Week Two

It's weird to think that we've only been here for two weeks. Part of that might be that we haven't been super busy these past two weeks, so the days haven't really rushed past. Also, Tommy More is really similar to Notre Dame. Australia, and this college in particular, have a really sporty, masculine, hard drinking, Catholic atmosphere. The dorm has also been organizing a lot of events to welcome us, which reminds me a lot of Notre Dame. On Monday we had the speed dating and Tuesday we had a movie night with Old School and Anchorman.

On Wednesday we went to a concert by a band called Gyroscope, which was supposed to be the BIGGEST thing going on in Australia right now. The band itself was okay, not my taste exactly, but it was really fun to be at an Australian concert. I mean, not that an Australian concert is really that different from an American concert, but it still seemed like an important part of the culture to experience. Halfway through the concert, my friend John and I went out to go buy a kebab, which is just the Australian equivalent of a gyro, and we saw the opening band at the kebab place. Then, on our way back we just walked up to the backstage door and chatted with the second opening band for a bit. Australia has made me a lot more outgoing, I guess.

Friday night the student government organized a little Flip Cup tournament to try to make the Americans feel more at home. We all came, but it turned out that surprisingly few of the Americans had ever played more than maybe one or two games of Flip Cup before. Well, maybe not that surprising since this is an exchange for engineers and science majors. Luckily it's not a very complicated game and everyone caught on pretty quickly.

Last night St. Thomas More College had its first of three formal dinners. Everyone was really dressed up--girls in semi-formal dresses, guys in suits. The theme was Christmas in August, so they served Christmas-y food, like turkey with cranberry sauce, baked ham, sweet potatoes, and we had Christmas Pudding for dessert. The room was decorated in red and green and all the places had a Christmas Cracker on them. However, my very favorite part was the spiced red wine. Not because I am becoming an alcoholic, but because in my childhood I read a lot of fantasy novels and the various protagonists of them all at one point or another enjoyed a piping hot mug of spiced mead or wine. After a few glasses I felt like whipping back my cape and charging after dark wizards or something. It was awesome. The night went sort of downhill from the dragon slaying since everyone wanted to go out afterwards. We ended up walking forever to wait in line for half an hour to get into a sketch club playing bad music. I didn't even get a kebab, which is usually the best part of going out to sketchy clubs. But the formal dinner was fun.

I'm thinking about doing a half marathon at the end of August. There's a group of other Notre Dame students doing it and I think there's also a UWA team. We'll see--I'm going to ramp up my running schedule for about two weeks and if I can handle 10 miles by about one week before the race, maybe I'll sign up. I like having goals, and it's so easy to run outside here. There are tons of trails through Kings Park which is right behind our dorm, and in front we have the Swan River with a long trail along it.

My Australian accent is improving--I practiced a lot last night. So far I have all the easy words down, like "bettah", "yeah", "guhl" (girl), but I'm having a lot of trouble doing a convincing "no". It's weird--like they have something big stuck in their mouths and I always look like a moron when I try it. Luckily I have a single, so I can practice a lot w/o getting too embarrassed.

Shoot! No pictures! I need to work on that. I'll try to have pictures for my next post.

SIGNING OUT!

New Kids

Snorkel the Echidna
Billy the Joey

Another, older joey
Me with Billy!

Today was the first day of class.  I think this was the first day in 15 years of first days of school that I wasn't nervous out of my mind.  It's nice to know that I'm finally getting the hang of it all.  

I started the day off with Electromagnetic Theory, followed it with Robotics, and finished off after lunch with Signals and Systems.  So far I have no native English speaking professors.  Instead I have German, Arabic, and Chinese accents to augment my cultural experience.  I was secretly hoping that in Australia electrical engineering would be a hip and happening major with maybe more than a 10% female population.  I was disappointed, but not really surprised.  

Robotics was a little disappointing; instead of building robots, we're just going to model them with MATLAB.  However, there is another robotics class that sounds a little more interesting that I might try to switch into.  In the other class they're building robots that are supposed to navigate around a track using a GPS system.  

St. Thomas More College (my dorm) had a speed dating session tonight to help everyone get to know each other.  It sort of worked.  I saw a lot of faces, but now I'm mostly really hoarse.  About 45% of the college (dorm) is international, and about half of those are from Singapore.  The rest are Australian, and most of them come from the country.  I want to ask them what it's like to farm sheep, but I don't want them to think I'm too weird just yet.  

In the beginning are some pictures from our trip out to the bush on Saturday.  We saw two joeys, and echidna, a wallaby, and some falcons.  The video is of an echidna, and his name was Snorkel!  Australian wildlife is pretty impressive.  It's all really quirky.

That's all for now--

SIGNING OUT!

'Roo Country

Back when this blog was only imaginary, I thought that I would be constantly posting, adding pictures, and reflecting on the subtle nuances of the Australian culture like, every night.  However, now that I'm here and realize how time consuming that would be and how little I really have to say, I think once or twice a week is all I'll be able to manage.

The journey here was horrible.  I thought about writing out an excruciating blow by blow saga of Qantas Flight 12, but ultimately decided to sum things up with: Bomb Threat!  FBI!  26 hour delay!  On the plus side, we ventured out into LA during the 26 hour delay and saw the Dark Knight, and we may have free Qantas flights coming to us at some point.  But that's probably just a wishful rumor.

Before we left, people had mentioned that Australia was going to be expensive.  I was thinking they meant maybe 10-15% more expensive.  However, it's more like 100% more expensive.  In the airport (and this has turned out to be pretty standard) I spent $5 on an 8 oz Americano and an apple only slightly larger than a ping pong ball.  No frankenstein hormones injected into Australian produce, apparently.

I registered for my classes and starting Monday I'm taking Electromagnetic Theory, Signals and Systems, Differential Equations, Robotics, and a Field Research Project.  We found out on Thursday that the Field Research Project for the mechanical and electrical engineers is going to be converting a Lotus Lease sportscar to be purely electric.  We're all really, really excited.  Apparently Lotuses are kind of nice.

So far the food has been good.  It's a lot of really hearty stuff.  For example, for lunch one day this week we had huge slabs of meat loaf wrapped in pastry dough with a side of steak fries.  Kind of heavy, but pretty awesome.  I have a feeling we'll be at home with the food culture here, since Australia just recently passed the US in overall obesity.  Also, I really like vegemite!  It's intensely salty, which is sometimes just what you need on toast in the mornings.  And it's a good source of B vitamins.

Something that's pretty interesting is the university's attitude towards alcohol.  They really embrace it; in fact, there's a university sponsored tavern on campus.  The school-issued weekly planners have a pre-printed message on Fridays that says "Enjoy a drink at the tav!"  Definitely different from Notre Dame.  

I got to hold a baby kangaroo, touch an echidna, and pet a wallaby today!  I'll load pictures ... at some point.  It involves cords and menus and a lot of screwing around.  But they're pretty cute, so I'll try to get to it.  

That's all for now--

Signing Out!

Blast OFF

After many months of worried procrastination, anxious dreams, and answering questions with,"I'm not exactly sure where it is", the time has come.  I am about to blast off from LA into the future.  Or at least, blast off for a 14.3 hour ride to Sydney, a tortuous journey through customs, and then 5 more hours to Perth.  And then I will be in the future.  

Right now I am relaxing in Los Angeles and trying not to think about what I may have forgotten.  So far, despite my best efforts, I've thought of conditioner, power converters, and an ethernet cable.  Shoot.  

I'll try to keep this updated as often as possible so that you all can prepare your lives accordingly for what will be coming.  From the future, I mean.  

That's all for now--

SIGNING OUT!

Elizabeth