Voting - Oz Style

Yesterday was time for the NSW state election. In Land of Oz, voting is compulsory - if you are enrolled & don't vote you get a fine sent to you. So on a beautiful sunny Saturday I was more than glad to have the excuse to leave the house (hahaha, bye bye studying) and go down to the nearest school to have my say. Unfortunately, I didn't change my address in time, so I was still voting under the Blue Mountains area. Oh well. A ballot form is still a ballot form. It was long - hmm, 70cm long perhaps? It had boxes. And it had very funny candidates/parties that you could vote for!

My favourite parties names were: The Fishing Party, Horse Riders / Outdoor Recreation Pary, Save our Suburbs. The Shooters Party (or whatever they call themselves). None of them got my number 1 vote alas.

As was expected, the Labor party are back in power. No one really wanted them in. It really was a battle of the best of a bad bunch. More people wanted them in than the Liberal party from the voting front -and in Australia - the Liberal's are actually like conservatives elsewhere, we're a bit upside down here.

Way out west. Where style don't grow....

Oh yeah - classic effort by the western suburbs of Sydney. Thursday morning I go to uni - so I got off the train, got my morning tea from Subway @ Kingswood and do the 15 minutes hike to campus.

Walking to uni & I could see a cyclist trying to get around me, so I pull off to the side of the footpath and the dude cycles slooooooooowly by.

The dude, he was all class. Had the best aussie looking green & gold trackie dacks (circa 1982), an old bike, his helmet - which suprised me - that he actually was wearing one. His shirt is irrelevant as the trackies were just too ace. Can't take me eyes off of you....

Then I saw what he had occy strapped to his bike rack.

Yup, at 9.45am he had bought a case of VB (beer) & was heading into one of the less classy appartment blocks upon the highway. You can actually see the pub/hotel from the front of his appartment block, so the poor dear musn't be strong enough to carry the case the 400 metres to his house.

Kingswood - home of champions!

I am...

How evil are you?

Life Savers - Get a whole lot more out of life!

I did a good deed for the day!

So after a pathetic effort at running - 15 minutes would be boosting it somewhat - I did have a migraine this weekend, so I'm blaming it for my lack lustre efforts, I was coming up the stairs & housemate Keen Bean was about to hit the surf & said he'd wait for me to get my swimming gear on. Off with sweaty running gear, on went the lycra skimpys. Grabbed our bikes & off we went.

The weather is making it known that summer is O_V_E_R. Today Sydney was grey. Without Keen Bean I would have procrastinated a bit more, rather than reading up on neo-liberalism, efficient markets & other riveting stuff. Instead I got my daily dose of salt & water. Iwan (aka Keen Bean) was heading up the south end to battle for waves, and I headed to the north end as it's usually better for swimming. Today decided that my swim would be just a quick dip, as the water was 'sharky' looking. Grey & murky & lurky. You know what I mean, it's 5.50pm, there's no sun, overcast, the water just looks scary. (yes, Sarah means princess, I get a bit princessy about water).

So I went in, water temperature was lovely. Decided that there were too many choppy waves for me to battle with my glasses on. See, often when it's flatish, and I'm just in for a quick swim, I'll leave my glasses on and swim. As opposed to popping in some contacts & going crazy with sight. But today, I thought I'd check out swimming blind. My blindness isn't blind blind. I can see big objects, everythings fuzzy & faceless. I can see things clearly when they get within say 30cm of my eyes. Handy huh? So there was a lot of pull from the water. The waves weren't that forcefull, but the current was sneaky enough. One minute you're within the flags, the next you're no where near them. (Non-aussies: by flags I'm referring to the red & yellow flags showing the patrolled area of the beach). I kept paddling back into the flags to be a good girl. There were a few people out, not a great deal.

A few young girls were swimming near by, No adults though. Mother Hen Sarah kept her eyes peeled (ok, mostly was my ears doing the watching). The water got a bit more intense, and one of the girls got a bit out of her depth, then realised the current was taking her. She got slapped by a wave. A few too many mouthfuls of water were swallowed. Her friend had managed to get out of the current. But this lil lass was starting to panic.

Seeing the lifeguards had packed up - but left the flags up, it looked like it was my duty to go & grab her. Yay for children being compact creatures. I paddled over to her & asked if she wanted me to take her in to shore. Yes. Poor thing was getting teary, snotty & coughing up the water. Picked her up & made our way in. Got her to shore & her mum came down to see what had happened. She was thankful that I'd got her little one back to shore. All was fine.

Lesson of the day: the ocean is always the boss.

Let this be a warning to you all...

Currently we have a little situation on our hands in the Big Brown Box - (aka, my current abode). Seems the cockroaches think this is a super fine place to live, as do we. 10 minutes walk to one of the more famous beaches in the world - who would complain!

We (human flat dwellers) can't seem to come to an agreement on their space vs our space. For the first time in many years, I'm resorting to bug spray & the inhuman practice of mass murder. I'm pretty tolerant of basic bug populations sharing my space, ever since I moved to the eastern beaches and the tendancy for old buildings not to have fly screens. We don't get many flys around here, definately a postive. The ants that seemed to love our basil plant. Arnold the Huntsman spider - leg span the size of the palm of a guys hand...who scared the crap out of us often whilst living in the stairwell was a lovely guest.

Our 'mates' the cockroaches more than make up for it.

We're getting the giant ones - for you non bug fiends - they're about 2 inches long , 3/4inch wide - upside - making them easy targets. Downside - they love to fly - always fun when you're trying to get to sleep and these bastards flutter by your face...yes, such a wonderful feeling. We're also being infiltrated by the smaller versions of cocheroachus. I haven't quite gotten identification down pat as to which will grow up to be big mama's and which won't. I just aim & thwack. I'm so desperate to minimise the colonies that I have resorted to squashing with whatever comes to hand quickest. Usually this is a bare body part - I squashed a huge on the other day with my bare foot. My housemate swears she heard the cracking of Mr C's shell from down the hall. And my "Eeeeeeeeeeeek, Ewwwwwwwwww''. Poor Roach - my foot was probably the filthiest thing he'd come across in his life.

We all know I'm going to hell. My bug squashing is taking me a few notches closer.

Happy 100th Blog to Me!!!

Dear fans,

Hurrah! My 100th rant. Wow. Whoever would have thought we'd reach such dizzying heights! I've been meaning to update you all for sometime. Yes, I've neglected you over the summer, but the love is still there. The beach has been my priority. How that stops me blogging, ahh is irrelevant. I've been surfing the net & wasting countless hours messaging, instead of ranting. It is truly beyond me, but I'm sticking to that lame, non plausible excuse for right now.

Life of Sarah. Hmm. Maybe a few dot points.

Highlights - swimming almost the full lenth of the Bondi beach in one go, feeling fitter & happier from playing tough footy & oztag, scoring several tries at footy, meeting fab new mates through that, buying very foxy red patent pointy shoes, getting my motorbike bike learner permit, getting accepted into uni, still enjoying my job - almost 9 months now, not loosing a mobile phone in 9 months, seeing the Killers, having an organised bedroom in lovely flat, cool new housemate to replace old cool housemate, swimming at the beach after work, perving at Bondi, new camera, seeing the Violent Femmes, getting closer to 1 year since my last scary allergic reaction, finally shedding a few kgs to get my ass into some new slinky jeans, running continuously for 27 minutes - my personal best, longest run ever in my whole life, taking things easy, Whittakes Dark Chocolate (go you kiwi chocolate makers), starting uni (after many years talking crap about starting, this time I suceeded!)....and of course my family & friends.

Lowlights - figuring out uni timetables, figuring out crappy uni web system, going to uni out west, getting blisters from foxy red patent shoes, getting stress bumps, not sleeping enough, stressing over uni timetablings, working full time & studying part time during the days, trying to buy 2nd hand motorbike, learning to read big words, flat reshuffle, hating my new camera, restricting my diet, restricting my alcohol consumption, my office having no aircon for the whole summer therefore me sweating like a pig in a sauna every day this summer. Mmm.

I'm sure there are more '-lights' in both camps. But that's a start.

I thank you for all your sentiments, comments & nude pics that have gotten me through an interesting 2 years back in Oz.

Love,

Sarah