Google Doodles: Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 141st Birthday

Olivia Huynh's awesome Google Doodle

I could not love this more. When I got onto Google this morning, I sort of did a double take as I watched the little redhead trying to eat the cake and thought, 'No way, is that Anne Shirley?'. Love the first one, but the second two are just excellent. The cake scene is perfectly done... and the bridge over the Lake of Shining Waters? LOVE IT. Beautiful, beautiful job Olivia Huynh. A really lovely tribute to one of my absolute favourite childhood authors.

Rewind: I received my all-time favourite present when I was 13 (crazily enough, just getting to 20 years ago now) - my brother had me for Kris Kringle at Christmas that year and turned out, he had trawled all over different bookstores trying to find all 8 books in the Anne series (and an added bonus in Akin to Anne) for me. I very nearly cried when he presented it to me on Christmas Eve and I immediately guessed just by holding it. Seriously, greatest present of all time (cheers, bro!) and of course, I still have them and have read and re-read them all.

Happy 141st Birthday, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and thank you for teaching my very young and impressionable self the importance of a broad, deep and active imagination. You cemented my already growing love of writing and of stories with your vivid prose, your lovable characters and your whimsical stories and I'll never, ever forget it. 

On the notion of Freedom of Speech and Millenial Student Protest - a Cracked comment

Cracked too often allows me the opportunity to be lazy and not have to construct my own points of argument. Nevertheless, the comment made below on this story, by JF Sargent, pretty well outlines exactly how I feel about this issue so cheers, Rowangirl.

'Rowangirl
11-24-2015 | 9:24 PM

I don't want to spend too much time on this because there are already over a thousand comments and most of them seem to agree with what I have to say. But the issue I have with this article is that he's basically arguing that 1) these students are just exercising free speech and not actually trying to take it away from anyone else, and 2) they have no power, so what they say/do is irrelevant anyway. Both of those things are false.

If you want some examples, look at my alma mater, Northwestern University. A few years ago, a student published an opinion piece in the student newspaper arguing against affirmative action. Minorities were outraged, and demanded the newspaper remove it from their website. That, my friends, is censorship. They made this girl's name dirt on campus. And by the way, THAT SAME ISSUE ran a column arguing FOR affirmative action as a counterpoint. It was literally a perfectly balanced issue, but it didn't matter. Someone had dared to suggest that minorities should not be treated preferentially in admissions, and everyone blew up.

Every year at NU, students are told what they are NOT allowed to do or wear on Halloween and certain holidays. On Cinco de Mayo one year, a Hispanic student group was given access to send out a campus-wide email laying out precisely how students were and were not allowed to celebrate the holiday. And, I s**t you not, they claimed it was offensive for white people to eat tacos and burritos on that day. This isn't harmless waving around of signs; it is actively policing other people's behavior.

Another example: recently, a sorority on campus was going to have a fundraiser called "Jail & Bail." The premise is that the sorority girls would stand in these pens until people put in enough money to "bail" them out. Again, minorities threw a fit. You see, because so many minorities are in actual jail, it was offensive for the sorority girls to pretend to be in jail. The event was to raise money for low-income kids to learn to read, by the way. It was cancelled.

At Northwestern, as at Princeton, demands are being made to remove the names of people important to the histories of the schools from buildings and such due to past ties with racism. At NU, they want John Evans's name removed from everything. 

And there was a speaker, hosted by the College Republicans, I believe, who students also demanded not be allowed to speak because he supposedly said racist things at one time or another. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of this speaker at the moment. I do remember that, despite the best efforts of these students to stop the event, he was ultimately allowed to speak, though dozens of students camped outside the lecture hall in protest while he was doing so. But again, this was most definitely an attempt to silence opposing viewpoints. And while we're talking about silencing viewpoints, protesters at one of these colleges (to be honest, I'm losing track of what's happening at all of them, so I can't remember which) released a statement explicitly requesting media that covered them to give statements saying they agreed with them, and basically telling media outlets that didn't agree with them not to cover them. But no, they're not trying to interfere with free speech.

And it goes beyond simply stating viewpoints. If they were just waving around signs that said "Racism is a problem here!" well, they'd still have backlash, but not nearly as much as they're having now, because they're not just trying to make themselves heard. At Dartmouth, BLM protesters swarmed into a library, shouted obscenities, pushed people against walls, and screamed in their faces. At Columbia and elsewhere, students are reporting feeling pressured to join in protests and walkouts, or else they're called racist. These groups are intimidating people and being disruptive. At Princeton, 200 students barged into the president's office and refused to leave until he signed an agreement. At Mizzou, they interrupted the homecoming parade, refused to move even when it was clear people wanted them to. At Northwestern, protesters just interrupted a groundbreaking ceremony for a very expensive new building. That's part of the reason they're getting so much backlash. They're being obnoxious, and it comes across as childish, not to mention makes people angry.

And these people aren't just trying to get a message out. They're making DEMANDS. They want people fired. They want school history to be erased. They want dorms just for black people. They want professors to be forced to undergo sensitivity training. (I.e., classes where they're told what they are and aren't allowed to say.) At Princeton as well as Northwestern, they want to change the curriculum of every single student to make it mandatory to take a "diversity" class. At Northwestern, they're demanding a "technology hub" for black students. (I should mention that they already have the Black House, so I'm a bit unclear on why they need a technology hub, too.)

And this is a problem because, contrary to what J.F. Sargent says, these groups are not powerless. In this day and age, people bend over backwards to accommodate these groups. That charity event? It was cancelled without an argument the moment people complained about it. How did the Hispanic group send out a campus-wide e-mail about not eating tacos and burritos, when that listserv access is necessarily strictly limited? Someone thought their message was important enough that they deserved that platform, so they gave it to them. Professors and administrators are either stepping down or being forced to resign. At Mizzou, a professor sent out an email encouraging students to come to class, telling them not to let "bullies" win. He sent this email before it was widely known that there were serious threats of violence, and for this unforgivable misunderstanding, immediately handed in his resignation because people were offended. So no, these groups are not powerless. Administrators bend over backwards to appease them. And when you look at the kinds of demands these groups are making, it's disturbing to think what will happen if colleges continue to give in so easily.'

Kids these days... are freaking awesome.

Dang damn, these kids are insane. Ok, sure, to have that energy level at 12 is not so surprising (yeah, that's right, 12... again I say, dang damn), but that control and that synchronicity is off the charts amazing. They stomp, they groove, they whack, they go hard old skool, they damn well do it all and I could not love it more. All of it.

Man, 20 years ago (i.e. when I was their age), I could have only dreamed of getting to do this sort of thing. Back then, if you had any interest in dance, the only way you got into hip hop that I knew of, was to get your friends together or your ass in front of a mirror and just get practicing. The notion of getting formal training just didn't really exist. Friends got ballet or tap or jazz lessons, but I never knew of anyone having hip hop or r&b dance lessons - honestly, I just never imagined it. My neighbours did routines for Variety Nights at school with their friends and we occasionally got to see video of that but my main recourse was to watch my favourite routines on VHS - in my case, tapes of Rage, Video Hits or the occasional Music Award Show - and do what I could to emulate each step, jump, kick and groove. When no one was looking of course because, duh, embarrassing. Hell, I found it so embarrassing, I barely tried even when people weren't looking. Hurrah self-conscious youth! I'm happy to say I've been able to head somewhat 'backwards' in the sense that the energy I never expended when I was younger out of sheer self-consciousness, has come out in spades now that I'm older.

Meanwhile, later came the dance comps (or at least videos, then DVDs of them), then dance TV shows, then YouTube and suddenly the people performing these routines weren't just in music videos or at the Grammy's. They were kids from my area getting out there and performing and doing what we all loved. They were kids who now had greater access to watching dance comp videos and YouTube clips. They were people through whom I found out there were studios that taught this stuff to begin with.

[And for a short period of time about 6 or 7 years ago, they were my own instructors from a couple of crews I actually respected (Groovesteps and Doppelgangers to name a couple). People who not only taught me how to handle an 8-count (however poorly I did!) but also made me better look up the history and made me grow in my appreciation of the real beauty of hip hop. D2MG mofos!]

These days, I love that not only do you know that people are out there teaching these amazing choreos and skills, but more people are getting to see just how amazing they are. And of course, there's always Ellen who, incidentally, featured two of the kids in this clip - Lucky and AC aka Lucky Aces.

So while the above ramble is a mere window into just how much I love this genre of dance, music and artistic expression, how much I always have and always will along with my joy that more people get the chance to appreciate, seriously look at those kids up there - their skill, their discipline, their energy and their faces. Far be it from me to pull out the Center Stage line about Jody's 'face' but there, it was plot lip to excuse putting her through despite her crummy feet. These kids do not have that problem. They are all in and it could not more freshh.

Europe 2014 - In Selected Pictures (a year late)

So the flurry never happened, but nothing like the present to make up for that. Travel is so much on my brain these days, I couldn't help but plug this in here... not to mention it's way overdue, really. Of course, picking from pics is probably one of the hardest things to do, especially when you're pulling from a trip that took us to 18 cities. But hey, I'm always game to try. Here's to the reliving and the bringing along of new visitors to old memories!

London

Captured what I could in the one shot - the London Eye, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben along the River Thames. Just the beginning of a trip where places I'd only seen in pictures or movies suddenly stood alive and proud before me. It all begins...

Tower Bridge? London Bridge? Yep we, like every tourist, had fun with this little piece of confusion. This, friends, is Tower Bridge, forever shooting down the image we all had in our heads whenever 'London Bridge is Falling Down' played in our heads.

An art installation titled Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red by artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper marked the Centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. 888,246 ceramic poppies progressively filled the moat of the Tower of London between July and November last year and we were fortunate to see it while we were there.

Paris

One of the first of thousands and thousands of pics I ended up taking of La Tour Eiffel, this one taken from the Esplanade du Trocadero. I never imagined how obsessed I would become with this landmark and its constant presence from wherever we were in the city. Eiffel became the Slender in the woods to my time in Paris. You couldn't escape her and you couldn't stop looking back to see her. 

I love the European metros, not simply because they are so different but because they bring back memories of the Subway in NYC. All the different lines and the efficiency (for the most part) without any appearance of a schedule, not even like the phantom ones we have in Sydney. As a lover of maps, the metro maps were among my favourite things to grab as a memento.

My breath actually caught when I saw Notre Dame. Yes, I am emotionally dramatic, but that response was so unexpected and so automatic. My jaw dropped, my eyes widened and I just stood there for a good minute just breathing. If I'm honest, I did expect it to be bigger but somehow, that didn't diminish the awe. Then of course, I started taking picture after picture after picture... going inside, Mass was on and I got to stand wordless again. Beautiful moments.

Swiss Alps

The one word in my head the whole time? SNOW. To see snow for the first time ever on a peak in Switzerland was one of the greatest experiences I had never asked for. Then again, that was this whole trip of course. I had never seen anything like it and honestly. I was bowled right the hell over.

The awe only continues. I have video from this spot and would you believe it? My damn gloved thumb is in the way the entire time. Of course you'd believe it, I certainly believe it seeing as it is just like me to be so dopey. Still, the proof is there. That is enough. 

Just some of the names presented in the memorial to the 30 people who died during the construction of the Jungfrau Railway. Honestly, considering the train ride we took and the endless tunnels through which we walked, those men were incredible. Or potentially nuts. Or just needed work. Regardless, incredible.

SNOW. In my hand. For real.

Pisa to Florence

The architecture. My gosh, the architecture. Such beauty was what greeted us in the birthplace of the Renaissance and the home of the Medicis about whom I'd read so much back in history in high school.

How I felt pretty much the whole time in Europe.

I wish I knew who he was. I don't even remember taking this photo.

Orvieto to Rome

Orvieto. Honestly, Italian alleyways are so captivating and so beautiful. One of the simplest reminders of the youth of the country I call home.

Italian Gelato a la Della Palma. The Jel-Friendly food adventures really began in Italy - pasta, gelato, pizza. I had it all.

Piazza San Pietro. One day, I will see you filled with joyful pilgrims. One day. For now, this was enough.

Il Foro Romano. The old Latin student in me couldn't look around without trying to picture the people who used to go about their daily business here. People named Caecilius, maybe.

Such a beautiful accident, finding this outlook next to the Basilica Santa Sabina on the way to the keyhole at the Villa del Priorato di Malta.

Seriously, a truly beautiful accident, no?

Pizza! Oh how funny it was to find out how much Italians look down on the very notion of Hawaiian pizza. Which I now know, was invented by a Canadian guy. You have my respect, Canadian Guy. Ham and pineapple is a combination that only brings me joy, its lack of Italian or Hawaiian authenticity notwithstanding.

Verona to Venice

Accidentally caught this couple on 'Juliet's Balcony'. Such an odd landmark - honestly, what would Verona have sold to tourists had it not been for Shakespeare? Not that I would sell it short, it's a lovely place. But it's like me hanging a suit up in the reserve nearby and then claiming it as Slender's woods causing it to become an attraction. Nothing actually happened there. Next thing you know, people would be leaving notes everywhere. 'Always watching. No eyes.' Hmmm.. I've clearly got Slender on the brain today.

Looking out over the Grand Canal towards Chiesa Di San Giorgo Maggiore. It's a little crazy to think that one of the most captivating aspects of this city, the canals, is the likely reason for its future destruction. Oh, and that aroma.

Salzburg to Vienna

Just one grossly inadequate pictorial sample of the kinds of views to which we were constantly treated while on the coach. I spent a good amount of time on that bus just staring. Staring at houses... in mountains... with waterfalls nearby. I actually wish I had asked Julie, our Tour Group Leader, or Phil, our bus driver, for a map of the route we took.

The house they used to film the lakeside views of the Von Trapp home in The Sound of Music. Salzburg is a ridiculously beautiful city, outside of which places like this just are. Just because.

What did I say? This was the view from Festung Hohensalzburg and apparently, if I were looking out over the other side, I would be looking into Germany. The Australian in me finds the notion completely bizarre.

Greetings from Vienna, courtesy of Mr. Ed and his accordion over here.

Bratislava to Budapest

Street art in Bratislava. It's hitting me quite hard that I missed out on some amazing street art on both my trips to Europe. Currently trying to figure out how to rectify this. I think this will actually have to be a full trip on its own.

I sigh at the notion that I won't actually get to revisit Budapest anytime soon. I was so blown away by the city and its history though current circumstances admittedly garner some reluctance. I guess we'll see.

The Millenáriumi Emlékmű in Hősök tere - or Millenium Memorial in Heroes' Square. I can never deny the privilege and good fortune into which I was born. Never.

Looking down Andrássy Avenue from the Square. All I can picture is protests and revolution. Pain. And yet, look at the beautiful city that has risen from all of that. History - knocking my brain and my senses flat since time immemorial.

The next night, after being laid up most of the day with a fever, I ventured out for as good a walk as I could muster. I'm thankful I made it to St Stephen's on that walk. I still marvel at the huge squares in Europe, not something I see a lot of in Australia.

My attempt at dinner that night, some store bought pasta and sauce. My poor vegetarian friend who wanted a taste, due to my forgetfulness, consumed meat by accident that night.

Terror Háza or The House of Terror was the first place we went to. I found out that they are part of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, a body I never knew existed but couldn't be gladder to know exists.

Krakow

'I suddenly realized that we were to be walled in. I got so scared that I eventually burst into tears' written by Roman Polanski who saw so many horrors as a child growing up in the ghetto in Krakow.

The cathedral down in the Wieliczka Salt Mines, 327 metres under ground. The ingenuity of man never ceases to amaze me.

Prague

The exterior of Cross][Club down the road from where we stayed depicting the war between the native cats and cyborgs which, you know, totally happened.

This is how close people park to everything in Europe!

Staroměstské náměstí looking gorgeous in the rain.

Cross][Club's innards.

Dresden to Berlin

At the entrance of the Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park - one of the most strangely impressive places I've ever visited, not least because I wasn't expecting a Soviet memorial in Germany. Although given the history, I don't know why the thought never occurred to me. Still, quite a surreal place.

Christmas markets outside Potzdamer Platz Arkaden. It was brilliant finally finding full blown Christmas Markets in Berlin after waiting almost the whole tour only to thus far find the bare bones of their setup. Thank you, Berlin!

Walking in and around the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. This is just one of a number of memorials to those murdered by the Nazis and that strange self-consciousness is one of the most interesting aspects of Berlin.

A memorial to Georg Elser. Read this. It tells the story better than I could.

A section of the Berlin Wall that still remains mostly untouched. Seeing it after knowing of its existence and its ultimate destruction since I was a child was quite numbing at first. Then the stories hit you, accompanied by its solid presence and suddenly all the history behind it knocks you in the head and sticks. It just sticks.

The brick line that marks where the wall ran. According to Anna Funder in Stasiland, apparently from the East side, the plaques can only be read upside down.

Bullet holes. Enough said.

Oh, Alexanderplatz. I returned there this year, all the Christmas trimmings gone and what remains is the prominence of the Rotes Rathaus, Neptunbrunnen and what I declare to be the ugliest part of the city - Fernsehturm. Fascinating, no doubt, but ugly in purpose and design.

Amsterdam

Really, a very beautiful city. I think that sadly, my memory of it has been somewhat coloured by our genuinely disgusting accommodation and my resultant wish to be out of there as soon as possible. Looking back at my pictures, I've had to reassess and wonder what it would have been like to get to stay somewhere decent and have the time to visit all the galleries. And not miss out on seeing Anne Frank's house.

Why, Amsterdam, why?

These houses, my goodness, such a pretty stretch of the canal, leading back to the Rijksmuseum.

Speaking of which - oh, Rijksmuseum... a painting by Charles-François Daubigny, nameless here forevermore.

De vaart bij ’s-Graveland, Pieter Gerardus van Os, 1818.

Yep, you were prettier than I remembered, Amsterdam. Forgive my harsh judgement.

Paris (Second Time Around)

The Queen's Hamlet at Versailles where I genuinely felt suspended in time, albeit in the wrong place. I kept picturing the Bennetts strolling...

I've no idea what this cute creature is, but how adorable is that face??

Le Musée d'Orsay - the wonderful place I spent the morning of my birthday. What a blissful few hours.

Brilliant birthday dinner! Merci beaucoup, encore et encore, Le Potager du Marais!

One of our last views of Le Champs-Élysées et l'Arc de Triomphe as we made our farewell bus trip around the city.

The view before we landed in Dubai to meet our flight home. I know I can't count it as having actually been to Dubai, but, come on, for now, I'll take it.

And... done. Sure, I would have loved to include more photos but this still took me back through the good times well enough, hell, well enough to make me reassess some places. In all honesty, I've no idea when I'll ever be able to make good on these notions of returning, particularly after this year which was just so amazingly lucky. But it really doesn't matter, the planning is so much damn fun, it'll do for now.

In the meantime - soon, 2015 pics, soon.

Soon...