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Please check this out and share! For a uni class we had to make an attempt to make a viral video so here goes.

Easter 2015

On Thursday afternoon we made the short drive up to Lancelin for the Easter Long Weekend. We stayed in a funny little house that seemed like bits kept getting added to it. We stayed with some family friends and brought the dog along too.

The first morning Dad and I took the canoes out near the surf break at the main beach. We went for a short paddle looking at the island and reef and then spent an hour or so catching waves. This proved difficult and the canoes are heavy for surfing and it was a lot of work to keep them from nose diving, or rolling. I did catch a nice wave and ended up getting thrown out into a big lot of seaweed, which I am still getting out of my hair!

The next two mornings Dad and I got up earlier than everyone else and went body boarding. The surf was not huge, but we caught some good waves. We then got back in time to have bacon and eggs which had just come off the barbie!

We drove to Cervantes one day to have a look around. The sea breeze had come in by then, so it wasn't very nice. This town is actually named after one of several ships wrecks off its coast. We also looked at Hangover Bay, and Wedge Island, both of which are nice fairly quiet beaches.

Each night we spent playing card and board games after dinner. The final night did feel like we were in a cyclone, It was constantly very windy all night which made it impossible to sleep! This meant I was up early, but it was far too blowy for the beach. I took a good chunk out of my book instead!

My highlight of the weekend would have to be taking the dog for a surf! Yes that's right-I would run down to the waters edge with a board and she'd follow me. She would then walk out, till she couldn't stand and jump on the body board. We then went out and managed to catch quite a few good waves. I did all the hard work while she stood up front tail wagging! She hasn't quite managed to catch waves on her own, she stands too far forward, but we are working on it!

I can't wait to take her out on the water again!

Surf Boats

Last weekend wrapped up the Surf Boat season with the Senior Surf Life Saving State Championships. This weekend will be the last volunteer patrols for the 2014/2015 season.

We spent all season and most of winter training hard and it all paid off, even those 5am sessions when it was still dark.

We entered every carnival and had a lot of fun. We were the first female crew for Trigg Island SLSC for 14 years-and we had two!

I did not qualify to compete in the Masters competition, unfortunately I was not old enough, but one team managed to come home with a bronze medal.

On Saturday we went out in slightly bigger, but clean conditions for our warm up. Then when we were on the line ready to go the sea breeze kicked up and made the ocean a bit of a mess. This made rowing long and hard.

The conditions got worse as the day progressed and we only got two races instead of three. Some other events for that day didn't wrap up until 5pm!

On Sunday due to different circumstances my team wasn't going to race. I went down anyway to show my support and they ended up needing me to jump in.

Our first race was tough but we ended up catching a nice wave back in, which ended up filling the boat with water and we rowed across the finish line waist deep.

We then found out that our mixed up crew made the final! It was hard work and we experienced a bit of carnage coming back in the wave zone.

It was also nice that our club won the triple crown, this means we won Masters, Junior and Senior States! It was a great season and I look forward to coming back to it.

Madness

Last night I went to the final show of Guy Sebastian's Madness tour. We got Mum tickets for Christmas and went together as a family.

The support act was Fatai. The 19-year-old really has a set of lungs on her! She has a quirky presence on stage and really involves the audience. She also changed guitar about five times! Later on in the show she also came back on stage to sing Lightning with Guy.

Guy opened with Madness and then sang Like a Drum and Who's that Girl. He also sang Get Along, Elevator Love, Linger, and his encore included Battle Scars and Mama ain't Proud. The final song, Gold, showered the crowd in gold confetti.

The set was very simple with a lot of video and lighting effects. His band even included four brass instruments. Guy told a few stories and experiences from his life and the inspirations for some of his songs. He also talked about The Sebastian Foundation, which I hadn't heard about before.

While there were no aerobatics like the other shows I have been to, the vocals and dance choreography were very impressive.There were many songs to sing along to. It was a fantastic night!

National Leadership College 2015

Last week I flew to Sydney for the National Leadership College for Surf Life Saving and it was one of the most amazing weeks of my life. Surf Life Savers from all around Australia were selected to attend.

Coming from Perth, a group of us flew in the day before and stayed one night in a hotel. That night we ate at a little art club and it was "Tight Arse Monday's" which suited me just fine.

We stayed in dorms at St Paul's College at the University of Sydney, which is basically Australia's Hogwarts. In my head I had set the bar pretty low for my room (from other camps I had been on) which exceeded my expectations. St Paul's is an all boys College which meant some of us were an exception. The rooms were a reasonable size, with a bed, couch, desk and closet; some people even had a fridge.

We learnt communication and leadership skills; and about personal brands, positive attitudes, motivation, relationships, resolving conflict, networking, vision and innovation.

We had the opportunity to hear from and speak to some amazing, powerful and inspirational people. My favourites would have been Trevor Hendy, Suzanne Young and Shandra Moran. It was incredible to hear the stories and wise words from these people.

It will take me a bit of time to process, but I now know an awful lot more to help me in Surf Life Saving and in other aspects of my life.

We also had many chances to step out of our comfort zones. We had a talent night, with a varying array of talent and a huge step into the unknown for some. We had a trivia night, which my team came from last place in the 5th round to win. This being the first time I have ever been in a winning quiz night team! There were also a few other things I'm sworn to secrecy about.

The final night we all got dressed up in our matching shirts for a dinner, speeches and entertainment. This was a really nice evening and gave us a chance to talk to everyone including some important people in Surf Life Saving.

After the dinner wound down we were all eager to go out for a drink before we all went back home the next morning.  

This experience is one that will stick with me, the connections I have made and the skills I have learnt are invaluable and I hope they will greatly improve the things I do in my surf club and in other parts of my life.

During this week I also found out I have been offered a scholarship through the Georgia Rotary Student Program to study at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville. This will be from around July this year for one year. I was excited to accept the offer and am awaiting more information. It was an ideal place to find out about this as everyone was so happy and supportive.

I hope both experiences will provide me with long term friendships and I am excited to see where this all leads.

Australia Day Long Weekend

I went down to Esperance with some boatie mates to compete in the Country Carnival. A few of us drove down on the Friday and made it there in just under nine hours. The drive did seem to go quick as we were chatting or busting out some serious vocals the whole way down.

We set up camp and happened to actually be right beside some more boaties, which worked out really well and meant we got to stay at our camp for drinks! I also thought I was pretty cool with my inflatable couch!

On the Saturday we went down to Twilight Bay for a training session. Here we ran into difficulties. The swell was big and the pump for the boat wasn't working. We ended up going for a row with another surf club which was really nice and a great display of Aussie mate ship. It was also helpful to learn a few things from the other crew.

The surf was even more rough on the Sunday- just in time for the carnival! We decided the conditions were beyond our capabilities and elected to watch the carnage instead. We even entered ourselves in beach sprints and were terribly excited when we didn't come last in the relay!

Sunday night was a bit of a wind up, there were lots of drinks and lots of dancing with all the competitors from our club.

After only a short time down south we did the long drive back to Perth on Australia day. It was slightly longer than the way down, as we started heading for Kalgoorlie and then took a very long gravel track to cut back.

I had a great experience in such a short space of time and wish I could have stayed longer.

Christmas and New Year

We did the usual Christmas thing. Lunch with Dad's side of the family, and then dinner with Mum's side at home. On Boxing Day we did the frantic clean up and load up the car to go down south for our usual family-after-Christmas holiday.

This time we rented a house and brought the dog with us (after selling our camper earlier in the year). We also thought we were hilarious in booking a house next door to some friends, who had no idea where we were staying. The plan was to just say "oh fancy seeing you here" when they arrived.

Some plan that was. When we arrived there was someone else staying in the place. We ended up ringing the friends saying, "surprise, we might be sleeping on your floor!" Turned out there was a mix up and we stayed in the house next to that for one night and then moved into the right place for the rest of the time.

We took the dog for the biggest walk of her life and had a look at the markets in the Dunsborough town. It was great looking at all the little bits and pieces and we had a yummy-freshly-squeezed juice.

Dad also took the dog for a bike ride. Yep, he spent all Christmas Eve finding a basket for the back of his back. She seemed to like it, but it didn't last long when we all went for a ride because she wanted to be with everyone.

Same story with the kayak. She came for a paddle with me a few times, but when she saw someone else she jumped out to see what they were up to.

There is no doubt that my dog loves the water as much as me. Whenever we took her to the beach she would run down into the water and swim out with us.

We also checked out Bussleton, Yallingup, Grace Town and Margaret River.

I also found this awesome jacket on sale. I saw the same one a while back but it was really expensive so I didn't get it then. I hadn't seen it since and I thought I would never see it anywhere again!

As always our time away didn't last long before we had to go back to reality.

This Is How I do

Last night I moshed for Katy Perry's second show in Perth. It was the first time she had been to Perth, and it kicked off the Australian leg of her Prismatic World Tour. She came to Australia in 2009 with her Hello Katy Tour, but didn't come to Perth.

My sister, a friend and I got there at six and waited in line for half an hour before the doors opened. We got inside and found ourselves in the middle of the crowd, a stones throw from the stage.

At 7.30 Betty Who came out and got the crowd going. The New York based Sydney girl was also performing in Perth for the first time. She had a 'P!nk-esque' vibe, brought a lot of energy and everyone was singing her last song Somebody Loves You.

Just over an hour later Katy Perry came out belting Roar, which everybody sang along to. She wore a plastic looking dress with neon lighting. She also sang Wide Awake in this outfit.

Later she came out dressed as an Egyptian on a gold god-like horse, singing Dark Horse. This song has a great beat and got everyone moving. After that she sang I Kissed A Girl.

On a very sparkly guitar Katy impressed us all with some acoustic songs including Unconditionally. During this, everyone had the lights on their phones on and were singing along too.

She then performed the song I had been waiting for-This Is How We Do,  in a funky mash up with Last Friday Night.

She brought up two girls on stage, taking selfies with both. The first to offer pizza, and the second for her first encore-Birthday where she
flew across the audience hanging off some giant balloons.

For her second encore a robot voice informed everyone of 'prism-vision'. This meant we all had to put on glasses we were handed when we entered the event. The glasses were very similar to those blue and red 3D glasses, but they were colourless and patterned. She sang Firework and we were thrust into a laser show. It was exactly like the scene where Firework is sung in Madagascar.

I thought it was remarkable the number of times she changed wigs. All artists these days have frequent costume changes, but it has got to be much harder to change wigs. I always find wearing them uncomfortable, but Katy's seemed so realistic and comfortable-I must find where she gets them for my next dress up party!

It was an exciting show, even though I could only see sometimes. I would see her again, but would either have to wait out all day to get a spot against the stage, or get seats!

Bangerz

So last night I went down to Perth Arena for Miley Cyrus' last show of her Bangerz tour. After nine months of touring she failed to disappoint.

As expected it was a little bit rude, a little bit crazy and not safe for young eyes, but there is nothing doubting the vocal talent of the 21-year-old.

The support act, Lola Wolf, was a little bit weird and very loud, but they were very talented and did get the crowd going.

Miley then entered the stage sliding down her own tongue (I didn't get a good photo of this so you'll have to Google it). Being her last show she talked a bit longer than she normally does and thanked everyone. Every second word was unrepeatable, but it was clear she was grateful of everyone and everything.

Nearly all of her dances and costume changes were racy, but we all knew what we were in for. It was amazing that she changed nearly after every song!

She opened with the song Bangerz and then her vocals really shone when she sang one of her lesser known songs, My Darlin. When she sang Adore You she encouraged everyone to kiss whoever they came with, or someone else and then the big screen showed people in the crowd kissing.

She sang Can't Be Tamed, and covered Dolly Parton's Jolene. She sung We Can't Stop for her encore followed by Wrecking Ball, where every single person there was singing. The atmosphere was incredible.

Some people began to leave after that, but I knew better and she sung her final song, Party in the USA. That also got everyone singing as the people on stage came out dressed in stars and stripes, as The Statue of Liberty, and things like that.

The props for the show included puppets, a giant husky, a truck, and she even rode a giant flying hot dog at one point.

Miley Cyrus might not be my favourite artist of all time, but she certainly puts on a fantastic show!

Radio Shows and Scholarship Exchanges

So I am now about a month in on my radio show. I thought I was really clever calling it The Noughties with Dargie, seeing as how I play music from the 2000's up until now. Its on Wednesday's 4-5 on Radio Ellenbrook 88fm. It's a nanocast station so you can only hear it in Ellenbrook, but we are working towards a community licence with a larger broadcast area.

I really think it is perfect practice for me and it is really fun! I think I have already improved in the way I speak and the way I operate the gear. I also got some brand new headphones which somehow make everything better! I do think this is a good stepping stone, as radio is something I would like to pursue.

I have also applied for a scholarship to study in Georgia, USA. It is through Rotary and I finally sent off all my paper work. I always thought I had missed my chance with exchange as I'm now too old for most programs. However, when someone pointed this one out I jumped right in.

I have always loved travelling and exploring. I have also always wondered about studying overseas, and now it's actually a possibility.

To be considered you have to sit SAT, just like all those American kids in movies. I found the whole process much more serious than our WACE exams. They checked off ID and you were only allowed a pencil and a calculator. I did the test last weekend and didn't find it too difficult, the maths was probably the worst. I had to relearn most of the maths that I either never did or haven't since high school. They way all the questions are is just different to the way I'm used to.

I am very excited about both opportunities and hopefully they open many doors for me.