Education Errors

This time of year see's grade 12 students all over Australia freaking out about what they will be doing with their lives. Some have a firm idea, many will go on to get a trade of some form, others will go on to university to get a degree which will lead to a dream job such as a doctor or a lawyer. But what about those students who are still unsure about what their lives will be like when they are older. THIS IS OK! I don't understand how the education system expects children to know the exact path that they will be taking by 17 years of age. Students seem to be told that you either get a trade or go off to uni, and if you go to uni it's so you can get yourself a job after. THIS ISN'T THE POINT! University is so you are able to further your education, just because you get a degree in chemistry doesn't mean you have to have a job related to chemistry. It simply means you have a passion for chemistry and wanted to learn more about the subject. I understand that for some jobs, such as lawyers or doctors, you do need a degree but this doesn't mean it's the only reason to get one. Too many people are using university as a form of vocation rather than education. Statistically people graduating from school now will have at least 3-4 career changes in their life time. This means you shouldn't be worried if the job you choose now is going to be the best job to have in 20 years because there is a very big chance the job you will have doesn't even exist yet. I would like to hope that if our society starts to put a focus and an importance on furthering education then we will have less young children swearing and dropping out of school for no reason. We need to show that being educated isn't something to be shunned for, but rather celebrate the educated and encourage others to do the same. It happens time and time again where the educated or "nerds" are picked on, purely because they are smart. In some cases this actually cause the person to feel that being smart is a curse and they try to hide their brains away. We need to band together and show that a brain isn't something to hide, you should be proud of your intelligence.
My advice for all those people choosing their career path but are unsure of what to do, just pick something you love and are passionate about. If you do this then you will be successful, if you are truly passionate about something you will find away to make it your job.
My advice for all of those people who tease the smart kids, I'd be careful because one day, we will probably all be working for them.

Looking Lovely

Looking at society today it is clear what we view as "beautiful." We see pictures and advertisements everywhere depicting tanned, muscular men and women with flowing hair and bright white smiles (the men seemed to always be clean shaven). However this hasn't always been the stereotype for a beautiful person, if you look back in history you can see how much beauty has changed over the years. 

 If we look back there has been a time when beauty was perceived as the complete opposite to what we have now. The men were thick and strong with great big beards (we can assume a bit of a beer gut also from all the ale they were drinking). Women with the largest hips were the most beautiful as it showed they could be good at child bearing. Moving further along we come to a time when sugar was a very big luxury and dental hygiene wasn't even an idea. As you can imagine this led to the desirable look to be black rotted teeth as only the wealthy could afford sugar. It was such a big trend that the lower class would even rub charcoal on their teeth to blacken them. White powdered faces were the tanned complexions of the time. 

As you can see being the most "beautiful" person isn't the best thing. In some cases it can be detrimental to your health. This not only happened in historical times but is still happening to this day! More and more people are suffering from eating disorders as they try and fit into the "beautiful" stereotype. So don't try and fit the mould, instead let the mould fit you and embrace who you are. 

Wonderful Wishes

When someone asks you what's something you wish for in life the usual answers are something materialistic. From toys on a Christmas wish list to having a nice home or car when you get older. But how many people out there can honestly say they would simply wish for happiness.

I was talking with a good friend of mine about the future and everything we wanted. We talked about fame, fortune, love, even which country we wanted to live in. Yet when I asked "if they could only wish for one thing what would it be?" Their answer surprised me. It was simple yet inspiring: They wished for happiness. In the words of my friend, 'you can have fame, fortune, love, and it would be brilliant, but without happiness what's the point?' 

I was speechless, this concept was so simple yet when we look at the world, happiness doesn't seem like a very big priority. People go for jobs that give them a large pay check compared to a job that doesn't pay very well but will make them happy. If we try and live life to make ourselves happy rather than to make money or to impress other people we might just find our quality of life will improve. 

Missing Mum

So it has come to my attention that my last few posts have been running the risk of turning this blog into a place to rant. I don't want this to happen so I'm going to write about something (well, someone) very close to me.

Since starting uni I have spent less and less time at home. I've led a very busy life this year, I've had multiple stage plays as well as music and writing all on top of uni. While it has been fantastic it has its down side. The first major downside was revealed to me as I sat on the train on my way into the theatre. I was sitting minding my own business when a young boy sits next to me on the phone; he was talking to his mum. I assume this was one of his first train rides and she was worried about him. While this might not seem like a big deal to most people I was struck with a sadness that I couldn't explain. That's when I realised I missed my own mum. 

Although I still live at home I don't see mum a lot because of the time she leaves for work and the time I get home. Mum used to be very involved with my life, but as I'm getting older she is becoming less involved. While I realise this is a part of life I noticed it had happened so gradually I didn't even get a chance to fully cherish the time we had together. However it's helped me to now cherish every moment that I have with my family. 

Horrific Hypocrites

The other day I was having a conversation with a man I was doing a project with, he had asked me if I had any concerns with the project. I wanted to be honest with him, I didn't have many concerns but I was concerned with the closing song. I felt it didn't suit and that the audience wouldn't understand. Now I wasn't saying that we had to change the song, I was simply expressing my concern because he asked. I felt, being a music major and having had previous experience with film composing that he would have valued my musical input. I was very wrong. He proceed to tell me it was not my place to criticise the project and I shouldn't question his creative artistry. He justified why he chose the song but that wasn't enough, he had to tell me I didn't know what I was talking about and I shouldn't be worrying about the music and just do my job. I was shocked, this man ask me for my opinion and then turned on me when my opinion wasn't all praise. Granted he was the leader of this project but I was under the impression he was just after my opinion. I never once told him he was wrong, yet he got defensive and struck back. 

This happens all the time in life. People rarely ever want to hear someone's genuine opinion unless it's the same as their own. People don't seek contradiction, they seek approval and reassurance. This means they can easily turn on you if you don't give them this reassurance. And for those of you out there asking people for their opinion you need to first stop and think, do you want an actual opinion or just reassurance, because if you're after reassurance maybe it's best if you don't ask. 

Learning Loans

So as I am sure you are all aware, I'm a university student in Australia.  What a lot of you might be unaware of, is I'm not Australian myself. I was born in Canada and therefore I'm a citizen of Canada. This was fine and I have never had any problems being a Canadian citizen living in Australia... until now. Because I'm not an Australian citizen, I am required to pay my university fees up front. That's around 3000 dollars a semester. Being the poor writer/musician/student that I am, I can't afford to pay 3000 dollars a semester. So, I've started the process of getting my Australian citizenship (even though I've lived in Australia for 11 years). I am getting my citizenship  so I can borrow money from the government to pay my fees which I will repay at a later date. This might seem like a brilliant idea to a lot of people out there, but I disagree. Over a 3 year degree I will rake up a debt of close to 20,000 dollars to the government. To me, the price of wanting to further educate myself seems a little excessive. Yet, the government continues to cut university funding, which in turn rises the cost of our fees.

The budget of Australia's military is 50% more than that of Germany, France and Canada. And if you compare Australia to Iceland we are paying, on average for all the students, over 200% more than Iceland. To be fair, Australia isn't the worst when it comes to its spending priorities. In my opinion, the USA takes that prize. 25 % of the US budget goes to necessary spending (this includes medical, education,environmental  cots; you know all the things we would class as important) yet 19% is given to the defence secretary to spend on military needs!

I find it hard to fathom that in a world where importance is placed on the value of education and the opportunities education brings, we still don't have free higher education. If we were able to have a free (government funded) higher education system we might find that more people who have incredible minds but are at a financial disadvantage are able to reach their full potential. It's in my opinion all education should be free and treated as a fundamental right rather than an upper class commodity. 

Fictitious Fame (A John Green Tribute)

Before we get on with this weeks blog I'd just like to make a quick apology to everyone for releasing it a little late this week. I was actually in a minor car accident on the day I was supposed to publish, but obviously didn't get the time to have an edit then publish. I'm perfectly fine so there is no need to worry!! No one was injured, however the blog was late and I'm sorry for that.

This week something extremely exciting has happened! We have reached over 1300 views on the blog, which has made me extremely excited and I wanted to thank everyone who has visited the page and anyone who continues to return. Getting these views got me thinking, how many more do I need to be well known in the blogging world? To be honest I have no idea, but I'm assuming a lot more. This thought lead me onto thinking about other people who are well known in there sphere of work but not necessarily in the public eye. One person who springs to mind is John Green.
John Green is an incredible person. He is a New York Times best selling author, he runs one of the most popular vlogging channels on YouTube (the vlogbrothers, I strongly recommend checking them out), he is one of the owners of the DFTBA record company and is currently working on bringing one of his books to life in movie form (the book is called The Fault in Our Stars and is fantastic). Yet when I ask people of the general public if they know of John Green the large majority of them don't. It baffles me how someone with so much talent can remain relatively unknown in the world. Yet someone such as Nicki Minaj, who in my opinion is no where near as talented as John, is known by basically everyone.
It seems our society today is less concerned on the skills that that people have and are more concerned on if they can sell themselves. John Green has never been about selling himself, he just goes out every day and does the best he can and has fun with life. He isn't worried if the public eye will accept him or not, as long as he can continue to do what he loves, he is happy. I think we can all take a little something from John Green, whether it's not worrying what people will think and being ourselves or if it's showing us that we don't have to stick to just one career. We need to go out and apply the lessons that John teaches us to our lives everyday. So until next week I shall leave you with the wise words of John Green DFTBA (don't forget to be awesome).