Random pictures of Bowen life in the rain.....The first is my Canadian friend *who left yesterday (tear)* and I @ the pub....Followed by a night out @ bingo, angry dragons, and the movie being shot in the rain....

Heya.........

Well the weather has been crap all week since I last wrote in here, leaving me off work today and searching for sweaters and pants.....It's actually quite hard to find hoodies/coats in Australia since it's usually always warm on the upper east coast...Apparently this weather is extremely unusual and everyone seems a little baffled....

Anyways I've been trying to keep myself somewhat occupied and busy.....I went on an adventure date with my friend Chrissy, along with some friends to Bingo on Wednesday night. Bingo was such jokes!!! The bingo here is very unusual.....and all of us got confused and my friend and I called false bingo...It was funny because I got all excited and was all shaking-like, as they shattered my hopes and dreams *joking kinda*.....I'll have to post pictures of what the cards look like their strange and foreign to me....

Other then that I really don't have much to say.....Just killing time in the Internet cafe trying to keep warm....

*mwah* ttyl

So today my alarm went off @ 5:10...I put on my clothes (which hang from my bunk bed), and skipped out the door anticipating a lovely day @ the bean factory *uhmm sarcasm??**

Anyways yaaa I'm alright in the mornings, I look forward to making my sweet oatmeal with a Little bit of muesli on top, and sit with my friends from all over this crazy world and talk about random morning nothings and everythings.....

Apparently I must have been in a coma last night because there was a crazy thunderstorm which I completely slept through. It's a little odd because I'm somewhat of a lightish sleeper since I've been here and usually I'll wake up...Anyways the point to this rambling is that work was called off because of the rain (kinda like a Canadian snow day - except we all want to work)...Anyways my lovely lady friends and I couldn't really sleep so we participated in being girly and having a little bit of passion pop. Passion pop is like Baby Duck in Canada...Its really cheap sparkling wine that tastes like candy and makes you giggle...

So anyways ya today was okay...Everyone @ the hostel is celebrating because a bunch of blokes are leaving so we'll all go to the Grandview Hotel tonight for festivities.....I'm looking forward to it because usually we don't go to the pub all that much........

Work is okay...Lately I've been jumping around from job to job which is good. The bosses now know my name which is also a pretty good thing. We have been harvesting Pumpkins as well ...It's pretty funny because we have to polish these phallic shaped pumpkins and put them into bins according to size. It's a bit better because you actually work and get some exercise, plus we all have a laugh over it. Anyways these little things are really the finishing touches that keep you sane @ the shed.....

One thing I did kinda decide over the past week is to go to Asia after this...I like Oz and it's pretty sweet, however I can't really be bothered to go to Melbourne etc etc....I figure with the money I save here I can do four times the amount in Thailand and it will be more culture enriched and all.....

Anyways............I think that I presumed I had more to say when I started writing this...I apologise for this being incredibly boring......

loVe
Chrissy

The above picture is this doll I saw @ the markets here. It is the weirdest object I may have ever seen. It's like micheal jackson in vampire form.

Here are some bean pictures. The factory is pretty boring....Sometimes I get to do Quality control though. This is when you take a whole box of beans, dump them on the table and sort them into piles of bad beans. *I did 11 this day* I still think it's better then sorting though......The other pictures are of the movie set.....It's hard to get good shots sometimes because there is security everywhree and thier real douchy....But I tried....

Here are some random beach pictures in Bowen. The beach is @ Horseshoe bay.....They have real nice markets there too on Sundays. The rest are some people and myself from the hostel. We played a lot of celebrity head one night. It's a pretty fun game you just write the names of someone and stick it on your head and you have to guess who you are. I was Whitney Houston in the first round.

So I finally burned my pictures on to DVD ye haw......I'll start in an order of organisation......These are from when I was in Townsville...The mountain looks sortof

small but it was a good hike...It took the almost an hour....The first time I climbed up I met some Mom and her Daughter. I hung out with them for two hours and they gave me a ride back in to town after they were real nice....One of those random things that you look back at and small @ after.....The last picture is from Magnetic Island at one of the bays

I've been released from the beans

(for a day)

Today is a lovely Sunday and a well earned day off......I have been working very hard in the bean and rock melon industry and am happy to have a day to myself....

If I were an animal I probably would be a bird that was caged in the pet store and was released and able fly around like the fidgety character that I am....The only downfall is that towns in Oz seem to close EVERYTHING after 12....With the exception of the Internet cafe (thank god) and the grocery store....So life is still looking up....

Today I went to the markets and had a jolly old time...There was a Queensland government booth that was giving away free BBQ....so that was of course a good time....The rest was followed by a nice walk back to my cheesy hostel base, and then out again to enjoy the wonderful world of being online....

So lets See what is new???? I haven't really posted much lately on account of me working long hours in the "bean bizz...." I have made some nice friends back at the hostel. Some cool Scottish/Irish/English etc etc peoples. There is a cool Hippie-like yoga instructor Vancouver chicka who does fire dancing with hola hoops and sometimes I play with that. We have had some BBQs @ the beach which was nice and refreshing sorting beans for long hours.....Those are for the most part my leisurely things. I'm a little surprised @ myself that I am not constantly thinking about leaving. Originally I was planning on only doing a month or something and doing the rest of my harvest work in Bundy. But then I thought to myself.................

1. The weather is good here. Moving down south now would only leave me remembering why I left Canadas harsh winters in the first place
2. The people I have met are really fun and nice....It's a little family(ish) @ the hostel which I like
3. The beaches are nice
4. The work is really in all actuality not that bad. After doing Bananas for a month it's like a treat to work here (uhmm a little exageratted but ya!)....
5. I need to save mad cash before I leave
6. It doesn't make sense to go to another fruit town after this and sit around for two weeks waiting for work and wondering why I am wasting my vacation.
7. I might as well finish all my harvest work so I wont get deported one day

Yep

Those are my reasons for staying.

So what else to say....??? Bean sorting is pretty funny I have some zanny pictures to put up eventually I will try today but no promises. (My camera has been the slightest bit odd lately and I don't really want to talk about it-it's mostly okay though).

@ work I got to do Quality control twice which is a pretty silly job. Basically you go over to where they put the boxes of beans through the second wash and pick one @ random. You then take ALL the beans and dump them on the table and sort each one into piles. The ones you have to watch out for are: Curlys, broken, grub holes, small ones, over ripe, rust, and clusters....Once they are all into piles you weigh the bad ones and if it is over 1000 grams then you fail. Some have failed and some have passed. I have sorted through heaps of crappy beans....

Yesterday when I was sorting on the belt I saw something terrible and I screamed like a little girl. It was a mutated dead rabbit (we think it was a rabbit not sure) that must have gotten caught up in the harvester and ended dying with all these stupid beans that I am payed to sort through. Of course when one of the girls scream all the girls stop what their doing and look. There stood about 20 bean sorters from all over the world staring at this dead rabbit going slowly down the belt and into a box which was later discarded to a land of mystery. It was sad, but I guess it's maybe a better way to go then getting eaten by a hawk or something. I thought to myself that one day someone will have a batch of real crappy curly beans on their plate and wonder how they got there. Little did they know it was because all the estrogen charged females stopped sorting as they watched the little bunny go by. May this be a lesson to you make sure to wash all your fruits and veg before eating them....(yum)...

Speaking of eating fruits and veg I'm real happy about the veg connection @ the hostel. Between the farms I have a unlimited amount of corn (on the cob), beans, pumpkin (starting tomorrow)(Pumpkin is sqaush, for some reason Aussies call all squash pumkin), and rock melons. I have beans and corn and whatever other veggies every night and I don't think I will ever get sick of it ....NOPE NOT EVER!!! I will dearly miss it when I leave....Veggies are pretty expensive here...I spend too much trying to be healthy and not live off of two minute noodles.

I'm getting real good @ daydreaming a lot like @ the banana farm. The thing is that when doing the bananas I would feel more frustrated so I didn't have a very calm mind set. Here sometimes I drift off 1000 and 45 miles away and when I look at the clock 45 minutes may have easily passed. I try to think of all sorts of things, and every day more outrageous things to keep me smiling. I sing with my Scottish princess Bryony when packing rock melons, and sing to myself all my favourite songs when sorting beans. I think of stupid butterfly effects that make life interesting, along with 45033 thoughts at once so that it's not even really a thought. Basically I only have one rule and that is that I can't think of anything that would make me feel sorry for myself for doing such a shit job. If I allow myself to wallow in self pity it will make the day 5-8 times longer. I sometimes make believe that I'm a robot and am programed to be a bad bean destroyer, or sometimes when the beans are slow I'll take one and move it along like a car up a busy road running away from the cops. Maybe it sounds silly but honestly when you stand for 12-15 hours a day looking @ crappy beans or packing stupid rock melons you have to do what you gotta do.

Anyways that really is enough talk about work, I really sholdn't have that much to write about for something so dull and boring....but it's not too exciting in Bowen.

OOOO one thing that is exciting though is that there is a movie being filmed called Australia and Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are the leads and bla bla bla. They built this big tin fence around the hostel because it takes place in the 40's and you can't have a bunch of bean drunken backpackers in sight. Sometimes you can peer through the hole in the fence and watch them filming. Nicole celebrated her Bday across the road too, and Hugh and her are always @ the beach when their not working. Personally I don't really care about them....When I see them I would never go and say anything. The whole town is pretty star struck, which is kinda funny...Meh different strokes for different folks though. I think the cool thing is that when they are filming you look out the window and it's all 40's clothes/styles/people/crazy elaborate sets/5000 cows and horses and heaps of crap everywhere...pretty cute stuff I reckon.

Anyways I really don't have much more to say. I hope my camera stops being stupid and will work for me. When I got here it did and now it wont let me do what I want to do....grr....oh well though. Happy Sunday and have an awesome day

Love: Chrissy