The Black Pearl

The due date of my Creative Arts resource kit has finally arrived, not that it snuck up on me or anything. I had known about it all long but just didn’t have enough motivation and clarity to work on it throughout the semester. I wasn’t the only one though since every class started with several people asking questions about what they could or couldn’t do for the project. I had gone in to talk to my teacher one on one about it and had come out of her office with a much clearer view. That didn’t mean I was going to get to work on it right away though since I had other things in Sydney to do. So I stayed up fairly late the night before and decided to wake up early this morning to finish the project up for good. I was supposed to be using a stimulus (Wizard of Oz) to create 8-10 learning activities for an elementary classroom. Doesn’t really seem that hard until you put in all these extra requirements like excursions and other KLA links, which I had no idea what that even meant. So I was definitely feeling a little overwhelmed, but not enough to freak out. I was just ready to have the project done with so I could move on with better things. We eventually made it to the library to re-read all my activities, make sure they made sense and prepare my resource kit. Riley thankfully took on the task on making a nice little basket as my box. It was supposed to be Dorothy’s straw basket and I think it turned out just right! I successfully got it turned in thirty minutes from the due time, but I wasn’t the only one freaking out since my class facebook page was getting bombed with post after post about questions. I had plans to meet up with a girl from my class and go out to dinner once again so I had a little bit of time on my hands. I was just thankful to be able to relax and have a burden lifted off my shoulders. Riley and I ventured off to the shopping centre in search of note cards so that he could write down some of the recipes he has been engrossed in. I know he’s ready to have his own kitchen and utensils to just cook to his heart’s content, but until then he’s settling for creating a recipe collection. We had no idea what we were about to encounter though; a notecard famine in Sydney. Literally no one sells notecards, like the 3x5 cards you can find in just about any store in the United States. Target, Kmart, stationary stores, none of them had these cards. We finally got directed to a newsagency store that had a pack of 100 for 8 dollars. I couldn’t believe it! Riley seriously contemplated them, but I knew he would regret it if he paid that much for simple notecards. He went back empty handed, while I met up with my friend Serena and headed off to have meat pies at the famous Harry’s café de wheels. A new place had opened up just across from the central bus station in literally two weeks. Serena was amazed that she hadn’t seen the place yet, not even a sign for it. The pies were delicious, but quite the challenge to eat since they didn’t give us a fork. Afterwards we were too full to sit still so we went for a walk down George Street to look at another shop for index cards, with none in sight. Serena was in the mood for a chatime drink and I had never had one, but had always wanted to try one, so I told her I would join her. We ended up in Chinatown at this overly crowded chatime where I ordered a caramel milk tea with pearls. These pearls are just little black jellies apparently that don’t really have much favor. I punctured the straw through the covering over the drink and took a nice big sip. However, I didn’t take into account the size of the pearls and the size of the straw and ended up with a big jellies in my mouth that I wasn’t expecting! I’m not a fan of having jelly like things in my mouth so no doubt I had a surprised look on my face. Serena thought this was hilarious but I tried my best to keep an excited, rather than disgusted face as I slowly chewed on the jellies. She was right, they had no taste and I had to try my best to not spit them out! But for the price I paid for that drink, I was for sure going to finish it! The tea itself was pretty good though. We took our drinks and headed back towards the university before saying our goodbyes. I saved a little bit of my drink for Riley which he wasn’t too fond of either. We ended up just relaxing for the night and finally getting around to watching the Notebook. For the record – he actually admitted to liking it!