Steve Lochrin has jetted off to Italy this week for a school trip and it has certainly struck Carl and Hiroko how different his school experience has been. Even though it might seem strange at times and that kids might be missing some of those peculiar “Australian” experiences, what a rich and varied cultural and educational experience it is here.
Cass has flitted off up the hill for a baby shower type show for her friend Kristin, who safely delivered her second girl last week. Named Nyah (which apparently means “dolphin” in Hawaiian) both baby and mother are doing extremely well. Cass finds these baby shows fairly tedious, but the crew of girls going are very pleasant and Cass has gone up with her friend Kathy, who is of a similar mind regarding these showers, so I’m sure they’ll be able to exit stage left if it gets too strange!
We took the “girls” to get their yearly flu injections and thought, while they were severely traumatized, we might as well go ahead and get them microchipped as well. They’re funny little bunnies: as soon as we take them away from their comfort zone (i.e. this apartment), they become wild little scratching, fighting, feral animals, much like they were when I first brought them home. They have always been averse to other people’s company and only reluctantly put up with me, but the carryon has to be seen to be believed. It takes a phalanx of vet workers (4 of them!) to extract them from the cage and hold them down to get treated. They scratch, struggle, moan and poor little Virgy even wets herself in terror…thank god we only have to go once a year!
I’ve been basking in my own glory this week after finishing all my courses and have hardly done a thing! I suppose I’ve just done the usual: worked and attended meetings, boxed and lifted weights in the afternoon, or gone for a surf. One interesting thing in class this week was giving some of my little kiddies some Australian 2 cent coins. I brought a whole tub of them over here, and we watched a video on Australian marshlands, which featured the frilled neck lizard. Suffice to say they were a great hit!
Ross and I had one of the worst surfs ever on Friday afternoon: check the Pointyhat site for the sad details. Speaking of Ross, I’ve been busy organizing a sendoff for him for the last weekend before school breaks up. I’m trying to organize a bus to take a stack of guys over for a surf and a few beers on the Saturday afternoon (June 3), then transport us all back to the Green bar for some evening festivities. It should be a great laugh, as we’ve invited heaps of non-surfers just to come out and have a try: we’re really looking forward to it. I’ve also just put the finishing touches to a Moviemaker project to be screened at the Green on the night. It looks pretty good and is a combination of photos, videos and music along with all sorts of captions and effects…it’s been good fun making it as I haven’t tried that, previously sticking to the much more boring PowerPoint.
All sorts of sendoffs coming up…Chad and Ross of course, but also Clarky and Bob Penry…we’re losing a few too many Pointyhats, I’m afraid! Photos: Virg’n Mary calm again, good surf from a couple of weeks back, close up of my “fish”