Live Below The Line- Resourcefullness

First off a huge thankyou to all the people who have sponsored me so far, I've been amazed at the amount of encouragement and how many people want to help me to help many more people.

It's the end of day two now, and I've gotten pretty crafty. My budget had absolutely no room for snacks which has been quite a struggle for me- a person who would normally have a mid morning and mid afternoon snack. But today I fashioned a snack out of the scraps of my breakfast! Baked potato skins- left over from my potato and onion omlette (really it was scrambled eggs, frying an omlette without oil is not really possible). It was the perfect thing to get me through a particularly long uni reading. For dinner vegetable dumplings were on the menu but I had basically ignored the problem of us not owning a steamer until this evening. Luckily a quick google search provided me with a very easy solution- a plate propped up on balls of foil inside a pot. My dumplings were quite flavoursome and very filling, and I'll be happy to have them twice again this week.

Today was a lot easier than yesterday, mostly because I wasn't at uni. Yesterday my breakfast was at 6:30am, and so it was very hard to get through the morning, especially because I wasn't able to buy my tea for the week until the afternoon. I've noticed a considerable decrease in my concentration span the past two days, and the effort of uni yesterday was exhausting, I got home hungry and tired. Today I was able to sleep in until 10, which meant the spacing between my meals was a lot more reasonable. After dinner this evening I was still very ready for bed, however had a lot of preperation to do for tomorrow. I'm working all day tomorrow and getting up at 6 again, so I had to pre-make my potato soup for lunch and flatbread for breakfast. I think tomorrow might be the most challenging day.

Live Below the Line- Food Shop

I've almost completed all my food shopping and here it is! All that remains is $1.30 which I plan on taking to the Food Co-Op at my uni tomorrow and spending on some chilli powder and hopefully some tea!

My produce came from a total of four different supermarkets. On Friday afternoon Tess and I bought a packet of stock, and a bag of onions (from two different supermarkets). We got some strange looks as we sat in a cafe and divided it up, especially when it came down to splitting a single stock cube in half.  Today I visited another three different supermarkets to pick up my potatos, veg, rice and flour.

Eggs had been my greatest dilemma. Even within the budget I could not justify not buying free range eggs and as such eggs were by far the most expensive item on my shopping list. I do see how this choice is not possible for many people on this kind of budget, but I was determined to make it work. Luckily yesterday we visited my aunty Elissa who has an amazing permaculture inspired garden including lots of chooks, so I was able to pick up some amazing eggs at a lot cheaper price.

Im pre cooking some things tonight, and getting ready to go tomorrow morning!

Live Below The Line

Live Below The Line is a charity campaign to help tackle extreme poverty, in which for five days the participants live below the poverty line, spending only two dollars a day on food. Tess and I have taken on the challenge this year for the first time! We are hoping to gain sponsors who will donate us money, all of which goes towards East Timor- a country which is one of Australia's closest neighbours but where 40% of the population are really living beneath this poverty line, and a majority of the population are under 26. As well as this, during their recent wars for independance many schools, and educational facilities were destroyed. The money from the campaign goes toward increasing the accessibility and quality of their education, because education is the key to breaking the poverty cycle. Aside from this fantastic cause I'm doing this project to gain a greater understanding through experience of what the billions of people in our world actually endure. So far I have already noticed a level of privilege in ourselves even within the constraints of the budget, privileges of time, resources and education which would not be available to many of the people for whom this is actually their lives. Tess and I spent hours of our time tonight having a great time visiting different supermarkets around the city to compare prices and products, and we have spent the past two days planning and organising our meals for next week. We have done research of how to receive proper nutrition in our diets, and have a wealth of recipes, meal plans and tips at our fingertips. We have access to food co-ops where we can buy small amounts of salt, spices and tea (actually we may not be able to afford any of this but it was great in theory). Basically I'm feeling really lucky about my life. It's going to be hard, but when it comes down to it it's only 5 days of my life to hopefully help the lifetimes of some other people.

Live Below The Line begins on Monday May 5, and I'll continue posting with my updates of how we're going.

If you'd like to donate you can do so online here
If you'd like to join in you can sign up (in the next two days) here
If you want some more information you can find it here

'I Can't Braid' hair tutorial 1- Milkmaid Braids

 I love playing with my hair and doing it in cute or crazy hairstyles. However I cannot for the life of me braid my own hair, which is quite a limitation. Pretty much every single hair tutorial I look at online assumes it's prior common knowledge and always leaves me stumped. So I thought I would start a series here of tutorials of my favourite do's that require zero braiding.

My first one was originally inspired by the wonderful Jane Bennett from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and is amazingly simple but people are always surprised to hear it does not involve any braids, all you'll need are bobby pins.

1. Part hair down the middle

2. Split hair into two segments. Plait one segment, starting the plait up as high as possible

3. Fold the plait over the top of your head, as far forward or back as you like, and secure it with bobby pins

4. Repeat on the other side. Then pin down any fly away bits or bits that feel like they'll fall out with your good old friends- bobby pins.

Voila!

Snakadaktal

August 2012 at the corner hotel, just a few days after my eighteenth birthday, was the first time I heard Snakadaktal play. It's a very special memory for me, as it was my first time going out to a bar with my friends, and then the first 18+ gig I went to. At the time I barely knew Snakadaktal and the excitement was all about the milestone. It was my first introduction to the wonder of cheap local gigs. Since then I've seen the band perform three times and my love for them has only grown. So when they announced earlier this year that after 5 years the band was breaking up, I was sufficiently heartbroken. Tess and I were lucky enough to snag tickets to their last ever show. They performed for the final time last week at the Northcote Social Club, and it was a fantastic goodbye. Melbourne will miss you Snakadaktal, and we look forward to seeing what you all go on to do in the future.

 Snakadaktal

 Fan's shiny sign during the song Boy

"Sydney's got its attractions but we've got Melbourne Bitter"

Old Melbourne Town has had a lot of wonderful and free things on recently. It was the perfect welcome home for a returned traveler with itchy feet and an empty wallet.

Melbourne Now

An art exhibition at the NGV of contemporary Melbournian Artists and their work about our city.  There were some really beautiful works and it was great to see lots of fantastic works by some very talented friends. I made it to the exhibition twice but still didn't get to see it all. 
 

White Night

Last Year Melbourne held it's first White Night Festival, a 12 hour arts/music/culture festival held in the city center from 7pm-7am. Sadly I missed it last year due to being on a plane home from New York (I can't complain too much) so this year was my first time experiencing it. The whole city is lit up with colourful projections adorning the buildings. There are hundreds of things to do, however there are also hundreds of thousands of people to navigate. We were extremely prepared with energy boosting snacks, bottles of water, bandaids, panadol and five of us made it the whole 12 hours. I'm so glad I did because we saw exponentially more between the hours of 3-7am than we did for the whole rest of the night. Highlights included dancing through literal purple rain, kicking the night off with Client Liaison, a part of Tim Winton's film The Turning shown in the Old Melbourne Gaol, arobics at 3 am in Fed Square, and stories sung by the Australian Children's choir. I know lots of people were disappointed with the event and said they'd never go again, but with perfect planning it was fantastic and I can't wait for next year. 

Queen Victoria Night Market

After literally months of talking about it, Tish and I finally made it to the weekly night market held through summer. We went with the sole purpose of eating and it was a grand success. There were Korean Potato twists, Afghan Corn, Nepalese Dumplings, Dutch Pancakes and French Macarons.

Thanks for everything Melbourne.

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! Though slightly belated March is still Women's History Month so it's still fitting. I'd like to celebrate by acknowledging some of my favourite inspirational women.

Bella Guerin
Bella Guerin was the first woman to graduate from an Australian University. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from The University of Melbourne in 1883 and went on to become a suffragette and activist. Thanks to her the road was paved for me and millions of other woman to gain our education.

Valentina Tereshkova
 I firmly believe one day I will travel to space even though I know it will be an extremely difficult process. However it will not be as hard for me now as it was for Valentina Tereshkova- the first woman to visit space in 1963.

JK Rowling
A woman who shaped the childhood of myself and countless others, who came from extreme poverty but was still able to create such magic and share it with the world.

Mindy Kaling
An idol for funniness and cuteness. But also an idol for determination. " I knew if I was going to have my own show, I’d have to do it myself. Because no one is going to write a show for a chubby brown woman. It’s hard enough to make it if you’re a thin, conventionally attractive woman."