Laura Goes to the Football

I recently ventured out to go to the football, an activity I don't usually partake in. I'm referring to football as in Australian Rules Football, footy, AFL, all of that. I'm not really a huge footy fan, but my sister wasn't going so that left a free seat for me to go with my family. It was quite a nice day out - mum packed a thermos filled with tea, it was sunny but very cold, the team we were barracking for won, and I enjoyed a baked potato. As I am not really a huge fan or at all experienced in AFL (aside from a brief foray into Auskick when I was 6), please forgive me for my lack of knowledge about the rules of AFL (and most sports).

While I had a really nice afternoon, some of the bad sportsmanship I saw there really shocked me. I have gone to games before, and I was even a member of the Fremantle Dockers for a year, however since I've been writing more, I've tended to have a bit of a blogger mindset and whenever I see something interesting, a little part of my brain goes "mmm, good material for a post". Don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoy going to the football. I think it's a great day out, it's fun to spend time with my family and a good, healthy dose of cheering never hurt anyone. 

So, let's start with the bad news. Some people are pretty disgusting when it comes to sport. I witnessed drunkness, swearing with complete disregard for the children who were seated in our area, abuse at the umpires, booing, and god, I really could go on.

So, for umpires. Yes, I understand that bad calls are made sometimes - but don't we all make mistakes? Umpires are out there doing their best. As a player (for netball, at least), complete respect is demanded and received by umpires - one wrong move in language towards an umpire - not necessarily swearing, just sarcasm and rudeness, and you're saddled with a warning: take it too much further, and you're off for the game. So why can't the crowd offer a similar level of respect? The insults I was hearing were so completely unoriginal as well - if you're going to be rude, at least be a little more creative than "**** ****ing ****s". I can understand a little bit of heckling if a wrong call is made - we're only human after all - however the language that some people used was horrendous. 

There were two occasions in the game when the crowd's reactions to what an umpire was doing surprised me. First was when an umpire called for a review of a goal, to see if it was touched (or something like that) before it went over the line. Second was when an umpire took back the ball after a centre bounce (once again, really sorry for my lack of knowledge about football terms) to redo it, as he wasn't satisfied with the first one. Both times the crowd was jeering and insulting the umpires. Both times the umpires were making sure they were making the correct call or fixing a past error. So basically, if the umpire makes a call that the crowd deems incorrect, they are jeered at. If they try to fix something or make sure they are doing the right thing, they are also insulted. To be honest, it seemed as though the majority of spectators would only be satisfied if the umpire took the ball off the opposing team, gave it to the home side, and let them score goal after goal.

That brings me onto booing. Bad sportsmanship doesn't get much worse than this, does it? Booing is so average, so stupid, and I sort of fail to see the point. Wouldn't you rather your team win because they had superior skill, rather than because the crowd was booing the other team to such an extent that they were distracted when trying to kick a goal? Maybe I'm completely missing the point here, but if my team won after an honest game, I think I would be much more satisfied than if dishonesty was occurring in terms of umpiring and booing. 

Players understand that umpires make bad calls, but that they are trying their best. In netball, the majority of times an umpire made a call against me, I thought "yep, fair call, I was too close/ bumped into my player/ took an extra step". If I didn't think that, I shut my mouth, kept playing, and tried to win the ball back for my side. That's what the AFL players do as well. They know the rules inside out (more than the majority of spectators can say - honestly, I have no clue with football, but some of the people sitting around me who were bagging the umpires seemed to have less of an idea than me) and so they cop free kicks against them on the chin, and play on. 

At the end of the day, the majority of sports are basically advanced games of fetch (sorry, but it's true), and I really think people need to stop taking them to the point of what I mentioned above. I'm not saying that sport is important - I personally love to play sport (even though my hand eye/ foot eye coordination is poor at best) and I think that playing a sport is really fun. It's fine to take it seriously, it's fine to cheer for your team, it's fine to get frustrated with umpires (hey, it happens), but the extent of bad sportsmanship from the crowd (bad crowdsmanship?) I witnessed really, really appalled me. It's meant to be a fun day out to go to the football, however people are so disgusting sometimes that it turned into me sitting there thinking about how odd some people really are. I can imagine it's quite uncomfortable for parents who bring their children along, only to have them asking "mum, what does that word that the lady keeps saying mean?"

As for the good news? When one of the players from the opposing team had a bad fall (I think he ended up tearing his ACL) and was taken off from the ground in a stretcher, everyone in the crowd applauded him as he was taken off. I'm 99.9% sure it was a move of sympathy and respect. People were hugging after the game and the little boy in front of me was smiling a huge grin, and there was a general good mood because the home team had won. Mum brought along some chocolate (bonus) and the whole crowd was belting the Dockers' team song. It's lovely how the people around us get on so well as well - people are asking how each others' kids and grandkids are, talking about their week, asking about holidays coming up - it is definitely a little community, and I think that that is really nice. The crowd cheering the victorious State Under 18s Girls Team as they ran around the ground before the game too was pretty cool - that would have been such a buzz.

However, I think the ultimate highlight for me was watching the little kids play at half time. With jerseys down to their knees, kids chatting to their opponents and parents cheering from the side, the kids were having a great time. And with everyone in the crowd watching, cheering and laughing as well, it was taken much less seriously than the real game, everyone was much happier, and above all, all the spectators were having fun.

And at the end of the day, isn't fun why we play and watch sport in the first place?

Philosophical Ramblings (well, sort of) [Part 1] "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities"

I write a lot of blog posts, however it is only a few that make it to being published on the Internet, for eyes other than my own to read (and hopefully enjoy). These posts tend to be the ones that I feel the most strongly about; ones that I have sat down and written pretty much start to finish, with minimal editing before I hit the little "publish" button and invite others into what can be quite a vulnerable part of my mind. I'm going to try my best to do that with this post - to write something quickly but coherent (and hopefully at least slightly concise) - my thoughts after seeing The Fault in our Stars. "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations" and while I don't necessarily feel that my thoughts are stars, I hope you excuse my incoherent ramblings on a movie that made me think.

As I was sitting there, nestled between two friends in a movie theatre (all three of us crying, and me sharing my tissue box because they weren't prepared), I started forming this post in my mind. A lot of what I thought and constructed in my head I can no longer remember, however hopefully as I write the ideas will come back to me.

We live in a world that is full of contraries - light and dark, life and death, good and bad. This idea is not new. However, it became apparent to me as we sat in dimmed light, just how ugly and cruel the world actually is. We live lives where disease tears families apart, and a lot of the time, there is nothing that can be done about it. The world is so ugly, it really is.

The thing is though, and what makes me struggle with life sometimes, is that the world is also so beautiful. I've made such an effort lately to think this every morning (occasionally illustrated through a wide eyed, grinning SnapChat), because when I think this, I see the beauty in the world that I would otherwise ignore should I be stuck in a typical mindset of a teenager on a Tuesday morning who has to get up at 7 to go to work. The world is beautiful because there is laughter; the world is beautiful because there is chocolate and hugs and ballet and puppies. There are people with beautiful hearts and beautiful souls.

I think we sometimes miss the beauty of the world when we are locked up in our every day lives - we miss it because it is what we are used to. The sunset is beautiful, yes, but when we see it everyday on the walk we have to take the dogs on, we don't appreciate it anymore. Sometimes, it's the people who are living less beautiful and fortunate lives who understand and appreciate beauty more - even if it isn't what we'd usually lend the term "beauty" to.

I don't think I have ever seen so many smiles and so much happiness over a two week period than what I saw when I was teaching in Cambodia. Khmer people live a life with opportunities that pale in comparison to what we experience in the Western world - disease and sickness lurk around every corner, the government is corrupt and it's a struggle for kids to eat enough food so that they grow. However, they seemed so much happier with that they had than we seem with what we have, even though we are so much luckier. Everyone has their own tragedies - it's hard to say that someone is luckier than someone else, because our lives and the pains that we experience are relative to everything else we have experienced in our lives. However, if Khmer kids are happy with a new set of volunteers arriving from countries that they have dreamt of, I want to be happy with a sunset.

It's probably the same for a cancer ward - yes, there is heartbreak, and extreme amounts of it. It's awful and it's sad, and I'm not underestimating this in any way. I cannot imagine anything worse than seeing a loved one sick, and in pain. However, there is also love, light, and happiness - moments that would normally be considered average and normal, such as an 8 year out getting old of bed and going to school for the first time in two weeks - are celebrated and bring so much joy to her parents, her siblings, her nurses, her teachers.

We die. That's a fact. I'm going to die, you're going to die. However in this limited amount of time we have on Earth, I want to make the most of it. I don't want to get to the end of my life and think, as I sit in purgatory or whatever there is after death, "Damn. I really wish I had done more of that". We don't really know how much time we have left living and that scares me enough into squeezing every inch out of my life when I can. Unfortunately, we don't get a sand timer that counts down our moments left living - we have to take a gamble and hope that if we died tomorrow, we'd be happy with the life that we led.

I used to often catch myself in the dangerous mind game of "why am I doing this? I'll die anyway, and no one will remember or care in 50 years". And yeah, I will. So will you (sorry to keep reminding you of that, I know some people try not to think about it). It's discouraging to think this, even though it's true. It's dangerous because you can get so used to existing because "what's the point?" that you stop living. So why would I not live my life with happiness and live it to the max? It's not going to make me live a shorter amount of time (depending on my choices), and it's going to make my life much richer.

As some of you know, I screwed up my back a little while ago, to the point that a lot of what I used to love to do I can now no longer do, or enjoy to the same extent that I used to. This does upset me quite a lot, especially on days when I'm in a lot of pain, or when something is happening that I can't go to. However, I've realised that there is no point in me sitting around whining about how I can't dance right now, about how I can't go out clubbing, because my complaints aren't going to give me more days to live after I sort out whatever is wrong - they're only wasting the days that I have.

Try to be positive, try to be on a "roller coaster than only goes up, my friend" (if you need to do that with a wide eyed SnapChat, that's okay too). Find someone who can give you "forever within the numbered days", because at the end of the day, it's not about quantity - it's about quality. Go out there, realise the cruelty of the world, appreciate the beauty of it, and understand that those two things are not mutually exclusive. Live your life to the max, because you never know when it will end.

Okay?

Okay.

Music Snobbery - a lighthearted jab at the music snobs of the world

I have been told several times, while I have had my phone plugged into my car and I'm blasting my beats, that my music taste sucks. And this bothers me.

CONFESSION TIME: I listen to One Direction. I went through a One Direction crush phase. I went to the One Direction concert. I have lots of their songs. I also love Taylor Swift (seen her live, such a fan). I was a huge Jonas Brothers fan back in the day. Musicals take up a LOT of space in my iTunes library. ED SHEERAN MAKES ME HAPPY. AND I AM NOT ASHAMED!

Music snobbery is the worst kind of snobbery. I am so sick of being told my music taste is "crap", "bad", "lame", "boring". No. My music taste is just not your music taste. That doesn't make it any worse, it just makes it different.

Why do people listen to music in the first place? I listen to music because I like the emotions that certain songs and sounds evoke. I like how I can feel happy when I listen to "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, nostalgic when I hear "Home" by Michael Buble, and how I feel like dancing when I hear "No Light" by Florence and the Machine. I listen to the music I listen to because I enjoy it, and because it makes me happy.

That's why I'm so over music snobbery. You listen to music that no one else has heard of? Good for you. You listen to heavy metal? Not my cup of tea, but I'm glad you enjoy it. You listen to music that has no lyrics, only sounds? I'm happy for you. You embrace what you like, and I'll embrace what I like. If you're interested in what I've been listening to as of late, you can read some of my current favourites here, here and here.

I would prefer to be told that someone doesn't like my music, rather than they think I listen to crap music. You might not like what I listen to, however I do and that's why it's allowed to take up space in my iTunes library. It's not about me having amazing taste, or you having a superior taste - it's about us having different tastes, and that's what makes the world interesting.

One of my friends is really into Christian music - good for her! She likes it (and not going to lie, some of those tunes are kind of catchy). Another one is into Arctic Monkeys and Temper Trap - but that's never stopped her from having a little singalong to Taylor Swift.

I read a quote awhile ago and it really stuck with me. "You can decide what you do, but you cannot decide what you like". And that is so true. I can decide to listen to all of the Triple J in the world, but that's not going to make me as happy as plugging in my music and listening to the likes of Ed Sheeran, The Seals, Demi Lovato, or Taylor Swift. I can't suddenly make myself love music that I previously haven't enjoyed before. There's nothing I can do about that… but there's nothing I want to either.

If you criticise my music choice because "it sucks", "it's bad", "you have no taste", you have about a 0% chance of changing my opinion about anything you listen to. I'm willing to listen to music outside my genre - a trip to a folk festival opened my eyes (ears?) up to several artists that are now in my Top 25 playlist, and listening to recommendations from friends has also given me a lot of songs that I really like. I like finding new artists and songs that I enjoy - I might not enjoy everything that is recommended to me, but hey, I'll try my best!

However, you having a go at what I listen to isn't going to make me any more receptive to your music. To the music snobs reading this - have you ever criticised someone's choice, then given them your iPod full of "superior" music choices, and had them look at you, with enlightened eyes, and heard them whisper - "this is the way"? I doubt it.

So next time you're looking at someone's music, don't brush it off with a "your music taste sucks" or a "what is this crap?" (actual quotes from people who have flicked through my music - yes, it is filled with a lot of pop. No, I am not ashamed!). Instead, share a mild "this isn't my stuff", or better yet - have a listen, and maybe, like I have been before, you'll be surprised.

And by the way, whoever is driving ALWAYS has shotgun over the sound. Otherwise, you can take the bus - and listen to your "superior" music through your headphones. ;)

Friends don't let friends get away with drink driving

Not going to lie, this blog post was really difficult to write and I'm nervous about your response. After such a positive reaction to my last post - over 1000 views of the initial Facebook post as well as the shares, likes, comments, and wonderful messages I have received, I have been overwhelmed and humbled by your support towards such an important issue. It's been such a good feeling to get my voice and my message out there…however, you guys sure know how to put pressure on a girl!

Such was the positive reaction to my last post, I have decided to continue writing mainly editorial/ opinion style pieces on Laurables, as well as travel posts should I be fortunate enough to go away anywhere. Opinion pieces are what I love, and based on the reaction to my #YesAllWomen post, they're my strength as well. So if you're looking for any lifestyle posts, or the odd post about beauty and fashion, I have shifted them to my other (less loved) blog - Laura Robin. Have a read here if you would like.

I don't think today's topic is going to be as popular or looked upon as favourably as my #YesAllWomen post, because it's not something that has as much of an obvious stance that the majority of people agree with. This is something that many people are guilty of, and an act that people don't consider dangerous when done in moderation. I'm talking about drink driving, however, more specifically, the actions that you can and should take to protect you and your friends from idiotic mistakes.

In 2012, alcohol was a factor in 19% of crashes attended by police in Western Australia. While that doesn't sound like a huge percentage, these crashes often occurred at high speeds, with serious injury or death frequently being the result. 33% of drink drivers involved in fatal accidents are between 17 and 24, so this is obviously a pretty serious issue for our age group.

Drink driving is horrific because it is so avoidable. Realistically, people do not have an excuse for why they have been caught over the limit. This is especially true for P platers, because to have no alcohol in your system means you can't have a single drink - not a drop, nada, nil. So just don't. If you want to drink at all, and you're a provisional driver; or if you want to drink a significant amount when you are off your P plates, go out and embrace that (no judgement here) - just don't drive home.

The reason we're only allowed a 0.05 blood alcohol content is because any higher than this impairs our driving, making it more likely that we will cause an accident. This might be a one car accident involving a tree, or a pile up that occurs because we drifted onto the wrong side of the road. If you cause an accident and the police feel they have a reason to, they will breathalize you. It would be devastating to be driving home after having one drink (as a P plater) and causing a small accident - it might have happened regardless of your alcohol intake, yeah, but you'll still be charged with drink driving.

A mistake is only a mistake if you make it more than once.

People argue that "I'm allowed to have one, it's stupid that I can't have anything to drink because I'm on my Ps". "I can handle more, I'm only a little bit over". And while it might seem unrealistic to you, remember that you're still an inexperienced driver, and also that you probably are reasonably (hem) new to drinking as well. Plus, is it really worth having your hard earned license (and therefore freedom) taken away from you? Is one drink really worth it?

I'm going to give us a little credit here - I think it is only a minority of people who are stupid enough to drink drive. I have never been at a party and pressured into drinking once I say I'm driving - people respect this and drop the topic. I've heard of people hiding their friend's keys as well, to stop them getting in a car and driving home. We sort out designated drivers and take turns driving, we buy our friends soft drink and bring them water. Most of us are pretty clever.

However, it's the one or two people I have heard joking about being waved past a booze bus when they've been smashed. It's the "I'll be right". It's the minority who cause accidents. It's the minority who put one more drink above their lives, their passengers lives, and the lives of people they are sharing the road with. Think about Nate Dunbar, the 8 month old baby who was crushed to death after Melissa Waters, with a 0.17 blood alcohol level, crashed into his bedroom. She'll be in jail for three and a half years - it doesn't seem fair when a child has been stripped of his life, and a family has been left heartbroken.

This time you're a little bit over. Next time, because you didn't get caught and you managed to get home in one piece, you can have one more drink, right? And so on, until the disastrous happens. The thing is, if we get away with something once, we think we can get away with it again, and quite often we do. However, it's the time that you don't get away with drink driving, whether because you're stopped by a booze bus and you're horrendously over the limit and have your license stripped, or because you cause a serious crash, that you'll look back with the brilliance that hindsight seems to provide, with only one thought: "I was such an idiot".

On a little side note - it really bothers me when people post Facebook status updates warning people not to go near a certain road because of a random breath test. You're effectively giving them the license to avoid being caught for breaking the law. While it may be so your sober friends can avoid a long line, you're also telling people who are planning on having a few drinks that if they avoid Kwinana between these two roads, they'll get home without being caught. Just me sharing my opinion (what else is new?).

Real friends don't let friends get away with drink driving because real friends know that a few demerit points aren't as bad as causing a devastating accident. Real friends don't want their friends to live with life changing injuries that force them to be in a wheel chair, or brain damage that all but takes away their life. Real friends don't want their friends to deal with the endless guilt and possibly jail time that would be paralysing if their stupid and selfish actions resulted in someone else not being able to live their life fully.

Now, I don't think I'm preaching to a huge swarm of Justin Bieber fan girls/ guys here (...or am I?), however I thought his drink driving case would be a good example to use. After Bieber was booked for driving under the influence (including a smiling mug shot...need I say more?), #FreeBieber was trending on Twitter. His fans thought he deserved to get away scot free from this illegal act. If you think this is pretty stupid, I think you're pretty right. If Bieber had killed someone when he had been driving under the influence, he would have still been able to sing. He would have been able to walk, talk, run. They wouldn't have been able to do any of that ever again.

So next time you think about posting a Facebook status warning your friends of where a booze bus is, or you think about letting your friends drive home once they have consumed copious amounts of alcohol, think about #FreeBieber. Think about how stupid it is wanting someone to get away with an illegal act that could potentially kill someone, stopping them and others from learning their lesson... and then realise that that's exactly what you're about to do.

Next time you're going out, commit to taking a taxi or organising a lift with someone else if you don't think you're going to be able to refrain from having anything to drink (if you're on your Ps), or having more than what you're able to while being under the limit. If you're driving, take a friend home who looks like they've had too much to drink to drive themselves home safely. Call a taxi for them, share a taxi with them, do whatever it takes to stop them getting in that car.

A lot of people who read this are my friends, and I'm being a real friend by telling you to pull your heads in if you've been guilty of drink driving in the past, and reminding you not to consider it in the future. The figures are there, and real friends won't let their friends become a statistic.