I started reading Dan Browns "The Da Vinci Code" yesterday. I read and read and read an could not stop, what an amazing book. It describes the horrible Opus Dei which is a Catholic cult-like organization with over 80.000 members worldwide. They whip themselves and wear cilice, cilice a spiked chain worn around the upper thigh for two hours each day. They have the Popes blessing, which canonisized the founder of Opus Dei in 1992. There is an Opus Dei Awareness Network which has very interesting facts about the Opus Dei written by former members who have had painful experiences. The Da Vinci Code is a fiction but based on facts which makes it very believable and fun to read. Millions of small facts which all make sense. The PHI (1.618033988749895... ) appears in the proportions of the human body, plants, the solar system, DNA, music, art, architecture etc. According to Brown every 8 years the planet Venus fulfills a pentagon on the sky and the Greek Olympics were held every 4 years according to that event. The olympic symbol was created first as a pentagon, but was changed to 5 circles instead :) I dont know if the Olympic part is true but I would very much like to find out. Dan Brown spent a lot of time and effort on his research and his main aims were to get people talking and seeing these things in a different light. But his writing has made the Catholic Church upset and scared. A very very angry catholic journalist actually says the whole book is bullshit and Brown is just making the whole thing up. I would have been surprised if the extreme right winged catholics would not have criticised the book but Brown also says that some nuns and catholic priests were very happy with it. There is a very big difference between being catholic and fanatic catholic. This book is unputdownable and I have spent the whole morning reading about Opus Dei, both their own homepage and the awareness page, and Leonardo Da Vinci and his paintings and ideas. It is always refreshing to get different opinions on things that are considered by some people the "holy" truth.

Amazing weather this week, spring has definately arrived and over 20 degrees outside :) We took the traps up this morning and I will put them out again in two weeks, then the pouch young should be developed enough for the toeclipping. Very exciting...
I have been driving past Xavier Rudds house quite frequently these last days since Rodney is staying next door with his friends. Yesterday me, Kate and Bronwyn went over there for a BBQ and Rodneys friends Andrew and Bec told me they saw Xavier walk past just an hour ago with his wife and child. I was up the roof :) They all think my obsession with Xav is quite funny.

I have been dying from excitement the last days because of my most important trapping. Yesterday Rodney came over from Perth and we put up traps and this morning we caught the first animals. Only two mums with pouch young but hopefully we will get more animals in the next days. Unfortunately the poch young are still too small for toeclipping so I will have to wait another 2-3 weeks untill I can do the clipping... The little babies are less than 1 cm now and their toes are a fraction of a millimeter. A bit disappointing but it will be ok... hopefully :) And NB !!!! Toeclipping does not hurt them :)
I have been very happy in the last days, both excited about Xavier Rudd and the toeclipping but also because the spring is here and the fruit trees are blossoming pink and white. Very pretty and today it is 19 degrees and fantastic. Its Ellens birthday today so we are going to the beach and out for dinner with her family.
Talking about Xavier, Rodney is staying with friends in Torquay (Jan Juc) and Xaviers house is just two houses away. So I am offcially a stalker now, not very successfull though because he is now on tour in Western Australia so he is not there. But I did see his budgee (bird) and a wetsuit :)

If you go here: http://www.xavierrudd.com/welcome.html and find "video" you can see Xavier Rudd perform his "12th of September". This is how he looked like when I first saw him in Januray 2003, now his hair is quite long and he smiles more :)
Dont you just love him? :o)

I did not think it was possible for me to love and adore Xavier Rudd more than I already did but after last night I do. The concert was absolutely amazing even though we were almost up in the ceiling and he just looked like a jelly bean on the stage. That was the only minus, not to see his facial expressions and movements, but it was great nevertheless. The roof almost went off the building when he played "Let me be" which is the song on the video I made with all my animals (for those of you who have seen it). Xavier attracts a lot of hippie/surfing types of people and the main messages through his songs are antiwar and rights for the aboriginal people.
He is going away again to the US after his short tour here so I dont know if I will see him again... :( I will just have to ring him up and say Hey Xav, fancy doing a tour in Iceland?

XAVIER RUDD tonight :) I am so excited, Im bursting ... We are going to meet up and have dinner in St Kilda before the concert. St Kilda is one of my favourite places in Melbourne so it makes it even more exciting. Will tell you all about it tomorrrow...

Let Me Be
(Xavier Rudd)

Let me be now let me be
I want to be free now free to see
I want to walk away let me feel my feet
Let me be free

Time and time and time we see
These acts against humanity
Each for each and each will bleed
And shed blood for what they each believe
On and on and on we go
Some will you see and some won’t be
True to you and truth will lead
You to a sense of peace

Historical event took place Friday night. I went to my first Football game, n.b. my first "ball game" ever. Some of you may be shocked, some of you may say: Finally... Most of you know that I am so not interested in any ball games but I decided that I should give this a go since Australians are crazy about this game :) Australian football is a bit like rugby and the game was between Collingwood (Magpies) and Essendon (Bombers) with Essendon beating Collingwood. I went with Kylie and her dad who are Collingwood supporters but for me being non Australian it didn’t really matter who won, I was just excited being apart of the 55.000 people crowd in the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) and seeing what the fuss is all about. In the end my feminine instinct kicked in and I found myself cheering for the good looking boys and laughing how silly the umpires (judges) look like so going to the game did not change me much :)

We were surrounded by a strange crowd. In front of us was a Collingwood family sitting beside an Essendon family, both behaved but they gave each other strange looks all the time. The Collingwood father who seemed to have lived life to the edge half murmured and half shouted very regularly "Go Woods" or "Go Pies" usually when nothing was going on in the game. Behind us was a girl who shrieked all the time and beside me were two foul Collingwood supporters, guys around 30 and they were cursing and swearing the whole time. I am no prude but I could not believe the language they used, horrible scary blokes. They left after the second round when they realized Collingwood was not doing very well.
I had a very good time, it rained almost the whole time but we came prepared, warm clothes, raingear, food and lollies :)

Sad day yesterday as when we came home from work Ellens bird, a budgie called Harry, was almost dead in his cage. He was old and has been acting strange in the last few weeks falling off the branches. He died few hours after we came home poor little thing. It is going to be very empty in the house without him... We had made plans to go to the movies with Kate to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and we decided to stick with the plan and try to cheer up. Not the best film to cheer us up but it definately took our minds off Harry for a while. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is absolutely brilliant and a must to see !!! Lets hope the americans wake up and do not re-elect this idiot. And lets hope all votes will be counted this time. Just by writing this I will probably be put on the FBI black list like the guy in the gym and wont be allowed to go to USA.... hehe. Go see that movie !!!

Yeiiiiiiii, Xavier Rudd is back from his tour in USA and we got tickets to see him on thirsday next week in Melbourne :) Me and Meg have been spreading the word about him and we will be a nice group of 8 people going together. I cannot wait I am so excited... yeiiiiiiiii :)

Finished field work on saturday so finally Sunday morning I could sleep in... ahhhh. We managed to get stuck in the mud on our way to the field on friday. We have a big 4 wheel drive but the mudroad was so wet after all the rain that we completely sunk in. What a mess and the animals waiting in the traps... But it all worked out in the end, we were rescued and the guy just backed out of the mess, I could not beleave my own eyes. I obviousely need to practice more, get stuck more often :)
Kylie bought tickets for her, me and her dad to a Football game this coming Friday. Football... then I mean Australian Football, not succer. I do not pretend to be a big fan, I dont have a team to support but this is huuuuge in Australia so I thought I might give it a go. It will be Collingwood vs. Essendon !!! Kylie and her dad are big Collingwood fans so I guess I should cheer for them... it will be interesting :)

I saw my first pouch young today :) I am trapping with Kylie this week and we caught one Antechinus minimus girl on her grid, seven tiny little pouch young hanging in a tiny littly pouch, they are only about 8 mm long poor things :) The Antechinus pouches are not closed like kangaroo pouches, they are much more open so when the mothers run around the little jelly beans are dragged along. They are the cutest thing I have ever seen. When I do my toe chopping in August (which n.b. does not hurt them !!!) they will be a bit bigger but still very small... Ahhh cannot wait to meet MY minnies again, I hope my little missies nr 44 and 54 are still alive and with pouch young, they are my favourites :)

Yesterday was so great :) Jonno had 4 tickets to see Rove which is the australian version of Jay Leno except Rove is much funnier and much much better looking :) He has gotten lots of rewards for his talkshows and we always watch them on tuesdaynights hehe. So we were very excited to be audience in his show. It was fantastic and afterwards he signed a Rove stubbie holder I had just purchased. Stubbie holder: Rubber thing you put your beer in too keep your beer cold and your hands warm. He was really nice and I talked to him for a while. When I asked him if he had plans to put his show on in Iceland he laughed and said that they were actually just signing the contracts :) When I walked away he called me again and asked if it was true that Iceland was covered with ice, when I said nononono he raised his voice and announced that to everyone :) I should get paid for all the publicity on Iceland I do :) Rove actually reminds me a bit of you Brian !!!
We also went to the movies last night. The salvation army had a Can film festival so for a can of food people can see a movie. So we went early to get tickets but they were all sold out so we got tickets for tonight instead. But since we were in the movies we went to see The Stepford wives with Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken, Bette Midler etc. We laughed our asses of and it was a very surpring movie. I recommend that you dont read too much about that movie before you see it, if you see it :)
I went with Kylie to put up traps on one of her grids this morning, the weather was really nice, not very warm, but sunnie and just perfect. So next three mornings we will have to wake up before sunrise to check the traps which will hopefully be packed with animals. It will probably rain though but we will dance our sundance and hope for good weather.