Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

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!