an aussie accent

this bloke was introducing the John Butler Trio and we took a video cuz he is your typical aussie bloke....a real blokey bloke...haha

John Mayer

We went to the west coast blues and roots festival last weekend and fell in loev with john mayer after this performance! his was the best act over the whole weekend!!

Still alive and kickin'

I haven't posted anything in a while, cuz i have been super super busy. I had my first full week of prac teaching last week in a grade 3 class full of iliterate aboriginal children. I'm teaching in the worst suburb in perth, with the lowest literacy rate and lowest socio-economic area....and so far, I love it!!

my first day teaching a lesson was really really rough and I came home in tears, but the days after that were so good!!! I was actually able to teach the kids the concept of repeated addition and they understood it!!!

I'm on my mid semester break right now, and i can hopefully send a better update soon. In the mean time, i just wanted everyone to know that I have changed my photo website. I will now be posting my aussie pics on http://photos.yahoo.com/snewton_82

I went to a 2 day music festival last weekend and saw tons of wicked aussie bands, plus John Mayer, Ben Harper...sooo fun!!! (pics will be up soon)

I had a big end of term party at my house on thursday night and my whole Uni class came and my friend's band played in the living room! i added pics of that, and some from the past few weeks...

hope everyone is doing well! i'm heading over to rottnest island for a couple of days for some relaxation and snorkelling, but hope to add more pics soon!

xoxox cheers!

sarah

scarborough beach #3

sunday beach day #2

sunday session at scarborough beach

Oot and Aboot Wine Tour

Last Saturday me, my roommate Anette, Dale and friend Chris went on the "Out and About Wine Tour" (or the "OOT and ABOOT" as we called it). The tour bus picked us up at 9:00am, and we drove to the Swan Valley wine region to visit 5 wineries, a brewery and a choclate factory......yes, it was as much trouble as it sounds!!!

There were about 15 of us in total....most of the people were 20year old-ish girls from Scotland that are here working. We were all very reserved at the beginning, but after a few wineries that changed!!!

All the wineries we visited were family run, and we sampled white, reds, rose and lots of port! Each winery also gave us a ton of cheese and crackers, and when I asked the tour guide, Claude if the cheese was supossed to compliment the wine, his reply was "nope, it's just to fill your stomach so you don't throw up" hahahaha....ummmm ok. At each vineyard we sampled about 15 different wines, and I actually learned a lot about the different types and now know for sure that i'm a white wine drinker!

The best wine was at the Windy Esates, and we all took a great wine home for $10. Chesters Micro Bewery was the last place we visited, and of course that's where Anette and I ran into our gorgeous landlord!!! I haven't mentioned him before, but now is the perfect time to introduce him..... Anette and I are renting a house from 2 gorgeous 30 year old doctors that bought the house to eventually turn into their private practice. Until they get their permit approved by the council, they are renting to us....very cheap I might add....so, everytime they call us or come by the house, Anette and I tranfrom from our usual mature, sensible selves (haha....feel free to laugh here) into giggling, blushing 12 year old girls....these doctors are soooo sooo wonderful! Not only are the gorgeous, but sooo nice and funny too! and they one that calls me about rent etc...always says "hey sarah, its paul....remember? the good looking one? " hahaha....ok, i digress.....back tot eh original story....

so there we are sitting in the brewery, 5 wineries down....it's 3pm....a crowd of 30-something guys walk in and I say to Anette "doctor, doctor?"....the crowd parts....and there he is....the cuter of the two doctors walking towards us hahahha....Anette and I don't function well on a regualar day talking to him, so you can imagine our giggling and stuttering at that point hahaha.....it was all very funny and after he left dale said wanted to know who he was and why our faces were so red! hehehehe

next was the chocolate factory, where I ran into a guy from my class who was there with his mother and his kids hahaha....The bus ride back to the city was much much louder than it was at 9am!!! all the scottish girls wanted us to go to the pub with them since it was only 4:30 pm! So off we went to Tiger Lilly's to play drnking games.....I was in bed by 9:30 that night!!! hahaha

Next day was our usual sunday routine as Anette and I spent the day at Scarborough beach playing in the waves....I have lots of pics and some really really funny videos I will add!!!!

grrrrreat weekend!

xoxoxo sarah

42 Degrees and no Air-Con!!!

Well, as you can tell from the title of this blog, it's bloody hot here. Today was the hottest day in March EVER! I watched the news last night, and Perth was the hottest city in all of Australia both yesterday and today. Even hotter than the middle of the outback! only 30 degrees there!

So, yes it's extremely hot and we have no air-con and neither do most of the buses that I take to school. Last night my roommate Anette and i lay on the couches in our bathers (bathing suits) with 2 fans facing us, watching horrible tv and unable to talk to each other because we were so hot. We also had a frozen water bottle that we each took turns hugging until we were sure we had frostbite. My other roommate hasn't been around since the heatwave started on sunday and has been staying at her boyfriend's.....I have a sneaking suspicion that her boyfriend has air con....lucky girl!!! An aussie friend of mine told me that in the middle of summer she sleeps with a wet towel to keep her cool at night, I had a good laugh when I heard that one....until I tried it and it worked!!! hahaha

hmmm....what else....we had a fun housewarming party last Saturday with all the new people we've met and then spent sunday at the beach recovering....some of the pics i'm posting might be repeats from the last entry...sorry.

I found out about my practicum placement for school....starting next week I will spend every wednesday in a year 2 class, then will eventually spend 2 weeks at a time in the class.....and i must admit, I am scared to death!!!! My classes are going well, lots of work, but it's really simple/practical work. one of my classes is called "teaching with specialist support" and the class is split into 3 groups. One group goes to Art class, one to Music class and the last group to Phys-ed for a 4 week block, then we rotate. Right now I am in the phys-ed class and each tuesday we have class from 8:39-11:30am and I am having a very tough time coming to terms with the fact that we are in university and playing games!!! For the first part of the class we are taught about children's physical development, motor skills, fundamental movements, hand eye coordination etc....then we all put on our gym shoes and play games that are suitable for primary children, and learn how to teach these skills and games to the kids.

Yesterday we paired up and worked on movement skills needed for over hand throwing, kicking a football, rolling a ball and running. Then we played a game of volleyball where we were allowed to let the ball hit the floor to make it easy for kids. Finally we ended the lesson by playing a simplified version on CRICKET. can i just tell you that cricket is an obsession here (along with footie) just like the hockey obsession in Canada. I don't know the first thing about cricket and I was up to bat and the bases were loaded (just like baseball) and one of the guys in my class yells at the top of his lungs "DO IT FOR CANADA SARAH!!!!" and of course i swung and missed and only tipped the ball about one inch off the plate. hahahah talk about embarrassing!

tomorrow (thursday) is my last day of class for the week since I have fridays off!! On Saturday i'm going on a wine tour with some friends to the swan valley and get to visit 5 wineries (all you can drink), a brewery and a chocolate chocolate factory! fun times :-)

well, it's 5:00pm here and i am sitting in a pool of sweat (lovely visual, i know) so I am off to the beach to jump in the ocean to cool down.


love , sarah!!!.... here are a couple pics, the rest are at http://www.ballofdirt.com/members/69530.html

W. A = Wait Awhile

Well, it's the first week of school and I am extremely overwhelmed!! The most important thing I've learned about Perth, is how fitting it's nickname is.... since Perth is in Western Australia ie- "W.A " to the locals....they all call it "Wait Awhile".....aint that the truth!!!

I'm having a hard time dealing with how sloooowwww and behind the times everything here it....here are a few examples:

all grocery stores close at 5:00 pm, and stay open "late " on Thursdays until 6:00pm

all stores close at 5:00 pm and busses reduce the frequency of their routes at that time also

they still use dialup!!!!! not everywhere, but it is still offered by most internet providers. I went to find out about getting Internet set up at my place, and they offer broadband, and the price is ridiculous!!!!! $350 just to set up.....$69/month and they have a limit on how much you use the net and how much you download. no such thing as unlimited high speed here

ummmm.....now onto how expensive everything is: regular coffee :$2.70 , bottle of water $2.50, ......you get the idea. the reason for this is their high minimum wage- $15/hr and that's for the people working in McDonalds!

ok....so it's hard to get used to the laid back slow attitude here, but other than that, everything is grrrrrrrrreat!

I have a house!!!!!! me and my friend, who is a Norwegian nursing student moved in on Saturday and the place is fantastic! During the past 3 weeks we became really good friends with the guy that runs the housing office at the university and his son. They knew how desperate we were to find a place and had a call from a guy with a house to rent....so he kept the place a secret from the rest of the students and we got to go see it!!!


The house is beautiful!!! It's owned by 4 young doctors who are hoping to turn the house in to their private podiatry practice next year. Instead of leaving the house empty until they fix it up, they decided to rent the place to us!!! They gave us a fantastic deal on rent because there will be guys fixing up the garden every now and then. they pay rent by the week here, and all my friends are paying about $130 PW....but not us!!!! only $80!!! We are sooo sooo excited and having a big housewarming party on saturday!

I'm going to attach a few pics, and there will be more to come and more updates too....I'm just really swamped with school right now....

xoxoxo! sarah




my house:

our street:



sunset at our house:

Orientation week

Orientation week.....saturday night was the welcome party at "the shed" in Northbridge (perth's equivalent to John/richmond in T.O) I met up with friends at the hostel, had some drinks then went to the party.....met lots of fantastic people and a fun time was had by all :-)

the next day we all met up to spend the day at Scarborough Beach. It was amazing!!! the waves were so huge! there were tons of people surfing, boogie boarding and body surfing. I have never been in waves so big before! so much fun....every wave that came just crashed over our heads and it was impossible to stand up. we got tired pretty quicky, it's quite a workout just trying to stand up in the water. we all left covered in sand and quite sunburned, desptite being totally covered in SPF 30 all day!

Still no where to live, but I'm searching day and night with a friend of mine....so our luck will have to change sometime. Until then, we are house hunting everyday and having lots of fun!!
waiting for beach pics from someone and will post them soon

xoxox sarah!

The future is gorgeous!

Well, i have been here a week today, and I have to say I LOVE IT. I still don't have a place to live permanently, but luckily I can stay with friends until I find a place. Australia is very much like Canada, but on the beach....and with more of a british influence. I have noticed some crazy/weird things about this place though:

• the aussies don't wear shoes...anywhere! in the grocery store, riding skateboards, in restaurants, on busses- it's gross! However, I did have a case of Aussie feet on two occasions: #1. my favourite $2 flip flops from Bangkok broke and I had to walk home from the train barefoot and #2 the next day I put on my new flip flops and had so many blisters i walked home barefoot and the sidewalk was SO HOT by the time i got home I had blisters on the soles of my feet too!....ok, enough about my gross feet...I'll spare you the picture of that :-)
  

• they call flip flops "THONGS" hehehehe. that took me a while to get used to when overhearing people talk about how uncomfortable their "thongs" are.

• there are wild parrots in the parks and on the beach! when I first saw the white ones I thought they were seagulls until further investigation I noticed it was a parrot!!! the ones on the beach are bright pink!
  

• they abreviate EVERYTHING! ie- the pink parrots are called "pink cockys", rottnest island is "rotto", fremantle (the port town here) is called Freo, of course, the "barbies" are BBQ's..... the train is "traino"...."uni" = university....which is great for me since I LOVE to abreviate (whatev....ridic...you get the idea)
  

• they have drive though liquor stores, or "bottle shops" as they call them. Looks similar to a gas station, but when you drive up, you tell them what you want ie- " a six pack of toohey tins please mate", and they bring it right up to your car, you pay and drive away. AND they also sell pre-mixed drinks like Jack Daniels and coke in bottles and cans.

• minimum wage is $15/hr and it goes up according to your age.....I've seen ads for office receptionists making $30-$40 per hour

• when you walk into a store, or ask someone a question, or meet someone, instead of saying "hi...hello....hey" they say "how ya going?" which drives me nuts cuz you always have to respond! usually i just stutter and mumble something along the lines of "uuuh ya hi".
  

• Aussie's LOVE their wine and beer! which of course I understand since the wine is FANTASTIC and sold in six packs at the bottle shops. On tuesday night I went to see a foreign film with some family friends. the film was part of the perth ats fest and was outside by the water in a huge park surrounded by trees. all the seats were like beach chairs, and the seats in the row in front of us had bottle holders....not cup holders for your drinks....but wine bottle holders! hahahaha I almost died laughing

• everything comes to a standstill at 6:00. All the shops close and the busses go from a 5 min frequency to once every 1/2 hr! Then everyone goes home, has a drink and waits for the sun to set before having dinner...about 9:00 these days (too hot when the sun is up)

ok, so those are just a few crazy things going on here....there are way more but I can't remember them just now. I put a few more pics on http://www.ballofdirt.com/members/69530.html
just click on journals.

love to all!
xo sarah

Melting in the Aussie sun

I made it!!!!

I've been here for almost a week, and I love it! It's just like Canada, but on the beach. I haven't had time to post here as well as on my ball of dirt site....so if anyone is interested in reading a bit about my time here and checking out a few pics then go to :

http://www.ballofdirt.com/members/69530.html and click on "journals"

I will blog more when I get a place to live and wireless internet :-)

love to all!

SINGAPORE!!!

i love singapore airlines, singapore airport and everything singapore! This airport is incredible!!!! i could seriously live here... movie theatres, gym, sleeping lounges, free internet, tons of shopping, food....amazing!!!

i actually think i love everything asian....Deb once told me that she thinks i'm "yellow on the inside" hahaha and i think she might be right. we stopped in tokyo for almost 2 hrs and i did not want to get back on the plane!!! i just wanted to stay in tokyo and experience everything japanese. at least on my way home i'm spending a few days in singapore and bangkok!

ok, well....just a short entry today, waiting for my boarding call....time to go to perth!!!

catch ya on the flipside!

xoxoxoxox!

Aussie Bound!!!!

Well, this is it.....whether I like it or not I am leaving Toronto at 8:50 am tomorrow! First I fly to L.A, then onto Singapore(with a re-fuel in Tokyo). I arrive in Singapore at 1:30am and will sleep in one of their crazy lounges http://www.plaza-ppl.com/sg_en/index.php until my connecting flight at 9:30 am.

I'm pretty excited about Singapore airport since it's been voted one of the best airports in the world and has movie theatre, massage chairs you can rent by the hour to sleep in etc.

After all that flying, I will finally arrive at 3:35pm in Perth on FEB 3RD!!!! I'll be missing 2 whole days!!!

Ok, so I hope to update this during my flying adventures on my way to Perth, as well as while I'm there. I haven't decided yet if I will be using this to update, or my ball of dirt site , since it can hold lots of pictures..... http://www.ballofdirt.com/members/69530.html and you can sign up for free and get emails when I update.......in any event, there will be updates soon

time for me to go live with the kangaroos!!!

love to all!!! xoxoxox

I'm a Lucky Girl!!!

For some strange reason, I win a lot of radio contests....nothing big, just movie passes, Cd's , that sort of thing. Every time I hear "call now", I do....and today was my lucky day!

I always listen to Mad Dog and Billy on Mix99.9, mostly because they used to have "Humble and Fred" in the mornings until they got fired....those guys were HILARIOUS. Anyway, today was the start of their "sexy back weekend", every time you hear Justin Timberlake and are caller 9 you win stuff. SO, I called this morning,because I LOVE JT and I was caller 9!!!!

They put me on the radio (it was embarrassing!!!) and I won $100 to spend at Winners and a "hottie body package" from flirty girl fitness. AND on Monday I am in a draw for the grand prize of $1000 to spend at winners, BOX seats at the Justin Timberlake concert!!!!! and a year membership at Flirty Girl Fitness! (they specialize in pole dancing, coyote ugly and stripping classes! hahahaha)

So, my fingers are crossed! I really hope I win! But either way, at least I have $100 to spend at winners!!

Such a great way to start the day!!!! woot!

NEVER BUY AN HP LAPTOP........a rant

Just what I need 16 days before I move to the other side of the world.....HP cannot repair my laptop.

I bought it in August, in November the screen started flickering. Sent it to HP, they received it Dec 5th, guaranteed to have it back to me in 3-5 days. Today is January 16, 2007 and I STILL don't have it back!! During that time, HP didn't once email or call me to tell me the status, so I made it my personal mission to call them everyday and bug the crap out of them until they gave me some answers. Best answer I got "wow, we've had it a while, it must me really messed up".....Yes, thank you for that Mr. call centre.

So, I finally found out that the part they needed was on back-order and they couldn't tell me when it would come in.

As of 2 weeks ago I was assigned a "case manager" that would call me to discuss options. I asked for her to call my cell phone, since I'm at work all day, and for the past 2 weeks, "LINDA" left messages at my house in the middle of the day saying "Sarah I've been trying to reach you, will try again tomorrow", and she wouldn't leave a number to reach her at!!!! Apparently case managers cannot be reached by phone, you have to wait until they decide to call you. SO, yesterday I changed my home answering machine to say "If this is HP, please call the following #"............ and I waited.....until finally ,SUCCESS!!!

Linda called me yesterday and proceeded to tell me that my options were:
1. I could wait for my laptop to be repaired, but it could take months and months
2. she can return my broken laptop to me
3. she can sent me a credit note for best buy
4. will send me a cheque for the amount I paid

I was furious!!!! I paid $999.00 for my laptop during the back to school sale, but it's normal price was $1299.00, I told her this and she said "not my problem, we don't know when the sales are". I asked for her supervisor "I am the supervisor Sarah".......I then asked for her to send me a replacement laptop and she proceeded to tell me that they don't have any!!! She said they don't have one laptop in the entire factory to send me, and it's not an option....I have to take the money. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

So, now I have to go search for a new laptop, but won't be able to get equivalent of the one I had cuz they aren't on sale anymore. So i told Linda "OK, send me the damn cheque now, so I can go buy anything that isn't HP".....time for the last straw.....Apparently it takes 10 business days for the cheque to be approved and sent to me!!! So she said she would be sending it as soon as she can, and was ready to hang the phone up, until I asked her where she would be mailing it "oh yeah, I guess I need your address, we don't have it on file..." oooooh man....let me tell you, there were tears after that phone call!!!

Sigh.....so now....with 16 days until I leave (and have nothing done) I wait for the cheque, and have to decide on a new laptop.... and I wonder why I can't sleep at night.

moral of the story....DO NOT BUY HP!!! EVER!!!!

I did write a letter to the Better Business Bureau, and will be sending one to the HP head office, but I know nothing will happen.....

On a brighter note, I went to Laura's family's cottage in Muskoka this weekend and it was funnnnn!

The view


Laura and I

I LOVE grilled cheese :-)

I got back on Friday night after spending 10 lovely days in Florida with my friend Laura and her Family. Her parents have a beautiful house in Boca Raton, and I flew down with her boyfriend after Christmas to spend New Years with them.

We spent our days swimming, relaxing and shopping, and having dinner at delicious restaurants with Laura's family. We went to a New years eve party at Laura's Uncle's house in Fort Lauderdale and drank copious amounts of champage after a delicious dinner, followed by swimming and sitting in the hot tub till 3am. Overall it was an amazing holiday!!!

sunset

new year's dinner getting ready for the countdown!

my new year's kiss with laura and her cousins