Thank you

Recently, thanks to the extraordinary help of my absolutely wonderful english teacher, Mrs Luca, my blog has reacher further than I had ever imagined.

To those in America, Europe, Australia, Canada and more…. I hope that you’ve been inspired, and that you’ll continue to support and strive alongside me. This isn’t something I can do by myself.

All races begin with a starting line, and the first achievement is making it there. After that, you can start the long run, and I believe that has been initiated.

 

Through your help, I believe change is just over the horizon.

Run with me!

From the bottom of my heart, I extend my deepest gratitude, and I would appreciate it even further if you could send me your feedback and allow me to learn more and continue shaping my dreams into a reality!

Thomas Edison

1% inspiration, 99% perspiration

Learn through experience

As recently explained, there is nothing I agree with more than that of learning through experience. How can someone know just how to make a difference, if they don’t firstly know what it is they’re fighting to change? Anyone can learn about the facts or the stories that emerge from a disaster, or a way of life in a different country, but it comes to a point when it becomes simply talk, being thrown at us, not involving and encouraging our hunger for change.

What I’m proposing is a process… That begins with an ignition of interest, and ends with the satisfaction of success.

Schools are providing opportunities for experienced people to come and share with the students important parts of their story and the occurrences from beyond the school grounds. The key element here is to be engaging, to get the listeners on board and being connected with the speaker. It’s not a matter of being talked to, but being talked with. It’s not an easy task, I can completely understand, and each person will have a different method of gaining their listeners empathy, however it is an integral part in this process of creating interest.

This first step has almost been mastered by Australian schools, at least the ones I’ve heard about and been to myself. However it is the next, critical step that is often lacking, which leads to an evidential downfall of enthusiasm.

Follow-up.

Once someone has come and planted an idea within the minds of a room of somewhat eager participants, there must be an opportunity for them to voluntarily join something which is being immediately provided for them. All this means is that schools need to source ways of partnership, or internal organisation that will allow students to get into action, and then actually see results coming from their participation and input.

It’s the best way to encourage someone, show them that what they are doing is making a difference. A lot of the time, I’ll feel like I’m speaking to a blank wall, and that my ideas are being thrown around for no particular reason, but it’s once I realised that already I am making sense to people within my school environment, that it has absolutely encouraged me to strive and commit to creating something bigger than what I see before me.

I don’t like the saying “good things happen to those who wait”…I prefer “great things happen to those who strive!”

Once this has been provided, all that is left is a continual supply of support and people will flourish. It might not be right for them once they give it a go, but at least they know that now.

I’ve found that our generation simply doesn’t know enough about the world, and once they find themselves out of school, the majority don’t know what they want to pursue, or how to live their lives to completeness.

Aristotle said:

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them

I am unable to agree more.

You might wonder why I am focusing so singularly on the importance of introducing this to schools, but the answer is simple:

We can no longer leave it up to our parents, or our teachers, or the older generation to “fix” our problems. It’s time to gear ourselves for the world, and show them exactly how capable we are of making a difference. Teach us, and we will exceed every expectation. Show us, and we will create change. Allow us, and we will become unstoppable.

Nearly there!

It’s currently 11:24, and i’m lying in bed, starving and exhausted, yet unable to sleep.

I can barely believe how difficult it has been, not only to resist food, but also facebook. It sounds like such a simple task, but it seems so apparent to me now that this generation particularly is so caught up on our social lives, even though tools such as facebook has only helped us isolate ourselves even more.

I know that social media can be so powerful, if enhanced and used for the correct reasons with a considerable amount of knowledge and control. After this famine is over, I know that I personally will have a changed attitude to how I act online, but I will also strive to learn ways of communication through our amazing internet in ways that are beneficial and actually engaging.

However, back on topic, this famine has been an eye-opening experience for me. Up until now, I knew nothing of what the people only a few countries away experience. Sure, I knew the facts and had a passion about it, but once again, that vital element of experience was needed to make it much more real.

I will be encouraging everyone I can to contribute to this cause, knowing that they must themselves experience it to truly understand the significance and absolute importance of it all.

A defining quote for me at this particular moment is one said by Joel A. Barker

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

It defines the very essence of the forty hour famine, and my own passion. I strongly urge every reader to get on board, and experience the power of vision attached with action!

 

The first day

Well today is the first full day of the forty hour famine. Waking up, it was going against pretty much all of my instincts to not go and have breakfast. Worst of all, my family was eating when I went out to the kitchen.
Not only was it difficult for me to not eat, but I felt increasingly isolated, having to remove myself from natural situations in which I would be surrounded by food. I just have to keep reminding myself, it’s for the kids.

 

 

The most interesting thing I’ve found is the things that I resort to in order to distract myself from lack of food and facebook. Of course I was planning on doing a lot of extra work, cleaning and practical things, but in actuality I found myself quite exhausted and ended up watching tv.
I cannot imagine how these amazing children, from such young ages, are able to live in the conditions that they do lacking the most fundamental necessities of life.

The forty hour famine has revealed to me, in such a small amount of time, just how different it can be, and just how important it is to experience first hand what these kids are going through each day.

I  have the reassurance that in under 24 hours I can return to “normal life”, but for millions of people, this is what they call normal.

The passion that this has already ignited in me is amazing, and I cannot wait to continue working so hard for this cause and getting more people involved.

 

Let’s do this together

 

A famine for forty hours

This year, along with a large population across the world, I will be participating in the 40 hour famine. Specifically, I will be giving up food and facebook, and i’ll also be documenting my weekend in a video diary which I hope to upload to youtube after conclusion.

This kind of fundraising is what I see a lot of hope in, because it not only involves the person participating, but it gives other people the chance to feel encouraged that they’re helping just through sponsoring a friend or family member.

 

I could throw any number of inspirational, world changing quotes your way, but the truth is, the choice starts within you and it MUST be of your own volition. 

 

For me, personally, the 40 hour famine is not just something I am doing to challenge myself, or to say that “I’ve done the 40 hour famine”, but it is my own personal step into digging yet another hole in world poverty. The future looks immensely bright if the generation of today will only continue to get involved and make commitments to things such as this.

 

If you are willing to help me in my cause, you are able to donate online by following this link: https://www.worldvision.com.au/community/famine/PreviewProfilePage.aspx?action=register

 

Help me help them!

What Australia SHOULD offer

Earlier this year, as an English task, we were asked to make a persuasive speech on a topic given to us. As usual, the topics were all along the lines of Video Games being illegal, should the Elderly be allowed to drive and whether or not nuclear power should be brought into Australia. Looking at the list, I realised that there was no way that I could make a speech on one of these things and possibly hope to persuade people on it. Sure, I might be able to use some big fancy words to make myself sound smart, but that’s not what I would want at all. I wanted my speech to be empowering and actually instigate some action. I knew that I couldn’t achieve that unless I too was passionate about what I was speaking on.
I managed to get on the good side of my English teacher and she allowed me to pick my own topic.

“Australia should educate high school students on the skills they need to change the future of poverty”

There. Now I finally had something that not only I was passionate about, but I knew would pull the heartstrings of my fellow classmates.

To cut a long story short, my speech went particularly well, and I knew that I gave an engaging and thought provoking speech…but did anything come from it? I’m not sure that it did.

However that just made me even more passionate about refining my idea and exploring ways of making it become a reality.

How Can the world change, if the people of the world aren’t equipped to change it?

My entire speech was based around the fact that not enough of this generation know the SKILLS to change the future. Sure, we’ve come a long way and we get the general understanding of it all, however it’s become more like a routine than a passion.

Schools are beginning to understand that some kind of publicity needs to go into promoting humanitarian movements, and so school students are now subject to wave after wave of emotional, “motivational” speakers. They begin to all blur into one big mush by the end of your schooling though, with maybe one or two people giving a little thought to it. But where is the skill going to come from?!

This is my proposal:

• Get the Australian Government on board so that there are opportunities for schools to teach important skills to their students
• Give schools more opportunities to work within the community and even on the global spectrum. There must be some way that fundraising can go towards helpful organisation
• Offer an elective subject through schools that focuses on teaching students how to properly publicise ideas, work in difficult areas of the world, working with Government correspondence, learning about already thriving organisations and proper communication skills.

I know that it’s a difficult thing to put into the world, seeing as we’re steadily becoming more and more self-focused, but I believe that it is entirely possible and completely worthwhile.

Hopefully this message reaches the world, and people can begin to at least CONSIDER the hope that this would bring, and if it does, comments, suggestions and feedback would be incredibly appreciated.

All that being said, I cannot stress enough that in order for you to not only enjoy life, but excel in life, you must must MUST find something you are truly passionate about, and your dreams will surely fall into their perfect place.

Have vision

On my mind…

I’ve been wondering lately about the future, and what to expect and hope for and generally along the lines of those things.

The basic and most fundamental fact of the world is that everyone occupies a certain amount of space, and they are required to fill some kind of social gap. We are all like the puzzle pieces of the world. Cliche, I know! However once I started thinking about it, the places that we go and the things that we do are never useless and not once will we do something that we were not supposed to do. Albeit, the decisions we make can either create something wonderful, or be detrimental not only to ourselves but usually those within a reasonable distance.

And so I’ve come up with a philosophy, which hopefully I too will be able to follow:

Life is about creating something individual, and putting your own unique mark everywhere you go. To make positive impacts whenever and wherever possible, and to always live life to the upmost. Give your all and all will certainly give back to you!

Mars Rover Curiosity has landed!

The Mars rover, Curiosity, has successfully managed to touch down on Mars and capture this incredible image (sourced from http://www.apod.com)

The photo taken by the rover is looking toward the sun, and viewed on the right is the distant hills of Gale Crater.

Excitingly, coloured images are expected within the next few days, and will give us humans back on Earth a chance to take a step further in our exploration of the huge universe around us.