“i don’t crave what I have not,
don’t need more than I have got,
just me that i am proud of. ” - Possessionless

It’s been quite some time since I really wrote about thoughts that’s been in my mind. I have really loved having the time to think. I’ve been thinking about things. Lots of things lately. Especially about life. I can say this with certainty, that I have found who I really want to be in this life. That is, possessionless. This song really expresses how I feel. I want to live to love. That’s it. Just like this line. “To look into the mirror though i’m not perfect. It’s still a work in progress, hasn’t finished yet. I just feel so happy right now, having been given a chance to give a type of love that I haven’t given in the past. I live for the moment. I don’t want to take one second for granted. I truly believe life should be valued.I think more than anything, as what twinsis said when we talked, to be freely running in a green pasture with the wild horses, having the wind in our hair, running in the sunshine, being free, being with the people we love, just simply laughing and smiling. This is my dream. To play hide and seek with ones I love the most, to lie on the grass and have no troubles or problems. To live to feel alive. I know, that it doesn’t matter what happens, it is a goal I am reaching for. One that I will work towards. I don’t care how long it takes, or what I have to get through to get there, this is my dream. I visualise it every day. I find the hope that exists because I feel love, and I know this is the one thing that powers me. I feel so alive right now. Something inside me was woken, one person in this life has helped me get this far. I know where I belong. I know my dreams. I will never give up on them. NEVER!

OMG I AM SO ABSOUTELY HOOKED!

Please visit: Last.fm site: [link]
to view my Last.fm website! You'll see the music that I play 24/7 LOL! I am really obsessed with music. *cough*DELTA*cough*

It's wonderful, Last.fm cos you get to find out people who listen to similar music, I've made quite a few friends this way. You also get a "similar music" column and you can find out artists that are similar to the ones you listen to!

If you'd like to check my profile out, please do so! If anyone joins, please add me!

I love it! I love sharing music tastes.

I especially love finding great songs, especially ones with positive messages like "We" by Joy Williams.

Have fun if you visit!!

Susanna

What a night to remember! A piece of history to last a long time, this is my history! This was at my wonderful highschool, St James College’s 139 year’s annual celebration, called St James Feast Day. I anxiously awaited this day for many hours during the day, and the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. It’s so exciting!

I arrived at the school right after uni, around 4:40pm. It seemed like nobody was there, as I got upstairs, I saw Yolanda and some seniors setting up a desk. It had some name tags. I then saw the Principal of St James, Mrs Tuite. She looked so happy to see me, and gave me a hug! OMG! A hug from my old principal!! WOW! She asked me what I was doing now, how I was, and I got to have three photos with her! She also told me she got a thanks email from Mrs Adams!

I quickly went to get changed into the semi formal type of clothing, and I spoke to the two college captains! They were so very friendly and nice! I was talking to them about how fast time went and that it seemed like yesterday that I was still there, when they were in year 10. I also video taped them, the male captain talked about why he loves Jimmies, how it was a real sense of community and people supported each other. He was like “Oh, this is going to be on youtube?”

I then saw Brian, the school counsellor. He was very happy to see me too! I asked Mrs Tuite to help take a photo of us. By this time, everyone knows I’m obsessed with the camera. I thanked Brian for helping me when I was still at Jimmies, how he helped with me and Arabella through some times. He said he still had that lovely piece of writing I gave the teachers on his wall! Wow, isn’t it special?

A few other teachers came in, some I haven’t seen. I then saw Mrs Barrett, by this time, Mrs Tuite was just like “Come on, give me the camera!!” and taking photos for us! LOL! Later, I saw Mrs Shand. She gave me a hug! I talked to them all and they were both smiling and so happy. I got pictures with all the teachers I knew so far!

I sent upstairs to the hall to see what was going on there, and I saw Tom! He was in our grade and had luekemia, right now he is working at Jimmies in the library, doing a certificate III. I was really glad to see him so happy and energetic! We talked a bit as well! A few minutes later, I went back downstairs again to look around. I saw a few Brothers and even took some photos with them! They were really glad to meet me! OMG, I even shook hands with some of them!

Soon, my parents walked in. They came a different time than me as they walked from their work. It was about 5:25pm, and we all headed up to the hall and waited for the mass to begin. The hall was set up really well. There were banners of past students, saying why St James is good. The chairs were all in a semi circle. While we were walking to the hall, I saw Ms Close! I almost didn’t recognise her at first as she changed her hair colour! It’s now BROWN! She was smiling and very happy, saying “OMG how are you doing?” I went to take a photo of her. My dad being the wonderful photographer as usual!

The Father said how great it was to be back, and he started the mass. We had a hymn and some opening prayers. He then began talking about his memory of being at St James, when his teacher asked them to draw banners and the students kept spelling angel angle. LOL! His teacher was not very happy! Then there was the eucharist. I saw Kayleen and Chris come in about 10 minutes into the mass. Later, we heard these bells, and the Father said the bells were calling him. He had to do something else, so we ended the mass. The choir who sang was past students that graduated 60 years ago from St James. They were all wearing their school uniforms. ABSOUTELY AMAZING!

It was another 15 minutes until the Cocktail party started, and we just walked around and talked. I saw Ms Ferris and Miss G, her full name is just complicated to spell, and we took pics! Miss G was saying how she was really glad I came, as I was one of the students she’d hope to return! A bit later, I saw Ms Hales, it was so lovely to see her! She was like “SUSIE!!!” as she always used to call me that in class. She said how it has been five years since I was in her english class, which was in year 10. She also said “English class was just not the same without you!” LOL! She and I took a photo. I reminded her last time we took a photo, Arabella was saying to her “Smile!” and she said, “I am smiling!” I went around and saw Mrs Jones, and said hello! I also saw Mr Tooley, he was telling another person about when I was still at school, I gave him a CHICKEN! ROFL! I almost forgot about that. When I was still a junior at Jimmies, one day I bought a chicken at the market, and couldn’t keep it as we lived in an unit so I gave it to him! He acutally kept it for a long time as he had a farm. WOW, memories!

I went outside after the mass and saw Mrs Adams! YAY! She gave me a hug too and was really happy to see me and LOVED my email! She said she’d catch up with me a bit later, she had to work on the powerpoint presentation. I walked around and saw Mrs McRoberts, Ms Riddle and took photos with them!

I also saw Mrs Sparks, there goes another photo! LOL! The students kept walking around with food which they have cooked. It was absolutely delicious! There were fried foods, snacks, biscuits and even seafood! When I walked into the hall, I saw Ms Osborne, which I gave her a hug!! I was SOOO glad to see her, as I used to ALWAYS see her in the library. She was just so awesome. I took photos of course, and I was saying to her how much I missed the library. That I should come back and visit! I also saw Kayleen and we were hugging.

Soon, the Cocktail party began. Mrs Tuite went to speak and gave a toast! We had wine. OMG, can you believe it? WINE! I never dreamed I’d have wine at my old SCHOOL! Mrs Tuite talked for a while thanking the Brothers who had been excellent footsteps of Edmund Rice. As she was talking, a slideshow is played of many past photos of the teachers and students at Jimmies. They got Brother Luke Quinn to talk, and he also gave a speech. After that, the choir sang “I believe” and we ate and talked more. While the choir sang, I looked in the computer rooms and GOSH! A flood of wonderful memories of being in there! The computers haven’t changed at all! One of the Brothers saw me and said hello, I asked whether he went to school here or taught, he said both! I also said it must be remarkable to have been here as well as teach. He graduated at least 60 years ago! It was astounding.

I finally managed to ask Mrs Adams to come over and take some photos! We took one close up, and then I said can we take another one further? She said it would be wonderful, as she has a lot of wrinkles! I asked would it be okay if I emailed her, and she said “YES, I LOVE THOSE!!”, I asked whether she checked at school or home, then she talked about when she receieved my email, she was at home and was crying, then her mum comes and asks what’s wrong, she goes sniff…“I just got a wonderful message from one of my past students!” She said it was so nice, that she sent to Mrs Tuite. She then asked what I was doing, and I said Primary Education, and she said maybe I would be able to teach her little boy, who is 3 years old now! I said how I remembered when he was 1, acutally when she just had him! Time flies! She asked me to send her all the photos we took, and that she’d frame it and put it on her wall! She was so sweet and saying how she’d feature us on the NEWSLETTER! She asked me for my email so she could send me the weekly newsletter. She also asked me to be a guest for Speech Night in the future, that she was going to sign me up! At that time, I also saw Kayleen and Chris, who was also in my grade. There was another hug from them! I asked my dad to take a photo of us three, and then Chris takes out his camera and asks for to take a photo as well. Reminds me of the formal, so many cameras!

After that, I walked around a bit, and this was my biggest surprise! I saw Mr Stephensen! He was my year 12 co-ordinator but left the school in 2005, to St Brendans. That was quite far away, but he also came. He gave me a hug and me, Kayleen and him took a photo! I asked how St Brendans was, and he said it was very busy. I also said “Wow, we are so going to visit there one day” and he was very happy going “YEAH!” I asked for his email a bit later, and he suddenly got a phone call so went downstairs to answer. It was really amazing he made it, as he would have had to drive for 6 hours straight to get here! I seriously didn’t think I’d see him for a long time! When he came back, he started writing his email, and he goes “My handwriting hasn’t improved at all!” ROFL! As in year 12 Math and Biology, he kept saying he had bad handwriting whenever he wrote. Sometimes, we’d be like “What in the world is that?!” LOL! It was sooo funny!

The whole night, when I saw teachers, I just kept saying how much I missed St James. Each and every one of them who taught me remembered me! Not only that, they made me feel so welcome, so at home, and so appreciated. Each minute at Jimmies is a minute I will always remember. I cannot express just how happy I feel to be back. How absolutely excited I am. How amazing it is to see so many wonderful, caring teachers who after 1 and a half years from not even seeing me still remembers me! I loves Jimmies. I love the teachers and I love been there. It was an unforgetable night.

I cannot begin to say how great it feels to see people who I thought I wouldn’t see for many, many years. It just shows that St James is a real community, even people who have left there after working for several years still considers this place significant to go to an annual celebration. I hope that I, too, after 60 years and go back to a Jimmies dinner and still feel at home. I know it will happen.

I owe it to so many wonderful people at St James for making my night so beautiful and spectacular. I will always love and miss Jimmies.

PHOTOS!
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China is surely a great and remarkable place for a holiday, even bonus when you have amazing grandparents there! On the 24th of April, we left on the Singapore plane at midnight, and arrived after midday, the next day. The weather there on the first day was pretty good, a little cold even.

We were at Shanghai, and a few things I've noticed is that you can't see the blue sky, it's always just misty, you do feel the sun, but it's all covered in white. They are not clouds. Secondly, the massive amounts of people was a shock, every road of every area is covered with tall buildings, and on the road, are endless amounts of people, bicycles, cars and on the side of the road are filled with shops and small markets, some sold fruit, others sold dvds or cds, and there are bag, jewellery, and many other small markets. I could go shopping for an entire day and not even leave my own street! Taxis are easy to catch, because they are everywhere, and buses come every 5 minutes.

The buildings dumbstruck me, everywhere I turn, were huge, tall buildings where people lived. There is no such thing as flat houses, as there are way too many people! I love that I get on our street, and spend many hours looking at the DVD stands where they sell tv shows, anime, movies and sometimes music, which takes up most of my entertainment time.

Seeing relatives and friends really gave me an idea, Chinese people consider food as extremely important, they love to invite you to dinner and talk, they also pick up whether you have gained or lost weight, but not in a nasty way. Their custom is they will say no to an offer until the other person almost shoves it in their hands.

For the first three days, we stayed with a friend of my mum's at their lovely house with broadband internet, and we visited many people, such as my mum's work, my aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as my old preschool teacher.

We then went on the long distance train from Shanghai to Shaoxing, to visit my grandparents. We were going to stay there for a month! How exciting, I haven't seen them for 3 and a half years so it's so great to see them again. Oh, boy, it was the best thing to walk through the house and see my grandma and grandpa! It has to be one of the most exciting things! They had all the food ready, and they just prepared everything we loved to eat. I then sank into the lovely television world of 58 channels of wonderful TV!

TV SHOWS!

"Jia You Er Nu" aka "Home with Kids"

First show that's absoutely amazing: "Jia You Er Nu", Home with Kids. It was a family comedy that had such brilliant storylines. Each of them have a meaning, or it's so hilarious that I would be laughing for 20 minutes. In one of the episodes, the father was looking after the 3 kids, where the mother was having 2 highschool friends as guests that night. He asks them to fix the wok and iron her skirt, but instead of fixing the work, the second son accidentally chisels a hole through it, the father not knowing, starts to cook and it blows up, making his face all black, the mother comes home with guests and says "I'd like to introduce you to my 3 kids and lovely husband..." -sees his face black- and then faints!

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A must watch! Too Hilarious!

"Tian Di Chuan Shuo: Ru Mei Ren" aka Legend of Heaven and Earth: The Mermaid

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OPENING

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CLOSING

Another show that I would say is one of the best I have ever seen, "Legend of Heaven and Earth- The Mermaid". The story about a fish spirit wanting to become immortal, but "Xiao Lian", being involved in the human world, wanted to help her friend get together with whom she loved, Zi You, but instead, her friend was killed. Xiao Lian didn't want to see the guy in pain of losing someone he loved, so she stepped into her body, and got married to Zi You. They lived very happily in the mountains, with Xiao Lian pretending to be someone else, but one day he realises she was a fish spirit, and gets extremely angry and leaves. He accuses Xiao Lian for killing his 'real' wife, and that she is evil and want to kill him. A while later, Zi You found himself thinking about Xiao Lian uncontrollably, he tries to deny that he loves her, then Xiao Lian gets caught by these spirit hunters who were after the pearl. Zi You found himself wanting to release Xiao Lian, because he still remembered how good his life was on the mountains. How much Xiao Lian brought joy to his life. Xiao Lian says she will warn her mother, and come back, but instead, she was given the choice to become human. When Xiao Lian becomes a human, the pearl is in her body to keep her alive, but she loses all her memory. The story continues that Zi You is told to find her if he loved her, and pass 1000 miles, he finds her about to marry someone else. When he plays his flute, Xiao Lian gains her memory back.

A few other shows I enjoyed are: Legend of Heaven and Earth- The Lotus Lamp, Wu Di Xian Ling, Doraemon, Kang Xi Wei Fu Si Fang Ji, and many more!

THE MUSIC

Yuki Hsu (Xu Huai Yu) is an AWESOME singer I discovered! Her song "Fen Fei (Fly)" is one of the best I've heard!

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The ads there are a bit crazy! Some go on for 15 minutes taking about shoes that makes people skinny, which are fake! But other ads such as ringtone ads with the latest songs are great, giving me ideas of pop songs! I also love the ads for kids, like the lollies, kids milk ads cos they are all so cute and really nicely done!

I got into a routine of watching "Home with Kids" in Shaoxing, it was from 12:50pm on channel 51, they play 6 episodes back to back, then at night, on channel 4, plays around 5:50pm. Then, at 6:40 plays on Kids channel, 31 for another episode.

I went to the lovely streets for shopping many times! You can truly see that there are shops everywhere, and my favourite is "Bu Xing Jie", which translates as "Walkthrough Street", it's a street that has stores from the beginning till end.

I went to my Aunt's school two times. She is a middleschool teacher. The first time, everyone had exams, so I just spent most of the day on the internet. The second time I went, I was lucky enough to attend some classes, and even give the students a talk. The class I went to was music, which they were singing this lullaby song! The class I went to talk to were year 7 class, I told them about Australia, and getting some of them to ask questions, and answer. I also got to take lots of photos in the school and watch them raise the flag in the morning and sing the Chinese anthem.

I absoutely love the food in China. Especially stuff in the restaurants, they are just so nice, and they decorate it very pretty too! I always love eating in China, and you can buy these really delicious fried meat on sticks on the street! I also really love the ice blocks and icecream in China, so nice!

I got to see Cherie, her chinese name is Xiao Yi, a few times. She's my cousin and is 15 years old right now, she sings extremely well, and she tells me a lot about the latest music, TV shows I would like, and others. She always come and visit us at nights and stay to watch a lot of TV! Who wouldn't!

In Shaoxing, there was a new type of transport, called a "Tricycle", people ride those and you can sit at the back, tell them where to go, and pay about 4 dollars and go a short distance. I rode on those twice as I didn't know how to get back. It's a great opportunity to look at the streets!

The five weeks really flew past so quickly I didn't notice. Before I knew, it was time to pack and go home, which is really strange because it feels like I have only just arrived. We went back to Shanghai by bus, and it was a crazy ride and thank God nobody despirately needed to go to the toilet (like I did last time). The next day, we set on a plane to go back to Australia.

The funniest thing that happened while we were in China was that my mum had a key to the door, and she unfortuately lost it. She then borrowed the spare key in the house and made two extra replacements, hoping that she would have an extra 2 keys to spare, but somehow, I have no idea how, she then loses the 2 replacement keys, as well as the spare key! HAHA! So, in the end, she lost all 4 of them, ROFL! Then, they were all found in my grandmother's pocket.

My Photographs

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The buildings in Shanghai.

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the buildings in Shanghai.

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Dressed up in the ancient costumes.

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Another ancient chinese costume.

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Ooh, I really like that costume!

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Me and my cousin Cherie.

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Another photo with Cherie.

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A man making a type of food, like popcorn.

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Beautiful scenery!

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At "Bu Xing Jie" (the street where we can buy stuff)

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Me and my aunt, with a caaaaakeeeee!!

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The pretty clouds in the sky from the plane!

[Wide open spaces far away, all I want is the wind in my hair, to face the fear but not feel scared. Wild horse I wanna be like you, growing caution to the wind, I run free.]-Natasha Beddingfield "Wild Horses"

WOW! I love the song! It really relates, it's something that I can picture, wild horses running around without a care in the world. It's such a nice song that Kari introduced me to!

It really feels like FOREVER since I have written in here. Let me update on what is going on.

I am going to China for 5 weeks from Tuesday. It will be a long, awaited trip for almost three years since it has been that long since I last went back, I'm mostly wanting to see my grandparents, cousin and buy those LOVELY *cough*Pirated*cough* DVDs!

Lets see, Digimon Spirit is going great, and will be unfortuately not updated for quite some time since people in China gives me some impression of *living in stone ages and not have a fast connection* ROFL! Hey, you know, that makes me always wonder, do Egyptians live in Pyramids? Probably not!

Radiomon is going REALLY well too, I managed to get some RSS feed and make a podcast player for it (thanks to a member from the DS forums who helped with the feed since I still have stars in my head just thinking about it)
It's awesome to see so many people's wonderful contributions! LOVELY that they want to join, and OMG I just gotta say I just LOVE hearing Mippa's "Odaiba Live", it's SOOO AMAZING!!

I hope everyone's well! Speak to you soon!

Susanna