Organized activities can be über fun

This has been an eventful week. Which makes me happy because the two weeks before were a tad boring. That is because this week the international student orientation started and (aside from the long days filled with info sessions) it was great fun. I've met a lot of cool international kids. Well, by that I mean Americans. From the 200 or so undergrad int. students, I believe at least half are from the U.S. so it's kind of hard to NOT come across one of them. The six girls that I've become close to and have been hanging out with a lot this week are from Tennessee, New York, Maine, California, Illinois, and Texas. I'm the only Canadian in the group which makes me feel quite cool. But I've also gotten to know a few snazzy Swedes, Swiss, Frenchies, and Aussies so I'm pretty happy.

Besides the info sessions the university has also organized tours, activities, and parties to keep us entertained and socializing. I am not complaining. And because (I guess) the international students pay so much money, we've been getting free food and drinks at all these events. And by drinks I mean alcohol. I know that drinking is big here but I cannot believe they offered hundreds of students complimentary drinks at the different events this past week. I don't think my home university's international staff would ever do that...because of all the money they'd lose. But here it's just a big part of the culture and they're very casual about the whole deal. The undergrad American students were just ecstatic about a university that openly offers them alcohol at events. That's mainly because the drinking age in the States is 21. Okay so not much of a segue here...actually a terrible transition...but I've found myself a church! It's a 20 minute walk from where I live so it's very close to the university. Consequently, the evening service that I attended last Sunday was filled with uni students. An aussie friend of mine suggested that I check it out and I am ever so thankful to her. Thanks Kimber!

Well I think it's time to share a few photos. A few days ago I went on a tour around the city offered to us by the university. We took the train, visited old suburbs and pubs, walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and walked back through the university neighbourhoods.

Me pointing at the Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House with no pointing fingers

The Sydney Harbour Bridge

We stopped at a German pub/restaurant during the tour. Me and another girl ordered lagers and potato wedges because we were a bit hungry from all the walking. With the wedges we were given ketchup, mayo, and this. What is it? It tasted like a wad of butter or cream in the midst of sweet chili thai sauce. If fact, I'm 99% sure that's what it was.

The sun setting near the end of our tour.

Sega na lega baby!

Who's going to Fiji to

-bilibili raft
-soak in mud pools
-river tube
-snorkel
-swim at secluded waterfalls
-drink kava
-and sandboard????

Her name starts with a Z, and ends with an enith.

Just chill ing

Long time no posting.

What have I been doing since I've moved into my new place? A whole lot of nothing much. My days are taken up by grocery shopping, banking, info sessions at school, cooking, cleaning, and eating. It's not a bad life but I must admit I'm getting a bit restless. I won't lie, I actually miss school. However I am very thankful that the Winter Olympics is on because I have been glued to the T.V. cheering on the Canadian athletes. Most of the time I am too loud and probably confuse and scare my non-Canadian roommates.

But seriously. The Canadian women's hockey team is fully kicking derrière. If pounding Italy and Russia wasn't enough...they go on and school the Swedes. I was cheering for Sweden for a while, but had to stop when the home team came on the rink.

Meanwhile, considering that Australia won its first gold medal in the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, its athletes are not doing too badly. There are no medals so far but man, there sure are a lot of aussies in cold Turin cheering their country on. Here are some blurry shots to prove my point. Blurry because I am a geek and snapped away at my T.V. You should try it sometime.







This boy above is not only really cute,
but,
more importantly, is a supportive sibling of an aussie luge athlete and shows great pride in his country.
Hence the flag worn as a cape.

A melting pot of society

I am moving into my very own house tomorrow! No more living out of a suitcase. I can finally unpack for good.

My place is located in a suburb called Newtown. But this suburb is located right in the city. I've slowly realized that what "Sydney-ers" call suburbs, Vancouverites call neighbourhoods. So Kerrisdale,Grandview-Woodlands, Shaugnessy, and Killarney would all be considered suburbs, by an Aussie. I've seen and heard the most interesting things about Newtown. And so far, everything has made me come down to the conclusion that it is a lot like Commercial Drive. Judge for yourself.

- "Newtown is an artsy-fartsy suburb filled with freaks, poofs, junkies and weirdoes"
- "Newtown is a suburb where you will encounter anyone from same sex couples, goths, suited professionals, heterosexuals and students from the local Uni"
- "There is an air of tolerance about this place. You can tell there is no expectation either way - you can be whoever you want to be in Newtown."

Sound familiar? I love Commercial Drive so I think I'm going to be down with this place. The area also looks very quaint because...during the 1920s there was a lot of investment going into the real estate in the area and loads of impressive shops were built along the main street while the middle class workers were all shoved into terrace houses built in between the shops. And these same shops and houses are still standing there today. Thought I'd share that little tidbit with ya. Oh and this...it's a montage someone has made from photos of the area.

No bus pass for me this year!

I have finally figured out how to change my blog setting from Pacific Standard Time to Australian Eastern Standard Time! It was a very simple job, but it took me three weeks to figure it out. So from now on it’ll be weird for you Vancouverites to read my posts because (let’s say) when you read my latest post on a Thursday the date on top of my post will read Friday, since I’m 19 hours ahead. It’s like writing from the future…

So I have found myself an apartment yesterday. It’s really a 2 storey terrace house. And it is a dump. The place looks sooo ghetto but I took it because I’m tired of looking and the number of available places near school is decreasing at a very fast rate. That’s what you get when you want to live right IN the city but do not want to spend a lot of mula. This house is a 7 minute walk from school which is a whole lot better than my hour and a half commute to UBC from Surrey. The rent is relatively cheap and it covers all the utilities (gas, electricity etc), broadband internet, and my fully furnished room. My room even has a little t.v. in it. So far I’ve been told that I have two roommates: a petite girl (shorter than me apparently) from China, and a tall guy from Jordan. Sounds like international house to me. The landlord told me that my room used to belong to another Canadian. Oh! Oh my goodness, you will never believe this. Ready? My landlord’s name is…wait for it…Mr. Zenith Wong. I am not kidding you. My whole life I’ve been waiting to meet another Zenith and it has finally happened. It. was. weird. I asked him if I could call him Mr. Wong so as to not confuse each other and the other tenants. After laughing about it for a good minute, we both agreed that I should refrain from calling him by his first name.

I’ve gotten into the habit of including photos in all of my posts, so here you are. This is a photo of a poster I found on the window of a travel agency at my university.


Would love to hear your responses regarding this über interesting advertisement.

They call it "Australia Day"

Australia day was on the 26th. I went to a festival at a park in Parramatta (a suburb close to the city) and had a fabulous time. They sure are patriotic.

There were flags posted in a U-shape on the field. I think they were there to represent the multiculturalism that is ever so evident in the city and the surrounding suburbs.

I found the Canadian flag standing tall and proud. I smiled and took a shot of it flapping in the wind.

There were several local bands that played throughout the day. In the evening, they sang the Australian anthem. I stood there looking like a fool since I had never heard the anthem before and did not know a single word. The main attraction (besides the fireworks after sunset) was the concert featuring Guy Sebastian, the first Australian Idol...ever. Here he is (on the right) with two other renowned Aussie singers.

He won my heart after I heard him sing "What a wonderful world" and "When doves cry."

The daily word

Tuesday January 24th 2006 7: 23 pm

Hello all. I've decided that I should write on my blog more often. Meaning more than once a week. So today, Grace and I took my uncle to the hospital for his weekly checkup. My uncle is very old. He's married to my aunt, who is the eldest of all the siblings on my mom's side. So the difference in age between my aunt and my mom is something like 20 odd years. Anyway, today the doctor confirmed that my uncle has Parkinson’s disease. So now we can add more pills onto his ever-growing list of medication. That was the low point of the day.

Then Grace and I picked up her son, Sid, from a birthday party. It was held at a sports arena. I walked into a large warehouse like room filled with 10 year olds playing cricket and soccer. Speaking of which, I think I've watched like over 25 hours of cricket this month. My cousin Cozi, his wife Grace, and their son Sid are sports fanatics so cricket, rugby, soccer, and tennis are frequently on T.V. By frequently, I mean all the time. I've always been down with cricket (being a Bengali myself) so it’s nice to once again find myself in a country obsessed with the sport. Bangladesh is playing Australia in April so that’ll be sweet.

Ok, so today I finally went near Tyson and played with him. I steered clear of their dog after we found half of a blue-tongued lizard in our backyard. We suspected that the other half was probably in Tyson’s stomach. So I told him that I thought he was gross while he sat there grinning from ear to ear. I’m still not ready to let him lick my face.

Will he and I ever regain what we used to have? Only time will tell.

Salty fresh air

Friday January 20th, 2006 2:47 p.m.

Last Monday I went away on a little trip with my cousin's family. We drove south for six hours and arrived at a little town called Tilba Tilba. There we stayed in a cottage on top of a hill, in the middle of a farm. We were surrounded by cattle, tractors, more green hills, mountains, and farm dogs. It was quite relaxing. I posted a few photos on here. They didn't turn up in the order that I had hoped they would. So my story will not be chronological in the least.

In this first photo you will see the beautiful ocean in the background, with Sidney (my second cousin) walking along the sand, at Pebble Beach on our way back to the city. I did not see a single pebble there.


Right beside the beath there are forests scattered around a small park. I was pleasantly surprised to find heaps of kangaroos near the trees, 20 feet away from the waves. I was even more delighted when I found out that these kangaroos have been exposed to humans all their lives and are thus, quite tame. I still didn't dare to go near them lest I be kicked in the stomach by one of those incredibly powerful legs. But I finally saw others go up and pet the beauties. So here I am (with Sid), giddy as a four year old holding a lollipop. Especially happy because the first kangaroo I saw in Australia was on my way to Tilba Tilba, and it was dead on the side of the road. Roadkill here = dead kangaroos unfortunately.

This is the view from outside our cottage. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you will find a sign in the middle of the photo with a cow on it saying "Cows ahead." I was really tempted to steal the sign and bring it back home. The time we spend at the cottage was again, as I said, really relaxing. We played pictionary and uno at night, went fishing during the day, cooked and ate whenever we felt like it, and played tag with the farm dogs in the evenings.

This is me, trying to make my mom's side proud by pretending to be a good fisher...woman? The Dhalis (my mom's side) are avid fishers. It rained almost everyday we were there. My cousin fished even when it was pouring cats and dogs and probably even dingos.

Spatchcock and the cityrail

Friday January 13th, 2006 6:37 p.m.

My blog is still set to Vancouver time. Until I figure out how to change that I'm going to type out the date and time on top of each entry. So today my cousin dropped me off at my uni (Aussies, like the Europeans don't say the rest of the word). U of Sydney is a little bigger than UBC so finding my way around reminded me of freshmen year, which was not so long ago. But I loved it. I walked into the first big building I came across. (Look at photo on top)

It took my breath away. I walked inside and went to the information desk and asked for a map. The rest was a piece of cake. I went into the International office. The people there were really nice, just like the staff at the International House at UBC. I asked them a whole lot of questions and they were quite helpful. Then I walked around, found the train station with the help of some locals, and went into the core of the city. It was really fun walking around aimlessly. I had no idea where I was and where I was going. Then my stomach started grumbling so I walked into this place called Central Gourmet Cafe. I was looking at the menu and the dish the stood out at me was the following:

Spatchcock with mushroom bacon gravy. Served with chips and salad.

I asked the waitress what the word "spatchcock" meant. She gave me this look...as if I'd just asked her the meaning of the word "potato" or "sky." Then a smile quickly spread over her face as she told me that it meant "chicken." You learn something new everyday. I ordered it and it was delicious. I came home and looked up the origin of the word. I won't write about it here. That'll be your homework. After lunch I, with the help of my cousin who kept on calling me on my mobile (haha, mobile), found my way back home. Forty minutes on the train, and a fifteen minute walk. All the way from Sydney to Greystanes.

I'm quite pleased with myself. The things I can do on my own. Watch out, big foreign city!

I am down

under. I made a friend on the plane. It was really funny because he was an aussie who was returning to Australia from Canada, after having spent 12 months there. So we were doing the same thing, except his trip was ending and mine was just beginning. Sixteen hours of flying and three airplane meals later, I was at Sydney airport bright and early in the morn. Except it was already 25 degrees celsius. I knew I was in for trouble in my jeans and black shirt. But thank goodness for air conditioning.

My cousin, his wife and their son were there to greet me. We drove back to their place. It's a 40 minute drive from the city, in a suburb called Greystanes. It's ridiculously hot but hopefully I'll adjust quickly. My aunt is already spoiling me with her delicious meals. Like mango daal....mmmm. Anyway, the weather has been fascinating. It's bright and sunny (35 degree) one minute and pouring rain with loud thunder the next. That is all for today. I'm being called to watch Madagascar with my cousins' kids. Tata.

Spendaholics (not so) Anonymous

I was real excited about all the money I had managed to save during the holidays. Somehow I didn't end up spending a lot and moreover, received a lot of greens from parents. I guess I can't really call Canadian money "green."
Purple. Blue.

But this week I managed to use my excellent spending skills and have now reduced the size of my wallet to about this big: [insert picture of emaciated wallet here]
I've spent it all by doing the following:

- going out for dinner with friends
- buying birthday presents
- going out for dinner with friends
- buying belated birthday and christmas presents
- buying summer clothes
- going out for lunch (by myself) in between shopping sprees

If you feel sorry for me and the lack of money in my pockets, please feel free to give me some so I can spend it all in the next two days.

Say what?

Windy rainy days. Oh Vancouver knows how to start the year. Nevertheless, everyday I seem to fall in love with the city more and more. I've actually been out everyday...looking for things. I don't know what exactly but my mind is telling me that I need to be out there looking. So I am.

I shouldn't be, because the doctor told me today that I have a bad case of the cold. A virus. The name, I think, starts with the letter "A". And my voice sounds like that of a 13 year old boy going through puberty. He told me to rest my voice and so if you call my place during the next few days my parents might not let you speak to me. I don't see how "mission shut your pie hole" is going to work seeing as how I am planning to spend a lot of time with my friends this week.

My parents are going to be very annoyed with me. As will my voice.

The 19th Noel...the angel did say

Over 25 people walking in and out of the house. Too much food for the eyes to handle. Tripping over wrapping paper and shoes. Laughter. Chirton. Yup. It was just like Christmas in good ol' Bangladesh.

After many tries and fake smiles, we gave up. Somebody always had his/her eyes closed. So, sorry mom...everyone knows you're pretty. This one will have to do.

Je suis done like dîner

Je suis done! Je ne care pas what marks je get. Actually that's a big fat lie. I do care and am terrified to find out the results since je slacked off trop.

Thankfully, le Français n'était pas l'un des sujets que j'ai pris ce semestre.

I'm sure the Francophones in the area are currently twitching in pain.

Important things that you should know

It's 11:30 pm. I usually stay up till later but tonight it feels way too late to be up. I'm fairely sure that sentence made no sense. Anyway, I'm one exam away from being done and I just want it to be over. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I currently cannot see this keyboard on which I am typing. Furthermore, eggnog is a disgusting tasting holiday drink and should be banned from the face of the earth. And in conclusion, eating with one side of your mouth is tiresome and I refuse to do it any longer.

That almost sounded like an essay. Get out of my head SCHOOL.

To ma and baba

I've been sick during the past few days. Mom and dad have been babying me and it has been fantabulistic. That's what I'm going to miss. Those sick days when the parentals knock on your door and offer you hearty soup and cherry cough drops.

I’m well aware that fantabulistic and parentals (with an s) are not real words. Please refrain from correcting me.

Mmm...tylenol...?!

I am not happy. Neither is my mouth. Neither is my stitched up gum. The sad thing is, I still have two more wisdom teeth to go.

Please only speak to me if you have soup, make soup, or can tell me where to get free soup.

Procras-

Procrastination,
How I loathe thee.
Yet my closest companion
you have been during these years
You greet me bright and bubbly in the morn
by midday you are all that I have
by evening I loathe you some more
for the hold you have over my kind
And when the sky darkens and the sun tires
I reflect on the good times we have had together
I promise myself that this was the last
I will end things with you tomorrow, you will see.
You have hurt me so and I
cannot continue this-
But your promise of the temporary paradise
Lures me into your worn grip
and my mind but gives in.
One day I will stand up and battle it out with you
And the victory will be glorious
Professors will clap and my friends will be in awe
And I, I will look you in the face and smile triumphantly.
Yes, this I will do
but not today because I am certain something enjoyable is on T.V.

-Zenith Bose
December 5th, 2005 (5 exams pending)

Hiroshima Lacrimosa

Yesterday I went to the dress rehearsal for the UBC concert at the Chan Center and it went fabulously. I'm in one of the UBC choirs (called the UBC Choral Union) and this weekend is what we've been working towards since September. Tonight is the actual performance. However, yesterday's rehearsal had an open audience and my friends and family were there, which was quite nice. The concert is called "Requiem for Peace." It consists of songs written by composers from around the world. The themes? War, hatred, peace, hope, reconciliation, and prayer. The languages covered? Latin, English, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, Greek, French, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, Dutch, and German. It should be one magical night.

Below: The Chan Center at UBC

Who says my skin doesn't discolour?

Today I got my first bruise. Well, that's a lie. Today's one is probably my millionth one. BUT, this is the first one that has actually been visible to the naked eye. It's on the upper part of my right arm. I found it this morning. I do not know the hows or whys. But I can finally brag like little boys do about their daily bruises and can now show it off aussi!