Chapter 42 - Life, the Universe, and Everything

In which our hero shares a heap of miscellany that she's been forgetting to share for like ages and ages ... 

I thought I would do a sort of appropriately titled and themed post for the magical number 42. This one was going to be Noosa Heads: Day 3, but I changed it at the last minute. So here's some interesting things from the past few months that I've been forgetting to share.

Exciting Thing #1: I received in the mail my student membership card to Engineers Australia. It's very exciting. I've actually received two now, because the first one expired on June 30.

Yay! How cool am I? I covered up the membership number because that's how people get hacked, not that there's anything desperately important associated with it or anything, but just in case.

Exciting Thing #2: I got myself a library card for the city library. They've got like two full shelves of Doctor Who, and there's no late fees. When I signed up the local branch (Helensvale) was in a temporary location in some demountables (portables) near the community centre. As of this past Wednesday they're officially in their new building, which is big and spacious and really awesome, and has like a big performance hall and everything, and meeting rooms and whatnot.

The new Helensvale Library. ('Oooh!', 'Aaaah!') I also forgot to mention that it's about five minutes closer than the temporary one was.

Library card! They always want to be nice and official so they have to do my full name. Blurg. It just confuses things.

Exciting Thing #3: When I first got here I sent postcards to a bunch of people (Let me know if you haven't received one yet. I've kind of lost track of who I sent them to.) One of the people I sent one to was Great Aunt Joan, and in like April or something I got one back from her! It's of London (as you see), and her writing is kind of squiggly like Grandad's used to be. It was great, and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I always want to send them to G-dad, but he's not exactly there to get them anymore.

Yes! From the other London!

I've been asking everyone for postcards if I hear of them going to exciting places, and I've received seven so far. They're all Blu-Tacked to my wall. There's two from Emily of the Arctic, one from Aikido Christine when she was in Nepal, one from Auntie Joan in London, one from Beth's B.C. Adventure, one from a local friend Rachel who went down to Sydney, and one that is hopefully the first of many from Christian in Norway. I believe I've already shared the arctic ones and the Nepal one, so here's the rest:

Chesterman Beach, Tofino, B.C.

Around Sydney

Lofoten, Northern Norway. (Look Christian, your postcard is featuring on my blog.)

Exciting Thing #4 (sort of): Remember how like a month ago I said I'd been to Sea World, but I couldn't show you the pictures because they were saved to the phone memory, not the memory card, and I didn't know how to remove them? Well, I went to an electronics shop and asked for a USB cable that would fit my phone. The girl said it would be $40, so I said to forget it. Then just this week I went to a different shop, and they had one for $15, so I got it. Then yesterday I started up a blog post here saying I could finally show you the pictures, and I wrote a whole paragraph or two explaining the situation, and then I plugged in my phone, and it could only read what was on the memory card! Bah! Stupid technology! Why doesn't it behave how I want it too??? So I still can't share those pictures, but I'm working on it. The good news though is now I have a USB cable that will charge my phone, so I can leave that in my bag and there should be no reason for the phone to die if I'm out and I have access to a computer. So like, at uni, mostly, I guess.

Exciting Thing #5: We have a kitten now. She's adorable. She's mostly black with a bit of white on her chest, and random white hairs in some places. She's very invisible at night, and she frequently gets almost stepped on. She hasn't been actually stepped on yet, thank goodness. She sleeps in the bed with Munchkin #1, who's away at her dad's this weekend, so I put a hot water bottle in there for her to lie on. I don't know if she did or not, because I was asleep in my own room. With the door closed.

She also doesn't hold still long enough to take a picture, so if these are blurry I apologise.

Short dark streak of lightning.

That's a shaved spot because of her recent desexing operation.

Awwwww ... !

Exciting Thing #6: I got my exam results for Semester 1. The grades were as follows: MATLAB - 7; Electromagnetics - 7; Maths - 6; Power Electronics & Electrical Machines - 5. 'That's nice,' you might say, 'but what does it all mean?' Well, I'll explain. 7, formerly known as HD, or High Distinction, means a final mark of between 85% and 100%. 6, formerly D for Distinction, is 75% to 84%. 5, formerly C for Credit, is 65% to 74%. I'm not particularly proud of the 5, but it's better than I was expecting in that class. I was almost sure I'd failed or nearly failed the exam. I'm not especially proud of the 6 either, because that was in Maths which I thought was my best class. I had about 92% going in, and I got 71% on the exam, so I guess that's like 81% or something overall. The professor said we can come to his office on Tuesday to see our exams, so I'll be able to see what went so horribly wrong.

In other animal related news, when I got back from my three day vacay I was greeted with the news that we have a cat now. Stick with me here. I'm not repeating myself. So this cat just showed up while I was away, and the kids naturally got very attached to it. (It reminded me of how we used to adopt random pets for a few days when they showed up in our back yard. There were several cats, that rabbit, that dog we found wandering in the woods, that turtle that dad found on the road ... ) So apparently #1 had asked up and down the street, and no one was missing a cat. It seemed to be scratching a lot, and we looked at it and spotted some fleas, so we quarantined it to the garage until some flea tablets could be acquired. They were, as well as some cat food and kitty litter. Sarah took it to a vet, and they said it was about 2-3 years old, not microchipped, and not de-sexed. #1 even shelled out $8 of her own money to buy a pink collar with bells on it. So we had a cat. For just over a week. Then on Saturday morning the next door neighbour knocked on our door, and said she'd been away on holiday for a week, and her mum was watching the house or something, and had we seen her cat. So we didn't have a cat, because it was actually the neighbour's. #1 neglected to mention that when she was asking up and down the street, there'd been no answer next door.

So that afternoon #1 said so Sarah, "What can I do that will convince you to go out to the pound and buy a kitten?" Sarah said, "Mow the lawn." So she did. And now there's a kitten. See? I told you it would all work out if you stuck with me.

Also, re. the chooks. I mentioned how all but two wandered away or got eaten by puppies. Then Sarah bought three, so we were back up to five. Now the neighbour has kindly replaced the eaten ones with five more, and so now we're up to ten. The new ones are much younger and skinnier, and the red comb thingies on their heads haven't fully developed. The old ones were being quite nasty at first, but I think they're getting along better now. We still only get about two eggs per day, but that might be because the young ones don't lay yet, or they're adjusting to their new environment, or just because it's "winter" when they apparently don't lay as much anyway.

I feel like there was many more exciting things to share, but I can't remember them.

I know! All of that down-ness and annoyance with the munchkins and with things in general was washed away by my little vacation. I felt heaps better afterward, and I even spent a week babysitting and didn't lose my mind. Hopefully it doesn't come back. I'll try to keep on top of it, and pay more attention to the little signs.

And one last thing. Remember that picture of Turkish Delight ice cream bars I shared ages ago? And I said I might buy them for a post exam treat? Well, I finally did. They're delicious. And bigger than I imagined.

Chapter 41 - Noosa Heads: Day 2

In which our hero sees a koala, some dolphins, heaps of bush turkeys, and a crocodile ... also liquid nitrogen ice cream ... 

OK, friends. I'm back. All of last week I was watching the munchkins all day every day, so I couldn't get around to doing the blah blah blog. Now I'm at uni, to use the internet, because uploading so many pictures will use up my home internet. I've specifically set aside this time specifically to do this. So here I am. Prepare to be amazed. Or indifferent, or whatever.

The view from brekkie.

On Wednesday night we made a plan to get up at like 7:00 a.m. and go for a nice hike in Noosa National Park, which was only like 10 minutes walk from where we were staying. We got up at like 8:30 or 9:00, had our breakfast, and headed out. There was a general sort of tourist information place at which the lady told us that koalas were frequently spotted in the park, and the park staff usually spotted them and wrote their location down on a little blackboard so people could go see them. Here's some of the views we saw between the information place and the National Park.

As soon as we got to the park we headed for the little information stand thingy and there was the sign saying "Koala sighting -- nearest gum tree to the front door." So after asking which ones were gum trees we went and spotted it. It was just chillin'. Taking a nap. As koalas do when the sun is up.

This is the koala. It's the sort of round thing in the middle. I apologise that my phone doesn't have any kind of zoom function to allow for a closer look.

There. Inside the red circle. See?

After marveling at a real live wild koala in a tree for some time, we carried on with our hike. It was really beautiful. Lots of rocks and waves and sun sparkling off the water. Take a look:

People waiting for waves to surf on.

A path down to the beach.

More surfers.

One girl in this group had a waterproofed video camera (or possibly regular camera) to film the others surfing.

This is a view of the water through the trees, except it's to bright, so you can't see the water.

Bush turkey!

Sisters! Lets go explore the rocks!

Look Annie! Rocks!

The view of the land to the right. The left was all rocks and ocean. Just for some variety.

A path down to the edge of the cliff. I love paths with water at the end framed by trees. They're just so inviting.

Hell's Gates

Looking straight down into Hell's Gates.

Alexandria Beach. Not recommended for swimming due to submerged rocks and unpredictable currents.

These are the dolphins we saw. They're quite far, so probably you can't see them. But I promise they're there.

Alexandria Beach again.

This point where the dolphins, Hell's Gates, Alexandria Beach, etc., were, was sort of a mid-way point on the path we were following. It was actually a physical point of land, so there were some nice views, and we probably spent a good 10 minutes there taking pictures. After this the path went inland and we saw a lot a of forest.

Alexandria Beach through the trees.

In case of emergency, there's an emergency radio 200m that way.

Slightly blurry path. Sorry about that.

Trees.

Trees.

Trees.

I just love trees. Does it show?

More path. There's probably something magical beyond that bend. We should go see.

Wen Ying was getting thoroughly fed up with walking by this point, and when we came in view of the visitor's centre again she had me take a picture of her being really happy because it was over. Unfortunately it's on her camera, so I don't have it to show you. I think she was expecting it to be like an hour, and it was like 2.5-3 hours. And she hadn't brought any water. She was happy to be done, especially because the plan for the afternoon was shopping in the shops, and she loves shopping.

I was quite happy to be done too. At a certain point you're too tired to appreciate the beauty of things anyway, and my feet were getting annoyed with my shoes. So we headed back to our hostel for some lunch, and to sign up for surfing lessons the next morning. Yes, that's right. Surfing lessons. They offered a three hour group lesson for $39, and I figured I had to try it at least once while in Australia, and I convinced Wen Ying to come too.

My lunch glowing like Ingrid Bergman. It's not a particularly interesting lunch, and I took the picture just to sort of portray the vibe of the place, but I'm sharing it because it's a neat effect that happened by accident because I smudged the lens with sunscreeny fingers unknowingly.

So now off to the shops. Wen Ying was looking to buy herself a birthday present, as it was her birthday. We basically went into every shop that looked interesting on Hastings Street, which is the little touristy shopping district thing. Also only 5 mins from our hostel. Here are some of the things we saw.

The Billabong Surf Report, outside a Billabong shop.

Just looking down the street.

Bush turkey!

Tee hee hee hooters.

A shop called Lamington that sold all sorts of interesting handcrafted things like tea towels with bush turkeys on them.

Wooden watches.

Look Annie! Fossils in steps!

A decorated surfer hippy's van.

Same van, from the other side.

Bush turkey!

We had various things that we needed to do. Important things, like buy stamps for overseas postcards, and get ice cream. So we did those things. There was a shop that we'd spotted the day before on our night time walk that did liquid nitrogen ice cream, so the plan was to go there after we got our stamps. We got in line, and waited, and picked our flavours, and were just about ready to order when we noticed the sign that said "Minimum $20 for EFTPOS" (Electronic Funds Transfer Point Of Sale). Cards basically. I didn't have any cash left, and nor did I have my debit card with which to withdraw cash. So we went along, and spotted an ANZ ATM (Australia/New Zealand Bank), and Wen Ying went to use it but it said it was temporarily out of service. Then we remembered we'd seen another one up by the shops up the hill where we did our grocery shop the night before, and conveniently there was a bus just arriving, so we went and hopped on it. Then I remembered I didn't have my debit card, so we hopped off again, and went back to the hostel for dinner. After dinner we headed up the hill on the bus and used the ATM. I needed cash for both the ice cream and the surfing lesson. While we were waiting for the bus back down we went into the IGA to get some chips, because there was a plan for some beer later in the evening, and chips and beer go together like hot fudge and sundaes. As we exited the IGA we passed by a bakery that had all its wares packed away except for a crocodile made of bread.

Ah ha ha! Fooled you! I bet at the beginning you thought I'd seen a real crocodile!

So then we headed back down the hill to the ice cream shop. It was great, and there was no lineup this time. Just watching it be made was awesome, but then it tasted great too. Really smooth.

There's the great big tank of liquid nitrogen.

There's the Thermos they use to pour it, and the jar of ice cream mix.

Woohoo! Ice cream and a fog show! You can't get more awesome than that!

Wen Ying with her ice cream. It was super tasty. Mine I mean, not hers. Well, hers probably was too, but I didn't try hers.

So the next part of the plan was to drink some beer as part of the birthday celebration. We both needed to charge our phones, and there's no power points (outlets) in the rooms, so we decided to go down to the bar/restaurant and buy a jug of something and share it while the phones charged. We were sitting there happily with our chips and beer when one of the staff members announced that "Minute to Win It" was starting soon, and gather around if we wanted to play so he could explain it. So I went, and he asked if I was playing, and I said sure, why not, at which point I got a high five from the slightly tipsy French fellow standing beside me.

The basic idea was there were teams of about six people, and six little challenges, and one person from each team had one minute to complete the task. The winner was the one who did it correctly fastest. My team was myself, clearly, Alexis (the slightly tipsy French fellow), another French guy named Cedric, and a Swiss German girl named Julia ("Yulia"), not to be confused with Julia ("Julia"), who was on a different team. Or maybe it was the other way around.

I was up first, and my challenge was to blow a stack of cards off of the top of a beer bottle, but leave one on at the end. I didn't manage it, but neither did anyone else. We won that round because we were the only team with any cards on the bottle when the clock ran out. The other things were to have an Oreo on your forehead and move it to your mouth without using your hands; have a pencil dangling behind you from a string around your waist and try to squat down and get it into a beer bottle; flip a beer mat (coaster) up from the edge of the table and have it stay on top of a glass; bounce a ping pong ball between two people while moving sideways for like two metres until you could drop it in a bucket, no double hits, if you use your hands or it touches the ground you start again; and lastly have a Kleenex box with the top cut out tied to your waist, with six ping pong balls in it, and bounce around like a fool until they all come out, and again no using your hands.

We won the cards one, the beer mat one, the pencil on the string one, the ping pong/bucket one, and did very well on the Kleenex box, so our team won the whole thing. What we won was two pitchers of beer, or two bottles of wine, or one of each, so we got one of each, and went and sat down and shared them. Some friends came and joined too, so it was a happy little party. At like 10:00 the bar closed, but we didn't want to stop the fun, so the rest of the gang convinced me it was a good idea to go for a wander in search of some more beverages. We accumulated more people who were just about to head out themselves, and we all went for a walk. The one chap, Steve, who was from New Jersey but had done uni in Toronto and now was being a teacher here somewhere, seemed to know his way around, so we followed him. There was a girl from Toronto too, and later we encountered a guy from Windsor. And there was an American girl who said she was kind of half Canadian, and mentioned something about Sarnia. We ended up at the Surf Club, which, as I understand it, is a sort of fund raising front for the Surf Lifesavers, which are volunteer beach life guards. Like how you can go to the Legion Hall and get a drink, that sort of thing. I guess. Anyway, there was karaoke going on, so some people participated in that. Not me though. I wasn't that far gone.

That place closed at 11:30, and I knew I should head back and go to bed because my surf lesson was at 9:00 a.m., but I didn't. We went to another place, and I went to use the toilet, and discovered afterward that there was no soap. So I walked back to the hostel to wash my hands and just stayed there, showered, and went to bed. I don't know what time it was. I deliberately didn't check so as to not be all worried about how much sleep I was getting. I'm sure it was after 1:00 a.m. by the time I got into bed.

It was seriously really fun. I enjoyed myself, and felt really relaxed, and it was fun making random friends that I'd never see again, and just having a good time. Now if you're all worried and like "Oh, no! What's happened! That's not her style at all!", just relax. There was no full-on drunkenness, no falling over, no dangerous situations, no drugs. Just good fun. No vomiting afterward either, which is great. Used to be just one beer would make me nauseous. Not anymore. Now I'm one of the natives who drinks beer and eats Vegemite. I think it helped to not drink anything at all for like two years as well.

That's it. Now I'm going to watch The Wolverine.