To Market, To Market!

Sydney is known for its abundance of fabulous farmers markets, and the Eveleigh Market is no exception. My trip there this weekend was a completely and utterly fantastic study break! Sydneysiders love the fresh-from-the farm produce and gourmet delicacies available right from the artisans' kitchens. Although I stuck to my basic grocery list I did indulge in some liberal sampling! Delicious cheeses, fresh fish, refreshing, tangy juices, brilliantly coloured flowers and unusual Australian spices were just some of the sense-awakening offerings. I also found it was a great way to talk to some real local Aussies and peak into the vibrant farming culture. I also like that market shopping is a great way to support local farming practices, and the food is wonderfully delicious to boot! I am certain that it's not all in my head: the food actually tastes better. The fruit is sweeter and tangier, the veggies more flavourful, and the yogurt much more smooth and fresh-tasting than its mass-produced, grocery store counter-part. I've never tasted anything better! Topped with sliced fresh peaches and passion fruit- it's like a taste explosion in my mouth!

The array of fresh food was amazing! These lettuces (3 heads for $5- bargain!) were picked the previous evening. Sure beats veggies that have travelled on a truck and then sat in a warehouse for a few days.

mmmm cheese. It was so hard to resist this stand, but alas I satisfied myself with a morsel from the sample table. 

Loaded up with fresh fruits and veggies for the week. The gorgeous weather made the half an hour walk with the heavy bags a little more pleasant. 

A Few Garage Sale Finds :)

Last Sunday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and people were having garage sales!!  Now on the whole I've managed to stay far far away from anywhere I might be tempted to spend money but I am in the market for a few essentials. I figured a garage sale might be a safe bet for scavenging a few necessities at a manageable pricepoint. Low and behold I found some great deals! Ordinarily I find yard sales to be hit and miss. Most of the time there's a reason why the hosts are getting rid of the stuff on sale; however, luckily the items at this particular sale were treasures! I wish I could have bought it all but alas I am on a tight budget. 

I couldn't resist this nightstand, it's a really nice glass top with and interesting metal base. An welcome departure from the standard, boring ikea "wood" nightstand I would have thought I'd end up with. The lamp too was a great deal as it had been an unwanted gift and was brand new. 

I know it seems strange that with all the reading I have for school I'd want another book but I sometimes find it difficult to "switch off" at the end of the day. I find reading a chapter of this book to be very soothing and soporific. I have to thank Anne over at the City Sage for her blogger book love series which mentioned this book. What a find!

So all in all a very productive trip to the garage sale, although I am still without a chair for my new desk. Hopefully my hosuemates don't mind my borrowing the dining table chair all the time!

The Uninvited Houseguest

I always like to treat others as I'd like to be treated myself. Ergo, upon sighting a most unexpected visitor at 4am the other morning, I elected to trap and remove the creature rather than smack it with a very large object. Notwithstanding the fact that 4am corpse disposal was not be high on my list of welcome tasks, I still thought it was ultimately the most fair arrangement for both parties. Luckily since my assignment had  trumped room cleaning I had a selection of potential receptacles handy in the debris on my desk. An empty coffee cup did the trick and after some time and slight misfortune (see below) I successfully corralled the spider into the cup and granted it rather unceremonious egress out of my still open, but soon to be shut window. As the temperature has now crept back up to mid to high 20s (even at night!) I am struggling to reconcile my fear that it, or another family member might again seek to enter my room with the stifling heat of an unventilated bedroom.  

Result of tripping over a yet-to-be-assembled bed frame leaning up against the wall, and subsequently having it fall down onto my ankle during the trapping phase of the operation.

New Bed!

Apologies for being incommunicado of late. All of a sudden law school has turned into a lot of work. Imagine that! Most recently, I was forced into sequestering myself in my room for 4 days to write two, 2500 word essays. They were meant to be  a "take home exam" but would more accurately have been named "four days to work a miracle" because that's what the fact that I actually finished it was. We have now begun torts. I have a feeling there will be lots of bad jokes involving the word "tortuous" floating around. Stay tuned...

On a lighter and brighter note, here's a pic of my new bed! As some of you may know I endured quite the misadventure during my first attempt to secure appropriate sleeping facilities when I first moved into my house. I originally bought a second hand bed, a disastrous ordeal from start to finish. A good friend helped me pick it up from the seller's' apartment way out in Maroubra Beach (a suburb about 45 minutes away.) Well, unfortunately as we were trying to fit the bed frame into the hatchback it, being less than high-quality, Ikea particle board, snapped at the leg joint! Luckily, a friend's dad who is quite handy with tools, offered to repair it for me. Then, whilst attempting to sleep with the mattress on the floor, I was completely unable to sleep at all. I eventually gave up and slept on the couch. As that wasn't the sort of arrangement that would do permanently by any means, I decided enough was enough and purchased a new bed from the department store. It was bottom of the line, and on sale so didn't quite break the bank but I figured it was worth eating canned tuna for a few weeks. I have to say it's been absolutely divine compared to the horrendous experience of the first mattress. After some investigation, it turns out that  the couple who sold the mattress to me lied about it's age and value. At least all's well that ends well. Lesson learned. 

Just Bought: A (cheap!) subscription to The Sydney Morning Herald

OK folks here it is, the revelation of a lifetime... I do not, I repeat, DO NOT have a television! For the first time EVER, I am not living in a place with a TV! A travesty I know, however there's not much I can do at the moment. Overall not having a television is a minor inconvenience; still, I am of the opinion that being up to date on current public events and news, especially in the economic, political and legal spheres is, in fact, essential to my understanding of and ability to contextualize the academic material we are covering in class. Thus I decided to take advantage of a very inexpensive offer on hand at The University of Sydney "O-Week" event. This three-day event is basically for first year and new students to learn about the different clubs, societies and athletic teams on campus. In addition to concerts and club/ society information booths the event includes a few select companies that cater to student needs and interests. The Sydney Morning Herald was one such company and they had masses of "lollies" (candy) on offer to tempt us over to their booth. Usually I'm pretty good at getting the candy while eschewing the sales pitch but this deal was too good to pass up. In light of my lack of a TV, or radio reception for that matter, I decided that this was the best chance I was going to get to have easy access to the latest news on a daily basis. (I know, there's always the Internet but it's not quite the same...) 

On a side note, as I was showing off my first issue to my table of friends (and one guy from another class) at this Friday's Afternoon Happy Hour with the Profs event, the new guy indicated that he was actually IN the paper. Sure enough, there was an article in the arts section reviewing a recent poetry event in which he was a performer. As it turned out, I was quite surprised that he would direct us to this particular article as the content of which included his being described as " without a doubt the strangest person [the author] had ever met" and "...he's either the real article or Charles Manson..." This I thought, was an unusual approach to introducing oneself to a new group of people.

In any case I think he was pleased that someone other than himself had brought up the topic of the Sydney Morning Herald. What are the odds that on the first and only day that I even make mention of a newspaper, let alone have one on my person, I would be sitting next to someone actually written about in the paper?!  Uncanny! 

My last thought on this matter is, while I really enjoy reading newspaper articles, I often find that I gravitate more towards the "lighter" sections such as arts, travel or life; not especially useful to my (hopefully) expanding legal intellect. Ergo, I am inspired to make an especially concerted effort to read and at least try to understand the Financial and Legal sections of the paper so that I might not only be more aware of local and international news in these areas, but also to further develop my enjoyment of, interest in, and ability to comprehend the until now, intimidating and thus unexplored regions of the newspaper. Go me! 

Merrily We Roll Along...

I'm in awe of one of my new housemates... Anna is so organized and she always looks 100% put together, even at 8 in the morning! In the mornings I am often treated to sharing one of her scrumptious fresh, homemade "juices" concocted from a few fresh fruits and veggies. Put through a grinding machine, voila! we have fresh juice! It's noisy but the result is worth it... the yummy, and healthy juice gives me a much needed vitamin and energy boost for the long hours in class and studying at the library.

Our latest housemate bonding moment was a project- making homemade rice paper rolls of the variety one can order at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was super easy and the result was a bunch of healthy, tasty, easily transportable rolls which I gobbled up for lunch the next day. Here's the technique. Thanks Anna!

Thinly slice a variety of veggies. We used red cabbage, carrots, red pepper, onion, and avocado.

Chop some fresh mint

Quickly dip a piece of rice paper in water

place a few slices of each veggie in the center of the paper.

Roll, folding up the ends.

Serve with Sweet Chili sauce

Enjoy!

Ups and Downs of my First Week of Law School!

Monday...

First day of school! I was a tad on the nervous side (my stomach was in knots the whole day!) but tried to put on a brave face. I arrived at the downtown Sydney Law Faculty (having walked passed the Opera House on the way!) a bit on the frazzled side, but nevertheless tried to glide into the room packed full of undergraduates exuding an air of effortless calm and sophistication... (after helping myself to the breakfast spread in the lobby of of course!) Oh ya, I wasn't late! (for those that know me well that's a pretty monumental achievement.) In fact I wasn't late for anything the whole week! 

We were greeted with the usual welcome type messages and then after a short intermission, sent off to our first small group seminar. Yikes! This was the nerve wracking part as we were told right off the bat that participation will be graded. Sounds easy? Not so much- it has to be the right KIND of participation. An uninformed or worse, irrelevant comment is worse than saying nothing at all. A pretty tall order for a bunch of green newbies who don't even know what a ratio is yet! Anyhoo I survived the day, speaking once during the seminar, face bright red the whole time, and even met a couple of friends. 

Tuesday...

Our first lecture on precedent. Pretty interesting and the best part? Typing the notes on my new Macbook laptop! I had no idea I could type as fast as someone talks and unlike the hand and wrist cramps writing furiously in lectures used to give me, I was able to type everything without so much as a finger twinge! We had a full day including two, two hour seminars in addition to the lecture. It is very very important to be prepared for the seminars. This requires hours and hours of reading and digesting the information enough to be able to participate meaningfully in the discussions. 

Wednesday and Thursday

Another few seminars and a lecture on statutory interpretation. Even though it's only the first week I can already tell that law is a MUCH better fit for me than teaching ever was. Each case we look at is like a puzzle- even though there are tricky parts and some things take a bit longer to absorb than the latest chicklit novel, it's really interesting to work through the problems and satisfying to come up with the right answer. I am also really enjoying the company of my classmates. They are bright, funny and interesting and help me stay on track with the readings! 

Friday....

A rather long day- again two, two hour seminars and then a two hour screening of a documentary film on the Mabo case, a landmark Australian Aboriginal land rights case. After such a long day, not to mention week, some of my classmates and I retired to a gorgeous downtown bar/ restaurant. Although we were the only students amidst the corporate crowd we still fit in pretty well as people here generally dress much more nicely and I've tried to follow suit (no pun intended...) We kicked back for a beverage and I shared a scrumptious made-to- order tomato and chorzio pizza. The prices were good too which was a delightful surprise in light of my experience with prices in Sydney thus far. 

Overall a smashing first week!

Rainy Sunday Surprise!

Attended: Sydney Opera House Concert to raise money for victims of the Victoria bushfires. 

This past Sunday morning I woke up early to attend a 6am concert performed by 100 members of the Sydney Philharmonic Choir in support of the bushfire relief effort. I was more than happy to donate some money to the fundraiser and really enjoyed the concert as well. 

The sight of the choir arranged on the steps of the opera house was mesmerizing, eclipsed only by the spectacular backdrop of the dawn sky behind the sails of the opera house roof, and the equally awe-inspiring grandeur of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The lone soloist standing atop the steps, tails of his contrasting white suit fluttering in the breeze stole the show with his haunting, perfectly-in-tune voice. An invisible cello soloist provided the only instrument to the otherwise acapella performance. I'm not sure why he was situated under the stairs, out of general sight, but he added a nice layer of depth to a fabulously cohesive performance. The musical selections were, for the most part, somber; however, the hour long set concluded with an up-beat melody- an appropriately symbolic choice; signifying hope and determination to move forward from unbelievable catastrophe. 

To watch another short video clip of the concert click here.

An unexpected bonus to the already enjoyable concert was bumping into my friend Christophe. (What are the odds that in a city of 4 million, I would chance upon one of the 3 or 4 people I know in Sydney?!) He was on his way to breakfast after the concert with 3 of the choir members, (one of whom is a work colleague,) and they kindly invited me to join in! We made the short walk to the historical Rocks District of Sydney, just next to the ferry harbour, and I was treated to some tidbits of local knowledge along the way.  Particularly, the implications of the unfortunate importation of the now very unwelcome Indian Minor bird and some interesting convict history. It amazes me that 1) so much of Sydney's vast harbourfront area was built by convict labour and 2) that the stonework and masonry is still in such good condition. I wish I'd remembered my camera to take a picture of (amongst other things,) the huge pulleys that still adorn the fronts of the former shipping warehouses. We ducked into a building with particularly nice stonework and settled into our table at the Rock Pancake House. Mindful of my pennies I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu which unbelievably was only $6.95- a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. The two sizable slabs came topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and a dusting of icing sugar and were de-lish! My only complaint would be that the claim of "maple syrup" was resolutely false! The sickly table syrup almost got the better of me but, as I used it only sparingly, didn't take too much away from an otherwise yummy breakie! (that means breakfast in Aussie speak)

What an unexpectedly wonderful way to start a rainy day. I love the little things in life like that. Helps to keep a smile on my face during those inevitable difficult or stressful times that occur in the early stages of a big life change, (such as oh, pulling up anchor and moving across the planet.)