Mad March

Mad March in Adelaide is upon us, although I think the last week of the month is decidedly less mad than the preceding weeks.  Adelaide is considered the best city to visit this time of year because of all the awesome events, many of which I have spoken about in previous posts.

How have we been spending the last couple of weeks of Mad March?

Well.  Jeremy, Jane and I had one last trip to the Garden of Unearthly Delights for 'Pigs on Fire'.  Or I should say I accompanied Jeremy and Jane on this adventure but I just wasn't feeling the pigs.  They sure were though - check out Jeremy's extremely happy expression!  As you can see, he's also wearing a 'jumper' which signifies that the days of 40+ degrees are long gone and we have entered 'Autumn'.

We had friends visit from Melbourne - a speech pathology buddy (Jody) and her boyfriend Matt.  They drove from Melbourne and had a series of misfortunes along the way (including having to sleep in the car one night when they accidentally drove into a beachy area and got bogged down/stuck in the dark and couldn't get help until morning (another reason NOT to listen to Google Maps sometimes!)  Their fortunes returned in Adelaide though - we didn't have any mishaps!  It was a short and sweet visit, but we fit in a tour of the Adelaide Hills, dinner, and we let them wander around the Garden while we attended Grace's concert.

 This is 'Bird in Hand', one of my favourite Adelaide Hills wineries.  It was all set up for a wedding reception and looked like a grand place for a wedding, in case anyone is considering getting married in SA!

Jody and I taking the requisite 'back of the cab' selfie.

Last weekend it was a miraculous occasion - Jeremy and several of our doctor friends actually all had the weekend off!  We decided this must be taken advantage of, so we went away to Victor Harbor for the weekend.  Victor Harbor is a little town just over an hour away and is picturesque and a great place to visit.  A lot of Adelaidians spend summer holidays there.  The weather wasn't amazing, but we had board games, a scenic view, a beautiful place, and good company!

This was our living room with a view outside to the sparkling blue ocean.  We really couldn't complain!  We played some afternoon board games outside on the balcony until a gust of wind almost blew our game away!

 On the way home, we stopped in at the Alexandrina Cheese Company and all the Canadians HAD to buy cheese curds.  Of course, when we saw these 'face hole boards' or 'carnival cut-outs' as I have now heard them called, I had to get everyone to participate in the picture.  I just can't resist!!

Advice

The expat blog challenge group has decided to continue in a scaled back fashion, with monthly posts on the (second?) Wednesday of each month!  Today we are supposed to think and write about advice - giving it, getting it, listening to it, considering it, disregarding it...

The best advice I was given about moving to Australia was "Look to the right before crossing the road".  Jeremy's brother D'Arcy imparted this pearl of wisdom before we departed and it was extremely useful in not getting smashed into smithereens when crossing the street!

All of us give and get advice from time to time.  Some of it is good (and we don't always follow it).  Some of it is not so good.  In the end, people will generally do what they're going to do.  More than one person suggested to me that I might want to wait until Jeremy finished his (FOUR YEARS!) of medical school before I went for my Master's.  In some ways, that was sound advice but I honestly feel like my spirit would have been crushed by the time that was over and I would have felt like I was stagnating instead of working towards a goal.  I also wouldn't have met some of my wonderful speechie friends!  Someone else said "Don't make friends with other expats when you move to Australia.  You'll get a better experience if you make friends with the Aussies".  I've met heaps of friends, mostly Australian but also from other countries.  Why would I close myself off to an entire group of people?

One of my physio coworkers recently had a baby and I feel that's where people get tons of advice - from everyone they come across!  I don't understand why people feel obligated to tell the person how crappy the first few weeks are going to be, how little sleep you'll get, how much crying there will be, how difficult breast feeding can be, etc etc etc etc.  Isn't that kind of common knowledge?  And who knows, maybe they'll get lucky and have an easy baby!  In any case, it's a bit late for the person to change their mind.  People should sometimes keep their thoughts, advice, and opinions to themselves on certain subjects (unless asked for!)

When we travel, we always like to seek out advice from people who have been to our destination.  When we arrive there, we ask people in cafes, shops, wineries, etc for recommendations about things to do, places to see, where to eat.  In doing this, we've come across many hidden gems.  I think it's always a good idea to get tips from people - and then you can pass those things on to others.

Advice is a funny thing.  There are some topics I would rather steer completely clear of - but if anyone wants advice about moving to Australia, studying in Australia, or places to travel in Australia - I feel that I'm pretty well equipped :)

On the Fringe

There you have it!  Without the challenge to keep me on track, there's no way I'm going to continue daily entries.  But I'll plod along and update this blog at my own pace, which is just fine :)

We have been immersing ourselves in the Adelaide Fringe experience since opening weekend mid-Feb.  This is what Wikipedia has to say about the Fringe festival:

The Adelaide Fringe is the largest annual arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere, held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. For 24 days and nights during February and March, the annual festival features more than 4,000 artists from around Australia and the world, featuring world premieres, hit shows and new artists. Over 900 events are staged in pop-up venues in parks, warehouses, lane-ways and disused buildings as well as established venues such as theatres, hotels, art galleries and cafes.
The festival includes contemporary work in art forms including cabaret, comedy, circus and physical theatre, dance, film, theatre, puppetry, music, visual art and design. Adelaide Fringe begins with free opening night celebrations, including a street parade through the city centre and parties at various venues. Street theatre artists from all over the world participate in four days and four nights of events as part of The Adelaide Fringe Street Theatre Festival.^[1] In a period in Adelaide's calendar referred to by locals as 'Mad March', the Adelaide Fringe is accompanied by WOMADelaide, a world music festival and the Adelaide Festival.

We started off with the opening night parade, which was a bit of a disappointment since it was so crowded that we could barely see any of the actual parade.  We put in the effort, though!

Our first official Fringe event was a comedy show which we attended with our friend Leanne who came through Adelaide before heading back to Canada for good after three years studying and working in Australia.  The comedian is apparently well known in Australia - Tom Gleeson.  The show was okay but not something I would recommend to others.  Just kind of generic comedy.

The second performance we went to was called "Wolf Creek: The Musical".  Wolf Creek is a famous Australian horror movie (which I've never seen - I hate horror movies) about a group of backpackers who are captured and murdered by a serial killer.  The musical was delightfully camp-y, purposely low budget, and not afraid to make fun of itself.  We laughed through the whole thing.

Jeremy and I next found ourselves at the 'Fawlty Towers' restaurant, being served by Basil & Sybil Fawlty and Manuel.  The mishaps began before we were even seated at our table.  Lots of funny wordplay and misunderstandings, for example "Put the bread on the table" had Manuel piling rolls of bread directly on our table instead of serving the rolls onto our plates.  Dentures were found in two guests bowls of soup (not ours!)  The comedy of errors continued through the meal and was quite entertaining.

The girls from my book club decided to have a Fringe outing as well.  With the endless array of options, we had no idea what to choose, so we decided that a couple of the girls who work in the city would go to the box office at lunch time on the day we were heading out and see what shows were on for half price.  This led to us attending something called 'Pajama Party' which was a comedy show described as "a show about friendship, imagination and flanellette pants. Perfect for those who are young at heart, middle aged at heart or bitter beyond their years.  Sarah Jones (ventriloquist) and Nicholas Johnson (magician) have jumbled their ideas together and are proud to present this halfbaked pie of loveliness, like a cat bringing a sad present to your door."  It was...interesting...I think we were all glad that it had only cost $10!  We ventured over to Elder Park after the show to see the opening concert for the Adelaide Festival (yet another of the festive events occurring at this time of year!)  A band called 'Kid Creole and the Coconuts' was playing an eclectic mix of South American/Latin/Caribbean inspired tunes and this was capped off by fireworks.

Finally, last night Jeremy and I went to a concert entitled "Through Place, Space and Time".  Grace (my boss) is part of this orchestra/choir group and had invited us to the performance. They performed several well known songs and did a fabulous job. We met several members of Grace's large Italian family who all seemed to know who I was and greeted us warmly.  We couldn't stick around to chat though, because our friends Jody and Matt were visiting us from Melbourne and we needed to get back to our guests.  We left Matt and Jody wandering around the 'Garden of Unearthly Delights', which is where a lot of the Fringe magic takes place.

Another popular venue which is new to the Fringe this year is called the 'Royal Croquet Club'.  It's basically a huge pop up bar with live musical shows, drinks, and food stalls as well as a few random tents with different shows that you can pay to go see.  It's the place in Adelaide to see and be seen!  We stopped by with Jody and Matt Friday night and Jeremy kept running into people he knew from work and we also saw Mandy, an OT from my work, and her husband Steve.

So to sum it all up, Adelaide has been buzzing for the last few weeks and we have been in the thick of it.  There is one more week left of Fringe, and I'm sure we'll find another excuse to visit the Garden of Unearthly Delights before it's packed up again till next year!

The ups and downs of allied health

The blog challenge in officially finished, but it seems quite natural to continue writing in here regularly.  Let's see how it goes in the absence of Cristin's prompts :)

I am feeling lots of different feelings right now.

I love my job - people will get so sick of me saying that!

Working in education as a speech pathologist, I had a few touching moments, but it's incomparable to what goes on in a rehabilitation hospital.  Yesterday, I got a little teary watching one of those one minute Facebook videos with a 60 year old patient recently diagnosed with a glioblastoma (brain tumour, poor prognosis).  Facebook = social media = communication, so it does fit into speech pathology!  Her kids are around my age and one is about to get married and one is about to have their second child.  She cries nearly every session, and it's not hard to see why.

 Last night, I found out that my first day rehab patient died this week.  He was only a couple of years older than me and was dealing with another recurrence of a damn glioblastoma.  One of my most poignant moments so far was sitting in the treatment room with him, singing "What a Wonderful World".  Singing is sometimes used in speech therapy as you use a different part of your brain for singing and it can help stimulate speech and language.

On the other hand, I have a client who I'm seeing privately at the moment who has been struggling with a swallowing issue for over 30 years.  She had stopped going out with friends and her husband was terrified that she would choke on anything she put in her mouth.  I saw her for her first session last week, and gave her some strategies, exercises and some recommendations for how to prepare her food.  She returned one week later and was ecstatic.  She was excited to make food again, and was gaining her confidence back.  She was planning to meet her husband at the local shopping centre for coffee after our session.  I felt so happy that I could actually provide help for someone which could change her life for the better.

It really is a lot of ups and downs.  When you are going in to see an in-patient patient every day, or have day rehab sessions with a patient twice a week, it's hard not to get attached (to *some* of them).  I absolutely love my work.  I know that there will be some teary moments and that's okay, because I would worry if I wasn't affected.  There are also so many rewarding moments of great joy. I'm the luckiest person in the world to get to do what I do.