Nightmare

This just in, an Australian army private died in Iraq last week and the body of the private to be flown back home earlier this week. The defence minister had planned to meet the widow and then accompany her on another flight to meet the casket. Just prior to boarding the first flight, he received a call. The airplane that was due to arrive was carrying the wrong dead soldier. Instead they were transporting the casket of an unknown European soldier. The wrong body was apparently left in Kuwait.

How that happened is beyond me because the casket of the Australian army was wrapped with an Australian flag. I can't even begin to imagine how the widow and her two young children felt when they were told the news. It gets worse, some people initially thought that the private committed suicide. Can you imagine the family reading and being questioned about those speculations? The Australian government should be embarrassed and ashamed of this whole tragic event.

Tuition free week

We had two weeks of Tuition Free week, which is basically reading week. I love having a break in the middle of the semester but it does get boring after awhile. The motivation to do any kind of work is non-existent at the moment. So I've decided to fill up my time with my favourite hobbies, cooking, exercise, and photography. It's great because the more I exercise, the more I can eat without feeling too guilty. But all I have to say is thank goodness I'm not trying to lose any weight. The stuff I can is healthy but at the end of the day, calories are calories. Sometimes I think my drive to exercise is food.

Perth have built some truly amazing bike paths all around the city. It still amazes me to see all these bike paths everywhere and all along the river. There's basically this Swan river that's in the middle of the city and bike paths all along it. We live right by a section of the river and we ride along it to get to school everyday. But I've been riding to other parts of the path to see where it takes me. It's really beautiful to ride along it and not worry about cars. I've taken some pics of the river...enjoy...

I love how calm the water was that day. The water formed a perfect reflection of the trees.


There was this guy fishing in the water and it was a good thing I took this pick when I did because he was ready to pack it in for the day. This pic kinda seems like he's just watching the sunset and thinking about life.

This was taken on another day when the sun just turned the river into an amazing reddish- gold colour.


This was just a small taste of my pics. I joke around all the time about opening a stand at a market and selling some of my photos. Since I know for a fact that some people (cough, becks, cough cough) are copying my photos and sending them to their family, I'm going to have to start branding my photos or charging fees.

Language barrier

It's interesting how people interpret language. I'm part of this mentorship program where they group the upper year students with a first or second year PT student. None of the Masters students signed up to help the new crew of Masters students and the undergrads can't fully understand what it is like for us. So I've agreed to help out if any of the master's students needed assistance or just someone to talk to. As it turns out there is this Polish student who is quite, understandably, stressed out about the term. It's funny that it turned out to be her that wanted a mentor because I've actually met her the week before via a classmate. She seemed really nice but obviously overwhelmed with the work.

So we've been communicating back and forth through email and have been trying to find a suitable time for us to meet. She suggested to meet this Thursday but I already had plans. I told her that I felt really bad but I couldn't meet with her and so on. She mis-interpreted and thought I meant that I wasn't feeling well. It was a really sweet email that she wrote, telling me to try to stay warm, look after myself, and it wasn't really urgent for us to meet. It was just funny how the english language can be so confusing sometimes.

sports trainer

I've decided to get a sports trainer job this year. My time in Waterloo was usually filled with being a sports trainer for the men's UW basketball team. After so many years of taping ankles and bandaging cuts, you kinda miss it. I decided to get a trainer job with a footy team. Footy is an Australian game that is played only in Australia. It's incredible how obsessed people are about this game. It's the same insanity as Canada's love for hockey except I can't understand how a sport can be so popular when they are pretty much the only country that plays it. Then again I've stopped trying to understand Aussies. They seem to do everything different.

Anyways so back to this trainer job. It's pretty sweet because I don't have to go to every practise and the games are only once a week, on Saturdays. The best part is that they are actually paying. In Canada it's all volunteer but here they're paying me $20/hour. Too bad it's only like a few hours a week. But it's better than nothing. There is, however, one thing that worries me a little. There are no timeouts or stoppage during the game. So there are water guys on the field at all time, handing out water to players. And there's this runner that is sent on the field to relay the coach's messages and make player changes. Here's the biggy if a player needs a trainer on the field, I need to run out there. The first game of the season was last weekend and I had to run on the field a few times. It was intense. You have to find the right moment to run up to the player and not get stuck in the middle of a play. Basically the goal of a trainer is to not get hit with the ball. The field is pretty much the size of a football field except that it's oval in shape. Let's just hope that I won't have to run all the way across the field. I can only imagine what people are saying when I'm running on the field, chasing a bunch of sweaty guys.

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!! I got up this morning and headed straight to my bag of tomatoes that I bought the other day. Hmm, nothing like a tomato and cracked black pepper sandwhich to start the day. I know it doesn't exactly sound like a breakfast but believe me, it was heaven. A couple of weeks ago my friend told us that she was giving up all junk food for lent. So KP and I thought it would be a good idea to give something up that we really loved too. The catch was that someone else had to pick something for you.

I chose cheese for KP to give up and she chose tomatoes for me. If you've lived us you would know how much we love those chosen food. It's been quite tough because I decided to make it more challenging by giving up all items that included tomatoes, including tomato sauce, ketchup, and other tomato based food items.

We also thought it would be a great idea to get as many people involved in our little challenge. We told Becks to give up chopsticks. Soon after more and more people in our class wanted in on this little challenge. Things ranged from giving up all sauces to giving up chocolate. One person only lasted a day without using sauce. Apparently you were allowed to "cheat" on Sundays but I thought that was weak. There's no challenge if you're allowed to give in once a week. That's just weak and anyone who does was considered weak in my books.

It's amazing though how giving up something so minor as tomatoes can really affect your life. I can't even imagine what it must have been for Jesus. It makes you realize how selfish we are. If the majority of people can't even give up the little things for a few weeks, we are in big trouble. I think I'm going to start a new challenge to give up something else that I love or make myself do something for a month.

I haven't gone to church in awhile and it was really great going to service today. People at this church are always enthusiastic and everyone just dancing and praying for each other. You can't help but long to be part of it. It was quite intense. Actually everytime I go, which isn't very often, I start to get quite moved by it. I really should try to go more often. There really isn't any excuse now that I don't have any ball on Sundays.

update

Yeah I know I've been slacking with my blogs but I seem to lack the motivation to update my blog. It's not that I'm extra busy or don't have the time so there's really no excuse. I'm not even sure if anyone, with the exception of one or two people, still reads my blog. I'll start making a bigger effort.

Here's an update of what's been happening:

We have the next two weeks off due to tuition free week, or reading week as I like to call it. I don't have any specific plans except for bumming around and going to the gym. The plan is to work out every day and train hard. Hopefully I stay highly motivated. It's hard without having someone here to push you to your limit.

Yesterday my new housemate, Phil, and I took out the canoe. The weather was awesome after experiencing some cooler weather earlier in the week. We have this canoe that the owners left here and this is the first time we took it out on the river. They warned us that there was a really small crack in it so we didn't know what to expect.

To make it even more interesting we carried and eventually dragged the canoe a good 100+ metres before finally dropping it in the water. Instead of driving around and being up on the shoreline, Phil suggested that we unload right where he goes running. It would've been a good idea since we only had to drive a block away but the city had chained the road. So we decided to just carry the canoe and that's when we eventually just dragged it, just to sand the bottom of the canoe. We seriously thought the canoe was going to crack when we got into it. Of course, Phil gave me the honours of getting in first. He insisted that Ladies first...When we both got in, the canoe looked like it was bending a little but it stayed afloat. Where we got in we had to maneouver through tight spots before getting into open water. We only had one paddle so it was a little a slower process getting around. Oh the small crack caused the canoe to leak water in but it was so small that it was much of a problem. Phil intermittently scooped the water out, no big deal. It was good fun, the perfect day to canoe and the scenary was awesome. Phil took his camera so I will load up the pics once I get them from him.