Sunday, December 5, 2010

About one month away!

I am getting excited, but also sad for leaving in about a month. I look forward to going back to Australia, but I am not at all looking forward to leaving David again for 6 months, and very much not looking forward to not seeing my family again for a long time! :( I know it'll be fine, and goodbyes are always the hardest part (and thank goodness for Skype) but it still stands.

To be honest though, I haven't really had any time to think about moving yet, this next week is dead week and then finals week after that. After my cell bio final on Monday of finals week I can finally begin to concentrate on packing up. A few new developments are that I have my student visa, and David is on mine as well. We still need to get him a chest x-ray and medical check up though. Also, Emily, the girl who offered for me to stay at her place until I found somewhere, has told me that her friend has a room for let and that she gave her my email so I should be hearing from her soon. That would be really great if that worked out! :)

We had a bit of car setback on our way home from Great Falls (Thanksgiving break). Our car broke down in Missoula and we had to get the starter and the alternator replaced (rebuilt ones) and it was about $552 + $85 towing. Other than the price that setback wasn't very stressful because we had wonderful friends in Missoula who helped us out and gave us a place to stay (thanks Jerome & Judy!!). We also got to see my cousin and her fiancé again, so that was nice. :) We hope to just be able to tag that price onto the amount of the car when we go to sell it in the spring. We'll see how that goes. :)

Anyway, the next time I post I might be in Australia (maybe not, but we'll see). :P Bye!

Friday, September 3, 2010

Things are getting on way

After our wonderful wedding, and thanks to so many people who sent us wedding gifts, paying for the expenses for moving to Australia is sooooo much easier! I have already bought my plane tickets (I leave on January 11, 2011. From Seattle to LA, then LA to Brisbane, then Brisbane to Perth!). One of the american students I met at Murdoch (Emily) is going to pick me up from the airport and let me crash at her and her husband's house until I can find a place to live, so that takes a load off. :)

I also just sent off my passport renewal application, which I did expedited so I could make sure to get it back in enough time to apply for and receive my Australian visa before I leave. It's taken me a little longer than I expected because the name change process has been a bit crazy, but it's finally under way!

As far as school goes, I am taking Cellular Biology (the one required class I have to pass before going to Murdoch), German grammar, Intermediate Spanish, and Jazz Choir. Since it was (funnily enough) the best idea financially for me to go full time this semester, I decided I might as well fill up on classes that I like and that I won't be able to get at Murdoch. I also had belly dancing, but they canceled it for Hawaiian dancing, and then they canceled that! So, no dancing. :( Oh well, I am really packed full as it is! I only have 12 credits, but I also am balancing two jobs, so it's quite hectic! I am also trying to make some room for raptor club, which I hope doesn't completely die out of my schedule because I am really loving learning how to handle the birds and I am enjoying the birds themselves! :)

Well, I suppose that'll be all for now, but tune in again soon because it's nearing the time when I will be writing ever more often in here. :)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Sushi Station

I went in to my new work today for the first time actually doing something. My boss, David Lim, told us all to be there at 5 PM and to have our family/friends over at 7 PM for a free trial of the sushi! We mainly cleaned up the place (just built, we were literally wiping construction dust off of tables etc.) and dried plates. When our families got there we placed tons of sushi out on plates and put them on the conveyer belt. Sadly we didn't get to eat with them, but David (my David) stayed after his parents left and so I did get to eat with him even though he was full. It was really good sushi! I didn't get paid for tonight, even though I was there for like 5 hours, but a free sushi dinner for the whole family is a pretty good deal! I don't mind anyway because I was helping the business get going. There were a lot of little issues, and we were doing things that we won't actually be doing, but it was good to get a feel for the place, and it gives us stuff to work on in the future. This wasn't even the grand opening yet, so it was a pre-opening trial really, so lots of kinks to get worked out (for example, they forgot about giving people wasabi until they were almost done eating). ;P Anyway, I should start on Wed or Thurs, so looking forward to that in many ways.

P.S. I ran 4.2 miles on Tuesday, it felt great! I have never ran that far consecutively before, there were a few brief moments of walking, but I ran most all of it!! The only crappy part about it is that after the run my foot really started hurting and it's still at it. It hurts bad enough to get in the way of simply walking. Lame, now I have to wait a while before running again and I friggin want to run!!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

What's new

Just a bit of an update on what's been going on. David and I have really been enjoying out time not in school and not working. I have been doing a lot of work on David's family's garage, which needed a lot of cleaning out, and now we're having a big garage sale! I intend on putting everything I make at this towards my Africa trip, but it's not looking too good so far. I have real potential cause there are quite a few large, nice items that are worth a lot, and David's dad has told me that he'd give me a commission on them for selling them, but I need to sell them first. ;P I have posted on Craigslist too.
Other than that, we've been taking a few trips. A week ago we went to the very Northwestern tip of both Washington and of the USA. That was pretty awesome! My profile pic is from there. We also got gas in Forks (the setting of the Twilight series, which I don't care much about but I know some people that would care very much. ;P). And of course, if you look at my previous post, the past few days we went up to Whistler.

Even though I've been really enjoying my time off, I can't help but notice my $ dwindling, so I started passively looking for work. I also got a nice bit of cash back from the government for my taxes, so that helps. Anyway, I was looking on Craigslist one day and sent a few resumés out via email and got a response from a sushi place that is just opening. I went into an interview and was offered the position! It's kind of a "test" for everyone involved as the place is just opening, and I haven't even started yet cause the place is still under slight construction! I don't know exactly when I start yet, but it should be in the next week or so. I have to bring my papers into him, which I was supposed to do when I was in Canada, but that didn't work out did it. ;P I also have to take a food handling and alcohol serving test and get those certificates, which I will do most likely tomorrow. This should be good, I love sushi and the owner seems like a nice guy. I also like the uniform. :) I won't be there long as I have to leave in May, but it'll be nice to have a little income for a bit, even if it is about a 30 min commute. I just hope the part time work is enough to make up for the gas. ;P I am glad it's part time though, so I can still have time to hang out with people as this will be the last time I'm in this area for a long time as I most likely won't be coming back here (for long at least) before I move to Australia.

Paraolympics

On Monday David, his dad John, his uncle Scott, and I all drove up to Whistler for a two night stay. David and his dad have been up there numerous times before as they have a time share condo there, but Scott and I had never been. John though it would be neat to go up there and see the differences since the Olympics, and we all thought that a great idea, especially since John is retired and non of us currently have jobs. So, we drove up through Vancouver on Monday. We stopped and walked around a bit, seeing the Olympic flame while we were at it! It was still lit, which we found out was because the paraolympics were still going on (until the 21st)! I knew that they were a few weeks after the Olympics, but wasn't sure exactly when. We were pretty lucky to hit going up there when we did because we got a really good deal on rooms and we also got to see some Olympic stuff! When we got to Whistler we saw people wearing blue coats (workers) everywhere, but hadn't seen any athletes (that we knew of) yet. After we got settled in our room, we went out after eating some dinner. We got to Whistler village around 7 PM and there was a huge crowd heading towards the one end where we saw olympic fences up and a big screen. We decided to follow and see what was going on. There were a bunch of entry points, but we didn't go in as we figured you had to have tickets or something, but then one of the blue coats told us to go in cause it was free!
Well, we of course took her up on that and headed in! We were handed little whistle/light/keychains on the way in and were directed to the free hot chocolate. We found out as soon as we were in that we happened upon the medal ceremonies! So we stood around drinking out hot chocolate, cheering on the medal winners and listening to the various national anthems (mostly Russia). I saw quite a few Aussies, and got a picture of the bronze Australian medalist. I was of course also every excited to see that Norway won a silver in Men's Cross Country Standing, and got a pic of that group! It was so cool! It was great, we were thinking to ourselves later that if we had been in that same place during the olympics we probably wouldn't be able to breath with the amount of people, and we most likely would've had to pay to see the medal ceremonies.
I think it's pretty crappy that the para and special olympics aren't televised cause they deserve just as much, if not MORE recognition for their accomplishments. Seeing how well these people do without legs, arms, vision, etc, is amazing! It's really uplifting! It really makes you think, what is my excuse, if these people can motivate themselves to do these things (which is much harder to do I'm sure) why can't I, someone who has no physical problems! It makes you kind of feel like you're just lazing through life (at least it does for me anyway, and I even try to be pretty active).
Just some thoughts. :)

We went back again the next night and saw more, in which Slovakia won a lot, and the US won silver and gold in the same event!