So you’ve never tried Stand-Up?

It’s interesting the amount of people you meet who make you laugh, some people just have a knack for it. Some people are crude, awkward or inappropriate, and some people are just hilarious. And if you’re one of those people who enjoy making others laugh and get’s a small win out of a chortle, you’ve probably been told “Mate, you should definitely do stand up comedy”. And you know what, you should.

I love making people laugh, from little kids to pensioners, it’s a part of who I am. And because of comments such as the one mentioned before I’d always thought of giving stand up comedy a try. But that’s what it was, just a thought.

It wasn’t until I saw some mates give it a go at a local open mic comp that I decided, you know what, I’m going to try this. So sure enough, the next open mic contest, I gave it a go. And boy was I nervous, I wrote the whole thing the afternoon of the competition, and it was all about going to the toilet. It wasn’t toilet humour. Well actually I guess it was, and as you can imagine, it wasn’t that great.

After that gig my mates gave me some advice, try characters. I’d always assumed the role of characters ever since I was a kid. I used to love dressing up and as an observer of things, I would then act out characters for my mates. So the next chance I had, I tried a character. This time, it went well and I’ve been doing characters ever since.

Now flash forward a year and last weekend I represented Tasmania in the Triple J Raw Comedy Final in Melbourne, it was a huge honour and I was blessed with the opportunity. But it didn’t just happen. It took me a little while to develop my characters and to work out my own unique brand of comedy. And I’m lucky enough that it’s working.

Comedy is a great art, but it’s not always the easiest. A lot of people try to be the next Dave Hughes or the next David O’Doherty, but they don’t try to be themselves. It’s important to work out your own style and to not be confined or limited by what others say comedy is.

I’m passionate about doing comedy that isn’t crude, and isn’t negative, and that doesn’t mean that I can’t laugh at other comedy. But that’s the kind of jokes I want to tell. I want to prove that you can make people laugh without swearing or smut. I want to make a statement.

And if you've always thought about trying stand up, do it! It’s an awesome experience and if you stuff up, at least you know if you’re any good. But you never know, you might discover and awesome hobby like I have.

But be yourself and find your own unique style of comedy, do something that you want to do and be creative. And if you’re that person who get’s told they’re funny everyday, why not challenge yourself and put it to the test. Who know’s what could happen.



Read more by Dylan.

Worry.

I have always found that I am not a really big worrier. I undoubtedly have my moments but, overall, I am not worried about a whole lot. I guess this is partly because I have had a pretty blessed life but, also, I am generally an optimistic person who looks primarily to the future where, for some reason, I am positive everything works out well for me. I am sure that I will get my bachelor degree and maybe even my masters; sure that I will marry an amazing woman; sure I will get a job I am happy with and sure that I will live to see my eventual grandchildren. I’d even go as far to say that I will be reasonably successful and will do work that is meaningful to myself and others: work that could have potential effect on people’s lives, to whatever extent that will end up being.

This view of myself may come across as either arrogant or self-deluded and it may seem weird to you that I can be so sure of myself, but I believe that this comes from a good knowledge of myself, my aspirations and what things in this world cause a passion in me that inspires action. It is something that I believe all people need to discover about themselves in order to begin to derive purpose in their lives, as well as a confidence and healthy self-love – that we require to form and maintain strong relationships with fellow humans. I mean, how can we love others until we understand how to love ourselves for what we are and, through this, begin to accept our own faults in order to overlook those of others? But I digress.

Maybe, like me, you aren't fazed by the unmapped path your life will inevitably take toward the eminent – but theoretically unreachable – future. Instead, maybe you are a person who dwells in past worries and actions that cause regret or embarrassment… but, again, I am not really this person. It is said that it is dangerous to dwell for too long in the past and I guess, in a lot of ways, this is true. In this respect, the main problem I face is dwelling in the positives of my past and how things used to be so fun and easy. While a small bit of nostalgia can be good, if I am not careful it can begin to distract from all the good things of the present and stop me from moving forward as a person, which I will get to later. I might paint it in a bad light, but I am far from complaining: I would pick nostalgia any day over the alternative of regret and embarrassment, which many people face daily. I have done stuff I regret: we all have and, although that statement is a cliché, it’s the truth. I mentioned above the importance of knowing yourself and a healthy self-love and I do believe that this should be something that all people aspire to, but I also believe that to get to this place one needs to learn the discipline of forgiveness: both for oneself and for others. It is in forgiveness that you can accept your own faults, as well as those who have wronged you, and break free from whatever it is that is causing worry in your past.

My worries, however, lay not in the past or the future, but instead the present. For some people, present worry will include everyday stuff like assignments, school and other commitments, which undoubtedly cause stress among all who have to deal with them: including myself. For me at the moment, though, a big worry is that of becoming complacent in who I am and ceasing to push myself daily to achieve new things. It seems that looking too much into future can make it easy to fall into and attitude of just 'waiting it out': waiting until you have that degree; waiting until you have that job or until you are married and successful. I wonder if this is the right thing. I look to my past and see the times where I was pushing myself at such high levels and I remember how much I thrived on it. I worry that I may one day loose this spirit to an attitude of waiting it out and becoming complacent. Again, this is just me. I am sure that you are different and, if you were to be just like me, that would be a little creepy.

I like to think that I am different to others and that my worries are in part unique, so I guess it frustrates me that, after all this, it is yet another cliché that answers my problems. I am not going to repeat, but the gist is that today is a gift and that we should try and make the most of it. To me, this means pushing ourselves daily to try and better ourselves and to try new, exciting things. I guess if there was really a point to all this, which I think relates to all people, it would be that to avoid worry our lives we should go about knowing, forgiving, loving and living non-complacent lives with others and, of equal importance, with ourselves.

That's my thoughts on it and I would love to hear yours. Comment below and tell us what it is that worries you, be it present, future or past. Maybe you have your own thoughts and opinions on certain topics, in which case I welcome you to submit a blog post of your own to info@hellonoise.com and we may feature it on the site.

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Read more by Brayden.

Fairtrade this Easter

Chocolate. You might like it. You might love it, might even hate it, but without a doubt, chocolate is one of the most popular foods around. Which brings me to one of my favourite times of the year – Easter. If there is something I like more than chocolate alone, is a whole day dedicated to the receiving and consuming of huge quantities of it! Now I don’t know if you celebrate Easter still. In my family, I have to beg my parents every year to buy me a few Easter eggs or an Easter bunny rabbit, but with the special day just around the corner, it becomes important to consider just what we are buying.

When you read the label or wrapper on a product we buy, we might be able to see what country it was made in, but what’s super important is what country the materials or ingredients were sourced from. So how does this relate to chocolate?

Well at the moment, a whopping 70% of the cocoa beans used to make the worlds chocolate comes from West Africa. In recent years, the market for cocoa has dropped, and harvesting cocoa beans is not an easy job. So to save money; cocoa farmers across West Africa have been known to use their children as a means of cheap or unpaid labour. Imagine not being able to hang out with your friends during the day, or picture being plucked from school to work incredibly hard all day, every day, to help support your family. In some instances, you might not even be able to go to school because your family cannot afford it. Instead, you are working hard for free, so your family can spend whatever money they have on your next meal. To top it all off, the work I am talking about here isn’t a walk in the park. Some children will spend their days carrying heavy loads and working with fire, chemicals and dangerous knives with little or no protective gear. In the most extreme of cases, some media reports show that children as young as six years old are working in these conditions up to 100 hours a week. 100 hours a week?! As a college aged student, I complete about 22+ hours a week at school and I come home exhausted. I cannot even begin to fathom the idea of 100 hours a week.

So with all of this new information in mind, a question you might ask is ‘well what can I do about this?’ the situations just mentioned seems pretty hopeless and hard to change, but lucky for us in Australia, we have something we can do! This Easter, look for the Fairtrade logo (http://www.fta.org.au/) on all chocolate you buy. This logo means that there is a guarantee that all people were paid fairly in the process of making your chocolate, and that the yummy snack you are about to eat is slave labour free! How we spend our money has a huge impact upon the living conditions of the cocoa farmers. If we make sure our chocolate is Fairtrade, we can munch away on it happily, knowing that your chocolate is helping to stop the sad and terrible process of child labour. Another action that you could take is to look into joining a VGroup with VGen Tasmania (http://www.vgen.org/) - an easily accessible group of young people that helps to promote and encourage Fairtrade at all times of the year!

‘So where might I find some Fairtrade chocolate?’ is another important question. This Easter, when you’re asking your parents to buy you some chocolate, or considering buying some for someone else, head towards any convenience store and look for Cadburys plain dairy milk chocolate – the only chocolate Cadburys sells as Fairtrade. Also search for your standard Kit Kat bar for a Fairtrade option. You could also visit any Oxfam shop and they will have a wide range of delicious ethical chocolate available for you!

Fairtrade seems like this super excellent idea to help combat slave labour in West Africa, so the big important question is, why isn’t all chocolate Fairtrade? In 2001 all major chocolate producing companies agreed to work towards making ALL their products Fairtrade. Unfortunately, 12 years later, this is still a target to be reached. So also by ensuring you buy Fairtrade, you are sending a message to the big chocolate companies saying ‘I want my chocolate to be guaranteed slave labour free!’ This Easter you can even get Cadburys Fairtrade eggs from most stores.

Fairtrade does not have to end with chocolate. Also available to us is Fairtrade tea, coffee, sports balls, clothes and even underwear! Online stores such as http://www.etiko.com.au/ can help you out there.  

This year, swap your tea, coffee, sports balls, clothes and chocolate for the Fairtrade version. We all love chocolate – except the kids that are forced to make it.

Read more by Tegan