January 17th

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Parramatta, Australia - January 17th - 1:00am
I know it’s the 17th here but it was the 16th back home so I just want to send my thoughts to the Corbeil family on the year anniversary of losing a great aunt, sister, and daughter. I love you Aunt Therese.

Today started out bright and early for me. I set my alarm for 6:50am and decided to change it till 7:00am after it went off. I was still completely tired when I got up but I didn’t have a choice so I had to get out of the nice warm bed. When I jumped out of bed I was very surprised to feel that it was cold. I jumped into the shower and didn’t want to get out. Because I choose to hit the snooze button and I didn’t want to get out of the shower, I was running a little behind. I wanted to leave early but regardless I had plenty of time to get to the station and on the train in time.

I rode the train for 45 minutes, walked 10 minutes, sat outside for 5 minutes and then I sat inside for 15 minutes before the course began. But regardless I got to my First-Aid course safe and sound. You all know how exciting those courses are so I won’t bore you anymore. But there is a moment that I have to repeat. If anyone knows CPR then you know there is a component that you perform Look, Listen and Feel. You place your cheek close to the victims face, looking down to their toes and place your hand on their ribcage. You look to see if their chest is rising and falling, you listen for a breath and you feel for a breath on your cheek and if their chest rises and falls against your hand. This Asian woman went up and placed her cheek over the victim’s face but proceeded to look the other way. I couldn’t stop laughing. I wasn’t too sure what she was looking for but I know enough to know that the ground doesn’t move when someone breaths…stupid people. Anyways I ended up ONLY getting 43/45 making a 96%. So I did pass my course no problem. It was interesting to take a first aid course in a different country as a major part of the course is to learn about stings and bites from the animals in the area. So we learnt how to deal with Funnel Web Spider Bites and Jellyfish bites and snake bites. It was interesting.

I got my certificate and jumped back on the train. It took me a little longer to get back then usually as the trains run on a different schedule on Saturdays and Sundays, but I did enjoy reading my book.

When I got home Jean informed me that we were invited to a barbie and a night filled with Wii at her friends house. We thought it was just going to be 6 of us but when we arrived we were mistaken when we were the 9th and 10th people to arrive. They were all people from the MX5 club. I was a little worried that I would be stuck with the crazy MX5 freaks that constantly talk about their cars and things but I was quickly mistaken. I had a great time and really enjoyed myself. We were at Nick and Matilda’s house which is great. A very large, open concept house that was just lovely. Nick did show me his garage where they have his and her race car. It was neat to learn a little about the cars and to see the cars stripped down to nothing. He proceeded to show me their trophy collection, Matilda had about 30 trophies and Nick had a whopping 1! Haha

We had a great babrie outside, I enjoyed a piece of beef and lamb. Yes Mommy I willing knew it was lamb and still proceeded to eat it. You’d be so proud of me! We enjoyed a few bottles of wine as well with some great conversations; it never seizes to amaze me how so many people realize that ‘tourists’ are lacking intelligences sometimes. We then moved the party in doors to the living room where the Wii was set up. I was a little scared at first as Lee informed me to be careful not to pull any muscles. I watched how it was done and jumped right in. It was amazing. We had so much fun; we had a competition between guys and girls. The girls won in the slalom skiing but the guys won in the ski jumping. The girls just couldn’t figure it out and get the timing down. I think it’s rigged, but it was a lot of fun. We then played the soccer game where you have to head the soccer balls that come towards you, then it gets harder with cleats coming out with the soccer balls and then PANDA heads, who ever thought to add Panda heads to the game, but it was actually hard since soccer balls and panda heads look similar at times when they are flying at your head.
Jean finally decided to head home which was a good idea since I was getting tired and we have a semi early morning tomorrow as we are heading out to the MX5 picnic.

Unfortunately when we got to the car some idiot decided it would be funny to egg Jean’s car. We tried to wash it off with water but that stuff gets caked on. Needless to say Jean was not impressed, considering she just spent an hour or so washing it the other day.

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