RIP Richard Griffiths

Today is a sad day. Not only is it a sad day because it's Good Friday (the day Jesus died on the cross) but because we have lost a great man. Mr Richard Griffiths, known to most young people as Uncle Vernon Dursley from the popular book and movie series Harry Potter. This is especially heart breaking for someone of my age because I have grown up with the Harry Potter series.

The first book was released when I was two, but I had been reading dictionaries and encyclopedias at the young age of five. My parents, annoyed at the fact I would insult my older siblings with large words that they didn't understand, decided on a whim to give me the Harry Potter series to read. I was addicted (and I proceeded to calling my siblings 'muggles'). Nervously I would wait at the front of the line of book stores, waiting for each new book as they were released. Suddenly, they were turned into blockbusters. Being the massive fan I was, I created an image of what the main characters looked like in my head as I read the books. However, when I went to see the very first movie in 2001 none of the male characters seemed to match. Harry wasn't lanky enough, Ron wasn't nearly dorky enough, Quirrel was too attractive (not in a OMG HE'S SO HOT way ... as in his skin was clear, he had a good smile and his eyes sparkled, which isn't something that you'd see from someone who was sharing his soul with the Dark Lord). Nothing seemed to be clicking in my head. The only person who really represented his character was Richard. It was as if the part was written for him specifically. Most people would look at Harry Potter and find hope. I would look at Vernon. It would reassure me that the producers were semi-competent. I mean, they did mess up some details like the fact that the Durleys moved to a hotel to avoid the Hogwarts letters, but they tried their hardest.

My obsession only got worse as the years went on. I grew into a young blooming fangirl, still madly crazed over Harry Potter. Unfortunately, the producers just seemed to go downhill. Rejecting the entire concept of Peeves, leaving big areas of Rita Skeeter's true identity out of the movies, and so many misquoted lines just infuriated me, but the one thing that remained was that they portrayed Vernon almost perfectly to the book. Sure, there were moments when I wanted to throw something or scream, but I held it in.

My point is, watching Richard play Vernon kept me sane (as sane as I could be) when everything got switched around. But just like the Harry Potter books and movies, they may have ended but the memories will continue for years to come. He is legitimately the reason why I know there are no posts on Sundays.

Most people wouldn't know, but both of his parents were deaf so he learnt sign language at a very young age. He dropped out of school, but eventually went back. He had a rough beginning, but he represents everyone who has come from a difficult parental situation. He was a Shakespearean actor (pretty deep for someone who gets excited over no posts on Sundays), starred next to famous people in movie after movie, but was always overshadowed by more successful actors like Adam Sandler, Daniel Radcliffe, Danny DeVito and Johnny Depp. He was even considered twice to be the Doctor in the famous British television series Doctor Who, but unfortunately was unavailable for such roles.

He lived a good life. Let's leave it at that. Richard Griffiths, you will always be like an uncle to me.

*raises wand in remembrance*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Griffiths

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/harry-potter-actor-richard-griffiths-dies-aged-65-after-complications-following-heart-surgery-8554281.html

JCU Library: Is It Just A Library, Or Heaven In Disguise?

For all those who thought that the library is just a place with a lot of books and an old lady walking around telling you to be quiet if your chair squeaks, you are sorely mistaken. In the James Cook University library, there is indeed an abundance of books for many different areas of study, and sure if you're speaking too loudly someone is bound to point it out. But that's not all the JCU library has to offer!

If you feel a little too lazy to actually go into the library, they have online sources (e-books) that can give you the information that you require. This is a general assumption, because most of them are just snippets of the full book. There are so many technical terms I could go over like LibGuides, phrasing and such, but if you weren't in that tutorial then it's your loss. The main point I'm stressing is that the library is a cool place online.

However, if you wish to actually experience the library in all its glory by walking through those hallowed electrical doors, you will not only get the rich ancient book smell from the floors and floors of books and a friendly smile from the staff behind the counter, but you will also get the privilege of finding a small quiet spot in which you can relax with a good book or study privately surrounded by all the resources you could ever need.
On the ground floor you can find an entire room dedicated solely to the use of computers, a cheery staff member ready to help proofread your assignments and even a couched area labelled "The Quiet Spot". Does that not sound like Heaven to you? No? Well, let's move on to the second floor.
Ah, the second floor. This is where it begins to feel like a library. Row upon row upon row of books just waiting to be read. Peaceful corners in which you can study with no distractions. Computers placed conveniently near the books when you need that little extra something in your referencing. As if that was enough, there's even a THIRD floor of the marvelous tower of knowledge.
Because the library holds so many books, they just had to contain them somewhere. That somewhere, if you haven't guessed yet, is the third floor. This is where the good stuff is. If you need to get away from someone, no one is going to bother walking that far just to annoy you. The quiet zones are larger, as not many people wish to study further up. The books, rich in their words and scent, surround you, almost giving you a comforting hug.

Now if yo say you don't like libraries, you obviously haven't set foot upon the ground that is the Eddie Mabo James Cook University library.

If not, go! Now! Right now! I'll be watching.

Well Played

So if you didn't know that Kevin Rudd was rumored to challenge Julia Gillard for prime minister-ship, you were living under a rock. At about 9am on Thursday morning, one of Kevin Rudd's assistants said that he was going to try and become prime minister again, pulling down Miss Gilliard in the process. This was splashed across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and so many other social media sites, proclaiming he didn't approve of Miss Gillard's tactics when it came to her representation of the Labour party. It was later recorded that Mr Rudd did not wish to challenge the current prime minister and that it was misunderstanding. He wished to "keep his word" in reference to running for prime minister, choosing to close the door on being the leader of the Labours. No hard feelings between Mr Rudd and Miss Gillard. However, Tony Abbot stood in the background smirking, watching himself earn more support from the masses.
If the Labour party wanted a running chance at keeping their prime minister on top, they pretty much sabotaged that. No one wants to have someone representing their voice if they can't even control their own party. Personally, Tony Abbot is starting to grow on me. Sure he's done some wrong, but he is able to have the FULL support of his team without extra payments salaries, physical or verbal abuse or begging them to stay. They're staying on his team because he represents what they want. What they need.
In the Liberal versus Labour fight, Liberal seems to be pulling some right hooks and really hitting the right areas. However, the big surprise in this battle is the friendly fire that the Labour party has been suffering. It's almost as if they're kicking themselves in the groin.
Is this self-sabotage, or is it a clever rouse to make sure they have the 'underdog' status?

MULTIMEDIA Journalism

During the tutorial that I attended on Thursday, I was taught a valuable lesson. Print journalism and multimedia journalism are very different. In the tutorial we were given the simple but meaningful task of converting a printed story from a newspaper into one that would be considered appropriate for a television news station or this new-age technology called the Internet. I found this a bit of a challenge because I had not known the difference between the two. Did I have to add a moving picture? Should it be under a different production company? I just didn't know.

Then it hit me. Reading a paper, all you generally want is the news. Just straight hard-hitting news. You might be searching for a catchy title or a bit of humour somewhere, but mainly you're looking for a news hit. However, if you're watching the television and the news comes on, you're looking for something that will keep you on that channel. Entertaining story details, captivating videos and pictures ... something that will peak your interest, and then keep it! If you're surfing the net and you stumble upon the Townsville Bulletin webpage, you want to embark upon a journey similar to that of a YouTube adventure. You want to be hooked on a headline, captured by the content and engaged by the entertainment value.

These methods seem similar in the fact they provide facts, but converting print to online media is actually a challenge. But once we found one option, the rest started to flow. You could add a section where the audience can interact and give their two cents like having a Facebook/Twitter feed. You could elongate the story with statistics and facts that relate to the story in question.

It was an awakening to me. I realised that the course that I am taking (Multimedia Journalism) is exactly that: multi-media. Over multiple medias. Online, television, radio AND print media. That's a lot of planning for separate medias.

I have a long three years ahead of me.

Pope Francis ... What's Your Opinion?

The one thing that I've seen plastered across multiple media sources (including print, social media, radio and television) is the new pope.  Pope Francis.  Now he is a strange choice for pope (apparently ... I have never really followed the news in Rome) because of many reasons.  Instead of taking the royal transport after he was selected as the new pope, he hopped on the public transport and rode it to his hotel.  He then proceeded to pay his bill and pack up his things.  What was odd about this was once he was chosen for pop he technically owned the hotel in which he was staying.  He didn't have to pay anything.  He also wanted the money paid for the royal transport be given to a charity.  It seems we have a charitable and down-to-earth pope on our hands.  I believe this could be considered as good, but hopefully he'll know the extent at which he can go.  Let us gaze into the possible future ...

Say Pope Francis finds a new charity in Rome that needs large funds.  He decides that the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few, so he gives most of the money from church (and a bit extra) to this charity.  What he doesn't know is this charity is actually just a scam and Francis has just unknowingly given all the money that he has to this fake charity.  Now he has the experience of giving money to the wrong people and is a bit more hesitant to give more money away.  This can cause even more problems with things like sketchy-looking-but-sincere charities being turned away.  (Keep in mind, this is purely hypothetical and probably unrealistic ... but not completely ruled out.)  With this considered, Pope Francis could charitable but without a leash he could be dangerous.

This is just one possibility however.  Pope Francis could be the best person in the world.  Say he gave the exact same amount of money from the above scenario to a legitimate charity.  This charity goes on to save thousands of lives from some unknown disease that has not yet been discovered perhaps.  Pope Francis is recognised as the founder of that cure for being the the financial stability for the company.  He is then offered a title or global recognition, but of course turns it down because he is noble and humble.  This makes him charitable, generous, helpful, kind, caring, noble, AND humble.  Suddenly, he was the best choice of all the pope-applicants.

The point is, I have not met Pope Francis (nor have I been anywhere near the Vatican), I cannot tell the future, and I haven't been paying attention to any of the popes over the years.  This gives me absolutely no opinion as to what kind of person Francis is, what kind of pope he is and will become, and I CERTAINLY have no right to slander him over social media.  However, this seemed to be a common thing for many young adults these days.  Most young people think that they know everything there is to know about everything in the world and that their opinion is the only opinion that can be voiced.  Although they have nothing to stand on (or possibly a little bit of fact that's been blown out of proportion) they still stick to their beliefs and opinions stubbornly.

My opinion of this?  Take a leaf out of Pope Francis's book.  He has been given great responsibility but is still human.  He can relate to the people when he is considered to be much more than a common man around Rome.  Now this is just my opinion and I'm not saying you should take it to heart ... but there's some people who should just consider it.  That's all.

This is what got me thinking about Pope Francis in the first place.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/9931413/Pope-Francis-20-things-you-didnt-know.html

What's Next?

So I was reading an interesting article this morning (well, it was less of an article and more of an information sheet) but it was all about the back story of some famous psychopaths. People like Leonard Fraser, Raymond Garland and Robert John Fardon who were proved to be legitimate psychopaths and put away.

But what really got me thinking was Leonard Fraser's background. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison in the 70s for being a serial rapist, but as soon as he got out he strolled through his new neighbourhood, automatically getting the attention of the policemen in the area. He poked his head through their car window and asked them what the women were like around there. That man had guts; to be able to walk up to the people who represented the very institution that had kept you caged and trapped for a full twenty years, only to pretty much let them know that you were up to your old tricks takes a courage that is considered to be unnatural. However, in Fraser's case it is not considered as courage. This 'bravery', coupled with his complete lack of respect for women, creates the beginning of a psychopath. His rapist stature increased to murderer in 2000 when he was found guilty of the murder of three women. The strangely curious thing was when they convicted him, he yawned and shrugged. Yawned. And shrugged. He had spent most of his adolescent years in prison due to the fact he raped women habitually, then got let out and murdered another three women and sentenced to the rest of his life in that same prison, only to treat it as another day.

Most people would see Fraser as a loony. A freak. A murderer. A madman. However, I see his actions as that of a good crime novel's main villain. What he did was something I would find on a murder mystery television series. I would be very interested in reading the case notes and the court transcript, just to find out his reactions in certain situations. I, being desenistised to this sort of violence due to the books I read/write, consider this as something I could write into a best seller. I'm still unaware as to whether this is a bad thing or not ...

Anyway, I found it interesting.

Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/inside-the-minds-of-pure-predators/story-e6freoof-1226593836778?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cmnews+%28The+Courier+Mail+%7C+News%29

Cough Cough

What a fun day. Wednesday night, just before I went to sleep, I planned the events of the following morning. I had a tutorial for one of my subject CU1010 (Effective Writing) and a tutorial following for JN1001 (Journalism). I was then going to attend a social gathering that a close friend of mine organised at the university Refectory, catching a bus back home after it was finished. In the afternoon I was rostered on at my workplace for a three hour shift. However my body had other plans, waking me up very early so that I could throw up everything in my stomach from the day before. Apparently I had picked up a stomach bug, causing me to miss both my tutorials and call in sick to my work (which my boss was not impressed with). And you know what? Being violently ill for an entire day makes you really start to think about hygiene and how important a strong immune system is.

Some people may not care about what they do to their body (or more importantly what they DON'T do), but as Newton clearly states in his laws, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Newton is actually referring to the laws of physics, but you can take it deeper into general laws of living. Think of it as every action has a consequence. So if you have a common cold and sneeze without covering your mouth, that action will result in the spread of your harmful germs, potentially giving your sickness to a perfectly healthy being. Depending on the state of their immune system, a simple cough could actually be dangerous for some people.

From a young age, I have suffered from a lack of iron pumping through my veins, more commonly known as 'anemia'. This causes me to faint at random intervals if I don't take my vitamins every day. I also start to turn blue in cold temperatures because iron helps your skin keep that pigment of pink in your face and body. This also creates holes in my immune system, giving simple things like a common cold or a stomach bug real consequences. If I hadn't taken my meaningless stomach bug seriously, it could have quickly escalated to something like organ failure, possibly a form of pneumonia or even some sort of internal poisoning due to my terrible immune system. All because someone in a lecture, tutorial or just around campus decided to sneeze without covering their mouth.

Now, this sad tale has a happy ending (and a point). It is rumoured that in the first few weeks of classes, JCU has a habit of being a breeding ground for bad germs. However, my experience could actually help enlighten other people with the same problems! My advice? If you feel like something is up with you and it's been going on for a while like feeling faint or your lips turning blue when you go swimming, go get it checked out. A blood test should tell you if something's wrong and what you should do about it. If not, the doctors will tell you what's up. Pretty simple really.

Crowd Surfing

A question for you all: what makes the Harlem Shake so attractive? Is it the repetitive nature? The fact it's so easy to replicate? The song? The funny dances? Studies actually prove that it is a combination of them all. Many people enjoy the simplicity of the concept, whereas others find happiness in the dances that people make up coupled with the song. Whatever you find attractive about the Harlem Shake, there is bound to be someone in the world enjoying the same fact. In any case, the Harlem Shake has become widespread, affecting the famous, the average, the below average and even the animals!

For all those living under a rock, the Harlem Shake is an internet sensation. On February 2nd this year, a group of people decided they would create a dance that their viewers would enjoy. It starts with one person dancing a repetitive dance move in the company of seemingly uninterested peers to repetitive music, usually wearing a mask or helmet. About 15 seconds into the song, the bass drops and all the uninterested people in the video get up and dance with the original dancer, doing repetitive dances of their own. These people may be wearing costumes or outfits that they wouldn't dare be seen in public with, but they find no shame in doing so on video. The concept, simple. The video, about 30 seconds long. The entertainment value, high. The shame, non-existent. Just 9 days after the original video was posted on YouTube, there was over 4,000 new versions and covers of the Harlem Shake ... and it's only getting bigger. If that's not an epidemic, I don't know what is.

So I read an article about this pandemic (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21624109) and it got me thinking: what makes an internet sensation? With the Harlem Shake, it's the replicability and the freedom to act like a fool for thirty seconds with no judgment. With 'Gangnam Style'*, it was the dance that everyone could do. With the 'Nek Minnit'** guy, it was the comedy value that drew in crowds and beckoned for them to mimic the man. But what attracts people to follow the crowd, go with the flow, and submit themselves to that sort of humiliation with pride? Let's break it down, shall we?

Subconsciously, people want to look like idiots. It provides something to laugh at, and when people are laughing they're happy. Deep inside everyone (maybe not so deep for some people), there is a need to be liked. Whether it be an inside joke like Nek Minnit or a dance craze like Gangnam Style, people want to make others smile. Now, some people may go to drastic measures and act like idiots if they aren't getting enough attention, but the problem is no one wants to look like a maniac by themselves. Well, MOSTLY everyone. Enter the Harlem Shake. The whole concept behind the Harlem Shake is that a GROUP of people act like mental patients and entertain millions through the internet. You're lying if you say you've never reacted to the Harlem Shake. Whether you laughed, cringed or danced along, you had a reaction.

Mission accomplished. Well played Harlem Shake. Well played.

Below I've just got some links to my personal favourite Harlem Shake videos, one of which was filmed at JCU a few days ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95vZ0-C1Kho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS9z7rioauU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkNrSpqUr-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZ4FjlTPk8

Feel free to let me know your favourite ones because I always love a good laugh.

Also, if anyone is interested in creating a Harlem Shake video please let me know because that would be epic to be in.

*Gangnam Style, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_style
**Nek Minnit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nek_minnit