This Is Halloween

Welcome to Danielle Friday Saturday! No, I'm not a guest blogger on Kate's blog. This is actually a collab and I'm a part of it. Surprise!

I've always loved Halloween. It was one of the perks of moving in Ireland because we don't really celebrate Halloween like this in the Philippines. At least not when I was there. We celebrate more of All-Saints/All-Souls Day in there. I have a lot of childhood memories of commuting for 2 hours with my mom to her homeplace and spending a full day in the cemetery. It's never rainy when we go to the cemetery. It's always hot as hell, made hotter by the hundreds if not thousands of candles lit, but we'd be there nevertheless. The only way I could describe the tombs of the cemetery is like if you stacked one sarcophagi after another, and you just have, like, an 8 foot tall container of where the remains of the dead are. Me and my cousins would climb up to the very top of the tomb and we'd play cards or eat or something. I will never see those tombs anymore cause they've been removed when my grandmother died so now we just have a little mausoleum for the seven people who died in our extended family. But they were a very important part of my childhood. One year I wore fishnet stockings to the cemetery. When I removed it I had fishnet tan lines.

I miss that. But Halloween in Ireland is cool too. The first year I dressed up was when I was twelve. I was a vampire because I was hang up on the Twilight series. I'd like to think I've improved four years later. This year I dressed up as a fortune teller, and I thought it was very believable. Halloween is an excuse for dressing up without anybody looking at you weird, and I love it.

I hope everyone had a brilliant Halloween as well!

Love,
Danielle.

P.S. That was a very Nightvale post the other day, Kate. I like it.

Mission 014: Dress up and Demand sweets

Dress up and Demand sweets, also known as my favourite time of the year. Should I introduce myself? I'm sure you've guessed. It's Kate.

Halloween: when it's socially acceptable for girls to lack clothes, kids to take sweets from strangers and adults to wear silly costumes. I don't understand why everyone doesn't love Halloween. 

I originally had decided to be a skeleton this year but I still haven't organised a costume and Halloween is tomorrow. So now I'm between a goth and a widow. Because I have quite a bit of black clothing and make-up. Bit of a down-fall from last year.

I tried to make biscuits today. I burned them. One would think after studying home economics for three and a half years I would be past the point of over cooking food. Nope. Still can't cook sufficiently. O! woe upon my life! how shall I ever woo a wealthy, well respected husband with these despicable culinary skills! O wretched faith thou art the cursed soul of a fallen angel.

I am the fallen angel.
I am the fallen angel.
I am the fallen angel.

Mission 013: Pick the Theme

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DANIEEEEEEELLLLLLE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

Has to be the most unadventurous song that is universally known and sung every single day year in year out by people all over the world. So here is a more adventurous alternative.
Also this kind of creepy video.
Happy Birthday Danielle I hope you're enjoying it.

This week's theme is Danielle. Or birthdays. Or something. Whatever, it's not like anyone is going to write anything anyway. I think everyone is aware of the inaccuracies of the word birthday, seeing as we are not all reborn once a year. I think that would be pretty frustrating. You'd have like a year to achieve everything you want in your life before you go back to being a mindless new-born again. Wow. I'm surprisingly grateful that doesn't happen.

I've never liked my birthdays. I know, I know, I've failed at childhood. I think I always expected my birthday to be this incredibly perfect day where everything was amazing. And that doesn't happen. I set my expectations too high and now I have a scarred notion of birthdays in general.

Way to be a downer. I'll do some maths now. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN-I-ELLE! YOUR AWESOMENESS IS ROCKETING SKY HIGH. MAYBE ONE DAY IF YOU'RE LUCKY YOUR AWESOMENESS WILL COME CATCH UP TO MINE!

Gods And Godesses

Hello bosomed bloggers! It is Danielle Friday with your host, Danielle! Awaiting for punishment. As usual. I feel like we should give Reliable Kate (which is what we are all calling you from now on) for being the person who hasn't ever EVER missed a post. Also for yelling down at us when we haven't written our posts or are in the way to forgetting to write a post. We love you really, Kate. You're the greatest, as my brother would say.

So while the girls decide on a punishment for me for missing last week again we will talk about Roman/Greek gods and goddesses. I don't know what it is about them that just draws me, but ever since I learned in Social Studies class when I was in the Philippines that there were people who believe/d that different gods ruled different things, I was obsessed. Being brought up in a relatively strict Catholic household, I had never heard of polytheism. I always thought everyone had the same religion, all over the world. I don't know why I wasn't encouraged to learn more about other people's religions because when I finally did got educated on the hundreds if not thousands of different religions out there, I was so interested. Learning about people's different faiths opened my mind and expanded my horizon in a way that nothing had ever really done before, so that led to me finding out that different people have different opinions, and that's okay! SHOCKER!!! 

But anyway, back to the theme. I want to talk to you guys about my favorite goddess. Her name is Ananke, and she is the goddess of "destiny, necessity, and fate." Basically, she decided everything that will ever happen ever which is why all of mortals as wells as all of the gods pay respect to her. How badass is that? The person dictating the life of all gods and mortals, even Zeus, is a woman! I think that's really cool.

Another cool person who is sort of related to Greek gods/goddesses and who I found out while researching this topic is this guy called Pausanias, which wikipedia calls a geographer but to me he's more of a traveller who kept a travelling journal. Basically this guy went to places like Egypt and Greece and Italy and wrote notes on the lives of people in those areas. He wrote about the places he saw and the practices of the people he met and today he's an important figure in archaeology and history. I wish I was him, I really do.

Anyway that is it from yours truly. I'll see you again on Tuesday!

...or will I?

Yes I will.

-Danielle.

Mission 012: Choose your God

Guess who? That's right Kate of Wednesday come around again to update the blog. My sincerest thanks to Aoife for writing her post last week. At least now I won't have to change the blog name to 'cool kate of every and any nationality' or something equally terrifying.

This week's theme is Greek and Roman gods. After doing a small bit of research I discovered that there are still people today who worship Greek and Roman gods. I'd never given much thought to it before but I presumed they were dead religions. It's not the kind of thing you hear about.

There was this one God apparently worshipped by the Greeks known as Agnostos Theos or the Unknown God. Basically they were covering their backs in case it turned out they were worshipping the wrong Gods when judgement day came. They had a special temple dedicated to this Unknown deity. It seems their reasoning was that since they believed there was a god for everything from the sunset to love then chances were they hadn't discovered them all yet. So it's best not to piss off a God you don't even know exists, right?

Allegedly this Agnostos Theos originated at a time when Athens was suffering from a plague. In a desperate attempt to satisfy the Gods a flock of sheep was set loose and wherever they stopped to rest a sacrifice was made to the God of that place. However as it turned out one or more sheep stopped where there was no designated God. So the Greeks erected a temple without any God's name on it and made a sacrifice to any God willing to accept.

Greek Mythology 101 completed. Come back Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this week when there will definitely be three more posts published on the topic.

MISSION...........................................................................COMPLETED

Treading Water

Aoife back again with Saturday's post.

I am renown for always being late so I apologise for missing the last few deadlines.

So I don't know what this week's theme is so I wanted to share with you a story( don't if you can call it a story but anyway) about dealing with the journey and trial that life can be.

Treading Water

All we ever really need to do is keep our heads above water. No matter how hard it may be or how heavy you feel, if you could keep your head up you will live. 

Struggle onwards, stumbling and faltering, weak and confused though you are because if you keep going you will grow stronger, faster, wiser and you, my friend will rise. 
Leave behind the darkened water and move forward. 
Look back occasionally to see how far you have come and all you have accomplished but don't linger there, look forward so you can see the path. 
Wonder and weave, explore the side roads and vallys all around you as you journey on because it is not the destination that matters as much as the journey itself.

The path you take may not be the wisest or best nor the one you would have liked to take- but travel on and learn from it. Chose wiser next time and laugh over rash judgements with people you meet along the way. Because all path cross at some point and if you do not take the chances you are given then life will pass you by.


Sometimes I think I get so caught up in the everyday monotony of working for the future that I neglect the life I'm living right now. It's so easy to focus solely on the goal and forget that what you learn along the road is equally important.

You life and time are your's so remember to cherish them because time once lost does not come again.

That's all for this week.
See you next Saturday (hopefully),
Aoife

Mission 011: Tell us the Day

Che Guevara was a Marxist social revolutionary from Argentina. His father was part Irish and his mother Basque.In 1948 he started studying medicine in college but two years later he decided to take a break from his studies to travel. He went on a 4,500 km solo trip through the rural areas of north Argentina on a bicycle that he installed an engine into. If that's not badass enough for you, the following year he went on an 8,000 km motorcycle trek but this time he brought along a friend who is relatively unimportant to this tale.

In Chile Guevara was horrified by the working conditions of copper miners and the poverty experienced by peasant farmers. He wrote an account of his journey entitled The Motorcycle Diaries which became a New York Times best seller and was made into a film in 2004. I now really want to both read and watch it.

Guevara was later a main player into the rise of Fidel Castro to power in Cuba. He became close friends with Castro and was the minister for industry during his rule. He joined Castro's revolutionary group and worked for equality among American classes. In 1965 Guevara travelled to Africa to share his knowledge of Guerilla warfare to the ongoing conflict in Congo.

On this day, October 9th, in 1967 while in Bolivia he was captured by the CIA and executed. His hands were cut off as proof of his death and he was buried in an unmarked grave. This was an attempt to suppress communism and socialism and to maintain a social hierarchy of class and race.

He's not a figure of perfection though. It's thought that as supreme prosecutor during Castro's reign he orchestrated the show trials and ordered the execution of hundreds of military leaders and civilians associated with the previous leader.

This has been history week and I have been you're educator Kate of Wednesday, known to some as Kate the Reliable but more commonly known as O Mighty Kate of the Mysterious and Far Off Land.
Remember you can trust me, I'm the reliable one.

MISSION............................................................COMPLETED