My mother has informed me that I haven't posted in a few days, so my apologies!
:D

This past week has been a rather busy one!

On Monday, I was the guest speaker for the Rotary Club of Five Dock. They were such a nice group! I am always happy to be engaged in discussion following a presentation. It makes me feel as if I haven't completely bored folks to boredom and/or sleep.

The Tara in Action
(Courtesy of Peter Komander, Five Dock Rotarian)

Tuesday was a bit of a study day for me---and a much needed one at that! In the morning, however, I went to U.P.S. to put in my morning tutoring. We finally had the chance to solidify our plans for the mural project, so now the project is progressing at a much accelerated rate (which is FANTASTIC!).

Major kudos to my fellow Scholars Toby, Jamie, Julie and Thomas. I had asked them to donate a book each (or however many they wanted to purchase) to the U.P.S. library. I plan to provide the books donation on the day of the mural unveiling (June 22nd). I'm very happy to say that between the 5 of us we have amassed 15 books. Woo-hoo! :)
There will be bookplates placed inside each book to indicate that the donation was made by a 2007 Ambassadorial Scholar (with the Scholar's name and home country noted as well).

Also mad props to my host club, the Rotary Club of Balmain. I can't say enough great things about those folks---they're fab! :) They've really come through with some great support for the mural project. They're making the purchase of the walls that the murals will be painted on. I was really relieved to hear that they had approved sponsorship of the project---it lends a lot of legitimacy to the project (in my eyes, anyhow). It's really nice to see that their support even extends to the projects I'm working on.
I think that the President of the Balmain RC is also going to furnish certificates of participation to the students. It was also mentioned that a plaque would be provided to go along with the mural. This would be a great touch to show Balmain Rotary's commitment to literacy/international awareness beyond their community.

Getting back to the run-down of my week...
I took the train to Wollongong on Wednesday to speak to the West Wollongong Rotary Club. Jamie Fumo (a Scholar based in the Wollongong area) and I tag-teamed, which was nice. She really has a great host club---they were all very nice and hospitable! I enjoyed the trip down the coast and look forward to going back soon! I'm hoping to take the train down to Thirroul (which is on the way to Wollongong) one Sunday and just spend the afternoon having coffee and study on the beach.
Here's a little peak of the scenery in the Thirroul area:
Let's see...
Thursday was a supervisory session day. I met with both supervisors to discuss my ethics application. I cannot get over how intense the ethics app is! It really is a massive headache. I can understand and appreciate its importance...but come on! Ugh...

Friday was lovely.
The Scholars were invited to attend the District Presidents' and Presidents-Elect Dinner in Sutherland. I was very fortunate to be provided transport to the event by Judith. As always, we had some great conversation and some really good laughs (my sides were sore and my eyes were watering from all the laughing I did!).
The dinner was nice. It was our opportunity to meet Presidents/Presidents Elect from all over the district and try to sell our presentation, so to speak. We were initially told that there wouldn't be time for us to address the attendees as a whole and that we would be expected to circulate and to each sit at different tables so that we could meet more Rotarians. However, I was approached by the DG-Elect (while I was in the throes of stuffing my face and discussing Schostakovich with one of the Rotarians at my table) to let me know that each of the Scholars were about to be called forward to give a 1 minute speech. I did the one thing I do best: make an ass of myself. All I'm going to say is I sounded like an idiot in the 1 minute I was allocated. I wouldn't be surprised if I ruined my chances of subsequent presentations!

There really isn't a whole lot more to go on about, really.

More later...