Over the past few weeks nothing major has really happened besides the beach, school work, a few nights out, and watching House online...
Beach - According to Aussies... March is the end of summer, I beg to differ! It's finally starting to be nice and enjoyable weather here. During the day 80-85 with a slight breeze and cooler at night so you aren't sweating in your sleep. The beach has been gorgeous the past couple weekends and I spent this whole weekend at the beach enjoying the weather. Now that I have my snorkel and mask here I take it with me to our favorite beach, Cottesloe, and snorkel around looking for shells because it is right near a jetty and the beach is usually pretty calm with minimal waves. We've pulled out some pretty cool shells and most likely everyone will be getting some as gifts :-) I also was officially called 'mom' here because I pack my lunch to the beach and come prepared with all sorts of stuff. Thanks mom for making me always be responsible for myself, I never really have to ask anyone for anything. So I plan to keep on making weekend trips to the beach to keep working on my tan even if it is a little cooler, it's enjoyable weather and a beautiful view!
School work. Well, as my roommate from Elon and I discussed... it's hard for us to motivate ourselve to do work here because we have so little and we are used to turning in assignments every week back home so we are in 'school mode' all the time at Elon. Here, well, we are in enjoy life to the fullest mode. Thankfully I don't have any major assignments due until after I return for break so I can get my grades back on the few small assignments that I have turned in which will help me gage where I need to put in more effort. For the most part though my classes are interesting, and while my sociology development class sparks my interest I also enjoy taking field trips for my Australian Studies course.
Most recently we visited Freemantle, which is what I am doing my first paper for that class on. One popular tourist place there is the Roundhouse that was built in 1831. It was used as a gaol and prison until about 20 years ago and there was only ever 1 hanging there. One of the things our teacher pointed out was that the first building built there was the jail, then a church which showed their initial social order. There is also a really cool whaling tunnel that I've now been to twice. It's neat to see these places and how they are still in place today, and also to learn how they were used throughout history. When they stopped the whaling industry there, it was then turned into a bomb shelter during WWII, and now it is a walking path to one of the beaches. Now 'Freo' as it is called here has a very laid back and friendly atmosphere with markets, pubs, breweries, nightlife, fishing, fish and chips, and a pretty interesting history.
This past Saturday we actually went down to Freo (about an hour by bus) for a night out to dinner and then to a popular club in town. It's great because almost all of the restaurants here are BYO wine etc. so we all split some bottles of wine and food and had a good night out. The town itself has a nice atmosphere even at night, and was definitely calmer than many of the nights that we have witnessed around the city of Perth when we go out there, so it was a good change.
As we started talking to some people around us we realized that we all felt old. Mostly because we are all almost 21 years old, and to us 18 year olds are 'young' back in the states. But here in Australia, you can't tell a difference between those that are 18 and those that are 21... because you can drink at 18. In the states there is an obvious divide between 18-20 and 21+, when in all reality those ages are all college students. It really seems like the drinking age being 21 back home has really made a rigid divide between these age groups, and limits the number of friends that you can go out with... and not that going out determines friendships, but what happens on the weekends and who you hang out with can have a huge impact on groups of friends, especially in college. Here there is a lot less emphasis on age and grade level at the university, where as back home there are pretty obvious lines of age and grade level difference. It's great to not have those social constructs and/or social norms of sticking to your own grade, and we've met a wider variety and age of people which I think is largely in part to the fact that the government does not draw a huge line of responsiblity and capabilities between the ages of 20 and 21. But enough about that, it is what it is and maybe someday it will change in the US, but until then... I'm enjoying it here.
Besides that, I've been catching up on the seasons of House online and enjoy House's sarcasm. I've also convinced my guy roommates that 'So you think you can dance' isn't that horrible of a show, and although they don't like to admit it, they enjoy watching it with me on Sunday evenings. (I know this because today, they turned the results show on without me even asking... they must like it.)
And I'm reading books too, I'm waiting for my student advisor to bring me some more so that I don't have to keep buying 30 dollar books here because well... the library is the last place on earth I want to go here, it is possibly the worst, most unorganized, piece of nonsense library I have ever stepped foot into. It's useless.
Last thing is I'm in search of a new ipod since mine decided to stop working on me at the gym one day... who said Apple was reliable?!
Thursday I leave for 2 weeks - 1 to Bali and 1 up the west coast, so I'm sure I'll have some more exciting adventures and news upon returning...
Love and miss everyone back home!!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Cooking is going to have to happen.
So another week has come and gone...
Not too much to show for it either, except from the clubs and bars that we seemed to gravitate toward last week. Basically if you want to fit in with the Australians, better yet, if you want to locate the Aussies you have to go to the bar. Young and old, they will undoubtedly be there on any given day of the week, particularly Sundays. So this week, we (most of us girls from school) made an attempt to meet some Aussies and go out like they do. Fortunately for my wallet, liver, and head, I was sick from weird food all week and didn't drink a ton (one of the best decisions I've made here yet).
So since it is such a part of the culture here, I'll give my best attempt at describing what happens weekly by night since last week I described my days.
Starting with Monday night... The bars are full for dinner because there are a lot of good food specials etc. in town, but for me this is grocery shopping and gym night. The only bad part is the grocery store closes at 6, and taking groceries on the bus around 5:30 (because I can't seem to pull myself out of bed to go before my class that starts at 1pm... yeh Mom I know this doesn't work at home...) is not the easiest on a crowded and smelly bus. But I've come to accept it and so I do that then head to the gym and come back by 9-ish to catch up on some work or reading and hang out with roommates if they are around.
Tuesday night... Same scene with the bars, but for me it's the gym and a meeting with my student advisor and actually cooking a real dinner (which is ending up to be more of a problem than anything...)
Wednesday night... Standard night for all college kids to go out, no matter sober or not. There is a bar on campus that throws a lot of different themed party as well as a small bar right off campus that does kareoke every Wednesday night. The Elvis impersonator with his gold sparkly vest that DJ's and announces the kareoke on stage is one of the most memorable parts of every Wednesday. So this has come to be known as "Waterford Wednesdays" since the bar is at the Waterford shopping plaza. This usually means hanging out with friends and having some drinks outside (since it's too hot inside being we have no AC and it still hasn't cooled off from the day's heat) and then walking to the bar around 9. Another great part of this all is that it closes at midnight... meaning I don't have to feel bad for going to bed early since I'm always the tired one! And, there is a bus stop right outside the bar that takes me right back to my room :-)
Thursday night... not too big of a night here, so we try to watch a movie or cook out on the grills at one of our housing areas etc. Once a month we've decided to do a dinner out in the city, most likely on Thursdays since we don't have class the next day.
Then comes the weekend... and basically Australians start drinking when they get off work Friday and don't stop till they pass out Sunday night. This weekend we went to BBQ's, a pool party, out to dance in the city, and to a brewery on Sunday (all of which during I felt sick from the chicken nuggets I thought were safe to eat...wrong). Needless to say after the weekend, we've decided we just can't hang with the Aussies and are all exhausted. So this week it is St. Patricks Day celebrations and that is it.
So there is plenty to do at night here, but it's not always up my alley of what I want to do every night. The other lesson learned last week was the fact that healthy fresh food is universal... and fried food is not great if you aren't used to it in another country. So I made the mistake of eating chicken nuggets that I thought would be a standard meal. Well that was a mistake. Whatever they fried or breaded the chicken in definitely did not agree with me and has left me with an upset stomach for a while now, which is most likely because I ate like 4 meals of the nuggets. So now my challenge is cooking.
It's no hidden truth that I am a picky eater, so finding the ingredients for the foods that I like has been a little troubling. And I can't keep eating out because that costs an arm and a leg. So I've resorted to the Rachael Ray website to find some recipes. My next problem is that the only meat I ever see in the grocery store is chicken and hamburger meat (which I just found today). I believe I'm going to have to drag myself out of the bed in the morning because it looks like there is room for it on the shelf, there is just nothing there. For now I've located all the ingredients to make Chicken DiVan, so hopefully that will last me a few days. So if anyone has any easy recipes that have pretty simple ingredients, well I'd love it if you could share them!
Just some other random facts that I recognize as the days go on...
They have some fastfood places here such as:
Dominoes, Subway, KFC, McDonalds (which they call Macky's), and their version on Burger King which is called Hungry Jacks over here
Mullets are by far the most popular hair style still...
Most Americans get obsessed with these chocolates called "Tim-Tams" but they are almost like a kit-kat bar with more wafer and not so much milk chocolate. My friend eats a pack a day, and thank goodness I don't like them that much because they aren't exactly on the healthy food list.
There is a great hostility from the Australians held against the Asian people that are swarming here in huge masses. In one specific scenario a older man got on the bus and there was not a lot of room so the bus driver yelled back, "Please move down the isle" like they normally do. The old man looked at the bus driver and said, "They aren't going to do it cuz they can't understand yeh... they can't understand and they don't even belong here." So in a huff he finally found a seat near the front of the bus and every Asian just stared at him being that almost all of them understand and speak English perfectly well...
The Indigenous people of Australia have been repressed, much like the Native Americans, but here they still act out in many ways of violence toward everyone else. Teenage kids and 'aboriginees' from the area walk on to campus, especially late at night, and attack students (typically Asians) and anyone in the area for no good reason. Recently there were a few attacks in a different housing area where an Australian guy was almost beat up with golf clubs by a group of aboriginees if it weren't for his running into the laundry room. So there is a lot of violence and hostility still among the different communities.
No grape jelly, but I did find Ketchup
When you go out to a restaurant and you want a side of sauce for anything, you have to pay at least 2 dollars for it.
The fries are called chips here and chips are called crisps
The fries here, if served with anything, come with aioli sauce... basically garlic mayo. We thought it was great until we realized we were eating gobs of mayo on our fries, so then we cut back.
You have to pay 1 dollar to use a shopping cart... so we carry baskets in the grocery store instead.
You have to pay for internet usage by the megabyte... that is annoying.
If you give the peace sign, or actually make a V in sign language and motion with your hand up-wards it is a very offensive hand gesture here
Boxed wine is called "Goon"
I know there are a ton more things, but none are coming to mind right now. So I'll just keep adding as I think of them. This week I'm making travel plans for our break which is the week before and the week after Easter and hopefully going to the pool Wednesday for some laps and time in the sun.
Not too much to show for it either, except from the clubs and bars that we seemed to gravitate toward last week. Basically if you want to fit in with the Australians, better yet, if you want to locate the Aussies you have to go to the bar. Young and old, they will undoubtedly be there on any given day of the week, particularly Sundays. So this week, we (most of us girls from school) made an attempt to meet some Aussies and go out like they do. Fortunately for my wallet, liver, and head, I was sick from weird food all week and didn't drink a ton (one of the best decisions I've made here yet).
So since it is such a part of the culture here, I'll give my best attempt at describing what happens weekly by night since last week I described my days.
Starting with Monday night... The bars are full for dinner because there are a lot of good food specials etc. in town, but for me this is grocery shopping and gym night. The only bad part is the grocery store closes at 6, and taking groceries on the bus around 5:30 (because I can't seem to pull myself out of bed to go before my class that starts at 1pm... yeh Mom I know this doesn't work at home...) is not the easiest on a crowded and smelly bus. But I've come to accept it and so I do that then head to the gym and come back by 9-ish to catch up on some work or reading and hang out with roommates if they are around.
Tuesday night... Same scene with the bars, but for me it's the gym and a meeting with my student advisor and actually cooking a real dinner (which is ending up to be more of a problem than anything...)
Wednesday night... Standard night for all college kids to go out, no matter sober or not. There is a bar on campus that throws a lot of different themed party as well as a small bar right off campus that does kareoke every Wednesday night. The Elvis impersonator with his gold sparkly vest that DJ's and announces the kareoke on stage is one of the most memorable parts of every Wednesday. So this has come to be known as "Waterford Wednesdays" since the bar is at the Waterford shopping plaza. This usually means hanging out with friends and having some drinks outside (since it's too hot inside being we have no AC and it still hasn't cooled off from the day's heat) and then walking to the bar around 9. Another great part of this all is that it closes at midnight... meaning I don't have to feel bad for going to bed early since I'm always the tired one! And, there is a bus stop right outside the bar that takes me right back to my room :-)
Thursday night... not too big of a night here, so we try to watch a movie or cook out on the grills at one of our housing areas etc. Once a month we've decided to do a dinner out in the city, most likely on Thursdays since we don't have class the next day.
Then comes the weekend... and basically Australians start drinking when they get off work Friday and don't stop till they pass out Sunday night. This weekend we went to BBQ's, a pool party, out to dance in the city, and to a brewery on Sunday (all of which during I felt sick from the chicken nuggets I thought were safe to eat...wrong). Needless to say after the weekend, we've decided we just can't hang with the Aussies and are all exhausted. So this week it is St. Patricks Day celebrations and that is it.
So there is plenty to do at night here, but it's not always up my alley of what I want to do every night. The other lesson learned last week was the fact that healthy fresh food is universal... and fried food is not great if you aren't used to it in another country. So I made the mistake of eating chicken nuggets that I thought would be a standard meal. Well that was a mistake. Whatever they fried or breaded the chicken in definitely did not agree with me and has left me with an upset stomach for a while now, which is most likely because I ate like 4 meals of the nuggets. So now my challenge is cooking.
It's no hidden truth that I am a picky eater, so finding the ingredients for the foods that I like has been a little troubling. And I can't keep eating out because that costs an arm and a leg. So I've resorted to the Rachael Ray website to find some recipes. My next problem is that the only meat I ever see in the grocery store is chicken and hamburger meat (which I just found today). I believe I'm going to have to drag myself out of the bed in the morning because it looks like there is room for it on the shelf, there is just nothing there. For now I've located all the ingredients to make Chicken DiVan, so hopefully that will last me a few days. So if anyone has any easy recipes that have pretty simple ingredients, well I'd love it if you could share them!
Just some other random facts that I recognize as the days go on...
They have some fastfood places here such as:
Dominoes, Subway, KFC, McDonalds (which they call Macky's), and their version on Burger King which is called Hungry Jacks over here
Mullets are by far the most popular hair style still...
Most Americans get obsessed with these chocolates called "Tim-Tams" but they are almost like a kit-kat bar with more wafer and not so much milk chocolate. My friend eats a pack a day, and thank goodness I don't like them that much because they aren't exactly on the healthy food list.
There is a great hostility from the Australians held against the Asian people that are swarming here in huge masses. In one specific scenario a older man got on the bus and there was not a lot of room so the bus driver yelled back, "Please move down the isle" like they normally do. The old man looked at the bus driver and said, "They aren't going to do it cuz they can't understand yeh... they can't understand and they don't even belong here." So in a huff he finally found a seat near the front of the bus and every Asian just stared at him being that almost all of them understand and speak English perfectly well...
The Indigenous people of Australia have been repressed, much like the Native Americans, but here they still act out in many ways of violence toward everyone else. Teenage kids and 'aboriginees' from the area walk on to campus, especially late at night, and attack students (typically Asians) and anyone in the area for no good reason. Recently there were a few attacks in a different housing area where an Australian guy was almost beat up with golf clubs by a group of aboriginees if it weren't for his running into the laundry room. So there is a lot of violence and hostility still among the different communities.
No grape jelly, but I did find Ketchup
When you go out to a restaurant and you want a side of sauce for anything, you have to pay at least 2 dollars for it.
The fries are called chips here and chips are called crisps
The fries here, if served with anything, come with aioli sauce... basically garlic mayo. We thought it was great until we realized we were eating gobs of mayo on our fries, so then we cut back.
You have to pay 1 dollar to use a shopping cart... so we carry baskets in the grocery store instead.
You have to pay for internet usage by the megabyte... that is annoying.
If you give the peace sign, or actually make a V in sign language and motion with your hand up-wards it is a very offensive hand gesture here
Boxed wine is called "Goon"
I know there are a ton more things, but none are coming to mind right now. So I'll just keep adding as I think of them. This week I'm making travel plans for our break which is the week before and the week after Easter and hopefully going to the pool Wednesday for some laps and time in the sun.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Settled in and actually going to class
I didn't realize it had been 2 weeks since I actually posted on here! Time flies... when you can go to the beach everyday!!
But no, not every day. We do have to go to class here sometimes too, so this is what I've been up to...
I'm taking 3 classes (they call them units here and majors are called courses) here - Australian Studies, Sexology, and a Sociology class. In the Australian studies class it is all international students, mostly American and Canadian, and they teach us about the history of Australia up to modern day cultural aspects and we take some field trips around the city and watch a bunch of popular films, so that class is a lot of fun.
My sexology course here counts as a Psychology class back home and focuses a lot on gender differences and things like that, and the professor is amazing already. There are a lot of us in that class together so it should be fun and very interesting.
My last class is my favorite though. It is a sociology class about environmental climate change and how that pushes our society to progress. So we're looking at different climate changes and environmental battles that people are dealing with and how that is a means for change. I have to do a project in that class and one girl from Canada and I will be doing how coastal communities have found ways to deal with different changes and climates over the years and how they adapt quickly so that they can survive. This class also counts directly toward my major back home, so it works out and I'm excited to learn from this professor.
I have each class 1 day a week for 3 hours a day. So I go to class Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 1-4. The rest of the time... well... I don't know where it goes. By now all of us have paid for gym memberships because we were so bored and needed something physical to do that was in the air conditioning :-) So a few of us always end up at the gym together every couple days after class which is better than I do at home, so I guess that is a good change here so far. Other than that I am still hunting for a job. Here they don't really have job applications that you fill out, but you just have to bring a resume into restaurants and things like that so I took a resume into the mall, but haven't heard back so I'm headed to the city restaurants Monday morning to see if I can get hired there. My student advisor told me to look for some day time jobs so I would still have the evenings off and not have to pay for a cab home, but I also think night time would be fun so that I could still go to the beach. So I'm still on the hunt, but it is becoming more difficult than I thought it would be!!
As for the beach, it takes us about 45mins - 1 hour to get to the beach by bus which isn't horrible, since it is really only 20 mins by car. I try to get my work done on Wednesdays when I don't have class then go to the beach at least once or twice over the weekend. I've also been finding it is nice to catch a bus into the city and sit down by the water on the grass to read everything. There is a lot of reading outside of classes since we aren't in class very much, and everyone has been telling us to keep up with the readings... but I'm never very productive in my room, so down by the water forced me to do it since I didn't have a computer in front of me.
Another battle this week was the library here... It might be the worst building that I have been in on this campus. There are hardly any computers and standardly they crash in the middle of the day, so it's hopeless. I went all the way up to the 6th floor where it was supposed to be silent study and that was a joke. With some many international students I don't think that they paid attention or realized that they weren't supposed to be talking but they were. It must be their favorite place to go because I don't see them talking anywhere else but in the library! So that's out of the question from now on...
So that has been the past two weeks. I'm pretty much settled into my room now and working on meeting some people in my classes which is nice because everyone is starting to get tired of each other because we are together for everything that we do. I'm still struggling with finding foods to cook, I'm stuck with pretty basic stuff... aka grilled chicken and broccoli haha. But I'm working on that, too.
The other interesting thing that I picked up over the past couple weeks is that even though Australia as a whole seems to be 10 years behind the U.S. style and fashion wise, their TV stars and models etc. are not all skinny, tall, and gorgeous. I started watching a little bit of TV on my nights off and realized that the truly "Australian" tv shows don't have all gorgeous people or models on them which is actually refreshing to see. However, they are all last years episodes of U.S. shows so I guess I'll catch up on the Grey's anatomy and House shows that I missed!
But no, not every day. We do have to go to class here sometimes too, so this is what I've been up to...
I'm taking 3 classes (they call them units here and majors are called courses) here - Australian Studies, Sexology, and a Sociology class. In the Australian studies class it is all international students, mostly American and Canadian, and they teach us about the history of Australia up to modern day cultural aspects and we take some field trips around the city and watch a bunch of popular films, so that class is a lot of fun.
My sexology course here counts as a Psychology class back home and focuses a lot on gender differences and things like that, and the professor is amazing already. There are a lot of us in that class together so it should be fun and very interesting.
My last class is my favorite though. It is a sociology class about environmental climate change and how that pushes our society to progress. So we're looking at different climate changes and environmental battles that people are dealing with and how that is a means for change. I have to do a project in that class and one girl from Canada and I will be doing how coastal communities have found ways to deal with different changes and climates over the years and how they adapt quickly so that they can survive. This class also counts directly toward my major back home, so it works out and I'm excited to learn from this professor.
I have each class 1 day a week for 3 hours a day. So I go to class Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 1-4. The rest of the time... well... I don't know where it goes. By now all of us have paid for gym memberships because we were so bored and needed something physical to do that was in the air conditioning :-) So a few of us always end up at the gym together every couple days after class which is better than I do at home, so I guess that is a good change here so far. Other than that I am still hunting for a job. Here they don't really have job applications that you fill out, but you just have to bring a resume into restaurants and things like that so I took a resume into the mall, but haven't heard back so I'm headed to the city restaurants Monday morning to see if I can get hired there. My student advisor told me to look for some day time jobs so I would still have the evenings off and not have to pay for a cab home, but I also think night time would be fun so that I could still go to the beach. So I'm still on the hunt, but it is becoming more difficult than I thought it would be!!
As for the beach, it takes us about 45mins - 1 hour to get to the beach by bus which isn't horrible, since it is really only 20 mins by car. I try to get my work done on Wednesdays when I don't have class then go to the beach at least once or twice over the weekend. I've also been finding it is nice to catch a bus into the city and sit down by the water on the grass to read everything. There is a lot of reading outside of classes since we aren't in class very much, and everyone has been telling us to keep up with the readings... but I'm never very productive in my room, so down by the water forced me to do it since I didn't have a computer in front of me.
Another battle this week was the library here... It might be the worst building that I have been in on this campus. There are hardly any computers and standardly they crash in the middle of the day, so it's hopeless. I went all the way up to the 6th floor where it was supposed to be silent study and that was a joke. With some many international students I don't think that they paid attention or realized that they weren't supposed to be talking but they were. It must be their favorite place to go because I don't see them talking anywhere else but in the library! So that's out of the question from now on...
So that has been the past two weeks. I'm pretty much settled into my room now and working on meeting some people in my classes which is nice because everyone is starting to get tired of each other because we are together for everything that we do. I'm still struggling with finding foods to cook, I'm stuck with pretty basic stuff... aka grilled chicken and broccoli haha. But I'm working on that, too.
The other interesting thing that I picked up over the past couple weeks is that even though Australia as a whole seems to be 10 years behind the U.S. style and fashion wise, their TV stars and models etc. are not all skinny, tall, and gorgeous. I started watching a little bit of TV on my nights off and realized that the truly "Australian" tv shows don't have all gorgeous people or models on them which is actually refreshing to see. However, they are all last years episodes of U.S. shows so I guess I'll catch up on the Grey's anatomy and House shows that I missed!
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