To strut our stuff through the winter (and beyond!) Lisa Ballek taught us our Six Steps of Style. From where the pockets of your jeans should be placed, to body shapes, to different ways to tie a scarf, we learnt heaps of tips to go through our wardrobe and start dressing for who we really are – not who we were ten years ago!
Ever wondered what all this talk of “Paleo-living” is all about? Thanks to Charby Ibrahim from the Ancestral Body we all know a little more about how to live like our predecessors – avoiding processed foods and sticking to good quality, organic ingredients. However, sometimes those things can just be so darn tasty and so we welcomed back Adrian from BrewSmith to tell a fresh rabble of thirsty students how to craft their very own beers! With plenty of tasty local and international examples along the way we had another great night of Homebrewing!
Meanwhile, downstairs at Shebeen, Tegan Ang taught us that there is no step-by-step guide to finding the perfect partner in D is for Dating! It is all about honesty, because everyone is different. Most important of all though is that dating is about having fun. We learnt about some of the things you can do to make things go a little smoother and exchanged stories and experiences giving us all the motivation to go and find that special someone. But first, if you’re a bit of a traditional romantic then maybe Casey’s Easy Peasy Posies class would be a great way to help you kick things off, with a bunch of flowers to surprise your date. The Little Mule was filled with the amazing scents from the flowers and everyone was having a great old time – a messy class but definitely worth it!
Keeping it messy we were learning all about worms and Worm Farming: Food Wate to Fertiliser down at The Little Mule with Eric Dando. Did you know that the four main things worms need are darkness, moisture, food and an alkaline pH? If your worm farm starts to smell stop adding your scraps but try putting in things like egg shells, oak leaves, soggy cardboard and old coffee grounds or tea bags to get it back tip top condition. The worms probably like old posies too!
For 5,000 years people in China have been passing down their knowledge of foods and health. Kim Riley and Naomi Jankowski took us on a wonderful tour of Chinese Health and Medicine and how some people modify their diets to help them live happier and healthier lives.
Is there anything that Jenny Zhang from Vera Chan cannot do? We welcomed Jenny back to teach us all about Japanese Gift Wrapping, originally used to wrap lunchtime bento boxes for the workers in the fields! Even better, once we had finished with all our wrapping we also learnt how to tie the perfect bow – fantastic! I am feeling a repeat of this class sometime in December?
Who knew Embroidery could be so easy?! Sue Southern sure made it simple, teaching us all the basic stitches as well as some more advanced ones such as the loved, and equally hated, French knot (insider tip: it’s quite easy, just keep the thread tight!). We gawked at amazing embroidery pieces from different times and styles and then we got busy doing running, back and split stitches. By the end of the class, we all had a pretty embroidered linen to take home!
Owen Thomas got us going in Kick Start Your Life with a colouring competition (!) before getting us to think about what direction we’re travelling in, and which path we’d rather be on. With some inspiring personal stories and a step-by-step worksheet we started thinking about what aspects of our lives we’d like to make a bit better and left motivated to make the changes!
Now, if the posy trick didn’t work so well breaking the ice on your first date don’t worry. Think that you have to say something when you first meet someone? Think again! In A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Awareness Nala Neahru invited us to silently gaze at each other in a totally relaxing and nonjudgmental setting. And you know what? After the gazing was finished, every pair spoke to one another almost as if they were old friends. Silence is golden rings true in an unexpected way!
But if silence isn’t quite for you, what about Opera? It gets a bit of a bad rap, but it’s not just large women in Viking horn helmets belting out the loudest, highest notes they can. Sascha Kelly and Justina Lui showed us a variety of arias, and even had an awesome team of singers and pianist perform some live. And to finish it off, we saw a snippet of “What’s Opera Doc” arguably the greatest operatic achievement of all time.