far too insecure to pursue this.

At the same time that I want to travel, I want to run and hide. I fear even travelling to the fridge - what happens if a wall decided to fall on me and kill me in a freak accident? What if the fridge did this? What if someone holding a knife was hiding behind that fridge? And the knife they were holding was the one my mum has only because she needs it even though she fears its size and potential? What if in that case I get killed and all they write on my tombstone is 'irony'? See? All of that. Now, imagine my reaction to being on a plane for longer than twelve hours. Oh Lord, and do not get me started on my phobia of toilets.

Yes. I do indeed have a phobia of some toilets. This began from a little childhood gig. Basically, I was on the toilet. I was around seven years old. My sister came in, who was four at the time, and ask if I had finished. I said yes, because at the time I just sat there and read after I was done too - nothing has changed. So, she reached up behind me and flushed the toilet whilst I was still seated. Ever since that moment, flushing sounds frighten me and stainless steel bowls frighten me and so does the height of the water.

Another thing is attachment, a thing I am all too familiar with. I know that if I travelled somewhere I liked, I would find it difficult to leave that place. I would want to stay there until I wither into ashes, until I am once again one with the land, even if it is foreign land. This is problematic because I would cling to this place despite me having no stability. I know that I can create some stability but I am not sure if I am stable enough to do so as of yet. All of this will take some time. I still have some self-exploration to pursue before I go on to pursue someplace else. And the financial pursuit will be another struggle.

This is why travel brochures are evil. They prompt me to think of all these and many more reasons as to why I should enter the travel store that they are advertising and up and leave wherever I am. I probably have enough money at the moment to allow me to travel to Greece and buy a donkey and feed it for two months before me and that donkey starve to death, unless I train it and I adapt to eating raw fish, in which case we would raid the famous fish markets like Aladdin and Abu did for that loaf of bread.

Siri Hudsvedt's 'The Summer without Men' and its Visual Narrative

Quite recently, the fiction class I am in has finished looking at Siri Hudsvedt's The Summer without Men and nobody but myself had bothered to mention the visual narrative contained within the text, which in itself tells the story contained but in a short burst of four illustrations.

 This disappointed me, as I am disappointed in any other form of literary analysis where the inclusion of visual elements is evident. The author, in this case, has most certainly placed those illustrations there on purpose thus you cannot entirely unpack and analyse the story itself alone because there within it lies an entire different narrative, not different of course in terms of the context, but certainly different in terms of the way in which the context is presented - visually.

And they preach about catering for the needs of varied intelligences of students within a classroom setting yet they do not perform this. I am a visual person, and if my teacher had come into class that day and told us about the exciting visual narrative contained within The Summer without Men then I would have most definitely paid more attention than I did that day. And I cannot help it. Though, I did mention it in a class discussion and it seemed foreign to my teacher and classmates. It honestly upset me. 

I did, however, sneakily include the analysis of these four illustrations in my essay response to the text and another text, right before the conclusion. I am yet to know how my teacher will react to this but I surely hope she does not react the same way as she did in class that day. What I said is not entirely foreign to my peers, either, so I am failing to understand why they treated the idea that I imposed like it were. All I mentioned was that The Summer without Men contains an alternate narrative in its four illustrations. Now, I know that most of my peers have not read the text, but out of the ones that did, did they just merely pass each illustration without thinking more of it? How could they just ignore each of them? The meaning contained within each is humungous, and when analysed by myself, did play out the text visually.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with the text, it follows the mental breakdown and transformation of the protagonist, Mia, whose husband of thirty years, Boris, decides to have a 'pause' in their marriage to pursue a younger French co-worker. He has an affair with this co-worker, and decides to try to come back to Mia, who in the meanwhile, was admitted into a psychiatric facility and ends up spending her summer indeed, with no men in sight. It is in interesting story, delivered in a very intellectual manner, and contains aspects of feminism which work to liberate females from their stereotypical roles.

This first image, located early on in the book, shows the protagonist 'boxed in', per se, and drowning in the box that she is caught in. She is stretching out her two hands, in attempt to receive help, in the same likeness that a drowning person would. This would perhaps suggest that at this stage, she is drowning in her mental agitation, or perhaps even her situation which had completely stumped her, seeing as her husband is quite a rational person - what had caused him to behave so irrationally?

 The second image, above, shows Mia slyly coming out of the box which had her imprisoned for quite some time. The look on her face suggests that she is far more comfortable in the situation now, compared to the previous look where she appeared to be panicky. She is now studying the world outside of the bow that had encapsulated her, and is about to take flight.

This third illustration brings in another character, who I think to be Abigail - in the novel, Abigail is an old lady who is part of Mia's mother's friendship group, 'The Swans', and secretly embroiders women acting against the social norms of females, for example performing masturbatory activities, within her craftworks. Now, judging by that and judging by the fact that Abigail allowed only Mia to see these craftworks makes me think that this is her in the image, showing Mia the different ways women should be able to thrive, and Mia taking it into account, now fully out of the box.

The final image is not only the most important, but the most liberating, because that is indeed what is being portrayed - Mia is liberated utterly from the box of norms, of troubles, of agitation, and is now floating in serenity. This could also suggest that she has a freer headspace, and now does not take the situation she is in as really bad.

From these images, one could create an entirely new narrative, or having read the text, can align it with the narrative provided. This is why I was ashamed when nobody took them into account. They do indeed tell another story and should not be flicked away like a read page in a book. The saying 'a picture tells a thousand words' indeed applies to this, and as a person highly interested in art as I am in literature, I agree to this with no hesitation. Art, any form of art, has meaning, and this one cannot be ignored. I highly recommend the reading of this text, and the noticing of its four key drawings.

Dine with the Dead

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Have you ever had the feeling that your dinnertimes were too shallow? That having a cup of tea with people that are alive is far too mainstream? That restaurants buzzing with life are too boring? Well, you must not worry, because apparently, you are not alone.

Meet 'Lucky' from India, a busy restaurant which despite the fact that it was built on a graveyard and still contains coffins of the deceased, is bustling with life. Attendees of the restaurant have no idea that the zombies apocalypse is nearing and that at any waking moment they will join the deceased without having the ability to retain their brains - or perhaps in dining with the dead they are attempting to make allies for when the apocalypse comes - in which case, they would be cleverly enjoying a cup of tea with some zombies while the rest of us run for our lives, literally. 

It is just bizarre that such a thing exists. People cannot fathom the reasoning behind it, and when people from Melbourne, Australia hear about it I am sure that they too will freak out. Little do we Melbournians know, though, that we have been doing so all along as well. Yes, when I say this I am referring to the Queen Victoria Market, a market heavily attended by tourists and locals alike on a daily basis that was built on a graveyard and that still has bodies of the deceased resting below it. In this instance, visitors trod all over the unmarked graves without acknowledging their presence. There is no room for ally making here, because all you will find is bargain hunting and profit making continuously happening. There is no attention paid to the fact that beneath our feet are zombies in the making, eavesdropping on our conversations of how good the Spanish donuts there are, on how damn cheap that shirt was, and on how clueless we are of their presence. 

Visitors of 'Lucky' claim that they feel refreshed and indeed lucky after dining there. A corpse after being interviewed said "I like being here more than I did when it was just us lying here. Now I have more people to listen to and delicious food to smell. I have never felt so alive!" Similarly, another corpse stated that he was "lucky to be here." All other corpses simply nodded with agreement.  This just may be where the name of the restaurant derived from. "Once you dine with us," he continued, "we give you both a blessing and our company. We may not smell that good or look that good but we communicate from within our coffins so as not to interrupt your enjoyment too."

I would personally never consume anything in that restaurant, nor would I even breathe nor be anywhere in its proximity in the first place. I have nothing against corpses, I really do not. I just prefer to eat food in a place that does not remind me of my inevitable demise.