I went to my friend’s new house that is being built and it got me thinking how much effort goes into building a house. My dad is a builder, and I’ve never really appreciated how much work he does on each of his properties. I became really fascinated in the processes of building, so looked at videos on YouTube, including this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3iI6S7TuCA  

After looking at houses being built, I started looking more into architecture (as you do when you YouTube, it’s like a hole you can’t get out from, more and more videos keep popping up and you end up thinking “oh look at that, started with how telephones are made and how I’m watching cats trying to surf.” Anyway, so here’s one of the videos I ended up on, 10 awesome celebrity houses. How cool is number 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jyuyX5M28o

To say that I loved Disney as a kid is an understatement. It was literally my entire childhood, which I know is so cliché and predictable to say but it’s true. I can quote The Lion King, The Incredibles, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, A Bug’s Life, Sleeping Beauty and Hercules back to front, and haven’t even seen half of them in years. Beauty and the Beast is another story. It’s not one (of the 70000) I can quote due to watching it so many times, but that one scene where Belle is in the yellow dress dancing with the Beast gets me every time, like no other scene from any of those films mentioned previously can. I used to dream about that scene. The classic song playing in the background sung by Mrs Pots accompanying the dancing in the magnificent ballroom is just amazing.

So when I saw the remake with Emma Watson, I of course was an absolute wreck. I mean ugly crying. It was just so stunning, and I was filled to the maximum with complete nostalgia. Emma Watson portrayed Belle so beautifully, I can’t imagine anyone else playing her. Especially because in real life she’s such an incredibly strong, independent and intelligent individual, so she was able to release some of her own traits into her chracter of Belle. Belle was essentially re-created into a modernistic version of the original, with a whole new strength, determination and beauty.

 

And who knew she could sing?!

Amazing film. 10/10.

The Oakbank Races is not only an iconic Australian event located in the stunning ranges of the Adelaide Hills, but is extremely close to my family. My Grandpa, which since his passing in 2015 has been passed onto my uncle and his family, have a beautiful farm in Oakbank just down the road from the racetrack, where he trains horses.

The Oakbank Races carnival in April is always such a fun weekend, with lots of families, rides and of course horses; atmospheric country races at its best. Every year there are protestors that stand at the main car entrance of the carnival protesting against the steeple chase. I went to the races on the Monday, however on the Saturday a horse actually died in the event.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-16/horse-death-mars-oakbank-racing/8446698

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/sa/2017/04/15/horse-with–horrendous–injury-euthanised.html

When I was watching the event, I was so stressed each time a horse flew over the jump as I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like witnessing such a traumatic situation. But it’s all part of it. I don’t really have a say in whether the steeple chase should be banned or not – of course it’s really risky and dangerous for the horse and the jockey, and according to the Sky News article “A total of 79 horses have died in Australian jumps races since 2006” which is actually a lot, so it’s obviously worth such a serious debate.

Nonetheless it was such a fun day 🙂

I saw this meme on Facebook the other day and I have never seen anything so accurate in my entire life. Over the Easter break I went to Adelaide to stay with family, and of course wore my favourite pair of jeans. They are high waisted boyfriend jeans … with rips in the knees. Now, any normal person knows they are meant to be like that. They aren’t meant to be nice, classy and neat jeans worn on classy occasions; they are stylish, chill and super comfy.

So basically the meme says it all. As soon as I walk into my Grandma’s house, the first thing she says is “would you like me to stitch those up for you my love?”

No thanks Grandma. I’m fine thanks. But thanks so much for offering.

I’m glad I’m not the only one- judging how many likes and comments this meme got, it seems as though a lot of people understand the frustration!!!!!

 

Today our group caught up in the media studios to work on our piece this far. I had work until 6pm so just caught the train into the city after that. We spent two hours finalising the themes for the soundscape (wind chimes). We all had our footage ready to go, we just needed to finalise how Patrick would edit it before he did so. Same with the video, we already had all four of our bedroom footages onto the google drive, we just needed to finalise how to go about editing them so Lucas could get to work. Lydia and I were in charge of the essay. We decided to tackle the structure in four different parts – starting off broad and narrowing down throughout each paragraph.

This week was my first experience of promotional work. I recently got the job, which appealed to me from the flexible hours that I can work around uni and my other job, and I wanted to gain first hand experience in how promoting a product or an object works.

It was so awesome. I was promoting chocolate inside a supermarket and I loved it. Four days in a row. It was so weird afterwards because the next week I’d be walking around the supermarket for example and see the product and just feel so superior to everyone else inside because I know what that product has been through in order to get to those shelves, and I feel as though I have so much connection with it!

I got to meet all different people who work for the chocolate company and who work inside the supermarket.

I learnt how to communicate with members of the public in a friendly professional yet casual way.

Today I recorded my part for the video footage. This basically consisted of me walking around my room doing things I would normally do such as lighting candles, opening the blinds, playing guitar, on my computer and playing with my dog. I mounted my go-pro camera up on the north wall opposite the door. This ensured the best lighting and tidiest layout of my room. I pressed record and participated in my every day activities for about 5 minutes before stopping the recording. We each uploaded our footage onto our group google drive so Lucas could have easy access to it (he is in charge of piling the footage together).

The new tv show ’13 Reasons Why’ debuted on Netflix last week.

If you’re going to tackle such a serious, important and sensitive issue that is forever present in modern day society, do it well. And in my belief, this show hasn’t taken the right approach.

The concept of the main character sending out tapes to 13 kids essentially telling them that they each influenced her death is wrong and misleading to viewers. It’s no-ones fault that people, especially teenagers, take their own life and if it is, it should in no way be explored in this way.

Many would say that the TV show is extremely important in this current time as it raises awareness of teen suicide and gets people talking about it rather than pretending it’s not happening, which is entirely correct. However, through sharing this character’s story and first hand witnessing her suffering, viewers have the potential to not only be incredibly disturbed, but could reflect upon their own lives and think that it’s somewhat normal to experience depression and anxiety after possibly similar circumstances. The target market for this show is teenagers themselves aged 15-20, so watching people in similar age, with similar situations and similar traits could be dangerous in that they are able to easily put their lives into the story.

Being MA 15+ does in no way stop those younger than 15 watching it. It’s concerning how easily accessible this show is on Netflix.

In my perspective, it’s as if they’ve made another teen-drama mystery type show with all the basic characters, love affairs and school drama and thrown suicide into the middle of it rather than follow the incredibly serious issue as it’s basis.

Sure generally speaking as a TV show it’s engaging, interesting, sad and gripping, but the overriding concept that isn’t properly tackled causes this show to be potentially dangerous.

• Assembling small bits and finding or making patterns with them
• Each individual parts making up a big picture
• Even though unaware of what you’re working with, you’re still able to contribute to it despite not knowing the structure
• Thinking abstractly

This is the picture I was left with after finishing with the feet.

• Read 20 pages of the reading. It took a while because I really wanted to not only read it but fully understand it
• I haven’t blogged much this week 🙁 oops. I plan to do at least three more from now until the end of tomorrow.
• Note taking is going as good as ever. So this is a positive. Definitely  a goal to be proud of. I am always jotting down ideas, diagrams and definitions.