10 023 days old

So. I've been meaning to work out when my 10 000th day was for a while now. Like over a year. Nick first put the idea in my head some years ago when he planned to celebrate his 10 000th day in style. It's the sort of thing someone with a Phd in pure mathematics would do. In the end, he didn't, but I still thought it would be nice to know when mine was. Last night he and Sean and I were sitting about doing not very much (something we're good at lately) and I realised that my 10 000th day would be sometime around now, and it really should be worked out. About 1 minute later (it probably would have taken me half an hour) I was informed that my 10 000th day passed unnoticed on the 3rd of April. Pity. This makes me currently 10 023 days old. A quick google search turned up this website, part of timeanddate.com which I use regularly for time zone calculations. With the help of the "Useless Dates Related to your Birthday" calculator, I learnt that tomorrow, I turn 1431 weeks old. And that on July 24th, 2011, I will turn 1 Billion. Seconds, that is.
I'm also currently 44 years old - if I lived on Venus, that is. It might be better to move to Mars - I'm only 15 there. I'm also seriously considering having a big 1st brithday celebration in 2009. I'd probably better arrange to be on Saturn for it though.

Holidays

I'm on holidays. Sort of. I still have uni, of course, but I'm not working for two whole weeks, while General English is on holiday. This is Very Nice. Here is is, Monday afternoon, and I'm at home, relaxing, and Getting Things Done. I could seriously get used to this. Pity about the two (or four) assignments I have to work on. It is really nice, however, to have the time and brain space to devote to my uni work though. More about uni and work on my serious blog.

The other thing I have brain space to do is finish booking my flights. Sean and I booked some flights a couple of weeks ago, but I still need to get to Darwin, and then from London to Vancouver. That will all happen this week. I also thought we'd need to look into visas in Asia, but as far as I can see, we don't need any for any of the places we're going. I've written about our travel plans in slightly more details on travelpost.

But right now, I think I'd better go work on my assignment that's due Thursday. Luckily it consists of a lesson plan and 15 minutes of teaching. I think I can manage that...

The mysterious life of Kat.

So my life isn't really that mysterious. I haven't been writing about it because it seems so ridiculously busy and complicated that writing anything seemed too difficult. So I'll just write a list that explains how almost every minute of my life is timetabled.
Most of my life is taken up with work, and study. More the work than the study, I have to admit. I now work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I have uni classes on wednesday and Thursday evenings. On Monday nights I go to belly dancing (although I think I'm going to drop that in favour of a second yoga class after Easter), on Tuesday evenings it's choir rehearsal, Wednesday mornings I have a yoga class, Thursday afternoons a training class organised for QUT staff (I like being employed by an enormous organisation that does free things for its staff!). Friday afternoons sees me (and Sean) at a French lesson in town, after which we usually hang out at Rowan and Klaus's for the evening. Saturday and Sunday aren't usually overly scheduled, but I do have to do readings for uni, housework and shopping etc somtimes. I also have wednesday afternoons and friday mornings "free" for these things, but it never seems like enough time!

stuff

nothing about my life. it's way too madly busy to blog about...
Here's some other stuff though:

A pic that was apparently taken on australia day in Perth. Very cool. There's even a comet in the middle, though I'd need to upload a bigger image for anyone to actually see it. Nyeh. Just google it if you want a better version!

Some old Engrish I never posted:
First. A g-string for your feet?

I love Crunky...
A friend's t-shirt:
And some peanuts my japanese teacher gave me:
Beer communication is probably a good term for what goes on in an average pub...

There's a few new posts on my travel blog if you need something to read, and haven't checked it in the last few weeks. I also plan to start writing more to my professional blog now that uni has started again. And someday I'll manage to write to this more regularly, however, right now I'm up to my ears in readings and french homework, so I'd better go do them.

Canada

I realise it's been a while since I wrote a post. A long while. This often happens when I arrive back in Australia, but this time I have a good excuse. I've been working like mad at QUT International College. I'll post more about that when I can - which will be soon, as this is the last week of this session, and next session, I'm doing a maximum of three days a week (thank goodness!)
Anyway, I was finally prompted to post because I got an email today telling me that my application for a working holiday visa for Canada has been approved! I'm going to Canada! The plan is to arrive in Montreal in August, after my English Summer Camp, then travel across the country via various interesting things to Montreal, where I want to live for an academic year (yes, that will be a new record for me for working and living in one place!). I plan to speak lots of french there. I hope. After my year, I have a vague plan to head south and see how far I get. Argentina, if i'm lucky and have enough time and money! I haven't been to south america yet, so it's pretty high on the agenda!
Until then, however, I'm working AND studying at QUT (convenient, really!) and doing three million other things while I'm in Brisbane. I have A Life here. I'd tell you about it, but then I'd be late for choir, so I'd better go! More regular posts should return when my work hours decrease...

Magnetic Island - Townsville, Australia
visited Nov 22, 2006
I forgot magnetic island! Which is a pity, because it was a nice place. We got into horseshoe bay after dark, and woke to find it was a nice bay with a good beach and plenty of other yachts, and well set up for yachties. We went ashore and explored the one street of civilisation (fresh milk! yay!) and had a real coffee (pity it was awful...), then caught a bus to the beginning of the track up to the old army forts and look outs and whatnot that are still there from WWII. It was nice to have a good walk after a few days of relative inactivity. In Horseshoe Bay we also discovered a great shop called Maroon'd, which said it sold "survival products for people". While at first glance this could be mistaken for a gift shop (it did sell candles, soaps, scented things and other trinkets) it also seemed to manage to stock at least one of nearly everything you can think of. There was a second book section, a pet section, a crocodile meat (with recipes!) section, they had pharmaceuticals, every type of spark plug ever made, bike gear, fishing gear, swimmming gear, boat parts, shoes, small gold anchors (for your small gold boat perhaps?) and even a boatswains whistle. And there was an internet computer. And it was all in a room about the size of my living room at home. Pretty amazing, really, and quite unexpected on the wrong side of a small island! (the main civilisation on magnetic is on the other side of the island). We ended up leaving later than planned (probably due to the hour spent in the shop!) and headed into Townsville proper to find the marina berth that had been booked.

2.5 days in Brisbane - Brisbane, Australia
visited Jun 29, 2006
Day 1 was taken up getting Rhys and kieran away. I hadn't seen Rhys in a while, so it was good to catch up. We had Sandy and Celine and the kids over for a barbecue (would you like bleeding, or charcoal?) and otherwise spent the time madly rushing about getting things mum and dad wanted sent up, and making kieran tidy his room. They are joining mum and dad on the boat for 2 months of sailing in PNG, so they needed to leave the place respectable! They finally got away, and I had 1 day to sort myself out to leave. Now it's 2am, and I have to be on a train to the airport at 6. Argh. I had better go! his is the last of the Brisbane 2006 posts. Next post will be from Korea, London, or Copenhagen! I'll have to think of a name for the next itinerary!

South Molle Island - Hamilton Island, Australia
visited Jun 18, 2006
I know I should add these other islands to travel post, but I can't be bothered, so I'm just putting all the whitsunday adventures under hamilton island! Day two of my trip was the last day of the Seawind Rally, so we raced from Stonehaven to South Molle Island. Sailing puts me to sleep, so between that and my severe long term lack of sleep during assignment season, meant I don't remember much of the actual sail. The evening was taken up by the final celebrations for the rally, including the presentations, a seafood buffet, and a rather dreadful cruise-ship style floor show called "flames of polynesia". The next morning my mother decided exploring the tracks in the south molle national park would be a good idea. We did find some nice views, but I think and I did enjoy it, but I'm still glad we didn't climb the major hill! The next days turned out to be less than fine - we snorkelled in the brief moments of sunshine, and did not much when it rained. I read lots of books. It was nice. And the snorkelling was good - in Butterfly Bay we saw a whole herd of Maori Rass - great big gentle fish, each of them about a metre or more long! It was impressive. As was the coral - better than we saw at Keppel in April! We left the Whitsundays to head north, stopping in Gloucester passage (Monte's "resort" which was the most low-key resort I had ever seen!) and Shark Bay (Cape Upstart) where we went swimming at approximately shark feeding time (ok, pretty sill in hindsight, but we didn't see any sharks, so it was all good).

5 minutes on hamilton - Hamilton Island, Australia
visited Jun 16, 2006
Flew in to hamilton to meet my parents. Mum swore she saw elton john getting off the plane, but when she pointed him out (waiting for his luggage with the rest of us plebs) it really wasn't him, although she kept saying it was. Looked nothing like him. There weren't any buses back tot he marina, and everyone else on the plane had a resort bus to collect them, but us grotty yachties divided my luggage between us (I had 15kg of stuff mum and dad asked me to bring up, plus my stuff!) and trudged over the hill to the marina, where the boat was already overstaying the paid time in the marina, so we pretty much leapt aboard and left. A lovely sail to Nara inlet, where we met up with Joy and Chirs on Esprit, had dinner, and crashed. I think it was about 7.30 when I fell asleep! I think I really need this holiday!

Finished! - Brisbane, Australia
visited Jun 16, 2006
It nearly killed me, but I finished all my assignments. And a mere 6 hours or so before my flight north. Now I have two weeks of whitsundays and far north queensland to look forward to! And NO UNI WORK!!!! until next year that is...

The worlds seems to have survived... - Brisbane, Australia
visited Jun 7, 2006
So it's half an hour after the end of the 6/6/06, and we appear to still be here. Admittedly I haven't been out of the house since about 8pm, so it's possible the rest of the world has ceased to exist. Or that the world was sucked into hell, but they couldn't be bothered with australia. Or maybe I just didn't notice. I've had my head down doing assignments. At the end of Pirates, when life returned to something resembling normal, I had 5 to do. I've done 2 of them. I now have exactly a week until I leave for the whitsundays, and I'm halfway through assignment number 3. Will hopefully have it done before bed tomorrow night. That leaves me a whole 6 days to write the other 2 - only 4000 words worth. No problem. Just don't expect any updates between now and then. But then, there will be lots of exciting new updates. I have a wild plan. After my two weeks in the whitsundays, I have three days in Brisbane again, then I fly to Copenhagen (via a night on an airport floor in london) for 5 days of festival, then england for 4 weeks of work, then israel for more festival, then travelling around the middle east with Kate, ending up in Egypt, then flying to Morocco, and travelling up to portugal, then on, still overland, to Edinburgh. From there, I return to london to fly to korea, then on to Japan for 3 months more work (I have to do some occasionally), then back to Aus, via Korea again. I'll give a prize to anyone whocan come up with a decent name for the Itinerary for that trip!

A Pirate! Horror! - Brisbane, Australia
visited May 15, 2006
That's not "A Pirate Horror" either. Pirates of Penzance is shaping up to be very nice, now that we are in a real thatre, and not in some basketball court that happens to have a stage, as we were for the last performances in Scarborough. The Powerhouse Theatre is great, nice lighting, lots of space, excellent dressing rooms. It opens tomorrow night!

Crunch - Brisbane, Australia
visited May 9, 2006
I had my first ever car accident on the riverside expressway on my way to uni today. I was just thinking how the traffic was flowing pretty freely for 4pm on a tuesday afternoon, when, in precisely the milisecond I glanced down at the radio to eject a tape, the traffic stopped flowing. I didn't, at least, not quite fast enough, and managed to push the next car (which must have stopped very suddenly, and was probably very close to the ute in from of it, into said ute. Three car accident! we all managed to drive off the expressway, which was good, but my car had a cracked radiator, or something (as well as all the panel damage and a sticky driver's door) so it had to be towed. It's all covered on comprehensive insurance, with a really low excess, so I'm not overly worried about that. It does leave me carless for the time being,which would be annoying if my brother didn't decide he and his girlfriend could cope with one. He's gallantly offered me his car pretty much for the duration, which is wonderful. Especially as I have to drive to Scarborough three times in the next week, and the powerhouse every day for the week after that. And carry costumes and whatnot. I'm talking of course, of Pirates of Penzance, which opens in scarborough on friday, and then at the powerhouse on Tuesday. It's on for one week only, so email me for $20 tickets! --- end plug ----

A Young, Edgy Rock Opera - Brisbane, Australia
visited May 5, 2006
Rent! See Sean's blog for details: I'll write later. http://lettherebeblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/525600-minutes.html

Tropical Island - Great Keppel Island, Australia
visited May 1, 2006
After a rushed half day in Gladstone, we left at dawn (I'm told - I wasn't awake for it) to get through the Narrows with the tide. This is important, as there is a crossing about halfway through the Narrows that is used to get cattle from the mainland to curtis island. This means it dries out at low tide. completely. So leaving with the tide was important. We made it through ok, and into the open sea for the 4 hour crossing to Keppel. This was the only bit of actual sailing with actual waves that we encountered on the whole trip, and it was actually very calm, really. Enough to send Kate to bed after taking a sea-sickness tablet though! And Ihave to admit that I was having trouble concentrating on anything by the time we got to Keppel. It would have been nicer if we could have had the engines off, but the wind just wasn't with us. That first evening we were anchored at Long Beach, and decided to walk over the island to the resort for a sunset drink, and, after parking the dinghy on the beach, set off on a likely looking walking track. The track led to another beach, then disappeared. Undanted, we pressed on, climbing around the rocks of the next point, to discover.... more rocks. I think we clawed our way around 4 rocky, oystered points and along several beaches before we found the resort. We were just in time for a sunset drink, but as we hadn't brought a torch, there was a suggestion that we should go straight back while it was still a little light. A few inquiries told us that it was actually very easy to get to Long Beach. It was at the other end of the airstrip. So not only did we not have to climb over rocks, but there was an enormous paved road between the resort and the boat. Grrr. We drank our large and decadent cocktails (and mocktails) sitting on a bench overlooking the beach while watching the sun sink down behind Yeppoon on the mainland. It was very pleasant. Then we walked back along the airstrip in the dark (which was a great chance for some amazing star-gazing) and discovered that the beach wasn't at the end of the airstrip. There was a path to it though. A windy, sandy, treacherous footpath through the trees with several forks. I wished I gained a better understanding of the difficulties my blind friends face in getting around, and wished sincerely that I had a white cane. We survived though, and did end up at the beach. Then we just had to wander along it until we tripped over the dinghy (did I mention there wasn't even a moon to help us?) and pointed it towards Cutting Edge's masthead light (just as well Dad thought to put it on before we left!). Our two days on Keppel were lovely. I taught Kate to snorkel. Once she was given some extra flotation (a jet-ski jacket), she even stopped using me to keep herself up, which was nice. Lucky I'm a strong swimmer - and have positive boyancy! It was good to be in the water again - I hadn't snorkelled for about 10 years, which is sad. And really noticeable when I couldn't hold my breath for nearly as long as I used to be able to. I remember free-diving to 17 metres in Tonga once, and this time I was having trouble holding my breath very long at all. Ah well. I'll just have to practice more. When I have the chance...

Kelly - Gladstone, Australia
visited Apr 28, 2006
I managed to find Kelly's husband, Jack, at the marina, and got kelly's mobile number from him. It turns out she was working in Biloela for the day, which is why she hadn't been at home or at her usual work in Tank St. He said they had a doctor's appointment that night (because Kelly is pregnant!) but they could come to the Yacht club afterwards, where my family and assorted friends and I would be having dinner. It was rather weird meeting after 15 years, but very good to be in contact again. After dinner, Kelly and Jack came back to Cutting Edge (my parents' boat) and I showed them some photos that were on my computer of our childhood. It's strange but the collection I have, which consists of whatever Dad has scanned in, only includes about 2 of Kelly, although I recall spending nearly every day with her. She doesn't appear in any of the ones of my birthday parties or anything. Odd. The best one I have posted here. It's sweet! We've now exchanged email addresses, which means there is some chance we will stay in touch a little better now. And I know where she is now. She and Jack have bought a block of land in Benaraby, just near our old primary school, so I can imagine them being there for while to come.

Memory Lane - Benaraby, Australia
visited Apr 28, 2006
After an early start from Biloela, we arrived in Benaraby (via the occasional wrong turn) early enough for me to have a look around my old home town before having to get the car to my parents in Gladstone. We first drove past the old hall where I used to go on the ancient Sunday School bus every week from the age of 3 (my parents no doubt appreciated the quiet sunday mornings!). Apart from shrinking, and the service station next door changing brands, nothing seemed to have changed much. We then drove past my old school, and I was compelled to get out and have a closer look. At first the plan was just to look in the garden bed under the flag pole for the plaque over the time capsule that we planted there during the school's centenery celebrations in 1986. I had to check if it was to be opened this year, but it's not until July 12, 2011. Once I was that far into the school grounds, it seemed to make sense to go up to the office, and we were signed in to have a look around and see what had changed. Not much, though it's all now painted white instead of EdQLD yellow, and there's a new classroom and a new playground. They have 6 classes there now. There were three or four when I was there - about 60 to 80 kids, depending on the year. After the school, I went up to the house I grew up in. It was also still very recognisable, although there have been a few changes. I knocked on the door and was shown around but the current owner, which was nice. When we lived there the walls were all cream (I was 9 before I realised that walls were allowed to be colours other than cream). My room is now painted dark purple with a silver ceiling - colours chosen by the teenage boy who lives there! The woman who showed me around also told me that Kelly had moved back in next door. Her mother had always lived there, of course, but Kelly had left years ago. Kelly was my best friend throughout my childhood. We met when I was 2 (and she was 6!) and, living next door to each other, we more or less grew up together. After I left in 1989, we more or less lost contact, although I remember staying with her for a night in 1991 when we were back in Gladstone on the boat. I hadn't seen her since then, though, or had any contact. From the woman who lives in my old house, I discovered that she was married, and had moved back here with her husband, and that he worked at the marina! I resolved to track her down before we left the next morning.

Jess in Bilo - Biloela, Australia
visited Apr 28, 2006
Kate and I finally set off yesterday, about 14 hours later than planned, to drive to Gladstone, via Biloela, to deliver a car to my uncle, and meet my parents on their boat. The purpose of the Biloela detour was to see my childhood friend Jess, who lives there now. I hadn't see her since 1995. and that was only for a one short evening. We only had time for another rather short evening this time, too, as Kate and I didn't arrive until 8.30 last night. We had had a few adventures. We ran out of petrol. It was very embarrassing, but thankfully not that inconvenient, as we were about 100m from a petrol station at the time. The petrol station was closed, but there was one on the other side of the road, more or less, which was open, and lent us a fuel can. So all in all it was a good place to stop. And considering we had been stressing about it for 70km (ever since discovering the petrol station in Eidsvold was closed), we were very happy to stop there, and not in the middle of nowhere. Meeting up with Jess was seriously trippy, but wonderful to know she's still alive and surviving. Even if she is living in Biloela! Here's a pic of us, just to prove it. And one of us 20 years ago, for good measure.

Ex-traordinary. - Brisbane, Australia
visited Apr 21, 2006
Tonight I had arranged to meet Tony in town for the regular dinner-and-a-movie. Bizarrely, on my way there I ran into Sean and Michael in Pulp Fiction (the bookshop). They were staying in the hotel above the bookshop for the night. Michael gets married tomorrow. Weird. Kate arrives here on Monday! I'm not sleeping well. Grrr.

Hope Harbour - Upper Coomera, Australia
visited Apr 10, 2006
My parents, Kieran and I spent the night on the boat, and spent the morning doing lots of last minute things, and, eventually, having a cooked breakfast together. Sandy and Celine and the kids arrived, and, with surprisingly little last-minute ado, they left around lunchtime. While Sandy and Celine and the kids will be back in two weeks or so, my parents have no intention of returning Brisbane until, probably, late this year - after they've sailed up the Queensland coast and spent the two months their visas allow them in the Trobians, off the east coast of Papua New Guinea. I managed to get back to Brisbane in plenty of time for my evening class. Life should be a little less insane now. For the next week or two, at least.