Table tennis IS a contact sport!

G'day mates,

In America we would call today Fat Tuesday. Not Shrove Tuesday. I will get to this point later on in my post.

This morning I woke up with enough time to get dressed and run down for brekky before being outside to wait for Yvonne. Yvonne showed up at 8:45 instead of at 8:15. So I could have showered, and looked decent before she arrived. Oh well, I was going to be in the back of the hot storeroom anyway.

I bet you can guess what I am going to write next: we got lost AGAIN on the way to work. Ellie had to pull out the street directory this time and then Yvonne knew where we were at. We headed to Sefton Park to meet with Belinda who runs Calvary down south. Ellie was having the meeting with Belinda; I was going just to have some Milo and for the ride until we got to Blair Athol. Ellie's computer crashed this morning so she also was trying to deal with that. She brought the computer along so that Trevor (the IT guy at SP) could have a go at trying to fix it. We met Belinda briefly and then we were off to BA with her.

After arriving at Blair Athol, I headed back to the storeroom and started sorting. I learned the difference between 'sweet' biscuits and biscuits. Sweet buiscuits have flavoring and are usually crackers. Regular biscuits are cookies. I separated nappies (diapers) into packs of tens. I learned the difference between day and night nappies and then girl and boy nappies. I sorted through milk, other donations and then put washing powder (detergent) into containers for easier use. In the same time of doing all of this, I got to know Peta a lot better. She lives across the road from BA and has a rabbit. She is going to a Pink concert soon and likes Miley Cyrus. I informed her that I was not a huge Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus fan, but that I had indeed watched a few episodes of the show. I mean who hasn't?

After finishing with everything, I had lunch with Ellie, Audene, Sharon Goode, and Polly Perkins. I was suppose to spend some of my days with Polly, but she resigned today so that won't work now. Ellie and I had some good laughs at lunch because we tried to open the door to eat out on the patio and it wouldn't budge - no matter how hard we pulled. Then when Audene tried to open the door to let us in after we'd walked all the way around the building, it wouldn't budge for her either. You had to have been there. We ate and then I headed off to the op shop to spend the afternoon sorting clothing. There were twice as many people there as there are on Mondays. Vida was there and she had her birthday last Monday. I worked with her and Pam. Lets just say that I don't enjoy being told what to do when I already know what I am supposed to be doing. I said 20 times (and I am not exaggerating on this one) that I do the same thing on Monday that they were doing today, but they still thought I needed to be trained. Gah. They did enlighten me on movies that I should watch that are Australian. They all thought The Castle was top notch too.

Ernie and his wife work in the op shop on Tuesdays. Ernie and I got into a discussion about politics, the economy, stimulus packages, travelling and then Africa. He's been the US a few times, but never to Iowa which is disappointing. He really missed out man.

After finishing in the op shop I headed over to the office where I chatted with Robyn for a bit before Helen came to say that she was taking us back to the Magill office since she was headed that direction. Ellie and I got ready and we were off. It was good to be around Helen again since I really hadn’t seen her in a while. You know how once you get in a routine and you’re used to seeing the same people everyday you just feel really thrown off and feel like the wind has been knocked out of you? That’s somewhat how I have been feeling about the move from Magill to SP. I like everyone at the Magill office and I feel like I know them heaps better than those at the SP office. I know the people at SP, but I just haven’t had time to create those bonds. We arrived at the Magill office and I did a bit of blogging before heading off to HH.

While we were at the office I found out that I am MOVING! YES! I will be living a block from Helen and near Concordia College. (Concordia College is actually a high school.) We will be living in a parsonage (they call them mans? here) and it has a washing machine! No more rice for me!!!! Or hearing Eminem or Rihanna blasted through the stereo system at 2am.

I ended up going to the Young Adults’ game night that was at Helene’s house. I wasn’t sure during the day if I would be going to game night or out with Matt and the two German students that are staying with him. Turns out that I made the right choice by going to Helene’s. Ellie and I took the bus from HH to Red Rooster. Red Rooster is an Australian chain and is 100% Aussie. At least that’s what the sign in the store said. It also referred to American chains as in “flocking” to Australia. I enjoyed that pun (even if it wasn’t intended) since the company is a form of a bird.

After indulging ourselves in greasy food (we ordered fish and chips) we were off to the Schulz’ house. I met Liz (whom I’d met before and she’s pregnant too), Shaun, Nathaniel and Charlene. I played Blokus with Simon, Liz and Jeremy. I never won, but my game improved over time. Simon left to go make some pancakes so Katarina took over his spot.

I then indulged in a few pancakes since I won’t be able to eat them until Lent is over. They were rather flat pancakes and were more on the side of their relative – the crepe. The pancakes in the US are quite fatter and more buttermilk-ier. This is also were people picked apart Morgan’s strange eating patterns. After this everyone left except the three of us and the Schulz family who live there so obviously they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

So this lead to a fun game of table tennis – now let me tell you this before hand: Jeremy is a pro. (Not really, but compared to the rest of us – he is.) And he was my partner for the first round of doubles. Second thing you should know: the ping-pong paddle is actually called a bat. Third thing: I am pretty rubbish at playing table tennis.

I incurred the wrath of the bat from Jeremy. Let’s just say I didn’t move out of the way and the bat got the best of my arm. The bat flew out of Jeremy’s hand and down the stairs. I ended up on the floor laughing to the point where I had tears. Jeremy kept apologizing and I felt bad because he felt really bloody awful about the whole ordeal. Then we decided that El and I should switch teams. So that left me with Simon and you’ll never guess what happened next. That’s right, I got hit AGAIN by the bat only this time it wasn’t as bad or as hard. I seriously thought I was going to have a bruise, but I didn’t (thank God since I get queasy at the sight of bruises). Who knew table tennis was such a contact sport?

Then I ended up playing Jeremy one-on-one and I improved my game a little. I just have this habit of hitting the ball off the table, when it should be on the table. Whenever Jeremy would smack the ball really hard, I would just move out of the way or stand still next to the wall so that I wouldn’t get hit. Taking a hit from the bat does a lot to a girl. :)

We played until about 1:15am and then we were off to HH so that we could be up and going for work the next day.

Cheers.