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February 28th, 2006 14:39
I have finally achieved both an Australian AMEX and an Australian Visa. They both have, in my opinion, rather disturbingly high limits given the fact that as a student I have no income and they don’t tend to combine ‘family’ income when applying for cards, in this country. I could really screw myself over if I so chose. Aussie CCs have really sick APRs too. A big ripoff, just like everything else in this country.
Really. I like it here and I think we’ll stay (and the weather is just lovely), but if I had to pick one word only to describe this country, it would be “ungenerous”.
Even frigging HYDROGEN PEROXIDE costs almost *$10* per 400 ml!!!!!!!!
(If anyone wants to send me some, or come visit and bring me a couple gallons, please do. I am trying to get cat pee off the rug.)
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Anyway, I just got my international student reimbursment from uni (a tidy chunk) and paid off the small amount of Aussie debt we managed to rack up while Zaubi’s paychecks were not coming yet. I have a good bit left over, but that will probably be going straight to my plane ticket to Israel.
Maybe I’m crazy to be going to Israel.
Incidentally, the simple act of going to uni puts me in an extremely bad mood. There are too many PEOPLE!!! They are always there, walking slowly, ambling exactly into your way exactly when you don’t want them to be there. It’s so tempting to run over them with my bicycle or swing my backpack around my head, sending them flying in all directions. The worst of them are these tiny Asian chicks, who travel in smallish groups, hanging on their scrawny boyfriends’ arms, waving their twiggy little hands, and giggling vacuously.
Now I feel ashamed for complaining. It’s wrong to make fun of people (even if you don’t know them). I should be training myself in patience, one of my major lacks.
(But they are awfully annoying!)
February 27th, 2006 12:47
Classes begin today. My first class is from 2-3PM.
I wish they hadn’t arranged it so that I have only one class on each day . Oh well, good exercise.
Has Kirilisa read her 6 boring books?
No. Kirilisa has not read her 6 boring books.
There is a veritable downpour going on here and rain is splattering hard on the tin roof. It will be interesting to bike the 4.5 miles through this deluge!
We are building a mini fish pond in the center of our garden – one of Zaubi’s work mates claims that that is the best way to get rid of bug pests (grrrrrrrrrr grasshoppers) in veggie gardens. He is going to give us some goldfish type things.
If anyone can tell me how to OBLITERATE grasshoppers [think: plague of locusts] please let me know.
P.S. Teehee! Ben Zander has a Wikipedia entry.
February 24th, 2006 19:02
I amused myself during the latter part of this afternoon by practicing violin (OH I AM SO BAD). I’m talking old school, back-from-age-12 etude by Dont (yes, I know).
Then I amused myself by playing the piano accompaniment to Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise on my electric piano, recording it (electric pianos are fun), and playing it back while I played the violin part. Apparently my electric piano has quite a decent recording capacity. Anyway, I can accompany myself! Ahahahahahahahahaha!
Then Zaubi came home and I followed him around the house playing Kreisler’s Rigadoun (must mention I played it much much better at *age 13* than I can stagger through it now….)
Then Zaubi felt inspired and started playing his trombone.
I think the neighbors must hate us.
February 24th, 2006 14:27
Yesterday, while on a tour of University of Queensland’s Sport Centre, I was attacked by dozens of Really Mean Ants. Unbeknownst to me, while standing on the grass I was actually standing on an anthill (the ants blended in really well since they did not have a sand anthill but rather just holes in the grass) and before I realized it, they had chewed me up good and proper. And since i coudln’t scream and run away while it was happening (that would have been humiliating in front of the zillion proper Australians on the tour) I had to grin and bear it while the evil ants injected me with their ant spit or whatever it is they do.
Now I’ve had bites from the mini red ants we have at home, and they burn, but man, these ones HURT. They were big ants, sort of like carpenter ants, except instead of being all black they were a very dark red in the middle. My feet still ache deeply within from yesterday’s bites!
Another fiasco this week was that my bike (brand new, only rode it 3 times) spontaneously combusted — that is, that whole shifting contraption on the rear wheel fell off suddenly. Luckily, I was at UQ when it happened, so I pushed it to the bike shop, and even though I had not purchased the bike there, the guy there arranged it so that he got the bike company to cover repairs under the warranty. I was very grateful — it would be a hike to get the broken thing home and then take it all the way back to where I purchased it!
Today I got the bike back (good as new, oh wait, it IS new) and also got Egberta from the shop with her new bridge and strings. I talked a while to the folks in the strings shop and they told me that I shouldn’t have a problem getting to play with Brisbane’s Symphony or Philharmonic orchestras. Hooray! I hope it’s true — I would love to play in orchestra again. I better buff up on my after-ten-years-very-dubious skills… imagine! AUDITIONING again! Eeek! I haven’t auditioned for anything since my last seating audition for Ben Zander’s YPO back in….. Jan 1995?!?!?!?!?!??!?!
The thought makes me humorously faint.
February 23rd, 2006 17:26
It’s only $700 from LAX to Brisbane right now ($600 to Sydney, and domestic Australian flights are cheap). Who’s gonna come????
I’ve been researching a ticket to Tel Aviv and the best I can seem to do is $2300 AUD, including taxes. Agh. I was hoping to find something a little less pricy…. The cheapest flight goes from Brisbane to Bangkok to Cairo to Tel Aviv and has a day and night’s layover in Cairo. About 19 hours travel total: it could be worse. Still, I’m hoping to find something a wee bit cheaper somehow…
But wouldn’t it be neat to see the pyramids in person???
Anyway, this is really all just a pipe dream.. or is it? I keep telling myself that, but then some other part says it is an opportunity to be seized, not missed… Zaubi says he is okay with it if I wish to go (best husband in the world)\
Maybe I could fly into Amman (for some reason tickets there are about $200 cheaper than to Tel Aviv) and then travel somehow to Tel Aviv? It’s only about 70 miles…. how do Jordanians feel about Israelites anyway? I’m so not together on my Middle East politics (or indeed geography).
On another note, the weather here is bizarre.
February 22nd, 2006 8:15
Can some clever person tell me how I can go about getting a cheap flight from Brisbane to Tel Aviv in June? I know there are sneaky clever things you can do to get cheaper plane tickets but I have no idea what they are…
February 19th, 2006 22:26
Played ice hockey 3 hours today after a year and a half off the ice. I put in some good sprints, typical fashion. Am so tired I feel ill with it. Legs not working. Can’t move…
I can feel my breath rasping unpleasantly in my chest. When and how did I get so out of shape?
February 18th, 2006 23:08
I think Fitz has been taking tools out of the toolbox. Today he left a needle nose pliers on the front steps. Perhaps he wants to build something? Should I encourage him?
February 18th, 2006 23:08
Last night I had a horrible and vivid dream about being attacked by a giant crocodile. It was huge and damp and reddish-brown and had a big toothy smile. I was lying on some sort of beach chair, and it jumped out of the water and slithered (waddled?) very fast over to me, and grabbed the front of my shirt in its jaws good and tight so I couldn’t get away. I just remember flailing around, and trying to hit it with my arms, but being pinned by my shirt and thinking how very small and puny and helpless I was, locked in the grip of this giant strong crocodile. I had that… dream weakness that you get, and none of my feeble punches even connected with his scaly wet snout.
Ugh.
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Today I made a lemon merengue pie to bring with us to dinner tonight (a couple about our age we met at church). I used a recipe from my super awesome $4.95 cookbook, and everything was going right well until it came to the merengue part. It said to whip the egg whites on high speed for 10 minutes (torture!); anyway, I got bored, so I was whipping them with one hand while stuffing grapes into my face with the other, and somehow I tilted the mixer a bit, the pitcher I was whipping the stuff in tilted too, got carried away by the fast rotation of the mixer, and in an instant kirilisa and the kitchen were enveloped in a tornado of wet merengue.
Yes, I was wearing a suit of merengue. I had merengue shoes and elbow-length gloves. I had merengue in my armpits. The kictchen stove, cabinets, and floor were artistically decorated with swirls of pure white stickiness…
But nevertheless, the pie turned out pretty well. Still not perfect, but it tasted pretty darn good!
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Hockey tomorrow, 9AM sharp! It’s ben a good year and a half, and there are NO women there, so I’m a bit nervous. We shall see.
February 17th, 2006 16:47
I wish Brisbaneites would figure out the greatness of Craigslist. It would make life MUCH EASIER (and cheaper too!)…. but these poor Australians tend to be rather backwards when it comes to technology… oh well, I guess I’ll just have to watch the internet revolution dribble its way here like in Boston 8 years ago.
So the guy finally came yesterday with our two furniture thingies. I ripped them open — they survived all right — and put the furniture together, and now that’s the last of it all, and everything’s DONE! Well, we have to scrounge up a few bookshelves somewhere, but that’s it. It’s lovely and cozy and comfy at last.
This is the first time since last August that Zaubi and I have had our own, happy, furnished, ours-only place together. It’s finally… home.
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