AUSSIE-LAND A'HOY!!!!

Brisbane

Land hoy!!! Yeah, that's right.  I said it.  After a ridiculous amount of flying, I finally made it to land.  The picture to the right is taken in one of our circles around Brisbane on my way from Fiji (don't get too jealous, I didn't leave the airport).  A lot of the land around Brisbane was rather shallow, creating beautiful arrays of color on my flight in.  Even so, I was more than happy to get off the final flight and go home with my beautiful friends!  A week in Brisbane was fantastic!  I gained a shadow (Scott & Kate's daughter Jemma) who always seemed to follow me around no matter where I was.  I held a koala, hand fed kangaroos and wallabies, rode in the Wheel of Brisbane (a large wheel sort of like the London Eye), ate fried squid rings and chips (i.e. fries), walked around the revamped city (massive floods in 2011), then missed my flight on Saturday night got to spend a beautiful lazy day on Sunday before I caught my flight that night and arrived in Perth.  More pictures of my vacation in Brisbane can be found here (you'll need facebook...or if you let me know, I'll drop a bunch in dropbox so you can peruse them).

Life here in Oz has been awesome.  My host family is super nice...not that I've seen them much since I've been here with my crazy work hours.  Work has been great.  I have the perfect combination of the Perth Heat and Fielders Choice, a retail outlet where I base most of my work.  What exactly is my work?  You have no idea how good of question that is......and how I really can't fully answer it.  The fact that I'm here to do a grad school internship changes most of what I do.  I base out of Fielders Choice because I am a group sales rep (translate:  I put together ticket packages for various groups).  My goal is to get all the t-ball and little league teams into the ballpark, along with any other group that would frequent the retail store.  Not only that but also make sure they have a super fun and memorable experience.  I also work with the Baseball Ops (Operations) committee and the High Performance guys (read: coaching plans).  Yeah, it's a lot and we're still working out exactly what it all means.  I could also coach any level I wanted (baseball or softball) and play....both of which I'm avoiding right now just due to the fact that I refuse to sleep less than 7 hours a night regardless of what my crazy co-workers claim they can routinely pull off.

Literally my entire life right now

The thing about Oz right now is that there are too many jobs for the amount of people that live here.  Not only that, there are so many jobs that are filled with people who just don't have that little something extra to turn the results into something excellent.  So if you're considering a career move, you should seriously consider Oz.  I'm not even kidding in that.  Once you figure out how to navigate the accent/slang, driving a car with steering wheel on the opposite side you're used to, driving on the opposite side of the road and how to pay with plastic money (literally) then you're good.  Only downside is that it is crazy expensive to live here and you constantly have to translate Celsius, kilometers, kilograms (b/c seriously, 5 kilos means NOTHING to me)....oh and I hear it's going to get crazy hot.

Anyway, back to my crazy life.  It's officially my 5th day in Perth and life is so fun right now.  It's long hours but the time in the shop is honestly fun, regardless of how many American jokes Leigh works into conversations with customers (only got 1 yesterday, I was rather disappointed).  I can't understand half of what people say on the phone and routinely just take a message for someone else to call them back,  Maybe that has to do with whatever is going on with my ears, which, by the way, are better yet not.  They itch all the time (the canal itself) and there's that crackle that tells me that the drums are still swollen.  Plus I usually have a headache but that might be from my lack of chiropractic, too.  Why can't I ever have a normal sickness?  Seriously I'm weird.  Anyway, please pray for my ears (again, I am so weird).  They are the most annoying things ever.

Well there you go.  Let me know if you have any questions or want me to explain any Aussie rumors and I'll get the answers for you.

Some random Aussie things:
chips:  hot chips are fries, cold chips are crisps
It's possible to play t-ball till you're 13....don't ask.  Officially I don't have an opinion.

That's a converter so I can use my American plug.
And yes, you have to turn on every outlet.

Miss you all.  Love you more.
Jaymie