My First Semester in Australia as seen in 3 minutes and 25 seconds

Tea Time!

Amber, Aja, Nicki and I recently have fallen into the habit of having "tea time" together. Essentially we all just hang out and drink tea and talk and gossip and complain and laugh... it's amazing. It's the perfect anti-stress. We just kind of stop whatever else we're doing and stressing about and just chill, like nothing else in the world could be more important that the cup of tea in front of us and the four people around the table. 

I'm not really sure how or when we started this but it's now become pretty much a daily occurrence. If any one of us is upset or overwhelmed we're all just like "tea time?" "yup." 

It's definitely what I'm going to miss most once I go home and next semester... I'll be back here but Amber and Nicki won't be. Which is something we're all trying (and failing) to not think about. 

But anyway, I had my final presentation for my performing culture class... it involved making a huge mess with tomato paste in front of my entire class :P then I came back to my room and just crashed. I seriously slept all day. 12:30pm-6:00pm. Then I woke up and went up to Ambers for tea time :) 

I'm trying to decide if/what I want for dinner. I've taken a strong liking to Egg, Cheese and Vegemite sandwiches. For the record... vegemite on it's own is DISGUSTING, it tastes like beef jerky paste... BUT spread really thin on toast with butter (which is how aussies eat it) it's not bad... on toast with butter and cheese it's pretty good and on toast with butter, cheese and an egg... it's the food of the gods. OM NOM NOM.

On Friday, Christine and Bei hosted a big dinner for all of our friends and their friends and they cooked lots of Malaysian food and everyone else was supposed to bring a dish from their culture. I made caramel apple slices- they were quite popular. It was an awesome time though. Good food, amazing friends, there was just such an energetic and caring atmosphere. Amber and I spent all day friday cooking in my kitchen (she made quiche) and overall it was just a pretty amazing day, I can't entirely explain why. 

Anyway, I promise more Fiji and Fraser Island updates soon... They will have video and pictures and be worth the wait. 

It's thunder storming right now so I'm going outside to watch the rain! 

<3>

Fiji Update: Part 1

First off, I would like to apologize to those of you who have been anxiously (mom) and impatiently (mom) awaiting an update. I also apologize that I have still neglected to share my Fijian adventure... it's going to be quite a bit of writing, so I'm going to break it up over a few posts, probably with more recent updates in between. 

August 27, 2009

Fiji Adventure Begins!

6:30AM- I grudgingly got out of bed after less than two hours of sleep, you've got to love last minute packing. My room was freezing cold because it faces west, away from the sunrise and is shaded by the bush-land ... which is quite nice at all other times of the day. Half awake, I got dressed, updated facebook and did a final check for my passport and all other important documents. 

6:50AM- Mark comes down to my flat, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and we head over to Nicki's. Stacy comes down to give us all a hug and see us off. 

7:00AM- Nicki, Mark and I meet George down by the picnic tables to wait for our cab. Mark thinks he may have forgotten something. False alarm. 

- We take our cab to Helensvale train station, it took us a few minutes to figure out how to use our go-cards to take the train, but we got it eventually. The train ride to Brisbane International Airport was about and hour and a half, which gave us all a chance to get that last little bit of sleep before the adrenaline kicked in. Eventually we arrive at the airport where we check-in (George manages to finagle us all seats together), go through customs and buy duty-free brandy for the tour guide who will be taking us to the village stay. Nicki bought some cards and attempted to teach us how to play a game called "whist", but somehow George and Mark couldn't seem to grasp it. Well, George did eventually, Mark just didn't care enough to pay attention. In Marks own words: "I just want to go wee and write in my diary". It was hilarious and frustrating all at once. 

11:00AM- We board the plane! Nadi, Fiji here we come! We got an on flight meal- I seem to be the only person in the world who gets excited about airplane food. I also got a can of coke that said "Bula!" on it! ("Bula" is Fijian for "Hello" or "welcome") 

On the flight, Mark and I read his lonely planet guide... he read all about the native wildlife and I read the section on Fijian history and culture. 

We land at about 4PM Island time and are immediately greeted by the friendly, laid back atmosphere of the island. ("No worries, we're on Fiji time!") 

- Our complementary shuttle comes and takes us to Mama's Hostel where we meet up with Luke and Trevor (They had gotten in at 6 that morning). Trevor immediately bombards us with stories of their day... many of them less than positive... it was quite irritating at the time but soon became a running joke for the rest of the trip. 

(Mama's Hostel)

Alright, that's all I've got for now. I apologize again for the delay... and the number of times I changed tenses in this post! 

COMING SOON: Kava Time! 

Typical.

Alright, I know everyone is waiting on the edge of their seats for the Fiji update... and it's coming, I PROMISE.

But in the meantime, please enjoy this brief and comical anecdote:

Every Thursday the village has free pancakes in the picnic area starting at 9:30AM. On Thursdays, I have class at 10AM... every week I say I'm going to get up early enough to have pancakes before class... it has yet to happen. 

Last Thursday was no different. So, as per usual, I am running around my apartment getting my books, making some (really bad) coffee, looking for shoes (then giving up and deciding not to wear any). I walk into class balancing my bag on in one hand, coffee in the other just as the lecturer is setting up. I inch into a row of seats and Dave, from Canada, calls from two rows up "What? Are you too cool to sit with me?" After assuring him that I am, in fact, too cool to sit with him, I take a seat. A guy a few seats over looks and me and laughs to himself. I shoot him a quizzical look and he smiles knowingly as he says "You're American?" It was really only half a question. I look at him, confused and a little annoyed that he was able to judge me so quickly,  "How did you know?"

He laughed and pointed at the cup in my hand "Coffee." he says.

Touche. 

Pictures from Nicki's Birthday and American Stereotypes

So, it seems I have to revisit Nicki's Birthday for a moment, as the pictures are just too funny to leave out:

Mark and I had bought cupcake mix, thinking it would be fine to make one cake instead of cupcakes for our double layer cake. Unfortunately, what we didn't realize was that we actually bought mini-cupcake mix so we ended up with super skinny cake layers... we attempted to make up for it by loading the middle of the cake with strawberries and half a can of frosting... Mark got a little over-excited when trying to get the top layer out of the tin... hence the puzzle we attempted to reconstruct on top of the chocolate layer and frosting. :P

Some of the results of the icing fight that ensued. 

As we waited for the cake to bake we also managed to eat about half a can of frosting between the two of us, the resulting sugar rush lead to running and screaming around the flat as we chased each other with handfuls of frosting.

Mark attempted to write "Happy Birthday" in fudge icing but ran out of room and we wound up with a "Happy Birth" Cake. At some point we realized it was a lost cause and dumped endless amounts of sprinkles on it in defeat. :P

Nonetheless, Nicki was thrilled and it was a surprisingly DELICIOUS cake.

Here's Nicki! We printing some photos of all of us at K-mart and put them in dollar-store frames. We also had  everyone sign around the collage in the big frame. That was Mark and I's b-day gift. (along with the cake!) Ta-dah!

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On a totally different note, in my American Foreign Policy tutorial today we went around the room and introduced ourselves. We had to say our name, our year, and one positive and one negative thing about American International Relations. Now, my class is extremely diverse. There are only two Americans, my friend James and myself, a handful of Australians and several people from all over the world so some of the answers were fascinating. However, what was even more interesting than the individual responses was the general consensus of the class the George Bush was evil and Barack Obama is the great future. I found this to be extremely interesting. Even though many of the international students (I use "international" to mean non-American in this case, rather than non-Australian) could not name one specific thing that Obama has done that they think is worthy of such high praise, nonetheless, they all agree that the world should love him. It's an interesting dynamic. I'll expand on this topic later, I'm rather sleepy, but I just wanted to put that little bit of food for thought out there.

Natural Medicine

Monday, Aug. 17th 

Well, I don't have much to write about because I haven't done much this past week/weekend other than lay in bed and rest in order to attempt to get over this flu thing I seem to have acquired. I medicine the doctor gave me didn't do much, so I made an appointment with the on-campus doctor for wednesday. Last time I went to a walk-in clinic in town because the on-campus and other appointment doctors were booked for about a week... and I really didn't want to wait that long to get in. 

Today though, after class, I went to the beach for the first time in about a week. I went with Nicki, Mark, and Trevor and we had a really good time. Honestly, the most effective medicine I've had so far has been sunshine and salt water! Today was the first day since I've been here that it's been legitimately hot outside. It was perfect though because I went swimming! We were at the beach for about four hours and I spent most of that time in the water. It was extremely fun because the tides were fairly intense so there were rather large waves breaking close to the shore. However, because the conditions were so unstable we were careful to stay between the flags. There are two red and yellow flags placed a short distance apart on the beach and there is constantly a team of lifeguards close and watching that area, so as long as you stay between the flags you have nearly a 100% chance of being rescued if something goes wrong. It was an exceptionally good time though, and I was totally worn out afterwards. When we went back to the Village, Trevor made a delicious stir-fry and then we all watched the movie "The Princess Bride", because Mark had never seen it. 

Overall, it was a really good day, and it was really nice to be active again. Being sick and not able to do much has also made me really homesick. Which in turn, stresses me out, which then turns around and makes me feel sicker, which makes me more homesick. It's a vicious cycle. 

Birthday Cakes and Language Barriers

Thursday Aug. 13 (12:11AM)

So, Mark and I had quite an interesting time trying to do some shopping the other day. Nicki's birthday is tomorrow (well, technically today) so Mark and I decided we are going to bake her a cake. Simple enough, right? Not quite. First, we asked Nicki about her favorite kinds cakes she said she liked golden cake with chocolate frosting, or marble cake or strawberry cake. Lots of options. Well... later on as Mark and I were talking we realized that we both have totally different perceptions of cake and the things which one puts on or in a cake. It took about a half hour of frustrated explaining and bickering to realize we were both talking about pretty much the same thing the entire time. See, even though we both speak english - there are so many words that have different implications and meanings from one country to the next. In England, the type of cake we would typically think of as Birthday Cake is specifically referred to as sponge cake, and is different from other varieties of cake. What's more, Icing, frosting, cream, butter cream, jam etc. are all different parts and pieces and eventually it came down to going to the store and pulling items off the shelf in order to show what we meant. It was so frustrating! And we both speak English! 

It's interesting, the differences in one language across three continents. I mean, Australia is famous for it's slang but sometimes it can really be downright confusing. You are sitting in a circle and you all think your talking about the same thing, but in reality the same word has three or four separate meanings! 

On another note, I came face-to-face with real anti-Americanism in one of my classes last week. In my Politics of International Relations class, there are two or three adult (non-traditional) students. One of whom is a 50-something year old Australian man who believes that because he is probably about 20 years older than the professor, he is also far more intelligent. He would constantly interrupt to ramble on about historical dates and names and eventually lead to no actual point or conclusion. What's more, he absolutely hates Americans. And not just American or the American Government but AMERICANS. I found this out in my first tutorial (the lecture class is very large and early in the day, the class is then split into smaller groups and assigned different times to meet for a tutorial... this is where discussion and questions take place) 

So, bitter Australian guy (or, Mr. Obnoxious, as Zoey, from London, and I have affectionately named him) is in my tutorial group, and, as it happens, the first topic is the two Iraq Wars (of 1991 and 2003). The issue was merely the legalities of each war under the UN charter, I opened discussion with a brief synopsis of the UN involvement with each war and the steps which led to violence in each case. I concluded with my own opinion that, barring all moral and historical issues involving Iraq's claim to Kuwait the 1991 war had CLEAR, LEGAL justification, whereas the 2003 did not. 

Well, from the second I opened my mouth and an American accent came out, he must have stopped listening. All of a sudden he was peering over his glasses and rambling about American arrogance and how Americans think they have the right to spread their ideals and democracy and Americans only care about oil and who knows what else. At that point all hope of discussing anything related to the course was lost and class became a debate about American motives in the war and how the American public hates the "Axis of evil" and something about September 11th... There were more buzzwords flying around that room than a fox news broadcast. And when I say "class became a debate" what I mean is Mr. Obnoxious talked over anyone else who opened their mouth to say anything at all. Eventually his accusations of "Americans this..." became "You..." As if I were the embodiment of America. Excuse me? I wasn't even old enough to vote when all this started! 

It was a strange feeling, to be singled out because of something like my nationality... or really, the way I speak. I don't look any different than the Australian girl two seats over, it was my accent that gave me away. It's a strange, new experience to be different and to feel the effects of that difference. It's minor, too, what I've experienced here compared to what millions of minority groups deal with everyday, and in their homelands. To be an American citizen and be discriminated against in your own country... I really couldn't even imagine. 

I'm gaining an interesting perspective though. I don't think I ever realized how influential the U.S. really is to the rest of the world. At home, we are really aware of only ourselves - there's about 10 minutes of news dedicated to the rest of the world, our classes in school revolve around American history, government, economy... because there really is no need for us to understand these things about other countries. But here, everyone is aware of the U.S., U.S. news, history, politics all have media attention, classes, make the newspapers. It's because the U.S. is viewed as the world super power and what they do directly effects everyone else. 

Also, I've gotten some interesting insight on why Americans think the way we do, do the things we do... things we've been taught in every grade level- about our Founding Fathers, The Constitution, and how much reverence we give these things is viewed by the rest of the world as just plain weird. Language we hear politicians use all the time about "the greater good" or "American responsibility to the world", overall sentiments of virtue and grandiose ideals would be scoffed at by Australians should they be said by an Australian politician. Which makes sense, from the outside, a lot of our portrayal of history is somewhat ridiculous. 

All of that being said, I'm really loving Australia. I'm also just now beginning to get over being sick. I may or may not have had swine flu. Yeah, I'm that cool. I'll save my commentary on my brief brush with Australian Healthcare for a later date.

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