Tocal weekend

I spent my last weekend in Tocal because we had a Rotary meeting there. The last one was only for inbounds, but this time we met also outbounds. Inbound student is the term for people who are coming to country, and outbound is the word for the people travelling to other countries.  So I am an outbound to Finland, but here I'm an inbound student.

The meeting started in Saturday and ended on Sunday so it was shorter than last time.  There was still a lot to do:

SATURDAY:

6.00 Early wake-up call because of packing  (Maybe I should have done that last night... :D)

7.30 Rotarian from my club picked me up

8.30 Registration in Tocal college

9.00 Introductions and welcome speeches

9.45 Lesson about living in Aussie homes, attending school and travelling = The subject of these lessons is always the same; just talking about rules and regulations

10.30 Morning tea

10.45 Lesson about police matters = One Rotarian is a policeman so he was telling us about Australian laws compared to Rotary rules

11.15 Lesson about illnesses and medical issues = Insurance stuff; surprise, surprise...

11.45 Country group discussion = Scandinavian people talking about our lives here and back home.  These discussions were, in my opinion, clearly the best  parts of our weekend.

12.30 Lunch

13.30 Group photos

Picture above by George Konz

14.00 Guided activities and speech preparation = Chilling out...

15.30 Afternoon tea

15.45 Lesson about personal issues = We were just rating our time here and telling what is good at the moment and if there's problems somewhere

16.30 Physical activities outside = We were trying to throw a ball to a bucket, hard!

17.00 Free time = Inbounds and outbounds got to know each other a bit

18.00 Dinner = The best dinner in a while!!! I met a guy who has been an exchange student in Finland, so we were having our private conversation; half in Finnish, half in English.  It was unbelievably hard for me to speak Finnish so I changed to English quite a few times; maybe it was just because I couldn't be sure how good Finnish speaker he was.  Anyway, the high light of my weekend! :)

19.00 Bush dance = What can I say. Other people didn't maybe had that much fun, but I and my constantly changing dance partner were doing it with a full heart, so at least it was a good workout for my abs because of that never ending laughing :DD

23.00 Lights out = Didn't really affect to us; we just went outside and talked... :D

SUNDAY:

6.30 Rise and shine = Always the same thing.  This time I was so tired that I was laying in by bed 'till seven o'clock though :DD

7.30 Chapel = The reason why we woke up way too early

8.00 Breakfast

9.00 The day's program

9.30 Country group discussions = Same than on Saturday

10.00 Facts about Australia = Nice little quiz and more advice about how to avoid snakes

10.45 Morning tea

11.00 Speech presentations to parents = I failed again.  It should be really easy to talk about yourself for three minutes in other language even without planning, but no.  Actually it wasn't as bad as last time, but people just started clapping so I had to leave.  I can make it sound really bad, can't I? :D

12.00 Capricorn ramble = More information about our safari.  The price is 3400 AUD (ouch), but the route is 10000 kilometers, so I bet you end up having great time and seeing a lot more than you otherwise would!

12.30 Final comments

12.45 Lunch

13.15 Goodbyes = We were in hurry to going skiing, so I left as quickly as I could.  I don't see the reason to take a photo with every single person in the room, because we see each other constantly

Writing about our ski trip tomorrow,

Liisa

The plan

Tomorrow I'm waking up before six o'clock, and I'm heading to Tocal at 7.30.  It's about one hour drive from Singleton, so I'll be there when our first program starts at 8.30.  So I'm having a nice Rotary weekend again, and after that on Sunday, I'll be going skiing with my host family and their friends.  I have no idea where still  is snow at the moment, but they said that it's about eight hours drive from here; nice.  We'll be coming back from there on Wednesday, maybe, so I 'll make a huge post then.  Now I just say bye for few days, I really need to go to bed.

Exhausted without a reason,

 Liisa

P.S. It's pretty funny when people here are packing all of their super warm winter clothes for ski trip; those ones we wouldn't use even if it was -35.  I just asked my host father how cold will it be, and his answer was "Five, maybe ten if it's a warm day."  And seriously; we're talking about +5 and +10 now. :DD

P.P.S.  I'VE BEEN IN AUSTRALIA FOR TWO MONTHS NOW, YAY!!! :)

Countryside

I don't live downtown, so there's a lot of animals and fields here.  I'm used to small city so for me this is okay, and I actually find myself enjoying the peacefulness. :) 

Loving it,

Liisa

p.s. I saw TEN kangaroos today, so the total is 18 at the moment, hooray!!! :DD

2 / 12 = 1 / 6

TWO MONTHS OF MY AUSSIE YEAR ARE GONE!!!  Time flies so quickly that it's almost sad.

So far I've:

- eaten with chopsticks

- tried Vegemite

- skipped one school day just because I was feeling tired

- stood next to a horse

- had 32 mosquito bites in my body at the same time
- fallen in love with body pump, zumba, boxing and body balance

- eaten home delivered pizza, twice
- sat 22 hours in airplane
- bought one pair of really good earphones

- drank more soft drinks than I did last year in total

- met only one guy who surfs

- eaten kiwifruit, mango and passion fruit
- drawn a huge black & white picture of myself

- bought my third fake Ray-Bans
- read a really thick book in English 

- noticed that Australian berries are way worse than ours

- saved 2309 photos into my computer
- done quite a few gym classes

- drank hot chocolate with marshmallows
- put on way more weight I should have

- tried sushi

- made 99 new facebook friends

- had no big troubles with Aussie slang or accent

- bought one pair of glittery shoes

- given three speeches
- said the letters L-I-I-S-A-E-L-O-R-A-N-T-A approx. one hundred times

- learnt that you can eat kiwifruit with the skin

- fallen in love with my squeaky double bed
- eaten peanut butter

- used half of my gym membership time
- wore my school uniform correctly everyday
- been told more than enough scare stories about Australian summer

- seen eight kangaroos, echidna and possum, three koalas and few emus
- eaten crumpets

- had too many mosquito-hunting-events in the middle of the night

- taught numbers 1-10 in Finnish twice

- ordered junk food from drive-thru

- overslept twice on school mornings but still made it to school in time
- eaten pavlova
- met heaps of awesome people

= HAD GREAT TIME!!!

Enjoying Australia,

Liisa

Shopping

Today we went to Newcastle, because my host sisters needed to buy some clothes.  Usually I lose my nerves when I'm shopping, but this time I didn't need anything so it was nice just to look around.  I ended up buying three pairs of earrings and two dresses.  The first one is a party dress, and the second is just for summer.  I also changed those rings I got for my birthday because they were one size too big.

Poorer,

Liisa

Surprise

My Rotary meeting last night was a success! :DD  My presentation went well, and the whole night was really nice. I was nervous earlier the day, but when I walked in front of the people, I was surprisingly calm.  Only thing I was a bit worried was that I thought that my presentation was maybe too short (It lasted over ten minutes, but still less than fifteen), but I was told that nobody expected me to talk as long as I did, and that my presentation was the best exchange student's presentation they've heard!  I was amazed.

I have to give the same one again, because Rotary Club of Singleton has been separated into two different clubs, and the other one would like to get to know me as well.  I don't know when's that, but I'm not stressing at all because I have already done the hardest work.

It's a shame that no one took pictures about my presentation, so I can't share them with you.  But there's still few photos taken last night, about the late birthday cake I got. :D

Pictures above taken by Rotary Club of Singleton

Yesterday I didn't have time to go outside or do other 'free day' -stuff, so now I'll spend the whole day doing nice things. :)

Going to read and sunbathe next to our pool,

Liisa
p.s. EIGHT kangaroos so far! :D

Echidna!

I am counting Australian animals I've seen, and yesterday I saw one more to add to my list.  Echidnas are quite small spiky animals, which live only in Australia and New Guinea.  From my pictures you can't actually see the whole animal; only it's back.  That's because it was so scared that it dug itself half to the ground... :D

I have to give a 15 minute speech for Rotary tonight, so I have to go and try to get as ready as I can.  The topic should be easy; I'll talk about myself and Finland.  I'm still really nervous, because it's different language and there's a lot of people.  Enough reasons to panic. :D

Wish me luck,

Liisa

Broke fair

Actually this happened last Sunday, I just haven't had time to make a post about it earlier.  So, there's a little village, Broke, in Hunter Valley, half an hour drive away from Singleton.  They have their 'Broke Village Fair' every year, and this year it was on last Sunday.

My first ice cream which looked like that...  All of my host sisters had the pink and blue one which they said wasn't good, but I actually think mine tasted pretty good, just like normal mint-chocolate ice cream.  Looks interesting though. :D

The Rotary lady who took us there wanted to show us a nice place, so we went to a tiny little shop where you could buy soaps and cheese and olives and stuff like that.  I loved the atmosphere; there were animals outside, and everything was so old and cozy and country style.  And the smell of fresh made soap, ah.  Love it! :)

Happy because having a day off tomorrow,

Liisa

Special case

This and next week are the time for year 11 exams, but because I'm not doing them we had to figure out what else I could do. This is what we ended up with:

MONDAY
Work in primary side (in kindergarten)

TUESDAY
Normal lessons and liturgy

WEDNESDAY
Work in primary side (with year 1)

THURSDAY
Day off

FRIDAY
Day off (= four day weekend, me likey! :D)


MONDAY
Work in primary side (with year 2)

TUESDAY
Day off

WEDNESDAY
Work in primary side

THURSDAY
Normal lessons

FRIDAY
Normal lessons

That's all this time (a bit boring I know, I just wanted to tell),

Liisa

Birthday

My day started with yummy breakfast which my host family brought into my bed

After that we drove to Hunter Valley Gardens to have a lunch there.  It was so hard to stop taking photos; the place is absolutely gorgeous.

There are a lot of tiny shops near Hunter Valley Gardens, so we went to the British one with my host sisters and bought a weird drink for everyone. There's a obvious reason why these drinks are not worldwide...ugh! :D

When we were driving back, we stopped to a lookout so I had an opportunity to take picture of those vineyards which Hunter Valley is famous for. 

The whole day was amazing, huge thank you to my host family! :)

Last but definitely not least; my BARBIE-BALLERINA-CAKE!!! :DDD

They bought a barbie who looked like me, and even did her hair.; amazing.  My host mum is the best barbie cake maker that 17-year-old could ever wish! :))

Had a perfect Aussie birthday,

Liisa