How I amuse myself :)

So many of you have asked me what I do during the day now that I am done with school.  I have to warn you all that you may be jealous of my relaxed and personally productive schedule.  I am still a gym enthusiast and have discovered a new love of painting.  I took an art class in my last semester at Cal and I did one painting for that class but have wanted to experiment some more.  With all my free time, picking up this new hobby was a given! Below are some pictures of what I have done so far: (judge nicely as they are literally the first three paintings I have ever done, well minus stuff I made for my parents when I was little :) )

First Painting for art class-

Frangipanis for Krystle (my housemate) 

A picture of Guy kite surfing :) ( my other housemate) 

Road Trippin AUS

I have always loved road trips (although I am sure my mom would disagree).  So I guess I will be more specific: I love all the road trips that are in my cognizant memory.  My friend Liz and I (from Berkeley) made road tripping from LA to Berkeley an amazing and exciting 7 hour experience.  We would often sing songs at the top of our lungs, have meaningful conversations and eat lots of bad foods.  After all, that is what road trips are all about! Right?

Last weekend, by the amazing and sort of ridiculous tradition of Australians’ celebrating the Queen of England’s birthday, Todd had a four-day weekend.  We tossed around lots of ideas but finally settled on a four day road trip with no real destination or plans; we just headed south.  Ahhh yes, I forgot to mention this and I know Todd was extremely excited about this part of the weekend and would be devastated if I left it out: Friday night we went rock climbing.  Yes on real rocks, yes with all the proper safety equipment and yes it was hard.  It wasn’t so much the height that really got to me but the fact that hauling my 60 kilo frame up a wall is hard on my arms and legs and reaching the top once was quite enough.  Of course I forgot to look out once I reached the top which is really a shame because we were at Kangaroo Point and the Brisbane river and city lights were glistening behind me.  Oh well, next time! By the way, Todd was scared too ;-P

Back to the drawing board, Saturday morning Todd and I intended to leave around 12 but after heaps of errands and chores around the house we finally hit the road at 5… when it was already dark… We both joked about how we should just sleep at his place that night and leave instead the next morning but trucked on to Ballina, a beachside town near Byron Bay (south of where I live, known as one of the most famous beaches in Australia, kinda reminds me of Santa Cruz for all you Americans…).  We shelled out and paid for a patch of grass in a caravan park for the night and grilled hamburgers topped with hummus, lettuce, beets, tomato etc.  The next day we decided that paying for grass in the middle of a town is very silly and downloaded a very helpful iphone app on Todd’s phone which showed us National Park campsites ($10 a person at most).  We followed this for the next two nights and stayed in two beautiful places.  Sunday morning we drove inland towards Wollomombi waterfall, the highest waterfall in Australia.  We stayed Sunday night right near the falls and at a freezing 1,400 meters above sea level that night.  We were not prepared for the cold or the rain that kept us company all weekend but we managed fine with wood fires and bedtimes of 7:30, which kept us warm in the tent :) 

The next morning we ingeniously packed up the inside of the tent with the fly still standing so that our tent would still be dry for the next night (my brilliant idea ;)) and then headed to the falls.  After admiring them for 5 min or so we decided that it was way too cold, and let’s be honest: we were way too lazy, to walk down closer to the falls and we headed to Coffs Harbor.  This is where Guy (my house mate) is from and the location of the Big Banana (Australian businesses have a fetish for large fiberglass figures, but heck they are good marketing!).  After walking up mutton bird island (where they go to lay eggs) we headed out of Coffs and towards home.  We stayed our last night at Station Creek which was a park that we had completely to ourselves.  We made another big “boom” fire (as Roman says) and Todd introduced me to another Australian tradition: Jaffles.  You take two pieces of bread, butter them and put them butter side down on the jaffle iron (kinda like a waffle iron).  They you place cheese and ham or egg on the bread and put it straight in the fire.  It was amazing.  Gooey cheese and toasted, slightly burnt bread, perfect camping food! (although smores are still better ;) )

Todd and I wandered through some small towns and shops on the way back North and observed the road trippin rules: singing, bad food, and meaningful conversations.  Amazingly, he isn’t tired of me yet! Ha ha :)  It was an incredibly perfect weekend and even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits!


More pieces through pictures: 

We stopped at this "scottish" town- basically a normal small town with scottish themed telephone poles and banners up and down the main street.  Cute idea! Heck, it encouraged us to stop! 

Todd packing up the tent from the inside out while it rained (second night) 

Our picturesque campground from the 3rd night 

Coff's Harbor 

Beautiful rock pools/ tide pools right by the beach 

Map of our trip courtesy of Todd :) 

Survival of the Fittest

Here it is! My project that consumed my life for the past few months :) Click HERE and it will take you to the Google Docs version.  It is not the best quality/ formatting so if you want me to send you a real copy over email just let me know! Also, please don't point out errors, I don't want it to be like a movie that was just released and then given bad reviews.  My movie is in the theatres and there is no turning back! If you do see errors, pat yourselves on the back because you are smarter than I! :) ha ha
More stuff to come on my amazing road trip to Coff's Harbor with Todd!

And per request from Aunt Cheryl, here is a picture of those huge sand dunes from Morton :)

Slice of paradise just a hop, skip and a jump away :)

 There is a little island directly east of Brisbane called Morton Island.  My adventure crew had never checked it out before because it is fairly expensive to get to and a few of us are on fairly tight budgets so we have never given this place “a go” before (that’s some Australian phrasing for ya ;) ).  In order to help celebrate my recently earned freedom; Al, his new girlfriend (Katelyn), Todd, Roman, some of Todd’s friends from work and I headed to Morton on Friday morning for some 4 wheeling, snorkeling in shipwrecks (amazing), surfing, and LOADS of yummy food.  Morton was absolutely gorgeous.  It mirrored most of the beautiful beaches here: white sand, crystal clear blue water, prehistoric looking shrubbery, blue endless sky etc.  I think the close proximity to Brisbane made the experience even more unreal.  At one point we climbed up these HUGE and I mean HUGE sand dunes.  Huge to the point where we would reach the top of one only to find an even bigger one towering behind.  As we stood on the top of the tallest one we could see Brisbane’s sky scrappers silhouetted.  It was fun to wiggle my toes in soft, white sand while looking out at civilization. 

4 wheeling is a new favorite hobby of mine.  I know it is probably not the best for the environment but at least these tracks are not paved and so don’t require more damage by construction workers coming in and stomping around while pouring asphalt.  We are always sure to drive on the tracks and it is really fun to go traipsing around the bush in Todd’s Toyota Hillux.  I kinda feel like a mix of Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and it is SO much better than the rides at Disneyland. 

I am really going to miss these trips when I go home.  I have such an incredible (but small, ha ha) group of friends here and I am going to miss hanging around the campfire with them; swapping stories, comparing food, playing cards, competing for shooting star sightings.  I am constantly bugging them about coming to visit so I hope they take me up on the offer!

Here are some pics from this weekend:

Sunset from the first campsite

Our second campsite guarded by two Toyota Hilluxs ;)

Todd and I after snorkelling :) 

Roman and I :) note his broken arm- he just wrapped it 10 times and snorkelled anyways!! crazy :) 

Morton seen from the lighthouse 

Beautiful Australian beaches... just the best! 

And just like that, the stress melts away!

My mind has been a ball of stress since I last wrote and I am just starting to massage it all away! It is pretty darn amazing.  Last Thursday, when I turned my paper in, I didn’t feel relief.  I wasn’t overjoyed and I was honestly still experiencing post-turn it in anxiety.  Now I am finally beginning to relax and I have sooo many of you to thank for allowing me to reach this new Zen place ;)

Mom, Sally, Grandma Sherry, Becky, Todd, thank you SOOO much for reading through my countless drafts and keeping me sane.  I could not have done it without you all!! 

Poor Todd had to witness my stressed out self for the first time.  Mom is completely used to my freak outs and one day when I called her crying she said, “I have been waiting for this, surprised it hadn’t happened before..” ha ha thanks mom :)   But she knows me! Me and my bipolar stress fits.  Todd dealt with it admirably and brought me flowers that are on steroids or something as they are still beautiful a week and a half later (no joke- and they are still fresh! Not the dried version that will soon be their fate). 

Through it all I managed to still have fun and squeeze in an AFL game in Brisbane and some other assorted activities (like starting and almost finishing the first 3 seasons of dexter- only 12 episodes each ;) ). 

If anyone is interested in slogging through 75 pages of thoughts on marketing, distribution and exhibition in the film/ tv industry you can find my paper on google docs but I will attach the link in the next post (it is still being approved/processed through google).