Bottom Feeder

All of a sudden I have a huge craving for one of the foods from home I can't get here: Maryland crab dip. I am not huge on eating crab, but every once in a while some crab dip on some French bread (or better yet, in a bread bowl) really hits the spot. 

Love, love, love

I just found out the very happy news that another couple of our friends at home have recently gotten engaged. We've had to miss a few weddings, being on the other side of the planet and all, so it's nice to know some will be eventually coming up that we're more likely to be able to attend. Yay, love, and yay for getting good news to close out the week!

School Spirit

The other day a coworker of mine asked if high school in the US is "like it is in the movies". I asked what he meant. He said, "Where everybody goes to the big championship game, and cheerleaders and stuff like that". I thought about it for a minute and said, "Yeah, I guess it is. It's exaggerated, but yeah it's normal for people to go to their school's sporting events, and there are cheerleaders and pep rallies... it's not like that here?", and in saying that I realized that it's not. Life is not exactly like Varsity Blues or Friday Night Lights outside of Texas, but there are some elements of truth about American life in them. I was not a particularly "spirited" individual in high school, but I did partake occasionally. I went to the pep rallies because they were during school; I went to a few football and basketball games and school dances. All throughout the year there is always some next big event in American high schools that everyone is motivated for: a game, a dance, a fundraiser, a play, etc. I just figured that's what high school was like in most places, or at least most English-speaking places, but it's not. 

The particular girls I work with in the schools here are the ones who tend to be less engaged in the school community (that's why they were picked specifically for the program), but I kind of see why now. There isn't that much for them to be engaged in, so of course they're not very interested. I'm sure there are some extracurricular programs that engage some of the students that I don't get to see in my short time each week, but there is generally less stuff going on that seems to excite the students than at your average American high school, and I'm not sure if this is indicative of most high schools or just these two particular ones. 

I am only in Australian high schools one day a week and I hadn't realized the lack of "spirit" posters or decorated lockers. For starters, high schools include what Americans would consider the middle school grades (7-8), so that slightly changes the dynamic. Sports here are more low-key and often just among students within the same school. High Schools have practical programs in addition to the usual academic subjects, like agriculture or teaching hospitality skills. Of the two schools I'm in regularly, one literally has a cafe where the students are learning barista skills and teachers can buy the coffee they make. The other school has horses on the property that the students take care of. Most of the girls in the programs where I facilitate work after school jobs that they all hate, almost exclusively in fast food chains. They're all getting practice at real-world job skills, but seem to be lacking in some of the also important light-hearted and fun experiences.

Gold Coast Glory and Sad News

For the first time ever, we brought home medals! We have won little/fun tournaments here and there, but this is the highest we've placed in a competitive tournament. Our team was a lot of fun to play with, and it was also great playing a few teams with familiar opponents. 

The tournament took place in Coolangata, the only city that I know of to have the border between two states running right through it (you can see on the map). The weird thing is, Queensland doesn't use daylight savings and New South Wales does. So, if you have a business meeting somewhere in the city, you have to double check what time zone it's in so you're not an hour late or an hour early. You can literally celebrate New Year's Eve in on venue, and then walk across the street an hour later and celebrate again. 

In other non-celebratory news, we received the unfortunate phone call this weekend that Michael's grandmother passed away. She was in her 90's and we were expecting this news due to recent health issues. It was another instance here where we wish we could teleport back to be with family. In any case, Grandma Jean had a full life and is survived by four generations of family that will remember her fondly. 

It was a weekend of mixed feelings, and now we plunge headfirst back into another work week.

Frequent Fliers

We are really racking up the airline miles these days. As the work week comes to a close we will be hopping on a plane to the Gold Coast for the supposed first Australian Ultimate Beach Championship. I say supposed because apparently there was some beach tournament that took place a few years ago that was called nationals, but not officially, or something like that. Our team will be comprised mainly of friends we have played with before, so it should be a fun time. It will be interesting to see how this tournament compares to Wildwood, the largest beach tournament in the world, where we have played several times. 

Homebodies

It has been a pretty lazy weekend over here in the Eastern Suburbs. Saturday we slept in and then enjoyed some of our favorite neighborhood spots like Flat White, Paddington Market, Centennial Park (biking), dinner at Micky's, and then just watched some TV/movies. Pretty soon we will head over to a beach BBQ with some frisbee friends. 

Sweet Home Sydney

I apologize for the quality of this short clip, but it sums up trivia on Monday.

Yeah, we were that team. To be fair though, the baby slept in its little carrier the whole time as we sat in the back corner. If anything, he was exposed only to knowledge. We came in third and won a prize, so that didn't suck.

In other news this week, I got to teach at a frisbee friend's school and back in Will's class again (see older post about how much I love Will, who I've known from back when I worked at the preschool/daycare place). Familiar faces are like gold when most of your work day is often spent navigating through strangers. Also, Will told me about how he had a birthday party for his cat and actually invited people and they came over, an idea that is so absurd I kind of want to do it too. 

Michael and I also went to our first Yelp Elite event. It was a happy hour at a trendy bar where we got free super fancy drinks and finger food. It was all pleasant and everyone was nice and easygoing, almost so much that it was also strange, like being in a short story where at the end we find out we've been eating human meat or been part of some kind of social experiment where have been enticed by something too good to be true and then turned against each other. But that didn't happen, we just had a nice evening and then went home. 

And then I won my first frisbee game of the season... a season that started five weeks late because of four weeks of consecutive bad weather/field conditions specifically every Wendesday. 

All in a week's work.

Back into the Swing of Things

Since getting back from our travels around Australia, Michael and I have just been getting back to work and to our regular hobbies. On Sunday we played in a small local frisbee tournament, mostly with and against familiar faces. Our team won! It was only out of four teams, so it was't the most amazing achievement in the world, but it's always nice to end the day in victory. It was also nice to just see and talk to some friends we hadn't seen in a few weeks.

Today I started a new job that will be one day a week and last through term 2 (about 2 more months) working with teen girls on life skills/teamwork/sport skills. That is my third job that I had been preparing to start for a while but got delayed by travel and scheduling. Anyway, it's a good complement to my subbing and events, and it's nice to have at least one consistent assignment with the same people in the same location for a while, even if it's only one day of the week. So far the biggest challenge is getting to get some of the girls to put away their phones. Seriously, a girl was trying to run around and do warm-up exercises with earphones in and holding her phone. I don't understand how she would even get anything out of that; you can't pay enough attention to either thing to get anything out of them. I was secretly hoping she would drop it and it would get stepped on, just so she would learn a lesson. Alas, it didn't happen. I did get paid to teach the teens the basics of ultimate frisbee though, so that was pretty cool. 

Time Lapse

A facebook friend of mine posted a 10 year old picture today from our university graduation. I kind of knew it was 10 years ago but hadn't really thought about it until I saw the picture. Also recently, my cousin and her husband  (whose wedding was the first I ever attended) just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. In a flash 10 years is gone, then 20. 

Trip Photo Dump

As promised, here are some pics from our travels around Australia.

The Bay of Fires in Tasmania.

Wombat beach sighting!

One of several wallaby sightings!

We hiked with a group of 12 people. Other than the group we saw almost nobody else along the three day walk. We were the last group of the season to go through. 

Some say this rock looks like a turtle, I think it looks like a sphinx.

Echidna sighting and petting!

Flash forward to our Reef Encounter stay at The Great Barrier Reef about an hour boat ride away from Cairns. Michael and his dad went SCUBA diving while I went snorkelling with his mom. After a few dives/snorkels at one sight, the boat would move to another (three different spots total). 

From Cairns we roadtripped through the Atherton Tablelands checking out fig trees that are hundreds of years old and a few waterfalls.

Perfect spot for a tea/coffee and scones break.

This was the view below was from the breakfast table at the Mossman Gorge B&B (photo taken in the evening)

Daintree Rainforest

Cooper Creek Wilderness rambutan orchard. They are so delicious fresh off the trees...

...the wild cassowaries love eating them!

We got to hear all about the soap opera mating habits of Big Bertha and her many male suitors from a local. 

Cape Tribulation

Port Douglas sunset

A special shout-out again to Michael's dad, this time for his extensive planning. 

Freelance Food Critic 2

One of the perks of being a regular somewhere? They changed the chai latte I usually get (the tea itself) and let me be the guinea pig by having a free one. Verdict? Not as good as before. The good thing? They probably won't keep the new kind because of my feedback (and probably a few others'). Yet again, my taste critiquing is respected. I might not be a mover and a shaker in lots of circles, but my opinion can minorly impact local food businesses. That's got to count for something, right?

Aussie Adventures

Michael and I are back now from some travels around Australia. He was in Perth for a few days while I did the Bay of Fires walk with his parents in Tasmania, where we had lots of wildlife sightings. Then we all met up in Cairns and spent a night on a boat at The Great Barrier Reef, where the boys went SCUBA diving and the ladies went snorkelling. We saw some sea turtles and reef sharks, as well as a zillion colorful fish. The guys even went on a night dive - I watched the underwater lights from the deck where we could also see the outlines of sharks all around the boat. Luckily, and partially why they pick this spot I'm sure, reef sharks are not really aggressive and just kind of ignore people. After the reef we also went to Atherton Tablelands and Daintree National Forest where we saw trees that were hundreds of years old, a few even estimated to be about 1,500 years old! Talk about places that make you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

My favorite place we stayed other than the boat at the reef was The Mossman Gorge B&B. I really can't say enough good things about the owners and the property. They were so friendly and helpful, and I loved that they had fresh honey from their own beehive for us to have with our Daintree tea. 

Another favorite stop was Cooper Creek Wilderness where we walked through a tropical fruit orchard and ate fresh and tart rambutan and mangosteens right off the trees (this is where they also had the 1,500 year old trees). The day trip was made complete with a swim in the nearby river and a cassowary sighting. 

I'm sure at some point when we get through our backlogged GoPro footage at some point, we'll post some from the reef. Pictures to come.