run

cake (for 3 dollars on sale), and then Gabi and I watched the movie Wonder (which I’ve already seen before, and I only watched again because I knew it would make me cry). Of course, we watched it in the dark so Gabi couldn’t see me ugly-crying multiple times throughout the movie. About ten minutes after the movie ended, Paul and his friends came over from their night out and were so excited for the cake, but ended up dropping the rest of it on the floor upon taking it out of the fridge. It was quite entertaining to watch and even though Paul said sorry about a million times, I wasn’t upset since I figured eating a third of the cake was probably enough for me. Anyway, last Saturday morning, I walked to the car rental place in the worst weather ever. My umbrella turned inside-out about 20 times and by the time I got there, I was completely soaked. However, I got the most beautiful blue car ever! No offence to Jorge, but I think it might be the nicest looking car I’ve driven (However, I am extremely biased when it comes to blue cars, which was something that drove my dad insane when I was trying to find a car to buy and refused to buy anything that wasn’t blue). We did all of our grocery shopping that day with the car. On Sunday, I moved the majority of my stuff to my new flat! First, Gabi and I picked up a keyboard that I found on Gumtree, and then we went to my place. We unpacked the car and moved everything to my

The amazing dinner at Allen and Viola’s

room, I made my bed, and then we waited for Beena to come back from yoga so that we could say hi before going to the mall. The mall (Chadstone) was only a ten-minute drive away and it’s the biggest mall in Australia. We only spent our time in K-mart so I could get some clothing racks, a mirror, and some other random items. Then, we took that stuff back to my flat and drove back to Warragul to drop off the car. The thing I LOVE about the Warragul car rental is that even though I only pay for one day (which is 55 dollars), they’re not open from 11am on Saturday to 8am on Monday, so they say that as long as the car is back by Monday morning, it’s fine and I don’t have to pay for an extra day. Such a deal! Later that evening, I went to Allen and Viola’s for dinner (along with Nina, one of my housemates from the first house) and they made us some amazing food, once again! I’ll miss their

Nina’s Matcha Cake

cooking so much! 😞

This past week was my last week at the tomato farm, and I found myself getting more and more upset about it each day. I had to have an exit interview on Tuesday (which everyone has to do), and they basically ask questions like, “Would you work here again?” “How did you find accommodation?” “What improvements could we make?” There were five other people who had exit interviews that day, and they’re all scheduled to be ten minutes long but most people only ended up taking five minutes. I ended up walking out of mine 18 minutes later, so I guess I had a bit more to say. I mentioned that I didn’t like how stressful it was at the beginning, when we weren’t reaching the target goal. We were expected to do 900 plants per hour, which is 1 plant every 4 seconds, and at the time I was only doing 650-700. Sonia and I were constantly freaking out that we’d be fired, and I was too scared to take a drink of water because I knew it would lower my time, even though it was so hot. Anyway, now it’s fine. I take my time at work, singing and thinking about life, and my speed is consistently between 1000 and 1100 plants an hour everyday, while the other girls are at 1400-1500. On Thursday evening, about 18 people from the department went for dinner at a Thai restaurant, which was so good! A group of people were finishing their contracts, so they were moving locations to another tomato farm (same company) because with the Australian visa, you’re only allowed to work in one location for ANY job for a maximum of six months. Meaning people who stay in Australia for two years will have to work a minimum of four jobs. Lucky for me,

Dinner with Coworkers

my supply teaching avoids that problem since I’ll be going to different schools with different locations all the time! On Friday, we brought our phones into work, which is a no-no, but it was our (mine and Akane’s) last day so we wanted some memories!!

Akane also made a sign telling everyone at work to go to Newmason for drinks that evening. Only a handful of people showed up, which I was kind of sad about at first, but it ended up being a really nice group! On Saturday morning, I packed up the rest of my stuff and then realized I had underestimated how much I had left. I decided that I’d have to come back to

My tomatoes! 💝

Warragul later in the week to get the rest of my stuff, which was mostly just food and work gear. I finally left Warragul at 3pm and arrived at my new flat at 5:30 that night. I unpacked until about 11pm before I made myself go to sleep. I’m part of a Canadian Ladies in Melbourne group on Facebook, and they were planning a Bottomless Brunch for Sunday morning. That means that for $50, I would get a

Canadian Brunch

breakfast item, and three hours’ worth of mimosas and/or prosecco. Even though it was a bit pricey and I didn’t know anyone, I figured this would be a good way to start my time in Melbourne. I headed over to Fargo and Co for 11am and there were 15 of us in total. Everyone was so nice, and I got the same shocking response from each person when I told them that I was from Saskatoon. We really are quite unheard of.. I ended up trying Chicken & Waffles for the first time, which was absolutely amazing! After our three hours of brunch, about six of us decided to stay even longer and decided to try the Boozy Hot Chocolate for $15 (I will likely go in debt while living in Melbourne…). We then meandered to another rooftop bar to have beer and appy’s, and then I finally decided that I should get going at 6:30 because I still had to go to IKEA. Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time I’ve went to IKEA solo while intoxicated… As soon as I got there, I got a hotdog (of course), and then I tried to find everything else I’d need for my room. Unfortunately, the night table that I wanted was out of stock, so I just got everything else and then I’ll have to go back another time. I got back home at around 9:30pm, built all

of my furniture, and went to bed.

On Monday, I had an interview with my teaching agency at 11am. I headed to the area, stopped at McDonald’s for a quick breakfast, and then went for my interview. It lasted for about an hour because we had to go over safety policies, company policies, filling out paperwork, and what my preferences would be for subjects and age groups to teach. The two agents I met were lovely and even though I had been putting off going back to teaching because I’ve actually been dreading going back into the classroom, they put me at ease and assured me that teaching in Australia would be much different from teaching in the UK. After my interview, I messaged a friend who I had met waaaay back in Mildura during the short time that I was there. He was in Melbourne for a couple of days so we decided to meet up for lunch. Shout out to Carlos, who’s from Venezuela, and has said that my blog is in his Top 3 list of favourite blogs 😀💜 Anyway, we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and it was so nice to

Me and Carlos

catch up and to see a familiar face. Afterwards, I headed back home so I could finally finish unpacking the rest of my stuff. It felt so good to have everything organized that evening! I then walked to the grocery store, which is about a 15-20 minute walk away, because I hadn’t bought any actual food since I had moved in on Saturday. Since schools would be coming back from a 2-week holiday the following day (Tuesday), I decided to take today off since I likely wouldn’t get work anyway. I just needed a day to do nothing, since I hadn’t had one in quite awhile. I used the day to plan out how I wanted my weeks to work, including meals and activities. I also emailed my agent and asked her what the possibility of getting work on Wednesday would be. The thing with this job is it’s a bit different from the UK. Just like the UK, I have to be up and ready at a certain time in order to wait for a phonecall and get called to a school. Unlike the UK, I have to leave my house by 7am and head to Flinders Street Station (the main station) in order to be there by 7:30am, and then I can find a cafe and wait for a phonecall there. Therefore, you can see why I didn’t want to just get up and get ready to go to Flinders, only to not end up getting work. However, my agent wrote me back and said that they’re getting really busy and that it was likely that I’d get something tomorrow. I guess I’ll see what happens! I’ll have to make lunch for tomorrow, and get fully prepared.