The Preparation Begins

You know when you plan a trip months in advance and then all of a sudden it's almost time to go and you can't believe it? That's happening. 

Next week we will be in New Zealand. Michael is leaving this weekend for a frisbee tournament down in Melbourne, then flying straight from there to Wellington for work, where I will meet him after a few days. From there we will head to the South Island and go on one of the great walks, among hopefully other fun outdoor things. So when Michael packs tonight, he'll need to pack for a frisbee tournament, work, and backpacking. That's too many things. I'll probably bring most of the backpacking stuff when I come later, but still, there's lots of forward thinking that has to go into this packing. 

I'm looking forward to a little vacation. Although, we were travelling in Asia not that long ago, so it doesn't feel like I've earned another one quite yet. Michael certainly has earned it though. Anyway, this will be a "roughing it" trip. Other than the hotel where we're staying in Wellington (that Michael's work is paying for) and the hotel the last two nights we're in Queenstown, we'll be staying in hostels and shared dorms and cabins, and cooking our own simple meals.

There was an interview I listened to a few months ago between Ed Helms and Chris Hardwick where Ed Helms talks about this rafting trip he did on the Colorado River with family and friends. He talks about how they were just completely surrounded by nature and off the grid, camping together and singing songs around the fire at night for I think a week or two. He talks about how it kind of gave him this inner peace that he still has, and Chris Hardwick asks if Ed thinks that the magic will just eventually wear off. Ed Helms says no, he thinks he is changed forever from the experience.

Hearing him say that made me think about the times that I have felt like that, on a smaller scale. I'm hoping that the trek portion of this trip will be like that - that it will give me inner peace to feed off during the times that I am annoyed and angry with society. Perhaps my hopes are too high, we will see. Regardless, it will be a cool trip even if it doesn't "change" me.

The preparation begins.

The One I Love

I just watched The One I Love, starring Mark Duplass, and I loved it. It was playful and original and falls into the category of movies I recently talked about when discussing Groundhog Day - movies where the characters must react to strange, unexplainable phenomena. I think the makers of the movie did a good job of piquing the audience's interest within the first few minutes and then steadily increasing suspense right up until the end. The ending was less of a surprise than other parts of the plot, but amusing all the same. Also, in this day and age of 3 hour epic movies, I appreciate that the independent The One I Love is a respectable 91 minutes (quality is not always equal to quantity, and vice versa). I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Elite Freelance Food Critic

Flashback to 10 years ago when I was discussing careers with a few friends. We joked that we could just always introduce ourselves the title of "Freelance Food Critic" even if we were unemployed. It doesn't mean anybody cares what you say about the food you eat, but you have an opinion. 

Flash forward to about a year ago. Before we moved abroad I wrote occasional Yelp reviews for restaurants we went to. When we moved to Sydney, I noticed that less people use it here; I think more people use Urban Spoon and Trip Advisor. I decided it was my duty to review most of the places where I eat on Yelp, for those who already use Yelp and travel or move here and also get frustrated trying to find a good, reasonably priced meal without having to download another app. I half did this for those people, and half just for myself to remind myself of places I would like to bring future visitors. So, maybe once a week or every other week we'd try a new place and I'd write a review. A few people read my reviews and left little comments saying they liked them or found them helpful. 

Flash forward to last week when I was sent an invitation to join the Yelp Elite. I did not know this was a thing. The Yelp Elite: Sydney (most of the major cities in the world have their own groups) is a real group that gets invited to exclusive tastings and food events. There are articles that have tips on how to try to become Yelp Elite, but they insist there is no magic formula. Apparently some people write hundreds of reviews and never get picked. I guess if the right person sees your reviews and likes them, and you're moderately active on the site, you have an in. 

Flash forward to today: I am officially an elite member with a little stamp on my profile. Supposedly I have some sunglasses and a water bottle coming to me in the mail. I suppose it's the least they can since I provide them free quality content for their website. I definitely want to check out some of these secret events, if they ever have one on a day I don't already have plans. 

I may not be successful at all of my endeavors, but I think I can actually say that I have successfully and unironically earned the title of Freelance Food Critic.

Casual Queen Update

I actually got two more casual jobs today and had to turn down one; it's a nice position to be in for a change. For those of you keeping track at home, I now have three jobs.

The one I turned down was kind of a backup to the other stuff I'm doing, and probably wasn't going to lead into something bigger in the future. It would have been okay, but in the long run I think it would have interfered with me getting other substitute teaching gigs because of the way they do their scheduling.

The new organization I'll be working for facilitates regular workshops for teens that combine soccer/sports skills with important life skills (aka "21st century skills" - for example, conflict resolution). The kids are primarily from immigrant populations and the program helps them get acclimated to their new culture. In case you don't know me that well, this is right up my alley. It's also a small organization, so there may be other opportunities that come out of facilitating.

So that's the update. It's interesting because I am halfway through doing the exercises in What Color is Your Parachute?, and so far they have worked. This book was recommended to me years and years ago, and I read parts of it, but never went through it cover to cover. Now that I am going through it I have a much better idea of what to look for and what to stay away from, in terms of my personal preferences. This most recent organization fits a lot of the criteria I came up with and I didn't even know it existed until a frisbee acquaintance told me about it. Now, if only there was one full-time job that fit my criteria, instead of 3 part-time ones.

Lunar New Year

Happy Year of the Sheep!

Terra cotta warrior lanterns at the harbour bridge...

Other lanterns at Darling Harbour

32 Flavors and Then Some

My birthday festivities began with Michael creating my own "escape the room" experience in order to attain my birthday gift. It involved solving a succession of puzzles that Michael had made himself, more professionally made than the ones in most of our previous room escape experiences. He said he learned from the experience that we could make our own small business and probably do a better job than the others - maybe one day.

I went on to celebrate being one year older by going out and acting 10 years younger. We started with some friends at the Shady Pines Saloon (I love the art on their minimal website) in Darlinghurst. They have dead animals on the wall and free peanuts - what could be more American (it is actually supposed to be an American themed bar)? 

We had not made any further plans for the night, not thinking I'd want to stay out all that late. However, from the Wild West to a Polynesian tiki bar. Next stop was The Cliff Dive. Unlike the previous establishment that played ambiance-appropriate music, The Cliff Dive DJ was playing some 90's hip hop which was pretty nostalgic even if it was out of place. 

Then we got the message that a friend was inviting the group to his house and had snacks waiting for us. This is always good news. Away we went to Surry Hills. 

From there we walked to Ding Dong Dang and sang karaoke until all our voices hurt and we closed the place down. I had invited an eclectic group of friends, and it was a pleasure to have them all get along and goof around together. It was the next best thing to getting to celebrate my birthday with family and friends back home. 

Punxutawney Phil

I re-watched Groundhog Day today (a few weeks too late) , which I have seen at least 10 times. This movie stands the test of time and is genius for so many reasons. There is a reason it has a 96% on the tomatometer, even though the tomatometer came into existence many years after the movie was made and I'm not sure who's writing reviews for a movie that is over 20 years old. 

Regardless, I love movies in general that have an unexplained phenomenon that the characters must react to, assuming those movies have good dialogue and production value. At this point in time there have been lots of time travel and strange phenomenon movies made; at the time Groundhog Day was made, it was based on a very unique concept. It touches on so many funny ideas, as well as dark and serious ones presented in a humorous way. 

Bill Murray was a genius then, and he's still a genius now. Harold Ramis was also a genius. 

Don't Waste My Time

I went to get my RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol) training this week and it was the biggest waste of time. They showed us a bunch of news clips about how the drinking culture in Australia needs to change and how people need to take more responsibility for their actions when they drink. Then they proceeded to tell us that it is our fault if someone gets intoxicated from a drink we serve them. Gee, I wonder why there's a problem.

Island in the Sun

This past weekend we went up to visit our friend, Ian, in Brisbane. We took a ferry over to Moreton Island. There are shipwrecks that have been purposely put there in the 1960's where coral reefs have grown. We hopped off the ferry, put on our snorkels, and checked them out. We saw lots of tropical fish, I saw a little stingray and Michael saw some puffer fish.

We also checked out Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary south of the city, which was more like a little zoo. We fed some really cute kangaroos and wallabies and see some other native animals up close. 

Comparing Currumbin to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, which is much closer to Brisbane, I recommend Lone Pine, but it was still a fun time. We were also able to see a small part of Springbrook National Park , where there is a nice river to swim if you have the time. It was another weekend surrounded by nature and wildlife, moreso than flowers and hearts and the typical Valentine stuff. 

The Casual Queen

...And I don't mean a blasé monarch. 

I survived my first day as a primary school casual teacher, aka substitute, in a year five and six classroom today, and over all it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. 

I also signed up to take an RSA (responsible service of alcohol) certification class next week so that it will be much easier for me to get casual waitressing work (at conferences and things like that) to supplement my other two casual jobs when their hours are in short supply. Yes, you need a certification in this country to be a waitress. Yes, that is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Where else in the world do they make people do that? A certification can't make someone a good waiter or waitress; experience can. Also, I don't know how the class can possibly take 6 1/2 hours. That's two times longer than my CPR course. It takes longer to tell someone how to hand another person some food and/or drinks than to save their life.

Soon enough I will go from having two jobs to having three. The downside is that the hours are unstable and everything is different from one week to the next right now. The upside is flexibility and variety. Hopefully over time I'll develop relationships with the core schools I'll sub for, and that will get easier. My team-building job is fun and will get easier once I have more events under my belt too. Waitressing I've done before and is pretty fun and simple usually. 

So that's the update to my work situation. It's not glamorous, but it suits me for now. Just call me the casual queen. 

Nothing Much to Report

It's a typical week. My trivia team earned 2nd place and I won my frisbee game yesterday even though it came down to the wire. I'll sail this evening assuming the weather remains good. Michael has been corresponding from Wellington, where he's mostly working and getting to see a little bit of the little city. 

Weekend Wonder

It was a typical weekend complete with room escaping, sushi, ice cream, throwing a frisbee on the beach, and more hanging out in Centennial Park. Since I last posted the link to Michael's flickr bird album he's added quite a few pictures.  

Right now Michael just got on a plane to Wellington, NZ, where he will be the next week for work. Bon voyage!

Wyrmwood

Sometimes when you go see a low-budget film premiere, everyone that made it is there. Last night we went to see Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead  premiere at Moonlight Cinema in Centennial Park. We didn't realize this was the premiere, we just thought it was opening night. It turns out the cast and director were there, and for fun they also had the decked out truck from the movie.

When I had seen the trailer, I didn't realize exactly how low-budget the movie was, since you can't tell from the production value. Apparently they just shot it over a period of four years on weekends outside of Sydney. There are very few sets in the movie, so they just literally drove out to the bush to film. There is one familiar scenic shot of the blue mountains that I was happy to see in one of the scenes.

I got to briefly talk to a few of the actors and I got a signed movie poster. I'm sure the last movie poster I acquired was 10 years ago when I still worked at a video store, but I figured, "why not" since I could get it signed. Beforehand, the director and producer gave short speeches, and the producer "skulled" a beer in front of the audience (what a bro). 

It's weird watching a movie knowing that the people starring in it are listening to the audience's reaction. It made me want to laugh more and cheer louder, like I would if my friend was giving a class presentation. 

My biggest issue with the film was that the timeline was absurd, but perhaps that was meant to be a joke in itself. Although the movie is obviously implausible, it would be slightly less implausible if they just had it span a time period of several weeks or more, instead of a few days. [Minor spoiler alert] The zombie apocalypse just began one day ago and there's already an evil scientist in the middle of doing experiments complete with protocols, and he has cronies to help him carry them out? How did he become so evil so quickly and already have a plan and systems in place?! As long as you suspend disbelief about that, it's still entertaining (in a disturbing way).

One thing I have to applaud the film for is having a modern Aboriginal main character that, as far as I know, was depicted accurately (as much as one could be in a comedic apocalyptic setting). As far as I'm concerned, Leon Burchill stole the show. 

It was another good picnic (I'm starting to become an expert at preparing them) and a fun kickoff to the weekend.

0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3

I had to do an online 1st Aid training today, which was mostly a refresher. The big difference in 1st Aid in Australia is that they talk about how to deal with the many many venomous things that can attack you, not just beestings and cuts and sprains. With one kind of spider you're supposed to apply ice to the bite to slow the spread of the venom, but for another one you're supposed to treat it like a snake bite and not do that. Well that's not confusing at all when you're trying to act fast and save someone's life. For one kind of sea creature you're supposed to rinse the sting with sea water, but for another you're not supposed to because it makes it worse. They need to come up with some helpful mnemonic devices (not pneumonic devices, which I originally just googled) to remember these things. It all somewhat tangentally reminds me of my favorite episode of The IT Crowd.

 

In the online training, they also said not to use the Heimlich maneuver if someone is choking, but to rather slap them on the back several times. This is in direct opposition to what I have previously learned in four different trainings, so I'm not sure what to believe now. I guess if someone's choking in Australia you do one, but if they're choking in the US you do the other, even though choking is choking no matter what hemisphere you're in. 

Tomorrow I have a CPR refresher course too. I guess I'll find out if Rescuci Annie looks the same, or they have a Resusci Sheila. 

Dear Catastrophe Waitress

Friday evening was Michael's belated work holiday party. The Sydney office is quite small so we had an intimate eight course tasting dinner at The Bentley. I tried to take pictures of all the courses, but after a while I started to forget. 

Sea urchin, crab, carrot

Pea soup (and other fancy things I can't remember)

Cauliflower custard, white asparagus, and brown butter

Murray cod, baby pink turnips, and brown butter

I don't remember what this is but it had mustard flowers on top

Coconut sorbet, desert lime, and honeydew melon

Charred milk custard, raspberry, and chervil sorbet (I had never even heard of chervil before I had this - quite good)

Over all it was a tasty meal, but the courses were really small and spread out so I was still hungry enough to eat a big snack when I got home.

Saturday night we went to see Belle and Sebastian play at Taronga Zoo as part of the Twilight at Taronga concert series. We hadn't been back to the zoo since about a year ago when our friend, Monty, visited. It was a cool venue for a show, and some kookaburras came out to enjoy the performance. Two of them huddled together and their third-wheel friend sat on a nearby branch just a little above and ahead of us for the last few songs; it was pretty cute. It was too dark by then to get a good pic.

It was a lawn picnic kind of show, but you could walk right up to the stage. At one point they pulled up a lot of people from the audience to dance on stage.

Belle and Sebastian didn't play my favorite song, or even my second favorite song, but I forgive them. As we were waiting for the ferry back to Circular Quay, one of the lead singers actually walked down and got on the boat too. I've never just seen a singer take public transportation after performing, so that was a first. He was really friendly and low-key, talking to some fans and taking pictures, but kind of blending in at the same time.

Sunday we went hiking with one of Michael's coworkers and a bunch of people from a Reddit group to which he belongs. We did the Karloo walking track in Royal National Park (same park we were in last weekend, different area). We didn't make it all the way to the waterfall, but many people in the group swam in the Karloo pools. 

It ended up being a full weekend. Michael also managed to squeeze in a frisbee game win. Summer is in full swing down under!