Eric Carle - The Very Hungry Caterpillar
A caterpillar - who from here on in shall be known by his hip hop name, Cat P – has a somewhat eventful week.
Sunday: Born today. Fair effort.
Monday: Ate 1 apple. Still hungry.
Tuesday: Ate 2 pears. Made a joke about having to eat a pair of pears, but had no friends to tell it to. Still hungry.
Wednesday: Ate 3 plums. Laughed at the word ‘plums.’ Still hungry.
Thursday: Ate 4 strawberries. Had no access to cream or lady caterpillars. Still hungry.
Friday: Ate 5 oranges. Still hungry, but no longer at risk of contracting scurvy.
Saturday: Ate 1 piece of chocolate cake, 1 ice cream cone (illustrations show that there was in fact ice cream inside the cone at the time), 1 pickle, 1 slice of swiss cheese (this has holes in it, so it doesn’t really count), 1 slice of salami, 1 lollipop, 1 piece of cherry pie, 1 sausage, 1 cupcake, 1 slice of watermelon, and a partridge in a pear tree (interestingly, not the same pear tree that the pair of pears came from). Got a stomach ache.
Sunday: Ate 1 leaf. Stomach settled and obesity acknowledged. Went to sleep. Woke up as a butterfly.
The story sounds simple enough, but what effect is it really having on our children? Or your children, because I don’t have any children. Or all of us, back when we was a children?
Issue 1: Is ‘very’ a good enough word to describe how hungry the caterpillar was?
No.
Issue 2: Is this story responsible for childhood obesity?
Well, there seem to be many contributing factors to childhood obesity, so who can really say for sure that this book has had any impact? Me, I can. And yes, it is singlehandedly 100% unquestionably responsible for the little fatty boombahs. It’s surprising that religious groups never jumped on Cat P for being a filthy, no good, sinning glutton. There you go, religious nuts. You can have that one for free. If you require any more issues to sensationalise, leave the money in a sports bag under the slide of the playground down the road from my house. And cookies. Leave cookies. Chocolate ones. None of that oatmeal bull.
Issue 3: Why is the caterpillar so hungry?
One would assume that the everyday common caterpillar wouldn’t have such an extreme appetite, and why Cat P is the exception to this rule is never explained to us. Is it possible that his hunger is a metaphor for something? Is Cat P really trying to fill his stomach, or is he perhaps trying to fill his heart? When referring to the beginning of the story, the reader can’t help but notice that mama and papa Cat P weren’t hanging around when he hatched out of his egg. Does our protagonist have abandonment issues? Yes. Yes he does.
Issue 4: where is all this food coming from?
I don’t know. But if there’s free cake and ice cream, I want to live there.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
And that's why it was the best summer ever
I’m a full time student, which means I do less than twenty hours of class each week and get three months off over summer. God bless you, Australian edu-ma-cation system. Anyhoo, sadly, my three months has come to an end and I’m back into my gruelling study schedule next week. So come with me as we take a moment to look back at some of the things I did this summer...
- Learned that at 568 pages in hardcover, Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy is not an appropriate sized book to read in the bath.
- Played so much Commander Keen that my right wrist started to make a clicking noise, which goes nicely with the buggered joints in my thumbs from the excessive amount of Nintendo I played as a child.
- Wrapped a small plastic pig in tin foil so he looked like an astronaut.
- Rearranged my bedroom and decided that packing it up was too hard and I am therefore never moving out of that room. Ever.
- Remembered my Neopets password from 2001.
- Became a multi-millionaire on Neopets.
- Rewatched every episode of Black Books.
- Rewatched every episode of Father Ted.
- Didn’t rewatch every episode of 30 Rock, but watched enough to develop an odd and unexpected crush on Alec Baldwin. His eyes are, like, really blue 'n' that.
- Realised I needed to go outside more.
- Went outside and got sunburnt.
- Went back inside and acknowledged that I should have known better than to go outside.
- Tried to justify the amount of books I was buying online by reading each and every one of them - only 6 to go, y'all!
- Started work at 6am for five days in a row and learned about the effects of sleep depravation. Was also verbally abused by a regular customer for playing Whitesnake at 7:30 in the morning. I believe that Whitesnake is good at any hour. He doesn't agree.
- Broke my new years resolution to not type my Facebook password when trying to sign into Blogger.
- Went to the Boxing Day sales for the first and hopefully last time.
- Became worryingly good at Tetris.
- Realised my Mr Potato Head obsession was out of control when my co-workers made me this:
- Learned that if you put a single chicken wing in the microwave for more than 20 seconds it will explode all over your microwave.
- Cleaned the microwave.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Dye Hard… with a vengeance
Alternate titles: ‘To dye for’; ‘Live and let dye’; ‘Help me Jebus, my scalp is burning’
I started colouring my hair on a regular basis about 8 years ago. Towards the end of high school it shifted between dark purple and bright red, a colour that inspired another girl to tell me once that she’d always wanted to dye her hair that colour, but didn’t have the guts to do it because guys don’t like girls with red hair. The rest of my teen years taught me that she was right. And a bit of a bitch.
A few years back, in an attempt to come to terms with my pale-ness (I was wearing a skirt a few weeks ago and was temporarily blinded at one stage when the sun reflected off my legs), I did something I grew to regret. I decided that instead of trying to cover it with fake tan, I’d just emphasise it. So I started dying my hair black.
Fast forward 3 years and I was bloody well over it. I tried putting heaps of different colours over the black, but nothing would take. A few times I considered trying to bleach my hair myself, but never followed through because I’ve always held the strong belief that accident prone people shouldn’t handle chemicals. Unless they want to melt their face off. Which I don’t. I like my face. We’ve had some good times together.
On Tuesday I finally manned up and stopped being so cheap. The hairdresser said she could strip the colour, but since it was black, the best result I could hope for was a dark brown. My hair sure as hell showed her. First, the bleach had to come out earlier than expected when my naturally blonde regrowth started to turn white. Also, when they say ‘it might sting your scalp a little’, what they really mean is ‘it will feel like flames are shooting out of your head.’
I’m choosing to count this as a win.
I started colouring my hair on a regular basis about 8 years ago. Towards the end of high school it shifted between dark purple and bright red, a colour that inspired another girl to tell me once that she’d always wanted to dye her hair that colour, but didn’t have the guts to do it because guys don’t like girls with red hair. The rest of my teen years taught me that she was right. And a bit of a bitch.
A few years back, in an attempt to come to terms with my pale-ness (I was wearing a skirt a few weeks ago and was temporarily blinded at one stage when the sun reflected off my legs), I did something I grew to regret. I decided that instead of trying to cover it with fake tan, I’d just emphasise it. So I started dying my hair black.
Fast forward 3 years and I was bloody well over it. I tried putting heaps of different colours over the black, but nothing would take. A few times I considered trying to bleach my hair myself, but never followed through because I’ve always held the strong belief that accident prone people shouldn’t handle chemicals. Unless they want to melt their face off. Which I don’t. I like my face. We’ve had some good times together.
On Tuesday I finally manned up and stopped being so cheap. The hairdresser said she could strip the colour, but since it was black, the best result I could hope for was a dark brown. My hair sure as hell showed her. First, the bleach had to come out earlier than expected when my naturally blonde regrowth started to turn white. Also, when they say ‘it might sting your scalp a little’, what they really mean is ‘it will feel like flames are shooting out of your head.’
That dark brown I was told to hope for ended up being a mix of reds, browns, and blondes, and I think like it. Mostly because the lighter colour makes it harder to spot the crumbs and other various food stuffs that keep getting stuck in there.
I’m choosing to count this as a win.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
That’s why I’ll never finish anything I...
I wrote 1,000 words on Wednesday. Yes, I would like a medal. You can engrave it with 'In honour of Lauren, who did something that one time.' And on the front I would like the image of an infinite number of monkeys working on an infinite number of typewriters.
The problem with this 1,000 words was that I wrote 1,000 words of something new, instead of working on the 45,000ish words that I've already got of a well thought out and pretty much almost finished story that I haven’t looked at in months. Or the 2,500 words of the thing I started writing last August instead of working on the 45,000ish story.
I have a long history of this kind of behaviour. So I now present to you some of the many things I started and never finished:
Learning guitar – I could do some stuff in tabs, but I never learned any chords. The guitar itself became more of a decoration after a while, then I decided it was probably just mocking me. Now it lives in my wardrobe. But if you ever want someone to play the intro to the song ‘Scotty doesn’t know’ from the film Eurotrip, I’m your gal.
Learning keyboard – see above. But change ‘Scotty doesn’t know’ from Eurotrip to ‘And so it goes’ by Billy Joel. Or ‘Mary had a little lamb’ by whoever wrote that.
Higher education – I got my diploma of Music Industry Business just to prove to myself that I could actually finish something. Then I dropped out of the degree. Twice. Then I changed what I was studying. And yeah, I’m like, totally a writer now.
That really rich and big piece of chocolate cake I had at the Beechworth Bakery one magical Easter – it was amazing. But I’ve always believed you should probably stop eating when you find yourself struggling to breathe.
Reading The Count of Monte Cristo – it’s… it’s really long. I got about a third of the way through it when I decided to take a break and read some other stuff for a while. I’m pretty sure I’ll never open it again. Since before I was born my mum has had a bookmark exactly 39 pages from the end of War and Peace and can’t bring herself to finish it, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Countless stories – I’m really good at coming up with ideas for stories, not so good at coming up with endings. The only ones I 'finished' were ones I had to hand in for uni, and they generally just ended in the middle of a scene, so I decided to pretend like I’m a trendy modern writer and that’s my thing that I do. Like the story about the leprechaun who was raised by humans and didn’t know he was a leprechaun, then struggled with the idea that he might be one, then eventually had to decide whether he was going to stay in his old life or follow that rainbow. What did he do, you ask? I dunno. It ended with him talking to his wife in a field. But I got an awesome mark for it.
The problem with this 1,000 words was that I wrote 1,000 words of something new, instead of working on the 45,000ish words that I've already got of a well thought out and pretty much almost finished story that I haven’t looked at in months. Or the 2,500 words of the thing I started writing last August instead of working on the 45,000ish story.
I have a long history of this kind of behaviour. So I now present to you some of the many things I started and never finished:
Learning guitar – I could do some stuff in tabs, but I never learned any chords. The guitar itself became more of a decoration after a while, then I decided it was probably just mocking me. Now it lives in my wardrobe. But if you ever want someone to play the intro to the song ‘Scotty doesn’t know’ from the film Eurotrip, I’m your gal.
Learning keyboard – see above. But change ‘Scotty doesn’t know’ from Eurotrip to ‘And so it goes’ by Billy Joel. Or ‘Mary had a little lamb’ by whoever wrote that.
Higher education – I got my diploma of Music Industry Business just to prove to myself that I could actually finish something. Then I dropped out of the degree. Twice. Then I changed what I was studying. And yeah, I’m like, totally a writer now.
That really rich and big piece of chocolate cake I had at the Beechworth Bakery one magical Easter – it was amazing. But I’ve always believed you should probably stop eating when you find yourself struggling to breathe.
Reading The Count of Monte Cristo – it’s… it’s really long. I got about a third of the way through it when I decided to take a break and read some other stuff for a while. I’m pretty sure I’ll never open it again. Since before I was born my mum has had a bookmark exactly 39 pages from the end of War and Peace and can’t bring herself to finish it, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Countless stories – I’m really good at coming up with ideas for stories, not so good at coming up with endings. The only ones I 'finished' were ones I had to hand in for uni, and they generally just ended in the middle of a scene, so I decided to pretend like I’m a trendy modern writer and that’s my thing that I do. Like the story about the leprechaun who was raised by humans and didn’t know he was a leprechaun, then struggled with the idea that he might be one, then eventually had to decide whether he was going to stay in his old life or follow that rainbow. What did he do, you ask? I dunno. It ended with him talking to his wife in a field. But I got an awesome mark for it.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
23 similarities between children and the elderly
- They tell you exactly what they think
. - You don’t want to be stuck at the cinema with them because they'll talk through the whole thing
- They need a daily routine
- You can’t talk to them when their shows are on
- They think you don’t know anything about anything
- They fall over a lot
- They don’t have to go to work
- They get grumpy when they’re tired
- You don’t like their music, and they sure as hell aren’t going to tolerate yours
- They don’t remember what you said to them five minutes ago
- They go to bed early and wake up before the rest of civilised society
- They can’t walk long distances and you will end up pushing them around in some kind of wheeled device
- You have to explain new technology to them
- They like caravans
- They need to pee every two seconds
- You have to remind them to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
- They need help getting out of the bath
- They may not have any teeth
- They may not have any hair
- They need help crossing the street
- They are really good at getting you to do things for them
- You can’t hide your embarrassment when they loudly point out someone who is overweight/missing a limb/of a different ethnicity to them
- They are dangerous behind the wheel of a car
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Origin of Phrases – Part 3
Dead as a dodo
Official medical scale used to distinguish between people who are extremely dead and people who are only slightly dead. The four stages of dead-ness are as follows:
Slightly
Quite
Very
Dodo
Filthy rich
The practice of bathing in money has proved to be fun, though extremely unhygienic.
Famous last words
A trend made popular by soap operas, in which the phrase ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ is followed by a mudslide/massacre/explosion/acid rain/battery dying on a mobile phone.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
There won’t be more gifts in there. Just teeth.
Different kettle of fish
Before the existence of fish tanks, kettles were a popular fish housing option. When Mrs Jemima Guthrie, a wealthy British socialite, had her fish kettle-napped and held for ransom, she paid the abductors only to have a kettle of far less snooty fish returned. She now keeps her pets in a large tank with a tiny scuba diving ninja to guard them.
Diamond in the rough
This phrase came into existence after the release of the film Aladdin to represent someone whose destiny it is to enter a magic cave and take nothing but the lamp. NOTHING BUT THE LAMP!*
Dead cat bounce
A stock market term meaning ‘awesome Irish comedy band.’
Eaten out of house and home
If you’re a witch who lives in the woods, either don’t build your house out of gingerbread, or avoid small German children.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you
Hello, I’m Lauren. I would like to buy you an ice cream.
Eat my hat
Bart Simpson’s original catchphrase before the animators engaged in an all out brawl after a disagreement over what colour the aforementioned hat should be. 14 animators were killed before they decided to just put some spikey crap on his head and draw him with shorts.
Drink like a fish
Nemo struggled to deal with his success after the movie. He was survived by his wife, Octopussy, and their two daughters, Fishenchip and Fishpun.
Every cloud has a silver lining
Before cloud poaching became illegal in 1977, clouds were the world’s cheapest and main source of silver. They can still be found on the black market.
Diamonds are forever
While your marriage may fail, you’ll still have the ring as a constant reminder of your former partner. It’s kind of like having sparkly, non-contagious herpes.
Fell off the back of a truck
A common and completely legitimate way to obtain a stereo,television, or mega-laser-death-ray.
Face the music
A basic principal of theatre design.
*I've... I've been watching Aladdin...
Official medical scale used to distinguish between people who are extremely dead and people who are only slightly dead. The four stages of dead-ness are as follows:
Slightly
Quite
Very
Dodo
Filthy rich
The practice of bathing in money has proved to be fun, though extremely unhygienic.
Famous last words
A trend made popular by soap operas, in which the phrase ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ is followed by a mudslide/massacre/explosion/acid rain/battery dying on a mobile phone.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
There won’t be more gifts in there. Just teeth.
Different kettle of fish
Before the existence of fish tanks, kettles were a popular fish housing option. When Mrs Jemima Guthrie, a wealthy British socialite, had her fish kettle-napped and held for ransom, she paid the abductors only to have a kettle of far less snooty fish returned. She now keeps her pets in a large tank with a tiny scuba diving ninja to guard them.
Diamond in the rough
This phrase came into existence after the release of the film Aladdin to represent someone whose destiny it is to enter a magic cave and take nothing but the lamp. NOTHING BUT THE LAMP!*
Dead cat bounce
A stock market term meaning ‘awesome Irish comedy band.’
Eaten out of house and home
If you’re a witch who lives in the woods, either don’t build your house out of gingerbread, or avoid small German children.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you
Hello, I’m Lauren. I would like to buy you an ice cream.
Eat my hat
Bart Simpson’s original catchphrase before the animators engaged in an all out brawl after a disagreement over what colour the aforementioned hat should be. 14 animators were killed before they decided to just put some spikey crap on his head and draw him with shorts.
Drink like a fish
Nemo struggled to deal with his success after the movie. He was survived by his wife, Octopussy, and their two daughters, Fishenchip and Fishpun.
Every cloud has a silver lining
Before cloud poaching became illegal in 1977, clouds were the world’s cheapest and main source of silver. They can still be found on the black market.
Diamonds are forever
While your marriage may fail, you’ll still have the ring as a constant reminder of your former partner. It’s kind of like having sparkly, non-contagious herpes.
Fell off the back of a truck
A common and completely legitimate way to obtain a stereo,television, or mega-laser-death-ray.
Face the music
A basic principal of theatre design.
*I've... I've been watching Aladdin...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
There is another Skywalker
A few days ago I was standing in line with a friend of mine at the checkouts of… let’s call it ‘Shmarget’ for now. Anyway, Shmarget had some musical greeting cards they wanted you to impulse buy on your way out, and as we picked up the Darth Vader one, we couldn’t help but be disappointed when it played the Star Wars theme instead of the Darth Vader theme. Then I couldn’t get the Darth Vader theme out of my head. Then I wanted to watch Star Wars. Then I watched Star Wars.
Episode IV never did much for me due to one simple reason: extreme lack of Yoda. He’s sOOper wise and sounds suspiciously like the love child of Fozzy Bear and Grover. And if a bear had a love child with a monster, I reckon it would probably look something like that.
The two things I took away from this movie were 1) I’d forgotten how much of a whinging pain in zee bum C-3PO is, and 2) Jedi mind control powers are the shizz. They would be ever so useful in everyday life, eg. ‘These are not the droids you are looking for’; ‘It was like that when I got here’; ’ You don’t need to see my train ticket.’
Episode V gets off to a flying start with Leia calling Han a ‘nerf herder.’ According to Wookieepedia, a nerf herder is someone who ‘herded nerfs.’ You can’t ask for a better explanation than that.
It takes about 45 minutes for Yoda to show up, Darth Vader chokes a bunch of people with his mind, C-3PO gets shot and says ‘Oh no! I’ve been shot!’, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite (this scene was really traumatic for me when I was little. That scene, and the one in Temple of Doom when that guy rips that other guy’s heart out. Harrison Ford movies ruined my childhood. I hope he’s happy), and OMG! Darth Vader is, like, so totally Luke’s dad, and continuing with his deadbeat dad-ing, he, like, totally cuts Luke’s hand off.
Wait, it's alright. He gets a robot hand. Jealous?
My issue with Episode VI has nothing to do with the movie, but with the majority of people who watched the movie: what does everyone have against the Ewoks? They’re oversized teddy bears who like to party in tree houses. Where’s the downside of that? You even see one smoking a pipe at one stage. As far as I can see, their only downfall was their decision to worship C-3PO. And maybe the whole eating people thing. Maybe.
Episode IV never did much for me due to one simple reason: extreme lack of Yoda. He’s sOOper wise and sounds suspiciously like the love child of Fozzy Bear and Grover. And if a bear had a love child with a monster, I reckon it would probably look something like that.
The two things I took away from this movie were 1) I’d forgotten how much of a whinging pain in zee bum C-3PO is, and 2) Jedi mind control powers are the shizz. They would be ever so useful in everyday life, eg. ‘These are not the droids you are looking for’; ‘It was like that when I got here’; ’ You don’t need to see my train ticket.’
Episode V gets off to a flying start with Leia calling Han a ‘nerf herder.’ According to Wookieepedia, a nerf herder is someone who ‘herded nerfs.’ You can’t ask for a better explanation than that.
It takes about 45 minutes for Yoda to show up, Darth Vader chokes a bunch of people with his mind, C-3PO gets shot and says ‘Oh no! I’ve been shot!’, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite (this scene was really traumatic for me when I was little. That scene, and the one in Temple of Doom when that guy rips that other guy’s heart out. Harrison Ford movies ruined my childhood. I hope he’s happy), and OMG! Darth Vader is, like, so totally Luke’s dad, and continuing with his deadbeat dad-ing, he, like, totally cuts Luke’s hand off.
Wait, it's alright. He gets a robot hand. Jealous?
My issue with Episode VI has nothing to do with the movie, but with the majority of people who watched the movie: what does everyone have against the Ewoks? They’re oversized teddy bears who like to party in tree houses. Where’s the downside of that? You even see one smoking a pipe at one stage. As far as I can see, their only downfall was their decision to worship C-3PO. And maybe the whole eating people thing. Maybe.
.
The only piece of Star Wars merchandise I own is an Ewok I found going cheap in a second hand shop. I lovingly named him Mr Ewok. I want to get him a pipe now to make him seem more authentic.
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