On Top of the World

My holidays are unfortunately nearing an end, so I’m trying to enjoy the couple of days I have left.

So, today was spent having lunch in Hahndorf, and then going to the zoo. It’s been ages since I went to the zoo, but I particularly wanted to go today to check out the Human Zoo. Just in case you can’t be bothered clicking the link, here’s an excerpt from the page explaining what it’s about:

Concept
Over the period of one month in January 2007, a group of humans will be locked in an unused Adelaide Zoo primate exhibit for observation by all. This brave group of volunteers will become ~

The HUMAN ZOO

This project aims to

• Create awareness of the closeness of humans to their primate cousins
• Provide a platform for research on animal behaviour and enrichment
• Raise awareness for the conservation needs of primates in the wild
• Raise funds to build Australia’s largest chimpanzee exhibit at Monarto Zoological Park in South Australia

How The Human Zoo works
Application close 4th December 2006. 100 chosen Humans will undertake auditions at Adelaide Zoo on 11th and 12th of December in the Primate exhibit in front of a judging panel: public invited to come and watch. We are looking for outgoing fun people who have a passion to help conservation.

Lock-in commences 2nd January 2007, with each group of 6 being locked in for the period of one week.

One of the reasons I wanted to go was curiosity, but also because we know one of the people in there.

So anyway, the Human Zoo was OK but it wasn’t anything exciting. The people were just sitting around squirting observers with water pistols, so we didn’t stay long.

I must say that the zoo has improved considerably since I used to go when I was little. The enclosures are far better, and it just seems greener and a more pleasant place to go. While we were wandering around, we came across the otters, and there was one otter doing the cutest thing! I got some of it on video:

I just got back from the 21st birthday party for a girl I go to tafe with. There were two other people from my class there, and a couple of people I know from DeafSA, so it allayed my fears of not knowing anyone. And the birthday girl made all the right noises about the bracelet I got her, so either she really did like it, or she’s a great actress. Either way, she asked me to put it on her and she wore it all night so I was pleased.

The only less-than-ideal part was when the speeches occurred. Because there were 2 Deaf people there, an interpreter was required. I nominated another classmate to do the honours, which she did for a while, but then I was summoned to do my turn. I guess the most diplomatic way I can put my performance is that it’s a good thing I decided not to do the interpreting course next year. I sucked. I think some bits were ok, but having everyone in the room staring at me made me freeze up. I just hope they understood some of what I said. When I sat down, one of the guys I interpreted for said that I was nervous. Well, duh! My first ever interpreting stint and I was crap.

But despite this, I did have a really good time. There was even some Scottish dancing! The first couple of dances were with party guests, and the teacher gave instructions for the steps and then it was done to music, and the last one was a dance that some of the people from the dance school do.

Oh, and there was also a Cookie Monster piñata filled with lollies! I didn’t have a go at hitting it but in the end, poor CM was reduced to a head hanging from the ceiling while everyone gorged on the smarties, Mars bars and Freddos that had been inside him. The photo I took with my mobile phone does not do him justice at all.

So it was a night of firsts, with interpreting, dancing and piñata-ing!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we went to the beach for New Year’s Eve this year. As with every year, they have fireworks there and I thought I’d video it. It’s only on my digital camera so the quality’s not great, but I still think it turned out ok. I didn’t have enough room on my card to video it all in one go, so I did it in segments and I’ve uploaded the last segment to YouTube in case you want to have a look. It’s only a few minutes long.

The only bad thing about it was a woman behind us repeatedly saying “there’s something missing”. Stupid whiny cow. So it’s not the Sydney fireworks, but it was still nice! Anyway, I don’t think you can hear her in the video, so that’s good.

It was a good night - some fantastic fish and chips on the beach (well, on the grass near the beach), some ice cream and a couple of arrests while waiting for the fireworks and then the fireworks themselves all made for a nice night. Alas, we didn’t completely escape the drunk teenagers, but the spot we chose to watch the fireworks didn’t have any, so it all worked out well.

Back again.

We had quite a busy weekend. On Saturday we went to see 49 Up. For those of you who might not know, this started as 7 Up in 1964, where a group of 7-year-old children were interviewed about their lives and what they hoped to do, and then every 7 years they were interviewed again to see what they were doing. So now they’re all 49, and since I’ve enjoyed the previous instalments I’ve seen, when I saw it on the cinema’s website I thought it might be good. I can’t remember the last time M and I went to the movies, so that was good as well.

So we drove into the city, got the tickets first and then went into Rundle Mall to look at a few things before the movie started. The ‘few things’ being the Apple store, as M wanted to see how stable the Macs are, running Windows. We didn’t think the new range of Macs would be there yet, but they were! I was pretty pleased because I ordered a 24″ iMac last week (it’s not due to arrive until October 3rd :(), and seeing the one they had in the shop confirmed that I had made a very good decision indeed. Mmmm. I also saw the new Nanos and iPods. Even though I already have a DAP, I’m sure I could find something to do with an 8 Gb Nano. I’ve been getting a lot of podcasts recently to put on my iriver in preparation for the trip to NYC. If I get 6 hours’ worth of podcasts, I only have to listen to it right through 4 times and I’ll be there. Gawd… I think putting it like that it makes it sound worse, not better. Why can’t Australia be a bit closer to stuff? Well, we are close to New Zealand, which is where we’re thinking of going for our next holiday, so that will be a much shorter flight.

Anyway, after we finished looking at Macs we walked back to the cinema. I enjoyed the movie, although I didn’t remember any of the people in it. When I told my mum later that night that I’d seen it, she asked several specific questions about what they were all doing - I have no idea how she remembered who was who! She couldn’t remember the names, but she could remember what some of them had wanted to do and asked me if they were doing it. Same with a woman at TAFE. I think my memory must be really bad.

There are a few movies on at that cinema that I wouldn’t mind seeing. They play a lot of movies I’ve never heard of before; it’s not one of the mainstream cinemas. Since I joined the movie club they have, for the next year I get 2 discounted movie tickets to any session, so that’s a good incentive to go a bit more often. Going on Saturday has almost paid for the membership already. No I’m not a tight arse, it just seemed like a good deal!

*****

On Sunday we went to a BBQ with some people that M knows and who I’d never met before. I quite enjoyed myself - there were 4 women there, and the wife of the guy who organised the get-together wanted all the women to go into another room to chat and leave the guys to talk about their ‘guy stuff’. I would have been happy staying as one group but didn’t feel I could say no. It was nice, but I’m not really much for girly chat. I suppose that’s a result of being in male-dominated environments since my second year at university. But it was a great afternoon.

I’ve been making a bit more of an effort to go to the fortnightly Auslan workshops, which is where we get together with other Auslan students and practise our signing. Last week’s workshop was held at DeafSA, and since it was a Friday, quite a few Deaf people were there having some drinks and just generally hanging out.

The guy who runs the workshops likes the night to be a bit educational, so he passes around some handouts with some stuff for us to practise. This time it was a list of sentences in English, which we then had to change into Auslan. We were going through the sentences, and then we got to one which was something like “I went to the doctor for a sperm test because my wife was having difficulties getting pregnant.”

We hadn’t come across the sign for “sperm” before, so the guy showed us what it was. So 35 of us were sitting around a table, all signing “sperm sperm sperm sperm”. I’m sure that would have been a lovely sight for the people who were trying to enjoy their drinks.

*****

After having a 5-month break from our driving trips, we thought it would be a good time to start up again. And since today was an absolutely perfect day, we thought we’d go to Ardrossan again. The photos are here.

I had some wine with dinner tonight so I’m feeling happily fuzzy and there will probably be lots of typos and little sense in this post.

So, what’s been happening? M and I have been trying to get some more driving in before the end of the FBT year, so last weekend we drove to Tailem Bend, which is around 100 km from Adelaide. It was a beautiful day, and we had a bit of a problem finding somewhere to eat. We went to one pub, which was quite smoky and deserted, so we left and went to a cafe instead. That seemed more like a canteen/cafeteria arrangement rather than a nice cafe, so we left there as well and eventually decided on the Riverside Hotel Bistro. It turned out to be a good choice as we had a lovely view over the Murray River, and the food was quite good too. After lunch we walked down to the river and had a bit of a walk, after which we drove home. That seems to be the pattern of our drives - go somewhere, eat lunch, then come home.

Still, it was very nice and I’m still enjoying our little trips across South Australia. Today’s photo was our view during lunch - not bad for a pub, really! If you’d like to see some more photos, I made a new album in my gallery. I took them with my phone so they’re not that great.

Tomorrow M and I are going to a wedding - a friend of mine from school is getting married. It’ll be the first wedding I’ve been to as an adult (not including my own), so I’m sort of looking forward to it. Only sort of, though, because the only people I’ll know other than the bride and groom are people I went to school with who I don’t particularly like. Hopefully they’ll just hang out together and M and I can latch onto some stranger or other.

I mentioned in my last post about tafe and that I thought that this year would be the one where I actually notice some improvement. Well, I’ve decided to put that to the test, and have set up my webcam again (I haven’t had it set up since my last hard drive died). What I thought I’d do is make videos of myself throughout the year, and at the end of the year I can watch the ones I made at the beginning and hopefully see that I’ve improved. In theory, that seems like a good idea, except that I hate being videoed, and I hate watching myself on video. But part of this exercise is also becoming more comfortable with being videoed, so hopefully I won’t be so nervous in assessments (in which a video camera is often used). I’m not sure whether it will work, but it’s worth a go. And since I don’t have any deaf friends, I don’t have anyone I can practise my Auslan with outside of class, so it seems to be a beneficial idea all round.

M and I are trying to find new places to drive to since he has to drive a certain number of km each year as part of his lease. Today we went to Ardrossan (circled in red, click for a larger map), which is on the Yorke Peninsula. I’d never been there before, so I had no idea what it was going to be like.

I was very pleasantly surprised - it’s a beautiful spot. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so I don’t have any photos, but I’m hoping that we’ll go back sometime soon, so I’ll take some then. There were a lot of people fishing and crabbing on the jetty, and the water was crystal clear and so blue. Next time I think some paddling will be in order.

It made us think that it would be nice to have a holiday house there and spend a weekend there every now and then. But we’ve got so much that we want to do to the house we’re living in, that I doubt that will happen!

Tomorrow we’re going to go to Hahndorf for lunch, and then go into the city for some shopping. It seems somehow wrong that we ‘have’ to do all this driving (since we’re considerably worse off if we don’t), but I’m actually really enjoying it, because I’m seeing a lot more of SA than I ordinarily would have.

The only people awake at 6:30am on a Saturday should be parents of young children, and older children who have to play Saturday morning sport for their school. Oh, and apparently those who are stupid enough to agree to participate in a garage sale beginning at 8am.

I don’t know how it started, but someone at work suggested holding a garage sale in the work car park, and whoever had some junk to get rid of could come and set up a stall. It sounded like a good idea, since it meant that we didn’t actually have to have one at our house, and we might be able to get a bit of money for the heap of crap that was just taking up room. So we put our names down and reserved our pick of the car parks for our stall. Over the last week or so, we brought our stuff in to work, as did the other participants, so we were all ready to come down bright and early today to set everything up and make a motza.

The alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, which is earlier than when we’re going to work on a weekday. So not only are we going to work on a Saturday, but we have to get up half an hour earlier! We dragged ourselves out of bed, and headed down. We arrived at 7:30 or so, and only 5 minutes later, a couple of prospective customers showed up. We told them they were early, and the sale didn’t start until 8, so they went away for a little while and we brought some tables out and unpacked our stuff.

They were back again 15 minutes later, but by then we’d set up most of it and they had a look around. I’d never been to, or held, a garage sale before, so I don’t know how many people usually turn up, but there weren’t that many people. It was a steady trickle, and we sold some stuff, making around $100 I think. I don’t know whether it was worth the effort though. There weren’t as many sellers as I thought there were going to be - only 4 of us. Still, we had a decent amount of stuff, and I think the others made around the same as we did.

At lunch time we decided to call it a day - there weren’t many people coming, and we figured that 4 hours hanging around at work was plenty. I think we were all pretty tired as well (at least, I was!), and I was looking forward to some lunch since we hadn’t had breakfast. We put our unsold stuff inside, then got some fish and chips.

Overall it was good to get rid of some stuff and make a bit of money, but I can’t imagine that we’d do it again. Trying to make up prices and hoping that people will buy your stuff is just too much hassle - next time the Salvos can have it all! Or I’ll put it on eBay.

I had a great night last night. After work I picked up a friend of mine from her house, and we went to a pizza place in the city. We had a yummy pizza with eggplant, semi-dried tomato, capsicum, bocconcini (and other stuff I can’t remember), and chatted. The main course was followed by a coffee and baklava. Mmmm syrupy.

After dinner we were wondering what to do, so we went for a bit of a walk, although the end of town we were in wasn’t terribly scenic. So we decided to go back to the car and go for a drive. We ended up down at the beach, where it was blowing a gale, and walked down the jetty. It was nice standing at the end of the jetty, watching the waves crash into it. Given that it was so windy, there were actually semi-decent (by Adelaide beach standards) waves, and there were some people in the water trying to make the most of them.

I didn’t have a jacket with me, so in the end I was a party pooper because I was getting a bit cold. We wandered back to the car and went back to her place for a little while. I got to see her cats, which I hadn’t seen since they were tiny kittens. She thinks one of them is huge now, but actually he’s nothing compared with my cats! She has a boy and a girl, and the boy is a lot bigger, but still small on the cat scale. When she comes to my house, I’LL show her a cat!

Her partner has been teaching himself card tricks, and he showed me a few. I was really impressed! I got home a little after 10, and mucked around on the computer for a while before going to bed. A very nice evening indeed.

Every year, the company I work for has some sort of outing for the employees and their partners. Since it is paid for by the company, the boss gets to choose the outing. In previous years, we have done a ropes course, had lunch at various far-flung wineries, and also been to the opera. This year’s outing was held last Sunday, and we played lawn bowls.

I had never played before, but I was in good company because 95% of the people there had never played before, either. The location was only 5 minutes from our house, which made a nice change because 4 of the first 5 company outings I went to were at least an hour’s drive for everyone to get to. Our boss doesn’t like doing things in central locations.

We arrived at 2:30, and I decided that I was going to be the official photographer, since I wasn’t really too keen on playing. Since we were playing in teams of 4, M found someone else to be on his team, and I settled down to watch, until the boss said that I had to play. Damn.

So I joined my team of 4, which included the boss and a couple that M and I see regularly outside of work. A ‘tournament’ was set up so that each team played 2 ends against every other team. I was nervous about playing, being a total beginner, but it was actually quite a lot of fun. I was hopeless of course, but did manage to contribute to a game or two, so I don’t think I was a total waste of space. Our team won quite a lot of our games, including the one we played against the team that had a member who had been practising for the last couple of months in preparation, which I thought was pretty good given that I don’t think any of us had played before.

We stopped for dinner, and afterwards played a couple more games. We had to be finished by 7, and at 7:15 we had the presentation of prizes. There was a prize for the winning team, and the second-place team, and prizes for the best dressed, best bowling style and shot of the day. The team I was in ended up winning, which everyone thought was pretty coincidental given that the boss was on that team, but I’m sure that all scoring was above board and that we deserved our bottle of wine. Heh.

Update: Check out the pictures here!