13%!!!
Thursday, October 26th, 2006Oh yeah! 13% baby! My first solar cell ever! I’m king of the world!
Archive for October, 2006
Safe and Sound in Perth
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006Left Broome the morning of Oct 11th with Kris - 19 year old who owns the car, Scotty a chef from town beach and his girl friend Miho from Japan. The car was packed to the tits, could hardly fit one person into the backseat let alone two. Kris had to give away his skate board (doesn’t skate anyways) his new dinner plate set, and left his computer at a friend’s house. Good thing I didn’t bring the wine rack that was given to me haha. After Kris purged his stuff we were still left with his swag, a rolling suitcase, a bag for his toiletries, a bag of girlie magazines, oh and don’t forget the weights (never used). Kris was definitely not a backpacker in the beginning but by the end he started to see the way of less is more. So we finally got everything and everybody packed into the Ford Falcon and started off on our great adventure to 80 mile beach which is about a 3 hr drive from Broome.The caravan park we stayed at was very nice, loads of shells so Miho was in heaven as she likes to make necklaces and earrings out of them. There was a young couple from Tassie staying beside us in this huge tent. We actually saw them driving from Broome and passed them a couple times as they are driving a little white Carolla. Nath don’t worry I am totally missing our car and you on this trip, it hasn’t been the same without you!!
Fast track a couple days - went to Karajini - great gorges, Exmouth- saw a little joey so cute.
Coral Bay
Travelling with another car, Dave (ENGLISH) and Mary & Diedre (Irish) we arrived in the very nice small town of Coral Bay (probably not a town maybe a shire), only one road but those are the best kind of towns. NOTE: Kris pointed out on the way down that Broome didn’t have any drain pipes or traffic lights, thus small town. Well we all decided that we would have a big night out cause it had been over a week since we had been out to Oasis in Broome and we needed some time to just let loose after driving so far. Kris had a few too many drinks, which turned him into an awesome pool player but decreased his ability to sing karaoke, at least he guessed every third word or so. The seven year old boy showed him how it is really done, yes in Australia kids go to the pub with their parents- weird. Miho also got up and showed us her skill with a Japanese number. Overall a very fun night - but we did end up getting kicked out of the caravan park the next day as we were too loud.
The next morning I was invited by a couple guys from Perth to go for a plane ride over Coral Bay- of course I said YES. After the very young pilot noticed the flat tire, filled that up and away we went. So awesome, I got to see three humpback whales, and manta rays- so cool. But after 30 min I was ready to come down, looking very green in the face. After the plane ride I went for a walk on the beach because I was told there were reef sharks about 20min walk up the beach in a little bay. Reef sharks apparently don’t attack humans, so I ventured into the water with them (around 50 or so reef sharks just cruising around). One started to come towards me and I booked it out of the water so fast haha, wasn’t going to stick around to meet it.
Got back to the camp site, got kicked out and started our travels to Shark Bay/Monkey Mia……… more to come on the travel adventrues. I am in Perth now, going to be here for about a month so I am looking for a job and getting an apartment with my friend Oliver from Broome so I am pretty excited. Hope all is well and can’t wait to hear from everyone.
Cheers
xoxo
Rocky the Fish
Thursday, October 19th, 2006So every weekend here in Sydney we make up a “Weekend Plan”. It can be as little as going for yumcha or watching a movie. Or it can be as big and elaborate as a road trip to Port Stephens. Last weekend we had a birthday party for Roland and Ziv at Ziv’s ‘lab’ - his research has to do with pumping applications of solar energy, so he has a pool in the backyard of a university-owned house as his ‘lab’. (best. lab. ever!). So I convinced Ziv to let us have a pool party there, and we’d help clean the pool after over a month of not being cleaned due to him being in Israel.
The party was a lot of fun. Highlights: Elsa’s baby Sophilia, Jenny cooking Korean-style pork belly on a George Foreman, and the gifts: Season 1 of Boston Legal for Ziv, and a Chinese Fighting Fish for Roland (a.k.a. a Beta fish). The fish was my idea, thank you, and here’s Roland’s response:
Now I will give you a quick update on our new friend “Rocky” (yes, that’s the fish’s name!). Rocky made it home safely, although a little lonely. My nieces were quite excited by the fish too! But me, my brother and my cousin had a meeting and we decided that we’ll train this fish to be a champion! In order to achieve that, Rocky must have a high-protein and high-carbohydrate diet. Unfortunately, small fish and tadpoles are not easily (and freely) available here in Sydney with the lack of open sewers. So coinciding with the arrival of summer, we formulated a special diet for Rocky consisting of mosquito larva, termite alates and live worms. This will make Rocky strong, colorful and very intimidating to potential challengers. Rocky will also soon move to a new home in the form of a tall jar so that he can polish his swimming skills and have longer breath for future duels. Rocky indicated that he’s looking forward to his first fight with a worthy opponent.
So it looks like there may be more beta fish as gifts in the future. We also got busted by UNSW security about 5 hours into the party. It was awesome. We’ll be doing it again sometime in the future for sure!
Quick Update from Mars
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006Hello all, sorry it’s been a while from me. When Sue has two posts back-to-back before I write again, I know it’s been too long.
So what have I been up to? Engineering Week. I volunteered for this thing back in June. The last week of August I was given the task of planning and implementing the whole thing on behalf of the PV department. So I did. Between that and tutoring, I’ve been working over 50 hours a week. Not including the PhD thing. That’s just paid work. So, things are back to normal! I’m only allowed to work 20 hour weeks, according to my visa, so I’ve already worked my way into November. Eventually there will be a school break and I’ll catch up to my ‘future’ work enough that I’ll have all my pay sheets handed in.
Other stuff? I made solar cells! Okay, dye sensitized solar cells from a kit we ordered from the States as part of the EngWeek activities. But they worked! Who knew you could make solar cells using raspberry juice?
And I SAW DOLPHINS!!!! So cool! Pics are in the gallery. All out of order, and mostly unlabelled, but I’ll get around to that eventually. It’s the Port Stephen’s album.
Budi left for China on Tuesday, Ly and Stuart are going next week, but on a much happier note, Ziv’s coming back! Tomorrow! The bad thing about having so many international students as friends is that they all leave. It’s going to be sad after Christmas, when Karolin, Elsa, Deo and Helena all leave. Sigh. But Ziv’s back! Hooray!
And I got Joe and Benita’s wedding invite in the mail yesterday. Exciting! And for those of you who haven’t heard, Kristy and Marty got engaged! And that should interest all you David’s people too - my friend Kristy Rolston from uni met my friend Marty Buller from high school out in Alberta several years ago, started dating, now they both live out there and are getting married! Exciting again!
Miss you all! Enjoy Oktoberfest!
Last Day in Broome
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006Well the time has come to say goodbye to the small shire of Broome. I leave tomorrow morning with a group of seven backpackers to travel down the coast. We are going to take about a week or two to get down the coast to Perth stopping to see the sights like Monkey Mia, Coral Bay, Shark Bay etc… should be good. I am sad to be leaving Broome I have made some amazing friends and working at Zanders has been wonderful. Last night they took me out for dinner and drinks which was very nice and they gave me a going away present - pearl earrings!!! I am now a classy backpacker cause I have pearl earrings. So today I am just shopping for tent, getting over my hangover and heading to Cable beach for one last soak in the sun (cant go in the water anymore as there are too many jellyfish). I am going to try and get some pictures posted soon. Time is just flying by in a month I will be reunited with Casey in Melbourne getting ready for our New Zealand adventure! Take care
Love Susan