new friends, new stuff in general

admittedly, i have been a bit dormant here. so i'm sorry if you've been waiting for posts, checking regularly only to find that i haven't updated.
but there is a good reason for this. and that is because i've been INCREDIBLY busy.
but now is the time to update on what this business has been.

so, went to ballarat for the first weekend i came back to victoria. ace and i caught the train from spencer street to ballarat, only took about and hour and a half. it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING! good thing ace had figured most of it out, and pen had given us directions, coz i was absolutely lost! all i know that in ballarat, it is cold. we spent about an hour and a bit in one of the main shopping centres waiting for pen to finish work. most of that time was spent in a cute cafe where we spent them time eating yummy baked goods and drinking tea to warm us up! (you think melbourne is cold, go to ballarat..! haha) anyway, pen came to pick us up and we went to her house! it was so exciting!!!! her house is wonderful! we were treated so well. everything was so beautiful, and so comfortable! we watched pride and prejudice that first night (the new one) and fell in love with jane austen, and lizzie, and darcy, and bingley and all them delightful characters. we stayed up for ages talking that night as well, even when the lights were off! hehe (i find this always happens on the first night..!) it was wonderful being there with pen and her family.

we went to sovereign hill the next day, which has been voted the #1 victorian tourist attraction for a number of years. and golly, does it deserve it or what?! ace and i got 10% off the admission price, plus a free coach ride because we'd come on the VLine. cool offer! there's so much to do at Sovereign hill - watch displays of various sorts, go to the little stores/other town stuff like the school, gold-panning, watching shows, going into mines etc. So much fun. Plus it SNOWED!! at precisely 1pm and 4pm on the dot in the main street. mind you, the snow resembled bubbles from bubble machines very much..... hehe :P it was fun though! there were also guards who marched through the main street ('red coats'!!! ooh!!!) and we got some photos with them, including an amazingly hilarious one of four of us (in the style of pride and prejudice's "Officers!!") with one of the guys. i think his smile in the photo is incredibly honest..!

we went to church with pen's family on sunday morning, which was totally cool. it's nice seeing where people go about their everyday things. things that seem boring to one often seem interesting to others! we went to pen's work afterwards and got to see that too! in the afternoon, pen got her bells out and started playing for us. then i started joining in with some harmonies. eventually, we worked our way basically through an entire hymn book playing tunes with harmonies. it was hilarious!!! unfortunately we had to leave on sunday afternoon... :( but it was a most enjoyable weekend! it was great to hang out with such lovely friends :D

on monday we had a training day for welcome. there was mostly administrative stuff, and brainstorming things like "what will they feel like when they get here?". a fairly comprehensive of "what to do if this happens..." of everything. then we had a st john's ambulance guy come talk to us for about an hour and a half about basic first aid. oh my. this was first aid crammed into this time. and if you've done first aid of any sort, you know how much material there is!
so, what did we learn?
*blue ringed octopuses can kill you in about 6 mins if untreated.
*cone shells are also deadly (unlukily for us, they don't look dangerous at all)
*both of these sea-dwelling creatures live in australian waters
*(i think the box jellyfish also made it....? not sure..)
*sydney funnelwebs are insanely venomous. ie. you can die very quickly
*the taipan is also deadly
*these two also live in australia
(see why i didn't want to leave the room after the talk..?!)
*there are seven ways to burn yourself
*the treatment of spider and snake bits (tightly bandage from beyond the limb to the very top of the limb)
*if you get a snake bite, and if there is venom still on the skin, leave the venom there so they can treat you with the right antivenom.
*bleeding (well, loss of blood) is one of the biggest dangers of losing somebody
*in australia, the emergency number is 000. or 112 from any mobile in australia
*different poisons (ie. chemicals) have different treatments

lots of what the guy talked about i cringed at....especially the story about the blood spurting all over the room - walls, and ceiling - when he fell through a window. urgh, i'm cringing now....

the next day i did RSA training (responsible service of alcohol). this was held from 3-6pm. ie. ideal time for napping. there were times when i had to fight very hard to not fall asleep, particularly in that 20min video. the video was incredibly bad, particularly as it was made in the 80s, and you could tell......
and then there was an assessment at the end. where the instructor was like, "Ok, you have two choices on how to do this! either you individually do your assessment as an open book test or we do it all as a class, and if anybody can tell me the right answer, we can write it down. if nobody can give me the right answer, we'll revert back to the first option, and i'll probably give you the answer anyway." needless to say, i'm pretty sure i got 100% for that test...!

Welcome finally started on wednesday! people moved in, we lugged bags and more bags up lots of stairs. we met lots of new people, of whom i can hardly remember all their names. we met LOTS of new people, it was awesome.
throughout the week, we did lots of fun stuff, including going to:
*the melbourne museum (my first time inside this place, it's awesome! you should totally go, and students get in for free!)
*scav hunt through the city (this was excellently organised! one of the tasks was to go to the audi showroom, and get a quote and all that kind of stuff from the people there. some people actually got driven home in it, and others got a quote - read about $90 000 - for a car etc. it was amazing. they got lots of extra points! and another of the tasks was to buy krispy kremes for one of the hosts. hehe. one group did this!!!)
*Healesville sanctuary (first time there!). renee and i organised this day. there were a few glitches with timing, but mostly turned out well! pity it was so wet though! healesville was awesome, it's a really fun place to go! we had a bbq lunch (true australian style!) and then went to a winery on the way back. it was a beautiful day!
*footy match at the mcg! (first time i've been to the mcg, and first time i went to the footy!!) it was so much fun! admittedly, i think that footy looks quite barbaric, especially on tv. but seeing it live was much more exciting. and even though i didn't really support either team (collingwood or geelong), it was still fun. and it was almost sold out, about 85 000 people! pretty cool :)
on the last night we all went out for dinner (we split up into a few different groups) and then we all met up at commercial for our last night out. it was great to hang out with these new friends, and especially cool because we stayed around for two birthdays the following day.

welcome ended way too soon. it was really cool to meet so many new people, show them round our home, hear different experiences and the like.

had one day of rest, then it was straight into URINETOWN! we went out for dinner on the monday night, as a bonding session. then it was straight into INTENSIVE rehearsals. it has been intensive for the entire week...i know i get up early so that i can fit in some of my own piano practice! so, i'm doing orchestra rehearsals (going quite well!) as well as playing for some of the singing rehearsals (but thankfully freya could do about 3 days worth for me!) and looking in on some other rehearsals. it's a lot...!! it's been lots of fun to work with this group of people though - they're fantastic, usually quite light-hearted, and definitely dedicated.

so the latest development is that there absolutely needs to be a conductor for Urinetown. and that conductor is going to be ME!!! that's it, i'm CONDUCTING THE WHOLE MUSICAL. the whole 1 3/4hr show! me. with a baton in my hand. which means i can't play keys for it (slightly hard..there is a lot of piano in this show), so i've asked lauren to do it - she's agreed (what a champion). really looking forward to it, but am a bit freaked out as i've never done anything like this before. let alone wielded a stick for people to follow.....! any conducting tips would be greatly appreciated!

today i had a rehearsal with lily, which went quite well. then we had a lesson with zoe (lily's teacher) and that went FANTASTICALLY. zoe gave us lots of think about. and was really happy with some bits, so that made us feel more confident about what we were doing. we put in to play the entire sonata for next week's concert class, but we'll see how we feel about it. if all else fails, we'll just play the first movement. but it'd be good experience! and let me tell you, playing on a nice piano and in a spacious room (as opposed to a basement practice room) makes a lot of difference to how you play as well, and how you feel doing the performance, as opposed to just repeating stuff in a banal manner.

i haven't yet seen the HP movie - haven't really had time for very much besides rehearsals! (let me tell you, my own piano practice is taking a battering right now.. :S) but the book is comign out TOMORROW!!!!! like, in 9.5hrs!!!! ooh!!!!!!!!!!! i'm really excited for it, but don't really know when i'm going to read it (in-between rehearsals?!) penny and i went to the shops the other day to pre-book at borders (will be getting plush owl! hehe) - i used my borders gift card, i figured, i have it so i might as well use it!

anyway, just doing some looking over the beethoven (at the insanely hard, complex and weird fugue that is the 3rd movement) and finishing up last things for today, before an early morning down to the bookstore!! xo