Living out of a bag

Here you go Nelster. A new post. I've been travelling up the east coast of this country for about a week now. I took a plane from Sydney and landed in Byron Bay. A surfers and pothead's paradise. I wish I could put up photos here but it's too complicated since I'm in an internet cafe at the moment. I'll wait till I get back to Sydney. From there I went on a day trip to a small town called Nimbin. I've heard a lot about Nimbin from a friend of mine, Jesse. He grew up there. It's more extreme than Byron Bay with it's drug culture. Most people go there to buy really good weed for dirt cheap. I didn't really go there for that at all. I don't do drugs.

Say no to drugs.

But I just went there to see what it was all about. And I actually really liked it. A very relaxed little town (of 500 people!) and it's not all touristy like Byron. It hasn't sold itself out to tourism. Nimbin in a place with a lot of culture. From there I took the Oz Experience bus to Surfers Paradise. I'm doing my travel with a company called "Oz Experience." I didn't really like Surfers. I stayed there for only an hour before I decided I was going to just continue onto the next destination. Surfers Paradise is basically a place to just party. It has a few nice beaches but when I went all the grade 12 kids had just graduated and had gone there for a week of partying. The whole fiasco is called "schoolies" in Australia. So it was like spring break in Floria. I didn't really want to be surrounded by 18 year old drunken hooligans. So I jumped on the Oz Ex bus and on the way we stopped to do a bit of 'Zorbing.' Zorbing was invented in New Zealand, as are all outdoor extreme sports. Basically there's a big see through ball with a little see through ball inside it. You put in a few buckets of water in the little ball. You jump in with a friend or two. Then the little ball is put inside the big ball and THEN someone comes up and pushes you and your friends (you're all inside the balls)...down a hill. It's great fun.

After zorbing we hopped on the bus and headed for Brisbane. We had crossed the border of the state of New South Wales and had entered the state of Queensland. The first night I stayed at a backpackers hostel and went out partying with the locals. The huge cricket series (called The Ashes) where Australia plays England every year was taking place in Brisbane so I was surrounded by drunken english guys that night. They were pretty upset because Australia was fully kicking their ass in cricket. The next morning Rita Ringma came and picked me up and I spent the next four days at her house. She had her guest room all ready for me and lunch cooked and ready on the table. It was so nice to sleep on a good bed, eat healthy homemade meals, and NOT use public bathrooms and showers. Backpacking is fun and all but it gets to be a bit much at times. Charles was in the Philippines teaching so I didn't get to see him. But I hung out with Rita's daughter Marina, her husband, Zelman, and their adorable three chilren, Patrick, Lachlan, and Bronte. Again really cute photos that I will have to show you all later. I went to The Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin's Zoo) when I was in Brisbane. That was amazing. A really hot day though. Easily 36-38 degrees. Zelman dropped me off in front of the Oz Ex bus this past Tuesday morning and off I went for my next destination.

We were heading for a small town called Noosa. Rita told me a lot about this place. It's her and Charles' favorite place to go and relax. On the way here we climbed "The Wild Horse Mountain." Now don't be fooled British Columbians. It was not a mountain but a hill. It's called that because wild horses used to roam the area. When we got to the very top we had a beautiful view of the Glass House Mountains. Our tour guide/driver told us the Aboriginal story behind how the mountians came to be. Then we got back onto the bus and drove up to Noosa. I've been in Noosa for two days now. It is absolutely beautiful here. Rita was right. Very very relaxed small town. I'm staying in a backpackers hostel called "Koala backpackers." Cheesy name I know. But it's a great hostel. Cheap good dinners and drink specials, a nice pool, good central location, and the staff are super friendly. And I found out why. Because 80% of them are Canadians. They are all Canadians who are working here temporarily while travelling around the southern hemisphere. I met a guy here from Yukon! YUKON! There are only 20000 of them and I meet one in Noosa, Australia...go figure. Ya so they organize fun games and have live bands or good DJs at night. Backpackers from other hostels come to ours to hang out in the evenings. I've just been relaxing here. Though today I went on a gruelling 8 km hike at the Noosa National Park at noon in the crazy heat. It was an amazing experience though. I really wish I could put up a few photos here. Oh well. I'll just have to wait until I get back to Sydney. Tomorrow I leave Noosa and head for Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach. In Rainbow beach the sand in multicolored, as one would gather from its name. Well I think I've blabbed on for long enough. I should sign off of this internet cafe computer and go find myself some dinner. This one was for you Chanelle! You better have read the whole darn thing!

Ciao for now!

Goodbye dear uni

You are so pretty amidst the spring blossoms...

You have scary psychology buildings that don't quite fit among the other gothic castle-like buildings.

You have Australia's oldest running theatre company. Oh the countless hours that have been spent there rehearsing, dancing, watching others rehearsing, and watching the shows put on after the hours of rehearsing.

Like I said before, you have über gothic architecture. Look at those gargoyles leaning out of those towers!

You have overpriced uni clothing. Which I will buy because I want to strut a "Sydney Uni" hoodie around my hometown and act all pompous like Sydney uni students do here...

Last production in the land down under

You probably remember from a blog post way back in August that I've been part of a musical called "Honk!" Ze story of le ugly duckling. Je played mother duck. Well after a month and a half of intense rehearsals we put on the production last weekend. It went marvellously. From the hundreds of photos everyone took (no joke), I narrowed it down to five that I wanted to post up here. Mainly because each post only allows five photos to be put up.

This first one is from rehearsals. It's near the end of the play where I've been searching for my son, referred to as just "Ugly", for almost a year. We all get caught in a blizzard. At the end of which I find Ugly burried underneath a pile of snow, frozen to death. Or at least I THINK he's frozen to death. Sorry for ruining the story for those of you who didn't know it. I'm was trying to cry here. Is it convincing? I thought I did a damn good job. My flatmate Tomo came to watch my performance. I made him cry! Boo. Yaa.

After the show. The actors are rushing back to the dressing room to get changed so that they can run into the lobby and bask in their glory while everyone tells them how good they were in the show.

Our director and musical director giving us notes (what we did well and what could be improved upon) after the first performance on Friday night.

I was trying to get a photo of me and my husband (Drake the papa duck). But my son decided to jump into the photo. Kinda looks like they're fighting over me. They probably weren't...I'm just full of it.

Me and my baby, Ugly.

It's getting hot in herre

It is only spring and the weather forecast website says that the "fire danger" in the greater Sydney region is "high." Today the temperature outside is 38 and inside my room I just watched it go from 29 to 31.5 degrees. I whipped out my super duper fan and tucked away my mini heater. My feet are sweating. How I'm going to travel up north next month, I do not know.


Courtesy of Aussie cartoonist John Ditchburn.

Vet students sure know how to live it up

This weekend I went camping with around 300 students from the veterinary science program at my uni. Nadia's in the vet program so she invited me along to their annual camping trip. Getting there was an adventure all on its own. We had to drive form Sydney to Camden while completing a photo scavenger hunt. We pulled up to the uni that morning at 9, dressed up in a common theme as well has having our car and truck decked out. You see, each group was also competing for the "best dressed" prize. Our theme was "cows." We painted our two cars black and white, and strapped a paper maché horn, utter, and tail onto one of the cars.

As you can probably guess, we got a few stares from padestrians while driving around town completing the scanvenger hunt. We wore matching white tank tops. On the back of the tops we spray painted (in black) the words "team moo" and in the front we got individual names. Nadia and I got "moo eh" since we were the token Canadians on the team. By the time we got to Camden it was midday and boiling hot. Here we are, half the team trying to put the tents up while the other half scrubbing the black paint off the vehicles.


The games they had prepared for us...man. Here's are two teams playing egg netball. Netball is an aussie sport. It is basically basketball without the dribbling and without the backboard. Here we are playing not with basketballs, but eggs. A few cracked.

There is no proper name for this. Two people on a log trying to knock each other out with those long foamy thingies. That's as good as my explanation is going to get. The theme of the weekend, picked by the graduating fourth year students, was "lube." So they incorporated lube into everything. This log here has been slathered with lube. There was also lube wrestling earlier in the afternoon. Vet students are on crack.

A game of volleyball in a pool of mud.

Vet students are so odd! But I love them anyway. This is a guy with a drench gun. A drench gun is what vets use to vaccinate large animals because using syringes just isn't effective. So vets use this squirt gun attached to a bag filled with the vaccination. They just squirt the vaccination into cows' and horses' mouths. Except during this weekend the drench gun was used to squirt alcoholic beverages into students' mouths. Stop stressing guys. I only took two shots. I had planned to actually enjoy my weekend and remember things.

Oh spring break, you left us too soon

Tomorrow is the last day of spring break. No more breaks until...well until this semester is over. Eeek! But it's been a blast. Last weekend I hopped on a greyhound and went to Canberra (the capital of Australia) and spent the weekend with my friend Kimberley. I met Kimberley in Vancouver three summers ago when she flew over to volunteer as an intern at one of the Urban Promise summer day camps. On Saturday night we went out for dinner to celebrate Kim's birthday. She turned 22. During dinner Kim and I realized that I had spent her birthday with her three years ago. If you had told me then that I'd be spending her birthday with her again in three years in Australia, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

Sunday she took me to this flower festival. It has huge. People from all over Australia were there just for this event. It was pretty cool. They (the festival organizers?) looked into various flower festivals that take place around the world. Then they brought those flowers to Canberra and represented all the countries in this enormous national park. You'd take a map from the guides and walk around different sections of the park, each of which represented a country, and ooo and ahhh over the flowers. It was beautiful. There were also little markets, street performers, and art exhibitions. I had an amazing time, though the weather sucked a bit. I, being the forgetful person I am, left my camera in Sydney. So I had to buy a 10 shots disposable camera for 12 bucks. Yes, can you say rip off? I haven't developed those photos yet. When I develop them, find a scanner and scan them, they will be up here. Don't hold your breath. But I found Canada among the countries at the festival! There was a sea of red Canadian tulips there. Apparently every spring they appear everywhere in Ottawa.

After I came back from Canberra I basically partied with Nadia. Every night this past week. Except Tuesday night. That'd be five nights. A self-centered week indeeed. Oh but I did volunteer as an usher last weekend at the National Youth Shakespeare Company's production of Titus Andronicus. But other than that it was all partying. So I definitely need to take a break from that scene and concentrate on uni for this last month. If you catch me partying please drag me back home.

So I'm sorry for the lack of photos. I went out this past week with a bunch of German and American backpackers. And being the tourists they are, they snapped away all night. I need to get those photos off of them as well. So until then, this photo will have to suffice. It really says nothing about my spring break. I just want a photo up here with this post. I was yapping away on the phone and checking my email the other day when my friend found my camera and decided to waste two minutes of his life.

Look closely at my phone. Is that a...yes it is. Yes I did put a "Canada Kicks Ass" sticker on the back of my mobile. The sticker > courtesy of Nadia Vanderkuip's going away care package.


Canada kicks so much ass.

We bring the Caribbean to us. Because we're too poor and lazy to go there.

This happened a while back. September 8th I believe. My girlfriend Nadia (the très cool Torontonian) is obsessed with raggae/soca/dancehall music. So everytime there's a raggae party anywhere in town -which doesn't happen often- she will drag my butt over there. I've never really listened to raggae much but I gotta say, these dance parties rock. hard.

We were browsing through their website and came across photos of that night.


It's like we're ACTUALLY there. In the Caribbean...just dancing away...

Taking a break to pose for the photographer. Way to know where the party's at Nadia. AND way to party with a sprained wrist.

Spring is in the fairy floss

Walking through uni with flowy summer dress.Walking past the uni art festival's free sausage sizzle. Picking up sausage, one sliced bread, and tomah-to sauce from the chill English chef on campus. Temperature: 24 °C. Polishing off the free lunch under a tree. Up again. Walking past more...is that a free fairly floss stand? Fairy floss in hand. Taking sunnies out of bag and putting them on. Smile. You should be on kodak camera.

Zenith does not take these uni days for granted.

Translation for the homies back home:

Uni: University
Fairy Floss: Cotton Candy
Sausage sizzle: The act of barbequing sausages...?
Sliced Bread: We know this one guys. The aussies just prefer to wrap a single slice of bread around their sausages instead of using a bun
Tomah-to Sauce: Ketchup
Sunnies: Shades

I love a sunburned country

“I love a sunburned country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror,
The sunburned land for me.”

-A poem about Ozland by some Oz bloke

Zenith just got off the boat dressed in a multi-colored sarong with a Scarlet Macaw on her shoulder

Seriously, if I get called "exotic looking" one more time I'm going to punch someone in the face. Or get slightly irritated and do nothing about it. As I do.

Random person at pub: You have this exotic look about you. Where are you from?
Me: Canada...?

ex·ot·ic (g-ztk)
adj.
- From another part of the world; foreign
- Intriguingly unusual or different; excitingly strange

My conclusion: I am from "another" part of the world, where exactly I'm not sure and I am excitingly strange. I'm going to, as I usually do, take it as a compliment and be content. Well no, except for this one time-

Random person at uni: Ya I love your exotic look.
Me: Right thanks. So what does that mean? What constitutes as "exotic"?
Random person at uni: Um...not white?

Final conclusion: I am from "another" part of the world. I am excitingly strange because I am from another part of the world. Most importantly I am not white. So am I excitingly strange because I am not white? Before I draw any drastic conclusions I will find another one of them "exotic people lovers" and grill them with more seemingly important questions about...well really...skin color...

Zenith will keep you updated.

:S

Ya not too proud to be a Canadian at the moment.

Springtime? Intoxicating scent of exotic foliage? No!

Why is the weather being so freakin ridiculous? First it's spring and 25 degrees by midday and now it's 13 degrees with thunderstorms up the wazoo.

I haven't seen thunderstorms like these since I used to live in Bangladesh. When it rains here, it pours. Yes, quite unlike Vancouver. When you feel a raindrop on you (in Vancouver), you have a good five minutes to get inside a building. Here, you have about 5 seconds. I kid you not. It starts to pour faster than you can say "What the-" But again, unlike Vancouver, the rain here will stop in 5-10 minutes. But man, does it rain hard. Last night the thunderstorm was pretty scary. And all day today it has been über windy. 46 km/hour windy to be exact. Several times today I was certain that the wind was going to pick me right off the ground and throw me at oncoming traffic/pedestrians/wildlife...

Zenith hates season changes.

Spending the weekend with the sib

Mom and dad were in New Zealand this past weekend so Steven spent those couple of days with me at my place. I took him around town and around my neighbourhood, Newtown. Today he actually walked around Newtown all by himself while I was at uni.

Him and I went to the National Maritime Museum on Saturday. Here he is staring at a boat made entirely of beer cans.

Steven walking towards a pirate ship...as you do...

Artsy photo #23. Haha he hates it when I make him pose for those.

We had gelato by the water in Darling Harbour while watching the sunset.

Steven is obsessed with the seagulls in Australia. Apparently they look nothing like the ones in Vancouver and everything like the ones in "Finding Nemo."

Taking the family unit around town

Dad, Steve, and I in front of the quadrangle building at my uni.

All of us posing with an aboriginal aussie performer who, actually, just came back from touring in Canada. Dad and Steven are holding his two digiridus.

Tourist photo #1.

Tourist photo #2. That's a part of the downtown area in the background.

Steven checking out mom's old classmate's daughter during a friendly soccer game in the park. Talk to him for more info.

We meet again

My family is ici!

Hurrah! Hurrah!

Quack if you're down with it

I just landed a major role in the musical "Honk!"
Boo. Yaa.
"Honk!" is Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale of the "Ugly Duckling" retold as a musical comedy. I will play Ida, the mamma duck.
Kinda
really
excited.

Who says my skin doesn't discolour? (Part II)

Part two of my "who says I can't bruise" episodes. If you've been reading my blog religiously (I can't imagine anyone who would) then you'd remember that part one took place last December. This bruise is from the play I'm in right now. I play a servant called John Rugby. Yes, a man. And I'm abused and thrown around stage a lot. But I'm not going to lie to you. I got that bruise on my own. I stormed off stage after a scene (in which my character was very angry) and I continued to walk at a fast pace into the dark wings. Then I banged my knee into a black box. Smooth Zen.

They've got a good story behind 'em

You know when you look through photos and come across a few that just make you laugh when you think about the situation you were in when you actually took the photos? That was a long sentence. But you know what I'm talking about right? Well I was looking through my photos and these two I just had to share with the world.

Story A: It was a beautiful sunny day in early June. Tiffany, Stephanie, Jeremy and I had gone to see a rugby league game in the city. After the game we went out for sushi. And then we went to an Italian place for gelato. As we were gorging on our desserts, Tiffany announced that she was still hungry. She looked over at the table beside us and saw two little kids sitting around, NOT eating their delicious pancakes. The kids left with their parents. And one of them had barely even touched her plate. Tiffany mentioned how she was really tempted to take a bite from the pancake on the plate. Then we all started to stare and drool over the strawberry pancake platter. Tiffany was only joking. She is a germaphobe and would never ever touch a stranger’s plate. Even if the plate was left intact, which it was in this case.

Anyway, Stephanie on the other hand is the complete opposite of Tiffany. So Steph grabbed the plate from the table beside us and put it on ours. At this point Tiff started to get super embarrassed by the fact that her friend had just walked over and grabbed food from another table at a restaurant. I was a bit surprised that Steph had gone that far. Then Steph (and Jeremy) went even further and started to eat the food on the plate. And this point Tiff was just freaking out. I was entirely amused by how embarrassed and disgusted Tiffany was by the other two. So I decided to capture the moment. Here is Steph laughing her head off (and licking her fingers), and Jeremy looking up at Tiffany with an innocent face, after having taken the first bite from the kid’s plate.


Here is Tiffany. Freaking out.

Dance parties and chicken curry in the midst of all the cold

Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm more than halfway through my winter break and so far things have been going real well. These past few weeks have been very different from first semester. All my exchange friends have gone back home. But I've made some new friends and they've made my break über fun. In particular, Nadia from Toronto has been my partner in crime during this no-school period. Her and I both like to party and dance like it's our job, and we both also like to pretend that we can cook curry as well as our mothers. She's getting pretty good at it. I need a bit more practice.

My biannual haircuts

Before:

After:

Bose rendezvous

Ma famille sera ici dans la terre de l'australie très très bientôt...

Breakin' my leg

So the play that I've been working on since March finally kicked off this past weekend. It is written by an American playwright named Jane Martin. The play, called "Talking With", is actually a series of 13 monologues. My director picked his favorite five. He worked on a production of this play as a producer about 10 years ago and ever since then he's been wanting to do it again. So his dream finally came through. He got to direct the whole thing. My monologue was called "15 Minutes." It's about an actress from the Bronx who's getting ready backstage for a musical. During the monologue she talks about how difficult it is to be an actor. She rants about how you're only seen as a form of entertainment and how it is difficult to act in front of hundreds of strangers everynight, most of whom know absolutely nothing about the real you.

I had a lot of fun not only with the piece but also with my costume, and makeup. All the other actor would be ready in about 15 minutes, but the makeup artist and two other actors would be doing my makeup and hair for well over an hour. My director decided that I was in the musical "Hair." So everynight my hair was curled to the nines. I had on these huge fake eyelashes that were black and silver and my eye makeup was a bit on the bolder side. My costume? I wore this dramatic long sleeved white shirt with black frills that matched my black curly hair, sexy black pants that you can tie up on the sides, a funky black hat, a mismatching blue polka dotted tie, and these mustard-black shoes that looked a bit clownish (I thought).

Anyway, the play was on for three nights and about 10 of my friends came to watch me which was really nice. My director lives in an artists' co-op and the play was put on inside a garage there, which was really cool but there was real limited seating. I would've liked to invited more people. But it's over and done with now and I'm very happy with how everything turned out. I'm going to miss my Director (Zio) and the cast. There was a professional photographer who took individual headshots and group shots so when I get a hold of those I'll put them on here. Anyway, I should get back to writing my paper. Oh! Fun times...went to the doctor today cause I was feeling really sick. Turns out I might have tonsillitis. So I'll be scarfing down as many antibiotics as I can before exams hit. Yaaaaaay!

A night out with my girlie Div

Ze World Cup has begun. Because of the time difference between Germany and Australia, if we want to watch the games live we have to stay up until 3-4 a.m. in the morn. And it seems that is precisely what we are planning to do. Last night at midnight the opening ceremony was airing live so my buddy Divya and I decided to cruise around town from pub to pub and watch it on the big screen. In between our trips we stopped several times to eat. No joke. First subway, then a turkish kebab place, and then a little french café. Here is Div happily munching on a chocolate croissant.

I don't know who this guy is but earlier I was surrounded by these French guys who were trying to convince me that France is going to beat Brazil this year. I told them that 1998 will not repeat again. The conversation got a little heated. But I'm Canadian so they were down with me.

Watching the Germany vs. Costa Rica game with my Welsh bud Griff and my Swedish bud Andre.

Putting our world cup differences aside and posing for a pic.

Good times Div. Can't wait for the real games to begin.

Chilly autumn nights

I should be a photographer no?

I took this photo from the top level of "The Palace" situated right beside my favorite beach in Sydney: Coogee.

I wish I liked coffee

Ahhhhhhhhhh papers on lab rats and rugby games sdkfjsdljfdslkjfsdk1!@!#!

Sometimes when on exchange you realize that you're actually here for school and not a vacation.

Drop Till You Shop

I decided that the photo in the last post was too violent and depressing. So here is a nice and friendly post -not involving fire- about my fabulous day of shopping with my girlfriends. I have not gone out shopping (for clothes) since I've arrived here in Sydney. So today my friends finally pulled my butt out of bed at 10 a.m. Way too early for a Saturday morning to go shopping. It wasn't a spree or anything. I only bought two things.

Long sleeve hoodie type thing which gives the illusion that I'm wearing multiple layers: $35.00

Dressy flat closed toed sandle thing: $9.00

For a student I think that'd be considered a spree. I'm pretty stingy when it comes to spending money on clothes. Oh! Below is a photo of my girls posing in the dressing room inside a rather large mall at the infamous Bondi Junction.