Going to Launceston

This post could in fact have a double meaning. As it happens, I am going to Launceston for the weekend. But, bigger news than that, is that I'm going to be at the Launceston Clinical School next year for my fourth year of med. It was what I put as my preference, but we still weren't sure who'd get what. As it happens, Lonny must have been put #1 by fewer people than fit, because some extras are going - it was one guy's 3rd preference (out of 3). There's a bunch of quite a few of my friends that will be going to Launceston - me, Jack, Ruth, Chloe, Nick, Richo, other Nick, Nathan and so on - it looks like a good group. I think there'll be 5 girls and the rest boys from my year - plus a bunch of what will then be 5th years! Fun Fun. So it'll be exciting and daunting and cold to move up there - but I'm sure there'll be many trips up and down, and its only for a year (or two maybe). Certainly it'll be a new era of finding somewhere to live, and people to live with... but I wil definitely miss lots of things about Hobart and home and family and friends at this end of the state.

This weekend (which will also be spent in Launceston) it is a family friend's suprise birthday party (can't tell say who because it's a surprise!). Also Tim and I will catch up with his family, see a bit of my family... we even have a booking to go out for what should be a very nice dinner. More about that later.

More celebrations! (Happy Birthday Tahnee)

This week was Tahnee's birthday. We had a little (girly) party for her at my house on the day, with an amazing cake made by Holly, and presents from everyone! I had had fun making Tahnee's present - a heat pack! But not any ordinary heat pack - a cuddly critter which had no face because I didn't decide and ran out of time! I was testing it the night before and didn't really want to give it away because it was so nice and warm!

The cake, and my pikelets served with jam and cream, and coffees for everyone

The heat pack!

Blowing out the candles!

Last night, the celebrations continued with a birthday dinner with Tahnee's family at Pashas. The service was average, but it was a most enjoyable evening. Afterwards, her cousin James, Tahnee, Tim and I went to Onba for a drink. Tahnee had the fantastic raspberry tart margerita that I had last time, and I had the Pina Colada which was probably quite good for what it was, but it was nearly more than I could drink of coconut flavour! Tim's 'tea house' green tea and orange that was supposed to be blood orange drink was pretty good as well.

Last time at Onbar, with martinis.

Celebrations!

During the last couple of weeks, there have been several celebrations. Earlier in the month, we had a family mother's day party combined with an early round 1 of celebrations for my cousin Jonathan's 17th birthday. His birthday isn't until July, but Hamish couldn't restrain himself from opening Jon's present for any more days and we all like spread out parties!

We all gathered some time around 10am, for a scrumptious brunch of many delicacies: poached eggs, bacon, home made hollondiase sauce, ''French crumpets"(ie crumpets cooked a la French toast), nice bread and freshly made white chocolate and raspberry muffins (my contribution).

Our Mothers seemed to enjoy themselves - there were presents for both of them, from their children, and from each other! I got my dear Mum a nice glass jug! Katherine got some nougat and a flowering plant cunningly purchased by me on the way there, on Linden's behalf. She also got another different flowering plant from my Mum, for being a good Mum, while, Katherine gave Mum (and herself) a microwavable gel heat back in a fluffy cover.



After the Mum's were duly celebrated, it was Jon's turn. First, some background: Katherine knew what Jonny was getting from us, but didn't want to give it away, so a week or so before had said something like 'I told Hamish not to get you a pony, but you know what he's like'. Since then, I'd sent him a message saying we'd been looking after his present well, and it would be good to get it out of the garage, and comments along those lines. I didn't want to fail to deliver after all the pony hype so a stop by the reliable Chickenfeed and viola:


After a hilarious few minutes where Jonny combed the pony's silky blue mane only to discover that a) the tail was designed for teenage boys to play with, b) the comb wasn't designed for teenage boys to play with and c) the neck wasn't designed with teenage boys to play with!! Having well and truly injured the poor pony we moved onto the real present: Arkham Horror!


After they unwrapped the game and admired the pieces, it was only natural to play it. After 5 or so hours, (while I observed while writing up an assigment on my lappy) they lost the game to the monster of the board. At this point Mum and I left Hamish behind to stay for dinner and play another game!!! By all accounts, it is an awesome game. (And can even be played with 1 player!)

Tim's car!

For now I don't think I have any pictures of the car itself from the outside, but I can show this:


I'll work on getting some sort of posed shot of him with the car - or at least the car posing for me. But today Tim's gone to Zeehan until tomorrow or the day after, so his car will not be visiting for a couple of days!

Some more happenings and pictures.

Here's some more recent 'things' that have happened - didn't want a mega mega post last time around.

One other recent event was the 2&1/2 Days in Margate festival. I went down to Margate with some friends on the saturday and checked out various things - including getting my friend Sarah's boyfriend some Olliebollen at Channel Fair, some Lemon Tart at Pear Ridge, and a browse at the Margate Train and Brookfield. We also stopped by my church for the Spiritual Journey's art exhibition which was most impressive (if I may say so!). I actually had something in it, as did my grandmother. The display boards were different from other years, and all the paintings/sculptures/prints/photos etc looked really good. I was back there on the Sunday for the exhibition opening - a guy from Fusion(ish) spoke really well. I also helped out with the kids activities - there weren't that many kids, but I enjoyed doing some painting with Amelia, and some crayon drawings and the rest.


Less recently, but not that long ago, dearest Jac and Jo were back for a visit. They weren't very well which was a shame, but it was great to catch up. That was at Easter, but clearly, I've not posted since way before that. I just found a picture so thought I'd add that too!!

Actually, thinking back, there was also a trip away with Tim, and his Dad and brother on his Grandfather's boat. We headed down towards Southport and Bruny for the weekend - there wasn't much wind but some nice days, and it was all very relaxing.

The 'Zeehan' moored in Southport Bay

Marcus and Tim
Tim
Me - on the beach at SouthportSomewhere near Bruny

Sometime in between all that, Tim sold his car and was stuck driving a BMW Z3 for the interim. That was tough, but he managed - and we even had some nice enough days that he could put the roof down. Those days are gone now though, because he's bought himself a shiny silver Citroen. On his behalf, I'd like to point out that it is the model of car (in shape if not engine) that won the 2004 World Rally Championships!

testing testing - does this still work?

So, its been a while. I've not had the blog get to the top of my list for a while probably because it feels like not much of interest has happened, but when it has, I probably haven't made time for blogging it. This will change - for at least today. I might even make this into two posts, since it got longer than most will want to read!

Most recently (tonight), I've been at the IMPACT AGM. IMPACT is the overseas medical aid society that I'm involved with. This year gone, I've been the 'publications officer' and in charge of making some mighty fine posters. I can't believe I got publisher about a month ago and used it for my last two posters - after all this time!! Still, I made do with powerpoint and word and everything else... but I am no longer publications officer so thats not my main concern. Instead, I'm the GHN representative. GHN stands for Global Health Network and basically means I'll be a link between the UTAS IMPACT and the other national equivalents. It probably all sounds boring - but I'm excited to hear whats going on in other places and to see how we can improve the way IMPACT does stuff. What we do, by the way, is a mix of raising awareness (doco screenings etc), Foods of the World events (food, fundraising and a speaker on relevant things), and some other bits and pieces - electives night, bbqs and lunches. All good fun. Anyway - enough promo, but I think its a great cause and after deciding to run for the committee again, I'm excited about what the new committee will do. Also, there has just been a change to the constitution that means we'll only be in office till October, then we'll have another AGM annually from then - so its only a short stint I'm locked into.

The faithful old committee! Bharat, me, Kunal, Amit, Mel and Rhea.

The combined force of IMPACT - Ingrid, Amit, Kunal, Bharat, Anoop, Rhea, Meng Ying, Lahiru, Mel and I.

Other than that.. there's uni. I'm enjoying being in the hospital a little - although more so my last rotation compared to my current one. But we are around the clinical school nearly every day, doing clinical subjects as well as some remnant bits of anatomy and so on (which all relate to insanely complicated neurology/brain stuff!). I'm supposed to be preparing a talk on treatment of depression right now actually - but that is nearly done! I'm enjoying hearing about the psychiatry, as well as the paediatric and obstetric stuff, although that can be a bit slow.

I recently finished up the sailing season with the end of season dinner. I didn't get to sail much as it happened, but I enjoyed teaching the kidlings and watching them progress from knowing nothing about boats to being able to sail out and around something and back all on their own. Its great to see them grow in confidence even when they start out very unsure about the whole thing.

All the colourful little boats!

With my youthgroup hat on, we had a recent 'special event' which was a mystery bus trip. This did NOT involve any sort of a piss up, but was quite good fun. There were various parts - a visit to McDonalds, the Botanical Gardens, Marieville Esplanade, a walk through Battery Point to Salamanca, a drive up Mt Wellington... Pizza, icecream, lemonade... and all the way they had to collect photographs of the team and the 'mascots' doing various tasks.

My Timmy with all the 'Mascots'! (thanks to their owners for letting me borrow them!)

The mob up Mt Wellington. I'd like to add that it was COLD (in case you can't tell)

There's no doubt more happening, and maybe looking through my photos will jog my memory, but for now... that'll do.