Yes... but where will it GET you?

Okay, so I haven't updated recently. Big whoop it's not like anyone reads this thing. Well, just in case some bored Inuit is sitting in his DSL equipped igloo and stumbles across my ill informed views and was actually upset that I haven't posted in a while, here's another one.

Something you may or may not know about me- I am currently completing year 12. I did a few "sciency" subjects last year (if you can call English, Psychology and the easiest level of maths "sciency") which left this year clear for subjects I feel I am more suited for - "Artsy" stuff.

One of my bestest buddies in the whole world, however, wishes to get into medicine. Which is fine, I stand in awe of her to tell you the truth. She needs and ENTER in the high 90's, and as a result has no social life to speak of. Well, she had no real social life to begin with but that's beside the point really. There's a bet running at the moment offering two to one odds that she will be this year's Dux. The point is she will one day be "Dr. Best-friend-of-Lou-Singer-Mind" and to get there she is doing all science subjects, and the mandatory English, and one class with me - French- which I am doing for the love of the language and she is doing for the high mark up.

So one day Doc (like how I slipped that cool nickname in there for you? We've never called her that. And if shes reading she may or may not have figured out already that I'm writing about her. Either way, I'm not giving any more clues!!) and I are sitting around during one of the rare lunches where I don't have a performing arts commitment to attend to, or she doesn't have an extra lunchtime SAC (stands for school assessed coursework....that led to a bit of confusion at my place when I had my first one for Literature and said to my father over breakfast "I have a lit sack") and neither of us had a free period last and we were allowed to go home for lunch.
We were talking about school (for once, gasp!) and how I'm doing all artsy subjects this year (Studio Art, Drama, Lit and French) where she's doing all Sciences and Maths. She said to me (and now I know she'll figure out I'm talking about her) "I wish I was doing an art subject, just for some variety!" I kind of got tight lipped at this point, and felt she need to clarify her statement because Im'n ot sure she said what she meant. that and i was strung out and probably hormonal. I am woman, hear me roar and all that.
Now, a tactful Lou would have asked several well placed, well thought out questions to answer this burning query, but when I'm caught off guard and/or without caffeine I'm about as tactful as a rabid bull trying to talk his way out of paying child support. So I came out and said, "You better not be saying that cos you think the arts are easy. Cos they're not fucking easy!"
At which point she clarified that in no way did she think her work load was worse than mine, and that the arts is not a sissy approach at all. To which I said, "Good. Because if I thaught you were saying that I'd have to KILL you!!"

Arts in VCE It's not a bludge. NOTHING in year 12 is a bludge. WORK IS REQUIRED. This mindset of "the arts are easy and are the wussy way out" is really starting to shit me.

Here's the thing about the VCE, and any other certificate of education - if you re doing it, you want to be there. Usually it's to get into University. But lots of people chose the subjects they do because they have a certain passion for them - if you want to know how organic matter works, you do Biology. If you want to know how things work, you take Physics, or Chemistry. English is compulsory, but if you have a real love of the language and written word you take English Literature, and if you love to create art you take an arts subject or two. Because you find it FUN or it has always interested you and you figure it will be enjoyable to undertake.
THIS.IS.UTTER.FUCKING.ASRSE.MUNCHING.SHIT.ON.A.STICK.
Year 12 sucks the fun out of any subject you find enjoyable. With exams. With assignments. With assessments. With pressure. I USED TO LOVE ART!!! Now I have to make a folio, develop, develop, develop, and while I don't deny it is helping me improve some of my skills, the pressure of all of these subjects piled on top of one another is immense. And whats more, everything is always due AT THE SAME TIME!!!
In Literature, you study the text so much that even though you may have loved the text a lot when you first read it, the analysis takes all the joy out of it!
Same goes for languages. The pressure of assignments, tests et al takes all the joy and fun out of discovering how to speak a new language.
As for Drama... well... relying on an ensemble group to keep it together on stage is one thing, relying them to pull their weight so as you can all pass with a decent mark and not be in the shittiest show on the night is quite another.

The point I am trying to make is, we chose subjects we love at the beginning of the year, and within a term we hate them. We hate a lot of things, but mostly the fact that the initial reason as to why we chose these subjects is forgotten. This goes for all subjects.
Arts? The wussy, sissy, bludging, lazy way out? Fuck off. If I hear anyone say that again I will shove a pelican so far up their arses they'll be shitting fish for a month.

Rant over.

Lou.

Blatant Plug

What's the use of having a blog if you can't use it to help your friends make it in the biz?

These are some of my friends in a crappy movie they made over the weekend, showcasing their parkour skills. Check out the crappy acting, and flashy jumping. It's so crap it's great!!

check it out here.:)


Lou

How To Become a Politician WITHOUT Resorting To Severe Wankery

I know, another list!

I have decided to help compile a list of all of the things I've noticed Politicians doing wrong and making them lose votes.... yeah... because I know SO MUCH about politics that my opinion is TOTALLY VALID....

Anyway, TO THE LIST!

1. Don't lose touch with the people

And I don't mean "the people would like to keep their jobs" and "The people want us to pull out of Iraq..." I mean promising the people things they WANT, like ponies! Who doesn't want a pony? Hell, what about promising a ride on mower? Or a laptop for every chi... oh... wait a minute....

2. Don't try to 'get down wid da kidz in da hood, dawg.'

If you go that far it becomes obvious to the public that you are trying to do step one the half-assed el cheapo way, by trying to skateboard and wear some costume shop bling.... It didn't work for Mark Vaile (hes a bigger tosser than ever) and it wont work for you!

3. Take a stance on an issue and stick with it, no matter what.

No one likes a pansyassed flim flammer.

4. Learn to accept defeat...

....Speaks for itself really.

5. Kissing Children is a NO NO!

No child needs to see that and besides, you may have Michael Jackson-esq allegations thrown at you... seriously...

If you were a toddler would you really want to see that coming at you? EW! Put yourself in their shoes!

6. Be Family Friendly

Come on folks, appeal to working families!! Nothing wins an election like saying "working families" over and over.... come on, try it with me! "Working Families, Working Families, Working Families....."

7. Never contradict yourself

Again, no-one respects a pansy-assed flim flammer.

8. Never take blogs seriously

If you've taken this one seriously you re screwed, because (if you didn't notice -and like you didn't you sly dogs!) all of these topics are... CONTRADICTIONS!! :O

Proving once and for all folks, you can't become a politician without resorting to severe wankery.

Lou

Things I Suck At, List #1

1. Making Pancakes

Mum, if you are reading, I'm sorry. You can go and die of shame now. Yes folks, the art of making the pancake seems to have eluded me of late. Crepes, them I can make and cook to Frenchy perfection, but ye goode olde down home English Pancake just like grandma makes makes me want to die a little inside each time I mess it up. I mean come on! It can't be that bad right? Well, this morning I awoke with visions of sitting down at the kitchen table with the Sunday Age with a stack of blueberry pancakes and a cup of tea, feeling very smug and happy that I did not, in fact, flick straight to the funnies as I do of a weekday, because that's all the time I have to read of a school morning thank you very much! Alas when I went to the cupboard I found we had no blueberries (hell, when DO we have blueberries in our house??), but no matter! However when I finally set about making the batter, following the recipe down to a T, I greased up the pan and poured in my first lip-smacking cake of the morning. When the time came to flip, however, it stuck. "Oh well," I thought as I slid the burned and broken pancake into the bin, "you should never eat the first off the stove anyway." So I butter up the pan and lo and behold... same thing happens to the second one! And the third. The fourth and fifth ended up on plates looking like extremely sorry excuses for food indeed. But God dammit, I ate those burned, crumbling pancakes and read the paper and it was glorious!!

2. Spelling

Ask any one of my teachers from grades prep and up and you will see that if there is one thing that I fail at, it is Spelling. With a capital S. Either my brain is too fast for my hands and I can't be bothered going back and fixing mistakes, or I just can't spell half of the words in my vocabulary. Either way, this means that I am screwed for my English exams. But hey, its their fault for not letting us type our exam essays and use spell check! I BLAME THE ADMINISTRATION!

3. Procrastinating

And by that I mean, doing it too much. Overly so. Yep.... why do you think I started a blog? I started it so as I'd have yet another thing to do that wasn't homework or study related, and when I don't have any homework to do I can procrastinate over Blogging! Yaaaay!!!

4. Tolerating My Insanely Annoying Little Brother

Even my friends agree that he is even more annoying than any other sibling of his age they have come across

5. Tolerating People that Hang Shit On My Insanely Annoying Little Brother

because even though he is irritating to the extreme, I love him. He's family. NO TOUCHY!!

6. Obeying Copyright Laws

I have downloaded so much TV and burned so many DVDs lately that I'm sure someone must be coming to arrest me at any minute. But it's a vicimless crime, right? Like sneaking into movies... and puppy kicking!

*races to the window and checks for police cruisers down the street.*

Oh Robot Chicken, how you and your fellows have corrupted me.

7. Speaking My Mind About Meatheads I Have to Work With

Well, at least to their face. I can trash them all I like here.

For example, there's one person who I have to deal with on a regular basis who is the most narcissistic person alive. This probably isn't helped by his name, which I am choosing not to divulge here, but lets say his surname is "Is-Seriously-Fucking-Awesome." It's not, it's actually a lot shorter but hey, that's the price of anonymity. And being a prick. Anyway, when I met him I didn't believe that "Is-Seriously-Fucking-Awesome" in fact was his surname. Can you blame me?

Anyway, for as long as I've known him I've thought he was a self absorbed, moronic boys boy who thinks way too much of himself. Getting two lead roles in school plays really didn't help his ego, which I'm pretty sure can now be seen from Alpha Centuri.

Anyhoo, we now have year 12 drama together, and I have gotten to know him a bit better. He is still a self absorbed moronic boys boy who thinks way too much of himself, but recently he's started body building and has way more muscle than is natural. Seriously, it looks like his head is too small for his body. Add to that his idiot laugh and you have perfect dumb-lackey-runner-up material.

A few weeks ago he asked me, during Drama as we were developing a scene together, he asked me what I used to think of him when we first met. I told him he wouldn't appreciate the answer. He then followed it up with,
"yeah, but now you've gotten to know me, you like me right?".........What the hell am I supposed to say to that?

"Well, actually I DO still think you're a self involved narcissist with some severe issues dealing with who you are and in an endless pursuit of perfection have bulked up so much you have left little room for your pea sized brain. So, hows that scene coming along?"

Haha... curse my cowardice. Instead I replied, "yeah, a bit." Now I think you're also mildly amusing in an always-running-into-walls kind of way.

Damn, what a stuck up little cyber geek I am. :)

8. Video Games

Unlike many of my geek friends, it takes me a long, long time to master a video game. The only one I got in record time was Guitar Hero, and I still don't play that enough to be up to expert yet. Ah well, I consoll myself by saying I have better things to do... like blog stupid lists about things I am crappy at, like... VIDEO GAMES! Woah. We're through the looking glass now people.

Lou

Come on everyone, lets sell out!

Well ladies and gents, I never thought it would come to this, but here I am. I am a teenager with a blog.... please don't hurt me! I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

So, as I sit hear listening to the Beatles and sipping white wine - I know, how middle aged of you, Lou!- I feel the need to assure my readers (all one of them - Hi Mum) that this will not be the usual teenage angst ridden blog of your average FaceSpace page. At least, I wont go on and on at you about how pathetic my life is and how much it hurts to be at school and not in love and how the latest album by Dashboard Confessional was brilliant and really sooths my anguished soul.... mostly because Dashboard Confessional suck major donkey cock.
Don't worry folks, I promise not to go all emo on you. However, I can't promise that I will always spell correctly, or use correct punctuation or even update regularly. In the immortal words of Bartholomew J. Simpson, "I can't promise that I'll try, but I'll try to try."


So now we have the formalities out of the way, here we go!

Riddle me this my dear reader(s?): since when has it become okay to use derogatory racial terms in semi-civilised conversation? Did I miss the memo somewhere? Did the entire world get together and decide racial slurs were permissible whilst I was otherwise engaged? (Okay, so I was probably playing Guitar Hero at the time, but had someone called a world meeting and I WAS INFORMED I may have taken time out from kicking significant arse on Muse's Knights Of Cydonia to attend this once-in-a-million-lifetimes event. Well.... maybe not.... it is Guitar Hero, after all).

Before I continue, I should confess something - from a social point of view, I am a sad excuse for a teenager. I have been noticeably drunk a full total of... once. I've never had a serious relationship (which I put down to being surrounded by meat heads - discuss). I've never smoked pot. Hell, I've never even smoked. Don't intend to either.
I think a vast majority of the music my 'peers' listen to is pure mass marketed crap. Frankly, I don't give two parts of a flying lubricated lemur how much bling yo possy got, or how much 'junk (you) got in (your) trunk.' (Yes, I actually looked up those lyrics for this blog. They don't get much better than that, I'm afraid. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to be sick now).
Needless to say, these combinations don't exactly make brilliant party-goer material. The point is that I don't often have insights into the goings on of "normal teenagers" who, I have come to the conclusion, must be cerebrally challenged (okay... straying into snob emo territory there. Bad Louie! BAD!).

However, much to my surprise I found myself in a setting where I was able to converse with these people in a casual setting not two days ago, due to an educational event which required that I and eight other students venture into the city of an evening.
It should also be noted at this point that these people I was travelling with were not fundamentally bad, ill spirited people. They're just... well, at the risk of sounding so far up myself I could wear myself as a hat, idiots.

So there we were, sitting on the train and chatting when the talk got around to parties and the exorbitant cab fare home. One of the group was saying how two of her friends were taking a taxi somewhere, and that as soon as the cab stopped they jumped out and ran. Then, and I quote, "So, they were sprinting down the beach and the Packi from the cab was running after them, and tackled one to the ground! Yeah, she was tackled my some skinny Packi."
This story was met with much amused laughing and held sides and guffaws, but it left me somewhat stunned.

Okay children, its time to play"Spot the offensive material with Auntie Lou!"
It's not the racism that shocked me so much as the casualty with which it gets thrown about.

First of all, last time I checked, the use of the word "Packi" to describe someone of middle eastern descent was offensive. Yes? No? .... Yes. Second, how did anyone involved with the telling of or indeed in the story itself know if the cab driver was from Pakistan, except for the driver himself? He could have been Indian, or Egyptian, or even Israeli. For that matter, why not call him the cab driver? Thirdly, is it common practice to try and ditch cab fares? Is it somehow okay to steal the food off of the table of a man who is just doing his job? I ask this last one because the conversation went on to everyone saying how they had skipped out on cab fares and different strategies to achieve this effectively. As far as I'm concerned, if you re going to commit a crime for stealing, why a cab fare? Why not something good, like a TV? or a camper van? Hell, lets go all out and storm parliament with flamethrowers, that way if we get arrested we'll go down with a brilliant flourish!

But back to the original source of my tirade. I know these people reasonably well enough to know that they are not racist in a malicious sense, they just don't think things through. This makes me wonder, do they represent most of the teenage population and am I just "the weird one"?
Seriously people, GET A FREAKING CLUE! Open your eyes to the world around you and grow a goddamn conscience. One day you re going to insult the wrong person at the wrong time and get the fuck beaten out of you.
If that's the sort of thing "normal" people do, it's no wonder that I'm the freak who doesn't fit in. "Normal" people are ignorant, moronic and downright annoying cockmunchers, and I'll have no part of it.

Wow... that got progressively less funny, didn't it? Ah, I'm just warming up. Bite me.

Lou