Home and without a computer

Ach du lieber! That's pretty much how I can sum everything up right now. December 30th I went up to Mt. Barker in the Adelaide hills region. My cousin Esther lives there with her husband Mark. This was the first time I met her since she was a child. Now they have a child of their own that is about the age that I last saw her at... between 1 and 2 years old. She is a pretty exploratory child, and babbles to herself a lot. She will go up to random people and just want to meet them. Pretty funny to see.

I finally got to go to a wildlife park after all this time in Australia, the next day. I was pretty amazed to be so up close to koalas and kangaroos, and I finally got to see wombats. It was a much more intimate experience than the Sydney Wildlife World. I actually got to touch the koala and get my picture taken. Esther had a camera with her and they burned me a CD after I left, so I have at least that.

The next day was New Years and I went to the church there the first time. It wasn't so bad, it reminded me of the church I grew up in in Kitchener. Very similar conservative sort of church. The only difference is that there are a lot more young people and children here, instead of just senior citizens. After that we went to a barbecue at Ruth (cousin) & Albert's house. They have 5 kids, and then my cousin Miriam lives close by and she has 3 kids. So a lot of kids all over the place again like last month, only in a different house. We had some schnitzel and good times. My uncle also had a heart to heart talk with me and he told me about his testimony, how he was saved, and also about the dangers of the Internet. He also told me to stop being addicted to the computer. I wonder who told him about that.

The next day we went to Port Adelaide for a dolphin adventure cruise. It only cost $4 so I had a feeling there were no guaranteed sightings. And there weren't... except at the very end when we came back to port we saw a baby dolphin going out to see. Oh well.

All this time though ever since I came to Mt. Barker, I realized my computer had broken down. The LCD screen just didn't come up, and it rebooted itself after a while. Now I've been in touch with HP support via email but it's such a slow process I want to just call them instead. I'm not even sure this thing is covered under warranty anymore, since it was purchased in April 2007.

Also, when I got home on Saturday, my landlord was renovating my room. So I had to move out to another suburb until he finishes it up, which will be about mid-February. The new place is actually not so bad, but the shopping centre was burned down by hooligans in August so it is currently undergoing renovations. So I have to find other places with supermarkets. There is one 20 minutes down the road though, but I'm not sure I want to walk so far with heavy bags.

And when I got back to work naturally there was no work for me to do. So I'm just busying myself with made-up tasks. I did manage to get a bit of work to do but it's not looking so great. What was once a promise of 'heaps of work to do' is now looking like nothing at all! So I should either find new work or get out of Australia back into the cold winters of Canada. We'll see.

Anyway, that's my story so far. Hope you enjoy.

Later

_J