Off to New York

Hey guys. Leaving for the airport in ten mins. Leave me lots of comments to read when I get home on Sunday.

Hopeful plans for today: UN building (I get to go to "another country" today!!), fingers crossed I can get into Les Miserables. Other than that I'm not sure. Maybe FAO Schwartz or something.

Love you all!!!

Absolutely DEVASTATED

Life isn't worth living.


As you all know, my real goal for the past ten months has been to worship at the temple of Oprah.

Well, today, I came the closest I may ever come to that goal and I blew it!!!!

Maybe I didn't blow it, but it was ruined for me.

So here's the deal: once a month (like today) the Oprah ticket line opens for 5 hours and you have to somehow manage to get your call through. Not that you can actually get through, and like always the line was engaged for me all day.

However, someone called me!!!! See, there's a second chance! On her website you can email for last minute availability for the show and I did that a few weeks ago. Today, someone called me to say that there were tickets to a taping that I could have.

HOORAH!!!!! JOY OF JOYS!!!!

Oh, but wait - they were for NEXT THURSDAY. When I'm in New York.

I damn near cried.

I'll keep trying though. It's what I do.

St. Patrick's Day!

St. Pat's was lots of fun. Chicago is a little odd. It dyes the river this bright, mutant green- it's very teenage mutant ninja turtles green- so we made sure to be there to see it happen. It happened very slowly.

By the end of it the whole river was mutanty.

Here's Judith and I looking very festive:



Then afterwards there was a parade. I don't really get the point of it, mainly a lot of pollies self-promoting, but some of the floats and stuff were fun.



That's Miss St. Patrick's Day in that carriage. Lol!



Here's the group I went downtown with. L-R, back: Vera, Natalia (Columbian), Miriam, Dorothee; front: Andrea, Natalia (German), and Judith (I was taking the photo).

I met up with Jemma and Fatma and had lunch with them, then met back up with Andrea, the two Natalias and a third Natalia and went to an Irish pub downtown where I proceeded to drink much too much beer for one person (that said, any amount of beer is too much!!!). I don't have any good photos from that night but as soon as I get them from the other girls I'll post it. It was lots of fun!!!

yuck

you know how i hate beer? Then think how much I hate seven beers...


yuck.

happy st. patty's day. photos later.

Screw you, Chase Bank!

Bastards have stolen my money. Man, I thought we were mean at NAB with our overdraft fees, but this is RIDICULOUS. I’ve just been charged $120 in overdraft fees. Yeah. Suddenly, that $4 coffee has cost me a ridiculous $40. Apparently, if your account is in arrears, then each transaction you make costs you $35, which is exorbitant as it is. But coupled with the fact that THE ATM TOLD ME I HAD $150 IN MY ACCOUNT, SO I MADE SOME SMALL TRANSACTIONS THINKING I HAD THE MONEY, EXCEPT THE BANK HADN’T YET TAKEN OUT FEES FROM THE WEEK BEFORE OR SOME CRAP, PERPETUATING AN ENDLESS CYCLE OF ME SPENDING MONEY I THINK I HAVE BUT APPARENTLY DON’T, RESULTING IN ME GETTING CHARGED FEES.

I don’t even know if that made any sense, but make sense out of this: I’M CRANKY.

Bastards.

I now have $9 in my account for the weekend, when the ATM last Friday told me that I had $150. I only get paid $140!!! This is stupid. So I called them and the lady said they couldn't reverse the fees because it wasn't bank error, and just because the ATM gave me a balance, I "shouldn't trust that the ATM balance is accurate." Erm... WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF GETTING A BALANCE ENQUIRY THEN?????

I feel like crying. I'm supposed to go downtown tomorrow for the St. Patrick's Day parade, and I wanted to go to the movies tomorrow night. I want to cry.

Woops!

Erm... so, I accidentally told you all the wrong date that I'll be coming home (**dodges flying fruit from Emma's direction**) but believe me - it wasn't intentional!! I just got confused with the international dateline and all and created an extra day or something.

Why do I know I got the date wrong??

Today I booked my flight home!!!!!

Hoorah!!!

Here's the flight details:

I T I N E R A R Y :
DATE: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
DEPART: San Francisco, CA (SFO) 08:35 AM
ARRIVE: Oahu - Honolulu (HNL) 10:40 AM
CLASS/ROUTE: Coach/Nonstop
FLIGHT: HA11

DATE: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
DEPART: Oahu - Honolulu (HNL) 12:30 PM
ARRIVE: Sydney, Australia (SYD) 06:55 PM (May 23)
CLASS/ROUTE: Coach/Nonstop
FLIGHT: HA451

**dances jig**

I'm so excited!!! I just thought to myself, you know, SFO is close to Australia; maybe I should look up how much a flight from there would set me back. Turns out it's a lot less than the deposit I paid to come here, so I not only have my flight home booked, but I will also be getting my deposit back and have about $100 left to spare!!! Bloody Cultural Care trying to rip me off.

So now I'm just saving up some more money for the flight from O'Hare to SFO - I've got $140 of it, just need $50 more (stupid $30 in taxes - honestly, the taxes on a flight from Chicago to San Fran are the same as the taxes from San Fran to Syd. How does that work?????).

So share the happiness with me - it's all happening!!!

Hoorah!!!

Guess what I got in the mail today???

The forms to get my ticket home!!!!!

'Twas very exciting for me.

And, one of the forms in there was a "Host Family Reference Form". Hmmm.... I wonder what I would write??? ;) I think it's stupid though because the next au pair doesn't get to see it (because I know I didn't see one) so what's the point? So Cultural Care can say, "Oh, this person didn't have a very good time with that family? Oh no! Wait - we already have the programme fee from the family for the next au pair? Who cares then!!!"

But yeah. I'm so excited!!! I'm thinking of going to San Francisco on the way home so I can actually see something on the West Coast. Have I mentioned that already?? I'm not sure though, because I don't have much (read: any) money...

**Cringe**

Ok, just flicked on VH1 and oh the shame!!!! They're showing that one season they did of Australia's Next Top Model. Ack!!! Seriously, I'm so ashamed - the girls are SO OCKER! Like, they're a parody of themselves, and so gauche!

Yet another whinge - deal with it.

With each passing day I hate Sarah more and more.

And I'm getting sick again. I feel like crap. I'm so tired of being sick.

Another dull weekend in the land of Sarah

So this weekend was a bit of a nothing.

Saturday... well, I didn't end up working 8 hours. I worked 4, and it actually annoyed me more than if I'd worked 8.

Long story short, at about 3pm I called Frances to check what time she'd be home so I could make arrangements to do something in the evening and I got her voicemail. At four she called me back to say that, oh, Sarah's going to actually look after Jack in the evening, and she can start now.

Um.... WHAT????? They couldn't tell me this earlier and let me make some plans? My day was ruined because I had to work 4 hours in the middle of the day. I woke up super early so Judith and I could go to a yummy pancake house for brekkie (just so I'd be doing something that day), then I find out that I could've saved myself the hassle and stayed in bed. GRRRR.

Also, Sarah was home all day, so why didn't they just get her to look after Jack?

Whatever. I have to move on.

Went out to dinner that night with Miriam, her brother and Natalia, so the day was kind of saved.

I was going to go downtown on Sunday but I couldn't find anyone to go with, and I really only wanted to go because I've just found out about this store that sells all kinds of haircare, makeup and skincare and I want to check it out because I've been looking for Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray since I got here and I've discovered they seem to be the only store that stocks it. I'll go next weekend though. Sunday I ended up going to see Zodiac with Judith (mmmm, Jakey) which was good but hell long, then went bowling for our au pair meeting, then went to Panera with Judith and Dorothy.

So that was my weekend. Pretty dull, but I'll deal. Next weekend I need to try and fit in a whole bunch of things. =)

For those of you playing along at home...

I worked 13 hours yesterday because the kids randomly had the day off school, and I'm working 8 hours today, a Saturday, which I'm sure is illegal. It also ruins my ENTIRE Saturday because I start at 12 and work til 8pm. That's exactly 45 hours this week, not including laundry time (which was all day Tuesday and about 3 hours on Thursday). So not in the mood.

Sorry guys, just needed to vent. I'm just tired. Not too much more of this to go, but I'm totally cracking.

Jealous!!!!!

I'm totally jealous of the next au pair to this family, and they haven't even found him/her yet!!!

You all know about the problems I've had with Sarah, and how long and hard the summer was for me. ARGH!

So why am I jealous of the next au pair?? Because both kids have been enrolled in day camps for the entire summer, so the new au pair only has to drop them off and pick them up, and only entertain them in the evenings, when they'll have other activities, AND the Sarah is going to go to boarding school in England!!!

Man, I totally got the shitty year!!!

I know it's stupid to be jealous, but think how much EASIER my job would have been if I was only looking after Jack! He's just so easy and lovely! The arguments I've had with Sarah have driven me nuts. AND Frances and John could be getting divorced, although it looks like nothings happening with that now, but if it does it means that John would be moving out, and he has been my BIGGEST grievance here.

:'( Why??????????Sorry, this is such a silly post, but I just felt like I needed to vent. ;)

I could have had an awesome year here if only I'd coming this year. LOL!!!