Eleonor Collins

I can honestly say these past three weeks since coming back to Sydney, Australia has been a roller coaster ride for me personally. Having been away on holidays for so long, I found it difficult to settle back into things, namely finding the right sort of work for me. About 3 weeks ago I worked for a day with RGC Advertising as a freelance Graphic Designer but found out it wasn't for me and then just yesterday I finished up working as a graphic designer for Strategic Campaign Associates after only three weeks. I felt terrible giving notice after only 3 days of work particularly since I had accepted the commitment as a full time employee. However, the company were really nice considering the circumstances as I continued to work for another two weeks. My colleagues were really nice to work with, but due to another job offer coming round, much closer to home with a good grounding for career development, I decided to take the move to Xavier Communications as a Finished Artist. I

I've been back in Australia for a little over a week now and I'm finally reaquinted with my home surroundings and well over the jet lag as well. :) Last Sunday I caught up with some of the family over a small get together that was held to wish my brother Henry and his girlfriend Megan, all the best for their fantastic 6 month world trip which they begin next Monday, the 20th of November. They finish their trip in London, UK where they will work for a year or two. It's no doubt going to be the adventure of a lifetime for them (especially when they get to South America :)) but we're going to miss them extremely! :( However I can't wait to read up on Henry and Megan 's adventures! Whilst they've been busy wrapping up and relocating their belongings, I've been busy organising my CV and applying for numerous jobs. However I'm happy to say I no longer have to search because tomorrow I start a new job with Strategic Campaign Associates after a succe

Yesterday evening was when dad and I said farewell to our family in Ecuador. It was extremely hard to let go of the family which I had only just started to get to know. I shed many tears with some members of the family at the airport but promised to return very soon and not every 30 years, which is the length of time dad hadn´t returned to South America. Next time I hope we can come for Christmas and New Year for a BIG family reunion and bring everyone from Australia, which is what I originally wanted this trip to be. We made the most of the time we did have and shared some great weekends with the family and travelled to some very exciting places in Ecuador during the working week. We especially enjoyed our relasing time with the family in Papallacta´s natural hot springs on the second last day in Ecuador. We´d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our family in Ecuador for everything and for spending time with us over the past month. We have really enjoyed our time with e

The great thing about Ecuador is that it's a relatvely small country compared to other countries in South America and has lots to offer adventuring tourists. I'm talking about the mighty Oriente, the Amazon! Dad & I just recently returned from our awesome 5 day adventure to the Cuyabeno Reserve in The Oriente of Ecuador through Samona Expeditions. We went fairly deep into the jungle. Just to give you an indication we took a bus from Quito to Lago Agrio (7 hrs), then a van to the Cuyabeno River (2 hrs) and then we took a motorised canoe on the beautiful river to reach our naturally beautiful Samona Lodge(2 hrs). Even though it took a while to reach our lodge the canoe ride over the river warmed us up for the adventures that awaited us in the jungle. Dad and I took a motorised canoe up the Cuyabeno River (the boat about 25m length) manned by two men, Dario (18yrs, the Captain of the boat who was in control of the engine) and Frederico (about 30s up the front of the boat).

!Buenós dias¡ Today dad and I finished our 5 day trip through the beautiful Galapagos Islands! We went on a boat cruise that took us from Santa Cruz island to Bacha Beach, North Seymour Island, Santa Fe, Española Island, Floreana Island and then back to Santa Cruz Island. It was a fantastic trip even though I feel like I´m still on the boat from all the swaying over the last 5 days. The flight over to the islands went smoothly and I remember my first reaction when we first saw the islands as we flew over. Is this the Galapagos Islands?! It looks like a desert! I had expected the place to be overwelmed by luscious fouliage and trees! We entered Baltra airport which used to be used for US military base. However most of the islands we visited were quite barren as this time of the year the trees lose their leaves even though the rain was well and truely present almost everyday we were there. Some of the best highlights on this trip would first and foremost be witnesssing nature and the b

Hóla once again. It´s been a while since my last entry and I´ve been quite busy touring Ecuador and a very small part of Colombia. Dad and I visited a small town north of Ecuador called Tulcán for it´s large and well known cemetery there. I hear you saying....Cemetery?! Yep, cemetery. The gardens are the main feature there as the cemetery is lined with giant hedges that are sculptured into geometric shapes, pre-Colombian symbols and various animals. It was such an awesome sight to see! The figures were very cute, especially the animals. The graves were equally beautiful as the burial places are above-ground tombs stacked atop of one another so that they resembled a mini apartment complex rather than a final resting place. The entrance of the tombs are heavily adorned with shrines and beautiful fresh flowers. The day after visiting Tulcán we crossed the border into Colombia to visit the famous church Virgin de las Lajas. A magnificent church built against a cliff face! Absolutely aw

Hi Everyone! In the last few days in Ecuador, Dad and I have been visiting some of the local cities near Quito, Ecuador. Our family have been showing us around to many beautiful places. Yesterday Dad and I went to Baños which was about 3 hrs drive from Quito. My uncle Marco, his wife (Lucia) and his son (Mauricio's) family invited us out for the day. It was difficult to wake up in the morning because the previous day we went to my cousin's son's Baptism celebration which was in the evening and went through till early hours of the morning. We did manage to wriggle out of bed though. On the way we passed a volcano that errupted 3 months ago, Tunguragua. The whole city had to be evacuated at the time. We stopped to have a look at the destruction that it caused which was incredible. Many tourists were there picking up some of the rocks that were left there. We also passed a town (forgive me for not remembering the name) where they mainly manufacture jeans clothing. There

¡Hola todos! Dad and I have been in Quito, Ecuador for the past four days, since 21st of September. We came from our very brief stay in La Paz, Bolivia where the shopping was cheap and the traffic plenty. On arrival at Quito airport we weren´t sure if we´d be greeted by anyone in the family. Upon our exit from customs we didn´t see anyone from the family so we were quite disappointed. Dad then proceeded to go to one of the phone booths at the airport when I noticed a young man with aviation sunglasses walking towards me with another lady beside him. I was my cousin Carlos Alberto who had come to Australia to study a few years ago with his mother Susanna! Some of our family was there! We were so happy because it turned out that a lot of our family had come to the airport to see us! About 10 people! I just wish I knew a lot more Spanish because most of them don´t speak English. I´ve been trying to speak in Spanish most of the time. It´s been quite trying and funny at the same time. W

Our trip through Peru has almost come to an end. Tomorrow we leave Puno and make our way to La Paz in Bolivia. I am feeling very sad yet happy at the same time because we´ll be meeting the family very soon. Ok I better get typing! The last few days have been great! From visiting Cusco´s local archaeological sites; Sacsaywahman, Tambomachay, Quenqo, Puka Pukara to shopping in the local markets to experiencing the wonderful nightlife clubbing in Cuzco....it´s all been amazing! Cuzco is a very busy city and there always seems to be something happening everyday. In total we spent 4 days in Cuzco and we saw two parades which celebrated two of the 400 saints that Cuzco regularly celebrate down the streets of the Plaza de Armas (the Main Square). On the last day in uzco there was another parade. This one was a Marching Parade that is held every Sunday through Cuzco´s main Square. It starts with the Military Band followed by a series of different groups like schools, hotels, environment

So much has happened in the last week that it{s going to be very difficult to type it all up in the space of an hour but I'll try my best. After flying up from Arequipa to Cuzco we had an easy day in Cuzco. We just wondered the local streets soaking up the culture and atmosphere of this huge city. It's the 3rd largest city in Peru (I think) with 300 000 people. Later that afternoon we met with our local Inca Trail guide called Coco who ran through what we'd be doing on the Inca Trail over the next 4 days. He English was pretty good so it was easy to understand him, he was also an easy going guy. The next day we had to be ready for 6:30am to be at 82km (the start of the Inca Trail) for 7:30am. It was a beautiful day for hiking. We hiked for 14km the first day which was mostly up hill. Along the way we passed many houses with goats, horses, pigs and chickens. The hike was extremely tiring for me and I really regretted not doing any active exercise before leaving Oz. The

After a lengthy evening bus ride to Arequipa from Nazca which took around 8 hours, we all had a free day to wonder around this beautiful city. Arequipa is called the white city due to many of the buildings being carved out of lava and soil from a volcanic erruption that happened in the past. It´s one of the most beautiful cities we´ve seen so far and the atmosphere is a buzz here. The following day we made our journey to Colca Canyon, our local tour guide Fernando was great and very knowledgable about the area. We stopped at many vantage points along the way to Colca Canyon. The mountain terraces (flat planes in the mountain side used for farming) are incredible, although these days aren´t widely used. Mining is the main source of income for a lot of the people. We went to the highest point in the region which was 4971m (or there abouts), there we found many small rock towers that people had constructed as an offering to the mountains to let them have a safe journey. Quite specta

Today has been another adventurous day in Peru. I´m absolutely knackered! Early this morning we all made our way to the local airport to have a one hour flight over the Nazca lines; it was absolutely amazing experience. It´s really hard to describe it, I guess it´s just one of those things where you have to be there. However I forgot to bring my tea tree oil to sniff because if anyone knows me well I have terrible motion sickness. I was ok for most of the flight but when we landed back at the airport the pilot did one fast hairpin turn and that was enough to make me bring up all my delicious breakfast...I felt so awful and gross. Lucky there were bags there. Sorry for the ones back home who have just finished eating! I´m so glad we stayed on the ground afterwards. We visited a local cemetery of the Nazca people. It was extrodinary to see these open graves that had a whole family together as well as some of their possessions in order to bring it with them in the afterlife. We also

Yesterday we met the people in our tour group and funnily enough the majority are from Australia. :) About half Oz, one Japanese, two English, and one Canadan. The majority of the group are quite young with the oldest going to 55years or there abouts. We also met our tour leader Nicolas who has been doing this profession for about 4 months but has been a guide in other things for 4 years. It{s amazing that he's only 22 years old! Right now we're in Pisco, Peru and relaxing after our bus ride from Lima which was about 4 hours. Our hotel is beautifully furnished and adorned with Peruvian arts and crafts. It's very homely and has a wonderful atmosphere. Before arriving here though, it was hard to believe that such a nice place could be in the midst of very poor neighbourhoods. On our way here we passed two funerals which were street funerals; massive crowds follow a car adorned with flowers and the procession is quite amazing. Music is played and from what I saw the peopl

Yesterday dad and I had a very late night in Lima-Miraflores trying to fix my iPod at a local Internet cafe (they operate 24 hours a day which is great!). The problem I was having was that I couldn´t download photos from my camera and the iPod also had photos on there that weren´t showing on the menu. The only solution I could see was to re-install the iPod updater. This would mean I´d lose all the songs I put on there, which was probably only 3 albums, so that was not much of a sacrifice. Well I´m very happy now because now I can download the pictures directly from my camera again after installing the iPod updater from the PC here in Lima. :) I´m hoping the iPod behaves itself for the rest of the trip. Anyway later today we are meeting our tour guide to discuss our 3 week tour through Peru. We met Nicholas (tour guide) briefly this morning to meet him and to find out what was happening because we only had notice today about our tour. Very late notice. So we´ll find out more later. T

It´s been a very long day so I´ll keep this short. Dad and I went on the Lima City Tour today and saw many great places including a tour of the Cathedral of the Francescas and the Catacombes. Quite amazing! It was the very first place where the religious believers were practicing and were buried since there were no cemeteries. I´ve had terrible issues with my iPod but it may be fixed now. I have to go but I´ll try uploading some photos before we go. My poor dad is sleeping in the seat next to me as I´m typing this it´s 1:25 am

Hola con Todos, My dad and I are here in Lima and we are doing well after a very long.....flight from Sydney! In total to get to Lima it took 29 hours! So I couldn´t wait for the hotel bed, it beats sleeping in the Airport for 8 hours :) Lan CHile the airline is very good and gave me some Spanish conversation practice. :) The airline food was the best I´ve ever tasted as well. We are having a very difficult time coping with the jet lag. We arrived at Lima´s airport to find that no one was waiting for us so that was a terrible start to the end of our very exhausting trip. So the nice people in the airport who contact transport, helped us out and contacted our Gap tour here in Lima. After about half an hour of them helping us, we just took a taxi which they organised for us because no one was there. The first impression of this place was that it reminded us of Philippines; the honking horns, the pollution and even the people drive the same. There are crowded buses here too! :) We ha

It’s hard to believe that today is my last day at work here at uni (I’m on my lunch break so I have an excuse for this post). ☺ Due to changing circumstances that can’t be over turned at the university, I will no longer be working here. I feel a little sad that the future of the Centre is changing but more importantly many people that I have had the pleasure of working with are having to leave as well because of the change. To all the colleagues that I leave behind, I wish you all the best in the changing face of the Centre. May it continue to strive for excellence in support for academic staff and their students. To all the colleagues leaving, I wish you all the best in your future and may wherever you go be an exciting experience for you. So where do I go from here? Overseas! Hehe, yes I’m leaving again! This time overseas! At the moment I’m in the final packing stage for my holiday to Peru and Ecuador! I’m not thinking about me being jobless at all really. I suppose if I had de

Last week I was blown away by the electrifying performance of Sydney rockers, Wolfmother! They'd recently landed back in the land of Oz to do a couple of shows before they head back overseas to the US and Europe. The sold out concert last Thursday, the 20th of July at The Hordern Pavillion in Sydney opened with two support acts; The Tucker B's (Australia) and Dungen (Sweden). The high theatrical-like drama and energy from the Tucker B's was definately kooky and strange, yet easily fantastical at the same time. Their unique stage presence and belching songs was surreal and impressionable. I then almost lost myself in the psychedelic sounds from Dungen, a band from Sweden. The beautiful sounds that came from the combination of the flute and band instruments were reminiscent of the free love and spirit of the 70s. The headline performance by Wolfmother was awesome and they looked real good too! :) The Sydney trio really know how to rock the socks off everyone and I was glad

A few blog posts back I mentioned a competition that I entered called 'Junior Lucky Bastard'. Today I checked out the 55dsl website and foudn out they'd decided on two winners. Unfortunately I wasn't one but nevertheless, 55dsl made some two very good choices. The winners were Jeremy Angelier (top choice) and Rob Jung (hilariously funny try hard :)). I'll be keeping a look out for the hilarious antics they get up to. Check out their applications .

Yesterday night I was dazzled by the spectacular performance of Coldplay live at the Sydney Entertainment Centre! Their show was filled with amazing music accompanied by wonderful surprises, amazing lazer shows and big screen motion graphics; it was more than enough to "ignite your bones". (Coldplay-Fix You) The support act was from Youth Group (Perth, Australia). I hadn't heard much of their music so I was looking forward to hearing them live for the first time. Youth Group performed brilliantly and their songs are beautiful; the ambience created by the nostalgic-like sounds were magical at times. Coldplay then kicked off their concert performed Square One from their latest album X & Y which simultaneously featured a huge count down digital ticker on the large screen on stage . The excitement was generated immediately and everyone knew we were going to be in for a great concert! They played all my favourite tracks, including ones from their second album Rush of Bl

Yesterday night I watched the spell-bounding live performance by Puppetry Master David Strassman at the Blacktown Workers Club. It was incredible to watch Strassman have conversations with Chucky, Ted E. Bare and other characters simultaneously! At times he had three-four way conversations!! Amazing! Even in one part where Strassman stuffed up, Chucky was quick to exclaim "You just F*@!ed up your line!" which had Strassman laughing for a while with the audience laughing even harder. Chucky was very naughty as usual; swearing a lot and picking on people in the audience, so Strassman punished him by putting him in the gay pink naughty chair to which Chucky rebelled against but was put there anyway. Strassman told Chucky that he could easily be replaced. At this point in the show he picked out a man and woman from the audience to help him out on stage. To the audience's surprise he turned them into puppets by placing a mask over their mouths. This mask had a moving mou

What's that?! :) Yep, I want to be one of the Lucky Bastards who is offered the chance to travel the world in 55 days and get paid doing it! Early this morning, I submitted my video for the ultimate experience. The video is a short black and white, 'Charlie Chaplin-styled', documentary of my trip to the USA to visit mum (late in 2004). This is the first video project I have made and I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning to complete it, so I'm hoping that it's a winner! I have some stiff competition though. For those of you who want to watch it, you can find the video here . You'll need to download the file in order to view it properly. Any comments about the video are greatly appreciated!

On Saturday the 3rd of June I watched one of my favourite bands perform for a recording at Foxtel for CD:Live, End Of Fashion from Perth, Australia. I knew about this all thanks to the band posting up a bulletin on myspace.com, for the chance to win exclusive tickets to the performance! I brought my cousin Cecile who is also into the band along for the show. With all the cuts and retakes that television is filled with, End of Fashion did manage to keep their cool and performed brilliantly playing two songs; their latest single release 'The Game' and their first release 'Oh Yeah'. It was their catchy tunes and high energy performance which kept us buzzing with excitement. It was hard to believe I was one of about 40 people to watch them perform and be interviewed only an arms-length away from them, it was very surreal. Before their interview which was on a massive pink u-shaped couch, I had a small chat to Rodney (back up vocalist and guitarist) after he asked if any

On Saturday May 13th, Daniel and I checked out the gig by the Perth boys Eskimo Joe at the Annandale Hotel. Having never seen them live or even knowing much of their other songs aside from the ones that have received the most airplay ("From the Sea" and their latest "Black Fingernails, Red Wine") we were hoping for some great tunes and yes they did deliver! :) I remember the first song I ever heard of Eskimo Joe was when I was back in year 11 (wow that's almost seven years ago!) and I heard "Turn Up Your Stereo". I really took a liking to that song and if I was to hear that song now (instead of back then) and compare it to the songs made recently, I would never have thought it was from the same band. Eskimo Joe have certainly come a long way since then! Eskimo Joe's support acts were the Offcuts and Red Jezebel (Perth). Their live performance was also quite engaging and I especially liked the unusual but lovely mix of country/alternative/rock and

I've expanded my blogging-ness to mySpace.com, although I really just signed up to myspace so I could check out musician/band images and talk directly to them via the messaging board. The only down-side to this site is that you have to do a free register before you can check out anyone's pictures or message them directly and you always have to login to your account in order to do this (a bit of a hassle). So Blogger still kicks ass when it comes to viewing and sharing. Myspace address is http://www.myspace.com/eleonortapia

I've just set up a new blog where I will be publishing the latest on design and e-learning. Read about the exciting new web resource in Quality In Learning and Teaching-QILT from the University of Western Sydney, produced by the Educational Development Centre (EDC) here!

  Nickelback banner outside The Superdome   Chad on stage with a massive tv screen in the middle of the stage, which was one of three   The total band on stage   Close-up of The Chad in action On Saturday the 29th of April, Daniel and I were rocked by Nickelback in concert at the Sydney Superdome!...although much to our disappointment, the fans around us were like zombies in front of a tv at home who couldn't be bothered getting off their asses the whole time! The concert was awesome and certainly wasn't a reflection of what was happening around us in terms of the unlively "older" fans. It had everything I had come to love from their first concert back in 2004 for their Long Road tour; pyrotechnics, fireworks, explosions and lots of it! The band's ability to entertain the crowd was incredible. Not only did they shoot out freebies to the audience via small hand-held canons but they also did their famous "beer-o'clock" segment! This is where the band

On Thursday the 27th of April my boyfriend Daniel and I had a massive night of heavy metal at the Sydney Superdome! This was my first taste of REALLY heavy metal music live in concert and I loved it! The line up for the evening featured four Heavy Metal bands from the USA (with all three support bands never having played in Australia before); 10 Years , Hatebreed , Disturbed , followed by the main performers, Korn . As you would expect the night included plenty of shouting, jumping, moshing, and crowd surfing,(especially in the mosh pit that went off on the general admission floor! It looked quite violent in the heavier songs). By the end of the night my neck was sore and Daniel had lost his voice from all the singing/shouting along to his favourite tracks from Disturbed and Korn. The only real let down for the evening (besides the fact I couldn't bring my digital camera in with me) was that the sound for Korn wasn't right; the lead singer couldn't be heard over the drownin

Great news everyone! FBI now streams online. Go to the FBI website here . FBI play a diverse range of ecclectic music from instrumental/dance, electro, funk, indy/rock from Australia and abroad. Check out their site for more info.

Just a quick note to say that I'm featured on the frontpage at Noise today! Please support me and vote for my work at this link . I am number 28 and my work is called Retro Tie Series. A monthly prize of $1000 is given to the top voted work. You can vote once a day. There's 20 days left. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Just a quick note to say that I'll be the featured artist on the Noise website entry page tomorrow the 11th of April! The work featured is something which I made back in Second year uni so it isn't really polished but it's awesome to be even featured on the site! Vote for my work so I can win $$ :) Thanks! Visit the Noise website to view. Noise is a website that features work from artists who are 25yrs or less who produce work in any of these categories: art, illustration, design, photography, motion graphics, animation, writing or music. I'm going to upload more recent work to Noise over the next few weeks and enter some of the competitions that are currently running as well.

Friday the 7th of April was a very exciting day for me, because at approximately 4:25pm I gave a live speal on Australian national radio about my dramatic morning in purchasing the hotly contested Arctic Monkeys tickets. I wrote into Triple J's Great Day/Crap day segment with Robbie Buck's Topshelf radio. (This is where you request a song for a great day and a song for a crap day). A lady from the station called me on my mobile at about 3:15pm and said she'd call me back between 4:45 and 5:15pm. I told family and some friends they could catch me on the radio at this time but Triple J ended up calling me at 4:20pm and only two people I told heard me on the radio, along with the rest of Australia who was tuning in at this time. I spoke to Robbie Buck which was pretty cool and it was just like speaking to someone I knew over the phone. It was a great experience even though they couldn't play my song requests in the end, they played Mardy Bum from The Arctic Monkeys inste

On the 25th of January I threw myself into The Franz Ferdinand concert at The Enmore Theatre and boy was it HOT! The concert kicked off with support group, Cut Copy who warmed us up with their enthusiasm and energetic dance beats till Franz Ferdinand made their appearance. Franz Ferdinand, my favourite band who come from Glasgow, Scotland, captured the crowd with their awesome tunes and catchy beats. My friend Ebony and I were very fortunate to witness them up close, literally only 3m away from the gorgeous band, especially the sexy steely-eyed, lead singer Alex! Aaaah it was bliss!! Lovely Scottish boys! :) They played all their hit songs including their number one song from last years Triple Js Hottest 100, Take Me Out. It was beautiful watching them perform and hear the audience singing along to all their lyrics. Being swept up by everyone around us jumping along to the beats, was also another thrilling experience, quite funny at some points too! We had such a great time danci