Healing and Fun with the Internets

G'day all,

I am feeling much better now thanks for all of the good wishes I think it is really helping! I find out in the next day or two if I have the antibody that means I have Mono, but I am feeling so much better right now that I am secretly hoping that it was just an epically bad mutant penicillin resistant case of strep throat. In either case, however, I feel so much better! (it's amazing how much you appreciate swallowing once you can do it again) I also have the rest of the week off from school to heal myself and I am hoping to be better as soon as possible.

Teachers here are so sweet and accommodating about illness, maybe they just aren't as jaded about excuses as some of the professors from SC. My paper has been extended, and my painting professor gave me a five-step radius and told me to go straight home as soon as possible, and to let her know if I DID have mono so she could 'warn everyone.' I feel like a plague victim.

My biggest problem right now aside from the fact that I sleep a lot is what to do with the time when I am not sleeping. Although painting does not seem like it would be hard the prospect is exhausting to me and so I have spent a lot of time reading, watching my dvds (hooray for Pride and Prejudice, so good to me when I am sick) , and surfing the internet.

Oh, the internet. I think this is the first time in a while that I have actually expended all of my eagerness to waste time on the internet, and it seems that the minute I have tons of time to waste I have an incredible urge to be productive.

As senior year is approaching I have had the inevitable what am I going to do for the rest of my life questions and I am finding that my problems with that question are similar to my problems surfing the internet. I get really excited and passionate about one subject and have tons of ideas about what I could do should I go down that road, but there are so many things I want to try!

My latest internet adventures:

Cooking--Most all of my wasted time begins with tastespotting.com and i found these from the whistle stop cafe food blog, which brought me to other food blogs, which have all collectively convinced me to start a small herb garden and maybe a tomato plant this fall.


Painting--Tons of artists post their work online and I have stumbled on to many of their pages. How cool is this guy's stuff? His name is David Brewster and it seems like he does all of his paintings with a palette knife they are so vague but so easily recognizable. http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424080736/424035807/david-brewster-1guilded-sky.html

Mexico--I was despairing with Courtney as to how expensive travel in Europe has become. I was telling my Mom that I am buying some plane tickets to get around Europe and she said, but can't you take the train? One train ticket online from London to Paris for a youth (18-25) is $137 USD, or 137 Australian dollars for those of you who were wondering. I have found some tolerably cheap tickets to get around but I was remembering how inexpensive, fun, and delicious my family trip to Mexico was so instead of researching more European flights I spent about an hour looking at towns in Mexico. They rent whole houses in some places that could sleep tons of people for $1000 per week in off-season. That is $147 per night for a house, if we had 9 people then that would be $15 each! I inevitably spent time looking at small non-touristy places, this place looks great! Except, i don't know WHERE we would find the time....

Isla Mujeres
Couchsurfing—This is a new network I have joined with Lena and Courtney so that we might be able to stay with people instead of in hostels on my trip this summer. I was wary at first, but most people have extensive profiles so that we can see what they are like, and I will be with someone else the whole time. I would so much rather a couch than a dorm full of drunk college students!
Cake decorating—I have no idea how I came upon this idea, maybe stumbling, but aren’t these cakes amazing? They are covered with some kind of marshmallow icing that has that finish. It seems like every time I see something like this I want to start on it immediately. Couldn’t it be amazing if I made a cake with blue icing and then put wax paper flowers on it, then sprinkle the whole thing with powdered sugar and take the wax paper back off again? It seems like if you want to really do it right you need icing tubes, and gum sugar, and paintbrushes and special food coloring. Everything I want to try needs so much investment and special equipment! I want to do silver-smithing, and I would need an anvil and blow torch and tools and silver, same with glass, same with cakes apparently, very exhausting. Plus the cakes I bake would actually have to turn out… could I just use betty crocker cake and then decorate do you think?
This photo was on a page titled "Are You Ready To Turn Your Cake Decorating Hobby Into A Money Making Business?" could you think of anything more dangerous to read?

Stuffed animals—I enjoyed making stuffed animals for my cousin’s baby boy last year and the minute I saw these I wanted to do it all over again! Wouldn’t it be fun to have a craft stall for the rest of my life? But then I will need a studio and storage and I don’t know what else.

Isn't it cute? more in the gallery here: http://everylittlething.typepad.com/

Web Design—the project I am a part of that takes me to Tumut constantly has a website run by two people who are constantly busy with work. I have thought about learning to do this more since I really like messing with my site and the Hellions website, but there is so much to learn! And plus what I really like to do is design the look of it, but there are so many little things that you have to do to make it work! In my own site, for example, I had to write a new page for each painting I do and will have to do the same for jewelry should I choose to pursuer that, sooo much busywork!

Anyway, the website for the project is nice and I spent any length of time perusing it to see how it works, then looking at their other projects. God forbid I actually complete a bio and become a member of the blog like I was sposed to do a month ago…it has been so long at this point I feel like I am past getting an account though. Anyway if you want to see pictures of me in tumut you can look on this site although the navigation isn’t completely logical…

http://www.tumut.engagingvisions.com.au/categories/artists

Design in general-My roommate received a package from a site called threadless.com the other day so I had to check it out. It is a site where you can submit designs and get a lot of money if yours is chosen for a tshirt! I want to learn to use adobe illustrator and design tshirts asap, then learn to screen print, then begin to wear tshirts again...hmm. Here are some of the ones I liked…

It's Just A Summer Job by Mike Sayre aka mildish

In Pachydermic Fashion by Michael B. Myers Jr. aka slaterock

Robot Dance Contest by Cameron McEwan aka Ronin60

Please send me any wacky ideas you have for an illustrated t-shirt; I really want to try one!

Letters—all during the perusing I am listening to Daddy Long Legs, a novel I read when I was pretty young, free from the internet. It has inspired me to finally write my grandmother back (the letter isn’t finished yet grandma but it should come in, I dunno, the next month or two) The book is so funny! I must have been much less attuned to sarcasm when I first read it…

Anyway that is all off my internet perusing for the week condensed down and given to you in a reader’s digest format, with so many fun things to make what AM I going to do with myself?

PS didn’t quite finish this last night so I thought I’d add before I post it. I cleaned my room today, and vacuumed, AND did laundry! Thank goodness I did too because Mani’s sister is visiting us. I always know when I am over the worst when the piles of clothes and medication on the floor start to bother me. I am a little tired from the effort but I feel much better in a clean room. (AND I wore real clothes today!)

Anyway I am sitting in my room with all of the doors in the house and my windows open so it smells like fall. I simply must go grocery shopping now because I am tired of condensed soup and my potato soup did NOT thaw well unfortunately, it looks like swamp thing. How do people have such success in the freezer? My things are just never as good if I freeze them. Off to buy and bake chicken drumsticks with some green beans and baked apples, mmm I MUST be getting better…Cheers!

It's Semi-Official, I Have Mono

Today I spent the better part of my afternoon in the medical world. I didscussed various symptoms with my new favorite doctor, parents excluded. I was prodded in my stomach to make sure i did not have a rigid liver or spleen. I was poked in the arm by the nice woman at the nearby pathology lab, who seemed a little worried about my statement that i would be gone in 4 weeks, could they please make sure they malied the bill to me before then. The long and short of it, folks, is that I probably have Mononucleosis. Yay.

Apparently the blood test might come back negative but that won't shake my doctor's belief in my status as an incubator for this annoying virus so really at this point i am only taking the test to be able to present my professors with a medical certificate documenting my misfortune. All of thee symptoms are there so i have resigned myself to a few more weeks of constant naps. The symptoms, in case you were interested, involve sore throat, fatigue, achyness, nausea, and sometimes rigid organs. (Oh yeah, about the sore throat, did i mention i managed to get strep throat on top of Mono, as my friend Aaron said, this is the worst souvenir ever)

Although previously undocumented scientifically I have a few more symptoms to add for myself, just so you all will be warned if you are ever afflicted. (I am probably going to be contagious for the next few weeks so you should all stay far far away, oh wait.)

Kate's Symptoms:
*A sudden love for minty throat spray (possibly the best invention ever, rivaled only by puffs plus lotion when you have a cold in my opinion)
*A propensity to wear flannel and sweats, honestly i don't know how i managed to be sick without flannel shirts before. They have just the right level of comfort and grunge to put you in the mood to lay in bed.
*A new appreciation for librivox.com, seriously Louisa May Alcott now plays a serious role in my life.
*A love hate relationship with cookies. Okay, previously I only loved cookies, but now if i eat only a few i feel sick, very very sad. I quote Romy and Michele.

Michele: Remember the prom? You got so thin by then.
Romy: Oh, I know. I was so lucky getting mono. That was like the best diet ever.

*A dislike for British medical terms and medications. I just want tylenol, dammit, and I can't find it. Also, they call Mono 'Glandular Fever' here, which just makes me feel like i'm in a Jane Austen novel. I've decided that the reason British and Australian accents and terms sound funny to the American ear is that they are a part of our past and therefore sound incredibly formal and old fashioned in comparison to the totes quick and modern slang of the US today. Seriously, some people from the UK actually say Cheerio, while this does make me smile, it does so because i feel like the person saying it should be at least 80. And a man wearing a bowler hat.

If you find yourself wearing flannel and sleeping in beware! Not to scare the entire lumberjack population of the world or anything.

Anyways, send good karma vibes my way and check back because one of the few things i am capable of in my weekend state is blog posting :)

Penicillin, Advil, Tea, Breakfast of Champions

Hello there! Looks like Lucky Number Slevin won by a LANDSLIDE too bad it didn't do as well in the box office but I suppose none of that famous cast is really hurting from that one.

It's a beautiful sunny day here in the ACT and I come to you having just sent about three hours driving over the countryside of New South Wales with a Scotswoman who shouts like a Glasgowian (not sure of the term) taxi driver at any who have less than stellar driving skillz. This, my dear readers was after the third and final installment in my Tumut field trip series. 

The country was beautiful and the company lovely, the skies clear and the stars bright; there were but two blights on my lovely trip and because I love to complain you will hear of them in detail. Problem one: I was/am sick. I apparently came down with the flu shortly after my trip to sunny Queensland which i would have gotten over except that I then contracted a bacterial infection (strep) in my tonsils also known as tonsillitis here, no one understands me if I mention strep throat. 

Now I understand that the American medical system is incredibly flawed etc, etc. but let us face it, when i get sick at USC I can go to the health center and see a doctor. The doctor may dish out whatever drugs i ask for without much care, but the point is I see and MD and get what (lets all hope) I need. Here you need an appointment to see anyone and most appointments have to be booked a week in advance. When confronted with this problem I left the medical center and resolved to heal  myself through a seasoned blend of sleep, tylenol, tea, and stubbornness but to no avail. I finally a week later (ironically on the day i could have gotten an appointment for the week previously) waited with the tired and sick in a line in front of the clinic to get any cancelled appointments. 

I got there at 8:45 and there were already about 8 people, God knows how long they had been waiting. at 9:10 I was given an appointment for 12:10, I filled out my paperwork and biked back home for a quick 2 hour nap before returning. Then I slept through the appointment. The two short 10 minute bike rides had tired me so much that i slept until 1 pm, I feel terrible to think i cheated one of the people who cane in at 9:15 from an appointment and then booked a spot with a private practice to avoid showing my face in the uni medical clinic ever again.

Anyway, without any symtoms of sore throat or couching, i was diagnosed with the illness mentioned above and prescribed penicillin, which I scurried across the street to procure. They didn't have generic brand penicillin. Ok, it only cost me $15 AUS which is, roughly, let me calculate, about $15 US but it is the principal of the thing. Penecillin was discovered in 1928 for crissakes (yes i looked it up, wikipedia is awesome) it is a common treatment for tonsillitis which is much more common than, you know, plague or something, so how in 90 years have pharmacies neglected to stock the generic brand! What is this madness? 

I lost valuable minutes biking home with my healthful elixir because i couldn't remember whether i was allergic to it or not. I'm not, but I had to check with the parents; both of them because Dad's hesitation before answering he didn't think so was a bit worrying. (Sorry Dad, I know I am 20 and should know what I am allergic to) Anyways, 5 days in to my treatment and my throat hurts like it didn't when she first diagnosed me, so I can't decide if i am fulfilling my doctor's prophecy or i have the worst case of sneaky strep ever. The result of the illness was that i spent most afternoons napping in my tent instead of painting and then was clucked over by the many many older women in my group for most evenings.

Problem 2 with my trip: She who shall not be named. It is unfortunate when you meet someone that thoroughly ruins their name for you forever. Luckily in this case it was my Mom's middle name so i had a good association to keep it from being poisoned. This woman is a Martyr and yes, with a capitol M. If it isn't her bad luck with affordable housing, her mothering, her dyslexia (which gets worse when she eats apples, true story) it is her recent bad haircut. I am sorry, but if you live in project housing and have two children, WHY would you try to start a career as a painter and pay to dye your very curly hair bright fuscia and ask to have it cut in the shape of a diamond? Honestly when she mentioned the diamond shape i immediately imagined her as someone from the simpsons and had to leave the room to maintain dignity. It wasn't the broad sweeping insults, 'cake for dessert every night, how AMERICAN,' or the unwanted advice, which she gave often. It was the whole package that made my shoulders tense for an entire five days. (Including the two days that my friend and I had to chauffeur her around, with the windows down to keep her from 'drying out' or the formaldehyde in the air from getting to her)

I digress, I spent some lovely times in the streets of Tumut, my friend bought a yellow and green owl tea cosy and I purchased a ridiculous brightly colored Australia beach hat and some hot pink wool socks. We had high tea, and devonshire cream with raspberry jam on warm croissants with peppermint tea (served from a pot with an owl cosy) is my new version of heaven. The formaldehyde made some lovely mist in the mornings that blanketed the hills, and I saw a live wombat (several dead ones preceding it unfortunately) and possibly a white kangaroo. I also saw the milky way, the Southern Cross, Scorpio, Orion, Sirius, AND Leo on one stargazing adventure. We also bought sparklers and took slow exposure photography and drew things with them. 

We had cake every night, played a card game called shit head (similar to Lena's 'idiot', and taught similarly too, 'oh, BY THE WAY, you can lay down cards that are the same as well') Also one woman had brought her husband and young baby (not really to the sitting on his own stage yet so pretty little) who was extremely entertaining and lovely. It is so fun to watch eye hand coordination happen right before your eyes, if you aren't the one on the receiving end of the baby food that is. (the poor parents got much child rearing advice from She who shall not be named, as did I by proxy as someone who will eventually have kids. I logged every pearl away in the back of my mind of course)

I didn't really do anything productive except on saturday when i talked with a lovely aboriginal woman named Phyllis and then learned to make pine needle baskets from a lovely woman named Jan. Sunday, today, we drove home taking pictures of lawn ornaments and washing for my friends project (many an older woman came out the front door to see what we were on about). We also had cheeseburgers, chocolate milkshakes, and a pack of strawberry Hubba Bubba. I won the bubble blowing contest, needless to say. I find my scotswoman companion increasingly delightful because she is unafraid to fawn over ceramic gnomes, have victory dances for small victories, and write her name with sparklers.

Anyway, sorry for the long bouts of complaining and sorry i have gone so long without pictures, i just couldn't be bothered to dig out my camera from the pile of things on my bedroom floor, but once i sort out travel plans, write a 2000 word essay on Madonnas with Child, and heal, I'll get right on it I swear!

PS when i got home after a long day, I found a package from my Grandma with a lovely letter and my favorite oatmeal cookies in it! Thank god the Australian quarantine inspection let them through because they came at an absolutely PERFECT time. Yay for grandmothers and mothers everywhere, Happy Mothers Day from down under!

How I Spent My Summer, I Mean, Winter Vacation...

Well it has been a very long time since I updated this blog, and I apologize for this but as is to be expected when one is both in school and in a foreign country, I have been very busy.

About two weeks ago I flew with my two Scottish friends to Brisbane and then spent the next week and a half driving back from Brisbane to Canberra. This drive takes about 18-20 hours in one trip so we thought that over 10 days we would have no trouble. The original idea was to enjoy the balmy subtropical weather of southeastern Queensland for a while before we headed back to wintery Canberra. The weather during this time for about the last 12 years has been sunny and in the 70’s (Fahrenheit, thank god). So, accordingly, we packed our swimsuits, shorts, tank tops, sunhats, and summer tents and flew north.

We stayed in a cute hostel called the yellow submarine that promised free sailing on Wednesdays. We arrived on a Wednesday but discovered the wind was up to several knots, aka too fast for us to sail, and we a little disappointed but at the same time exhausted from travel crashed in our three bed room for a nap. We explored the city a little in the afternoon and I liked it a lot. It’s industrial and apparently undergoing a huge economic boom because there was construction everywhere. There was a river going right through it and a river/bus public transport system that was quite fun. At this point in the trip both of my friends were writing papers for their schools back in Scotland, and we spent a lot of time in the Brisbane public library, which had free wifi (so nice!), which was unfortunately right next to the public daycare center. One of the girls finished her paper quickly and she and I explored the city while our other friend spent most of the first 5 days of our trip on her computer. The public services here are really nice, free museum access and free library access, all really nice buildings to boot. We also got some shopping done and I got some very fun heels and a dress (yes, I was weak and bought a dress if you’re judging me now this is going to be a long post for you)

Brisbane was lovely and sunny the first day we were there, from then on we spent our time gambling with our health and belongings taking outings in the rain. On one such venture it POURED rain while we were walking across a bridge to the library, laptops in bag. We had no shelter and by the time we got to the library the rain stopped, but we were soaked; we had to get a cab back to the hostel just to change and walk across the bridge again. (Don’t worry, all of our laptops survived)

The other fun thing we did in Brizzy was go to Chinatown, which was kind of like a row of buildings from the old west that just happened to have Chinese restaurants. Seriously, they should shoot the next Shanghai Noon there. We had a huge amount of Chinese food in an arcade/restaurant where they sold HUGE bottles of Singh Tao (can’t remember exact spelling) but almost liter bottles of beer, it was ridiculous. It was the sketchiest Chinese place I’ve been to in a while, but quite good.

On Saturday we took a tour of Frazer Island, and thank god we didn’t try to tackle it ourselves. This was in my opinion the highlight of our trip because we hadn’t yet had our hopes completely and repeatedly dashed by the rain, it was beautiful, and we didn’t have to drive. We rode in a 4x4 bus to Frazer with a German couple, and a group of 6 Midwesterners. It is bizarre suddenly hearing a familiar accent after a few months without, and let me say these people were nice, but exactly the reason people hate American tourists. It was two couples, and the two daughters of one of the couples who were respectively 20 and 22. I mention their age specifically because until I talked with them I though both of the girls were in high school. I realize that when traveling with family children are bound to act more like children, but seriously. One of the men actually bought a pair of bright yellow crocs and put them on while on the bus. Turns out the reason I recognized their accent so well was that they were all from St. Louis, my frequent stomping ground, and lived in Creve Coeur. One of the girls went to St. Louis U and had just finished a semester at some school in Queensland.

Anyway, the tour. It was run by a middle aged Aussie man who loved making jokes about Americans and generally making fun of anyone in the group, usually in poor taste. (I could just be sore because he made fun of me for being American AND for being short). He actually asked one of the women if her husband ever ‘played’ Tarzan when we saw actual swinging vines (I tried to climb one to the amusement of the group, I have no upper arm strength anymore sadly). The island itself was made entirely up of sand that had built up on some ancient mountain that had been covered by the ocean. It had freshwater from mainland AUS because it was still a part of the water table, and the water was so sweet because it was filtered through hundreds of feet of sand over about 10 years. Oh, and the sand is silica sand so it was really soft. (I actually managed to impress our guide because I knew they used silica for computers and makeup, I guess all Americans aren’t dumb. And by not dumb I mean some of us have memories for useless facts.) Anyway the island was beautiful but all off-road driving, in the rain. Thank god we didn’t drive it ourselves or we would have been turned over in a puddle within 10 minutes.

The rest of the trip we were dirty and constantly damp. None of us had packed for cold weather, which resulted in several opp shop (good will) purchases, including a faux sheep lined jacket by myself and a koala wooly jumper (sweater) by my friend. We all bought pants (underwear, that one caused lots of miscommunications. The Scottish call pants trousers or jeans if they are in fact jeans) because we had no laundry facilities and were constantly soaked, and lilos (I have no idea how that one is spelled, but it refers to inflatable sleeping pads or mattresses.) Our tent leaked so our grand scheme of saving money by camping and spending hours on the leach was ruined. By the way, small beach towns are cute and have endless possibilities for activities UNITIL in rains. We ended up renting and borrowing a lot of movies in a lot of hostels.

Cute towns:
Surfer’s Paradise: this wasn’t cute but deserves mention because it is so advertised. The area around it is home to Queensland’s major theme parks including movie world. It’s got famous because it allegedly is rain free 300 days of the year (ok, it didn’t actually rain, but it threatened) and has surfable surf year round. It was terrible; imagine Orlando plus Mexico plus terrible buildings. The beaches were actually empty, so that was nice, but I think that was more the weather.

Byron Bay: south of Surfer's, it is a really cute semi commercialized beach town with lots of shops and pretty beaches, this was pretty much the last time we saw the sun on the coast. We did more shopping, because of the rain, and I got a necklace as my one big this is my way to remember Australia purchase.

Coffs harbor: we camped here, oh my god it was rainy and boring. Thank goodness we got inflatable mattresses. However it seems I was the only warm one as I had a winter camping sleeping bag and neither of my companions did; also they were both tall enough to touch each end of the tent with heads and toes so I think they got dripped on a bit. I of course was snug in the middle of them curled up and slept probably the most of all nights on the trip.

Maclean: pronounced ‘maclane’ this is a small settlement of people who were given free passage to Australia after being driven out of the highlands. Because of a recent heritage project, all of the townspeople’s tartans are painted on the electrical and telephone poles. There are also several heritage things posted about haggis and other stereotypical Scottish traditions. People here seem really repulsed by haggis, but since people from the southern US used to and probably still do eat chitlins it doesn’t really faze me. And to be fair, anything more foreign than a burger or sausage seems to distress Australians. They do not understand the sweet + savory concept, as is highlighted by their fear and distrust of several American traditions: PB&J, cheddar cheese on pie, French fries “chips” dipped in frosty, pumpkin pie, jam on toast on the side with eggs. Anyway, maclaen was cool and a bit of a homecoming for my Scottish friends. Plus they got to laugh every time I mispronounced something.

Newcastle: cool industrial town, our spirits were broken by the time we made it here because we drove in the dark in the rain to get there and were sooo excited to stay in a hostel indoors only to find a leaky roof and uncomfortable spring mattresses. We stayed two nights hoping the rain would clear. If we had actually been able to walk around a bit I think we would have liked it; it was surrounded by water and was originally a prison town built for people who committed crimes AFTER being sent to Australia for other crimes.

After these stops we drove the 5-6 hours to Canberra and relished our own beds. We had the car for an extra day and proceeded to go to places like the hardware store where we couldn’t normally drive. We also saw a local landmark, the Telstra tower. Which to me is one of the main problems with Canberra. Their two major landmarks (the other being the capitol building. I mean, it's pretty on the inside but the flag pole is ugh. Also, they built it inot a hill with the idea being that the government is 'on the same level' as the people. a really good sentiment, but forgettable building) are simultaneously not that attractive and forgettable. Who cares about the Telstra tower when there’s Uluru and the Sydney harbor bridge and opera house to see?

After a long grey trip, we found that not only had it been warm and sunny in Canberra the whole time, but that it was once again sunny in Brisbane. People were flabbergasted, as they hadn’t had that much rain in 10 years! Yay for them, the end of the Australian drought had to begin on our beach holiday. Now that we are home we have all managed to get pretty sick, I guess it is all the rain.

On the bright side, I am getting to do something I haven’t in a few years, experience fall. The leaves in Canberra right now are gorgeous and I actually get to wear my sheep wool lined coat, scarf and hat as more than just fashion accessories! I love how brisk it is until I get home and realize my bedroom has no insulation. This morning I left the house bundled up only to realize it was colder inside my room than outdoors. (I just bought an electric blanket, what an amazing invention!)

Well this has probably sounded like a lot of complaining but we did manage to enjoy ourselves a bit. People from Ireland and the UK constantly harassed us. (The Scottish draw them like magnets.) I got a newsboy hat that apparently screams ‘steal me or mess with me in some fashion!’ to every stranger around. And at times we were so giddy from our exhausting misfortunes that little things like dry socks and electrical outlets sent us to the heights of ecstasy.

No pictures for now because apparently my household has a bandwidth limit I was previously unaware of. And because I stopped bringing my camera out after Byron bay; when my friends give me pictures, I will ammend this post.

Cheerio!

This Is Just to Say...

Sorry, my roommate left me a note this morning that reminded me of a note that Erin left me last year when she tool some juice. I just realized I get to live with people that reference high literature in their counter top notes, yay!

I baked cookies yesterday because I was bored and didn't feel like drawing, but it turned from a relaxing exercise into a battle of wills between me and inanimate confectionery creations...My roommates don't keep basic items on hand like whisks, cookie sheets, or mixing bowls. (I shudder to imagine what Mrs. Shlinker would think of our lack of pastry brushes, but I digress) the worst part was beating cold butter together with sugar, using a fork, which i don't think i really accomplished in the end anyway, but it all worked out. A few weeks ago I broke down and bought mixing bowls; this was a weak moment as i am trying not to stock up a kitchen with items I will only be using for the next 8 weeks.

That's right kids, I only have 8 weeks left and I have YET to finish a painting. Also, I just learned that school breaks here are 'working breaks' i.e. you are expected to accomplish things during them. Ummm, what if people want to go on holiday and cannot bring the bare essentials of painting?

ANYWAY, the cookies. I got the recipe off of 101cookbooks.com, which has always served me well in the past, except for the thin mints recipe, but one out of many many successes. And they were amazing! They edges are crispy and caramelized, the middles soft, and there are lots of chocolate chips; I had to bring them into my studio so I wouldn't eat them all. Try them, I ended up using almonds instead of pecans, using some wholemeal flour instead of white (I ran out), and adding an extra egg because the dough wouldn't stick together (don't you love it when people say they love a recipe and then list how they completely changed it?) but my studio-mates decided they were the best biscuits they had ever had. That one still throws me, biscuits are fluffy and buttery and go well with gravy and fried chicken--they do not have chocolate chips.

In other news, I went out last evening to celebrate my Scottish friend's 30th birthday. We went to a great restaurant, then a fancy bar (they had these drinks with muddled orange, gin, campari, passionfruit, and cranberry juice--Nun's Nasty. Very girly and very tasty!) then a dive bar where we watched Australian rules football, then an irish pub where we danced to old rock/blues songs most of which i knew the words to. I forgot how much fun dancing to rock music is! Then we went to a club called the Back Alley Disco (I now have a blacklight stamp that says BAD to prove it)

Clubbing in Australia is very interesting because a lot of guys seem to go there just to dance, which is nice. They all do this weird dance resembling something called the Melbourne shuffle: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaMdxC6CQI. This video is a bit more intense than what i saw, but I was not in Melbourne, and the video DOES have a strobe light effect about half way through so that you feel like you get the full club experience.

The two Scottish women came over to my place this afternoon for lunch and both of the poor things were very hungover and couldn't do the eggs benedict justice, but I loved it. (probably my top breakfast food, but only if the eggs are poached in tiny teacups) And Elaine and I decided to go see a movie tonight instead of go out again. We saw Grindhouse, which I missed when it was out in the states, but everything is incredibly delayed here so i got to see it on the bog screen. It was a reference to the old drive in movie double features, complete with bad previews and a fake intermission.

I actually enjoyed the experience a lot although I know many of you in my audience hate Quentin Tarantino stuff. The two films shown were "Planet Terror" by Robert Rodriguez and "Death Proof" by Quentin Tarantino. All I can say is, they went for the cheesy action flicks and they went full out. If you go into them with the same mentality that you would Snakes on a Plane or the upcoming film Wanted you will enjoy them a lot because they are so over the top. A girl has a machine gun for a leg. Seriously. Planet Terror was a horror flick, which should not have surprised me, in retrospect, but I hadn't thought about it and you all know my dislike for horror films on account of my dislike of being scared and my extremely jumpy nature. Death Proof was about a stunt driver serial killer (Kurt Russel) and it was awesome! It had such a good car chase scene and reminded me of the old North by Northwest and Psycho movies.

Anyways, they are very graphic, very cheesy, and thoroughly enjoyable. The scripts are ridiculous though, soooo apparent written dialogue. But anyway, as a result of those movies, which were, together about 3 1/2 hours long, I got so keyed up I have had to write a blog post to settle down before sleep and suppress the urge to drive cars really fast and fight off a zombie horde. The only time i have had more adrenaline this week was dancing at the club and when I thought I might have to change my plane ticket at a thousand dollar loss, whew that was close. (Don't worry Courtney, I am still flying out of here on the 10th as planned, for about two hours on friday the art department tried to give me a stress test)

I'm planning on taking photos of my works in progress tomorrow so you guys can tell me what you think! That post should be up in the next day or two. Then I get a much needed possibly edgy haircut that I can only hope is not a mullet on Tuesday. Then I am off for Melbourne on Wednesday for my fall holiday, yay!

P.S. Some of you might have noticed some typos in my blog over the course of its existence--they are there to keep you on your toes.

Tumut, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Field Trip

On the desolate barren dry road again...just can't wait to get on the....

For those of you who didn’t know, I had another field trip to Tumut from Wednesday to Sunday this week and have been bust since the weekend. It has been a while since I posted, so I believe I have a bit to catch you all up on.

Last Friday, all of the people in my studio were really unmotivated and as a result I was even less motivated than usual. I spent most of the day gessoing canvas that I put together all by myself, which I was very proud of. After you put together the frame, however, you have to seal the canvas to protect it using rabbit skin glue. Yes, it is made from Rabbits, and it smells…like rabbits. After this, you have to gesso the canvas to get a decent painting surface. Needless to say, I think I will be doing the rest of my works in paper for ease of shipping and because of the long involved process which one day might be economical and convenient but right now is just much less interesting that everything else I could be doing.

Anyway, a girl in my studio and one of her friends from the textile department were going to a pub called The Pheonix, which is a pretty hilarious dive bar where lots of art kids hang out. They invited me and I gladly left, forgetting to even wash my brush. We ended up going to her house to change from our art clothes and she dressed us all up in her clothes. This is only significant because she has two closets and lots of couch space devoted to her collection of vintage dresses, and, get this, she is my size!

In moments I was dressed in a black and white checked dress, a purple 20’s hat, and some awesome black boots which she gave to me as a gift because they were to small on her! She was in a short ivory satin wedding dress with boots and a knit hat and the textile girl was in a festive dress, ochre polka dotted sweater, and red beret. Needless to say we got many looks on the bus.

I thought that the reaction would be puzzled and negative, but actually everyone loved us. Several people complimented my hat and asked about the occasion, and the bartenders served us almost as soon as we walked up to the bar, yelling ‘hey, girls in the hats’ and fighting over serving us. We are thinking of instituting a weekly hat night, as I have never been so well treated in a bar before.

Anyway, that night pretty much set the tone for the weekend and I got very little actual work done. Although I DID learn to make udon noodles, so fun!

Flour + Salt +Water
You knead them by walking around on dough covered in plastic...need I say more?

I gave a presentation on Frans Hals on Tuesday for my art theory class and then worked a bit before going home. I did freak out a little about my lack of work to show the professors, but for the first time ever my teachers do not care what I do at all! I have been doubly worrying because I keep waiting for them to suddenly crack down, but now I am starting to relax more. Hmmm maybe that's what they're waiting for...

I went to bed early on Tuesday with the plan of waking early in the morning to pack, but I slept in and woke about 2 minutes before my friend came to pick me up for the trip. Long story short, I sent her around to pick up someone else and packed for a five-day art trip in about twenty minutes, leaving the house in the sweats and shirt I slept in.

The drive was full of stops and we were thirty minutes late to the campsite, a boys summer camp we had rented out. Thursday we went in to the Tumut charity shop where I get a pair of high rise jeans, as I had no clean ones because my washing machine and dishwasher had been taken into the shop for repair on Saturday and still had not returned by Wednesday morning. (I had to hand wash several articles of clothing for the trip, all I can say is the 50’s were the ‘age of innocence’ because they had no time to get into any trouble) Then we went hiking up in the national park and laid in the sun by the Goobragandra River. (the names for things here are so cool)

Friday a group of people went into Brungle, an Aboriginal Mission (similar to a reservation) and we got a tour from a park ranger and aboriginal heritage guy. Then I interviewed a woman for a portrait series I’m working on. She seemed fine with posing, but very skeptical as to her getting anything out of it, I got the impression that lots of white people had asked to take pictures of aborigines as curiosities so I am hoping that she will trust me more later into the project. Working with the aborigines here has made me even more sensitive to the problems we still have in the states with treatment of the Native Americans (which I never hear about, they don’t have as high of a political spotlight as here in Australia) and African Americans. Someone did a presentation on two artists from Los Angeles doing art on racism in America, which was interesting because people don’t know much about it overseas. The whole question period the other American student and I were trying to avoid being asked questions about the US, luckily they didn’t think to ask us.

Then the three ‘youngins’ myself, and two other girls went up to a dam to sketch and explore. Talbingo, the town by the dam, was the home of a woman suffrage advocate and an author, Miles Franklin, but the reservoir created by the dam has completely covered her house with water. The dam is a huge problem because it causes environmental issues, but it is a green source of energy….

My painting of all of the power lines feeding into the power station;
I strategically picked a spot in full sun for maximum sunburn potential

The trip was uneventful and the watercolor I did unremarkable, but we did see kangaroos! And a flock of Emu in the middle of the road, and, sadly, wombat road kill. And tons and tons of cockatoos.

On Saturday I woke up at 6 am to go flying in a microlight aircraft. For you laymen (like me) it is basically a trike with a hang gliding apparatus above it. I had reservations at first, but the guy flying us apparently is the best in the business (people come from Sydney to learn, and he landed on the dam back no his glory days) Anyway, it was awesome! It definitely made me want to learn to hang glide, except for the whole walking off of a cliff thing. It was sooo fun.

My other car is a...

There was lots of mist because of the huge change in temp lately (for the colder)
but it worked out prettily

I went with one other guy, and after our flights we went exploring and photographing. He’s this really shy academic guy who grew up in a fishing community in Sri Lanka, then went to university in the states. His first introduction to the US was, get this, Davidson college in the south. Then he went to duke, then Berkeley. He does bird watching and had lots of good advice about getting international scholarships for post grad education. We’re going bird watching next week, hopefully in the evening cause I don’t know how many more early mornings I can do.

He has seen an albino kangaroo nearby in his recent wildlife excursions. apparently there was another bloke who also saw it but no one believes him and it has become a sort of joke in the community. So when we saw this sign and told the guy in the museum we knew someone who had seen one, well we might has well have claimed to have seen elvis or something.



I went into town and painted a watercolor from the morning until about 3:30, I was hoping to scope out people for my portrait series more than get a decent painting. I got a couple of interested people and some teenagers who said my painting “wasn’t TOO bad.” Next time I will go earlier in the morning because everyone is on the main street on Saturday morning, but it is deserted by noon. And also, if you were wondering, buildings are SO hard to paint in watercolors.

Part of the scene I attempted to paint. Painting in public allows everyone to criticize your work to your face.
Sometimes it can be interesting and sometimes a little less than pleasant.
Especially if you are struggling with it, but most people were nice.

That afternoon we went to some ruins of an old gold mining facility, which was cool, until a cattle dog attempted to ‘herd’ us, which entailed a lot of growling and barking and near heel nipping. He was big and muscular, but there was a little fluffball of a white dog egging him on. Finally my Scottish friend yelled at it and it left. (Her cursing is awesome because they tend to string words together, and they sound so proper)

Anyway, there’s not much else to report, it was one of those experiences without a whole lot of comment. I am allergic to the Australian Bush, but not Australian planned cities. Being a person who doesn’t normally suffer from allergies I never really sympathized before but wow they are pretty bad. Australian slang is all very cutsey, I heard a grown man say that he was pulling over to ‘take some pic-ys’ (pictures). I also saw the milkyway for the first time in a long time; I’m planning on doing a whole lot more hiking in the next year as I am realizing how much I miss it!

And, from XKCD, here is your moment of zen:

Easter Weekend

G’day everybody!

As some of you know, last Sunday Riley, the BF, flew in to visit me in Australia. Unfortunately due to my field trip being in the middle of NOWHERE (10 hours traveling distance to Sydney or Canberra) I couldn’t meet him at the airport. And due to me now knowing that there are two bus companies here Greyhound AND Murray’s, he had to wait at the airport for four to five hours, then take a bust to get to Canberra. Very sad, but then I had Monday off so we were able to see parliament and the national portrait gallery. The parliament building is fairly new, and I love the inside, but on the outside the nicest thing I can say about it is that it is a huge contribution to the growing number of odd modern buildings in the world. My favorite anecdote is that when the bell rings for voting time, every member has 4 minutes to get to the voting room or they can’t get in. They figured out this limit by finding the oldest member, putting him in the far corner of the building, and timing him walking to the room. It took him 3 and a half minutes so they just rounded it to four. The national portrait gallery was also cool because it had paintings of all of the major political figures in Australia over the past few years, and I even sort of recognized some of their names.

Tuesday I was a slacker and skipped class, but I went to crew in the morning and it was very pretty.


We had a good breakfast and cooked our own dinner, (notes for travelers iced coffee and iced chocolate mean coffee and chocolate floats, not coffee poured over ice; aussies share the European aversion to ice apparently) Then we went to play Frisbee with my summer league; it was the last week so we got dominoes pizza (which is actually worse here) and then I added on to one team and riley added on to the other and we played for first place. I think my team won in universe point, no thanks to me (I had no cleats and the sprinklers came on halfway through the game) and I got a chocolate bunny for the prize.

Wednesday and thursday were boring, the only things of note were Riley’s fixing of our wireless internet, YAY! I now can blog comfortably form my bed and nor fro the kitchen counter far from any power outlet, table, or chair. And he showed my how to make my laptop power cable double for our secondhand dvd player, which came sans remote and power cable. Hooray for non art majors that can fix things!

On Thursday, Riley rented a car and we drove down to the southeast coast. It was a nice drive except Australian radio sucks and I forgot my cds, and it started to rain when we got into town and the road google maps told us to take was closed. When we finally made it to the place I had booked, it was storming and we had to drive up this steep dark driveway in the middle of nowhere. (by the way, it was incredibly sunny and hot, nineties, the whole time we were in Canberra, but as soon as we drove to the coast it stormed all over the country)

Imagine driving up this, in the dark, in a storm

The place seemed empty except for the reception guy, an older Austrian man dressed in a flannel shirt and named Herbert. It was a charming spa/ B&B type place in the end, but in the storm, at the time, I thought we were walking into a psycho type situation. Then before he showed us the room we met his granddaughter, who had come for a sleepover and as we walked to the room we saw them playing monopoly, so cute!

It was still rainy and cold but we managed a hike along a cloudy beach and a small trail.

Bingi Bingi Point, very pretty, squishy sand, kind of cold

The trail itself was stressful because we kept almost walking into huge spiderwebs. These spiders were crazy, they weave webs across entire trails above head height. We got lost because the trail ended at the end of the park, on a country road, in a neighborhood. I have no sense of direction, and we hadn't gotten a trail map because it was a small 'walk' like trail that I honestly thought was a loop and we really didn't want to backtrack through the spider trail. To be fair we would have gotten back eventually the way we were walking, but a nice ranger gave us a ride to our car. In the end, it was cold, and there were spiders, so we packed up early and decided to go to dinner.

Herbert got us in to a nice seafood place and our table was on a pier on the water, very nice. When we got back, we asked him if we could borrow a dvd and ended up with choices that ranged from anger management to Black Stallion II. We watched part of Moulin Rouge before I got sleepy, and I hate to say this but I did not get the appeal. Maybe it’s that I don’t like Nicole Kidman but I loved the music, loved the colors, couldn’t make myself love the movie, oh well.

We drove to Sydney on Saturday, at which point it started to get a little sunny, go figure. It was a long drive on a two lane highway, and we ended up being pressed for time and not stopping for lunch and then not being able to find the Hertz in Sydney. When we finally did find it, there were no public bathrooms in it, of course, after driving for three hours. Finally we just went to the bar next door and bought beers and recollected ourselves. The Ladies was, of course, down a steep flight of stairs and had another little surprise step under the door that I tripped on going in AND out. I can’t even imagine what drunk women think of it.

We took a cab to the hotel, which was awesome because it was right next to this old post office building with a clock tower and a short walk to the bay.

The post office building was really pretty, our
hotel was a modern attachment to it

Sydney harbor is just as impressive as they say!

Having missed lunch, we immediately went out for a 4 pm lunch. We ended up getting burgers at a little seafood place and they were AMAZING. They were loosely packed and tender and seasoned like seafood and I am getting hungry just describing them. They are second only to Mervs in my heart as the perfect cheeseburger.

We also did some souvenir shopping and I scoped out the crocodile Dundee hat situation, I am seriously considering one as my field trips are very sunny and my neck is quite burnable.

The main thing we ended up doing in Sydney though, was going to the zoo. I heard that the ferry ride there was scenic, so we went for it.

Poor Riley, I took his picture in the sun. We scrambled to get these choice seats
at the front of the boat, and then the boat went backwards the whole way.

We moved to the side of the boat here, much better on the eyes

It ended up being awesome because the zoo is on a hill and you take cable cars (gondolas in aussie speak) up to the top so we got a great air view of the harbor. We also rode it with a british family and an adorable little boy who kept pointing out all of the significant landmarks and saying he didn't want his sunglasses yet.

Us at the zoo, pictures with koalas were $20 so we settled for a
self-timer and the harbor in the background

We also got to see all of the aussie animals we failed to see on our hike, echidna, kangaroo, platypus (these are as strange in person as ever, but very cute) and we got to see our huge scary spiders again. In case you were curious, they are called Orb spiders and have the strongest webs in the world.

This one was at least the size of my hand, and
we constantly had to walk under them, shudder

We left early and went to the Gallery of New South Wales to see a Portrait contest. The show had some AMAZING portraits but it was really, really, crowded and hung in a very small space for the amount of work. In the end, I got a little claustrophobic and just bought a catalogue so I could look up pieces later.

Looking back, a lot of things were against us and most of what we ended up doing was eating, but it was a good time. The hotels we stayed in both had amazing breakfasts. The B&B had fresh mint tea and a continental European breakfast with ‘fresh milk’ whatever that means, and the second hotel in Sydney had this awesomely extravagant buffet deal with really good juice combinations. My favorite was kiwi pear mint. So usually we had late lunches and I was SO full by dinner…oh well, I suppose I will have to get my American appetite back somehow.

I loved Sydney itself. It had all of these really interesting old buildings on the water and of course the bridge and the opera house were beautiful. It really reminded me of Como and Venice in Italy; I think it would be a fun place to live IF you could live downtown by the water. It is like LA in that the suburbs go on forever.

Very pretty, and pricey, by the water

Anyway, back to reality. My fridge is broken and I am eating pasta for almost every meal at home. Before we left, we shove lots of stuff in the freezer because that was still working, but at some point while we were gone even that shut off so now I just have a smelly freezer and no roommates….sigh. Ironic that I moved here because I didn’t have a fridge in the hostel…

Oh well, I must go work on painting now; I am fairly behind and have a meeting with my professors tomorrow. Cheers!