Floored

It's Halloween, the make-believe 'holiday' that celebrates, well, the make-believe. But true to the myth, it has been a rather strange day today. It's phato-essay marking day for this year's 1st year course, and normally these are easy as chips & should be able to chewed thru with no trouble what so ever. it was a 9am start, & because there wasn't really any breakfast at home I got up even earlier so I could stop by Mecca's to pick up a McMuffin & McHash Brown before parking & jumping (literally) onto the express bus. A couple of stops after I got on, this Armani-clad guy (& I don't mean just the suit, it's the whole works, complete with Armani shades & briefcase) got on. By now the bus was already pretty full of ppl express-ing to the city for work, so he had to stand, & he stood not far from where I was sitting (thus I had a good scan of him). As soon as the bus got going again, he pulled out a rosary from his pants pocket & started praying quietly. Because it was peak time trafiic, he had pretty much the whole bus trip (there was an accident on the Gore Hill Freeway so we were delayed even more) which ended up being about an hr & 40 mins long. But I guess stranger things (than praying Armani guys I mean) have happened I suppose.

Then it got worse. The normally easy breezy photo-essay turned out to be a crap bunch this year. The quality of the 1st year essays were simply appaling, with less than a handful (out of 100+ students) really hitting the mark & getting close to 100%. With the bad quality, everyone just slowed right down, feeling horrid for having to read the stupid things & laughing at the outrageousness of what 1st years come up with (my favourite remain the loin-cloth wearing Aboriginals from last year's bunch :D) (for non-Aussies, the funniest part was of course the Austn Aboriginals never wore loin clothes; they went about starkers). It ended up taking the 5 of us 7 hours to go thru the lot, which I'm guessing had a 60% average. Thank God I don't have to do that ever again with me so close to submitting my own piece of sensationalised writing early next year. Oooh, can wait to get that monkey off my back & move right on.

Sydney Food and Wine Fair

When better then lunch time to blog about the Sydney Food and Wine Fair. It was of course Anne's birthday on Friday & I went with her to the Sydney Food & Wine Fair at Hyde Park on Saturday to sample to g-o-o-o-o-o-o-d food from some of the finest restaurants in Sydney. We met at the corner of DJ at 11:30 & waited for her Japanese 'friend of a friend' who was relatively new in town (Kei, see below). We got there early (Fair 12noon - 2pm) so we could have a bit of a walk around & gawk at what we could get before lining up for tickets, but unfortunately 1/2 hr was still not early enough as the line for tickets were already long. As such, we didn't actually get to the ticket booths until probably 20 past, & after more queuing at the stalls finally got to sit down by the fountain for some real food. I took pictures of everything that we had (bar the quail, which I only remembered that I forgot to pic after I have already devoured it) - smoked salmon with truffle aoili, duck sald with pear, mushroom hamburger, fried bananas, chili quail with lemon, & of course a dessert favourite, mango & passionfruit pavlova, all washed down with 2 glasses of champagne. Yes, there were only the three of us, so what better way of walking all that food off afterwards than a stroll around the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens. It was such a nice day as well, warm-ish but not hot, sunny. A great day.

Finally bought my new JVC Everio GZMG37 digital hard disk camcorder. Well, actually bought it a couple of weeks ago. Have already animal-tested it on the dog, & will try it in a real event 1st time this coming sat for Anne's birthday party & to record birthday messages for Nat. More events coming for recording - there is of course the wedding in HK & my related trips, back in time for geog xmas lunch, & NYE!! Alas, the still image function of the JVC is not good, so I shelled out & bought a new Canon PowerShot S70 as well (been meaning to upgrade the digital cam for a couple of years now, finally found a great bargain at Bing Lee - $600 off 'cos it's the 2nd-latest model & last 1 in stock!!). So many things to claim back GST on way out ...

When Harry met Ed

Ok, so that title is a bit misleading. Harry didn't exactley meet me & I didn't exactly meet him either, but hear me out & this is the gist of my story:

Monday morning, good weather, so when better to stroll down the city & pick up more things that I need to take with me to HK on my way to uni. As I was walking past Town Hall there was this strange looking man with what I thought was white stockings underneath his casual shorts. So naturally I had to take another closer look, & that's when I realised the slightly chubby man was in fact Harry Kewell (yes, the soccer player) & those 'white stockings' were in fact 1 of those skintight things that stops u from having DVT. (Yes, he looked chubby for an athlete, but only just. Maybe 2-3 kilos. Probably from lack of exercise/game time) Anywho, as I made my way across Town Hall to go to DJ Harry K was on the mobile from what I can gather asking for directions. He disappeared just after waiting at the lights @ the corner of QVB & Kinokuniya.

Ha, gist my ass!

Busy long weekend

It most certainly was a busy long wkend, with the Drozdzewski-Gastineau-Hills wedding up in Gosford on Saturday. As planned, most of us travelled up the night before. I got roomed with Kath & Omar, with Nicola & Wendy arriving a day later, so we decided to head out (next door) to the RSL & have a bit of a drinky before settling in for the night. The next day was pretty similar, except because the wedding ceremony was not until the afternoon we walked into town & had a late brunch & did some final shopping (cards, etc). Back to the motel just in time to get changed & be ready for the 2:30 taxi. Unfortunately, the AFL Gradn Final was also due to start at 2:30, which meant that I had to miss out on the whole thing. Or so I thought. Our taxi called & said it would be 15 minutes late. Great! I got to watch th 1st bounce, & some more! As some of you might know, it was a close match, except for the 1st quarter where we made WAY too many mistakes & conceded a big lead. We scored the 1st point though, which is what I saw & left the motel room (& TV) with the knowlegde that the Swans were leading. Unfortunately that was the only time we led in the entire match, even though we came SO close to catching up. Final score? A heart-breaking 84-85 :'( The picture says it all.

Anyway, back to the wedding. So as we sat thru the ceremony before waiting for a long time for the taxi to arrive to take us to the reception across the lagoon (we booked the taxi at 5, thinking the ceremony would go long, which it didn't. Plus the taxi arrived late also. So we ended up waiting for almost an hour!) The chilly lagoon-side weather started to kick in, & despite my silk scarf Anne & Nat were freezing in their singlet top/dress. Thus, the huddle (Rachel was warmly snuggled up in her wool pashmina)


Across the lake to the reception at the Boathouse, which has floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked across the lagoon. We were all already waiting, some drowning our sorrows with champagne & canape ( the Best Man, Al, who is also a huge Swans fan) while others just got merrier & merrier by the glass full or bubbly, the Bridal Party arrived at the reception by boat (how classy!). The reception was a lot of fun, with traditional Polish, well, traditions like the salt & bread thing (forgotten what exactly it is, but I'm guessing it went along the lines of not being hungry & full of flavour), funny speeches, & good food. As the happy couple finally ran off in their hired limo at 1/4 past 11, the rest started scurrying off as well. We headed back to the motel, and after a bit of drama & comotion (Rae lost the keys to her rental car) we were finally off to the after party at North Avoca 2am. All being geographers we naturally got lost on our way there. A simple 20-minute drive turned into 45 minutes. As such, we didn't end up staying for long. Without getting lost this time, still didn't get back to the motel until 4am! The failed promise of a good, warm bonfire on the beach, plus lack of sleep, plus wedding alcohol consumption mode meant that I've been carrying a cough & sneeze with me ever since getting back to Sydney around lunch time Sunday. Only 5 more wks before I hurry off OS, do a bit of trip-ing in East Asia, before getting to yet another wedding (yes, wedding #3). In the meantime, have settled back into writing mode & seems to be on track to finish re-writing the current chapter by self-imposed deadline of mid-Oct. Terrif! Only 4 more chapters to go, plus splitting the lit review into 2.

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