Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

I know I didn't write anything here last week. Kings Park is next/in the City of Perth, you can go to a look out point at night and see the City sky line all lit up, really pretty. I went to the park during the day for an hour or so with Emma and Rinette. We just walked around and saw pretty things, there is a war memorial, and a art gallery, as well as a botanical garden and places for BBQs. I found it refeshing after a busy week.

What have I been up to, let’s see... two Mondays I babysat for the Rowbottoms, three girls Rebecca, Rachel, and Joanna; ages 10, 8 and 6 receptively. I had lots of fun. They go to bed (and then get to read for 30 min) at 7:30 so it was a short night. We ate dinner where the penalty for burping was 10 jumping jacks, only Joanna had to do any. I learned that a jumping jack without a clap over your head is called a star jump. Then I checked off Rebecca’s homework sheet to prove she had done it and listened to Rachel read a story and sign off on her sheet. I had barely finished when Joanna can up to me with her book. She didn’t have any homework, but we went through it anyway :) We had our first rent inspection. Every 3 months the company we rent from comes by and looks over the house to see if we are keeping it up, everyone I know here who rents has this happen to them. It means a through clean of the house and garden (yard). Kind of annoying to be inspected, but kind of nice to have a forced deep clean.+++++++ I am working really hard at Uni and getting along with my research, I now have exactly one year to finish my masters and by gum I am going to do it! I am still working out my funding for this year, but assuming that comes through I should be done this time next year. This means that I have been in Australia one year now. Wow, that seems so long and so short a time. I have had a good time and I hope you have enjoyed the journey with me. +++++++++++++ this weekend I went to a quiz night on Friday night, it was a fund raiser for my friends field hockey team (they just call it hockey since no one plays ice hockey so there is no danger of confusion). It was fun, $10/person and a group of us from church had a table, there were 8 rounds of different categories of questions, Movies, music, the city of Perth, etc. At the end the winning table got $200 gift certificate to a nice restaurant and 6 bottles of wine for a night out (10 people at a table). We came in 3rd which we were happy with. My best moment was during the sports and games categories, the question was, “what is the point value of the F tile in scrabble?” I went with a gut feeling and told the table scribe (Emma) to write 4 and I was right!+++++++++ Saturday night Emma, Renae, Rinette, (girls from church, Renae is an Aussie undergrad and Rinette is a Canadian medical doctor, almost) and I went for a girls night out to the Perth Sculpture by the Sea exhibit, a collection of local sculpture art all displayed on the beach for anyone to look at for free. We got there just as the sun was setting, we walked around to looking at the art and also the water and the sunset, it was delightful. Then we went on to dinner and ending up going to Sizzler because Emma hadn’t been since she was a kid and wanted to try it. It was good food and we had a great time talking and laughing, an all around good evening. I am co-teaching a class this term. It is a 3 hour once a week workshop for 1st year undergrads (they are not called freshman, sophomore, etc. Just 1st year, 2nd year). I have to do short lectures of slides provided to me and help with assignments and even grade stuff. Scary! The class is an intro class basically How to Be at Uni. They learn about referencing papers, plagiarism and then ethics. Should be fun!

Well, it has been a while since I have written. Nothing blog-worthy has really happened, just school, church, friend, home, etc. School is going well; at this point I am focusing on getting my masters in the next 13 months, and will leave the grandiose dreams of a PhD until after I have achieved that degree. It has been crazy hot and humid here the last few weeks. Everyone keeps telling how unusually it is to have humidity here, like Arizona “it’s a dry heat”. So everyone has been annoyed by the heavy stickiness that is our air. I keep telling everyone that you can’t beat the Northwest US for air, l love the air back home! So sweet! So fresh! Ahhh. I have found that now that I have been here a year (next week it is a year exactly) I am more excited by American stuff and things that remind me of home. I am not really homesick, but I got very happy when I found root beer and made a float. I had not realized that I had gone a whole year without one. They have floats here; known as spiders, made with other soda pops, but no one really drinks root beer. When I shared it with my friends, they told me they had heard of it and that is wash anise flavoured (black liquorice) I had never thought about what flavour root beer was before. They were right! It has other flavours as well, but if you close your eyes, think about liquorice and drink some root beer, you can so taste it!___________ the new term at Uni has started so tons of undergrads have taken over the campus again, I had gotten quite used to the quite of summer, I try and be nice and stop and give confused people help with finding the building they can’t find, trouble is, I only go to my side of campus and am not that good with the rest of it. Our church is seeing some new students come and we are all trying to be very welcoming and all that.__________the new houses and the new housemate are good. The three of us our getting along well and there is no drama. A very big plus with housemates (you here such horror stories!). Yet again, I have two house mates that don’t watch movies or read for fun. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just means I get rather blank looks when I quote a movie during conversation. Oh well, I have other friends who fill this void. Tim and Leoni are some of those; I usually have dinner at their place once a week, such a fun time. We just relax, have dinner, and maybe watch TV or talk. It is defiantly a place a fell at home it and is a very nice thing to have so far from my family.___________ I was going to end this with something funny and amusing, but nothing is coming to mind...think, think, think...what do call a women who has one leg shorter than the other? Eileen (I lean, get it?). Ok, bye!