A Perfect Weekend

So, I'm pretty sure that this weekend has definitely made my decision for me. How can I possibly leave Newcastle early when I've got such wonderful people around me that I'd miss too much?

Saturday was spent with Mikey and Wade at the uni open day. It was kind of a fizzer, seeing as the seminar we went to for Mikey's intended course wasn't very inspiring. But, the staff in the Great Hall were excellent and gave us so much information that Mikey's got it almost figured out.

After the open day, we headed off to the shops to get some dinner goodies. Mikey and I, it turns out, are the perfect team: he loves to cook, I love to be cooked for! So Wade and I spent the evening watching Mikey prepare a lamb roast, whilst filling ourselves on cheese and biscuits. Simon and Chris came and joined us for the actual eating of the meal, then Mel, Beau and Lauren returned from an ice hockey game in time for desert. Wine was flowing, merriment abounded, and we ended the perfect evening with a viewing of The Princess Bride. I'm pretty sure Mikey and I pissed everyone off by reciting each line with the film, but I like to think that we enhanced the perfection of the original.

The next day, I'm pretty sure I was still drunk because I was in such a pleasant mood, Mel, Mikey, Beau and I headed off to the Farmers' Market to buy some goodies for a picnic lunch. I have no idea what I bought, but I came home with no money left at all. We were joined at the market by Bronwyn, bought some awesome nibblies, then went back to Parkhill 2.0 to enjoy our picnic. The weather didn't seem to be able to make its mind up, so we thought it would be safer to picnic at home so that if it started to rain we could quickly run back inside. But for once, the weather held off and we enjoyed a lovely, stomach-exploding lunch, followed by some Better Off Ted viewing, and then I had to run home and finally get some sleep.

And that's how you have a perfect weekend.

How can I ever go back to retail knowing that weekends exist, and that they are awesome?

Yep, It's Official: I'm a Nanna

So, just in case it wasn't over-the-top obvious before now, today I confirmed my spot in the retirement village by attending the Craft & Sewing Show. It wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, as I thought there'd be more knitting and crochet aspects, but it was mostly quilting and scrapbooking, and I think I have enough scrapbooking stuff stashed at my grandma's place to last me a lifetime. But apart from that, I actually really enjoyed myself. I attended a number of seminars, spoke to lots of different people, browsed through all the stores, bought the most expensive bottle of water ever ($4.50 - WTF? How can they possibly justify that? I'm such an idiot for not even considering bringing my own bottle), and even did a workshop where I made a cutlery roll. It's adorable. I can't take any photos at the moment due to my camera battery going AWOL. But trust me - it's fab.

Attending the show today has, unfortunately, resulted in another craft I need to try - quilting. I've wanted to quilt since I was a very little kid, and never quite understood what to do. Today I spoke to someone from the Newcastle Quilter's Guild (there's GUILDS! For everything!) and she answered every question I've ever had about quilting and gave me some excellent advice. So now, I want to start quilting.

But first, I need to finish the assignment I've got due on Monday. Or should I say, start the assignment that's due Monday. Surely creating a lesson plan for a year 8 class and writing 2000 words about how awesome I am at improving literacy rates shouldn't take too long...

And then I've got to finish the cushions I'm making for Emma and Mick's engagement. The one that was back at the beginning of the year. I finally finished embroidering the first one, and it's beautiful, but I haven't even started sewing the actual cushion case together, let alone started on any of the other ones. Sigh.

BUT, onto even more important news:

JENNI AND NICK HAD THEIR BABY!!! Little James Robert was born 19th August, and from the photos I've seen, is absolutely beautiful! If you're reading this Jenni, I cannot wait to meet him. I doubt you'll read this for some time, what with the business of the next few months. <3

The Happiest Reader

So today I decided to skip uni and stayed in bed. No, this wasn't a repeat of my month in bed at the end of last year. Instead, I was in bed doing something that I haven't done in a very long time. (I should end this post here and let imaginations run free.)

I was reading. No, not just reading; I was engrossed in a book. I was laughing, I was crying, I was constantly quoting bits to my friends. The book?

Yes, I know that I'm late to the table, but in my defense, where does one even buy books any more? Instead, I borrowed this from the library. Did you know there's this place that exists that lets you borrow books, then return them a few weeks later - FOR FREE!! I know, it blew my mind hole. (Which reminds me - it's due back tomorrow. To a library in Sydney. Woops!)

So this book is about Anh's family and their journey from Vietnam to Australia as refugees, and how they adapted to life here. His parents sacrificed so much so their children could have the life they never had. I guess it struck a chord with me, because I've had an oposite experience with my parents, but I can see my grandmother's steadfastness and selflessness in Anh's mother, and how hard she worked so that her children could thrive. It makes me very glad to have such a wonderful woman in my life.

The book also reinforces the importance of a good teacher. And how horrendous a bad teacher is. I cannot wait until I can finally start teaching. I think I'm growing quite impatient.

So for everyone reading this post: STOP!! Go and buy/borrow (for free!) this book and devour it, and feel your heart become a little lighter. I haven't wanted to talk about a book so much since The Book Thief. Oh, and if you haven't read that one, WHY DO YOU HATE YOURSELF?? Go and get it right now!

Considering Leaving...

So for a few weeks now I've been considering leaving Newcastle 6 months early and moving back home to Sydney. I was originally planning to do this in order to save myself some money for the 10 weeks I'll be on internship next year and unable to work, as well as the fact that the moment I finish internship I'll be moving somewhere completely new, so I should probably have some money saved for that.

But today, I realised another reason I might want to move: Newcastle is such a small town that you cannot help but run into people that you never want to see again. And you run into them a lot. And the constant visual reminders are terribly unhelpful.

(there are, however, many downfalls to leaving, most of those being my beautiful family I've created for myself. oh, if only they would move with me...)

Back to School, and Becoming Claudia

So this week was the first week back at uni for the semester. I can tell it's going to be a long and boring one, seeing as this semester I am redoing the classes I failed last year when I was going through my depressed phase. It doesn't seem too bad so far for my Junior English class, because even though I have the same tutor and lecturer, it still seems quite fresh, and she's changed the assignments for the class this year which I'm happy about - I wouldn't want to put in all that work again on trying to write a new essay on the same topic.

My Junior History class, however, is exactly the same. Right down to even doing the exact same tutorial activities and readings as the class last year. Now, that's just lazy. The assignments are the same as well, but that's fine with me - unlike the English assignments, I didn't really try very hard with History and pretty much did the bare minimum for the first assignment, scraping through with only a very low credit. This time, I know exactly what it is the lecturer wants us to say, and, having now taught in a history classroom, I have some real ideas on lessons and what will work for the assignment.

That said, I'm already over this semester. I just want to finish it so that I'm finally able to do my internship and start earning some money.

Speaking of money, tomorrow I start a new baby sitting gig. It's just casual sitting, for a family with three kids. I'm hoping it all works out, then I'll be working for them once or twice a fortnight. Coupled with the baby sitting I already do, and the tutoring, as well as the fact that the people I already sit for are passing on my details to some of their kids' friends' parents, I'm looking pretty set for the rest of this semester, fingers crossed. And all those Baby Sitters Club books I devoured as a kid are finally starting to pay off.

Also, even in their worst tantrums, dealing with kids isn't anywhere near as bad as dealing with douche customers and colleagues...

Happy Birthday, Nan!

Too bad your birthday was back at the beginning of February. And too bad I started this back in January, but at last, I have finally finished your present.

A great big wonky, ridiculously coloured granny blanket. Worth the wait, right? Oooh yeah.

I would show it to you laid out so you can get the full effect of its ugliness, but its wonkiness made it very difficult to fold up, and I only thought to take a photo after the folding process. From this angle it actually doesn't look too bad ;)

Rollin' with my Homies

So I came down to Sydney on Saturday after a few bumpy starts; first I slept in to the time I had told my family I'd be home. Then, when I finally got off my butt and was ready to go, my car wouldn't start. Awesome. Realising that if it didn't start, I wouldn't be able to afford to get it fixed anyway, so I waited a bit, tried and succeeded to start it again, and then prayed to Oprah for the two hour drive home. Luckily, my car made it in one piece, but he will be having a check up tomorrow.

Saturday night was spent at my little cousin Laura's 19th birthday party. Oh, these kids grow up so fast. I basically spent the night sitting near the food watching the teenagers getting drunk. Let's face it: I only came for the food. ;)

Meanwhile, when did teenagers become so cool?? I remember being incredibly awkward right up until I was about 22, and even now I'm still pretty awkward. Everyone there had trendy, hipster hair, too cool for school clothing, and a typical frankie magazine expressionless face.

Also, the other thing that really pissed me off is how everyone else in my family is allowed to drink alcohol around my grandmother, except for me. Seriously. I remember once bringing a bottle of tequila home and then having to pour it down the sink after being screamed at. Until I moved out of home at 22, if I was going to be drinking at a friend's house and was expected to bring a bottle of something, I'd have to end up leaving it there. It was fine that my brother had a few beers everyday after work, and was always having big nights out with my cousin who is my age, but if I ever drank I was in trouble. Even to this day I can't drink alcohol around her.

But little Laura was completely trashed and wasn't seen without a drink in her hand all night, but that's fine? And they wonder why I'm in therapy!

Sunday was spent taking my little sister to Ikea for the first time. I'm still shocked she had never been. After the fun of pretending we were Kim and Brett from Kath & Kim, following the arrows and being a bit ridiculous, the novelty very quickly wore off for her, and she was eager to leave. She was thoroughly unimpressed by the furniture I needed to buy (an expedit bookshelf and a lack table for Bec, a little Billy bookshelf for myself) and the fact that we would need to haul it out of the store and into the car somehow. I rewarded her with a trip to DFO, a place that makes me a little insane. I can never find anything I like, and I don't think it's actually that cheap. BUT I did manage to find some VERY cheap things from Barkins. I trawled through the site but couldn't find any of the items I bought. I got two tops, a skirt and a dress for $28. I know, right? Freaking awesome.

Since I was making my sister do the driving for the day to bump her log book hours up, I decided that we should pay a quick visit to my friend Nicole. Mary has now decided that she wants to move to Newtown and she wants to buy a cat like Nicole's kitten, Prince Louis. (Or is it Louie?) So cute.

Barnaby

Meet Barnaby.

Barnaby is the little critter I made for my friend Beau's birthday last week. I haven't had a chance to post about him because I've been busy doing absolutely nothing with my life. You know how it is. The photo above shows Barnaby believing he can soak up knowledge by just being around books.

He's a little bit wonky, and when I say a little I mean a lot. Beau chose all the adorable fabric, and then I went to work.

Barnaby does not like to smile:

He thinks it's lame. Barnaby's face is constantly set with a mixture of "Bitch, please" and slight nausea.

Barnaby loves snuggles in winter, but hates them in summer. If you try to snuggle him in summer he will smack you down with those long arms of his. He's not quite tame yet, so he tends to smack most people down. Mikey is trying to tame him. Unfortunately I think he's fighting a losing battle. It's also a little awkward because Barnaby very much dislikes owls, making Owlby feel a little worried.

I also made a wonky present for Melanie's birthday, which was a week later. I forgot to take a photo of him, so here's one I stole from her blog:

Penguini is an Italian penguin. He would like to point out that his mustache is in no way some douchey hipster fad; he's been rocking that bad boy since the day he first noticed a little bum fluff. He hates the fact that he has to explain to everybody, "No! Dees is my Italiano mostachio! Ima no wannabeea!" Don't tell Penguini, but he has a ridiculous stereotyped accent - I don't know any Italian that actually speaks English that way. BUT he is rocking it anyway.

So that's what I've been doing with my holidays so far. Oh, and making a jigsaw puzzle. And sorting through all my uni stuff and getting rid of all the stuff I've kept that I don't actually need (random notes and handouts) and sorting the rest into things that will be useful for my future teaching. I'd love to be one of those people that can just type everything up and keep it in various, well-organised computer files, but alas, I'm old school and must place everything in labeled folders that, if I ever do need a resource, will require me to spend ages flipping through each page to see if it is there. It's tedious, but it works for me.

Let the Holidays Begin!

So after stressing out like a crazed loon for the past three months, uni is finally over for the semester. Excuse me while I dance in the street.

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Aaaaand I'm back!

So, now that I have just over a month off, I plan to party, clean, and get creative. I really love making things, but uni makes that a little hard. I'd like to start finishing off some of the thousands of projects I started during the semester.

But first,  I just finished making something for my friend Beau's birthday, which is today. It looks kind of fugly, but it's the thought that counts, yeah? YEAH?? Lol. No pics yet because I haven't given it to him yet, but we're going to bowling and laser tag tonight, so pics tomorrow.

The Love of My Life

So, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, or gone on about it ad nauseum, but I'd shout it from the tree tops no matter what: I LOVE MY NUNNY!!!

(That's my grandmother, for those of you who don't speak Sarah.) She's the most beautiful, amazing, caring woman in the world. She pretty much raised my siblings and I, so I owe her so much. Unfortunately, I can't give her back the last 30ish years of her life, but I'd like to think I give back to her in other ways, like, not being as annoying and needy as I would really like to be. Don't get me wrong: I'm still incredibly annoying and needy by anyone's standards, but I manage to tone it down slightly for her.

Now, that's love.

So I've decided that I'm going to take the Love of My Life on a trip this year. Nunny's never really been anywhere. She was born in Trieste, trained it to Venice, got on a boat for a thousand weeks to Melbourne, then settled in Sydney. She hasn't been anywhere since.

One of her favourite things to do is tell everyone about how she's, "Never even been to Canberra!" I've tried many a time to explain to her that if she's so desperate to get the Canberra experience, we could just drive around a single round-about for the day. And then I offer to take her to Canberra, but she immediately declines and scoffs about one of her many old person ailments and how she couldn't possibly be in a car for that long. Or, my favourite excuse courtesy of last night, "Don't be stupid, Sarah - it's too cold there!"

Then she got to talking about a friend of her's from bingo who has just come back from Bali. She passingly mentioned that it would be a nice place to go, so I immediately leaped on that and decided that I would take her to Bali at the end of the year.

Done.

Or so I thought.

The next day, the first thing she said to me was that her leg was swollen, so how could she possibly get on a plane? No, we wouldn't be going.

Here's the thing about my nan: it's not that she hasn't had opportunities to go anywhere - she has. We've offered to send her on a holiday to Italy or somewhere else a number of times, but she always says no, citing some old people problem or something equally as excuse-y. She's really just scared. She's never been on a plane, or out of her comfort zone. Yes, she made the massive trek to Australia, but she was a lot younger then, and is now very settled.

So I have to get her to Bali. I think she'd love it, and once I book the trip she won't be able to back out because I'll just cry and carry on about how I've spent all my money. She'll then have to go and it'll be fabulous.

The only problem is, I don't really have any money at all, what with being an impoverished student (so impoverished I qualified for a healthcare card this week). So I've decided that my brother and cousin, who act their age and have grown up careers and grown up money, can pitch in a little for her flight. God I'm awesome.

I'll try and book it closish to the date we'll leave so she won't have too much time before we leave to back out or try and fake her own death. She totally would.

I also have to plan it at a certain time so my little sister can come too, because she would have a great time. The problem is, she starts year 12 at the end of this year, and that's a biggie, so we couldn't have her take time off school. I have a couple of months to sort through this timing predicament though, so of course I'll leave it all until the day we leave, because I am hella awesome like that.