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Let's Wrap Jan Up

zoe_timmers — Wed, 1 Feb 2012 09:39:00 GMT

Hoooooly hell. Can't believe that it's been a whole month already since I've been here. Done heaps of shiz that i COULD tell you about but you probably won't even understand what I'm saying because most of the mischief we get up to here is just too ridiculous and simple for you to even find funny. Except the time when Andy threw an apple core at me from about 7m distance and it hit me square in the box. Obviously I reacted as anyone would, bent over double, until I remembered that being hit in the box doesn't hurt anyway. Great night. Also shout out to Alyssa and Ellenellenellen.

Didn't manage any comps this month due to eligibility concerns but I think (touch wood. Ew, mind out of the gutter guys...) that all that is sorted to jump this weekend at a home meet and then Seattle next weekend. Can you say ROOAAADDDD TRIP. I'll probably meet everyone from Grey's Anatomy, I'm just saying.

Anyway, just a quick one this week - January was A-mazing. Can't say I've ever done anything so out of my comfort zone but it's already been super rewarding. Like literally, I feel like my money has doubled here because everything is so cheap. And I haven't gotten fat. I feel that Feb will be even better cos mum has shipped my footy over to me and it'll get here this week yeahhhhh. Oh, and I'll get to compete too.

K.

Keep dominating life
lurrrrrrve
ZT

Happy Australia Day 2012!

zoe_timmers — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:46:00 GMT

G'dayyyy my Aussie guys and girls,

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!! How has everyone pulled up after the most awesome day of the year?! Anything less than death is not very Australian of you. Tut tut. I hope your day was full of none other than 100% Aussie activities. Not that I can talk really. But obviously I was living vicariously through you ALL. What's that? What constitutes an Australian activity? Well let's see if we can't make some sort of list here:

1. Wearing the least amount of clothes possible without being arrested for indecent exposure.

-- Wait, wait, wait. Let's just remember that I couldn't partake in this one seeing as it's like 0 degrees here. Couldn't check this one off. Totes soz guys.

2. Speaking of temperature, surely it must be around 40degs C's? Am I right? Also, couldn't check this one off.
3. Look down. Are you in some sort of body of water? Beach? Pool? Paddle pool? Slip 'n Slide? Vomit? If you said yes to any of these, you are winning. I was in snow. Counts as a liquid right? FML.
4. Now look around you. Are you with the best company in the world right now? Friends and family. Ha, tricks, your family doesn't want to see you plastered so you must be with friends. Winning. If you can't look around right now because you're passed out - dubs winning.
5. Maybe you're passed out or just too blind to notice what's going around you. But let's concentrate just for a moment and use your other senses. Can you hear Triple J's Hottest 100? If you can't because it's not on, get the f*ck out of the country. This is UNaustralian. Stop reading.
6. What's in your hot little hand? Cider? Beer? Goon? LITTLE CREATURES?! You're the best. Take a sip.
7. Now what's all this shiz about Australian flags being put on cars being racist?! This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Be loud and proud. Show your disgusting Southern Cross tats, Aussie temp tats, wear nothing but your flag, strap a flask to the inside of your thigh and get down to the foreshore for the fireworks. I don't care how you do it, be dragged if your passed our arse isn't in gear. My advice? Drunk running, it just gets you there quicker. I don't know how, but it does. And from past experience, if you think you see the moon, it probably isn't. It's just a streetlight. That was the most wonderous 5 minutes of my life last time, marvelling in how close and clear the moon looked. Then I realised it was a streetlight. ZT one night only.
8. Get sunburnt.
9. Stop telling everyone you BET Gotye is going to be number 1. That's obvious. Stop talking and keep drinking.
10. If you can count this far, you're not drinking enough. Get back in the pool with a drink in your hand and start that barbie.

Shit. I only checked off about 3 of those. But like I said I was living vicariously through you. A quick run down of my Australia Day was making sure everybody damn knew that it was Australia Day. I had about 10 layers of clothes on, a couple of ciders, and was streaming the countdown until it ended at about 130am. Might I add, a great top 20 by the way. Woke up and it was the 26th. So, what I'm basically trying to say is, that I got 2 Australia Days. Now if that's not fucking Australian, I don't know what is.

Oh, and heard the Jules got locked into a building by some protestors? Nice one. Leave Jules alone.

Ok, heading off. Hope you are recovering well and still vomiting from your antics. Because that's the only way to know that you lived it hard.

Light and love,
ZT

We No Speak Americano

zoe_timmers — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:30:00 GMT

Hi Muuumm,

First of all let me send out apologies for my lack of contact in the past week to everyone! I promise I’m not neglecting you. Nothing very much different to report over this past week since last time, but life is goooood here in Moscow. I can safely say that I have settled in, although there’s not a whole heap of settling because I’m so busy all the time, especially now that classes have started and I’ve met even more awesome people on the team. Ha, who am I kidding, I have 2 classes plus an online course that meets in a chat room once a month. Online course or “online course” that’s code for YouTube? Definitely the latter. I mean, I’m studying really hard. But it’s difficult to sit yourself down after 8 months off uni and living the good life of doing nothing but training. Little bit of slack please. And just on that note of YouTube, since when did they start putting advertisements at the beginning of their videos? Its seriously getting up my goat. I leave for one second and everything changes…

Anyway, how is everyone’s festival season? I still sometimes wake up thinking it’s going to be 40deg C and want to get a Cimba’s coffee and park my (now tanless) arse on Cott beach. It’s true, my tan is fading so fast. All that hard work and sunburn pain for nothing. The snow just eats it up. No tanning for me. Let’s talk about snow for a second shall we? I don’t think I’ve ever fallen over so many times in my life. And I used to like falling over back home, because it doesn’t ever happen very often, so it’s pretty fun, and chances are you’ll be laughing in stitches with whoever you’re with. But here, it’s just embarrassing. It’s definitely the time that I’m most focused during the day. Forget training, walking on snow/ice is a MISSION. Seriously, do I get a scout badge for completing this?!
Haha, no but seriously, a typical day for me goes like this:
830-945: Wake up at some point during this period (least favourite part of the day)
945-1015: Figure out which clothes, out of the whole 16kg I brought over with me, will give me the most warmth but the least amount of layers. It is such a pain having to stay warm walking between buildings, only to have to take off 3 layers once you get into the heated rooms. Grr! But I’m working it out better each day, and by that I mean sometimes I just cbf putting on my jacket so I risk the cold.
1016: Walk over to breakfast to a place called Bob’s. I think Bob is on his death bed with cardiovascular disease because he serves donuts and cookies for breakfast. I mean, come on. Who eats that? Surprisingly, a lot of people. Sadface. But I found some mind blowing granola which tastes sooooo good. I look forward to it every morning. It helps me get over the disappointment of waking up. Usually the temptation of coffee does that for me, but here it just doesn’t compare. Which is fine, because the Dr. Pepper is deeeeelish. But I only have it on weekends.
11ish: go to physio for my ankle (which is doing a whole lot better, still a little weak though). They put this boot thing on, which has a hose connected to a machine thing and pumps it with ice cold gel. So cold. Death by boot.
The rest of the day I usually go to class (except Tues/Thurs because I don’t have anything on those days) and then back to training. Usually I will come home for “Perth Time” but i happened to meet some more awesome people so have been hanging out a bit more in the evenings. Either that, or I’m still trying to walk home in the snow from training. Seriously, I’m like a sloth on that shit. They make the foreign students complete an English language test before they come, they need Snow & Ice 101 competency test for anyone who hasn’t handled it before. The first question I get from anyone is: “Have you fallen over today?” THAT’S how many times im talking about.

Woah, this is going super long, and it’s not even exciting. Sorry guys. Doubt it compares to all the Super Seven travel stories. But it’s not as if I can go out partying! The Brazilians are loving their staying up till 2am, but I can’t keep it up. Once it hits 11pm, something inside me turns off and out comes zombie ZT. I cant even speak, I become delirious. I have already seen a red cup though, (Willis can I check that off the list?)

One thing I am noticing more and more though, is just how difficult it is for some people to understand what I’m saying with specific words. Thank goodness I didn’t go to a non-english speaking country. That would be soooo tough. I’d need like, 5 helmets. Anyway here’s a few translations:
1. Stacked – “I stacked it”. You’ll only get blank looks. Common mistranslation for my American pals when they try to use it – “I stacked myself”. They’re getting there :) 2. Stuffed – “I’m pretty stuffed after that session”. Starved? Well, that too I guess.
3. Capsicum – “Lettuce, onion, cucumber, capsicum….” Why are you stopping, maybe he didn’t hear me. Capsicum please. CAPSICUM. Oh. Peppers?
4. “Fillet” – doesn’t exist here apparently. It’s fillaaayyyy. Soz im not fancy. Note – stay away from Subway completely, too hard to explain chicken fillet AND capsicum.
5. “Pigeon hole” – I asked if I could be directed to the teacher’s pigeon hole to return a book. Blank look. I was shocked. I panicked and could not even think how to explain what a pigeon hole is. She asked if I meant a mailbox, but I told her I didn’t want to post it, I just want to hand it back without going to her office. They call it a mailbox. Wrong. Mailbox is for mailing things. By the time I leave, they’ll be changed to pigeon holes. Trust.
6. “Zoe” – warranted I don’t put the two dots above my ‘e’, I SUPPOSE it could be read as Zo. But it’s not. Zoe. Say it with me now: Zo-wee. I had to spell my name once: zed oh ee. The guy didn’t write anything. Thought I may have said it a bit fast. Zed oh ee. He’s still not writing. So I sound it out: ‘Zoe’. One more time for the people in the back: zed oh ee. Oh wait. Zee? oh ee. Bang, get’s it first time. No zeds here. Only zees.
American is a hard language to adjust to.

Think I might leave it there. No comps yet, this weekend’s is most likely cancelled as we’re in a snow storm at the moment (SNOW DAY TODAY!!), so it’s a bit dangerous to drive. Next weekend looks like to be my opener. So I’ll give you an update then :)

Cya, don’t wanna be ya. Haha, tricks. Light and love people.

ZT

Opposite Day every day of the week

zoe_timmers — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:11:00 GMT

Hellooo to all who are still checking up on me! Where do I even begin really. The first week has flown by, with both its ups and downs.

It’s safe to say I have settled in but it definitely has taken the entire week and probably one more to fully find some routine. And get used to the fact that almost everything is backwards here. Like, woah. And I’m not just talking about the more obvious things like driving on the other side of the road, or sitting on the other side of the car, but the little things like flicking on a light switch! Instead of going from up to down, they go from down to up. Annoying when you’re carrying a broken suitcase and trying to do something simple like turning on a mother f’ing light! Haha. Grr. Even a girl from the Track and Field team (they don’t use the name Athletics over here unless they are using it as an umbrella term for all sports), had to turn on the shower for me! It took me 20minutes to realise I couldn’t do it. No wonder, You have to pull the handle out, twist, and pull the bath nozzle up at the same time. And each time I go to get in a car I almost always get in the wrong side. I’ve only just managed to get used to the days and nights as they too are opposite to Aus. The first night I didn’t get to sleep until about 430am which combined with a horrendous bout of homesickness was almost heartbreaking. Good thing I had people online I could chat too, although knowing that online chatting is no substitute for living proof.

The entire past week has been Orientation, which all in all, was A-mazing. I have met some unbelievable people, 70% of them being Brazilian. They have adopted me as honourary Brazilian because, yep you got it, even they say I got booty. I think it’s about time I did something about that. Hard to do here though, seeing as every day chocolate eclaires and donuts are served for breakfast! DON’T WORRY!!! I’ve been sticking to my fruit and vegies and have not strayed yet – even though all the Super Seven continue to tell me to super size my meals, and attempt a stereotypical college keg stand. This will be hard to do seeing as the other day I signed a contract saying not even a photo is allowed to be taken of me holding a drink. Look mum, no hands?
We have been doing a lot of social things though, which I thought was going to be a total drag but has turned out to be an awesome week full of bowling, sports, dinners, karaoke, and general getting to know people. And by people I mean the Brazilians. Because they make up most of the international students. But we do have a Thai and NZ student as well. It might interest you to know, that I already got married to one of the Brazilians so that we have a wicked house it stay in for the Rio Olympics. C'mon guys, I did it for everyone!!

The aths (sorry, track and field) facilities are so awesome, and exciting to be a part of. But for the past week I haven’t been able to train under Coach J’s instructions as it took me that log to get all my physicals and paperwork done. Finally finished all that yesterday, thank goodness. Yesterday also happened to be the first day of snow. So, without thinking, went about my normal carryings on and slipped on the ice and rolled my ankle. Swollen like a bitch but no bruising which is top news. A little tender but of course they are one step ahead over here so I get as much treatment on it as I want. So I should be able to start doing some work on training in 2 days or so!

A lot of things to be doing here during the days with all my new pals and classes starting up this week, but I am still loving all your faceless distractions at night time even though it makes me a tiny bit homesick. But I know that I am here doing what I love and just letting myself live life, rather than just existing.

Will post again in a week or so!

Light and love,
ZT

PS – everyone here is digging the Aussie accent. Brazilians love vegemite. Noone can really understand words that have a ‘R’ in the middle or end. Like ‘park’, or ‘beer’. I think Aussie’s just skip right on over the ‘R’ sound. Probably why we’re better than everyone else.

Over and OUT.

Culture Shock 101

zoe_timmers — Wed, 4 Jan 2012 10:00:00 GMT

Oh hey all!

Coming to you live from Salt Lake City at this present time, and yep, you guessed it, still f'ing on route to the final destination. One.flight.to.go. Hallelujah, put yo' hands up. I have completely lost all track of time (anyone else had this problem?). No idea what time it is back in the city I just left, let alone what time it is back home. Or date for that matter. Right now it is...the 4th Jan 2012 aaatt 9:34AM Mountain Time. You do the math.

With all that in mind, plus stopovers, I think it equates to...a billion hours travelling, and -100 hours sleep. Left Melbourne at 11:20AM on the 3rd (include the 3 hours you have to be there beforehand at the airport) and enjoyed one last Australian coffee (still substantially better than Perth coffee. Good for an airport) and headed off to some place in China (still can't pronounce it, but have a squiz at the travel map on here). Made a pal on the plane straight away as we scrambled for the last available rows at the back to have a snooze. Thank you 4 seats to myself on an 8 hour flight. Ka-ching!
As I was sleeping, I didn't have much time to hydrate myself on the plane. First thing I bought in China was 2 bottles of water and skulled them (just practicing for the thousands of keg stands to come my way). UMM can anyone say rookie error???? Ingesting water = filling bladder. Toilets in China = squatters. Full bladder in China = fail. So for my 3 hour stopover in China I was sitting/standing with my legs crossed just to hold it in. Hey, give me a break, I'm already moving to a new country alone, I do NOT need to prove myself by using a drop toilet. No, no, no.
I did however, meet some more Aussies in the Chinese airport who were off to do some mission work in Nepal (seems to be the "in" thing at the mo)...mass respect guys.

Hopping onto the next flight (premium economy chyeeeaahhh, but all I really wanted was the bathroom) for the next 12 hour leg of the journey. This is where I lose track of time. Made pals with the Americans sitting next to me. Had to basically. Not that I didn't love it. But I knew that might get annoyed with me wanting to get up every couple of hours haha. Soz Brad and Chris. Nothing eventful on this flight.

Landed in Los Angeles (holla at LC and Heidi)and made it through customs no dramas. Was not loving LA. Don't know if it was due to lack of sleep, dehydration, starvation, and just generally being out of my mind, but waking up in that hotel room by myself was not fun. Housesitting and sharing a bed with one of your best friends for a month before embarking on a solo journey makes it more difficult to wake up in a strange place next to noone. Glad to say I got outta there. But, they did give me a banana that wasn't fried. Thanks guys. I'll be coming back. Lol jks, no I won't be.

After a 4am wake up call, I somehow managed to direct my body onto the next flight from LA to SLC with only one more flight to Spokane, Washington, to then be picked up by the Coach and drive an hour or so Moscow, Idaho. Finally.

Things to remember for the next time I travel:
- Buy a bag that doesnt break (not once, but twice)
- Do not refill your bladder in China (and probably Asia for that matter)
- Make a reservation in LA BEFORE you get there. This is a priority.
- Probably don't go to a remote town because it takes so fucking long.
- Don't wear so many clothes going through US customs. I basically undressed and dressed myself about 5 times this morning. If I could go through naked, I would.
- If going through China on your way to LA, and security point at your feet saying "Los Angeles", it means "please take your shoes off and put them through screening as you're going to America". Like I'm supposed to know "Los Angeles" means all that!!!!

Anyway, I'm glad that the US airports have a thousand AED's posted on every wall. If it hadn't have been for them, the culture shock would have killed me.

Until next time,
light and love.

Z

New Year 2012

zoe_timmers — Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:40:00 GMT

Hey All!!!

Just a quick message to all my beloved friends and family back home in Perth, Melbourne, and all around Australia. Happy New Year. I'm sorry I couldnt be with you all to celebrate, but I hope that this new year brings you adventure, challenges, strength, courage, and a loooot of love and everything y'all deserve. Most of all, I hope it brings us each other in whatever form that may be (probably Skype).

I love ya, and I miss you already.

Light and love,
From 32,000 ft.

Who Will Survive In America?

zoe_timmers — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:42:00 GMT

"Us living as we do upside down.
And the new word to have is revolution.
People don't even want to hear the preacher
spill or spiel because God's whole card has been thoroughly piqued.
And America is now blood and tears instead of milk and honey.
The youngsters who were programmed to continue
fucking up woke up one night digging
Paul Revere and Nat Turner as the good guys.
America stripped for bed and we had not all yet closed our eyes.
The signs of Truth were tattooed across our open ended vagina.
We learned to our amazement untold tale of scandal.
Two long centuries buried in the musty vault,
hosed down daily with a gagging perfume.
America was a bastard the illegitimate daughter of the mother country
whose legs were then spread around the world
and a rapist known as freedom, free doom.
Democracy, liberty, and justice were revolutionary code names
that preceded the bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling bubbling
in the mother country's crotch
What does Webster say about soul?
All I want is a good home and a wife,
and children and some food to feed them every night.
After all is said and done build a new route to China if they'll have you.
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?
Who will survive in America?"

- K.West