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Aussie Expats Update – Be Alert for Aliens
Happy Friday everyone! So, yet again, I’ve left the house every day this week: tonight we’re going out with James’ class to the Fort Sill Oktoberfest. In light of this recent troubling turn of events, I really think we need to implement an emergency protocol. If I get up a running tally of continually leaving the house every day, someone please step up to the plate, shoulder the mantle of responsibility and call the FBI: aliens have definitely taken over my body. James has a secret way of making toast (I can’t tell you what it is, in case the aliens are reading this), but I have no such defence…
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Aussie Expats Update – Lesson of the Week
It’s Friday everyone. FRIDAY. No, I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating when I say I’ve been waiting all week for this. Yeah, yeah, I know – I don’t have a job and I need to study over the weekend for my psychology exam next Tuesday. But don’t bring me down. I have left the house every damn day this week and I’m exhausted. Don’t get me wrong: most of it was good. I mean had an awesome brunch out at Jimmy’s Egg on Thursday (the farmer’s skillet is the business people: go and try it if you don’t believe me) even though I didn’t have room for a cinnamon roll. Anyway,…
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Liebster Award!
Hey people, welcome to the middle of the week! We’re halfway there to a pjs all-day kinda day (it constantly impresses me that I don’t just wear pyjamas all day when I don’t need to leave the house. I am an adult.) But, in other news, on Monday I was nominated for the Leibster Award on Monday by the beautiful, hilarious and talented Nicole Evans over at Thoughts Stained With Ink (I’m really hoping that this will, in part, make up for the fact that I’m a non-video-game-playing loser, but it’s also all completely true). Because she’s a superlative human, she nominated me for something called the Liebster Award after she…
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Aussie Expats Update – Birthday Celebrations in Dallas, Mini-Golf and a New Toy!
HAPPY FRIDAY WORLD!! It’s been a big week for us, in part I think because it took us quite some time to recover from the events of the weekend. Yes people, I drank… Two cocktails. At the ripe old age of 25, I’m pretty much incapacitated by a big meal and a couple of tasty cocktails (also apple pie, and a free makeshift cake comprising 2 oreos and some whipped cream with a candle on top – so in my defence, I ate a lot). We had a great time visiting Dallas. On Saturday morning we spent some time at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, which was seriously…
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Writing, Empathy and Dealey Plaza
Empathy is a tough one. For a writer, it’s vital. Undoubtedly, somewhere in the mix there will probably have been a few great writers who weren’t overly empathetic, but the links between our capacity to empathise and our ability to create complex, interesting, relatable characters (whether they are likeable or not) seems clear. On the other hand, sometimes being empathetic can be overwhelming. Sometimes it seems that if you would let go and allow it to, the world would devour you. It can feel like a fine line between remaining sensitive to emotion, and drowning in it. We visited Dealey Plaza on Sunday morning before we left Dallas. The city…
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I’m Twenty-Five!
Happy Monday America… and Happy American Birthday to me! I’m officially 25 years old, a quarter of a century, which I assume means (since I’m living to at least one hundred, right?) that I may now commence my quarter-life crisis at any time which is convenient for me and inconvenient for James. Hurray! We had an amazing weekend in Dallas to celebrate my birthday, which included a lot of great food, some interesting sight-seeing adventures and a visit from James’ dad on his way from Sydney to Boston. More than anything else, it means the world to me to be able to celebrate something that really isn’t such a big…
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Aussie Expats Update – Arkansas Adventures
Friday has come and as I promised, so do I deliver. People, our trip to Arkansas was AWESOME. Now, I know a lot of people say this about their trips and I guess they’re probably right in some way or another, but they’re mostly wrong, because our trip was the most awesome. Probably ever. [Disclaimer: the fact that I am easily pleased and was travelling with my favourite human has not influenced this completely objective assessment of our trip. At all.] Friday morning saw us leisurely pack the last few pieces for our journey, which featured a boot-full of bags, boxes and random bits and pieces (in what was little…
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Aussie Expats Update – Pavlova, Foolishness & Camping Prep!
I can’t believe it’s Friday again, everyone. AND IT’S SEPTEMBER! The month of many many birthdays because everyone’s parents felt so jolly and full of Christmas/New Years cheer/alcohol that they recklessly decided on having more children. Or didn’t decide. Regardless, September is the month of a million birthdays, and back in Aus, it’s also the start of Spring. I love baby animals, crisp weather, the verdant green lushness creeping back into the world and, to top it all off, I’m born in September… Needless to say, I love this month. So then, other than googling for pictures of really cute baby animals, what’s been happening with us? We had an…
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Aussie Expats Update – America, 3 Months In
Welcome back to the end of the week everyone! Fridays are always a happy light at the end of the tunnel (how this can be the case when I don’t have a job, don’t ask!) and despite James’ avowal of a busy weekend of study, I’m looking forward to at least one sleep in and maybe a Saturday night movie. I know, I know: we make coke-snorting, LSD-taking ravers look tame. It’s just who we are. When I counted the weeks on the calendar earlier today, it hit me that we’re coming to the end of our third month of Aussie expat life. How crazy that seems! Life, of course,…
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Aussie Expats Update – Driving Reprimands, Manuscript Typing and Travel Planning
It’s Friday yet again (thank goodness!), and I’m worried that no tale will ever again live up to that of the free-spirited armadillo I introduced you all to last week. [We need to name it, I think, then freely and ignorantly apply this name to every and all armadillos seen in the future, dead (‘sleeping’) or alive.] However, I did get pulled over by an on-base cop yesterday! There you go, more drama and intrigue in the life of the Aussie expats. Having picked James up to take him to a promotion ceremony that was happening elsewhere on base (and on a tight schedule, I’d like to add), I turned…
