1. Heard "Moreton Bay" twice thanks to my iTunes DJ.
My iTunes DJ rarely plays songs twice in a row.
I'm going to choose to believe this is some kind of sign.
I really LOVE the song. And I'm totally in the mood for it.
I feel so happy and hopeful right now. Well, maybe I don't feel hopeful. What I feel is peace and acceptance.
2. Wanted to add that I know the song isn't about happy things.
But still...I don't know. It fits my mood.
Maybe it's the idea that the world is far from perfect. There's so much crap. But despite that, we can still sometimes manage to be okay—spiritually but not necessarily physically.
It could also be that I simply like the SOUND of the song.
3. Heard "Don't Fight It" from The Panics on my iTunes DJ.
It's one of my favorite Australian songs.
Apparently it was used in the Underbelly soundtrack.
4. Looked at the "Don't Fight It" lyrics.
I'm loving these lines right now.
I left my heart in places
Forgot everyone of their faces
And tried to navigate a broken path
Of which I may have helped create
In any incident, this is never no accident
To stand alone and
Let the silence make itself at home
That means a lot to me right now.
I may not be interpreting it the way it was intended. But that's okay, right? I mean song lyrics and poetry are sometimes open to interpretation.'
5. Relieved to read that the Australian teen in Bali has been freed from prison! I haven't been keeping up with the story, but I was kind of scared he was going to be there for decades.
6. Heard another one of my favorite Australian songs, thanks to iTunes DJ.
The song makes me think of my childhood for some reason.
Maybe we used to listen to a song that sounded like it.
7. Went to bed and had a dream.
A family friend is getting married. I remember this and am kind of bummed out that we have to dedicate a lot of our weekend to wedding stuff. The wedding itself is on Sunday, but there are other wedding-related things on Friday and Saturday. I question whether or not I should work on a blog post on Sunday. I feel I should, because I plan to take some blog-time off in a few weeks. I don't want to take time off before that. But I'm not sure I'll have time to finish the post before we have to leave for the wedding.
8. Started to read We of the Never Never. I've tried reading it before, and I daydreamed through most of it. I do that sometimes, unfortunately.
I'm giving the book a second chance, or really I'm giving myself a second chance.
The same thing happened to me with Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. When I read it the first time, I daydreamed through most of it. I got lost, and then I was bored.
A few months ago I read it again. I made sure to pay careful attention. I ended up loving it.
Hopefully the same thing will happen to me with We of the Never Never.
9. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read a story called Nothing Of Your Business. The stars of this one are Jezabel Blair and Améa Du Contiaea.
Jezabel has added a name to herself. I'm not sure why. It's Amiradysébelle. That's long. I think I'll just stick with calling her Jezabel.
The story takes place in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
10. Started to read.
It's November 24.
Améa returns to the motel she's been staying at. She finds her sister has checked her out of the hotel. All of Améa's stuff is gone. Améa is mad at her sister for interfering.
I think I'd be mad too.
11. Felt Jezabel sounded selfish here. There was only so much that Jez would take before she began to put the foot down, and it seemed the fact that she had a daughter and a wedding to plan, not to mention a family Christmas get-together, she was tired of Améa's attitude and had taken things into her own hands.
If she's so busy with her own life, why doesn't she simply leave Améa alone? Well, maybe that would be cold and distant. Maybe it would secretly hurt Améa's feelings. But how about just sending a card once awhile? An email? A virtual Facebook gift? Why interfere by checking Améa out of her motel? That sounds very controlling to me.
Then again, I may have missed bits of this story. Maybe Améa was in danger at the motel?
12. Loved these lines from Améa here. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just leave her alone, as she wanted to be. If her place in the family was to be the downtrodden, forgotten and neglected one - why did they feel the need to drag her back in so frequently, only to remind her of that?
I don't feel Améa is neglected by her newly found family. They seem to be trying to be close to her. They should get an A for effort; or at least a B. But in my eyes, they're not trying to get close to Améa because they like and respect her. I think they're trying to be close to her, because she's related to them, and in their eyes, families should be close.
It's more about obligation than love.
13. Annoyed by Jezabel and how she treats Améa; but I do sort of like how she changes her tone in the last post. She stops lecturing Améa—giving her self-improvement pep talks and actually ACTS like a sister. She gossips about her mother and their other sister. Gossip is rude, but I don't think it's too horrible if it's not overly invasive and nasty.
14. Thought more about gossip—what I think is acceptable and what I think is not. That's not to say I've never been guilty of what I feel is unacceptable gossip.
Anyway, I think acceptable gossip would be sharing common knowledge. Let's say we're all at the lake house. Tim and I come home and we gossip about how certain family members were acting. I think that's fair.
I think it would be less acceptable if a family member confessed something to me in private; then later I shared it with Tim.
There's degrees to that as well. It's probably less awful if the person doesn't share the information as something private. They're just chatting. They reveal something about their life. Then the subject comes up with someone else and you talk about what you heard. Oh yeah. She's not friends with her anymore. They got in a huge fight.
The worst gossip would probably be if someone's told you a secret, explicitly ASKED you to keep the secret, and you share it with someone else.
Or maybe worse than that would be spreading rumors that are complete lies.
15. Saw that my Australian of the day was Lillian May Armfield. She was a policewoman.
She was born in Mittagong, New South Wales in 1884.
Mittagong sounds vaguely familiar to me.
16. Looked up Mittagong on Google Maps. It's about an hour west of Wollongong. What's interesting is that it's directly west, but it seems you can't travel directly west to get there. I guess there are no roads?
17. Zoomed into the map. There's this area with hardly any towns. It seems to be relatively empty.
I'm thinking it could just be a Google Map glitch. Maybe they haven't did their thing in the area yet. Or maybe there really are no roads there.
I knew Australia has it's rural and quiet areas, but I thought most places had at least a road. I can kind of imagine road-less areas up in the Northern Territory. But I hadn't pictured that being the case for New South Wales.
18. Went back to reading about Lillian May Armfield.
She worked for the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane.
Lord Wiki says the hospital was in Sydney, and was open from 1874 to 1914.
Well, no...wait. It was open longer than that. It just had name changes throughout the years.
It stopped having patients in 1994.
19. Learned that Armfield worked at the hospital for about eight years. Then she joined the police force.
It sounds like she was accepted somewhat reluctantly. I'm guessing female police officers weren't common at that time. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says she had to wave away any right to compensation in case of injury.
20. Continued to read.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography talks about how female police officers were rare. So she got some attention for that. It sounds like her work was recognized and admired, but she still faced discrimination. It was a struggle for her to get promotions.
21. Learned from Lord Wiki that the Underbelly TV show featured Armfield as a character.
22. Learned that this Underbelly is not the same Underbelly that I was thinking of. I was thinking of the TV show, but Lord Wiki was referring to a miniseries. It was called Underbelly: Razor. I'm getting that they're not connected.
23. Read more from Lord Wiki. The Underbelly shows ARE connected.
There's been different series. Each one deals with a different place and/or time period.
The second series had Asher Keddie from Offspring and Myles Pollard from McLeod's Daughters.
The first series had Don Hany from Offspring. I'm trying to find Billie from Offspring. I forgot the actresses name, but I think I'd know if I saw it.
24. Found it. Her name's Kat Stewart. She was one of the main stars of the original 2008 series.
25. Started to look at Fredweng's day ten in Australia Flickr set.
I'm guessing he was still in Tasmania here. I don't see any ferry or airplane scenes, so he hasn't been taken away from Tasmania yet.
26. Thought this tree photo was pretty awesome. It's kind of spooky.
27. Saw Fredweng's room; and his shadow.
28. Thought the scenery in this photo was quite lovely.
It was taken at Dove Lake Circuit.
29. Learned from this Tasmanian government site that the Dove Lake Circuit is a walk within the Cradle Mountains.
It's a two hour walk and the fitness level is 2. I wonder what was the fitness level of the walk in The World Beneath.
30. Looked at the walk grades. The website has them if you click on "Level 2". The hardest one is level 5. It says, Challenging long walks for experienced bushwalkers with specialized skills including navigation and emergency first aid. Tracks may be very rough, very steep, and unmarked.
Yeah, that sounds like the walk in The World Beneath.
31. Thought this photo was beautiful.
I hope we go back to Tasmania someday.
32. Took note of the date on Fredweng's photos. He did the walk on August 9. That's winter in Australia. And since Tasmania is south and farther from the equator, it's really cold there.
I'd rather go to Tasmania when it's warmer. Although then there's probably no snow on the mountains. I think the snow adds to the beauty.
33. Read some more of We of the Never Never. I'm finding it difficult not to daydream. I keep having to read the same paragraphs over and over. But once I finally catch on to what's happening, I find it mildly interesting.
34. Went to the Funtrivia site to take another Australia quiz. I'm going to do another Christmas one. Tis the Season.....
35. Annoyed by the first question. It asked what's the traditional Christmas meal in Australia. I picked picnic on the beach, because that's what I've heard.
The answer thing said I was wrong. It says even though beach picnics are popular, the tradition is to have roast turkey.
I guess it's all about the difference between tradition and what's popular.
Whatever....
36. Got question #2 wrong and learned Australians leave beer and carrots out for Santa.
I never heard that before.
37. Found a blog post entitled "Milk, Cookies, Carrots, and Beer". It shows a picture of the milk, cookies, carrots, and beer. I'm guessing it might be an Australian blog?
38. Saw that the family in the blog celebrates Thanksgiving; and I'm seeing pictures of American cities. So they're in America and doing American things. They're probably American, although they might be expats from Australia. Or maybe the mother is American and the father is Australian?
39. Looked at their biographies. I can't find any indication that they're connected to Australia.
40. Finished the quiz. I got the rest of the answers correct. My score was 8/10. The average was 7/10.
I wasn't alone in getting the first question wrong. It was answered correctly by only 38% of players.
41. Started to watch another Kensignton25 video. This one is about Hungry Jacks.
42. Got idea, from what Kensignton25 says, that Burger King is called Burger King in London. He seems as mystified by the name change as many Americans do.
43. Learned from video that the reason Burger King couldn't be called Burger King in Australia is that someone had already trademarked the name for their business.
I wonder if it's still around.
44. Learned from the video that the first Hungry Jacks opened in Perth in 1971.
45. Learned there were legal battles between Hungry Jacks and Burger King.
Hungry Jacks won.
My iTunes DJ rarely plays songs twice in a row.
I'm going to choose to believe this is some kind of sign.
I really LOVE the song. And I'm totally in the mood for it.
I feel so happy and hopeful right now. Well, maybe I don't feel hopeful. What I feel is peace and acceptance.
2. Wanted to add that I know the song isn't about happy things.
But still...I don't know. It fits my mood.
Maybe it's the idea that the world is far from perfect. There's so much crap. But despite that, we can still sometimes manage to be okay—spiritually but not necessarily physically.
It could also be that I simply like the SOUND of the song.
3. Heard "Don't Fight It" from The Panics on my iTunes DJ.
It's one of my favorite Australian songs.
Apparently it was used in the Underbelly soundtrack.
4. Looked at the "Don't Fight It" lyrics.
I'm loving these lines right now.
I left my heart in places
Forgot everyone of their faces
And tried to navigate a broken path
Of which I may have helped create
In any incident, this is never no accident
To stand alone and
Let the silence make itself at home
That means a lot to me right now.
I may not be interpreting it the way it was intended. But that's okay, right? I mean song lyrics and poetry are sometimes open to interpretation.'
5. Relieved to read that the Australian teen in Bali has been freed from prison! I haven't been keeping up with the story, but I was kind of scared he was going to be there for decades.
6. Heard another one of my favorite Australian songs, thanks to iTunes DJ.
The song makes me think of my childhood for some reason.
Maybe we used to listen to a song that sounded like it.
7. Went to bed and had a dream.
A family friend is getting married. I remember this and am kind of bummed out that we have to dedicate a lot of our weekend to wedding stuff. The wedding itself is on Sunday, but there are other wedding-related things on Friday and Saturday. I question whether or not I should work on a blog post on Sunday. I feel I should, because I plan to take some blog-time off in a few weeks. I don't want to take time off before that. But I'm not sure I'll have time to finish the post before we have to leave for the wedding.
8. Started to read We of the Never Never. I've tried reading it before, and I daydreamed through most of it. I do that sometimes, unfortunately.
I'm giving the book a second chance, or really I'm giving myself a second chance.
The same thing happened to me with Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. When I read it the first time, I daydreamed through most of it. I got lost, and then I was bored.
A few months ago I read it again. I made sure to pay careful attention. I ended up loving it.
Hopefully the same thing will happen to me with We of the Never Never.
9. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read a story called Nothing Of Your Business. The stars of this one are Jezabel Blair and Améa Du Contiaea.
Jezabel has added a name to herself. I'm not sure why. It's Amiradysébelle. That's long. I think I'll just stick with calling her Jezabel.
The story takes place in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
10. Started to read.
It's November 24.
Améa returns to the motel she's been staying at. She finds her sister has checked her out of the hotel. All of Améa's stuff is gone. Améa is mad at her sister for interfering.
I think I'd be mad too.
11. Felt Jezabel sounded selfish here. There was only so much that Jez would take before she began to put the foot down, and it seemed the fact that she had a daughter and a wedding to plan, not to mention a family Christmas get-together, she was tired of Améa's attitude and had taken things into her own hands.
If she's so busy with her own life, why doesn't she simply leave Améa alone? Well, maybe that would be cold and distant. Maybe it would secretly hurt Améa's feelings. But how about just sending a card once awhile? An email? A virtual Facebook gift? Why interfere by checking Améa out of her motel? That sounds very controlling to me.
Then again, I may have missed bits of this story. Maybe Améa was in danger at the motel?
12. Loved these lines from Améa here. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just leave her alone, as she wanted to be. If her place in the family was to be the downtrodden, forgotten and neglected one - why did they feel the need to drag her back in so frequently, only to remind her of that?
I don't feel Améa is neglected by her newly found family. They seem to be trying to be close to her. They should get an A for effort; or at least a B. But in my eyes, they're not trying to get close to Améa because they like and respect her. I think they're trying to be close to her, because she's related to them, and in their eyes, families should be close.
It's more about obligation than love.
13. Annoyed by Jezabel and how she treats Améa; but I do sort of like how she changes her tone in the last post. She stops lecturing Améa—giving her self-improvement pep talks and actually ACTS like a sister. She gossips about her mother and their other sister. Gossip is rude, but I don't think it's too horrible if it's not overly invasive and nasty.
14. Thought more about gossip—what I think is acceptable and what I think is not. That's not to say I've never been guilty of what I feel is unacceptable gossip.
Anyway, I think acceptable gossip would be sharing common knowledge. Let's say we're all at the lake house. Tim and I come home and we gossip about how certain family members were acting. I think that's fair.
I think it would be less acceptable if a family member confessed something to me in private; then later I shared it with Tim.
There's degrees to that as well. It's probably less awful if the person doesn't share the information as something private. They're just chatting. They reveal something about their life. Then the subject comes up with someone else and you talk about what you heard. Oh yeah. She's not friends with her anymore. They got in a huge fight.
The worst gossip would probably be if someone's told you a secret, explicitly ASKED you to keep the secret, and you share it with someone else.
Or maybe worse than that would be spreading rumors that are complete lies.
15. Saw that my Australian of the day was Lillian May Armfield. She was a policewoman.
She was born in Mittagong, New South Wales in 1884.
Mittagong sounds vaguely familiar to me.
16. Looked up Mittagong on Google Maps. It's about an hour west of Wollongong. What's interesting is that it's directly west, but it seems you can't travel directly west to get there. I guess there are no roads?
17. Zoomed into the map. There's this area with hardly any towns. It seems to be relatively empty.
I'm thinking it could just be a Google Map glitch. Maybe they haven't did their thing in the area yet. Or maybe there really are no roads there.
I knew Australia has it's rural and quiet areas, but I thought most places had at least a road. I can kind of imagine road-less areas up in the Northern Territory. But I hadn't pictured that being the case for New South Wales.
18. Went back to reading about Lillian May Armfield.
She worked for the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane.
Lord Wiki says the hospital was in Sydney, and was open from 1874 to 1914.
Well, no...wait. It was open longer than that. It just had name changes throughout the years.
It stopped having patients in 1994.
19. Learned that Armfield worked at the hospital for about eight years. Then she joined the police force.
It sounds like she was accepted somewhat reluctantly. I'm guessing female police officers weren't common at that time. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says she had to wave away any right to compensation in case of injury.
20. Continued to read.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography talks about how female police officers were rare. So she got some attention for that. It sounds like her work was recognized and admired, but she still faced discrimination. It was a struggle for her to get promotions.
21. Learned from Lord Wiki that the Underbelly TV show featured Armfield as a character.
22. Learned that this Underbelly is not the same Underbelly that I was thinking of. I was thinking of the TV show, but Lord Wiki was referring to a miniseries. It was called Underbelly: Razor. I'm getting that they're not connected.
23. Read more from Lord Wiki. The Underbelly shows ARE connected.
There's been different series. Each one deals with a different place and/or time period.
The second series had Asher Keddie from Offspring and Myles Pollard from McLeod's Daughters.
The first series had Don Hany from Offspring. I'm trying to find Billie from Offspring. I forgot the actresses name, but I think I'd know if I saw it.
24. Found it. Her name's Kat Stewart. She was one of the main stars of the original 2008 series.
25. Started to look at Fredweng's day ten in Australia Flickr set.
I'm guessing he was still in Tasmania here. I don't see any ferry or airplane scenes, so he hasn't been taken away from Tasmania yet.
26. Thought this tree photo was pretty awesome. It's kind of spooky.
27. Saw Fredweng's room; and his shadow.
28. Thought the scenery in this photo was quite lovely.
It was taken at Dove Lake Circuit.
29. Learned from this Tasmanian government site that the Dove Lake Circuit is a walk within the Cradle Mountains.
It's a two hour walk and the fitness level is 2. I wonder what was the fitness level of the walk in The World Beneath.
30. Looked at the walk grades. The website has them if you click on "Level 2". The hardest one is level 5. It says, Challenging long walks for experienced bushwalkers with specialized skills including navigation and emergency first aid. Tracks may be very rough, very steep, and unmarked.
Yeah, that sounds like the walk in The World Beneath.
31. Thought this photo was beautiful.
I hope we go back to Tasmania someday.
32. Took note of the date on Fredweng's photos. He did the walk on August 9. That's winter in Australia. And since Tasmania is south and farther from the equator, it's really cold there.
I'd rather go to Tasmania when it's warmer. Although then there's probably no snow on the mountains. I think the snow adds to the beauty.
33. Read some more of We of the Never Never. I'm finding it difficult not to daydream. I keep having to read the same paragraphs over and over. But once I finally catch on to what's happening, I find it mildly interesting.
34. Went to the Funtrivia site to take another Australia quiz. I'm going to do another Christmas one. Tis the Season.....
35. Annoyed by the first question. It asked what's the traditional Christmas meal in Australia. I picked picnic on the beach, because that's what I've heard.
The answer thing said I was wrong. It says even though beach picnics are popular, the tradition is to have roast turkey.
I guess it's all about the difference between tradition and what's popular.
Whatever....
36. Got question #2 wrong and learned Australians leave beer and carrots out for Santa.
I never heard that before.
37. Found a blog post entitled "Milk, Cookies, Carrots, and Beer". It shows a picture of the milk, cookies, carrots, and beer. I'm guessing it might be an Australian blog?
38. Saw that the family in the blog celebrates Thanksgiving; and I'm seeing pictures of American cities. So they're in America and doing American things. They're probably American, although they might be expats from Australia. Or maybe the mother is American and the father is Australian?
39. Looked at their biographies. I can't find any indication that they're connected to Australia.
40. Finished the quiz. I got the rest of the answers correct. My score was 8/10. The average was 7/10.
I wasn't alone in getting the first question wrong. It was answered correctly by only 38% of players.
41. Started to watch another Kensignton25 video. This one is about Hungry Jacks.
42. Got idea, from what Kensignton25 says, that Burger King is called Burger King in London. He seems as mystified by the name change as many Americans do.
43. Learned from video that the reason Burger King couldn't be called Burger King in Australia is that someone had already trademarked the name for their business.
I wonder if it's still around.
44. Learned from the video that the first Hungry Jacks opened in Perth in 1971.
45. Learned there were legal battles between Hungry Jacks and Burger King.
Hungry Jacks won.