Developments

Sorry to those of you who have been checking regularly--life happened, and I have been a bit distracted.


Since we last met I:

-went to Canberra for a two day vacation that turned into a three day disaster (think Gilligan's Island-- "a three hour tour... a three hour tour"

-Got another job (woot! but then also "bummer" because who likes working?)

-lost one of the jobs I thought I had...

-turned in a bunch of major assignments

and
-had a rockin' ANZAC Day!

So,
Canberra was cool. It's the capital, did you know? It's a planned city, so it's basically like a big park. Also, the Parliament house (on top of which you may have seen me rolling on Facebook...) was built by Hobbits. It's completely covered in grass. I had a good time.
The best part was staying in an old train car that had been converted into a bed and breakfast. It was so kitchy and creepy and awesome. (See: Facebook picture of me with the mannequin.)
The trouble started when we were on our back to Sydney. We were not even an hour out when the car started overheating ridiculously. It was raining, too. We pulled over to let it cool down and check on the coolant tank, which of course had had a crack in the lid for some time. We added water and waited a while before resuming.
In no time the car was overheating again. We pulled over yet again and began realizing we had a problem--if the only way back was to stop every 3 km and cool down, it was going to take us all night to get back. And we both had things on the next day, like schoolwork, and I had my second day at my new job.
We called everyone we could think--towing was not an option. Eventually, we managed to drive the thing into the nearest backwater, Goulburn--Google it. On second thought, don't.
Before we got there, driving at 15km/hr to keep the temp gauge under H, the engine started to make weird noises, like when your pants are in the dryer and you realize you left things in the pockets. The engine died a couple times, but, as I've already told you, we arrived in the relative safety of Goulburn after only two or so hours of slow anguish. We knew we would have to stay there for the night. (Who knew they had Best Westerns in Australia???)
At the gas station, I saw a very overweight man in a dirty, white wife beater and shorts, barefoot, with an armful of soda, beer, and snacks. No one batted an eye. We had apparently broken down in bogan hell.
In the morning, we found a mechanic and they told us we had a blocked radiator. Rather than pay the $500 and wait all day to repair the thing properly, we went around the corner to the radiator specialists and had the thing experimentally blasted with gamma rays or something to do what they called a "power flush". It ended up being pretty cheap, and, boy-howdy, it worked! Of course, this wasn't before we saw the shopping mall rendition of Australian Idol for prepubescents... My ears and eyes will never be the same.
But we made it back in time for the second day of my new job at Crust.


Crust is the pizza place where I work now, rolling dough like a master, in addition to my job teaching at the weekend school for try-hard Asian kids. That job continues to be good, and we have just started the new term. I look forward to getting to know the kids: I have four classes, each with 12-15 students. And the best thing about both of these jobs is that they pay a whole lot more than their American counterparts would, which makes the bitch of living in such an expensive city that much better.

I may have told some of you about a note-taking job I was doing for the office of students with disabilities at UNSW. Well, on the day I finally filled out the paperwork with the assurance that my services were indeed needed, I was sent an email telling me the kid had withdrawn from the class and that I wasn't needed after all... Super lame. But it's ok because I was going to have a hard time keeping three jobs under the 20 hour per week limit stipulated on my student visa.


And other than that, I have just been busy with assignments. I even had two major ones due on the same day, followed by a mid-semester exam. That was cool, but nothing compared to the day I have coming on May 13th--I have two major assessments and an in-class presentation! Wish me luck. (It's not as bad as I make it sound.)


ANZAC Day is basically like Memorial Day and Veterans Day all wrapped into one. We went to a BBQ at a local national park. It was rather pretty.


Now to stop procrastinating. Big-W (the Walmart proxy)sells yarn and I just stocked up. I haven't worked less in weeks. It's been great.


Talk to yous all soon.

Love