Once I finally had time to sit down and write a blog I had the joy of trying to figure out what I've actually been doing the past month. I know I have been doing something (me being busy and all) but I just couldn't remember when I did what. The past month has just been a blur of events. But after extensive research of facebook statuses, facebook messages, emails, my last blog post, text messages and the calender on my phone I was finally able to piece my last month together, and here are some of the memorable moments:
La Bolsa Park (27.10.)
So actually this isn't that memorable, but it's one of the few things that I took pictures of in the last month, thus it has to be on the blog (cause what is a blog post without pictures???) ;)
The park is very nice and consists of beach, with awesome rock formations and rock pools, a cliffy-thing that leads down to the beach and on top of the hill a lighthouse (even though that isn't actually really nice, since it's a modern lighthouse. It's actually really ugly). All around that there are trees and fields and paths and it's altogether a very nice place and definitely somewhere that I want to go to again (even though that could be a bit harder now, since I now live farther away from it).
And here are said pictures:
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| I just found the formation of the rocks amazing |
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| some may already know this picture, but I thought I'd put it on for all those that don't have facebook :) |
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| me walking to the "perfect picture place" :P |
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| another picture place (and if you're asking yourself why there are so many picture of me walking to the places where I actually wanted my picture to be taken, that's because of my dear friend and photographer who thought it would be funny to take 1000 picture of me walking to the place I told him to take a picture of and then only take 1-2 pictures when I actually get there...) |
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| After being in the park I went to my first Aussie pub |
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| We got chips (=french fries) |
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| And another Aussie experience: I tried my first meat pie and I love it :D |
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| Of course with tomato sauce |
Thanksgiving (8.11.)
So I know that Thanksgiving was actually on the 22.11. but since Calvary Young Adults was kind of busy in the second half of November they decided to celebrate Thanksgiving earlier. I maybe should add that Aussies usually don't celebrate Thanksgiving, they actually have no clue what it is about (besides the being thankful part :P ), but since there are (or used to be) 5 Americans (me included) in the Young Adults group they decided to celebrate it anyways.
The food was so good and I had a great time. So weird that the first proper Thanksgiving dinner that I've had in ages would be in Australia, who would have thought that? :D
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| my first plate (I got seconds and dessert) :D |
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| mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, had never eaten that combination before but it was lovely :D |
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| a very happy Susan with lovely food :) |
My move out (10.11.)
So as some may have heard, read, seen, noticed: I am now living somewhere else! Up to then I was living with the Watts family (good friends of the family), but it was never planned to be a long term thing and from the beginning I was looking to move into a shared accommodation The search was a bit hard (or better said me choosing), but in the end I chose to move into a house with 3 other people living in it. The two main people who are there the whole time are Ben and Matt. I know them both from church (Matt I've known since I've been in Australia and Ben I just got to know when I moved in). The other person in Monnie. I actually haven't met her yet, since she's moving in this weekend. She'll also only be living here during the week, since she works on the sunshine coast. Right next door (and basically also a flatmate) is Jordan. She's also from church and as mentioned she's basically also part of the shared accommodation since she's always over. I get along really well with everybody and really feel at home and welcome. We're going to start cooking together regularly and both flatmates are quite clean and most important: they are very considerate and can put up with my occasional bossiness :D Oh and my nickname is Doctor Su, I'm kind of the "in-house" psychologist...don't know how that happened :P
My room still isn't fully furnished (still waiting on a bed I'll be getting from a friend (correction: I have the bed now! :D )) but otherwise I have everything I need and the coolest thing is that most of what I have I got for free from friends (the pros of being part of God's big family).
For all who don't know, this is the first time I'm living independently so it's kind of a big step. Up to now it's been quite good, just definitely a lot more work. What makes it harder is that fact that I'm not doing so well physically, so grocery shopping is always a challenge. But I'm managing well with the help of my friends ("I get by with a little help from friends, yah, I get ... with a little help from my friends" :P ) No, not really, my friends are very decent :D
Black Tie Arvo Sesh (25.11.)
So many (or actually most) probably don't even know what a "Arvo Sesh" is. So here's the explanation: it stands for afternoon session (arvo being the aussie slang for afternoon, and well session was too long so, as with most words in their vocabulary, they decided to also shorten that). It is a free dinner for the Young Adults group of Calvary an hour before the evening service starts and since the semester is done (and most young adults are students) the last arvo sesh for the year was a special, fancy party and everyone was supposed to come dressed all fancy. I don't really have any good pictures from the night yet. The only one I have is where I'm making a weird face since I had food in my mouth, but I'll put it up anyways, just don't judge :P
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| My friend also had food in his mouth, thus his weird expression :D |
Nerf gun battle (27.11.)
Every week there's connect group on Tuesday which is, in short, a group of young adults from church that meet up once a week to either hang out or to do bible study. Well with the semester being done we also had a last meeting for the year and it was legen...wait for it...wait for it...DARY (and I mean Barney would even agree with me). We had a nerf gun battle (for all those that don't know what a nerf gun is: it's a plastic gun that shoots little foam darts) in UV light with glow-in-the-dark-paint. In short it was AWESOME and exactly what I needed since I hadn't had a good day. Only bad thing about it: I ruined my white tank top, but it was worth it :)
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| me posing with my little gun (there were only a few big ones and the guys grabbed them in the beginning) |
Work:
So in my past blog posts I have written a lot about my different social activities, but haven't really written anything about the real reason I am in Australia (which would be to volunteer for Metamorphic International). So I think I'll take some time to do so now.
One reason I actually haven't written much yet is because my work week has only really been regular since last week. A few reasons why it wasn't regular before hand was because our boss, Lindsay Clarke, was overseas. Alos Dan, the person I'll be working together with the most, was also overseas and added to that all the office was just opened around 1,5 months ago and was still in the process of being set up.
Up to now the things I've done have been: data entry (this has been my main job, but it should be changing into something I'll just do 1-2 hours a day), admin stuff, writing progress reports and project proposals (I'm actually just starting this and still have looooots to learn) and managing the social media (also something I still have to get in to). Plus I'm always the one who answers the phone with a very happy and cheerful sounding "Metamorphic International, Susan DeTroy speaking". One thing that isn't my job though is making coffee (even though if you are visiting I will gladly make you one), but I successfully got out of being the "coffee-girl" on the first day through showing my three other (male) collegues how to use the mashine :D
All joking aside: I have great collegues and am really blessed to be able to work in such an awesome and visionary organisation like Metamorphic. :)
Summary:
I'm still doing really well over here. I've of course had a few bad days (or a also a bad week) but altogether I know this is so right and am thankful God led me here instead of letting me follow my original plan of staying in Germany and starting to study right away. :)
I actually like it so much that right now I would love to stay here forever. Of course that could very well change (who knows how I'll feel about Australia in a few days/weeks/months) but right now I'm loving it here.
Love,
Susan
