Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Hi, some fun things happened this month. I went on a hike in bush = "bush walk". I have continued to be involved at church and I started going to a Friday night service at YWAM. I love it, the worship is so alive and the people are great. I will go any time I can get a ride. It is down town at night and not a lot of safe bus availability. I have started looking for a permanent place to live and I think I found it. I pair of sisters have a house and one of them is getting married. The girl who I will be sharing with is named Melissa. She is a primary school teacher and I think she and I will get on well. I need to confirm with her (she didn't answer her phone last night). I will be staying at my current house sitting job for another 3 weeks Adan then probably going to David and Lorraine's for a few weeks. Sue (the other sister) is getting married around July 10th. I will move in after that. The house is furnished but the room is not so I will be hunting around for cheap ways to make it homey. Lorraine found me a bed and I am hoping to find a chair so I can read in my room if I want. The reason I haven't been writing in my blog much is that I am stressed out over my degree. I am supposed to be writing a proposal and I am having a lot of trouble with it. Please pray for me. Some days I don't know what to do and I get frustrated and some days I get stubborn and lazy and don't want to work. This is a huge personal challenge for me. This is not about study habits and stuff. It feels bigger than that. It is like a can see myself failing, and I just want to burying my head in the sand rather then try to stop failing. I am not going to make the deadline of June 28th. I don't know what that will mean for my degree. I am going to bring it up with my prof tomorrow at our meeting. I need your prayers; it comes down to this: I don't want to fail, but my sinful side doesn't want to do the work it will take to succeed, I need God and yet I am keeping Him at arms length because part of me doesn't want to do it His way. I know this is really personal and may not be appropriate for a blog, but I want to be honest. Please don't worry about me. I am still following God and I plan to keep trying. I will try to write every week like before and not avoid talking to you because I am ashamed. I know that isolation is not the answer. Know too, that I am talking to people here and sharing with them. I am not alone. Thank you so much. Reba

Hello Friends, Not much has happened in the last week. I had a couple from the church over for dinner on Sunday. Sara and Craig are my neighbours just a few doors down. They are in there late 30’s and don’t have any kids. We had a nice time. And on Saturday night a group went to see Iron Man 2, very fun. It was a group of 8 guys and 2 girls counting me. Two of the guys had wives at home who chose not to come. I guess I am unfeminine to like such violence. But is really was a good movie, I liked it a lot and would see it again. Yesterday at school I was walking down the hall and a group of professors were walking towards me. This made me feel rather intimidated, I was getting up the nerve to look them in the eye when one of them said, “Reba, she could come”. Apparently there was an Austrian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST) annual dinner that night and they had an extra ticket. This meant I got to go for free. It was being held down the road at a technical college where they have a student run restaurant. It was a beautiful place (much nicer than my culinary school’s), we are talking napkins being put on our laps for us by the wait-staff and three delicious courses for $25. I got to meet some people in the industry, something I have not had the opportunity to do so far. And now I know where the student run restaurant is, I love going to those places. The school also has a beauty shop. Now, onto the more interesting part of my title: beetroot. Here they don’t call them beets, they are Beetroots and I love them! They are my new favourite snack. I don’t know how this happened, but I had some at a BBQ and realised that I like them so I bought some and marinated them in vinaigrette. They are the perfect snack! Salty and tangy with they vinegar, I know understand for the first time what some people see in pickles (which I have never liked). I now have a container of acidified beets in my fridge at all times. I am averaging about a can a week. Beetroot is very popular over here, they even put them on their hamburgers, I have yet to try this.