Nicola’s Gratitude Diary

I’ll be posting all my gratitude diaries here for your reading and general amusement!

– Nicola

Gratitude Diary, Week Four – N

Week four, back for more!!

This week I watched helpless as one of my good friends was admitted to hospital and eventually required sugery and time in the ICU, so firstly I’d like to say I am most grateful for my health.

But I’m also grateful for two of my good friends, Maya and Sonia, for helping me get through those long days at uni!

And I’m also grateful for my eyesight. For obvious reasons!

See you next week!

– Nicola

Bibliography For Euthanasia Short.

• Compassion Choices. (2014). A New Video For My Friends. [Online Video]. 29 October. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lHXH0Zb2QI. [Accessed: 01 April 2015].
• Philip Nitschke,  “Euthanasia Sets Sail,” National Review Online June 5, 2001
• Leon Kass, MD, PhD, University of Chicago “Neither for Love nor Money,” Public Interest1989
• R.G. Frey “The Fear of a Slippery Slope,” Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: For and Against
  1998
• Edmund D. Pelligrino, MD “The False Promise of Beneficent Killing,” Regulating How We Die: The Ethical, Medical, and Legal Issues Surrounding Physician-Assisted Suicide 1998
• Faye Girsh, EdD “How Shall We Die,” Free Inquiry Winter 2001
• Rita Marker, JD “Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Frequently Asked Questions,” http://www.internationaltaskforce.org
  Jan. 2010
• Division, Oregon Public Health. “Oregan’s Death With Dignity Act.” For More Detail, Please View the Figures and Tables on Our Web Site: http://www.healthoregon.org/dwd. Figure 1: DWDA Prescription Recipients and Deaths*, by Year, Oregon, 1998-2014 (n.d.): n. pag. Feb. 2015. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. <https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year17.pdf&gt;.
• Brittany Maynard has changed the debate about euthanasia. 2015. Brittany Maynard has changed the debate about euthanasia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.smh.com.au/world/brittany-maynard-has-changed-the-debate-about-euthanasia-20141104-11gjcz.html. [Accessed 21 April 2015].
• Doctors Aren’t Bound by the Hippocratic Oath. 2015. Doctors Aren’t Bound by the Hippocratic Oath. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/doctors-arent-bound-hippocratic-oath/. [Accessed 22 April 2015].
• Oregan. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mapsof.net/uploads/static-maps/where_is_oregon_located.png. [Accessed 24 April 2015].
• People Magazine. 2014. [PRINT] Available at http://semo.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BrittanyMaynard-PeopleMag.jpg. [Accessed 23 April 2015]
• Goddard. 2013. Euthanasia Cartoon. [ONLINE] Available at: https://itsmaddiemann.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/924ab-anti2bchoice2brtd2bcartoon.jpg. [Accessed 24 April 2015].
• Euthanasia debate: Greens urge Federal Government to grant ‘right to die’ law-making powers to ACT – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 2015. Euthanasia debate: Greens urge Federal Government to grant ‘right to die’ law-making powers to ACT – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-16/euthanasia-debate-greens-push-for-act–law-making-powers/6322876. [Accessed 24 April 2015].
• Music – iMovie royalty free track “piano ballard”
• Brittany Maynard. 2015.[ONLINE] Available at: http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_44/707611/141008-brittany-maynard-kns-02_33f04bfd11ba05aacfdba59ca8817025.jpg. [Accessed 24 April 2015].
• Brittany Maynard. 2015.[ONLINE] Available at: http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_44/707611/141008-brittany-maynard-kns-02_33f04bfd11ba05aacfdba59ca8817025.jpg. [Accessed 24 April 2015].
• Brittany Maynard. 2015. [ONLINE] Available at:https://tribktla.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/maynard3.jpg. [Accessed 24 April 2015].

Gratitude Week FIVE

This week aside from being mildly grateful that this part of the assignment is over I am grateful for:

• randomly remembering the 4 assessments due this week that I had forgotten about
• understanding group assignment members
• this subject – optimism has never been my strong suit but I feel like I am getting their slowly!

Gratitude Week FOUR

This week was my 21st birthday!

I’m feeling especially grateful this week for my family but I’m pretty sure I’ve thanked them every week so this week we can let it go without saying that I am incredibly grateful for my family.

•  I am grateful for corn fritters (so delicious)
•  I am grateful for friends who turn up to birthday dinners drunk after going to the races, because it only made me appreciate the effort she had gone too in order to even get there.
•  I am grateful for my work friends telling me they miss having me around, nothing like an “we miss you” to make a girl feel loved!

After four weeks I am feeling more optimistic about life and finding it easier to look on the bright side of things.

Gratitude Week THREE

This week I am grateful for love.

My parents went away and I came down with a ridiculously terrible bug.

I am grateful for my grandmother who looked after me and dragged me to the doctor.

I am grateful for my parents who changed their flight to look after me when the doctor suspected something serious.

I am grateful for having people in my life who love me enough to be seriously worried about me.

(I am also mildly grateful for the joy that anti-biotics and Panadol bring. )

Gratitude Week TWO

This week it was harder to see what I had to be thankful for, uni work has been piling up and I am getting more and more overwhelmed, I was pretty sure any note of gratitude would simply read:

“I am grateful this week is over.”

But I had a saving grace, a manager at work, Ali, pulled me aside and told me that he appreciated my hard work through a busy few shifts. A man whose own boss was kicking his butt over a few out of control mornings still took the time to remind me that I was appreciated.

This inspired me to write the following gratitude diary for this week:

• I am grateful for Ali and for his constant optimism that brings a light to our workplace.
• I am grateful for the delicious meals my mum cooked me
• I am grateful for the friend who I bitched and moaned too about how “tough” my life was

Looking forward to a gratitude filled week three!!

Gratitude Week ONE

I sent this letter to one of my good friends. After showing it to her and seeing how happy it made her I felt amazing! Definitely inspired to keep going!

Dear Arna,

Thank you for being you and understanding my pain and frustration with uni. I actually ended up going to all of my classes today because I had talked over my issues with you and felt that you understood exactly where I was coming from just like I had wished you would.

Talking to you about how difficult today was made it a lot easier to get through the day. I didn’t feel alone because you understood me and made the day easier, I wish you would find the same outcome from our discussion. When you immediately got where I was coming from that was the moment I knew that you were 100% the right person to reach out too.

I am glad that writing a gratitude letter was randomly a task in my happiness class today because it gave me a chance to reflect on how grateful I am to have you in my life and I’m so glad there’s no bad blood.

I am so glad that we aren’t focusing on being happy but on being whole and I think that this change will allow us to become fearless. We may not be out of the woods but at least this love will have us shake it off. Now we can begin again and hopefully we stay clean and this is the last time that things get this treacherous.

In all my wildest dreams for us we end up in wonderland and it’s even sweeter than fiction. I can’t wait for us to be 22 and hopefully filled with the clarity of knowing things all too well. Everything has changed for us in the last year or two in a sad beautiful tragic way hopefully you and I can be the lucky one and get back to where we want to be, that is the state of grace.

I love you!

Maddie

We’re All In This Together.

Week 11. Diasporic Media.

 

Last year I was walking through the streets of London, 17,000 kilometres from my home town of Sydney Australia, I had been away for just over a week and I was missing my older brothers birthday despite us having an insane sibling rivalry it felt very poignant as I realised that 17,000 kilometres away my family would be gathering without me so I did what any 19 year old would do, I found a pub that was screening the Ashes and (despite a complete lack of interest in cricket) I sat and watch Australia get beaten with 60 – 70 of my new closest friends. This connection to my homeland that I felt even while so far away highlights the importance of diasporic media. Homesickness is something that can be avoided by keeping a connection to your home alive and diasporic media can help people do that.

 

The Chinese community in Australia is a vibrant, and ever growing community and with them they bring a rich culture and history. Walking through the areas in which they have congregated in such as Hurstville and Chatswood the examples of dasporic media are ever present.  The diasporic media of newspapers in their native tongue is important for them to keep up with the politics of their home countries and our country that we live in together. Having newspapers available in their native tongue with stories on Australian issues as well makes it easier for people who have not been able to develop their english reading skills just yet to stay informed on the political and national issues that make up Australia’s current affairs thus making them a part of our future rather than allowing them to drop off the radio as such.

 

This is Globalised Media… Informing and Entertaining.

Week 10. Globalisation.

 

I am a citizen of Australia, but we are all citizens of the world. It is all of our responsibilities to ensure that the people in this world are treated justly and that they have the basic human rights that we should all be afforded, the globalisation of the media is important in ensuring that we are all informed of our international neighbours and they’re safety.

I care about refugees in Syria, I care about the future of Ukraine and Russia and I care abut the state of LGBT rights in Uganda and as citizens of the world we should all care and we should all strive to keep up to date on all the topical issues of the globe and the globalisation of news can only enhance the information we are receiving at home. But globalisation is also occurring on a much more superficial way every day. Television hits such as Game of Thrones and  Breaking Bad are airing in Australia mere moments after they finish airing in the USA, this usually means 3pm in the afternoon but that is the world we live in – if your not watching it live some idiot will most definitely ruin the ending on social media.

The glabalised world can lead to a more informed world, and it can also lead to a more entertained world with a greater expanse of viewing available for all people, Chinese dating shows, Big Brother and The Voice are all examples of television programs that are heavily globalised and reworked for different audiences throughout the world and they demonstrate how some things – such as the desire to be entertained – completely transcends cultural boundaries.