A Mixed Bag

This week was one of those mixed bag moments when there were some very good highs, but also some incredibly deep lows. The lows started right away on Saturday with the news of the tragic suicide of Charlotte Dawson, a former model turned television personality, who fell victim to cyber-bullying. It was a very poignant reminder of how dangerous bullying can be and how what we say online can affect others. There was a lot of public outcry over the circumstances of her death, or rather the reasons behind it. Charlotte Dawson suffered depression as a result of the cyber bullying she received on a daily basis and she was working through it but sometimes it can only be one message to much to send someone over the edge. In light of this, I am dedicating the rest of this post to all those victims of Cyber Bullying, including the ones we do not hear about,  may their souls and the message they leave behind be heard by all instigators of Cyber Bullying all over the internet. It may be funny now but it will not be once you are in front of a court having been the cause of someone committing suicide.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-22/tv-personality-charlotte-dawson-found-dead/5277364

In other news, the Sochi Winter Olympics celebrated its Closing Ceremony earlier this week. Now we have to wait another two years for the Commonwealth Games which always gets a lot more attention than the Winter Olympics which is sort of weird considering the Olympics has more teams than the Commonwealth Games. I guess maybe the Winter Olympics are just not as popular as the Summer Olympics which feature the more 'popular' sports. Again on a more positive note, Relay for Life is coming up again. I am actually organising the team for my Kokoda program as the one that some students are trying to organise at school involves students from all four select entry schools in Victoria. This means that they are looking to get involved with the Relay at Albert Park which is more central for the four schools. The thing is, this Relay is been held on the 26th/27th of April which is the day after I get back from Kokoda so there was no way I was going to be able to participate. It just makes it more exciting though to be able to organise the relay team myself. This week has also been a week of a lot of birthdays. There was my father's birthday on Wednesday and then my friend Xavier's birthday was today and we had a celebration at lunchtime today which was fun. Happy Birthday to you guys (more to Xavier though as Dad does not read these but Xavier reads some so there's a chance he will actually read this). Weekly training on Monday nights have also restarted for CFA which is exciting as I started my Low-Structure course this week which, once completed, will allow me to fight house fires from closer up (instead of from the sides and further back as support as I do now). Once I complete this I will also be able to complete my BA (Breathing Apparatus) course which will allow me to enter building fires or other fires with dangerous chemicals in the air. It basically allows me to fight fires from closer up and be more involved in the structure-fire-fighting.

A very mixed bag this week, see you tomorrow!

Welcome Back to Longer Posts (Random Thought Saturday)

So, how has it been with all these long posts? Like it was last year? I hope to keep it like this for as long as possible but, just like last year, there will be days where I get caught up with homework or other commitments so there will be short posts or no post at all. I am so annoyed with myself when this happens but sometimes it just can not be. So that is why I introduced the concept of segments. This allows me to pre-write posts as I know what I am going to write about ahead of time. It also helps me because I have something to write about. Before it was a lot harder to produce daily content because I did not want to do the same things every week without an official segment or else it would look weird, well to me anyway. At least this way, as I said yesterday, you guys can decide which days you read based on what you want to read about. Sometimes, it takes a little more than the title and introduction to really get in to what I am talking about. The segments allow you to know what kind of content is going to be released on what day. The only problem I have now is coming up with a segment for Mondays. Now that Friday has a segment, every day of the week has one except for Monday. If you have any idea of what I should write about on Mondays, you should tell me in the comments or by emailing me at legolukeytutorials@gmail.com. If you really wanted to you could even message me via my Facebook page. All these links are up above.

Source: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_youtube.php

In other news, I have started up a new YouTube channel. This one is called Lyrics2Share and on it I will be posting lyric videos for songs. You should check it out and if you have any suggestions for songs you want a lyric video for just send them through the twitter account, Google+ account (both links available on channel), email them to lyricality2u@gmail.com or just send them through what I mentioned above in the introduction. It is a lot easier to make videos for this channel than it is for my Legolukey channel. I will occasionally post some more tutorials in the future (when exactly is a mystery) but for now the easiest thing to create content for with time constraints is this channel. Plus, I only need to upload when I want to and these videos can be created a lot easier with the time from starting to publishing on YouTube being an hour at most. But anyway, moving on from that 'exciting' news. Have you guys noticed the new segment I started yesterday? It will run every Friday and is called "The Week that Was". Notice how I am becoming smarter now by not including any specific days in the title? In it I go through some of the highlights (and lowlights of the week). Some of it will be from the news and some of it from my personal life. For example, yesterday I wrote about the Sochi Olympics, the murder of Luke Batty, and some of what has been going on with me in the past week. That is sort of why the whole introduction to this Random Thought post was about segments. I was inspired, or rather reminded, by what I wrote about yesterday. In more nerve-racking (and exciting) news, there is only 59 days (and a few hours) until I fly out to Papua New Guinea to complete the Kokoda track. I can not remember if I have told you but we fly out on the 16th of April at 6am and then arrive some time after mid-day. We then start the trek the next day on the 17th before finishing the track on the 24th and attending the ANZAC day dawn service on the 25th. We fly back later that day. It is going to be so exciting but as we get closer the nerves do grow as well. It really is the same for everybody. To think that in less than nine weeks we will be doing the Kokoda track is a scary thought but we are all excited just the same. There is still a lot of fundraising we are doing before we leave (not to mention all the training) but it is suddenly becoming very real but I still do not think it will hit me until I actually arrive.

I really do need these random thought posts, they do help a lot with saying everything I want to. See you tomorrow!

The Week that Was: A New Segment!

Welcome to yet another Friday post. Generally, Fridays is a free-post day meaning that there is no segment (as Random Thought Fridays were moved to Saturdays) but today I am starting yet another new segment. This one is called "The Week that Was". In it, I go through some of the highlights of the week. These can be highlights in my life or in other areas. The reason I have so many segments is so that when it comes time to writing it is a lot easier to come up with something that I have not written about before. It also makes it a lot easier for you, my readers. If you know the type of posts that are going to be coming out on a day you can decide whether or not you want to read it. For instance, you may be interested in weird news and movies but not Doctor Who so you would read Tuesday and Thursday posts but would skip Sunday. See what I mean? Anyway, on with the week that was.

Source: http://www.livelingua.com/blog/survival-russian-for-the-sochi-2014-olympics/

I can not discuss the week that was without bringing up the major international sporting event that has been running since last Friday. I am, of course, talking about the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia. Australia may not be winning many medals but our athletes are giving it their all and that is enough for me. As long as they try their best and enjoy themselves I am fine. Being a part of the Olympics is such a big thing and there is only ever going to be one Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. I am very proud of our Olympic athletes. Sure, Sochi may have its flaws but as long as our athletes are happy, we should be happy. There was sad news yesterday when a poor boy was killed by his father. Luke Batty was at cricket training with his father (who had separated from his mother and was visiting his son) when he was struck over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed several times with a knife by the last person you would expect; his own father. His father was later shot by police as he came running at them with his knife after repeatedly asking them to shoot him. It was a very tragic moment that shook the small town of Tyabb. His mother should be given a lot of credit however as she did say that no one loved her son more than his father and said that he must have been suffering from a mental condition. This is extremely positive considering that this was a violent man who had threatened to kill his ex-wife on several occasions and had numerous warrants out for his arrest. It showed great strength of character and was a very poignant moment. In my life a few things have been happening as of late. For one, I started school with a full course of VCE. If you do not already know my subjects for this year are; Methods 3/4, Literature 1/2, Physics 1/2, Legal Studies 1/2, IT Software Development 1/2, and General Maths (Standard) 1/2. This has partly been the explanation for the lack of posts over the past few days. VCE is a big two years that involves a lot of independent study and homework so for the next two years there will be times where I will miss out on posts and the many of those times will be because of homework and studying. Another reason why there has been a recent spate of missing posts is because I only received my school laptop yesterday and writing posts on the desktop computer I use is annoying as it is really old and takes a lot longer to type things out. Hopefully I will be getting my own personal laptop this year so this issue should not become as big a problem in the future; especially over the Christmas break where I have no school laptop.

That was the week that was. See you tomorrow!

The Sochi Olympics

That is right, the 2014 Winter Olympics are well under way in Sochi, Russia. Amongst all the excitement of the games there are also a few detractors from one of the greatest moments of 2014. Other than all the issues around Russia's "anti-gay" law which I am not getting into in this post there are other issues surrounding the games that have people asking whether Sochi was ill prepared for this event. Some things are beyond their control while others just seem like ways of cutting corners. Even the opening ceremony had a few glitches. A twitter account with the handle @SochiProblems is an account that has gained more followers than the official Sochi Olympics account. #SochiProblems has also become the default hashtag for complaining about some of the issues.

Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/internet/3500861/how-watch-winter-olympics-live/?olo=editorspick

There are cramped living conditions, unreliable electricity, dirty water and much more. The twitter account, @SochiProblems, which I mentioned above has posted many pictures showing some of the issues around the Sochi Olympics including dirty water, and un-plumbed toilets. Work on and around the stadium was still being done five hours before the official opening ceremonies. I thought that I was bad leaving things to the last minute. There has already been a myriad of stories on the different issues of the Sochi Olympics and there are set to be many more. One of the American bobsledders even had to break through a door to escape a bathroom after been locked in. Even the media seem to be suffering a little with their own accommodation not even ready for them when they arrived. However, despite all this we must look on the positives. Our athletes over in Russia are all representing our country well and we should be proud of our talents. We also have to look at some bias that may be shown. Sure there are a lot of problems but had this been somewhere with less controversy would it have made as big a mark as this? It still would have been an issue but would it have been as big? People already had preconceived notions of Russia after its passing of the "Anti-Gay" law making it illegal to tell anyone underage that being Gay is okay and even talking to them about homosexuality is illegal. It really did not start Russia off on a very good foot to greet the rest of the world when the Olympic games did arrive.

We all have hopes in our athletes, see you tomorrow!