Kitchen Tea

Last weekend, I hosted a kitchen tea bridal shower for my friend Keisha, along with her other 4 bridesmaids.


We had a great time catching up and eating homemade food that everyone had brought.

We played lots of fun games - including the "Make a bridal gown out of toilet paper" game!

Corinne & Sheree (2 of Keisha's sisters)

Danielle, me & Claryse

Cassie, Keisha & Polly

Sam

The 4 "brides" - Sam, me, Corinne & Keisha

Claryse in the mess created after we all ripped our "gowns" off!

Laura, Elise & Keisha

Cassie & Claryse

Playing Celebrity Heads - Disney character style!

Elise, me & Laura

Polly

Keisha opening presents

She is a huge Jodi Picoult fan!

The present I got her- a t-shirt that says "Soon to be Mrs Coleman"!

It's that time again

I'm at uni, with a three hour break.

Do you feel like this is the only time you ever hear from me?

:)


Last week was Mid-Semester Break at uni, which tied in with Easter as well. Having a whole week off was soooo nice! Sleeping in, not having to rush out the door, doing whatever I wanted for the day = bliss!

That's not to say I wasn't busy. I spent a lot of time with my friends, we had a spontaneous pizza and movie night and then on another night we played board games and watched DVDs. This is how my friends and I are - we'd rather stay in than go out ANY day!

On Good Friday, after I went to church in the morning, Mum and I decided to go for a drive. It was "go-for-a-drive" weather. We had plans to go to Wollongong, but after getting on the freeway and seeing the traffic backed up for like 5 kilometres, we turned around and headed in the other direction. We ended up at Pancakes on the Rocks in Parramatta (yum!) and then we got home in time to see a movie. We wanted to see Dear John, but we missed the only session it was on, so we saw The Last Song instead. They're both movies based on Nicholas Sparks novels, so in my opinion it didn't really matter which one we saw!

By the end of the movie, I was in tears. It was SO sad. I won't spoil the ending, but oh my goodness it was a tear jerker.

Then again, that could just be because I'm a "feeler". At my friend Laura's dinner party on Friday night, the 5 of us (Laura, Keisha, Elise, Claryse & me - Laura's dad calls us "The Desperate Housewives" haha) were talking about whether we're think-ers, feel-ers, or do-ers.

We all know each other so well after having been friends for so long, that most of the time it was unanimous. Laura and I are both feelers. But we differ in that I'm a feeler, then a thinker, then a do-er, meaning I feel things first, then I think about them, and then I act. Laura is much more of a do-er than I am :)

I'm a ponderer. I think about what I'm thinking about. (We call that "metacognition" at uni)
But regardless of all that, first and foremost, I am a FEELER. Big time. Emotional, romantic, deep and meaningful. That's me.

I love hanging out with my friends who know me so well. The 5 of us can talk for hours, without even realising that time is passing. It's true. It happened on Friday night. Before we knew it, it was 2am, and everyone else had left hours ago. I love that :)

(I'm all about the smiley faces today!)


Later on the weekend (on Saturday) I hosted a Baby Shower for my dance teacher with some other girls from dancing. It was so fun to see the hall all decked out in pink, and full of yummy food. (I may have gone on a baking binge a few days before...)


Yesterday, on Monday, I had to work all day, but it was worth it because of the public holiday rates :) We were surprisingly busy... well not busy, but constant, which was surprising because in a small little shopping centre like ours, public holiday usual equals deserted. So that was a pleasant surprise.

However, before I knew it, it was the end of the Easter long weekend and back to the real world - uni.

Waking up early this morning was not fun, but it's only another two weeks before we are on break again. I can't wait. But in the meantime, I have a few assessments to get back to... the life of a uni student!

Happy Easter

Dinner Party

Last night my friend Laura had a dinner party for her birthday. She is a huge fan of the Style Me Pretty blog, which focusses on weddings and other pretty things, and so she went all out with her table settings.

Here are some pictures. It's all very "Twilight" inspired to me!

Keisha & Adam

Yesterday I spent the afternoon photographing my two friends Keisha & Adam. They're getting married in April (I'm going to be a bridesmaid!) and wanted me to take some pre-wedding shots.

You can see my favourites on my photography blog.


Click here Babushka Babe Photography

Happenings

Wow, a lot has happened in the 9 days since I last posted.

(Yes, I totally just looked up on my blog when I last posted, and counted backwards.)


Sorry to leave you in the lurch- I've been pretty busy!

(The only reason you're getting a blog post out of me now is because instead of being at dancing, I'm babysitting my dance teacher's kids, and all 3 of them are currently asleep. Or very good at faking it. I have my eye on the middle one, their 5 year old daughter, because out of all of them I reckon she's the one who could pull it off.)


Anyway. I've had some good news and some bad news in the past few weeks.

In the very bad news department, on Sunday I found out that one of my good friend's Dad died very suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday. For as long as I've known him (and that would be about 12 years) he's battled cancer and needed kidney dialysis regularly, but apparently he was the healthiest he'd been in a long time when he had what is thought to be either a stroke or a heart attack. His death is a blow to the entire family of my friend, and to everyone who knew him.

He always called me "Pinky" because of my love for all things pink, and I now feel a little bittersweet when I am reminded of that.


In other news, I found out that I wouldn't be able to work with the St Vincent de Paul Society anymore for my agency placement. The training days they have requested unfortunately fall on a Thursday, a day I have classes; and a Saturday, which is the day of my graduation ceremony!

Instead, I'll be working with Fast Forward, which is a program run by my university in low socioeconomic status schools. Since I joined the program pretty late, I didn't think I'd get to sign up in a school near my area, but I actually did!

I will be mentoring students who are enrolled at Bidwill High School. This particular school is in a pretty rough area. Bidwill is dominated by public housing and is associated with social and economic problems. There is a significant crime problem and riots have been common in the past.

The main reason Bidwill has been chosen as part of the Fast Forward program is that the program's aim is to encourage high school students to go on to complete tertiary education. We mentor kids with the aim of motivating them to go to uni. This is particularly important in Bidwill, where out of 2500 residents, less than 180 go beyond secondary education to university.

Fast Forward's ambition is to "raise participant's aspirations for the future". Since these days jobs that don't require a university degree are few and far between, I'm excited to work with these students and encourage them to enrol in university after they finish high school.


I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also a little terrified.

Upon telling a few friends from church that have been to the area that I'm "going to Bidwill", the first things they said were

"Do you have a bulletproof vest?"

"Your car will probably get robbed"

and

"The guys will probably be rough on you".


Yikes. And they're sending 3 of us girls to this school.

By ourselves.


I'm trying not to be too judgmental or have too many preconceived ideas about the school before I've even walked through the gates. But it's hard.

I'll keep you posted.

:)

Southern

You may wonder why you're hearing more from me lately... especially on Tuesday afternoons.

It's because I have a three hour break between my classes!

And there's only so much reading and quizzing that a student's mind can take!

Being at my new campus has it's pros and cons- and this is one of the latter. It's not like my old campus where I was only 15 minutes away from home and would drive back and forth easily on my lunch break.

Nope, it takes me anywhere between 45 minutes and an hour to get here (and that's if I'm leaving in the middle of the day! If it's like today, and I have a 9 o'clock lecture, it can take me 2+ hours!)

There is a shopping centre about 20 minutes' drive away, but today I just feel like hanging around campus. My friends all have classes at the moment, so here I am, checking in with you all.

(On another note, my friend Keisha and I are always saying that we were born in the wrong place- we should've been born in the southern states of the US so we could say "y'all"!)


So, what have I been up to?

I had a great weekend, filled with activity as usual. (You may have seen my post on making a bulletin board below.)

I worked on Sunday, and even got called in to work yesterday afternoon as well. We absolutely smashed our sales targets on the weekend, but Monday was s-l-o-w and pretty tragic dollar-wise.


I've been dying to see Dear John at the movies, and was meant to go with Mum on the weekend, but I got home Sunday afternoon and crashed on the couch. I managed to sleep for an hour, which is very unlike me! By the time I woke up it was time to go to church, so there was no opportunity to go to the movies.

There are so many movies out at the moment that I want to see! Dear John is one of them, but I've also been meaning to see Valentine's Day (I know, it's a bit late since it's now the middle of March!) and I also want to see Remember Me.

I mentioned a while ago that last weekend Keisha and I saw The Blind Side, which was a fabulous movie about a Southern woman and her family who take in a homeless high school student and help him go on to become a famous NFL player.


We LOVED it.


Our favourite quote:

Leigh Anne Touhy: If you so much as set foot downtown you will be sorry. I'm in a prayer group with the D.A., I'm a member of the NRA and I'm always packing.

Gang member: Whatchu packin? A .22? A little Saturday night special?

Leigh Anne Touhy: Yep. And it shoots just fine every other day of the week too.


We were laughing and laughing in this scene.

Love that she notes she's in a prayer group first, before she even mentions that she carries a gun!