I'm still alive.
So I’ve been meaning to upload more photos for awhile, and my family just informed me over Skype this morning that it’s been a whole month since I’ve updated. Whoops. I’m horrible at keeping in touch, I know it. Things here have picked up, though, and I haven’t been too keen on sitting at my computer during my free time.
First, some karaoke with Steph.
Anyway. Classes are going... alright... I turned in my first paper on Friday, an essay on Australian egalitarianism (or lack thereof). I was pretty oblivious to Australia’s racism and economic disparities when I first got here, but after learning a bit more about Aussie history it seems that America isn’t the only fucked up nation on Earth. I’ve also talked a lot more with Gary Foley, my crazy Aboriginal activist tutor (who has a Wikipedia entry!) about Aboriginal history, and it’s pretty ridiculous what his people have had to deal with, and still do. Some people think he’s too biased, but I’m just stoked to be able to discuss things with him. And he’s a riot. He’s egotistical as all hell, and told us that we shouldn’t care about the mark he gives us for our essays, but rather if his signature is legible, as that will make it more valuable on eBay after he’s dead. But really, he only jokes about dying because the average life expectancy for an Aboriginal man is 56 years, his age this year. *sigh. Aboriginals have really been dealt a crap hand.
I have to turn in papers for my other 3 classes within the next week and a half. So basically, I’ll be pretty busy.
But! On the 14th I’m going on a trip to central Australia! It’ll be a lot of driving (Melbourne to Alice Springs is 2400km/1500mi) on a small bus, but it should be a blast. I’m going with other UniMelb international students, and Noah and Sarah will be there, too. We’re leaving early Friday morning, stopping at Morgan, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy (infamously eccentric opal mining township), Kata Tjuta, Yulara, Uluru (Ayers Rock - the world’s largest monolith with a 9.3km circumference), King’s Canyon, Alice Springs, and Adelaide, and returning to Melbourne on Monday night, the 24th. We’ll be hiking a lot, sleeping under the stars half of the nights, and seeing a lot of Aboriginal culture. So excited!!
Speaking of trips, Sarah, Noah, and I booked a trip to New Zealand. We’ll be on this tour during reading week, starting 30 May. It’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll return to the States exhausted and broke, but I certainly can’t complain. I’m looking forward to learning a bit about the Maori, and I’ll be skydiving and caving there, too. Because I don’t have any exams, I’m going to turn in all my papers before I leave... so when I get back to Melbourne, I’ll have about 3 weeks off before heading to Hawaii (Shaun’s meeting me there!!!<3) and then home. I’ll probably hit up Cairns/the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney in that time, further emptying my (and at that point probably my parents’) bank account.
But that’s all in the future. I’ve actually done a lot of traveling since I last wrote, too. I went on a Butler-sponsored adventure weekend in the Grampians, a mountain range a few hours from Melbourne. We did some hiking, abseiling (repelling), and rock climbing. And - oh god - the place we stayed was fantastic. It might have been the best food I’ve had since being here; homemade camp food rivals even the best of Lygon Street.
Saw a young roo feeding, which was... funny.
The area just experienced a pretty bad bushfire. This was the hottest place I’ve been in Oz, everything was charred black.
View from the top of Mt. Abrubt
Me and some of the Butler kids
I don’t have any pictures from it, but I also went on a sea kayaking daytrip with Butler. We partnered up in kayaks and learned how to ride the surf into the beach. So much fun, I think I might try to rent a kayak and do it myself sometime.
Also, the Commonweath Games came and went. Two weeks of craziness in the city, let me tell you... Aussies love their sports. I watched the opening ceremony from on the bank of the Yarra river, and saw some Rugby 7s (think rugby divided by two - fewer people and 14min games) at the Telstra Dome. And of course, the games were broadcast all day long on TV. The Aussies dominated, winning 200-something medals, 80 or so gold. Also, Festival Melbourne, a huge arts and music festival, ran for the length of the games. There were free events from morning to night at venues all over the city. I unfortunately only made it to a few, but they were spectacular.
Melbourne = party.
Each country had a big fish, they were awesome.
Some of the best fireworks I’ve ever seen
Steph and Alex showing their Aussie spirit
Austalia vs. New Zealand rugby 7s
Noah and Sarah
Steph, Alex, and I saw a free 4 hour percussion concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, it may have been the coolest thing to ever enter my ears. There were groups from around the world/Commonwealth... South African drumming, crazy Canadian stomp-like percussion, Evelyn Glennie (deaf solo percussionist who has worked with Bjork and Bela Fleck), and Talvin Singh! (who I actually knew of beforehand and has also worked with Bjork, Future Sound of London, and Massive Attack).
After the concert
Also since I last wrote, I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens with Steph and Brian, where Brian and I got into a fight with a statue...
...and saw some palm trees. There were obviously a lot of other flowers, but I’m not big on plant photos, I guess.
Oh, and these are from Steph and my trip to the Melbourne Museum awhile back.
I saw some ants.
3D glasses have never looked hotter.
This last weekend I went on trip along the Great Ocean Road, a 300km highway along the southern coast of Australia. It was a lot of fun and I met a bunch of new people, including a guy who’s going on our central Australia trip. The weather was actually horrible, though, the worse since I’ve been here. We went surfing first thing in the morning, which was particularly hard since I was out dancing until 3:30am the night before and got less than 2 hours of sleep. And it was pouring, and cold, and the waves were so dumpy that I didn’t get up once. But at least it woke me up.
We also saw some koalas, and they were way closer than the ones I saw on Phillip Island.
We saw the famous Twelve Apostles, big pillars of rock left after erosion of the cliffs.
I thought they would be kinda small.
Just kidding! They were huge.
Loch Ard Gorge, a crazy coastline named after a ship that crashed into it.
I took like 50 more pictures, but they’re just rocks and water. You get the point.
Then we stopped at a waterfall. Butler reunion! Courtney, Noah, me, Jenny, and Seth
I think that about covers everything I’ve done here. Well, kinda…
...and now the inevitable party/nightlife pictures. Skip this if you’re related to me and over 30 :-P
Brandeis reunion!
So one night, we decided to drink 40s and play cards before going out. We never made it out, which is probably good, because for some reason most of us wore pink shirts and that would have been weird.
Dave, Noah, and me, out in St. Kilda for Noah’s 21st.
Me and Noam
Dave and Noah...
...right before we bought Noah a birthday "Karma Chameleon."
(imagine it on fire)
I’ve got a bunch of pictures from Noah’s birthday party that I hosted in our apartment the following night, but my camera died before I could upload them. It was another night where hanging out and drinking with friends turned into a night-long affair. I love nights like that.
First, some karaoke with Steph.
Anyway. Classes are going... alright... I turned in my first paper on Friday, an essay on Australian egalitarianism (or lack thereof). I was pretty oblivious to Australia’s racism and economic disparities when I first got here, but after learning a bit more about Aussie history it seems that America isn’t the only fucked up nation on Earth. I’ve also talked a lot more with Gary Foley, my crazy Aboriginal activist tutor (who has a Wikipedia entry!) about Aboriginal history, and it’s pretty ridiculous what his people have had to deal with, and still do. Some people think he’s too biased, but I’m just stoked to be able to discuss things with him. And he’s a riot. He’s egotistical as all hell, and told us that we shouldn’t care about the mark he gives us for our essays, but rather if his signature is legible, as that will make it more valuable on eBay after he’s dead. But really, he only jokes about dying because the average life expectancy for an Aboriginal man is 56 years, his age this year. *sigh. Aboriginals have really been dealt a crap hand.
I have to turn in papers for my other 3 classes within the next week and a half. So basically, I’ll be pretty busy.
But! On the 14th I’m going on a trip to central Australia! It’ll be a lot of driving (Melbourne to Alice Springs is 2400km/1500mi) on a small bus, but it should be a blast. I’m going with other UniMelb international students, and Noah and Sarah will be there, too. We’re leaving early Friday morning, stopping at Morgan, Port Augusta, Coober Pedy (infamously eccentric opal mining township), Kata Tjuta, Yulara, Uluru (Ayers Rock - the world’s largest monolith with a 9.3km circumference), King’s Canyon, Alice Springs, and Adelaide, and returning to Melbourne on Monday night, the 24th. We’ll be hiking a lot, sleeping under the stars half of the nights, and seeing a lot of Aboriginal culture. So excited!!
Speaking of trips, Sarah, Noah, and I booked a trip to New Zealand. We’ll be on this tour during reading week, starting 30 May. It’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll return to the States exhausted and broke, but I certainly can’t complain. I’m looking forward to learning a bit about the Maori, and I’ll be skydiving and caving there, too. Because I don’t have any exams, I’m going to turn in all my papers before I leave... so when I get back to Melbourne, I’ll have about 3 weeks off before heading to Hawaii (Shaun’s meeting me there!!!<3) and then home. I’ll probably hit up Cairns/the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney in that time, further emptying my (and at that point probably my parents’) bank account.
But that’s all in the future. I’ve actually done a lot of traveling since I last wrote, too. I went on a Butler-sponsored adventure weekend in the Grampians, a mountain range a few hours from Melbourne. We did some hiking, abseiling (repelling), and rock climbing. And - oh god - the place we stayed was fantastic. It might have been the best food I’ve had since being here; homemade camp food rivals even the best of Lygon Street.
Saw a young roo feeding, which was... funny.
The area just experienced a pretty bad bushfire. This was the hottest place I’ve been in Oz, everything was charred black.
View from the top of Mt. Abrubt
Me and some of the Butler kids
I don’t have any pictures from it, but I also went on a sea kayaking daytrip with Butler. We partnered up in kayaks and learned how to ride the surf into the beach. So much fun, I think I might try to rent a kayak and do it myself sometime.
Also, the Commonweath Games came and went. Two weeks of craziness in the city, let me tell you... Aussies love their sports. I watched the opening ceremony from on the bank of the Yarra river, and saw some Rugby 7s (think rugby divided by two - fewer people and 14min games) at the Telstra Dome. And of course, the games were broadcast all day long on TV. The Aussies dominated, winning 200-something medals, 80 or so gold. Also, Festival Melbourne, a huge arts and music festival, ran for the length of the games. There were free events from morning to night at venues all over the city. I unfortunately only made it to a few, but they were spectacular.
Melbourne = party.
Each country had a big fish, they were awesome.
Some of the best fireworks I’ve ever seen
Steph and Alex showing their Aussie spirit
Austalia vs. New Zealand rugby 7s
Noah and Sarah
Steph, Alex, and I saw a free 4 hour percussion concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, it may have been the coolest thing to ever enter my ears. There were groups from around the world/Commonwealth... South African drumming, crazy Canadian stomp-like percussion, Evelyn Glennie (deaf solo percussionist who has worked with Bjork and Bela Fleck), and Talvin Singh! (who I actually knew of beforehand and has also worked with Bjork, Future Sound of London, and Massive Attack).
After the concert
Also since I last wrote, I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens with Steph and Brian, where Brian and I got into a fight with a statue...
...and saw some palm trees. There were obviously a lot of other flowers, but I’m not big on plant photos, I guess.
Oh, and these are from Steph and my trip to the Melbourne Museum awhile back.
I saw some ants.
3D glasses have never looked hotter.
This last weekend I went on trip along the Great Ocean Road, a 300km highway along the southern coast of Australia. It was a lot of fun and I met a bunch of new people, including a guy who’s going on our central Australia trip. The weather was actually horrible, though, the worse since I’ve been here. We went surfing first thing in the morning, which was particularly hard since I was out dancing until 3:30am the night before and got less than 2 hours of sleep. And it was pouring, and cold, and the waves were so dumpy that I didn’t get up once. But at least it woke me up.
We also saw some koalas, and they were way closer than the ones I saw on Phillip Island.
We saw the famous Twelve Apostles, big pillars of rock left after erosion of the cliffs.
I thought they would be kinda small.
Just kidding! They were huge.
Loch Ard Gorge, a crazy coastline named after a ship that crashed into it.
I took like 50 more pictures, but they’re just rocks and water. You get the point.
Then we stopped at a waterfall. Butler reunion! Courtney, Noah, me, Jenny, and Seth
I think that about covers everything I’ve done here. Well, kinda…
...and now the inevitable party/nightlife pictures. Skip this if you’re related to me and over 30 :-P
Brandeis reunion!
So one night, we decided to drink 40s and play cards before going out. We never made it out, which is probably good, because for some reason most of us wore pink shirts and that would have been weird.
Dave, Noah, and me, out in St. Kilda for Noah’s 21st.
Me and Noam
Dave and Noah...
...right before we bought Noah a birthday "Karma Chameleon."
(imagine it on fire)
I’ve got a bunch of pictures from Noah’s birthday party that I hosted in our apartment the following night, but my camera died before I could upload them. It was another night where hanging out and drinking with friends turned into a night-long affair. I love nights like that.