Okay, it is starting to get warm. It’s only the start of summer and the weather forecast for the week is Sun and up to 32°C! It’s going to get hot!
I had a beach day last week. It was fantastic. I definetly got a tan. Two days ago I bought more sunscreen. It’s amazing how expensive sunscreen is here. You’d think it would be cheap because it’s so hot and the ozone hole…. but guess not.
Other than that, I have been spending most of the last couple days inside working on this crazy essay. 2300 words into it and 1200 words to go! It’s due on Friday the 13th! That’s a bit scary. Good Luck to me =)
Ok I keep saying I will write more later, and I promise I will, but for now, I am gonna take a nap! it’s soooo hoooottttttt

Enjoy this in the meantime:

So it is the final week of school. Had my last Australia Now lecture. Got my Final for Photo tomorrow and one more Tute on Friday. Then I have till the 17th to write an essay and I am done. I’ve been meaning to update this but I don’t really have the patience/time right now. So once this week is over I shall update! As for now, enjoy this photo of me underwater:

So last Sunday I went to this incredible (free) show in the Alexandria Gardens. It is part of The Melbourne Arts Festival which is happening right now. It was the opening weekend so I decided to go see this show after a friend had told me about it. So after taking a nap on Sunday afternoon and almost not waking up on time, I headed down to the city. The tram was surprisinly faster than usual (It took 10 minutes… sunday evening I guess). So I got there 15 minutes early, found a good seat and didn’t know what to expect. In the middle of the Gardens there was a huge crane holding some steel construction. In the middle was a bell. Around this construction were 8 platforms. At 9PM the show started. There were a couple French guys who were drinking walking through the crowd, making fun of people, looking like bums. They climbed up to one of the platforms and joked around. One of them saw the bell in the middle of the steel construction and the three guys thought it was a great idea to ring it. “I’m gonna ring the bell” was shouted by the main french guy. So, the raced to the bell… each one of them wanting to ring it. Then once the one guy got up and rang it there were three women who raced through the crowd. They went from platform to platform and light up torches that were connected. The french guy kept ringing the bell and the three women made funny sounds. Then he rang the bell one more time and all of a sudden all these people in circus clothes showed up. They had really cool costumes and all of them had bells that they kept ringing. Each one took a platform and talked to audience. It was cool (and a time filler ). Everytime the French man rang the bell, they switched platforms. At some point they all went to the steel thing in the middle and took their place in front of one of the instruments. At this point the three women from earlier climbed on top of the steel thing as well (they were acrobats) and the whole construction started to lift into the air, all while they were playing music. It was really cool. They got lifted about 40 meters into the air and played music and the acrobats did stuff on swings. It was REALLY cool!!! The show lasted about an hour but it was amazing. Check out this link to see some photos and watch the video as well. Very cool. Here are two photos I took. It was really dark though…

Then Monday Pemi and I went and saw Matt Nathanson in concert. It was his first time in Australia and he gave a great show. Anke and I have seen him twice before in Portland and he is just a really funny and good musician. I got to meet him afterwards and got Anke a super amazing gift as well.

On Wednesday, yesterday, I had my last dance photoshoot of the term. I met up with Tiffany again and we got a couple really good photos in. Time flew by super fast which sucked but the photos are amazing. I got my assessment time as well. Thursday the 29th at 10AM. There will be probably one video and two photos projected. Along with the music (if it gets done) and possible a sign made from glow sticks. Let’s see….

I also applied to a gallery back in Portland in school. Maybe I will get my first solo show! How amazing would that be. Wish me luck! Also I got a job interview on Monday at the Movie Theater so hopefully that is going to happen. We will see but I really hope I get this job!!! That one or the Ice cream store… but movie theater would be better

On Saturday I am going to go to a Wine Tour that’s hosted through MUSEX! This is the Uni Melbourne Student Exchange club. We went to the pub crawl with them when Pemi and I first got here. It should be pretty awesome. Three wineries and then a brewery… Let’s hope for some good wine =)

Sunday I am going to go to a free showing at Fed Square of this animation called Mary and Max. Die sind aus knete gemacht. Wird sicherlicher toll.

As for today, I am gonna cook some food. Still been eating healthy =) Yesterday I made corn ob the cob, asparagus and baked tofu! Yum. Have a wonderful day everyone
Keep Smiling!

After spending most of my week in bed, I am now making a conscious decision to get healthy and eat right again. I have been slacking. Before coming to Oz I didn’t have McDonalds in ages. We get here, and everyone get’s McFlurry’s. Granted that hasn’t happened in a while, and neither have the Lord-of-the-Fries outings but the 11km walks are non existend. At least I don’t seem to have gained any extra weight. And I am determined to keep it that way. So, time to change my lifestyle a little bit. I have spent most of my day cleaning so maybe due to the super cleanliness of my apartment (bath, kitchend, bedroom are all sparkling) I am in a positive, can-do mood!
I just made myself a carrot, white radish and radish salad. Ok maybe that translation is off. (Möhren, Radischen, Rettich) It’s amazing. I also had a healthy snack earlier (mandarine… yumm). It’s good to get back into cooking and making good food!
Last night Pemi and I went to the German Club here in Melbourne and celebrated Oktoberfest. I don’t know if you can actually call it Oktoberfest because it really wasn’t. I think they just used the word as an excuse to celebrate and drink beer. BUT, it was really fun. I had Pemi try a Zwiebelkuchen and we had Pfannkuchen. Had a couple beers before moving on to O’Bridies. It’s this Irish Pub/Bar/Club on Chapel St. Pemi celebrated her 100th drink in Australia (plus the first vodka shot) and then we went on to Dance. They had a good band covering pretty good songs. Kings of Leon Sarah met up with us there too and danced with some creepy guy that wouldn’t leave her alone. It was funny! (Sorry Sarah, but it was) I ended the night with my 98th drink. So two more and I reach a 100. DAMN.
I have been applying for a bunch of jobs. Hopefully I will here back soon. It’s really frustrating because most people don’t want anyone that leaves in a couple month. It’s gonna work out though. It always does. And I am gonna hope it will at least.
On the 12th I am going to go see Matt Nathanson in Concert and at the end of the month, right before finals, I am gonna go see Paolo Nutini. Can’t wait!
One of the dancers had to cancel for next weekend. I am desperatly trying to find a male dancer and it’s really stressful. I only got a couple more weeks left. We are gonna have a showing of all the short films in 3 weeks as well. It should be really great. There’s a lot of good stuff!
As for tonight. I am gonna work on my website/add music to my video. Gotta go through my itunes library and find something.
Keep smiling everyone
Cheers
PS: I shaved my head. Donated my hair to a good cause! See photo

So, St K lost in the footy finals agains Geelong. Damn Geelong. They should have lost. They suck! That’s all I am gonna say
Otherwise, here are some more recent dance photos. I am perfecting the shoot! But I guess I will do video for the final. At least one!

So I had another Dance shoot on Thursday and it was AMAZING! I got such good photos and Sophie is a really good dancer. She had two more dancers get in touch with me so I will be doing shoots with them soon. YAY! I am still looking for a male dance but I’ll figure it out!
I went to the Melbourne Spring Fashion Show on Friday and it was ok. The models were all disgustingly thin and the clothes was ok. There were only two designers that I liked. Went to the After Party but only stayed there for no more than 10 minutes. It really sucked. I was hoping to maybe make a couple connections but that wasn’t the case. I am sure that the designers/models all have an after party else and not with the general public. Oh well. It was interesting.
Pemi and I were gonna go to Victoria Market today but it closes in an hour so that’s not happening. The weather is pretty crappy today. It’s really cloudy and looks like it’s about to rain. I think it’s gonna be like this the next week. Cannot wait for it to get a bit warmer
Other than that, I am going to Jordine’s dance performance on Thursday. I am excited. I am working on my website a little bit. Trying to get some more work up on there.
I bought some eggplant too so I am going to make baked eggplant in my toaster oven. I hope this works!
Pemi is going to come over and I think we are gonna see if we can find some cheap flights/accommodation to/in sydney for next week or the week after. Just a two day trip for spring break. Should be fun.
I’ve been trying to find jobs too. Applied for three last night and am going to this photography shop possibly tomorrow to drop off my Resumé. Wish me luck
Keep smiling,
Cheers

Wow, It is officially September 1. Where has the time gone? I left exactly two months ago. How strange!
BUT I am still absolutely loving this place. This last week has been fairly busy. The weekend before this last one I went to Telstra to switch my phone service. Optus is, in my opinion, the worst phone company ever to have set foot on this planet! They seem to want to screw you over. Either way, I went to Telstra to switch my service. On Saturday they told me it would take 24hrs for this to work. So, since I for some reason couldn’t make or receive calls I went back in. They then told me that for some reason my number was on post-paid not prepaid and some 10 dollar starter kit. This explains why I could receive text, calls on my new number, not the old one though. So, I went back on Tuesday to change my number, found out there were a ton of blocks on my phone. The guy there, Dave, was kind enough to deal with me for an hour and a half. After multiple calls to customer service (and being hung up on) it was fixed. yay I had the old number back and I was able to make and receive calls and write SMS. Only on Saturday did I realize that I still couldn’t receive text messages. So, back to Telstra. Another hour and a half. Apparently there were still more blocks on the account. Who knows why? But now my phone is great. AND on top of that I recruited Pemi to Telstra as her vodaphone plan sucked haha. I should be a sales person… not.

On Wednesday I had a semester review. This went really well. I met up with Chris (Head of Photography) and Janine to discuss how the term is going. We talked about my drawing class and the class I am taking at the University of Melbourne. Briefly discussed how my photos are coming along. On Thursday I had a critique and it was good. I have decided to stick to doing the long exposures with glow sticks. On Thursday I have a photoshoot where I will pursue this. They said that while dance photos are great, what is something new I can bring to the table. Hopefully the addition of music pieces that a friend of Anke’s is composing and that Anke will record should do the trick. Considering they said the image looks like it had soundwaves, it seems to work I am definitely still excited to photograph dancers!

On Friday Pemi and I went out for Pizza before wanting to go out for a little bit of dancing. So we went to this place on Bridge Rd for food. It was good! Texted Brendo to see where to go for dancing (never received his text message and this was the reason for me finding out I can’t receive SMS) Either way, walked down Church St to Chapel St. Kept walking and more walking. Couldn’t decide where to go, so went to Coles (supermarket) and bought chocolate cake and tiramisu, went back to my place had cake and watched Grey’s Anatomy. It was a successful night!

Yesterday we went the Apple store as Pemi’s laptop randomly decided to die and not turn on. The guy there told us the Logic board died and it would cost 2200 dollars to repair. Luckily, Pemi still had extended warranty. It made me wonder if I should buy the extended apple care plan, as this was totally out of the blue. It’s probably worth 250 dollars. I need a job. Speaking of Jobs. I had an interview at a Restaurant last week friday. That was really discouraging. The guy told me I didn’t have a home because I have lived in three different places of the world now. Also just flat out asked that if I have no car, no experience and am leaving in 4 months why should he hire me. Hm easy answer: I live close, I got customer service experience and am a quick learner and anyone he hires could quit in 2 months anyways. Whatever. At least I had an interview. Continuing my search for a job! Apparently though, all the people I have spoken with (who are exchange students) are having horrible interviews. People seem to be kind of rude. Oh well.

Other than that, I am excited for Friday. I am going to the Melbourne Spring Fashion Show and after party. Hopefully I can make some connections. I should print some business cards! Pronto!

I am off though. School and possibly going running today!
Keep Smiling