Carmelita online

Reproductive Technologies

2010-07-31T12:39:00.004+08:00

I haven't been on here in ages, but just recently I was marking some tests and couldn't help having a chuckle at this answer (hope you can read what's written under my red pen):

yr 8 song analysis

2009-04-06T16:03:00.003+08:00

my year 8's needed to analyse a song for their english assignments... here are a few GREAT interpretations of some song (where is the love) lyrics:

I think the whole world's addicted to the drama- people are believing everything they hear on TV
but we still got terrorists here livin in the USA, the big CIA, the Bloods and the Crips and the KKK- there saying that there is a lot of corruption in the USA and in the police department they were some times very racist and beat up black people for no reason. And the KKK stand for the Khu Klux Klan who use to hang blacks
but if you only have love for your own race, then you only leave space to discriminate- if you hate than your just going to get criticized
if you never know truth, then you never know love- there are a lot of secrets that the government keep from us

letter from the Bahai International Community in the UN to the Ayatollah

2009-03-15T14:01:00.000+09:00

Set the Baha'is of Iran free from Mehran Granfar on Vimeo.

help put the spotlight on one particular case of impending genocide...

2009-03-05T00:07:00.001+09:00

Vanilla Prof.

2008-09-16T15:36:00.003+08:00

[the day after we bought a Hugo Boss jacket from Good Sammy's for $9.75]

"People generally enjoy rummaging through clothes looking for a bargain, I think it's in our human genetic make-up... Years ago we were in the fields searching for roots and things and now that we don't have to do that aymore we like to go the the shops and search for bargains..."

2008-09-05T17:24:00.002+08:00

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

renewal

2008-08-29T00:07:00.005+08:00

hmm... why is it that people find the need to entirely delete their blogs? why not just go inactive? is it due to inappropriate material and fear of being googled or is it analagous for life and clearing things out? out with old in with the new... a clutered blog = a clutered mind... i personally am a horder, i keep things forever because you never know when you might need that thing that you had a thousand years ago but havent used in 999 years... when i'm 40, i'll be able to look back at this blog and read about the life i lead now (in fact, its even interesting reading the posts from last year)!

my motto is always keeps things... "just in cases..."

Vanilla Prof.

2008-08-24T10:08:00.003+08:00

me: dad, you're quite conservative...
prof: no i'm not!
me: ok, what do you do that's not conservative?
prof: um... i read books...
[5 mins later]
prof: i wear striped shirts...

Introducing Vanilla Prof.

2008-08-06T12:02:00.004+08:00

This a new segment i'm going to try out. It will include stories, conversations, moments, etc. with my dad. If he were an icecream flavour he would be vanilla, hence the title.

am I back?

2008-01-31T11:53:00.000+09:00

I've just been reminded of the blogging world by Mehran when he sent out a thingy about his new blog while he's in China "the great blog of china"...

I'm only working part time this year, maybe that means i'll have time to blog again... who knows! in the mean time I think I'll reaquaint myself with those blogs that I used to frequent.

until later (perhaps)...

more on egypt...

2007-08-27T18:10:00.000+08:00

it makes me laugh...

2007-07-21T14:57:00.000+08:00

to think that the one person who announced a deliberate lack of blogging to focus attention on Facebook was also the same one (and only) person who responded to my poll on my blog... hmmmm

Baha'is in Egypt

2007-07-11T12:19:00.000+08:00

I came across this video on changing times , a great blog with all sorts of Baha'i topics covered.

negligence

2007-07-09T20:40:00.000+08:00

recently I've been neglecting my blog, but I'm not the only one...

there are those who have announced a deliberate lack of blogging to focus attention on Facebook, some are even speaking of deleting their blogs altogether! there are of course also those who refuse to part of any of these online wastes of time... are you one of these?

I pose the question to you now...

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-14289.html"&amp;gt;Take the poll&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&amp;gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

My first at-work-and-blogging post!

2007-05-30T17:41:00.000+08:00

so... its not that exciting actually...

BUT I AM fully stoked that I have a VERY light teaching load this next 2 weeks as all the 11s and 12s have exams and worklink! woo
I wish all the 8s, 9s and 10s were gone instead though!

Fun things to do at work when I have a spare moment

eat lollies from my second drawer (so excited to have my own set of drawers to put lolliles in)
hassle tim (aka timberly) in the desk next to me
make business calls to baz
go visit the girls in the palace (ie. some other newby teachers whose offices are up in the new part of school affectionately referred to as 'the palace')
today is the first time i've had much time at all and i went down to art and played, that was fun!

i wish more days were like this

dis·en·chant·ed

2007-05-19T00:04:00.000+08:00

To be freed from illusion or false belief.

So I believed that I was going to be a good teacher and that the students would obey me because they didn't want to disappoint me because they liked me, and that I would have such amazing lessons that they would develop such a passion for learning that they wouldn't have time in class to focus on anything other than the subject at hand...

...I have now become disenchanted.

Sydney May 24th

2007-05-14T17:57:00.000+08:00

clearly this is not a good spot to advertise stuff since nobody reads this... BUT just in case anyone from sydney or closely surrounding areas does:
My aunty, Malini Parker is exhibiting her work in a Gallery in Bondi, she lives here and cant make it to the opening so it would be GREAT if some of my WONDERFUL friends over east can go to the opening night (or anytime really) at the gallery and "ooh and ahh" at her paintings (please feel free also to buy some- they're great!)

Here's the link to the website, the exhibition is called "what is an art moment?"

just one click to donate to charity...

2007-05-04T17:48:00.000+08:00

and its not even your money! What you waiting for??
ripple.org raises money for four development organisations that do some amazing work around the world.

Basically, each time you click on one of the ripple 'give buttons' on the main page, 100% of the revenue raised from the internet advertisement you are shown is given to the charity you clicked on. It's really powerful! For example, one click can provide more than 2 days education to a student in East Timor or make a $100 loan available to a woman in rural Philippines. You can also use ripple Search, powered by Google, to run all of your regular searches and raise money for charity without even thinking about it. There's a downloadable ripple Search toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 to make it even easier...

year 9 camp

2007-05-01T19:53:00.000+08:00

i'm about to spend 3 days with a bunch of dirty boys... wish me luck!!

7 wonders of illinois

2007-05-01T18:25:00.000+08:00

The Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, Illinois is one of them! Actually its not surprising though- its IS amazing!

check out Chicagoland

no more holidays :(

2007-04-23T10:02:00.000+08:00

The holidays are over and i did not to one ounce of work!! i just sat on my butt all week, which was great but now it sucks coz i have have PILES... of marking to do!

today for one last treat, shazza and i are going to a day spa!! oooh i've never been to one before!

24 years ago today...

2007-04-21T23:37:00.000+08:00

I'm famous

2007-04-13T14:05:00.000+08:00

either that, or they just mis-spelled caramel...
bah its not really that funny anyway!

silly boys...

2007-04-11T15:06:00.000+08:00

This reminds me of the boys in my classes...
mostly just the one wearing yellow though- silly boys!

Far too exciting!

2007-04-11T12:34:00.000+08:00

As some of you may know, I did my year of service with "Artworks". We would paint and dance and share messages of harmony, no bullying, caring for the environment, etc. Phil was the one who made Artworks Artworks. Check this out:

Date

4:00pm, Sunday 20 May

Venue
Perth Concert Hall
Event Information
Chevron Symphony of Smiles
In an imaginative program that explores the link between visual arts and music, the Orchestra is joined on stage by artist Phil Doncon painting his interpretation of popular classics including Mozart's Don Giovanni Overture.

Kevin Field

, conductor

Suitable for 6 - 12 year olds.

PS. I am quite certain it will be more than suitable for people of all ages!
Get your tickets through BOCS!!

I Love This City!

2007-04-09T22:49:00.000+08:00

...Put your hands up for Bunbury!
Since it's school holidays (yay!) Shazza and I decided to road it down to Bunbury to hang with AvaGFunk, we ROCKED Bunbury!! We are totally thinking of going back there and filming some Bunbury tourism videos, they would fully go off! No prizes for guessing what the theme song would be (and no, its not the jingle for the Toyota ad "oh, what a feeling")...

The 3 Monkeys was great! Sweet country people didn't have the BEST taste in music but we managed to dance from 8 til 10pm like it was our job! They wished they were as cool as we were.

Sorry Shidan, you shoulda been there! Just coz your sister was visiting from Singapore is not an excuse to go see her in Perth! Bunbury is where its at!

Would've like to've hung out with the youth and JY there, as well as check out some other superb restaurants and cafes, so that's another thing we'll have to save for our next trip down...

See you soooon Bunbury!

my third graduation too!

2007-04-09T15:47:00.000+08:00

Shazza Rey is clearly more dedicated than me, posting several times pre-holidays, but I must catch up!!

so, here's my GradDipEd graduation ceremony. Me with Shazza, and me with Socrates (the hat is thanks to my dad, UWA doesn't let us wear them unless we have a Masters or higher)...

poor little neglected blog...

2007-04-09T15:40:00.000+08:00

time to dust off this poor ol' neglected blog and get it cranking again now that holidays are here!!

miss, my hearts not beating... do i have a broken heart?

2007-03-18T13:09:00.000+09:00

sweet kids!

i love teaching human biology! the heart is so interesting, our body is amazing...

stupid blogspot wont let me put a body on any of my posts!

2007-03-11T18:36:00.000+09:00

stupid hotmail deactivated my account- its just jealous of gmail!

2007-03-11T18:33:00.001+09:00

my work here is done... 42

2007-03-07T23:38:00.000+09:00

nobody likes tests

2007-02-28T21:22:00.000+09:00

but i tell you, i think that i'd prefer to sit a test than mark 30 of them! well more like i'd prefer to sit 5 tests than mark 150 of them (that is 30x5 right?)!!

especially a highschool test- the answers seem so obvious when you're teaching the subject!
my dad (sweet guy that he is) decided to sit my yr 10 science test for FUN last night... FUN!?

well speaking of fun, when we (some of the science teachers in our office) were doing the calculations for the marking key, i realized that i MISSED doing maths!! dont tell shazza rey- but i think maths is FUN!! :S

damn myspace... i'm terrified!

2007-02-18T11:23:00.000+09:00

even writing this post is scary...

one of my myspace friends (of the JY age) is friends with a student in my class!! I changed my profile name but its still so scary!! should i change my picture too? does that mean i have to get rid of all my pictures?

they always ask in class if they can check their myspace and stuff... i hope they never ask me if i have myspace!

what if he's already reading this now?!? what if they're ALL reading this now??!

:S

Dingle's Videos

2007-02-10T09:17:00.000+09:00

I was having a chat to Dingle on Google Talk and he showed me this video of Imogen Heap- its amazing! He also mentioned that he'd like to see more videos on my blog. So I'm now having a regular section known as "Dingle's Videos" where I will post videos that the world should see... If anybody else would like to contribute to this section, please email me the YouTube link.

cant post, planning lessons...

2007-01-31T22:41:00.001+09:00

i think everyone should learn to dance like this:

2007-01-24T19:41:00.001+09:00

the kids come to school next week...

2007-01-24T19:01:00.000+09:00

i was just perusing myspaces when i saw this pic...

hopefully my kids will be sweet obedient little boys who are motivated about school and dont swear, blaspheme or bully each other... hmm i just need to remember:

indo- dedicated youth- anak medan ke jakarta...

2007-01-21T17:07:00.000+09:00

10 youth from medan (including myself) embarked on a journey to attend the National Youth Conference in Jakarta, THREE DAYS on a huge 8 level ship... (the port of belawan is the port nearest medan)

we had a lot of time to kill before the ship actually took off so we went exploring and took photos... outside the first class cabins (unfortunately the doors were locked so our dreams of using the 1st class bathrooms were shattered)

we were in economy(1) class, thats is 2nd from the bottom (at least we were not "non seat" [actually 1 of us girls was but the boys swapped with her and they all shared so she'd have a bed] like some economy passengers who had to sit/sleep on the ground)!! this is us in our section of the deck, and the view out the window.

as the ship takes off we wave to nobody in particular...

and continue our exploration and photo taking :)

that is the singapore skyline you can see in the distance... and then somewhere along the trip in the middle of nowhere we decided to pick up more passengers... me doing a bit of national geographic

our "neighbours": this is is fajar and i falling off the side of the ship, clearly... and his little siblings and cousins, they wanted to learn the step dance so here we are on top of the ship in the cafe area getting a lot of weird looks from the other passengers (as if i wasnt getting enough weird looks for being a bule [which translates to something like albino] i thought i fully blended!)

papa helmi (in the village you call someone by the name of their first child, so this guy, berita, his daughters name is helmi, therefore we call him papa helmi) was given the task of making sure everyone is safe (jakarta is not the safest of places to be), sweet guy, apparantly there was something dangerous about taking this photo...

the ship made a stop in batam, apparantly that was pretty exciting, so we took more photos

when we reached jakarta we jumped on a bus (similar to the ones pictured in indo- public transport) and travelled for around 2 hours to puncak where the conference was held.

Mona's Dream

2007-01-20T17:48:00.000+09:00

Mona's Dream is a feature film that tell the story of Mona and her family. She was 16 when she was arrested in the Iranian city of Shiraz along with many other Baha'is. The Islamic Republic of Iran had set out to rid their country of the Baha'i Community, the largest religious minority in Iran.

The film chronicles the courage and bravery of Mona, her father, and her companions as they face the irrational hatred of the fanatical clergy of Iran.

Please click here and then follow the links to "digg" the film so that it can get to the top of the favourites list and hopefully make it sooner to the screens so everyone can hear the story of Mona and these other brave Souls!

indo- i got a hair cut

2007-01-12T17:41:00.000+09:00

indo styles!!

well, that is, thin (there was like 3kg's of my hair on the floor after he was done but my hair hadnt gotten any shorter!), layered, and with a side part...

ok so the hair dresser didnt do the side part but later on that evening the medan girls attacked me and made me indonesian (they ALL have side parts)!

The Ulos (traditional indonesian scarf thingy) was part of our costume for this lovely Batak (people from north Sumatra) dance that we performed.
The next day it was looking less curly and bouncy and more thin...

indo- public transport...

2007-01-10T15:39:00.000+09:00

one night shanthi and i caught the bus back from the village... this is no ordinary bus- it is packed to the brim (ok not as bad as india but still) and the guy who you pay and stuff just hangs off the side of the bus, sits on the roof, shuts the door with his feet... we called him monkey boy!i guess the bus above was too full so more people decided to hang out on the roof too...

indo- pimpkan mobil-ku

2007-01-10T15:17:00.000+09:00

english translation: pimp my ride (literally car)note the lack of back doors on this "5 door", perhaps even 8 seater, car... one of Shanthi's friends did up his car, which is apparantly very common in indo to drastically change many things about your car... I sat in the front because i was "so big"... i swear they are all so small, i'm regular sized!

indo- spot the kitten

2007-01-10T15:11:00.000+09:00

The strange thing about all the cats in indo is that they all have really short tails. is it because they are diseased and drop off, or do people cut them off, or do they evolve to just have short tails in order to prevent the disease and the people from making their tails drop off...?

Indo-village

2007-01-10T14:42:00.000+09:00

I actually want to eat these kids!!

My rellos spend a lot of time in the villages doing children's classes and junior youth groups etc. I had the privelage of going several times and teaching the kids and JY "Heads and Shoulders (knees and toes)" to help them learn English and then the quote by Baha'u'llah (translated into Indo) "Let your eye be chaste, your hand faithful, your tongue truthful and your heart enlightened..." to link the English they just learnt to some moral teaching.

This is us with our faithful hands (setia=faithful)

They also held a mini concert while I was there. Sweet kids!

Julia was leaving to return to Malaysia after being in Indo for 5 years... the kids (and her) were pretty upset!

Indonesia- Nana goes to India

2007-01-10T14:01:00.000+09:00

I got to Indonesia a few days before my cousin Shanthi (in indo, not to be confused with my cousin Shanthi in aust) got home from serving at the Bahá'í House of Worship, the Lotus Temple, in India. A few days later her sister, Ileana, went for service there too...Nana's flight was at the crack of dawn but we decided to get up and see her off anyway :)

summer school in singapore

2006-12-21T21:42:00.000+09:00

I had the privilege of attending a Bahai summer school in Singapore when I went through on my way to Indonesia (thanks to my being delayed from the stupid visa issues, so i guess that all worked out for the best). It was tres fun!

i met many super sweet people and am excited that i get to visit them all (minus navs- who likes zambia anyway??) again next month on my way back home! yay

i have some photos...

A bunch of musical youth and junior youth, and a monkey rummaging through the bins- instead of shooing it away we all just took photos!

This is Malaysia- you could see it from where we were having the camp in Singapore, I asked someone if anyone ever swims across and they said yeah, you can try but you get shot down!! talk about tight border control!

Navs made me a leaf- sweet girl! ...and Pouya Ehsani's Singapore stunt double (OK now that i look at the photo he doesnt really look the same, and he's actually french not singaporean)

smiley happy people... and some losers!!!! :P

Alcohol and Heart Disease

2006-12-07T00:20:00.000+09:00

2 things inspired me to write this post:

I recently attended (OK fine I was only on the registration table) a conference for the Society for Free Radical Research (no it's not a political movement, it's about chemistry)
Martin's post about things that are bad for you that are good for you

I will simply be quoting parts of the abstract for Prof Ian Puddey's talk entitled "Oxidative stress, nutrition & alcohol".

"Many foods and beverages are now understood to have a substantial content of antioxidants... Claims of antioxidant effects for flavonoid-rich beverages like red wine may also have been overstated, ignoring the pro-oxidant effects of the beverage alcohol content itself... We have identified, however, a fall in plasma isoprostanes after drinking de-alcoholised red wine in contrast to an increase seen with either red wine or beer."

Moral of the story: come on my non-alcoholic wine, chocolate and cheese tour of the Swan Valley in January so that you can eat chocolate and drink de-alcoholised red wine to prevent heart disease!

For more info relating to cardiovascular disease and red wine, check this journal article

updated at last!

2006-12-06T22:02:00.000+09:00

we're all sick of seeing that there's a car called mehran everytime we click on the link to mehranism... but kids, the times are changing- mehran is BACK, and he has revealed the truth about myspace! it may be short lived, but its exciting nevertheless.

They could call us "Auzealand"

2006-12-06T00:08:00.000+09:00

I was watching the news tonight and heard that there is talk of our 2 great nations joining together so that we could have the best rugby team (NZ) in the world and the best cricket team (Au) in the world... I love the way our countries think!

Take the poll

Free Poll by Blog Flux

its the thought that counts

2006-12-05T19:08:00.000+09:00

It was my last day of work on Friday (because I'm supposed to be in Indonesia now) and somebody was going to buy me a good-bye-thanks-for-everything-nice-knowing-you coffee, but was flat out and came into my office (OK fine, my dad's office) in the avo, and saw me and was all apologetic for the no coffee show, I was also still quite busy finishing things up, so I just said (sincerely) "that's OK, don't worry- it's the thought that counts!"
I sms'd somebody else coz I hadnt talked to them in ages and they called back saying that they were thinking of calling the other day but didnt , so I once again said "it's the thought that counts!" ...they didnt believe me. I didnt understand, until...
I got a call from somebody else that I had been thinking of but hadnt called, then I realised there's really no excuse for thinking of someone without calling them.

Indonesia here I come!

2006-12-04T00:10:00.000+09:00

3 of my cousins in Indo and me, from my last trip there

I dont know how i'm going to live without my laptop for more than a month!! I had dreams of posting stuff before leaving about my adventures of late but dont think its gonna happen... perhaps i'll just save a whole bunch of photos as drafts so i can link to them without having my laptop... interesting.

Stupid Indonesia and their 30 day visa limit and stupid Tertiary Travel for booking me a 36 day stay in Indonesia!

I guess I've been given the gift of time... I have no commitments for the next few days- anyone up fo the beach?

i took the ferry to work!

2006-12-02T07:11:00.001+08:00

the contents of my car (excluding the chair) after I had to leave it at the panel yards...

and the rental car that the insurance company gave me for a bit while sorting things out and promptly took away after telling me that my car was a write-off

[insert photo here of me with a screwdriver, un-installing my mp3 player and re-installing the original tape deck]
I should do this kinda thing for a living!!

So after the stereo installation incident, I was without car, so sweet Roy picked me up and gave me a lift to Mends st jetty. I called him in a panic coz I needed help with the stereo, he came 2 days in a row (in the MORNING), such a champ! even though he was late on the 2nd day and I already finished doing it...

The ferry only cost me 60c and is just like a bus... but on the water!

The day was a bit grey, but I still enjoyed the ride! This is me looking out the window at our beautiful city...

When I got to the city, I saw the Bell Tower (with the bells of St Clements- or whoever the song sings about) and a path with my name on it!
I decided to walk the rest of the way to work (instead of catching a CAT, or any other form of FREE inner-city public transport that the wonderful city of Perth offers... ad for Perth...what?
but seriously, the path really does have my name on it!!

Chocolate Factory

2006-11-27T22:39:00.000+08:00

On the weekend we went to a chocolate factory, it was great- they had free tastings! I am thinking of organising a bit of a (free tastings) tour of the Swan Valley for chocolate, (non alcoholic) wine, and cheese... it'll be great! Who wants in??

Corn Tarts...what?

2006-11-27T21:09:00.000+08:00

To celebrate the end of uni (really just as an excuse for a party), Judy, Shelley and Kristen organised a cocktail party; Judy was behind the bar and Kristen organised the music. Sweet Judy made us non-alcos all sorts of fun mocktails and then we started experimenting ourselves! Yay I love my uni friends! I was far to excited by the fun drinks to take that many photos of everyone else but there are stacks of us with the mocktails :)

and some more...

Midnight Moments

2006-11-27T20:43:00.000+08:00

A moment for reflection under the stars with a few inspirational readings and prayers...

Before we got reflective, we had some tea, ate some chocolate, chilled in the shed, had a bit of a chit-chat, and played Absolute Balderdash!! Here's another one for all of you:

beothuk [bee·o·thuk]

Leave a comment with your definition of beothuck...

Following our Midnight Moments (after a spot of sleep) we had a big breakfast!! woo!

I had such a great time- thanks to everyone that came (esp. those who travelled all the way from wollongong JUST to be here)!

Yay (I guess) no more uni...

2006-11-27T19:32:00.000+08:00

On the "last" (some people still had an assignment or to still to hand in) day of uni we had mock interviews so we all had to get dressed up and then afterwards they gave us morning tea... here are some snap shots

Before the mock interviews we had to have an e-portforlio completed and burnt with autorun onto a CD. We were in the computer labs putting together our portfolio when every 5 mins a phys ed-er would swear and throw out a CD... ok thats not entirely true- Ii love the phys ed-ers- but there were a lot of CDs going to waste. So Shaz and I decided to procrastinate a bit and we made a mobile out of the ruined CDs... I think its beautiful! (I went in a few days later and I saw that there were another pile of CDs that peole had put on our mobile table rather than the bin- sweet people)

Micah Sears Parker Roohi

2006-11-20T22:01:00.000+08:00

My cousin Rachel and her husband Shahrouz just had a baby (it must be baby season)! Micah is 5 months younger than Alenna (they're gonna have so much fun) and he's a BOY!! Yay for having a boy in our family ( I only have 1 boy cousin amongst 8 girl cousins- not including me)...

Here are some photos of sweet sweet baby Micah in the first few days of his earthly life...

Look what made it to the streets

2006-11-19T17:23:00.000+08:00

There is this hardware store on the corner that each week on the "open" sign out the front, has a different joke, or riddle or something.

So even though none of you seemed to think that my bunch of quicky little saying were comment-worthy, I thought they were pretty funny and told the hardware store guy one and guess what?? it made it to the sign- yay for me!

classic

2006-11-12T01:04:00.000+08:00

I found this picture on Allan and Muna's blog, they're selling what next to what now?

alice and steve?

2006-11-11T16:17:00.000+08:00

so time to tell of my hot date with karen. we met up in subiaco, had strawberries and juice sitting randomly in the middle of a grassy patch on the side of the road- picnic style, people were confused, but why have grass there if you dont want people to picnic on it!? then we did dinner at han's cafe. we ordered spring rolls, and then i ordered a chicken satay entre and karen ordered a beef satay entre, THEN she orderered a spicy chicken salad too!! i was wondering how she would fit it all in but did not question her. we had high hopes... [the spicy chicken salad ended up being quite spicy and that along with some of her spring roll and maybe even some satay beef was doggy bagged- see her previous comments]
after dinner karen had been invited to see this play-type-thing that people from her work were invoved in. she works in the women and infant health part of a hospital, ie ObGyn stuff and where people give birth and stuff. her boss was one of the main characters in this play, HE was eve (as in adam and eve, whilst adam was played by a female, hence i titled this post "alice and steve"). boys pretending to be girls, wearing short skirts should be illegal!
it was a very traumatic experience and life shall never be the same again -the play was traumatic that is, not playing with karen... i LOVE karen!

God is testing me... that means He loves me right?

2006-11-11T15:56:00.000+08:00

i was just in a car accident last night. it was a hit and run so even though he ran into the back of me and sent me spinning, he gets off with nothing (except maybe a guilty conscience) and i get stuck with soft tissue damage to my neck, no car, a huge excess to pay and 50 billion essays to write (ok they are unrelated, but still)... where is the justice?

they had to tow him away

today at the panel beaters

the tow guy thinks it'll be a write-off, i might never see my car again thanks to that stupid drunk (i assume) driver.

2006-11-09T09:39:00.000+08:00

Sorry kids, I'm gonna update soon- just a bit snowed under with assignments at the moment! In the mean time, check out the (sorry Mazza) giant playground (I added it real late because the video was having issues uploading). Or have a waddle through the blogs on my links... what about playing Wiki-olympics (it must catch on)!!!

I got nuthin... well I WAS offered a job on Tuesday- thats exciting!

stay tuned also to hear about my amazing date with Karen- love that Girl!

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

2006-11-02T20:04:00.000+08:00

I received an email today with a bunch of "ponderings", here are just a few of them:

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes? (that one's for you, Sana)
Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"
Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
How is it possible to have a civil war?
If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

more cute cute Alenna

2006-11-01T19:29:00.000+08:00

I went for my weekly wednesday wonderful wisit to the Wongol's to be Aunty Carmel today, she's now nearly 5 months old- cousin Micah should be coming soon!
She doesn't look very amused (she DOES love me!!), sweet girl was very tired...

She seemed to enjoy her trip to Sydney though!
...and the car,
...is she a model (and how hot is her mum)??
I love that girl!!

2006-10-31T11:42:00.000+08:00

that is GOLD! I saw this pic when i clicked one of the frazzled links on Tash's blog.
It reminds me of another saying: "scared is just sacred... spelt wrong" or something, how does that one go?
what about "Joker is Poker with a J"
...Quality.

Why must the season be over??

2006-10-30T23:16:00.000+08:00

I dont watch much TV, I used to every now and then but now, since Katanning, I've become addicted to Australian Idol (I had to google to find the website, I'm not THAT addicted!) and Grey's Anatomy (also googled). These shows would get us through the week, they were what made us accept that the weekend was over, a little reward for making it through Monday at school... Thanks Shazza!

Does my blog know your name??

2006-10-30T19:09:00.000+08:00

This is for all those non-bloggers out there...

I have heard rumour that when you leave a comment on my blog, it knows your name -is this true?? Clearly if you have a blogger profile, that's fine, it knows, but if you dont, then HOW?? Has this happened to anyone? Can anyone think of an explanation?

I live in Australia

2006-10-29T22:48:00.000+08:00

I was driving home tonight and I saw a kangaroo on the road. OK so some people who know where I live are a thinking " big deal, you live in the hills!" But I was not on the back roads, this kangaroo was on the highway, where there were street lights and cars and everything...

I didnt take a photo and google didnt have much to offer so I drew one in paint for you to see.

Type the characters you see in the picture below

2006-10-28T01:42:00.000+08:00

Damn word verification... be gone!

Vanilla

2006-10-26T22:19:00.000+08:00

So today as dad and I were driving home from workI noticed that he likes to drive in the left lane and just never change. On the radio someone referred to someone else as "vanilla", I thought it fitting to refer to my dad as vanilla, in response:

dad: I like vanilla :)
me: i know dad, but I mean you're quite conservative...
dad: no, I'm not! [he says as we wait behind a bus letting off passengers]
me: ok, what do you do that's... [insert discussion about what the opposite of conservative is] ...not conservative?
dad: um... I read books...

***5 minutes later***

dad: I wear striped shirts!

2006-10-25T22:03:00.000+08:00

Bored?

2006-10-22T23:47:00.000+08:00

Tried all of Mazza's cures for boredom?

Why not try wiki-olympics or googlewhack?

Jump on the Borat Bandwagon

2006-10-22T23:09:00.000+08:00

2006-10-22T21:44:00.000+08:00

Sa·n‘a or Sa·na or Sa·naa (sä-nä')

2006-10-22T11:30:00.000+08:00

The capital and largest city of Yemen, in the western part of the country. Settled in ancient times, it became the capital of North Yemen in 1962 and the capital of united North Yemen and Southern Yemen in 1990. Population: 1,740,000.

Poker Payum

2006-10-21T20:12:00.000+08:00

Last night at Pray and Play, Hoda "taught" us how to play Poker. After the first "practise" round we started playing properly... I believe Hoda was actually the first one out, after a while it was down to just Payum and I. Unfortunately I'm a very conservative player whereas Payum is really not, so when Hoda decided to raise the blinds to "make it interesting", I ended up slowly passing all my winning to Payum.

This was his winning hand: a 2 and a 10.

Meanwhile Nak decides to do a bit of oils (/grease/shank) on his email instead of joining in the fun...

The Wiki-olympics

2006-10-21T19:26:00.000+08:00

Two of my friends recently developed this game, Shanthi shared it with me last night at Pray and Play (devotional/games night). It is such a grand waste of time that I feel it my duty to share it with you now.

Wiki-olympics

What you need:

A computer with the internet (clearly you have that)
A friend (or enemy- both will work, Wiki contestants may vers each other online or on adjacent computers)
The Wikipedia website

Aim of the game:

To get from one topic/page to another unrelated topic/page in the least amount of clicks

Rules:

You may not click on external links
You may not press the "back" button

Try this one:

From "Gandhi" to "Luke McPharlin"... so far the record is 4 clicks. Can you beat it??

Extra challenge:

If you think that you're hot and this is far too easy, then why not introduce a speed limit to spice things up a little and give us that added pressure that we live for?!

Learning Difficulties

2006-10-18T22:09:00.000+08:00

We are all aware of Shazza Rey 's obsession with her lecturer , perhaps we are both starting to think far too highly of our university lecturers:

As we are walking out of our Learning Difficulties tute [with Dr Somebody] we pass another tute room and look in...

Shaz: who is that guy? he looks familiar...
Caz: yeah he does! maybe he's the leader of some group...
Shaz: yeah, or a presenter!
Caz: is he on tv??
Shaz: thats right he's a tv presenter!!
Caz: yeah he must be...

***moment passes as we try to think which tv show***

Shaz: oh no, he's just our lecturer for Aboriginal Education...

Ice Cream Sl*ts

2006-10-17T21:12:00.000+08:00

Last night I hung out with Shidan, Shervs and Shawn (from the Gong). Shidan and Shervin are both studying very hard to be doctors so after dinner Shawn and I buzzed off and let them study, with instructions to come back in an hour with ice cream. We headed into Subiaco where there are 4 major ice cream stores all within a 100 metre radius of each other...

Our instructions were to bring back il-gelato and so headed there first to try some flavours and to see what time closing was. Shawn could not help but notice, however, a sign for Cold Rock Ice Cream and their 3000+ combinations, he was intrigued. So after teasing il-gelato, we headed over to Cold Rock.

Now the special thing about Cold Rock is that what they do is they take whatever flavour of icecream you choose and smoosh it together with any filling you desire, eg. macadamia white choc icecream with cherry ripe and cookie dough mixed in...
If anyone knows Shawn, you know that he doesn't understand moderation when it comes to icecream; he orders a large cup (so he can fit more it) with ferrero rocher ice cream with malteasers and snickers AND cookies and cream icecream with tim tams and oreos mixed in. The girl behind the counter admitted half way through mixing that she was really bad at estimating how much icecream to use, consequently our large ice cream was actually (no exaggeration) twice the size of a normal large... i decided not to order my own ice cream then and just ate Shawns...
After which of course we went back to il-gelato to buy a take home pack to bring back more ice cream for our doctor friends.

Position Vacant

2006-10-15T17:21:00.000+08:00

"You know they say, in every man's life there comes a time when he gets struck by the arrow of cupid..." -Xavier Naidoo

Well for those people its a tad more cheerful than depicted above... but seriously, can people stop geting married already!? I'm stuck on the wrong side of all the wedding invitations! I'm also on the wrong side of all the job applications... so a thought struck me (well since no arrows are striking me!)

There is a position vacant for "Husband" at the C r o f t Institute. This is a full time vacancy for one year initially, commencing 2007, with the possibility of ongoing appointment.

The C r o f t Institute is based in Perth, Western Australia.

The successful applicant will be someone who is a collaborative and flexible, humble but with demonstrated intellect and talent. In addition, your background will demonstrate:

current understanding of how the female mind works, or a willingness to learn
some experience in cooking and cleaning, or the willingness to aquire these skills
the ability to play a musical instrument and sing
the ability to speak fluently in more than one language
the ability to contribute effectively to consultation
excellent communication and interpersonal skills in interactions with colleagues, parents and children

Participation in the co-curricular life of the Institute is expected and applicants must support the Baha'i ethos and values of the Institute.

In addition to a vibrant and caring community as your work environment, we offer attractive employment benefits through our C r o f t Institute Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, including competitive remuneration.

Your application should consist of a covering letter responding to the selection criteria and a current resume, including at least two referees who can comment on your personality and character.

Applications should be addressed to the Manager- Human Resources, C r o f t Institute and can be sent via email to: hr.c r o f t.institute@gmail.com

Cake IS yummy!

2006-10-11T23:20:00.000+08:00

Agreed, Mazza Rey, the cake was amazing!
So yummy infact, that Ellie and I decided to attack it before everyone came in...

The MAIN Attraction...

2006-10-11T18:48:00.000+08:00

The wedding of Luke and Kalinz was quite the event, some might even say it was the wedding event of the year...

What was the main attraction though- was it the lovely couple?

Was it the beautiful bride, Kalinz?

Was it dancing in amongst all the football players?

...or was it BAZ?!!

Hard to make up my mind...

The Paradox of Our Time...

2006-09-28T10:35:00.000+08:00

I was perusing Dorsa's blog, when I came across this passage by George Carlin, parts of which I share with you:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints...

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space...

For more, click here.

Speaking of lesson plans...

2006-09-27T13:37:00.000+08:00

Only 7 more to go!!!!!

Surprise Road-trip

2006-09-27T12:57:00.000+08:00

Last weekend it was my cousin Meetra's 21st. I'm in Katanning and another cousin, Mary, is in Albany...

Being slightly crazy and loving Meetra an awful lot, I decide that the only option is to go to Perth for her party. I dont have a car and I wanted to take Mary with me anyway, soooo the wonderful Parkers (Albany cousins) lent me their car.

I got a lift with a fellow teacher to Albany (2hrs), had a cuppa at the Parkers then took their daughter and car and headed off for Perth(well Armadale-4hrs). The Party was lovely, Meetra was suitably surprised, I saw my family, got the jobs out of the paper, stayed at another cousins house (sweet Rachel Parker-Roohi), and left for Albany again on Sunday morning (5 hours). Had more tea with the Parkers then swapped cars (took the little car this time) for my drive back to Katanning (2hrs). I made it in time to watch Australian Idol and do my lesson plans for Monday...

It felt like more than 13 hours on the road...

Back in Katanning...

2006-09-17T18:55:00.000+08:00

We had a GREAT weekend in Perth for Dr Javaheri's talk... sweet, sweet man! But then we had to leave again...

Unlike when we initially embarked on our adventure to Katanning, our faces were not so joyful for our 2nd coming...

Off with their heads!

2006-09-14T15:41:00.000+08:00

Was it corporal punishment or capital punishment?

...either way I think it should be brought back into schools! Its the only way to discipline some of these children!

Maybe We're Friends Now...

2006-09-12T15:50:00.000+08:00

Carl showed me how to make an electric circuit in class today. Maybe we're friends now...

The Saga Continues...

2006-09-06T19:55:00.000+08:00

Carl was apparantly going to forget the whole thing in a few hours so I shouldn't worry...

WELLLL the next day I was observing an Italian class, the door opened (so I looked) and who else is it but Carl! He saw me, immediately shut the door and roamed the school. I'm sitting there in the class feeling bad that it's my fault that this kid is not in class, I cant say anything to the teacher because he's having issues of his own (he is an example, according to my mentor teacher, of what not to do). A bit into the class I decided to leave to get the HOLA from before that was dealing with him. As I left, I noticed Carl walking back into class, hmm...

I decided to give it a moment and then return to class and just not look at him at all. Half way through class I get hit with scrunched up pieces of paper. By the end of class it would have totalled about 8 balls of paper!!
Just his luck, I was in his science class next period too! haha poor Carl...

He needs to be shot (haw no he doesn't, sweet kid, maybe just put in a very tiny box and left for a while). Today he got withdrawn again but he ran off before the HOLA came in. The class was sooooo smooth when he wasnt in it!

How can this face be intimidating?

2006-09-06T19:38:00.000+08:00

Seriously, I ask you, how can anyone feel intimidated by me?

I'm finally getting around to the Carl saga... This boy who got withdrawn from the class asked to talk to the teacher (apparantly to apologise) and the HOLA (Head of Learning Area) told me that I should watch (to see how the teacher handled the situation). So there I am watching, when Carl suddenly gets all angry and runs out of the room muttering something like "big eyeballs in ma face!"

...by the time the class had finished EVERYONE (all the staff) knew about it and were all teasing me about staring at Carl and being intimidating! (The HOLA pulled me aside and said something abut how I shouldnt look at the Indigenous kids coz its seen as threatening- HE told me to look!)

Happy Father's Day!

2006-09-03T13:14:00.001+08:00

Sweet Dad he is...

Unfortunately my family didn't come and visit me this weekend, so I had to steal Shazza's dad!

The Giant Playground

2006-09-03T12:47:00.000+08:00

[Damn Katanning internet wouldn't let me upload the video so I just saved the draft but forgot about it til now, hence the late publishing]

The sign reads: PEOPLE USING THIS PLAYGROUND DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK

I know there are stairs but I decided it would be more fun to climb up those diagonal poles holding up the curly slide...

Loved the giant playground but these Reyhani girls are not quite as adventurous as me...

Sweet Mazza Rey took half an hour (literally) getting off the dish... she was terrified- must have had a bad experience when she was a child... she seems to be having fun running around on it though...

Welcome to Katanning

2006-08-29T19:05:00.000+08:00

The start of our big adventure- how exciting!

Driving down south is much greener and lusher than up north (look in the distance- sweet view)

The scenery flies by when the speed limit is 110... ;)

"Welcome to Katanning" it took us a while to fit both our heads and the whole of the word "Katanning" in but then we used our brains (we have degrees!) and realised we needed to go from an angle.

The Daily Grind- the place to be.

It was all smiles and laughter until we saw where we were staying...

(These photos actually make the place look amazingly beautiful) Shazza Rey expands more on the conditions of our flat... Did I mention the people before us had small (dirty) children and dogs? And our bathroom floods everytime we have a shower or flush the toilet... nice.

We promptly starting moving furniture and got out the domestos (thanks Soheila- life saver!)

Not so smiley faces now...

I'm too tired to post now about school, but stay tuned for my saga with Carl!

The National Public Toilet Map

2006-08-26T22:20:00.000+08:00

As you are aware by now, Shaz and I are off to Katanning tomorrow. I was asking google for a map of Katanning and I stumbled across The National Public Toilet Map... It's GOLD! I especially like the Trip Planner, where you can plan a route from nearly any starting point to any destination in Australia. The system will identify the quickest route (by road or on foot) and create a list of nearby toilets.

I was conversing with a respected friend of mine who inquired as to whether this is an initiative that exists in other countries too or if Australia is the only weak-bladdered nation. I decided to do some research... According to Wikipedia:

The National Public Toilet Map is part of the Australian government's National Continence Management Strategy (NCMS). The map allows more Australians with urinary and fecal incontinence problems to live and participate in their communities with dignity and confidence, by making it easier for them to find information about the location of public toilets.

More than 3.8 million Australians are estimated to suffer continence issues, including families with young children. This represents 18% of the Australian population.

How very interesting... AND useful!! :P

I'm back!

2006-08-26T17:17:00.000+08:00

Firstly I have to send my condolences to poor Shazza Rey for her recent loss...

Secondly, I dont have time to blog right now because I have to pack for 5 weeks and all I have so far is an empty suit case and a load of washing on!! Hopefully a more detailed account of our adventures in the outback will come when we have a moment to spare sitting around in Katanning... At the moment here are some pics:

Back seat bogans with typical (perhaps even a little on the bushy side) scenery behind us.

Austin Downs: This is where we stayed for the first 2 nights, these are the shearers' quarters; very "rural"...

A "special" liquid.

The kids were so so very cute! Unfortunately some of them do not have "permission to have their photos displayed in public" consent forms signed so we either have to fuzz out their faces or just not post them. At some schools all the kids already have these forms signed though.

Hill 50 minesite: they dig up and refine lots of gold there!

Sweet red dirt/pebbles...

Sunset on the coast in Geraldton: I took this photo sitting outside our dorm.

For a more complete overview of our outback adventures check out Kristen's post .

It's all about the Outback!

2006-08-19T23:15:00.000+08:00

So I was gonna post about how we're going off on a rural trip at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning but Shazza has said it all in her post,the real Australia.

This is one of the scenes we used to paint in artworks that basically represents the land out there- although I'm pretty sure those mountains are imaginary and just make for an easier horizon to paint (not entirely made up though I did see them when we went to exmouth so they do exist)...

Meanwhile I havent finished packing and I have to leave my house at 5.45AM tomorrow so I should probably get cracking... I might squeeze a post in next week before heading off to Katanning- who knows!

Meet Aref

2006-08-19T11:11:00.000+08:00

Check out this video, very cool!

“Aref”: Meet an average 8 year-old kid from Botswana. He loves soccer and trampoline and runs around the yard with his friends. Everything about him is normal – at least until he opens his mouth...

Real-life copper

2006-08-13T18:08:00.000+08:00

A dear friend of mine, Anisa, lives in London and is engaged to a real-life British copper. They're visiting Perth and he had a spare hat so he brought it as a gift to Nat who's in the Police force here. The Label says "Metropolitan Police"...

How cool is it??

Under-wiping

2006-08-13T17:44:00.000+08:00

I am an under-wiper... windscreen that is! For some reason I must have the windscreen wipers on the lowest possible speed for the amount of rain that there is. I would even prefer to give a one-off wipe every now'n'then rather than have it on a higher speed than needed. It's not like it saves power or energy by having it on a low setting but I just can't handle it when its excessively fast- it's not logical! I have even been know to turn down other people's wipers when I'm a passenger in their car (I can't help it- don't judge me). I think that you should have it on a low setting so that you dont "waste" the faster setting on light rain and take it for granted and then when you get heavy rain you will really appreciate the fast wiping. Coz like, if its sprinkling and you're on super fast, where can you go when it starts to bucket down? ...nowhere!!

Multi-tasking. There's no law against taking photos and driving at the same time is there?

Perhaps this reflects my attitude towards life and making the best of what you have and not taking things/people for granted...