last aussie blog

i will be getting out of bed in about 4 hours to get my things together to go to the airport. ahhh. i am packed, i think. i am tired - i am sure of that. i think i may actually have no issues getting to sleep on the plane!!!

today i went to school to write some interim reports, then i managed to see my nana, then i got my eyebrows waxed and then my hair dyed and cut. it is a different colour now. the old fee that some said goodbye to is no longer. well, ok, so i am pretty much the same, except my hair is a lot darker. you probably wouldn't call me blonde anymore. there's still blonde in it, but there is also a lot of dark dark chocolate brown, some may even call it black. i'll post a photo as soon as i get to seattle. it will probably have the most photographed baby in the world in it too - my little nephew daniel of course.

to all my aussie friends, i will miss seeing you. this temporary separation doesn't mean we can't be in contact, it will just be in a different way for the next little while. i have been overwhelmed a little at just how excited everyone is for me (or are they just excited that i am going for 6 months and they can all have some calm time?). i am truly blessed to have so many people who care for me.

stayed tuned...let the next adventure begin...

why am i leaving???

so i have to just write again about how much i loved the commonwealth games. i loved them. i mean it helps that i love lots of sports. it helps that my friends love lots of sports. it helps that we love the 'vibe' that was going off in melbourne. it helps that me and my girlfriends love meeting new people and dancing with old men through windows... (i can explain - did anyone see the four dudes living in the myer windows???). melbourne was truly united by the moment. i love this city.

i love my job. the last three days i spent down at philip island with 16 16 year olds. a worst nightmare??? nope. i loved it. we went walking, listened to ranger graeme (while i seriously was falling asleep, i had to bolt at one stage to go to the toilet to wake myself up, this included doing a few star jumps to get the blood circulating), surfing, walking with ranger graeme, seeing the fairy penguins parade up the beac, kayaking and surfing again. i can now turn both ways on a surfboard. previously i could always only ever turn to the left. i am a goofy foot surfer. now i can turn both ways. good on me. i love the dudes down at smiths beach. they ar the island surf guys. if you eve rneed a lesson, go there. matt, the guy who runs it, is so lovely. we always go there for surf lessons with school. so i guess i am there a few (maybe at least 6) times a year, so we know them all. anyway we he heard i was going to canada, he gave me a free t-shirt today before i left. what i a lovely guy (or did he just want some free advertising o.s.???). i love my job.

and the weather in this city. march is supposed to be autumn. today was 27 and so sunny. i love this country.

and of course i love my friends.

why am i leaving?

in one and a half sleeps (it's only a half coz i know i will go to bed very late and then i have to leave home at 4.15am on friday morning) i will leave for 6 months. i know i have been talking about it, so i should fill you in on my actual plans. i leave here friday and fly to vancouver. mum and dad will pick me up from there and take me back to seattle till easter monday (april 17th). i will then fly to toronto where i will stay for the next 5ish months - till mid-late september, before i got back to seattle for a short bit, then i am due to arrive home on 5th october. i don't exactly know what i am going to do in toronto and that doesn't bother me. the plan is to figure it out when i get there. that's why i am leaving.

i am excited about it. sometimes i do things like this in my life and people are like are you excited and of course i am excited, but then again i am just like yep, that's just what i am doing with my life. i am going cause it's an awesome opportunity, it will be a great life experience, i will learn lots, be challenged and hopefully have some fun at the same time.

but i'll be back.

it's over

the games are over. we were devasted and elated last night at the track. the first disappointment came when the 4x100 mens relay were in a very good position but then some dude and matt shirvinton messed up the last baton change and we were out. disappointing. but then the lowest point of the games, it almost brought me to tears was when my man, craig mottram got tripped and fell in the 1500m. he was surely going to win gold. it was heart breaking. i almost wanted to go home. but later we won gold in the 4x400m men's relay and 2nd in the womens only later to be promoted to first place due to a disqualification. then kimmy howe and tatiana gregoriava fough tit out taken gold and silver in the womens pole vault. kim set a new games record in the process. we finished the night singing the aussie national anthem 3 times in a row. one of my other highlights of the night we when the whole stadium joined in the song 'we are australian'. it was beautiful.

today we went to the netball. we lost to NZ. boo hoo. but i have to admit they were the better team. doh. it was still good. and i got to see so many poeple i knew. the begley's, the hanna family, my friends from school, the waterworths and andrew and chevy. i didn't even get round to saying hi to the gourds who i knew were there.

today was the beginning of the goodbye's. i've said quite a few already. seeing as i am going down to phillip island on school camp tomorrow. my time is getting very very short indeed. tomorrow morning i will say goodbye to daz. but i will see him on friday anyway, so that's no biggie.

well it's late and i am tired. the games has worn me out!!! i love melbourne. we so better get the olympics sometime very soon. we are saying 2020, but by then i will be 41??? woah. that's scary. i would LOVE it. anyway i'm off to be so i won't be too tired for camp? yeah right. goodnight.

there was an englishman, an irishman and a welshman...

please note - while this blog was officially written on saturday, it's really friday night. so don't get confused.

yesterday (thurs) daz and i went and visited nana. just a quickie. then we headed into the vic markets with shirl. what a great place. we saw lots and lots of athletes ther e- mainly from african countries, lots of botswanians. funnily enough we didn't see any sierra leone athletes..but neither has anyone else recently. i'm not making fun of them really. imagine how much life must suck if you see the only way out of your country is to work your butt off to become a top athlete so you can get a ticket to the commonwealth games and then just skip the athletes village. (just a note for those who don't know what's going on - 12 athletes have now skipped the village and are nowhere to be found - mainly ahtletes from sierra leone).

last night we went into the aths and saw jana win gold! go jana! (i had seperated jana the athlete from the jana drama over the last week so i could whole hearted cheer for her last night). and of course the ballet dancing scotty martin take out the gold in the discus. what a great sight. and of course we also saw heath (whoops - forgot his last name) take out the EAD 200m final. good night.

as dave, fridge, daz and i headed from the 'G to fedski's (our new nickname for federation square) we decided to have a competition to see who get weave through the crowd on the bridge the fastest. fridge, daz and i were going well, collo lost it. i lost the other two and got boxed in...next to three athletes, swimmers to be exact. there was an englishman, a welshman and irishman... sounds like a joke...we got chatting and they were headed to feddish bar, which is at fedski's, but they didn't know where it was. so i took them there, seeing as i had lost my boys. so i ended up going in there with them coz jayne and annie hadn't arrived yet from the basketball. jayne finally got there and we chit chatted with them from a while longer before catching the last train home. they were lovely guys. no idea about any other sports though.

today i slept in. YAY. then went to lunch with shirl, karen and sue. lovely. then later jayne, annie and beth came over. tonight was the night we were supposed to go to U2 - so sad. so we had a spa instead. we had great chats. it reconfirmed my idea about relationships needing to be open, honest and to use a word from my little brothers blog - authentic. those girls are good value. i'll miss seeing them when i leave in a week's time.

so i am going to go now. but i do recommend that you read dazza's blog, he had a very interesting time tonight at the basketball finals! i am sure he'll blog about it. and brad - if you are reading - you're getting a bit slack.

team games and good times

i had a few discussions today about team tactics in individual sports. it seems that it always is better to work as a team. in the triathlon the Aussie coach said it was the first time that the aussies (boys in particular) had worked as a team and it was the first real successful championship that an aussie won - apart from world championships - and we have dominated the sport since it's conception. then it was also noticed how the kenyans all worked together to get their man across the line in front of craig mottram the other night.
know we all know that in team sports if the team doesn't work together then they are done for. but in individual events too? that's what it looks like to me. it doesn't seem it's ever enough to be able ot do it alone. look at jana, she doesn't have a teammate to rely on in her race, but she's looking for support from the crowd, and was worried that if she didn't get it, then she'd under-perform. but jana is a whole nother story.

so what are my thoughts on jana pittman? well, i think she's an amazing athlete. she's a world champoin. you could count the aussies on one hand who have been world champions in an aths event in the last 20 years on one hand with fingers to spare. so she's very good at running and jumping hurdles. however, i do think that she likes the attention and while she has had lots of things to deal with, hasn't had the maturity or the right advice to deal with them correctly. so while i get sick of hearing about her sometimes, when she is introduced to the crowd at the 'G tomorrow night i will be cheering and i will cheer her until she corsses the line. conclusion, i guess i like jana without the drama!

what did i do today - woke up way too early so went to the gym, had coffee with simone (chelsea and zack) and bumped into jode, ethan and seth, had a pool party with jayne and luke, afternoon tea with the begley's, dinner with auntie wendy and louise, then annie came over after that. oh and i bought an ipod nano today. all were good times.

9 sleeps till i go. time is ticking.

quick question

ok, so i have a quesiton and i would like to know the answer. it's not deep. but it does make me wonder. when i exercise, more to moderate-vigorous intensity, i get itchy. mainly in my legs. why do my legs get itchy? is it just me? is it something to do with my body trying to get rid of the heat? what is it?

go craig go

i didn't think it was possible to lose your voice over a 12 mintue period. last night i found out you can! craig mottram was running the 5000m and it was a top class field - seeing that the kenyans and hte tanzanians are part of the commonwealth. any our boy sat in fourth position for the first 8 laps (of 12 and 1/2), with the three kenyans in front and the 3 tanzanians behind. then after each lap he picked off one of the kenyans and everytime he did the 80,000 people in the stadium roared. he got to the front and held it for 1 and 1/2 of the last two laps. unfortunately the little kenyan, choge, pulled out a spare motor and overtook mottram in the last 200m of the race. it was fantastic. even though i'm a sport fan, events, times and people fade quite quickly from my memory. but i am certain that this memory won't fade at all. it was fantastic. and while craig got the silver, i don't think he's peaked yet. go craig go.

just a side note, the other australian in the race ran a time of 14 minutes something. andy white - a guy from my church - he's best time is 14 minutes something. in my mind that means andy should have got a gig at the commonwealth games. oh well. those runners tend to peak around mid-late 20's and andy is only 20. there's still plenty of time. bring on beiijing, bring on london. go andy go.

i am kind of apologizing to anyone who is not really a sports fan, seeing as my blogs are consumed with sports stuff at the moment. but on the other hand i don't really care. coz it's my blog and i'll blog what i want to!!!

so the 'G is the best stadium in the world - some would say - me being one of them. jayne's not too happy witht he new stands, she says it doesn't feel like home. i say jayne, move with the times. in the crowd of 80,000 last night, it ends up that corey and simone are sitting 6 rows in front of us and i look up to our seats when i arrive and matt and beth are already there, sitting right next to two of my students. small world.

dazza scammed a coaches pass to the swimming last night, thanks to his (old) coach ian pope. he got to sit with the swimmers families. he got to see liesel jones SMASH her own world record. for free when the cheapest tickets - scarce as they may be are $150. typical dazza.

happy birthday to kat for last saturday.
happy birthday to jode for yesterday.
happy birthday to shirl for today.
and there's more to come this week!

it's just the vibe

so i last wrote on friday? saturday and sunday were games packed. daz and i headed into st kilda for the triathlon. we saw the aussies claim gold in the womens - Emma Snowsill - and men's - Brad Kahdelfeldt (not really sure how to spell his surname) event's. it was wonderful. we saw the womens race from a few different spots and then moved to the prime position for the men's events. we managed to get our mugs on the t.v. a few times, but we were so caught up in the event, that only once we realised we were on t.v.!!! ha ha.

yesterday brad joined us and we headed into see the marathon. the crowds were again out in force and it was a wonderful expericne. we saw the mens and more improtantly the womens - yay for Aussie Kerryn McCann who won gold - races froma few different points. the last place we positioned ourlseves was on the bridge just before they entered the 'G. great racing. thanks to nath who was in the stadium to give me the heads up on who won the girls event - it was close the whole way!
tonight i am going to meet daz and sharon and nath for dinner before we all meet up with dave, kylie and matt to head into the "G - hopefully to see the fastest man on earth - asafa powell - win the 100m in a new world record time - that would be awesome. but i am especially looking forward to the 5000m where aussie craig mottram will go for gold. he's looking good right now and it would be so awesome if he got his first major victory (he always gets beaten by some african) tonight.

yesterday when we were in the city, we had to stop and watch a heat of the 100m because brad saw that a cameroonian was racing, we stopped, we watched and guess what...the cameroonian came last. DOH. poor brad. his team isn't doing too well.

it's been good having daz home. i was a bit worried on friday coz his hyperactiveness was in full swing when we picked him up from the airport, but he has calmed down a bit now. the poor thing got burnt on saturday at the tri - i didn't - but that canadian winter left his a pasty white and the aussie stuck got stuck into him - and it was only 21 and half of the day was overcast!!!

just to finish, it's only 11 sleeps till i leave for canada. 11 sleeps till i see my little daniel and the rest of the family. i will be in seattle till easter monday when i will head to toronto for the next 5/6 months. i'm am getting very excited.

relationships

relationships are so important in this life. it's what life is really all about. not fame. not money. not fashion. not about how fast you can swim, how fast you can run or ride. not about how smart you are. life is about relationships. how do they work? who knows really. but the key to all relationships is open honest communication. how open and honest are you in your relationships? i am in some. still working on it in others. the key is not to shut down. discuss it. are you on the same page or not? sometimes we are on the same page and don't even know it. keep talking. don't get on the offensive or defensive. just talk. have an open mind. listen to everyone. don't assume you are right even if you are sure you are. listen. talk. listen. open and honest is what it's all about.

tonight i sat down and had a great conversation with one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world. beth. (see us below). i love her. we had a great conversation. the fact that we were able to sit in a KFC and talk about our lives for over an hour and a half - i love it. we talked. we discussed. we interacted.

commonwealth games

i love sporting events. i loves games. i love the commonwealth games, though not as much as the olympics of course. the opening ceremoney was good, i think. i liked the ballet dancers and motorbikes. i liked the tram. as for the duck or goose or whatever that was...i'm not so sure. we all watched it at the mellody's on their massive tv. i also realised i don't fully know the words to the second verse of our national anthem. i know the lines. just not really sure what order they go in. i can mumble along though, so i fugre that's better than not knowing at all. at one stage while all the athletes were coming out, there were fireworks outside, so we all ran like crazy chickens to watch them. not long after we had been out there - in the middle of the road - a dog came flying past. the poor thing must have got scared and was bolting faster than cathy freeman. doh. then a mintue or two later a man came driving past and asked us if we had seen a dog. we pointed the direction it ran and continued to block the road to watch the fireworks. i hope that man found his dog. i felt bad. and sad.

back to the games. the only thing that i feel a bit bad about in the games is that we win everything. well not everything, but we may as well. anything that is important. swimming for one. i read in the paper today that it was suggested that it is not out of our girl swimmers ability to win all 57 medals. that's all the gold, all the bronze and all the silver. don't ask me why i just wrote bronze instead of silver, i just did. i don't think bronze it is better than silver or anything, it's just the way it came out. anyway, back to the real issue. my favourite moment of the games so far has been craig stevens. yay. he was even selected in the team and after the heats this morning has posted the fastest qualifying time for the 400m freestyle, also known as thorpey's event. he only found out two weeks ago that he was going to get a look in. and just to show that it was all a stuff up that he wasn't in the games in the first place was that another aussie dude in that event, nick frost, finished in 11th after the heats and isn't even in the final. yay for craig stevens. after withdrawing from the athens games so thorpey could swim, it's come back to him, now thorpey withdrew and i hope stevens get to win gold. that would make me happy.

i will also - for brad's sake - say come on cameroon. he has declared his love and support for cameroon quite openly. on his blog and in public. good on ya brad.

daz arrives home tomorrow for 10 days. yay. i am excited to see him. i went and bought him a few little welcome home presents. mainly food. and an aussie flag and go aussie clappers. hopefully he won't log on to the internet at some stage and read this before he gets here. if you are reading this daz, sorry to ruin the surprise. it's only 18 hours before he arrives. so by my calculations, he is in LA. i think a 6 hour stop over? anyway, there's a chance he might read this, but oh well.

i have moved back to the lewis house now. i arrived home here yesterday expecting balloons, streamers, lollie bags and people hiding behind coaches to jump out and yell 'welcome home'. alas, seeing as i am just part of the family, there was none of that. in fact, there wasn't even anyone home. doh. but later last night when i did get home shirl came out the front to meet me, so i got over that rest.

so i'll finish this long blog with a thought. how many of us really have open honest friendships. i know that with a few of my close friends, i pretty much tell anything to. but only pretty much. i mean i probably share around all of my life between my friends. but does any one of them know everything? i had a short discussion yesterday with a few friends - they might not even remember, but it stuck in my mind - about how our culture is to have a few close friends, but not really a 'bestie' in particular. i guess it can have good points and bad points. how good are we at really caring for those in our lives who we claim are important? if everyone has a few close friends who are important, then at times, some people can have plenty of people who care, but at the same time end up not really being a top priority for anyone.

freaky or not

so i have had a few official days of being unemployed now. they have been very busy. i even managed to do some school work...don't ask me how that makes sense, because it doesn't.

RAW camp was good. the weather was lovely so we got to hang out at the beach a fair bit. Dan Liam was the guest speaker. he put out some good words. about being passionate. about expectations. about sharing God with others.

i came home late sunday night with kirsten and ryan parker. i got up early morning and went down to lorne with sarah to patrol for the day. it was a good day. not so much the weather - it was hot cold hot cold all day.

i am really excited about going away. i can't wait to see my little daniel (nephew). and the rest of my family too of course. since i made the decision to go, or maybe more so just this year, i have been feeling a bit in limbo. and i am excited that it's actually happening now. not that i have been sitting around doing nothing but waiting, but everything just hasn't been quite right. i am going to miss this place a lot though. yes melbourne as a city. but more so my friends who live here. people is what makes a place.

i started reading again just the other day a book called 'meet the bible'. i bought it ages ago and used to read it everyday. it's like a devotional book, with a passage of scripture and then a writer's insights and thoughts, then there's always a question that goes at the end. for whatever lazy reason i hadn't read it for a while. but as soon as i picked it up again, the daily questions are as if someone had been reading my mind and wants some answers. or at least for me to think about some things. freaky... or not... i do believe in a supernatural God...

quick low down

i haven't got much time at the moment, so i'm just going to give a quick low down on the last week and the coming weekend

tuesday i went wind surfing for the first time, i was actually pretty good - for a beginner - and the instructors weren't bad either

spent a lovely night with tam, jodie, heath and brett on tuesday night

spent another lovely day with tam at interschool swimming on wed and got a little sun. katelyn won her butterfly event. vermont won the carnival by a mile.

have been busily preparing holiday homework for my year 12's. i am going to miss them a lot. this morning will be the last time i teach them!

going on raw camp tonight down at rosebud. then coming back late sun night to be down at lorne on monday. weather is looking fantastic.

aaron, brad and annie finally got a house! yay. they move in about 3 weeks!

this afternoon i am going to the funeral of carmen smith (mother of my late uncle mel). she was a lovely lady. i will always remember the gingerbread men she used to make us every Christmas.

this time next week i will be on my way to the airport to pick up my little bro!

have a wonderful day.

sunny (not) brisbane

well it's monday afternoon and i can't believe how the last few days have flown. i had a great time up in brisbane with H. he is one of my favourite people and we just get along so well. i am going to miss him a lot. that was my first goodbye of quite a few for the next few weeks and probably the hardest. but i did well. thanks to the weather (definitely not beautiful one day, perfect the next) - it rained pretty much the whole time - i caught up on a few movies, did some shopping, including buying another jodie piccoult book 'Faith', saw a few more movies, and did lots of eating! if i'd goen for the weather i would have been bitterly disappointed, but i didn't. so i had a wonderful time. we did make it to movie world on sunday, but with the light rain in the morning, not many others were there, so we walked straight on to all the rides and within 3 hours, and the rain increasing, we were done. the only disappointing thing was that the superman ride was closed! DOH! oh well. i was lucky to make it home, my flight was due to leave the gold coast airport at 8.25pm and when i got there to check in, the one to sydney which was due o leave at 8 had been cancelled. thank goodness mine wasn't. if it had been, all they do is put you on the next first available flight, which at best would have been 8am this morning, and you have to find your own overnight accomodation. and wheni got back to melbourne i overheard someone saying that virgin had cancelled all of their flights from the gold coast that night due to the weather. it was raining a lot by last night, but i didn't think it was that bad. anyway, i got home safe and sound, but feeling bad for those people who were supposed to be flying to sydney!

today was nice to see my little cherubs again. and my school friends too.

i am actually quite tired. probably not that much of a surprise seeing as by the time we got home last night it was quarter to 1 (yes, am). my brain is fried, i can't seem to concentrate anymore, so i will end this for today and maybe write something deep and meaningful tomorrow, then again...