Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Oh my word! My birthday party was a bash and a half. Leoni and Tim hosted it, but we had it at the Rowbottom’s. It all started a couple months ago when everyone started talking about the birthday parties they had had as children, they kept talking about “pass the parcel” and “fairy bread”. I had no idea what they were talking about, so Leoni said that for my birthday she would throw me a traditional Australian kids party. Did she ever! Leoni decorates cakes; she said I could have any cake in her book. I chose a Mushroom… because… I mean…how quirky and me is a mushroom cake:) That gave Leoni the idea to have an Alice and Wonderland theme, so we had a Mad Hatter Tea Party. When everyone got there they were shown the craft table to make their own hat (we did have some kids present, but mostly adults who were so keen on their hats that the actually party started late). Then there were games of musical chairs, pass the parcel, and pin the smile on the Cheshire Cat, all with prizes for the winner of course. Pass Parcel is a game where a gift is wrapped in multiple layers of paper, in my game each layer had either a lolly or a message. Like hot potato, you pass the parcel around the circle and when the music stops whoever is holding the parcel unwraps one layer and gets to eat the lolly or do whatever the message says. We had things like, “say the alphabet backwards, fold a paper airplane with one hand, and do the fudderwaken (a dance from the new Alice in wonderland movie). The person who removes the last layer of paper gets the present. Between the games we ate. And ate and ate. Leoni out did herself on the cake, you can see the pictures, the mushroom is made out of vanilla cake and the green grass in chocolate, you can even see the blue caterpillar on top made from fondant icing! We also had typical kid birthday food, none of which I had had before coming to Australia. Chocolate crackles made from rice krispies, cocoa and coconut; honey joys made from corn flakes and, you guessed it, honey. Fairy bread which is buttered bread with hundreds and thousands on it. (colored sprinkles). The fairy bread was surprisingly good. I liked it, of course it was really butter and high quality bread, and that helps. For savouries we had “little fanks” aka small hot dogs (no buns) and curried egg salad sandwiches. Now it is interesting to note that I went to a birthday party a while ago and I noticed that the deviled eggs tasted different, it turns out that they were in fact curried eggs and now I was having curried egg sandwiches. Also we had sausage rolls, aka ground sausage in puff pastry. Because different people had brought different things, I felt obliged to try one of everything, so much sugar! To many sweets, I am not a kid anymore :) The last game we played was Pin the Smile on the Cheshire Cat (aka pin the tail on the donkey). It turned into a hilarious game of Watch David Rowbottom Mess With the Blindfolded Person. First he got in the way and directed my housemate, Jayelle, to put the smile on his face, then he kept shouting at people to go the wrong way and finally he brought out a pane of glass and stood directly in front of the sliding glass door where the Cat was. I was rolling on the floor it was so funny. All and all a great party, over 20 people were there and several couldn’t make it. I feel so blessed to have so many friends. It is amazing to think that I have been here just one year and I have such a community around me.

The weather has change, it is defiantly fall. It is still nice and warm during the day, but now the evenings are cool and I am actually using all my covers. I have also worn a jacket for the first time in 5 months! I have never gone so long without needed blankets and coats. It is even raining right now. I like the cooler weather, although I did enjoy such a long summer. I think there has been less than 10 days since I have been here that have been cloudy all day long. I am getting allot of work done right now. Not only am I trying to put in 10 hour days to catch up with my schedule, I am teaching 6 hours of workshops on Thursday. It’s been good. It feels nice see the project moving forward. I am actually starting to believe I will be able to finish my masters on time It is strange to be starting my second year in Perth. I am doing things for the second time the Aussie way. Easter is coming up, my first Holiday experience in Australia last year. It feels like I have been here for so long and yet not long at all. It feels like the next year will just fly by. (I think if I try really hard I can get some more clichés). I have been working so much, I don’t have allot to talk about, I will have pictures soon of my birthday and Easter.

Well, God has sure blessed me in more ways than one. I have been trying to figure out my financing for this second year of school for a while, I was hoping to get a scholarship, but I was unsuccessful. I finally realized that tuition was going to be due, so I bit the bullet and applied for a loan, which is when the trouble started. Two weeks ago I find out that I can’t get the loan, I spent several days going through all the possibilities but nothing came up, I had no money to continue school. A week ago Monday I emailed my advisors to tell them I could see no way for me to get the money and that I would need to quit if nothing came up in the next four days because that Friday was the cut off date to withdrawn from the term (even though I am not taking classes, they deadlines still apply to me). Monday afternoon Stuart tells me that under his grant he has some money that might be able to give me, if he is able to under the restrictions of the grant. Tuesday he gets the go ahead and by Wednesday the scholarship has been created and awarded to me. It will come in fortnightly (every two weeks) instalments and will just cover my tuition for the year. Praise God! I am teaching a class and should hopefully be able to make enough for my living expenses. Amazing. Now for the other way God blesses me. You may not know that I am behind in my degree, I am half way through my time, but not half way through my work (may I just say who every invented the thesis literature review was an evil, evil man). This means I need to work extra hard this year to make sure I get everything done, because there is no more money for me to take an extra year, not to mention that now I am under Stuart’s grant I have to give results in a timely manner. This scares me to no end, I honestly don’t know if I can do it. But I know God can. He obviously wants me here and I believe that He wants to use this difficult, stretching experience to teach me to rely more on Him and to give Him more of me. I am excited about that I would ask you to pray for me that I am able to do all the work I need to do and that I would do it to the Glory of God. Thanks.____________Next week is my birthday and my friend Leoni is throwing me a party. It will be a traditional Aussie children’s party because I have never experienced one. How fun is that!