August 24

**1. I painted a HUGE canvas for Kelvin & the boys for their new house..
2 & 3 pics from my going-away party & the white horse

I've only got 3 days left!!!
I'm so sad to leave Sydney!

I went out last night for a going away party, it was HEAPS of fun!!
I'm feeling seriously stretched to the max right now, trying to see everyone that I can before I go!!!
Bye Sydney!
x

August 17

**Ok, it was my birthday, so you can't blame me for making a spectacle of myself :) There was a piano in the middle of the bar... it was just ASKING to be played!.
**Second picture is me with Karl, he's the one that started working with me but quit before they could treat him too badly.
**Third is Ryan, Amy and Laura dancing up a storm, again at my Birthday party.
9 Days to go in this big city! :(
9 Days to go until I see my family & friends back in Canada :)

This past couple of weeks have been wonderful (apart from a couple of mishaps at work..) My birthday was last Monday, so I spent the whole weekend doing fun 'Amy' Stuff. On Saturday, I went to a place called Paddington Inn with all of my friends here. It was an AMAZING night!! (which ended strangely with us all loitering in front of my house at 4am and the police coming by to ask us if we were going to be ok, haha). I spent Sunday with another friend, Eddy, and out for dinner. Monday I took the day off work and went with old work-mates Karl and Rachel to Newtown for lunch, Luna park for the afternoon and then to my favourite restaurant, Chili Cha Cha's for dinner with Karl, Caroline and Kelvin. The whole thing was totally perfect. Kelvin gave me an All Black's Jersey (he's from New Zealand and that's their rugby team... I go with him & the boys to the sports-bar when they play and they ALWAYS win).
Four of my favourite guys from the house moved out of our shabby diggs into a new place just down the road & it's gorgeous! I'm so jealous. I spent Tuesday night there & it was incredible to sleep somewhere with windows... and a real bed... and warm... and bigger than a shoe box!
Laura and Caroline moved out of their apartment too... from the city to the beach. Their new place is literally a 5 minute walk to the ocean, it's beautiful. I spent the day with them today organizing and shopping for funky wall coverings, etc.

August 3

Here I am at the Potbelleez concert with Laura and Ryan. It was a great night as usual!
I've been super busy lately... haven't written one of these in a while, but my mom requested another entry, so here goes:
I've been going to the beach a lot lately, and although it's winter here, the days are gorgeous. no, I'm not swimming in the sea or getting a fabulous tan, but I am soaking up some Australian sunshine within my last 3 weeks here.
I've also been doing some freelance work for various local companies for some extra cash and have made great friends with one of the new guys at work. Since then he's quit for bigger and better things, but he's been passing along freelance work to me and will *hopefully* continue to do so after I leave for Canada. I'm going to have to get a new computer as soon as I get home so that I can handle all the new business, but am confident that the freelance work will more than pay for it.
I'm going to miss SO much about Australia when I leave... but there is SO much in Canada to look forward to. Aaron & Kathryn expecting baby #2 at the end of August, and Greg & Krystal getting engaged! WOW, congrats, all of you.

I've made up a list of some of the sites that I've worked on so far, here they are:


http://www.constructionassignments.com/

http://www.garypogson.com.au/

http://www.legaleagle.com.au

http://www.cutegecko.com.au/onthephonetoparis/site.swf

http://www.purpose.com.au/client--login/starcommercial/siteroot/sample5/index.html

http://www.purpose.com.au/client--login/unitedinstallationrepair/siteroot/sample5/index.html

http://www.capital4business.com.au/

http://www.homestartnsw.com/

June 12

Since I've written last, I've completely fallen in love. with Sydney. and everything Australian :)
A friend of mine took me to see Edward Scissorhands at the Opera House!!
1) The Opera House is stunning and I loved getting all dressed up to go and just BE there.
2) Edward Scissorhands was fabulous, no singing or talking, just dancing & SO good. The costumes, Sets, the dancing were all great... well I suppose I don't have to explain, you could just IMAGINE how good it was?
That's really the main event here. I feel a bit like I'm repeating myself every time I come on and gush about my busy life here, so I won't. I'll just say there's never a dull moment and leave it at that.
I have some new pictures, but I forgot my camera at home, boo. BUT I cut my hair off, it's very chic & still blonde, but not 'glow in the dark'.
Well, till next time, I suppose just pray that I have the courage to find my way back to Canada...

May 28

**Pictures... First is of Cillian & I from the night we all went out to Kareoke. Ok so he looks a little scary, but he's one of the funniest people I've ever met!! Second is Cillian enjoying some Pork bum in China Town, haha, ew. &**
What have I been doing?
Too much to remember or take the time to write, so I'll just fill in the good bits. I went on a tour of the Opera House with my friend Theo. It is SO great inside, & we got to learn all about the history of how it was made and the big controversy over making such an odd-looking building.
We also went for dinner & drinks at the Shangri-La hotel which overlooks the harbour front at night. What a gorgeous view!!
Hmm, what else. The regular out all night in Kings Cross with the girls & afternoon coffee's at the local cafe. Work has been fine and pretty ordinary these days.
Sunday wwe went to the italian festival in little italy & Sunday night I went to visit Matt before he left for New Zealand this week. He's going to stay there for a couple of months and then he'll be back to Ottawa on August 1st. I wonder if I'll ever see him again?? It's odd starting to think of all the great friends here that I won't ever see again in my life. It's great that we can still keep in contact over the internet, but it's never the same.

May 15

Time is flying by!!
The weather's been amazing here lately, beautiful sunny days & no more rain!!!
These past couple of weeks have been jam packed as usual! My Aussie friend Ryan made dinner for me and took me out on a midnight motorcycle tour of the city. We went out to the harbour bridge, around the opera house through some fantastic back streets of the suburbs, around Glebe and finally back to Redfern. It was unreal!
The following Thursday night, I went with a few friends to try to scalp some Stereophonics tickets at the Metro Theatre. Sadly, even after making friends with some professional scalpers, I didn't make it into the concert, so we went out for drinks anyway. (no, not me and the scalpers.. with my friends)
The weekend was more of the same.. out on Friday and then Monique's sister, Simone, came to Sydney to see me on Saturday afternoon. One of my housemates, Jay, recently passed the test to get his Australian citizenship so we all celebrated Saturday night at the house with lots of Champagne. We told Jay that since it was his celebration, he could choose where we went & since he's Asian, of course he chose Karaoke. So about 15 of us from the house plus Simone, Laura and Caroline all went out to China Town for a fantastic night of karaoke in our own private room. stellar night!
Sunday morning, Simone woke me up to ask me if I wanted to head to Mt Kuring-Gai to see Deb, Laura, Mark & Monique. So we took the train up for a wonderful afternoon. We went out pram shopping (Mark & Monique are expecting their first baby in August) and made lunch for Deb for mother's day. Sunday night I did more volunteer work and even got serenaded by one homeless man to the song "Once in Love with Amy" by Sammy Davis Jr. Interesting to say the least.
On Monday night, one of me house-mates, Kelvin (the Kiwi I have a picture of from a few weeks ago), was complaining of feeling really sick. After a while he said his leg really hurt and started telling us about a cut he had on his leg. So, a few of us took him into the emergency room... he was looking really bad. We waited for about 4 hours with him until he saw a doctor. It's a good thing the guys I live with are so hilarious, they actually became the entertainment for everyone in the ER. They started a game called "who can inch closest to the automatic door without it opening" TOO funny. So as it turns out Kelvin has an intense blood infection and they had to keep him in hospital for 6 days!! Poor lad. I went to visit him again last night & he's insisting he's fine but they want to keep him in for another 2 days. Just have to remind him that being a hard man about things is what landed him in there in the first place. After visiting Kelv last night I went back out to Ryan's for Italian and another motorcycle ride. It's just too cool in the city, especially late when there's not much traffic and the bike can really go!
SO after all this excitement, I've changed my plane ticket home. The date is now 100% because I can't afford to change it again. July 6, 2008... Hello Canada.
Wow it's going to be tough leaving Sydney

May 5

***We were out at Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour. Ben, Laura, Josh (the DJ) and Me**
Another exciting Sydney week.
The closer I get to leaving here, the more I don't want to go. I don't know what to do! I love this place!!!
Last week was much like the one before. Relaxing in the park, eating heaps of sushi, going out with friends. This place is so random, I actually saw a guy stopped at a red light near my house playing a clarinet in his truck while he waited for traffic. hm. There was another day that I was standing in the street, talking with some friends and a smelly old homeless man colided with me and then stumbled off somewhere without saying anything. EW
I learned so much last week at work. There was an afternoon that I client came in to discuss a look&feel for a website that I was working on. I got to sit in on the whole thing and discus why/how I did everything. She was really impressed with my work! Also, I'm the head of a team for another big project where everyone's coming to ME for instruction on what to do next. How good is that??! Very pro.
I did some home visits for St Vincent De Paul with a little Asian guy called Malcolm. One of the places we went had a tiny Chineese woman who literally cried from the moment we walked in the door to the moment we left. She had a really sad story.

Saturday night was one of the best yet.. Laura and I went out with some friends to see another friend DJ in Darling Harbour. He was a great DJ, plus it was great fun to have a friend up on the stage. We ended up going to a few different bars.. closing them all and eventually arriving back at Laura's at 8am. Slept till 3 (a bit of a wasted Sunday) but totally worth it!

April 27

***Pic One is some city art stuff that's been going up all over. It's basically hundreds of little plastic cups shoved into fences but it looks pretty great when it's all done Pic two is Caroline and I. I can't remember which night this was since we were out together for the past three nights in a row. Pic three is the gang from this weekend. Caroline, Laura, Me and our friend Ryan.**
Busy Busy Busy. Never a dull moment in the big city! I've been spending some of my evenings checking out some of the local suburbs near my place. They've got such cute little side-streets with art pieces installed in the sidewalks, light posts or other interesting places. I'm going to have to remember to bring my camera next time I'm out there so that you can see what I mean, but trust me, it's fabulous.
On Tuesday night, I went out for dinner again with the French guy that used to live at my place. We decided to be a little more adventurous and go for some serious japaneese food. I've been adoring Sushi lately, so I figured it was time to try sushimi... basically a little slab of raw fish. ooooh goodness, it was SO good. I mean, not something you'd want to eat every day, but as something special it was fantastic. I'm becoming much more handy with chop sticks too, but still a little slow. We also went to see the film 'Forgetting Sarah Marshal'. It was quite rude, but still really funny.
Wednesday night I took another stroll and ended up on a posh street in the middle of Surry Hills. The streets were lined with tiny restaurants (literally the size of someone's living-room) with enough space to fit about 10 people. What a cool feeling, very cozy. I ended up in a little cafe and ordered a decaf capuccino (now completely addicted to coffee). I Curled up in a corner lounge with my book and read for an hour before the very friendly owner came over & brought me another coffee 'on the house'. How nice! So I'm reading my book and eventually a guy with a guitar and a girl get up, sit on some stools and start singing some smooth jazzy music. How lucky for me to be there! I'm definately going to make a point of getting there again sometime this week.
Thursday night was party night because of Friday's holiday here. Friday was Anzak day (basically like rememberance day with parades and wreaths and flowers, but everyone gets the day of work, yay!) I went out to 'the argyle' with Laura, Caroline (Laura's new house-mate from New Zealand and very cool girl) and some of their other friends. We stayed out pretty late, as usual, and by the end of the night Laura and I got in to an intense conversation about my returning to Canada. "Please don't go!!" she says over and over. Aww how cute, If only I could convince her to come to Canada, everyone would love her!
On Friday morning/lunch time, I went out for lunch with some of the boys from the house. We always have such a great time together, it's so interesting learning about their cultures and different places they're been to in their lives. One of the new guys in the house, Fred, is French and is an Opera Singer/Dancer. Or Carsten who's an IT business owner back in Germany and tells stories of what it was like to live in Berlin when 'the wall' came down. Or the little ginger haired Irish guy, Cillian, who's one of the most rude & crude people I've ever met, but I can't help loving being friends with him. It's such a different situation in the house but somehow it totally works.
Friday afternoon, the same crew from Thursday got together for some Anzak Day festivities. There's a law here about a game called 'two-up' where it's illegal to play every day except for Anzak Day. Basically, it's betting on heads or tails. If you want to bet heads, you hold your money by your head. If someone wants to take your bet, they come up to you and give you whatever amount of money. The main coin-flipper-guy flips the coins and BAM, you win or you loose. I didn't bet because I can't afford to loose, but Laura bet $20 and lost it all in a matter of 30 seconds. The whole thing gets pretty rowdy and some people loose thousands of dollars.
Saturday, I spent most of the day reading my book in the park. I've borrowed some really intense books from one of my friends here & I'm trying to broaden my horizons by reading something other than cheesy chic books. It's going pretty well so far. For Saturday evening, I went to a nearby suburb 'crows-nest' for a dinner party with one of the friends of my landlord that I met last week. The whole thing was so grown-up, I loved it! The host cooked everything himself, even backing the bread! I stayed there until about 11:30 and then went out to meet Laura and Caroline in Darling Harbour where we club-hopped until about 5am. I'll never EVER get sick of it!!
Today was another relaxing day.. the weather being stellar here, Laura and I went out to Hyde park to discuss our eventful weekend, look at fashion mags and get some sun. Wow, I'm really going to miss this place.

April 20

**This is my Favoutire Kiwi(From New Zealand), Kelvin We spent another full night in the back patio playing cards and drinking wine with a bunch of housemates**
This week just FLEW by!
I was out every night going to Bondi, out with friends or to the movies with Laura. Laura's got a cool new job with great perks like 2 free tickets to a movie every week. So we've now got a weekly date to see one of the random movies they send her to. Last week was Prom Night (terrible movie) but we went out for dinner first at Star Bar and then to the cafe at the theatre for a coffee before the movie. Cinema's are crazy here.. there are bars and cafe's inside them for people to hang around before and after movies. There are also special theatres where you can go and actually have dinner while you watch your movie. It's super expensive.
On Friday night, I stayed in with my roomies for another night of intense fun. I'm currently in a serious love/hate relatinship with the house. It's terrible because I can't cook there anymore (kitchenn is too gross) and the bathrooms are not even usable, but the friends I've made there are fantastic. I'm going to miss them SO much when it's time to leave.
Saturday night was the weirdest night of my life. I first went to a party with the footie guy's that I met back in Byron Bay. One of their friends showed up who I have an odd history with so I ended up having to leave. I called one of my friends from the house who was out in King's Cross and met up with him. It turned out that he was there with my landlord and friends and the whole night kept getting weirder and weirder. I knew my landlord, Garnet, was an odd guy, but this just set that idea in stone. We ended up at 4am at a dodgy Kareoke bar singing at the top of our lungs. The Kareoke bar's here aren't like they are back home. Basically you get a room and a teev and a couple of mics and sit in there with just your friends. It's fun that way because you don't have to worry about a bar full of people and you can sing as much as you like. But I suppose that's when things get a little crazy. We left at about 6, went to the nearest McDonalds for some more hysteria and then back home.
I'm just taking it easy today.. I might shop for a new suitcase as my old one is totally busted. Then maybe a nap.

April 14

**This picture is from a few weeks ago when a bunch of us from my house went to the beach for Christian's going away party. These are just a few of the guy's I live with. Seamus from Sweden, Tom from Australia, Jared from America, Ozzy from Turkey and Christian from Germany. They are cooking heaps of meat on one of the outdoor BBQ's that can be found at the beach**
Last week was great! I spent lots of time going out around Sydney visiting friends in Bondi, etc. On Friday night I spent the night in with my roomies, just sitting around playing poker and drinking wine. Saturday night, I was out with Laura and a bunch of other girls. We went to a place called Chinese Laundry. It's a funky BIG place with a billion small rooms with different types of music playing.
On Sunday night, I went out with Night Patrol to give food to homeless people. One of the men had a guitar, so we spent most of the night until 11pm sitting in the park with about 20 homeless people listening to the guitar and singing. What an amazing experience.

April 8

**The first Picture is of me with Alicia, and the second is Sonia and I. She'e the one I've been doing all the volunteer stuff with**
The weekend was SO good!
I went to Wagga Wagga with a group of people from the St Vincent De Paul (Vinnies) volunteer stuff that I do. There were seven of us from Sydney travelling down in a big van/truck.. a five hour drive. We had a great time travelling there, although there were plenty of dead wallaby's (mini kangaroo-type creatures) on the side of the road. I was telling the others that it reminded me of the raccoon's that we see in Canada and no one knew what a raccoon was. odd.
We stopped off on the way for some famous Australian savoury pies from some place with pastry awards, yum!
Saturday night was the St Vinnie's Ball, it was fantastic! I borrowed a dress from Laura so that I didn't have to go out any buy anything new. I won one of the prizes.. a bottle of wine and a $25 certificate for a local store (although, Wagga is so small that nothing was open on Sunday and I had to give my certificate away to a local!!) We had a great dinner and danced the night away.
After the ball, we all went to a local bar (of course in our high-class attire) and had a fantastic time till about 3am. I swear that no one in the bar had ever seen a female before. Those country guys were like white on rice, although when I'm in Sydney, no one generally cares that I have a Canadian accent & being in such a non-tourist place, the Aussies were loving it. We ended up staying in a Catholic Boy's school for the night because it was free, but it was such an old creaky place it was creepy in the middle of the night.
Sunday was chill too.. just relaxing in the park and preparing for the long drive home.
I was back to work on Monday which has been pretty uneventful lately, although I still like what I'm doing, I'm losing a little respect for my boss. Always making promises that he can't keep.
That's about it, I suppose. See you next time.

April 4

**Here we were waiting in the pouring rain for the Jack Johnson concert. It was totally worth it!**
This week's been pretty standard, although they've paid me a bit at work so I can start paying rent again, YAY!
I can't believe I forgot to mention the best part about Melbourne in my last entry!! The three of us took a bus down to Philips bay and watched 'the penguin parade'!! It was spectacular. There's a whole viewing platform and everyone sits at sundown and watches hundreds of teeny penguins get the courage to get out of the ocean and waddle up the beach. They get to the grassy hilly bit and then go to their burrows. Then we all walk along a boardwalk and watch them find their homes. The penguins don't care about people at all... actually at one point, one of them busted out onto the road and one of the security people had to get everyone out of the way so that he could get to the other side. UNFORTUNATELY their tiny eyes can't handle camera flashes, so we weren't able to take pictures, but trust me, they were adorable.
Lately, I've just been spending time with Laura and a few of the people from mt house. We go for dinner or cook for eachother or just chill out after work. Laura moved out of the house last weekend, so I'm missing her being around, but I still see her all the time. Tonight I'm going out to Bondi Beach to have dinner with another friend that used to live at my house, but now that he's moved to the beach, I'm going to see his new place. I'm so jealous, my house is a dungeon.

March 28

**Terrin and I are out at 'The Oxford Art Factory'. We didn't get home till 6 in the morning**
The Visit With Terrin & Gayle was GREAT! I just dropped them off at the train to go to the Airpost and then back home.
So they got here on Wendesday instead of Tuesday because their plane broke and they had to wait a full 24 hours to come on the next one.
We spent the first couple of days touring Sydney going to the beaches. We went for a going-away party for my roomie, Christian, at Coogee beach and played Rugby and Cricket in the sand.
We left for Melbourne on Monday morning. I love Melbourne! It's so trendy and young. Although, it made me want to buy everything I saw, so it's probably a good thing I'm not living there. We Took a tour of the Melbourne Gaol (jail ) and rode the tram around the city. We shopped (of course!) and saw as much of Melbourne as we possibly could. The Jack Johnson concert on Wednesday night was fantastic & we even got to see Jack up close. Actually, as we were getting to the concert, we were walking accross some random street and 2 guys jumped out of a van and started walking into the VIP area of the place. It was Jack and His friend!! how cool! If we were a little more brave we could have said hello, but Terrin espacially was totally speechless. Our flight back to Sydeny was a bit of a struggle since we went to the wrong airport and had to take a Million Dollar taxi to the other one to make it there on time. OOPS!! well, we made it. That's all that matters I suppose.
I was sad to see them leave this morning, but I'm sure it will only be a few months until I'm back in London causing havoc with Terrin again!!

March

I'm in Melbourne right now, with Terrin and Gayle. I don't have much time on this computer, so I'll make sure to write a better entry later. But, Melbourne is SO nice! very modern/old city. All the buildings are gorgrous. We went on a little adventure yesterday and saw a bunch of teeny penguins crawling up the beach to get home from the ocean at dusk. how CUTE!!! Tonight's Jack Johnson, we're SO excited to see him. More later...

March 16

**The first Picture is of Christian and I on the ferry. The second is the view of the city from the water. How nice!!**
Ok. Some good things that have come from being robbed. (It's taken me a while to think of something, but here goes..) I'll become more aware of what really matters in life rather than material things. What do you think? I'm just trying to make a positive out of a negative here. So this past week has been ok. I've just been working every day. I went out on Sunday night to do the 'night patrol' volunteer stuff which was good. I'm SO excited to see Terrin and Gayle on Tuesday!! I'm going to the airport at 6:50am to pick them up before I go to work. They're going to stay in a hostel around the corner from my house so it should be easy to get around the city from here. I'm hoping they're as excited as I am, they're going to have an amazing time. The weather here has been stellar lately. They picked a perfect time to come. No rain in sight! I went to Manly Beach on Suday afternoon with my friend Christian from the house. We had to take the ferry accross to the beach which was actually very nice. This Saturday, Christian, Laura and I all went to bondi. It've been a great few weekends!!

March 8

Arg!! worst week ever.
Well it didn't start off too bad. I went out with Laura on Friday night and went to Mark & Moniques on Saturday/Sunday. We had a great time.. Monique's aunt & uncle came over from Canada (I knew them from home) and Monique's sister Simone is also living with them now for Uni. So, we spent Saturday night playing Canadian Monopoly and watching movies. Very relaxing!
On Monday night I went to a thing called 'Theology on Tap' where basucally a bunch of Catholic Youth get together in a bar and listen to a talk from a Cardinal. The whole talk went straight over my head, but afterwords, I stayed around and met a ton of very cool people and actually ended up staying until midnight talking with my friends from the Cathedral Youth Group. One of the girls drove me home so that I didn't have to walk at night.
Tuesday was the words day of my life.
I got home from work, went to my room, went into Laura's room for 10 minutes to chat, went back to my room and my purse and computer were gone.
I called the police, filed a report, etc, but there's nothing else I can do about it. It's all gone, I only have my passport and my clothing left. That's all I'm going to say about it because it makes me sad thinking about it.
So the rest of the week was a little less than fantastic. I spent the whole time cancelling my credit cards and trying to figure out how I'm going to get all my identification back.
Some exciting news... Terrin & her mom are going to be here soon and we're in the full swing of getting their plans into motion. I think we're going to go to Melbourne for easter weekend and see a Jack Johnson concert! Plus, the two of them are going to Fraser Island for a few days. Other than that, I'm going to make sure they see all the fantastic Sydney sights. It's going to be amazing to see someone from home.
Last night I went to 'the Ivy' with Laura and the footie boys. We had a great time, as usual. Today, I'm spending the day downtown looking for a new purse and wallet, plus an address book because I don't have my computer for that anymore. I'm also going to go to all the pawn shops that I can find to see if my computer is anywhere to be found. Tomorrow night, I'm doing another night patrol adventure, feeding the homeless.

February 26

**This is me with Laura when we were out a couple of weeks ago**
Work has been pretty great. There was another guy hired on at the same time as me who they had to let go yesterday. I guess he just didn't make the cut!! Oh wow, I suppose that means that I did make the cut, yeah!
On Friday night after work, I went for a night on the town with Laura and a couple of Aussie friends. We had a great time.. Japanese for dinner (I'm completely obsessed with sushi), out to a stylish club for a couple of drinks and then out dancing all night!
Saturday afternoon I went to a volunteer thing close to my house where basically we had a BBQ and a chance to chat with some of the less fortunate people in Sydney. The co-ordinator of the whole thing really stresses the fact that most of these people don't get a chance to talk with anyone, so part of our mission was to make them feel like they have a friend, even if it's just for a few hours. I got onto talking to this 65 year old Russian man who was So nice & so lonely. He was telling me a story about his wife and family who are in some communist country (don't remember what it was called as I've never heard of it before), and can't escape to come to Australia to be with him. As he was telling me about their unfortunate living conditions, he actually started to cry. It was so sad, but when I told him he didn't have to talk about it to me, he said that it made him feel better to share it with someone. AWW I'm pretty sure that made my day. After cleaning up and getting a little more training, I was off home to spend the gorgeous afternoon on our back patio with my flat-mates. Saturday night, we went to a movie, then out to a club for dancing again... Sydney is so much fun!
On Sunday, I went out to Coogee Beach to meet Matt and a couple of his other friends. It turns out that his other friends are Canadian too, and we had a great afternoon swimming, tanning and talking about home. After a day at the beach, I was super tired, and headed to bed early.
I'm just getting ready for work now. During breakfast I started reading a new book that I got by my favourite author. I guess I just bought it without looking to intensely at it, just because I know I always love the books by this woman. As it turns out, I've already read it, it just has a different name in Australia. That's seriously annoying.

February 19

**This is a picture of most of the people I live with from last Friday night. It's pretty surprising, but there's no one in the group that I don't like. We have Canada, USA, France, Japan, Turkey, Britain, India, Holland, Germany, Ireland, Vietnam, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia**
Last Sunday night at the Vinnies volunteer thing, I had a surprisingly nice time. We went to a couple of different locations where a lot of homeless people are and set up a table and just waited for them to come to us. It actually got really busy, but when it was quieter, we had the chance to talk to people. It was an enlightening experience. I could tell that most of them had some sort of mental issue, but they were all very kind and appreciative to us. The other people that I volunteer with are also very nice. I'm invited to a Vinnies Ball in April in a city called Wagga Wagga, about 5 hours drive. If we get enough people to go, we get to go on a bus and have free accommodation. This Saturday I'm going to a BBQ where I'll be helping to cook and serve some less fortunate people. Busy, busy, busy.
Work is still amazing. Today I had a meeting with my boss because I've been there for a week & we needed to go over my contract (and basically decide whether or not I was going to work there for a while). My boss told me that he's loving having me there and the progress that I've made in this past week is phenomenal. He said he can tell that I learn very quickly and him & the rest of the staff are really glad to have me on the team. How good is that??!? It's so nice to hear. I keep thinking that they might think of me as too new to the business or something, but I'm starting to realize that I'm MADE for this job. I had no idea it could be so good. Hhaha, Have I said that already? ok, sometime soon I'll quit gushing about work!!
I sent an e-mail to my old teacher, Rob, at Fanshawe. I just wanted to update him about my new job & what I've been doing since school. I got an e-mail from one of my old friends that's in his 3rd year now, saying that Rob read the e-mail to the class as a positive outlook for some nervous students. I hope it's an inspiration for some of them to travel.
Other than that, I've been spending my free evenings with my flat-mates. I really like them all, I totally love Sydney.

February 17

**Everyone in my house went out dancing on Friday night. This is my fave picture, behind me is my friend Kelvin**
I've been SO busy lately! It's fantastic!
My new job is stellar. I love it & never imagined how great it would be! The one minute walk to work is so great because I can come home for lunch too. Every day, when it's about time to leave, I'm always thinking: if only I could stay longer to do just one more thing on this website... I'm so happy about it! I've even got some extra work to do on the Widder Station website, so I'm doing graphic design work at home too.
I have been going to the cafe to confront my old boss from time to time. She just keeps telling me that she will not pay me. I've made a bit of a scene.. she's not too happy with me at all. It's a real inconvenience, but I suppose if that's the only down part of my life at this point, I'll just try not to think about it.
On Wednesday night, I went to the information and training session for the St. Vincent De Paul ("Vinnies Youth") volunteer stuff. I found out about a place that's down the street from where I live that does other 'feed the poor' stuff, so I've been in contact with them and I have a meeting scheduled for next week to see when I can start joining them. Tonight, I'm going to a Night Patrol thing where we make sandwiches and get in a van and bring the food to homeless people on the streets. I'm a little nervous, but also excited to see how it all turns out.
We had a big house party this weekend because it was one guy's birthday. We had SO much fun! Over the past couple of weeks, I've been starting to really get to know a lot of the people that live in my place and we're starting to get to be pretty good friends. After the party, we went out to a bar & danced the night away. I didn't realize that some of the bars here are open 24 hours, and when we left, I thought it was about 2am. It was actually 5:30am. HAHA what!! seriously, it was practically getting light outside by the time we all walked home.
Terrin e-mailed me a couple of days ago to tell me that her & her mom have booked tickets to come to Sydney in March! WOW how amazing is it going to be to have them here?!??! I'm excited to see them and to show them places near here that they would enjoy. I've put myself in charge of their trip planning. They'll be going to the zoo, the blue mountains, Bondi Beach, a tour of the city, and maybe I'll be able to find something that I haven't even seen yet.
I went to lunch today with Kathryn's friend Alyson (from Hamilton) who's in Sydney for a couple of weeks for her PHD. It was really nice to spend time with a Canadian again. And since it was a nice afternoon, we were able to sit out on the patio. The guys in my house are all going out to the park across the road to play rugby this afternoon. My friend Laura (she's from England and lives in my house) and I are going to be the cheerleaders.

February 12

Last night, there was a MASSIVE spider in our kitchen. It was grey and fury and one of the girls I live with swears that it was poisonous. We killed it, but ew.
Last Friday, I went into the Purpose Web Design place to remind them of me and make sure they still thought of me if they had any jobs available. The guy I was talking to who seemed really interested in having me work there LAST time, didn't seem all that interested this time. I was pretty discouraged, and ended up working the full weekend at the coffee shop. I had Monday and Tuesday off & on Monday GUESS who calls??!? The guy from the graphic design place to see if I can come in on Tuesday for a trial!!! So, I went in on Tuesday (it literally takes thirty seconds to walk there, sweeeet!) only to find out that not only do I have my own desk already, but I have an e-mail address too!! It's all very official & I HAVE the job. I'm seriously a graphic designer. A real job. No kidding at all. They had me making a web site already, it's for a costume shop in Canbera, and when I showed my boss my first draft, he totally LOVED it. Holy, it's incredible. I'm going back in tomorrow morning, stunning.
SO, when I got home from work, I called the cafe to tell them "I'm sorry but I can't work for you anymore." My boss there had a FIT!! She was yelling at me & calling me a liar and at the end of the conversation she told me that if I didn't go into work tomorrow that I wouldn't get paid for the three days that I worked last week. I told her that she had to pay me for the work I've done.. she told me "no, too bad" and hung up the phone. Now I'm out $260 and so unimpressed. I talked to the local police and they told me there's absolutely nothing I can do other than take her to court (too much cost & too much hassle for what it's worth). I'm trying to work up the nerve to go in tomorrow on my lunch break, but I'm not sure what I'm going to say. My roomies are trying to convince me to make a scene, but you know me.. I'd just cry or something really embarrassing. I suppose it's worth a shot, but I don't want to go through all that turmoil and not have it paid off. Should I just leave it? Or should I go and get embarrassed and possibly make a bad situation even worse?

February 7

Sydney's fantastic these days! There's a pool across the street from my house, so I've been going swimming a lot. I haven't heard much back from any of the MANY design agencies that I've been in contact with, so I'm biding my time at a local cafe while I wait to hear back from a better job. I've never waited tables before, and I'm actually really enjoying it. I'm meeting lots of new people and the cafe is really nice.
I've been spending my weekends out with the football guys & their friends. It's nice to have some friends, although they'll never live up to those back in London. The people I live with are great too, we walk around the city or go for drinks sometimes after work. It's a pretty great lifestyle

January 28

**Here's my house and part of my street! It's the blue/white one. It doesn't look too bad from the outside, does it!**
On Wednesday night, I went up to New Castle for Monique's birthday. It was a great night with Debbie, Laura, Mark & Monique, catching up and talking until about 10pm. We didn't get back to Mt Kuring-Gai until about 11:30, so I stayed the night at Debbie's because I didn't want to ride the train so late at night. I just got up extra early to catch the train to work.
The sample sale was so fun to work at! There were SO many people everywhere trying to get deals on all of the clothing.. trying it all on in the hallways and stuff, hilarious. My boss gave me a very cute vest just because I said I liked it, but I forgot it there, so sad. It was my last day of working at Longbeach on Friday, so I won't be able to get it back.
I went out last night with some people from my house to a place in Kings Cross called World Bar. That's where Matt works!! He was working behind the bar and ended up giving me free drinks all night! What a great night it was! This weekend is Australia day, so there are all kinds of things going on in the city. There's a free concert in Hyde Park that I went to on Saturday afternoon. I spent the day wandering around the city, looking at all the street performers they had going on for the occasion. The weather has been perfect lately! So nice and sunny and warm.

January 23

I'm at work right now (hehe, don't tell anyone)
I'm working at 'Longbeach Australia'. It's a clothing company. I sit at reception and answer phones, receive & send packages and do odd jobs while everyone else does fashion related stuff in the background. It's great! There is going to be a 'sample sale' of new fashions on Thursday, VIP for staff only.. it's just like in the movies! While I work, there are clothes everywhere & if I was a fashion designer instead of a graphic designer, it would be absolutely perfect! I really enjoy the job, but it's not enough hours for me (I get off at 3 every day). I'm going to be working this week until Friday and then the placement agency is going to find me something new. This whole temp agency thing is pretty great for me right now, actually. I can't work anywhere for too long because I'm a traveller, but I get the opportunity to see a lot of different parts of Sydney and meet lots of Australian people. I'm still hoping that the father of a firend-of-a-friend is going to call me with a graphic design job, but it's been a few days since I talked to him and I haven't had any luck yet. There's still lots of time though, so I'm not too worried.
The house that I live in has been working out great. I went out on Monday night with everyone for a girl's birthday party. Almost everyone in the house is a traveller, so there are people there from all over the world.
Last night I went up to Mt Kuring-Gai to see Debbie and Laura because I thought we were going to go to New Castle for Monique's birthday. As it turns out, the day was switched to TONIGHT, so us ladies just went to see a movie instead. I'm headed back there tonight to go & see Monique for her birthday.
It was raining for about 4 days straight once I moved into the city, so I wasn't having much luck with getting around. Everything was really dreary, but the last couple of days have been great weather & I'm in High spirits again! Loving the city life in Sydney!!

January 17

**Here's one end of my room. The other side is just the end of the bed and wall. It's tiny, I know.**
I'm all moved into my new place!
Deb gave me a ride to the train station so that I didn't have to walk all of the hills with my luggage. I have an extra bag now because Monique lent me heaps of nice work clothes plus I have some residual Lindsay stuff.. so it was a little more difficult to get around with my life's belongings. When I got to the station (getting on and getting off) I had to take 2 flights of stairs. I cannot believe how fantastic Australians are! Both stairs I had some fantastic stranger helping me with my bags. How nice!
So, I got here and put my stuff down and spent the afternoon looking around at the surroundings as well as buying odds and ends. I needed all the bed stuff, so my room looks fantastic now!
I had my favourite cheap thai food for dinner and sat in the common room and met some of the people living in the house. They're all really nice.. I'm really forcing myself a bit here. Part of me really wants to be comfortable with friends that I know.. but I suppose the point here is to put myself out on a limb, so here goes!! ay ay ay
I'm waiting to see how comfortable my bed is going to be. It's SO little. Can't wait for tomorrow to hang out with Matt!

January 15

I've been busy working the last couple of weeks. It's a terribly boring job.. so I quit. HA. I asked the placement agency to find me something better (since they're making heaps of cash from ME working) and tomorrow's my last day at General Electric. I'm so excited not to have to go back there anymore to type!
On the weekend, I went downtown & out again with Matt. We had a blast as usual. On Saturday I spent the day wandering the shops and reading in the park. It was a gorgeous day. I finally had sushi!! I absolutely loved it & don't know why I didn't let Lindsay force me into it earlier. The Sushi train is so fun.
I finally got my own place. It's right downtown, in the middle of everything. It's on a cute street and has a cute outside bit. On the inside it's a little like a dorm... a huge house converted into 20 bedrooms with a big kitchen, 4 bathrooms and a big common area. It was the absolute cheapest thing I could find (actually, my room is the size of a closet. It probably was a closet that they turned into a room. ha, the door can't open all the way because it hits the single bed. Good thing I don't have anything but me to put in there!) I'm going to move in on Thursday. Debbie has wonderfully offered to drive me down to the city with my luggage, but I might end up doing it on my own. I'm pretty embarrassed about how small my room is & I don't want her to worry!! I will make sure to post a picture of my place & street (but probably not room) on here as soon as I get there & settled in.
I'm planning on going to the beach with Matt on Friday before we go out for a night on the town again. OH what a life!!! Not a care in the world.. almost

January 5

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!


**Here I am at the concert with my friend George.. Lindsay & I met him back in Byron Bay!!**
I went into Sydney 2 days before NYE to hang out with Matt again. We had a great time going out downtown & It was great to see him again!
I had my interview on Monday morning. It went very well, I was called about an hour later with a job offer. I'm working at GE Australia.. it was supposed to be a reception position, but so far it's only been data entry. I don't like it at all, so I'm looking for something else while I work there to make a bit of money.
New Years was a blast!!! I went to a party at Bondi Beach first & met SO many Australians. We made our way to the concert (it took FOREVER to get in because of the line-up) and saw the concert. Sneaky Sound System was GREAT!!! Download a couple of their songs.. 'pictures' and 'ufo' they're so good. I don't entirely remember some of the night, but for the count-down I was right up by the stage, it was fantastic! We were at the concert until about 3am and then off to a house party. I was really surprised when the sun came up, hahaha, didn't get to sleep until about 6 or 7am.
New years day was good. I made it back to Debbie's place in the evening. Just enough time to get to sleep for work the next morning. At my job, no one talks to anyone. & when they do I don't understand them because of their thick Indian or Japanese accents. I'm super bored.. but on Friday I had to go home early because I worked too fast and they didn't have anything else for me to do. I'll remember that.. I'll just work slower so that I can get paid for a full day.
I went into the city on Thursday night to go out with some friends that I made on NYE. It was a great time again & I'm really starting to enjoy the life I've got going on here. They are always making fun of my accent (which I love, obviously) I can't say 'about' without someone repeating 'aboot'
I've been looking for a place to live closer to the city. Debbie contacted one of her friends' sons who who is starting to look for a room-mate. I got into contact with him and he's going to give me a call about seeing the place! How exciting!! it's only $100 per week.
Debbie's daughter, Laura's, boyfriend has a friend who's dad is a graphic designer. (I know, a long string of people) He talked to him about me and after I called on Thursday, I sent him my resume. I'm waiting for a reply, but he told me over the phone that we might be able to set up a time to meet next week! I would be so thrilled to work with him!! Fingers crossed!!
Well.. that brings me to today. It was a quiet one, it rained today for the first time in a while, so I stayed indoors. Laura and Deb are out for the night, so it's just me and the TV. It's been a long time since I had a night all by myself. I'm really going to enjoy it.
I'm not feeling as homesick as I was over Christmas (although, OBVIOUSLY I miss my family, friends & Canada like crazy). But, now that the holidays are over and I'm getting into the swing of life, it's been easier. I just can't wait to find a NEW job and a place in the city. :)