Sunday, July 19, 2015

Dad's course is going really well - he found it easier this week as the subjects he was learning about were familiar to him since he has experience on both the 747 and 767 airplanes.  He only had one exam this past week and he passed it with flying colours.

I spent my days this week knitting, studying my scriptures, playing the piano and reading on my e-reader.  I have set myself up a schedule and it's going really well.  I was finding it too easy to just waste the day away and so, putting myself on a schedule, helps me to get a lot of things accomplished.  I am doing pretty well on the piano and am starting to play with two hands.  The latest song I have learned is 'Oh When The Saints Come Marching In'.

On Wednesday, I started my Auslan (Australian sign language) course online and I am enjoying it so far.  I learned how to do fingerspelling and also learned how to say hello, goodbye, how are you, I'm well and I'm not well.  I had my first quiz and I got 100% - although, I do have to admit, that I had to look at the people fingerspelling out their names a few times before I could figure out what they were spelling.  It is nice that we can take the test until we get 100%.

On Friday, I went to the doctor's to get my stitches out.  When the doctor took a look at how the stitches were doing, she told me that there was a little inflammation and asked me to go on antibiotics for three days.  She will check the stitches out again tomorrow.  My back is still quite tender, so I am looking forward to it healing.

Yesterday, Dad and I went geocaching so that we could drop off a geocaching travel bug which Terri-Ann had found in Orangeville.  A travel bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item and then place into a geocache.  Dad looked online and found a geocache not far from the unit here in a place called Gellibrand Hill in Woodlands Historic Park.  The geocache was pretty easy to find - it was in a tupperware container under some rocks which were under a bush on the hill.  Dad wrote his ID name in the logbook in the container and put the travel bug into the container.  It was a little bit of good exercise for us and we have decided that we would like to do some more geocaching.  Dad is now looking at some different gps receivers in stores here and online.

 road we walked on to get to Gellibrand Hill

 bird we saw on the side of the road on the way to Gellibrand Hill

rabbit hole which a rabbit disappeared into on the way up Gellibrand Hill

 kangaroos on Gellibrand Hill

 interesting looking tree on Gellibrand Hill

 view of the city of Melbourne from Gellibrand Hill

 view of the Melbourne airport from Gellibrand Hill

 me holding the tupperware container from the geocache

 Dad writing in the log book from the geocache

 Dad holding the travel bug

 Dad placing the travel bug into the tupperware container

 another view from Gellibrand Hill

more kangaroos on the way down from Gellibrand Hill

After checking out a new local market (which turned out to be not much to write home about), we went to Big W (like Walmart) to buy a bike for me to use when we are here in Melbourne.  We chose a very basic bike - an 18 speed one - and a helmet - both are pretty red ones.  :-)  Dad will have to put the bike together with a few tools, but he won't worry about that for a little bit yet,  until my back is feeling better and has healed.

Sunday, 12 July, 2015

Dad's course is going well, although he is finding it a hard slog with having to study (as a student) and also to prepare (as a teacher - for when he teaches this course in the future).  He had two exams this week and he got 100% on both. :-)  There is a different instructor teaching Dad's course for the next three weeks and he is staying here at the unit as well.  Niles is originally from Jamaica, but has lived in different places around the world.  Niles knows some guys from Canadian Airlines and Air Canada who Dad has worked with in the past - it's a small world!  Niles taught a course for Air Canada in Toronto last year and many of the guys on the course remembered Dad from when he worked there.  Dad is hoping to be able to teach one of the courses in Toronto at some point so that he can catch up with these past workmates.

On Tuesday, I went back to the doctor's to have the nurse look at my incision.  She was really pleased with how it's healing and told me that I should have a doctor in Melbourne take out the stitches this coming Friday.  My back is still quite tender and I still find it hard to sit back against it - I tend to lean to one side or the other when I am sitting in a chair.

On Wednesday, I flew to Melbourne.  On the flight from Brisbane to Melbourne, I sat next to a woman who I got to talking with.  I so often find out how small our world really is.  This woman was a retired teacher and had spent two years teaching at Helen Wilson P.S. (where you girls went to nursery school) in Brampton.  We did a lot of reminiscing about living in Brampton/Bramalea and talked a lot about teaching.  She had also travelled a lot and so we talked about the various places we have been to in the world, as well.

Dad and I had a lovely, enjoyable day together yesterday.  After walking around the mall (we decided to walk there as it was just too cold to go for a walk outside) and picking up a few things, we checked out the bikes at Big W (like Walmart).  I have decided that I want to buy a bike here since we are in Melbourne quite a bit.  It will be so nice to be able to get out and bike ride around the neighbourhood as well as to use it to ride to the gym where they have yoga classes a couple of times a week.  We didn't get the bike there as we wanted to also check out K-Mart (which we did later that day) to see what kind of bikes they had.

When we got home, I went online to check out if anyone had a good deal on a used electronic keyboard and I found one which came with a stand and a piano book.  The girl who was selling it said that the price was negotiable and so I sent her an email offering her a price and she accepted it.  We drove right there and picked it up and it's now sitting in the loungeroom here at the unit.  I am really looking forward to continuing my piano learning.

my new electronic piano

I also registered yesterday for a sign language course - it's called 'Auslan' (Australian sign language) - it will take me 7 weeks to do and it's all online.  I am really looking forward to it as I have wanted to learn how to do sign language since I was a teenager.  I debated whether I would take ASL (American Sign Language) or Auslan since they are different from each other, but I figured that I would be (hopefully) be using it in Australia so it made sense to learn Auslan.

It was nice to see our Canadian friends, Debbie and Trevor, at church again today.  They just arrived back here from a three week visit with their family in Alberta.  We plan on having them over for dinner again before we head back home.

Sunday, 5 July, 2015

Well, this blog will be quite boring - not much happened this week and no pictures to add, either.

Dad's course is going really well in Melbourne.  He has been able to understand everything taught to him so far and he did extremely well on his first test this week.  Harry (Dad's boss) and Harry's wife, Dawn, took Dad and Garth (another instructor on the same course as Dad) out to dinner this week to a really nice Italian restaurant.  Harry often does that when he is teaching which is really nice.  Garth left on Friday and Harry and Dawn left yesterday and so Dad has been on his own all weekend - quite boring for him, although he did go to church today which was good.  Niles, the instructor for the next three weeks, will be coming in to Melbourne tonight and Dad will pick him up from the airport.

I rested on Monday and Tuesday as my back was still tender from the incision last week.  Then, on Wednesday, my friend, Denise, drove me to the doctor's to get the second procedure done.  I had to get more needles done this time (and they hurt!) to freeze the area which the doctor had to work on.  Dr. Schnetler is such a great doctor - he is very gentle, understanding, patient and thorough.  It took him a lot longer to perform the procedure than I thought it would, but that was fine with me - I am good with him making sure that he got everything he needed to get out.  He prescribed some painkillers for me (Panadeine - like Tylenol with codeine) and also suggested I get some Nurofen (like Advil).  He told me that this incision would hurt more than the previous one as he had had to go deeper on this incision - he was right!  I took the painkillers for three days and then found that I didn't need them after Saturday morning - I was glad about that, especially since I hate taking medication.

On Friday, I drove to the doctor's office again so that the nurse, Nat, could look at my incision to see how it was looking.  She said it looked good and changed the bandage, too.  I told her that I couldn't see it and she asked me if I would like to, to which I answered 'yes'.  She held up a mirror, but I couldn't see it since the incision is in the middle of my back.  She asked if I had a phone and said she could take a pic with it - I told her that my phone didn't take pics (it's a 'dinosaur' phone :-)

I, like Dad, have been bored all on my own - I have been mostly just watching tv, reading and piddling on the computer.  Dad and I can't wait until Wednesday when we will be together again. :-)