So last weekend, I went to a “Sunsets & Star Trails” workshop out near Boonah (for those of you not familiar with Brisbane geography, that’s about an hour’s drive into the country from my house). It was the second workshop I did with Bluedog Photography, and I can’t recommend them enough. It was a great night, full of good conversations, lots of stargazing, and plenty of learning about proper photography techniques that I can hopefully apply in the future.

The afternoon started out at the Royal Hotel in Roadvale, a small town of about 600 people that I can’t say I’d heard of before reading the description of the workshop. It’s a beautiful little country town, built on rolling hills with larger mountains looming in the distance, with one main street with a country store and the aforementioned Royal Hotel. After a bit of a meet-and-greet, we headed out to the private property of Suellen, who so graciously let us invade her home all night.

Garry, one of the tutors, gave us a quick tutorial on what we were going to need to look for before sending us off into the wild of the large yard. Essentially, we needed to find a good spot with some nice framing that faced roughly south, and we needed to have it fully set up before dark. I had a good wander throughout the entire yard. Luckily my knee has gotten significantly better than it was in April (when I had arthroscopic surgery for to clean up some cartilage that had torn off the back of my kneecap) so I could actually kneel down and try to find somewhat different angles on the same photograph. I managed to get a few late afternoon/verging on sunset photos this way. I was especially happy with the swingset photo that’s in this shot.

I finally found a corner of the yard near the old dunny that I was happy with. There were quite a few possible angles to go with, but I chose a thistle, which would later come back to bite me when I realized I wasn’t actually facing south and needed to readjust my shot. This was the first of a few things to go slightly awry during the evening, but it was all a learning experience, right? In the dark, I managed to get my tripod out of the gnarled bushes I had gotten it entangled in and moved it to frame the shot with a stark, winter-time frangipani tree. After following all of Garry’s instructions, I decided to go for my first star trails shot (star trails, for those that don’t know, are the streaks in the sky you can capture when you take long-exposure night shots. See further down in this post for an example). This involved using my remote release so I didn’t introduce camera shake to the shot. Unfortunately, the remote didn’t have the other very important feature I needed for this exercise–a lock. That meant that if I wanted to get a 45-minute long exposure shot, I would have to hold down a button for 45 minutes. “Oh well,” I thought. “I’m here, I might as well give it a shot because that’s all I’m going to get with this equipment.”

After 10 minutes, my thumb started falling asleep and suddenly twitched, letting go of the shutter and finishing the exposure. Needless to say, I wasn’t amused! I talked to both Garry and Nick; between the three of us, we managed to devise a contraption to hold the remote button down without me being there. It sounds pretty simple–scotch tape a piece of gravel down on the remote, and then tape the remote to the tripod. However, we had a bit of trouble getting it rigged because the remote had to be aimed at the camera at all times–start taping and accidentally move its line of sight and the shutter would close. It look us about 20 minutes to get it set up the first time, but finally we were able to sneak away from the camera without hearing the shutter click.

From then on, I felt a lot more social! I was able to go over to the main group (since my camera was well away from everyone else’s) and chat with everyone else. We were all amazed at the number of stars we were seeing, especially given the cloud cover around sunset. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to obscure the twinkling of the stars or the slight haziness that marked out the band of the Milky Way sprawling across the sky.

By the end of the night, each of us had 2-3 shots of star trails. I know, you’re thinking, “What? She went out for 7 hours and got 2 photos?” Each photo takes 45 minutes to shoot and another 45 minutes to process for noise reduction, so it’s a very time-consuming and patience-testing endeavour! I was happy that I got any star trails at all after the hassle I had to go through with my remote, although now I have to do a bit of investigation to figure out why they came out the way they did. Even though the camera seemed to process the picture to reduce the noise, both of my shots are still nearly obscured by the huge amount of noise in them. And since I took the photos at f5.6 and ISO 200 with noise reduction, there really shouldn’t be noise like this in the shot. Everyone else had the same settings as me and their shots came out much better than this, so I’m hoping that there’s not a problem with my camera! If anyone that’s reading this is a Pentax expert, please comment and let me know

Anyway, all in all, it was a great night and well worth the money and the trip out there. I now feel a lot more confident with my night shooting and am really hoping to get away from the city to try it again soon.

Anyway, the whole week around our birthdays was pretty eventful. On James’ birthday, which happened to be on a Tuesday, we had our work Christmas party. Yes, I know that a Tuesday in November is a pretty odd time to have a Christmas party, especially when said party starts at 12pm. However, there was method to the madness–our COO was in town from America for a few days so we wanted to include him. We had a great lunch at the Caxton Hotel (mm…filet mignon wrapped in bacon), and the wine was some of the best I’ve ever had.

Needless to say, by the time I made it to James’ car I was a little bit on the tipsy side.  This was okay though, because we were going out to a big group dinner at a Vietnamese place in West End with all of his friends. James got a bit overzealous on the ordering of food and we ended up with 5 quail, a massive steamboat full of vegetables and seafood, and another appetizer + main on top of that! After my massive lunch there was no way I could eat the equivalent of about two dinners!

As we sat in the Melbourne pub after dinner, it began tipping it down outside. That motivated us to stay that little bit longer, which meant that James was bought quite a few drinks, the best of which was the Terminator–shots of Absinthe, Bacardi 151, and Chartreuse topped with Tabasco sauce. I can’t say how happy I was that it wasn’t yet my birthday so I didn’t have to drink that!

The rain that night only further saturated the already soaked ground in Brisbane. On the Sunday prior, we were hit with a massive storm that had the strength of a category 2 hurricane (and Doug from Ephox has the videos to prove it!). On the night of my birthday, another massive storm came through and smacked down the already struggling suburbs yet again. Luckily I don’t live in the harder hit suburbs and my house is at the top of a small hill so we made it through without serious damage to house or cars.  Driving to work on the morning of the 20th was like driving through a disaster zone though. Many of the houses in Rosalie looked like they had filled with nearly a foot of water and people were already out on the streets at 7am piling up soggy, ruined belongings.

Besides a lot of people being very unhappy about gigantic thunderstorms filling their houses and cars with water, my birthday was quite a good day. At work we celebrated with an apple crumble cheesecake (how can you go wrong with a combination of apple pie and cheesecake?). When I got home, a large wrapped box was sitting on the couch. I was ecstatic because it was a photo box–a wood box with four frames on the outside and pull-out albums that hold 540 pictures–to replace the one that Australia Post mangled two years ago. He was proud of finding the perfect gift for me then, only to get the box back a month later looking like it had been used as a rugby ball. One side had completely broken off and all the glass was shattered. Luckily, he got his money back then and this time he didn’t have to put it through the post so it’s still in perfect condition. Now I just have to get prints to put in it!

For my birthday dinner, James and I went out to a teppanyaki restaurant (where the chefs cook food on the grill in front of you). Our chef was hilarious and gave all of us our money’s worth. Not only was the food delicious (we ate steak, Moreton bay bugs, prawns, and fried rice to name but half of the meal), but we spent a good part of the evening in stitches over his various jokes and games. We got to catch pieces of omelette in our mouths and even better, attempted to catch raw eggs in little egg holders. That didn’t go so well for me, and I was just happy that I’d moved my purse beforehand…since I really didn’t want to go home with egg smeared all over it!

To finish off an eventful week, James, Ollie, and I went to the local golf links the following Sunday, since the Brisbane River was full of debris from the rains and wakeboarding was a no-go. I feel a little sorry for the people following us because they were endlessly watching us hit balls into the next green over or straight into the ground 5 feet away (that was my specialty). It was much more entertaining than I thought swinging a pole and then searching for the next 300m for a little white spot on the ground would be; however, I still think Ollie and James had a lot more fun because they got to laugh at me the whole time. We ended up at +22 (James), +34 (Ollie), and +55 (me) for the 9 holes. Needless to say, there’s a little bit of improvement to be had by all!

Anyway, about a month ago now, I bought a copy of Guitar Hero: World Tour. The way I got it wasn’t exactly as I planned it…I was just going to pop by the shops after work, buy the game on its own, and then go home and try it out. Instead, the night before the game came out, I went with James and his friends to see a movie at the shopping centre. Afterwards, one of his friends said he was just going to pop by EBgames because they were open from 10pm-1am for the Guitar Hero launch. I figured that since it was 11.40 already and they could officially sell the games at midnight, I might as well go get my copy too.

The crowd wasn’t too big but it was still enough to fill up the store with interesting characters admiring the few that got to play the game on the big screen TV. One guy was wearing a shirt that said “You read this shirt. That’s enough social interaction for today.” At that point, James got very scared and wanted to leave…yet at the same time, he somehow managed to convince me to stay because “you’ll only have to wait 15 minutes.” Not only that, but he also explained that logically, if I just bought the game, I would only have half of the functionality since I wouldn’t have the drums or microphone, and therefore I wouldn’t be getting my money’s worth. Somehow this convinced me and I ended up with the entire drum kit/guitar/microphone set by the end of the night.

Long story short, I ended up in the very back of the line but still had my game (which came in a large box that James carried on his shoulder) by 12.15. As soon as I got home, I went to sleep, so I didn’t even open it until I got home from work the next day. Even then, I only played the guitar until my flatmate came home and decided to put together the drum kit. It was only then that we found out that they had forgotten to put drumsticks in the box!

Needless to say, I wasn’t very happy, given the price I paid for the entire package. Plus, I did want to try out the drums, as did Ian. Therefore, we started devising other ways we could play them. The plastic handles of our silverware didn’t work too well because they were way too short and the drums never registered the impacts, but we found that wooden spoons did a reasonable job. There were three main downsides:

1) The drums still had to be belted with the drumsticks to register anything on the game (although we later found that this is actually a problem with real drumsticks on the kit as well)
2) We were hitting the drums using the handles and therefore holding the wide ends of the spoons…which caused blisters very quickly on the hands
3) We looked like idiots (but this was very entertaining for everyone watching)

Fortunately the manager at EBgames the next day was reasonable and gave me a set of Ozzy Osbourne drumsticks (although why he has his own drumsticks, I don’t know…) for free. On top of that, Dylan from work gave me a set of his old nylon tipped drumsticks so now we have multiple choices!

To talk about the game itself, I’m actually a bit disappointed with it overall. The drums are fun to play, but I’m not very good at them at all. The guitar parts are significantly easier than on GH3, but I still can’t get the hang of 5 notes and the whole moving my hand thing. That means that hard is too frustrating most of the time and medium is too easy, so I get a bit bored. Plus, I definitely prefer the songs in GH3. I suppose since it was called “Legends of Rock” it makes sense that it has more classic songs. I like some of the songs on GHWT but it just seems like a lot of them are recent songs that are decent but nothing special. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game, but I guess after playing GH3 for so long I was expecting more.

As most of you know, I decided to buy a new car while I was in Perth. It was a cute little Honda Jazz named Ribena who lasted a very long time–and by that I mean a grand total of 2 days–before someone on the Mitchell Freeway decided to see what a Ribena sandwich would look like. It turns out, it didn’t look pretty and the result caused me months of pain and spurred a move to Brisbane. At least I can’t complain about the latter!

Anyway, after a lot of thought and research, I decided that I was willing to risk buying another car. However, I thought it a bit too risky to go for another new car–those just seem to come with a big “kick me” sign on the back–so used it was. James and I went looking one Saturday in Moorooka, which is known as the “Magic Mile” because of the number of car dealerships that line the roads there. We spent hours wandering through the various car lots, dodging used car salesmen, trying to find anything that looked of any worth that was in my price range.

Of course, we managed to find something after we decided that we would only visit one more lot. In fact, there were two cars that caught my eye, and they were two of the same model that I hadn’t even considered because I thought they were way too far out of my price range–the Subaru Impreza. One was a silver 2007 sedan, and the other was a red 2007 (but 2008 make year) hatchback. I test drove both of them and was very happy, but the newer model definitely felt better and had a number of other advantages.

As you may have guessed from the photos (which are poor because I haven’t managed to park the car in a good spot for photo taking yet), I eventually decided to go for the latter. I have to say that I’m much happier with it than I was with Ribena for the few days I had her. For one thing, I can actually drive to work here–and even park in a free parking space at the moment–so my commute time has been cut from 40+ minutes each way to about 15. For another, I know that the Impreza is a much better car, and it has a 5-star safety rating so hopefully my back and neck would make it in a slightly better state if another person decides to inspect the contents of my boot!

The only downside of the car so far is the fact that it’s next to impossible to park near my house when I come home from work. Half the time all of our off-street parking is taken, which means I am left to park on the street that is completely clogged by commuters that drive to the train station. I don’t really mind parking on the street (when I find a spot)–or at least, I didn’t until this morning. What awaited me when I walked out to my car was an interesting sight, to say the least. For some reason, someone had walked around to the driver’s side (so closest to the road rather than to the sidewalk), poured coffee on my roof, and then left the empty disposable coffee cup in the middle of it. Who does that?! And who does that when there is an empty rubbish bin on the curb right next to the car?

First and foremost, I am now settled in Brisbane. I arrived here on September 11 (not the most auspicious of starts), and surprisingly, my huge number of bags (+1 boxed bicycle) arrived with me! The flight itself was great, since we had a very strong tailwind that shortened our flight time by an hour and I was sitting in business class, courtesy of my Qantas frequent flier miles, so I actually slept the majority of the way. It didn’t hurt that my flight took off late, at 1.05am, so I was rather exhausted by the time I stepped on the plane anyway.

I didn’t do a whole lot when I first arrived in Brisbane, besides unpacking and trying to find room for my stuff that seemed to expand so much while I was in Perth. I spent a weekend on the Sunshine Coast (where the picture above is from) with James’ family while he was away on a wakeboarding trip. We alternated between lying on the beach and going home to watch 2 seasons of Sex & the City, so it was definitely a nice & relaxing weekend. Most of my time other than that was spent doing a lot of nothing. I considered going to Straddy (an island near Brisbane) for a day or two, but the fact that it was school holidays and Point Lookout would therefore be swarming with children kind of put me off that, so I pretty much just stuck around the house being useless.

Luckily, I wasn’t useless for too long, since my interviews at a Ephox, a software company based in Brisbane, went really well. I was happy even to get a first interview with them, since a) every other job I’d found that even remotely fit me was only taking applications from permanent residents & citizens and b) it was the job that seemed like it would fit me the best. It really seemed like it would fit me a lot better than my previous job, and I knew as soon as I met the team that I would get along with them well. They fortunately decided the same about me and we launched into the visa process, which means that I was gearing myself up to still be jobless come December. However, the Australian government pulled through and really surprised all of us that were involved in the application process. I applied for my work visa on a Monday afternoon, and when I woke up on Wednesday morning my visa approval was sitting in my inbox. What a change from the 3 months my other visa took to get approved! I can’t say I’m complaining though, since earlier this year I wanted to spend as much time in NZ as possible, while this time around I wanted to start my job ASAP.

And start ASAP I did. Less than a month after I arrived in Brisbane, I had my first day of work. I’ve now been there for a week and a half and have already helped to answer a couple support cases, which is more than I did in the whole 5 months I spent at my last job! I actually feel useful and that I am learning, even though I know that I have a loooooong way to go before I understand most of what is going on. It’s just great to feel like I’m making some sort of difference and that I am actually part of the team, as opposed to the outsider that just looks on while everyone else works.

As for my back, it is finally to the point that I only just feel it towards the end of a day at work. I know that it’s not healed–or at least, I got that impression when I was unloading the car on Sunday night, stretched across the back seat trying to reach a pillow, and my back popped and suddenly I couldn’t move. There was definitely pain, but it subsided after a day or two. I’m doing most normal activities now–although I haven’t been game enough to get on a wakeboard yet, especially since my physio has strongly advised against it–and have been pretty good at doing the exercises my physio recommended to strengthen my back muscles. I just love being able to get through a full day at work (with 1.5km hilly walks to & from the train station) without being in absolute agony!

The mention of wakeboarding (and the photos) might have seemed a little random to some of you, since it’s generally not an everyday activity for most people. James is a member of the UQ Waterski/Wakeboarding Club, so pretty much every weekend since I’ve been here, I’ve been out on a boat watching him wakeboard.  I enjoy going out, since it means I get out of the house and spend part of a day out on the river (even if it is brown) but I’d love to be able to get out on a board and make a total fool of myself, since I feel a bit left out sometimes. Luckily, last weekend James & I went on a camping trip to Moogerah, southwest of Brisbane, with people from the wakeboarding club, but minimal wakeboarding was actually done. As one person there described it, it was a perfect buck’s party weekend, with boats, tubes, chainsaws, bows & arrows, remote controlled cars/plane, bonfires, flaming jack’o'lanterns, and lots of alcohol, just to name a few. Even though it drizzled a lot and people were doubting whether I’d be able to get out of my tent at all during the weekend because of it, we had a great time and it was nice to have a mini-vacation after a tiring week of trying to readjust to a work routine.

This weekend, we’re going back up the coast to see James’ grandparents, who are up from coastal New South Wales. I know, it’s a really rough life

Luckily my mother was able to evacuate and spend a few days with family in the north of Houston. This kept her away from the storm surge but the eye still passed very close to them in Conroe, so they got to sit and listen to the howling winds through the night and then lost their power with the rest of Houston. Fortunately, she returned home Sunday to a house that was in one piece, although she described the ride home as one of the most harrowing of her life, since most lanes of the freeway were still flooded and debris was everywhere.

House-wise, we were particularly worried about windows being blown out, since we have a lot of big ones, but all of them were intact. Part of a tree fell over, but it fell away from the house, and the back yard fence is leaning but not fully knocked over. My car, which had a back window that needed to be taped up as it had fallen off the runners and into the door, managed to weather the storm fine, which was a great surprise. My aunt’s house was fine as well, although my cousin’s gym wasn’t so lucky. The metal roof got ripped off and rain poured in over all of the gymnastics equipment. Luckily she has insurance but it’s going to take quite a bit of work to get it back to normal, plus all the time it takes for everything to dry out and for a roofing contractor to become available.

The majority of Houston is without power at the moment; they’re gradually restoring power but they think about 3 million people are still without it and that it might take a month to get everyone back on the grid. Once my dad gets back from a business trip to Tokyo (he was supposed to fly in on Saturday, which clearly didn’t happen, and now he’s due to fly in today), my parents are thinking about going to San Antonio until power gets restored, since my mom’s college has canceled classes for a while. It depends whether my dad’s office in west Houston has had power restored, since they were the least affected by the storm. I think my mother is hoping that there is no power there because at least in San Antonio they would be able to buy food that needs to be refrigerated and take hot showers!

A few nights ago my mom joined up with the neighbors and had a big BBQ with all the food that was about to spoil and my mom is still having to go down the street to take showers at a neighbor’s house that has a gas water heater. She has all of the windows open in the heat and can hear all of the neighbor’s power generators going…but unfortunately we don’t have one and they are pretty much sold out across the entire state of Texas now. I wish I was there to help clean up but I’m kind of glad I’m not because at least here in Oz I have power…and I don’t have to eat meals of canned vienna sausages and crackers like my mom did last night. She’s absolutely bored out of her mind because there’s not a lot to do except clean up, especially once it gets dark, when she can pretty much only read by flashlight. She’s also going to have a lot of fun trying to buy more food, since some supermarkets are finally open but there are mile-long queues just to get in. The gas situation is worse, with gas supplies expected to be low until at least the end of the month and massive queues at the few open stations.

There are some photo galleries on The Houston Chronicle that show the full extent of the damage. We got very lucky that the storm surge wasn’t as high as predicted because our house was spared, but Galveston Island was pretty much destroyed as were a lot of other coastal communities (Kemah, for instance, where there is a nice boardwalk with loads of seafood restaurants, games, and even a wooden roller coaster…all of which was under about 10 feet of water after the storm). I’m hoping that nearby League City fared alright since I haven’t heard from my tennis coach about whether his Fitness Centre or his house are okay. The pictures coming out of the disaster areas are just unbelievable, from boats and houses sitting in the middle of the freeway to shocked fish stuck in chain-link fences. The authorities say it’s going to take more than $10B to clean up because structures all the way across Houston were mangled, and lots of school districts have cancelled school “until further notice.” Overall, it’s just a mess and it’s going to take a long time for the city to get back to normal.

By the way, things are going really well here in sunny Brisbane. It’s much warmer than it was in Perth and I feel like I need an entire wardrobe change…but I like it! Much better than battling down the Terrace as the chilly wind howls past. I’ve got a great physio here that’s put me on a fixed gym routine to help strengthen my back muscles as well as improve my posture, which has always been terrible, so I’ve invested in some dumbbells, a medicine ball, and a fitness ball so I can work on my fitness from home and be pain free as soon as possible. Also, it’s great to be around James for more than just a weekend, even if I do feel like the housewife because I’m staying at home all day cleaning the house and doing laundry!

All photos in this post have been obtained from the Houston Chronicle. Mouseover the image to see the credits.

Anyway, back to my point…my physio has always been a strong advocate of keeping my back moving rather than sitting as an amoebic lump on the couch. This started with a strict list of stretches that I had to do every hour to get my full range of movement back as well as to stretch out the muscles that were so tight in my back. A few weeks ago, he decided that I was ready to push even further than this and actually begin really exercising. Part of his goal was to try to push me as hard as possible to see if I broke before I went to Brisbane, since it’d be better to happen now than to think I’m better and then possibly get a job and fall apart once I got there. The good news is that he didn’t manage to break me, and the even better news for my own sanity is that I was able to get out of the house in a different manner than just walking the same streets up and down, day after day.

There’s three significant things I’ve managed to do in the last few weeks that I consider to be real landmarks. The first is that I ran 2kms twice in the span of three days and didn’t collapse afterwards on either occasion. The physio said the real challenge with running would be getting out of bed the next morning, but I managed that, albeit with a significant amount of stiffness in my neck, traps, and in the middle of my back, but no severe pain. It was really exhilarating as well, which was understandable since my physio said that I would probably feel high after the first few times exercising since I hadn’t done it in so long.

The second significant event was competing in the 4km City-to-Surf a couple weeks ago. Normally, I probably would have entered the 12km race, which actually goes from the city (St. Georges Terrace) to the surf, just because I am competitive and would like to see how far I could push myself, but I knew that would be a very dumb idea in my current state. I was iffy on whether I should even enter until the Wednesday before the race (which happened on Sunday, August 31), when my physio told me it would be a great idea, provided I came in the next day for treatment so he could make sure I was okay.

The race itself was absolutely insane, with 36,825 entrants throughout the half-marathon, 12km walk/run, 4km walk/run, and 11km wheelchair divisions. One of those entrants was Cathy Freeman, the Olympic golden girl of 2000, who said at the end of the race that it was the longest she’d ever run and she had to really push herself to finish under 68 minutes (her division). She said she felt she couldn’t stop running because of what people would think! Anyway, it seemed like about half of the entrants were in the 4km division, which started in Perry Lakes. A few friends from work and I got there about 15 minutes before the race and were joined by our Scottish friend just as the runners were taking off. She was planning on running while the rest were going to walk, so I said I would join her for as far as I could, since as I’ve said before, I really wanted to push myself.

Running was really quite difficult, since by the time we passed the starting mats that triggered the timers on our shoes, a lot of the walkers had started as well and were pretty much blocking the entire path with their strollers, linked arms, etc. We ended up running on the grass half the time to get around them. By the time we reached the 1km mark, Ibby had run quite far ahead, which was okay with me because I didn’t want to end up in one of the first aid tents along the way! I managed to run probably about 3 of the 4kms, with many short walking breaks while I avoided various obstacles. It really would have been nice to have a runners’ lane and a walkers’ lane, but it’s probably best that I had to slow down a little, since I was definitely feeling my back by the end of it (but thankfully not enough to make use of those first aid tents!). I still managed to come in roughly 2,400th place out of 9,297 people, according to the <a href=”http://citytosurf.activ.asn.au/2/3226/3179/2008_results.pm”>official results website</a>, which wasn’t too bad at all! Plus, after the race we all got free leg massages and sausages courtesy of Prime Health Care, who my team was associated with.

The third big accomplishment was going to Rottnest Island last week. Rotto is a jewel of an island about a 30 minute ferry ride from Fremantle that Perth denizens love to head over to during the summer. I hadn’t been there yet because I was told it was best during the summer, when the water’s just warm enough to go snorkeling in (there’s tons of reefs lying just off the coast). Unfortunately, I never made it to summer in Perth, so I decided that I might as well go in the beginning of spring instead just so I could see the place.

I nearly didn’t make it over there, since I made it to the ferry terminal well past the 9.30am departure date, but fortunately the ferry was running a bit late. We got over there at about 11, so I had 5 hours to traverse the island and do as I pleased before the last ferry left at 4pm. My first stop was picking up some sunscreen and food in the shops at Thomson Bay. I was surprised to see that they weren’t as excessively overpriced as I thought they might be; Subway was only about $1 more expensive per sandwich than on the mainland. Unfortunately, Subway had an insane line, so I went to the Rottnest Bakery instead, which proved to be even more costly time-wise. They promised me that my squid and chips would be done in 8 minutes, and then 20 minutes later brought me my money back and said they were sorry, they’d burned my chips, so they were going to give me the food for free for waiting so long. I was extremely frustrated at the time, since I felt like valuable minutes were ticking away, but it ended up working out for the best, since I got a free (and very good, but very greasy) meal as well as getting to see some of the local wildlife while I waited. Two peacocks were facing off over a peahen, so there were lots of flared feathers for me and my fellow tourists to get excited about, and even more exciting, a quokka appeared on the deck of the bakery to investigate the smell of food. Quokkas are tiny marsupials that only live on Rotto; they look kind of like a cross between a skinny wombat and a kangaroo (since they both walk slowly until spooked and then hop away). This quokka, like pretty much all of the animals on the island that I saw, was completely unafraid of people and walked straight up to my bike helmet and attemped to get in, thinking that it smelled like food rather than the bag right next to it. It was adorable and attracted quite a crowd!

I finally made it away from Thomson Bay and took my rented bike north towards Bathurst Lighthouse, which stands at the northeastern point of the island. It was under this lighthouse on Pinky Beach that I enjoyed my lunch while lying out on the white sand. What a tough life, huh? It was at this point that I really began to regret not planning better and spending a night at one of the hostels on the island because I knew that 5 hours would just not be enough to do the island properly.

From there, I climbed up to the lighthouse to get a bit of a bird’s eye view of the northern coast before hitting the road again. I traversed a good half of the northern coast, passing turquoise waters and white sand everywhere, as well as the occasional settlement (at Geordie Bay), wind turbine, quokka (two of them were browsing on the side of the road, one of which walked up and started pawing my tire when I stopped), and brown lizard (which I nearly ran over before it zipped out of the way surprisingly quickly). There are very few vehicles on Rottnest, which made cycling a joy. The only downside of cycling was the hunching I inevitably had to do to hang on to the handlebars, which compounded with the backpack on my back didn’t do my back a world of good. I ended up stopping and relaxing at Little Armstrong Bay, a secluded beach with only 5 or 6 other people on it. Just off the sand started coral reefs, which a little boy was snorkeling over. I was jealous, wishing that I could get in the water as well without the chill causing problems in my back. Oh well…just another reason to come back to WA to visit!

The ride back to Thomson Bay took me past most of the big lakes on the island, which were nice, but not nearly as stunning as they look from aerial views. I peddled the 3+kms pretty quickly and ended up having about half an hour to spare, which I enjoyed having a cold drink in the shade (but still with a great view of the beach and the Australian mainland) at the very-under-construction Quokka Arms Hotel. Overall, it was a great day and a great way to do my rehabilitation exercise without just sitting in a gym!

The other big news I have is that I’m heading to Brisbane on Thursday morning. That made last weekend very sad, since it was full of goodbyes–a wonderful goodbye dinner & drinks at the Olive Tree on Friday followed by a goodbye BBQ hosted by my flatmate (and very good cook) on Saturday. I enjoyed them, but it made me realize just how much I am going to miss the friends that have been there for me in the last five months. As I said above, yet another reason to come back and visit! I am excited about going to Queensland though, because I’ll get to see James and I won’t have to do any more packing for a while! Plus, if I get lucky, I’ll find a job there and settle down somewhat permanently, which sounds great to me after what’s amounted to 8 months of being a nomad (even though I was living pretty normally here, it was just rather fleeting).

First and foremost, I resigned from my job last week. Most of you know that I was not happy in the job; it just wasn’t what I saw myself doing when I accepted it last winter. I want to do software development and design, and get my hands dirty in the actual codebase. I want to help create user interfaces and be able to see my work on the screen and know that people are using the program to their advantage. I couldn’t see any of this in my future at my company unless I went back to the development centre in Houston, which I don’t want to do because I’ve already made the big move out to Australia already. There were also circumstances that were beyond my control that contributed to this decision and made me choose to leave (within my contract) immediately, rather than serving out my 30 days’ notice.

In the few days since I made this decision, I’ve felt like a whole new person. A huge amount of tension has been lifted off of my back–literally–and the physiotherapist was very happy on Thursday, as opposed to Monday and Tuesday when I appeared to be backtracking. He was able to get me to do a lot of exercises I couldn’t have done 10 days ago before he left for vacation. The doctor echoed his feelings and feels that I’ve finally “turned the corner” in my recovery. I really don’t feel like I would have been able to do that had I stayed in my job, since I felt like the stress there was really keeping me in a holding pattern of slight progress followed by continual backtracking.

So, overall, things are looking up finally. I am now officially a tourist in Australia–I got a 3-month visa granted to me on Friday–and I’m planning on staying in Perth for another 3 weeks before heading to Brisbane in the middle of September. Hopefully that’ll give me time to get everything sorted out here and for me to see all the people that have been so great to me in my fleeting time in Perth a few more times. Then, I’ll get to be in Brisbane for a while with my Australian family, which will be great. From there, there’s a few different courses of action I may take, depending on my back’s progress; one of which is going home for a while and then coming back to do a master’s degree at the University of Queensland next year. Anyone that spent much time with me at all during my time at Rice has probably lost all feeling in their jaw as it hit the floor, but I’ve found a program that looks really good and would really fit me since it’s centred much more around the aspects of computer science that I’m interested in (user interface design, etc).

I’m feeling much better in myself and have my fingers crossed that the worst is finally behind me. I’m not exactly ready to get back out on the tennis court again, but it’s just so great to be able to do normal day-to-day activities without being in constant pain. I guess you really never know how lucky you are until something is taken away from you!

And of course, I’m sure you expected this post to me littered with flower photos so I will not disappoint. I’m still taking lots of walks and still taking the camera along, although perhaps I’ll change my photo subjects shortly so as to not get too boring…and yes, that orchid was still living as of a few days ago, 5 weeks after James sent me the bouquet. Unfortunately the last flower fell off yesterday, but I’m still pretty proud of myself for keeping them going that long when they were cut to begin with!

While I was of course very excited about being able to see James after about 6 weeks apart, the other main reason for flying across was because Chelsea and Chris–the only other girl in my year of comp sci and her boyfriend–were on the east coast as well. They were traveling up and down the coast scuba diving and surfing for a 3-week graduation trip, and I couldn’t pass up getting a chance to see them. Since they weren’t making it as far up the coast as Brisbane, James and I drove down the coast to meet them in Byron Bay (which was much better than Brisbane anyway!).

 My flight landed quite late on Friday night/Saturday morning. We were delayed by about two hours in Perth because of mechanical problems which meant I didn’t land until 1.30am; therefore, we didn’t make it down to Byron until lunchtime. We checked in to our room at the Belongil Beachouse–and the guy at the checkin desk even moved us to a room with a balcony for no extra cost! I really liked the beachhouse. Even though it was a hostel, it was nice and clean. I thought it was really just a cute place in a great location and Chelsea agreed. Can’t really ask for more than that!

We ended up having yum cha (or dim sum) in Byron Bay before getting ice cream from a local ice cream shop called Baskin Robbins Again, what could be better than strolling down the beach eating ice cream with friends? Sure, it could have been warmer, but we can’t have it all.

 One of the highlights of the weekend happened after we finished our ice cream and loaded back into James’ car. We climbed to the tip of Cape Byron and found a parking space next to (how stereotypical) a caravan with a hairy hippie man hanging out of it. As soon as we got out, we saw white lines appearing everywhere in the ocean–and not from the surf, since it was dead calm. The lines were actually from whales that were breaching all over the place. We could see at least ten whales all around us just having…dare I say it?…a whale of a time. James was thrilled because he’d never seen a whale breach before, and the rest of us were just generally thrilled because you don’t often get the chance to see that many whales just hanging out and having a good time. The only downside was that my good camera–with 18x zoom that would actually be able to capture the whales in action–was left sitting on the bed in the hostel!

 We managed to eventually tear ourselves away from the whales and moved up to the lighthouse, and the thing we were much more fascinated with–the geodetic marker. Besides the fact that we had no idea what it was trying to geodetically mark, we were clueless as to why it had clearly been moved four feet (hence the confused picture of Chelsea and me!). It turns out that geodetic surveys are done periodically (which I really should have known, having dealt with them a bit at my job) and markers have to be moved to match the new survey. We just thought it was funny that they had clearly went to a lot of effort marking sure the pavement circled a certain spot that had then been covered over in concrete.

Since Cape Byron is actually the easternmost point on the Australian mainland, we had to make sure we walked to the very end of it. James and I visited the lighthouse three years ago and made it downhill past the lighthouse just far enough to see the sign stating that we were at the “most easterly point of the Australian mainland,” but then we couldn’t be bothered walking down all of the stairs to sea level and the rocky outcrop that is actually the easternmost point. This time, we couldn’t let Chelsea and Chris miss out on what could clearly be the highlight of their trip, so we walked ever downhill until we were as far east as the barriers would let us go. If we had set foot off the path, we would have just contributed to the erosion of the peninsula, possibly causing it to drop off and no longer be the easternmost point. Ahh!

 We watched the sun set over the mountains behind Byron Bay before suffering from what Chelsea best described as “stair-induced cardiac arrest.” On the way back to Belongil, we made an urgent stop so the guys could get a carton of beer for the night. I managed to completely fall over myself without having anything to drink at all just outside the grocery store. It must have looked hilarious to James and Chris, who were sitting in the car. One minute, I was walking towards them, the next there was a big “thunk” and I was nowhere to be seen! I just happened to not see the gutter and ended up landing in it on the side of my ankle and completely ate it. Fortunately I didn’t hurt myself like I normally do in these situations!

The rest of the night was great fun but doesn’t need to be explained in too much detail here. Suffice it to say that Chelsea and I had a box of Reisling wine that she needed to get rid of before she left Australia! We had an awesome night and it was sad that Chelsea and Chris had to head back to Sydney the next day to catch their flight back home. It was just great to see people from home after being away for quite a while.

Anyway, just about a month ago, I flew across the country to Brisbane for James’ mother’s birthday, his sister’s 18th birthday, and Mother’s Day. I planned this trip pretty much as soon as I arrived in Perth because I wanted to be there with his family on a special weekend; I thought it would be good just to see friendly faces after a month in Perth, even though it meant having to see James as well. However, about a week before I boarded the Qantas plane heading east, prospects for the weekend started looking much better when James apologized and asked if we could get back together. Again, I’m not going into full detail, but essentially, I said yes and it certainly made the weekend much less awkward!

We didn’t spend a lot of time in Brisbane itself. I landed at about midnight (since I took off right after work at 5.30), so we spent the night there and then drove up to the Sunshine Coast early the next morning. Much of the day was devoted to either being lazy (napping) or getting ready for the barbeque that night. The only interesting events were 1) Kate (James’ sister) and I went to the beach with David (their brother) but didn’t swim (I’d forgotten my swimsuit). It was a beautiful day and great for just sitting, talking, and watching the waves…and 2) we took Kate to the bottle shop so she could legally buy alcohol for the first time..and she didn’t even get IDed! I didn’t get IDed on my 21st either, so I understood her anger

Kate’s BBQ was good fun, as was going out afterwards. I’d never actually been to any clubs on the Sunshine Coast, and I quickly realized why when we were charged $5 at the Wharf Tavern just to get into the bar downstairs…and then another $8 to get upstairs. We didn’t even go downstairs (except to get into the upstairs club) so it seemed a bit of a rip-off for them to charge us for both! Upstairs, it was pretty much a normal club–lots of dancing and hit music–except for the alcohol prices, which seemed more excessive than normal. James and I got a Bundy Draught each–just pre-mixed Bundy and Coke–and they didn’t give us any change out of the $20 I gave them! We knew that the government had just massively increased taxes on pre-mixed drinks (claiming they want to curb binge-drinking) but it was a bit much. We still paid for drinks, since we were there, but it hurt!

Of course, it was just my luck to be on the dance floor when a guy danced up to us and asked “So, where all y’all from?” I knew that he had to be from at least somewhere near Texas because he knew the proper plural for “y’all,” so I wasn’t surprised at all that when I told him I was from Texas, he said, “Oh wow! Me too! I’m from San Antonio!” Turns out that he also worked in oil & gas. I thought this coincidence was really funny at the time, but after having been in Perth for longer, I find that it’s not a coincidence at all. It seems like this town is absolutely swarming with Texans or people that have lived in Houston, since pretty much every company here has a big base there.

We stayed at the club until about 1.30, when Kate’s friend Hazel decided her feet had had enough and was ready to go home. James and I jumped at the chance to go with her and left David to watch Kate and make sure she made it home okay…needless to say, he was very happy with us and looked like a zombie the next morning (although this turned out to be because he was coming down with a bad cold rather than being from a hangover). He missed going to coffee in Mooloolaba for Mother’s Day, where all of the rest of the ”kids” just stared like zombies trying to stay awake!

Overall, I really enjoyed my weekend there and it was great to see faces that I know so well. I’m settling in well to Perth but I still don’t have any people here that I’ve known as long as those on the East Coast. I’ll be heading back over there in a couple weeks, although I won’t be seeing James’ family. Instead, James is picking me up and driving us down to Byron Bay–in New South Wales and about a 2-hour drive south of Brisbane–so I can see Chelsea, one of my best friends from Rice and the only other girl comp sci in our year, who is currently on a month-long graduation trip to Australia. I’m looking forward to it, especially since I’ll get a long weekend so I won’t feel quite so much like I’m hopping off a plane only to get back on another one.