AFX & Thailand

#11

...Well that was a bit of a delay lol :S
 

First thing's AFX, which was at the end of September hahaaar... It's an annual camp for all cadets, this one being for South Australia. We went to Murray Bridge Training Area and about 12 BH cadets went. There were two companies of around 100, a recruit course and a WO/CUO course for the week. I was Alpha Company Commander, with my unit OC as my mentor, so it was a BH-run COY haha.
 Basically my whole week just involved counting names making sure no cadets went missing and going to orders every night :P But there was heaps of organising for me and we got to have a go on the range and at woodhouse activity centre in the Adelaide Hills. The last day was based on a big scenario for the two companies; all about druggies and finding their stashes… basically :P haha, true story! It went a bit weird when the signallers in each company played around with each other’s radios though… and then the rules went a little lop sided, in A companies mind, we defs won hehe. The weather during the week was interesting, but I’m lucky enough to say I did not wake up in a puddle, unlike others. Like always on anything cadet based I met some cool people. And of course I had heaps of fun, especially upside down on the massive flying fox :D:D:D:D:D
Oh, and Alpha Company (my company) won the whole exercise… f YES!!!!
 

After  that I spent a few days with family in Adelaide, I stayed there with Mum, Dad and Alessando before flying over to our amazing holiday destination…
 

 

Thailand was aaamaaazzzing, loved the resort, the weather, the people, the shopping and the food! We had the best weather, not unbearably hot and humid, but enough to always be able to swim, which we did a lot of. I definitely got my Phuket tan haha, thanks to a good book, “Insurgent” (credit to Tez for that suggestion) and a deck chair by the pool. Got some hilarious tan lines out of it too, actually. We stayed at Graceland Resort and Spa and it was massive. Had about three pools, one about 5m away from the beach, one on the top floor where you can swim up to a ledge looking out to the bottom pool and the sea, and another that was quieter and went straight up to some of the resort’s rooms. Two of them also had a swim up bar ;) Had myself some very noice margaritas thank you very much! The breakfast buffet was also massive and sooo yummy, I may or may not have had waffles and bacon everyday hehehe.

 

We shopped sooooo much, so many bargains- how could we not?! The night markets were huge, you’d get lost in that place. Bangla road was also huge, night clubs (complete with very real lady-boys) and stalls everywhere, same with tattoo shops. I ended up getting a goanna henna on my foot and also a swirly one on my hand, but that got smudged by a lemur I was holding:( The guy shoved it into my hand when I was holding a massive iguana hahaha, worth it! We also went on a day trip to Phi Phi Island and Blue Lagoon, came back on some very choppy waters :S  The elephants were fantastic, we went on a tour to ride them which also included a few cultural demos, like cooking and rubber tapping. We watched an elephant show where they played the harmonica and painted haha. It felt a bit wobbly on the Elephants, but apparently their feet knew where they were going haha, beautiful views on that trek. We went to two theatre shows, Phuket FantaSea and Siam Niramit which was great, the stages had to be made for the show; there was so much detail. A lot of animals too haha, 16 elephants in one of them! At the FantaSea show I got to dress up in a kind of Thai princess outfit, the others wouldn’t do it with me but I had fun by myself! Lol. We wound up at a random snake show somewhere and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life… you know, it’s not every day you get jumping snakes waved in your face  and some other kind of snake escaping  from the little snake keeper area D; Held a python though, that was fun! And watching the guy tease a cobra then kiss it was, um interesting… I guess.  Went to the Big Buddha and got a bracelet blessed by a Monk which was really nice. Because it was a temple they gave me a sarong and shawl at the front gates cause I was wearing singlet a shorts haha.

 

Overall I had heaps of fun and I loved just being able to chill haha, great last official family holiday (maybe) :P Going back home was great though, spending more time with Rosa, Hugo and Ioana back in Adelaide and then seeing Adam and Catty back home, beautiful :P hehe.
 

Well that’s the main events of the past couple of months; I shall fill you in on the fun little things that have been taking up all of my blog-writing time since then later on haha… maybe, if we’re lucky!

Kop Koon Kar :D

-Licul

18 and 12months!

#10
The big one-oh at last! ...Quite sad really but anywaaay. 

So I've had a birthday since the last time I've written on here, eighteen and twelve months.... well now thirteen months haha. Had the pleasure of spending the day at work, which was in all seriousness pretty good! My first birthday out of school, and I loved it! That may have had something to do with the yum morning tea the girls put together for it hehe, and of course their company! The night before I went to the cross with some friends for the karaoke night and we ended up having an awesome time, of course with the help of some lemon, lime and bitters... with vodka. That lasted till my nineteenth which made it even more fuuuun! 
The night of my birthday I was invited to present the Quota Student of the Year Award and watch the speeches. There were only three girls that were in it, but it was really good to watch! Brought back some memories of the good old public speaking days hahah, it even made me feel nervous watching them up on the stage! Especially the impromptus... I was extremely happy to be able to give the award to the only BHHS speaker there, and I gave a little congrats speech- surprised I still had the public speaking nack :P
On the Sunday I went over to Aunty Michelle's to make my birthday cake with her for the family dinner that was on that night. I was psyched to spend the day cooking yummy stuff but definitely not prepared for the intense baking sesh that actually happened aha. We spent five whole hours baking this red velvet, chocolate mouse, toffee, strawberry, chocolate massive cake thing. SO MUCH FUN! SO MUCH FOOOOOOD! We used like 5 punnets of strawberries, nearly a litre of cream, 400 grams of chocolate (at least) and about 5 cups of sugar for the toffee. Yummmmmmm, Cant describe, so here's a pic ;) Enjoy. Haahahah, I definitely did. We took it to the dinner that had around 16 people, and everyone got a massive piece with as much toffee and chocolate covered strawberries as they desired. So I just took the plate it all came off, with the leftovers and downed it all... I was in absolute heaven. Totally oblivious from all the horrified faces staring at me the whole time I ate that toffee, chocolate and strawberries... oh and the cake hehe. 

So I now have a councillor for a Father, that's new. Hahah, I helped him out on the polling day with the how to vote pamphlets, so that definitely helped :P Nah, he was on the Labour ticket, and they did a fair bit of work before hand! He's pretty surprised and excited I reckon! Very proud of my daddyyyyy :D 

Had a lovely visit from the girlies as well. Went to the black for some games of pool and cocktails, and also had a Lifeline dinner/auction to go to with them! That was fun. As always, awesome to see Terri and Hannah again, especially when I got spoiled with some out-of-this-world fluoro pink heals from the bestie as a birthday surprise!

Got my apron at the hospital kiosk this weekend! Hehe, now I'm really one of the ladies! Also got taught how to do some of the claim for Medibank at work today, loved learning some different stuff. 

So AFX in four days... Wooooo! 0400 start on the Sunday and then a whole week of fun before its off to Thailand with the family! CANNOT WAIT:D:D:D:D

Until then friends, I'll catch you later- hopefully looking mighty fine with a fresh Phuket tan ;P

-Licul

Just A Quickie ;)

#9
Hi guys, thought I might do a bit of a quick update cause it seems like I have so much planned in a big clump in the next month that the next time I do feel like I have stuff to write about, it'll be way too much and yeah.

So what's been happening? Mainly work, 9-5:30/6 5 days a week. Been veeeery busy there. Just all round hectic, especially because they're trying to introduce a new system. Kind of enjoying it though, the busier it gets the faster it goes. Learning heaps, starting to feel like I can actually give customers helpful advice that is actually relevant haha. Blood pressure readings, phone calls, scripts, accounts, post,  painkillers, and diabetes and cold and flu stuff are probably the main things that take up most of my average day now. We had a Ethical Nutrients training night that was pretty interesting and we also got taught a bit about diabetes meters because Outback Pharmacies have been giving out free blood glucose testers. 
Been doing a few things with some of my friends from work too, including going to a lingerie party one of them hosted haha. Tried a skittle bomb that night, was pretty tastyyyy. Work also had a Jeans for Genes day and my friend Anh and I went as twins, that was pretty fun... 

Active Broken Hill brought out our new sports directory, so we were in the paper for that, sporting out cool new t-shirts haha... "sporting".
 I met the acting CEO of Lifeline the other week. The board had a meeting/dinner with her to talk about some stuff that's going on around Australia. Interesting to know some of the stuff that makes massive organisations like that survive. 
Yesterday I went down to the hospital kiosk at 7:30 to help out the ladies that volunteer there. Just serving, cleaning and preparing some food, got to use the coffee machine too- woo! 
Slowly getting there with cadets, teaching quite a bit, and mostly big lessons that get forgotten because no one wants to teach them... So that's fun. Got sent some promotional posters about AFX to pump up the cadets for September, lol, looking forward to that. 
Again, had some school friends come back to town, so that obviously called for a couple of nights out. The first was quite a happy and random night with a cheeky pizza and a teachers fair well mixed in and the other was intensely fun, went to a party and then the good old night train. Also went to a few tamer dinners which are always good :)

Well that's about all for now, going to see Ted this afternoon, just in case you were wondering haha, catch ya laterrrrr.

-Licul

Weeks 22-27 halfway there!

Gawshhhh, cannot believe 2012 is over half gone... It feels like only yesterday that I moved to Adelaide, and now I've been here for almost half a year.
It's weird that although these experiences I've been having are completely different to what I'm used to, it feels so normal. I've finally adjusted to city life and definitely keen for my second semester at uni.
Again I've left this post for way too long so I'll dot point some of the highlights over the past month+ I also have a lot of uni reading to do so I'll make this one short and sweet :)


EXAMS
Not quite a highlight, but I have survived my first round of uni exams - sahhhh happeh!! They weren't nearly as difficult as I thought they would be, and way less stressful than highschool or HSC. I swear they put wayyyy too much pressure on you in your junior exams when really there are so many other pathways to get into uni - if that's even what you want to do - so there is no reason to be stressed at all.


Which leads me to my first actual highlight;


PASSED FIRST SEMESTER!!
Sooooooo relieved when results were finally released after days of checking and refreshing the webpage where they would be. I ended up with credits for both of my law topics and distinctions  for both of my psych topics, very happy with that!!!!
Now that I've fully settled in and don't have to worry so much on transitioning,I can concentrate more on my studies. I'm already so organised and on top of things with all my lecture notes printed out and ready to be further scrawled upon! I think if I aim for a distinction average this semester that that would be a realistic goal - wish me luck!!


BH VISIT
After all that hardwork studying hcore, holidays finally rocked up! And I spent 90% of it in BH hahaha. Was so good seeing all of my fambam and home friends, esp the bifffff HL!! :D
We went camping which was awesome fun. As well as lunch dates, going out, adventures, and other cute stuff.
My major achievement though was on out first day back where I FINALLY GOT MY PS!!! I could have cried I was so happy. Getting it at the start was v. convenient too as then I could drive everywhere and be great at life :)))))


CUTE UNI FRIENDS
After my visit home on the day we drove back I went to a movie night at one of my uni friends' house. It was so good to catch up with those guys as I hadn't seen them since exams! It was also really great of the first day back at uni last Monday seeing everyone and realising that I had lucked out and made so many friends. Actual v. v. lucky to have them <3
Also on the first Thursday back at uni, Lauris, Liam, and I, went to the Flinders O Week Toga Party. We dressed up in bronze silver and gold AND WON $100 FOR OUR COSTUMES!! So stoked, I was so proud!!

CUTE FRIENDS FROM HOME
Since being back in rads, I've seen quite a lot of the BH mob. Went out with Loz Nick and Tez one Thursday and had the best time! Also went to dinner with a big group of girls and went out afterwards (last night) and had so much fun. Did not realise how much I have missed these biddies!!!!
Super keen to have a big reunion some time!!!


Anywho I best be off, lots of reading to do for tomorrow.


Until next time,
Help me I'm poor!!!
- Brim

Gap Life?

#7

Hi future me and probably future Brim...

The last month has been pretty hectic, when I left you last I was looking forward to Corps Day. That went alright, after having a rough time of putting a BH team together it was just a matter of surviving the ride there and the freezingness of Warradale Army Barracks. I got the task of being the assessor/marker person for the camouflage and concealment station/activity thing. I hid stuff in trees and bushes and cadets had to find the 25 items without crossing a certain boundary... those rules altered a tad when it became dark. Even though I was doing exactly the same thing from 0700 till 2345 with only meal breaks I managed to keep myself entertained for most of it. Talking to the different units was good, even though they were very hesitant in giving me any info on where they were from... Apparently this was an order given to them because the assessors are bias butt holes who will give teams from amazing units like Broken Hill's 1000 more points... Yep that's definitely the reason why. I got to know another CUO that I haven't met in my previous 6 years of cadets, even though we've probably been on many of the same bivs. We slept on stretchers inside, and a lot of the male officer's were complaining about some of the more experienced officers snoring. It was all a big joke until the Saturday night when the CUO and I came back from counting scores at around 0200 and realised that one of our own teenage cadet girls was possibly possessed by some kind of wolf demon dog- there is no other explanation for the snoring sounds that young girl was producing. But the highlight of the whole weekend was seeing Brims slightly still recovering face come through the mess door just to visit me! After a massive night of free wine and prom heels she found it in herself to get up before morally necessary and walk all the way down the the barracks just to be reunited with her bestie. AHmazing. Isn't that just beautiful, cannot think of many other people who would do that. Pretty sure a tad of AAC nostalgia encouraged the adventure, but I had fun for that hour or so!

Cadets is a tad different these days (starting from last Tuesday) as we're kinda getting all pumped up for AFX (annual camp). I've made a new training program for preparing the cadets, and making sure they know stuff for the camp. The new thing is that the instructors pretty much just include me and my captain. Awesome.

After that I had Sarah and Dario's engagement party. I was really looking forward to it, it was going to be massive, with heaps of family and 200+ balloons -(literally). I helped them set up on the day and that was fun- mucking around with the balloons and being harassed by Unlce Nino because the music didn't meet his taste standards. Catching up with some family and friends that came to BH for it was really good too. For their prezzie I chose a photo from our trip to China and we got it enlarged and framed, it looked really good in the end, perfect for their future new house. I went with Adam, pretty sure he enjoyed being talked at by my family and told drunkenly that we are perfect together, oh, and that he's got groovy moves on the dance floor... Yep, definitely.

So I did get accepted onto Lifeline's board, and I've been to a few meetings. It's very different to what I naively thought it would be, a lot of financial and business type of talk. But I'm finding that I'm learning a few bits here and there that will probably be helpful later on in life. It feels good to be involved in something so big, so I'm looking forward to relaying different opinions from the youth council when a topic that's relevant comes up.

Had a few school friends visit so there was a bit of a reunion of our year on a Saturday night, which was quite fun. The following Tuesday I went to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Road Show with Adam, fricken hilarious, I must say. They had Cal Wilson and Randy, that funny purple puppet... Haaa. (As well as 3 other comedians).

THEN THERE WAS HANNAH AND TERRI! We went camping :]

Hehe, we got a group of friends together and went down near the main weir and camped over night. This mostly included eating and playing with fire... which was very enjoyable. Camping food is the best... marshmallows, spuds will bolognese sauce, bacon, and heeeeeaps of junk food. Most of us slept in swags, which I love. In conclusion, it was fun.

Having friends in town again was extremely nice. Quite beautiful even. We got the whole crew together for a lovely dinner at the mulga, and got a tad weirded out at how everyone had and hadn't changed and talked about what we were doing with our lives now. Then we did the normal things like maccas, movies, games, going out and I went to see Brave with Terri. Very good, but a tad fricken scary for a kids movie...

Last weekend I went to Adelaide with Adam and he took me to see my first ever footy game. It was Essendon and Port playing, so we were pretty much outnumbered by the Adelaide crew... but that seemed to change after the Bombers had won by 50 points, interestingly enough. It was a great game (and that coming from me is huge), very close until the last quarter. Just so glad it didn't rain, it was already so COLD. We went bowling and shopping too. Mama Carmela's, Hogs Breath and the Watermark were all on the menu, so that was extremely yummy. We stayed at the Stanford Grand which was very fancy hahaha. I got to catch up with the cousins as well, Hugo, Rosa and Ioana, which is always fun! Can't wait to see them again later on in the year.

Mum has just planned an incredible family holiday for us to Thailand. So I'm just always secretly excited for life these days. Its straight after AFX with cadets so its gonna be a nice transition haha. It's gonna be in October, which was around when I would have liked to go to Europe, particularly Malta. So I've been thinking and talking and kinda of half-deciding that I might book that for May next year and have a little more than a gap year hehe. Why not I guess, I've got a full time job and I'm still not sure what I would like to do with life (other than have a gap year+ and travel :P) even though I've definitely narrowed it down... well maybe not- I've actually thought of some other ideas that might be smarter to start with. Anyyyywaaaay, THAILAND!

Well that was a biggen... serves me right for not writing one sooner I guess... Now onto Brim.

Loven life ladies and gents...

-Licul

Weeks 16-21 - Surprises :)

Yo Yo Yo!


Again, has been a pretty busy month ......and a bit (hehe, oops).


I'm currently in the middle of studying for my exams, which start on Saturday, so this post will be in dot point form haha. Sentences are not my friends right now - my brain is pretty much dead ;P


- Law and archaeology pubcrawls
Closer to the start on May I had a couple pubcrawls. The Law one was on the Friday night and so I got to hang out with my Law School buddies - was quite fun. Then on the Saturday straight after I went with the girls from home on the Archaeology pubcrawl. The shirt for this one said "Everyday I'm Shovellin'" - how could we refuse? That night was actually so fun. Went to the woolshed for the first time, which has since become one of my favourites haha :)


- Hanz visited
On the 12th (approx) my bestttttie and some of the crew from home came up for Belle's 18th. We went on the Big Night Out bus, which was really fun. Just singing and drinking on a double decker bus, and getting off at various parts all over town was actually really fun. I had such a good time and seeing everyone was good too.
We also went shopping, which is bad.. As whenever I'm with HL I end up spending too much and I'm just too poor for that shizzzz!


- Florence and the Machine
OMG BEST NIGHT EVER!!!!!! I went with Tezzy and Steph to F+TM and Loccy ended up tagging along, for what was literally the most incredible thing my ears have ever experienced. She played all of my favourites, except Howl, and was so perfect live it was insane!! During one song I got on Loccy's shoulders, and could see so much. We were so close to the front, eeeeep, wow. I just cant explain how good it was!!!


- Mum's surprise birthday
Mum's 50th was on the 5th of June and conveniently she was in Adelaide for a business trip. She had voiced to me how she was too busy to organise anything special what with her work and full time study, so I decided to contact my Aunty and organise a dinner. Due to her great organising skills, we actually managed to round up 15 people including two of her friends, another of her sisters, and her mum - who all flew down from Sydney, and my cousin from Germany who stopped over for a couple days in Adelaide on her Australia trip. So basically she was a bit upset the whole day because we had told her that only we could make it, and the boys because they had better things to do.... But then she walked in and everyone was there. It was pretty great. She just cried a lot and I think had a great time :)


- Law Ball
On Saturday we had the annual Law Ball at the National Wine Centre. I got to dress up in my formal gear, and pretty much had an amazing night. Apart from getting blisters on my blisters, everything was great. I made heaps of new friends, and took a lot of cheeky selfies on too many different peoples cameras. Was hilarious!!


- Visited Hanz
Then the next day, after getting home at 2:30, I was a great soul and got up at 7:30 and walked 2.5km  to meet Hanny, who was at the Warradale barracks for a cadet biv. I was actual pretty proud of myself for even waking up, but it was so good to see her - even if it was just for an hour before she had to go back to bh.


But on the plus side, my exams finish on the 21st and I'm probs driving home with tezzy on the sunday - so I'll see everyone again, and am really looking forward to it.
The next time I post, I will be at home YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!


Help me I'm poor!!
- Brim

Eyre Battalion Biv!

#6
Heeey whats up??


I've been buuusy being a grown up haha :P Trying to balance stuff with work is hard but at least I'm never bored!
Active BH and Youth Council have things going on and I have shirts for both of them now- woo hahaha. I've applied to be apart of the BH Lifeline Board to represent the Youth Council as well. Cadets has just gotten busy again, we have an Eyre/Coorong Battalion Biv coming up soon, so obviously the whole unit's being all hectic preparing stuff... Its gonna be sooooo cooooold. And then I find out Corps Day's happening haha, which I guess I should've known. That will be fun though.


Last weekend was fuuuuun! I flew to Adelaide Saturday morning and went to Belle's 18th on the "Big Night Out Bus". That was heaps of fun, they took us to a few clubs around Adelaide like Dog and Duck and Marble Bar. It was 90's night at one of them which was AAAAWesooooooome! Spicegirls... naw.
It was so so so so good to see my amazing friends, especially Tez and the Bestie HBrim. They're so City and Uni-fied its crazy. I luurv the places they're staying, and it looks like they're having an awesome time livin life... Except the whole having to do uni work thing- but that doesn't seem tooooo bad haha. Terri gave me an awesome surprise when she picked me up from the airport with more than half her hair cut off. It looks so good, haha I love it.


...Okaaaay, so a bit of a delay there. Since writing that first bit I've been and come back from the battalion biv and have definitely been elected treasurer for Active Broken Hill- woot!


The biv was aaaweeesome. It was cold, as I said it would be, but not too bad. Not nearly as bad as what I was expecting... that may be because of the fact that I go to spend my nights sleeping on a stretcher in an old bus :D Wooo! I could not have been happier when I found out that's where I was sleeping. OMG. Just amazing. (Special thanks to my fellow CUO) I mainly packed lollies... eheh. That was also amazing. Another thing that helped with the cold was the leggings I wore underneath my uniform, they were given to me by Sarah's sister when I was in China- very handy.I was given the job of organising the recruits, so it was a pretty chill weekend, talking about random stuff with hilarious cadet people. And of course, doing recruit stuff, but the CPLs and SGTs made that pretty easy for me- aw. Another good thing about the biv was how we got to eat real food. Another yay. It sprinkled here and there, but not too badly at all. Although it did take us ten hours to get there by bus, the area was awesome, it was like a mini secluded caravan park in the middle of nowhere, but it was actually a military museum worth around $2 million. (I know right?- It's called Bublacowie). At the end of the weekend I was asked if I would like to become the Eyre Battalion CUO, so that was really nice and something that I'm definitely thinking about. The whole weekend just reminded me why I love cadets haha, so much fun :)


Workies is all serving customers (on the phone and over the counter), sorting scripts and ordering diabetes stuff... Same same :)
Today I put together a playlist for Sarah and Dario's engagement party. Took forever, just going through all of my music (mostly from Catlin, Terri and Hannah) and adding their CD's. Got pre pumped though :D Cant wait.


Weeeell, I guess that's it, next weekend is Corps Day (hopefully) so I'll have something to tell ya next time. Till then, have fuuuun!


-Licul