Up and running

Sorry about that mix up with the blogs - this one is back up and running again so I've gone ahead and deleted the other blog that I had created (for those of you who I emailed)

Christmas!

Well our first Christmas as a married couple (and also away from home) has come and gone. Since we had plans for Christmas Day, Conor and I decided to have a special dinner and open our presents on Christmas Eve. We had steak, mashed potatoes, veggies, and garlic bread. During dinner we listened to Nat King Coles Christmas CD and then the Messiah – that music really set the Christmas mood! After dinner we relaxed a bit, had a bible reading and then dove into the presents! Marcia from the Respect Life Office gave me a cupcake recipe book, Liz from Sumo Salad gave us Jelly Belly’s and Conor got me Body Shop body wash, a plant called “Gollum” and chocolate! Conor got a bottle of wine from Monsignor Elliot (the Director at the Institute), a bottle of dessert wine from Dr Nick (a teacher from the institute), and from me he got the first season of the British “The Office”, some flip-flops, lynx dry deodorant and some more chocolates.

Although the previous week we had near 35 degree weather, Christmas Eve and especially Christmas Day, the weather really cooled down to 10 degrees and we had a fair amount of rain and wind – we think that was for us, to make us feel more at home!

Christmas morning we went to 930 mass at the Cathedral. Midnight mass or the Solemn 11am mass would have been very nice, but trams don’t run late enough for us to have gone to midnight mass, and we were going out in the afternoon so couldn’t go to 11am mass – maybe next year. Conor made mint chocolate truffles this past week, so we wrapped up some of them for Dr Nick and his family who were having us over for Christmas Day. After we wrapped them up we hopped on a tram and at the end of the road met Louise (the American student at the school who came to Australia the same time as us) and her mother who’s visiting, and then Dr Nick picked us up from there. They have four kids, two girls 21 and 19, and two younger boys, so that was fun. The girls are really nice, and from what I understand, did most of the Christmas Dinner cooking. I was very happy (and I mean VERY happy) when I saw and smelled the turkey! After missing turkey for thanksgiving I was afraid we wouldn’t have any, but thankfully we had a fairly traditional Christmas dinner – turkey, ham, bread, salads, etc. It tasted great! After dinner Dr Nick’s brother and family came – they have three little kids, the youngest being 3 and they were very cute! Dr Nick had built them a little wooden kart and they had a lot of fun with that! Later on during dessert the little boy kept coming around and bringing everyone cookies – after bringing two or three people a cookie he would take one for himself, hehe. There was pavlova for dessert as well as a cheese cake, plum pudding, blueberry cake and my favorite chocolate mousse!

After we ate (it wasn’t really dinner because we probably ate around 2-230) we played a few games of pool and just sat around the table talking – Dr Nick drove us all home around 8.

We were happy to receive a call from Grannie and Papa Sweeney at 11:30 am Christmas Morning, and they sang “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. Conor’s family also called and sang to us, Conor got to talk to a couple of his brothers and sisters and hear about all the going-ons. This morning I called my mom on her cell phone since I knew she would be at my Aunt and Uncles in Victoria and I got to talk to my brother Dan as well.

So all in all our Christmas went well – we definitely miss you all, but I guess I can handle one more Christmas. When we return my brother Kevin and his family will also be back in Canada and it will be the first Christmas our whole family will have together (and that we’ll have with my niece and nephew) in 8 years I think – so we’ll get an extra special Christmas when we get back.

Today, boxing day, I worked and Conor came into the city and did some shopping. I have tomorrow off, and we got some Christmas money from home, so we’re going to go do some more shopping since the stores will still have sales.

Oh, and this is for mom – Dr Nick also had to cracker boxes with the crowns in them – so we all go to wear the crowns, that felt like Christmas for me!!

***It's the 28th now when I'm posting this, and Conor and I went shopping yesterday and didn't find anything! How disappointing! But now we can save the money to do more fun stuff when Liz comes :)

Jaclyn's Hair Cut

It was just way too hot in this weather to have hair as long as mine was!

So I stopped off at the mall on the way home from work on Friday, and they had an opening right then to get it cut - so I let the hairdresser do what she does best :)

It feels sooo much nicer!!

I'm also putting more pictures on my MSN space - http://jaclynsweeney.spaces.live.com/

Conor's Hair

Okay, so after the night of Julie's going away party where Conor didn't put gel in his hair - everyone was commenting on him needing a hair cut....

Pre-Hair Cut

MULLET!!!
Wow - gotta love mullets
You didn't think I would actually ley Conor Keep a mullet did you??
Hot Couple!
Mohawk - Aussie style

Merry Christmas!!

Well today is my last day at the Respect Life office for the Christmas break - the lady I work with is taking alot of January off, so I'll be picking up as many Sumo Salad shifts as I can, as well as having fun with Liz when she gets here! Anyways, being as I mostly use the internet her rather than at home, I won't be updating as much.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas - don't miss us too much ;) Conor and I both got great hair cuts this weekend, so I'll try to come in tomorrow to post the pictures! Otherwise, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

Random pics

Here are a few random pics, I'm also trying to put up pictures from Saterday when we went to St. Kilda Beach but am having some difficulty

I put some up but might need to do the rest later

The next two pictures are of a neighbors dog that likes to come and visit us!

We sometimes have our door open when it's hot out, and she just like to wander in and sniff

She's really nice!

Our advent "wreath"

42 degrees?!?!

So the weather here in Melbourne is just going crazy. The state that Melbourne is in, Victoria, is experiencing a lot of bushfires, so on Saterday there was a smake haze everywhere. I had the day off, and it was really hot out, so we went to the beach (I took some pics, I’ll have to post them later) as hot as it was, it wasn’t very pretty because you couldn’t see the sun through all the smoke. Man did I wish that I was wearing my bathing suit though so that I could have just jumped right in the ocean! Anyways, really hot, no breeze at all! We decided to go to mass on Sat night – so that was nice to go to the cathedral which is always cold and cool off a bit! When we were leaving I saw the sun for the first time that day through the smoke, it was after 7pm. Now apparently Sunday was hotter than Saterday, but Sunday at least had a breeze, but it was more bareable at 42 degrees!!

I can’t believe Christmas is 14 sleeps away and we’re having 42 degree weather! Anyways, since we had already gone to mass, and it was really hot out, we pretty much stayed inside all day reading and such, not daring to turn on the oven or stove to heat up our already hot apartment. By noon we decided it was time to buy a fan, so we went to the mall up the road and bought a fan from kmart, and then went back to our apartment. Conor had a hockey game in the evening so around 4 pm I decided to do some laundry before we left, when I opened the door of our apartment expecting it to still me smoldering outside, it was actually kinda cold! Much colder than we were in our apartment – with the door shut thinking that it was really hot out! I was told today that the temp dropped 20 degrees in half an hour, and that was probably starting just as I was going to do the laundry. Anyways, we’ve learned our lesson the check the tempurature outside every half hour, cuz you never know! I was very happy for the weather change as the hockey rink would be really work inside if it was still hot outside.

Now, Conor got mad at me after my post last week because he didn’t want me posting when he only gets 1 assist in a game, but I think I have permission to report that they unforunately tied their game 5-5 last night, to which Conor scored 3 goals and had 2 assists. But that wasn’t for the “pro” team, it was for a team on the level just under pro. Also, a guy on that team gave us a ride home, and he lives just up the road so he said he can drive Conor to and from any games that they play together…so that’s good. Public tranportation is really good here, but when you have to take a tram, train and bus to get somewhere (and the busses don’t have the best timetables) it would take us over an hour to get to the rink, whereas it’s literally like a 20minute or less drive.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot…yesterday was out 6 month anniversary! We didn’t really do anything special for it since it was so hot, and Conor had a hockey game, but maybe tonight we’ll go for dinner or something.

Julie's Going Away Party

Here are some pictures from Julies going away party - some of them didn't turn out that great because the lighting in the room was funny, but it was a really nice night anyways

Party goers!

Awww - Julie and Natalie

Dr Tracey and Julie

Dr Tracey (Dean of JPII Institute)

Julie cutting the cake that Clare made

Conor, Julie and I

(and yes, I will be cutting Conor's hair very soon!)

Julie and Natalie

First Sunday of Advent

It still is just so strange to think that on the First Sunday of December Conor and I were walking around in shorts and t-shirts! It wasn’t really hot weather mind you, but it definitely wasn’t winter weather. On Saterday we went into down and did some shopping and such, and then Conor played his hockey with the “pro” team that they put him on. So we took a tram, train and bus to get there, and they won 6-1 with Conor having one assist. It was funny because the pro team that they have, it’s just five teams in the league that play each other, and pro just means their highest-level hockey teams at that rink. But they take it really seriously! After each weekend (4 teams play each Saterday, so each team would play four Saterdays in a row and then have a Saterday off) someone prints out a program talking about the previous games, scores and such, highest goal scores, etc. They also have an announcer for the game and he also has music going between plays! It was interesting, I definitely wasn’t expecting that, especially having been to Conor games back in Langley where the good teams are much better, and there are more of them than just 5. Anyways, so they won, that was good.

When we got back we quickly went home and changed and went to Julie’s going away party – it was being held at another students house just a few blocks from us. It was really good, there was a really good turnout and Julie was really touched by all the people that came. Which I don’t know why she expected any less – she really is a great person, she was always asking us what we were up to an inviting us to things and introducing us to people (most notably bringing us along to play poker!) One of the ladies that lives at the house had it all decorated Christmassy and even had an American Christmas tree – which many Australians there described as “furry”! Hehe. Julie gave a little goodbye speech, and her roommate Natalie said a little something for her, as well as the Dean of the JPII Institute, so that was really nice. All in all it was a great evening, other than the fact that it meant Julie was leaving! And is in fact gone now as she left Monday morning…but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch with her, and hopefully see her again down the road someday.

We stayed pretty late at that party so we went to 11 am mass at the Cathedral on Sunday and then just went home and relaxed, went to the library and walked a bit down this street with lots of shops and cafés. Then we went to our regular once a month poker game (which as you’ll remember, Conor won the last month we played). It was the first time going without Julie there, so that was kinda weird! There’s a really scenic drive down the coast west of here called “The Great Ocean Road”. Everyone has been telling us that we should rent a car and go down it sometime…you can just make a day trip of it, or you can drive along and there’s lots of places to stop, eat, sleep, surf along the way. Well I had already been thinking that mid-January, Conor’s cousin Liz is coming to visit, and Conor doesn’t start classes again until beginning of February, so I was thinking I would take a week or something off when Liz got here, rent a car and the three of us would go check it out. Anyways, last night while we were playing poker, the husband and wife whose house we play at were talking about how their going to this place along that way, about 2.5 hours from here, and using someone’s house that has a lot of rooms in it and asked us if we wanted to come (along with Liz) for a weekend or something while they are there! Again, this family is really great! So it looks like we’ll either rent a car, or they said that since the whole family is going there will be cars left in town and we might be able to use one of those, and we’ll meet them out there and stay at this house with them, and then we can always go off on our own if we want to further on down the drive or whatever. Anyways, definitely looking forward to that!

And to top it off, Conor and I were the final two at the table! Now no one officially won, because it was already past midnight and the priest there, Father John, was going to give us a ride home so we didn’t want to keep him up…but we decided to say that Conor won. In his words, it was his win so that he could “validate his existence”. Also I had been playing terribly the whole game, going all in a few times and getting very lucky – so there you go, Conor won again! (next time we’ll have to loose so that we’ll still be invited back!)

Happy December day!

Wow, I can't believe it's already December! It sure doesn't feel like Christmas time is so close - but the pictures that my brother Mike sent of all the snow sure helped!

I don't have too much to say at the moment. We happily received a parcel from my mom for my birthday with lots of Candy and discs of tv shows that my brother Dan sent...we've been watching "The office" in the morning while we eat breakfast. Also, Conor got his hockey gear that his parents sent over, so he will be playing with his new team tomorrow - and then in the evening there is a going away party for Julie who's going home to Detroit as she is done her studies. I'll be sure to take pics.

Oh, and if any of you were wondering, YES, we did have guests over for my birthday, but Conor didn't take any pics of them, and it was my party, so neither did I! Julie (from Detroit), Natalie (from Perth), Anne and Clare (from Queensland area) and my cousin Jeanette (currently in Brisbane) were all there, and it was alot of fun!

Birthday Pics Part I

Okay everyone, here are the birthday pics (and yes mom, I DID get a birthday cake!)

My Mocha Chocolate Birthday cake that Conor made me :)

This is Conor admiring his creation

(which tasted really really really yummy!!)

Birthday Pics Part II

Decorations :)

More Decorations

24th Birthday, and 24 candles in the box!

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Make a wish!

Yay for presents :)

More Birthday Celebrations!

Hey, so Happy Birthday to my big brother Mike! I’m all partied out now! On Monday Marcia at the Respect Life Office here, got an afternoon tea all organized for my birthday and bought this really fancy “Brunetti” Chocolate Cake and some of the girls came by, so that was really nice! I don’t know if it’s because it was my birthday or what, but I was actually feeling really out of sorts on Monday, kinda homesick but just kinda depressed all-in-all, and that actually really lifted my spirits, so yeah, it was really nice. And then on Tuesday night my cousin Jeanette (who’s from Abbotsford but studying in Brisbane) came over for dinner and stayed for cake and a movie. Julie, Natalie, Anne and Clare from the school all came for cake and Julie and Natalie stayed and we watched “Waiting for Guffman”. None of them had seen it or any of the other similar mockumentaries, so that was fun. Conor made a mocha chocolate cake and it turned out great! I have pictures, but I’m at the school and didn’t bring them…I’ll post them tomorrow.

Yeah, so Jeanette is here in Melbourne with her flatmate Jo. Jo’s brother lives here, so they arrived on Sunday, and stayed at Jo’s brothers for two nights, and then Jeanette stayed at our place last night, and again tonight, and then the two of them are gonna get a hotel and for a couple more nights before heading back to Brisbane. The weather here is just crazy! Last week Melbourne had it’s coldest day in 50 years or something, but the state that we’re in, Victoria, actually getting a lot of snow in certain areas, and we got rain and hail and it was just really cold. THEN…the day before yesterday it was 32 and yesterday it was a very humid 36 degrees…which is the hottest November day Melbourne has had since the 1930s…so what a change one week can make here! Our apartment really soaks in the heat, even though we don’t receive any direct sunlight into the apartment, plus Conor was baking the cake all day, and then making Jeanette and I dinner…so with the stove on our place felt like a stove! I had a really hard time falling asleep last night in the heat, but managed to after midnight (even though I was in bed just after 10:30!) and had to work this morning at 8.

Well I’m gonna head home and have a nap or something (the weathers cooler today, but very nice out) and then Conor and I are going to meet up with Jeanette and Jo later on at Lygon St for dinner! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, and I’ll put pics up here tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to ME!!

It was my birthday yesterday! But since it’s the 19th back home right now, it’s also my birthday today (yay for two birthdays!!) Anyways, yesterday morning we went to the parish of the director of the John Paul II Institute, Monseignor Elliot (although we ended up there a little late due to our driver, hehe). From there we went to an end-of-the-year bbq for the school. It went really well, probably the best weather I’ve ever been in on my birthday, and we went to this really nice park by the river. They sang Happy birthday to me even!

In the evening, since we had been eating the whole time at the bbq, Conor and I didn’t feel like a meal or anything, but instead we headed down to this street near downtown called “Lygon St”. There’s a big italian community there, so the streets are lined with restaurants and cafes, and this amazing chocolate place called “Koko blacks”. That’s where we went, and I had an iced chocolate and it was amazing! Anyone who comes to visit, remind us to take you to Lygon St, although I doubt we would forget.

On Tuesday nights we usually have a couple girls from the school over for a movie night (Julie from Detroit and Natalie from Perth). So this week Conor is going to make a cake for it, for my birthday, and we’ll have Natalie and Julie and a few other people over as well. Also my cousin Jeanette is in town from Brisbane, so she is going to stay over night with us on Tuesday and Wednesday night so that’s nice! It looks like we might be squeezing 9 people in our little apartment! I’ll write about how that goes afterwards!

Anyways, here some pics from yesterday, and I’ll also add them to my MSN Space so you can check out more there.

This first one is just some of us standing around in the shade

(the afternoon started off quite warm)

This is Claire - a great host in her apron, on her way to the "barbie"

Love self-portraits :)

This is Julie and I

(she's done her studies soon and will be going

home the beginning of December, we will miss her)

Pictures

If you go to the link for "Jaclyn's MSN space" on the left, there are three new sections of pictures.

One section was from a Tuesday last month that Conor and I went to the casino and watched an NHL game - and then wandered around afterwards

The BBQ @ Dr Nicks I've already posted about

Melbourne Cup Day - we were invited to a BBQ at the house we play poker. I've never watched any horse racing before, but it was fun none the less. We did a sweep (where everyone puts in $2 and randomly draws a horse - top three winners get paid as well as the looser)...it was funny to see the little girls get so into it! We started off the afternoon with a BBQ, the main race that day (for the Melbourne Cup) was on around 3, and then after that we broke out the poker! The poker pictures I put up are actually from the first Sunday in November, not from Melbourne Cup Day.

Melbourne Cup Day is huge here - "The race that stops the Nation" it's called, although most Australians probably watch it, only Melbourne and surrounding suburbs get the day off. It's a huge fashion event for the ladies as well, but all the racing days are. It's interesting because leading up to Melbourne Cup day, Saterday's are the big race days of the week and I work in town on Saterdays, so I get to see everyone all dressed up heading to the train station to go out to the track. The ladies wear big hats, or this feather clip things called Facinators. The Melbourne Cup used to be just for Australians, but then New Zealanders started racing as well, and as the prize money as grew more people have been coming to race. The winner this year was a Japanese guy who couldn't speak English, so when they did the interview that was normally for the winner, they interviewed the runner up instead! He had a good laugh over that and apologized that his interview probably wasn't as interesting as the Japanese guys could have been.

Anyways, that was last week - I also worked at Sumo Salad all last week because they needed some shifts filled, and Marcia (here at the office) was thinking she might be going to Canberra. Canberra is the capitol city for Australia, and there were alot of Parliamentary things going on this week, one being the passing of a bill to allow certain stem-cell research. So Marcia and others are busy now trying to see what they can do to get the bill revoked.

Well, I better go get some work done!

Poker poker poker

Firstly, thank you all for commenting - glad to hear that all this typing isn't in vain :)
(but actually, I would probably do this even if no one read it, it's kind of a journal for me, so we can look back on it later as well)

So we have another really interesting Sunday in a row! We went to mass at a parish up the road with a few girls from the school, and then headed to a bbq afterwards. One of the professors at the school, Dr Nick, invited all the students and some other people as well to an afternoon barbeque at his house, and it turned out to be a really nice day so it was really fun. Another international couple came with their two kids (three and one year olds), and they were a lot of fun! There was a trampoline which the little girl really liked, and an assortment of balls with the little boy took to right away. We probably got there around 1230 and left just before 6. Some people stayed to play games and such, but since we would be going out again to play poker (yay, poker night!) we decided to go home and just take a break before we headed out again. We finally got some luck our way, and Conor won the pot! $90 altogether! So he was VERY excited after that.

We also got invited to another bbq for Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday is a BIG day for Melbourne as it is “Melbourne Cup day”. I don’t know if it’s the final day or horse races, or just the biggest horseracing event of the year, but it’s held the second Tuesday in November every year and it’s a huge event. Apart from the horse races, it’s also a big fashion event where all the men get into their finest suits and all the women get completed decked out (fancy dresses, completely insensible footwear, feathers in their hair or the largest hats you’ve ever seen, etc.) It’s also become a holiday, where, if you do work the Tuesday you generally quit the day around noon as well as any other office in town. So the biggest places to go on Melbourne Cup day are Flemington, where the races are actually held (but it’s really expensive and there are A LOT of people that go), or to Federation Square downtown where they have the races up on a big screen outside and people come into town and hang out and watch the races. We were going to go to Fed Square with Julie, but then the people who hold the poker night invited us to come over for their bbq and to watch the races, and since Julie leaves December 2nd, we gave her the call. So we will be going to the bbq instead, which will be nice…this family is just really cool and fun and relaxing to hang out with, Conor would probably get stressed out in town with hundreds of people milling about! Hehe!

Comments anyone?

Hello all!

I'm really curious as to who all reads this blog of ours, so if you would kindly leave a little note under comments, that would be greatly appreciated! (even if I know that you read this, please still put a comment on! - you can also read other peoples comments)

If you go to the bottom of this post you will see "posted by Jaclyn_Rose @ ____PM" and then to the right of that it will say "0 comments" - that is until some one does comment...then it will say how many comments there are. Anyways click on that and a new window will come up and you can just type a little 'hi' or whatever in the box and then scroll down, if you have a blog account already you can sign in and comment under your user, or else under "choose your identity" just click "other" and put your name in and then click Publish your Comment.

Thanks everyone!

Late for Mass?

It was a nice sunny Sunday morning, Conor and Jaclyn awoke and prepared for their day. The plan was to go to 11am Mass at the Cathedral and then venture out to find the allusive roller hockey rink that Conor had read about on the internet….

Well enough of that – we got to mass just as it was ending, somehow? Turns out (and I did find out about this on Saterday, but competely forgot to act on it) Melbourne does have daylight savings! Hahaha – so when we thought we were arriving for 11am mass, we were really getting there at noon (SPRING forward) and just missed it! We weren’t sure if the parish downtown had more afternoon masses, and we didn’t want to wait until the 6:30 mass because then we would have to rush back after finding the roller hockey rink, so we checked out the parish in town and they had a 12:30! So we made it just in time, horray!

From there we hopped on a train (after eating lunch), to a suburb about half hour train ride away called Reservoir and after walking 20 min, getting on a bus (that ended up turning down some streets when we wanted to just go straight), ending up at some mall, and walking another 10 minutes – we found it!

Conor looked around and seemed excited (although he didn’t show it, I know he was excited to see hockey!). We went and chatted with the guy at the pro shop, and Conor asked him about drop in and such, the guy didn’t seem very helpful and told us that all the teams were full and that this season was ending just before Christmas so there wasn’t much he could do for him. Then the guy asked Conor if he was any good, and Conor told him he was good (cocky, eh?) Anyways, we actually saw a Westcoast Warriers jearsey on the wall (westcoast is the rink Conor played at in Langely), so Conor pointed to the jearsey and said that he’s been playing gold/platinum there for years. Then the guy behind the desk perked up! I guess this guy took a team to the sub-zero cup at Westcoast in 2004 and 2005, and in 2004 he actually got to play as well…and he asked Conor if he knew Collin Sharpe or Kirk French because he played with them for the tourney, and when Conor said that he’s been playing with them for years the guy REALLY perked up! “Oh man, I need you to play for my team tonight then, we’re short players!!” he says. Conor told him he didn’t have any gear here yet (which we plan on getting sent here now), and the guys went and got his sons skates and gear and it all fit Conor, so he was set to play! We got there about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and the game wasn’t til 930pm, so we watched a couple games, grabbed some dinner, watched a couple more games and then they played and won! So anyways, these teams were A league, and then they also have a pro-league with 5 teams, all playing at the same rink (the next closest rink is a couple of hours away), so it looks as though they guy is going to help Conor get on one of the A-league teams, and maybe even on a pro-team, which played Saterday afternoons, so it’s a good day in the week to play.

Needless to say after playing hockey last night (for the first time in at least 3 monthes), and having played soccer with some seminarians on Saterday afternoon, Conor is very sore, and groans like an old man when he sits down…but is happy that he’s getting back into the sports, and hopefully will get on a team to play regularily.

So for anyone who cares, since we went ahead an hour and the lower mainland went back and hour, we are now 19 hours ahead of you (instead of 17)

Baseball World Series

So Julie from JPII is from Detroit and is super excited that they have made it to the World Series. She found out that it would be on one of the sports channels and that the casino would have it on the big screens, so she asked Conor and I if we wanted to go to the Casino Sunday morning to watch game 1 with her. I hate baseball, but I take (almost) any opportunity to go hang out with people because we are normally just at home by ourselves if we aren’t at work or school. So we agreed to go, and I was kind of excited because the only casino I’ve ever been in is that one in Langley by EA there.

So we get to the casino just before 9:30 am, and see that there are three big screens in the betting area. The cable system here (foxtel digital) has 3 fox sports channels, so whatever are on those three channels are airing at the Casino on these three big screens all day long. BUT since this area is mainly for betting on horseraces, we found out (greatly to Julie’s dismay) that we could WATCH the baseball game there, but we wouldn’t be able to HEAR it. Well we hadn’t had breakfast yet, and we were still a bit early, so we went and found a place for breakfast, and then decided to walk across to the city (just over the Yarra river, there’s a whole bunch of bridges right around the casino, just a couple minutes walk) and see if there were any pubs or lounges open playing the game. The only place we found that was open and had a TV only had the free 7 channels, they didn’t have pay TV, so we couldn’t watch it there in the end – so we finally decide to just go back to the casino and watch without the sound.

Since the screens are so big you can watch from the main level (which is where all the betting windows are), but you can also go upstairs and watch from a balcony that has tables and stuff, so we went up there so we could sit and watch the game. To our surprise the upstairs level had the speakers on the baseball game! So we ended up getting to hear the game anyways! After all that walking around the city, by the time we got to the casino again it was already 5-1 St Louis! Anyways, it was fun, we played a couple slots, but they don’t have video poker! Just hundreds of these plain old slot machines that are pretty much all the same. Some day we’ll go and play some real poker though :)

Then on Tuesday night we had Julie (same Julie) and her roommate Natalie (also from JPII), over to watch a movie again. Seems like this will be a regular Tuesday night movie event…they are hilarious girls! It’s kinda sad though that we are hanging out with them so much, because they are both done school and going home early December …guess we’ll have to make new friends again! Hehe

Anyways, yesterday I got a lot of work done at the office, and Marcia was sick and I didn’t know if she would be going in today, so I decided I would take today off unless she called and needed me to come in for something that couldn’t wait until Friday. I saw on the TV guide that one of the fox sports channels would be showing an NHL game (not live, but hockey nonetheless) at 2 this afternoon, so Conor and I headed over there and watched Calgary kick Phoenix’s bums!! Hopefully they’ll she more games, although I didn’t see anymore on the TV guide for this week…some of those being Canucks games maybe…and hopefully come playoff time we’ll get to see some live games…cross your fingers.

But it was a nice day to have off today…and if was nice to see some Canadian sports!

Happy BIRTHday!

Congrats to Nicki and Dom who had their first little baby.

It's a girl - Isabelle Nicole Tilbury born October 17 !!

<---- New Link

Allo all, I put a new link up on the left there for the Respect Life Office. Eventually Marcia will have a sound clip from the Sisters of Life that were here, and I encourage you to listen to it, they were very good speakers!

Work's going well here. The President of the Student Association had his 30th birthday the other night. About a dozen of us went to a Vietnamese place in town, and then to this really cool lounge/bar called the "Atrium" (and I just realized that's the name of our apartment too!). Anyways, it's 35 floors up in the city, so you get this amazing view! And the windows are floor to ceiling, so it feels like you are standing right on the ledge! Expensive, but worth one drink for the amazing view!

I also got my laptop set up to play dvds on the TV, so a couple students are coming over tomorrow night to watch a movie, so that will be cool.

Oh! I just remembered a story I was going to tell. So at first I was told my shifts at Sumo Salad would be Monday and Thursday 12-6 and Saterday 11-5 - but now it looks as though the Monday shift will be 8-2.

So last week was the first 8-2 shift (sooo early! - That's the earliest I've been out of the house since living in Melbourne!). Anyways, that Sunday my allergies had been bothering me, so I went to bed a bit early because I knew I would have a hard time waking up! Anyway, at like 3 am I woke up very suddenly to this terrifyingly loud noise! It happened so fast my brain had no time to ponder what it was, and I didn't think Conor woke up, so I just went back to sleep. Then it happened again - and Conor woke up. We're on the top floor, and the roofs all have these tile like shingles on top - and the sound was so loud I could have sworn a big dog was running across our roof!

Well it kept going, on and on and on! We knew at that point it was an animal and decided it must have been a possum (like the ones back home, but they are smaller). So there's a tree outside our living room window, and then some palm-like trees in the center of the apartment (the apartment surrounds this court yard with trees) - so this possum would run up one tree, around the apartment on the roof, and then down the other tree. He did this a number of times - but then we started hearing this horrible screeching/crying noise.

I finally went into the living room and looked out onto the tree and realized that there were two possums - either fighting or mating! Oh man, this literally went on for at least an hour and a half - til 4:30 am!! Needless to, I was desperately tired at work the next day!

So I worked at 8 am today, I was tired, but thankfully no possums kept me up last night, so it was okay. I really like the morning shift, other than the start time! Sumo Salads only real rush is from noon-2, so the morning shift is just making express salads, wraps, and prep for the rush...whereas the close shift starts off with your lunch rush, and then you have to restock, and then you have to take all the deli down, saran-wrapping all the containers of salad stuff, and then taking everything apart and washing it all (hard on the back). So it will be nice to have to one morning shift.

Anyways, time to go home and clean up for when the other students come tomorrow!

HOT!

Oh my goodness, it was sooo hot today, especially at work - by the hot grill...guess I better start getting used to this, eh?

Thanksgiving feast

So this was our Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday

Conor carving the bird
Our feast - with Chicken instead of Turkey :(

This is Conor's Pumpkin pie - as you can see he's very proud of it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey everyone - I hope you are having (or had) a wonderful turkey day!

Since no one celebrates it here, we had it all by ourself.

We bought a little chicken ( to substitute for the Turkey) - and Conor baked a pumpkin pie (which turned out great!)

I took some pics of our feast...and I'll post them tomorrow!

Sumo Salad

The new job is going really well. I've worked twice now, and can handle taking orders and making them!

I guess their only really busy time is from 12-2 (ish) and I'll be working 12-6 (11-5 on Saterdays), so when I start it will be busy...but then after that it's fairly dead. The closing shift is mainly doing prep for the next day and then putting everything away. So it will be fairly slack - just the way I like it!

It's going to take me awhile to figure out what's in all the salads though, so that I can answer their questions...also there are these ready made salads and wraps, and so when a customer asks for one I feel like an idiot because I have to get them to point it out to me (we don't have signs on our side to show us which is which, and I don't know them well enough yet). But I guess that will just come with time :)

Pictures from Anne's birthday

Well - that says it all I guess :)
Anne and her Seminarian escort James
This is Anne - blowing out her candles

This is Julie from JPII

LONG weekend

Well, it’s been my busiest 5 days since coming to Australia!

Friday: Marcia had to go pick up the Sisters of Life from the airport at 11ish, and there was an afternoon tea scheduled for 4 (she didn’t think she would be back until then), so she left the tea to me. Those were what the pictures were from. I think I did a pretty good job! Hehe. Anyways, the tea went really well, with a few “interesting” incidents. I don’t know what it’s like in other cities, but apparently a lot of people associated with right-to-life groups are very much fanatics. Marcia has started filling me in on her job and why it was set up. A lot of her work is to inform parishes of bills that are being presented in parliament in regards to stem-cell research, cloning, abortion, etc. But since so many local parishes have been turned off of all pro-life groups because of said fanatic right-to-lifers, they don’t want to have anything to do with Marcia. So I guess a lot of her work right now (because the Respect Life office is still only a few years old) is to try to get the parishes to let her in. Anyways, she told me about a few right-to-lifers that picket at the abortion clinics every day, and hand out different pamphlet (some very upsetting ones with pictures of aborted babies even!), and cause quite a ruckus. A few of them hold the belief that if you aren’t picketing the abortion clinics every day, then you aren’t really pro-life. It seems that they don’t see the need for respect of life in other areas, such as euthanasia, stem-cell research, etc.

Well she warned me that some people coming to the tea (there were about 24 people), were right-to-lifers, which might cause some tension. After the Sisters talked about who they are, and what they do, they opened to floor up to questions (which I think they were wanted to be about their order and maybe things that they didn’t touch on about it). Well one guy, who I realized right away was one of the people Marcia was telling me about, used this time to “comment”. Most of which had to do with why he thinks more people need to be in front of the abortion clinics. He then went on to say that we as Catholics, when it comes time to make political decisions, need to focus on abortion, and only abortion. “Forget poverty, racism, economy…we should be hounding the government to stop abortion.” Anyways, the Sisters did a really good job or relaying that they do believe that everyone has a different calling by God as to which way they are to approach these issues.

So I guess I should tell you a little about the Sisters of Life. Their order was started by (then a Bishop) Cardinal O’Connor in New York. He felt a very strong calling by God, and vowed that he would spend the rest of his life making sure that the sanctity and respect of life was upheld. The Sisters of Life take in the three vows that all orders do (), but also a fourth, which is to protect human life. Their order is only 15 years old; they have 52 or 53 sisters now, and are based primarily out of New York with five convents, but have a retreat center in Connecticut. They primarily work with pregnant women who are/or have been thinking of having an abortion, women who have had abortions, and sometimes work with men who have suffered the affects of abortion.

Three sisters came for the weekend; one has been with the sisters for 7 years, and the other two for only 3 and 4 years. The one who has been with them for 4 years is actually from North Van (one of the four Canadians in the order, the rest are all American). She went to high school at St Thomas Aquinas, and got her undergrad at UBC in 2002…so we talked a lot. They were all pretty amazing actually. As a new catholic I have come across very few nuns, all of them much older than these three, so it was really refreshing for me to meet some young girls (only a few years older than me), that have taken their calls from God with such joy and dedication. They talked about their daily lives in the convent, which consist of 4 hours of prayer a day, two silent meals, and community work (of different varieties). There are a few different areas that the sisters of life with work; a visitation mission, which is a telephone system for women who are pregnant and vulnerable can call for counseling and hopefully eventually meet with the sisters, a respite center where women can actually live with the nuns while they are pregnant, a retreat center for other groups as well as women and men suffering from abortion (they also have parties once a year where the ladies they have helped come with their children and keep in touch with the sisters), and some of them also run the Respect Life office in New York.

Again, these three ladies were great. They spoke with such enthusiasm and said many times they their main goal is not just to save a child’s life, but to delight in the mother herself, and let her see that she is truly loved by God and to bring our her true desire that God gives every women, which is to give life to her child. Anyways, they were very inspiring young women, and throughout the weekend had every listener captivated with refreshing ideas and some good jokes too!

Back to my Friday: After the tea the sisters went to the chapel for some prayer, so Marcia and I went to another hall where the sisters would be speaking at a public event Friday evening, made sure everything was set up for the night, and then had dinner with the sisters. Then Friday evening the sisters spoke (basically as they had for the tea), and everyone seemed to really enjoy it.

Saterday: The sisters spoke in the morning about women, and getting away from the culture of death and back to a culture of life. Also very inspiring, and speaking a lot about women’s purpose(s) in life. Saterday night we went to Anne’s birthday party (a girl from Conor’s school. We found out that the surprise theme was “Anne’s debutant ball: welcoming Anne to society”. Anne and her roommate Clare and just hilarious girls, and they decided that as a joke, they would have a debutant ball, to which Anne was presented to society with her seminarian friend, James. J She even wore the gown that her mother wore for her REAL debutant ball. So it was fun, and we met a few new people.

Sunday: We went to 11 am mass at the Cathedral again (it’s just so nice, the incense and the boys choir). After that Conor went to the market and I proceeded to clean the bathroom and do the laundry (how fun!!). Then we went and played poker!! I came in second, but since it’s all or nothing, I didn’t win any money. But we had just as much fun as the last time, and I just love this family that host the game. They are just so funny and easy-going, their little daughters are so cute…it’s just a really nice way to spend an evening.

Monday: I went shopping! So there aren’t malls here like there are in Canada, but I heard about this one mall which is the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere (so I’ve been told by many Australians). Monica, the assistant registrar at the school, even warned me that it was really big, not to get lost, and not to expect to see the whole mall in one day. Well it was a nice mall, but I was sorely disappointed in its size! It was really just a bit bigger than Sevenoaks, literally, and I was expecting at least Metro-town. Their two major department stores are Myers and David Jones, both are HUGE! At least twice the size of our Sears and Bays, and the price tags are also doubled for the most part. I steered clear of those stores, mainly because of their price tags, but also because of their size…so then I was able to make it through the whole mall! I needed more work clothes, and managed to get quite a bit…all of it on sale. As Shelley Rinas would say “you are your mothers’ daughter.” So now I’m set for work clothes and shoes!

Tuesday: Today, my first day at Sumo Salad went really good. It’s a really simple process. Someone on cash, some one getting the salads together in the back, and the last person dressing the salads and giving them to the customer. I worked 10-2, so I started off just cutting cucumbers and onions in prep for lunch. And then just because it’s the simplest place to be, I was the salad dresser for the rest of my shift! The salad making part is easy once you get the hang of it, because everything has to get weighed, so a new person will be slower at it than someone who’s used to it and doesn’t actually have to weigh all of it because they just know how much. The shift went by really fast because it was busy from 12-2, non-stop…my next shift is Thursday 12-6 (the closing shift).

Well, some of you wonder what Conor has been up to! He hasn’t been online much because we went over our limit for last month at home, so were waiting for the beginning of the month to go online again, and then he had a week off school, so he wasn’t there to be on the internet before or after class…so those on MSN will see him a bit more now that we have internet back at home. He’s been working a lot on his papers, and doing reading…and is shocked to find out much easier it is to do work when he’s alone in this little apartment than it was at his families house where there were always people around and the farm in the backyard to go wander around (especially when strawberries were out!) This semester Conor will have taken 5 classes; three running the entire semester, one that was a week long last month, and the fifth starting this week every Friday and Saterday. So now he’s going from just Mondays and Thursdays of school, to Mondays and Thurs-Sat.

For me, now that the Sisters of Life have come and gone (they also spoke on Sunday night on vocations, but I wasn’t there), this week at the Respect Life office I think we’re going to get the offices organized and get through some work that has been pilling up on Marcia’s desk (those of you who know me at all know that I’m looking forward to the organizing part!)

Sorry for such a long post…but as you can see it was a busy weekend!

Business as usual

So I thought it was time to put some pictures of where Conor goes to school, and where I work.

So this is the main building. On the top floor, fourth window from the left is my office!! The first two windows are Monsignor Elliots (the director of JPII Institute), then Toby Hunter (the registrar), myself, Marcia (head of the Respect Life Office), and then the other windows on the top floor are a couple of the professors, the registrars assistant, Monica (really funny young lady) and a student computer room.

This blue building is an add-on to the old one. As you can see it's call the Thomas Carr Center. The Front part is mainly offices, and then is also swings around the back of the old building, with a courtyard in between. There a few different things going on in this building. 1) JPII Institute (Conor's school), 2) The Catholic Theological College, and 3) some other diocese organizations (such as the coucil for Marriage and the Family). So the new building holds the offices for those, other than the JPII, and it also has some conference rooms, the library, and lunch rooms for staff and one for students.

This is my office!!
A little unorganized at the moment. The Sisters of Life from New York are just arriving today, so everything I have worked on so far is in preparation for them, and then events they will be speaking at...next week Marcia and I will get our offices more co-ordinated and functional.

This is the View from my window :)

The first thing the Sisters of Life will be speaking at is an afternoon tea today, so I was in charge of setting up for that. This is the conference room in the new part of the Thomas Carr Center.

There will be food on those trays soon!

Well, there you go, a little more idea of what we are doing here...and once I start work at Sumo Salad maybe I'll take some pics there too!

I'm a sumo!!

...a sumo salad employee, that is ;) I'll be there two weekdays and Saterday, and then here at the office the other three weekdays, and maybe a couple mornings because I won't be working at Sumo Salad until noon those days.

Sisters of Life

I guess I haven’t written in awhile! Things are going really well here. There are some nuns call the “Sisters of Life” coming this weekend from New York. They are a Group of sisters who take an extra vow to protect life. Anyways, there are going to be three public events that they will be speaking at about different things, a Friday afternoon tea, and a Saterday dinner. So I’ve been busy helping Marcia get everything sorted out for that.

I also got a job interview tomorrow for a place called “Sumo Salad” in the mall. It’s like a little fast food place, but all they have is salads and some ready made sandwiches. I applied there for part-time because I really like their salads and the people who work there looked like they enjoyed working there. I also got a call about a casual position at a clothings store called “Cotton On” in a kids outlet…so we’ll see how that goes. I want something else on the side, part-time, that isn’t to stressful. Just someplace that I can make some more money and meet more people.

Conor has a break this week (although he had one class today because they had to amkeup for a missed class a few weeks ago). We went over to another students house for dinner the other night, so that was nice. Nice to get out and talk to other people. And another student is having a birthday party this Saterday, so it should be nice as well, but also very interesting. The invitation says “Theme: Surprise, Dress: Formal, 7:30pm: Arrival and Canpes, 9pm: Speeches, toast and telegrams.” So yeah, should be interesting!

Pineapple

I just wanted to see if I could get images to upload from the computer in my office, and I can!

So her is a picture of what Conor does everytime he buys fruit...lines it up on the window sill.

And yes, Conor did eat that WHOLE pineapple himself!

Part-time Job

So the lady at the Respect Life office talked to personnel and got me a part-time job! Yay. So for the next two weeks I'll probably work a bit, as she has a seminar coming up that she needs help with, and then after that we'll see. She used to have someone full-time, but hasn't gotten around to filling the position, but now she might not be allowed to hire someone full time again. Part-time for me is good right now, and if I just find something else part that then it will be perfect!

Anyways, that's the update...thanks for your prayers, keep praying :)

Oi-vay

So the past few days have been spent work hunting. I grabbed the big classifieds on Saterday, went through them, circled the ones I liked, and on Monday I began emailing them all. I also went online to the big job search engines and applied to pretty much any job that interested me. I probably have nearly 50 resumes out there, floating around on the internet – someone has to like me, right??

Anyways, I really hate online job applications. I just find it completely impersonal, and unfair to both the applicant and the employer.

Here are my problems with it:
Most of the time, the company advertising a job will hint as to what company they are (ie. Accounting, law, finance, advertising), but you really have no idea who it is you will be working for, or interviewing with, if you get an interview.
There’s no address listed for you to go check it out (although it will tell you what suburb they are in, which sometimes helps)
All they see is black and white when they are picking people for interviews, no first impressions or anything. So if you can’t get to an interview stage, you really have no way of making an impression.

Anyways, there was one admin position that just had a phone number to contact, no email address – so I called them on Monday and they asked if I could come in between 1-130 pm on Tuesday for an interview, to which I gladly accepted. I got the address from here (still not knowing what the business was) so I decided to just take the tram by when I had some time to kill on Monday, just so I knew what to expect on Tuesday.

The building was very unappealling. The door had no information on it, including the address, you had to go around the other side of the building to see the numbers of the building, and in even smaller font “Impressive Platters Corporate Catering”. So I knew that it was an admin job for a catering company. Since I hadn’t gotten any other call backs yet, I decided to still go in for the interview, might as well. So when I got there at 1 on Tuesday, there were about 6 other girls waiting out front. I realized that it was a “grab-a-number” interview. So I opened the door to find the numbers, and walked right into a busy kitchen – no front desk or anything, I thought that was a strange set up. So I grabbed a number (number nine), and waiting for my turn.

When I got called I had to walk throught the kitched, which was quite narrow and had about 5 ladies working busily at the counter, so I had to walk through them, into a little tiny office. He just asked me where I lived, if I could work Mon-Fri, and then asked if I could come in at 10:30 am Wednesday for a trial run. When I got back on Wedendsay I was about 15 minutes early, so I went across to this coffee shop, and then went back about 5 minutes early. There was a lady at the coffee shop that was all dressed up, so I figured she was back for the same thing ( I thought I recognized her from the day before). Anyways, she came over and started talking to me, she said that she had a trial time set for 9:30 am, but got there around 9:40, and the guy was busy so he told her to just go grab a coffee and he would call her when she was ready. Then the girl set for 10am came, and he brought her in, forgetting about the her altogether. She said that another company had called her and asked if she could start Monday, but she wanted to come to this one as well, just incase she liked the job better. After five more minutes she just left, the guy came out and got me to come in, and didn’t even notice that the other girl was gone.

So he brought me back to that office: there were two other girls on computers there, with three computers available, a big fridge freezer thing – just a packed little room. He sat me down and got me to type some stuff, and then got me to fill out some information. Then he told me that this lady Stacey was going to get me to make some phone calls (to determine my phone skills). I was under the impression that these trial runs were a half hour, so I had no problem making a couple of calls.

Anyways, I ended up calling people who had applied for the same position as me but had applied online, and set up interview times for the next day – strange! Then the time just kept going, and she kept giving me more people to call – by noon I said that I couldn’t stay any longer (after the boss had gotten me to take a few trays out to their delivery vans), and she said just to let him know. So I went and told him I had to be somewhere (I didn’t really, but I wasn’t going to keep doing her work for her) and he said he would call me back by 5 that night.

That was yesterday, still no word back – I’m definitely declining if he offers me a job. And it wasn’t even a real admin job. It was customer service – placing orders, talking to clients.
So I’m back at Conor’s school, sending out more resumes, and helping the respect life lady when she needs me :)

Internet woes

So I was going to post about why I couldn’t put the pictures up myself, and had to get my brother Dan to do it – so here it is:

The problem is twofold

Number 1 – If you recall, I posted once about how the telephone system here is quite expensive. You have to pay for your basic landline (usually around $20 a month), but then not only do you pay the obvious extras for international calls, you even pay per local call. Well I’ve realized that the internet system is equally annoying.

In Canada when you sign up for an internet package, you generally get at least 10 GB of downloads per month. If you download a lot of movies, tv shows, music and such, you will possibly go over that limit, at which time shaw or whoever else will send you harassing emails or phone calls notifying you that you are downloading to much. But that is about all they are able to do about it, no extra service charges or anything like that.

Well when we signed up for the internet here, I didn’t know at the time what a normal download per month allowance was, I wasn’t aware that Canadas is generally 10 GB or so. Well I went to the place to get the internet hooked up, and told them that I don’t download a whole lot – usually use the internet for emailing, blogging, websurfing and chatting on MSN, and they said that the smallest package would suite me fine then. So we are now paying $30 a month for 200 MB.

Yes, that is correct, you guys get 10 GB (and if you go over, no problem really), where as we get 0.195 GB!!! And here is the worst part of it – if you go over you measily 200 MB, you get charged 15 cents per MB after that. Anyways, when I signed up I really didn’t know what 200 MB would get us, so I just went ahead and do what I always do on the internet – upload pictures. Well after uploading nearly 100 picture to my MSN space, we were already at 75% of our monthly usage, and that was only a couple of days into the month.

Problem number 2 -So now I’m at Conor’s school using the internet for the rest of this month, until we start the new month. So I had those haircutting pictures to put up. Well the internet at the school is really slow – but it would have to do, because I don’t have any other options. So I went to upload the pictures onto blogger, and it said it was completed, but really it wasn’t. So then I thought I would just put them on my MSN space, but I needed to install the msn upload program inorder to do that, but whenever I clicked install now, nothing happened. So finally my brother came on, I told him the problem, and he said I could just email the pictures to him, sign him onto my blog, and he would post them for me. Which he so graciously did, and for now, until I figure something else out, that is what I will do :)

Hairdressing Pics

Jaclyn the Hairdresser

Sunday August 10, 11:31 pm

So it’s our three month anniversary today, YAY! And as a gift to me, Conor let me cut his hair! I think I did a pretty darn good job, it being my first time and all, we’ll see tomorrow morning when he actually goes to do something with it :)

Anyways, I really want a job…I’m getting bored (and she’s getting fed up with ME) *side note from Conor , and I want to get out there. I grabbed the Saterday paper (it’s a big paper, and has all the classifieds in it, I don’t even know if they do classifieds the other days of the week or not), and I’ve already gone through and picked 15 jobs to apply for. They are all reception/secretary/administration. I’m also going to call the recruitment agency that I had met with before and let them know that I have my work visa, that I am interested in any bank positions that open up, but that I’m not interested in temping as an admin, etc. I just think it would stress me out to temp in a position that I’m not familiar with. But if I can get a full fledged admin job that’s permanent, then I would be more than happy with that. Even if I get a part-time one and do a retail job (Christmas positions are already being posted for clothing stores and such), that would be nice. Then I would get to meet a wider variety of people.

I will be posting this on Monday, and also emailing all of the resumes out to the classifieds I picked. Oh yeah, there’s a right to life office at Conor’s school, on the same floor as all the JPII admin offices. Anyways, I was using the computer lab there the other day and a student mentioned that the right to life coordinator had a lot of things on her plate and would probably like some help, if I wanted to do something with my time until I actually get a job. So I went over and talked to Marcia, the coordinator, and she is definitely swamped, just looking at her office. She said that she could use help for sure, and she might even be able to pay me for some of it (although I would do it voluntarily, but that would be nice). She said that with all of the stem-cell debate and such going on in Parliament, she often gets called by different people to travel around Australia, and that even having someone around that could look after the office when she’s away and make sure everythings going okay, and keep in touch with her. Also they have some events coming up, and she said she could use me for serving tea and little things like that. So I’m going to go in on Tuesday morning and she said she would have some stuff ready for me. In Melbourne (maybe around Australia, I’m not sure), the Catholic Church has a focus on Marriage and the Family at their masses, so she was busy with that this week, otherwise I would have gone in Monday. So I’ll have Monday to get my resumes out there, and hopefully I’ll hear back from some by the end of the week.

((Okay, I'm unable to upload pics at the moment, but my brother Dan will for me, and then tomorrow I'll have a big long post about why I can't do it myself!))

We can work now!

Although I'm sure Conor will avoid this at all costs - anyways, our work visas finally went through. Today (thursday) I'll go and get the lovely label for my passport, and then tomorrow call the recruitment agency and see about getting me a job...

Probably in a bank, I just don't like change very much, I'd rather stick with what I know and do a good job of it. It will be a challenge either way for me, since things will inveriably be different here.

Poker!

Last night was a blast! The girl that we went to church with, Julie, invited us to play poke with her and some friends – to which we gladly accepted. We met her at the nearest train station and then went on our way. Now, I still don’t quite know where she knows these people, because none of them go to JPII or have gone to JPII, but I think one lady Louisa that was there was friends with a previous JPII student, and that’s how Julie met her. Anyways, when we got off the train Louisa picked us up and we drove to the house where we would be playing. I can’t remember the husbands name, but that wife name (who lived in this house) was Lisa, and they have 7 kids. The oldest (a boy) is 23, the rest are all girls and then youngest is 5…the two oldest girls are living in Sydney going to a new liberal arts university (the first in Australia from what I gathered). So along with Conor and I, Julie, Louisa, and Lisa and her husband, a priest Father John played with us as well. He’s pretty funny, Julie told us on that way that you would sooner picture him at a bar then as a priest, and she was right. We were greeted by him coming up to the house as he was having a breath of “fresh air”. So it was the 7 of us for awhile, and then Lisa’s oldest son Dominic came home, and joined in (he ended up winning, and I guess he won last time). Anyways, it was just a lot of fun.

When we first got there the four youngest girls were awake, and three of them had make these little cars our of empty boxes. With some cut out paper they had put wheels on, and a steering, and even a key that they could take in and out (tape on the back), so they were fun. Australia is coming up on footy finals right now (Aussie rules football), and everyone around here is VERY much into it. All the girls were talking about “their” team, and how they were doing and such.

The game went on pretty long, I think I came in fourth…but they play that only the final winner gets any money (it was a $10 buy in). Anyways, by the time we ended our last train had gone, so Dominic drove us home – and they invited us to come again next time. They play the first Sunday of every month. I look forward to it already.

P.S. We meant to loose last night so that they would invite us back, we’ll fleece them next time! Hehe

Mass

So this morning we were going to go to a church that was about 5-10 min tram ride from the apartment. I looked online and Conor told me what the name of it was, so I checked mass times and we went on our way to the 11am mass.

When we got to this one tram stop, an American girl from Conor's school was just getting on, and she was heading for the Cathedral and assumed that was where we were going as well. Conor didn't correct her, so we we instead on our way to the Cathedral. As we passed by the parish we were originally going to go to, I realized that it was a different name than the one that Conor had said it was, and it didn't look as though there was an 11 am mass, so I guess it was a good thing that this girl ended up being on the same tram as us.

This Cathedral is HUGE! At the 11 am Sunday mass the Archbishop is there, and the boys choir sings. It was beautiful. I'll go back soon and take pictures of the inside for you all to see. The president of the student association was telling us that around the 1900 there was a big gold rush around Melbourne, and a lot of the money was given to churches and that’s why there are so many ornate, big churches around. Even your typical local parish is about as extravagant as Vancouver’s Cathedral.

Irritants

These are a few more things that are just weird about this Country:

- the only juice mixes they have are Tang...no frozen juices, kool-aid (not such a bad thing), powdered iced tea
- no bins of stuff at grocery stores; candy, nuts, raisins, oats, dried fruit, etc.
- I've only found one corner store where you can buy 5 cent candies, but then you either have to buy a prepared mixed bag, or a cup full of candy you choose for $3 something
- This is more Conor's irritant: you can't get regular coffee here, for the most part. McDonalds has regular coffee, but if you like it black you have to specify no cream, cuz they automatically put it in. If you ask for coffee, they will ask you "what kind?" To which you reply: long black, short black, short white, late...very strange. *NOTE: Conor bought a coffee maker though, so there will be real coffee for you mom, and Jeanette gave us starbucks coffee when we were in Brisbane.
- Electrical plug ins have their own on/off switch (already talked about that I guess)
- They say "how ya going?" This bothers Conor very much, and bothers him even more when a fellow Canadian or American says it

And don't even get me started on the potato chip flavors:
Roast Chicken... Barbecue Sauce...Cheese & Spring Onion...Greek Feta & Herb Crisps.... Italian Tomato & Basil Crisps ... Italian Cheese Crinkles ....sea salt...sweet chilli sour cream...thai lime and ginger...tangy herb and spice

Our Couch

Okay, Conor was completely sure that this couch wasn't going to fit through the front door...but it did without any hassle at all. Anyways, here's our couch, it's not the best looking, but we'll cover it somehow. Any ideas Mom Sweeney? Hehe

Go here for pics of our Apartment (not fully furnished yet), Brisbane and a bit of Melbourne (we haven't really gone to any sites or taken many pics YET):

http://jaclynsweeney.spaces.live.com/

Go here to look at pics that I put on my old myspace:

http://jaclynrose.spaces.live.com/

You just have to click the folder and you can watch the pics as a slideshow, or select each picture to look at

Internet

So we have internet, thanks to Dan Bryce....well the Aussie version of Dan that is, looked just like him. I'm going to put some pics up, but maybe through my msn myspace, just easier to view that way...also you can check out old pictures at my old msn myspace.

Hot water con't

Thursday August 31, 7:30 pm

So as you have read from my other post things are looking up! The hot water is back – after a big gong show. So we don’t actually have any contact with the landlord of the property, but with the agency he has hired, I guess. So if we have any problems we have to contact the agent who gets it fixed….or rather, should get it fixed. We moved in two Saturdays ago, Conor had a hot shower, and I started to and then the hot water ran out. So we just figured he used up all the hot water, we would wait and see if it came back. Which it did…but then Sunday morning it was gone, maybe the others in the building used it all? I was going to go into the agency on Tuesday to drop off the condition report and I though a situation like this they would get fixed same day, so we didn’t contact them on Monday. I went in Tuesday and the receptionist emailed our agent while I was there, but I received no calls back from him that day. I called Wednesday morning, and he was on the phone so the receptionist took my name and number and said she would give him my message…no call back. Thursday morning, called, actually talked to him and he said he would work on it. Still nothing, called again Friday morning to see what was happening, and this was a snippet of the conversation…

“Hi Jaclyn, this is Ben.”
“Hi Ben.”
“So, I’m just returning your call, what can I do for you?”
“Well I was just wondering what was happening with the hot water situation over here.”
“What seems to be the problem?”

I was very mad at that point, he didn’t even remember speaking to me the day before! Anyways, he said he would get it fixed that day…which he didn’t! Conor and I went into the agency on Monday morning and this really really great lady was there and we told her the problem and she apologized profusely and said that she would get someone else to work on it, since our guy obviously wasn’t doing anything. We also had a couple other things we needed – we needed a mailbox key that actually worked, and a letter of permission from the landlord to get internet installed. The receptionist forwarded our hot water issue to a different lady and the mailbox issue back to our guy Ben. Later on Monday Ben called back and I relayed to him that someone else was working on the hot water issue, he seemed to be shocked and said that the plumber was supposed to contact us, he has supposedly talked to them on Friday…whatever. He obviously doesn’t know how to follow up and check that things were actually fixed. So he said that someone would get it fixed that day, and about the mailbox key and letter, he would come by Wednesday afternoon to see if the mailbox key they had worked or not, and to bring the letter for us.

I then received another call from the plumber and he said he would come at 3:30. He came, looked to be about 17 years old (honestly!), he came in, went around the back, came up and asked for a lighter to light the pilot light (I guess the hot water was gas), and he didn’t bring a lighter….after going back and forth a few times he said that he didn’t have the proper tools and that someone would come out the following day…Tuesday – surprise, no one came! I called AGAIN Wednesday morning, and told Ben that no one came back to actually finish the job, and he said he would work on it…and then I received another call saying that a plumber would be here in a half hour.

I wasn’t home, but Conor was…when I got home he let me know what was going on. Ben came by dropped of the letter of permission but had FORGOTTEN to bring the mailbox key, he says he’ll be back in a few days with it…right! I got home a little bit after he left, and then a plumber came….more experienced (note: not a 17 year old boy!) He fiddled around outside and then came in and asked what the previous plumber had done, and asked why he went and lit a pilot light, since the hot water is electric, not gas.

Before I tell you how he fixed the hot water situation, I’ll tell you a little side story. All of the electric plug ins here have on/off switches. So if you plug something into them, it won’t work until you turn the plug on. When we first moved here and found that the pervious tenant had left her fridge for us, we were very excited, until we turned on the main electricity and the fridge didn’t come on…it was because the plug it was plugged into wasn’t turned on :) There aren’t many plug ins here, but we found a power bar screwed into one of the cupboards (weird place for a power bar), anyways, I was trying to see if it’s plug in was turned on, because it wasn’t working, and couldn’t find the switch…but beside the kitchen sink there are two plugs each with their own switch, and then another lone switch…I fiddled with it to see if it worked the power bar, which it didn’t…..back to the hot water situation….

The plumber came over to the sink and asked if the switch had been turned off all week…because it’s the switch to the hot water tank! Seriously…no markings on this switch to indicate that it is the hot water switch, the agency didn’t even know whether the hot water was electric or gas. It’s just ridiculous. So the plumber switched it on, and marked it as the hot water switch with a jiffy marker…he also fixed the hot water tap in the shower that was nearly impossible to turn on or off…made several comments about how he can’t believe it took us a week and a half to get this thing fixed (not blaming it on us, but the agent), and also told us that he would inform the young plumber that had come Monday that he was stupid…hehe.

I had a hot shower today! It was great. Once we get the mailbox key I pray that nothing else goes wrong, because Lord knows how long it will take to get it fixed.

Yay for Hot water!

This is just a short post - since the schools internet is being really annoying!

Anyways, we got hot water finally...it was a bigger gong show than I thought possible, and the solution to the problem was unbelievable simple, but very strange...I will keep you all in suspense until I post again!

If all goes as planned we will have internet installed at the apartment tomorrow...so then I can post pictures and be online more :) We're also getting a couch that we bought delivered Saterday...so then everything will be alot better!

Burst Bubble

I'm very frustrated right now for a number of reaons:

Most importantly - we have no hot water! I finally got ahold of our agent today, and he said he would get it fixed and I still haven't heard back, and I tried calling again and left a message, but no reply. I want a warm shower!!

Second - for some reason the immigration department hasn't received confirmation of commencement for Conor's studies, so I can't apply for my work visa yet - very frustrating!

Thirdly - our mailbox key doesn't work, so who knows what's hiding in there!

Also, I want chairs for our table, a couch to sit on, internet (which I have to talk to the agent to get a permission letter, who knows when I'll actually get through to him again), and after that I will be happy! Hehe...it's soo cold here...rained all night and all day, and we don't have central heating - so a warm shower would be really nice right now!

Anyways, to pre-occupy me, Conor and I are going to buy a little TV and watch some free cable!

Lots-a stuff

If you notice a couple days go by before an update, it's because it's our weekend, and we can't get into Conor's school to get online, and don't want to go somewhere to pay to go on :)

Thursday August 17, 5:40 pm

So we’re out of the hospitality suite now, and staying with Bill and Mary Galbraith. Mary audits some classes at Conor’s school, and had mentioned to Conor that generally they take in new students at their house, but at the time that we arrived they were out of the country…so it worked out that now they are back for us to stay two nights. Bill actually came and picked us up this morning so that we didn’t have to take all of our stuff on public transportation (and a few trips of it at that), so that was nice. If you look at a map of Melbourne and start from Conor’s school (in East Melbourne) and go west, the suburbs go like this: East Melbourne (Conor’s school), Richmond, Hawthorn (where our apartment is), Hawthorn East (where the Galbraith’s live), and Canterbury (where the hospitality suite is). Keep in mind each suburb is fairly small, maybe a square of 10-20 blocks each side. After Mr. Galbraith dropped us off, we walked to the apartment to see the agent, and it was only 10-15 minute walk. So the apartment we move into Saterday is maybe a half hour walk to Conor’s school. Anyways, the Galbraith’s have six children, three of whom still live at home, and I’ve just met their eldest daughter who is getting married in November. They all seem really nice, and very accommodating.

So I had my interview today. I wasn’t sure going into it which job that I had applied to I was being interviewed for, but it turns out it’s actually a recruitment agency. So I went in and had a chat with one girl who specializes in temp admin jobs, and another girl who specializes in banking (at one bank, and National Australian Bank). So now I have a couple of decisions to make. The lady with the admin jobs said that since I’m only in the country for two years, that I probably won’t get any permanent admin jobs. That means that I would be temping for their clients who need last minute administrators. I don’t really like that sound of that for two reasons: I don’t have any formal training or experience in admin and the thought of possibly going into an office for only a week or a day without really knowing what I’m doing is very daunting, also there would be no security in knowing that I have work from week to week. The lady that I spoke to regarding teller and reception jobs at the NAB made is seems as though she already knows of a couple permanent positions that have been posted that I would be able to step into as soon as my work visa goes through. This is very good in that I would have something potentially right away, and it would be permanent, so there would be stability. The only con is that I’m not really gaining any new experience or getting my hands into admin at all. So at the moment I don’t know what to do. Either way I have until I get my working visa to decide, so I’m not in too much of a rush.

On a side note, in order to buy a fridge for our apartment we needed to have another look and just see what kind of space we were working with so Conor and I met the agent at the apartment this morning, and on the way she called to tell us she was there, and that the previous tenant had actually left her fridge there for us! That is a definite bonus. There’s only room for a bar fridge (which it is), but it doesn’t have a freezer; it will do for the time being though until we have a chance to look for another fridge, unless we decide we don’t need a freezer anyways. There’s this market in town, the Elizabeth Street Market, which if you go after a certain time of day, fresh meat that they don’t want to keep overnight will be sold for half price or less. So it we want to be shopping for those things on a more regular basis, then the current fridge will do just fine. Either way, that is another thing that we don’t have to worry about right away. Looking at the apartment again I feel even more excited than when we first found out that we were approved. When I went to the open inspection, the other tenant was just moving out, so I couldn’t get as good of a look as I wanted to of some parts of the place. So I got to look in the closet today, which is fairly big and we can save space by fitting a dressing in one half of the closet, so that is good. The kitchen is also a bit bigger then I remembered (because it had a lot of stuff on the counter when I first saw it) and has good counter space. We also found out that we have a storage unit downstairs, and it is in MUCH better condition than the storage unit at my mom’s apartment. It’s a small room with a locked door that we don’t have to share with anyone else. Not that we really need storage room at the moment since we came with little in the first place, but we can put our suitcases in there, and extra supplied or whatever. We also got to look at the communal laundry room that looks pretty good. Two washers and one dryer (coin operated, but probably much cheaper than any Laundromats), so we won’t have to lug our stuff somewhere to wash. Anyways, all in all it’s been a great day/week, and I can’t wait to move in and stay in our very first apartment Saterday!

Saterday August 19, 7:30 pm

Our new apartment is great! This morning Mr. Galbraith helped us pack our stuff into his car, drove us to get our keys, and helped us bring in our stuff. Then we went to this mall with a Coles (grocery store), IKEA, and other things…it’s a 5-10 minute walk from our place. We picked up some stuff, but we hadn’t gotten the fridge turned on yet, so we didn’t buy any milk or anything. We just mainly got cleaning things, and paper towel, toilet paper etc. While we were there Louise called to tell us that she got accepted for an apartment as well, she would be moving today. I don’t know if I’ve talked about the Quist’s at all, but they are a family from Alberta who were going to Conor’s school and moving back to Canada just as we were arriving here. Carol Quist was the international student liaison officer, so we had corresponded with her via email before we got here. We weren’t able to meet her since we arrived on a Saterday and she was leaving for Canada on the Tuesday, but they had left some furniture and kitchen stuff behind with a family named the De Bruyn’s. We had spoken to them earlier in the week, and they said they had a trailer, so whenever we got a place they would load up the stuff we wanted and bring it to us.

So after we got back from our small shopping outage, we got on a train and met Louise at the De Bruyn’s house (we would be splitting everything there with her). So we got a free double bed, a table to eat on (and use as a desk) a coffee table, toaster, iron, cooking utensils, some cook books, a pot and two pans…and some other odds and ends. After Mr. De Bruyn dropped Louise off with her stuff, and us off, we got the fridge working (now we just have to figure out the gas stove), and headed out shopping again; picked up sheets for the bed, and a wool blanket thing. From the Quist’s we got the bed and a dooma (it’s like the insides of a comforter, but you just have to get a cover for it). So we have some bedding for tonight, we had to buy a couple pillows as well. We also bought some breakfast food (milk, eggs, bread, jam, etc), but tomorrow with the Sunday Saver transportation pass ($2.50 for the whole day), we’ll go into the Queen St Market and buy all of our fruit and veggies. And then maybe go and buy some more household things. We don’t have any garbage cans, clothes hampers, cooking oil, odds and ends like that. Plus we have a big closet, but no drawers/dresser, so we will buy some stand up or hanging shelving for the closet to put our cloths in so we can get the suitcases emptied (for the first time in three weeks).

We are liking this place more and more and can’t wait for you to visit, for those of you who are planning it!