I've Almost Finished!!

So I'm finally finishing my last rotation. MY LAST ROTATION! Yaaayy! Well except for one small thing... I still haven't finished my assignment yet... Damn. I'll get onto that as soon as this blog entry is done. I promised myself. I still haven't made advances on it since I last mentioned it - it's still only 25% done.

I went out Saturday night to Bamboo@Martin Place Bar. I haven't been out for such a long time. When Dru and I arrived at MPB, we felt very old indeed. All the people there looked like they were 20y.o. and under! But we went in anyway, cos I wanted to dance, dance, dance! And drink! (The entry fee was not cheap though at $20 a head, although that could be quite reasonable nowadays??) I drank a bit then danced a bit, then proceeded to get completely trashed for the rest of the night, but I kept dancing...

This was just before we left:


Don't I look drunk?? I finally experienced my first hangover the whole of Sunday :( And I think I've learnt my lesson - I'm never getting so drunk ever again! *ugh!* Hangovers are bloody nasty! I don't know why people like getting trashed every weekend?! I felt nauseous and crappy the whole day.

Well, my class of 2000 from Baulko had a big reunion on the day of my hangover (Sunday). The reunion was originally going to be a picnic event held at a park in West Pennant Hills, however it rained all day so the venue was changed to the Castle Hill Tavern instead. The reunion started at 1pm, but because I didn't even wake up until 12pm, I arrived there at about 2:40pm. It was a pity cos I missed a lot of people who got there early and left early. It was quite a good turnout. When I first walked into the Tav, omg, suddenly there's this sea of familiar faces. What a blast from the past. Quite a few people said they didn't recognise me though. Crap! Am I that forgettable? They said it was just that I've changed, but "for the better". Does that mean I'm now prettier?? *LoL* I don't know~ It's probably cos I'm fatter now. *hrmpf!*

Inverell Saleyard

Yesterday, we went to Inverell (which is about 40mins drive from Warialda) for the weekly saleyard held at the Inverell Livestock Exchange. It was quite interesting as I'd never been before. There were a little over 2000 cattle and 4000 sheep put on display. I saw some of the fattest cattle but also some of the skinniest cattle I've ever seen in my life. The animals were auctioned off to the highest bidder and it's important not to wave flies away from your face during the auction, lest you end up with a dozen bulls by mistake! I was told that 2 girls who came to Warialda previously almost ended up with 6 bullocks because they waved at someone during an auction, then the person they were waving at almost bought the cattle too cos he waved back... luckily someone then bid higher than that for the cattle and took them off their hands... *phew* that would've been difficult to explain to your parents when you come home... *hehehe*

We didn't do much inspection of the cattle, but just walked around and had a general look at them. The sheep, however, we went into pens and immobilised them (by sitting them on their backsides) and had looks through their fleece to look for lice. There were quite a few dodgy-looking sheep there, but when we went through their fleece, we didn't see any lice. Maybe they had been treated for it already, but they still looked pretty daggy and had big breaks in their wool.

I'm still only a quarter way through my second assignment and am procrastinating hard right now. I really really want to finish it before the end of this week so I won't have to worry about it as soon as I leave this place on Friday, but I just can't seem to gather enough concentration power to do it. Then I've still got the communication task to go, but this shouldn't be too difficult as it only needs to be a page or two of work. And this can be done together with Paige (the other girl here), so it definitely is a task we can complete in a short period of time.

We're supposed to be going to see a warty steer very shortly, and the DV has been saying he'll take us to a fish farm nearby, where I was hoping I could score a fresh fish for dinner. I hope that happens today! I would so love some fresh fish meat right now!

Slow Weekend

So it's now been what, a whole week since I last heard about my proposal... and it still hasn't arrived in my inbox yet. I'm starting to get quite annoyed about it! He did say he's been really busy, but this waiting business is killing me. I NEED to know what's in that proposal so I can make a decision once and for all. Well, although I can't really do that until I've discussed it with Dru too...

*sigh*

This weekend, I was supposed to go out and help mark some lambs at a property just outside of Warialda. The weather forecast said that it'll be raining all weekend, and since it had rained on Friday, it was called off as it was too wet for lamb marking. So the weekend went by really slowly. I did nothing much all weekend, except shopping, one and a quarter of my three assignments, and read more Patricia Cornwell novels. I'm currently reading the third book in the Scarpetta series. Now I've gotta go out and buy the rest of the novels in the series!! I love Patricia Cornwell novels! Sometimes the stories are kinda gruesome though...

Job Proposal

Well, although I still haven't received his proposal yet, I've decided that I most likely will take the job.... as long as his proposal has good terms that I agree with. I've talked so much about it for the past 3 days, for a while I didn't know what to think.

Gosh it's such a BIG decision to make. I haven't really looked at other jobs today. I also said to myself last night that I was going to do my assignment... but I haven't touched it today. *sigh* I'm such a bad procrastinater.

Still About the Job

So I’ve given the job in HK a lot of thought, and I still haven’t been sent a proposal yet. I still need to have a discussion with my family and my boyfriend, but I think that I’m more likely to take this job than not. There will be a lot for me to do – I’ll need to find a place to live, need to send my things over, there’ll be a lot to organise before I can head over there, but I’m sure I can manage it. My heart’s beating so fast just thinking about moving away from the place I grew up. Maybe I should continue in the morning, because if I keep blogging, it’s going to make me have insomnia tonight… it’s like drinking coffee or tea before sleeping!

I’ve chatted to my friends and they said, ‘Why not go for the job?’ It’s a good question. Everythime I think about it, my stomach goes all funny and I don’t want to think about it anymore. Tomorrow, I’m going to look for jobs in Sydney and compare them to the one offered to me in HK.

I’m normally an indecisive person… and for me to have to think about moving overseas and leave behind everyone and everything I know? It’s going to be a tough long road to the final decision. I know it’s only going to be for 2 years, but to me it’s still a long time to be away from the people you love.

Job in HK

OMG, the job that I went for an interview in HK is actually sending me an initial proposal! Does that mean that the guy's actually really considering me for the job?? OMG!

I'm all torn about what to do though. I was initially just going there for a shot at the job, wasn't expecting to get the job... just wanted to get some practice at interviews... now he's sending me an initial proposal! *argh* What to do???

Beginning of the Last Rotation Out in the Country

Gosh I've been so lazy to update my blogs lately. But I've been over in Hong Kong with only dodgy dial-up internet connections (and yes I know that there are many, many internet cafes available in HK but as if I'd bother paying for internet access?!) and then flying back over here with 3 days to pack everything I need for the month away in Warialda (up near the Queensland border). It was a bit-of-a-rush. And this is with an extra day of packing and unpacking because I decided to come back to Sydney one day before I was originally going to come back. Luckily, I haven't seemed to left anything too important back at home (only my rice cooker and my name-badge) and have brought with me lots of clothes, makeup and food. And lots of movies (in VCDs cos my computer doesn't have a DVD drive... although I would love one) that I bought in HK... they were only HK$50 for 3 movies, which is just soooo cheap and I so would've bought more if I had the space and weight available to bring more back.

Just before my flight back to Sydney, I was so scared. Why? Because I rang up a few days before I was due to fly and asked what would happen if I was over the 20kg weight limit for my luggage. The woman actually told me that it would cost me HK$159/kg over the 20kg weight limit. I asked her if she was serious and she replied that seriously, yes, we do charge that ridiculous amount. Well. Ok, she didn't actually say 'ridiculous', but I think that's what it really is.

Anyway, come the day of my flight and I have a luggage case weighing 22.5kg and also a very large photo frame (for my 1000 piece Totoro puzzle) weighing 2kg. 'Pfftt, that's only a total of 25kg,' you may say, however I haven't yet told you how much my bring-on-board-luggage weighed. 14kgs. And if you were wondering what the weight limit is for cabin luggage, it's only 7kgs. I was two times over the weight limit!! And damn was it a chore to lift into the overhead luggage holding all by myself! Luckily the overhead luggage didn't collapse on top of us during the flight!

But guess what? I didn't have to pay for my overweight luggage. I guess, firstly it's because I checked in about 2 hours early and also because I did The Biggest Dodgy. I left my cabin luggage with my aunt who drove me to the airport and then pretended I only had my handbag and laptop to bring on board the plane. Once they checked me in and I didn't have to pay a fine for my overweight luggage, I went back to my aunt and retrieved my 14kg hand luggage. Then happily got on the plane without anyone knowing.

I felt a bit bad though cos this girl I met as I was boarding the plane told me that she had about 25kgs and got fined HK$500. However, she had cheap cheap air tickets from HK (HK$3,000 return to Sydney!!) and she was also a bit late in checking-in.... so maybe that had something to do with it? I paid AU$1,000 and more for my return ticket to HK!

I didn't tell Dru that I was coming back a day early and I was planning to surprise him. It didn't quite go as I'd planned though. As I was driving to his house, my mum's 'What happens if he's not home?' comment was making me paranoid so I called his house and his mum told me that he wasn't home yet! That certainly ruined things. I had to call him and see where he was. Fortunately he was actually on his way home so I picked him up from the station and gave him a lift home. He was still very surprised and pleased to see me home so early, however my initial intention of giving him a nice surprise was not as successful as I would have liked.

He took Friday off work for me (I know, naughty!) and we spent a great day together. His friend had a birthday BBQ on the Saturday night, where I had two drinks and predictably got a little bit drunk. I was supposed to be leaving on the Sunday morning so I refrained from drinking anymore, in case I couldn't wake up in time and couldn't stay awake to drive.

I left my house at about 8:40am on Sunday and arrived in Warialda at about 4pm. I only stopped once in Tamworth for a leg stretch, toilet break and lunch. So all in all, it only took about 7 hours to drive up to Warialda from my place, although I had thought it would take me about 10 hours. Actually, I'm lucky that it doesn't take that long!

So I've been here for 2 days now. And trying very hard to keep myself occupied. Things have been a bit slow here at the Rural Lands Protection Board and we've only been out on one call-out so far and today has been spent entirely at the office... sitting around, reading notes, surfing the internet, replying emails, and blogging.

If it's going to be like this for most of our time here, I'm so going to die of boredom!!! Although I guess it's a really good time to apply for jobs (although I'm not contactable up here because I don't have a CDMA phone) and fix up my resume and read up on more diseases and treatments, etc.

But I hope things pick up!