Jade Down Under

It was an early morning this morning as I was heading to 'Nameless' High School and unfortunately this week I've been taking the bus. My buddy isn't in High School this week. Anyhow, as I'm waiting for the bus (at the god-awful hour of 7:50) I decided to get my ID card (for student discount) and money ready. I then realized I only had a $50 bill. See, our Uni ATM only gives out $50 bills which is just fantastic as no one wants them. It must be someone's practical joke.
The bus fare to 'Nameless' High School and back is $3.10, I only had a $2 coin and a $50. I don't really need to explain this but I ended up getting a one way to the school for $1.90 and figured I'd find change before I had to pay to come home.
I get to school, lawdy dawdy, day goes well. I had a great 8 class in last period so I was expecting the worst. Eights can be pretty rambunctious by last period. Well, don't they walk in at 1:50 with halos above their pretty little heads. I was teaching them about writing recounts and barely anyone opened their mouth unless I asked them to. I was floating it went so well. MY teacher then took over to do a web activity but unfortunately the web wasn't working so she started on character reconstruction and as an example asked the kids to describe me. Oh no! This could be bad.
Once again I was put in my place. I was described as nice, friendly, always smiling, a teacher who helps out students, intelligent, their FAVOURITE teacher (which my teacher wrote in brackets 'minus Ms____'). This list went on for almost 2 typed pages. I'm sure my face was bright red - I don't take to that much attention well. Anyway, day done... what a fantastic lesson... ahhhh.... time to head back to the bus.
Similar to this morning I decided to get all my stuff ready before the bus got there. PS - I got change when I bought some stuff (binder, paper etc.) at Office Works.
I began to panic... my ID card is gone!!! Not just my bus card but my student ID card. What have I done? I know what I"ve done... in my panic this morning I must have dropped it on the bus. Darn it. So much for my student discount.
The bus pulls up. The doors open.
'You lost your ID card,' says the bus driver looking at me.
'YES!! Yes I did!! I thought I was going to have to convince you I was a student!'
'No mate, I'm pretty easy going,' he smiled as he took my $1.90 to get me home.

Turns out the bus driver's had been looking out for me all day. The morning guy had radio-ed to everyone else to keep a lookout giving out my description and where I got off this morning. They just didn't know what time I'd be getting back on!! HOW WICKED IS THAT?! That would never happen in Canada and I know some of the bus drivers!!!

The only problem is I somehow have to get over to the main depot to get my ID's, I have no idea when that will happen which means in the meantime I will have to pay regular price; unless enough of them know about me and my silliness.

'Hi, I'm the girl you heard about on Thursday, yeah, the one with the ID.'

Reading week is this week and although I probably should be reading I instead caught a flight to the city of Cairns, about 4 hours north of Townsville. Cairns is directly off the GBR and is full of rainforest. The picture below is us landing, at 7am! Liz and I had to be up at 4:45 Monday morning to catch a cab at 5:10; our flight was for 6:30. Unfortuantley, I was anxious to go (I have been going stir crazy in my prison cell) so I didn't sleep much. When my alarm went off nearing 5 I jumped out of bed and was ready to go; GET ME OUTTA HERE!!


Once in Cairns (8:30 am) we had nothing to do... we couldn't check into our hostel as it was too early, and our first tour wasn't starting until 1pm. The thing about Cairns is the city is very similar to Townsville so we easily found out way to the 'Strand' where they have a manmade lagoon and boardwalk. Nothing like a massive infinity pool to start the morning.


Some fishy artwork



I liked the look of the building, hence the picture. It's there City Council and Library.


Another great Aussie sign. No climbing on guns. The sign did make sense, there were WW1 guns mounted on big cement blocks but I still thought the sign was funny. Never seen that before.


I don't know what these are or what they are doing. They looked kinda creepy and I don't know what they are doing with thier appendages but I had to take a picture. There were a whole family of them all made from different colours.


To kill time we went to the Cairns City Museum. It was only $5 to get in (a single floor) but killed an hour of time. I have previously posted on the Cane toads and there awfulness here in Townsville. The museum shed a little more light on the subject. Look what they have been charged with; gotta love Aussies.


Aren't they horrible?! They literally are EVERYWHERE. When I was camping (with the grade eight class) we'd sit there at night and watch them all come out... there are tons of them. Eck!


Some more pictures of Aussie life. I don't know what these things are but they look pretty messed up!!

There were actual mouths on display. I got Liz to lay on the floor so I could show you how big their jaws are!! Looks like a weird saw!


I watched the movie Changeling on Saturday so the old phone system peeked my interest. I had no idea what I was doing but it was kinda fun. Got to love interactive museums.


And look! I found a Canadian.


After the museum we walked around Cairns killing more time until our tour. Every once in a while you will see Wicked Camper Vans drive by. These are rental vehicles that you can get while travelling through Australia. They sleep 3 people but that awesome thing about them is you can have them painted however you like! Do you think this van was full of boys?! Canadians could never get away with this in Canada!


Our next destination. We originally signed up for the Mingin Swing which is similar to the thing they have at Canada's Wonderland.


But then the signage got me thinking....


Liz and I chilling out waiting for her Minjin Swing operator.


Here she goes.

I also got a video but don't know how to load that properly!!


My turn!!!
The worst part about the whole experience (and the only bad part!) was the climb up the stairs. The tower is over 50 metres (164 feet) in the air and you feel every foot of it while climbing the stairs. By the time I made it to the top I wanted to collapse.


View from the bottom where Liz patiently waited for my leap!


Here I am!! By this point I was a little nervous but as I said the stairs were SOOOO much worse!

The first jump I did was called the Swan Dive and is the typical bungy jump. It's a lot harder than you think. We sat and watched a bunch of people try and fail but the two guys before me did it perfectly. MY TURN...


WHOOOOOOO!!! Awesome. That's all I got. It was awesome. I have a full video of the jump and the operators, who after I jumped made beaver faces at the camera. Before I jumped we had a conversation about the national animal of Canada and they thought they could pull off an interpretation. They actually did a wicked job, very funny.



After you jump you hang for what feels like forever, all the blood rushing to your head.


This guy comes out and gets you. He had only jumped twice before so I figured, why not?


The second jump I did is called the pendulum. This jump is way better than the first one because you don't know when he is going to let you go, and plus you can't see a darn thing behind you. lol.... I still have that silly feeling when I think about it. The pictures of this jump aren't so great so I'm not going to post them but hopefully I'll find a way to put up the videos for you guys.


A drink was in order. If you are ever considering bungy jumping just do it. It was well worth the money and will be a great memory.


At the end of the day we headed back to our hostel where we got free food. It wasn't the greatest I've ever had but it was free. Liz got the pasta alfredo, which apparently is a red sauce with vegetables!! Liz hates vegetables (weird, I know) so she ended up getting a bag of chips and eating that.


I had chili con con but it was more like taco meat with a few beans over rice. Luckily it didn't have many beans in it (I hate those little horrid things) so I was able to enjoy the meal. We went to bed shortly after dinner (asleep by 10:30) but we were woken up during many points of the night. It was brought to my attention the next morning (by the receptionist that I complained to) that people are uncontrollable and Gilligans Hostel cannot be responsible for thier guests. Grrrrr.... I was up many times throughout the night but was kept awake for an hour between four and five, I was a grumpy pants in the morning.


The next day was an early one because we were headed to Green Island to go snorkeling. Here I'm showing off my free t-shirt from the bungy jumping. I think I still had the jumpers high.


Here's Green Island.


This is the beach. We were not warned that the tide goes out very rapidly in the afternoon so Liz and I came in for lunch (which we brought), laid on the beach and then when we went to go back out the water was gone!! The ocean had retreated what looked like a km. As the ocean is filled with coral it makes it very difficult to follow the water as you can't walk barefoot on the ocean floor; the coral would cut your feet pretty badly. The only other option is to walk with the snorkel flippers on and that tires one out rather quickly. We gave up after 15-20 minutes and headed back to the beach. It was disappointing that we didn't get to snorkel for the second time.


Some pictures of the coral



At 1:45 we had a glass bottom boat tour. Liz and I got distracted and showed up right at 1:45, as the boat was pulling away. Darn. Luckily the staff were awesome and just threw us on the next one at 2:15.


Through the glass we could see many, many fishies... unfortunately the pictures don't really do it justice.

The boat operator threw handfuls of fish feed over the side and these big guys jumped into the air to get it. First food was thrown to the left side of the boat, then right (not using technical terms here) and the fish are trained (or remember this) and once they've eaten a bit on one side will automatically swim to the other side. Too bad they didn't learn how to avoid those sharp, metal hooks.


This is a giant clam. As I said, the pictures don't do it justice. Liz and I did buy an underwater camera but we only took a few pictures and have not developed them yet.


Leaving Green Island there are islands of mountainous terrain all around.


This is Cairns seen from the water


In the plane we went - the whole 45 minute flight from Cairns to Townsville. This is the last glimpse of Cairns I got before turning my attention to breaky and Eclipse.



We arrived in Townsville at 8:30am where our friend Alyce picked us up. I came home, spoke to the family and Jamie and then proceeded to fall a sleep for 4 hours. Guess I needed the rest. Tonight will be spent watching Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother, and refraining from eating all my ketchup chips my mom has just sent. I miss Ketchup chips SOOOOO much!!

Back to high school next week so I won't have much to post although it's ANZAC day on Saturday so I'll hopefully have some good shots. For those who dont' know what ANZAC day is it stems from WW1 when the Australian and New Zealand army took over Gallipoli - something like Canadians and Vimy Ridge - it's a national celebration. Since WW1 ANZAC day has turned into not only a celebration of those at Gallipoli but of all Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Townsville is a major army base so I'm sure there are going to be a lot of things going on here. I'll keep in touch.

On Friday it was Katie's birthday so we headed to UniClub (Bludgers) for a little celebration. Unfortunately, Katie had to leave at 5:30 the next morning to catch a flight to Cairns so she could only stay out until 10:30. I think she had a good time though!! 'Happy Birthday to you too!' lol...

On Fridays UniClub has all live music and the one guy (been there 2 weeks in a row now, I think) is awesome and covers a wide range of well loved tunes. It's a great time singing along and the place is usually packed.

Riffy and Katie

Myself, Katie and Liz

So I'm leaving for Cairns at 5:10 tomorrow morning; flights at 6:30. I'm not looking forward to waking up that early but this was the only flight we could get for the cheap price of $39. Yes, that is right, $39 for a FLIGHT to Cairns. Flights don't get much cheaper than that... unless you get a $9 sale fare which I have also seen. You have to love Australian flight prices.

I have some pictures to post from this past weekend but unfortunately I have to grab them off of Liz and that's not happening right now. It's 9:35 and I think I'm going to bunker down for the night and read more of Eclipse. It has taken me just over a week and I'm on the third book.... of the Twilight series for those who don't know. The books are pretty good, definitely written for the high school audiences but somewhat entertaining; especially when there's so much time in res. to kill.

Anyhow, I'll be gone for a few days and post the pictures when I'm back. I'm not doing much exciting stuff... well, expect for the Minjin Swing and snorkeling on the GBR!!! Jamie, I will watch out for those box jellyfish and of course those deadly killer whales!!!

Talk to you soon!

Happy Birthday Katie!!

Party tonight; see ya at Bludgers!!

Happy Birthday Jamie!!

Happy Birthday Gramps!!!

Hope you both have wonderful days and I'll talk to you both soon!!!

Love you

I've come down with a stupid cold. Yes, stupid. I never get sick, expect for that powerful cold I had in January that wiped my butt pretty bad; other than that rarity I never get sick.
Like most colds it started with the sniffles and I, like normal, blamed it on allergies. It is changing to winter around here, meaning the temperature has dropped by a degree or so - could be allergies. Unfortunately yesterday the allergies that I could live with changed into a cold that is driving me nuts. I'm not a home owner who stocks up on the essential drugs and Kleenex, I live in a residence building with no car and no easy access to these items. SO, after I used the box of Kleenex that I conveniently had I began carrying around a roll of what the residence here CLAIMS is toilet paper. It's more like really thin, white sandpaper. I'm sure I looked funny too.... walking around with a roll of toilet paper under my arm.
Lucky for me Liz had cold pills and softer toilet paper, which now the roll is half gone. The cold pills weren't so great, made of echinaccea and vit C, meaning they will kick in as soon as I'm better.
I'm hoping today will miraculously heal today although I feel worse this morning. With my nose acting up I can't sleep with the air con. so my sleep was interrupted. I'm such a baby when I'm sick....

Happy Birthday Apryl!!!

Happy Birthday Enrique!!

Hope your days are filled with sunshine and lollipops!!

Hey all,

Easter is now over for me; back to school tomorrow. Unfortunately without someone else cooking me dinner I didn't really get a 'good' Easter dinner. If you normally have your dinner on the Sunday night I had french fries smothered in warm, delicious ketchup. If you have your dinner on the Monday night, I had a baked potato with a side of salad. No turkey, no ham... not that I'm a huge fan anyhow. The french fries and baked potato stemmed from what was going to be a delicious, well prepared meal... unfortunately my Mom could not make it over here in time. Only kidding, I did have the intentions of cooking something to be proud of but my lack of cooking ambition stood in my way.

Tonight my floor has been restored and my roomies are back!! The place is once again buzzing. It's nice to have other people on the floor. It was mighty quiet with just Tim and I here. I think we've laughed at each other all we can.

Anyhoooo, Twilight is almost complete (my Easter project for myself) and I will be starting New Moon within the next day or two; I've already been warned that 2/3's of the book is... crap. I'm not reading it for myself but for my little students who keep asking me 'Jacob or Edward!'

Night all :) Hope the bunny treated you well.

It's been another week since I posted anything but this is because I've been away on grade eight camp. You heard me right. Four days with 91 grade eight students. It was a great time where I got to know more about the grade eights and learn a few more names.
The event I was helping to run is called Team Challenges. The group members (approximately 14 students per group) must work together to find a solution to a problem they've been placed in. In the picture below the students are very close at solving the problem.
The situation was that they were astronauts and they had lost something very valuable in a large crater filled with lava. The item they had lost was on a small island in the middle of the lava crater, only enough room for the item itself. The kids had to throw a rope between a V in the tree and have a team member crawl out to retrieve the bucket which symbolized the valuable item. As these are grade eight children I have only posted pictures which to do not reveal their faces. Unfortunately I have some great 'posed' pictures but can't post them.


Another event was the rock climbing wall.


In this event there were two teams competing. One team was standing on the sidelines and chucking wet sponges at the other team, who were running up and down the hill retrieving tennis balls. If you were hit with a wet sponge while holding a tennis ball you had to go back to the start.



This is the catapulting event. This was one of the more difficult events to manage as the kids had to follow instructions on how to assemble their catapult. Ms. Nakanishi and I spent a lot of time going group to group to help them. They eventually got to sling tennis balls and water balloons at each other.


This event was called the punctured drum. The goal was to overfill the drum with water. The catch, it had TONS of holes in it. Team members had to use their fingers to cover the holes while other team members filled the drum. It was a wet, wet, wet challenge. I helped out on the last day and walked to my cabin dripping wet, good times.


This is the other team mates trying to cover the holes. A very wet job.



We also had a 'garbage bag ball,' where everyone had to make a gown or a suit out of garbage bags. Here are some of the teachers making their outfits.


This is the final product. This is only 10 out of 12 teachers...that's including myself... the prac. student.



And here are the other two. Hustler and Williamson; PE teachers. Two of the grade eight students put some effort into making these guys look.... pretty?


I arrived home from camp yesterday around 4:30pm; I was wiped. I ended up going to bed around 8pm and woke up at 9 this morning, Good Friday. Luckily I have enough groceries to last me until tomorrow as I was too tired to run out grocery shopping when I got home yesterday. Liz left this morning for Brisbane and my floor is empty except for Tim and I. I think my Easter dinner will consist of something simple.... perhaps chicken... and salad. Boring, I know, but easy for one. Below are a couple more photos from the past few weeks. I slacked off on posting so today's post is extra long.....

Before grade eight camp we had Earth hour.... all lights to be shut off and an hour of darkness. Tim and I were the two who participated on our floor. We had my flashlight/radio....


A cup of tea....


And of course, juggling.
Also, a few days before we had a pleasant surprise from our dear res. cat, Puss. I was sitting in my room and heard my floor mate say, 'we have a cat!' Of course I jumped out of bed (where I was watching a movie) and hung out with our guest. This is a special occasion as we only leave our front door open occasionally and we live on the second floor!

She liked rubbing up on Tim.



She hung around for a while before sauntering back downstairs. I hope she comes back soon, it was nice having her. I was really close to cat-napping her... but I refrained....


The week previous Liz and I participated in the Butt Littering Campaign for the City of Townsville; we handed out pocket ashtrays to convince people not to litter their butts. In the photo below are some of the volunteers posing for a photo. There are over 4 billion cigarette butts littered in Australia each year. Unfortunately the butts end up washing into the waterways and ocean creating a deadly food source for turtles and fish. The sea creatures end up eating the cigarettes, which they cannot digest, and end up dying of starvation. Very sad. The Townsville bulletin took photos of a turtle from Reef HQ trying to eat a fake cigarette (held by a diver) to show they will eat anything!!! Not only does the cigarette butts kill the wildlife but obviously pollutes the beautiful water. Hopefully the mass amounts of butt holders we handed out will prevent some of the damage done by cigarettes.