cupkatespace

Lots of photos of our homely home!

2010-04-01T20:12:00.005+11:00

Some housey photos because I've been meaning to for a while... You've already seen a few bits though.

That's the kitchen. But it rarely looks like that... and not that often like the next one (remember the mars bar cheesecake)! Maybe more often, Tim and I cooking together, but then who takes the photos?

This is our cute little unuseful fire place, complete with many wedding cards, and a picture of the garden at my old house by my talented grandmother. Clearly once again I was taking the photos.. but Tim is a great washing fairy! This is also the bathroom, complete with footed bath, however so far I failed to photograph it.

We got a new bed. The shop sadly failed to deliver the one we ordered with drawers, so that will be fixed, but we got to use it anyway - meaning our new queen mattress no longer dangled off the double base. Tim however, got stuck behind it for a moment or two. Not looking forward to unbuilding it to swap it though!

I quite like the outside of the house, maybe except for the crack in the wall! Its got roses and hedges which I'd probably never plant, but are quite attractive. They've even survived all by themselves with only a bit of maintenance here and there so far.
This rose bush had spectacular coloured roses - particularly as they progressed through the shades.

Most of my herbs are quite happy, although a bit catterpillar-fied sometimes, and something had curly leaf, and something else had powdery mildew.. but I'm working on that! We get to eat fresh herbs lots though.

Some other pics of people actually in the house seem to be from Christmas!! We had a Scholes/Smith/Bendall etc afternoon tea here before the big dinner at my grandparents. Pictures here are the Bendall boys beating the Scholes sons (experience comes with age I think!)

Marcus, Tim, Hilary, Martin, Nanna and part of Linden.

Nanna, Mum, Katherine, Papa and Jon's leg.
Our little Christmas tree, by this time minus presents. With Tim's X arcade next to it.. all the better for computer games in retro glory, just like the arcades of the 80s. Works well for 2 player lego batman :) To the left is the TV, to the right is the couch from Kate AD (Dad's wife) and behind are the two armchairs to match.. very comfy.

Come visit us some time (if we actually know you and like you :p ) there's a spare bed :)

Roast Dinner for 8

2010-04-01T18:54:00.004+11:00

On the last Wednesday before Easter (yesterday) a group of us decided to have a special meal to celebrate Easter together, enjoy time together and to remember some of the Passover tradition of the Jews and Christians. The group of people that came was most of 'MCG' or med Christian group who get together roughly fortnightly at each other's houses. We put together an evening of great food and a snapshop of the traditional Passover readings/prayers and bits and pieces! We included things like searching for and throwing any bread out of the house, sweeping the last crumbs out, symbolically letting Elijah in, the Sedar plate full of strange things, and eating unleavened bread and roast lamb. It was all a success I think - I hosted it at our house (sadly while Tim was away in the Tarkine working)

Catering was a slight challenge for me - not really knowing how much 8-9 uni students eat when offered a good roast meal (some of those boys are very tall) so I guessed over rather than under - consequently we've got some excellent left overs. We tied plenty of rosemary onto the pre-marinated lamb legs, as well as poking in some bits of garlic. Jackie, Ruth and I had quite a fun time preparing everything - cooking up a storm with gin and tonic in hand!

The other tray of pumpkin and sweet potato that was on top was already cooked by this time so was out for a while, and the cheesy cauliflower and broccoli was yet to go in, (as was the brownie for dessert).
All laid with our shiny new things. And pretty white roses from Ruth's front garden, and mini pinks from ours (luckily they grow all by themselves).
There's wasn't even too much left to do when people arrived!

That's the bread, thrown out the door! An action shot would have been better!

Thats the Sedar plate with symbolic bitter herbs and salty water, honey, apple and nut paste to symbolise mortar and sweet things, as well as the egg for something to do with the temple.
And then it was time to tuck in!Happy eating pictures!

Next year, in the new Jerusalem?

Chef Timmy

2010-03-20T18:20:00.005+11:00

Couldn't resist writing about what will be a hideously unhealthy but hopefully delicious taste sensation that is developing in our kitchen. Its a... Mars Bar Cheesecake. Yep thats 3 twin mars bars (unfortunately there was half a mars bar spare, so we had to check it was ok!).
He got all excited and decided to make it to go with our meal of left over takeaway pizza! I promise our diet isn't usually this bad - only last week we made our friend Tahnee and James a healthy Thai beef salad - one of our frequent meals!
Anyway, I'm writing my assignment while he makes it... except I'm writing about what he's doing!

Once upon a time...

2010-02-14T17:59:00.002+11:00

Once upon a time, I used to do exciting things and write a blog. Even then, it was intermittent. Now I do exciting things, and haven't posted here for a while!

If anyone ever reads this, and knows me, you would know that in the last 6 months I had end of year exams, my wedding and honeymoon, Christmas (well everyone had that) and New Years at the Falls Festival, and 4 weeks of elective medical placement over my summer holidays. Then I started uni again in final year medicine. I didn't want to write much about the wedding plans before the wedding as there were lots of suprises, and since then, apparently I have been either internetless or busy most of the time!

Anyway, all is going well. I will devote a whole post to the wedding at some stage - perhaps with some previously secret dress making pics as I quite like them. I am enjoying married life with Tim and we like our little house. We are settling into routine well with me back at university.

Here are a couple of pictures of the last few months:

Our friends Megan and Vernon's wedding

And at the reception - Tim and I with Mum and Hamish

An end of year uni party at my (old) share house

A wedding shot!

And another.

Celebrating New Years at the Falls Festival - with safety precautions in place

I spent 2 weeks at Tenterfield Hospital in NSW, and got to practice lots of clinical skills. I made friends with a 6 year old and fixed her Cookie Monster (even if she didn't know he was broken!)

Our best friends James and Tahnee got married last weekend - it was a lovely wedding at his farm with the reception at Stonefield. It was a great day!

Tim and I both got to be in the bridal party - 'matron' of honour and equal best man! It meant we got to have matching outfits!

At Festivale yesterday, the Launceston equivalent of the Taste but in the City Park... Tim's brother Marcus was part of a campaign called 'To Write Love on Her Arms' combatting depression and self harm and other nasty stuff - we obliged and had love written on us.

Day two onwards in Melbourne

2009-09-03T22:19:00.002+10:00

The technology that allows me to describe to the world what I'm eating while sitting on a tram also just meant that with the touch of a finger, I just discarded an email which was my blog post. Here goes again. [Then I got distracted with shopping and didn't write a lot more for some weeks. Here goes again again!]

Melbourne!

Day two, which was really only our first morning began well. We found a bakery style shop a very inter-cultural vibe -cheesecake, pork buns, custard donuts, sesame balls, ham and cheese roll things, and lots more. In fact it was so good that we went there for breakfast every day for the rest of the trip!

Couldn't get enough of the sesame balls, pork buns, and custard donuts (etc) - all perfect breakfast fare!

Now that is a little in the past, I can't remember as many of the culinary/shopping details of each day - but maybe thats a good thing for anyone that reads this. In summary of the shopping - we went to many shoe shops, and quite a few other shops. I was after wedding shoes. Despite finding some I really liked in the nearly first shop - about 500m from our hotel, it took me another day to decide they were the ones, and then another day for them to get a pair in the right size from their other shop, and then another day for me to decide actually they were too tight and I'd get the other size after all! In the mean time, I bought a pair of boots, pair of black work shoes and another cute cheapie pair that are confused as to whether they are sandals or not! Those 3 pairs came in together for less than $150. I won't mention the wedding shoes - but I love them! I also snagged a couple of handy workshirts and some cool dresses!

On one of the days, after a solid bout of shopping, we needed a little rest.. a sit down, and something to drink. A helpful shop girl somewhere suggested the new Lindt Cafe which was just the thing - just a short queue, for a very very tasty hot chocolate, and beautifully subtle creamy icecreams. Good thing it was tasty, because they clearly had a change of shift or something and left our 'hot' choc sitting there for a bit!

(It was better than the picture shows, but after being arty with my camera/phone, I began to spill the milk, so then I had to pay attention to get my value for money - it wasn't a cheap hot chocolate!)

On Saturday, with Tim in tow, we braved the Southern Cross DFO - along with many footy fans who were down that way watching some team or other be beaten by another team. Before we even got there, we found Tim a pair of bargain wedding shoes for him - camper shoes no less! He saved hundreds and they were quite reasonable in the end, and the only pair left was the perfect size for him. We also had great success at the DFO - including a wedding shirt for Tim.

Enough about the shopping - and a little more about the eating.

Thursday night Mum and I had a fantastic meal at the Wine Bar. We'd been on a hunt for some other place, and couldn't find it, and when our feet could carry us on further, and the two of us couldn't make our fancy phones find the place Mum had in mind (though apparently it was nearby but through a little door to upstairs!) we gave in and went in a warm looking place. There was a skinny bar area and then a long table with lots of people along it. We pulled up stools at one end and had a fantastic meal and didn't even feel like we were right next to lots of people. That is, until near the end when a new couple sat opposite us, clearly on a date and we couldn't help notice the lack of conversation skills on the man's part - she kept trying to start conversations, then he'd just talk about himself a bit and never ask her anything - it was hard to not listen!!

We planned to have a cocktail together, but since we ate at a wine bar, opted for a delicious wine with dinner and a dessert wine each as (another) treat

Friday, our culinary highlights included breakfast at the asian(ish) bakery, lunch at Movida, and dinner after Tim arrived, at a delicious Lebanese restaraunt. Apparently I'd been there before, and slept on my sheep skin under the table. At the end of the fantastic and substantial lebanse banquet the cook came out of the kitchen and said hello and made sure we'd had a good meal - I'm told she was the same homely Lebanese woman as about 20 years ago! I did get in trouble when I asked for Turkish coffee as my after dinner drink - just because it was Lebanese place! Apparently I should have said Lebanese coffee, but what about Lebanese delight?

Movida with mood lighting, and us being phone/foody geeks!

Movida, a favourite Spanish Tapas bar provided a good range: the classic and irresistable anchovie with tomato sorbet, a stunning egg dish with truffle, and some other delicacies. Dessert was goats cheese icecream with a tart/flan kind of thing.. delicious!

Movida's alley is full of graffiti - very cool!

On Saturday, after breakfast at the favourite bakery, and the day at the DFO, we met up with some of Tim's friends for Vietnamese. After some consideration, we picked a place in Victoria St - the Vietnamese heart of Melbourne, and settled in for (another) great feed. The classic Vietnamese salad was a hit, and the other flavours were all unique and authentic and most enjoyable.

Sunday, we nicked into Federation Square and Tim and I had a look at the exhibition that was on - which was a fantastic John Brack collection. I'd seen some before, but still thoroughly enjoyed our gallop through. Before we started however we needed some coffee:

Then we had to rush off because every trip to Melbourne should include yum cha, and we were running out of hours! We fitted in a top quality yum cha meal from the Dragon Boat Palace, about 3 places down from our hotel. We shared lots of different dishes and enjoyed catching up with my aunt and uncle, Hilary and Martin and another friend Hilary!

John Brack pic

And then, it was time to go home - Tim and I to Launceston, and Mum to Hobart. And that was the end of a successful foody and shopping trip to Melbourne!

More shots of Movida's alleyway:
There was also a bride and groom wandering down on the way to Movida getting photos taken! Pretty cool!

Spring!

2009-09-01T17:34:00.002+10:00

There are small signs of spring, springing up... its definitely lighter at both ends of the day, and warmer most days too compared to not long ago (well actually last night was pretty cold but it wasn't yet spring!) My little potted herb garden is flourishing for the main part - just a couple of the baby corianders are struggling because I left them in a tiny punnet and forgot them a bit!

A corner of my desk with flowers from the garden (the clean corner of my desk!)

The pot of mixed flower seeds I planted a while ago now has flowers! And some herbs in the background.

Slightly overgrown, but now flowering!

Wedding cake?

2009-08-31T22:02:00.002+10:00

I think maybe I've found Tim's ideal wedding cake!! It probably won't actually look anything quite like this.

I do have other posts pending (even halfway through) but then there were visits to Hobart, an assignment due today, another one due next week.. and so on! Back to it... will blog again one day soon!

First night in Melbourne

2009-08-06T15:42:00.001+10:00

Naturally its all about the food (or at least the shops haven't opened). We went to a Korean restaurant called the Oriental Spoon for dinner and shared some entrees and a main. All very tasty with a good crowd of locals.

As entrees we had a familiar but tasty seaweed salad, some steamed pork and vegetable dumplings, kimchi jeon which was a kind of pancake, and some little balls which where a bit like croquettes with pieces of octopus hiding inside them. Main course, which was shared at the same time was pork ribs - we think baby pork given they were tiny - but delicious!

By the time we finished it seemed to only be 9pm so we had a pleasant wander the long way home picking out all the shoe shops to come back to in shopping hours!

And the top 20 were...

2009-07-14T08:21:00.003+10:00

If anyone is interested, I'm sure you can find this out but... look here for the full list or here are the top 20:

1. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. Rage Against the Machine - Killing In The Name
3. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
4. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
5. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
6. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
7. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge
9. Foo Fighters - Everlong
10. Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
11. John Lennon - Imagine
12. Oasis - Wonderwall
13. Radiohead - Creep
14. The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
15. Radiohead - Karma Police
16. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
17. Hilltop Hoods - The Nosebleed Section
18. Muse - Knights Of Cydonia
19. Metallica - One
20. White Stripes - Seven Nation Army

Overall the group at my place enjoyed the countdown, but were probably a bit suprised by the top 5. Nathan wanted Bohemian Rhapsody higher, I never would have thought of Rage against the machine - although Richo liked it, and so did Hamish. After talking to Hamish and finding out Joy Division was the name for the nazi sex slaves or something, Joy Division has a new meaning and I'm not sure I like it. Still no suprise their song was up there. I liked White Stripes Seven Nation Army also - might have voted for it if I'd thought of it (though it was hard to pick 10!). The song I voted for that got highest was Massive Attack's Teardrop at #22.

Enough about that - it was a pleasant laid back party but now its a new week. And I'm on urology which mainly means 7 or 7;30 starts (or 6:45 on Fridays to check up on patients before grand rounds with the consultants). As far as surgical specialties go, its not bad, and the consultants are pretty nice. Still, despite the interesting parts, I'm not sure I'm that keen on endless prostate examinations! Last Thursday was good though: journal club = breakfast at a cafe with intern, RMO, reg and consultants (their shout) and we discussed a couple of journal articles! Eggs benedict was a good way to start a day - and I was grateful for a good feed after assisting in a nephrectomy operation for several hours later in the day (yep we took out his kidney).

Hottest 100 of all time party

2009-07-12T13:44:00.001+10:00

Its a rainy Sunday and there's a bunch of us at my house listening to the final 50 of the countdown. One reason for this post is because I have a new toy and I'm trying out blogging from it- its a new HTC magic phone with Google android operating system. It links in really well with gmail, gtalk and all other Google bases things. Its arival to iphone and so far I like it!
The party is low key but fun. We had to turn up the music go hear over the hail, and the brief sunny spell is gone!
Better go be social, plus the orange glow at the bbq suggests our lunch is on fire!

Dinner was Gorge-ous!

2009-06-04T10:05:00.004+10:00

Last night Tim and I ate out at the Launceston Gorge Restaurant for our 2 year anniversary. It was a beautiful setting - in fact, not actually the spot I'd pictured. I'd seen the building before but not realised it was actually the restaraunt in the Gorge!! It was lovely at night - lit up and surrounded by very wet and drippy trees!

The waiter with his slightly English accent was very helpful and frequently refilled our water glasses, attended to the wine glasses and looked after us well. The winter special was on so we got 3 courses for $40 which was a very good deal.

We got a bottle of wine - some WA one called Bandit, because it was one of the cheaper ones, but also because it had a grape called Tampranillo which we'd never heard of. We asked our English waiter, and he said he'd not tried it but the bottle was pretty and it had been very popular and it was possibly the last bottle left - so we got it! Reading the bottle told us that the Bandit label was based on a WA bushranger, Moondyne Joe who was caught drinking wine in the Houghton cellars in the 1860s.

For Starters, Tim had half a dozen natural oysters, and I had deep fried King Island Brie with tomato and peach chutney. We shared of course because I'm not sure how that much deep fried cheese would have felt later - but it was delicious!

For mains, Tim had Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon with Proscuitto and some herb butter or something, while I had confit of duck with shiraz figs I think. The duck was delicious! Tim's fish was tasty although he did confess to wondering how the steak (his other shortlisted option) would have been!

By dessert time, Tim was very full. Still, he pushed through and managed to eat all of his chocolatey swirly icecreamy thing (didn't look at the names as carefully) with kahlua and a meringue nest on top. I also enjoyed by duo of brulee's - although I believe they were different flavours and mostly I could taste creme and brulee! But I always love the crunchy top and the smooth stuff underneath!

Then we were done.. we finished up the wine, and had a quick play in the gardens! It was raining and late but while we waited for Tim's Mum we had a quick wander around the pogoda thingy!

2 Years

2009-06-03T15:33:00.007+10:00

Tonight Tim and I are going to dinner at the Gorge Restaurant in Launceston to celebrate our 2 year anniversary! I'll hopefully report on the meal later but it should be good - it has a good reputation and is in a great setting.

This day 2 years ago, we didn't actually decide 'go out' or anything specific, but after a few more days we discussed that we must in fact be 'together' and Tim beng the sentimental fellow he is made sure we had some date to remember things by and the 3rd of June seemed as good a day as any! That day we'd been to the IMPACT Indian Night - and in fact, we both went again only a week and a half ago to the most recent one! Since then we have celebrated monthaversaries (?!) our first anniversary and Tim even knew the date of our first date and bought flowers to mark the day! In just less than 6 months we'll have another date to remember in the years to come - the 21st of November when we get married!

And now to make up for not blogging often, by posting lots of old pictures - starting from 2 years ago exactly, and working forwards though maybe not in order!!

Indian Night - the start of me bringing Tim to all sorts of global health events!

My 21st

Med Cocktail - one of the various dress up events we've been to!

Some friends of ours had a 'formal night' - a fun chance to dress up!

Falls Festival 2008
Cutting the cake at the engagement party.

And of course there are many many more events we've shared together - and in most cases with other close friends and family which we both enjoy. Long may it last!

Timmy!

2009-05-26T23:35:00.002+10:00

Just a quick note to let anyone interested know that Tim has now arrrived safely in Launceston as of this evening. He had his last day of work at his former employer in Hobart today and starts a new job tomorrow! He's starting off at head office in Devonport tomorrow for induction and so forth but mostly will be in Launceston office or in 'the field' - which could be anywhere Northern Tassie direction I gather. Its the job he hoped for and hopefully will go really well - they seem like a great bunch from his reports - and many of them graudated around his time. They also have offices elsewhere - like in Hobart, so future options are promising.

He'll be living back at his parents for the next few months until we start looking into a place to live down the track which he may move into earlier! It's great to have him here already - seeing him only 1 day since the weekend is a treat these days! Tonight we even made it to the 2009 Uni Revue which was entertaining, crude, political and all the rest you expect!

Africa: Social side of things!

2009-05-19T16:16:00.000+10:00

The conference wasn't all serious hard work! There was quite a fun social program - although it was hard to keep up with. Each evening after dinner there were plenary sessions where the presidents of each member country voted on various things - and the social events didn't start till after that. If there was a big issue, things might not get going till around 12, and certainly didn't stop till around 4. I think I probably averaged around 2am - skipping one event, and staying later to the last few! I was actually surprised by how I managed to get up each morning for 8:30 sessions - sleep deprivation and uni don't seem to work nearly as well.

One night was the International Food and Drink night - everyone was prewarned by folks who'd been before so each country brought along something of their own. Most countries did focus on the drinking a bit more than the eating! (Czech Republic had dangerous looking stuff in a plastic bottle!) As Aussies, we had Tim Tams, vegemite on crackers, fairy bread, furry friends and Bundy. We also had Aussie flag tattoos!~The food was well mostly received though people weren't so keen on the straight rum - not sure why!! (Some did ask how we can like it - I think I said, don't be stupid I'd never drink it straight, and I don't drink it much anyway!).

Aussie stall with Austrian stall behind. Yep it was alphabetical.

The Austrians also had a good set up - flaming Mozarts! Mozart balls (which are awesome anyway), cut in half, hollowed out a little and filled with some kind of alcohol and set on fire. You have to pop it in your mouth and shut it quickly before it gets too hot and so the fire goes out!! It was good!!

Another favourite of mine (although maybe biased) was Sweden - they made you sing a drinking song in Swedish and then drink something, but they also had yummy Kaviar past, and Bils - little car lollies which I'd had before.

Africa

2009-05-19T11:08:00.000+10:00

Recently I went on a trip to a conference in Tunisia of all places. It was in a place called Hammamet, near to Tunis which is the capital of Tunisia. The conference was one of the two general meetings a year for the International Federation of Medical Students Association, IFMSA. The theme was conflict and health - so some of the meetings focussed on that. Other sessions were stream specific - I joined 'SCORP' which was the standing committee on human rights and peace - sounded more interesting to me than medical eduation or professional exchange - reproductive health and AIDS was another one that sounded interesting though. It worked out quite well, because out of the 15 Australians, we were reasonably well spread between the streams and we got to hear updates on each day at the 'NMO hour'.

I went to most of the sessions I could - some were not so good, but overall they were pretty interesting. It was cool to see what some of the different student groups are up to around the world. Some had started initiatives like breast screening/awareness for breast cancer, changing nappies in orphanages, or promoting paper bags and recycling - most of which were great to hear about and a good reminder of how good we have it in Australia! The UK team, Medsin, had some good programs and I did some sessions run by one of them about setting up primary health care systems in countries with role plays of refugee camps, the UN and other parties involved.

One of my favourite sessions, was an interative art workshop. I partly like the idea because of its potential, rather than its actual outcome - but I did have fun playing with clay while thinking about conflict and health!

The place we stayed was pretty wacky - a fake medina resort/conference centre! There was a wierd indoors area with fake trees stuck on the walls, and real touts selling stuff - real stuff but not sure about the real prices - perhaps real resort prices. I still bought a few things because I rightly predicted I wouldn't have much other time for shopping.

The last day when everyone was leaving the conference centre and there were no sessions, I managed to join up with some US guys I'd met and join them on a little exploring. Two of us had a flight later that day, and two were sticking around till the next day. We got the 6am bus to the Carthage/Tunis airport where we failed to check in our bags early - but our back up plan fell into place nicely. The boys who were sticking around got a hotel in Tunis and we left our bags for the day. They'd had a day in Tunis pre-conference, and had randomly met an American who they then had dinner with - so they got a hotel near to his place in order to catch up again. By chance as we set out to find the train station, we met their new friend's flat mate and he gave us a semi-guided tour to the station. He also answered our question as to why everything was so quiet - it was Mohammed's birthday and a public holiday. But fortunately it didn't stop us getting tasty almond/chocolate pastries for breakfast!

Our agenda for the day was Carthage followed by lunch in Sidi Bou Saíd - which we managed to do nicely. We did a fair bit of walking around Carthage - added to unecessarily by not realising the price of admission was for all the sites of Carthage! We went to one place, thought it was a bit expensive just for a museum, and tried somewhere else - then had to go back! The museum was well worth going back for with some amazing lamps, pottery, sarcophagi, and a good collection of mosaics. We also looked into the Roman Villa, and failed to find any archaelogy in the 'parque archeologique' or something. It was just a trail through some bushes...

We had a great lunch in the 'ridiculously romantic' though slightly touristy place up on the hill in Sidi Bou Saíd. I had a 'Tunisiain Specialty' - delicious stuffed squid, as well as a Briq (thanks Big A!). We'd had a big week, early start, and lunch was slow to arrive. The four of us were pretty quiet as we waited for our food to come, and did well to stay away, but it was certainly worth the wait. We also grabbed a freshly fried donut/pastry thing of some kind on the way back down the hill to begin out train-taxi-via hotel-taxi trip to the airport. At my request we jumped out of the first taxi a little early so I could spend a few extra dinar/look in the supermarket. As well as tissues to stem the travel cold dripping nose, I found some tins of halva, Turkish coffee and 300% harissa to take back home (these puzzled customs slightly as all the writing was French/Arabic, but they were allowed through!).

Celebrating 60 Years

2009-04-13T17:32:00.003+10:00

I have written that post I said I would about Tunisia, but the pictures didn't work and then I forgot. I will do it this week - I do have the week off, and clearly nothing else to do. In the mean time, I enjoyed this youtube clip about human rights: (It seems to unavoidably stick out the side of my nice box but hopefully you can see it)

And now back to something that resembles an assignment.

Away again?!

2009-03-02T05:32:00.002+11:00

No doubt there is something important I should be packing, but while I remember what it is, I thought I'd write a very short post (for a change). It's 5:34am, and I'm up and showered and it can mean nearly only one thing - I'm off to the airport. I'm heading to Tunis, which is the capital of Tunisia in North Africa for a medical student conference on conflict and health. It should be good fun, although I'm a little daunted and I've felt like my preparations were slightly last minute - but whats new! I was supposed to read up on Gaza, which I haven't really done, but to make up for it, I've printed whatever Wiki has to offer to read on the plane.

Whilst I hope to appreciate at least a tiny bit of Tunisia, I'll be pretty much in conference mode most of the time - arriving and leaving the same days it starts and finishes. Well that's my time slot used up - time to do something useful!

The same photos resized!

2009-02-04T15:18:00.004+11:00

Most important: the kitchen!

2009-02-04T15:07:00.004+11:00

Missed this picture! It doesn't capture the best angle - that would show the red coffee machine! I'll take another one another day. Maybe when there's something to show off!

It has a dishwasher which is great! We have a shelf each of the pantry, the fridge is adequate and it should be fun! I haven't cooked anything much yet. Tonight I'm starting simple with pasta and pasta sauce!!!

A new home!

2009-02-01T00:36:00.005+11:00

Its back to normality for me, and after another gap, time for a blog. I have enjoyed my uni holidays - as usual packing lots of different things in! I even ran a (somewhat last minute) camp - Summer Fun, part of Anglican Camping's summer program. It was a year 3-6 camp at Montgomery Park/Mission Afloat, with a great bunch of kids and leaders that made the whole thing a lot of fun. Other than that, I had Christmas adventures in Launceston and Bicheno, I was a bridesmaid for Ruth and Jack who are now the Charltons, had an engagement party for Tim and I and lots more!!

Now I'm back into it. I had orientation day yesterday at my new campus! I'm spending fourth year, (plus or minus next year) at the Launceston Clinical School, which is embedded in the Launceston General Hospital. We are combined with fifth years due to course changes - and some have suggested we all get called 'slashies' - to represent years 4/5. It remains to be seen whether that name sticks!

I have taken up residence in Launceston with 3 fellow med boys - Richo, Nathan and Nick. It seems like a good little place, and its really close to the hospital - about 600m or so according to Whereis.com! I've got a really great group of med friends up here, and i know enough other people that I should have a heap of fun visiting family and friends as well as what I gather will be a very busy uni load! For me, this is a return to Launceston, as I was born here and lived here till I was four-ish and have been here intermittently in the years since. I'm looking forward to getting to know it, and various people up here a bit better.

I've pretty well moved in - all I'm lacking is anything to cook, but I have coffee, muesli and paddlepops so I'm set for now. Moving in was made worse by the fact that it was another scorcher of a day in Launceston - 39 degrees or something toasty. This evening has been a relief- it actually cooled down nicely. I've already introduced one flat mate and his girlfriend to the boardgame pandemic, and fitted in another game with Jack and Ruth! This should be fun!

The front of the new house!

The hallway. The boxes have spread from my room - at the end on the left.

My room. And Tim. I think he still believes the old 'I can't see you so you can't see me'.

Makeshift bookcase. And same desk and window.

Most of my stuff fits in the cupboard...

.. if you squish it! It'll be better when I get more coat hangers.

The outside area... we do have to mow the lawn, but its quite nice. Should fit a tent too...

Tarkine - a special part of Tassie!

2008-12-11T15:35:00.003+11:00

The Tarkine is an area of temperate forest in far north-west Tasmania. It is that largest area of wilderness of its kind left in Australia.

There have been discussions about roads being built through this unique piece of Tasmanian beauty, and I don't know the full story. However, some good friends and family of mine have been on several trips into the Tarkine area, and are quite sure that a road through it would spoil its unnecessarily. They have apparently turned my house into a campaign headquarters with a busy hive of activity taking place to get an action plan into place! There has been an article in the Mercury today, letters to the editor, maps made (thanks Tim), and a commercial produced for TV and YouTube. Many people have donated (and will no doubt continue to) time, energy, skills and money to get this campaign into action in a very short time!

I wish I was there to throw in my weight, but in the mean time, I'm sending hard working vibes to everyone at home! Lets do something smart - save the Tarkine!

When I get home and see Mum's no doubt spectacular and very recent photos of the Tarkine I'll try to add some.

Engaged in the Whitsundays!

2008-12-02T22:08:00.005+11:00

I am no longer in the Whitsundays, however, Tim and I are engaged!

We had a wonderful couple of days there - relaxing, swimming, eating icecream and so on. We did a couple of tours/organised trips which were heaps of fun. We went 95km out to Knuckle Reef, which is part of the Great Barrier Reef. There is a permanent pontoon there with waterslide, snorkelling gear, glass bottom and semi-submersible boats. We got a good look at some pretty fish, coral and I even spotted a squid swimming around not far below me.

The other trip we did was on a maxi yacht (80ft): Maxi Ragamuffin, a Sydney to Hobart three-time winner! We sailed to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island for a picnic (along with the rest of the paying guests on board).

When we arrived, Tim and I went for a little stroll before lunch. Right at one end of the beach, and all of a sudden, Tim was on one knee before me and I think I just about said 'yes' before he finished asking! Of course, the question he asked, was whether I would marry him!

So then it was lunch, a play in the water in oh so glamorous stinger suits and the sail back on the boat which were all a bit floaty! Back on board they gave us one of those 1 serve bottles of champagne 'on the house(boat)' to celebrate!

The ring was designed by the lovely and clever Timmy! The blue stones are Tanzanite, and the green one is Tsavorite - both found only in Africa, the Tanzanite, naturally is from Tanzania. This of course, is very fitting and well chosen considering my family history of Africa and Tanzania in particular!Hurrah!

Writing from Flinders!

2008-10-24T11:39:00.005+11:00

There were 5 girls and a van
To Flinders they went with a plan
They travelled the land
Walked on the sand
And gave the locals some bags

The van!The bags!

What could be better – a week of normal uni, or travelling a beautiful island, meeting people and talking about what we do? After a week of the latter, I know my choice! Flinders Island is a beautiful island – there are many picturesque bays, inlets, lagoons, and beaches, all with the ‘East Coast’ orange lichen on the rocks and light blue-green water. Although I very much enjoyed trying to capture these sights with a camera, there is much more to Flinders than the landscape. We have been privileged to meet ‘locals’ along the way who have given us a glimpse of ‘island life’. There are some aspects that are just like anywhere – there is good internet, people watch TV, listen to the radio and mow their lawns. Other parts are what you make of it – you can live in your own kingdom, visiting town once a month, and enjoying your own company, you can retire to a fabulous house, entertaining guests regularly, and getting groceries every week, or you can run the shop. In this particular rural community, people are friendly, everyone knows everyone, and kids and dogs are safe to roam. I enjoyed the sense of community – by show day I could bump into a handful of people and say hi, and easily chat to others I hadn’t met. I could even pick out some of the prize-winning artists, sculptors and chutney makers as kids we’d met and ladies we’d Scottish Danced with! For me, the trip was a success – we shared our interest in rural health, we met some real rurals, we climbed a mountain and we patted not one but two wombats.

Arne and I

Coffee with Arne

Beach on the track to Arne's place

Dolce the wombat - about 2 years old

Dolce sleeping

From part way up Strzlecki. There was only a view of cloud from the top!

Delicious scones at Cape Barron Primary School

Another person on the island also has baby wombats to look after - very cuddly!

Playing on the rocks at Wybalenna

Flinders Show - local! (The chap in the purple shirt was part of Circus Infurneaux who performed at the show)

Another Adventure!

2008-10-12T14:36:00.003+11:00

It has come to another one of those weeks when I am like my little profile says - I am a student but I try not to only study. (Perhaps it should really say, that I am a student and occasionally I try to study.)

Anyway I'm off to Flinders Island this afternoon for a week. I'm going with a couple of other medical students, but not actually as part of my course. We are visiting the school and the ag show, Cape Barren Island and probably the health centre. It will be fun to see some of the place, see some 'rural life/health' and, most likely to force myself to survive with limited telecommunications capabilities for a week!

Hopefully I'll have some good photos when I'm back, as well as being a week closer to the looming exams. If the weather stays as nice as it is in Launceston now, it'll be fantastic - although it may well be a bit cooler if weatherzone.com is to be trusted. The only shame is that I'm not around to write a good blogpost for the Blog Action Day competition - with great prizes and for an even better cause!

Stand Up

2008-10-06T11:15:00.003+11:00

I was looking around for something to show at church in a few weeks for 'Stand Up' - a potentially world record breaking event counting people all over the world who will STAND UP to support Make Poverty History and keeping to the Millenium Development Goals. There's lots of youtube clips made for the cause so I thought I'd add a couple here!

If you feel like it, it is easy to register a 'Stand Up' event on the Make Poverty History Website - all you need to do is register, then have an event and count how many people stand up. There are resources for how to run an event (not ecessarily a churchy thing...!)

It dances!

2008-09-21T18:19:00.002+10:00

Apparently this is what my new car does when I'm not watching. The only other important detail about my car is the colour: white. It also still needs a name.

For those more discerning about cars, its diesel, 1.6L, EGS (which is electronic gear shift I think - some sort of cross between manual and auto where you don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but you can shift up and down if you like) Citroen C4. And Tim's Dad helped us get a very good deal from the kind man at the un-named car shop who may said to my Mum as we left 'perhaps you'll want a Citroen one day' and left no doubt thought but unsaid 'but please don't send Derek!'

Background Reading

2008-09-21T17:41:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I was looking for a piece of paper I was sure I had. I emptied two drawers, and the bottom shelf of a bookcase that was full of stuff from my last 2 and a 1/2 years of medical school, and covered about 1/4 my floor with stuff but didn't find it. Despite that, I've improved the state of that corner of my room - I can now see floor that I hadn't seen for some time (even if it got worse before getting better). I also found heaps of bits of paper from things like the Global Health Conference, and other Amnesty International newsletters etc that are all good but I often don't get around to reading! I've enjoyed(ish) reading through some of them - although certainly some are not good news, I feel I should know the truth about the current issues facing our world.

Despite setting out to 'study' I am only just getting my desk clear enough to begin that - however 'health' comes in many forms, so I can consider much of what I've been looking at related to my future medical career!! I was looking at the Make Poverty History page, and the upcoming challenge to set a new World Record for the 'Stand Up' campaign, as well as at the DVD clips on the Micah Challenge website and thought this clip has some pretty startling facts - risk of death in childbirth in Northern America 1/3500, compared to Africa 1/16! Yikes.

In other news, I have a pretty new car to drive (somewhat stark contrast to world poverty, but it is fuel efficient so I can spend less on getting around and be safe...) My med rotation is going well - I've done a couple of early ward rounds, met a few consultants and been lightly grilled. I'm soon handing over my role as part of the IMPACT group at uni though I'll stay involved to some degree no doubt, and I accidentally became one of the local reps for the international medical group IFMSA, so I'll be helping co-ordinate some exchanges next year.

I also attended Med Ball last weekend - 'gangsters and dames' theme. It was an enjoyable night, with some making the most of the included alcohol to a greater degree than others!! It was lovely to see everyone dressed up for the occasion. Tim wore my cousins very yellow suit - which went down well at the event (suitable to theme despite being very loud), although got some interesting looks around the rest of the casino!

Tim and I

Some of the girls

My whole year group (or those that were at the ball and weren't distracted by dessert)

two sleeps

2008-08-28T21:38:00.003+10:00

And finally, the result of weeks of work by a handful of people will be the much talked about (and even blogged about) Red Party. We have had promotions at uni, posters, cupcakes, ribbons, raffle tickets, I even had an interview on 936 breakfast radio and someone else has been on Edge radio. And soon it will be here!

(preparing our red gnomes)

Organising the RED PARTY has varied between all-consuming and a lot of fun. Actually, its been easy with such a great team, and its only been all-consuming from time to time - like when we were painting many small gnomes red, or making a giant banner that took longer than intended, or working out just how to blow up endless inflatable havaijana thongs when the pump didn't work!

(wandering the uni on 'red day'. My 'thong' seems to have deflated a little)

Soon it will all be over and then I'll wonder what to do with myself. I might study for my osces though. Or read a book, or see my friends, or... so I probably won't really wonder what to do, but it will be a nice relief.

Its not too late to come if you are in the area - 8pm, Saturday the 30th August, hotel SOHO, $10 and all proceeds go to OXFAM's AIDS orphans nutrition program in South Africa. There will be cocktails, a red bull bar, a raffle and the fantastic and local 'The Riot Act' followed by DJ Jack! For more info see www.impactutas.blogspot.com

Famine Finished.

2008-08-17T21:49:00.003+10:00

This last weekend was the annual 40 Hour Famine! I remember doing the 8 hour famine back before I was old enough for the 40 hour version, and in between there was even a 24 Hour Famine! Having done a food famine just about every year since then, I think I must be looking at about 9 years worth of fasting for World Vision! Once again, I helped out at the youth group sleepover at church. I slacked off a little as I was at an engagement party and came on later after all of the games and things - the girls were all in the back room and the boys in the main hall - both watching their second movie as they'd swapped DVDs! They were all quite settled - just some quiet whispers, not-so-faint glows of mobile phones as they texted each other or possibly the boys in the other room, and the wrinkle of barley sugar wrappers! All went well, I got nearly enough sleep before being woken by a bunch of boys with pillows (they missed me though!) and we've raised over $1800.

The engagement party was actually at my house and was for my good friends Jack and Ruth. There was a good crowd of med/church/school/Margate/family/random friends for both of them - and everyone's contribution of plates to share meant there was more than enough food! (Some re-appeared for our famine breaking feast after church today!).

Otherwise, I'm back into uni after my little break in the NW. Now that the famine is done, I'm focusing on 'Red Day' on Wednesday, and then RED PARTY! Then it'll be more OSCEs/Eskies/exam thingys for my current rotation. I may just need to do some work before then!!

rural.

2008-08-04T22:12:00.000+10:00

I'm in Burnie at the moment on a 2 week placement. I haven't really done that much GP-ing considering its my GP placement, but its been fun anyway. We did a few things on the weekend in the area - Tazmazia, Latrobe shop Reliquaire, Sisters Beach walk and Penguin Market as well as dinner at the Sheffield pub, and some washing and sleeping in etc! Today was a bit drive from Burnie, to Rosebery, to Zeehan, to Queenstown, to Strahan, back up the coast to Zeehan and home through Rosebery! It was in theory to visit the different medical centres/set ups, which we did but that wasn't that useful (though interesting enough to see), but it was a nice trip and hopefully I got some good photos!
Back on Friday!

Red Party... still.

2008-07-27T00:32:00.003+10:00

I made this... possibly had better things to do, but was fun to be creative!

Seeking asylum is never ilegal

2008-07-21T17:15:00.000+10:00

Dr Horrible - only until July 20th

2008-07-19T15:50:00.001+10:00

My new friend!

2008-07-18T10:22:00.002+10:00

I will get around to posting something about Melbourne and the conference and things sometime, but in the mean time, my head is still filled with all things red! If you are a local Tassie, stay tuned for more on Red Party (find it on facebook!)- or look at our blog. I have a feeling that we (the people who made it) are the only ones who've looked at it so far!!

Here is my new friend. Also red. We had a red party working bee to make lots of fun promo things, and eat fun red stuff!

RED PARTY PROMO

2008-07-16T18:21:00.003+10:00

RED PARTY IS COMING. For more info, check www.impactutas.blogspot.com but also for a bit of an idea, watch the video below. It comes from the UWA (Perth) Red Party, but they said we could show it anyway. After their huge success (1800 people attended and they raised $26000 for Oxfam AIDS orphans project) its become a National Project for this year - so expect big RED parties all around the country!

"KnifieKnives" which is Hamish speak for - "Knives"

2008-07-01T17:19:00.005+10:00

Exams are done, and as promised some pictures of the famous knives. Not that anyone asked for them, but since there's all the hype, I'll show them off.

Also did I mention I finished exams? Now I'm halfway through my degree... only 2.5 more years. No worries! And it was my Mum and Hamish's 1st wedding anniversary yesterday so that was nice for them - and our kitchen table looks somewhat florist-ish. The 'mafia' in England sent some, as did Mum's work partners. The other bunch were mine from Tim for exam good luck!

I tried to post this before my trip to Melbourne, but it didn't work for some reason that by 2am I cared little about. So I'll try again, and hopefully more about Melbourne to come later.

Mum and Hamish's nice knife!

My 'multicultural' knife, also made by John the Knifemaker

My knife, made by Linden for my 21st.

Knifemaker, Beekeeper & Baker

2008-06-16T22:41:00.007+10:00

This is directed by my very clever uncle, Roger Scholes!

An inspired knifemaker, beekeeper and baker pass on their passions to their young apprentices

In the valley beneath Sleeping Beauty mountain, the people of the community have rediscovered the benefits of a small town economy. Families trade with one another, swapping foods they grow and things they make. Their lives are rich and varied. They value what they know and want to pass their passions on. The Passionate Apprentices, a three part documentary series, portrays ways of life that are about stepping more lightly on the planet.

I have extra fondness for the story as my cousin Linden is one of the apprentice knifemakers, as is his and his brother Jon's friend, Merlin. John the Knifemaker is another great guy with a lot of talent for knifes, as well as smoked salmon and other tasty treats. My family has a little collection of his knives - Mum and Hamish one with a sweet smelling Huon Pine handle and I have the squared "multicultural knife". My favourite though is the one that Linden made me in his own back yard forge, by himself, for me, for my 21st!

He and Me at Fee and Me.

2008-06-05T13:18:00.007+10:00

Tim and I before heading out for dinner.

Last weekend Tim and I zoomed up to Launceston on Friday for a bits'n'pieces weekend - we saw a bit of his family, I went to a 70th birthday of a family friend, we had family lunch with my family, I met his grandparents... and we went out for a fantastic dinner on Saturday night. This week was our 'one year anniversary' so the final plan was to combine a special evening with the weekend up north.

There are a lot of foody shots to come, and lots of them aren't actually that great because it was such a nice place that I didnt want to use the flash everytime I got food and distract everyone. The format is that you choose to have 3, 4 or 5 dishes from the menu which is arranged into brackets by weight and the more you get, the better value it is! You can choose all from the same brackets or skip around if you like, but we did the little to big thing to be traditional. All of the meals are roughly entree size, but despite that, after 4, I didn't want to spoil the nice feeling by squeezing in dessert and neither did Tim, so we missed the sweet treats.

First off we had some pre-dinner drinks. This was just about the hardest decision on the evenintg, since between us, we didn't know what lots of them were! At long last, and after the waiter asked us several times, we got him to describe Campari and several others and we made a decision. Tim was sold by the 'if you've never had Campari, you should have some, probably with orange juice first; it's a revelation', while I had the 'Frangelico Sour' (=Frangelico, Lemon Juice, Egg white, sugar syrap) which is not bad for the palette because it is sour rather than sweet. Both were tasty, and not too sweet!

Then the food! First I had (and I quote from the menu which I photographed as a record!): 'Tomato Trilogy': semi-dried tomato and Parmesan "trifle"; watermelon, tomato, goats cheese and balsamic salad; cream cheese filled cherry tomato, gazpacho sorbet.
Tim had:
Smoked salmon and sour cream terrine, confit lemon zest, beetroot relish, lemond dressing.

Our first two dishes!

Dish Two: [mine and then Tim's choice]
Pan fried trevalla, soba noodles, bok choy, shitake mushrooms, Asian consomme.

Ocean trout, Kaitafi pastry, coriander, chilli and parsley salad, almond cauliflower sauce, capsicum coulis.

Dish three:

Huon Valley Honeybrown mushroom caps, Seymour Gold potoatoes filled with mushroom ragout, thyme infused cream sauce. [Possibly my favourite of the evening]

Pan-fried lambs brains, baby silverbeet, brown butter and capers, crisp wafers [Tim was brave! I tried it and was surprised at how tasty it was, although most people don't have to disect and eat brains within a week!]

And finally dish four:
Twice cooked pork belly, wild rocket, ginger and pickled sultana salad, smashed peas, smoked ham reduction
[I chose this at the recommendation of Hamish, also very good - even the smashed peas were delicious]

Hare pie, Parmesan chice souffle topping, creamed potato puree. [I'm guessing this may have been the most 'gourmet' pie Tim has ever had!]

And the delicious dessert options of cheese platters, citrus selections, star anise poaches pear, fresh figs in rosewater and so-on were not to be squeezed in that time. They sound good though. All in all, it was an excellent meal, outstanding service, and of course, gorgeous company!! A good way to celebrate.

Sunday lunch was the other main weekend event - a significant amount of the family together, just lacking Hilary's husband Martin and my cousin Olivia to make the full set I think. This was specially nice since Nanna and Papa along with Katherine and Andrew are heading to Tanzania shortly for a 5 week trip - which for my grandparents, will be their final trip back to a place they spent many years working, and for the others will be a chance to see again some of where they grew up and what it is like now. We'd a lovely lunch which Vanessa had contributed to significantly (fantastic lamb shanks!), and a chance to chat and play with the various family members. Lochie had us younger ones involved in pillow/sword fights, playing with the train set and other appopriate activites:

Lunch with everyone (Tim was taking the photo - he was there too)

All of us!

Then there was the final drive home, broken up by a coffee stop at Zeps in Cambell Town - where I finally managed to get Tim with his car, in daylight. Just!

Last but not least - one of my favourite parts of the Midlands Highway as we zoomed past in the late afternoon light.

Going to Launceston

2008-05-28T13:11:00.002+10:00

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)

2008-05-24T11:01:00.004+10:00

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!

2008-05-23T18:30:00.005+10:00

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!

2008-05-20T08:37:00.003+10:00

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.

2008-05-07T22:45:00.006+10:00

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?

2008-05-07T21:52:00.004+10:00

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.

Sutures!

2008-01-11T18:50:00.001+11:00

I made it to the end of my first week in Glenden. I've seen quite a variety of thing s- injuries, kids, medicals, given injections taken blood and so on. My favourite was that I got to stitch up a guy after we cleaned up his leg where he'd been kicked by a horse. There is a whole sequence of photos on my Flickr page if you're game to look... no pressure! There's blood!

More (kinda gorey) pictures!

Brad the.... film star?

2008-01-11T18:50:00.000+11:00

As some of you know, my stepfather Hamish calls everyone (or close to) X the Y. So... Pete the Gardener, James the logician etc. Well here's a video clip on you tube of a good friend of his, Brad who is clearly now Brad the film star. He's a fellow historian and has an entertaining and informative clip. There's another one too. Make a comment there if you fee like it!

Fwd: Google Earth Image

2008-01-10T20:07:00.001+11:00

This is where I live atm (for my 2 weeks in Glenden).

I didn't figure out how to make the link from google earth work, so I hopefully the picture will be big enough to see.

So my little trip to Glenden is going well. I'm about 2 hours inland from Mackay and its been nice and warm... or hot outside and perfectly airconditioned inside. I've almost felt cool at times but not complaining! The doctor here (Rachel) is great fun - and a good teacher. I've seen heaps of stuff, and got to do quite a lot. There are masses of kids, babies, mums, pregnant mums plus miners having medicals and health and well being checks. I've been looking in ears, listening to hearts and lungs, palapting tummies - all good medical stuff. I'd been practicing my suturing on a pig trotter and today I stitched up a wound. Admittedly it was a cut we created to drain a massively swollen leg where a guy had been kicked by a horse - but it lookd so much better after. I gave a few injections - IM maxalon, morphine and local aneasthetic. I helped cut off a plaster cast the other day with a (modified) angle grinder, and did a pap smear today. I've also done some neonatal 6 week checks and a couple of check ups on pregnant women.

I've also spent some time hanging out with Rachel and her family - 3 boys, aged 6, 8, and 10. They're good fun and never a boring moment with them around. Hopefully I'll get to go sailing in Mackay on the weekend - otherwise, who knows what else will come my way!

Time's Up

2007-12-29T17:17:00.000+11:00

Well, thats it folks - my time for traveling in the US this time around has run out! I've packed my bags, bought my final gadgets, and I'm ready to go. I just have to work out how to fit my PJs and toothbrush in the morning, and if I can lift my bag, I'll be off! Fortunately Jac and Jo will be taking me to the airport. Its been lovely staying with them, and I've had a good mix of chilling out, playing PS2, watching DVDs, socialising with their mob - for multiple occasions of Christmas, a birthday and a necessary trip to Sushi Zushi (and another trip for lunch yesterday). We've eaten well, shopped well, and even did the touristy River Walk today - which meant braving unpleasant traffic conditions but well worth it for the pretty fairy lights! We drank prickly pear margheritas and Mexican Eggnog, Australian wine, pumpkin beer, English cider and Jac's favourite soda water... and ate all sorts of brilliant things. There are more posts stored up, but in the mean time, I'll be passing time in airports and on planes till I get back to sunny Sydney!

Although I do have a new toy to keep me happy! (But mine's packed safe in its sleeve, not locked in at the shop!)

Ice by Photo

2007-12-29T17:03:00.000+11:00

While I was in the more Northern regions of USA and Canada, we encountered some expected, but none-the-less freezing weather. This brought with it some pretty stunning scenery - and aspects of life with ice and snow that were foreign to me. As such, I found these beautiful/amusing/spectacular etc and took quite a few photos. What I didn't capture on film is quite how slippery frozen puddles/sidewalks/steps can be!

River in Ithaca, NY State

Waterfall in Ithaca

Niagara Falls, American Side (looking away from falls)

Niagara Falls, American Side

Niagara Falls, American Side (area above falls)

Niagara Falls (area above American Falls)

Niagara Falls, Canadian Side

CN Tower in Toronto with snow (Higher than the Empire State Building)

Street with a little snow in Montreal - there were places with more but I liked the dome.

Nearby in same street in Montreal

Notre Dame in Montreal

Snowshoeing in Vermont - found some baby Christmas trees buried by the snow, and some stunning scenery.

Snow covered old (and I think historically significant) cemetery in Boston

Shops/signs/random things that amused me!

2007-12-24T16:13:00.000+11:00

I was going to add a couple of other pictures but now we have to hurry off to dinner - we're having a sleepover with some other Australian Texams for Christmas! We just went to a Christmas Eve servcie - Jac and Jo's church combined with the ministers other church. It was interesting but of the 5 or 6 carols were unfamiliar or way too high to feel like a proper Christmas Service! Enough typing - now for pictures:

This is the Chelsea Market I think - in NY. I like this one because I like markets with food - and because I got told off for taking photos!

Niagara Falls: I was planning on wearing my raincoat... not throwing it out!

Me and my punny sense of humour - even in China Town.

Randy eh?

Our snowshoeing guide assures us there is no Martlett bird and what kind of bird would have a breeding area in the winter... but its more interesting than 'keep off'.
The Biodome in Montreal.. we couldn't find the real Sloth but it would have been cool to see.

On Tour - by (quite a few) picture

2007-12-24T03:27:00.001+11:00

For the second part of my travels, I jumped on board (prearranged) a Trekamerica tour. We started in New York City, and went anti-clockwise to Ithaca, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, Stowe, Boston and back to NYC.
On our first night together we went up the Empire State Building. The glow you see is Times Square - which was busy whatever time of day we were there.

Here's me up the top trying not to look cold - but we didn't last too long outside!

A waterfall we stopped at near Ithaca (New York State) and were amazed at the short but snowy walk to it - our first proper play in the snow on the trip - and for some people on the trip, first time ever! There were some icy parts on the path though - they were dangerous!

Ice formations on the water just near the same waterfall.

One part of Niagara Falls on the American side. I think this was a minority of the water but we couldn't get as close to the other part. Then again - I wouldn't have wanted to as it was cold, wet and there was poor visibility! But I did really like the way the icy mist had frozen onto the plants and railings.

From the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, there was again poor visibility, it started to rain and I got drenched. Then we had another hour in our minibus as we tried to warm up and dry off.

In Toronto, some of us went up the CN tower which was... quite tall. It was taller than the Empire State Building - although we didn't go to the top, we were still higher than the previous tall building.

We went out for a drink after our meal in Toronto (some of the mob glad of not being restricted by 21+ drinking laws) and found ourselves in an Irish bar. I branched out and had a hot alcoholic drink with vanilla vodka and baileys or something - not bad!

Also in Toronto, we went to the 'Hocky Hall of Fame' where I saw more about ice hockey than ever before. The best part was having a shot at a goal or trying to defend the goals. It did give us a good insight into the hype about hockey - all ready for seeing a live game in Montreal.

In Montreal we went to Laser Quest for one round of free for all laser run. It was an awesome maze - 3 levels with plenty of mirrors, mesh and maze to get lost/shot in! Then we raced back the youth hostel/auberge de jaunesse and regrouped before setting out to get ourselves some tickets for the hockey. It was a fun game to watch although sadly the locals didn't win so the end was a bit of a let down when everyone just got up and left.

In Vermont, we stopped at the Magic Hat brewery. Being over 21 I could enjoy some of the free samples of beers such as 'Single Chair Ale', 'Circus Boy', and 'Fat Angel'. Nearby was the Ben & Jerry's icecream factory so naturally a visit there was also in order - despite the snow outside because its never too cold for icecream!

Still in Vermont, the state for huntin' shootin' and fishin' we stayed in a great inn where we had the place to ourselves, cooked a meal and watched Forest Gump. While we stayed cosy and warm inside, it was snowing lots outside - all ready for our snowshoeing adventure.
We walked through the winter wonderland to an old maple syrup evaporating factory - well hut. They used to have a fire going and heat the syrup to get rid of most of the water until it was just right. And when the weather was right for it and the sap was flowing, they'd just keep going to make as much as they could. We sat inside and lit the fire, drank warm spiced apple cider and ate local cheese and less local bikkies. So nice!

From there, we drove to Boston where we had a day looking around and in the evening we all went the home of our tour guide and his parents. Boston was pretty but cold. Very cold.
We did a tour of Harvard and nearly froze by the end - 1 hour outside was too much and we just went back to the hostel afterwards even though it was about 3pm! And that was that... more or less. Just a many hour drive back to NY and goodbyes.

Comedy in Toronto

2007-12-23T15:46:00.000+11:00

Whie we were in Toronto we went out on the town one evening. After an early dinner (cheap speedy BBQ place with Bulgogi) we chilled at a pub for a bit. We all had our ID checkced - but thats ok because in Canada land, the legal drinking age is 18. After a while, we wanted to head to another venue we'd sussed out earlier. Only problem is we got our ID checked on the way in - and it turns out the legal age in Ontario is actually 19 which not all of our group were. Not sure what the other place was checking for.... So live music plans aside and we found a comedy place instead which wasn't bothered so we paid our 'whatever you feel is apporpriate' small change and went into the gloom. It had just begun with the MC telling a funny story about his kid. The good thing about hte MC is he was on between each other act - and this was good because he was probably the funiest. There were about 3 other quite funny ones, about about 6 less funny verging on cringe-worthy ones (ie bitter, crude, not funny etc). But my most memorable highlight was this video clip which is a trailer (of sorts) for Bourne Ultimatum. Watch it regardless of what trailers you've seen before:

The Bourne Ultimatum?

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Summer/Winter

2007-12-22T02:27:00.000+11:00

So now that I'm in Texas, the weather here is about the same as Tasmania right now.

Hobart

15°C
Rain, Wind: S at 21 km/h, Humidity: 94%

Today Sun

20° | 8° 19° | 11°

San Antonio, TX

8°C
Mostly Cloudy; Wind: N at 6 km/h; Humidity: 69%

Today Sat

24° | 12° 21° | 2°

But after me telling everyone that it barely snows in Tasmania, and its not that cold - there is potential snow forecast for Tasmania at Christmas. Its summer there, and winter here... its supposed to be the other way around! Ah well - its nice here at least until Sunday. But my favourite part about the forecast are these wise words which I'll leave you with:

"The snowfall will depend on whether it is cold enough and has enough moisture around," Mr Pearce said.

Happy Christmas

2007-12-21T15:55:00.000+11:00

I have some more photos of my own in store, but since I'd been reminiscing about playmobil i thought I'd include this picture - one of my favourite American shops, Urban Outfitters emailed me this:

New York by photo.

2007-12-20T16:34:00.002+11:00

Here are some of the photos from NY - most are from before the Trekamerica tour, but a couple are from back in NYC afterwards - and they aren't in order anyway!

Rockerfeller Centre Christmas tree - they have a big ceremony to light it, and ice skating below me.

New York Public Library's friendly Lion, Fortitude. To the South slightly is Patience. Apparently these are good characteristics for New Yorkers to aim for.

The pathway leading to the New York Public Library was paved with plaques with literary quotations.

Another shot of Manhattan at night.

The Christmas lights outside Cartier on Fifth Avenue.

Another Fifth Ave building front. There was another one that was wrapped up like a present.

View from main hall on Ellis Island where immigrants lined up and after answering questions (do you have have $5, health checks and so on) were admitted or decline entrance to the US. Now part of Immigration Museum.

The ceiling design in the Chrysler Building - of the Chrysler Building.

The real version of the same Chrysler Building

Captain Jack Sparrow a la Lego (in Toys'r'Us) Times Square.

Me re-living my love of playmobile in Toys'r'Us. They had some cool sets!

Berrie s on top of the Irish Food Memorial or something remembering the potato famine, along the Western Edge of Downtown Manhattan.
Chinatown. NYC.

Road side sales just near my first Servas Host.

Bloomingdale - blooming expensive leather jacket!!

Don't Mess With Texas

2007-12-19T16:11:00.000+11:00

and don't vague out in the departure lounge. Ok, so secret's out - I missed my flight to San Antonio for no very good reason. I did have the departure time in my head as boarding time so despite warning bells in my my head wondering why there were so few people around, it wasn't until 7 minutes after my flight took off without me (and I'd been sitting at the gate) that I went up and realised my mistake. Still, they got me on the already crowded next flight and here I am. Its so nice and warm, and its even nicer to hang out with Jac and Jo and watch the hamsters and eat delicious spag bog. (And look forward to watching tv, playing computers, and of course more time with Jac and Jo when they aren't working). Photos will come tomorrow!

to confirm

2007-12-07T09:29:00.000+11:00

SOHO is indeed in New York. It is not the renamed pub in Hobart, and it is not London. I know this because everyone speaks with a wierd American Accent, its cold, the coffee is crap and the prices are in $.

Thankyou.

Mac Shop - again!

2007-12-07T08:59:00.000+11:00

Ahh the ways of wangling free internet. I've been lucky enough to use some hosts internet (such as for putting up photos) but this is the second time I've used a mac shop - different shop too! And I prefer PC! But still.. its a lively shop filled with mac-gadgets and people taking advantage of the free internet! I haven't even tried my other option of joining the Public Libraries.

Today I did one of the things I had been planning not to do - Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry trip. I had been happy with my view of Lady Liberty from the free Staten Island Ferry, however it was quite good to go ashore, and I'd been assured that the immigration museum on Ellis Island was well worth a trip. With the audio guide to well.. guide me, I trotted around both and saw the sights. Some pretty amazing stories - something like 12 million people came through the immigration hall between late 1800s and 1924. On Liberty Island I even paid a quarter (25c) twice to look through those binocular things at the mainland - the first time nothing happened but having got my hopes up I figured I'd try a different one... looked the same as without them but closer!!!

Now I'm exploring SOHO, goggling at the expensive and brightly lit shops! Sooner or later I'll find somewhere to eat, although I'm not sure I'm in the bargain district so we'll see - at 8 I'm going to Monty Python's Spamalot performance which Martha (current and last SERVAS host) found me half price last minute tickets for at TDF.com (Theatre Development Fund).

Photos at last - just a selection

2007-12-05T15:42:00.000+11:00

Some funny things I've seen:

At the bottom of a subway there was an escalator going up from the platform that said 'for passengers only'. There is no way of getting in there without a ticket or getting off a train!

Most bathrooms inform you that 'employees must wash hands'. An Alice in Wonderland themed Tea House said 'employees must wash hands.... or off with their head!'

Hmm... plenty more no doubt, but I can't think of any now. And really, I'm stalling because I was about to have some pictures on here but I'm importing them for the 3rd time due to fussiness and wanting them in order!! Here goes:

Shrek being inflated for Macy's Thanksgiving Day ParadeNYPD Public Information Officer who showed us around a bit!

Me on Thanksgiving Day with a crowd of kids at Macy's Parade

A Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing.

Marya, Elfie and I in Brooklyn looking towards Manhattan.

Me jumping on a table... near Shehola Falls I think. Ellen (Elfie's sister) and I played around with our cameras trying all sorts of things!

On Sunday I woke to a light dusting of snow...

Snow on the cabbages outside a cafe. What... why were there cabbages? Who knows (well at least they look like cabbages to me!)

Manhattan - from Staten Island Ferry (Daytime trip)

For Hamish...

Cirque du Soleil introduction....

These were on sale I promise!

And then I stayed with some people who run a funeral home....

From a group email... (multitasking!)

2007-11-28T13:50:00.000+11:00

Hi!
For those who are interested, I'm just about finished my time with mycousins (mum's cousin Philip and family Jenifer and David), andtomorrow I head back to New York. I've had a great time down here. Itstarted off well with Thanksgiving Dinner the minute I got off thetrain - turkey and all. I had a nice mix of some quieter days, sortingout my time adjustment and so on, hanging out and playing computergames with David (mostly Civilisation IV) as well as heading intoWashingtong DC and seeing the sights.

One day we went to the museum ofHealth and Disease at an army base - some interesting bits and pieces,from civil war days to cutting edge M2A camera pills - they go frommouth to anus!! We spent a good few hours at the International SpyMuseum - being given an identity, learning the tricks of the trade,and then being tested on our identity and mission. There were somecool gadgets - cameras, guns, recorders etc.On Sunday, our sailing plans fell through and although Philip andJenifer decided to buy some kiyaks, we decided it wasn't the weatherto test them. We did make it over to the Annapolis Naval Base for awander - famous this week for Bush and his token Peace Talks!Then I spent the last 2 days in Washington DC itself looking in someof the Smithsonian Institute museums. They're all free, and huge. I looked at lots of art - at Hirshorn Sculpture Museum, also a quick look in the Air and Space Museum and also the Treasures of American History temporarily in there -Dorothy's shoes, R2D2, C3P0, famous peoples hats, dresses, walking sticks, and Einsteins pipe. I also went to the National Gallery of Art- yesterday and today! It was huge as well - there were some goodspecial exhibits on including Edward Hopper who is a clever Americanartist. Also snapshots of American photography over the last 100years, and an exhibition about African American photographyparticularly of people that resisted opression.

Anyway, lots of fun, and it was good to stay with my cousins for awhile. Tomorrow I'm up early for the train so its time for me to pack!Its been surprisingly mild, although the temperature drops significantly once the sun goes - but it was only below 0C or 32F oneday so far. Still, my warms clothes are appreciated.

Cheers

Kate

ps whilst I have taken pictures, my current internet access isn't really up to posting them! Hang in there....

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-24T04:39:00.000+11:00

Well Turkey Day has come and gone, but for the first time in my life, I had a proper Thanksgiving Dinner. This may be because usually I'm in Australia, but now I'm in the US. I joined my cousins at their friends place for a feast including (of course) turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, excellent lemon stuffing made by Philip, vegetables, and followed by pumpkin pie and lime pie. So good!

All going well... more later!

Off to see the world!

2007-11-20T08:15:00.000+11:00

The day has come and I'm heading off. I'm all packed (good thing too..) and surprisingly enough, this was more or less the case before midnight last night! First flights are Sydney, San Francisco, ending up in New York. I've got a hostel booked and I'm set.

Also, its crazily expensive to even receive text messages and more so calls, so I'll be turning my message bank off and it would be better if you don't text me for the next 6 weeks unless it is urgent! I'll be back in Australia on the 31st of December. I should have fairly regular email access so if you have my email address, use it, or leave messages here or on facebook!

I'll do my best to put some updates on here from time to time! Or failing that, a whole lot when I'm back!

Birthday and Party (belated post!!)

2007-11-18T23:44:00.001+11:00

I had my 21st Birthday on the 26th of October - amazingly already close to a month ago. As I often tend to do, I managed to string the celebrations out for quite some time. I had a birthday party the week before at Republic Bar with the very talented band Tracksuit (Thankyou again to Tahnee for coordinating that one!!) and some nibbles provided by various family members. We even put up streamers and balloons - Dad inflated them, we tied them with ribbons and Jack, Ruth and I decorated the place. There were some speeches, some dancing although we took a little while to get warmed up, some catching up and then for a select few, Syrup afterwards for some more dancing.

Dad, Kate and me

The week of my actual birthday, I had another party/dinner at my cousins house with some family and family friends that have known me quite some time. It was another most enjoyable evening - and it was great that all the different people could come along. The extras made the juggling of different ends of my family that were present a little less daunting - and the whole event went quite smoothly.

Sirocha, Tahnee and Sarah

I think I previously mentioned some of my presents, so now for some much more interesting details - some photos! It is important to mention that the party was themed 'Babes and Bogans' which might explain some of the otherwise curious attire.

Tequila shots all round!

Tahnee making a speech.

Sarah, Sirocha, Me and Carmen

Mum, Me, Jo and my aunt Katherine

Louise, Me and Jo

Me and Tim with bling!

The whole family (Mum's side)

ANTI Pulp Mill Rally

2007-11-18T23:31:00.000+11:00

On Saturday I rushed home from sailing, threw on a rain coat and headed down to a very packed Franklin Square. There was a good crowd despite the drizzle and after some well spoken speeches we marched and chanted our way around the Argyle/Collins/Murray/Macquarie st blocks. The suggested chant of 'We can, We will, Pulp the Mill' was quite catchy - however I was concerned that in order to pulp anything, even a mill, it would require a pulp mill to be built...

Here are some photos Tahnee took on the day...

Tim, Sarah, Tahnee and I - not too soggy.

Amnesty International

2007-11-13T16:06:00.001+11:00

Yesterday I was at an Amnesty International meeting for the UTas Amnesty Society for which I somehow became part of the committee at the recent AGM. This is despite the fact the AGM was the first meeting I'd been to. As part of their current China campaigns, they have a link which is supposed to be able to be put into facebook, blogger and many equivalents to highlight some of the many words that you can't type into Google/Yahoo in China due to the insane censorship. For example some guy searched for something relating to Tienanmen Square and was promptly arrested and is doing hard labour. They have cartoon cops that stroll across your screen checking up on what you do - and if they don't approve, you'll have a visit from the real cops. This is in the face of the Chinese Government getting the Olympics and claiming that this will be an opportunity to improve Human Rights in China. There are many facets to the China campaign, but one that seems particularly relevant to a blog is the internet suppression. There are many site you can't access from within China - for example, Amnesty International (unsurprisingly), but also BBC, and even the IOC - International Olympic Committee.

If you like, there is an Amnesty Petition you can sign HERE relating to these matters.

One Hit Wonder

2007-10-31T22:02:00.000+11:00

This is an initiative started by some friends of mine - its sounds really great. Its amazing how simple it is to give $1 - its not even a coffee and I wouldn't blink about buying several of those in a week. I'm excited already watching the counter go up - its gone to $28 - from $24 when I contributed half an hour ago. This could be the beginning of something big....

exams exams exams and 21st birthday parties!

2007-10-25T17:14:00.000+11:00

Hi to anyone who reads this.. I'm in the midst of exams and studying hard (perhaps making up for lack of work in the semester), but despite this I've managed to have a 21st birthday at Republic last week, and a family birthday party at my cousins house last night. Both were great fun - with a good mix of family and friends making appearances at each.

I will put up some photos at a later date, but of note is the fact that I asked people to give me gifts from the Tear Very Useful Gift Catalogue... so now I have 3 goats, 2 organic vegetable gardens, 5 fresh water supplies, a family health nurse and some school supplies to my name. Lucky for me - they are all in other countries so I don't have to look after them - and they'll be great for other people.

On the more materialistic front, for my other part of birthday (so far - doing well considering my actual birthday is tomorrow!) I have an awesome new camera to play with, along with a gadgety tripod, a handmade knife made by my knifemaker cousin with a wooden board made by my uncle, a painting my grandmother painted on our trip in Spain, a cutlery set, some placemats, a teapot, photo frame, Bible dictionary, earring holder, some necklaces and earrings... all lovely and thoughtful!

Work time for me now... photos will come.

Long lost blogger

2007-09-30T15:19:00.000+10:00

Well, for no specific reason other than I've been busy, and life has seemed relatively normal I haven't made time to post anything here for a long time. I still have lots to do, but a very short update is in order.

Today my Mum and her husband Hamish come back from their 3 months stint overseas following their wedding in June. I hope that the house will be considered tidy enough - I think I managed to look after it well enough. It was handy to have some help tidying up and cleaning from Ruth and Claire before they left - it was fun turning the house into a semi-uni-student-house for a while. We even had the obligatory onions sprouting, blown lightbulbs, broken heaters and so-on.

I have lots of uni work to do - my last assignment is due tomorrow which will be a relief (having just done 3 essays as well - thats a lot of assignments for my course!). I got my exam timetable - first one is the day after my 21st birthday on the 27th of October, and the 2nd/last is on the 1st of November. This is handy in terms of finishing early but it does give me less time to study for them - and there is certainly a lot to learn.

When I say that my life hasn't been interesting, that's probably not true. In the past few months I had my voyage on the Young Endeavour, a day ski trip to Ben Lomond, a week ski trip to Mt Hotham and Melbourne with Tim, Jack and Ruth and some other friends Richo and Fi (Richo is another medlet with Jack, Ruth and I), I've met some of Tim's family, had my friend Jac to stay and no doubt other noteworthy events.. if only I could think of them!

I'm currently involved in running an Indonesian Night supporting International Red Cross Blood Services in Bandah Aceh. Here is a little promo video about it, and if you're on facebook there is an event page for it. Or just ask me - its on in a week.

Slack I know!

2007-07-31T21:52:00.000+10:00

I have not got time just now to update this dear little blog about my many adventures of late. However, I have been doing all sorts of things... other than the uni work I am currently being required to do. Ooops. Ah well, at least I'm being well rounded. (And I think my assessment today went quite well so at least thats over and done with!)

There are some photos for those of you who may be interested to see them before I get them onto here. Have a look here to see some evidence of my latest comings and goings. Basically there are photos of the wedding, the Young Endeavour, and last weekend from skiing on Ben Lomond.

A few more photos...

2007-07-23T00:19:00.000+10:00

I'm sure there was a way to put up lots of photos using hello or flickr or something... in the mean time, I put lots of photos onto flickr. So while I find time to put more onto here, feel free to look at them there.

Wedding of Clare and Hamish

2007-07-22T20:57:00.000+10:00

Mum's wedding was on the 30th of June. It went fantastically and somehow, we raised $7500 for Amnesty International Australia in the process of it all. Things were donated to reduce the cost of running it, plus donations were taken on the night.

There are some photos already on the net here and I'll get some up here at some point.

I also spent time away during the uni holidays going on the Young Endeavour. There are heaps of photos from that too... getting there!

Fluvaxed.

2007-06-03T00:12:00.000+10:00

Apart from ongoing study, todays only abnormal events are that I left the house briefly to go to the supermarket and that I had a flu vaccination. The latter was significant for 2 reasons in that I really hate needles but (I think) I was quite brave! Mum's trick was always to tell the patient (here=me) to count to 10 and it would all be over. Mum had brought said vaccinations in their little preprepared syringes home and had them in the fridge where they glared (sort of) at me everytime I went to get something. Anyway, just for practice, I let Jack do mine - and he did fine although I counted to ten in Spanish to take my mind off it, and it wasn't quite over and I couldn't remember what 11 was. Anyway, the upside was that I got to give Hamish his. Although he was very good he got revenge on me later this evening by gaffa taping me so I was trapped - hands and feet taped! I was laughing too much to struggle and stop it happening... but I got him back afterwards. He continued to try to use the slightly less sticky gaffa tape (now more like rope) to throw nooses at me, make trip wires and tie me inside the bathroom. Needless to say, I outfoiled him.

While 'studying' Ruth and I found the playmobil hospital set in my old dolls house in the room she had been working. The logical option was to use our time wisely and set it up - it had an operating theatre, as resident alcoholic with a supply of small green bottles and a paeds ward at the back. There was also a healthy lunch menu on offer.

But we thought carefully about the drugs we'd learnt and decided the one in the orange bottle would be most helpful for everyone there.

Ecological Footprint

2007-05-28T23:21:00.001+10:00

I was out to dinner this evening at a friends, and being relatively enviromentally minded, we were chatting about environmental impacts, whether or not money is good or evil, sustainability and how it is that Costa Rica has no army. In relation to the environmental impact, I was reminded of the ecological footprint quiz - so when I was avoiding study when I got home I had a look. Sadly, it everyone lived like me, you'd need three planets. Although, I fudged a few figures - like how big my house is, and how fuel efficient my car is - not to be naughty, but because I don't know these things! Mind you, if I undertake the travel I intend to this year, it may go beyond the amount I selected. But I did see STA travel has environmental offset stuff - I should look into it!


	CATEGORY	GLOBAL HECTARES

	FOOD	2.2

	MOBILITY	0.6

	SHELTER	1.2

	GOODS/SERVICES	1.4

	TOTAL FOOTPRINT	5.4

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 7.6 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST
1.8
BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE
GLOBAL HECTARES
PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3 PLANETS.

Live Music

2007-05-27T18:27:00.001+10:00

I was going to go see a friend's band last week - but sadly it got changed to a later time and I piked. But I was talking to Matt today and he mentioned their myspace page with some clips and video. Looks like it would have been fun!

The Ramshacklers

Tonight I'm going to Kaos for dinner (roast deal on I believe) and another band Tracksuit are playing. Should be good.

Am ignoring the fact my first exam is a fortnight tomorrow (not including my OSCE which is a practical assessment of clinical skills in swat vac). Lots to learn!

Photos/evidence of procrastinating!

2007-05-23T23:56:00.001+10:00

After a fun evening of learning mediastinal anatomy (don't ask - I didn't learn much) I found my camera and some newly charged batteries in one of the drawers in my desk. I'd already rearranged parts of my room earlier (lamp, heater, stuff on a few shelves/surfaces),
made 2 cups of tea, and stuck some photos up, replied to some Impact committee emails and found some different CDs to listen to before starting studying... So much to learn, so many ways to procrastinate!

Not only can I gaze out the window at the city lights, but I can take photos and play with the reflections of my room!

Lemony Snicket

2007-05-21T00:36:00.001+10:00

In one of my study breaks today I combined eating (classy.. baked beans on toast!) with watching this even classier movie! It's great - and the credits alone are worth watching. I'd recommend it to kids young and old :)

Architecture in Helsinki Film Clip

2007-05-21T00:31:00.000+10:00

A friend of mine told me about this film clip.. it is quite funny! And its an Australian Band. I liked what I heard of their previous album on triple J and I think they have a newer album just recently.

Out and about

2007-05-16T20:57:00.000+10:00

I'm doing my best to make myself stay home and work. That is apart from having seen 2 movies this week (dvd and at movies), going to aquatic centre with youth group, having coffee at Oomph twice, Lazenbys once.... but tonight I'm working hard. Or I was until I discovered the wireless network router has had settings changed (Kate took it to school to get them to try to make her computer laptop work with it) and now neither of us can connect - before only I could! So... no luck there.

The movies were interesting - 28 weeks later. Not really my kind of movie in some ways, and I did shut my eyes for bits. The previous movie (that I watched on dvd that day before) was more thriller - on the edge of seat but not just gross. The second was a little more graphic and I just didn't want to watch as they shot lots of people! Anyway-it was cheap tuesday so all good.

Not just else to report for now...

Rurality

2007-05-10T23:43:00.001+10:00

We really did go to Agfest - and I can prove it. Didn't get around to many other pics for rural week - but they would either have been of boring/confidential hospital stuff or med students embarrassing themselves, so its probably for the best. The first is actually on the way to Longford in the dark - you can't really tell but there were 4 separate laptop viewings of DVDs. Toshi did not participate as Toshi didn't make it past the showgrounds from town. Ah well - I am happy so long as there is a power cord around.

The rest are Agfest - Jack caught a fish (we also patted a dead shark, saw some frozen fish, admired anenomes in tanks, guessed how much water to feed sheep/cows/pigs/broccoli or apples...; very agricultural!)

Jack was keen to buy an akubra - maybe he wanted more friends?

Ruth and I inspected irrigators (my Boat Harbour friend Tom said he was keen to see the irrigators so I thought I should have a look too). By this point we'd had free eye checks, free stress ball and stress cow, and admired various ways of water disposal and solar/wind electricity. There were some good ideas but I'm not sure what my neighbours would think of a large turbine on my roof, or waste water collecting tank in my garden!

I must be studying...

2007-05-10T23:22:00.000+10:00

I must be studying.. there's everything I need... laptop, textbook (a good one 'at a glance' and a nasty one 'Rang', pharmacology log book (which I'm trying to write), cup of tea, with refills in the pot. There's good light (2 lamps), a view out the window, music - all sorts including sufjan stevens, Iron and Wine, Coldplay, U2, and the list goes on. The only problem is its 11:21 and I've done next to nothing, and here I am playing with my camera! I left Bible Study only a little after 9:30.. what happened to the time!

'Rural Week'

2007-05-08T23:45:00.001+10:00

Last week, after what felt like quite a long Tuesday of normal classes, my whole year group at uni were put on buses (the 'little bus' and the 'big bus') and sent of on an ADVENTURE! We trundled off to Longford where we stopped and had dinner with 2 of the local GPs in the RSL. It was very sweet of them to have us, and they made an effort to get around and say hi to us all and do a little promo for the rural doctor life! Driving further on the buses at one point, there was this eerie mist lying over everything, and we could see only mistyness everywhere there was any light outside the windows!

Anyway by about 10:30pm we arrived at Camp Clayton where a couple of the GPs/Burnie clinical school folk met us, briefed us a little and so on. We got some really quite nice accommodation (admittedly girls was nicer than boys) with rooms with en suites under one roof with a little kitchen area and meals over at the main dining hall. The next 2 days were spent going over to Burnie and the clinical school there where we had some lectures and tutorials. Highlights included a tutorial with some 5th years on emergency medicine: acute severe asthma. This was good because it was interesting, and because we could answer nearly as many questions as the 5th years! We also enjoyed playing in the skills lab - they have a manikin that they program so we could listen to varying lung sounds, you can also take its blood pressure, ask if it has chest pain or intubate with varying degrees of swollen tongue! We had an industry visit to give us in idea of occupational health and safety - so now I know more about pyrethrum refining! We were also 'lucky' enough to be present when the prime minister of Australia came to give an announcement about some extra funding to mental health in the NW. This is good, although by the sounds of it, the North East and East of Tasmania may need it more... not sure whether they live in a marginal electorate though! But I was on the news (twice in 2 years worth of rural weeks!)

On the Thursday evening those of us who felt like it went into Devonport for a look around. Actually it was raining and we only got dropped off at a pub and stayed there except for the people who went to Spider Man 3 and then the pub. It was a pleasant evening - for my part I enjoyed chatting with people and returned home about 9:30. Others partied hard until the second bus left, and then by the sounds of it partied hard after they were back at camp. We'll just say, some weren't so keen on... anything the next day.

Friday was an even earlier start than the previous days - on the buses by 8 which was harsh considering I can usually manage to get up after that time - but we managed. We made it to Launceston where we had a couple more lectures, a tour of the hospital (and in my tour group's case, the nearby coffee shop - Aroma's, I can recommend it!) While I can't say I have a complete grip of what is where, the Launceston hospital seemed to have been planned a little better than the Royal here in Hobart which has wings all over the place and I never know how to get from where I am to where I should be! We had a session with a patient (mine only had 1 lung!) to practice some stuff we'd learned earlier on and with some patients in Burnie. A planned walk through the gorge was shortened to a stroll from the gate around and back to the Basin Cafe for a 'function'. Sadly we'd been told it would be open bar - but then they modified it to 'open bar at your expense'. None the less, there were plenty of nibbles and a glass of wine at my expense went down very nicely. From there we were billeted out - although many went to family, myself included. Jack, Ruth and I headed off to my grandparents house where we had a delicious meal (wishing we hadn't had quite so many nibbles!), watched some interesting footage of their last time working in Africa in about 1992. Papa also showed some impressive footage of a mega amount of pus from a guy with tropical pyomyositis... it kinda looked like cream. 3 Litres of cream from his back! Gross!! After keeping him up late talking about infectious diseases, Africa, and all sorts of other things we crashed - well and truly ready for sleep.

Another early morning and before we knew it we were up and off to Agfest (we had breakfast at that coffee shop again as my grandparents were off to a prayer breakfast early). I'd never actually been to Agfest - it was quite similar to what I'd expected in that there were lots of rurals, tractors, irrigaters, and all sorts of other stalls - from police, emergency services, mental health to food and dairy, animals and craft. I got a free eye scan from the optometrists association, a stress cow from the mental health association tent, an apple from the calvary hospital stall and glasses cleaner cloth from the other optometry stall. Oh and some pens!

Anyway, we made it home tired and happy after another rural week.

Now its back into uni and normal things. I had the second last 'Submerge' (Margate Church Youth Group) on Monday. Although there weren't masses of kids, it was good to have dinner and chat with them all. Tonight I had the 'handover' dinner for IMPACT - from the old committee to the new committee which includes me! It is a society that mainly does fundraising and awareness stuff for overseas medical work in developing countries. Should be a good group I reckon. And probably because this was the week I intended to start studying properly, I also have tomorrow and the next evening out! Tomorrow is Med Christian Group - a bunch of us who meet every 3 weeks for a meal and chat about stuff. I reckon we're a pretty diverse bunch but its good to have enough in common to share some of our thoughts and experience related to being up and coming medlets. Thursday I think I have hardly any classes which will be nice - am hoping to catch up with my aunt and plan some things for Mum and Hamish's wedding... maybe a surprise or two for it... just have to think of something good. Any ideas... give me a hoy! (But don't let them know!). And biblestudy on Thursday night... Good thing I like being busy!

A note from Mozilla

2007-05-05T20:33:00.001+10:00

Does this work? Mozilla has a new gadget (or maybe I just noticed it!) to post from a little window that appears... a good distraction. I survived rural week and it was actually quite fun, but I have an assignment on evidence based medicine which I'm not enjoying but must do. After that you may hear all about our adventures in the bush.

Rural Week 07

2007-04-30T23:03:00.000+10:00

Well its back again - the time of the year when everyone does their utmost to plug 'rural-ness' to us little med students. This year they are taking us up north to Turners Beach (Camp Clayton) where we'll visit the rural clinical school a few times, then to Launceston to see the clinical school there and then home via Agfest! The good thing is that all we have to pay for is our lunch at Agfest! It could be interesting - I'm hoping for the best. It will be good to not have masses of new content to learn but then there is a case for the week so maybe we will actually learn stuff! Anyway - it might be the lull before the storm because when we come back it will probably be time to get into exam studying all over again. That's if it is a lull at all!

It doesn't seem like that long since last time I locked myself away to study. Ok thats a lie - Jack and Ruth and I were shut in together... had to remind ourselves to leave the house occasionally, and that we did each have our own homes! But thats ok - mostly we were at mine or Jack's and they are both good (so long as you have blankets at Jack's).

Well, having never been to Agfest... it could be quite an experience! My friend Tom says he's looking forward to seeing the irrigators. But then he's in the business! I'll keep you posted about my highlights - which may or may not include riding tractors.

Google Earth Image

2007-04-22T21:34:00.001+10:00

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[Some of the] PROMISED PHOTOS

2007-04-22T00:15:00.001+10:00

Not sure who I promised to, or what exactly I promised, but I have at a number of times said I'd put up more photos. Here are some of them...

We have here me dressed as a 'portrait' for a 'P' party, (Ruth was a prisoner and Jack was a protestor with an anti P-Party placard); There were some other good ones - pirates, 'personal space-invader' (Jeremy!), Parachuters, Parcel, Present, and of course some Prince and Princess.

Next there's the new baby Angus who I claim as my nephew (via adopted brother Hugh and his wife Jess). He's very cute - and has surprisingly big hands! It will be fun to watch him get bigger.

And here is Ruth and I before Med cocktail party. The theme was Horror and Halloween theme. I'm Death... with a scythe that has proven amusing for creeping up on people in my house. Ruth is a goth - and proud of her op-shop buys.

The last photo is evidence (in case anyone was worried) that I don't spend all my time studying... maybe I should but still. This is 'Game of Thrones' which I played for the first time in the Easter break - 5&1/2 hours later we were in the 6th turn out of 10. I think we made it to the 8th before requiring a break - and we haven't gone back to it yet! Maybe we will... but it took some getting to grips with and was quite intense! And I was tired and didn't like getting attacked.

Dress up Jesus and 300

2007-04-11T15:15:00.000+10:00

Not entirely sure what I think about this one... I don't want to be overley precious about things and have no sense of humour - and I can see this could be amusing. So long as it doesn't offend people or distract from the importance of the fact this bloke Jesus really was put on a cross-without the bunny rabbit slippers, flippers, snorkel, tutu or pirate clothes, and really did die. And thats not where it ended. Hurrah.

I had a pleasant Easter day - I had breakfast with my friend Kat from up North, had lunch with Mum, Hamish and Jill and did some study before going to a party at the house Tahnee and Andrew are housesitting. Decent place - pool, tennis court, projector onto wall for large TV/movie viewing, fusball table, playstation with dance mats and singstar... lots of fun things that I could't justify owning, but am willing to make us of! And they have stunning view over water from Tinderbox. I missed out on church on Easter Sunday (ironic as for some people it might be the only time they do go!) but enjoyed the Tenebrae service I went to on Good Friday. I always quite liked the Tenebrae services at school with just readings, quiet, candles and maybe a few songs. This one was quite good although as well as readings, there were some comments about them and they seemed a bit simple and annoying - I would have preferred to reflect without the comments of 'When Jesus said 'it is finished' he meant that it was finished...'. Maybe they were slightly more in depth... but not much! Afterwards we had hot cross buns at Ruth's house with lots of people, before running away to the movies to see 300.

An interesting choice for Good Friday - plenty of reminders of brutal killing.... certainly Tahnee was right in her description of 'gory with lots of ugly people'. Still, it was enjoyable enough. And there was lots of yelling - things like 'FOR SPARTA', 'WE ARE SPARTANS' 'FOR GLORY'. Actually there were quite cheesy lines:

Persian Officer: Fools! Our arrows will blot out the sun.
Stelios: Then we will fight in the shade!

Spartan King Leonidas: SPARTANS! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... FOR TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL! [ok I added the caps but that's how it was said!]

Xerxes: Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
Spartan King Leonidas: And I would die for any of mine.

Perfectly Normal... don't you think?

2007-04-11T14:04:00.000+10:00

So there's this program 'photobooth' on macs... we had a play...
Me, Jack and Ruth... a 'special' bunch.
A masterpiece in the making

The five of us:

I think this is what med does to your head...

Two thumbs up. Or maybe just one.

Hot Cross Buns

2007-04-06T11:22:00.000+10:00

Dad knocked on my bedroom door this morning to offer my hot cross buns for breakfast - I was trying to still be asleep, but quickly gave up that idea and joined him and Kate for toasted buns for breakfast. Although there are many more things I could be doing now, I decided to have a quick look into the background of hot cross buns at Easter/Good Friday. My friends currently in the US said they don't have any hot cross buns there, and not really any eggs - and some strange candy. I still have to buy Easter eggs for people - although I do partly object to the commercial aspect. Also a friend of mine won't buy chocolate unless its fair trade - and I couldn't find any fair trade Easter chocolate... I have to decide what I'll get (may depend on whats left!!)

But back to the hot cross buns... Many recipes say the cross on the top is icing, but in most shop ones I've had its just white stuf. This is clearly symbolic of Jesus being put on the cross. From a very brief amount of reading on the internet, they seem to have an English heritage. Apparently first recorded mention is in 1733, however some people claim there are pagan origins. It seems that recently in the UK, several schools banned serving hot cross buns out of political correctness. The most bizarre triviva I found was that there is a pub in East London (The Widow's Son pub in Bromley-by-Bow) where in the 19th century, the widow who lived there put out a hot cross bun out on good friday her son - a sailor expected to return that day. Sadly he didn't, however the tradition has continued and a sailor still puts out a hot cross bun every year.

I found this blog post 'hot cross buns' which is part of 'The Old Foodie' - a blog with a recipe and some historical significance for linked with every day of the year. While I didn't get around to making any hot cross buns this year (I've said before that I will one day) I have friends that make lots and do a 'bun-run' each year - very impressive I say! But watch out- Diabetes New Zealand has warned of the health risks - one bun is equivalent to 2 or 3 pieces of bread and they should be considered a treat not a meal... I guess breakfast and lunch might be a treat today!!

Not what I should be doing... as usual!

2007-03-26T22:13:00.000+10:00

I keep thinking of all these fun things I'd like to do - play more board games, take more photos, have more cups of tea with people... read random blogs, look at strange animations, make books, read books, call people, listen to music, play guitar, teach myself Spanish or Swedish... and some of these things I can make time to do in little bits on pieces of time. But I keep avoiding things that do need tob e done - study, scholarship applications and sleep! Ah well - I did have a busy weekend, including seeing Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen on Sunday night, and Dream Masons tonight - both part of 10 Days of the Island and most enjoyable.

Time for me to make a cup of tea and settle into my pharm logbook before I fall asleep - nearly 45 minutes since i told myself I'd start and I haven't done much except delete about 250 songs from itumes (I had 4GB of duplicated music!). Its still a mess and I don't know that I like itunes but don't know if I feel strongly enough to change...

I also need to think of a costume for the TUMSS cocktail party on Saturday - halloween and horror theme. Any ideas? Last weeks dress up party on Friday went well - 'P' theme - I did Portrait and carried a frame. I will add photos but not right now. I know I've said that for a lot.. but one day there could be a lot of photos!

Just a few low res pictures from my phone!

2007-03-05T22:36:00.000+11:00

Just a couple of average quality pictures taken with my phone (its just hanging in there but doesn't actually charge the battery when you plug it in anymore!) but I thought I'd upload them anyway. This first one, is for Jo - I think it's her teddy (unless its Hugh's) but I forgot his name. We were sitting outside after lunch and Cooper was making us all cups of tea... and Teddy was sunsafe!The next is from when I went to see Peter Bjorn and John at Republic on thursday - I didn't take my real camera, but still decided to take a pic of me and John the drummer after he (and Peter and Bjorn) signed my CD!

And here's Cush... the gorgeous and loveable cat that visits me from next door... although I haven't seen him for a little while. A very cuddly cat :)

Reposted Pictures

2007-03-05T09:00:00.000+11:00

Sometime towards the end of last year my 'big-sister' Jo went to Texas to be with Jac. She took with her a cat-rabbit creation - but before they went I got a shot of cat-rabbit and Purry playing with Cooper's new train set. I wonder if Cat-Rabbit will be as much of an explorer as my small creation from Jac. Below is cat-rabbit looking (or not looking) out over Kingston from Jo's parents place the day before they left. And an old picture of my small travelling companion surveying the garden of a friend of my grandmother's from Cambridge - ready for an adventure! I think those 2 would be friends if they ever meet! (Even if they are both made from cloth!) (And I hope I didn't spoil anything by posting these briefly earlier... I hadn't realised cat-rabbit was a Christmas present :/ oopsies)

Le Monde En Action

2007-03-02T16:00:00.000+11:00

Cotton Wars - I want to see this!

2007-03-02T15:43:00.000+11:00

"Four forces combine in voltron style to produce a unique installation of cotton based armies; hand crafted and hand sewn, this battle scene will dazzle the eye and upset your stomach."

I'd never heard of the Inflight Gallery in Hobart until I read about this exhibitition on my friend Jac's blog comments... but I think I'll track it down and go soon! I love all the quirky cat-rabbit and ghostpatrol creations. There are some at Small Rhino which i walked past today, but Jack (different to Jac!) wouldn't stop because he thinks it's too pretentious! But I am enjoying listeneing to music on my computer with new (to me) speakers because he got awesome ones for his 21st... I got the cast offs so I can't complain.

Anyway, made it through first week back. I feel exhuasted - there were a lot of lectures, and it's hard to adjust to focusing and taking notes. That and I somehow had things on every night... but Submerge, drinks for Annika's 22nd, Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew' at botanical gardens, societies day followed by drinks at Knoppies for Jack's 21st, Bible Study and seeing Swedish band Peter Bjorn and John at republic were all good things.... and that doesn't include tonight! There is a party at a med friends house... I might make a short appearance before crashing with enough sleep to get up and survive Boot Camp tomorrow morning. Did I mention that insane thing? Well... strange idea... 7-8am three mornings a week of an otherwise friendly girl forcing me and some other crazy people to push ourselves to run faster, push up harder, squat lower, jump higher, etc etc. Not friendly. I missed thursday's sessions though because I had to be at the hospital early to visit the Catheter Lab. Much more interesting - I watched 2 angiograms. Very interesting - and i didn't feel TOO queezy watching blood come out when they first put it into the femoral artery (I guess you have to expect arteries to bleed if you put holes in them!).

My computer lives to see another day - but then what is life?

2007-02-25T17:58:00.000+11:00

There was thunder and lightning on friday night - it was quite impressive to watch. I'd just finsihed watching a movie with some friends and we went and stood the little undercover patio/verandah thing at my house - slightly surrounded by washing - admiring the lightning while drinking our cups of tea. Of course, I didn't give another thought to things like... computers being switched on! Later, after Jack and Ruth went I tried to check something - and my desktop which has its moments of being clunky and slow but is actually an old friend wouldn't do anything. I spent hte last few days thinking it might be dead - or just need ANOTHER new power supply.. and even got one from my cousin (who tells mehe got 4 for $10 from ebay)! But just as I faced the daunting though not particularly hard task of unplugging it all and undoing the case etc, I just tried swapping it to a different powerpoint! And now it works... hurrah! Ok... possibly Jack suggested just checking... but I'm glad all the same. And I really should back up anything of importance just in case!!

The movie we watched was Ghost in the Shell - apparently a classic anime. It wasn't as cheerful and happy as some of the Studio Ghibli ones I've seen, but was enjoyable anyway. There were some philosophical elements - what is life-AI, human genes which are basically programs anyway, etc. It was interesting that they quoted some familiar Biblical snippets-'When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child. Now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways.' And also something about seeing now only as a reflection, but later seeing in full. About life and people, the 'evil' 'Puppet Master' said:

'It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind.'

I picked up the ticket for the southern roots festival the other day (it had come registered post). In the mean time, I've been invited to a wedding (Cathy and Tom) the same day... ARRRGGHHH!! I think I'll go to wedding at 11, reception in cygnet afterwards and try to be back to showgrounds for festival for late afternoon. Hopeuflly I won't miss any of the big stuff - it opens at 10, but I am hoping it will take a while to kick off. I always seem to have clashes - I do do a lot of things, but there are days with nothing, and days with 3 things... doh!

Uni tomorrow... the only good thing is its a sleep-in compared to boot camp the day after. Actually, not the only good thing - it will be fun to be back into it, seeing people and having routine and so-on. Bring it on!

Running out of holidays...

2007-02-20T12:06:00.000+11:00

...but still making the most of them!

On friday, Tahnee and I zoomed off in comfort (borrowed Mum's VW golf - which we think looks kinda hippo shape but she was offended when I said that) on our adventure to Bicheno. It was almost a year ago that we'd done a similar trip, only we'd just squeezed in 2 nights, arriving late and leaving early on the last day to return to uni. beautiful sunny day which was spent in a similar way... eating, drinking (warm day perfect for a beer or two!), visiting both the surf shops - had to make sure we supported the local economy. We spent a fair bit of the afternoon at the beach - a couple of dips, some time in the sun reading books and magazines.. bliss! Three of our other friends were camping further up the East Coast since thursday. We'd skillfully arranged for them to visit us on their way back - and our meeting timed perfectly: we were just walking up from the beach as they drove into the carpark. (Which luckily meant they'd deciphered my map of how to A whole year ago, and it was my first day... but now I'm a big grown up second year student.. next week I am anyway. This trip, we arrived on the Friday afternoon, relaxed, ate cheese and bisuits, drank Coronas and made our selves pretty comfortable. Saturday was a get to the beach!). Our sleepover was a great success - our veggie friendly meal of pumpkin gnochi with invented tomato, onion, red wine etc sauce, plus coleslaw when down well. An evening stroll to the gulch followed by *ahem* butterscotch self saucing pudding... which we of course could have made from scratch but.. hey at a shack its easier to just add egg and 3 tbs water!

There was plenty of lazing around time - reading, i did some random drawings and even played with some paints, we went for brief walks to the beach to make us feel less lazy, and we made sure to eat and drink at regulr intervals - otherwise we wouldn't get through all the food we brought with us! After another relaxing morning on monday, we packed up after lunch (and a quick trip BACK to the surf shop because I decided the other jumper I liked when I first saw it was worth it after all!). There were only a few stupid log trucks and slow rentacars to contend with on the drive home - and with Tahnee as dj, it was a pleasant return trip after avery enjoyable weekend. At home I discovered they've begun knocking down walls - well a wall, the one between rooms upstairs where they plan to put a kitchen. Not that there isn't already a kitchen but its a long story! Ah and.. they began knocking down the wall, removed plaster etc, but the studs are still there... and thats because it turns out to be a weight bearing wall.. ie IT'S HOLDING UP THE ROOF. They forgot about that. I guess it's the first of a number of the hiccups that occur when renovating old places. That and.. there's dust everywhere.

Today marked the beginning of what will most likely be a stupidly painful exercise, which for some reason I volunteered for. No, not volunteered. PAID FOR! And exercise it is. I am doing a boot camp. One of those things where you get up early, run around in the cold and wet, do push ups in the mud etc. Tahnee's boyfriend Andrew already did a 4 week one, and now Tahnee and I thought we'd join in this one - a friend of their's is running it. This morning was supposed to be the beep test - which you do again at the end to see how much you improve. Sadly (or not) the CD was skipping so we have that in store for thursday. Instead we did other 2 minute tests - push-ups, sit-ups, tricep dips, and then in theory, squat jumps. Everyone else did the squat jumps, but while counting Tahnee's tricep dips my field of vision started to go dark, and blurry, and close in on me... I sat down, but then thought instead it would be wise to dash to the bathroom. I'm hoping that it won't be repeated - but there definately was nothing but water in my stomach!

FIVE whole days left before university starts.. and I'm counting. But now I should head to mum's place for lunch with her, Hamish, and Hamish's parents before they leave for home (UK) tomorrow after their stay here over Christmas.

puddling along

2007-02-05T15:28:00.000+11:00

Holidays are still puddling along. They feel as though they are going quickly - suddenly its feburary. But then, I've done quite a bit in some ways. I had Aquatics last week - my annual sailing cap. That was great fun-I'd convinced a few camper aged friends to come along. In the week before camp we managed to recruit enough campers to bring it from 10 to 20 - which made the 14 leaders slightly less excessive. But we did have 4 babies under 3 to look after, plus we did all the cooking ourselves. We had it at a new sight as well, so that took some extra consideration - and then, it was excessivley windy most days so our usual days on the beach with sailing required reconsidering! We re-invented the timetable as we went - filling it with alternative activities such as Hastings pool, murder mysteries, softball on Australia day (grass was too long for planned 20-20 cricket!), sleep in followed by French toast and pancakes on the bbq, and plenty of general laid back chill time. Anyway, the usual crew of leaders were good fun to be with, as were teh mix of campers - some familiar to Anglican Camping, and other new faces. There were 4/5 player games of spit/speed (even more concentration required than the normal 2 player), mountain boards being towed behind a 4wd, surf kiyaking, sprint4mint sunday, and plenty more fun.

On the saturday, mid-camp, Mark and I drove back from Southport to Margate for the wedding of some friends of mine. It was lovely, although sort of odd to adjust from camp mind-frame to not and then back again later. The reception at Home Hill was very enjoyable - a good meal, and some amusing capers with our table.. but then you wouldn't want to have a boring set of photos from the disposable camera provided on the table.. and they'll know it was table 5! (Though they may not have needed to remember what the toilets looked like...)

Since then I've been back in the real word, catching up on sleep, organising tax stuff, reading Terry Pratchett books, watching movies, eating icecream and so on. As it happens, Mark and I broke up the day after camp, which may explain the extra girls afternoons, nights, movies, ice-cream etc... Mum and Katherine (aunt) took me out for lunch one day, I met up with Tahnee for the afternoon on friday, and she came around again on Sunday, stayed the night and came out for breakfast with mum and I today, and Ruth brought icecream on saturday. Although this (the breakup - or the icecream for that matter) wasn't my decision, Ruth has given me a tick of approval and says I'll be ok - and I agree. I was sad, and it is a shame because there seemed to be a lot of good things about us being together, however it seems it was not to be. We both want to keep being friends, although time will tell exactly what that looks like - but we'll manage. I'd want that, even if Hobart wasn't so small that with overlapping Christian and Med circles we are bound to see each other!

Meanwhile, life goes on. And I've read 'Light Fantastic', part of 'Mort', watched Anchorman, Napoleon Dynamit e, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and The Break Up, I went to my cousins for dinner wednesday, out for lunch thursday, lunch and dinner friday (as well as to a gig with Attic Grooves and Miso), was at the sailing club on saturday, and at someone's house for lunch on sunday before going to Savoy baths... so I've been keeping busy!

And looking ahead, Tahnee and I want to go to Bicheno, and THIS looks fun:

Happy New Year (its still holidays-I'm allowed to be slow)

2007-01-22T23:09:00.000+11:00

Hello and welcome back for a new year on the blog. I haven't decided what the content will be for the year - seems boring to just have my little comings and goings. But for now I'm still on holidays and filling my time with all sorts of interesting and less interesting passtimes. Working backwards (maybe thats the way my mind works) I had my last day working at the chemist today. They even bought me a lemon tart to celebrate-very nice it was too. It was a little bit sad to be leaving, but by the time I come back from a week away (starting tomorrow) they'll be opening in a different building, with a different name and different owner! Times are changing.

I've also done some painting work for my Dad at a property he's doing up. Its not too painful - mostly I do the cutting in and Kate or Dad do the larger scale roller-ing. And we can only do first coats until the floors get sanded - apparently it makes so much dust which is hard to get completely off so its better to do the second paint coat afterwards. Some beams holding up the floor (it is an old house) were resting straight on the ground and were rotten through, so they all had to be replaced. The plumbers were there the other day putting in pipes in what will be the bathroom (no more outhouse hurrah - not that i've used it, partly as I don't like the seat which is more a bench with a hole!) Anyway its definitely improving. And Dad even admitted I was good at painting, even if I am too busy to do much!

Other than that, I've had some good time catching up with friends - some chilling with Tahnee. We went to see the movie Apocalypto on friday with some other people - I didn't really find out much about it beforehand, so it was a little more violent than I usually choose to see. It was quite graphic in some parts - although it was not the sight of blood and guts that is offputting, so much as the thought of humans being so brutal to each other. Especially between tribes of people who look nearly the same to me! But they did have good names - Jaguar Paw, Turtles Run, Flint Sky.
Amusingly, the IMDB website has this about the movie:
Goofs: Anachronisms: The buildings in the city co-mingle architectural styles from three separate Mayan civilizations: Tikal Classic Maya (800 CE), Puuc (c.1050 CE), and El Mirador, a Pre-Classic metropolis that existed around the year 0 CE.

Yesterday Tahnee and I went with her parents and some others to see the performance of Aladdin in the Botanical Gardens. All was going well, and we were enjoying the show along with quite a mob of adults and even some children. Then it began to rain. They asked if they should keep going and we said yes and all shuffled in under the trees some more (we were at the second location of three) but then it really bucketed down. We couldn't hear what they were saying because of the noise of the rain as well as everyone muttering and chatting. We all ran for cover under the restaraunt and after a while the actors (still in their lovely but not very waterproof costume complete with Arabic style hats) came to tell us we could keep the tickets and come back another day. Sadly they are only on for the rest of the week and I'll be away so I don't get to know the end - although I have my suspicions young Aladdin gets the girl and all is well. But it would have been nice to see it played out - they said it was a bit different to the movie version.

So with our afternoon plans... dampened, we ran to the car, getting completely drenched on the way. Amusingly, I realised I was wearing the same shirt (yes all i was wearing was a skirt and short sleeved shirt - not much good in a downpour) that I wore in Cambridge when Tahnee and I again got drenched to the skin while having a trip on the river Cam! After a quick change at home, then a cup of tea with Tahnee's parents at her place we ventured out with raincoats to the video shop - the giant video city in New Town which I'd never been to. After some deliberation we armed ourselves with 3 more anime ones we'd been making our way through last year - studio Ghibli/Miyazaki movies. We got The Castle of Cagliostro, The Grave of the Fireflies, and Laputa, The Castle in the Sky.

The Castle of Cagliostro was pretty early on I think, and it was amusing, but more like Tintin - big goofy really. The Grave of the Fireflies is set in WWII Japan and had some really sad moments. Not so cheerful, but I thought it was good - showed that even with the threat of air-raids, for the orphans in the story it was actually the unkindness of other people that was most unpleasant. Laputa seemed quite long, but had some good bits, and some good robots and flying machines too. And again it was 2 orphans who meet when one falls from the sky!! Pazu says 'A girl just fell from the sky, boss!' and next thing he's helping her run away from pirates, the army and find a hidden castle in the sky! There are a few more Studio Ghibli ones to see, but after that I don't know what anime is any good. Some just looks wierd....!

As well as all that, I went away about a week ago to Bicheno with Mum and Hamish, his parents, my aunt and uncle, cousin and some others. It was a stunning weekend with gorgeous weather. I squeezed in a most enjoyable mix of reading, swimming, fishing, drinking coffee, fishing, swimming, eating out at the French restaraunt (delicious food - I had duck), eating at cousins shack (delcious food-we had rabbit), playing a board game, doing jigsaw puzzles and just relaxing. I left early on the monday (oops before some of the cleaning was finished!) to head home to collect my aunt from Melbourne at the bus station, had lunch and catch up with her, and headed to see Mark after his 3 weeks in NSW. All in all, a top weekend!

There was also the whole adventure of Christmas and Falls. It already seems quite a while ago. And I do have photos to put up, but once again they are not here in the same house that I am in. For now, Christmas involved, dinner with Dad (and Kate, and grandmother), breakfast on Christmas Day with them, lunch with Mark, his family and some international students, driving to Bicheno, random meal with whoever was around, big dinner of boxing day night with Mum's family. Few days there then back home and I was off to Falls. I camped with Tahnee and her boyfriend and his friends who were good fun. I enjoyed heaps of different bands - John Butler Trio, Modest Mouse, Blue King Brown, Michael Franti, Benjafield Collective etc. Was nearly tempted to watch the sun rise on new years morning, but at quarter to five we decided it was actually a fair way off!! Instead we slept until about 8, woke and realised it wasn't necessarily a sunny day heading our way, so plan to linger and go to the beach may be foiled, so instead packed quickly and left the site by 9 and were home by 10. Certainly did better than some others caught in traffic as the day went on! Another top way to welcome the new year.

And thats a not very brief run-down of me lately... well the bits worth writing. Lots more happened in the gaps - no wonder I have barely touched a computer! Still plenty of time for that when term begins soon enough - then I will actually have something to procrastinate about!

Oh and tomorrow I'm off to Southport for my annual sailing/kiyaking Anglican camp. Seems we'll have about 18 kids, and 14 leaders (better than the 13 we were looking at earlier in the week - i recruited 4 more!). New venue - should be exciting. Hoping for good weather. Will write about that one in another few months!!!

Picture Hunting

2006-12-03T22:40:00.000+11:00

I was wasting time this evening - playing with my laptop while watching some CSI equivalent on TV and found some cool pictures. So I thought I'd add a couple on here. Anyway its the end of another weekend. I ended up being quite busy - had breakfast with Tahnee, did some shopping, went to Salamanca, had coffee with Tahnee, her mum and another friend of theirs yesterday before going to sailing where I took 2 young girls out in optimists. They did well because it was quite breezy and it was only their 3rd time in a boat - twice in a mirror with me and then they were on their own! Today I went to church, had a quick lunch at Hilary and Coopers - admired his new bed and his new bike, then dashed off to babysit Finlay and Brendon. We went to the little park just down from their house, then to the sweet shop in Hampden Rd, and the boat park for a play. The soccer ball came too - so we ended up playing keepins off, which was usually keepings off me. Now I'm about to go to sleep and be ready for another week of work - but thankfully I'm not working as much this week - not everyday. But tomorrow will be a long day with work, submerge, babysitting again and then staying over with my cousins in Taroona.

Blind spot on the eyeBlood vessels in the retina shown emerging from the optic disc (black). The optic disc is the part of the retina where the optic nerve carries all the visual information away from the eye, and where the retinal blood vessels enter and leave the back of the eye. No light receptor cells are present here, making it a blind spot. We don't normally notice that the blind spot exists because the other eye compensates for that small area.Branching brain cells: These specialised cells named Purkinje cells (red) are found in a part of the brain called the cerebellum. They send out vast numbers of branches that make connections with other cells in the cerebellum. This part of the brain coordinates your voluntary movements and keeps you oriented in space. It also plays a part in learning physical skills – such as riding a bike or playing the piano.Teasel flower bud: Teasels are thistle-like wild flowers that have long been used in traditional herbal medicine. Teasel root tea was once used to stimulate the appetite, reduce fluid retention and help some liver complaints. Bruised roots were used in an ointment to treat warts, and teasels were even used to ward off witches. The complex pattern seen in this teasel bud is controlled by the same family of genes that controls the layout not only of all flowers, but also of all animal and human bodies as well.

Most Understandable Pie Chart

2006-11-29T22:56:00.000+11:00

Speaks for itself really... data and statistics I can understand! And I do like pies...

catching up on photos

2006-11-27T18:28:00.000+11:00

This is just a couple of shots from a 'Live at the House' gig I went to the other day -a whole bunch of bands playing for free (but you had to pickup your tickets before) to celebrate 150 of parliament house. Not a bad gig - especially liked Lior and Bomba.