What's Going On?

I know I have written in the past about why I am proud to be Australian that was also about how our country comes together in time of need especially when we had those bad fires in Victoria a couple of years ago but now it is floods. Something like this you always think is a disaster that would not happen where you live and you never think that your whole house and every possession you own would just be washed away in a matter of minutes It's only something you hear about on the news that you don't give a second thought to. Now that this has happened once again the true spirit of our fellow Australians is shining through Army, SES, Fire, Police and thousands of volunteers who have travelled from around the country to help the affected people out of the kindness of their hearts have all gathered to clean up you see on the news random people helping out others clean out their houses and helping them salvage anything they can. Not being in one of those affected areas you feel so helpless and think how can i help? So every week i will be donating $10 until our country starts to get back on our feet I figure It's the least i can do.
As the title of this post reads What's going on? i wanted to talk about what the hell has our country done to deserve this? mother natures wrath has come too swiftly It makes me ask that question and as the past year has shown the huge earthquake in New Zealand the devastation in Haiti and the Volcanic eruption that crippled Europe's airspace Is this the act of Global Warming have we pushed mother nature too far? and will the world ever agree on how to tackle climate change. I thought Hurricane Katrina would have made America start doing something about it but most governments just want to ignore it sweep it under the rug pretend it doesn't exist while every year the snow gets deeper the sun gets hotter and the rain pours harder how many people have to die before the world takes an interest. Our world leaders may use it as an election campaign promise and everyone thinks yes finally something is going to be done about it but like every politician who becomes a leader they just ignore the problem for the term of their leadership we keep falling for it because I think we all want to believe that they are telling the truth but year after year It's the same.
The one thing i will say about a politician in our country who Is Queensland Premier Anna Bligh her sheer determination and sincere empathy for the people in her state has been inspiring even when she broke down crying during a press conference i just knew that she was not a  person who would just say It's a terrible situation and we need plenty of donations like native Kevin Rudd has. So what happens now do we rebuild to suit the recent weather patterns, learn from what's happened or just build where everything was before like our country did in 1974? one hopes we learn from past experiences and desperately wishes that this will never happen again however I can't help but feel that this will not be the only mass scale disaster in the world this year but i hope my thoughts are 100% wrong.

The Net, Social Networking My Feelings

As my blogs name states in my words and in my thoughts well my thoughts yesterday turned to social networking as a celebrity tweeted "Hate to admit it but life ground to a halt when i was without Internet. When did i become such a techno baby?"
It struck a cord with me because being on twitter for over a year now I've realised I've come to depend on my daily fix of drama, sarcasm, laughter and great chats with international tweeps.
Some people i have met through twitter have had more in common with me than people in real life, it's like a whole other world on the net sometimes it feels like an easier one not having to talk to people face to face being free to say things you wouldn't dare share with some people fearing you may be judged but for some reason those worries disappear on here. Once i had to go without the net for two weeks that seemed like a year to me! I do feel there is a bad side to it too it sometimes makes me anxious if you send a tweet to someone and they don't reply within 5mins even though there on the other side of the world and every Friday waiting to see who gives you a follow Friday shout out and how they say it but getting upset if they forget you and however many times you may give them one they never return the favour.
Other social networking sites scare me i once joined myspace if any of my followers really know me they know I'm a fan of Meryl Streep so of course when an unverified twitter account who claimed to be Meryl said she was on myspace i joined to follow her and i was so excited to be followed back it made my week only to find out after a few months it was a fake account.
Then there's Facebook nearly everyone i know is on there but i just cannot bring myself to join thinking about all the people in school that never talked to me suddenly wanting me to add them to my friends list or wasting time sending a cocktail or a hug to your friends or playing games tying to earn money to decorate a house, that i feel is a waste of time. I know too many people that are up till 3am on their FaceBook page or if they are unemployed spending all day on their computer checking FaceBook. Social networking has certainly become part of our daily life but one aspect of it particularly worries me and that is cyber bullying now back in my day at school (yes i know that made me sound like 100) email was the "in thing" so we really didn't have to worry about it but today's kids i feel sorry for the net has taken bullying to a whole new level home use to be a safe retreat from bullies but now you go to your facebook page or myspace and theres your classmates bagging the shit out of you threatening all sorts of stuff. This is one aspect that needs to be looked at protecting kids against this sort of abusive behaviour i know bullying will never be stopped it's a part of life but this new mutation needs to be!
To conclude my thought overall i think my social networking and Internet use so far has been positive i think I've been lucky enough to chat to nice interesting people and hope it continues that way thankyou friends.

Patience Does It Still Exist?

They say patience is a virtue but whoever came up with that line is obviously still not with us I've realised recently some through my own actions that today's society has little or no patience at all in fact I'll be the first one to tell you i have none at all. I started to think why has this happened how has our attitudes changed towards each other over the years and i could only come up with one answer which is today's technology everything is at our fingertips the net is a big part of that, we don't have to move to go buy our groceries order DVDs buy basically anything you want even our cell phones make it to easy theres even an iPhone application to order pizzas for you. One thing i do love is you can hop online to buy your movie ticket and move to the front of the line when you get to the cinema which makes alot of people jealous that have to wait.
It's not just the fact that we are impatient it's also the fact that alot of us like to piss people off. The other day i was on an escalator and a woman behind me was tapping her foot as if to say move so i can get passed you but lucky a large painting i was holding allowed me to block her path on purpose unfortunately alot of times I'm so sadistic that even if I'm in a public toilet and there's a huge line up I'll stay in there longer to piss people off god I'm mean, one of the things i most enjoy is when I'm doing my grocery shopping and little old ladies with their trolleys take up the whole isle i make a noise behind them like a car beep i receive dirty looks but it always works they move. I also have a pet hate when somebody cuts in line in front of me unfortunately I'm not one who just lets this happen i confront these rude people I'm the kind of person who would do a "Liz Lemon" seeing a guy cut infront of me in the hotdog vendor line so i would buy all the hotdogs to piss him off. Maybe one of the most meanest things i do is when I'm on a bus i move to the outside of the seat so nobody can sit next to me because i don't have the patience to have a conversation with a complete stranger when they feel the need to open their mouth and tell me their life story it totally annoys me.
I have had time to think about my actions and other peoples I've witnessed but i honestly can't imagine myself changing aswell as our society anytime soon although what i do may be considered rude and upsetting i take joy in pissing people off as I'm sure other people do, this may make me a sick, sad person but i don't care however i just wonder if we didn't have all the latest gadgets and technology at our disposal would we all still be like this would we actually find the time to talk to people face to face instead of on the net would we actually walk into a bank look at someone face to face to pay our bills i don't know readers what do you think?

Work Or Family?

Recently i had a conversation with a fellow co-worker which i could not get out of my head i work weekends and so does she this is the type of worker who rarely takes holidays or has barely ever used a sick day. Her child lives in QLD and she had informed me that some of her friends in QLD were throwing her a surprise 21st birthday party my first thought was how nice than my mind quickly jumped to the fact of why wasn't she there? 21 is such an important birthday in anyone's lifetime i thought couldn't she have taken just one weekend off pay $50 for an aeroplane ticket and be there for that important milestone in her daughters life.
Now i know that different people have different priorities in their life and i shouldn't judge but i put this question to a few people i know and everybody had the same reply they would have moved heaven and earth to be there for their child. I don't have children yet because that would require for a start a boyfriend but i couldn't help but judge and that's when i came to the question when has work become more important than family?
I know that the global financial crisis made alot of people value their jobs, work harder so they felt their job was safe, but does that mean you should miss your child's first words or first day of school or as the case here their 21st birthday. Is the almighty dollar more important than your child's happiness?
What made me the most saddest is when do you get to the point when your whole life is about your job you eat, breathe, shit, live your job can't think of anything else everything in the workplace is your business even if it doesn't pertain to you. I felt sorry for this woman she is not the boss but feels if she is not around the business would fall apart.
To end my thought, i hope one day this does not become me, so preoccupied by my job that i don't stop to smell the roses, make everlasting memories with my family and i hope that i realise saving $50 isn't more important to me than visiting my child.
In my family, family always comes first!

What or who makes me proud to be australian

I was watching TV yesterday and i came across an interesting question what or who makes you proud to be Australian and it made me think for a while what would my answer be as i pondered this for a few hours i had barely came up with any answers. After the news of the past few days which we found out a recipient of the father of the year award had been having an affair for 10yrs with a woman and had a child with her (he was stripped of his title) and countless youths have been so disrespectful by desecrating war memorials, a liberal politician picking on a labor candidate because he is a Muslim and our prime minister because she is a self professed atheist because apparently he thinks our country should be run by Christians. In the midst of our country being in an election where the phrases moving forward and fair dinkum (for my international readers Aussie slang for be truthful) are repeatedly spoken i wondered how can we move forward if we aren't being truthful? not just on a national scale but on a personal scale too. We all speak some untruths now and again but do we stop to think what consequences these may have a promise made to your country, or a promise made to your family or friends that is only to be broken and leave countless numbers of people or even just one person disappointed only time will tell if our nation and people can do this.
So to answer my original question who makes me proud to be Australian i think our lady prime minister although she has yet to have enough time in power to do much she is showing men that a woman can run our country too (sisters are doing it for themselves).
The best thing that makes me proud to be Australian is whenever we have a national or international disaster Australians always band together to help out our own people or other countries this was displayed by our black Sunday fires when our fireman from all over the country came to help as well as the many thousands of people who donated clothes, money, food and accommodation to the effort. When tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, fires any disaster happens around the world our country is always there to help.
When war is declared our many brave men and women of our armed forces are always there to defend our country, putting their lives on line for a war that seems is not winnable but continues to go on our soldiers are still there putting there lives on the line everyday and for that alone they make me proud to be Australian!
So in conclusion i think it's our actions as the one or many rather than our words which show who or what makes us proud to live in this beautiful country.

A Bit Off Subject My Trip Around The Harbour

Now i know i call this blog the American holiday project which is ultimately my dream but I'd like to talk about my recent trip to Sydney you see although i am 25yrs old & live about 1.5hrs away from Sydney i had never been on a ferry before around the harbour so to some this may be a daily trip to work but for me i was like a tourist with my camera continually clicking away.

It was a winters day but a particularly nice one the sun was out and there was a clear blue sky. I had promised my 11yr old cousin i would take him to Luna Park while he was on school holidays but i must admit it was more for me than him as i had never been there before.

So we set out from Newtown i had purchased a day tripper ticket for $20 which means you can catch unlimited buses, ferries and trains all day long. When we arrived at Circular quay my eyes immediately transfixed upon the huge cruise ship anchored in the harbour and was so jealous of the people waving from there balconies and started thinking why can't that be me!

We waited about 20 minutes for our ferry i was getting impatient because i was excited, so when we got aboard i was like a kid in a candy shop i hurried outside to get the best seat so i could take some great pictures.

As we left the Quay the first sight on the left hand side was the Opera House now you see it on TV all the time but it's not until you get up close that you realise what a magnificent piece of architecture it is.

On the right hand side was the wonder which is the Harbour Bridge. We got off the ferry and started to walk over to Luna park if you don't go on the rides it's free entry but if you want unlimited rides it's $45 for adults my cousin who had been there numerous times before had his whole day planned him "Ez first we go on the tango train than the crazy coaster, Ferris wheel, carousel then coney island" but i had my own idea i wanted to start from the beginning and make my way down to the end. The first ride was one of those things they spin you around and you stick to the wall unfortunately i had to go it alone as my cousin was too scared to go on it. Next the tango train i still have bruises from the 11yr old pushing me into the corner with every spin.

After a few more rides we had lunch (take your own to save money) and i decided i wanted to go on the grown up rides but he was too scared so i left him to his grandma and went off alone to be spun around and turned upside down in the air i love that shit.

The last ride we went on was the Ferris wheel and it was a great view of the harbour so i took a few shots up there hoping that i didn't drop my camera. We got off and decided it was time to leave we had a good day but i think next time i will take a long harbour cruise and skip Luna Park leave that for kids i hope you all enjoy these pictures although i have not yet learned how to place them on the page correctly.

Differences

One thing i have always wondered about visiting America is would i stick out like a sore thumb and be easily detected as just "another" tourist (if i wasn't carrying a camera).The thing that makes me wonder this is different words our countries use for different things such as a thong to us Aussies is actually what you guys would call flip flops a turtleneck we call a skivvy peppers we say capsicums scallions spring onions a yam is a sweet potato what you call runners we say joggers a cantelope we call a rock melon and I'm sure there are many many more to list.My cousin who will be my travelling companion has been to America before so i have heard some of her stories but my favourite is, one day she felt like just a ham and cheese sandwich and walked into a shop and for some reason the person serving her couldn't fathom that she just wanted ham and cheese so the sandwich she ended up with could have been her breakfast lunch and dinner she had to peel off layers of ham and cheese just to get a usual size sandwich she would get at home and then what amused her most is that everything comes with a pickle and a bag of chips this idea is foreign to me not only because it doesn't happen here but who would think potato crisps would accompany a sandwich is this the norm?.I also believe that our medium McDonald's meals are actually your small but that really doesn't matter seeing that McDonald's has drastically shrunk the size of their burgers of late. Spelling differences are common as well but our country is starting to become so Americanized that the next generation of kids will probably spell like Americans two easy differences are mom or mum to us or color or colour to us. One phrase I've recently been privy to by spending too much time with an 11yr old is: that's so random! when did this phrase become part of everyday language? it wasn't around when i was in school and when it comes out of my mouth it's just not cool apparently. These differences are minimal and they give the world variety but it's amazing how through TV, film, video games and books that we can learn about these things and i look forward to a few laughs on my travels with misunderstandings of certain phrases from our respective countries along the way!