8.5 minute update

At a hostel in Fox Glacier - we were stranded here last night due to torrential rains! I don't think our little tent would have held up, especially since the insane wind in Dunedin already broke one of the poles. NZ, you are a wild, magnificent country!!

We are honestly NOT on vacation - this is a whirlwind tour. We've already driven 2000 km in a week...Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown, Fox Glacier...tonight we were supposed to stay at a beautiful looking campsite way up north but Jeremy has assessed the situation and apparently it's going to be too far for the things we're doing tomorrow. Luckily, he found another one that has hot springs!! These campsites are AMAZING. They are Department of Conservation campsites and they range from $5 - $10 per person. You just put the money in a little plastic bag that they provide and into a slot, and the rangers collect it at their leisure. Some of them are really remote and the scenery is unbelivable. The one we were at two nights ago was the most wonderful place EVER!! Right in the middle of the mountains and beside a crystal clear (cold!!) lake, which we obviously had to have two swims in.

Alright, my time on this computer is about to run out. 4 hour drive this morning to get to glow worm caves, then 2 hours to our campsite (cross your fingers the roads aren't flooded, we had a bit of a wild drive yesterday - mountain waterfalls pouring ONTO the road!!)

xox

Rainrainrainrainrainrainrain!

Officially finished my last summer class!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay for me, yay for my class, we are all awesome. Placement will fly by, and before we know it, it'll be semester 1, year 2.

Tomorrow we fly to Christchurch! We have a pretty strict itinerary and lots of driving to do. Hopefully it won't be constantly raining there since 90% of our trip will be spent in a tent! So excited to see Milford Sound, go tubing through glow worm caves, go on a Marlborugh wine tour, and just take in all the gorgeous scenery. I'm nervous about Auckland and being completely alone in an unfamiliar city, but the experience will be incredible. I won't see my friends for two whole months!

We've had an action packed weekend filled with great people. Friday night I went to Punjabi Palace (best Indian food ever) with Hayley, Jess, Leanne and a bunch of random physio students. Then we met up with Jeremy, Lindsay, Alastair, Hannah, and Jen in West End and had a couple of drinks, played pool, chatted, etc. It was really nice. Hayley is gone - she should be in Canada by now, despite missing her flight from Sydney to LA because her Brisbane flight was delayed. Lots of hugging and lamenting about how much we'd all miss each other. Jess stayed at our place Friday night and Jen came over Sat morning and we made a delicious brunch of bacon, eggs, and blueberry buttermilk pancakes with real maple syrup. The girls then watched Bring it On (somehow couldn't convince Jeremy.....strange), then more hugging. Jess will be away on her rural placement when I get back. She's furious - she got a tiny town called "Miles" 4.5 hours away from Brisbane. They had to preference their rural choices and it was her 27th choice! Yikes. Jen is taking off for Japan right after Christmas but she'll be around when I get back. The rest of the day was spent getting ready for our trip. Vacuuming, packing, etc. That night we headed to the German Club to meet up with my friend Alyssa from class. It was her boyfriend's birthday and she had said earlier in the week to Jeremy that him and Rob (her bf) would be sure to get along because "they are both tall". Always good criteria for a new friend! Hehehe. We had a great time at the German Club, and then I had a really nice chat with Gran on Skype until my credit was almost out! Jeremy was in the other room Skyping with his family, so we got to talk to them as well and have a good look at Caleb, who is adorable!

I'm about to go to Garden City and meet up with Marion, then maybe squeeze in a visit with Sarah and Aisling. Then tomorrow...well, we're really off to NZ!!!

Well, Australians, I hope you've now gotten into the Christmas spirit - 32 degrees and HUMID today!!! I spent the day at the DFO with Jen and Jess, looking for my secret santa present for a girl in my class. In the end, I bought her pajama pants. Good fallback! Jeremy and I then met in the city - he was hot and miserable. We were productive though - bought an inflatable mattress and pump for our big camping trip. Honestly, we camped in Stanthorpe and I made fun of Jeremy for being "old" because he was complaining about not having a mattress. "We'll be fine," I said. "We have these camping mats." We were not fine. A mattress is good. Sleep is important, especially if we're going to be in a car together for hours at a time every day!! We came home and were lazy for a bit, then made up a picnic and biked to a spot near the river. It was a lovely spot. It's dark now and still 25 degrees...and it's only going to get worse!

So I was thinking, we've been here almost two years and what have I done?
- Sydney x 2
- Stradbroke Island
- Cairns
- Coff's Harbour
- Bundaberg
- Byron Bay x 2
- Newcastle
- Melbourne x 2
- Moreton Island
- Sunshine Coast (Noosa, etc)
- Gold Coast
- BRISBANE!

Pretty darn good, I must say.

Tomorrow Hayley is having a circus themed Christmas Party. I am going to be a tiger. I bought facepaint and will be attaching orange fabric to a black skirt and shirt to make tiger stripes. Jeremy found a clown mask (complete with hair!) for $1.50. Then, life must be once again dedicated to studying for the next week..................till.................freedom!

Blurble blurble

It's funny to see people's status updates which say things like "this weather is really hindering my ability to get into the Christmas spirit". They're not talking about a lack of snow, but instead the fact that it's been raining constantly (and no sign of letting up in the next week, forecast says rain every day!) and it's much cooler than normal for this time of year. Apparently we just had the wettest spring in over 100 years!! We're not complaining...okay fine, we're only complaining a bit. Jeremy is so happy and thinks every rainy, cooler day is a blessing. I enjoy not being saturated with sweat constantly, but being soaked with rain is sometimes only marginally better.

The weekends go by too quickly, even though I have three day weekends. Today (Sunday) was my only day to sleep in out of the three. Friday morning I had a meeting with Anne and Lucy, some of the placement coordinators. It looks like this NZ placement is really really happening! They're pretty excited about it, and so am I. I get to be at a communication group for people with aphasia for the first two weeks, and then the last four weeks in a rehab hospital. EXACTLY what I would have chosen. Sooooo cool! They said I have to take pictures and I'll be "on the circuit' telling other students about the experience when I get back. I was up early again on Sat because I had to update my CPR certification. All the hidden costs in these programs - argh!!! So that was 2 hours of my life that I'm not getting back, but now I have a handy dandy little certificate. After CPR, Hayley, Nicole and I decided to go visit Jules and Chickpea (aka Billy, her 4 week old son). We drove through torrential rain to Jules' new house in Woolloongabba and spent a few hours cuddling the baby and eating large amounts of curry.

This week, we'll finish off our motor speech lectures with the pediatric content (bleeeeeh...not exciting to me...) and then the following week, exams! Exams, end of summer class dinner, and speechie secret Santa. I really like my class!! They're a great bunch. Then two weeks of holidays, six weeks of placement, followed by another week or two of holidays and then year 2, semester 1 begins. I think when that happens, I'll be able to start tasting the closeness of almost being done.............just have to make it through.

We did it

Dear Australia Blog,

Jeremy and I received our results via text message this evening at around 11:30 pm. We both did it! We passed! My goal was three 7s...let's just say I got 2/3 and Advanced Research Methods wasn't my best friend...but I got top marks in the two Speech Pathology subjects and that freaking kicks asssssssssssss.

Busy busy! The summer semester is in full swing, and as much as I hate waking up early every day, I feel much more accomplished and productive than I did last semester when our classes started at 2 pm. The same day that classes started (last Monday), I also started a free lululemon sponsored thing called "12 days of fitness". My friend Lisa is a lululemon lover. For those who don't know, lulu is a Canadian store (which I think has now been bought out by an American company) which sells yoga/fitness clothes for exorbitant prices, guaranteeing that I will never own any of their stuff. The clothes are supposed to be excellent quality, durable, long-lasting, etc...and I've also heard rumours that the pants make your butt look really good. Anyway, this store is putting on the 12 days of fitness: Every Mon, Tues, Wed, and Thurs for three weeks there is a different free fitness class in the store. Today will be the 6th day of fitness. We've already done ACROYOGA (yoga + ACROBATICS, so cool!!), regular yoga, yoga + pilates type thing, African dancing (awesome), and circuit training (that was last night - really intense/sweaty and a great work out...damn you, burpees!) Tonight we're doing this weird sort of dance thing called NIA and tomorrow will be Burlesque! I like it - it's free, gets me out of the house, and it's active. Lisa, Hayley, Lynn (one of the physios), Leanne (roomie) and I are doing it.

Speaking of Leanne, today was her last day as our roomie. She found a really nice place about a 5 minute walk from us - her room has a gorgeous balcony and it's a house with an inground pool. It was fun having her here and I wish we hadn't promised the room to the med student from Ottawa who's coming in January because Leanne would have stayed and we all got along very well!

18 more days till Christmas holidays! 20 more days till J and I leave for our NZ trip! Appoximately 35 more days till I start my 6 week block placement in Auckland! Jeremy's rural placement is his second rotation...so I'll be away for 6 weeks, then I come back and a month later he leaves for two months...not to mention, he wants to do his last rotation in Canada so we'll be apart for almost 6 months in 2011!! That won't be the greatest but we'll manage.

We've been extremely lucky with the weather here so far (knock on wood!!) Last year at this time, it was crazily hot and humid. It's stayed pretty steady the last couple of weeks between 25 - 28, which is bearable. Go a bit higher than that and J and I are both fairly miserable. We put our pool up yesterday - haven't tested it out yet though.

Oh well, better go change and hop on the bus for tonight's lulu class!

Half, for real

It's official! Jeremy and I are both HALF done. Yay, the whole thing is very exciting.

Yesterday was our only true day of being "on holiday" and I spent the day watching Gossip Girl with Lisa and then biking over to UQ to take part in an OzTrekk lunch. All of the new Canadian speech pathology students and physio students who'll be starting this year were there, as was one of the reps from OzTrekk. It was really good to meet her - she was always so helpful with any questions I had and so friendly too! The new students got to ask us a bunch of questions and we gave them a little tour of campus. I wish there had been something like that last year when we were starting. I think it's a really great idea to get current student's perspectives and I think we gave them some good advice. There was a girl there who was in a similar situation to me - her boyfriend is starting med this year and she's starting speech path...she's also from Ottawa...unfortunately out of everyone, she really rubbed me the wrong way so I don't think we'll be best friends any time soon. All the other girls were really lovely though - super friendly and chatty and looking forward to the program. If only they knew what they're in store for!! Muahahahaha!

Our temp housemate, Leanne, got a chance to talk to some of the people who will be in her program and I think she's going to move in with a couple of the girls she met. Hopefully it takes them a little while to find a place, because the extra money is quite handy!!

Today I'm going to my friend Marion's engagement party! I have to miss her wedding because I'll be in New Zealand and I'm a bit said because I was really looking forward to it. Today should be fun though. I'm not sure Jeremy is as keen on going as I am...oh well! My friend Amy is picking us up and I haven't seen her in a couple of months. The last time was at my birthday party at the end of Sept, when she revealed that she was pregnant with twins! It'll be nice to catch up with her.

Tonight is our awesome neighbour De's 50th birthday party. I also think that will be quite enjoyable. She's such a hilarious, amusing person. It's also very convenient, since it's right next door!

I guess I should start getting ready - the engagement party is semi-formal, so I must be presentable!!!

One of the med students in Jeremy's class died Saturday night in a car accident after the Halfway Dinner. We didn't know him but it still makes me really sad. He was 22 and celebrating being half done med school. Thoughts & prayers to his family.

Half!

Can you believe that it's been almost two years since Jeremy and I moved to Brisbane? I can't...it's flown by. In a couple of hours, Jeremy will be officially half finished his medical degree and fully done the university/classes component. I'm very proud of him! He studies very hard and is very dedicated and I'm looking forward to hearing about his adventures during rotations. I have a little bit longer to go before I can say I'm half done - one week and one day from now will be my halfway point. Today we had our first exam (dysphagia) and I think/hope I did quite well. The big scary one is this Saturday at 8 am - Cognitive Communication. Blech. At least it will be done and over with, and then next week I have Stats/Research Methods and a video exam for cog comm.

I'm heading over to UQ in a bit to meet up with J after he finishes his exam. We're going to have a picnic with Jen and Sean before going to The Regatta, which is the official Trephine magazine launch. Trephine is the med student magazine and it's basically for the students finishing second year. It's sort of like a year book...pictures, articles, a write up about each student...so that will be fun. Tomorrow and Friday are for studying like mad!!

Our temporary roommate from Edmonton, Leanne, arrived yesterday. She'll be starting a physiotherapy degree in a couple of weeks and is staying with us (and paying...YES!) while she settles in and looks for a place. Sadly, she's not doing too well - she has a stomach bug and has been holed up in her room all morning. how stressful - I can imagine she has all these things she wants to take care of (banking, getting a phone/student card/GO card, etc) but what can you do when you're not feeling well?? I hope she recovers soon! That plane ride is brutal. At least she has a nice cozy room to sleep in and isn't in some hostel sharing with a bunch of random people. Jeremy will also be able to help her out a bit since he'll have a break from school work.

Well, wish us luck!! Next time I write, hopefully I'll officially be a half speechie! ;)

Kerbside Kollection

Things we have gotten for free in the last three days:

- FUTON!!!!!!!!!!!! (really good condition, large, sturdy etc)
- desk
- chair
- random magazines
- wicker basket
- salad spinner
- tennis rackets
- painting

Seriously, this is brilliant. It's like a giant garage sale where everything is free! The Brisbane City Council sets aside one day each year per suburb where people can put out their unwanted goods which are large/more than the average rubbish pick-up will take. We had a little prowl around on Sunday and got most of our small items. We helped our friend Lisa bring home an outdoor plastic table which is the one thing she was looking for. Today, we were in a car on the way home and spotted a futon in perfect condition sitting at the side of the road not too far from our house. We passed it by, but both Jeremy and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so we called Lisa and asked for her assistance to get it back to our place. After a pretty decent labour in the heat, we are now the proud owners of a giant futon which I am actually currently sitting on. It solves the problem of "Oh God, my parents, Grandmaman, and cousin Marissa are all supposed to be here at the same time - where will we put them????????????" and also just allows extra random sleeping space for guests. YAY - KERBSIDE KOLLECTION is my new favourite day of the year!

How adorable

So I've become really good friends with Hayley, a girl in my class from Vancouver. Her birthday is coming up - actually the same day as my dad's, Nov 16th. Apparently she talks about me a lot, because a little while ago her mom contacted me over Facebook to ask me what she should get Hayley for her birthday. There was a sense of urgency since she was going to visit her son in Africa in a week and wanted to get Hayley's present and send it to her so it would arrive in time for her birthday and she needed to do it before she left for Africa. What do you say when someone you've never met asks you that?? Hahahaha. The day after getting the message, Hayley and I went to the Valentino exhibit and I tried to slyly question her..."So, the shopping in Brisbane is different from Canada...what's your favourite store here?" It didn't quite work out..."Well, I like City Beach but it's too expensive, etc etc". In the end I told her mom a gift certificate to one of the big shopping centres was probably her best bet. Her mom liked my idea and sent me another message saying thanks for the input, but more importantly thank you for being such a good friend to her daughter. It was very cute and I appreciated it! Her mom actually accompanied her to Australia last November when she first got her and they stayed in a hotel together, but I didn't meet her. I was busy finishing up my time at SpeechNet and preparing to start the program, so I didn't meet Hayley until right before we started Anatomy. I really can't believe it's been a year. I have definitely met some amazing friends in my class who I will keep in touch with when we all go our separate ways, both Australian and Canadian. It both excites and saddens me to think about being done. Don't get me wrong - I WANT to finish and make money, but these people are wonderful and in just a year we've become really close.

To research or not to research?

The speech path program is structured interestingly here, in that you get to choose whether you want to do the research stream or not. I'm not sure that it's an option in Canada, and for this reason I feel that I should do the research so that I can have at least one publication out of my master's and be competitive with people graduating from Canadian schools.

This semester we had a class called Advanced Research Methods. We had to get into groups of 3 and choose a project from a list provided by the school. My group and I chose "Who gets most aphasia therapy?" Based on our project, we each had to do a literature review which was worth 40% of our grade. We then had to work as a group to submit an ethics protocol for the proposed project. The rest of our mark for the course is made up of a few stats assignments and the final exam. When it comes time to decided research/non-research for next year, if all members of the group decide to stay involved, that means your project will definitely go through. Sadly...I'm the only one of my group who still wants to do research. In that case, I'll be put with a random group that someone has dropped out of and work on their project. I was not all that pleased with how this works, until I talked to a girl in my class who has an opening in her project 'Aphasia & Smartphones". I am actually way more excited about this project than the one I was previously working on, AND the advisor is a lady named Bronwyn who has done a lot of work in aphasia research. Not to mention, she's just lovely and I get such a good vibe from her. So excited!!! I won't get put with a random group whose research I hate! Yay!!

Last night I caught up with Mike and Annette while Jeremy studied. Annette had her grandsons over. They're 5 and 3 and a handful! A cute handful, but...wow!! She takes care of them a lot. They are lucky kids. So naughty! Sticking hands in the jam jar, putting the hose in the house, jumping on the couch...hahaha. It had been awhile since I had last talked to them so it was nice just to spend some time over there. Today Sarah is having a German themed party with bratwurst, sourkraut and home-brewed beer. Tonight we must make an appearance at a Halloween party. Following these exciting events will be a full week of study.

Spring has sprung

The trees are purple and it's time for study.

In a couple of weeks, both Jeremy and I will be HALF DONE our courses! Exciting, yes? Well, it is to me. Jeremy is really looking forward to years 3 & 4 where he'll be doing clinical stuff the whole time. He gets the whole summer off - well deserved, I suppose :P I get a whole 3 days off before returning to UQ for the summer semester. 3 days!!! Wow. We get 2 weeks off at Christmas, which I am looking forward to a lot...I want it to be now! After Christmas, the GEMS (Graduate Entry Master's Students, that's me, I'm a GEMS!!) go on our 6 week block placements. We've been placed all around Queensland - some people in Cairns, Toowoomba, Rockhampton...I realize these names won't mean much to you, except possibly Cairns! I applied to do mine in New Zealand. It was the first year it was ever an option, and I was notified that I was the student chosen to go. GREAT!!!! Except now the whole thing looks like it's going to fall through. If I don't go to NZ, I have a placement in Logan - a Cornwall-esque town about half an hour outside of Brisbane. I'll be in the acute adult ward of a hospital and I'm basically having a heart attack thinking about it. I'll be working with people who've had laryngectomies, who have trachs in, swallowing problems, etc etc etc. I wanted rehab............but this will be a really good learning experience! Dysphagia is scary but an essential part of a speech path's caseload, especially in hospitals.

This Friday is my last UQ clinic day of the semester. I'm relieved that it's over. As far as clinics go, it wasn't horrible, but literacy/spelling aren't my favourite areas to vdo therapy in and we actually haven't had any classes relating to these things which made it that much more difficult!

Meeting the Neighbours

Sydney St is a good place for neighbours, especially after crazy tennis ball throwing lady moved out from next door. The other week we were just sitting around the house quietly on a Saturday evening and a random lady came to the door. Turns out it was our neighbour Dee who we hadn't met before, inviting us to a housewarming party she was having later that night. We actually ended up stopping by for a bit and they were lovely! She is studying Fine Arts at the moment and her partner Graham is just finishing up everything he needs to be a practicing lawyer. She was previously married for 24 years and when they split up she decided to do something she had always wanted to do! Very awesomely cool. In her spare time, she has a part-time job as a life drawing instructor for bachelorette parties. Seriously?? How hilarious is that? I really like them.

Today we met some across the street neighbours, Phil and Rica. He offered us the use of his lawnmower (recent rain caused some crazy sudden growth) and we chatted for awhile. Turns out he's from Brisbane but just recently moved back after living in Portland, Oregon for 18 years. He said to Jeremy: "Have you figured out where to get any good IPA around here yet?" which totally had us stumped. IPA...what could that possibly be? Well, as a matter of fact it stands for India Pale Ale and was quite amusing because Jeremy was wearing an Alexander Keith's t-shirt. Oops. Acronyms.

So it's funny - we now know most of the neighbours on our street...well, at least the cool end of the street. Sydney St is kind of an S shape so we really just count our loop of the S...the other people aren't important! Hahaha.

Thanksgiving in the Sun?

Sure enough, due to the massive amounts of pouring rain our big Thanksgiving event was cancelled. We were lucky enough to be invited to our Canadian friends Kristen and Mike's place to partake in a substitute dinner. Even though they only live about a 20 minute walk away, Mike graciously insisted on picking us up since the weather was so wet and rainy and dreary! We feasted on roast chicken, pork, scalloped potatoes, and veggies with M, K, and another couple...whose names I kind of forget...possibly Matt and Jessie? It's not that often that we hang out with two other married couple but this was the case! Matt and Jessie are actually American and will be leaving in a couple of months because Matt is doing something called the Ochsner program, where you do the first couple of years in med school in Australia, but do your rotations/clinical stuff in 3rd and 4th year in the US. We don't know them very well, but Mike and Kristen have become great friends with them.

Alright, so for fun I've been looking up details about the current weather, and I know it will probably seem silly to Canadians who have to deal with blizzards, etc...but here's an article from the Brisbane Courier Mail:

SEVERE thunderstorms have swept across Queensland's southeast, with flash-flooding washing away hundreds of cars down Brisbane roads.

The storms struck at about noon (AEST) today, producing thousands of lightning strikes, strong winds and heavy rain.

Strathpine, Brisbane and Logan were among the hardest hit areas.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said the Brisbane CBD received more than 92mm of rain since 10am (AEST), leaving some of the city's roads under water and bringing traffic to a standstill.

Weatherzone.com.au reported the city received its heaviest 10-minute downpour of rain in at least eight years, receiving 25mm just after 11.40am (AEST).

Other suburbs that experienced heavy downfalls included Rochedale (105mm), Priestdale (99mm) and Carbrook (93mm).

In the Brisbane westside suburb of Milton, localised flooding carried cars down streets, with reports of over 200 cars being washed away between Milton and Windsor.

One Milton resident, Tom Goldman, tried to drive his car through the severely flooded Haig Road, only to have the engine stall.

Despite the damage to his vehicle, he said he had no regrets running the gauntlet through the one-metre-deep water.

"Because feeling the sensation of floating in a car down a street is something that everyone has to experience at least once in their life,'' he said.

Further down Haig Road, a commercial artist - who wanted to be known only as Raj - said the water had risen over his house's front step and damaged his carpet.

"Come in, please take pictures, it may even help me with my insurance claim,'' he said.

Vehicles in Woolloongabba and East Brisbane were also swamped and the Department of Transport's computer systems in Spring Hill were flooded, forcing the evacuation of the building's two lowest levels.

Meanwhile, the lower levels of the Bank of Queensland and Vodafone businesses in the CBD were also flooded.

Energex said more than 70,000 homes and businesses between the Sunshine Coast and Beenleigh were at one stage affected by power outages.

They have also recorded thousands of lightning strikes.

People have been warned not to swim in flooded creeks or drive their cars through floodwaters.

The Department of Community Safety says while they have not yet had to make any rescues, State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers responded to 75 jobs, including roof leaks and minor flooding.

The wild weather shut down a rail line in Brisbane and Queensland Rail (QR) has advised passengers on all train lines to expect delays of up to 30 minutes.

Alternative transport is being arranged between Dutton Park and Yeerongpilly stations, and 90-minute delays are expected, QR says.

Rail and bus passengers across the commuter network have also been warned to expect delays of up to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile the weather bureau is warning that severe thunderstorms are on the way for areas between Gympie near the Sunshine Coast and Beaudesert west of the Gold Coast this evening.

Very heavy rainfall and flash flooding are likely.

Go to The Courier-Mail for full coverage and photos

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/storms-bring-flash-flooding-to-southeast-queensland/story-e6frfkp9-1225830959904#ixzz11xijLRk8

Action de Grace

Ah, feels like home. It's been raining non stop all day today and it reminds me of when I visited Ottawa last year. Or the last couple of summers I lived in Ottawa. Sadly, we had plans for a big Canadian Thanksgiving potluck picnic at Kangaroo Point with a whole bunch of friends and it looks like the rain will continue on through the weekend. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with their families/friends and delicious food! I'm thankful for all the awesome and loving people in my life AND for almost being half done this course!!

Due to stupid caffeine intake (ONE tea at around 2 pm - body just CAN'T handle the stuff) + noisy rain/thunder + power going out and worry that I'd somehow miss my Friday morning clinic, I managed to get absolutely no sleep last night. Strangely enough, this morning's clinic was probably the best one of the semester so far. It hasn't been my favourite clinic because both of my clients have literacy/spelling issues which are not very interesting to fix. One of them is doing amazingly well and is a pleasure to work with. The other one has a hilarious and cheeky personality but never does homework, which can be quite frustrating! I think we made a bit of a breakthrough today. Only three more weeks of therapy for this semester!

Tonight we might venture out in the pouring rain to see my friend Alastair's band Inland Sea - I believe I've discussed them before. They're really quite good! Here is their website, where you can listen to some of their songs if you so desire: http://www.inlandseaband.com/ Crystal had the good fortune of seeing them with us while she was visiting - wish she was here again to dance it up with me!

I am a spoiled girl

It's my first birthday in Australia! I have had a wonderful day and it's not over yet. Jeremy is in the kitchen whipping up homemade perogies, greek salad, and haloumi (all my random requests, which I was half-joking about, but then I came home to him punching perogy dough). How many people can say they have a gourmet cook for a husband? Hehe. Last night on my "birthday eve" he made stuffed potatoes and broccoli cheddar soup.

The weather could not have been more amazing! After a couple of weeks of a fair bit of dreary rainy weather, the sun broke through and it was HOT (but not too humid). I was biking along the bridge, enjoying the breeze, not getting attacked by birds, and all was right with the world! The only time today that I was uncomfortably hot is when I got back home and was listening to music. Cotton Eye Joe came on and I decided to have a little dance, so I spent the entire song jumping around and waving my arms and singing (luckily the curtains were closed) then had to turn on the fan to cool down! Opps, spoke too soon - it's pouring now but there was a really gorgeous sunset and now it's dark and I'm in the house, so I welcome the rain!

This morning I had to go to a research meeting to discuss the research protocol due in three weeks or so. That was okay since I needed to go into campus anyway to hand in my pediatric feeding assignment and then when all that was done my awesome friend Nicole bought me birthday lunch. We went to a place on campus called Genie's, which until today I had no idea existed. It's tucked away quite well, but still was fairly crowded.

Finally I must take this post to wish my most awesome JAYPEA17 another Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday was her 30th birthday, and the first one we haven't spend together in about 8 years! We managed to meet up online today while it was still her birthday in Canada and my birthday in Australia, and I thought that was really cute. I miss you a lot, Goop, and I hope we won't have too many birthdays apart because my favourite part of a birthday is sharing it with you! Awwwww...mush mush mush.

Introducing...study group!

A couple of times every semester, I spend days toiling with these people, shouting out random words like dysphagia, aphasia, and videofluoroscopy mixed in with 'You can teach that articulatory position using a train as an example: CHOO CHOO, CHOO CHOO!!' We got each other through the toughest exam period I've ever experienced (June 2010) and also managed to keep each other amused through the agony. In the cheerleading outfit, we have Hayley. She's from Vancouver and we are going to open a pirate themed clinic called Hayleana's Awesomeness when we graduate. She is hilarious and we are quite silly together but can also be fairly productive. Behind her is Alastair, the big mouth inquisitive guy in our class (we have two other guys, but they're much much much quieter). He somehow manages to balance speech path with a job as a disabilities aide worker and being an integral part of TWO bands who actually play gigs in Brisbane quite often. Impressive! We had a brief period of not getting along at first, but now we're good buddies. Then there's the crazy girl in the zebra dress. I don't have much to say about her. Continuing clockwise, it's Nicole. I think Nicole is great. She was previously a teacher until the world of speech pathology beckoned to her. She is really really funny, mostly without meaning to be and if I sit beside her in class a laughing fit will usually take place. Last but not least, in the front is Jules! Jules has a great wry/sarcastic sense of humour and is quite smart as well. She is the oldest of the bunch, having worked in England for ten years and then doing a university degree in Linguistics and Psych complete with a 6 month exchange to Chile. She has actually now become an honorary member of study group because she's having a baby in November and so has deferred for a year.

Moreton Island (or How I Spent my Summer Vacation)

Moreton Island is a large sand island on the eastern side of Moreton Bay, on the coast of south-east Queensland, Australia. Moreton Island lies 58 kilometres northeast of the Queensland capital, Brisbane. The island is 95% National Park and a popular destination for four wheel driving, camping, recreational angling and whale watching.

Indeed, and I experienced all of those things except for recreational angling. I replaced that with sand boarding, which was an...interesting experience which I'm not sure I care to repeat. It basically is exactly what it sounds like. We took the 4WD out to a place called 'The Desert' where there are the biggest sand dunes I've ever seen, and then you hop on a board and zoom down the hill. There were different style boards - some you had to lie down on your stomach and then there were actual snowboard style ones where you put your feet in and went down standing up. Only one person was brave enough for that!! (It wasn't me). My friend Jody got a face full of sand, Lisa yelled that she feels this is only exciting if you don't have snow, and Kim and I were fairly neutral.

So the whole experience was part of a two day, one night camping trip which I have been wanting to do since we got here, pretty much. Jeremy wasn't all that excited about it, so when Lisa suggested we do it over our holiday this past week, I jumped at the chance. We managed to convince two Aussies to come along, which is quite impressive. On the ferry to the island, we saw whales leaping out of the water, which was absolutely amazing. We felt then and there that we had gotten our money's worth. We were with a tour group of 16 people - Lisa and I (the two Canadians), Kim and Jody (Australians), a father and son from Georgia, 4 Irish girls, 4 girls from
Singapore, and an Indian couple. My little posse say in the back, which - WARNING - if you're ever in a 4 wheel drive vehicle driving around a sand island, the back is the WORST place to be. Lisa and Jody, silly girls, weren't wearing their seatbelts and we went over a particularly large bump, which caused them to fly so high they actually smacked their heads on the ceiling and Lisa broke her sunglasses. Oops. The first activity we did when we got to Moreton was snorkeling among the wrecks at Tangalooma. We saw lots of tropical fish and the wrecks were really cool to see - I was terrified of brushing up against one and cutting myself on the barnacles...luckily, that didn't happen!

Sadly, the weather was not the most cooperative. We had time to hike up a mountain-ish type thing and take some breath-taking pictures, as well as hear some history about the island. We then made our way to the campsite and discovered that half the tents were soaking wet and had lakes of water inside. GREAT!!!! It was pouring pretty hard at this point so we pretty much just crammed ourselves under the two tarps and played cards. The Irish girls (of course) were the only ones who had thought to bring booze, but the girls from Singapore taught us some fun card games and we had a lot of fun!

We managed to find a tent that wasn't saturated and Lisa and I turned in at the wild and crazy hour of 9:55 pm. Cue discussion of what would happen if we woke up to a spider crawling on one of us in the middle of the night...amid the hysterical laughter, all of a sudden lisa realized that there actually WAS a giant huntsman spider in our tent just hanging out on the ceiling. Laughter turns to shrieking, then more laughter as I try to entice Lisa to pose with the spider (she refused). Finally, our Australian friend Jody came to the rescue, coaxing the spider outside. Obviously, after that we had to do a thorough check of every corner of the tent before we were even slightly ready for bed.

Huntsman spiders (Sparassidae, formerly Heteropodidae) is a family of spiders also known as the giant crab spiders, due to their appearance. While frequently very large – in Laos, Heteropoda maxima males can attain a legspan of 250–300 mm (9.8–11.8 in) – they are not deadly to humans. They do bite if provoked, but the victim will suffer only minor swelling and localized pain, and will recover in a day or two. Some larger types resemble tarantulas. Huntsman spiders can generally be identified by their legs, which, rather than being jointed vertically relative to the body, are twisted such that the legs extend forward in a crab-like fashion.

Can I just say - NOT something you want to be sharing a tent with!!!!!

The next day we got to swim in some beautiful fresh water lagoons, tried out surfing, and did some more ocean swimming. All in all, a great trip with many memorable events!

Bloody Bridges

Oh hi.

I'm here to tell a random story.

Every weekday, I bicycle across a bridge called the Eleanor Schonell Bridge which is more often called the Green Bridge. One side of the bridge is for pedestrians, the other side is for cyclists, and buses go down the middle. Every so often, you'll get a pedestrian on the bike side (or vice versa) which is just kind of irritating. I mean, there are very clear signs telling you what each side of the bridge is for. Last Friday I was biking home from clinic and noticed a few strange things. There were a few cops on the UQ side of the bridge and as I biked across there were a lot more pedestrians than usual. It quickly became evident that the walking side of the bridge was closed. On the other side of the bridge, there were about four police cars and a bunch of cops prowling around. I thought it was strange, then biked away and promptly forgot about it.

That evening was my early birthday 80s murder mystery party. My friend Lisa came over early, looking very upset. She's been having roommate issues - she lives in a house with three 18 year old guys and two 19 year old girls. The boys party all the time and keep her awake and she just doesn't get along well with the girls. She had a very interesting story to tell about the bridge. Apparently one of the boys came home at around 4 am and woke her up because he was bleeding a lot. He had cut his finger extremely deeply and didn't remember doing it and had lost a lot of blood, but he was fine. The police were all over the bridge because it seems he had cut his finger at some point ON the bridge and bled so much that they thought someone had been attacked with a knife. He even managed to forget writing his initials with blood on the bridge concrete. Yikes!

Tough crowd

To anyone who reads this who also sends mail to Jeremy or me in Brisbane, take note. Our old place (8 Sydney St) has been completely torn down. There is no house, no mailbox, no ugly white concrete wall. Those have been replaced by a giant, noisy backhoe and an otherwise empty dirt lot, so I'm pretty sure any mail sent to that address will not reach us. We've been at our current address for over a year now, but every so often I would find some mail for us over at #8. So just a reminder:

Jeremy & Leana
3 Sydney St
Fairfield QLD 4103

I wonder what they are planning to rebuild on the site. Curious to see if the owner got permission for a low-rise apartment building. I guess it's a little bit sad too. That house wasn't *really* Jeremy and Leana's house, though Tracee and Leanne will probably remember it as such. It truly was Jack and Alma's house - people we've never met, but who lived there for almost 60 years. It went through a lot, that little house, including having a truck roll down the hill and smash right into the house through the master bedroom wall. Thankfully no one was in it at the time! Beside it, there was Agnes, who lived in her house for over 60 years but shortly after we moved in had to move into a retirement home. Little pieces of Fairfield/Sydney St history are being chipped away as the Canadians watch from across the street.

Humour amid the refugee situation

Keep the boats coming, but please, future PMs, keep the Canadians out

August 12, 2010

Tony and Julia want to turn this country into an insular, isolated, boat-rejecting, immigration-slashing, closed-bordered, closed-minded bastion of fortified rackkoffff-ness, and I think that's an excellent thing. I'm fully behind them, if only to keep out the Canadians. I've got no problem with refugees coming here from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kiwistan, but something must be done to curb the influx of Canadastanis flowing across our borders like thick insidious maple syrup smothering a helpless little butterball atop a compassionate pancake short-stack.

Those Canadians, they're desperate to come here: they look at Australia and go, "Oooo, it's so much like home, same laidback lifestyle, same laconic humour, same geo-political global insignificance. I want to live there, eh." But when they get here they make no effort to assimilate like other refugees or immerse themselves into Australian society. You see them walking our city streets in small intimidating Caribou-packs, offending everyone with their culturally insensitive Roots-brand Beaver-Canoe sweatshirts. You see them working out in our suburban gymnasiums, flashing their repulsively overdeveloped moose-pecs and humming Nickelback songs, unironically. You see them in our pancake eateries, throwing forks across the table in disgust and whining to waitresses: "The amberness of this maple syrup does not appear to be of an acceptable 60.5-74.9 per cent translucency! If I'm not very much mistaken, this is mock-maple! Bring me genuine syrup IMMEDIATELY in a proper glass bottle with an impractically tiny handle for my impossibly brawny Canadian fingers!"

Yeah, yeah, here we go, all the lefties and greenies and Julian Burnside-ees are going to start prattling about how we should accept asylum-seekers of EVERY nationality, that Canadians have fled lives of great hardship, suffering under the French-Canadian fundamentalists who brutally force supermarkets to have both English and French labelling on all their merchandise, so "ketchup" is also called "ketchuppe". That Canadians have escaped the barbaric Cirque du Soleil regime which indoctrinates innocent young people and teaches them to balance on tightropes with their teeth while dressed as freaky ladyboy whore-clowns - it's so degrading.

But how are we supposed to be compassionate when newly arrived Canadians insist on keeping their ethnic culture, language, religion? When they refuse to stop speaking in their native accents. They sound like a drunken American chewing on a Mintie that's caught in the back of their retainer.

Deport the Canadians, send them back to T'rono, and before you call me a hateful anti-Canuckist, let me confess that I'm a Canadian refugee! My family fled in the early '70s, crossed the seas on a decrepit old ship - that is, a Qantas airship with no movies and my window-shutter wouldn't go all the way down. I was smuggled into Australia under my father's lumberjack jacket, hidden in his burly Canadian chest hair, my sister hidden in my mother's. We began a new life of freedom here, but my parents refused to abandon their Canadianness, made me walk to school in snow-shoes, huge tennis-racket-shaped ones tied to each foot. They wouldn't let me sing the Australian national anthem, it always had to be the Canadian anthem, Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind. So now as an adult, even though I love this country deeply, I can only speak fluent Canadian, only drink Canadian Club whiskey, only rock out to head-bangin' Canadian acts like Shania Twain and the Crash Test Dummies.

So Tony and Julia are right: immigration numbers should be slashed, but let the genuine refugees in and just stop the Canadians. And Tony and Julia, whichever of you vows to send me off to a detention centre in Nauru or East Timor - me and the only other Canadian-Australian that comes to mind, crime-writing supermodel Tara Moss, detained in a tiny isolation cell with one set of clothes and a single-bed mattress - whoever can promise that, you shall have my vote.

Oh my

I seem to remember some pole-dancing going on at our wedding. Good thing this didn't happen!

http://www.forwardon.com/view.php?e=Id12507c447b8dd854&type=featured&time=all

Aughsdjfhdjfh

I had been congratulating myself on the fact that it was now late August and I hadn't yet been attacked by a crazy winged thing slamming itself into my helmet, or worse, my face/head. I think I've had enough transport-related accidents since I've been here, thanks! Recap: Numerous ripped open bloody toes from biking with flip-flops, two broken toes, a hurt foot and lots of scrapes from a spill on the way home from work last year, whiplash and extreme arm/neck pain from giant SUV lady slamming into my poor car and wrecking it...

I still haven't been attacked but upon searching for pictures so you could see for yourselves these evil little things, I read a few articles which were worrisome. Apparently crazy season doesn't start until late SEPTEMBER - except I distinctly remember the horror last year starting in August. I may be mistaken. Perhaps I shall check my blog archives and see for myself. Great idea! Well, in any case I bike to school every day and I am REALLY crossing my fingers that there are just no crazy ones on my route. I think when that happens it will be a sign to start walking to uni again. Except...they ALSO attack people who are walking and you're much less protected because you're not wearing a helmet.

Even now I'm on the lookout. Any time I hear a bird when I'm on my bike, my head starts to frantically swivel and I start feeling panicked. I know it's not a magpie, because I know what they sound like - especially when they're on the attack - but it sends shivers of horror up my spine nonetheless. How would you feel if this was happening to you???


Winter is coming in Canada, but count yourselves lucky! First of all...I'm dreading the summer heat, ugh. I would stop biking ANYWAY since I'd arrive at class/clinic even sweatier and messier than I do when I walk...but also, you don't have to face this magpie terror which has been known to peck out the eyes of small children and adults alike!

Politics Schmolitics

I guess that since a federal election is coming up in the country I'm living in, I should probably make reference to it at least once.

The next Australian federal election will elect members of the 43rd Parliament of Australia and will be held on Saturday 21 August 2010,^[3] in which 14 million Australians are enrolled to vote.^[4] The opposition centre-right Liberal/National Coalition led by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will be the main challenger to the incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Australia has compulsory voting, and uses full-preference instant-runoff voting in single-member seats for the lower house (the House of Representatives), and single transferable vote with group voting tickets in the proportionally represented upper house (the Senate). The election will be conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission.

What's important here? Well...

a) Australia has mandatory voting

b) Liberal here = Conservative in Canada

c) Australia's first woman prime minister - let's see if she can keep it. Signs point to yes.

d) Julia Gillard wants Australia to become a republic when the Queen dies and plans to lead a national debate on the form the republic would take.

I'm tired of this already. It's not like it will affect me. Maybe one day I will be interested in politics. I had hope when I met Jeremy. I was 21, and he said he didn't care about politics till he was 23 or 24. So I thought maybe at that magical age I would suddenly care. I have passed the mystical timepoint and I still can't. As soon as anyone starts talking about it, my eyes just glaze over and I get this lost look on my face and feel incredibly stupid and uninformed. I guess if I had stuck with Journalism at Carleton, I probably would have had to keep myself up to date and knowledgeable about stuff. But as it stands, I don't get why people have political talk at dinner anyway. In my experience, it usually leads to people yelling. Celebrity gossip is MUCH more relevant and fascinating! okay...I'm just kidding about that...kinda.

Bright colours! Swirly things!

I have a dysphagia (swallowing disorder) midterm tomorrow, so clearly messing around with my blog was a productive use of my time. I did something exciting which I didn't know could be done - enabled anonymous commenting! Now anyone can comment without all that crazy rigamarole. So go ahead. You know you want to!

Jeremy and I were in the local Coles this morning and made a shocking and alarming discovery. I think I've noticed this before but hadn't actually said anything out loud. Australia does not seem to have frozen canned juice. This is just strange, because in Canada there are practically whole aisles devoted to the stuff. You can get 182 varieties of frozen orange juice. You can get a million variations of frozen "drink" - canned sugar water with 2% REAL fruit juice! Yahoo!

Jeremy says he remembers his parents buying frozen juice when he lived in Australia as a kid. So it it just Brisbane that hasn't yet seen this fantastical wondrousness? Or maybe just our Coles? Or is Jeremy wrong, and is this juiceless phenomenon Australia-wide?

Hm. This could call for some further research.

Karen - frozen canned juice in Sydney - y/n?

I wouldn't say that last semester was a cake walk, but two weeks into this semester and WOW...last one does seem pretty easy. We now have research projects on top of our school and clinic work, which I guess is par for the course in a post-grad degree, but it's completely new to me. My day today:

7:45 am - arrive at clinic. Prep. Talk to clinical educator.
8:15 - 9 am - see first new client
9 - 9:15 am -quickly write progress notes, get stuff ready for second new client
9:15 - 10 am - see second new client
10 - 11 am - Progress notes, review sessions with clinical educator
11 am-12 pm - Clinic meeting
12 pm - 1:30 pm - Research & print aphasia articles for research meeting on Mon
1:30 - 2:30 pm - Go through UQ Pal (literacy resource) Take notes for mini-presentation at next week's clinic meeting

Then: Bike home, eat lunch, and now I'm about to settle down with my lovely printed articles, a highlighter, and a pen to try to get a grasp on what the heck I'm supposed to be doing!

This looks like it will be one BORING few months in terms of social life, but on the plus side, I'll learn a lot! (and hopefully it will go by quickly) This is where I start to panic a bit and wonder if I'm really cut out for this. I mean, OF COURSE I'm going to stick with it and I really like it, but can I handle it without going crazy? Only time will tell!

Aphasia

How many people reading this know what aphasia is? Raise your hand! But don't comment, because only Tracee knows how to do that ;P

Aphasia will probably be what my life's work centres on. It's a language disability which results from damage to the language areas of the brain. Generally, the person's intellect is the same, but they aren't able to communicate at the same level they were at previous to the stroke/head injury/etc. It can affect speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension. This semester we have a class about adult neurological disorders and not surprisingly, half of it focuses on aphasia. We had a guest speaker today. She gave us "homework": To tell at least 10 people about aphasia. I'm hoping this gets to at least five?

Our guest speaker was an amazing 34 year old woman who had a brain aneurysm when she was 27 years old and eight months pregnant with her first child. She remembers having a really intense headache and being in and out of consciousness and vomiting while her husband drove her to the hospital. She woke up two weeks later with a new baby and a quarter of her skull removed. The right side of her body was paralyzed and she couldn't speak. She could remember two people: her parents. Slowly she made gains. She remembered her husband, but called him Graham (his name is Rob - Graham was the name of her boss).

Eight years post-stroke she is now a motivational speaker, has had a hand in creating the official Australian aphasia handbook for patients and their families, and owns a personal training business. She went from being in a wheelchair, to walking, then running, and then running 42 k marathons. Along the way she had successes and setbacks. The damage to her brain left her experiencing grand mal seizures. Some of the meds she's had to take have caused her hair to fall out. She quit her job, a high-level HR career. However, she loves her current job and is having much more fun at it.

Sometimes they call aphasia an "invisible" disability and listening to this woman it's easy to figure out why. She's in great shape. When she talks, she sounds almost like someone who hasn't been through all of this trauma, except every so often she pauses, or substitutes a word, or repeats herself - which any of us do on a day to day basis, hers is just a bit more noticeable (but probably wouldn't be to most people). She has to deal with things that the rest of us take for granted every day. For example, she might go to the grocery store and the clerk will say "That'll be $lskdufklsdjfdjf" and she'll take out a bill hoping that it will cover it. Or, if her two kids (now 8 and 5) are both competing for her attention in the morning, her brain can't handle it and she stops understanding what either of them are saying. How do you get a 5 and 8 year old to understand what aphasia is? They've never known her any other way. She says now that they're getting older, it can be more complicated, especially their attitudes. She might say "Can you put the peanut butter back in the freezer?" and her son will scoff and laugh at her. One day they'll realize how many amazing accomplishments she's made and how lucky they both are to be alive and have a mother who's alive, but right now they just can't grasp it. When they get a little older, they might even be angry that their mother is different. Are there support groups for this sort of thing?

My research project this year and next will focus on Aphasia and what happens when people are discharged from the hospital. What kind of therapy, if any, will they get? How is the follow-up? Is there a follow-up? How many people are actually diagnosed with it? Which hospitals are on the ball? I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do a placement in the Rehab Centre in Ottawa during my CDA program in 2008. It's really helped me realize what my passion is in this field. With anything, there's a "hierarchy" for adult speech: Laryngectomy/Head and Neck Cancer is Highest, then Acute Care, then Rehab but they're all extremely important and I think you need to have a certain personality to work with these people who have been through hell for the last few weeks of their lives and give them motivation for the long road ahead. I honestly think I can do that. I hope I can do that.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/mum-beats-aneurism/story-e6freoof-1111113136883

Thongs

I tend not to care about brand names. Unlike in high school, where it was really cool to wear a shirt with a giant ROXY emblazoned across it, now I'd actually avoid buying something for that same reason. Sometimes, though, certain brands are just better than others. This is the case with Havaianas thongs (or flip-flops, for you Canadians...flip-flops is much cuter). When Tracee came to visit in April 2009, she noticed a curious thing - a large proportion of Australians were wearing this certain type of thong. Flip-flop. Thong. I'm just going to call them flip-flops!! Go into a surf shop and you'll find a giant rack of them. Tracee did just that, and was very happy with her purchase. I made fun of her but she seemed really pleased and I finally broke down and bought some. THEY ARE THE BEST EVER. At home, I go through multiple pairs of dollar store flip-flops in a summer. They wear down like crazy and are pretty much ready for the garbage after two months. Not Havaianas! I could (and pretty much have) wear them every day for a year and they would still be great. My first pair was pink and black and they made me fall in love with the brand. I wore them for five months and then one of them mysteriously disappeared (maybe during the move?) and I was filled with sadness and regret. The other day, one of the Canadians in my class asked what shoe size I wore. I told her, and lo and behold, she had a free pair of Havaianas for me that happened to be identical to the old pair!! She had bought them for her sister, but they didn't fit, so she tried to wear them but they were too big and hurt her feet. It was like they had come full circle to me...I LOVE HAVAIANAS!! I'll never be able to wear another type of flip-flop again. I don't know what it is. They're not particularly pretty or cool looking. It must be the comfort and the durability. I have respect for that sort of thing. Too bad I can't wear Havaianas to clinic...

There is a car named after me! They got the spelling wrong though. Would anyone like to buy this for me? How cute would that be, Leana driving a Liana?

Au Revoir

Well and truly back to the grind now. Crystal spent a few more hours in Brisbane this Thursday. Unfortunately Jeremy and I were both at uni for a number of them, but we met up again and were treated to a delicious steak dinner at The Norman Hotel. Crystal is the first Canadian who has visited who hasn't been to The Broadway Hotel ($10 steak place) but there is good reason for that - it burnt down during her first few days!! Sean joined us and it was a very pleasant couple of hours until the cab came. Crystal got her hug from me (more than one), a piggyback from Jeremy, and one last chorus of "SKY RABBITS IN FLIGHT!" before she left.

Last night I caught up with my SpeechNet friends, Amy and Marion. Marion has just gotten engaged and I think that I will get to go to an Australian wedding this February! YAY! I love weddings. I was actually invited to one in April, but it was an open invitation to our whole class and I didn't know the guy very well so I opted not to go, but Marion's will be really exciting. It's going to be on Bribie Island and she will be ridiculously gorgeous and I like her boyfriend too so...yes. Fun. We had a home-cooked dinner prepared by Marion which was delicious. Some people are just good at everything they do!

Tonight some people are coming over for s'mores! Australians don't have s'mores and I was talking about them with some people from class a few weeks ago. We decided that the first weekend after classes started we would get together and enjoy this gooey concoction. Graham crackers actually don't exist here - luckily, Hayley came to the rescue and brought some from Canada so we can have true, authentic s'mores. Oddly enough, at the moment we even have a fire pit in the backyard which was used last weekend at Jen and Jeremy's birthday party. It was meant to be!

Pain

*skip this if you don't want to read about annoying medical issues*

Australia, why do you hurt me?

I've spent the last 6 weeks or so whining about being in constant pain. I've never experienced that before...you know, wondering if you'll ever NOT be in pain again? It was/is decidedly unpleasant.

This pain started during exams, and since my body and stress responses have always tended to be a bit crazy, I forgot that I had been in a car accident and thought it was weird stress pain. It was different than my usual stress reactions though and was keeping me up pretty much every night. I would call Jeremy at 4 am Australia time when he was in Canada and make him sad because I was so upset and hurting. As soon as exams were done, I went to the doctor, which led to an annoying progression:

Doctor->get x-ray->go back to doctor to have x-ray/report read->red herring anterolisthesis shown on x-ray which probably was present at birth - I just never had cause to get an x-ray before->get put on Nurafen Plus (ibuprofen + codeine), does nothing->Start taking amitryptiline (didn't spell that right, I'm sure) a tri-cyclic antidepressant which isn't actually used for depression any more due to the side effects but can be prescribed for nerve pain->pain doesn't actually go away->intensifies while trying to have fun in Melbourne, try to be stoic but fail->back to doctor (a DIFFERENT doctor, freakin school clinics)->doctor still doesn't know...

So this morning, Jeremy had a brilliant idea - Let's go see Dr Ebert! I don't know why neither of us thought of it before. Jeremy did one of his placements last year with Dr Ebert and they got on quite well. His clinic is just down the street from us and let's face it, doctors tend to be more helpful when they actually know you. So finally I think my problem is at least somewhat helped or at least diagnosed: WHIPLASH from that stupid accident...so pretty much I probably have some torn muscles/ligaments in that area and it can take up to 6 months to heal. Argh. He recommended heat, massage, and finally I have some meds that actually relate to the condition: muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory medication. He saw us right away (we actually went at the best possible time) and his rates are totally reasonable, almost unbelievably so.

So obviously I don't feel fantastic at the moment, but at least now I can hope for some improvement!

The new semester has officially begun! When it's over, I will be halfway done my program and Jeremy will be halfway done his! The med school has a giant event called "The Halfway Dinner". It's a pretty important milestone since it means that the students will be done with all the theory and discussions and PBLs and will move on to their rotations!

Today I had two classes: Clinical Management of Dysphagia and Laryngectomy and Advanced Research Methods and Statistics for Health Sciences. The Dysphagia one seems like it will be really interesting. I thought I wanted to go into acute care but now I know it's 70-80% dealing with people who have trouble with swallowing and that's not the most appealing. My first love is Rehab, where you still have to deal with that but to a lesser extent because the patients are in better condition and are ready to start with the speech/language stuff by then. Tomorrow I have Adult Neurological Disorders and I'm really excited! Last semester i just kind of got through the classes because they were part of the degree, but this semester we learn things that I'm interested in and things that I'll be doing research on a little bit this year and then a lot next year. Super awesome!

In other news, Jeremy's birthday is in two days but he celebrated Saturday night. We held a joint b-day party for Jeremy and our friend Jen at our place. First we had a select few people over for a feast. Jeremy made a roast and a delicious gravy, Jess made a roast chicken, Jen & I made the traditional meat cake for Jeremy and I made a salad that I saw in this month's Canadian Living (Thanks Kathy & Ross!) and a pretty intense Reese Peanut Butter Cup cake. I have never undertaken this sort of cake before - it needed to be a special occasion and Jen's birthday gave me a good excuse! I made two individual chocolate cakes, and as they were cooling on the rack Jeremy said "You know, my mom would slice each of those cakes in half to make it into four layers with icing between each one". I told him to be my guest and he sliced away and we ended up with a towering monster of a cake covered in peanut butter frosting and mini Reese peanut butter cups. Jen's face was totally worth it! She was quite impressed, and even managed to cut it into slices fairly well. The slices had to be slivers since the cake was so tall. I even had to share my sliver with a friend because to even eat a tiny portion of that cake is more than enough! After the dinner, more people showed up and Jeremy played a game of Otto Pig while I mingled. There was a giant bowl of punch in a bright pink container and heaps of "jelly" (Jell-O) shots. We all had a fun time and the house is still decorated with balloons and streamers and banners because Jeremy's REAL birthday hasn't actually happened yet.

Crystal has been away for almost a week on a tour of the Australian outback/Red Centre. Her tour started in Alice Springs and went up to Darwin. I'm sure she's having a wonderful time. We'll see her once more before she leaves, but only for a few hours. It was a fantastic vacation and I'm sure she'll go home with many fond memories and hopefully plans to return one day!

Aaaaaaaaaand quick summary of the rest of Melbourne: it was amazing, Crystal and I went to "Witches in Britches", we had another night with Adrian, I found a really great karaoke place, went to Phillip island and saw the little penguins (smallest penguins in the world) as well as a koala conservation park and Churchill Island, made it home safe and sound.

Now the Canadian speechie friends have come back from their trips home and with their arrival comes a fair bit of drama and the new semester. Dread dread dread. So I've been thinking...I moved to the other side of the world, which is a pretty big deal. However, I came here with Jeremy (who I happen to be married to) so it's kind of like a piece of home is always here with me. These Canadian girls pretty much came straight out of their undergrads across the ocean and into this program. They didn't know anyone at all. Some of them ended long-term relationships before moving because they couldn't imagine two years apart...others had never lived anywhere other than at home with their parents...they left friends, family and familiarity. I have the security of knowing that if I don't feel like doing something on a Friday night, I have someone to not do it with and so being in a new country never really felt that bad to me. It's really evident, seeing my friends for the first time since they've been away, that they really miss Canada. Some may feel like it was a mistake to come here. One actually quite the program because she missed home so much. What am I trying to say? I'm not really sure...I guess I'm happy to be here with Jeremy ;)

More more more Melbourne

This is probably tedious for anyone who happens to be reading this, but I had an amazing time and want to make sure I remember how fantastic it was!!

Friday - Not feeling quite at our best, we dragged all our stuff down to the bar/check-out/in area and exchanged our smaller room for a bigger one. Jeremy would be arriving later that evening! We decided that our goal for the day was to get tickets for Dracula's, to find the dfo (direct factory outlet), and otherwise just wander around aimlessly and go wherever we wanted! it was on this day that we found two of the BEST things ever. One was a store. I can't go into it at the moment because I will ruin the surprise for Tracee, but it is the BEST STORE IN THE WORLD!!!!! We could have spent hours there. We did spend quite awhile...Then we stumbled upon another magical place...a place where we all of a sudden turned Japanese and were like two giggling school girls...a place where we got THIS!


We had SO MUCH fun. We may have gotten a few more than these...um, yes.

After this excitement, we had brunch at The Pancake Parlour which featured (for an extra $5) REAL MAPLE SYRUP from the "North American Canadian Region". Um...what? Needless to say, we skipped the real maple syrup...quite a large region, I'd have to say!

We were so exhausted but we managed to find the dfo (it was a fair trek from where we had started) and Crystal perked up when we went to the first store, which was a purse/handbag/wallet/accessory store. I won't tell you how many things she bought but let's just say...that store will never go out of business! We lingered a little longer than we should have in the dfo and then had to rush back to get ready to meet ADRIAN!

Adrian has been featured in this blog before. He is the friend from melbourne who we randomly met while we were in Sydney with Tracee. Since then, I've met up with him in Melbourne and he also flew out to Brisbane and spent a long weekend with us! We went to the amazing $12 all you can eat dumpling place - I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat dumplings again. Highly doubtful. We had a couple of hours to kill before Jeremy arrived, so he took us to a club called Cookie, which Crystal described as "the pinnacle of my life's coolness". When Jeremy arrived, we dragged him back to the crazy photo booth place (he would much rather have been eating and drinking) and took some more pictures of superawesomecoolbesteverness.

Then we went out. We went out. Adrian's dream of taking us to 10 places in Melbourne finally came true. (Actually, we only made it to 9).

Melbourne!!!!!

After all the Byron Bay excitement and travelling around, I must confess that even though we had been going to bed fairly early the whole time, we were two exhausted girls as we set out for Melbourne. We made sure to get to the airport with time to spare (we had booked with cheap airline Tiger and had heard horror stories of people being a minute late and not allowed to check in, eeep!) On the plane, we weren't beside each other and Crystal had the (mis)fortune of being beside two young British backpackers. I'm sure that as people they were perfectly fine, but what Crystal noticed was a phenomenon called "BLD" (Breakfast, lunch and dinner). Though bedbug bites can occur singly, they often follow a distinctive pattern of a linear group of three bites, sometimes macabrely referred to as "breakfast, lunch and dinner."


Having had an encounter with these nasty little creatures before, Crystal was understandably worried about what awaited us in Melbourne. For our first two nights, I had booked us into a hostel called The Exford. The Exford is rad. I love it. When I went to Melbs with Amelia, we spent two nights there and I thought it was shabby but also clean and charming. i tried to relay this to Crystal, but I was probably not all that convincing because I had started to second guess myself as well. Was The Exford really that great? Or clean? We were dropped off by a free shuttle and made our way up to check-in at The Exford (the check-in counter also happens to be a bar...I'm not sure Crystal's mind is put at ease as she looks around!!) The first night, we had booked a two person room and the following night would be switching to a three person room since Jeremy would be joining us. We got our keys and started the long climb up many flights of stairs. We found the room and slid the key card in, only to find that the room was a 4 bed room and people's stuff was scattered all over it...something had to be wrong! Yes, in fact, he had given us the wrong room. We went back down the stairs with all our luggage only to go right back up again! Crystal did a thorough check for bedbugs and was pleased to find that there were none, and also that The Exford had extra precautions (bedbug guards around the mattresses and signs all over the place saying that in no case was anyone to ever bring any sleeping bags or bedding past the first floor). That being solved, we thought we would find somewhere to eat dinner since it was 9 pm and we were hungry!

The Exford is on the corner of Russell St and AWESOMENESS (right in the heart of Chinatown). In Brisbane, finding a place to eat at 9 pm would be fairly difficult/almost impossible. Melbourne, however, is the city of endless possibilities! We wandered through Chinatown and saw a place that looked inviting. We had a chat with the ladies outside holding menus and were ushered in, only to realize it was BYO. We ran out, assuring them that we were just going to grab some wine and we'd be back ASAP. Whoops. We got our wine in the bottle shop conveniently located right under The Exford but were distracted by a sign saying there was a free comedy show upstairs...you can probably guess we didn't make it back to where we intended to have dinner. We grabbed some good seats for the show - it was intermission so everyone was up and wandering around. Apparently these seats had previously been occupied and this is how we became known as the "seat-jacking Canadians". We were used as material for a few of the comedians - luckily, it was in a pleasant way!! By the time the show was done (and for free comedy, it was pretty damn good!) the restaurant was closed. It was 11:30 pm on a Thursday but we were in MELBOURNE and of course we found a place just down the street. Our wine didn't go to waste as this new place was BYO as well and we got to drink it out of some plastic juice cups that the restaurant supplied.

The intention was to go to bed right after eating since we were so tired and wanted to explore Melbs the next day, but this didn't exactly happen. The bar at The Exford is apparently open till 7 am...we thought we'd have a beer there, then climb the crazy stairs to our room, but in between playing with the video jukebox, our conversation, and chatting with some Scandinavian backpackers we didn't make it back up till about 4:15 am. Eeep!

This is getting long again, so you'll just have to wait to hear about our further Melbourne adventures!!

I'm sure everyone is waiting in anticipation for me to continue my vacation story!! Yeah, probably not, but I'm going to anyway!

After a 9:30 pm bed time at the Gold Coast, we woke up nice and early to check out. We proceeded to find a $5 breakfast. GC is a lot like Florida...beach, sand, tall ugly skyscrapers obscuring the views, cheap food/souvenirs...there's even a part of it called "Miami". We ate our breakfast at Chickery Chick's, which incidentally is also where we ate breakfast one day with Scott when he was visiting. Then it was off to the beach!!! Even though it's the dead of winter, the water was gorgeous and we both had a lovely swim. We had some time to lounge around but then it was off to the bus station to catch the bus that would take us to Byron Bay!!!

I had never been to Byron Bay before and I will definitely be going there again after the wonderful experience we had! We blindly had booked a place on the internet and it was absolutely gorgeous! Crystal hit the hippie jackpot at an "op shop" (second hand clothes) and also bought me an awesome polka dot scarf. We put together our Byron Bay outfits for the "alternative tour" we were going on the next day. Decided to save money and get stuff for dinner at the grocery store: salad, turkey kebabs, haloumi, and then breakfast food for the next two mornings. We found a steal of a deal at the bottle shop (liquor store) - four 250 ml cans of wine (yes...cans...) for $4.99, and it was actually decent!! Crystal poured hers into a glass...I opted for the classy option of drinking mine straight from the can. Are you cringing?? We headed back and cooked up our meal and had a relaxing evening chatting on the back porch...we made it till 9:15 pm this time...it's kinda like we're two old ladies traveling around and going to bed early!!

SO EXCITED for the next day which was our alternative tour!!! I wasn't quite sure what exactly it was, but it sounded cool and there were all these multi-coloured buses driving around Byron...it just seemed like the thing to do! We were picked up by a rainbow bus blaring tunes with an old hippie by the name of Ivan driving. I would most definitely recommend this tour to...well, I wouldn't recommend it to my parents, or anyone under 18, but it was so much fun! Our first stop was a pub/bottleshop and you were totally allowed to buy alcohol and drink on the bus...we may or may not have done that. Then we went to a super secret swimming hole - a rock pool hidden away in the Whian Whian forest. The next stop was where Crystal and I were christened the BBQ queens!!! We helped Ivan make a huge amount of burgers and snags - of course they weren't served on buns - it's not the Aussie way! They way they do it here is to eat it with the cheapest white bread available. Our final destination on the tour was Nimbin. Nimbin is a very small town of about 350 people, I believe. It just kind of formed itself in 1973 when there was a festival held there and some of the people decided to stay permanently. It was an.....interesting place. Wiki will probably explain it better than me, so here you go:

Nimbin was a sleepy dairy town until 1973, when the Aquarius Festival, a large gathering of university students, practitioners of alternative lifestyles, 'hippies' and party people, was held in the town.^[4] After the festival many participants and festival goers remained in Nimbin to form communes and other multiple occupancy communities. Since the Aquarius Festival, the region has attracted many writers, artists, musicians, actors, environmentalists and permaculture enthusiasts. The most prominent recreational substance of choice in Nimbin is cannabis. Writer Austin Pick described his initial impressions of the town this way: "It is as if a smoky avenue of Amsterdam has been placed in the middle of the mountains behind frontier-style building facades. ... Nimbin is a strange place indeed."<sup>[5]

Definitely the kind of place you go once in a lifetime and it was really cool to have seen it! On the way back to the hotel we were given vouchers for a free entree (in Australia, entree means appetizer) and a $5 meal at one of the hostels in town so we decided that sounded like a good idea. That night, we stayed up till 11:30!!!! Crazy times. We ended the night by frolicking in the ocean with our shoes on...not the best idea, but I think we salvaged them. Our last day in Byron we walked up to the famous lighthouse along an ocean path and up what we agreed was approximately 2 billion and one stairs. That marks the end of the Byron Bay leg of the trip...we got arrived home to Jeremy cooking an amazing roast and I strongly encouraged Crystal to watch The Castle which is one of my favourite movies ever and is so very Australian! We slept in Brisbane for one night and then we were off on our next adventure and the best city in the entire world....MELBOURNE!!!!!</sup>

As you may possibly be able to tell from the long absence, I have been on vacation having fun!

Crystal arrived the evening of July 7th and it's basically been a whirlwind of awesome since she got here. The next day, we headed into Brisbane for a look around South Bank and the city and then we were off to the XXXX (Fourex) Brewery tour. XXXX is, of course, Queensland's most famous and beloved beer, found on tap everywhere you go and the logo is plastered across most sports uniforms. Jeremy had gone with Scott while I was studying anatomy and they both enjoyed it. At the end of the tour, you get a card for four free beers in their pub...all XXXX, of course! It was here that Crystal developed a love for XXXX bitter. Here is what the official XXXX site has to say about the tour:

• Start in the XXXX Ale House Visitor Centre
• Learn about the origins and history of beer
• Hear the colourful history of XXXX
• Walk through the heart of our heritage listed site
• Learn about our raw ingredients and brewing processes
• Visit the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest single packing line
• Learn to pour yourself the perfect beer in the XXXX Ale House Bar
• Taste a couple of brewery fresh beers

The tour takes about an hour and a quarter. And you’ll cover millennia of history in that time – from the beginnings of beer, through 130 years of XXXX heritage, to the cold fresh glass of XXXX in front of you.

After that, we rushed home to a delicious Jeremy cooked dinner with J, Mike Nicholson (he and his wife had me over for dinner while J was away) and Baldwin who was still crashing at our place at that point. The dinner was fantastic - not that there was any doubt! We had an early night and decided to take it easy the next day because the next several days would be incredibly busy!

Friday night we headed back into Milton (home of the XXXX Brewery) to meet up with Sean, Louise and Matt for dinner at the Polish Club. It was our first time there and we were impressed! The food was cheap and yummy and so was the beer! We ate and drank our fill and then cajoled Sean and Louise to come to The Muddy Farmer with us for KARAOKE! There we sang, danced, and generally had a fabulous time. From the Muddy Farmer, it was just a short walk home down the hill from Annerley. Saturday saw us take another day to relax. Crystal sadly had gotten a cold and so she needed to rest up. We opted out of going to the markets in Brisbane and instead stayed home until that evening. Saturday night was a night of music. My friend Alastair's band, Inland Sea, was playing at a place called The Zoo and I was very excited to introduce their music to Crystal, Jeremy, Justin, Jen and Chris. Crystal was feeling pretty horrible with that darn cold, but she pulled through and we spent the night happily dancing away to lively music.

We woke up the next day and then it was off to the Gold Coast. Crystal had heard about a famous bikram yoga studio at the GC and it was one of the things she really wanted to try while she was in Australia. I had a look at the Translink website and plotted a route that would have us there in time for the 4 pm class. We navigated our way through the train and bus system, only to end up in Burleigh Heads in a very industrial looking area. We thought we were out of luck, but sure enough the yoga place was tucked away around a few corners. It looked deserted but people started pulling up and the class was actually quite full. Does anyone know what bikram yoga is? Let me tell you this - it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. For 90 minutes, I was in a small-ish room with about 35-40 other people. The room is heated to 40 C and you're not allowed to leave. You do a series of poses while sweat pours off you onto the ground. There were some guys there whole were incredibly fit and strutting around showing off their abs and by the middle of the class some of them where just on the ground whimpering. I made it through the whole 90 minutes, taking a couple of breaks, but even just laying on the floor I felt like i was going to die of heat. You feel amazing afterwards, though. Here is a brief description:

Bikram yoga aims toward general wellness and claims the heated studio facilitates deeper stretching, injury prevention, and stress and tension relief. Bikram yoga is claimed to systematically stimulate and restore health to every muscle, joint, and organ of the body. There are two complementary aspects of the 26 exercises, asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises), though many other branches of yoga also use these methods. According to Choudhury, many people only use up to 50 percent of their lung capacity; the lungs must be stretched in order to (through practice) withstand holding more oxygen. When one is practicing pranayama s/he will eventually be able to enhance oxygen conversion and absorption, as well as improve blood circulation. (Choudhury, 2007) This is true of any cardiovascular activity.

It is common for beginners to experience dizziness and nausea. Like many forms of yoga, immense amounts of focus and discipline are required to complete a session.^[4] There is much controversy as to whether or not performing strenuous exercise in a room over 100 degrees F is safe.

I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to talk to Crystal again after that!! Wow. We then made our way to our hotel, the Goldrigger. We were about a two minute walk from a surf club which was quite convenient since we wanted to have dinner at one.

I don't feel like ranting on forever, so this entry must stop here.

Next: Gold Coast (continued), Byron Bay, Nimbin