Life's A Beach: Chapter 1

Hi everyone!

So here's the blog version of the updates. I don't know how it works yet, how much space I have or how many pictures I'll be able to add, but for those of you who are happier not receiving e-mails, here's another way to follow my life in Northern Queensland.

As for the name of this series, I’m living in Trinity Beach, which is in North Queensland, near Cairns. I was trying to find something about the Holy Trinity or some kind of queen joke, or even a word play with Cairns (they pronounce it “cans,” in case that helps you come up with something that I couldn’t), but then I thought that “Life’s a Beach” would be the right attitude to be putting forth this time around. (I’ve decided to be actively positive and pro-active in my life here, rather than just complaining all the time... We’ll see how long it lasts.)

For anyone who doesn’t know the back story, here it is: I was in Townsville (also in Queensland) last year for teachers’ college and I started dating my house mate, Mark. He was working as a financial project manager for Honeywell Australia, who are currently installing or upgrading security in Queensland prisons. He came to Canada with me and stayed for the six months his visa allowed, during which time we looked for jobs in the Caribbean without much success. Then Honeywell asked him to come back to Australia for their next project, which is on Lotus Glen prison, about an hour inland from Cairns, and we figured it was our best bet for the time being. He’s been here since early November and I flew in this week.



Our together plan is to stay for 18 months, enough time for him to complete his MBA and the maximum time my visa will allow, before moving on. My own plan is tricky because the visa requires that I not spend more than six months with any one employer, so I’ll have to keep moving around. Also, if I want to extend to the year and a half (the visa itself is only one year at this point), I have to spend at least three months doing something like picking fruit or working in the forest – the details are foggy but suffice it to say that I will have to be crafty and open to whatever jobs come up.

Now. The trip itself was a bit dramatic because I was lucky enough to fly on the staff travel card of Mark’s pilot friend, Jason. (Who is a dead ringer for Jon Livingstone and happens to be one of the all-out nicest guys I know.) The deal with staff travel is that you save oodles of money but fly on stand-by, which means you can be bumped from your flight. Not a big deal, right? Except that in the moment itself, it’s depressing as hell.

It had been a long day, starting with a 5:30 wake-up, because I had to fly to LA first (via Minneapolis.) I’d had a bad cold earlier in the week, so my ears were in rough shape and the two descents were incredibly painful and left me headachy and hard of hearing the rest of the day. I got to LA at 1:20 and hung out all day in LAX (which is a miserable airport under any circumstances), checked in for my big flight and was informed at 7:30 that I wasn’t making it on and would have to go see the check-in staff to be put on the list for tomorrow’s flight. There were a few other people who had been bumped from stand-by so we all hung around during the four hours it took to get re-scheduled and collect our luggage; even better, we shared hotel rooms so no one had to pay too much.

It occurs to me that missing the flight, exhausting a day as it was (5:30 am until 3:00 am, Toronto time), was probably a blessing, as I needed a good night’s sleep and some time away from pressurized cabins. I hung out in LA with my new friends, resigned to the possibility of it all happening again that night; at least knowing what to expect would make it easier.

We went back for check-in as soon as they opened at 3:00 and we hung around the airport again, fingers crossed and trying to talk about anything other than our chances of making it on the flight, since we were making ourselves crazy with uninformed speculation. (And also informed, as legitimate ticket-holders who had missed their flight kept showing up, which meant that they would get priority on our flight and our chances were diminishing by the minute – a very tense situation!) Among other things, we brainstormed possible new career paths for Shannon, who spent the last six years working for Disney in London, found alternative travel arrangements for Saad, whose missed flight meant no possible connection to New Zealand for at least a week, and decided that if I had a baby I should name it “Mozzie.” We were briefly convinced that Nicole Kidman was on the flight when we saw excited people flashing cameras and I remembered seeing her in a BT interview that said she was heading home for Christmas, but it turned out to be Aussie singer Deltra Goodram. Very anti-climactic. Mostly, we stressed about what would happen if one or two of us got on the flight and not the others, since everyone had such a good reason to go home. (Especially this Mississippi couple whose son moved to Australia 9 years ago and has only come home twice since – get these people on a plane!) Would any of us be generous enough to give up our spot? Probably not.

And then, just like that, we all got on. It was incredibly exciting and I was glad to have people to jump around with and hug, rather than being all happy by myself. The flight was long and my ears were bad (I was also really nauseous and couldn’t eat anything – what’s with my crappy immune system?!) and I thought I was going to get bumped from my Sydney-Cairns flight, but I wasn’t and Mark was at the airport and everything was smooth sailing from then on. Oh, except for my bags still being in LA, but they were delivered yesterday (by an elderly man who really shouldn’t be carrying people’s oversized luggage) so after wearing the same sweaty dress for two days, I’m all unpacked and clean and ready to roll.

Mark and I had already agreed on an apartment (via online real estate sites) and he had moved in on the 11th, so it was nice for me to move straight into our apartment. It’s actually a two-storey townhouse, absolutely beautiful – airy, spacious, hardwood floors, great furniture, gardens out the windows, clean and modern – AND it has a pool, which we didn’t think was the case from the web site or from Mark’s first, quick tour of the place. I spent the day yesterday picking up extra sheets, towels, garbage bins, light bulbs, organizing baskets and other such household items, and we re-arranged the furniture right away, so now I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived and I just keep wandering around and smiling at how nice and clean everything is.

Tropical jungle pool



Nice big windows out to the upstairs deck



View from guest room over main entrance



Garden outside main bedroom



What I had forgotten about the tropics is how noisy the creatures around you can be. The frogs are incredibly loud, the geckos make this weird little barking noise and there’s this creepy, whispered “hey” outside my room in the early morning. The worst, though (other than our loud neighbours with their totally screechy saxophone jazz and raucous parties) are the wild cockatoos that fly around in packs and squawk like they’re trying to raise the dead. It’s amazing and completely miserable, but it doesn’t last long – some kind of evening thing they have going on.

As for poop, I was sitting at the table yesterday when something hit my arm – I figured it was a bug of some sort but eventually noticed some lizard poo on the table. There’s an overhanging bit of ceiling, you see, and one of the many geckos running around on it had let loose right above me – luckily it bounced off my arm and not into my hair. I sit in a different chair now, though apparently it’s good luck when a gecko poops on you.

Less charmingly, Mark said that the other morning he found some possum poo right inside the big sliding door to the bedroom, which you have to leave open because it’s too hot to sleep otherwise, but which doesn’t have a screen door. I’m not that concerned about cleaning up the occasional little deposit, but I’m not feeling so hot about possums coming into the room and am trying to come up with a plan of action in case I ever wake up to see two little shining eyes staring at me in the night. I guess if you’re going to be all thrilled to be surrounded by trees, you have to deal with the tree dwellers as well.

Now for the best part. Better than a beautiful apartment with a pool, you ask? How is that possible? Better than being surrounded by lush, green mountains? Better than having a corner plaza with a goodwill, a post office, a Thai take-out restaurant AND a Brumby’s bakery?

Check it out: Jason (the pilot who looks like Jon Livingstone) happened to have a flight up to Cairns yesterday so Mark went and rescued him from a staff-hotel-room-and-partying-cabin-crew evening to come have a barbecue with us. They were chatting so much that he missed the turn-off and had to circle back, which meant that they passed a couple of big fields that are past Trinity Beach and pretty much right behind our house. Guess what lives in those fields? A herd of kangaroos! Kangaroos!



Like, maybe eighty of them, just hanging out in this grassy spot, munching away and completely unconcerned if you go right up close to them. So having never managed to see a proper kangaroo during the whole thirteen months I lived in Australia last year, I’ve landed in a house that is two minutes from their operational headquarters. I am so pleased.



I guess that’s it. My body is all puffy and panicky from the sudden heat, but I’m not that concerned because I have nothing better to do than just hang around and wait for it to work itself out. I’ve been driving a lot and was surprised at how easily I got back into the system; the opposite side of the road is actually a whole lot less of a problem than Mark’s big sedan, since I’m used to small cars. My old cell phone even still works! And I won’t even think about job searching until after Christmas, which will be a family visit period for us and during which everything’s closed anyway. In other words, now that I’ve finished with the household errands and my luggage got here in one piece, I’m ready to hit the beach or the pool as soon as the sun comes out; this is the rainy season here, so I’m happy to have nothing to do so that I can take advantage of the nice days when they occur. The rest of the time, it’s nice to sit and read with the shushing of the rain all around.

I hope you all have happy holidays and that 2010 is full of good stuff.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Nine: Hawai'i

I like to feel that I've wrapped things up, and since I get on a plane bound for Toronto tonight, now's as good a time as any to end the series.

When I last wrote, I was heading out to Hawaii. I made the mistake of assuming that Tahiti would have a modern, happening airport, with fancy features like toilets and phones. I checked my luggage, emptied my could-be-a-bomb water bottle and headed through the point-of-no-return security check to the big room where all the boarding gates are, which turned out to be under construction. No water (which they didn't mention when they made me dump mine out), NO TOILETS - for a three-hour gate-wait - and no phones, which was the biggest crisis of all, since I had just received bad news from Australia and needed to call. Also, no air conditioning, fans or open windows, but lots of smokers. (Tahiti is French, remember.)

By the time we boarded the plane at midnight, I was so nauseous, dehydrated, shaky and depressed that I had no strength left to fight the meat-freezer cabin temperature and arrived in rainy, five a.m. Honolulu with a cold and some kind of stomach bug. (The cold didn't last long, but the bug wreaked havoc on my sight-seeing.)

The reason I went to Hawaii was to visit my friend Molly, who is in med school there. (It was nice to finally meet in person, having been pen pals since she replaced me as an English teacher in Guadeloupe.) I hijacked most of the first day with my sniffly-sneeziness and an epic nap, but on the second day we kicked off the tourism week and went whale-watching. I got sea-sick and there were no whales, though there was a group of dolphins that jumped along beside the boat and then hung out while everyone took pictures (except me; too sea-sick…)

Molly was probably wondering what kind of a loser she was stuck with for the week, but when we went back out with our try-again voucher, it was beautiful and sunny with not too much choppiness and I felt like a million bucks - and we saw whales. While they were beautiful and it’s moving to think of them just being there in the water, though, the boat wasn’t allowed to get too close so we mostly saw puffs of water, slippery backs and the occasional tail. (The dolphin sighting was actually much more satisfying - unfortunately, neither whale nor dolphin appears in any of my pictures, so you'll have to just use your imagination...)

The really entertaining thing turned out to be the many Japanese tourists on the boat with us, who gasped and clapped at every single water spurt. Now, it’s definitely exciting the first time, the second and maybe – maybe – even the third. After that, it’s nice to watch but it stops being surprising; you can just stand there, scanning quietly for signs of movement and smile at the thought that you’re looking at whales. No need to keep ooh-ing ah-ing, right? Apparently not. Sometimes the gasps were so huge that I thought something really important was happening and tried to spot the whale leaping out of the water or the shark attack, but it was only ever another water puff or a glimpse of a back.

(There was briefly some serious action when two pods met up and started showing off for each other, with some fin-slapping and general broo-ha-ha; interestingly, that’s when the group stopped gasping, many going back inside to sit down because they were apparently over it.)

On one of Molly's full days of class, I took the bus over to Hanauma Bay, which is known for its amazing snorkeling. I didn’t realize that it was the biggest tourist attraction in the area and that there would be a beach entry fee, an mandatory educational video (don’t walk on the reef, don’t pee in the water, etc.) and a gazillion people, but once I had taken so long to get there, I figured I could just find a quiet spot to read my book and go hang out with the fish when the crowd started to dwindle.

The thing about Hawaii tourism, though, is that the crowds never seem to dwindle. There were 140 seats in the video, which played every 15 minutes, and every single one was full; imagine 560 people an hour coming to swim at a beach that is about 500 metres long. I didn’t bother getting snorkel gear and trying to shove my way into the group, since I figured I would mostly have great views of other snorkelers but not so much the fish themselves. (Especially after the near-deserted beaches in Tahiti, it was hard to share my water space; tourism is tough-going when you’ve been spoiled!) The water was also pretty icy, so just going in for the occasional cool-down was more than enough for me.

My favourite moment was when a girl was adjusting her bikini top and it slipped down, exposing a breast for maybe one eighth of a second, before she gasped and pulled it back into place, looking mortified and apologetic. A woman sitting nearby was fully scandalized, huffing indignantly about there being children on the beach, and the family next to her joined in the cause, hoping to god that their children hadn’t seen such filth and there you go, you can’t even go to a public beach anymore without risking exposure to pornography. While they fretted and fussed over the possibility that their eight-year-old may have seen a flash of a human breast and may therefore be scarred for life and turn away from the church to take up prostitution and star in adult movies, I imagined the tan lines that were undoubtedly working their way into my own skin and wistfully remembered the beautiful Tahitian beaches where you can get as naked as you want and get brown all over, just as god intended. (Apparently we aren’t all talking about the same god…)


On Wednesday night, Molly and I took a bus through the mountains to do full moon yoga on Lanikai Beach. We ran into some problems upon our triumphant arrival, having followed the directions of both the bus driver and some friendly locals, when we couldn’t see yoga anywhere and were informed that this was actually such-and-such beach and the one we wanted was way over there, up the road and around the corner. We set off over the sand through the increasing darkness, Molly being convinced that set-backs are good, as they make an event more memorable, and I being highly suspicious of the lack of a full moon – or any moon, really – and wondering if Molly hadn’t confused the dates.

(Incidentally, even before we saw it for ourselves, the full moon-ness of the night was confirmed by the man we encountered in a beach-access alley, just as I was standing up out of a “private moment” squat; he was going to the beach to see the full moon and was disappointed that it wasn’t out yet, though Molly pointed out to me that he did see a full moon of one kind, if not quite the one he expected. I was mortified.)

We ended up finding the beach and the yoga, still in the dark but with the soothing sound of the sea (and the less-soothing sound of a big group of friends having a beach pow-wow about ten feet away from us, apparently not interested in choosing a spot somewhere else on the huge, empty beach). At one point it started to rain, which the yoga instructor called “blessings” and which Molly and I called “a long, wet, cold ride home on a severely air-conditioned bus,” but it didn’t last. Eventually the moon came out and was gorgeous, so low and huge and a warm, cheesy yellow; the only thing missing was muscle tone, and we all know whom I have to blame for that.

Otherwise, we had a nice – and tourist-packed – walk through the forest to Manoa Falls, including an off-the-beaten-track jaunt through some unexpectedly beautiful bamboo, and we spent my last morning at Shangri-La, the fancy-pants estate of a rich, eccentric lady named Doris Duke. This particular house (she owned several) was decorated in an Islamic theme, with gorgeous mosaics and tapestries and all manner of beautiful things. I love mosaic patterns and tile work, so I was pretty much jealous for most of the tour, wondering if I could find a way to recreate some of her fabulous rooms in my own home. It’s never going to happen, but it was a nice way to fantasize the morning away.

We had a rainy stroll around Waikiki-at-night, which is quite chi-chi and pretty much completely out of my league. Even finding stickers for Karine (they don’t have that kind of thing in France and I had confidently assured her that it would be no problem) took two hours of walking around the shopping centre and cost me more than I would have expected to pay for a manicure and skin treatment. You’re not in Kansas anymore…

It was a nice week, a nice break from family life, and now I’m back in Tahiti, having had one storm day, one beach day and one more day at school (giving out Canadian stickers and tattoos made me even more of a superstar on campus than I already was), and tonight at the airport I’m not going into the gate until the very last minute, onward and upward.

Thanks for reading along and… see you soon.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Eight: Tahiti

I’m actually no longer in Australia, but am writing from Papeete, Tahiti. Phone and internet are so slow here, information so difficult to come by and everything so seemingly distant that it’s hard to focus on anything outside of my immediate surroundings. I’ll try, though, so that I can wrap up Townsville and put it all behind me.


Part One: Good-bye, Townsville

After our hot and tropical Christmas, the rain started - it hadn’t stopped when I left and it hasn’t stopped now, as a cyclone hit Queensland yesterday (no details yet on the outcome.) Mark and I headed up to a holiday apartment in Trinity Beach over New Year’s, a Christmas gift from his parents. Our pre-departure plans consisted of exploring the area, enjoying the pool and lying on the beautiful beach, baking in the summer sun - but that was before the rain.

The reality was that we spent five out of the seven days stuck indoors, watching movies and doing jigsaw puzzles while the storms raged around us. (Though, to be fair, we were also very excited about having a couch for a week, so at least that wasn’t wasted by our actually leaving the apartment on a regular basis.) Every once in a while there would be a patch of clear sky and we’d run down to the beach, but it was closed every time because when any North Queensland beach finds a stinger in the stinger net, all the beaches close for the rest of the day. Apparently that was a bad week for stinger nets. (We did spend as much time as possible in the pool, though, not least because it featured a very exciting - if hygienically suspicious – sauna option.)

We did have one sunny morning that we spent on a crocodile-sighting tour of the Daintree River and one fully sunny day of snorkeling at Green Island. We had a rough start, including not being able to find the boat departure, getting severely sunburned on the ferry (you know when you find yourself pulling thick, dead flakes of skin out of your hair for the next week?) and battling the epic crowds on this tiny little tourist trap island.

Ultimately, though, we had a beautiful, calm day of snorkeling, which ended abruptly when I saw a shark swim past me, about three feet from my face - a shark, you understand - and booked it out of the water with the speed of an Olympic swimmer (or Olympic scaredy-cat), only to stand anxiously on the shore, shouting at Mark to get out of the water but unable to break through his fuzzy snorkeling sound shell and too much of a coward to go back in and pull him out. (He eventually surfaced to de-fog his mask and bore unfortunate witness to my frantic near-hysteria. “A shark?” he said, “where? I want to see it.”) As for the shark, it obviously couldn’t care less about our presence in the water, being either very well-fed or simply one of those sharks that isn’t into people, which is something I would have liked to know ahead of time.

Back in Townsville, I had a good long stretch of not working: it’s hard enough to find office-type work in a blue collar town at the best of times, so during the panicky beginning of a recession, it wasn’t happening. I did a few more promotions and worked the bar at some basketball games, as well as having some more hours with Angus just before I left, including going on-site with him and doing construction work. Go figure.

Mostly, though, I endlessly re-created the Trinity Beach week, only alone. I read, I watched movies, I did puzzles, I baked. I couldn’t leave the house most days because of the rain (most of you probably saw footage of the horrible fires in the South of the country, but I don’t know if you were up on the flooding situation; this has broken all records for being the wettest, most flooded year in Australian history.) It was bad enough in a car - though I was always grateful for even a ride to the grocery store, just for a change of scenery - but on foot or by bike it was obviously out of the question. When I was working, we organized elaborate carpool plans; the rest of the time, I sat in our moldy apartment in my moldy clothes and watched my skin turn pale.

(After two weeks of not having a day of work or sunshine, Angus called and I went in three days in a row, all three of which were hot, glorious, sunny days. The fourth day, the rain started as I was packing my beach bag and didn’t stop until the next time I went in for work. I know that a lot of people had real problems and I had nothing to complain about, but doesn’t that sound a bit unfair?)

The lack of work was frustrating, but it did give me time to sort out my teacher registration stuff, take care of paper work like bank accounts and taxes, sell my stuff and spend lots of time with Mark while I still could. (Especially when he couldn’t go to work because of the floods, so we got to read, watch movies, do puzzles and bake - together!) And if anyone’s going to be stuck in the house for weeks at a time, it’s probably best that it be me; I can do absolutely nothing for a lot longer than most people before I start to get depressed.

The last few days were sad the way that last few days are wont to be, but a definite highlight was my first trip to a real live casino. After watching the movie “21” and wondering how the whole card-counting thing works, Mark and I started playing Blackjack and decided that since we were just so good at it, we should head over to the casino sometime. In our game, though, the non-dealer’s hand was not out in plain view, so there was some bluffing involved. I like to think of myself as having a particularly excellent poker face (Mark, misguided as he is, claims that this is untrue), at least for the first few minutes of the game, before I get the giggles. I figured that I could quickly make a couple of hundred and take off as soon as I felt my focus starting to slip.

It turns out, however, that it’s all open on the table! Dammit! You can’t bluff, you have no control over the situation, you can just sit there and watch them take your money away. I watched a few people laying down chip after chip and losing it all and was too intimidated to play, but after sitting in on Mark’s game for a few rounds, I decided that you only live once and I traded in my twenty dollars for some chips. I was a very responsible gambler, putting aside whatever I won and only ever playing my original bet, so that at the very least I would walk out with my original twenty dollars, except that… wait for it… I ended up with eighty dollars! Sixty dollars profit! My casual plan to make hundreds of dollars was maybe aiming a bit too high, but within my own comfort level I’m actually a hot mama at the Blackjack table. I can’t wait for round two, for which I intend to wear extravagantly high heels and possibly draw a dark beauty mark just under my lip.

Part Two: French Polynesia

My trip home is all international flights, where you’re allowed two bags at 23kg each. After spending over a year in Townsville, I culled through everything I owned, made some hard decisions, gave eight bags to good will, packed only what I really loved or needed and got it down to about 50kg total. At the Townsville airport, though, they informed me that no, in fact, for domestic flights (Townsville to Sydney) I’m only allowed to have 23kg. If I tried to bring everything I had, it would be about $250 in overweight charges.

Now, a tearful morning at the airport is never fun, so finding out that I had to go through my “bare minimum” and get rid of half of it was unsettling, to say the least. Even I, who love a good cull, was pretty weepy about having to ruthlessly abandon anything that wasn’t immediately necessary in my life. (You know that great Chinese bathrobe? And the sexy cleavage top with the lace along the straps? Gone. Feel my pain.)

Mark got some bags out of the car and we filled them up with all of the discards, all the shirts and bras and shoes that were lying on the floor of the airport, and I got my overweight charge down to my casino winnings. And we agreed that having that kind of situation to deal with was a good distraction from the sadness of saying good-bye.

My night in Sydney was uneventful, in a Formule 1 hotel (where the bathroom is so tiny that they ask you to close the door while the shower is on, lest you flood the whole room) at which I paid $7 for the “continental breakfast” that turned out to be a selection of white bread, jam, coffee and tea. And not even nice tea, just tea.

Air Tahiti was very exciting because the flight attendants changed outfits three times, so that we were greeted by shoulder pads and heels, then served by traditional flower dresses, then sent off by cute little enjoy-the-breeze dresses. And they gave us those yummy-smelling flowers during the flight, then blasted Tahitian music as soon as we landed, so we were all in full tourist mode before even setting foot in the place.

What would you most want to know about Tahiti? It’s not necessarily as you picture it, for one. Papeete is full of people and noise and litter, though there is definitely a stunning mountain backdrop and once you go up the coast in either direction it gets a lot calmer.

There are hens everywhere. And chickens and roosters and all manner of loud, freakish farm birds.

Those beautiful Tahitians, all slender and curvy with coconut boobs and a long, black braid? Fictional. People here are quite big, kind of a sumo vibe. The official reason for this is apparently that they went from having zero money to lots and lots of it when France set up the military. So they suddenly have lots of money, which means that every third car (not an exaggeration) is an SUV, they eat horribly and they don’t get any exercise. At this point, sixty per cent of the 18-35 population suffers from diabetes/heart problems/cholesterol type health problems, to the point where they can’t work past 40 years old. SIXTY per cent! The implications on the health system and the economy are really scary, but they aren’t doing the kinds of health-and-fitness education initiatives that everyone else is. Pretty scary.

I walked Eva to her junior high and was completely intimidated by the aggressive stares of the kids sitting outside, smoking: not only are they huge, but they also aren’t the soft, gentle people they are stereotyped to be; they’re pretty tough and very hostile. And they walk around with ghetto blasters, ‘80s style.


Lots of tattoos, thick and usually full-arm or -leg, usually symbolic. They look really good.

Here’s an interesting one: there are boys who are raised as girls, called “les rérés.” My hosts claimed that it was just at random, like Catholic families who decide that the first son will be a priest, but a local guy I met told me that it’s only boys who are a bit effeminate in the first place, raised to be women so that nobody will give them a hard time about it. Some of them are like drag queens, tall and gorgeous and much more womanly than your average woman, plus with great legs. But most of them are dumpy and heavy with moustaches and sailors’ muscles. Isn’t that an interesting societal decision?

The accent is lovely, with a rolled “r” instead of the throaty French one. And they only say “tu,” never “vous,” which is VERY hard to get used to. Imagine talking to an old man for the first time and saying “est-ce que tu sais quand le prochain ferry arrive?”

Pretty nosy. I pay my bus fare, she says “voilà, madame. Or is it mademoiselle?” A few people (as in, total strangers, on the bus or handing me the drink I just bought) have asked me my religion.

As for my own situation here, I have found it a bit exhausting to fit into a family routine that is not mine. The teenage hormones, for one. The very specific way of doing things, for another, so that when I try to help I’m actually not helping, but what am I supposed to do, sit around and not help?

And then there’s just the Frenchness of it all, which I miss when I’m away but which drives me a bit crazy when I’m in it. The way that women flutter around their men, with their voices going up really high and full of baby talk; the way the men explain things to you (even things that you know a lot about, like, say, the country you’re from) as if you were a child, indeed a moronic child; the stress about good grades and this one getting .25 less than his school rival, so maybe he should be studying harder…

Here’s my least favourite word in French: allez. It means “oh, come on” and can be “mais, allez” or “allez, Kathryn” or any other variation, but you have to say it a certain way. “Mais, allez” is pronounced “meh ah-leh,” except that you really drag out the “leh,” with your lips pursed and the tone of someone who is speaking to the biggest asshole they’ve ever encountered.
Katy: “I don’t like mountain biking; it makes me anxious and afraid.”
French person: “Mais al-LEZ, Kathryn,” meaning “oh, come on, of course you want to come to the race we’re running in and mountain bike behind us. Why would anyone not like to do the things that we like to do? If you don’t like to do what we like to do, then you are obviously wrong.”

Once at the race, on the mountain bike, I certainly felt smug when all these die-hard runners came gasping along the trail, hot and exhausted and looking like they were about to throw up. They made comments about the heat and looked at me for sympathy - forget it! What kind of idiot runs in a mountain race in the middle of the summer in Tahiti? Of course it’s hot! Get yourself to a water source like anyone with half a brain, or suck it up; just don’t live your life pretending that you’re still in Bordeaux and then look at me for support when the sun starts to burn.

I went into school with Karine a few times to speak English with the kids, most of whom do languages through a computer program and were just off their tits excited to have a real, live English person in the classroom with them. When I took them outside for games they looked at me like I was the Messiah and when I brought out the guitar they practically passed out with joy. It was very worthwhile, not least because it reminded me of what the French school system is like and how much I would never want to put my kids in it, so it might make my future life decisions easier for everyone involved. We may not have their delicious food, but at least we don’t make our six-year-olds sob all over their workbooks because they didn’t underline the date with the right pen.

Is that enough negative? Let’s talk about the good times, too: the best days have been when I’ve gone out on my own schedule and done things alone, so that I had a better feeling of the local lifestyle. After a few creepy encounters at the beach, for example, I met Matahi (which sounds more like Mat-HAY-ee, as they’re quite percussive with their “h”s), an interesting, curious, funny guy who took me around to see different beaches and local sites and was just a lot of fun.

I had some hilarious (and sometimes surreal) conversations on buses and while hitch-hiking, and when I’m not with a whole group of white people, the locals seem less resentful of me and are willing to take a chance. Maybe because when I’m alone I look more like a tourist, rather than with grocery bags and a family of four.

I went over on the ferry to neighbouring island Moorea, which is much smaller and more authentically Polynesian, hardly any French people (other than the hotels) and, of course, so beautiful. (The water here is unbelievable, to the point where you can just stand there and watch all these amazing, colourful fish swim around you and you don’t even need a snorkeling mask.)

On the ferry ride over to Moorea I got quite boat sick, to the point where I got off and puked my guts out into the nearest garbage can, thereby missing the one bus that leaves for every ferry arrival. I would have to wait two hours for the next one but luckily was able to hitch-hike (which isn’t really done here, apparently) with this little old man who insisted on taking me all the way to my destination, way past his house, so that he could keep giving me a tour of his beloved island.

The destination was the Intercontinental hotel, where they have dolphins. I couldn’t justify paying for the swim-with-dolphins package, but even sitting beside them was awesome. (Really awe-some, for those of you - ahem, Papa - who think I overuse the word!) I stayed almost two hours, occasionally chatting with the concierge who kept coming around to hang out with me, before finally tearing myself away, with the promise that someday - preferably when I’m not by myself - I’ll swim with them.

(Hopefully as a guest of the Intercontinental, which is just beautiful and has those little huts on the water so that you wake up, accept the fruit that someone has kayaked up to your door, then step out into the turquoise sea and watch the dolphins play as the sun rises. Sigh.)

I walked to the Tipannier public beach, but the access to it is private. Right. Feeling very devious, I snuck around the back, slicing my leg open on some kind of scary vine, and made it through to the beach, only to discover that the boat that takes you across to the tiny snorkeling islands wasn’t running because the guy wasn’t there that day. His dad was, though, and offered for me to take a kayak across for the same price. Great!

Off I went, a pretty hard row but that’s okay, because apparently there are rays that swim up over you and beautiful fish. I got the kayak up on shore and got into the water, then when I tried to stand still to put my mask on, the current dragged me away. It was so strong that I couldn’t get anywhere and had to hold on to the big rocks in the water if I wanted to stay still, but why bother because the current was too strong for the fish - of which I saw literally two in half an hour. I eventually gave up and tried kayaking around the mini islands, which wasn’t a go, tried walking through the islands, but they were full of brambles and painful, scratchy things, so I got back into the kayak and headed back to the beach. In a windstorm. Where did it come from? The twenty-minute ride took me over an hour on the way back, as I was constantly tossed up on the shore (at people’s houses) and couldn’t get back to the beach. Very exciting stuff.

(Moral of the story: choose your own activities, rather than doing what someone told you was great, because they were there in a different season and under different circumstances and when you do it, it kind of sucks.)

I had a really long chat with the dad, who is from Pays-Basque and definitely one of my new favourite people, then missed the bus, hitch-hiked back to the ferry and got sick again on the way home. Moorea: check.

So that’s where I’m at. It’s really quite beautiful here, I’ve loved my beach days, I feel sunned and soothed and will be sad to leave, I’ve had a warm welcome from my hosts and although it’s rained half the time I’ve been here (which meant lots of frustrating games of Scrabble in French), it’s been a really nice holiday so far. Lots to see and do and think about, lots of interesting conversations and unexpected discoveries, AND they have my beloved Milka chocolate. It will take a lot of will power not to pack eight kilos of it into my suitcase.

Tonight I leave for a week in Hawai’i. This is the life!

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Seven

Holiday Greetings!

Who's up for some news? It's Boxing Day and the cricket is on – God help us all – and while I'm trying to be a good sport and get into the holiday spirit, I can't sit through an entire day (or two or three or five) of this mind-numbing game. I've already finished my jigsaw puzzle, painted my toenails, washed the floor, done the laundry and sewn hems on two shirts. I'm out of excuses not to be sitting in front of the television, which happens to be where the internet plugs in, so it looks like it's time for an update...

***For those of you who skip the reading or who don't make it to the end, let me wish you lots of joy in this holiday season. Best of everything in 2009!***

Teachers' College

Done! Ha! Never again!

Work

Interesting situation that I find myself in. I quit the restaurant, see, having had enough of crazy long shifts, angry staff, absentee management, total mayhem most of the time, and of course the constantly and excessively drunk customers. Done and done. And why not? I'll just pick up some office work, get some temp stuff until my papers come through and I can do some supply teaching – no problem.

Turns out, though, that in blue-collar army/mining towns like this, the only temporary work is in manual labour – other than some office work for government/army organizations, but then you need to be an Australian citizen. I thought it might actually be a good idea to get my construction site blue card and a pair of steel-toe boots, as doing some digging and hauling and lifting would make me strong and fit (and rich) – but even that fell through because you have to have your own transportation to get out to construction/farm/mine sites way out of Townsville, and my bicycle -- though excellent -- just won't cut it.

But no need to panic. First, I've found this guy who runs a construction company from home and needs office management help, such as typing up project bids and e-mails and letters to sub-contractors and anything else that needs to be done around the office.
He even lets me unleash my organization skills, including furniture re-arrangement – look out! Cash-in-hand, super casual (jean shorts, tank tops and bare feet tend to be my work uniform) and a nice family vibe, as I get to chat with his teacher wife and coo at their eight-week-old baby.

Second – and less satisfying but we all have to pay our bills, right? – is working for a promotions company, which I thought would be dressing up in ice cream costumes and handing out popsicles at the beach and that kind of thing. It's not. So far, in a series of increasingly inappropriate-for-me-and-everything-I-stand-for promo jobs, I've been:


1. The pork lady, setting up a stand in the supermarket to cook and hand out samples of "moisture-infused" pork;


2. The White Stag girl, standing in drive-thru bottle shops (oh yes, they have drive-thru alcohol stores), handing out samples of Toohey's latest low-carb beer to people in cars; and


3. The Beer Promo Chick, setting up kegs of Pure Blond Naked and serving it out to drunk soldiers at the local army base's end-of-year parties. (You can't see the high heels and cleavage hole, but it was hot!)

They were desperate for staff and super grateful that I showed up when I did, but I'm not exactly what they're looking for in a promo chick – which I should have figured out from their being called "Casting Couch" and having a web site full of pictures of girls in slutty costumes and coquettish (read: whorish) poses. As it happens, they're so disorganized that I was mostly left to my own devices for the first few weeks, just wearing more or less conservative black, depending on the venue. I chose to disregard the army base uniform of "high heels, short black shorts and baby tee," for example, opting to wear pants and a fitting top and let my sparkling personality make up for the rest.

I was a bit suspicious when I opened the bag for the first White Stag deal, surprised to discover that a ten-year-old child would be accompanying me on this beer promo and then realizing that, in fact, I was supposed to be wearing those tiny little munchkin-sized short shorts. I started to think that maybe this wasn't going to be the best job for me. Now I've seen the doll-sized one-piece Kahlua overalls and the bra-and-short-shorts standard "uniform" for anything pub-related and I think I'm going to look into a different line of work in the new year, though no one can take away the memories. Ah, Casting Couch.

Teaching

Grade six was great. I was all stressed out about going back to pre-teens after having such fun with the littlies, but forget it – grade six is a fantastic age and I'm hoping against hope that one of the grade seven teachers gets sick in January so that I can have my class back for a few weeks.

I'm not such a great basketball coach, is the only thing. I mean, I'm a terrible basketball coach. But other than that, we did so many interesting things, had such good talks – about racism, relationships, community, travel, kindness, politics, xenophobia, "lie" vs. "lay" – you name it – did rich tasks and integrated activities, including everything from yoga and aerobics (for the mandatory half-hour of exercise a day) to folk singing and mock elections. Awesome.

They went a little wild for my birthday, decorating the classroom with balloons, bringing me gifts and chocolates (no complaints here), writing me cards... and then two days later it was my last day and they did it all over again, only with tears and promises and lots of hugs, even from the boys. What do you with all the overwhelming love that you feel for a group of kids? I went back to see the plays they performed for the parents and some of the shyest kids were up on stage, everyone so excited and nervous and the whole thing so dear – I could hardly stand to watch it, I was so choked up with it all. How could anybody not want to work with kids?!

As for the littlies, I kept going in when I could and got to witness some pretty excellent six-year-old moments, like funny little Leita saying to Clay, who had just let her use his ladybug eraser: "You're the greatest friend I've ever had." Or Harley, part of some in-joke that I was not in on: "Hello, Hannah. Or should I say, 'Lulu.'"

My favourite one all year, possibly ever: Georgia is a little girl who's having a pretty rough time of it all, generally quite bright but totally disengaged and can sit for an entire day and get nothing done, other than distracting everyone around her. I think she's super cute and was lucky to have a really good connection with her, as some kids just respond better to different teachers. (Greta wasn't a big fan of Georgia's, but she loved the kid that I would have paid money to remove from the class. Go figure.) Georgia just thought I was really great and always worked hard when I was there, getting completed-work stars for the first time all year.

Now: Peter, a funny-little-old-man-though-only-six, sees Georgia's sticker card, which suddenly has all these gold stars. He says: "Georgia, is that your sticker card? Are those all your stars? Wow, Georgia – you're only two stars away from a tuck shop voucher! Well done, Georgia! You must have really been working hard, to get all those stickers – that's just great! Good on ya, Georgia! You must be so pleased with yourself – well done!" With Georgia just standing there, beaming.

**And let's not forget the lesson in that: model positive behaviour and language with the children in your lives, because they really do pick it up and use it. And so earnestly!

They wrote me messages during a computer lesson and Greta e-mailed it to me. This was Georgia's:

Halomrstomesm
Iyvbenwiliygoodforthelast3weiyweksbutimissyoulovegeorgia

And some of the other ones, just because it's funny to see how they write at that age (don't think they haven't been told – and told and told and told – about spaces between words!):

-Hellomristomeshowareyougoinglovedaniellefulton

-Haloo mess tomes from Harley

-Deatomes tomsmarrychrtmasnadahaveahappynewyearfrombrysonn

Seriously, though – how could anyone not want to work with kids?

*You know how people say that baseball is too slow because a game can take up to three or four hours? The same cricket batter, this one guy, has been going for four hours – FOUR HOURS – and the game is not finished until every batter on both teams has had a go. Four hours! He's had a total of eight different people pitching to him so far! There is a morning tea break, a lunch break, an afternoon tea break, and then they come back tomorrow and keep going. They won't let it go longer than: five days. That's about 30 hours of game time. Even just having Mark try to and explain the rules makes me hostile, anxious, bored, aggressive and depressed. All at once. Am I just being close-minded or is this the single most absurdly ridiculous game on the planet? Who ARE these people?

Nature

So here's something that's a problem for me in Australia. I'm here because I love the tropics, right? I can accept that there are ants EVERYWHERE, in all the food, without exception. I can accept that there are giant flying cockroaches and that my fingers swell up and ache in the humidity. I can accept that there are huge and terrifying storms that cause major flooding and take out all the power for up to seven or eight hours, melting the ice cream and keeping the laundry perpetually moldy and damp – even though it isn't officially cyclone season yet. I can accept all the less-fantastic things because they're in exchange for water holes and beautiful beaches and a real return to nature, right?

So it's irritating that even nature is a bust. To wit: Mark and I drive out to Jourama, a water hole/creek that he remembers from a few years ago and wants to revisit. A beautiful day, perfect for a nature walk, a peaceful break from city sounds and smells. Can't wait.

We set off through the forest, which is probably pretty but who knows, since we're concentrating so hard on swatting away the monster flies – horse flies? deer flies? – that are taking chunks out of our skin.

We arrive at the first swimming spot, slow-motion tip-toe our way over the treacherously slippery rocks and, sweating profusely from the sun and the forest mugginess, jump into the water. It's just as cold as expected, knock-the-breath-out-of-you cold, delicious mountain-water-cold – but there are little crab things that are chomping away at our flesh and it's more stressful than it's worth.

When we try to warm up in the sun, though, we are so completely swarmed by the monster flies that we can't even take the time to dress or pack. In our dripping bathing suits and carrying clothes, shoes, cameras and sandwich bags, we slip and slide back over the rocks (which really are dangerous if you're distractedly running away from giant mutant flies) and scramble up through the forest until we escape the hub of the swarm – though by no means escaping the flies altogether.

We climb up to the look-out, gasping for breath in the humidity and the direct sun, and when we reach the end point, the big prize with the nice waterfall view, Mark turns to make a comment and I can't hear a word he's saying. He tries again, but he's too exhausted to raise his voice higher than the ear-splitting roar that is surrounding us. What is this noise? Well, it's crickets, cicadas, frogs, birds – any number of creatures, all sitting in the trees and making a hideous, overwhelming symphony of sound.

And as we stand there, panting, sweating, swatting the monster flies away from our itchy, red bodies, deaf to everything but the piercing car-alarm-like cacophany of the forest, we think: what are we doing here? This is hell. If we had to design hell, this is how we'd do it. If we wanted peace, we should have stayed in the apartment with the ceiling fan on; neighbours' squabbles and loud music have nothing on the misery of a nature walk.

We tried other water holes but the damn flies are relentless: either it's winter and it's too cold for ice swimming, or it's summer and you can't get near the water for the flies. You can't go near the beautiful beaches because there might be crocs and sharks and there are definitely stingers.

We went camping at this gorgeous waterfall on Christmas Eve and on the endless Christmas day hike down through the rain forest, we had warning after warning of the various poisonous plants to avoid (all of which are green and leafy, possibly with berries – thanks! That really narrows it down!) and how to be safe in croc country... It's hard to just enjoy the scenery around here.

I mean, it's beautiful - there are some beautiful places - but you don't really have access to most of it. Unfortunate, is all I'm saying.

(And when you do find a good one, like Crystal Creek, you take a picnic, you marvel at the beauty, you enjoy the clear, refreshingly cold water, you start to feel like things are maybe better than you thought, and then some dag-o, redneck, trashy, drunk hick, there with his group of dag-o, redneck, trashy, drunk friends, starts horking and/or stand-up peeing in the water and it's so gross that you can't even conceive of going back in and your "let's spend the day at Crystal Creek!" plan becomes "let's drive all the way to Crystal Creek, go in the water for eight minutes and then get the hell out before the yobbos' taunting turns into an attack." They go on and on about crocs here, but it's the locals you actually have to look out for.)

Anyway.

So there it is. The cricket game is going strong (looks to me like they're all standing around, but Mark informs me that there's a lot happening) but I might have to take a break to play with our beloved little neighbours' cat, Nugget, who is looking for someone to wrestle with. God bless Nugget.

Mark's parents gave him (and me, by extension – score!) a week in a hotel North of Cairns (= extremely tropical), so when we've had enough of nature day trips where we can't do anything, we'll have our choice of pools and general leisure activities. I can't wait. It's not like I've been very busy these past few weeks and particularly deserve a break, but it was pretty non-stop February through November, so I'm decided to be completely okay with just being pampered.

For all that I'm shut down on cold winters, I'm not a big fan of the tropical Christmas, at least not when they follow cold weather traditions. The Caribbean carnival thing was fine, because it was totally different from my sense of Christmas, but here, with their mall culture and fur coat Santa and "Let It Snow" and "Winter Wonderland" playing in the supermarket, it just makes me want to either go home or go very, very far from people. So I wish you all a very merry Christmas (or Boxing Day, since Christmas is over) and Happy New Year, and hope you're making the most of wherever you are and whomever you're with.

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Six

I'm still here. Haven't jumped ship, as some of you seemed to think, am not on a beautiful beach in Thailand or working in the mines – just trying to keep my head above water and wait until it's all over. But here's an update, for those of you who are concerned about my disappearance from your inboxes:

Uni

It's probably best that I not talk about teachers' college; no need to bring you all down with me, right? Suffice it to say that I'm counting down, desperately, and if you ever hear anyone say they're thinking of spending a year at JCU in Townsville, you just send them to me. Maybe I can convince them to go somewhere less damaging to the soul – like, oh, I don't know, Chernobyl. Or maybe Guantanamo Bay.

Travel

Last time I wrote I was just back from Sydney, and I thought I had all these stories to tell. On reflection, though, it was a great trip because of all the excellent people we met (through couch surfing), and that doesn't make for very good story-telling. ('And there was Jeremy, and he was really great... Then there was Kiko, a really great guy, oh, and Sam, our favourite host, was just so great!')

Sydney is definitely a beautiful city, but ultimately it's like Toronto, only with a much better use of its harbour. And with Lindt stores! Stores! Full of Lindt products! Including liquid-Lindt-hot-chocolate – needless to say, we stopped in a couple times a day. And good thing we did, because we needed all the warming up we could get; it was bloody freezing the whole week. Even after we went to K-Mart to buy socks, shoes, leggings and thermal underwear to add to our flannel pyjamas and sweatshirts, we still had to huddle together in our sleeping bags every night and invariably woke up with stiff, achy backs, chapped skin and cracking feet. But whatever. It was just a relief to be back in a place with different languages, colours, smells, sounds, foods... Even going to the pub was fun, because there were interesting people to talk to. I guess it's just tiring being in a small, white, drunk town for months on end.

Whitney and I, high on the Sydney trip and figuring the solution was to explore [warm] Queensland through couch surfing, drove up to Cairns and Port Douglas for a tropical tourist adventure. P.D. is quaint and quite charming, and there were some beautiful coastal driving views, but it turns out that the Beer, Boobs and Army Guys thing is Queensland-wide. It's best to just accept it, get over it and enjoy the sunshine.

The best part of the trip was definitely the soundtrack – once we'd made our way through the dodgy world music cds I'd picked up at the library, that is, and Whitney thought to plug in her i-pod. Are you all familiar with Mika? If not, then get on it! He makes for a good road trip, I'll tell you what, and 'Big Girls, You Are Beautiful' quickly became our theme song – and became increasingly appropriate as we chai latt-ayed our way through North Queensland. 'Get yourself to the butterfly lounge, find yourself a big lady': pure gold.

School

For my most recent prac, three weeks of full-load teaching, I was blessed with the most beautiful grade one class in the history of grade one classes – and I think I actually want to be a teacher again. Huzzah!

It was at a Catholic school, which – of course – I made a big fuss about, but in the end I discovered that they pay for Catholic school here, it isn't tax payers' money, so I don't really have a legitimate objection. I did have to lead morning prayers, throughout-the-day prayers, end-of-the-day prayers and a daily religion lesson, but I used it to talk about nature, the universe, human values and all the things that religion should be about. Plus, they light candles, which is always a good time.

I also got to sing, play phys-ed games, talk about sea turtles and saving the planet... grade one is the best! The best, I tell you. And they're so earnest, jumping fully on-board with whatever you're talking about. After a lesson on good lunches and bad lunches, as far as plastic wrap and bags versus tupperware and lunch boxes, I had all the parents coming in to thank me for turning their kids into little enviro-nazis. 'You can't wrap my sandwich in plastic, Mom – Miss Thomas said that it isn't biodegradable and it's piling up in the earth!'

There were such tears on my last day (mine and theirs!) that Greta, the teacher, asked me to come hang out from time to time. I've been going in for reading groups and general help, and even scored a field trip to the aquarium, which is the coolest place in Townsville (like being at the reef but without the sea-sickness or the hundreds of dollars.) I go back to grade six for all of October and it's going to be hard, but knowing that I get to go back to hang out with the littlies in November will make it easier to bear, I think.

Work

Man, hospitality is the worst! I'm a supervisor at the restaurant now – not because I want to be, but because there's no one else to do it – and that means that on top of having to try to please whoever's sitting in my section, I then have to shmooze and grovel and smooth over whatever goes wrong in everybody else's section as well. My coping strategy is to remember that people who feel so small in their own life that they feel it is acceptable to verbally abuse the complete strangers who are serving their food are too pathetic to deserve anything but my pity; they certainly aren't worth getting upset over. And, as you may have already picked up on, Townsville isn't the classiest place out there, and Island Man Sam is a diner/steak house, so we get some pretty rough-n'-rowdy guests – I can't expect people to be their most elegant when they're drunk (everyone here is always drunk – everyone, always) and riled up because their team lost the footie match.

People have commented on my complete serenity in the face of abusive customers, which makes me suspect that the months I spent dealing with snooty Club Med parents taught me some valuable skills, as far as smiling kindly, saying 'I can see you're upset,' never saying 'I'm sorry' and just thinking of something else (grocery lists/unit plans are great) while they get it out of their system. You want to vent? Go ahead, vent. Feel better. Now get the hell out of my restaurant.

Romance

Ha HA! In the face of a town of drunk rednecks, a job in hospitality, a uni program that is sucking my will to live and the mountains of useless-but-impossibly-time-consuming work that our so-called teachers assign us, romance saves the day. I don't like to talk about personal things in these updates, but it's become a fairly central feature of my Townsville life, so it makes sense to at least catch you up on the basic situation. Which is this: I'm dating my housemate! Boo-ya!

Kind of a strange set-up, as you can imagine, and it has certainly sped up the dating progression (we used the same bathroom to get ready for our first date), but it's been great having someone to vent to and then have fun with. He's taken me to see a lot of the beautiful natural stuff around Townsville that you need a car to get to – that's right, he has a car! He's a real grown-up, with a job and everything! Unprecedented! – as well as dinners out, romantic get-aways, drive-in movies (don't see Dark Knight! Horrible movie!), family outings (he's from Adelaide but most of his family has moved up here over the last few years), all sorts of good stuff. He's even signed us up for dancing lessons because he feels bad that I love to dance so much and he's so desperately lacking in body rhythm. (Oh, that famous White-Guy Syndrome. Sigh.)

**Or just White-People Syndrome in general. Take our salsa class last Monday, for example: isn't salsa supposed to be sexy, easy, fun, natural, here's the basic step now off you go? Not in ballroom, it isn't: put your head like this. Pinky out. Arm straight. A bit higher and to the left. Back straight, but leaning away from each other. Don't move your hips, just your legs. Where's the joy in it? Where's the rhythm? What's the point?

But I digress. I'm having a lot of fun with Mark and am grateful for the silver lining he provides against the dark, gloomy, pain-in-the-ass Townsville cloud I was getting used to. Oh, and he cooks – no more yoghurt-and-muesli dinners for me!



And... We’re Done

Not a lot of good stories – sorry about this year's lame up-dates – but there you have it. Just two months to go and then I'll never have to set foot in JCU again, unless it's to drop of hate-mail packages to some of this year's star players.

Wish me luck with my grade six prac – I'm sure I'll be out of touch again for a while, trying to figure out how to teach an extended unit on Australian government, but I do have internet access, so please keep me up-to-date on all your adventures up-over.

Still sober,

Kathryn

On the Townsville, Chapter Five

Okay, so it’s been a while. It hasn’t been the best year ever (read: a total bust and a waste of my precious youth…) so I haven’t exactly felt inspired to write and tell you all about it. However. Things are on the up and up, I think, and I’m starting to feel a bit better about the whole situation – I’ve stopped with the daily mantras of “Suck it up, Princess” and “Well, it can’t get any worse,” which I think is a good sign – so maybe this is the perfect time to bring you all up-to-date on the rip-roaring good time that is Townsville 2008 (before it gets bad again and I decide not to write after all…)

Teaching

Teachers’ College is still total crap, but I loved my first placement and am looking forward to getting back in the classroom for the next phase – some time in August, not sure of the details. I’m supposed to be sent out into the bush somewhere, so hopefully they’ll let me know where I’m going sooner than later so that I can set up some kind of living arrangements… Or whatever. I have a sleeping bag, I can figure it out.

Wallaboo is a beautiful school with really lovely kids and no real dress code, which is the definition of a good job as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t have to go out and buy dorky “professional” clothes, but could just wear whatever skirts, jeans and tops I felt like, and the students were endlessly pleased with having what they described as a hippie teacher. (They could barely contain their excitement the day I brought in my guitar for a musical send-off – apparently hippies are back in? Or at least, faux-hippies?)

As well as thinking that I was fabulously bohemian, the kids were convinced that I was having an affair with Mr. D, the funny seventh-grade teacher who is the only permanent male staff member and thus the only possible candidate for such a scandal. What were the events that prompted these rumours, you ask? Two things: first, I was assigned to Green House for the full-school track-and-field day, as I happened to be wearing green, and so Green-Captain-Mr.-D and I spent the morning leading cheers and rounding up groups of sweaty, confused, dehydrated Greenies. Then, that same afternoon, we stood together at the awards assembly, as our classes sit next to each other and this was the only place we could stand, and we talked for about thirty-five seconds about how things had gone for our sad, defeated Green House, before hushing up for the assembly and monitoring the kids.

Doesn’t seem like much, but apparently this is more than enough material for upper primary students to work with; by the end of the day Mr. D and I were in love, possibly secretly married, definitely dating, and the kids were giggling madly into their hands if we were spied anywhere remotely in the same vicinity. (My classroom directly faces his and the staff room – and only washroom – is in-between the two; we were, by definition, in the same vicinity pretty much all the time.) They asked me if I played love songs for him on the guitar, they told him that sunflowers are my favourite so that he won’t go wrong on our next date, they wrote Mr. D loves Miss Thomas on the blackboard in my room, they advised me on which clothes make me look prettiest (one boy: “if I were you, I’d wear a lot of green because it makes your eyes look like cats’ eyes”)… it was a very exciting week, to say the least. I’m back at Wallaboo for all of October, so it will be interesting to see if the time away has diminished or aggravated their commitment to this Very Exciting Situation. I will keep you posted.

Theft and Bicycle Assembly

Now, if my bike was stolen from the beach, in broad daylight, while I was having a little swim-and-read, how likely is it that I had locked it up properly? I SUSPECT that I was distracted by something, possibly by my discovery that the left brake had come apart, and didn’t actually lock the bike to anything. Locking the handlebars to the basket isn’t necessarily the best security strategy I could have come up with, is all I’m saying here.

Whatever the reason for the grand theft cyclo, I went back to K-Mart to buy a new bike – and helmet, lock, basket, lights and pump, bloody hell – and none of the assembled ones looked very appealing, so I chose the one I wanted and decided to just assemble it at home. I thought I’d take everything out of the box, just to see where we were at, and I saved time by pulling off all the taped-on packaging as I went. Then I looked at the booklet of hieroglyphics that claim to be assembly instructions, I turned the various bike parts around a few times, hoping for a clue, and ultimately I stuffed all the now-unprotected parts back in the box, drove back to K-Mart and paid the sixteen dollars to have the thing assembled, which took a week and did not, apparently, include putting air in the tires. In case you were wondering.

Adieu, my fair sky-blue Turbo bicycle, and god speed. Hopefully the punk kid who stole it discovered that the brakes were shot by crashing into a tree, or something karma-appropriate like that. More to the point, hopefully the kind of punk kid who steals someone’s bike won’t want to steal my new pink one; I’m considering getting handlebar tassles and those little clicky things for the spokes to further deter possible punkage – though then I might not want to ride it myself, which I reckon would defeat the whole purpose. Besides, I have a fancy new lock, with a KEY. I just need to remember to use it.

Waitressing

Waitressing is generally a good time, as there are all manner of shenanigans going on in the kitchen. Also, sometimes I get free mud cake. Yum.

The drawback: waitresses get asked on dates, usually from within the safety of a group of dining colleagues/friends. This might actually be a bullying strategy, because I find that I don’t want to embarrass them so I say yes, and then I end up on these totally lame dates, listening to some yobbo jock tell me about the car he uses for drag racing and how much money he makes and all the clever ways he has of not spending it.

Remember how I was going to meet Ben, my funny, clever and interesting marine biologist? Well. I have met more marine biologists than I can shake a coral reef at, and let me tell you something: they’re a bunch of frat boys who care about the planet about as much as I care about drag racing.

I suspect I’ll keep getting suckered into these awful dates – at least I get a free dinner out of it, right? Thursday is taking me for Indian food – but I can more than abandon the charade that I’m going to meet any kind of successful romantic match here in Redneck Central, where there are no men, but only little boys in men’s bodies. Nothing like a whole year of me-time; some healthy introspection can only be a good thing.

(Who am I kidding? I’m chomping at the bit here! Where are the real men? Send me a man, dammit!)

Netball

I do love a good epiphany, and one Wednesday night, halfway through the game when the whistle was blown for maybe the eighty-sixth time, I realized that I fully and completely hate netball. Worst game ever. Any time you build up some kind of rhythm, you’re booking it up the court and feeling really good about whatever cool move you just pulled, they whistle you out for something – obstructing, stepping, holding, blocking, itching, scratching, whatever. The worst is when I have to defend, because my feet have to be three feet from the person with the ball. This is pretty irritating for anyone, but at least the seven-foot tall women on my team can reach across the three feet and still kind of – kind of, at best – block the ball. Me? I got nuttin. I basically just wave my hands around people’s shoulders while they stop, get comfortable, take aim and score, and I usually still get whistled out for obstruction because I can only stay leaning forward on my tippy-toes for so long before gravity takes over and I step forward, breaking the three-foot rule and getting them a free shot.

No more netball: I thought you might like to know.

My New Home

I have been blessed with the friendship of my pal Jess, a fun girl at the best of times and a life-saver at the worst, such as when I need her help (and her utility vehicle) to move my stuff yet again. By now we’re almost professional: we can take my bed apart in under four minutes and load the ute in under twenty, and nothing even gets touched by bike chain grease.

Living with my bosses, Jim and Millie, was a lot of fun, and I still miss that beautiful, swanky apartment and its bean-shaped pool. They moved into a two-bedroom apartment, though, and I would have had to live on the couch, besides which living with the bosses meant that I was even more the go-to girl than usual and was working crazy shifts, as it was hard to say no when I was part of the family. (Being the only staff member who does not suffer from three or four hangovers a week, I’m their official Reliable Employee and end up picking up a lot of slack at the best of times, not to mention when we share a bathroom…)

I stayed a couple of stressful months with a girl I knew from uni and her housemate before I found the place where I’m living now: it’s two seconds from the nudist beach, my favourite place in Townsville (I didn’t come all the way here to have tan lines!) which makes it five minutes from work and forty minutes – down from fifty-two! – to uni. Roommates are Steve, who works at the museum and seems fussy but is actually hilariously funny, and Mark, a business guy who gave me his extra laptop to use and has been a fun garage sale and cooking buddy. (He even made lamb palatable – no small feat, I assure you.)

I got milk crates from work – strapped four of them on to my body with my bike lock and rode very slowly home – and a side table from St. Vinnie’s, and the landlords and I got along so well that they brought me their extra wardrobe. My room looks AWESOME, just for the record. This is a picture of the view from my window.

I worried about being a busy-body, coming into an apartment and OCD-ing my way around the place, but when I suggested a possible re-arrangement of the living room furniture, they jumped right on it and were quite pleased with the results. So… I decided to get comfortable. I borrowed some bar stools from work – another fun bike ride home, only this time a police officer pulled me over because he thought I was stealing public property; I had to show him the text messages with the okay from Jim, which I bizarrely and providentially hadn’t erased – and got some baskets and things to help keep things tidy in the bathroom and kitchen. Pretty turquoise baskets, a woven floor mat for the kitchen…? Great, said Steve and Mark, we love it! Sunflower pictures hanging in the kitchen and bathroom? Have I gone too far? Beautiful, said Steve and Mark; why don’t you hang some in the living room, to complete the theme?

Steve and Mark: best roommates ever!

Mark and I donned our skulking-around-garage-sale jackets and caps and set out on a Saturday morning patio furniture mission; we also found a mirror for my room, a book shelf for his and a bunch of giant plants that have turned the balcony into a jungle and will make our poker games into a tropical adventure. (I lost the last one and have to make dinner, so I’m going to make crepes; eating Nutella makes everything okay, even losing at poker…)

It’s been a bumpy road, but I think it was all meant to get me to this apartment, these roommates, this location and this jungle patio; if I’d been less miserable in the other places and had stuck it out, I wouldn’t have met Mark and Steve, the heroes of Townsville 2008. See? Everything for a reason, my friends. Everything for a reason.

Funny Australianisms

We all know “no worries” – but had you heard “you’re alright”? As in, I bump into someone and say sorry, and they’ll say “y’ar-right” instead of “that’s okay” or similar. Kind of weird, isn’t it?

I like this one:
“Can I get another schooner of Heineken?”
“Too easy, mate.”

The only people saying the word “sheila” are foreigners who try to sound Australian. What the Australians say, it turns out, is “hey, doll, can you pass me that side plate?”
And even though they say it to everyone, I feel kind of lovely every time. I’m an easy sell, it turns out.

The plural “youz”? Totally acceptable here.

As for dangerous slang, the Canadians have all been warned about wearing any Roots paraphernalia, as our great Canadian clothing line is the equivalent of the f-word, as in “whose leg do you have to root to get a drink around here?” Anything to do with reggae music or taking the bus suddenly becomes very tricky indeed.

And here’s a funny one: my friend Whitney and I spent a couple of days in the Blue Mountains. Our couch surfing host, Sam, picked us up at the train station and asked if we were hungry, but we had spent the train ride snacking on almonds and pitted dates. I said “we’re good, we’ve just spent the last hour sucking on dates” and he almost choked on his gum; when he stopped laughing, he explained that “date” is a slang word for – ahem – bum hole, so our train ride sounded a lot more daring than it actually was. Tee-hee!

Concluding Paragraph

I just spent a really great week in Sydney but that will be for another day; now that I have a lap-top, I can write whenever I want to (if I can tear myself away from Minesweeper…) and just pop it on the internet when I get the chance. You’re going to have updates up the wazoo, you lucky ducks!

See youz,

Kathryn