Olympics and all that jazz

"One must watch the Olympics because one must partake in a sense of national pride."
"You should totally watch the Olympics because it is probably never going to be held in England again in your lifetime."
"Come on, watch the Olympics! It won't be on for another four years. You might as well."

These arguments have all been put to me in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics in response to a statement I made that I probably won't watch any of the Olympic events except the opening and closing ceremonies. And the gymnastics. Those gymnasts terrify me with the ease in which they fling from bar to bar, twisting and contorting their bodies into unnatural positions. But they look amazing.
So yeah, aside from that, I probably won't watch much of the Olympics, but good luck to Team GB!

I did watch the Opening Ceremony though. I had really low expectations after our presentation at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and well, we generally suck at stuff like that. I love cheesy and corny, but there's a line of embarrassment that we tend to straddle every time we are at the forefront of the world stage.

But Mr Danny Boyle nailed it.

The ceremony had the perfect blend of sheep, Victorians quoting Shakespeare's The Tempest, flying trees and houses, James Bond jumping out of a helicopter with the "Queen" (although the Queen's cameo in a short video with James Bond was brilliant! The screencaps and gifs on Tumblr started pouring in seconds later), and Mr Bean. It was beautifully British.  The literature segment with the nurses and doctors from Great Ormond Street was lovely; anyone that combine Peter Pan and Harry Potter with such an amazing cause definitely gets my approval. It surpassed my expectations and it was so wonderfully creative.

And then came the two hour long parade. That was great. For like half an hour. But when an hour goes past and you still haven't reached the letter "S", you start to lose interest, especially when the female commentator announcing all the countries is waaaaay too enthusiastic at 11pm.
I did learn some interesting facts along the way though. For example, apparently guinea pigs do not come from Guinea. (Yeah, that had my parents laughing for ages.) And the Cayman Islands have a pineapple and a turtle on their national flag! Win!
Also, I'm pretty sure some of those countries were made up. Hey there Benin! I didn't realise you even existed... 


Other highlights included the reveal of the Olympic cauldron which was incredible. I could mention other fun facts about the opening ceremony, but the chances are that you've probably seen it. And if you haven't, go see it!

204 countries all united under one roof, celebrating a united passion and time where we celebrate achievements and different cultures. It's just a shame we don't get to see that all the time...

P.S. Yes, I did take the time to draw the above picture on Paint.

The Magpie Effect

A few weeks ago, I decided to tidy my bedroom. People that know me will know that I love having a tidy room, but I don't particularly relish the task of doing the tidying. My bedroom floor looked like something out of Saving Private Ryan; minus the dead bodies.

There were some perks though like finding random boxes of jewellery, discovering items of clothing that had fallen to the back of the chest of drawers which I'd forgotten owning (there's always something, right?), and diaries I had written in 2006 and 2007 where the biggest crisis I faced was waking up one morning and finding a spot on my face. First world problems for a teenager. Some of the stuff I found was great and brought back a lot of memories, but after about ten minutes of silent reminiscing and playing with gadgets, I was suddenly faced with the question: what do I do with all of it now? Some of it could be thrown away because it was broken, but what about the rest of it? Ok, so clothes could go to a charity chop. Ditto toys. Diaries? Definitely not!

As I carefully maneuvered my way through the "bedroom of doom", and jumped from one clear patch of carpet to the another, I realised I was a magpie. Not a literal magpie obviously. That would be a whole other blog post! But I had stored up all this stuff, stuff that had once been shiny, new and exciting, and I had completely forgotten about it. But I guess we all do that; we store away things that once held some measure of excitement or importance in our lives because we've grown out of them, or because it takes up too much space to have out all the time, or to keep it safe. I do all of those things. I mean, I have three or four boxes of Barbies and Polly Pockets stored away, because as fun and cool as they are, (they are) I'm not really at an age where I would consider playing with them all day, so it's best to keep them somewhere else. Unless a small child comes around, then it doesn't matter what age I am! (Side note: The designers of Polly Pockets in today's society seem to have crucially misunderstood the key concept of a Polly Pocket. Just saying.)

But there are certain things that I found that I had completely cast aside, simply because I had wanted a newer version of that product. Again, I am not saying that wanting upgrades is a bad thing. Without an upgraded SatNav I would still be lost somewhere in the Thames Valley. Nevertheless, every few months someone is saying (delete as appropriate) on the television/internet/radio, that a new (delete as appropriate) iPhone/iPod/iPad/Blackberry/Smart phone etc is being released, and that we, the consumer public, are in dire need of buying these products just so we can get new apps, faster internet access, blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong, I am all for faster internet access. As the daughter of parents who only decided to upgrade to broadband this year after years of dial up (yes, you heard me, dial up), I support fast internet speeds and connectivity! 

We are constantly being told to update and upgrade our lives for our personal benefit, and I understand people find it necessary for their jobs etc to be in hot pursuit of upgrades. But my main concern is the cultural attitude to upgrades. We (I use a generic "we" and "you". You might not do any of this!) can become so obsessed with getting the nice new and shiny accessory, you know the one I mean, the one we have to have. I have fallen into this trap too. If you read my first ever blog post, you'll see that I like internet shopping. A lot. Anyway, we listen to what we're being told that we have to own and we buy it, and it's fun and shiny. You discover that there is an app for everything. You want a farmyard animal to make a noise every time you hit a key on your phone? YAY, result! There's an app to sort you out! But then, once you've purchased every possible app you've ever wanted, it all gets a bit boring and predictable. It's lost the initial edge and appeal it used to have. So you go on the search for something that promises to be better. And you'll probably find it, because that's just the world that we live in. 

I have definitely done this. I don't do this as much as I used to, but I most definitely fall into these consumer traps of being disposable with my purchases just because I have seen something newer and better. I don't do this with books though. I don't care if a Kindle is better value for money in the long run or lighter or easier to carry. I say no on principle. Ok, English geek rant over.

My point is, when something is not shiny and new anymore it gets forgotten about. Another example I can think of is charity appeals. Ok, so every few months there's a buzz about an important cause and we all sit up and pay attention. If it is deemed worthy and important enough, it spreads like the plague on Facebook with everyone "liking" and "sharing" links all over the place, celebrities "RT" (that's "retweet") links, and if it's really important it trends on Twitter. You know when it's important when it trends on Twitter. And it's like that for a week. Maybe two if enough people talk about it. But then it's gone. The cause that seemed to dominate everyone's statuses and "walls" falls silent. Someone might mention it again but then it's gone. People forget it, and then we sit patiently until the next campaign rears its head. The problem is the issues raised by some of these campaigns are not just one week long; they are persistent problems that happen 365 days of a year. I am not criticising anyone that "retweets" or "shares" links when these campaigns pop up. Definitely not. I have done my fair share of "retweeting" and "reposting" links. It just makes me sad that as quickly as we suddenly get passionate and angry about social injustice in the world, our attention can be quickly be peaked by news that some celebrity is getting divorced, or Justin Bieber has a new haircut.

It just makes you think.

I'm not writing this as a person who has never been guilty of doing any of this. I have definitely done this. But I want God to change my heart. I don't believe that if I pledge money and support to every charity in the world that I somehow can never be accused of being apathetic towards social problems and not caring. In fact I'm not sure how successful someone would be if they did just that- if someone devoted themselves to every cause out there. If I attempted that then I don't think I would be helping anyone. I wouldn't be able to get actively involved and actually help anyone, and I think there would be a danger that I would only be doing it to make myself feel good about what I was doing. Which would be proud and selfish. But I don't want to live with a disposable attitude to social issues, people, and relationships with the people in my life, and I think a culture that encourages this magpie attitude of hoarding up new and shiny things and then forgetting about them is dangerous and harmful, not just to the people that it directly affects, but to people's heart attitudes as well.

Words Make Me Happy

Because I missed out a Friday blog post a while back, I've decided to write an extra blog post this week, and it's basically a review of my favourite book at the moment: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

I only discovered John Green at the end of last year when a friend introduced me to the world of YouTube vloggers, and told me about this book that one of these "vlogger people" (as I used to refer to them) was going to release. Now I have to admit that when I heard the words "young adult fiction", I inwardly groaned, because as an English Literature student and at the age of nineteen (as I was then), I had packed up all my young adult romance novels and placed them in a box under my bed. I wanted to read "intelligent and intellectual" novels. Basically no more teen romances. I was too old for such juvenilia- or so I thought. (Of course, I wasn't counting the hundreds of trashy adult romance novels that I acquired over that last year in attempts to reaffirm my belief in true love after a bad break up. That was therapeutic. Totally justifiable behaviour...) But I had come to the conclusion that young adult fiction had no place in my heart or on my bookshelf anymore. I was an adult. And if people in my seminars asked me what I had read that week, I could hardly tell them that I was reading books about teenagers in love; especially when I should have been reading something intellectual like Shakespeare... Which having said all of the above, basically consists of teenagers being in love (blah blah blah) Ha, Shakespeare, the Renaissance poet of love or one of the founders of the young adult fiction genre that has given us such "delights" like Twilight...? *Shakes fist at Shakespeare*

But that said, after listening to a reading of the two chapters online, I decided to put aside my prejudices about young adult fiction, and I pre-ordered The Fault in Our Stars. And I'm so glad I bought that book.

Without giving away any spoilers, (because people hate that when I do... you know, like accidently telling a close friend the end of a Harry Potter book before she's had the chance to even read the book... Yeah, I've never done that... *insert awkward cough*), the story follows the life of Hazel, a teenage girl diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her first person narrative is as equally witty and funny as it is tragic and sad, but the combination of tragedy and comedy make the experiences of the protagonist real and unforgettable.

I literally couldn't put this book down. Every time I laughed, a minute later I found myself crying. About a month ago, I wrote on here and on Twitter that you should read a book that breaks a little piece of your heart, and I also commented that those were the best books. They are the best books because they end up affecting you and changing you. That's why books are special; they not just a useful way of telling good stories, but they are also powerful devices that enable words to connect with the reader in unique ways.

That's why you should read a book that breaks a little bit of your heart. If it does that, then the novel has done it's job.

And this book, The Fault in Our Stars,  has done just that. It's transcended the stereotypes of the young adult fiction genre, and it's definitely worth a read.

~ I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once. ~

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green