bittersweet symphony

A few weeks ago I read a quote by Nelson Mandela in which he stated "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered". Those words resonated with me at a time in my life when I feel like my perceptions of the world and my life are undergoing a serious shift.

Recently I watched that Verve video. You know, the one with the guy walking down the busy sidewalk oblivious to all the other pedestrians around him. It had been years since I had seen that clip and I was startled at how drastically my perspective had changed.

More than a decade ago, when that video was a part of MuchMusic's regular rotation I loved the song but I always viewed the singer as an arrogant asshole who gave little consideration to the world around him. But today, as I listened to the lyrics with fresh ears, my judgements were drastically altered and I deemed that he wasn't the bastard I had first believed him to be. He was instead just a guy who was living his life and making no apologies for it. Not a second of his existance was wasted on gratuitious anxiety concerning the opinion others might hold of him. I am aiming to live my own life with that type of veracity. Minus the knocking old ladies over in the street.

putting down roots

I have felt a shift within me the past couple of months. A move away from the desire to run away and explore the world replaced with a longing to find a place of my own in the world that I can mold into my personal sanctuary. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to flee the predictable and travel to far away locations. When I was in high school a friend and I created travel collage jars. We snipped pictures of sites we longed to vist from magazines and brouchures, glueing them to the jar as reminders of our dreams. In the jars we saved all our loose change and saved for our dream of backpacking through Western Europe. As I grew up my travel dreams shifted but always my head was churning with thoughts of my next big trip.

But now as I am closing the door on one semester and preparing to start the final leg of my masters journey, my thoughts are no longer travelling to exotic locales but instead my daydreams are dominated with visions of walls decorated with personal mementos, shelves filled with books and a comfy armchair in which to curl up in.

The other day Chris and I attended the Rosalie Cheese Carnivale. We queued up at booths to sample gourmet varieties of cheeses, to chat with fellow cheese lovers and to purchase our favourites for later consumption with a fresh bagette. We found a shady spot and sat on the curb munching hastily concocted sandwiches and drinking wine while watching the crowds wander past enjoying the beautiful Australian winter sun. Couples walked by arms around waists. Parents pushed babies in strollers while the toddlers dawdled behind. There was even a tiny but loud and colourful parade at one point. As we nibbled our torn pieces of bagette stuffed with broken cubes of cheese I shared with Chris the stories of my trip to Paris in the spring of 2001. But rather than incite a desire to run off and have another adventure I was hit with the realization that at that moment I was enjoing a unique experience and creating new memories. In a spot only 10 minutes drive from my home.


Later that day we nestled into our warm bed with a bottle of wine, some dark chocolate and a dvd of The Holiday. I mused that this lovely day had encapsulated many of my favourite pleasures. Delicious food and wine, live latin music, time spent at a vibrant community activity, beautiful blue skies and yet another cherished day spent with the person I love most. I was hit with the realization that this memorable day hadn't required a long plane trip or a new stamp in my passport. And that thought made me happiest of all.

Rekindling the Inner Fire

I have spent much of the past few days in a blur. After writing my first exam on Monday and immediately coming home to frantically finalize Chris's residency application my brain seemed to shut down. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I arose early to see Chris off to work and then was confronted with the realization that I have a week before my next exam and nothing to look forward to but days of battling my longing to relax and procrastinate with my desire to excel in my remaining exams.

But each day the high performer in me seemed to slip further and further into the recesses. Even my inner procrastinator had lost motivation. The internet had become a tedium of information. Not even Facebook was providing me with mindless distraction. All I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and sleep for a month. I spent hours wondering where the overachieving Alicia of years past had disappeared to. While my motivation has taken a nose dive this semester it really has been years since the fires of ambition have burned as bright as they had in my teenage years. Is this a part of getting older? Is it a loss of optimisim and naivety that has squashed my desire to stand out and make a difference in the world? I like to think that I am softening as I approach my thirties. That I have mellowed into a wisdom that happiness doesn't come with being lauded for the accomplishment of extraordinary feats but rather the acknowledgement that there exist ordinary events in the every day that also deserve to be celebrated.

Even with this maturity I am not entirely conflict free. There is still a small inner voice screaming that my mellowing is simply masking the weakness that I will never accomplish all the dreams of my youth. So there is still a need to strike that balance between lazy nonchalance and health readjustment of expectations.

at last something on my walls

So after more than three months in my new apartment I have at last gotten around to doing some decorating. Mostly I have been restricted by budget but when I found a deal from a local camera shop offering $2.00 8"x12" enlargements I had to take advantage. Finding frames was a bit of a challenge since it is isn't the most popular size for photos around but I happened up a discount store with $4.00 document frames that worked with just some slight trimming.

I am extremely happy with the photos. I have never before enlarged any my pictures before and I have never been overjoyed at the quality of the 4"x6" prints that I have had done. Seeing them in such a tiny size was always such a disappointment after seeing them displayed on my computer screen. But the enlargements come so much closer to capturing the great colours and bringing back the great memories of my travels. Finally justification for always taking my photos on the highest quality possible and dealing with the aggrevations of more frequent trips to internet cafes whiles travelling in order to clear the card once again.

I am now inspired to continue my decorating on a budget kick. But first there are exams to be studied for. Yet another thing to look forward during my break.

Here is a peak at my wall (though this photo hardly does it justice)

looking forward to...

I am officially done classes for this semester and in less than three weeks I will be finished with exams as well. That means just over four weeks of vacation before starting the final semester. To get me through these last few weeks here are things I am looking forward to:

getting out and about with my camera
a long weekend trip to New South Wales
starting my collage journal
being Chris's race crew at the Sirromet duathlon
harry harry harry (potter that is...book and movie)
brainstorning some ideas for this wedding thing
training for the 12km Bridge to Brisbane
hitting the Valley Markets
reteaching myself statistics (so not really this last one but it will be necessary)

in other news today is the first day of winter in Australia, the crazy aussies have decided they will change their seasons three weeks before the rest of the world.

what the frak

so i haven't posted anything here in ages. mostly I don't feel like I have had much to say and I still don't really. (I will blame my one track study brain for the coma my creative brain cells are currently in.)

but I am tired of seeing the same title on the page day after day. so I thought I would give a shout out to the season finale of Lost. Potentialy the best episode of a tv show ever. jj abrams is the master since he brought about the only other episode of a show that blew my mind in the same way.....that would be the post superbowl alias when sydney brought down SD6.

anyone else see the episode? is anyone else as incredulous as I that we have to wait until frakkin february to see another new episode.

in the mean time it is back to studying for me......

save your money

Spiderman 3 is proof positive that a huge Hollywood budget cannot make a bad movie (with a ridiculously poor script) into a good movie. I was overwhelmingly disappointed with this the first blockbuster of the season. (If you haven't seen the movie and the first two sentences of this blog haven't turned you off completely I warn you do not keep reading)

I left the movie feeling the onset of whiplash. Like I myself had been hurtling towards the ground then grabbed by Spidey himself and jerked into a different direction. But it wasn't in that enjoyable thank god I've been saved sense but rather in the where the heck am I being taken to now sense. First Spidey fights his best friend, then the Sandman, then himself and then a conglomeration of evils. Yet none of the battles seemed believable to me in the least. I mean in the character sense. The special effects were another story. They were unlike anything witnessed on screen except perhaps the first two movies. Only this time the chase and battle scenes were sped up to the point that it was nearly impossible to follow. To me it seemed like they couldn't come up with anything original so they just decided to make it faster.

The normally enjoyable mildly self deprecating humour that in the past has served to heighten the action was disappointingly lacking replaced instead with dry dull dialogue that only interrupted the flow. The chemistry between Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire was so unheated that by the end I didn't care in the least if they found their way back to one another. And Topher Grace, who I wanted to love, turned in a duller than dull performance. I don't fault him though since even the best actor couldn't turn his unfortunate lines into a more than cardboard performance. And his teeth at the end came off as really bad fake Dracula teeth.

You might be thinking what was I expecting....Academy worthy performances from a comic book adaption? But it was the combination of stunning special effects mixed with believable character development that made the first two movies the enjoyable experiences that they were. Last night I left the movie wishing I had not only my money but my time back.

But at least I got to see the new Harry Potter trailer on the big screen. Only 67 days to go.

Economist Cat Fight

I have recently discovered the blogs of two notarious economists, Greg Mankiw and Dani Rodrik. Both are Havard professors and authors of textbooks and journal articles I have had to read thus far in my economic studies. I mentioned to my dad the other day, that as an undergrad I never considered the authors of my undergrad textbooks as being actual people. I think I always considered them to be the work of a conglomeration of people conveniently written under a pseudonym.

But now that are not only actual identities but their latest thoughts on all things economic are handily delivered to my Google Reader as they are published and I am kept up to date on all the latest breaking news. (I know...you are all riveted right now)

Recently, the two have been debating the benefits and costs of free trade primarily on prices and employment. There has been a bit of a back and forth and back again. As of today there appears to be a tentative consensus of which my favourite part is "The Carlos Diaz-Alejandro rule: For almost any particular conclusion you want to arrive at, there is some economic model that will take you there. If I have learned anything thus far in two semesters it is that.

So the whole heated debate has been all the better for me as I am currently researching a paper on the effects of trade on inequality in developing countries. Sometimes I just love the internet.

Anyone Thirsty?

Australia is in a water crisis. A couple of weeks ago Level 5 water restrictions were put into place in Southeast Queensland. This means that even activities like bucket watering of gardens is now restrictred. Individuals are expected to limit their water use to 140 litres a day. I am somewhat volumetrically challenged so I am still trying to get my head around how much water this actually is.

Households that exceed the suggested limits for extended periods of time will receive fines. Though these restrictions aren't going to help in the case of the family I met at the laundromat last weekend. This family of four had been warned that they were 5 times over the limit on their water usage. So they opted to wash their 10 loads of laundry at the laundromat so it wouldn't appear on their water metre. It wouldn't be a stretch to believe that the antique machines in use at the laundromat are stacks less efficient than whatever machine they might have at their residence.

This week John Howard announced that if the region surrounding the Murray River, the epicentre of Australia's produce growth, does not receive any rain in the next 40 days the irrigation systems provdiing water for local farmers would be shut off. Should this come to pass it would be a disaster for produce prices. As I've mentioned many times on this blog cyclone Larry caused the price of bananas to increase 600%. The Murray Region provides all the stables of fresh produce. Apples, oranges, pears, carrots, zucchini. The list goes on.

So supply is likely to drastically diminish and produce prices are anticipated to double immediately and continue to rise from there. The question supplementing suppy with imports of course comes quickly to mind. However, Imports of produce are neglibile due to a combination of trade protectionism and quarantine regulations (which I have heard are just a weak ruse for increasing protectionism) I just finished watching a news program where people were quoted that imports of fruit and veg would destroy Australia's agriculture sector and thus the Australian economy overall.

A quick search of the World Bank's development indicators revealed that Australia's agriculture sector contributes a mighty 3% to the Gross Domestic Product. Hardly the lynch pin of this developed economy. As a point of comparison wikipedia informs me that the services sector contributes 68% to the GDP.

So yes it is dire here in Australia. The Queensland government is rapidly building a desalination plant but with warnings that the dams will be empty in less than a year without serious rain, it is unlikely to be completed on time. I think the bigger question is not what is going to happen to the agriculture sector but rather what will happen to the entire nation when the taps completely run dry. A pretty scary prospect. I for one am glad that we hopefully won't be here.

sand truly does get everywhere

We decided quite last minute to spend our Easter break on Morton Island, a large sand dominated island just off the coast of Brisbane but after much calling around we at last had a spot on a vehicle barge and Saturday morning we packed up the car and headed off for a choppy ride across the bay. It was a fantastic mini-break despite the intensive and unrelenting winds plus occasional showers. I am in the midst of writing a paper but here are the highlights:
-awaking on the first morning to the most perfect rainbow I have ever witnessed
-seeing dolphins, manta rays, and sea eagles all from the comfort of our campsite
-forgetting the attachment for the camp stove and doing a stealthy raid to 'borrow' a hose from a discarded stove
-watching the sky turn from mauve, to tangarine to fiery orange each night
-heading out for a drive just after dawn and just enjoying the islands colours in the early morning light

if you don't find me here....

....i might be over at tumblr posting sometimes amusing, sometimes boring, mostly useless stuff.

oh, and i've been jumping on the flickr wagon (as you can see from my flash new badge to the right) but don't worry this is all in between reading piles of journal articles.

where have you been all my life????

I have started a new love affair with Wikipedia. I have used it here and there in the past but have only realized in the past 24 hours how useful it truly is. I have a meeting with my professor after class today about a seminar I am shortly presenting on foreign aid in developing countries. But sadly I have not been able to sift through the stacks of journal articles he thrust upon me after our last meeting, Happily though a quick search on Wikipedia for "Foreign Aid Effectiveness" revealed a page summarizing the three most important articles on the subject. A cheat sheet for my meeting if you will.

Certainly not sufficient to start writing an essay but certainly enough to get me through a 20 minute update meeting.

It has also been saving my life for my Industrial Economics class. The professor talks at us for three hours spewing out economic terminology until my head starts to spin. With no recommended textbook to use a safety net I was beginning to feel the startings of a stress ulcer formulating every Tuesday morning. But now I just make a little list of all the terms I should know and then one by one plug them into Wikipedia to obtain concise descriptions and neatly displayed graphs.

So a big thank you to all those altruistic people out there contributing to Wikipedia and saving me from the fire that is this semesters workload.

Creepy Critters

Living in a semi-tropical locale has meant that I have had to toughen up on many of my mild phobias. It doesn't matter how clean one keeps an apartment in this climate, the occasional insect visitor is sure to pay its respects. I am living alone a lot of the time now and so when I get a visitor of these sorts, which I seem to about every third night or so, I have to hold in my desire to scream/run into the other room and instead buck up, grab the broom and scare the thing out of the apartment. So far in the past couple of weeks I have had two reasonably large spiders, a weird flying bug and another rather large something that I am choosing to not call a cockroach. (There are also of course the geckos but I am quite content to share my walls with them. They don't have that unpredictable scurrying all around habit that spiders and other insects possess.) I am always quite proud of myself each time I successfully hold it together and defend my personal space.

So the fear of insects is definitely abating. But yesterday in the middle of the afternoon while sitting and reading on the couch I nearly had another much larger visitor. You see we have a family of possums that live in the trees around my building. At night I can hear them shreaking and fighting with one another. I have always taken solace in the idea that they would never think to enter an area inhabited by a human. That whole they are more scared of you than you are of them mentality. But yesterday with my backdoor left open to allow for a breeze I heard a disturbingly close pitter patter. I glanced towards the door area to see a possum sniffing around my doorway. I quickly jumped up and went for the broom but the possum had already bolted. He never actually made it across the threshold but I fear that the damn things may be getting bolder. And I know if I saw that ugly rodent type thing making itself at home in my humble abode I would not be remaining nearly as calm as I have been with the spiders.

That Crisp Autumn Feeling

It is technically autumn here in Australia. And lately I have had urges to wear jackets and scarves and go for a hike in a forest filled with technicolour leaves crunching beneath my feet. But that is not to say that the tempertures here warrent such a wardrobe. First of all, the crisp autumn feeling comes from the temperatures dipping below 20 degrees at night. There are no brillant displays on the trees. The flora here just never evolved to display a myriad of colours in a firey display before heading into their deep slumber.

Autumn in Australia is actually beach season. It is just too hot to be out in the sun during the summer months so once the daily max reaches only the high 20s people flock to the oceanside to truly enjoy the offerings of this island nation.

It is in the times of seasonal change, when I am reminded of the differences between Canada and Australia that possibly I miss home the most. But it is also the time when I truly appreciate the chance I have had to live in places where the term 'seasonal changes' is open to interpretation.

Just for reference these are some of the images that have been running through my head.....

Reprioritizing

I have had a really hard time settling back into life in Australia. I suppose it has to do with a great December spent with my wonderful family and friends followed by a great January meeting interesting new people who shared so many of my interests. Since I have been back I have found myself often engaging in mindless activities just to numb my thoughts of all the people at home that I miss so much. So instead of studying my time has been spent surfing the internet for new ways to procrastinate, charging up too many purchases on my credit card or watching bad australia tv. Anything but studying that is.

I have lost sight of what is really important and why I am actually here on the other side of the world to begin with. Sure partly it is to be closer to the man I love. (Of course it doesn't help that 75% of the time said man is 600 km away) But more than that it is the chance to study in this program that the moment I found it I knew it was the path that would lead me closer to where I wanted to be.

I am not putting this out there to get a boost from anyone out there in cyberland or anything like that. I just want to document this moment of enlightenment so that tomorrow I can get up and start afresh.

So can we start again?

Second semester? Hi, my name's Alicia. Nice to meet you.

yet another sign....

....that I have reached the twilight of my twenties. Last week I received a generous sample of L'Oreal's Refinish. The stuff is amzing. Its take alot to impress this cynical someone who's skin care routine generally consists of whatever fash wash was on sale the week I had to stock up. Not only is my skin blemish free (which I am sure has more to do with my junk food free diet) but it literally has made my pores smaller, my skin tone more even and my complexion more radiant. All those unbelievable claims that are splashed across the box have in this case been the truth. So I was loving my new found glow until reading the enclosed brochure a little closer.

"Replenish has been developed for people aged 30 and upwards"

Well this 29 year 7 month old is sporting smooth soft skin even if it does mean that reality is sinking in.

It Was An Honour Being Nominated

So the other day I got a random email from Travelpod telling me that two of my photos had been selected to be featured. Hardly the oscars of photo distinctions but I was intrigued. I wondered which two of my many posted photos had been selected and by whom. It turns out that one was from a small hike I did with friends while staying in Xela last year and the other from our climb up Volcan Santa Maria. I guess it is true what they say the beauty is in the eye of the beholder because I seriously do not think they were some of my best examples. In my opinion I have certainly taken better exposed and more vibrant photos in my travels. Just for reference here is one of them....does anyone out there see something I don't see?

Connected

I have internet at home. After four painfully unplugged (except for the terminals at campus) weeks I once again have the world at my finger tips. I honestly don't know how the world functioned before the internet.

I love knowing that any random question that pops into my head can have an answer within mere moments. Is it going to be stinking hot again tomorrow? Can we find Chris a better mobile plan? When did the Boer War take place? When is the next bus to campus?

I love the ease of lying back, my feet up and only a few key strokes seperating me from whatever method of procrastination appeals me at the moment.

And the latest little gem I have just recently discovered....Tumblr.

Tumbling is the new blogging. You can quote me on that.

See Alicia Shrink

Shrink Alicia Shrink

After a November of exam filled stress eating, a December of holiday indulging and a January of consuming rice and beans with very little fresh produce the pounds piling onto my stomach and hips had reached a critical mass. I resolved to quickly get back down to my 'ideal' 140 lb, a weight that allows me to feel healthy, fit and comfortable with my body without feeling like I have to give up all the things I love in life....namely good food and wine.

I decided that drastic measures were needed so I rejoined weight watchers for the third time (It is the charm afterall). This time I have determined to make lifetime member, an accomplishment that has always eluded me in the past. My sister Erin also decided that 2007 was the year that she would lose a few extra pounds and get fit.

So far I have lost a respectable 6.4 lbs which means I am about halfway to my goal after only three weeks. I suspect things may be a little more slow going from here on but so far the motivation remains high.

Erin and I have been tracking the trials and tribulations of our weightloss on another blog. So feel free to take a peek over there at how things are going.

The Cost of Living

So the Aussie dollar is extremely strong right now. Up about 7 cents against the Canadian dollar in six months. This 7 cents makes a big different when it feels like lately all I have been doing is whipping out my credit card. I am loving the new apartment but all the new apartment expenses have certainly become a drain on my bank account lately. Furniture (even if it is the most basic ikea offers), security deposits for gas and electricity, phone, internet. Plus it doesn't help that everything in Australia is mad expensive. When I was home in December I kept having happy surprises when I looked at price tags. Nearly everything was cheaper than I expected. Of course coming back here has meant the reverse reaction. Today for example I was on the search for my handcream. If I recall it retails for $6.99 in Canada and today the price was $13.99 AUD. Needless to say I left the store without. You don't need to be studying economics or have an understanding of PPP (purchasing power parity) to know that dollars of any type just don't go quite as far on this side of the world.

Produce is shockingly high for a country with a tropical climate. I know most of you heard my banana rant over the holidays. Luckily the price of bananas has fallen from its high cost of $12/kg to $3/kg. For those unaccustumed to the metric system that is about $1.50/lb which is still about twice as much as they are sold for in Canada. And mangos which are grown literally up the street from the grocery store are about 3 times as expensive as Canada. I would seriously love to understand the reasoning beyond these prices. But for now I select my produce very carefully and count the days til I am back in Canada with its truckloads of cheap produce imported from Central America.