Kosciuszko, Moreton Bay, Bernard Fanning, and An Irish Mystery

1. Had deja vu when I saw this article.  

A doctor from Egypt, working in Western Australia, has been denied permanent residency because his daughter is disabled. She has cerebral palsy, and the government thinks she'll be a burden to the health system.

A few years ago the same thing happened with a doctor who's child had Down Syndrome.

I think they eventually let the family stay, but it was a battle.

I would have hoped their battle would have prevented other people from having to endure the same battle.

2. Learned from my Australia travel guide book that Mount Kosciuszko was named after a Polish freedom fighter.

I didn't know that.

Lord Wiki says the name of the mountain was originally Mount Kosciusko.  Then in 1997 they changed the spelling of the name to better match its namesake.

The guy who named the mountain was Pawel Edmund Stzelecki.  He was a Polish explorer who climbed the mountain and named it.

3. Consulted Lord Wiki about Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

He wasn't just a Polish freedom fighter.  He was an American freedom fighter.

He fought on the side of the colonies during the American Revolutionary war.  Then he became an American citizen.

4. Learned from Lord Wiki that Kosciuszko eventually left the United States. He left with Thomas Jefferson as the executor of his American estate.  He requested that his money be given to a fund that would free African slaves and help them become educated and independent.

Unfortunately, that went wrong.  People did wrong. And none of the money went where it should have gone.

5. Felt a little emotional when I saw from Lord Wiki that there are many places around the world named after Kosciuszko.  

There's a Kosciusko, Texas.  It's near San Antonia.  I think it's a pretty small town. I have to zoom in a lot on Google Maps before I can see it.  

Lord Wiki says America also has a few statues of Kosciuszko.  There's one in Washington D.C

6. Saw that the Australian dollar has gone up even more. It's now equal to 1.03 American dollars.

I have to go back to my old post to see what it was last time. I think it was 1.01 or 1.02.

7. Saw that the last time I looked at the currency thing was Sunday. And the Australian dollar was worth 1.02 American dollars.

It's comparison to the British pound has stayed relatively the same.  It's still worth about .65 pounds.

It's worth 6.81 Swedish Kronor.  Last time I checked it was 6.78.  It's gone up a bit there.

The Australian dollar has also gone up in yen.  The last time I checked it was worth 78.12 yen.   Now it's worth 79.1 yen.

8. Went to Tallygarunga.

Today I'm going to read a story thread called Or Perhaps You'd Rather Be Nude.

It takes place in a wizarding robe store in Oliphant Lane, Melbourne's wizarding village.

The two characters in the story are Eudoxia Karras and a new guy named Henry Hunter.

Henry is a professor of practical magic...probably at the university, but I'm not sure yet.

9. Started reading the story.

It's the evening of Sunday, October 16.

It looks like Henry Hunter has recently moved to Victoria.  In his previous hometown, the robe shop folks knew him very well. He could just walk into the store and they would have clothes ready for him.  They knew his size and what he liked. Now Henry is wondering how long it will be before he has that type of relationship with the shop in Oliphant Lane.

Eudoxia is also in the shop.  She's looking for robes for her brother. He has a thing about starting fires, so she's thinking of getting him a fireproof robe.  

That might be wise.

10. Saw Eudoxia and Henry exchanging some small talk in the shop. It started with a question about the weather.

11. Learned that Henry is from England, and he's teaching at the university.

12. Started to read the biography of Henry Hunter.  

His face claim is Gordon Ramsey—the cooking guy.   From what I know of that man, I don't like him.   But then I really don't know much, so I suppose I'm being a bit prejudice.

13. Watched a video of Gordon Ramsey getting angry.



There's a lot of videos on YouTube with him getting angry.

He has quite a reputation.

And maybe there's more to him than that. Maybe he has anger issues, but is really nice when he's not angry. Maybe he gives a lot of money to charity.

I'm trying to think positively here....

14. Learned from Lord Wiki, that Ramsay would lie to vegetarians and feed them soup with chicken stock.

Yeah.  I'm not finding much to love about this guy.  

15. Started to read about Henry Hunter.

He's 42.  He was born in London. His Patronus is a hedgehog.

16. Learned that Henry Hunter is not like his face claim.  He's friendly and has a good sense of humor.  He likes games and jokes.

17. Thought of the dad in Gremlins when I read these lines. 

The man is perpetually tinkering with one thing or another irrespective of the time of day or the season (or what company may or may not be over at the time), and he has invented just as many useless things as he has destroyed.

18. Learned that Henry is a bit sexist....or maybe a lot sexist.

He doesn't think women are suited for proper charm work.

19. Saw that Henry does have something in common with Ramsay.  He has a hot temper. However he doesn't hold grudges.

I wonder if Ramsay holds grudges.  

20. Started to read about Henry Hunter's history.

His father is a wizard, and his mother is a Muggle.

The two met at a benefit event for Muggles. The wizarding Hunter family cared about Muggle-welfare and involved themselves in those types of charities.

21. Learned that at Hogwarts, Henry was sorted into the Ravenclaw house.

22. Learned that Henry lost his Ministry job in the UK because he started a lab fire.

He escaped to Australia feeling they were a backwater continent, and therefore probably wouldn't have heard of his reputation yet.

23. Amused by this bit about Henry.

Easily tricked or distracted out of a temper (or assignment... or anything) with questions about things that interest him.

That's kind of cute.

Henry Hunter is described as being a mad scientist.  Besides the Gremlins dad, it also reminds me of the Back to the Future guy.   

Henry is creative, but dangerous.

It sounds like he's a bit like Eudoxia's brother.  I wonder if she'll come to realize that.  

24. Read something in Summerland that reminded me of Sarah's fight with the bullies, in the Tallygarunga story I read yesterday.  

The narrator of Summerland says,

If a woman has obvious flaws, a man can, mentally, take out his anger upon them.  He can silently curse her breasts slopping across her like a pair of jowls, her rippled cellulite, her thick waist, her lank hair.  And then his recovery starts: he scolds himself for his unfair wrath.  

I think that's fascinating, and I feel there may be some truth to it.

Our anger at people can make us think really nasty things—superficial things, bigoted things, unfair things.  I know I've done this at times.

If we're relatively decent, we feel guilty about these things.  Then maybe some of the anger and disgust we direct at the other person is redirected towards ourselves.  This might somewhat calm our anger towards the other person.  

The key word, though, in Summerland is silent.  When Sarah insulted the bully for his weight, she was far from silent.  Because of this, I'm tempted to believe she sees no fault in her way of thinking, and no guilt for her words.

I could give her  the benefit of the doubt if something slipped out once.  Sometimes our secret shameful thoughts are blurted out in a moment of negative passion. But if they're said repeatedly, I would think there's no shame.

25. Saw that my Australian of the day is George Appel.

He was born in Germany in 1823.

When Appel was fifteen, he went to London and started working in a bank.

In his late twenties, Appel decided to seek gold in Australia.

He arrived in Melbourne and then headed off to Bendigo. He didn't have much luck there.

He moved on to the Moreton Bay area, which is a little bit north of Brisbane.

He took part in the German community and was a founding member of the first Lutheran church of South Brisbane.

If I'm reading this right, Hamburg Germany appointed Appel to be a sort of consul to Brisbane. I guess he was kind of a liaison between Germany and Queensland. 

26. Went to Silkw0rm1982's YouTube channel.  

Here's his cover of Crowded House's "Fall At Your Feet".



I think he has a nice voice.

27. Listened to Silkw0rm1982's cover of Bernard Fanning's "Wash Me Clean".



It's quite lovely.

I'm not sure I've ever heard the original.

28. Started looking at John Lampard's Flickr set of a garden in Mt Eliza Victoria.

29. Saw that Mt Eliza is a tiny bit south of Frankston.

One of my favorite Australians lives in Frankston.

30.  Liked the trees in this picture. 

31. Looked at the Australian Monopoly board. 

The next space for me is Wickham Terrace.  Lord Wiki has nothing to say about it.  But I'm assuming since it's part of the red property group, it's in Brisbane.

I'm not saying the color red symbolizes Brisbane. But the other two red properties were in Brisbane, so I'm assuming that's the case for Wickham Terrace.

32. Found Wickham Terrace on Google Maps.  It's near Brisbane Private Hospital. 

33. Saw on Google Maps, that there's a Wickham Park.

34. Learned that the name Wickham comes from a guy named John Clements Wickham.

He was a captain on the HMS Beagle.  This is the ship that was made famous by Charles Darwin's adventures.

He later became a police chief of the Moreton Bay area. 

This is the second time I've run into Moreton Bay today.

I'm having Moreton Bay synchronocity.  

35. Saw that there's one of those non-sleepover hotels on Wickham Terrace.

It's called The Mill Hotel. 

I'm looking at their menu right now.

They don't have a vegetarian option on their kid's menu.  I don't like that.  There's not many vegetarian options on the menu...period.

That doesn't necessarily mean there's no food for vegetarians.   They might be willing to make something vegetarian or put together a side plate of vegetables.

I've been to some places in which every dish has meat, and if you ask for something without meat, they look at you like you've lost your mind.    Actually....I've been to only one place like that recently— a Vietnamese restaurant in Fort Worth.  Most places these days are vegetarian friendly. The thing is, it's not just vegetarians who want to order meatless dishes.   Before I was vegetarian, I often wanted meatless meals.

36. Wondered. If I expect meat restaurants to serve vegetarian food, should I then expect vegetarian restaurants to serve a few meat dishes?

I decided my answer is....

No.

There's a difference.

Meat eaters usually still eat vegetables, grains, and other stuff.  Unless they're on some kind of extreme protein-only diet, they should be able to find a vegetarian dish they can eat.

I do think the best restaurants are those that serve meat from ethical sources, and then also have a lot of vegetarian and vegan options.  Elevation Burger is like that.  The dead cows they use in their burgers are grass fed, organic, and free range....all that fun stuff.   Then they also have a vegetarian burger AND a vegan burger.  Oh, and what I love is they have a burger called Half The Guilt Burger.  You get one beef patty and one vegetarian patty.

37. Looked at my Australian travel guide.  I read about an explorer exploring a place.

Guess what place it was....

Moreton Bay!

That bay is haunting me today.

I'm going to be honest here.

The Australian travel guide is my designated bathroom book.   I like to read when I'm on the toilet.  I don't often mention that, because it seems to be such a guy thing.   But...well....there you go.

Maybe most women do it too.  Maybe I'm not alone.   It's just I more often hear men admitting to it.

Anyway, so I went to pee and ran into Moreton Bay again.

38. Consulted Lord Wiki about Moreton Bay.

Lord Wiki says it's the only place in Australia where the dugong gather in herds.  I guess it's their hang out place.

39. Learned the Aboriginal name for Moreton Bay is Quandamooka.

40. Learned that Moreton Bay is named after a Scottish astronomer named James Douglas. He was the Earl of Morton.

The change from Morton to Moreton was due to a spelling mistake.  Oops. 

James Douglas was the 14th Earl of Morton.  Now Scotland is on their 21st Earl of Morton. This guy's name is John Douglas.

I'm guessing all the Earls of Morton are related.

Why do they use the name Morton?

Why not say they're the Earl of Douglas?

41. Learned that Captain James Cook only passed by the bay, and that's when he named it.   That was in 1770.

Twenty-nine years later, in 1799 Matthew Flinders was the first to go IN the bay.

Twenty-five years after that, a guy named John Oxley brought in the first settlement.

It's amazing to me that so much time passes between these events.   My brain knows that.   But a part of me imagines it all happening at once.  Well, I don't picture it happening simultaneously.  I imagine it happening within a few months or years.  Sometimes, though, it's decades.  

So in the 1820's, there were convicts and soldiers in the area.

In the 1840's, ships with immigrants started to arrive.

41. Saw that one of the immigrant ships has the same name as a Tallygarunga wizard. Artemesia.  

Artemisia was the first ship to bring immigrants into Moreton Bay.  She arrived in December 1848.  

42. Learned from Lord Wiki that the relationship between the Quandamooka people and the Europeans was not a sweet one.   The white people showed a lack of respect for Aboriginal marriage rules and they desecrated sacred sites.  The other problem is the white people took over the land and there were not enough places for the Aboriginal people to hunt and father food. They started going after the stock animals, which I think is fair and understandable. 

The cattle grazers didn't think so. They thought this gave them valid reason to massacre the Quandamooka people.

43. Learned that, in March 2009, there was an oil spill in Moreton Bay. It was an environmental disaster.

That's bad, but the badness doesn't end there.   

In the 2011 Queensland flood, contaminated water got into the area.  Fishing folks were told not to catch anything.  The water was investigated, and the investigators learned there was sewage, pesticides, and metal in the water.  

44. Learned that there are 360 islands in Moreton Bay.

One of the islands is Bribie Island. I think I've heard of that.

Peel Island was used as a leper colony from 1907-1959.

45. Learned from Lord Wiki that there's a song called "Moreton Bay".

Now that he's said that, I'm thinking I've heard it before.  

46. Watched video with Moreton Bay song and scenes from the Ned Kelly movie. 



It's a pretty song.

Lord Wiki says it's about convicts being treated with brutality by a guy named Patrick Logan.

Logan was in command of the penal colony there from 1827-1830.

The convicts thought he was hateful, but some people see him as the father of Queensland.

It's interesting how there can be so many varying views about a person.

47. Learned Bernard Fanning is the one singing "Moreton Bay" in the video above.

It reminds me of this song that played at the end of this TV movie about Protestant and Catholic Irish children.  I forgot the name of the movie.  There was a program in America where they'd take in two kids—one from each side of the conflict.   It was a peace initiative.  

I like stuff like that...things that promote peace.  

48. Struggled to find the name of the movie.  This is frustrating.  It's so rare that I can't find the answers with googling.

I DID find that the program is called The Irish Children's Fund.  

You'd think knowing that would help me find the movie, but I'm still not having luck.

Anyway, it was a good song...in the movie.   I used to love it. They played it during a tearjerker moment.

I'm guessing it's a style of music.  Irish folk music, perhaps?

Lord Wiki says "Moreton Bay" is an Australian folk song, which makes sense since it is about Australia.  I'd also say it was Irish, though, since the creator of the song was an Irish convict.

49. Listened to John Denver sing "Moreton Bay" on Spotify. I downloaded Spotify months ago, but didn't have a need to use it until today.

I tried to find Denver's performance on YouTube so I could embed it, but no such luck......

50. Listened to Barry Crocker sing "Moreton Bay".

I'm falling in love with this song.

I can totally imagine it making me cry if I heard it in a movie.  

51. Remembered the name of the TV movie!

I'm so happy.

It's called Children in the Crossfire.  

I found it by looking at the RareTvMovie YouTube channel.   They have a huge collection of American TV movies.  I actually didn't see that movie.  I saw a movie called Cross of Fire.  But that triggered my memory of the other movie's name.  

I think if I kept digging on this channel, I'd find Children in the Crossfire as well.   They seem to have everything.  

52. Searched through the channel.  It seems they DON'T have Children in the Crossfire. Oh well.   I'm still grateful to them for helping my memory out.  

Now that I've found what I was looking for, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed the challenge of searching.

53. Thought I wouldn't be able to find the song in the movie, but I did!

I thought the song was played only in the end, but it's also played in the beginning....at least a little bit of it.

Google Video has it.  

54. Found the name of the song!

It's called "The Town I Loved So Well" and it's by the Dubliners.  

I think these are the lyrics that are played at the end of the movie.

But when I returned how my eyes have burned
To see how a town could be brought to it's knees
By the armored cars and the bombed-out bars
And the gas that hangs on to every breeze.
Now the army's installed by that old gasyard wall
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher
With their tanks and their guns, oh my god what have they done
To the town I loved so well.


Now the music's gone but they carry on
For their spirit's been bruised never broken
They will not forget but their hearts are set
On tomorrow and peace once again.
For what's done is done and what's won is won
And what's lost is lost and gone forever
I can only pray for a bright brand-new day
In the town I loved so well.

Here's a video of the song.

Monopoly, John Pilger, Clucky Women, and Western Australia

1. Realized I haven't checked the Australian dollar in a few days.

So....

It's equal to .97 American dollars. It's gone down a bit there.

It's equal to .62 British pounds. It's gone down there as well.  The last time I checked it was at .63 pounds.

It's equal to 6.67 Swedish Krona and 74.68 Japanese Yen.

2. Looked at my post from a few days ago and compared what's there to what I'm seeing now. The Australian dollar has gone down in Sweden and Japan as well.

3. Looked at an Australia-themed Monopoly board with Jack—thanks to Lord Wiki.

Jack's suddenly obsessed with Monopoly.  It's not the first time. He used to love it when he was younger.  We played it often, and ended up buying three new variations of the game.

Anyway....

The Australian Monopoly has different streets from around Australia.

The Boardwalk is represented by King's Ave. I didn't even know what that was. We clicked on Lord Wiki's link, and saw it was in Canberra.  It kind of surprises me that this was chosen as the most expensive property.  Yeah, Canberra is the capitol of Australia, but I think it's less famous and prestigious than cities like Sydney and Melbourne.

4. Looked again at the Australia Monopoly board. 

It's a good way to learn about streets in Australia.

Maybe I'll learn about a street a day.

That might be fun.

5. Looked at the first property.  It's one of the cheap $60 dollar ones. The street is Todd Street in Darwin.  

Strangely I can't find it on Google Maps. I see only Todd Crescent.  

6. Saw that there is a Todd Street in Alice Springs.  

Lord Wiki might be confused. Or is Google Maps missing Darwin's Todd Street?

7. Found an Australia-related dream in my old Livejournal.  It's been awhile since I've seen one. I think in April, and in the beginning of May 2007, I had been thinking less about Australia because I was busy trying to rewrite my novel.  I was a bit preoccupied with that.  

The dream I found today is from May 22, 2007.

Stuff about Australia. Thinking of going there. Thinking about plane ride. Thinking of taking sleep drugs, but then thinking even then...I might be awake for long time. Wondering if it really is 24 hours or could it be even longer than that.

Saying the only thing I want to see is Great Barrier Reef. But then changing mind and saying I want to see Sydney Harbor.

I used to think the plane ride from America to Australia was 24 hours.  We went to a Wiggles concert, and I thought one of the Wiggles men had said that. I think what he meant was that with connecting flights, it might take 24 hours.  

8. Continued to read K.E. Mill's The Accidental Sorcerer. I'm starting to like it a lot.

9.  Listened to part of an interview with a guy named John Pilger and Phillip Adams. My email-pal sent me to link.

 Pilger thinks Australia acts too much like America's 51st state.  

I don't know if I agree with that. But I do think some Australians put too much thought and energy into America.   There's that hate-love thing going on. It reminds me so much of relationships I have with certain people.  I'm angry with them.  I want to NOT think about them and push them out of my mind and life.  But then I continue to think about them.

10. Decided that Australia and America are friends, but it's not always a healthy and egalitarian friendship.  

Now I'm just talking about the two countries as a whole—and probably the two governments.    Individual American citizens and individual Australian citizens can certainly have great and healthy friendships with each other.

11.  Listened to more of John Pilger and Phillip Adams.

Pilger believes the American government is run by the military—that they have more power than the president.

That's interesting.  Maybe it's true?  I don't know. I do feel like the president doesn't have much power.  I think it's because they have to fight so hard to get things done. They can't just come up with an idea and make it a law.

It's frustrating when I like the president's idea, and want it to become policy.  But I also know that if there's a president with an idea I don't like, I'll be glad it's not easy for a president to make massive changes.  

12. Liked Miss Sparkle's blog post about feeling clucky. She's feeling that every women she sees is either pregnant or with a newborn.

She says, I've spent a lot of time with kids these past few years and I absolutely love all things kid - bedtime stories, fairytales, trips to the park, singing the same nursery rhymes over and over, answering their endless questions, helping them reach the top shelf, all of it. I feel that I'm so ready for that next stage of my life and I'm just patiently trying to wait the next few years out.

In my opinion, those are good reasons to want a child.  If you love the world of childhood, having a kid gives you an excuse to indulge in all that.

It's not all easy though, and Miss Sparkle is clever enough to recognize that.  She says, I'm sure in about five years time when I haven't slept a full night in months, I'm tripping over toys and dealing with nappy rash I'll be longing for these days where I had almost infinite time to do whatever I wanted.

Exactly.

Parenting is fun, especially when you love childhood things.   But it IS hard work. It's stressful, scary, and exhausting.

13. Thought of other reasons people have children. I guess personally I find these reasons to be less admirable.  But other people might be okay with them.

A) Pass on the genes and the family name
B) Following tradition.  I'm supposed to be a mom, and that is that.
C) Wanting to buy cute baby clothes and nursery furniture
D) Wanting to have something you can control.
E) Wanting to be loved in that special way moms are loved by their young children.

I think I had E when I was a preschool teacher. The kids liked me, but I saw the way they loved their mommies and daddies. I wanted that.

I don't know if it's necessarily bad to want that love.  But I'm not sure if it's good to have that as your main reason to want a baby.  Mom and Dad aren't always going to be #1 in the kid's life.

It's probably not a great idea to have a baby just so you'll be the center of someone's world.

14. Decided I probably also had a little bit of A,B and C.  I don't think I had much of D. I've never been one of those people who had a child so I could mold it to my liking.

I got over A pretty quickly.  I no longer care about passing on my genes or my family name. Maybe playing Sims 2 and 3 helped with that. I passed on the genes of my Sims through many generations.   I got all that out of my system.

I'd like to have grandchildren just so I can play in the world of childhood again. But if Jack doesn't make or adopt babies, I'll try to have a good relationship with my great-nieces and great-nephews.   

15. Listened to more of the John Pilger thing. I like what he says about the American population.   He says we're NOT like our rulers.

That's what I wish people around the world would understand.   They can be against the American government without being against the American people. I think most people can manage this.  But with some, their hatred of some things American, has leaked into their feelings about everything American.  

16. Found myself disagreeing with John Pilger.  He takes his defense of the American people way too far.   As some make the mistake of lumping us all into the role of George W. Bush fans, he goes too far in the other direction.  He makes it seem like we're ALL on the left. We all want health care for all. We all want an end to the war.

That's not true at all.

I know of some Americans who are very right wing. They perfectly fit the stereotype that many people have of Americans.  They're ethnocentric.  They don't believe in paying taxes to help those less fortunate than themselves.  They believe in the war. They believe any type government health coverage will likely lead to us becoming Communist.

17. Thought about how it annoys me when someone lumps everyone in a group together...even if it's positive.

Americans are all different.  We're a country made up of different people. We don't all have the same beliefs, opinions, intelligence levels, attitudes, etc.

The same goes for everyone, including Australians.  The other day someone learned that I have a thing for Australia. They told me Australians are such nice people and that they love Americans so much.

Many Australians are very nice, but not all.   Some are quite awful, in my opinion.

I've only encountered a few who have a great love for America and Americans.  Others I've encountered really can't stand America, but will make an exception here or there....as long as you tread very carefully.  

Others have a very balanced view of America and Americans.  They like some and they dislike some. They take the good and the bad.

18. Remembered feeling that Australians were super nice the first time I visited...with only a few exceptions. I think that's because I had my rose-colored glasses on. Although it could be that there's an Australian tradition of being very friendly towards tourists.

I'm not sure though if it's different in other countries.

Are Americans usually less friendly towards international tourists?  

I don't know.

My suspicion is that most countries are made up of a mixture of people. Some are very friendly.   Some are mildly friendly. And some are cold and rude.

Australia might have more friendly people than other countries. I'm not sure. How do you test that?

19. Saw that Askmen.com has a listing of the friendliest countries. They put Australia at #4.  

They say the friendliest country is Ireland.

20. Saw Forbes has a list as well.  They talk about which countries are most friendliest towards expats. In their top three: South Africa, Bermuda, and Canada.  The United States and Australia came in after those.

21.  Figured some countries might be very friendly if you're a tourist, but less friendly if you're planning to stay for a long time.

Some people might be friendly enough to take the time to give you clear and careful directions when you're lost.  But they may not be friendly enough to invite newbies to the neighborhood barbecue.  

22. Thought it might be wonderful if we could magically place Earth's people in countries that would fit their political beliefs.

What if America became a right-wing paradise? All of us on the left or in the center would disappear.

Well, we wouldn't vanish from the planet, but we'd end up in a new country.   How about Australia?  I'd like that. Australia could be the left-wing country, but not the extreme left. We'll send those people to another country.  

Would there be enough room for all of us left-wing people? Maybe. Because all the right-wing people would be in America.

There's so many other countries out there, of course There'd be so many choices.   

I was going to say there could be a country for each group of religious extremists. But I think it would be more fun to put them all in one country together. Then they'll be too busy fighting each other to fight the rest of us.

23. Decided there could be a sorting hat. It would know which country is best for you.

Would it work?  Would people get along better that way?   Would there be less internal conflict?  I think so...maybe. Although there'd still be variations within the group, and people would still find excuses to be intolerant.

Families would likely be separated, but there would be email and video chat.

What about children, though?  Do you send them away as soon as they get ideologies that don't fit the country? Or do you wait until they're a certain age?

24. Went to Tallygarunga.

Hey!  Maybe there could be a country for Harry Potter fans. That might be fun.  

25. Found the story thread I'm going to read today.  It's called Don't Push Me, I'll Bite.   It's starring the bully-victim pair— Jack Dalton and Reade Ainsworth.

I saw a really sad bullying story yesterday.  I can't find the article I read, but here's another one. A 14 year-old New Yorker named Jamey Rodemeyer committed suicide after years of relentless bullying.  Now even in death, people are being incredibly nasty.  When Lady Gaga's "Born This way" was played in honor of Jamey, people began to chant, Better off dead.

It's absolutely disgusting.

How could people be so evil?

Later that day, we watched The Simpsons.  It annoyed me because of the way they presented the  bullying issues.  Other days I might have been able to tolerate (maybe even enjoy) the humor, but not after hearing Jamey's story.

First, they took one of the show's bullies and showed him in a very positive light.   I'm fine when they do that with Nelson. We've known for a long time that he has a sweet and tender side.  But this was different....at least to me.

Then there were jokes about the whole push for parents to look out for bullying and victim behavior in their children.  

I got the feeling the creators of the show were pushing the mindset that we shouldn't worry about bullies.  Let kids be kids.  It's fine and normal for them to cruelly taunt each other. We're overreacting, blah, blah, blah.

I think it's fine and normal for kids to tease each other a little bit.   I think it's fine and normal for kids to have disagreements sometimes.

It's not fine and normal for children to be relentlessly teased and abused. It's not fine and normal for people to cheer over the death of someone committing suicide.

26. Started to read the Tally story thread.  It takes place on October 1, on the Quidditch field.

27. Confused because Reade's post describes Jack's feelings.

I'm guessing the two role-players talked about it beforehand. But if the first post was supposed to be through Jack's eyes, why not have him do the first post?

I'm lost.

28.  Finished reading the post. I'm guessing for the story to work, maybe they needed multiple viewpoints in one thread.

Anyway, all that aside.....

What happens is Jack says nasty things about Reade's sister.  Reade gets very angry and punches Jack.

In his head he says, Insult me, call me mutie I don’t tangoing care, but don’t you dare talk about my sister like that. She’s thirteen for god’s sake! And Arti is a thousand times a better person than you are on your best day without even trying! You think you’re so tough? See how you like my fist in your face you ass!

It's nice that he defends his sister like that.  It's very sweet.

29. Started to read Jack's post.

He's shocked about Reade punching him.  Good!   I wonder what his reaction will be now. Will he leave Reade alone?  Or will this make him go after Reade even more?

30. Wondered if the role-players were at all inspired by the Casey Heynes story. This was the story in which the teenager finally fought back against his bully, and it was all caught on video.

31. Saw that Jack struggled to fight back against Reade's attack.  He's very angry and also a bit scared.

32. Consulted Lord Wiki about John Pilger.

From what Lord Wiki says, Pilger is probably too far left for me. Well, actually I got those feelings before consulting Lord Wiki— I guess from what I'm hearing in the interview and the little article/introduction that accompanied the interview.  Lord Wiki's just confirming my suspicions.

Pilger seems to be anti-Israel. He's been accused of being biased in that regards.

He blamed the 2005 London bombings on Tony Blair saying that he was the cause of the anger that led to the bombs.  

I'm very much against the idea that violence towards innocent people is deserved, and that it's the fault of the people who made the terrorists angry.  

33. Read some of Pilger's editorial about the bombs.

I do agree that the war in the Middle East was a huge dangerous mistake.  If you attack, something is likely to attack back.

But it all starts somewhere.

Could we then blame Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda for the war in the Middle East?   If they didn't want America to invade Iraq, they shouldn't have bombed NYC.

It doesn't begin there. I'm not an expert on history. But I know Osama Bin Laden and his minions were angry at something the United States did in the past.

It keeps going and going. One group does something bad and the other seeks revenge.Then the other group seeks revenge against the revenge.

Innocent people die.

I say the blood of the innocents is on the hands of those who couldn't resist seeking revenge.

34.   Read more of Pilger's editorial. It's pretty much America and Israel=very bad. Muslim Countries=innocent victims.

It's really not that simple, and that type of attitude annoys me as much as the far right's attitude.

I wish the far-right and the far-left would get together, have their fights, and leave me out of it.

The annoying thing, though, is that some of the far-right people seem to assume I'm in agreement with people like John Pilger.  This is the thing.   If you don't think America is the best and most important country in the world, and you don't think all Muslims are evil and the scum of the earth, then it must mean you hate Israel and support terrorism.   

35. Wondered if I'm being ridiculous by not immediately recognizing the parallels between what's happening in the world and the fight scene between Jack and Reade.

I liked that Reade stood up for himself and attacked Jack. I enjoyed that violence. I thought Jack totally deserved it.

So if I can cheer on Reade, shouldn't I also cheer on terrorists who fight back against what Americans have done in the Middle East?   Should I then have sympathy for those who cheered about September 11?   Should I feel the bombings in Bali were valid responses to what's going on in the Middle East?   Yeah.  It's sad that some Australian tourists died, but hey it's not the fault of the bombers.   It's the Australian government's fault for being too friendly with America.  

I think it's very different though.   Reade attacked only Jack.  He didn't go and kill innocent wizards in honor of his anger towards Jack. He didn't kill innocent wizards so he could scare people into not-supporting Jack.

It's one thing for a bully's target to fight back against the bully. It's another thing entirely when they take a gun and start shooting random students in the cafeteria. To me, the former is somewhat admirable. The latter is disgusting and evil.  I don't care how much torment the bullying victims have endured; once they kill innocent people, they're just as bad as the bullies.  

36. Annoyed at the world.

I think it's no longer a matter of what's right and what's wrong.  Most people pick their good guys and
bad guys; and stick to that no matter what.

America can do no wrong. They're always right.

America is the cause of all the world's problems.

Israel is always right.

Israel is always wrong.

The Muslims are bad.

The Muslims are all good.  None of it's their fault.

Americans all disagree with their government.

Australians are all friendly and love Americans.

It would be really nice if we could move past generalizations and hyperbole.  

It would be really nice if we could condemn the violence and/or hypocrisy of those on our own teams as much as we condemn the violence and hypocrisy that we see coming from the opposing teams.

37.  Saw that my Australian of the day is an artist named Leonard Lloyd Annois.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography says he more often went by the name Len Annois.

Len Annois was born in Melbourne in 1906.

When it came time for him to choose a career, he picked engineering.  He did that, and then he became a concrete salesman.  I guess that means he sold concrete?  Did he lose interest in engineering, or were there no jobs available?

38. Learned that Len Annois lost his concrete job during the depression.  He then started taking art classes.

Without a job, how did he afford the classes?

39. Saw that in 1935 Len Annois became employed again. He got a job with the advertising department of G.J Coles and Co.

I googled that, and learned it's Coles, as in the supermarket.

40. Learned that Len Annois painted landscapes.   The Australian Dictionary of Biography says he went beyond the typical sunburnt plains and blue distances seen through gum trees. He tried to give a different perspective of Australia.

41. Looked at a website that has Len Annois' paintings. 

I don't really like any of them too much. I don't think it's my type of thing.

42. Did like this Annois painting a little bit. It's called "Country Road".  

43. Went to blankankle's YouTube channel.  

He has walking fingers with a cover of "Little Red Riding Hood".  




It's very....interesting.

I think he sings pretty good.  

As for the fingers. I think he does a great job of making them look like legs.   I'm just not sure their movements match the song very much. Sometimes they do....sort of.

44. Watched blankankle do a cover of a Dave Matthew's song called "Typical Situation"



I hear a good voice in there, but it's kind of a struggle to hear it. The guitar's too loud.

I'm getting the idea it's hard for people to balance instruments with the voice.   I'm finding people sometimes sing too quietly, or their instruments are too loud.  

45. Started to look at more of Baroo42's Darwin to Perth Flickr set.    

46. Liked this photo.  It looks very stereotypical Australian.  

I like this one too.   It's beautiful.  

46. Liked this photo.   

There's a lot of lovely scenes in this set.  

47. Loved this picture.  

I'm sorry I'm being repetitive.

I'm at a loss for words.  There's not much you can say about beautiful scenes.   As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  So why add more words?

48.  Figured this might be The Pinnacles.  

And this picture makes me believe it even more.  

49. Looked up the Pinnacles (near Cervantes) on Google Maps.   I forgot where it was. All I remembered was that it was in Western Australia somewhere.

Anyway, it's about 2 hours north of Perth.  

50. Thought this rock looked like a friendly troll-type creature.

Self-Indulgence, Mothers, Family Trees, and Famine Food

1. Felt angry and sad when reading The Distant Hours.

One of the themes of the book is people who selfishly hinder the dreams of others.

I hope I never do that to anyone—especially Jack.  

Some relationships add feathers to our wings.  Other relationships add bars to our cages.

Is that a corny metaphor?

Probably.  

2. Had a chance to put my self-righteous stances into practice.

Earlier today, I told Jack I really love how we read our books at bedtime together.  He reads his book.  I read mine.  I love that.

I said I hoped we would do it every night—meaning bedtime should be at a reasonable time so we're not too tired to read.

Well, Jack's been really into playing with Legos tonight.   He wanted to start working on a Harry Potter set.  I warned him there wasn't much time.

Then I thought about how it feels to be really into a project—the dread of having to quit because someone else says you have to.

I went up to Jack and asked him if he would like to skip reading so he can have more Lego time.

He said yes and acted very grateful.

I'm going to read with Mushu instead.  He won't read with me, but he'll sit by me and purr.

3. Went to bed and had some Australian and Blogging related dreams.

In one of them, I find a website that has information about Australians who have Cystic Fibrosis.  One of them is going to be an actress in an upcoming movie. I watch a short documentary about it, and think of linking to it on my blog.   

In the other, Cherie from Waste Not Do Want has a recipe for a tuna fish salad.  It has no tuna fish and she's substituted the mayonnaise with cream cheese.

It might be significant that I hate tuna fish sandwiches, and I have a strong aversion to mayonnaise.   I'm not sure of the meaning behind the dream though.   

4. Prompted by something on Statcounter to find a maybe-clue in my Jessica and Gavin mystery.  On the Australian mining website, there's an interview by a person named named Jessica Burke.   She's interviewing the CEO from a company called Kingsgate Consolidated. His name is Gavin Thomas.

This could be a dead end on a wild goose chase, but I'm thinking I should at least take a look.

I'll do it later.  Maybe.

5. Learned from Jack that Guy Peace won an Emmy.

I didn't know he was nominated.

It turns out he won best supporting actor for a miniseries called Mildred Pierce.  It's with Kate Winslet.



6. Consulted Lord Wiki about the miniseries because I thought Kate Winslet was kind of young to be having a daughter so old.

It turns out Kate Winslet is only twelve years older than the actress who played her daughter (Evan Rachel Wood).   

7. Went to Tallygarunga.

Today I'm going to read the continuation of I Don't Mean To Stare, We don't Have To Breed.

8. Read my first post about that story thread to trigger my memory. That's actually helpful. I think I'll start doing that more often.

The last time I read the thread it was only one post long.   Now two more posts have been added.

So...Frankie is this arrogant actor from a dynasty family.  He's dating a girl named Gemini Chevalier.  Her post is the second one in the thread.

9. Learned Gemini is from California. She feels somewhat out of place in the Australian-accent dominated Tallygarunga.

10. Finished reading the thread.

Frankie is wanting to have sex, and is hoping Gemini will give into him. He's not too patient about the whole thing.

11. Skimmed the biography of Gemini Chevalier, a bit.

Like Maya Arcemene, she's part Veela.   Maya's a 1/2 Veela and Gemini is 1/4.

Also like Maya, she has pyrokinetic powers.  Gemini's biography says it's due to her Veela heritage.   I was wondering if Maya's pyrokinetic powers were Veela-related, but wasn't sure.

Now I know.

12. Consulted Lord Wiki's cousin about Veelas.  I thought I consulted her before.  But I must have not read carefully enough.  She does say that Veelas can throw fire balls. I missed that the last time.  

13. Started to read the biography.  

14. Learned that Gemini's Patronus is a gryphon.  I think that's magical, right?    That's another thing she has in common with Maya.   Maya has a magical creature for her Patronus—a dragon.

I'm not sure if Magical is the best term for these animals.  They're part of the magical world, but do they really possess magical powers?  Then we also can't really call them mythical, because in the Harry Potter universe they're real.

15. Consulted Lord Wiki about gryphons. He says they have the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle.

16. Learned from Lord Wiki that JK Rowling didn't invent the Hippogriff.   It was an already established legendary creature—supposedly the offspring of a horse and gryphon.  

17. Liked this about Gemini. Gerry has no problem mixing her styles and wearing Converse or army boots with a formal dress or a tiara with a singlet and ripped jeans.

I think that's really brave and creative.  I try to be daring sometimes with clothes.   It's hard for me to know whether I look innovative or completely foolish.  I don't think we can know those things until we look at the photo albums five years later.  Then it's either, Well, that looked pretty cool; or it's What the hell was I thinking?

18. Learned that Gemini sometimes sews her own clothes. I definitely admire that.

19. Learned that Gemini plays the guitar. I admire that too.

20. Started to read Gemini's history.

21. Realized Gemini's nickname is Gerry. It's been written that way all along, but I didn't notice until I started reading the history.

Personally I prefer Gemini over Gerry, but that's just me.

22. Learned that Gemini...Gerry....(whatever) was pretty much raised by a single mother. There was a father in the picture; but he was hardly in the picture.  He has a thing for traveling, because he's a gypsy.  

23. Learned that when Gemini was thirteen, she found out she had a half-sister. She was eager to meet the sister, but the sister didn't want to know her.  The rejection was very rough on Gemini, and it led to her and her mom leaving California for Australia.  

24. Saw that Gemini's face claim is Hanna Beth Merjos.   She's a model. Here's a website about her.  

25. Learned that my Australian of the day is Henry Angel. 

He was a convict!

I haven't had many of those.

26. Learned that Henry was born in England in 1791.

He was sentenced to Australia when he was twenty-six.  For what? I don't know.

He went on a ship called Neptune, and arrived in Sydney in May 1818.

Six years later he was part of an expedition.  He went with eight other men, and they discovered the River Murray.

I was wondering why they called it that instead of the Murray River.

Lord Wiki says in South Australia the two words are reversed. It's called River Murray.

That's interesting.

27. Read more from Lord Wiki.   He talks about the expedition too.   It was led by two explorers—Hamilton Hume and William Hovel.  If I'm understanding things right, they found the river near Albany.

Back then though it was neither the Murray River or the River Murray.  It was probably just called, Hey, look there's a river over there!

28. Learned from this website that the Aboriginal name for the river was Millewa.

29. Learned, from Lord Wiki, that when Hume, Hovel, and their crew found the river, Hume named the river Hume. He didn't name it after himself.  He named it in honor of his father.

Six years later, Charles Sturt (the name sake of Sturt house in Tallygarunga) rediscovered the river.  He didn't realize it was already discovered and named, so he gave it the name Murray River.

30. Learned that Henry Angel got a ticket of leave after that adventure.  Then he married the daughter of Mary Wade. Wow!  I think she's the one who's an ancestor of Kevin Rudd.

Yep. Lord Wiki confirms that.

So Henry Angel is related to Kevin Rudd.   I'm not sure how direct the relation is.

31. Wondered about Henry's wife. Her name was Mary Ledwidge.  Yet her father's last name was Brooker and her mother's last name was Wade. Why wouldn't she have her father's last name?

32. Tried to find answers on the Mary Wade Family tree site.   

It's not easy.

33. Read the Australian Dictionary of Biography more closely.   I missed something important.   Mary Ledwidge was a widow.  That's why she had that last name. Originally her last name was Brooker.

I feel much better now.

34. Explored the family tree more.  I'm trying to see if Henry and Mary produced Kevin Rudd's direct ancestors.

They had two kids, but one of them died at the age of two.

The other married a Charles Malcolm Inglis.

35. Struggled more with the family tree.  It's hard because I can't see all of it. I don't know if there's some kind of glitch, it doesn't work with my browser, or you have to be a member to see the whole thing.

Or I might simply be doing something wrong.

36. Saw that Mary Wade's daughter (the one that married Henry Angel) was married TWICE before she married Henry.

When she was sixteen, she married John Hart.  He died two years after they married.

Then she married Christopher Ledwidge. He died about a year after they married.

I'm trying not to be suspicious here. Maybe it wasn't unusual to have your spouse die young in those days.

37. Decided to give up on the family tree.

38. Went back to reading the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

They say that Mary Angel gave birth to sixteen of Henry's children.  She also had two children from her first marriage.

When she died in 1890, she left ninety grandchildren and forty great-grandchildren.  By now, there must be tons of descendants. And that's only one line of the Mary Wade family tree.

I think there're probably a lot of Australians who are related to Kevin Rudd.

39. Decided to take my mind off the family tree by reading the Gavin and Jessica mining interview.  

40. Found the website for Kingsgate Consolidated Limited.  

They do gold mining.

Here's their profile of Gavin Thomas.  He's the CEO. One of his exciting accomplishments was discovering a gold deposit in Papua New Guinea.

41. Got mail from Australia!!!!!

I'm so excited!

It's a CD from Jayne from Gleeful.  It's full of Australian music. VERY COOL.

And the envelope has koala stamps!   

41. Heard bits and pieces of the songs as I labeled them on iTunes.  So far I'm loving what I hear which is unusual for me.  I rarely like songs immediately.

Maybe Jayne is one of my music soulmates.

42. Went back to Gavin and Jessica.

I was wondering about Jessica? Who is she?

I'm thinking she works for the Australian  Mining website?  

43. Watched a little bit of the video of the interview. For the most part I'm going to read the transcript though.

But anyway....

Gavin Thomas reminds me a bit of that actor. What's his name?   He's the one in Jurassic Park.

44. Remembered the actor. Richard Attenborough.

45. Started to read the interview.

Gavin is a geologist and his mother was a geologist.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's it was hard to find a mining job.  He ended up being a field assistant in Papua New Guinea.  He loved it there and stayed for a long time.

46. Read that Gavin thinks that miners receive more respect these days than they did in the past.

I don't know enough to argue with him.  I'll take his word for it.

47. Lost my respect for Gavin when I read that he said this.

Every person who thinks their mother isn’t s hero, isn’t a human being as far as I’m concerned.

Narrow-minded attitudes like that make my blood boil.


What about people who grew up with abusive mothers?  Why should they see their mother as heroes?

There's probably a ton of people out there with bad mothers, but the one that comes to my mind is a fictional one.  Rose Pickle.  Her mother was awful—drunk all the time and sleeping around. Should she really see her mother as a hero?

I don't know. I guess it's how you define hero. Maybe for Gavin Thomas all you need to do is go through childbirth (or sign adoption papers) and you're a hero.  

48. Started to listen to the Jayne CD.

I'm going to listen to more as I look at plants later.

I like listening to music while I look at photos.  

49.  Watched a video of an Australian guy doing back flips all over Europe.   It's pretty amazing.



His name is Tim. He's  17.  His thing is tricking.  What is that?  Magic?

50. Started to watch one of his tricking videos.  Maybe that will enlighten me.



It seems to be some kind of gymnastics thing.

I'm impressed.

As a child, I couldn't even manage a cartwheel.

51. Learned from Lord Wiki that tricking is connected to martial arts. 

There's a big Trickster community on YouTube.

I love learning new things like this.

52. Looked at massive DK cinema book with Jack.  We saw a few photos from Australian movies—Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee, The Year of Living Dangerously.  

I was reminded that Peter Weir directed Witness.

It's so weird though.  I had no idea we had that book, and I don't remember where we got it.  Did we buy it?  Get it as a gift?  Inherit it?

53. Started to get more plant education from Arthur Chapman's photos.  

And I'm also listening to Jayne's music.

54. Liked this photo of Button Everlasting Daisies.  

Lord Wiki says the Latin name of this flower changed in 2008.   It used to be called Helichrysum Scorpiodes.   Now it's called Coroindium Scorpiodes.  I wonder if the scorp is related to the scorp in scorpion.  Is scorpion a Latin word?

55. Learned from this etymology dictionary that the word scorpion comes from the Latin word scorpionem.

56. Wondered why Latin words are italicized.  

57. Liked this photo of the Trailing Guinea Flower.

58. Thought these flowers looked like purple poodles.  

59. Thought these Broad-Leaved Drumsticks looked interesting.  

The Australian government has a page on them on their website.  They say the flowers are related to Banksias.   That's one of the May Gibb flowers, I believe.  

60. Reminded by Lord Wiki that May Gibbs had Banksia Men.  They're the villains in the book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. 

61. Consulted Lord Wiki about Morinda citrifolia.  

It has a variety of common names including Indian Mulberry, dog dumpling, kumudu, beach mulberry, and cheese fruit.

Arthur Chapman uses the cheese fruit term.

Lord Wiki says the plant is native to South East Asia and Australasia.   Now it's cultivated in many tropical areas.

62. Learned the fruit has a bad smell....I guess like smelly cheese.   And some people call it Vomit Fruit.   Yuck!

It reminds me of the Durian. I've never eaten a Durian, but I've tasted Durian ice-cream. It tasted kind of cheesy.

63. Learned that the Cheese fruit is a famine food.

Lord Wiki explained to me that this is a food people eat during hard times. It's associated with starvation and poverty.  I guess other foods in that category would be potatoes and cabbage.

64. Reminded by Lord Wiki that lobster used to be seen as a poverty food.

I remember learning that in the past and thinking it was quite fascinating.

65. Saw that Lord Wiki doesn't list cabbage and potato as poverty foods. I guess maybe because they're eaten all the time? I think maybe famine foods are ones that people usually avoid eating when there's no famine.

66. Saw a picture of the inside of the Cheese fruit.  

67. Read article about the lobster thing.

It's amazing.

Before the 1880's, it was seen as an almost shameful food. American servants negotiated agreements promising they wouldn't have to eat lobster more than twice a week.

Then it started becoming more popular.  The prices became high around the 1950's because of overfishing.  There were less lobsters and rare things are usually more expensive.

68. Watched the season premiere of season 3 of The Sing Off.   One of the groups has an Australian!   I'm excited about that.  Sadly, he wasn't on the first episode because he had to return to Australia.   One of his family members is ill. 

My heart goes out to that family.

One of the other groups did a song called "Secret" by One Republic.  I had one of those moments of I've heard this song before.  WHERE?

Lord Wiki said it's been played in various TV and movie trailers.

I looked it up in reference to Lost and found this beautiful promo.   I don't think I've seen it before tonight.




Now I'm stuck back into one of my Lost crying moods. You know how some people get drunk and become annoyingly emotional. I don't do alcohol to get that effect. All I need is to watch a Lost video on YouTube.  

69. Thought I'd want to watch another Lost video.

Instead I found myself wanting to hear this song.




Now I'm missing Lost AND Offspring.

The good news is Modern Family is coming back on Wednesday.  I'll have that.

70. Decided I have to watch one Lost video.  

I'm going to forgo the childbirth one this time, and do Ben scene instead.

I think the Emmy's should have awards for best scenes, and this could definitely be a winner.



And here's one of my other favorite scenes...not a Lost one. It's from True Blood.



I'm being very self-indulgent right now.

I better post before I end up with 50 embedded videos.

Finnikin, Fakeness, Forgiveness, And Frans

1. Realized I may have to follow through with my new rule of quitting a book after two chapters.   I read the first chapter of Finnikin of the Rock.  So far I'm bored with it.   I'll read one more chapter and see what I think.  If I don't like it, I'll return it to the shelf and maybe try again one day.

I don't think it's a bad book. I've heard very good things about it.  It's just not my thing.

Well, it could be my thing.  Who knows.  Maybe something in the second chapter will grab me.

2. Read James' post about his return to Sydney.  He was a recipient of someone's random act of kindness. That's really cool.  

That actually happened to us in New Jersey.  We were at an arcade and someone gave us their leftover game tickets.   I realized then that although we've occasionally given tickets to strangers; I think New Jersey was the first time tickets were given to us.  It was pretty cool.

I disagreed with James when he said, That said, the first day back at work after a holiday always tends to be a fairly nice day doesn’t it? You spend a lot of the day answering the question “how was your holiday?” and receiving compliments about your tan.

I used to hate going back to school or work after a holiday.  I always found it depressing. The only exception would be if the holiday wasn't that great; and I had a major crush on someone back home.   Then I might be eager to return.  

3. Went to Tallygarunga.  I'm going to read the continuation of Advanced Dada Lesson 1: Boggarts and Ridikulus. 

Two students have entered the story; Reade Ainsworth and Cecilia Chorrol.

Cecilia is new to me. 

Reade is nervous to be in the class because Arti isn't with him. He's a bit attached to his girlfriend; not just for romantic reasons, but because Jackson (the bully) tends to leave him alone when Arti is around.  

Cecelia is optimistic about the class even though she doesn't tend to do good in school.   It says here, Professor Rodrigez seemed like she'd give Cecilia a fair shot at a passing grade if she put enough effort in, so she was going to try her best. Of course, Cecilia's best was a little less than everyone else's average, but this was beside the point.

Some people have to work much harder than others to learn things.   

Well, hopefully she'll enjoy the class and do fairly well in it.

4. Finished reading the first two chapters of Finnikin of the Rock. I think I'll continue with it. Some if it's getting interesting, sort of a reflection of our own world.   It's confusing though.  There're all these names that are unfamiliar to me, and I end up getting people confused with each other.

It would be helpful if the book had one of those character guides.

5. Consulted Lord Wiki about the characters in Finnikin of the Rock, and I think I just got a major spoiler. It's my fault.  I knew the risks of talking to Lord Wiki about fictional things.  He tends to give away too much information.  

I guess I thought I'd be safe if I avoided the plot description and looked at only the characters.
 
6. Started to read the biography of Cecilia Chorrol.

Her face claim is a Norwegian singer named Marit Larsen.

Here she is singing at a green grocer in Oslo.



She's very cute. And I like her singing.

7. Learned that Cecilia was born in Kilcoy, Australia. It sounds familiar to me...I mean in a Tallygarunga context.  Was there another character from there?  

8. Googled Kilcoy and Tallygarunga.  I found only Cecilia's biography, so I guess she's the only witch or wizard from there.

9. Consulted Lord Wiki about Kilcoy. He says it's in Queensland.

Here it is on Google Maps. It's about 1.5 hours north-west of Brisbane. 

10. Learned that Cecilia is a fourth year student. She's Muggleborn, and her Patronus is a wasp.

A wasp?  That's very interesting.

11. Learned that Cecilia is petite, but in excellent physical shape from doing work on the farm. 

12. Learned Celia is not up to date with pop culture.  She's an old fashioned farming type girl.

She believes in using good manners.  It says here, She thinks things like politeness and company manners have the utmost importance even if there is no sincerity behind them.

What is meant by sincerity?  I think there's sincerity just in the fact that someone is trying to be kind.  I think some people are so worried about being fake that they're rude to people they hardly even know. To me gross fake is when people are overly enthusiastic about getting together with you when they don't even like you.  Oh! We really should get together and have lunch!  

But I think it's nice to greet people in a friendly way.  I think it's nice to say please and thank you. I think it's nice to say sorry if you bump into someone.

If someone gives you a gift, is it fake to say thank you if you dislike it?  I don't think so.   You can at least be thankful that they made an effort.  What's gross fake to me is acting overly excited about a gift when you don't really like it. To me, action speaks louder than words. If you say you totally love the necklace I bought you, I'm not going to believe it if I never see you wearing it.  

13. Learned that Cecilia is not always very nice.

 Cecilia may be quiet and a little passive, but when it comes to fulfilling her aspirations she can be ruthless. She is capable of doing amoral or even cruel things if she feels the path to her goals is being threatened.

Yikes.


I don't know if I know anyone like that.  Well, at least they're not open about it.

I mean nothing is screaming out to me right now.  Yes, that reminds me of so and so......

I guess that's a very good thing.

14. Started to read Cecilia's history.

She's a twin.

Her story has some similarities to my fictional blog.  Cecilia's sister Vivian is a prodigy.  The witch in my story has a sister that's very intelligent.   It's different though because Cecilia liked fairy tales and daydreaming.  In my story, the witch had no interest in that type of stuff.

15. Thought more about fakeness. I feel some people get this idea that they shouldn't be friendly towards people they don't know and love.  To me, they appear rude and unwelcoming.  They make me uncomfortable. Fortunately I don't encounter these type of people too often.

I think it makes sense not to be overly friendly with people we knowingly dislike. We don't need to go up to our enemies and say, Hi!  How are you!   Wow you're looking great!  We should get together sometime.   That's pretty annoying...and confusing. It probably wouldn't hurt though to be civil—give a nod or small wave.   It can be like Draco and Harry in the train station.

What would be the best is if the enemies went up to each other, and one of them said, Hey, look I'm sorry for what happened.   Maybe we can talk about things and end this whole disaster between us.   But people are rarely brave enough for that.

16. Thought about a time recently when I was nice to someone even though I had ill feelings towards them. Was that fake of me?  Probably. Would it have been better if I said, Hey, you really bothered me with things you said last time I saw you. I really have lost a lot of respect for you.    

I doubt it.  Who needs all that extra drama?   I think a moment like that is worth it when we really care about the person and want our relationship to be honest and whole. If we don't care that much, I think it's better to just fake it a bit.  I wasn't overly friendly and enthusiastic with this person. I was polite and nice, but in a distant and reserved kind of way.

17. Decided to illustrate the difference between okay fake and gross fake—well, in my opinion.

Here's an okay fake email beginning.   Hi! It's so nice to hear from you. How have you been doing?

Here's a gross fake email.   Hi!!!!!   I've missed you so much!   I'm so excited to hear from you!!!!!! My husband and I were just talking about you yesterday. We think about you guys a lot.  We definitely need to get together soon!

Now if the person really means it, it's not bad at all.  It's really nice and awesome.  But if they're faking it, it's just too confusing. Then how in the world are we supposed to know when people really DO love us?  

18. Saw that my Australian of the day is another Australian who was into the education thing.

His name was Peter Corsar Anderson.

He was born in Scotland.

Peter was good at Hebrew, church history, rifle shooting, and golfing.  

He studied theology, but ended up not pursuing it at his career.  The reason given by the Australian Dictionary of Biography is that he had a breakdown in health.   Yet then he moved to Australia and got a career in the education business. Working with children is a lot of work.  I think you'd need to be healthy for that as well.

Well, maybe he started to feel better, but he had already lost interest in theology.

For his health, Peter went to visit his brother in Western Australia. He was in his mid-twenties.

Maybe Peter just needed some clean air and time to think.

He soon ventured off to Victoria and got a job at the Geelong Church of England Grammar School.

After Peter worked there, he went back to Western Australia.  He became the Headmaster of Scotch College.   He had the job for 41 years.   That's a pretty long time.   It sounds like he did a good job.    The school didn't do well under the previous headmaster.  With Anderson in charge, it became one of the leading independent schools in Western Australia.  

19. Read article about Jandamarra O'Shane. When he was only six-years-old, a man came to his school playground and set him on fire.  Now it's fifteen years later and Jandamarra is ready to forgive the man who hurt him so much.  I think that's very brave and noble of him.

I believe in his forgiveness because he's had time to deal with these issues. I find it difficult to believe people who are immediately ready to forgive someone after a tragedy. Yes.  You killed the love of my life.   But I forgive you.    Sometimes people want to forgive; and they say they forgive.  But deep in their hearts they don't really feel forgiving.  Or maybe they do.   I don't know. The idea is so foreign to me.

I think after fifteen years I could maybe forgive someone for doing something totally awful—like setting me on fire.  I think my forgiveness would come from the hope that the criminal has regrets for what he has done and has changed for the better. If I found out he didn't feel guilty and was still an evil asshole, I'd take back my forgiveness.

Anyway, I hope the arson reacts in a way that makes him deserving of Jandamarra's forgiveness.

The story sounds familiar to me, by the way.  I think I read about it before. I'm guessing maybe he's related to Pat O'Shane and I read it when I wrote about her.

20.  Looked at my post about Pat O'Shane. Jandamarra is her nephew.  

21. Went to Mousie's Aussie music database.  

The song for me today is "Cigarettes and Suitcases" by Something For Kate



It sounds familiar to me.  I might have heard it before.  

22. Started to look at page 12 of Frans de Wit's Australia set.

This place looks fun.  It's little shops—kind of looks historical and touristy.  

23. Loved this picture of Australia looking like Ireland.  

It's not the first time I've seen Australia being Ireland.  

24. Excited to see some snow in Australia. 

25. Saw a witch's face in this tree. She looks a little scary, but I think she's probably nice.  

26. Saw that I ended up going past page 12 of the pictures.   Now I'm on page 13.   It's the last page.  

27. Heard this song on iTunes.



I was totally in the mood for it.

It's a nice way for me to end my time with Frans de Wit.

28. Felt thankful to everyone who reads my blog. And I'm also thankful for all the writers, photographers, singers, etc. who keep me entertained (for free!) as I surf the internet.  

Comedy, Rosenrot, Farm Visits, and Faun070

1. Decided to look for Australian Muslim comedians.  About.com has a whole page about Muslim comedy, and some Aussie comedians are included there.  

2. Started to watch a video of Aamer Rahman at the Melbourne International Comedy Show.



I laughed a bit at :44.   It reminds me of feelings I've had before; and also how other people probably feel when they read my blog.  

Some of the Michael Jackson stuff made me laugh as well.

3. Started to watch a video of Nazeem Hussain at the Sydney Comedy Festival.



It took me awhile to get a laugh out of that one, but I like the part at 3:07.

The end made me laugh a bit too.

4. Decided to watch another Aamer Rahman video.




I laughed at the part beginning at about 1:40....Pauline Hanson stuff.

Aamer's accent sort of sounds Jewish-New Yorker to me. It's like how I'd imagine a Jewish New Yorker would sound after they lived in Australia for a few years. 

5. Didn't really like the rest of the video.  It's more anger humor than self-deprecating humor.  I prefer the latter.

6. Didn't like this video either.   



I wanted to find a Muslim comedian who's willing to poke fun at himself, his religion, and culture...not one who does angry political rants in the guise of comedy.  A mixture of both would be fine as well.

7. Went to bed and dreamed I got an email from my friend Tracey.  She tells me she has a pet red fox.   I'm thinking that's cute.   Then it changes and she has a pet lizard instead. I ask her to send me a picture of it.  Later I'm riding this bike-like vehicle and thinking I could have just googled the lizard to see what it looks like.  In the dream, googling equaled actually getting the animal.  Suddenly I have the lizard on my bike-vehicle-thing.  I ride on a hill (in a place that looks like one of my childhood neighborhoods) with the lizard. At one point I decide to part with the lizard. I gently put him down on some bushes. 

8. Read James' blog post and learned a Swedish phrase.  Min Kompis.  It means "my friend".   James met up with his Sydney friend while in Stockholm.  He says, There was a brief moment when min kompis Graeme and I looked at each other and thought “this is not real”. We have only ever known each other in Sydney and surrounds, but there we were, sitting together in a bar in Stockholm.

When we went to Australia in 2007, our American friend Greg came over from New Zealand.  I've known Greg since I was sixteen, and here he was on our Australian trip with us.  He juggled Luna Park balls in our hotel room; walked on Bondi beach with me, fell asleep on the bus tour; and fed wallabies with us. It was kind of surreal.  

Why is it surreal?  I'm not sure.

9. Read a product review on Iwasn'tbloggedyesterday's blog. 

It's a skincare thing, and she liked it a lot.  

I've done only one product review.  It was for our homeschooling blog.   It was awkward because I didn't really like the product.  I think I was nice, though, about it.

I didn't think it was an awful product; just not something we'd need.  It wasn't useful to us.   I figured maybe it might be useful to other people.  I don't know.

10. Liked what Fruitcake said in her blog post.   Both sides – right wing anti-multiculturalists and extreme Islamicists – believe their cultures are mutually incompatible. The fight is not just for power or territory, but for the right to define society they way they believe it should be defined.

I really love her quote before that too, but I don't want to be rude and quote too much.   So just please go and see it for yourself.    

11. Felt sad for Quick Lamb.   

12.  Inspired by a Facebook friend's update to look up volunteering vacations.   I found this awesome one in Perth.   It's at the Roo Gully Wildlife Sanctuary.   I want to do it!  You pay $800 a month for lodging and then you do volunteer work.   That's only $26 a night.   It's cheap in money, but not so cheap in labor.  It sounds like they work you pretty hard.  I don't think I'd mind as long as it was a friendly place and I felt welcomed there.

I think Jack is too young for it now.  I think it would be great for us three to go when he's a teenager.   Or maybe Tim and I can do it when Jack's grown up. They want you to do a one month minimum, so maybe we'd do it at a time when we can stay at least six months in Australia.

13. Read article that says Therese Rein totally messed up her husband's blackberry. Oops. 

She saw that he had twenty-four messages and was trying to listen to them—figuring they were get well messages.  She had trouble doing the password; and I guess the security system wiped everything clean.   

Hopefully people will see the article and resend their messages.  

14. Read article about the Malaysian Solution.  It seems the Australian government is expecting some major riots.  They have metal fencing, detention centre guards with military training, riot police, and armed customer officers.

Hopefully, all that effort will be in vain, and there won't be any riots.

I also hope that those sent to Malaysia will have better experiences than they're expecting. I hope they're not treated like shit.

15. Looked at photographs from a refugee camp in Malaysia.  It doesn't look too pleasant, but I'm not sure that it's worse than the detention centers in Australia.  

The Australia government says those sent in the big trade off will get special working and living privileges that the other refugees won't get.  Hopefully, that's true.   Although it makes me sad for all of those refugees that don't get those privileges, and also aren't part of the four thousand coming to Australia in the trade.

16. Read article about Jack Vidgen winning Australia's Got Talent.  I'm curious now.   I'm going to listen to him sing.  




He sort of reminds me of a Jack I taught in preschool.

I don't like his song choice much, but he has a great voice.

17. Read article about scientists in Queensland making needle vaccines a thing of the past.  They're doing a Nanopatch thing. I'm HOPING they get this done by the time Jack needs his next vaccines.  He's one of those needle phobic people. I guess the good thing about that is I don't have to worry about him becoming a heroin addict.

Anyway, this seems like a great thing.  It's good enough in the fact that needle-fearing people can relax.   But there are other benefits. The Nanopatch doesn't need to be refrigerated like other vaccines.  That could cut down on a lot of costs.  It also prevents needle injuries and cross contamination issues.  Mark Kendall the miracle worker says that, in Africa about half of vaccines aren't working properly because of a breakdown in the cold chain.

Mark Kendall, if you get this done you'll be my new favorite Australian.   

18. Read scary article that says 1/3 of bats in Queensland have the Hendra virus now. Shit.

The usual infection rate is about 7%.  

The bat population has also had a big increase. Some folks are wanting to do a culling. That's sad.   But if a lot of experts agree that it's the best thing to do, I'd probably support it.

19. Saw that I have been given my own space on Tallygarunga.  That's a huge honor.   It makes me so happy.  And I'm already very happy today, which is funny because I had to clean up a disgusting batch of cat vomit this morning.  

Why am I happy? (besides the Tally thing).

A few weeks ago, I signed us up to go to this conference and I gave them our credit card number.   Then a few days later I regretted the whole thing.  The problem is they don't allow refunds. You either have to sell your tickets or use them for another year.

Then a week or so we had credit card fraud issues. Tim canceled the card.   So.... I got a call yesterday from the conference woman saying our credit card didn't go through. They can't say "no refunds" if they never got the money in the first place.  We canceled the whole thing and instead we're going to go to a water park hotel.  We'll be spending close to the same amount of money, but I think we'll have more fun on water slides.  

20. Found the Tallygarunga story thread I'm going to read today.  It's called Rosenrot Rothschild.  

The story thread is told through letters.

It says that it takes place at the post office.  I'm guessing this is their way of saying that the letters were sent through the Australian post. Or maybe they're actually reading the letters while at the post office.

I wonder why they didn't use owls. 

21. Saw that the characters in the story are Professor Remington Arledge and Rosenrot Rothschild.

Remington works for the Department of Magical Transportation, and he's an apparition instructor.

Rosenrot is the Tallygarunga Matron.   I'm not sure what that means.

22. Started reading the letters.

The first letter is strange.  I can't tell if it's serious or a joke.  This probably could be added as evidence to the theory, Andrew heard, about Americans not understanding irony.

Well, all the letters involve bickering.  I can't tell if it's in jest or the two characters are serious. I would guess the former, but I may be wrong.

23. Wrote a post for my fictional blog, and it's dated June 20, 1998.  That's exactly a year before our nonfictional wedding took place.

24. Started to read the biography of Rosenrot Rothschild.  

Her face claim is a French actress of the bygone days—Simone Signoret.  

25. Watched a Simone Signoret scene from Room at the Top.



They're speaking English.  Is it dubbed? Or is the movie from an English-speaking country?

26. Consulted Lord Wiki about Room at the Top.   He says it's a British film.   

27. Went back to reading about Rosenrot.

She has big breasts and a small butt.

She likes to wear dresses and not pants.

She curls her hair every night and she wears a lot of make-up.

28. Learned that Rosenrot is sensitive and cares deeply what others think of her.  I'm very much like that.

29. Learned that Rosenrot loves large eyeballs. That's very interesting.

Does she like them attached to a person; or is this some kind of wizarding thing?

30. Learned that Rosenrot doesn't like caramel.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't like caramel.   I wonder what she doesn't like about it.  Is it the taste?  The texture?  Maybe both?

31. Learned that Rosenrot hates reading novels. I can't imagine being like that. 

32. Started to read Rosenrot's history.

She was born in East Germany and had a happy childhood.

33. Loved the story of Rosenrot's magical history.  It's fantastic.  Young Rosenrot is given a stick by her friend and told it's a wand.  If she swishes it around and wishes, her wishes will come true.   Rosenrot is disappointed when she learns that's not true.

It's such a sad thing for us Muggles to face.—that we're not really magic.  But Rosenrot didn't have to live with that fate. Eventually, she learned she really WAS magic.

34. Mesmerized by Rosenrot's story.  It should be turned into a novel.  As Jack would say, It's epic!

Rosenrot looks like a young woman, but she's in her 90's...or older.  A magical mirror keeps her looking young.  She lost her son when he was a child, and was reunited with him recently. He's an old man while she looks like a young woman.  

A lot of the story takes place during the Holocaust. It could be fantasy-history.

Really. This NEEDS to be a novel.

I would explain more about it, but I can't do it justice.  

35. Saw that James is continuing to enjoy his time in Sweden.  He visited a farm and says now he'll have to go the customs line for people who declare they've visited a farm.   

What really happens when you admit to visiting a farm?   Do you get sprayed with anti-farm spray?   Do they test you for mysterious illnesses?  Are you put in quarantine?  Do you get asked a bunch of questions?

36. Looked at this website.  They say, Customs officers are charged with preventing agricultural pests from entering the country. Any traveler who has visited a farm or agricultural station may be subject to additional screening, disinfection of shoes and other precautionary measures. If possible, skip the goat farm tour and save yourself some trouble.  


But what if you really like goats?


I guess it makes sense in a way.  If I really like farms, I should probably just visit one in America.  Why go halfway across the world to do it?

But if the farm thing seems really appealing, we can probably endure whatever awaits us in customs.

37. Looked at this forum.  They talk about the issue, and it seems the main thing that happens is someone at customs cleans your shoes.   One person cracked me up by saying, When we came back from Wales, where we had stayed on a farm, we had to walk through a trough of some kind of solution at US customs and then raise the soles of our feet and have them sprayed with something.

Interestingly, I'm not sure all of us were wearing the same shoes that had actually touched the turf at said farm. Pretty sure some of the shoes were in the suitcase. 

You would think the customer officers would ask about that.

Most people on the forum say it's not a big deal and best to be honest about it.   The government people are just trying to avoid bad pathogens entering the country.

I support them trying to prevent that.   

38. Thought about how The King's Speech led me to Tallygarunga.  How?

Because I loved The King's Speech, we watched the Oscars.  I don't often do that anymore.

Because I watched the Oscars, I saw the "Tiny Ball of Light" song. 




I loved the song, and found a Facebook Page named after it.  

I looked at their Likes to find other Harry Potter pages to join. That's how I learned about Magic is Might.

One day the character, I used to comment on the Magic is Might boards, decided to start her own blog.

I got involved with that, and it came to the point where I needed to create my own wizarding village in Sydney.   I wanted something connected to the Puppet Shop in the rocks.   I googled that and found out it was closed.  Then I decided to see if anyone else had created a wizarding village in Australia.   Was I planning to borrow their idea?   Maybe.  Well, I guess it would be no worse than being inspired by the world created by JK Rowling.

I found Koalingo Academy.   It looked interesting, but the lack of Australian culture on the site bothered me.  I read through it a bit.  Then I decided to do a Google search of Koalingo and Bunyip.   Don't ask me why I chose that particular Australian thing. I guess I figured if they mentioned Bunyip on the site, it wouldn't seem lacking in Aussie culture.  

I searched and this is what Google gave me.   It led to this thread on Tallygarunga; The Road Goes Ever On and On.  I don't think I actually read it.   I clicked around and went exploring the rest of Tallygarunga.  

39. Realized that in reality it was really Harry Potter and Australia that brought me to Tallygarunga.   The reason I went to see The King's Speech in the first place is because it had an Australian actor; and three Harry Potter actors.

40. Learned that my Australian of the day is James Outram Anderson.

He was a tennis player.  

41. Decided I'm going to watch videos from Mousie's database only on the days where I don't already have a lot of embedded videos.  I don't want video saturation happening on my blog.  

I could have done one yesterday because I had zero videos.  But I felt stressed and rushed yesterday.   I also wanted to stalk a Flickr account and felt I didn't have time for that as well.

41. Started to read about James Anderson.

He was born in Enfield, Sydney.  I don't think I've heard of that.

I'll try to find it on Google Maps.  

Here we go. It's out west near Croydon.

42. Saw that James won a lot of tennis things in the 1920's.

When I was in college I knew a tennis player named James. He was from Zimbabwe.  

43. Learned that James had a large toy kangaroo, and he'd bring it on the tennis court with him.   Maybe it was his good luck charm.

44. Found a Flickr account to stalk.  It's Faun070.   He's a performing arts teacher from Amsterdam.  

His favorite painting is The Seating Demon by Mikhail Vrubel.

This website has a copy of the painting.  

Faun070's favorite cities are London, Sydney, and St. Petersburg.    He also likes Mackinac Island in Michigan.  That's where the movie Somewhere in Time takes place.  

45. Saw that Faun070 has a whole album of parrots.  Awesome!  And I think he has Alex's parrot on there!  

46. Decided that Faun070 is worth two days of stalking...maybe even three.    He has a lot of Australian albums.  I don't want to rush through them.   I have a feeling I'm going to want to savor my time with Faun070.

47. Amazed by all the traveling that Faun070 has done. 

48. Started to look at Faun070's first Australia album.   It's of a park in Western Australia called Nambung.

Lord Wiki says it's north-west of Perth.  

Faun070 took his pictures in July 2009.

I love the ocean in this photo.  

49. Wondered if this is Faun070.   

He does look kind of like this child featured in Faun070's set of classic photos.  

50. Loved this photo.   It looks Asian to me for some reason.

51. Loved this picture of The Pinnacles.  I think I've heard of that before.

The scene looks like it belongs on another planet.  

Lord Wiki says they're made of limestone.

52.  Thought that this kind of looks like a penis.  

53. Started to look at Faun070's album of Kalbarri. 

I think that's one of the places we're planning to go on my imaginary trip.  

Let me check on my calendar.

Yep.

We're going to pretend we're there on May 20.  AND I see we're also going to be in Cervantes, which is where Nambung is.  

54. Wished our pretend trip was a real trip.

Maybe one day it will be.

I hope so.

55. Saw Faun070 having a Storm Boy moment.  

56. Loved this photo of pelicans. 

57. Loved this photo too. 

58. Thought that Faun070 and his partner seem very happy together.

Well...actually.   They might actually be married.  Gay marriage is legal in the Netherlands.  Lord Wiki says it's the first country to legalize it.

Married people are partners, though. Right?

59. Thought it would be funny if Faun070 and the other guy were just friends.

I doubt it though.  I get a romantic vibe from them.

60.  Saw a picture of Alex's parrot.   

It might really be her parrot because although she got Harry in 1998, this website says they have a lifespan of up to 50 years.  

Maybe Harry ends up leaving Alex; and maybe he flies over to Western Australia.

I hope he doesn't do that though.  Alex really loves him.

61. Loved this picture of Faun070 bonding with a cockatoo.

62. Amazed by Jack's memory.

Tim started reading Evil Genius the other day.   I was looking at our bookshelves to see if I had the second book in the trilogy.   Jack asked what I was doing and I told him. He told me we didn't have the book, and that I got the second one from the library.

How does he remember stuff like that?

63.  Started looking at Faun070's photos of Shark Bay.  I think that's near Monkey Mia.   Or maybe Monkey Mia is in Shark Bay?  

Well, I can see on Google Maps that they're right next to each other. 

64. Learned from Lord Wiki that Shark Bay has a lot of dugongs.

And he says that Monkey Mia is a national park inside of Shark Bay.

65. Had Monkey Mia ruined for me with this photo.   I don't want bunches of tourists there!

I want it to be Jack, Tim, me, and a bunch of dolphins.

66. Thought this picture reminds me of something out of a Jaws movie.   It would be in the beginning with the happy music....before all the scary bloody stuff happens.  

67. Wondered what's in this tank. 

68. Wondered if the shark is biting the other shark in this picture. 

69. Thought this photo looks classic Australian.  Although it also sort of reminds me of the desert areas of California.  

70. Started to look at Faun070's photos of "Geraldton to Perth"

They really liked this Irish Sun dial statue.   They have a lot of photos of it.

72. Started to look at Faun070's photos of Rottnest Island.   I wondered if it reminded him of Mackinac Island.    Both islands are car-free.

73.  Saw a photo of Faun070 with a quokka.   I think Rottnest is known for those.  

I'm going to admit it.  The quokka doesn't really appeal to me.

I'm not a quokka girl.

74. Saw that Faun070 is not wearing his bike helmet. He's very naughty.  

75. Started to look at Faun070's Perth pictures.  

76. Saw that Faun070 and his husband/partner met up with friends in Perth.  Are they Australians or also tourists?   Or maybe they're Australian tourists.  

77. Felt the grass was too green here.  It looks like a golf course.