Good night, good bye. All that's left is a handful of photos and a sea of memories.

Formal: Friday October 14th

I was surprised by how much the formal surprised me. It was fun, but also funny. The music was...disturbing to my ears. The food sloshed around uncomfortably on our plates. The boat rocked and I felt the world turning on its side. But it didn't matter. We were together. 

Some things to remember:

-Debbie's perfect "cliche" moment on the stairs

-the centrepiece of the table - bread

-Jane's sharp eye spotting seagulls nonchalantly gliding outside the window. She said it was good sign.

-the stress of getting ready..."makeup in my eye! makeup in my eye!"

-hobbling towards the ship in heels

-dancing in heels - basically awkward movements of my arms

-Jason's solo(s)

-pressuring Whit to dance...soz Whit ;)

-when the boat left and the line on the horizon starting tilting into the air...

-meeting everyone at the opera house...seeing their beautiful smiles and outfits

-screaming at everyone to huddle closer into the photo

-spontaneously taking a brilliant sequence of love-os with debs and annie at the window *thumbs up*

-interrogating Whit's date ... about banana's in pyjamas hahahaha

-how it only rained when we were safe and dry

and so much more! let the pictures do the talking. 

The night, like the birds, flew away, caught only in a spectacular fleeting moment and a scattered handful of photos. The rest is floating around in our heads, resurfacing in dreams, peeking through idle thoughts and sculpted in words between friends.

"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think"

Photo credit: Debbie

two things that will never fail to make me smile

Yellow highlighters

My grandma's freshly steamed fluffy rice

Oh yeah, and blue sky too. *clearly I can't count to 3 - and I'm doing acceleration maths ...sigh*

As cliche as it is, you'd have to be crazy NOT to smile at blue sky.

The sun decided to come out today...shame about the pollution on the horizon though

I haven't been cloudwatching for a while...must remember to pack some edibles (like tiny triangular sandwiches) and Debbie into a woven basket and skip along down the yellow brick road in search of a nice patch of grass, a bit of sun and some long-awaited dreaming...yes - but first I had better finish my exams.

What's new? Or perhaps, what's old? Recently celebrated a relative's birthday - my mum insisted on squashing 39 colourful candles onto a round chocolate cake. That made for a lot of wax puddles...

Oh yeah, and my computer went and had an operation at IT to remove a virus :)

Happy studying!

Indeed.

Don't ask me how I came across this...

Just wanted to post this little memory of a very unexpected, pleasant surprise. It's amazing how something so small, and seemingly insignificant can make me smile. Such a lovely token of appreciation can never be forgotten. This sort of thing makes me motivated to take photos. Made my day :)

My delighted thanks for your sincerity.You're very welcome.

Tea is for Thursday

Our beloved dog making friends with a pig. Ngawww so naive.

[I actually wrote this yesterday...but then blogger screwed up and I couldn't exactly change the title to "Tea is for FRIDAY" could I?]

Thursday

So its's been a nice, quiet holiday for once. Ironically, it's going to get busy tomorrow... -sigh-

Had a lovely day yesterday (aside from the gloomy lack of sunshine and icy chilled winds) at the library yesterday, followed by a slightly ordinary salad but a sweet Gloria Jeans style indulgence. And today, I went on a brief but fun shopping spree with my mum and quite un-enthusiastic brother...soz mate. Somewhat splurged on stuff, so I'm feeling guilty (or maybe just appreciative?).

Snuggled up in a warm scarf, it seems fitting that my craving is for tea. One of the greatest pleasures in my mind is of sipping a warm but not scorching, mug of sweet tea laced with swirls of creamy milk. And a good book.

These photos, although irrelevant (not that this blog has any unity anyway) are of mainly nature - trees, waves, grass, a dog and quite a lot of barbed wire.

Moo.

Carrie

pause for paws

At UNSW

Clearly I haven't been blogging for a while, and although I'd like to mention some epic excuse like, "I was planning my wedding" or "jumping out of a plane" or even STUDYING...I cannot, I generally have an inability to lie (and if I try, my face gives me away). So, like many, many other times when I turn to myself, my friend or my dog with pleading eyes and say "WHAT'S MY EXCUSE?" - I don't actually have an excuse, and the best I can come up with is a nonchalent shrug, an indifferent smile, a sheepishly sheepish smile worthy of a fluffy lamb and a "sorry?" or just, plain old - sorry. 

SORRY.

Formalities aside now, I had better quickly summarise some interesting things that have happened since merimbula. 

• English juvenilia excursion 
• Friends went to east timor 
• Lucy...and her face.
• Saw whales in the wild in the water
• Stared at funnily shaped clouds
• Marvelled at ducks with pom poms on their heads (no joke)
• Ate, and ate, and ate
• Broke a block at karate (y)
• Watched kung fu panda 2
• Realised that I am stuffed for a formal dress (y)

Our slightly psycho dog. She looks headless in this photo. Shutter speed 1/1000 (anything else to too slow to get this little rabbit while running)

Name: Licorice. 

This dog is blind. I always feel sad when I see her.

Yes, I just dedicated almost an entire post to Lucy. 

Weekend at the jazz

Armed with gold and silver pieces of metal (also called band instruments), piles of thick, fluffy clothing to combat the myths of freezing cold winds and chilly nights, sleeping bags and a bus full of buzzing excitement, it was clear (note the pathetic fallacy) that the weekend was going to be cool. (and cool...temperature wise).

The bus ride was...long, to say the least. Roughly 9 hours? Plus stop-overs? Who knows how long it really took. We were just crossing our fingers, hoping our cute little school bus wouldn't break down going up those steep hills, carrying our obese trailer stuffed with heavy things. As the sun went down, the windows went foggy (the first Tess reference of the weekend) and we drew pictures...including of Alec and Tess, on the windows. Two stopovers and hours later, we arrived at our long-awaited destination...

As you can see, the first day we spent at the parade (kicking myself for leaving my camera on the bus) down the main street, following that we went for a little drive to some pretty sites, saw about a jillion (ok, that's an exaggeration) kangaroos, to the beach for a windy walk (alliteration). The first performance was possibly the most exciting, the first time I had ever played for a live audience...pretty awesome. 

The next morning, one hour and some thrifty purchases later (note the nommy dutch pancakes with lemon and sugar!!) we headed off for performance number 2, at the infamous "Magic Mountain". I chickened out from the rollercoaster, but the toboggan ride made up for it :)) 

It was an amazing experience (sounds cheezy, but what can I say?). I had never heard so much amazing music, particularly Jazz, was inspired by a group called "Monday's Gypsy", discovered there existed a mysterious 'Gus Wong' in the band that no one had heard of, dnmmed on the last night till 2 am, listened to more jazz and got to know a whole lot more people. The weather never let us down, and the bus miraculously stayed intact the whole journey back (with the occasional scare - some almost-breakdowns). I couldn't believe Mr Barnwell drove the whole way there and back...O_O

Thanks especially to Charlotte, Elise and Alice for making it so much fun! (although you probs won't be reading this...yeah, it's out there.)

My most precious item, treasure for life. Pricked me once on the finger... 

Carrie