About Waratah

Waratah

Floral Emblem of New South Wales
Telopea speciosissima, was proclaimed the official floral emblem of New South Wales on 24 October 1962. Robert Brown (1773-1858) named the genus Telopea in 1810 from specimens collected in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

The Waratah is a stout, erect shrub which may grow to 4 metres. The dark green leathery leaves, 13-25 cm in length, are arranged alternately and tend to be coarsely toothed. The flowers are grouped in rounded heads 7 to 10 cm in diameter surrounded by crimson bracts, about 5 to 7 cm long. It flowers from September to November and nectar-seeking birds act as pollinators. Large winged seeds are released when the brown leathery pods split along one side.

my holiday

In two past weeks, it was raining all day long, usually boring. We can't go to park, library, shopping centre, and so on. I just stayed at home and watched DVD.
I still remeber one of these moives, it was give me a very strong memory. It's a an old moive "Bruce Alxmighty", it said a unlucky man always complained everything around him, he want to get success in his career,but He found others who were not as nice as him got more chances than he got.
He was very angry and complained the God didn't give him the luck he want.
One day, God desided to give him some power, so that he can use this power to do everything. In the begining the man was very happy, because he could change everything. Sometimes he enjoyed it very much.
However, he found this job was not so easy as he thought, it's a very hard work. As a God, he must answer everyone's question all time.
In the end, he gave up this job, because he found God didn't have real power. If someone wants change completely his life, he only can do it by himself.
That means --Real power is in your own hands.
This is a very nice moive, because it told me that God always make a fair decision, he give everyone the same chance, but if you don't want miss every chance, you must try your best to do everything.

Harvest Moon Festival

In China, we have many national festivals, like Chinese New Year,Labour's Day, National Day and so on. We often do something special for these holidays. But Harvest Moon Festival is my favorite holiday. At the time of the full moon, it's usually 15th August in luner canlendar, people gathered at their homes for dinner, then each family member ate moon cakes, that are special round cookies.People usually eat it at the Harvest Moon Festival, you can't find it in supermarket when it's not right time. It's very delicious.If the sky was clear, my family always sit around the backyard, while enjoying the moon cakes and admiring the full moon. Sometimes my pareants told me some mythes about moon. Moon symbolize beautiful, kindhearted, diligence in China, everyone should be appreciate Moon, beacuse it brings us the light in all night.

Harmony day

Harmony Day is very strange holiday for me before I came to here. I'm very curious about it.

So many people come form different counties, and they bring their culture,their hobbies, and their different everything. In this new country, everyone need learn more new things, and want to keep their own culture, that's a problem. Because sometimes different culture have many opposite direction.We should respect other culture and religion if we want have a peaceful life.

We have been invited to a breakfast on Harmony Day in TAFE hall, and three people make their speech, they have been living here several years, and they came from different countries, but they're enjoy their new life very much, this is the biggest point that they are same.

I feel I have a new large family when we stood and sang "we are one" together, and I'm very happy that I'm one member of the large family.

When I came home, I put some orange flowers in my house, this is my first Harmony Day, it was unforgotten .

Homework

If you study at TAFE, and have a TAFE card, you can come to TAFE library.
You need to bring TAFE card .And you can borrow six books or four video/CD at one time.
You can keep these bookooks two weeks, and borrow these videos for one week.
If you can't return these items in time, You can renew these items. When you want renew these items, you should be make a telephone call to library.You can renew items twice. You can search the library catalogue from home, use the internet.You can't returen books after-hour.
The library is open at 9am-8pm from Monday to Tursday, it is open at 9am-6pm on Friday
You use your TAFE card make photocopies or print from one of the library computers, but first you should be recharge it.Copying costs $0.2 one time.If you are Student Association member, you can get 20% discount about made photocopies or print from one of the library computers. You can borrow books from other TAFE libraries with your TAFE card.

Autumn is coming.

It's begining to Autumn, I think it may be cold very soon,so we went to beach yesterday. We think this is our last time to swiming in sea. But we are luck, because it was sunny day for swiming.

The sunshine was very strong,althought the season is Autumn. But the sea was very cold, I worn the sunscreen and do the same with my daughter. She was excited to play on the sand, she always enjoy play sand with other children. She can't speak English enough, but they can change their ideas, most of time they use body language. That's very funning.

barbucue

Yesterday we went to Royal National Park. We spotted a new excellent place for barbecue.
It's near a river,and there are so many trees around there,and there are several nearly new barbucue cooker. That's where I want, so I decided stay here immediately.

I brought some steaks, some wings, some vegetables, seasonings and so on, but unexpected I forgotten brought cooking oil. I ask for some oil from a other person, he is very friendly and give my some oil. I ask him"Is this your first time to go to here?" He said,"no, I went to here when I was a young boy."Oh,he looks like nearly forty.

The barbucue cooker is extremely easy to use. All you have to do is just press that green button,it's certainly free. I prepared some coins as someone told me it's not free to use the barbucue cooker, Ha...

The weather was very good, no hot means no black fly, but when I left my plate to do something, just a minute,a bird who may be waiting for a long time took a steak,then it stay on tree and look at me,maybe it want to have a special lunch,too.

When we finished our lunch, we laied on the side of the river, I looked the blue sky and white cloud,of course and the bird, it looks like enjoy its lunch.I'm glad it think so.

Anyway, it's a great day. I love roasting outside.