Hello Everyone,

Well I have been too busy living my life to be recording it. I am truly sorry about my lack of communication with everyone lately. Being I have lost my job and I have been trying to figure out my next step I have been busy doing 3 things:

1) Looking for a job
2) Doing as many things in Sydney that I can
3) Stressing out

So instead of giving you a timeline of things I have been doing I am going to give a list of sorts as I think it has been since August since I did a really through update, this is very long so it might be best to print it out. I am also going to send an update right after this to inform you of my future plans:

Bollywood Movie and Dance Party : I went with a couple of friends to Bondi Pavillion which is right on the ocean, and watched an entire Bollywood film (yes, Ashok I watched the entire film this time) and it was good fun. Then we joined in an Indian Dance Party. If I get a chance I am going to try to take traditional Indian Dance lessons in the future.

Long Weekend: My friends Berni, Sam and I went about 4 hours north to Port McQuarie, where we relaxed, hired a Barbie Boat (a pontoon boat with a BBQ on it) and enjoyed the sun and the water.

Thanksgiving: Australia does not celebrate Thanksgiving, but my neighbours decided that they wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner with me. So we started cooking a huge vegetarian Thanksgiving Dinner (with a Stuffed Tofu Turkey and everything) at around 10 in the morning. We had about 15 people. 5 courses of food and more wine bottles than I care to count. It was probably the best Thanksgiving I have ever had. Great food, good company, excellent music and all outdoors.

Livid:Completely commercial music festival. I volunteered at the door for 4 hours so that I could see a few bands. Though I am not jumping to buy a CD for the band International Noise Conspiracy I highly recommend seeming them live if you can. The only thing I can say about them is that they are rock stars!

Visit from Rebecca: A classmate of mine from High School was in Sydney for the Gay Games. I took her to my favourite Thai restaurant and we rambled around town a bit. I really enjoyed seeing the things about Sydney that she was excited about. I forgotten how the little things made me so happy when I first moved to Sydney. Example: I have a Papaya tree and some Bamboo trees in my front garden. How exotic is that?

Homebake:Well music really is the theme of what I have been doing for the past few months. Homebake is an all Australian Music Festival. Again I now have another band that their music does not thrill me, but live they are fantastic. Machine Gun Fellatio. They are really a cabaret act putting on a rock show. You would have to see it to believe it.

Girl Guide Camp: Yep another weekend with me about 5 other adults and 40 fun-loving girls. I have to say Ice Blocking is really cool. Since there is no snow here to sled Girl Guides find other ways to go about sledding down a hill. First, buy a huge block of ice. Second, find a big hill and hose it down. Third, put a towel on the ice set your tush on it. Forth, scream loudly while sledding down the hill.

Woodford Folk Festival:Between Christmas and New Years I went north to Queensland for a 6 day folk festival. I have been to a lot of music festivals in my life but none even compare to this. I went up there with a bunch of friends and we camped and laughed and got sun burned. There was music, street performers, political discussions, movies, fire events, masked people, and dancing. One of the performers said it best when she said, "there is nothing better then hippy kids dancing with their dread-headed parents in the mud at a folk festival."

The drive back from Woodford: My friend Hayley and I took 8 days to drive back from Queensland to Sydney. This was all along the coast. 8 glorious days of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. And one day of tea-tree oil lake goodness. There was a lake that all the vegetation leaked tea-tree oil into the lake. The lake was calm and a clear, yet brownish-red colour. It was the most wonderful feeling, and it gave me silky smooth skin better than any bath with oils put in it could.

Newtown Festival: It is that time of year again. Summer in Sydney means there are festivals everywhere. I spent the day in the sun with my neighbours, listening to music and chatting the day away.

Zombie Movies: One thing I have done in Sydney is surrounded myself with very productive creative people. A group of my friends made some zombie movies and convinced a café with a screening room to show their movies. So I went for a night of seeing tragically bad zombie movies with my friends as the lead actors and then afterwards we had dinner and listened to a great jazz band.

The Canadians: Well for the past month I have had 2 Canadians staying in my room. It has been very cozy. One is my friend Craig who I know from some volunteer work in Canada a few years back and the other is his friend Jill. So for the past month I have been showing them around Sydney and doing a lot of the touristy stuff. I have been to the Aquarium, the Museum of Contemporary Art, walked around town and no tour of Sydney is complete without a run-down of a dozen or so pubs.

On top of all that I have been doing my usual: showing up to work, going roller blading, going to movies, running Girl Guide meetings, and meeting up with friends to do absolutely nothing.

Thanks for reading all this! I will be sending out another e-mail that explains some of my future plans and what I am doing now to sort them out.

Take Care,
Tia