Live below the line - the aftermath

So as you may or may not know, I recently spent five days 'living below the poverty line.' According to the Oaktree foundation, people who live in extreme poverty in Australia have only $2 per day to survive which has to pay for food, drinks, a place to stay, electricity, education - and many other things people like us just take for granted. Luckily for me, and the other people taking the challenge, we had $2 per day for food and drink, and our accommodation and other expenses didn't come into the equation.

Despite this, it was still hard. I ate a lot of rice, drank a lot of water, and as my house mates can tell you, I really, really missed having cups of tea! The experience has taught me how difficult it can be to have no choice about what to eat, and how having to survive on very repetitive meals can drive a person insane, especially when we're used to having such varied diets - I'm glad it was only for five days!

The food I bought for the week which came to $9 - I later got some sweet chilli sauce for $1

I'd say the hardest part wasn't a constant feeling of hunger, but a constant feeling of being unfulfilled. Living off a diet of carbohydrates is by no means satisfying, and my body was craving nutrients, so as a result I ate, and ate, and ate until I could physically eat no more.


There were many temptations along the way... All I wanted was a sprinkle of salt on my rice. I started thinking things like "no one will know!" ... but I would know, and I'd feel far too guilty to justify the slight improvement to my meal. The challenge got harder as the week progressed, and some people cracked under the pressure, but most of us stayed strong.

I had this meal probably 7 times over five days Not fun!

We held loads of fundraising events in the lead up to, and during the week to try and raise as much money as we could. Having things like bake sales and barbecues and not being able to eat anything is murderous! But it all paid off... Before the week started, Casey panicked in an interview and said that the Kooloobong team could raise $5000 ... We all thought she was crazy, but the kindness and generosity of our friends, family and the public was overwhelming, and we raised OVER five thousand dollars! This is enough to fund twenty full scholarships for children in Papua New Guinea, and help them break out of the poverty cycle.

Of course, we went to pig out at McDonalds as soon as the event was over

The amount of money we raised also managed to attract the attention of a local news broadcaster who interviewed us after the event - and this interview can by found by following the link below...

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/05/17/3505023.htm 

I'm fantastically proud of the amount of money raised by team KB. I would also like to say a special thank you to Miss Casey Madigan for her manegerial point of view, and for remaining a constant ray of sunshine, optimism, and source of laughter throughout the week even though she was going through the challenge herself :)

On the Road Again

After four months of being in Australia, and the stability of having a roof over my head in Kooloobong, it is now time for me to travel... After a long day of goodbyes and see you laters, I left Wollongong at 9pm on a Saturday night, arriving in Sydney Airport around two hours later. I found a spot to settle for the night, but was soon told to move on because they were closing this section of the airport.. This happened two more times.


One of these times, I'd sat next to a lovely looking French girl. Unfortunately her English wasn't great, so communication was sparse. I tried my hardest to recall my GCSE French skills, but to no avail... I spent five minutes trying to convince her that 'ecouter' meant to study, when of course it means to listen... "I listen in Wollonong!" She must have thought I was mental. Shortly after this we were moved on, and I saved myself the embarrassment of getting lost in translation again by pretending to lose her in the moving crowd of people (shameful, I know, but I was tired and couldn't handle the humiliation!).

Six hours of drifting in and out of sleep passed slowly, and every time I woke up, I was surrounded by a different group of people - disorientating to say the least. By 6am I'd had enough of spooning my rucksack on a cold, hard floor and decided to wait in line to check in... three hours later, and I was on the plane! (I do sometime think how absurd it is for humans to put themselves into long metal tubes thousands of metres in the air...)

I would now like to take a moment to talk about the in-flight entertainment - mainly the film I watched, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II. I had not watched this film before I boarded the plane, and I now WISH I'd gone and seen it on a big screen. After the last fifteen years of my life being dominated by a fictional boy, the series had finally come to an end, and what an end it was! Tears were genuinely streaming down my face at some points (eg, when Prof McGonagall stood up against Snape, and when Neville stood up against Voldemort) - I'm pretty sure the air hostesses were debating asking whether or not I was okay, but I didn't care... Until they decided to switch off the in-flight entertainment system twenty minutes before the end of the film!! I suppose I know what happened anyway, but it would have been nice to see it haha.

Landing in Auckland, I wanted to look outside and see how beautiful it is, but I couldn't, because the man next to me was asleep against the window... Despite this, I still got a great first impression of New Zealand. Everyone I met at the airport gave me a smile. The woman at customs even taught me how to say the words in the address I was heading to (eg, Waingaro = wayne-aerrro, and Ngaruawahia = now-rrrou-ah-wahia... 'ng' is pronounced 'ny' and they roll their r's). This really put me in a good mood, and I felt ready to start my hitch hiking adventure to the Earthship!

I'd heard that the best place to hitch a ride south from Auckland airport was the Shell petrol station just outside. I went to the petrol station just outside and tried there for a while. Everyone I asked seemed to be going north. I was very confused, but then one of the staff came outside and made me realise the error of my ways by pointing me in the direction of another petrol station just down the road (the Shell one...). Shortly after arriving, I got a lift to the start of the highway (about 15 mins from where I was) from an indigenous couple called Naa and Susan. They were telling me about how they met on Cook Island when they were little and have been together ever since (awww). They also kindly offered me a place to stay if I ever find myself back in Auckland again! I'm sure I'll be taking them up on this offer soon.

Naa and Susan

Within fifteen minutes I'd got my next lift from a father and son combo called Jamie (father) and Chaz (son). The window next to where I was sat was jammed open, so the win was rushing into my face (it's like I was skydiving again, but far less exciting). On top of this, they were playing some kind of gangster rap/reggae fusion at full volume. Conversation was limited to lip reading, but I was finding it difficult to keep my eyes open with all the wind blowing in my face! They proceeded to drop me off on the side of a motorway. Crap. First rule of hitching - never hitch on a motorway. I panicked, got out of the car, thanked them, and watched them speed into the distance. I guess all I could do was stand there, and hope someone would be kind enough to pick me up!

An hour and a half had passed, and the only people who payed any attention to me were groups of people in camper vans who waved at me, or groups of Asians on bus tours who took pictures. I thought it was game over. I wondered over to a nearby cow farm to see if I could beg someone for a lift, or even give them some money. They couldn't help, but he did tell me about a better hitching spot on the nearby expressway (different from a motorway, and more importantly, less illegal to hitch from!). I wondered down, and still no one stopped for me. I decided to walk along the road in the hopes of finding a service station to stay the night if the worst came to worst. I walked along the expressway with my thumb out into the traffic in the hope that someone one would stop.

Then, around a corner, I saw a car in the hard shoulder.. 'Surely they didn't stop for me?' I questioned. I got closer, and closer, and like a miracle, one of them signaled for me to get into the car! I ran, got in, and expressed my gratitude in what can only be described as slurred noises.

Once I'd calmed down a little, I found out that the pair were a mother (Kushette, pronounced Kushi) and son (Dylan) who lived in Auckland, but were traveling down to Rotorua to see Kushette's sister and dad. They also revealed that they only picked me up because they thought I was Mediterranean and exotic, and were not expecting a pom (not the first time this has happened... Brings back memories of Bummit 2011). They told me about the relatives they have all over the world (NZ, Australia, Spain, USA, UK) and also mentioned that Kushette's dad works in Rotorua, and would be able to get me and some friends a discount if we went to see the Maori performances there! Excellent! I will definitely have to take her up on that one when the Norwegians arrive!

Kushette and Dylan

When I told them that I was staying in Ngarauwahia, they looked at each other then both said "good luck" to me! Apparently it has a bit of a reputation of being a rough place where lots of "maldis" hang out (probably the NZ equivalent of a chav, or bogan). I believe the phrase "thank God you're only there for a week!" did actually come our of Kushette's mouth!

I could not have been more grateful to Kushette and Dylan, who brought me right to the driveway of the place I was staying. We exchanged numbers and bid each other farewell. My first impressions of the place were not great (tainted by Kushette's words) with broken down cars and rubbish strewn on the sided of the roads, but when I'd walked up the hill to the Earthship, my opinion completely changed! I was greeted by the family, a noisy cockatoo, several chickens, pigs bigger than me, and a barking dog. We all introduced ourselves to each other, and I ate the cold left overs from tea (since I'd arrived a lot later than anticipated). All in all, a great, but long and tiring first day. I will write more about the Earthship in my next post. It's amazing.

Freedom!

As you may know, I have recently had exams, which were not only stressful, but annoying and got largely in the way of the student/hippy/traveller lifestyle I would prefer to be living. They didn't really get in the way of my alcohol consumption though... This was not helped by the presence of a group of Norwegians and a certain backpacking menace.

There are five Norwegian students living in Kooloobong who, like me, are on exchange. Unlike me, they study design and hence have no exams! Because of this, their last 2 weeks have been filled with parties and merriness, and when other people are having parties and being merry, I find it very difficult not to join in! And then there's Mike...

Mike is a boy from England who has spent his last year travelling around Asia and Australia with a garden gnome called Jeff. He once met Debs one night while in England, and decided that this was a good enough reason to come and visit her in Wollongong in the middle of exam season. Obviously Debs didn't want to fail her exams and needed to revise (go on Facebook, Skype, nap, browse the internet), so she practically begged me to take care of Mike for a night, which I did. We watched movies, got to know each other, drank vodka and exchanged travel stories (after a year or backpacking, my tales didn't quite seem to sound so impressive...)

Obviously, since he isn't a student, he had no exams either, so has been spending his time here wondering around meeting people and distracting them from their revision (Facebook, Skype, napping, internet browsing). Despite the fact that he may have caused me to fail an exam, I feel like we have a lot in common, we get along well and that we share a lot of the same ideals, and it is a huge shame that he's moving on and that we won't see each other for a while, but I've told him to expect a visit once we're both back in England, so it's not goodbye forever!

This is a link to the Norwegians' blog - it's written in Norwegian, but Google Translate does a good enough job of deciphering it for it to be understandable, and here is Mike's blog which is written from the perspective of his gnome companion. They're both well worth a read if you have the time to spare!

I'd like to now just take a moment to say that I've had a fantastic time since I got here in July and have loved meeting and spending time with all these new, interesting and kind people, but now, since the semester is over, I am finally free to do what I intended to do on my year abroad...


TRAVEL!!!


Uni here doesn't start again until mid February, so I have three months to see and do as much as I can! On Sunday I will be flying to New Zealand, which is where I will be until December 20th. If you're an avid reader of the blog, you'll know I'll be working on a farm for my first week which I'm really excited for, can't wait to get away from city life. After that, I'll be meeting up with the Norwegians somewhere on the North Island, and I expect I'll be with them until they leave, at which point I'll go to the South Island to do some exploring and self discovery (cliché alert...), and possibly do the highest bungee jump in the southern hemisphere! (I seem to have developed a taste for dangerous activities that involve potential death)

When I get back to Australia, I will be going to Albury to spend Christmas with Flic and her family with some of the other English exchange students, but I've not planned much further than that... There is talk of Sydney for New Year, and the possible purchase of a car after that... Whatever happens, I'll be sure to let you all know and keep you updated!

Missing all of you back home dearly, thanks for reading! Would love to know what you guys are getting up to and how you're surviving without me, so give me an email or Facebook or something :)

A birthday to remember

Twenty one years ago, I escaped the womb and burst into the world. That's right, yesterday was my 21st birthday - and what a birthday it was. What with twenty first birthdays being such a big milestone in the UK (no idea why, probably something we stole from the Yanks) I decided that I had to make it special, and to do that I decided to jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet.

Like most of my plans, I didn't think this would become a reality when I first thought of it, but I asked around and the four Norwegian girls said that they would do it with me (Noor didn't because he said he 'didn't feel like dying yet')! We booked a week in advance and every day before we went I checked the weather forecast. I was terrified that, like almost every other birthday I've had, it would pour down with rain, which the forecast said it would - and that would mean that we wouldn't have been able to do the jump. Fortunately, the sun was shining and there were hardly any clouds in the sky!

The girls came over for a birthday breakfast of pancakes and then we left! We arrived at the office and had to sign several legal forms ... "I understand that I will be in very close proximity to the tandem jumper" ... "Possible outcomes: death, disability, broken bones, etc." - so reassuring! We then put on our harnesses and had a quick tutorial of what to do when we jumped out. Two seconds later we had all forgotten because we were very, very excited!

A short bus ride later we'd arrived at a small airport where the blue and yellow plane was waiting and the eight of us doing the jump crammed ourself into it with our instructors and then we set off. When the plane left the ground that's when it started to get real, and I started to get nervous, but the fear was soon overridden by excitement and admiration of the view we were getting. When we'd finally climbed to 14,000 feet (about 4,200 m) and just like that, the door was open and people were dropping out of the plane. Surprisingly I wasn't scared or nervous at this point - I was just pumped and couldn't wait to get out there! I was the seventh out of the plane and oh my word - what an amazing feeling. Suddenly all my exam stress and other worries were gone and even though the wind was rushing past my ears so fast that I couldn't even hear myself screaming (which I did... a lot) it was kind of peaceful! 

After a while of spinning and tumbling in the air my instructor pulled the chord and the parachute opened. Five minutes later and we'd landed. Flic, Casey, Tash and Mike had come to see us land, and when they asked how it was we just couldn't explain! The only thing we could say was that it was amazing, but none of us could quite put the experience into words, it's something you just have to do (so if you get the chance, then DO IT!!).

Later that evening, my house mate Katy finally had her charity waxing. At the start of the semester, she asked around and got five of the boys who lived in Kooloobong to agree to potentially get their legs waxed - and I was one of them. People would pay money to vote for whoever they wanted this to happen to, and the money would go towards equipment to teach people to swim in the Maldives because they've developed a fear of the ocean.

On the night, it turned out that Hamish had won (or lost) and had his legs waxed, so my legs were safe. Unfortunately for me, I'd agreed to get my chest waxed if Katy could raise at least $50 on the night, and she raised well over that. Once they were finished with H's legs, I was up. The pain was unreal! I finally understand why Steve Carell screamed "KELLY CLARKSON" when he had it done in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

After the waxing, a few of us who either didn't have exams, or whose exams weren't until next week decided that we should celebrate my coming of age. So Flic, Nat, Casey, Mike, my newly smooth chest and I finished a bottle of tequila, and had plenty of goon to wash it down... Instead of going out, we ended up just stopping on a field near our accommodation and sang, danced and drank until the early morning. It was probably the most drunk I've been since I got to Australia... What a great night! Needless to say I was feeling pretty fragile this morning, but a quick dip in the sea solved that one.

Great birthday, thank you for everyone who made it special :)

Harbourfront, Halloween and Hiking

It has come to the end of the semester. Everyone has finished lectures, and there is a sense of relief in the atmosphere as people get their last assignments handed in. To celebrate, a posh three course meal was organised for the residents of Kooloobong at the harbourfront restaurant last Friday. It was a great chance for everyone to get dressed up and look nice for a change! There was no choice in what meal you had, it was kind of "pot luck"  because the waitresses just put random dishes in front of random people, and if you didn't like it you just had to find someone willing to swap with you. I feel I was lucky with my meals, and had calamari to start, chicken, ham, cheese, mashed potato for my main, and cheesecake for dessert (and also Tora's profiteroles because she wasn't hungry anymore - result!). After the meal, we took the party back to Kooloobong, and partied on until the early hours of Saturday morning.

So... It's that time of year again, where everyone paints their faces and looks like an idiot, but no one minds. There were birds, pumpkins, clowns, catholic school girls and Miss Norway. Halloween is barely ever celebrated in Australia, so we decided to show them how its done (even though it is my least favourite holiday of the year - mainly because I hate wearing face paint)

The boys hosted the party in their new house, and fun was had by all. The night started early (about 3pm for me) and everyone was sat outside to avoid overheating as there was a nice breeze, but this was soon ruined by a downpour of torrential rain and a quick lightning show. The party migrated inside, but we did let it ruin our spirits (or the goon punch). The table was used for beer pong, and in the lounge room, drinking games were being played - there were some decent games for the one of the first times since I got here! It's nice to not play ring of fire for once!

After a quick trip home to Skype my two favourite Stephs, I went back to rejoin the party, but I was so tired from a week of assignments and from the night before that it wasn't long until I passed out on the sofa! I decided it was probably a good idea for me to go home, so I did, but was apparently found a few hours later asleep on Noor's couch - no idea why, and no recollection of this haha

The next night, Halloween was celebrated with some of my course mates at the Outback Steakhouse. It was expensive, but bloody good. I donned my pumpkin outfit again (no face paint this time) and had a great meal with a nice, cold lager. After the meal, we went back to Thom's place (who has a sward, a bow and arrow, a library, and many many more cool things) and played card games into the night, and it was great to not be drunk (for once)!

The next day I made an effort to get up early and actually managed to make it to the top of Mt Keira! It was the first time I'd managed to get up there and the view was amazing. It just seemed magical as blue butterflies danced around my head. On the railings there were padlocks, where people had engraved their names and the names of their loved one. This must be something that happens all over the world, because I saw it in Ljubljana when I went, and there are definitely other places in Europe where this is done. I suppose it represents the never ending love that the two people have for each other, and its all very sweet.

Anyway, once I'd had enough of taking in the view, I was tempted to try and hitch a lift down with someone who'd driven up, but decided that I should just walk. It's a lot harder on the way down than it is on the way up - mainly because I can see how far I'm going to fall if I slip, and I'm not great with heights! I made it down in half the time it took for me to get up, with only a few minor scrapes.

That's all for now! Don't expect too many posts in the next few weeks... Exams will soon be upon us so all my time will be taken up with revision, but I'll try and blog before NZ since I don't think I'll be able to do one over there! x

Kooloo Paluzza

So at the moment at my accommodation there is a huge field outside my window, but as of tomorrow my view will be destroyed because they start building work to expand Kooloobong and more than double the capacity. This sucks, and everyone is massively annoyed by the plans. We will have to go elsewhere to sunbathe, there will be no more slip and slide, and they will be building through exams. In order to bid farewell to the hill in style, Eric, Matt and Gus organised a massive event on the field and called it Kooloo Paluzza

The boys got 2 kegs of beer and made about 45 burgers, and heaps of people turned up for fun times. We got out the slip and slide, had a mini paddling pool, water guns, played football, volleyball, and all enjoyed the sun and made the most of the field in the sun. The area by the pool got pretty muddy so I'm pretty sure I wrestled someone in it. We started drinking at about 11.30am and I don't remember anything past about 4pm! Apparently I was there for the barbecue (but I don't remember it) and I must have just gone straight to bed to pass out after that because I went missing, and it would explain why I woke up really confused at 3am... People managed to party on without me though but from what I've heard not many people made it past about 10pm, so I didn't miss too much!

Massive thank you to Eric, Matt and Gus for putting in so much effort and organising things so well, and RIP Kooloobong field!

In other news, Amanda, Charlie, Matt and I have joined forces with the Norwegians and are all going on a road trip during Spring break! We've hired camper vans from a site called Wicked Campers who are loaning us three camper vans and we will be driving up to Byron Bay, and then possibly up to the Gold Coast and Brisbane! We're all super excited for this, and we leave on Friday! Watch this space when we get back - I'll let you all know how it goes!

A little blue pill and a mini mountain adventure

So most of this week, for me, has revolved around a little known treatment for male impotence called Viagra. Don't worry, I haven't had to take it, I've just had to write about it. I've not blogged a lot this week because I've spent all my time trying to find information about Viagra and haven't been able to do anything else! I'm not doing this for fun, in case you were wondering... I had to write my first literature review on any one of a list of given drugs for my medicinal chemistry module, and since it was the only one I'd heard of, I chose Viagra!

It wasn't all doom and gloom though this week, in fact I quite enjoyed writing it at times, so I'll share some facts about it with you...

-It was originally developed as a vasodilator to cure hypertension and angina, but during clinical trials, the research team noticed that many of the men who took the pill got erections
-This was due to the fact that it inhibited an enzyme in the smooth muscle of the penis, instead of the smooth muscle in arterial walls that it was supposed to act on
-The drug was developed by Pfizer, and was first prescribed in 1998
-It was initially prescribed at a rate of 10,000 pills per day in the USA
-Annual sales of the drug peaked in 2008 when worldwide sales gave a profit of about £1,100 million, which is pretty good, when Pfizer is a company that spends billions on advertising every year

And now you know a little bit about Viagra. Apart from looking at online journals, I went out a couple of times, saw a turtle/tortoise in the middle of Kooloobong, discovered the eels in the ponds on campus, went to the gym a few times, and played tennis with Charlie. Nothing interesting at all - so today I decided to climb a mountain.

Mount Keira, which is just behind Kooloobong, stands at about 460m above sea level (according to Wikipedia), and the route to the top is meant to be fairly logical and simple, but of course, because it's me, I got lost!

While I was climbing, the path I was on suddenly stopped and I was presented with a steep, rocky hill. I knew I'd gone the wrong way, but decided to climb up it anyway. It properly tired me out, so I sat down when I got to the top, but then I realised that I couldn't have gone any further if I wanted to because of the massive (and I'm talking huge) rocks that were now in my way! So after about half an hour of trying to see if there was a way to get around these rocks I decided that I should probably go back and try to find the path I was supposed to be on, but getting down was a lot harder than getting up, and I was genuinely terrified that I would slip and break my ankle or something. After slipping, scrambling and sliding my way down the hill I found a path, it wasn't the one I came up on, but it was better than nothing! I followed it for a while until I came to a road, and decided to try again another day and managed to find my way back.

Even if I was scared for my life (or at least me ankle) at some points and it was a massive fail (something that is starting to happen more and more!), I still had a crackin' time and probably made it to about 400m so didn't do too badly! It was just nice to be able to be on the mountain by myself surrounded by nature! I was hoping to bump into one of the lyrebirds or wallabies that apparently live up there, but I think the closest I came to either of them was seeing a large pile of animal poo on the path. I did think I could hear a lyrebird at one point, but it was probably something else that just made a cool noise...

Next time I try to climb it, I'll get to the top, the view is meant to be amazing, but since I didn't quite get there today, here are a few snaps of what I did manage to see :)

The steep, rocky hill I was on about

Slip n slide Sundays

What do you get when you mix a long strip of tarpaulin, heaps of soapy water, a hill, and some bored teenagers? Slip and slide, that's what! Apparently when it gets a little hotter (because to the Aussies it's freezing right now) the slip n slide comes out every couple of weeks. They're even thinking of getting a wider, thicker strip of tarp so that we can go down a bigger hill! For now though, since this was my first outdoor slip n slide experience, my need to have fun and get outdoors was fulfilled shortly after I donned a pair of my signature short shorts.

There was of course the unlucky side effect of being able to feel soap suds in all kind of unfortunate places, getting covered in cuts, bruises and scrapes and finding mud and blades of grass just about everywhere... oh, and slip n sliding too hard and hitting the trees at the bottom... twice. But that all adds to the fun of it! Can't wait until this is more of a regular occurrence!