Been a long time coming.

Hello all,

OK I have been a bit slack about getting an update out. My bad. I have been a busy woman at work, and when I am through with work the last thing I want to do is go to another computer.

It has been a month so here is the rundown:

I have become everyone's favourite dogsitter again. I spent 3 weeks watched 2 beautiful old dogs. And in the process I had the chance to live in a different neighborhood and have my own place, if only for a short time. One thing that I figured out during this time is that I really love the neighborhood where I live. I cannot imagine not living in Newtown now.

I went to a folk festival in Jamberoo. Jamber-what? Jamberoo. It is a small town about 2 hours south of here in a valley of the mountains. It was a beautiful train ride down and quite the adventure to boot. First problem the train was so packed we were sitting on the floor. Then the train caught on fire. Joy to the life of a CityRail Train. So we all got off the train and waited for the next one which was equally as packed. Thankfully I was with a friend who was bold enough to ask the driver if we could sit in the compartment with him. So I took the train through the mountains with front row seats. We stayed at my friend's folks house. It was nice to stay at a proper house with little girls running around and a backyard with a swing set and all. I had a good time at the festival. It was a beautiful day in an unreal setting. This was also my first an still only adventure out of the City. Would you believe I have been in Sydney for 5 months and have only ventured out once? To top it off I don't feel trapped here.

Work has been mad busy. And last Friday I told my manager that in a few months I would like to change jobs because I am getting a bit bored with what I am doing. By the next Wednesday he told me that I will start in the new department today (Monday) So things are moving in high speed. Here is my welcome to the new department, I am glad to see that the new manager has a sense of humor:

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Welcome to the group, we fondly call the ASPAC VPN Product Delivery Systems Analyst Order Support Project Installation Development Customer Satisfaction and Service Operations Team.

Or ASPACVPNPDAOSPIDCSSO for short.
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Something that I have already mentioned to some of you: the thing that I am really missing the most is having friends that I can call up and ask to just hang out. One thing I have found moving to a new town is that I have to make plans to get to know people and sometimes I just don't want to make plans. I have gotten to know one person whom I can call without a plan in mind.

Then this weekend happened. I had met this woman Lara about a month ago and we had met for beers and whatnot before but nothing major. One thing we really could talk about was music. So she invited me to a concert on Friday. We saw this fantastic band (who I will talk about in full in a moment) with a number oif people. Afterwords I went to her house. Felt as if I was back in Ann Arbor. The house is a four bedroom place with 6 people living in it. I spent from Friday night until Saturday night hangin out with her and her housemates. We danced, listened to music, cooked food, went wondow shopping, did some fire twirling, and just hung out. I now have a few people I know I can call to just chill without plans. Good things are happening.

Now for the band I saw on Friday night: Primary. You can check them out at Primary Music I had seen them on a video show here and the lead singer did an interview. I assumed they were a big Aussie band. The fact is they aren't, but I cannot figure out why. They are fantastic. Rock band with some electronica and an amasing female lead singer. I cannot think of any band tht compares. Maybe a cross between Garbage and Lords of Acid. Maybe not. But I do suggest checking out their web site. After the show, I spoke a bit with the lead singer and she is going to send me an MP3 with her song Vicious on it so that I can put it on my web site to listen to and maybe, you too, can understand why I am so impressed. They do have a couple songs on their web site, but the songs on the web site are not what I heard in concert. I would really love to see this group get big big.

And think that is all I really have for this month. My housemates (2 guys and the pup) are doing really well. I am loving the house. I am going to have a party next week to clean out the back garden and make it into a beautiful usable space.

Oh one more thing: I am still working on getting photos on the web site they just aren't there yet. I will send out a mass e-mail when I decide to do this. I am hoping to get to it soon. I have been playing with my web site building skills so I might have an entirely new design in a month or 2 (again)

As always I would love to hear from you individually.

And for the vocab lesson:

Aussie:	American:
Chunder	Vomit
Jack-in-a-box	Wiggle Worm
Lollys	Candy
Mozzie	Mosquito
Woop-woop	The Middle of Nowhere
Pommy	An Englishman
Sepo	An American

Happy April!
Tia