the end of day light savings brings sunset an hour earlier than usual, and will continue to set earlier and earlier till dusk sets just after 4pm. after enduring 39 degree days, i welcome the trade off of wintery days. after all, i’ve pretty much took as much advantage as i could of the sunshine and the many weekend festivals that took place under it.

it will be boot camp for me from now till the end of semester. there will be magnificant light waiting for me at the end of the tunnel! =)

till then…

the FINA weekend festival concentrated around federation square and birrung marr (along the yarra) was very cleverly held in conjunction with melbourne’s food and wine festival. so while people got entertained by the myriad of street performers, musicans, roving buskers and other art forms, they can be refreshed by the top notch selection of food and beverages.

like what cs said, there is always something going on over the spacious area of birrung marr but not too sparse that you wouldn’t be engaged with a performance or a busker.

a highlight is 46 acts in 45 minutes by the trio from circa. they obviously have a gymnastic background but they also have very good showmanship and humour to keep the audience riveted for the whole duration of their non-stop action show.

besides just enjoying the accompanying festivities of FINA, i took a plunge with the semi-final diving event at the melbourne sports and aquatic centre. the $20 ticket gave me access to both the women’s 3 metre spring board and men’s 10 metre platform events that lasted about 90 minutes each. after the first few rounds, jk, nl and i pretty much knew how to score the jumps and were commenting on the “approach”, “execution” and “entry” of the divers. we also knew what to expect when the combinations of manoeuvers were displayed before each round. my favourite and perhaps the most complicated was the reverse 3.5 sommersault, 3.5 twist. pike. the atheletic body is such a wonder in itself, and seeing it exercising such deliberate control with grace and precision floored the spectators.

i hardly ever follow up with any sporting news, but after coming to melbourne – australia’s sports capital – where i can watch elite athletes fight it out first hand and at close range, i’ve managed to be more appreciative of sports articles. i found it satisfying when i read that guo jing jing (china) and gleb galperin (russia) emerged champions in the diving finals.

at the end of the day, i got myself the mascot penny-the-penguin key chain as a memoriabila and an addition to my informal collection of penguins.

those who subscribe to my blog might not get a feed update on the name change of this blog.

pathos: the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion.

ethos: the character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.

borrowing from the bard, “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.“

when i analyse life, or events in life, i tend to do so at one removed, as if it is merely a case study. and since ethos affects pathos, and since my musing often revolve around these themes, i’ve aptly renamed this blog pathos and ethos. soliloquy would have been my other choice.

on a side note: you know how people have different bags for different occasions/purposes? well, i have different pencil boxes for different occasions/purposes.  stationary girl is my trade mark.

Emo fashion is characterised by teens wearing dark T-shirts, a little undersized or deliberately worn down to look old. Their choice of sneakers is Converse canvas shoes. Look closer and these might have words like ‘pain” scribbled in red ink or a drawing of a broken heart. But the defining trademark for emo kids has to be the heavily lined eyes and long fringed hair which covers half their face… Youth counsellors interviewed say they are worried that the fad, carried to extremes, can lead to self-mutilation or even suicidal thoughts. As it is, some emo teens have penned poems about suicide and death and slashing their wrists to ‘ease their pain”. The trend may be behind the increased incidence of teenagers injuring themselves.- except from the Straits Times “Parents, beware the emo kids,” by Sandra Davie

it is articles like these that fuel the paranoia of parents like my mom. emo fashion, as the writer defines it, has been around long before “emo” came into fashion. and i think it is unfair to hypothesize that looking emo might lead to the destructive tendencies of emo because by most accounts i can be considered emo; eye shadow, eye liner, dark clothing, mobid reveries, penchant for neil gaiman and tim burton, drawn to melancholy and channeling that into art.

in fact, i think its those who appear unsuspectingly “normal” that we should be weary about.

back to the paranoia of my mom; when she found out that i had my ears pierced in secondary school, she viewed it as a decline to decadence and sternly warned me, “you better not have sex eh!”

yes, beware all sorts of body piercing: might lead to delinquency and teenage pregnancy.

 

a link that i came across led me to the sea monkeys website and from there my thoughts started to stray to other toys that people my generation might identity with. i’ve never owned a sea monkey, but have been always curious about them. the anthropomorphic qualities superimposed on them made me feel like some kind of greek god messing around with the lives of mere mortals.

what i did have and frequently had a kick of as a kid was my very own vibrator. seriously, it vibrated vigorously in my then small hand. but because it was battery powered, it felt very heavy at the top and often tilted sideways.

although i didn’t play with koosh balls a lot, i somehow had tonnes of them. i think my dad bought them in bulk from salvation army. then came along koosh kins that had funny limbs sticking out.

my all time favourite was still the magna doodle and lego. i have never been much of a girly girl, so when given barbie dolls as christmas presents, i was at quite a loss at what to do with them. the only time that i “played” with the barbie doll as when i cut off her blonde hair and swung her around by what’s left on her head.

toys went hand in hand with cartoons i watched such as smurfs, he-man, the perils of penelope pitstop, chip & dale rescue rangers, gummi bears, road runner, tom & jerry, mighty mouse, darkwing duck, the littles, the jetsons, the snorkes and the most hilarious of all was zoo cup. zoo cup ran for only 2 minutes as fillers between programmes. it was about different kinds of animals facing of with each other on the football field, leading to disastrous results. there was an episode/match between human beings (rare appearance) and ants.

fond memories. but right now, i need to put side such stray thoughts and get started with my research for the respective assignments. in the meantime, for those who want to relive your 80s childhood, check out this 30 minutes clip of 80s cartoons.