The kind of person I want to be

In the end, only three things matter: 

how much you loved, 

how gently you lived, 

and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

I want to be the kind of person that is gracious in their every act. I want to fill every room with a sense of support and well-being. I want to make people smile and show to them just ho wonderful they are. I want to be the person that no one can say a bad word about because I have never said one about another. I want to restrict my demons telling me to release venomous words. I want to clear my mind of poisoness negativity and allow only room for beautiful thoughts and kindness. I want to look for everyone's beauty and understand their cruelty.
I think it is most important to understand everyone around us as a person just as real as we are and to understand the struggles they have endured to be here today. Every moment in their life has had an impact on who they are and why they are the way they are. Instead of retaliating with cruelty I want to be able to understand why someone did what they have done. I don't believe that we should dismiss their cruelty, but maybe if we can understand it and comfort the reasons behind it they might feel the need to be a little less cruel in the future.
I like to believe that we are all inherently good and will only act otherwise with specific motivations. My main goal in life is to understand the people around me on a deeper level than I presently do. If I could be the kind of person that radiates positivity I would consider mine a life well lived. I want to make it a goal of mine to issue a number of genuine compliments each day. I think it would be healthy for myself and everyone around me if I could openly recognise the good in each person with frequency. I know how nice a compliment can be and what an impact it can make and I would be honored to bring that kind of happiness to someone’s day.
The thing is that being kind is as easy as being cruel, so why do we so often chose cruelty? I’m going to try to make this positive change in my life and I invite you to do the same. Imagine the difference we could make.

I get by with a little help from my friends

I've written and rewritten this post almost every week since I started my blog because the truth is that every week I have a new reason to be grateful for my friends and every week my literary skills seem to fail me in expressing just how precious to me these people are. This week I am determine to find the words because this week they have truly outdone themselves as the most supportive and fun people I have ever met.

So here we are, my friends are better than yours and I challenge you to prove me wrong.
This week I've been going through a plethora of difficulties that I would really rather not go in to but thankfully my mild crisis coincided with a quiet patch in my school work, allowing me time to grieve my losses and for my friends to remind me that as long as I have them everything will be okay.
On Monday night after a day of bed rest and self pitty one of my wonderful friends dragged me from my bed for a night out. We had great time exploring a part of the city we hadn't seen before and them making our way to Southbank by bus (an adventure in and of itself). While this cheered me up and I had a fantastic night I still wasn't up to facing reality so the next day was again spend in bed. My wonderful friends wouldn't stand for this and many of them came to visit my room, knowing something was up.
It was Wednesday morning that my love of life was renewed and I decided that despite rubbishy things happening in my life I was still allowed to be happy. My friend Bonnie and I had a Hollywood style morning of running around Fortitude Valley trying on bad clothing in Op Shops and getting slurpees. When we got back for lunch all my friends and I sat and talked for hours (it's amazing how long a meal can take when there's assignments to be done) and not only were my friends extremely supportive of everything but they even made me laugh and forget about everything that was wrong.
This is just the first of many times that my friends have helped me out. Just last week I was only able to make it home for one of my loveliest friend's 21st birthday thanks to the kindness of one of my friends in my dorm.

I am so fortunate to have so many wonderful people in every aspect of my life. I still have friends from primary school who I hope to stay close with until we grow old, I have friends that I made in each of the jobs I have had who I still adore, I have friends all over the world that I met in my  gap year in various countries and I hope to see again one day, I have friends at college whose company will never grow old and I have a few amazing friends that I've met at university that share the same interests as I do and additionally are some of the smartest people I know.
Most importantly I am privileged enough to say that my closest and oldest friends are my family. I know that everyone is meant to love their family but I am so lucky that my family are actually my favorite people in the world and my Mum is my best friend.

This post got away from me a bit, but maybe it's better that my feeling are out there now.

Imagine

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

I don't understand our world, and it hurts me to think about it. I'm writing in tears today because I can't understand all the cruelty in our world. Why are people like Lennon, ML King, JFK and Gandhi being killed? How is spreading messages of peace and equality something that demands a death sentence? Why are the people who care shunned as extremists? Where does this need to oppress come from? I usually like to believe that people are inherently good but when I think about the amazing people that have been lost at the hands of others I begin to question my optimism.
Why am I told that I'm naive for believing in a better future for this world of ours? So many before me have had visions of better futures for their countries, ethnic and social groups and each one of them have helped craft a better future. I'm under no delusion that I in anyway compare to any of those that I have mentioned already but if I can use the media and my reach as a journalist to make some difference that's enough for me. I want to help so badly because there is so much bad in the world, but there is more good and if enough people are willing to put their hands up and fight for the good I truly believe that we can make the world a better place. Our planet will never be a utopia but there is so much room for improvement if we're willing to work for it. Nothing comes easy and the good things in life are worth working for.

I sometimes wonder how other see the world, to not be as simultaneously elated and saddened as I am they must see it differently. Please, dear reader, tell me what things you think about when you think of the world and what they make you feel. I think about children starving and dying of aids, I think of dictators killing innocent civilians, I think of oppression or women and the LGBT community and of minority ethnic and religious groups, I think of the American government dropping bombs and firing guns at civilians in Iraq, I think of a man who told the world what they deserved to know about the American government being left to rote in a embassy abroad while his own government won't help him and another being sentenced to 35 years in prison, I think of countries using chemical weapons on their own people and it fills my chest with an indescribable pain. I also think of people fighting for what they believe in, countries declaring marriage equality, people helping strangers on the bus or in the street, people doing research to cure cancer and aids, people donating their time and money to charity causes, people dropping their lives to volunteer in developing countries, people saying no to products made in sweat shops, people bonding over music, art and culture, i think of people falling in love and getting married and making families, I think of people asking how your day has been and learning foreign languages so they can communicate with more people. That's what we have to remember, for all the bad there is in the world there is some good and for all the bad there are people fighting against it to overcome it.

I know what it is that I want to do with this short life I've been given, and I'm slowly working out how I can do it. It's moments like now that I know what will give me the ability to make my dreams come true, the one trait I share with all those amazing people. Passion. I can't handle the thought of not making the difference that I want to make. My biggest fear is standing by and writing news stories about roadworks while I watch the world deteriorate. I am only 19 but I feel such a responsibility to do something that will make something better for someone. I will dedicate my life to that. I'm only just beginning to figure out where to start but once I get started there will be no stopping me.

Election Day

It's here, it's finally here! 
Quick! If you are over 18 run to your nearest polling station and vote, but please, please, I beg for you to vote for a reason.

It's finally time for my first election, it was never a hard decision for me. I know the policies that matter to me and I have looked, in great detail, into who will work towards creating my ideal Australia. I did in any case use the abc online vote compass, just to see where I would sit and the results weren't surprising in the least but I do know that it helped out some of my friends who were less decisive.
When it comes to political debate I find myself torn. As it is the first time that any of my friends have voted we are constantly asking eachother "who are you voting for?" or "Who should I vote for?" This leaves me in a difficult position as I am a strong believer in letting everyone have their own beliefs, as long as they don't hurt anyone else. That's just the thing though, when it comes to politics I tend to believe that the party I am voting for will better our country so I could very easily justify that giving me the right to explain to them exactly why my preferred party will be best for the country.
But no, I can't do that. I want everyone to make up their own mind for their own reasons, that's how democracy should work. I won't be the voice in their ear telling them how to make their decisions, as I don't want them telling me how to make mine. So I am fine with you voting against me, as long as you are doing it because it's what you believe is right.
What I, and I am sure all politic enthusiasts, cannot stand is people who are voting randomly or for almost no reason at all. This is the problem with compulsory voting (which I am uncomfortably neutral about), I would rather you not vote at all then vote against me because you like the way that one guy gave you a sausage once. And please, putting The Sex Party as number 69 isn't original nor it is amusing. Look into the party and see what they stand for. I doubt that even the smallest parentage of people who put The Sex Party as number 69 know anything of their policies. Come on guys, we had months to look in to this. Please use your vote wisely.

However it's not all bad news! Maybe it's just because I live in a college and am therefore surrounded by intelligent people (not that they always seem that way) seeking a further education, but I was impressed by the attitudes of the people around me who were voting. The people I spoke to who could not yet give a definite answer as to who they were voting for (followed by valid reasons) who quickly follow their response with the assurance that they would be doing a night of research before the election was held. Maybe if I was back home this feeling would be different, but for now (until the results are announced), I happy to think that the victor will be deserving.

A Dad appreciation post

It's Fathers Day and instead of being at home baking Dad cakes, making him breakfast and showering him in presents and generally being the perfect daughter I would like to be I am here, in my college bedroom that he is paying for. I'm sorry Dad, I hope a phone call suffices for this year.
Really though, I know everyone is suppose to love their Dad and be greatful for everything he does for them, and everyone will be saying that today, but I don't think many of them mean it the way I do. My Dad is the one man that I know I will always be able to look up to, admire, love and trust. Dad is my biggest supporter, if I have a dream he will make it happen. He has gone to astonishing lengths to make sure I have had the best start in life possible. There is nothing as satisfying as knowing that I can go to my Dad with any kind of crazy plan and he will support me 100% of the way.
"Dad, I want to go to America on a school trip." - "Alright, let's organise you a passport"
"Dad, I want to go to Japan on a school trip but they need a male teacher." - "Okay, I'll be that male teacher"
"Dad, I want to start my journalism career now." - "Okay, I'll set up a website for you"
"Dad, I want to Backpack around America, alone." - "Okay, I'll buy you the backpack"
"Dad, I want to volunteer in Cambodia." - "Okay, I'll send over some supplies for the school."
"Dad, I want to go to university."  - "Okay, I'll pay for your accommodation."
"Dad, I want to go back to Cambodia." - "Okay, your flights are booked."
One of the most amazing things about him is that he never asks anything in return. He has been so generous to me, given me everything I have ever wanted and more, and never asked for a thing in return.
Aside from the things he has done for me I don't think there is a more supportive Dad I the world. I have dropped some bombshells on him in my life but never once has he made me feel like I've disappointed him in anyway. No matter what I do I know that he will support me and that is worth more than words can describe.
Throughout school his help was invaluable and he spent countless hours making sure I properly understood my math and science homework before he would go on with his own work. Over his Christmas break one year he even spent days helping me figure out my web design course assignment.
So Dad, I love you and I am so grateful for your love, support and everything you have ever done for me. I am grateful that you taught me compassion for others, that you taught me how to value other people and experiences more than materialistic items. I am grateful that you taught me to be thankful for every thing I own and every opportunity I get. I am grateful that I know that you created a family for me that I know will love me no matter what, I am grateful that you so often put what you wanted aside for what I wanted. I am grateful that you let me jump off a bridge when I was 13 and watched me jump out a plane for my 18th birthday.
Every positive aspect of myself I see as a reflection of you and Mum. I am growing into someone that I hope makes you proud, because when I see you reflected in myself, I am proud of myself. I aspire to learn to live my life the way you do, as selflessly and lovingly as you do. You are the most wonderful, genuine, compassionate, selfless, caring man I know and I am so thankful that I ge to call you my father. Happy Fathers Day Dad, I love you.

Fears

I'm quite fortunate that I have only one crippling fear, and until this morning when it forced me to go to the gym instead of my usual run along the river I had never really seen it as one that dominated my life in any way. After all, there is only one season a year when this fear becomes a real problem. What am I afraid of? Magpies. From where I stand I can't understand not being afraid of them.
I thought I was doing alright in the scope of irrational fears until this morning, all dressed in my jogging attire, I stepped out my front door only to be faced with the meanest looking magpie you've ever seen. "It's more afraid of you than you are of it," I told myself as I fumbled with my mp3 player, too scared to avert my eyes from my nemesis. Then it happened, as if to prove me wrong the magpie walked right up to me, it's beak sharp as a razor and it's eyes drilling into the very core of my being, there was no way I was the lesser afraid in this situation. Rationally I told myself that everything was okay, magpies only attacked when protecting a nest and it was unlikely that a nest had been built in a tree amongst college buildings.
I must have jumped two feet into the air when the tortling war cry of the magpie sounded from behind me. I was outnumbered. Panicked I looked from one to the other and back again. I was surrounded. The volume of their taunting grew louder and I knew they meant business. I don't know how long I stood there gazing from one to the other, my heart beating up around my throat. I was frozen in fear.
As soon as my legs were able to carry me again I backed into the dorm, keeping my eyes glued to my enemies. Safe inside the safety of my room I could hear their victorious song. They had beaten me. For the first time in quite a while my fear had got the better of me. Was it rational? I'm probably not the one to say.

Can we just be friends?

Lately one thing that has been making my blood boil is the notion that if a girl is nice to a guy she is "leading him on." Males seem to have some kind of evolutionary right to get angry at a girl if she asks him to hang out and genuinely means just hang out. Why do guys always think there is a hidden meaning?
A few weeks ago I invited one of my male friends to watch a movie with me after we'd been talking about it at dinner. It really was nothing more than "Oh man I love the Blair Witch Project, I really feel like watching it now. Want to watch it after dinner?" yet he somehow seems to have a given right to be mad at me because I wouldn't let anything more than that happen. I spent the whole movie guarding my hands because the moment I let my guard down he would without fail grab my hand, something that I was not at all comfortable with. As the movie was finishing and I was getting tired I exaggerated my sleepiness and pretended to be all but asleep in a hope that this would make him leave, as this particular friend has a track record of not taking subtle hints to leave and getting mad when I ask more bluntly for him to leave.
Eyes closed and leaning on the wall beside me I played the part and he asked if he should leave (in an obvious 'or I could stay the night' tone). I said "Yeah you probably should" or something to that effect and eventually he did.
The next day I was welcomed to the dining hall by his friends telling me how much of a 'dog' I was because I had invited him to watch a movie and actually meant it. When the story of the previous night was relayed to me I was now the villain who seductively asked him back to my room and then held his hand before teasingly pulling away throughout the night. What horrified me the most was that according to these friends of his, when he asked if he should leave I told him "that it was up to him" and he was the gentleman who left, not wanting to take advantage. Can I throw up now? This blatant lie makes me feel physically ill. To have his friends telling me that he was the good guy because he left even after I'd spent the night seducing and teasing him. I can honestly say that it was one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life and I could not wait to have him out of my room.
When I asked my other males friends what they thought of his interpretation of the night they too put the blame solely on me. One of my friends remarked "So you asked him to "watch a movie" and then you chose a horror movie? What are you doing to the poor guy, Laura?" What infuriated me about his statement was the air quotes around "watch a movie." Call me old fashioned but when did "watch a movie" stop meaning actually watching a movie? And what am I meant to say if I actually want to watch a movie with a friend? Or am I just not allowed to watch a movie with male friends at all anymore?
I am probably either extremely old fashioned or naive, but this is something I continually see happening. Guys getting mad at girls because they have been "lead on" even when the girl has made it clear that she isn't up for anything more than friendship (as I had in my case). Guys, take it from me. Most girls aren't into playing games like that, if they say they're involved with someone else, or they just want to be friends they probably mean it and any further attention is unwanted and will make them extremely uncomfortable. There is a small percentage of girls who I'm sure do play these games (I don't actually know any, but I'm not going to rule out their existence) but these are not the girls you want anyway and you should not be encouraging that behavior.

I'll take my friend Ethan as hope that girls and guys can be uncomplicated friends.

More than just a pretty face

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard

This week I find myself blogging from the familiarity of an airport lounge. As with many things in life I think you can enjoy airports as much as you chose to. Now I’m not saying that those 14 hour stop over between flights are ever going to be barrels of fun but in airports I do find the human analysis within me emerging. I like to put in my headphones, turn o something to set the mood, Simon and Garfunkle’s ‘Homeward Bound’ is my current choice, and try to gage what everyone around me in here for. That’s what I love about airports, everyone is here for a reason and everyone is feeling something.

To my right there is a younger couple, she has fallen asleep on her Kathmandu backpack and he is reading from his kindle. They’re both tanned and wearing comfortable shoes. It’s a pretty safe assumption that they’re backpackers but I try to imagine more. They look exhausted, suggesting they are at the end of a trip rather than the beginning. Is this their final flight before they make their way back home? Or are they from abroad with a long journey still ahead of them. If they were talking I would try to listening in and see if they are speaking with an accent or even in another language.

In front of me there are three men in suits sharing four beers. A business trip? They don’t look overly comfortable with one another so maybe they’ve just met or are nothing more than work colleges.

I like to imagine where everyone is from and where they’re going. For fun than the lounge are the gates. The gates are a wealth of greetings and goodbyes. If you sit at the gate and watch you can be witness floods of emotion; heartbreaking goodbyes and overwhelming welcome back hugs.

I think it brings us all back down to earth a bit more when we recognise the people around us as more than strangers, when we realise that they each have their own story and each of them is dealing with their own struggle. I guess that’s the point I really want to make, we all need to remember that everyone is dealing with their own troubles and the way they are treated by strangers can make a huge impact on how they look at the world, so we all need to be kind.

How much of ourselves should we put into what we create?

As an aspiring journalist I constantly find myself in the battle of how much of myself I should put in to my work. I want to be a journalist which means delivering hard facts and learning to recognise what counts as "news". However, separate of my desire to educate the public on current affairs I am also driven to put in writing the questions that I ask myself and the thoughts I have about what is occurring in our society. This begs the question to me, could my desire to put my thoughts in the public forum hinder my professional integrity?
I have strong opinions on many of the topics that I am well versed in, but if I publish these thoughts do I risk future employment at the fault of being bias? I strive to be a professional and to separate my inner writer from my professional journalist exterior but if a potential employer was to stumble across a particularly opinionated piece I had produced at the urge of my lectures to "just publish something" could I lose my dream job?
In addition to being of particular concern to those of us hoping to make it in the media I think this fear is relevant in any industry. The more of ourselves we put into something we produce the bigger the risk of it being rejected and when there is so much of ourselves in a piece of our work we just can't help but be hurt when it is rejected. 

The problem with "Border Protection"

Lately one thing has been really irking me, and that's the debate over Australian border protection. This phrase coined by Aus politics is one that, to me, perpetuates what I see as quite an insensitive stance on refugees and asylum seekers.
The term "border protection" connotes that are borders are in danger, that these people are infiltrating our borders illegally (do we still need to clarify that there is nothing illegal about arriving in Australia by boat to seek asylum?) and that they must be some form of terrorists. Many Australians really don't know a lot of the facts regarding asylum seekers in Australia and the corresponding laws. This is no fault of their own, by bringing the issue into politics the average Australian who is just grabbing glimpses of information rambled by politicians on the news would easily become inundated with the flood of conflicting information. When terms such as "illegal boats", "mandatory detention" and "border protection" get thrown in the mix it becomes pretty obvious why so many Australians are so hostile about a topic that they no relatively little about. Some of the misconceptions I have heard come from fellow university students are astonishing, the most common being that almost every right-winged student I have spoken to won't believe me when I say that over 90% of boat arrivals are found to be genuine refugees. There also seems to be a huge gap in the knowledge of what actually constitutes a refugee.
So here's my suggestion, what if we stopped talking about refugees as if they are a threat to our livelihood and we start talking about they compassionately and just occasionally make reference to the hardships they have already endured. I am willing to bet that with a change in language would come a huge cultural shift. After all, I like to believe that people are inherently good and that these acts of hostility are caused by nothing more than a miscommunication of intentions.    

Two of my third grade students from Our Home