Last weekend Jai & I saw Troilus & Cressida at the annual Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. I had never seen Troilus & Cressida before, but was keen as I have a big interest in the Trojan War. The setting was daring: The US Civil War with the Trojans and the Souths the Greeks as the North. While this made for great costumes, I found all the Trojan’s “southern drawl” incredibly annoying. And while the antics of Achilles, Hector, Paris, Helen et al were very interesting, we kinda found the title characters to be rather dull. Not the best of the Bard’s plays, but a fun time under the big top none the less. We are hoping to get tickets to a Midsummer’s Night’s Dream before the end of the run.

The next day Jai, mum and I were off to the PNE - Pacific National Exhibition, which is the Vancouver equivalent of the Easter Show, except without showbags. We managed to stuff ourselves on little donuts, catch the Superdogs show and check out the prizehome, before Jai and Mum found the casino tent and the roulette wheel. As a no-good bum without a job, I didn’t bet, but as gainfully employed folk, Jai and mum tackled the wheel. They were both doing very well until the great croupier went on break and the World’s Worst Croupier turned up. She looked about 15, and was useless. She didn’t notice people playing with non-roulette chips, she dropped chips on the floor and managed to flick the ball off the roulette wheel and across the floor of the casino. And she was bad joo-joo - both mum and Jai lost all their chips. But it was still a fun day to be had.

Also, I had a job interview last week - lets hope that soon I will no longer be a bum.

So I’m still looking for work. Its been about six weeks and really didn’t think it would take this long. I hit rock bottom yesterday… I applied for a job with Flight Centre (the travel company that was spawned in satan’s a&*hole). The irony is that I have no chance of getting the job, as I they wouldn’t hire me five years ago because I was “overqualified”. Now I have two degrees and management experience, its not likely to improve. I’m actually starting to think of removing qualifications and experience from my cv. So far I’ve applied for jobs as:

• Communications Assistant
• Museum Research Assistant
• Web Content Publisher
• Games tester
• Admin assistant to a medical program
• Travel Consultant
• Junior Archaeologist

As well as applying to several temp agencies. At least Jaime has a job, and is keeping us afloat. I’m so proud of him for getting a job so quickly and bringing home the bacon. At least I’ve determined one thing: I’m not housewife material. I’m no domestic goddess. I never thought I’d say this but “I can’t wait til I start working again”.

I am very disappointed to find out that Kraft Canada is no longer supplying Vegemite for sale in Canada. Its been about a week since I had a bit of the black dregs of the last jar of at mum’s place. Now I’m starting to go into withdrawal. Just the thought of vegemite and butter on toast makes me start to drool. There now seems to be a black market for vegemite here in Vancouver. A local merchant is selling small jars of the black wonder for $11.95 + tax. He fedex’s them in to meet the needs of the local aussie’s who need their fix. Yesterday I baulked at the price thinking it was crazy expensive. But now as I go into the vege-dts, I’m thinking “hey, it might be worth it”. All I need is just one hit…

Addendum: This was the official response for Kraft Canada.

From: Kraft - Canada Kitchens
Date: Jul 26, 2006 11:27 AM
Subject: RE: Your Comment/Question

Thank you for visiting http://www.kraftcanada.com and for your interest in VEGEMITE Autolyzed Yeast Extract.

I appreciate your interest in our products. We agree that this is an excellent product, and we are sorry to tell you that it is no longer being sold.

There were not enough consumers buying this product to support its continued production.

We hope you continue to enjoy our other great Kraft products!

Again, thanks for contacting us, and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy our products.

Kim McMiller
Assoc Director, GCR Consumer Services

No, this isn’t a post about how I haven’t gotten a job yet. This is about the massive problem of street people in Vancouver. While walking down Denman Street the other day I actually saw a homeless person with the above sign. Young and old, there are just so many people begging on the street here. Its always been a bit of problem in Vancouver (you’re a lot less likely to freeze to death on the streets in Vancouver than anywhere else in Canada), but now its gotten so much worse. And to top it all off, our evil, criminal, fuckwit of a Premier is bragging about the 3.1 Billion dollar surplus for the province this year. Sure, if you get rid of all the teachers and nurses, kick all the mentally ill out of the hospitals, and completely descimate the welfare system, you can save a lot of bucks.

The politicians claim the street people can get a job if they want to. But seriously, who’s gonna hire someone with no fixed address, no phone, no decent clothes, and no education. And to top it all off, many of the homeless are seriously mentally ill. Though Vancouver has a very low umemployment rate at the moment, it seems employers are asking for more and more in their job adverts. Pay rates aren’t great, and the cost of living in Vancouver has increased as we move toward the Olympics in 2010. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of plan by either the city, provincial or federal government to get these people out of the vicious cycle of homelessness. It makes me so sad.

Neck, back and low blood pressure problems be damned, today we went to playland. My childhood amusement park still has one of the few original wooden rollercoasters…you know, the ones that look like they’re about to fall down at any moment. I had a serious fear of the coaster as a child and only ever went on it a couple times as a adult. Jaime coaxed me onto it again and it was just as terrifying as I remembered. It doesn’t have any of those well-fitting harness-type bars the modern rollercoasters have, but the generic straight bar across the car which doesn’t help keep you in car (holding on for dear life does that). The bar’s only purpose seems to be bruising your ribs as your thrown forward on the upward track after a massive drop. And there are some serious drops on the Coaster. I haven’t screamed like that in years…it was great.

We also went on a bunch of less terrifying but very fun rides, played minigolf and air hockey and ate those 12 for 3$ mini cinnamon donuts. It was Fun-tastic!

Well its been almost a week since we waved Oz goodbye and arrived in the city of glass. Now looking at our time here I can make a few reflections.

1. I sound a lot more Australian than I thought I did. While the lot downunder may think I sound super-Canadian, I really don’t. Talking to the Vancouverites, I can hear myself sounding so aussie. Maybe I should stop saying things like “flat out like a lizard drinking” and “chuck a sickie this arvo”. I wonder how long it will take for my accent to acclimatize? (< - note the “z”

2. Australians really are tall. While living in Sydney I found myself feeling short for the first time in my life. Even some of my best aussie friends refer to me a as a hobbit. I thought maybe I had just never noticed being short before. But now that I’m back, I really am average height again. Jaime’s noticed (and enjoying) the lack of giants in Canada. Must come from having to duck down to enter the igloos.

3. The air is beautiful. According to the news the air here is currently at “bad” levels of airborn particles. Vancouver on a bad day is so much clearer than Sydney on a good day. Walking home tonight I could smell flowers, grass and the beach (the good beach, not that low-tide smell). Of course, this is in between the great wofts of air that smell like pot.

4. Slow news days. Thanks to a culture of crime and serious sensationalisation, Aussie news is always very serious with massive crime and horror to report. Vancouver does not have any equivalents of “Today Tonight”. While there is a small amount of crime, accidents and annoying politicians doing stupid things here, they still have to fill the news with human interest stories. One day they had a story about how a grizzly bear in a Golden (an interior town) animal reserve had managed to escape his enclosure twice. The first time he was recaptured near a wild female bear. Apparently, the keepers at the animal reserve felt he was getting a bit frisky, so they decided to neuter this bear named “Boo”. Well Boo wasn’t having any of this, so he escaped the second time and is still at large (hopefully getting a little action). What makes it so amusing, was that this made the news for a second night in a row. On the second night they had a indepth look at how Boo had escaped. Apparently he lifted a 400 pound door, shorted out and then scaled a 12 foot electric fence. I guess the thought of having his cajones removed was motivation enough to Boo.

5. Eating out = downfall. Jaime and I had grand plans to eat healthy and get fit when we got here. But that plan is being thwarted by the fantastic food here. So many good, inexpensive restuarants. I think we’re going to have to use some serious willpower not to put on weight. But then again, the scales should go up a bit, we’ve both just gotten taller.

Today is Canada’s national day of celebrating being Canadian. Unlike so many Canada Days of the past, it was warm and sunny, rather than pissing with rain. We spent the day down at the Vancouver rowing club in Stanley Park enjoying a few cold bevvies.

Wildlife spotted: 1 x Harbour seal, many canada geese, 1 X raccoon, 3 x Blue Herons and a very clever crow.

Well we made it safe and sound but very exhausted to Vancouver. We arrived to beautiful sunny 25 degree weather. Vancouver is just gorgeous and everyone is so friendly and we are so happy to be here.

Unfortunately, Air Canada did not televise the game, and so when we arrived we found out the horrible news that Australia had been knocked out of the world cup playoffs by Italy’s last second penalty kick. How sad, how disappointing! Having now seen the “penalty” I can only guess that the ref must have had money on Italy to make such a blantantly bad call. Still, my hat goes off to the socceroos: They played world class football, and have nothing to be ashamed of.

As you have to have someone to root for, I’m now throwing my support behind Ukraine: the other “underdog” at the cup.

This past weekend we went down to Canberra to spend time with Dad and the family before we fly off to Canada. And while I have to say that I love my family, I HATE CANBERRA. From the moment I arrive I always feel the same: I develop a nagging headache, and sick feeling in my stomach that just doesn’t abate. Its like the town (I refuse to call it a city) is some kind of anamoly in physics. Gravity feels too heavy, the light is blinding, and it always manages to be too hot and too cold at the same time. The air is drier than an airline cookie. Its like the whole place is dead. The buildings all have this hollow look, like skulls. Half the trees are dead due to drought. And at nighttime the place is deserted.

And we did the things you do in Canberra: bushwalking, admiring people’s new kitchens, talking about water restrictions and discussing how John Howard is a dick.

We did this time however check out the zoo - its not bad. Its small, but has quite a few animals for its size.

Anyway, as we our coach sped away from the Jolimont Centre and began the three hour journey back to the Big Smoke, my headache and nausea started to ease. I hope the next time I see my Dad’s family, it’ll be in Canada.

Well I am now without a home and without a job. Its great! However it’s hard to stop thinking about all the projects I had on the go. “It’s not my problem anymore” is easy to say but hard to implement.

Its also so strange in my apartment now that all our belongings have gone. Its no longer “our home” but a space we use to live in. It seems to cold and serile, and yet it was so cosy and homey with all our stuff in it.

As a taurus with pretty ingrained security issues, I thought I would be more scared and stressed about leaving my home. But I am feeling pretty liberated. And very excited about our upcoming adventure to Canada. I guess having a fantastic hubby by your side means you always have a home.

Weather is an interesting topic. Particularly of late. Perhaps its the way Sydney changes from Summer to Winter overnight (or as Evelyn says “extreme summer to summer”), or the fact that quite a few of our friends (us included) are making the big move to the Northern Half of this amazing blue planet. But the other night while having dinner with my cousin George, he said “I imagine Vancouver will be a nice place to live despite the weather” . I tried to explain to him that the temperate weather was one of the significant factors in moving in there. He couldn’t comprehend that people would live in a cooler climate by choice. He kept saying “all things being equal, you’d wanna live somewhere hot”, like stinking hot summers were everyone’s choice. Now he is biased, as he’s firmly in the “Australia is God’s country” corner. But people I know who have similar reservations to Australia as myself (John Howard is a dick, putting refugees in jail is a crime, invading Iraq was a big-ass mistake) enjoy the uber-hotness that is a Sydney summer. They also can’t understand our enjoyment of cooler weather.

I feel perhaps most of this is coming from a geniune misunderstanding of Vancouver weather. Its really not that cold in the winter. Sure it rains a lot, and its cool, but it hardly ever snows. Snow is so rare in Vancouver that when it does snow, none of the drivers know what to do. The province usually has 50% of car accidents on the few days its snows (apparently is advisable to ignore your brakes in the snow - but I wouldn’t know). And summer in Vancouver is warm. Nice mid-20s temperatures. Temperatures you can actually enjoy and do things in, rather than hiding in dark cold places like shopping centres and movie theatres. When I was home last it was so hot I had to buy mum a fan. It was a really hot day - it got up to 30! Vancouver’s not like Toronto. Vancouver is warm in the summer and cool in the winter: Toronto is stinking hot in summer and sub-artic in the winter.

But then again, there is the “grass is always greener” argument. But in this case its true. Did I mention that it rains a lot in Vancouver? A LOT. Its posted the record for most continuous days of rain last year (29). Lets see how long we like the wet weather - then again, after six years of drought here in Sydney, I’m looking forward to cool sea breezes.

But don’t take my word for it, from the Vancouver Airport Fact Sheet:

Known as Rain City, Vancouver has a very wet reputation. Yet, the city itself does not actually receive that much rain, most of it falling in the surrounding areas, such as North Vancouver. The climate is fair and consistent year-around, with generally more rain in the winter (end November to March) than summer months (July to September). Summer in Vancouver is spectacular, with the many accessible beaches and warm days, at times reaching above 30 degrees celsius. In winter, Vancouver rarely sees snow on the ground, yet the surrounding mountains on Vancouver ’s North Shore receive healthy doses of snow to keep the skiers and snowboarders happy.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

Its a funny thing when something that has been hypothetical for so long becomes reality. Yes, its true, we’re moving to Canada. We’ve been thinking of doing it for years, but now that we’ve bought the tickets and handed in our notice, its really happening!!! At least I’ll have lots of exciting stuff to blog about. And once I get my new digital camera, I’ll definately be posting more on my flickr account.

So starts the countdown…49 sleeps!!! Time to get packing.

How an offhand joke on labchat managed to spur on this event is a miracle. But somehow us usyd computer geeks (and a couple of their long-suffering partners) managed to put together an ice hockey game. This is no mean feat, especially as some of the group have never ice-skated before.

So last Saturday, we travelled out to Blacktown Ice Arena to don some pretty smelly gear and try our little hearts out at Canada’s national winter sport (summer sport: Lacrosse). I have to say that I was amazed by the quality of the hockey. The skating was generally shit, but the hockey was great. Our goalie, Surly Jo, managed to fall down pretty much every time someone came near the net, but he managed to stop shot after shot. Eugene managed to stage epic falls that would have concussed mere mortals, but came out giggling every time. Alas, a group cannot collide with the ice over and over again without having a casualty. Our casualty was Bez. In a relatively benign fall, the poor guy twisted his ankle and ended up with a broken foot!!! (Dear Bez, I’m really sorry!). But even with this sad event, everyone had a good time, and there’s rumours of a follow-up game or even, dare I say it, putting together a team for the local league.

As in the tradition of a proper NHL game, at the end of the game, three VIPs (Very Important Players) are named.

1. Jo “Ice Ice Baby” Chee: This girl was on fire! Definately the most keen for the game of all the geeks, it was later revealed that she use to play roller hockey! That would explain the 4+ goals she scored and rings she skated around everyone else.

2. Jaime “I’m almost Canadian” Fenton: For his first ever hockey game, he certainly looked confortable out there and had the look down pat. He helped his team out with a critical goal, and demonstrated that not knowing how to stop shouldn’t prevent you from going as fast as you can.

3. Shannon “have my own skates” Byrne: Yeah, I know I’m blowing my own trumpet, but hey, theres not many opportunities for me to be good at sport. I scored a hatrick (three goals!) and managed to not fall down even once. Which explains why I seem to be a lot less sore two days later than my team mates are.

A big thank you to everyone that came and played. And a special thank you to Veronique, our team manager, who stood there in the freezing cold taking photos of our shenanigans.