In just nine days I will be hosting the biggest event of my life to date. Yep the 21st birthday party, much more classier than the 18th party because in those three years we have all matured a lot. In those nine days I have a lot left to do. Finalise the menu, start cooking, prepare the decorations and music and other little things. Though I don’t want to go into much detail before the event so those of you are coming are still suprised, it is shaping up to be a great night. Sunset 21 is the name I have given the party as we will be having dinner during sunset and it is for my 21st 🙂
In between all of this I have been applying for jobs all over the country, working on my graduation dress with Mum, picking up extra shifts at work, working on a quilt and bludging as needed.
Oh and of course watching/listening to the cricket. It is day 2 of the first Ashes test and it’s looking for Australia at the moment. I am not a big sports fan but as I wander past the living room I will sit down on the couch and watch a couple of balls. It is also great seeing what The Fanatics and the Barmy Army are getting up to in showing their support for Australia and England respectively.
We had the most fantastic night last night! Eyes darting all over the scene in front of us, our ears enchanted by the music, laughing at the antics of the clowns, smiling as the artists performed in the aisle in front of us, whispering and pointing as we spot artists appearing in different locations, playing with the masks in the shop and just absorbing the Cirque atmosphere.
We went Cirque du Soleil last night to see our fourth tour – Varekai (well forth for Mum and Matthew, the third for me) and oh what a magical show it was. Mum had got us the best seats, we were twelve rows back and smack bang in the middle, everything was laid out in front of us! Those seats were fantastic! Apart from Mum, Matthew and I, Grandad and one of my best friends Sam also came along.
One of the great things about this show is that there is a local boy(man) in the show, Steven Bishop and his assistant had the us holding our sides as their clowning antics sent us into fits of laughter.
Once again we were mesmerised by the costumes and make-up and would love to be able to see all the costumes close up and feel the beauty in them.
Now I really want to find a way to go to Las Vegas for the night so I can see the LOVE show as how could you top the music of the Beatles with the artistry of Cirque du Soleil?
I just heard on the news that the USA has banned Vegemite, because according to their food laws only breads and cereals are allowed to contain folate, another source says that it might be that vegemite contains too much folate. *shakes heads*. When I went to the states in 2002, I carried three jars of the stuff with me and I remember the customs lady smiling at me when asking what food items I was carrying. I left one with my brother in San Jose, then onward to Iceland where I left another with another brother and finally on to Germany where I used it on my toast each morning.
It seems that the border patrols are targeting Australian travellers and searching for vegemite. I wonder though are they targeting Kiwis or Brits/UKers with their Promite and Marmite, both also yeast extracts and also contain folate? Perhaps Aussies are just more likely to travel with Vegemite than the others?
I heard Hugh Jackman on the radio the other month and he said that he tests his kids to make sure they are still “true blue” by presenting them with a vegemite sandwich and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; they still pick the vegemite sandwich he knows everything is alright.
Australia is vegemite.
We are happy little Vegemites as bright as bright can be,
We all enjoy our Vegemite for breakfast, lunch and tea,
Our mummy says we’re growing stronger every single week,
Because we love our Vegemite,
We all adore our Vegemite,
It puts a rose in every cheek!
A couple of months ago, Gardasil the vaccine for four types of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18), which are four of the strains that account for the majority of cervical cancer and genital warts infections was released to the public in Australia with much fan-fare. Today I received my first shot in a three shot course which is given over six months. Gardasil may be pricey but for my parents, my doctor and I, it is the sort of thing where money shouldn’t be in equation, because the benefits far outweigh the initial outlay from the back pocket.
In saying that it will be a great day when it is added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which would lower the cost and enable even more young women across Australia to access the vaccine. It will also be a great day when it is put on the National Immunisation Program Schedule for girls aged 12 years which will make it accessible to all the girls of Australia.
It will also be a great day for the team at local hospital that developed the vaccine. I can say today it feels pretty cool to receive a vaccine that was “grown in my backyard”, it also makes me proud of what they have done. Go Dr Ian Frazer and the team at the PA&UQ! For this work Dr Frazer was named the Australian of the Year for 2006 which really shows just how much of a breakthrough this vaccine is.
Whilst I was there I also started on my Hep A/B combined course since I had missed the Hep B whilst at school and it makes sense for future travel plans to get the Hep A as well (also makes it cheaper).
This means that I have matching bandages on both of my arms 🙂
Mum and I spent went on a little outing this morning to West End browsing, shopping and eating our way along Boundary St, up a few of the side streets and some other places on the way home.
The highlights included: Bent Books, where Mum picked up the LP book – Trekking in the Karakoram & Hindukush (sigh, wouldn’t it be lovely? We both watched a doco the other week called “Karakoram Highway: The Road To Globalisation” and it is also the where “Three Cups of Tea” is based (my top book of the year if not the last couple of years)).
Swiss Gourmet Deli – looking at all the yummy smallgoods and grocery items, so many wonderful things. We stopped here for morning tea where the lady behind the counter was shocked that we don’t drink coffee .. at all! It was a bit of a laugh. Mum had a Friand and I had a Cannoli. mmm yummy.
Now we continued to stroll down Boundary st, seeing what we could see and just enjoying the “scene”, I picked up a recycled Sari silk bag which is just gorgeous I will have to take a photo of it tomorrow.
The next stop was the real target of the day, ara beeka, the most delectable Lebanese(?) pastry shop. My eyes were twinkling and my mouth was watering at all the pretty pastries and biscuits in the display case. I could have just gobbled up the entire case and died in a nut and sugar bliss. (76 Boundary St, West End).
This is a selection of some of the goodies we got, most of them are priced at about $1 a piece of you can buy by the kilo ($22ish) or half kilo which works out much cheaper if you are buying more a couple. The staff behind the counter are great and up for a laugh as well which was nice.
The next substantial stop was at the West End branch of the City Library network, it is the cutest little library I have ever seen, it is a very small one room library that is about the size of our lounge room and eating area combined. It was soooo cute!
Then it was The Language People, a bookshop that specialises in mmm well language books from ESL (English as a second language) to Literacy to learning foreign languages. The first thing I checked out here was if they had any Icelandic books and sure enough they did – Colloquial Icelandic, we then had fun seeing what other “rarer” language books they had, I was quite impressed with the range of Tetum books they had.
We then left Boundary St and headed over to Reverse Garbage, one of the most interesting stores in Brisbane. I picked up three partial Letraset sheets for $1.50! Mum scored some assorted fabric pieces for 90c.
The last stop for the day was Simply Good at Alderly which is a loose bulk bin food store with all sorts of wonderful dried fruits, lollies, legumes, nuts, flours etc all at very, very good prices.
You might be wondering what the deal is about the title for this post, well even if you weren’t I will tell you anyway. Pabbi has just been diagnosed with the D word aka Diabetes Type II. Currently his blood sugar levels are in a bad way – high 20’s, low 30’s – the normal level is between 4 and 6. Hopefully though as his medicine and diet changes kick in, it will improve.
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The internet is well the internet.
This blog (I really hate that word but let us keep on moving) has reconnected my family to at least three people so far and I think that is pretty cool.
We have hooked back up with Neele who was our first German exchange student in 2001.
My older brother has hooked back up with one of his mates from around the time Matthew was born in 87.
And just the other day I received an email for Mum from a Kiwi lady who knew Mum from the fish factory she worked in Iceland many, many years ago.
All through the power of Google!
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We spent the most delightful time this morning on the phone to Karl, whilst he was wandering round the streets of Berlin at 1am in the morning, killing time between his flights as he heads to Munich/ München for Oktoberfest. Mum started telling Karl about the time she had spent in Berlin and the bullet holes in the buildings, when he asked where they were and Mum of course couldn’t remember. I quickly hopped on Flickr and Google to see what I could find. I found a couple of streets and then by the time I was back on the phone with Karl, he had actually started to walk down one of the streets I had found on the net. Then as we talked, as he walked and looked for bullet holes, he found what he thought could be bullet holes, well more to the point, there was little else they could be – lots of dimples on old stone buildings, which matched with what I saw in photos. The wonders of technology!
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I also just watched the season three opener of Veronica Mars which MSN is showing before it starts on TV in the states next week . Bonus! Play the episode in Windows Media
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I am also in the midst of finishing an essay on the Japanese camera industry and I have to say not only is this essay coming out faster than any other, it certainly rocks writing about something I really enjoy and have a decent knowledge on already. I certainly never thought at the start of this degree that I would be writing an essay on Canon, Nikon, Sony and the like. Certainly pretty cool.
