Hey folks, it's been a minute!
The biggest highlight of September was that Irena came down to Sydney. Two times in one year!!! We met up for coffee at my favourite pretzel place in the city, then I almost drove down many one-way streets because the streets and parking are ridiculous in Surry Hills. We went op shopping and ran into a friend there. I bought rainbow wellington boots (I finally have wellington boots!) and another denim overall dress (that's three now) and then to my surprise she asked if I wanted to see Mary Poppins. Guys, I had asked quite a few of my closest friends if they wanted to see Mary Poppins and it was a definite no and then glorious Irena says she wants to go. So we did, we saw Stephanie Jones rip it up as Mary Poppins although I still believe her role in High School Musical at Harvest Rain as Sharpay Evans was even more spectacular (I'm biased - I was in the show). We saw Jack Chambers tap upside down on stage, Mary fly over the crowd and there were so many fun magic tricks throughout. It was a wonderful day and night. She's the greatest.
I started working at The Infants' Home, a 10-minute walk from where I Iive. I run a babies playgroup where I get to sing nursery rhymes and connect with first-time mums. My favourite part of this playgroup is that one of the mothers knows the goodbye song from 'Bear and the Big Blue House' and we've signed off twice with it. I sing the bear's part obviously "very soon I know-ohoh-ohowwww". I also work as an assistant educator in the preschool room which has always been my favourite room. The first few months are always exhilarating because I make new connections with staff, parents and children and they slowly realise my childcare-specific talents like singing and drawing on cue. It's a really wonderful service with high staff ratios (I know... I was shocked too). The whole service is multi-fascited and has a social worker, occupational therapists and nurses. I've never worked for an organisation like this one, feels like a good match since I'm studying social work.
I'm still going to the gym regularly. My favourite class is Aqua because it combines swimming and karaoke. The instructor puts on hits like 'Jessie's Girl', 'Crocodile Rock', and 'I Will Survive'. So I naturally start singing, and soon a chorus of women on my side of the pool are working out their muscles and their vocal chords. I have also spent a lot of the month... *drumroll*... studying. You knew? How? I've got another month of heads down till Semester 2 is over. I have been doing five units per semester for the last few semesters and I am officially over it. I'm exhausted of having to submit an assignment almost every weekend.
Other highlights of September go to coffee dates with Janice, watching all of 'Dated and Related' with Helen, reuniting with Merryn, making it to diamond league on duolingo, donating blood, leading my D&D troupe through many battles for the king, housesitting for Albie-poo, and that monopoly started again at McDonalds. The worst thing to happen this month was that my housemate and I had a lot of inspections (almost weekly) because we have been evicted. Fun times.
Movies I watched in September: Me Time (I love Kevin Hart movies), Spies in Disguise (I also love Will Smith movies), Bullet Train (I'm so glad I saw this in the cinema - so well worth it), Senior Year (meh), a Netflix Cat movie (yeah you watched it too) and the one about finances (get some financial knowledge yall).
Books I read this month: 'The July Girls' by Pheobe Locke, 'The Truth about China: Propaganda, patriotism and the search for answers' by Bill Birtles, and 'She and I' by Hannah King. I finally found out how to search for your past loans on the library site so now I can recite the book title and author. I liked the one about China the best because I learnt a lot. It made me rent a few more books themed around social justice in other countries.
And that's all folks. I've got a bit of a hectic month next with travels to Perth and packing my Sydney place and driving home! Thanks for stopping by.
Till next time,
May