January 30th, 2006 7:11
| You Were a Porcupine |
 You have created your own path in life, and you encourage others to do the same. Even as life progresses, you always maintain a sense of wonder and innocence. |
Tee hee hee hee….
Food and such
Zaubi and I have invented a drink!
2 lime wedges
pineapple juice
ginger beer (GOOD ginger beer, not, for example, Goya)
ice cubes
Squeeze all the juice out of the lime wedges into the glass; drop in the squeezed out wedges.
Fill the glass half with ginger beer, half with pineapple juice
Drop in 2 ice cubes and enjoy!!
Our ship has arrived. It is sitting in Brisbane port right now, and will be unpacked tomorrow. Then Tuesday we have to go in and spend half a day unpacking our boxes under the watchful eye of Customs before we are allowed to put it in a truck and take it all home. I hope nothing is broken too badly!
Today we spent all morning planting our new garden. I have no idea whether or not the things will actually grow, but I am crossing my fingers. Of course, this is from the girl who has NEVER successfully grown ANY PLANT in her LIFE (yet has killed many), but perhaps sunshine will make up for that. (Perhaps not.)
We have planted seedlings of:
Lettuce
Spinach
Chinese cabbage
Red & green peppers
Tomatoes (cherry and normal)
Zucchini
Radishes
Snow peas
French green beans
Chives
Beetroot
Carrots
Celery
Oregano
Thyme
Basil
Fennel
Parsley
Lemon Balm
…and put in some marigolds to keep out the bugs. Here it is!!
What have I got myself into?????
I spent an hour this morning having a nice talk with one of the Ancient History professors at UQ in the hopes that she could recommend what classes I should take. She was kind and jolly and I have signed up for one of her classes.
She was even more dismayed than I by the disorganized state of affairs with regards to the available classes (very scant and unuseful) and on the website (I guess they are seriously understaffed this semester due to unexpected circumstances) but we groaned and sweated and hashed it out and now I am enrolled in two normal courses on Ancient Rome and Greece plus one double unit Research Methods course (also will inevitably be regarding Rome).
The woman told me, shaking her head, that I am going to “really struggle” in the research course. I have no background whatsoever in Ancient History, Greeks, Romans, or the like and it is a course intended for folks who have been studying that for a while. Oh dear, oh dear. So I have a month to give myself a thorough grounding in basic Greek and Roman History — she suggested 6 books to read, and like a good doobie I raced to the library and took them all out as soon as our meeting was up.
I started in with enthusiasm on the ‘easiest’ book (she recommended I read it first before going onto more ’scholarly’ works). I read to page 19 of 198 (not an achievement as the book starts on page 9) on the bus home before I passed out utterly, which fact resulted in my getting off at the wrong stop.
On arriving home, I have painstakingly managed to get to the end of Chapter One.
Agh! Why couldn’t they have just had a straight coursework masters in anthropology????? Is this Ancient History stuff even going to apply once I finish my masters so I can move into Anthropology? The Dept. of Anthropology said that it would when I first wrote them months ago, but now I am filled with sad sagging doubts, probably brought on by my armload of dull books.
Oh dear, oh dear….
So begins our first week as official real Australians. Zaubi is off to his first day of work this morning while I shall sadly sit at home and think of ways to amuse myself before I go to a class-picking session at UQ this afternoon.
Spent all yesterday morning digging a circular veggie garden into the back of the back lawn. The soil here is clay. Pure gooey black clay so clay-ey that you could make pots out of it, I’m sure. I guess that’s what happens when you live near a river! At least, even if it’s impossible to dig in, there were a lot of earthworms and it should be nutrient rich (not that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to planting things).
Last night we were sleeping (albeit rather early) when Kettricken goes into one of her shrieking barking fits underneath the house. Zaubi staggered downstairs and found that there was a sizeable snake hiding out under our beer cabinet and Kettricken was trying to get at it. We locked the dogs in their crates and tried to take a picture of the snake, which left right away. After some searching around on the web we have decided it is a Carpet Python (not venomous, hooray). Still, it made me at least a bit nervous!The pictures didn’t turn out, oh well. More where that came from, I’m sure.
Either the snake or the dogs broke one of our bottles of ginger beer, too. Our guess is that the snake sneaked into the cabinet where we stored the bottles, and the dogs knocked over the bottles trying to get at him. Either that our we’re really bad brewers and the bottle exploded, but I think that unlikely.
Ah, Russian poets
Was reading Onegin again today, after many years. Actually, I was reading it aloud to Zaubi.
It had me in fits. I had forgotten all but the bare bones. There are 5 stanzas in a row about feet. Feet! Clearly Pushkin was some kind of foot fetishist…
Alas, on pleasure’s wild variety
I’ve wasted too much life away!
But, did they not corrupt society,
I’d still like dances to this day:
the atmosphere of youth and madness,
the crush, the glitter and the gladness,
the ladies’ calculated dress;
I love their feet — though I confess
that all of Russia can’t contribute
three pairs of handsome ones — yet there
exists for me one special pair!
one pair! I pay them memory’s tribute
though cold I am and sad; in sleep
the heartache that they bring lies deep.
Oh, when, and to what desert banished,
madman, can you forget their print?
my little feet, where have you vanished,
what flowers of spring display your dint?
Nursed in the orient’s languid weakness,
across our snows of northern bleakness
you left no steps that could be tracked:
you loved the opulent contact
of rugs, and carpets’ rich refinement.
Was it for you that I became
long since unstirred by praise and fame
and fatherland and grim confinement?
The happiness of youth is dead,
just like, on turf, your fleeting tread.
Diana’s breast, the cheeks of Flora,
all these are charming! but to put
it frankly, I’m a firm adorer
of the Terpsichorean foot.
It fascinates by its assurance
of recompense beyond endurance,
and fastens, like a term of art,
the wilful fancies of the heart.
My love for it is just as tender,
under the table’s linen shield,
on springtime grasses of the field,
in winter, on the cast-iron fender,
on ballroom’s looking-glass parquet
or on the granite of the bay.
On the seashore, with storm impending,
how envious was I of the waves
each in tumultuous turn descending
to lie down at her feet like slaves!
I longed, like every breaker hissing,
to smother her dear feet with kissing.
No, never in the hottest fire
of boiling youth did I desire
with any torture so exquisite
to kiss Armida’s lips, or seek
the flaming roses of a cheek,
or languid bosoms; and no visit
of raging passion’s surge and roll
ever so roughly rocked my soul!
Another page of recollection:
sometimes, in reverie’s sacred land,
I grasp a stirrup with affection,
I feel a small foot in my hand;
fancies once more are hotly bubbling,
once more that touch is fiercely troubling
the blood within my withered heart,
once more the love, once more the smart…
But, now I’ve praised the queens of fashion,
enough of my loquacious lyre:
they don’t deserve what they inspire
in terms of poetry or passion –
their looks and language in deceit
are just as nimble as their feet.
What the heck is a ‘Terpsichorean foot’??
So our fakie bird feeder is a big hit. Every morning and evening an enormous pack of Galahs comes and devours all the seeds. We actually counted 11 of them a couple days ago, sitting on the feeder and on the ground below it.
Yesterday we got our first Rainbow Lorikeet, but he only stayed for a few moments. Then today I looked out and saw a beautiful Pale-Headed Rosella munching away. And of course, the silly looking Crested Pigeons come also on a regular basis.
Pale-Headed Rosella
Crested Pigeons
A small pack of Galahs
Every silver lining has a cloud
Well, it’s Friday, and we’re back with our visas, and most things are well, and Zaubi starts work this Monday.
We actually have our ADSL now, although I’m not counting on it sticking around. It’s been just a nightmare… we first signed up for the damn service Jan 3, went through two modems, neither of which worked, since it was a line error not a modem error, finally convinced them to check the line, they checked it, said it was fine, claimed to activate the ADSL on the day we left for NZ so we never saw it, and the day we came back, not only was the ADSL dead, the phone line was also altogether dead as well. It’s now been three days of deadness; this morning, randomly, the ADSL started working, but even now we have zero dial tone.
When we call our phone, it gets sent to some ditzy sounding female Australian answering machine.
A lot of things have thoroughly pissed me off this week. There are definitely some significant things that are shitty about this country, namely, the way so many things are designed to take advantage/rip you off. There is no… generosity to it.
Still, the lovely weather and sweet air seem to make up for the most of it…
Went to an orientation yesterday at University of Queensland — I enrolled in classes (though I think I will have to change them once I find someone to advise me: the course requirements are very complex and incomprehensible) and I can get my ID today if I so desire. It’s been *pouring* rain (should be good for the drought!) and everything is mad damp so we’ve bene hiding indoors. Still, I like this weather.
I’m sure things will settle and seem better once Zaubi starts his job so we have a bit of income, and when I start school and/or find myself a job. Just right now I’m so frustrated by incompetance and blatant rip offs that I’m not seeing the good things.
New Zealand is the same. The actually charged us a *departure fee* in the airport Wednesday. Can you imagine? A fee to leave their country? Fuckers.
I guess I’m not as pervy as I thought…..
| Your Ultimate Purity Test 2.0 Score Is… | ||||
| Your Score: | Average For All Users | Average For All Straight Apolitical Married Pink-Skinned 24 to 30-Year old Females (4 total) |
||
| Dating | 3.85% | 33.57% | 12.5% | Gone steady |
| Self-Lovin’ | 59.09% | 61.48% | 56.44% | Master of your domain |
| Shamelessness | 70.97% | 77.81% | 68.95% | It takes a couple of drinks |
| Sex Drive | 64.29% | 75.73% | 62.5% | A fool for love, but not always |
| Straightness | 1.85% | 40.31% | 9.26% | Knows the other body type like a map |
| Gayness | 98.15% | 78.93% | 95.84% | Repressed, are we? |
| Dominant | 90% | 87.35% | 85% | Afraid to cross at “Don’t Walk” signs |
| Submissive | 92.06% | 87.79% | 90.87% | Submits to no one… almost |
| Fucking Sick | 89.8% | 90.25% | 89.29% | Refreshingly normal |
| Total Score | 69.58% | 74.32% | 69.01% | |
| Take The Ultimate Purity Test 2.0 and see how you match up! (By The Ferrett) |
||||
…It’s been a long time…
Hooray!
Hooray! We got our official visas this morning, after an hour’s wait at the Australian Consulate in Auckland. We are now officially and indefinitely permanent residents of Australia.
Changed our tickets, so we are heading back to Brisbane first thing tomorrow morning. Much as I wanted to explore NZ at some point, right now we’re tired and poor and want to chill in Brisbane for a bit before Zaubi starts work next week.
I have to say I liked Auckland, though. It is oddly… refreshing. Reminds me of somewhere in Canada (Montreal?) or perhaps Stockholm. Not sure why… There is a certain… crispness to the air and to the line of the buildings that reminds me of those simultaneously remote-feeling yet vibrant northern cities. I can’t really come up with the proper adjective.
The food is pretty terrible, though. Weird flavors and spices galore. And… it’s cold. The waitress at breakfast says this is hot for them, but it’s only about 75-80 during the day and must be in the 50s at night.
Copyright © 2009 Elise Bosse. All rights reserved.