Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Christmas was a lot of fun. Unlike last year, we were not in the middle of a heat wave. The weather was lovely and warm, but also breezy and refreshing. I had planned on going to Tim and Leonie’s again for Christmas, but they ending up moving over Christmas week and so to save them bother I invited them to my house as both my housemates had gone home. It was really fun to host Christmas. It was me and Tim and Leonie, their sun Isaac and our friend Jono who is a part of the bible study. On the 23rd we had High Chocolate at the Rowbottom’s. It went really well. I read aloud the book, The Red Ranger Came Calling (which is one of my favourites) I had tried to buy it last year, but it did not arrive until after Christmas. So I have waiting to read it for a whole year. Before I starting reading I gave a short lecture about how one should behave when one is read aloud too. Namely that, come hell or high water, you never ever talk when someone is reading aloud. For Christmas Eve Sue and Cam (sue is the music leader and Cam is the associate pastor) hosted an informal afternoon tea and carol sing at their house. I sang with the music team and tried to do a harmony to Silent Night, but kept slipping into the melody. Still it was fun. For Christmas day in Australia you can either do a traditional roast dinner with the all the trimmings or you can do a cold dinner (since it is summer over here) and have BBQ prawns (shrimp) and cold salad etc. We decide to do a half and half. We had roasted chicken, but eat it cold with a lovely Potato Bake (scallop potatoes) that Leonie makes and cold salads. I had been trying to explain to people what Jell-O salad was, but no one could visualise it or see how a dish make with jelly (jello) and cream could be part of the main course. So I make a jello salad called The Orange Salad We All Like (recipe courtesy of the Sherrie-girl). It was a huge success! They really liked it and it became a topic of conversation at church as everyone wanted to know what on earth a “jelly salad” was. They call Jell-O “jelly” over here. We had a very relaxing Christmas day. Isaac got two huge Lego kits and spent the day building and we just hung out and talked, watched a movie, took a walk, even gave over some time for a ‘break’ where I read and others took a nap. A very good day. I also got to talk to family in the morning so that was really great._______________New Years what just as relaxed. I stayed over at Sarah and Emma’s. We went to a movie with Ali (a girl in the bible study) and where home and in bed by 11pm! We saw Tower Heist, which was much better than I thought it would be. Really funny and an ending I did not expect. Afterwards were got Chinese take away. New year’s day was a Sunday, but because we meet on Uni campus and the campus was closed for the holidays, we could not have church, so has a bible study we had a breakfast at the Rowbottoms. David had been gone most of December. David’s dad, Peter who had been visiting since September had gone home to England the first week in Dec. The next week David got a call that Peter had had a stroke, by the time David flew to England his dad had died. Lorraine and the girls stayed here, but David was gone for several weeks. We asked Lorraine how we could help, she said that bring in meals could be problematic as the girls have allergies, so instead, could we help clean? So for three weeks on Thursday afternoons a couple of us went over. Lorraine was working so what we ended up doing was giving Lorraine some time to herself and helped the girls clean their rooms (although we did give Richard the job of mowing the lawns). Each rowbottom girl got a helper to make sure they did their work. I sat on a desk chair and watched as Rebecca took forever to clean her room. Then we mopped the floors. It was good to do something to help out.

Hello again. I haven’t written in a while, because nothing major has really been going on; just work and church, friends etc. I finished teaching my class for this term so I have been doing lots of marking. I think I have become harsher in my marking this term. Last term I felt so bad if I had to fail someone, I felt like I was being mean. This term I feel that I understand the marking rubric better and I know that I am following the guidelines correctly, so it is not my fault if someone fails, they did not meet the requirements. My conscience is clear.__________________ something interesting that is happening in Perth is the special holiday called CHOGM, a holiday that happens only when the Queen of England comes to Australia. The definition of this event is and I quote “CHOGM stands for Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Every two years Commonwealth leaders meet to discuss global and Commonwealth issues, and agree collective policies and initiatives.” CHOGM can be held at any of the commonwealth countries (around 50 counties are part of the British Commonwealth including India, S. Africa, Singapore, and Canada). Apparently the Queen has not been in Australia for 10 years and since she is coming to Perth we get an extra day off! I don’t know if the rest of the country does or not. We did not get the Queen’s birthday off in September as we usually would in preparation of the CHOGM holiday. There are also the commonwealth games, a sort of mini Olympics for just commonwealth countries.________________ with all this holiday stuff happening it seems appropriate that I have invented a new one myself. As some of you may know, my family likes to make up holidays. It has been several years since we have made up a new one and I thought it is about time. This new one has not yet been celebrated (next weekend will commence the festivities) and I have no idea if it will work out or not. It is called Culinary Wimsey (thank you Kathy G for the name!), a day when you get together with friends and each person brings the ingredients and recipe for a food that they themselves have never cooked before. Then will follow a fun afternoon of cooking and helping each other to tackle these new culinary challenges. This is not a competition! No no! Rather a space to finally try that recipe that you find you have never gotten around to making, but always wanted to try. And of course and the end of the day you get sample all the food, now that is what I call a pot luck, who knows what kind of creations will be make. A lot of the details still need to be worked out and of course throughout the day we will determine new traditions and customs of the holiday (I love that part, hee hee. I am such a nerd!). next post will tell you all about the outcome. Cheers!

Sydney Melbourne Two months since I updated my blog, wow, too long by far. So here will be a quick run though of what I did and then we will get back to the weekly posts. First off, my mother came to visit! I met her in Sydney and we spent 5 days there and 3 days in Melbourne before going back to Perth where Mom stayed for another two weeks. It was so good to see her! I swear, I had not been home sick once since coming here, but after Mom left I have been feeling more and more excited about coming home next year. Can you believe it? I have less than a year left, crazy. Anyway, Sydney was great, I loved the Opera house and harbor, the war memorial made both of us cry. I loved taking the opera house tour, I know so much great trivia about it now and it really is an amazing engineering feat. I got a Sydney snow globe to add to my exclusive collections. I had wanted one of Perth, but I haven’t seen one and the Sydney was really pretty and it plays “waltzing Matilda” which is sort of the unofficial national anthem over here. Mom took it back with her, so I only got to see if for a little while, but I am glad it is home safe. Melbourne was also great. The best shopping! There is an open farmers market that is always open called the Victorian Markets. Everything from fresh doughnuts, fresh meat, fantastic cheeses and wine to stuff animals, aboriginal art and hats; I got the cutest hat! One thing we did that is unique was called The Edge it is the tallest skyscraper in the city and on a top flour you can get into a glass cube that moves out onto the side of the building, sort of like a sideways elevator. The whole thing is glass so you can see 80 stories below you, it was fun and gave us bracelets that said “I survived The Edge”. It was so fun having Mom in Perth, she met all my friends and came to church. I had to go back to Uni, but Mom went all over Perth and left me with a list of things I must do before I leave._____________ok, that was my trip, the month of August wsa pretty quiet except for some more drama in my church, if you have been following this blog all year, you may remember that last year at this time, my church was having some problems. Well, they never got resolved and as the churches annual meeting came up again it came to a head. It was (and is) very stressful and I would appreciate your prayers for us. However, no one has left the church and the two factions of people are working together and it looks like we are going to get through it. On top of that we have several members of my bible study in the hospital, one for depression and one with a new baby in intensive care; so lots going on! I am moving ahead with my project, I am still afraid I won’t finish, but I am now praying with a friend once a week and I am feeling very encouraged. God is so good, I was so afraid to call this friend, I didn’t know if she would be interested in praying with me. I bit the bullet and emailed her, explaining how I felt I need some accountability to keep me on task at school, and just to focus on God more. She replied immediately and said how she had been wanting to ask me to have a prayer time for awhile and was afraid to ask me. “What fools these mortals be.” I am really excited about it.______i went the Perth Zoo the other weekend. Our church a meeting there (the zoo has a function room, how cool is that?)so I was not able to go through the who zoo, but I was able to go through the Aussie part and not only did I see a Tasmanian devil and an echidna, along with the kangas and koalas, but they were all active and moving around so we got a really good look. I wish I had brought my camera! Next update soon, I promise!