Studying for Exams

In Australia SWOTVAC stands for Study without Teaching Vacation, and is pretty much the week or two you get in between finishing studies and doing your exams. It is also the most boring two weeks of your life. If you're not prepared for your exam you have to miss out on anything that might be going on and hit the books. If you're prepared you spend two weeks doing very little, and feeling guilty if you do go out. The worse thing about SWOTVAC is the waiting, like the wait for injections.. you know nothing good can come of it.

So rather than actually study, I looked up facts on the best ways to study, particularly the myths surrounding study. It is fact that eventually we all suffer from memory decay, meaning memories depending on their strength have a finite life. It also false that we need a lot of sleep to promote good memory, rather well structured and effective sleep are more beneficial to heightened memory, finally if taken at the right time an afternoon nap can boost our intellectual performance as long as it doesn't interrupt our sleeping rhythm. Good news, plenty of time for a siesta in SWOTVAC!

Lax Gun Laws

Oh gun laws, these leaves me so incensed. Coming from a land of relatively strict gun control, Australia it just seems so senseless that other countries *cough* the US *cough* can't get on board. Yes I know the Constitution and what not, but the reality is gun availability promotes gun crime, if you can get to them, you can shoot them. I was watching a TV show whereby the surviving victim of a massacre said that we need concealed gun laws so gun crime goes down. To be honest I don't see the logic in this, because concealed weapons would not have stopped the man walking into the restaurant and murdering 22 innocent people. As Chris Rock puts it we need "bullet control" because if bullets cost $1,000 each, you sure wouldn't be firing them into anybody innocent!

In 2009 of the 13,636 murders in the US over 9000 of these were as the result of guns. The US ranks fourth with gun related deaths, to Colombia, Thailand and top of the list South Africa with over 31,000 gun related deaths per year. Phillip J Cook estimates that gun violence costs America about $100 billion annually. The US gun crime rate is eight times higher than any of its economic counterparts, and quite frankly it's time to pop a cap in the ass of anybody who thinks having guns stops gun crime, because you're wrong.

Stepping on things when barefoot

Being barefoot is dangerous, no two ways about it. Although it's the best way to be there are also extreme risks to going shoeless like the blind dash between bed and bathroom only to step on Lego or stubbing your toe on some other solid devil. There's also the danger of sticks and worst of all stones that carry the added risk of rolling. It's a minefield out there, even before you've reached the real mine field!




Speaking of painful things, fire-walking is the practice of walking across a bed of hot embers that is often used as a rite of passage in many different cultures. Walking on broken glass however is purely for entertainment and this is possible with a few adjustments such as using wine or champagne glass which tends to have a softer edge, placing lots of glass on a spongier floor and also walking across slowly and repositioning your feet if you feel any sharp edges. With larger piles of glass the small bits tend to drop to the bottom of the pile meaning you don't get the same sting you would if you were to step on a bit of glass in the street!

Sore Throats

Recently I've been doing a lot of singing. Not for my own pleasure or anybody else's for that matter but purely out of necessity. Waking up in the morning my throat has felt more and more like someone snuck into my bedroom with a little elf and some tiny sandpaper and went to work. Needless to say by the end of next week I'll be Barry White, and my darling I, can't get enough of Strepsils baaaabeeee.

So sore throats are preventable, proper hygeine and so on but did you know that strep throat which is a more serious sore throat can lead to arthritis or heart problems, and there are many other horror stories surrounding the simple sore throat like a man who ended up a double amputee! With such scary stuff happening it's no wonder people have started the I have a sore throat forum so that sufferers may come together to blog about their sore throat... so far it only has six members.

The Morning Alarm

Recently I was on a camp where the teacher merely walked into the room and turned on the light without any warning. Needless to say she made the list. The problem with alarms is not so much the "arggh I have to get up" because that's just an inevitability but the shocking buzz that makes you jump out of your skin or the inane news reader does nothing to lift my morning mood. Yes you can argue there are a number of alternate solutions but for the most part, morning alarms just grind my gears.

Actually the alarm clock was thought to have been invented by Marquis de Sade but it was revealed actually that the honours go to Levi Hutchins a New Hampshire native in 1787. Funnily enough Levi never mass produced his invention he simply desired to wake at the merry hour of 4am every day, much to the ire of his wife, and he invented an alarm clock that did exactly that. There is now a massive industry of alarm clocks including those that force you to get up to find things, or my personal favourite the alarm clock that donates money to an organisation you hate every time you press snooze.

Sad Facebook Users

There are people in the world that take Facebook way too seriously, and added to that whole heartedly believe that we care that "I want a lover who kisses me in the rain." Facebook as a social media site should be filled with the funny groups like "I need a six month holiday, twice a year that's all I ask" and funny statuses like "I think my cat has dandruff" not "I miss him so much, love you (tag boyfriend) <3" Not only do these deeply disturb me, this crap blocking up my news feed really grinds my gears.

The average facebook user has some 135 friends meaning they've got plenty of people to lament their sad stories to, and 1 in 13 of us have a facebook page with 70% of users coming from outside the US. Every 20 minutes on facebook 1.8 million status updates are made and to top that all off the average use is connected to 80 pages that they have "liked" meaning that you'll have to read many insufferable group titles and not so thinly veiled attacks on former flames. Oh Joy.

Smelly Farts in Small Rooms

Yes we've been told that farting is au naturale and I'm all for letting rip out doors but when it's small spaces like cars, studio apartments and bathroom cubicles farting, breaking wind or blowing a bottom gale is not on. The choking noxious gasses are only exacerbated when they have no where to go, and you're the victim looking around for the sly bottomed perpetrator. I have a personal peeve for the SBD. The silent but deadly incapacitates you like a hot pepper spray, leaving you gasping for breath.

On average people fart some 14 times per day letting out about half a litre of of "fart gas." Added to this is the myth that some people don't fart, this is not true as most people when they sleep will fart at some point due to relaxation of the lower region muscles. Depending on the size of the room, a farts odour tends to dissipate in a few seconds, the less air the less chance it has to dilute and hence the pungent aroma. In fact nearly every living organism on the planet farts... except sea-sponges, they don't fart