2006 – Page 5 – helenthura.com

October 6, 2006

Exploring West End

Mum and I spent went on a little outing this morning to West End browsing, shopping and eating our way along Boundary St, up a few of the side streets and some other places on the way home.
The highlights included:
Bent Books, where Mum picked up the LP book – Trekking in the Karakoram & Hindukush (sigh, wouldn’t it be lovely? We both watched a doco the other week called “Karakoram Highway: The Road To Globalisation” and it is also the where “Three Cups of Tea” is based (my top book of the year if not the last couple of years)).

Swiss Gourmet Deli – looking at all the yummy smallgoods and grocery items, so many wonderful things. We stopped here for morning tea where the lady behind the counter was shocked that we don’t drink coffee .. at all! It was a bit of a laugh. Mum had a Friand and I had a Cannoli. mmm yummy.

Now we continued to stroll down Boundary st, seeing what we could see and just enjoying the “scene”, I picked up a recycled Sari silk bag which is just gorgeous I will have to take a photo of it tomorrow.

The next stop was the real target of the day, ara beeka, the most delectable Lebanese(?) pastry shop. My eyes were twinkling and my mouth was watering at all the pretty pastries and biscuits in the display case. I could have just gobbled up the entire case and died in a nut and sugar bliss. (76 Boundary St, West End).
This is a selection of some of the goodies we got, most of them are priced at about $1 a piece of you can buy by the kilo ($22ish) or half kilo which works out much cheaper if you are buying more a couple. The staff behind the counter are great and up for a laugh as well which was nice.

The next substantial stop was at the West End branch of the City Library network, it is the cutest little library I have ever seen, it is a very small one room library that is about the size of our lounge room and eating area combined. It was soooo cute!

Then it was The Language People, a bookshop that specialises in mmm well language books from ESL (English as a second language) to Literacy to learning foreign languages. The first thing I checked out here was if they had any Icelandic books and sure enough they did – Colloquial Icelandic, we then had fun seeing what other “rarer” language books they had, I was quite impressed with the range of Tetum books they had.

We then left Boundary St and headed over to Reverse Garbage, one of the most interesting stores in Brisbane. I picked up three partial Letraset sheets for $1.50! Mum scored some assorted fabric pieces for 90c.

The last stop for the day was Simply Good at Alderly which is a loose bulk bin food store with all sorts of wonderful dried fruits, lollies, legumes, nuts, flours etc all at very, very good prices.

October 2, 2006

Pretty things

Well the way too short mid-semester break is over and to show for it I have written two essays, caught up on my readings and prepared for an exam this week. As well as a little bit of playing.

Yesterday I made these two headbands and cut out all the pieces for my 21st birthday quilt – Mum paid for the fabric and I am making it. It uses fabric from the Flowershow and Palazzo collections from Benartex.

Between cutting out all the blocks I also made two headbands 🙂

The one on the left uses a pattern from Heather Bailey – Hooray for Headbands and the one on the right uses a pattern from Katie Sue – Reversible Fabric Headband

Now that I have played with two different patterns I plan on merging them a bit for the next one as I like the ties on the Heather Bailey pattern but prefer the tapered cut from Katie Sue as I prefer how it sits on my head.

Now whilst I was having fun at home, Mum went out to a little class and made this most adorable little pouch.

The little stone affair in the middle is one of those glass pebbles that people put in vases covered with a scrap of chiffon. How cool does it look!

September 26, 2006

Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey

You might be wondering what the deal is about the title for this post, well even if you werenâ€™t I will tell you anyway. Pabbi has just been diagnosed with the D word aka Diabetes Type II. Currently his blood sugar levels are in a bad way â€“ high 20â€™s, low 30â€™s â€“ the normal level is between 4 and 6. Hopefully though as his medicine and diet changes kick in, it will improve.

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The internet is well the internet.
This blog (I really hate that word but let us keep on moving) has reconnected my family to at least three people so far and I think that is pretty cool.
We have hooked back up with Neele who was our first German exchange student in 2001.
My older brother has hooked back up with one of his mates from around the time Matthew was born in 87.
And just the other day I received an email for Mum from a Kiwi lady who knew Mum from the fish factory she worked in Iceland many, many years ago.

All through the power of Google!

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We spent the most delightful time this morning on the phone to Karl, whilst he was wandering round the streets of Berlin at 1am in the morning, killing time between his flights as he heads to Munich/ MÃ¼nchen for Oktoberfest. Mum started telling Karl about the time she had spent in Berlin and the bullet holes in the buildings, when he asked where they were and Mum of course couldnâ€™t remember. I quickly hopped on Flickr and Google to see what I could find. I found a couple of streets and then by the time I was back on the phone with Karl, he had actually started to walk down one of the streets I had found on the net. Then as we talked, as he walked and looked for bullet holes, he found what he thought could be bullet holes, well more to the point, there was little else they could be â€“ lots of dimples on old stone buildings, which matched with what I saw in photos. The wonders of technology!

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I also just watched the season three opener of Veronica Mars which MSN is showing before it starts on TV in the states next week . Bonus! Play the episode in Windows Media

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I am also in the midst of finishing an essay on the Japanese camera industry and I have to say not only is this essay coming out faster than any other, it certainly rocks writing about something I really enjoy and have a decent knowledge on already. I certainly never thought at the start of this degree that I would be writing an essay on Canon, Nikon, Sony and the like. Certainly pretty cool.

September 22, 2006

What is a Friend?

I found a piece of paper today which has a piece of prose I wrote in year 12 (2002) or it might have been year 11 (2001) but I am pretty sure it was year 12.

What is a Friend?
Is it someone you can trust with your life?
Is it someone who knows you almost as well as you do?
Is it someone you likes you for who you are and not what society wants you to be?
Is it someone who would give his or her life, so you could live?
Is it someone who will be there for you at the darkest point of your life?
Is it someone who asks you to the party on Friday?
Is it someone who will pass notes to you in class, even though you really should be listening?
Is it someone who rings you just to say good luck before the big test?
Is it someone who will join you on the walk of life?
Will they join you if you choose the road less travelled?
Will they do all of the above and thousands more just because they are your friend?

Looking back at it now I find a few things interesting in it.
I have never been a party girl so I find that line interesting. I rarely passed notes in class because I was terrified that the teacher would see and it would get back to Mum (one way to ensure your child doesnâ€™t mess up, be a teacher at the school they attend).

Looking at this, I wish I could find copies of some of my other writings from high school I remember writing a pretty kick ass short story about a teenage boy and his search for the truth about his mother who died in childbirth and his grandparentsâ€™ apparent hate for their daughter. It was all top stuff. However, after a computer blowing up and a hard drive failure I lost most of my school work.

September 19, 2006

heart attack

I gave Pabbi and myself a heart attack this morning when I looked at the results for an exam I had the other week.

I had looked at the table that was posted on the subject website early this morning and saw that I had gotten 8.6/20. I didn’t cry but I was distraught, how could I have gone so terribly wrong? Had I mixed up the letters for the multi choice? Were my two mini essays utter rubbish?

When I got to class the first thing he did was hand back the exam papers, I had a glance at the cover of mine to check my result and it said 15.8 not 8.6 like I was expecting. I flicked through the exam booklet checking the comments, they all correlated with the 15.8. All I could think was that he must have mistyped a result on the webpage.

I left class feeling extremely relieved about my mark.

When I got home a short while ago I went back to the website to double check what was posted and I noticed something very weird. I looked to see what the student number was for the person who received 15.8 and it was mine. I then looked to see what the student number was for the person who received 8.6 and saw that it contained the same seven numbers but two had their position switched! In my rush this morning to see what my mark was I had had a quick glance over the list and seemingly thought I had looked at the right result.

Moral of the Story: Even if there is only nineteen people in the subject still use the find button and type in your student number like you normally do in subjects with a hundred people!

When I looked at the mark sheet properly I also saw that I had topped the class with my 15.8/20! To say I was relieved was an understatement.

September 18, 2006

POTN in the City

I spent the better half of yesterday tramping round Brisbane with a tripod on my back and a camera bag on my side with nine other like minded people who I met through Photography on the Net, which is a Canon-centric message board. It was such a delightful day spent chatting, sharing tips and of course taking photos that I was sad to leave after lunch when the others were heading over to the Roma St Parklands but I had books to read, notes to make and granola muesli to cook.

We had arranged to meet at 5:30am at Kangaroo Point to take photographs of the cityscape in early morning light and we were all wishing for clearish skies and sun. We were not that lucky but at least we didn’t have rain like we had been having for the last couple of days.

Once we had had our fill of the view from that area we boarded a cross-river ferry and headed to the Eagle St Pier/Riverside area to play along the boardwalk and between the buildings in the morning light.

The Jogger

Every morning she pounds the footpath,
Every morning she takes the same route.
She sees the same thing day in, day out,
Perhaps she notices the changes that appear,
Or maybe she doesn’t.

By now it was close to 8ish and we hopped on a CityCat to take us up to New Farm Park and the Powerhouse where we explored the industrial elements of the Powerhouse before sitting down for a warm beverage and hoping for the clouds to part again and give us some sun.

The Magnificent Seven walking through the park with the Rose Garden in their sights. Three of us were not in the shot.

In the Rose Garden I spent my time searching for fairies but yet again they let me down, I did find evidence of their life though in the following photos.

First we have some Fairy Tables.
Since the rains have finally started to come to Brisbane, the fairies have been praising the clouds as they bring mushrooms with the rain; growing in little clusters they are just perfect for a Fairy cocktail party.

Second is a newly opened Fairy Fabric Store. Have you ever seen a flower where a petal might be missing or a branch with a few missing leaves? This is prime evidence of Fairy life. Petals and leaves are excellent sources of high quality fairy cloth. This Rose store I believe might be a special occasion fabric store as the petals were all intact. Perhaps they are waiting for more mushrooms to pop up and then they will have a Fairy Ball.

After more chatting and photographing we hopped back on the CityCat and cruised the Brisbane River up to Bretts Wharf, pointing out good spots for photos along the way and then exploring the river bank at Bretts Wharf.

Then it was back on the CityCat to head back into the city for lunch and the Roma St Parklands. However, myself and three others started on the trip home after lunch instead of going to the parklands :(. As we walked through the city streets back to the ferry stop to take us back across the river to our cars I snapped this last one of the Brisbane buildingscape.