It's my duty

Happy Easter! This seems to be the only holiday that Australians get excited about. I'm not complaining. Hot cross buns at all the bakeries and grocery stores have been heavily promoted and selling like hotcakes for the past month. This is our last Easter here, which means next year I'll be deprived of easy access to all my favourite varieties of hot cross bun (traditional, fruity, choc chip, mocha - I like them all). So, I've decided that it's my duty to eat hot cross buns at every opportunity. I'm sure you'll agree that this plan is way better than my other plan to eat a maxibon every day till we leave (maxibons are an ice cream treat consisting of half ice cream bar and half ice cream sandwich - see pic above; seriously brilliant, right?...and unfortunately not available in Canada), or to tattoo 2035 on my knuckles (which is our local postcode and tattooing it on one's knuckles is de rigeur with some of the local surfies).

Rainy day

It's Saturday afternoon and it's dark and rainy. blah! It's Fall here, the days are getting shorter and the temperatures have really fallen this past week, which makes me so sad. Why can't it just stay summer until we leave?

In light of the rainy day, we went to see a movie this afternoon. We saw the completely-inappropriate-for-a-nine-year-old movie Sucker Punch. Really should have done my research on that one before going to see it. Yeesh, we had to answer questions about lobotomies on our drive home from the movie. On the plus side, we went to my favourite movie theater, the Ritz, where they make an excellent skinny latte for afternoon showings, and serve alcohol for evening showings. I can tell you based on experience that a Harry Potter movie + wine makes it just that much better.

Now, I'm off to make some carrot soup. We get a ton of carrots in our organic veggie box every week, and we can't keep up. We're just not big carrot eaters. So, every few weeks or so we end up with a massive lot of carrots in our fridge and we have to find ways to consume them all. It'll be carrot soup tonight, carrot muffins tomorrow and we may have to beg our fave cafe down the street to juice any remaining carrots for us. Any good carrot recipes? Send them on!

Here I am!

I know, I know...it's been a while. But here's the problem, lately, I've been crippled by a strange phenomenon that's been happening to me on and off since I started this bloody thesis. When I get really, really stressed about it all, I end up dropping a lot of the things I enjoy (i.e., yoga, running... and writing on this blog) for fear that it's taking up time I should be spending on my thesis. But somehow, in the midst of all this panic, I'm still able to make time for things like "Biggest Loser Australia"!? Yeah, I know, it makes no sense... I'm working on it.

There are a number of reasons for the latest bout of thesis-related anxiety:
1) A chance encounter with a former classmate of mine (he moved faculties after his first year). As PhD students tend to do, we traded stats: how many words/chapters we had written, how much longer left to go.... I told him I was hoping to submit by the end of July. And his reply: That's great, so, you must be done writing? (cause every PhD student knows that there's still plenty of work once all the writing is done - as in putting it all together, making sure there is consistency throughout and a clear story is being told) Ummm, no. I'm not finished writing. I'm close and most of my chapters are locked in (since I'm submitting as a series of publications), but still...

2) A couple of weekends ago, we went up to the Gold Coast for a long weekend. In four days, we managed to hit a couple of theme parks, rent a surfboard for a day, and go on a snorkeling/ diving trip on another day. We ate hot chips (fries) with every meal, and watched plenty of crap t.v., like Toddlers in Tiaras (horrifying and yet fascinating). It was fun but aargh! - I'm trying to finish up a thesis here!

3) I'm working on my last chapter, which involves wrapping it all up, talking about what it all means, and how the findings make a significant contribution to existing knowledge. Geez. I can't think of a better way to increase my feelings of self-doubt.

4) We finally booked our flights home. We're leaving Sydney in late July. There is now an official, written in stone, deadline that I'm trying to meet. Although, as I keep telling myself, it's ok if I need to finish it up in Canada (repeat 10x).


'Nuff about my neuroses. Here's some pics from our recent trip to the Gold Coast for my faithful readers (i.e., my parents and Vic's parents) to enjoy:

Gus on a board and Vic behind him, helping him to catch waves.


Vic, hanging ten.


Gus and I, on the snorkeling/diving trip (can you see how I was secretly rewriting sections of my thesis in my head, while on the boat trip out to the dive site?).

Gus managed to charm one of the divers, who let him ride with her on the jetski.