HAPPY BIRTHDAY STASHA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STASHA!

So Stasha, you're finally 18. Happy birthday! It's been a long time since Legal last year but you're still whipping all our asses. Hope you have a great day, you deserve it! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STASHA!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR STASHA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

(BTW, this post is obviously dedicated to Stasha)

My Problem with Disney's Cinderella

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/roadsfromemmaus/2015/03/23/happily-ever-after-yes-really-movie-review-cinderella-2015/

I am going to preface this post by saying that I actually really liked Disney's new live-action remake of Cinderella. Although the story remained very much unchanged the costumes, music and acting made this film the wonder it is. Lily James played her role as the down-trodden yet kind Cinderella magnificently and Helena Bonham Carter yet again shone through her role as the Fairy God Mother and Narrator. My favourite actress of all in this was Cate Blanchett. While I may be biased as an Australian, her portrayal of the evil step-mother was done with such grace and subtlety. She was a vile woman, but you loved her for it. The music was one thing that really pulled this movie together. When Cinderella's mother died (not a spoiler, it happens in the first ten minutes) you really do feel for Cinderella even though you've only had a connection to her for less than ten minutes. This had to be owed to Patrick Doyle's moving score which, again, was a hero of this film. However, despite all this my gripe with this film has to do with the Prince (well portrayed by Richard Madden).

Source: http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/388635-ella-finds-her-prince-on-a-new-cinderella-poster#/slide/1

I will again preface this post by saying that this gripe with Cinderella's Prince extends to all versions of this text. My problem is the message the prince sends. To be perfectly honest, the prince is a bloody idiot. His whole plan on finding Cinderella relies on the fact that no one in the entire kingdom has the same shoe size as Cinderella. His plan is literally reliant on a glass slipper. Now the film does make somewhat of an effort to explain this by saying that the shoe is magical and will only fit Cinderella. That is all well and good for the audience to know but the prince doesn't! The Prince has no idea that the shoe is magical, in fact there is no evidence to even suggest that he even knows that magic exists. Even Cinderella had lost her belief in it until the eccentric Fairy God Mother appeared. Therefore the Prince is an idiot. There is no getting past the fact that the Prince's plan relied solely on Cinderella's shoe size being unique to her in the entire kingdom. The Prince had no idea that the shoe was magical and therefore only fitted Cinderella. The worse part comes when Cinderella, after seeing him try the shoe with everyone in the entire kingdom, decides to marry that man. What kind of message does that send? Not only is she marrying a complete fool, but she does so having only met him twice. Once was in the woods where she had only a few minutes with him and the second was at the actual ball. I'm starting to get an Anna and Hans (Frozen) vibe from this and we all know how that turned out. All I'm saying is that the Prince is an idiot and that Cinderella is an even bigger idiot for agreeing to marry him prematurely. That is my problem with Disney's 2015 live-action Cinderella.

This post is dedicated to my friend Malavika, you asked for one and here it is. See you all soon.

#IllRideWithYou

Yesterday saw one of the darkest days in Australian history in recent years. It saw the siege of the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place Sydney. A place central to the large city of Sydney and close to Government Authorities and broadcasters. It was also very close to famous landmarks like the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/national/siege-at-sydneys-lindt-cafe-martin-place-long-identified-as-a-terrorist-target/story-fncynjr2-1227156454320

It was something that captured the attention of all Australians. This siege, done in the name of ISIS, finally came to an end just after 2 this morning, more than 16 hours after the siege began. This end came at the cost of three lives. One was the gunman himself who was holding the hostages. The other two were poor innocent people who had just gone out for a quick bite at the cafe. They were the 38 year-old barrister and mother of three Katrina Dawson and the 34 year-old manager of the cafe, Tori Johnson. Our thoughts go out to their friends and families at this troubled time.

[from top] Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson 

Source: http://www.news.com.au/national/martin-place-siege-victims-were-katrina-dawson-38-and-tori-johnson-34/story-fncynjr2-1227157794423

However, if there was one thing good to come out of this it was the sense of community that came out of it all. Despite the fact that the act was done in the name of ISIS many Australians stood up for the Muslims they knew had no support for the group who were destroying their reputation. In the face of adversity and immense suffering our country pulled together despite the ISIS plan to separate the Muslims from the rest of Australia. This was embodied through the hashtag "I'll ride with you".

Source: http://descrier.co.uk/news/world/illridewithyou-australians-show-solidarity-sydneys-muslims-siege/

It continues to trend on Twitter with thousands of people showing their support for their fellow Muslim Australians. It is a promise to show solidarity when you are with a Muslim, or anyone, and they could fear racial backlash from connotations regarding their faith. The following picture shows the Facebook post that started it all by Rachael Jacobs.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/martin-place-siege-illridewithyou-hashtag-goes-viral-20141216-127rm1.html

Since this many posts have come to show their supports and most Australians would have found at least one mention of the hashtag on Facebook or Twitter. This response to the attack by a person on Facebook which has since been shared by many people and pages sums up Australia's response to this incident perfectly.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DanAndMaz

Nothing more needs to be said. See you soon.

Don't be a Phony

If you get one thing out of this post it is this (three guesses for what it is): don't be a phony. I can not make this any clearer. No one likes a phony. While you have friends who do not know the real you then you do not really have any friends because they like the version of you that you let them see, not the real you. Also, once they find out who you really are they may no longer be your friends as they feel betrayed that you lied to them for so long. However, as I said before, be they your friends or not, no one likes a phony.

As a high school student I have known and still know a lot of phonies. Of course, you might be asking yourselves "Luke, how do you know they're phonies?" Though really I know you're not thinking that but for the sake of the argument, you are. You can easily tell a phony when you notice that they are actually two separate people. I'm not talking about clones, I'm talking about them being different people when they are with their 'friends' and when they are talking to you. This is really annoying because you have to ask yourself which one is real? Some of the nicest people you will talk to can be total dicks (if you'll pardon my anatomy) when they are around their 'friends'. I put the 'friends' in quotation marks because can you really call them your friends if they do not actually know the real person? That is actually an important question. Another is how much can you really trust someone who is not able to even be themselves? That is why my message to all you phonies out there is to stop. Seriously, take a look at yourself and finally be true to who you are.

Sorry for the short post, see you soon.

Blog Update

So I've decided with this blog that I will no longer post updates regularly but rather whenever I feel like posting about something. I have decided this for a few reasons. First because I do not have the time anymore to keep daily posts on this blog (hence the extended hiatus) and secondly so I can deliver quality posts to you goes. What I noticed when I was doing daily writing is that my posts became kind of strained and not very good quality because I did not really have a topic that I particularly cared about. At least this way I can post about something when it comes to my head or write it down for later.

Stay tuned for my next post "Don't be a Phoney" which will be released shortly. See you then

Life Update

The last post I wrote that was not related to Kokoda was on the 14th of April which makes the fact that it was only 19 posts ago one of the reasons I jokingly changed the title of this blog to "The Not-so-Daily Lukey" which I will change back to "Daily Lukey" once I get back into the swing of things again. Anyway, the point of that little fact was to show how long it has been (almost 6 months ago [that's half a year!]) since I wrote a regular post. In that time a lot has happened (I think, we'll see when I get down to it) and so today's post is a little bit of an update on what has been going on.

So I wrote that introduction two days ago and now I am here, writing the rest of the post. Welcome to the world of procrastination. Except, I procrastinated by doing other work so it was not entirely wasteful procrastination. Could it even be called procrastination then? Anyway, school has been busy lately, especially since it is VCE, and with my 3/4 Methods exam just four weeks away the work is becoming more real as I get through more and more practice papers. I have done well in my SACs so I have that but I also need to do well in the exam if I want to get a good score so there comes that. The plus side is that in four weeks, I will no longer be doing Methods. Although I will miss it because I like mathematics, it will be nice to not have that as one of my hardest subjects anymore so I can focus more equally on my subjects, particularly the ones I am struggling with. I guess nothing much really has happened though since Kokoda, though I do feel I could use a random thought Friday post right now (wait, I moved that to Saturdays but anyway) because, as you can tell, my mind is all over the place right now. Nothing much really has happened though. We've had a catch-up with the Kokoda group, a presentation night for the whole leadership program plus some minor Rotary events we help out at but it has been a while since we have all been together again, I think we need to organise something. It is sad how people drift apart some times but hopefully we can organise another Relay for Life next year which can act as our reunion of sorts. I'm on my school's first SRC (this is only the school's fourth year) which was a great experience but is sadly drawing to a close as the new SRC representatives are elected for next year. One of the best things about being in a new school (aside from the new facilities) is the new traditions you get to create as well as the community feel you get from it. So, we may have only been around for almost a semester but it was great to set some of the grounding and actually have some input into things at the school and inputting student ideas. I had better finish now as I think you are all pretty much up to speed. Of course there are always the personal moments that occur but that is why this is the internet, and not my real life.

Hope to get another post out soon, see you soon!

My Kokoda Journey: Day 10 in Papua New Guinea (ANZAC Day and Final Day in PNG)

Today was our final day in Papua New Guinea and it was also ANZAC Day (25th of April 2014) so it was going to be an exciting end to our journey in Papua New Guinea. We woke up at 3am so that we would be ready to leave on a bus to get to Bomana War Cemetery in time for the dawn service. My room mate and I actually slept in a little so when it came to 3:30 and we were leaving, we were still in our room but luckily we woke up and answered the phone and pretended we were running late but still coming. Truth was we had just woken up. Still, we managed to get changed and down to the lobby in two minutes which included an elevator trip so we were pretty quick. It was dark out but there were already plenty of people moving around and there was a fair amount of road traffic heading to the war cemetery.

When we arrived we exited the bus and were handed a glow stick and a program for the event which I still have at home (for the memories). There were a lot of people around and we all sat on the grass aside from the sea of graves that were before us. It was a moving ceremony where Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea were all represented in both the dignitaries involved in the ceremony and the spectators. The most moving part however came later.

By far the most moving and emotional part of the war cemetery was all the graves that merely had "known unto God" marked on them as their inhabitants' identities were unknown. As we used the directory to search through names and then find their grave it was sad to see so many name-less graves and we had poppies to put down so some of them did go to some of the unmarked graves while the majority did go to the graves of the men we were looking for you. There were many nationalities presented and after experiencing Kokoda for ourselves, this became more important as we had experienced just a small fraction of what the Kokoda Campaign was like for the soldiers involved.

When we returned the hotel we had breakfast (again, nice not to have to add hot water to food to eat it) and then we spent the rest of the morning finalising our packing as well as relaxing and watching some television in our rooms. A few of us napped for a bit but I also found myself drawn to some Regular Show and Adventure Time that was on Cartoon Network at the time. It had started raining outside which reflected our feelings on leaving the beautiful country of Papua New Guinea. However, the upside was that we would be reunited with our families when we landed back in Melbourne that night. We all gathered down at the lobby before catching buses to the airport. We spent some time at the check-in desk before making us way through their duty free store and into the main airport where we waited for our flight to Brisbane (we then caught a connecting flight to Melbourne).

Arriving in Brisbane was an interesting experience as it was a beautiful sun set and it felt nice to be back in Australia again. We then bought ourselves dinner before waiting at the gate for our flight to Melbourne. The final stint of our journey was at night and, luckily, I had a section of seating to myself so I managed to spread out with another person who decided to share with me and actually got some nice sleep before landing in Melbourne and being reunited with our families.

Kokoda was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I will treasure and be forever grateful with the friendships that I have made through this experience.

Back to regular posts from tomorrow! See you then.