Sweet Success

My castmates and I performed to more than 200 audiences in town, over 3 performances this weekend, beginning from Friday, our opening night. This is a culmination of over 2 months worth of rehearsals, anxiety, and time spent memorising our lines. The 6 of us are involved in the play, "Big Bill". At every performance, 2 one-act plays are performed - the first is "Scones" followed by "Big Bill".

Scones is set against a country fete organised by the country women association (CWA) and how a new city dweller who has just moved to the country upset their routine. In the process, she upset one prominent CWA lady who puts her in her place. The city lass then plots her revenge but later learns how everything works in the country and works out the misunderstanding she had.

In Big Bill, I play the part of a country policewoman (haha! have I seen a Chinese policewoman here? No. Anyway, i think I'm not strong or tall enough to really be a copper.) and am supposed to be on holiday with my boyfriend (played by my colleague, Steve). However, trouble starts when we try to share a communal bbq and are kicked off by Big Bill and his lackey, Merv. I then plot my revenge when I find out a secret that Big Bill has not told anyone. Later though, I learnt my lesson when I realised Big Bill is just a good family man and try to make amends.

Both are humourous plays that have received very good response from the audiences, who are generous with their laughter. I think the strong lights on stage helps calm our nerves down cos we can't see the audiences very well at all.

Phill, my parents-in-law and family friends watched me on opening night and gave me flowers - how sweet! They enjoyed the play and said I was good. It was so encouraging! And quite a few people came up to me, even some at the local supermarket, to say that I did well. I'm on cloud nine.

Maybe I should contemplate going to NIDA (Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art). Alas, I'm too old and I don't think I'm good enough tho I wish I am.

ANZAC Day dawn service

Both Phill and I woke up early this morning to attend the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day dawn service at 6am, my first dawn service. To get to the memorial gates where the service was held is only a less 5 mins drive away. It was however a really cold morning.

I told my editor I would cover the service for our paper in time for it to hit the streets later today so that our news will be the latest.

I was surprised when I saw so many people at the service. It was a solemn and memorable service with one elderly serviceman playing the "Last Post" on the bugle, something that never fails to stir an emotion in me and brings tears to my eyes as I remember the soldiers who fought and are still fighting in wars.

When we arrived home about 6.15am, I asked Phill how many people he thought there was as I needed to write my article. I reckon it was about 100 but he said it's closer to 200. His reasoning?
"You're too short, you couldn't see all the people that were there,"

I decided to take his word and mine, and put the figure down to 150.

Baby Miki

One of the things that is under my portfolio is taking pics of newborn babies at the hospital (one assignment that always lifts my spirits, if I'm down). Today, I took a photo of the 2nd child a daughter named Miki, born to a Japanese lady and her Ausssie husband. Her first child, a daughter, Maya, was also there as well as her brother who was visiting from Japan.

Initially, when I arrived, they were looking for her brother cos he went for a short walk and they were keen to have him in the pic. I told them I could wait and offered to wait outside the room. They offered me a seat instead in her room and we started talking about how I came to be living in Mansfield. She asked if I would give up my citizenship and I said no, and she nodded. Then I said I'll want my kids to have dual citizenship when I have kids, and she said both her kids have dual citizenship but they will have to choose either Aussie or Japanese citizenship when they turn 22.

It was nice to be able to speak to someone who have gone through the process and which I have some questions about. I hope I have the chance to meet her again. She seems nice and her kids were cute, esp the newborn, who slept right through even though we were talking fairly loudly. And you won't be able to tell she just gave birth. She was so slim!

Easter weekend

I've been quite busy this Easter weekend taking pics of an art exhibition, the bushmarket (the Easter one is the best - lots of things to see, eat and buy!!!) and morning tea at one of the local churches. There were so many people over the past few days that there was a traffic jam driving into the main street. There was a long line of cars, which is really unusual here. Anyway, best to let the pics taken at the bushmarket tell the story.

Name a political party

That was one of the quiz questions Phill had posed to his kids prior to their Canberra camp this week. Since parliament house is at Canberra, he thought it'll be a good idea for his kids to have some inkling of the country's capital before going on camp.

However, when he asked that question, his kids were all staring right back at him, speechless... until one brave girl put up her hand to answer.

Her reply?

Birthday Party!

This cracked me up no end...at least she tried though.

Sniff!

I drove Phill to school this morning and we left home at 5.45am and we arrived at his school at 6.30am. He's going on a 4-day camp with his kids to Canberra. It should be fun. I wished I was going. But when it came to saying "bye", I couldn't help feeling sad and the tears just flowed.....after a few hugs, I reluctantly let him go and drove home....sniff!

Evacuated from heavy snowfall

Some students from a private school in Bendigo (in the state of Victoria but I think several hours drive from us) had to be evacuated from their camping/ hiking trip to Mt Howitt yesterday.

This was cos overnight on Wed nite, heavy snowfall and strong winds caused some of their tents to collapse and the cold conditions didn't look like it'll improve. I interviewed 2 students, spoke to a police inspector and called the deputy head today.

To me, it was one of those rare story opportunity since the school had never had to call off a camp in its 20 year history. The students had also never experienced such drastic weather change before.

And I only knew the story cos I noticed quite a few cameramen standing outside one of our town's popular hotel and was asking what they were filming and they said some students were stranded at the mountains. They weren't exactly, just evacuated with 6 troop carriers, a police 4 wheel drive and an ambulance 4 wheel drive. Fortunately, everyone was safe and sound.

A Love Pie

I bought a pie to eat and when I peeled the brown paper to eat it, I saw a heart shape imprinted on it. I was surprised cos I've never seen it before, a heart shape on a pie? I squeal a lil in delight at this discovery until my colleague burst my bubble by saying they had to do it to distinguish different types of pies.... =P