Σελίδες

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Types of Religious Education Teachers

...we have had. They are presented in chronological order.










I have no idea who this is.
#1 The Actual Priest.
Because in Greece you can do that. So, the priest. Nice, friendly, caring as long as you say the prayer correctly. If you didn't, he was still nice and friendly and caring because he believed you are strong enough to find the correct path eventually. He made us learn the Credo and the Ten Commandments by heart, but to his defence, he was forced to by the educational system.












#2 The Guiet One
Τhe prayer in Greek
The type of man that is too good. We never found out if he was extremely religious or not, but we realised he couldn't possibly control a whole class of 14 year olds. Forced by the system (I'm not being ironical), he made us learn the titles of the books of the New Testament in order, by heart. I still remember all of the titles and maybe if I try, I'll remember the order.

Important note: We say a prayer every day, from the first day of elementary school (age 6), until the last day of highchool (age 18). It's a prayer in a more simple form of ancient greek.There was no teacher to actually tell us what it meant, we were only told to listen to the others and we would eventually learn it. No one translated it for us or told us what it meant and after some years, even if you can understand what most of it means, you say it mechanically every morning. And one day, at age 17, your teacher tells your class to write to prayer down and translate it, like some sort of surprise test. A prayer we say every morning, that however no one bothered to teach us when we were younger. But yes, let's learn all the books of the New Testament by heart, who cares that you have no idea what do you pray for every morning?

#3 The F*ck the System Guy
If we saw him on the street, we would never have guessed that this guy could ever be a religious education teacher. And the wasn't the normal kind. Instead of doing all the boring stuff like practically preaching about the love of God, pretending a classroom is a church, he showed us videos about the catacombs where the christians were hiding when the Romans were after them, he talked to us about deeper meanings and how religion can (?) be compatible with the world of the 21st century, he even showed us some exorcisms of Youtube. The system I was talking about in the previous two teachers doesn't apply here. System? Fuck the system. He was such an unconditional R.E. teacher, that there were rumors about his being gay. Imagine.



#4 The Stupid Bitch
She is the normal church lady; tries to appear kind and loving, if you follow her rules and only her ruled.
I have no idea who she is either. I just googled "bigoted woman".
In reality is a shit-talker and you will not get a nice note if you disagree with me in class. Trust me, she is that kind of person.
 She is also the kind of person that will start talking about how much God loves us and will eventually end up talking about how awful homosexual people are, how abortions are disgusting, how premarital sex is wrong (because let's not forget, for God a woman must be a virgin to get married, or else the marriage is unvalid) and all those kinds of stuff.

Merci beacoup,
Vaya

Friday, April 10, 2015

Plato's Symposium and the Holy Bible

Bonjour et bonsoir,
I've been hanging out with this friend of mine, who is really relegious and homophobic. (Nice way to start a post, I know, I'm great at this).
 We were talking about homosexuality and I brought up the subject of the ancient Greeks having homosexual relationships with each other. Now, us Greeks take way too much pride in our ancestors and the types of people like my friend refuse to accept this well known fact, because it's supposed to be degrading.
So, I told her that I'd bring her Plato's Symposium, that has a lot of parts that prove my statement. I own a copy, that contains the ancient prototype and a translation. I marked the pages and underlined the sentences, I gave it to her and after a couple of days, I asked her if she has read it.
She said "No, I refuse to believe it". Not in a "I know it's true but I refure to believe it" way, but in a "I refuse to believe you brought me this book fool of lies" way. She then asked me how did I know that the translation was correct and that it didn't alter things. I then told her that the Symposium was also translated by monks in the Byzantine empire, that probably none of them wanted to admit that our marvelous ancestors did those horrible horrible things. In short, none of those monks would want to alter the prototype in that way.
But I understand that this argument is not that strong.
We stopped talking about this at that point. But of course I kept thinking.
Plato's Symposium is a script that generally describes some peoples' opinions of what is love.  It talks about homosexuality, that, even if it was unnatural, it can happen. Completely philosophical, but nothing that is impossible to happen by the laws of nature, like, for example,*ahem* a man walking in the water and a virgin woman giving birth.
So that's Plato's Symposium. A script describing something that can naturally happen.
But what about the Holy Bible? It wasnt written in a specific year of location. Let's say the Old Testament was written around 1400 BC and the New Testament around 50 AD. Plato's Symposium was written around 416 BC (sources for those below).
The Holy Bible contains incidents that are impossible to happen if one follows the laws of nature that are called "miracles" and also some dreams that are called " visions". From an impartial perspective, they are unnatural incidents (walking in the water, splitting water in half, vigrin giving birth while impregnated by rays of sunshine etc etc) and dreams.
She chooses to stricly believe in scripts that talk about unnatural incidents and dreams people had more than 2000 years ago and she refuses to believe a script that describes a philosophical conversation that happened around the same years as the first book. If she wants to characterise Symposium unreliable because of the years that have passed, then she should also rethink about believing in the Holy Bible.
Thank you for reading this rant,
Vaya

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_%28Plato%29#Historical_context
http://www.biblica.com/en-us/bible/bible-faqs/when-was-the-bible-written/

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Really Nerdy Jokes

What is the difference between Hitler and a chemist?
The chemist is using gass properly.

How many altos does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None, they can’t get that high.

How many sopranos does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One, she holds it up and waits for the world to revolve around her.

How many singers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Two. An alto to actually do it and a soprano to stand by and ask “isn’t that a little high for you?”





How do you call a pencil without a lead?
Pointless.

Descartes walks into a bar. 
"What's your order?" the barman asks.
"I haven't thought ye-" Descartes started but disappeared.



How many physicists does it take to screw a lightbulb?
Two. One to hold the lightbuld and one to spin the universe.

Two chemist walks into a bar.
The first says "I want 500ml of CH3–CH2–OH."
The second says "I want 400ml of CH3-CH2-OH."
The barman asks the third chemist "Let me guess, you want 300ml of CH3-CH2-OH?"
The third says, "No, it's okay. You'll get it wrong anyways."


  












Sunday, January 18, 2015

A Series of Unfortunate Events and Other Books


or Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's VFD intense training
by Vaya

For those who are not familiar with this, A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 13-book series about the adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, as they find out things about the evil in the world and also about their own family. The narrator is Lemony Snicket, which is the nickname Daniel Handler uses to publish the books.
There are three things I love the most about this series and the rest of the books concerning VFD and Lemony Snicket as a character (All The Wrong Questions, 13 Words, The Beatrice Letters...). 
The first one is that the characters are not superheroes who save the world. The concept that "good always wins over evil" is not valid in this series. Sure, the good nature of the volunteers is mentioned a lot, however the "good guys" hardly ever prevail over the vilains. Best case scenario, they come out of the situation alive and contact their allies. They are in a constant war with evil, which they do not seem to win. Why? Because they are good and sensible and sensitive. The vilains will do anything to win, thinking only about themselves. The volunteers will even sacrifice themeselves for a good cause, but in those books, their sacrifice doesn't bring victory. It gives more time to the rest of the volunteers of the world to gather a Thursday in a safe place and talk.
The second thing is that any of the characters isn't born too smart, too beautiful, too evil, too skilled, too anything. They gained that knowledge and skill. They trained since they were young, and read books and books and books and books. (VFD is basically an organisation of really nice nerds, come to think of it). I mean, sure, Sunny is a toddler and knows how to cook and bites too hard, but she had to do something but stand in a corner and still, isn't a perfect cook, she just knows how to use wasabi is and some other stuff. However, Claus has read a lot of books from their library and Lemony Snicket himself has been trained until he was thirteen years old and still not as skilled as he was when he was older. The conclusion is that every great skill is acquiered after practice and practice and practice. There isn't any Harry who's a wizard, or a Percy who's a halfblood, or a Carrie who's a witch or a Stefan who's a vampire. All those heroes are born with it. Lemony Snicket was trained. The Baudelaires had their sort of training, in the really bad way, but they learned from experience. The rest I mentioned weren't trained to fly with a broomstick or control water. They just thought of it and ta-daa, there it is. (I'm not saying that those characters aren't good role models or that they didn't get better with practice. However, even at the beginning, they had something more than sharp teeth). I don't know how Violet became so skilled with machines, but I guess she wasn't born with gears in her brain (metaphorically speaking of course.)
The third and last thing I like is that we will never know the whole truth. Unless Daniel Handler wakes up one morning and writes a full explanation of everything and the answer to every question, from "What happened to the Baudelaires and Beatrice II after The End?" to "Who are/were Fiona's parents?" to "What does the S stand for in S. Theodora Markson?" to "Are the Quagmire triplets alive?" to "What does the sugar bowl have inside?" to "Why is the statue of the Bombinating Beast so important?" to "What is the Great Unknown?" to "Why is the Snicket File so important?" to...you get the point.(What if all those are all the wrong questions? 0_0) Actually it is really obvious that the information known to us are less than the information we do not about VFD. You can say "Sure, but the Harry Potter fans do now know the whole history of Hogwarts!". True, but the whole history of Hogwarts is not needed. In ASOUE, we need to know ten things, and we know the three.

So, that was it. That's why I love A Series of Unfortunate Events so much.

The World Is Quiet Here,
Vaya
XXXXXXX





     

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Tokyo Ghoul Review

by Zoey
Greetings, little butterflies. This time, as you’ve realized from the title, I’ll write a review on an anime I really love, Tokyo Ghoul. Actually, it doesn’t have such a great storyline-it’s really, really slow.
Kaneki Ken.
I’ll tell you the story from my point of view and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Basically, the main character, Kaneki, such a sweet little peasant boy-he is not a peasant , I just wanted to say that- is being a sweet little thing, which is why it’s annoying. We see him with his best friend who happens to be really hot, sitting on a café. And than some chick comes in and she wants to eat him-literally- and then a piano falls on her head, like we’re in some cheap cartoon on the 1980s. It wasn’t really a piano, but you get my point. And then they take her organs in that other little crap (Kaneki) which happen to be a main character.


That's Uta.
\And then goes the adventure, with some other hot characters like Uta and Ayato, who both happen to be really hot, and so happens to be the main character in the end of the series, which is probably what the producers and betting on to even be watched by anybody but 13 year old who love one direction.


And here's Ayato.

I really do love it, but I just think the anime is focusing on bullshit, like the looks of a pixilated character. It is basically the journey of the ghoul who doesn’t want to eat people. Sounds like bullshit, doesn’t it?
Any of the fangirls who want to talk about Uta, I have a huge crush on him, shut up.

See you around,
Zoey








That sweet little boy on the top? Yea that's him.



Saturday, January 10, 2015

Scott Pilgrim is the Answer to Everything

   Scott Pilgrim VS Kuroshitsuji

           

Scott Pilgrim VS Charlie mcDonnell


 

   \


Scott Pilgrim VS Game of Thrones





 


Scott Pilgrim VS Friends with Benefits







Scott Pilgrim VS Death Note






Scott Pilgrim VS Pretty Little Liars



Scott Pilgrim VS Pacman




Scott Pilgrim VS Powerpuff Girls


 



Scott Pilgrim VS Big Bang Theory







Scott Pilgrim vs Vegans



 

Scott Pilgrim vs Meat Eaters