Anyone got a spare cork hat?

Well this is my last entry in the land of vegemite, cork hats, Bondi beach babes, and tradesmen's cracks so deep and exposed they challenge the most serious of fault lines.

Everyone by now adequately aware of our arrival into Chennai or China have moved onto the two next most pressing questions on their mind, are you excited? and have you packed?
To the first am I excited? If by excited you mean ill rested, frantically running around, attending to the enormously boring task of loading CD's onto our Ipods, endlessly debating what I will be wearing for the next year, packing up my whole life into a very small space, and facing the reality that I am going to be leaving the people that I love and the land that I have really begun to call home, then yes I am.

My last week in Sydney has been something of a journey itself welcome to the Tanya Zone

Monday - For some University is a chance to come into their own -style wise, they colour their hair, get holes pierced into places that should not have holes, wear ties with no shirts, socks with thongs and generally go a bit crazy in the name of being an art student. For me University was a bit like that movie Gorilla's in the mist - with me as one of the Gorilla's, my style and grooming were subsumed to the greater need to finish assignments and actually do the readings (it wasn't until fourth year that I discovered that you could actually get away pretty easily without ever reading anything and write your assignments based on conversations you hear behind you on the bus - but at least I am prepared for my masters). But back to Monday, as a treat to celebrate having finally finished Uni I spent 5 hours at the beautician being defuzzed, scrubbed, masked and generally pulled and plucked. Hour 1 was blissful, by hour 2 I knew the entire family history of my beautician, hour 3 we moved onto ex boyfriend and boyfriend issues, hour 4 and I was getting the weird customers and male hair removal stories and by hour 5 we were both thoroughly bored and Lauren is now going to be a bridesmaid at my wedding.

Tuesday - Sally Woo genius make up artist and my dear friend had decided two weeks before interviews for Make Up School that she was not going to be a beauty school drop out and had to create a portfolio out of thin air to present. A crash course in lighting, a day of make up models and ego's, and two photo shoots later, I was left exhausted, blinded by the flash and seriously questioning my artistic and technical abilities.

Wednesday - Two more shoots at two different locations, 30 degree heat, shooting out doors in the park, if not dying of heat stroke then being eaten one layer of skin at a time by aggressive little ants . I am beginning to think it is actually better to dream of being something than actually doing it. Finish shoot to discover the digital shots can not be transferred to external source and I have 300 photo's I can not use - at this point sanity rapidly slipping

Thursday - In classic twilight zone moment, Greg and I decide to go away for 2 days to enjoy the surf, sun and calm of the Australian Coast. Having spent hours the previous day shooting a dominatrix scene in a dark, rich burgundy room, I now found myself wrapped in a blanket of muggy air, swarms of flies whirl pooling around my head, as I attempted to slip into icy water so cold it was actually painful. For those of you that know Greg and how he usually jumps into ocean (very quickly) it took us both 20 mins. to get into the water on a 35 degree day.
Once in however, it didn't warm up, and I could have been up for Olympic contention with the speed I did my laps.

Friday - Visited Bouddi national park, it was magic, walks along the cliffs of the ocean, boarded paths leading down into deserted beaches, with water slightly less icy. The sea is truly a healer and for an afternoon I felt the stress and tiredness that I had gathered over the last year fade to a distant memory - then we drove back to Sydney and I discovered that digital shots still were not working and it was all back on for young and old, stayed up till midnight fixing the problem.

Saturday - Attempted to squash a week's worth of chores into a couple of hours - needless to stay sanity had gone completely, and that Greg and I have not killed each other by morning was a geniune surprise. Tried to restore sanity by going out dancing with girls, had a ball shaking my booty at the Peppermint lounge sadly for the girls with loads of other fabulous, gorgeous women and about 1 man.

Sunday - cleaned house, emptied fridge and finally onto the second question - yes I am packed.

Stay tuned for actual holiday stories soon - for any of you that wish to complain about the content of this site, or my spelling/grammar errors pls direct your emails to

little_tree3@hotmail.com (little (underscore)tree3@hotmail.com), but would love you to share your stories and comments on the blog too.

Love to you all

t