I'm driving myself CRAZY!

I know it seems as if everyone is going through the same thing right now, especially with assignments looming, Christmas on the way and the end in sight, but I can't help but feel like the whole world is on my shoulders right now. I feel like this insatiable weight is holding me down and I can't breathe whenever I think about it, which is usually all the time.

I don't know how to stop thinking about it though. It'll start off with worrying about one little thing. For example, today I swapped cars with my mum so my brother can practice driving (long story, but mum's car is manual, mine is auto, you get the idea...). Trouble is, eve though I know how to drive manuals, I'm not as confident because I've had quite a break from driving them and it worries me a little.

Then I worry about how I'm going to drive to work, and school! ARGH! School, assignments!!

I have two jobs in order to survive pretty much. And so I can have a reasonable disposable income. But in short, along with school, homework, a bit of a breather, family commitments and so forth, I can usually expect 4-5 hours sleep a night.

So then I will begin to worry about when I'm going to get my next decent amount of sleep and there really is no end to my bouts of worrying. I know I need to just breathe and relax, but I'm scared I'll get complacent and won't want to do anything anymore.

Am I crazy or what? Well, I'm going to go think about it now. Hopefully not worry too much more. And hopefully tomorrow will be a bit better than today. 

My brother got home from Japan today.

My youngest brother just got back from Japan today. Random topic to write a web media blog about I know, but there is a little bit of relevance.

Now, he is not the most, how do I put it, 'loving' of boys. (He'll say he doesn't miss anyone, calls everyone terrible names, you know, the same defensive type thing). Anyway, this trip with his school was his first real time away from home, in terms of furtherest, longest time period, and he was staying with complete strangers with whom he had never met before.

The reason for this back story is that he called home once. True, this could be put down to a number of things, none of which I really want to get into right now, but I think it a tad strange that there was no other way for him to communicate home.

Mum had given him a phone number he could ring so that it would charge the home account and not his host family's. Don't get me wrong, whilst experiencing the same trip I used the same method, but that was seven years ago!

Has technology not changed enough since then to allow my brother easier access to more advanced technology? Or is this technology just not being utilised as readily as it should be? Or furthermore, is this just a result of my brother's cold-heartedness and my mum's reluctance to find a new and better way of communicating with her son?

Blunders are funny. Leave them alone.

TVNZ is a funny thing. Owned by the government means that it is obviously got some bias, it's impossible to escape that. But I don't think it very fair that they get to tweak bits of their broadcasts in order to cover up little mistakes.

The 2008 Olympic games were the last games that TVNZ had the broadcasting rights to (Sky TV has them for the London 2012 games, and will be playing them on Prime). This was supposed to be a huge swan song for them, a chance for them to go out all guns blazing (excuse the cliches if you will), instead, one of the major things coming out from TVNZ's broadcasting at Beijing was how terrible it was. The commentators have copped a lot of criticism. No one more so than Peter Montgomery though.

Montgomery was one of the main commentators for the Rowing and Sailing. His voice is synonymous in New Zealand with Yachting, having commentating on the America's Cup races of the past. However, his performance this time around was questionable. Has the old guy past his time?When calling the Women's Double Skulls Final, featuring our own Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, Montgomery called the Germany first, Britain second and New Zealand third. In actual fact it was too close to call between Germany and NZ, thus they had a photo finish, which eventually showed NZ to have won.

Montgomery's initial blunder didn't stop there as even when his co-commentator, Mike Stanley, first said that Germany and NZ were having a photo finish, Montgomery said "They've got that wrong." Turns out he got it wrong. And TVNZ have since tidied the dialogue up on the video, making it appear as if Montgomery never got it wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that quite a few New Zealanders were watching the final that night, and can still remember what Montgomery initially said.I think they should have left it. Why change it? It's kinda funny now. Frustrating then, but funny now.

TVNZ have only made things worse by trying to so obviously cover things up. And it was picked up by the New Zealand Herald.Nevertheless, like the rest of us Montgomery is only human, and mistakes are inevitable really. Shame on TVNZ for trying to fix the blunder I say.

American Politics

I'm going to begin this blog by saying that I am in no way a Political expert nor do I try really hard to try and understand what Politicians are trying to say. In fact, I don't really have any personal political thoughts. And I don't think I will ever understand the way Americans and their political choices so greatly affect the rest of the world.

True, there are many possible and plausible reasons for their domination but I don't want to accept it. Surely there must be some way we (the rest of the world) deny them their power? We are the ones that let them bully us, aren't we? Maybe not New Zealand (think saying no to Nuclear testing back in the 1980s), but those that have a bigger voice, like Britain and Australia seem to go merrily along with the Americans. Or have I got this all wrong?

The United States Presidency race at the present moment, has been watched more closely by the rest of the world than that of any other. This could be for a number reasons. Firstly, the incredible advancement in technology and the accessibility of information via the web can be easily accountable for how popular the American President race is. And also America's control over Oil and all that hoohar (?). Then there's George W. Bush as well. We all have our own opinions of him and his political expertise (or lack there of), and his ability to say some rather suspect things sometimes. (For some classics check this site out.)

This time around we've got John McCain, supported by Sarah Palin on the Republican side, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the Democrats. It is easily arguable why one side should win over the other but it is only up to the American voting public. The question I pose is, do we trust them?

At the risk of sounding comepletely biased, I don't have complete faith. I have some, but a news story I witnessed on the news one night showed Hillary Clinton supporters dismissing Obama and saying that they will now vote for McCain. What?? Are they not democrats if they support Clinton? I'm confused.

I could write so much more on this topic but to save myself from blabble and frustration I'm going to end this particular blog post by saying if you're as curious about the American election as I am, read this article from the New Zealand Herald.

Bring on the New Zealand Election!

Movie Originality

The past couple of weeks I have taken slightly more interest in what everyone else in my class is saying in their blogs. I get the general idea that we don't necessarily have to write about what is happening in class (even though I thought that's what we were told to do). Personally, I find it quite rewarding and a great catch-up to go over what I learnt in class in my blog. Especially when I realise that I actually have no idea what we learnt and I have to back track through moodle. Anyway, I've decided that this time I will try and venture away from my classroom learnings and take a look at the world around me, and talk about something that interests me.

The first thing that comes to my mind is movies. Firstly because I work there and secondly because my boyfriend and I are going through a phase of watching a whole lot of dvds that we've never seen before. For him it's the Disney classics like Cinderella, Snow White and Peter Pan (How he managed to not see them for 21 years is mind-boggling!) and for me, cult classics like Donnie Darko, Sin City and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I'm also enjoying the old-school classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Casablanca.

All of this movie watching has got me thinking about originality though. Oh, and how Video stores are going to cope years down the track.

It is arguable that no idea is original. AMC last semester taught us that every idea branched from something or somewhere else, and that nothing is completely original. While the other side to that argument would probably be that in order to create something using ideas from different sources is in fact, creating something original.

But when do all of the good ideas run out? New movies being made lately seem to be either made from books or are sequels or remakes. Do these count as original? I think to a degree. Movies made from books require imagination to be turned into a screenplay, sequels require thought into different ways the hero/heroine can save the day again and remakes often have little changes so that they are their own movie. The same goes for movies made from TV shows and Spoof movies.

Working at the movies gives me an insight into what movies are popular and what ones fail. Shrek 2 was far more popular than its predecessor, as was Spiderman 3. Pirates of the Caribbean, in my opinion got worse as the sequels went on, but they franchise drew in decent numbers, nevertheless. The same for Harry Potter.

James Bond movies are always popular. Teeny bopper movies like Hairspray and High School Musical always incur chaos, and super-hero movies are definitely reign supreme (think Marvel's Spiderman, Iron Man and DC Comic's Batman).

I've come to the conclusion that originality is interpreted very differently, person to person. One person's trash is another person's treasure after all. It doesn't matter if it's a remake of a 60s classic, the 22nd movie in a series or a movie adaption of a comic book hero, as long as it has action, romance, comedy and drama all neatly packaged in one, there's a chance it'll do alright at the box office. Oh, but it must have a big-time director, multi-billion dollar corporation sponsorship and an obscene amount of advertising too. Not much really.

Time to take a breather

Week three in the world of Wintec Media Arts 2008 means Spark Week; a break from normal classes in order to view presentations, showcases, workshops and screenings from established industry people. A very interesting informative week that helps students, such as myself, pick up tips, learn exciting bits and bobs and just enjoy the work of someone who has been successful in their chosen field.

One presentation that I went and saw was that by Wintec's Editor-in-Residence, Julie Starr. She further reiterated my fear that there is a never-ending amount of sites on the Internet that in someway inform people or help them interact with one another.

One I want to mention is Twitter. This site allows you to tell everyone what you're doing at that point in time. You have a certain amount of characters you are allowed to use, and that's it. Write anything; what you're doing, something about yourself, recommend something, practically anything. It seems all pointless and quite trivial but it can be quite entertaining once you get into it. Although I'm not one to talk, at the present point I have made two posts, nothing exciting but there are people, such as Julie who talk to a lot of people on twitter and follow heaps as well.

I also found out that there is just an inconceivable amount of information on the Internet. Blogs are fast becoming the new way people get their information. For example, Julie said she heard about the Chinese earthquake through a Chinese man on Twitter. And he wasn't even in China at the time, meaning he had to source his information from someone else who was possibly there. But this in turn means, that during or straight after the earthquake, someone went on to their computer and started blogging about it.

This somewhat worries me. Is blogging that much of someones life that they must report the news to everyone else as quickly as possible? It seems very trivial to me. Perhaps my skepticism is blinding me from this wonderful cyber-space world though. Hopefully, this doesn't turn into something from a bad sci-fi movie where the technology consumes the human race and we become it's slave. But that's a whole other topic. 

Is This Possibly Too Much?

My Web Media class is steaming along now, (two weeks infact), and I have already learnt of tools and pages that I would never have dreamed existed a few years ago. As I alluded to in my last blog, I have never nor do I expect to, ever fully comprehend the immense power and capability the Internet possesses. However, it brings to my mind the question of whether this could all be too much?

This week's class taught my classmates and I of a new tool called bloglines. It basically lets you know when a new blogs have been posted by people and sites that you are interested in. It saves you the hassle of visiting the site and checking whether or not this has happened. It's great if you have this great desire to read a million blogs I guess, but personally I am not fond of it.

Firstly, I find it very difficult to connect with it. It appears so messy and unorganised and it takes me a while to find what I want to do because there is so much links and other pages to click on, that sometimes it becomes a bit overwhelming when all I want to do is look at one of my classmates' blog page. Once one learns where to look however, it does become much easier, but then I start to wonder what the point of the rest of the stuff is for.

Secondly, one of the things that has always intrigued me about the Internet is that you can get completely lost going from one page to the next; even though, granted, this is how you are most likely to get spam and come across a site that was maybe not what it said it would be. Even still, bloglines takes this away in a sense. True it saves time, but I don't mind snooping through webpages till I find what I am looking for. It's great sport for me.

And I don't have this huge desire to read an obscene amount of blogs. Sure this is part of the course this semester but I don't think I can honestly say that I have the time to read any randoms person's blogs. And after this course, who knows what will become of this blog.

Don't get me wrong, I think that bloglines, coComment etc. are all wonderful little tools that can in some cases be very helpful, I just don't believe that they are for me, nor any other average Internet user. 

The Web is Scary

How is it that in the past ten years or so, (possibly not even that), the web has become the centre of our universe?

True, it is probably one of the easiest things to use when you know what you're looking for, but it's so complex and amazing that it sometimes goes straight over my head if I think about it for too long.

Let me give a little background as to my experiences with technology.

I remember my mum buying our first computer when I was about five or six. It was so cool! But being that young I didn't quite fully comprehend the whole idea of it. I just thought it was cool that I could play games on something that looked like a TV almost. Then progressively, I began to use more programs, such as Microsoft Word (95 of course) and Paint. I also remember a couple of computers being at school and how these introduced me to the world of Encarta and the like.

I unfortunately do not remember the inception of the Internet. It just randomly appears in my memory, so I can't remember how I felt about this new toy for me to play with. I do remember my mum telling me that it used to be something the Army used to use though.

Hotmail was huge for me. Wow, you can actually write letters on the computer and magically send them to someone else so that they can read them? Amazing! Google was obviously another huge part of my Internet teachings. I think before discovering the wonders of Google my family used to use either the address part (I don't even know what this is called yet) or perhaps the Xtra search tool.

Google turned out to be absolutely brilliant. Now, if I had an assignment to do, I just had to search the topic and voila! At least 100 suggested pages came up that had something to do with my assignment. And, not only that, but they magically ordered them in terms of usefulness. Brilliant!

However, I still had not pensively thought anything past the fact that I no longer needed to tirelessly meander through the library anymore. But certain things have raised my awareness to how amazing the Internet really is.

The course I am currently doing encompasses a whole paper specifically designed to give us a better understanding of the web and the tools that we can use on it. I don't think I have had more respect for computer nerds than I do now. I mean, social bookmarking, BLOGGING, You Tube, EBay, Google and the huge phenomenon that is social networking, i.e. My space, Bebo and Face book. They are all fantastic creations and can help pass hours of time.

However, the downside to our obvious reliance on the Internet is the terrible people who get kicks out of putting spam everywhere and ruining other people's computers. It costs a lot to rectify this problem and no matter how many firewalls and protective barriers that are used, it seems that this problem is going to be an ongoing one.

The Internet is a powerful tool that I don't think I'll be ever able to understand, but with billions of different web pages on the Internet I don't really mind too much. So I don't think that the Web will become any less overwhelming for me in the future.

Assignment Overload!

I'm no fan of homework. Never have been, never will.

As I write this I have three impending assignments to complete, one due in two days, the others due in little over a week. I'm tired from the lack of sleep I get, firstly from staying up later than usual trying to complete them, and secondly, from not being able to get to sleep because I'm stressing all night.

It is a terrible cycle that I'm caught in. But I can't help bu think that it's my own fault. Perhaps that is partly why I'm contantly stressing and getting angry with myself. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to complete my thousands of words that must be written.

It's quite a battle being a student I reckon. Juggling life, work and school. Assignments often take a back seat until they absolutely have to be done. I try to start early, but there's no pressure for me to do it, so I end up leaving it until the last minute and screwing up my sleeping patterns. Will I ever learn?

I like to take time out in between as well. Just to give my brain and fingers a bit of a break. But am I just procrastinating further? I think yes, but I'm going to say no, for arguments sake. I don't want to do sit through hours upon hours of work only to produce some mediocre piece that I'm not proud of. Resting for a few minutes could be the difference between a C and a B, or, here's hoping a B and a A.

I recently moved out of home. It's brilliant but tough on my wallet. Thus, working more is inevitable. In turn, this takes up more of my time, leaving less for my homework. Again my own fault, but I was doing okay. Until now. Maybe I'm just being melodramatic though. I've done it before and I'll do it again.

I'd love time to fly by to the mid-year break. Hopefully I'll be able to look back on this time and laugh at my petty worries. But for now, I've got an essay to write.

Work to Live or Live to Work?

Do we live to work or work to live?
That was a question that I remember hearing on a TV ad when I was younger. Back then, I didn't hesitate in saying the latter, but nowadays I can see the other argument. Especially with the cost of living constantly going up and out of reach for most people. A future free of debt just isn't a logical dream for the large majority of people anymore.

Think about it. We grow up with the false idea that our parents have all of the money in the world. The concept of money means absolutely nothing to children but they soon learn. As these once naive kids reach their mid-teens they are pretty much required to get a job. Their wants far exceed the limits of their parents' wallets now and the only way they are going to get anything is to pay for it themselves. Thus, they are thrown into the working world and quickly learn that they can no longer be frivolous with their money.

Part-time jobs make up the majority of the next 6-8 years depending on the type of degree they study at Uni, if any. And by this time the adolescent will have outgrown the family home and ventured on into the flat world of surviving on barely nothing because of the demands of work, uni and a social life. It is a given that quite a few students do get a bit hasty when it comes to spending their money but the general mentality is that 'you only live once'.

By this point in ones life, there is no real foreseeable end to the working life, unless a major win in lotto is involved. There doesn't seem to be another alternative to working. There's the unemployment benefit, but this has its restrictions and is not all that appealing to most people who want more for themselves. It appears that working is embedded somewhere deep in the psyche of human beings. Heck, all animals work! And they don't have the alternative of the alternative of the benefit. For them it's work, or die.

Any way we look at it, working is inevitable. Working is what got us here to the 21st century, why should that basis stop being relevant now. True, working comes with the benefit of money which in turn allows us to buy pretty and fulfilling items, but without it, we would not have the opportunity to buy these things anyway.

It's an endless cycle really. Both sides of the argument are justified all the same. To tell the truth, I think the ad I remember watching was one of those 'new-age' ones where they wanted to get people thinking about their life, but I can't remember what it was about exactly.

It's hard to ignore that little thought in the back of our head that makes us think, 'well maybe we are just working machines, with money used as an incentive. I prefer to think that we work to live though. It seems more logical when one initially thinks about it.

Youth Drinking

It seems we live in a drinking culture. The legal age for buying alcohol is constantly at the forefront of many political debates and the casualties always headline in the media. Yet, it is quite obvious that binge drinking, drink driving and the like are becoming more and more accepted in the youth society of today.

Do not get me wrong, I enjoy drinking from time to time, but the culture is enveloping and consuming. It’s hard to escape it. Finding someone who doesn’t drink nowadays is a tough task, bar the group of people whose religion forbids them to consume alcohol. Even when watching TV, we are put through endless amounts of advertisements about how we need to stop this downwards spiral and become sensible citizens by electing a sober driver or opting for a taxi instead, for example.

These ads not only tell us the obvious, that people aren’t being sensible drinkers, but they tell us that the problem is escalating out of control. There are too many families that have had to deal with the untimely loss of someone as a result, directly or indirectly of alcohol. And most of them are young males, who have a mentality that they are invincible.

I hate to succumb to accepting that stereotype but it seems that is the case. These guys go out drinking; sometimes up to four nights a week and then they expect to be a respected member of society. No employer is going to want a young man, or woman for that matter, who enjoys too much alcohol. Dependability is a key quality and turning up to work hung-over is not an attractive one.

It is becoming more apparent that ‘Generation Y’ is taking much longer to grow up and mature than that of their parents and grandparents. They worry about us, and rightfully so. It is us who will soon be leading the country and looking after the economy and infrastructure that holds New Zealand together. Why are we holding this inevitable task off? Drinking may not be the only reason for this, but it certainly is a large, contributing factor.

This drinking culture is of course, not a healthy one. And unfortunately, future generations are going to be paying for the long-term ramifications. Birth rates in Western civilisations are declining. In New Zealand it is estimated that alcohol related conditions account for 3.1% of all male deaths and 1.41% of all female deaths, according to the Ministry of Health. The Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand recommends that in the space of a week men should drink no more than 21 standard drinks and women shouldn’t drink above 14 standard drinks, just to be safe.

Another point that should be raised is how are supposedly poor students paying for all of their alcohol? Jobs are more often than not required and that means turning up and doing the job in order to get paid. Then there is also the likely situation that these students are flatting or living in a Halls of Residence. These living situations cost quite a bit of money and with the average part-time job, it doesn’t leave much of a disposable income. Does that mean that the last scrap of money that these students have left is spent on alcohol? There are much more important things to be spending ones money on than alcohol. Why is there a general mentality that says there is not?

The accessibility to alcohol is very easy. I do not wish to have drinking banned, nor do I wish to see its consumption lawfully restricted. It should be treated with respect and not taken so lightly. It is damaging and potentially fatal, and we need to acknowledge this and tone down the excessive and unnecessary drinking. Simply put, what is really so appealing about getting completely smashed, doing something stupid that you can’t remember in the morning, when you wake up with a pounding headache and spew all over your clothes and absolutely no bearing on where on earth you just spent the last night? Even experiencing one of the above consequences is embarrassing enough.

So let’s do something crazy and limit our drinking. Let’s freak out our parents and other elders and treat life seriously sometimes. Let’s make unmemorable nights and disgusting hangovers be a thing of the past. Let’s grow up gracefully like we ought to.

http://www.alac.org.nz/Home.aspx
http://www.ahw.co.nz/