Well, i'm sad to say that I'm halfway through classes. I'm not quite halfway through my trip, because we have a month long exam period at the end, but its sad how quickly the time is flying by. I've been informed by Rachel (from Pomona) that this blog is nice, but has not nearly enough writing in it, so here goes!
I still absolutely love it here. My classes are exactly what I wanted and I adore them. My contemporary culture and everyday life class pretty much just talks about how we take everything for granted as normal but makes us question why we do that, and how it is affected by class, race, socio economic status, region, etc. I really like it and think there is a lot to what we're learning that is important for people to think about. We did a big unit on taste, and how peoples ideas of what 'good taste' is depends so much on where they came from. Since I'm from a standard middle class family in good ole Maine, Olive Garden is a nice dinner (i do'nt like it there, but it is considered 'nice'), but to a lot of my friends at Pomona and here in Melbourne, Olive Garden is kind of crap, because its a chain, and the most expensive dish is about $20. I've gone out to dinner with my friends here, and the average plate costs $20 and they say, ooh, nice, not bad at all. So. I definitely think there is a lot to think about how people judge the quality of a restaurant or type of clothing, etc. The example my Prof used was the use of olive oil over vegetable oil when cooking. Since olive oil is more expensive, it would be logical to use veg oil, but on the other hand there is the fact that olive oil is healthier, tastier, and in my opinion, better. This ideology that i formed somewhere that olive oil is better than veg oil is totally different than someone who may have grown up in a much lower class home and couldn't afford olive oil, or perhaps a person who always had a cook, would have no idea that olive oil is nicer, because they themselves have never cooked or needed to know the difference. (by the way, at the time, i had an almost full bottle of veg oil in my cabinet and an almost empty bottle of olive oil, ooooh proud!) I'm not sure if what I just said made any sense, but feel free to talk to me about it, I might articulate myself better.
The other class that I'm in love with is my bio class. To preface this, my dad is a wildlife biologist and my mom is a wildlife fanatic. I grew up in Maine, love camping, hiking, etc. So, I've always known I liked bio. My dream job would to be an animal behaviorist. Pomona has an upper level class appropriately called...'animal behavior'. In order to take this you have to take Environmental Bio, and in order to take that you have to take Genetics, which in order to take that you have to take Gen Chem. So, I went to Pomona with the intent of having a Psych Major and a Bio Minor. I then took Gen Chem, which made me cry nightly (no kidding...my friends can attest to major breakdowns). I made it through that (thank you pass/no credit) and took genetics. I found Genetics very interesting but wasn't all that great at it grade-wise. So, passed that pass/no fail and decided perhaps bio minor wasn't going to happen. It was about that time i realized you had to take math classes to be a bio minor and at that point KNEW it wasn't going to happen. So my dream was crushed I was thinking...no more animal behavior in my life. I planned my college career so that I could still take E Bio and Animal Behavior upon getting back from abroad, but wasn't sure if I would actually do it. So then I get to Melbourne (don't worry, this story has a point). I enrolled in Biology of Australian Flora and Fauna, and voila, here I am. My friends sleep through the class while i intently write down every single word the professor says with bright eyes. I call my mom and spend the whole phone call telling her what i learned in bio. I can't help being SO excited about all the cool adaptations animals have to survive in harsh environments and all the different types of lifestyles they live. Taking this class with my friends, and being WAY more excited about it than they were made me realize i'm not just another person that thinks animals are cute, i am truly fascinated by their lives. SO. Here's my thought. I'm definitely going to take the E Bio class and Animal Behavior (if my schedule allows) when I get back to Pomona. I may be bad at chemistry and not so great at math (I was really good at it until we hit calculus...), but i'm really good at analyzing data and i would not be bored if i spent days and days sitting in a forest takign notes on a certain animal. So why should I let my lack of chem/math skills stop me? Moral of the story, I'm not giving up on working with animals. Especially mammals...I love mammals. I love Australian mammals even more. So, mom and dad, you might not want to read this part....i'm seriously considering trying to get on a research team here in australia post grad and doing graduate work with the bio department. I have no idea if I'll be able to, but i'm going to look into it. There are a ton of species here which are in great danger of going extinct, and to help save them, they need to be researched to figure out how to best save them. My Dad did a lot of work like this in the middle east and I always thought it was so great. I guess all those years of following my dad around his office, following him on field work and just in general following him around the woods of Maine has kind of stuck with me.
Hmmm, so I've written a lot but haven't really talked about Australia too much, have I? Sorry Rachel, i'm trying, you get me talking and I do'nt stop, but I also don't really stay on topic.
In addition to my courses, living in my own apartment, making new friends (who are conservatives) and not being involved (i have free time here! who knew it excited!?) has really allowed me to figure out what I love to do, what really matters to me and how I feel about the world in general. Wow, thats a lot to realize. First off, the majority of my friends here are conservatives. Incase I ever doubted being liberal, no doubt ever. I am full heartedly a liberal, without a doubt. I miss the political atmosphere at Pomona so much and will be very happy to be back in it. My friends aren't bad people in any way, but I disagree with them on so many levels about a lot of things. whew. its exhausting.
Second of all, I love love love to cook. I've always known that, but i thought hey, living on my own, cooking every meal everyday, might get old. nope. i was worried, i thought maybe i just think i like to cook, what if i starve? Well, I bought some pasta mixes, the kind where you rip open a bag, pour it in a boiling pot of water and add some butter and voila, dinner. Well, i bought two. cooked one after a month. I took one bite and decided i could cook better, threw it away and made something on my own. The second one is still on the shelf...so i guess that proved my point. This leads me to talk about my job!
I finally got a job here, and I am finally making money. Whew The building I live in is designed for Uni students and owned by the YMCA. Therefore, its almost all international students that are my age. Inside my building is a nice cafe/restaurant place which is family owned. The family that owns it is a young couple with an adorable 1 1/2 year old son named Ollie. Kendra and Michael (the owners) are fabulous and do all the cooking themselves. So, I'm their helper. Whenever I work its just me and one of them, they cook and I take orders from behind the counter, deliver the food to the table, wash dishes, make lattes and hot chocolates, etc. Pretty simple. but today! kendra asked me if i wanted to help cook! A few shifts that I have worked it has gotten really busy and I"ve helped make salad or put a wrap together or something, pretty basic, but today she gave me a recipe! I was so excited. So, I got to stir fry onions and curry power, tumeric and chile powder together, and then I added boiled potato and carrots and cooked that all together, and then I added chicken. Then I got to make the pastry on my own, which was pretty basic/easy and then my shift was over:( But I made it! The final outcome will be little mini calzone looking things which will be deepfried. So. I felt very important behind the huge stove cooking without any help in a restaurant! I hope it tastes good, and maybe I'll get to help out again more! So that was the highlight of my day for sure.
Just in general, I'm realizing that I can take care of myself. I have been here over two months, I'm still happily cooking, my apartment is clean, I'm healthy, I'm happy and I'm doing just fine. I love living so close to a city, and I'm in love with a neighbourhood north of here which I run in, and think I might try to buy a house here if I save enough money (just kidding just kidding, i'll be lucky if I have enough savings to see the great barrier reef!). I still love my roommate more than ever. We have a ton of fun together and respect each others space and are get along fabulously. She's my little southerner and i'm her mom. haha. Turns out wherever I go, it doesn't take long for the nickname 'mom' to catch on. I think its because I always have bandaids and I bake cookies. :)
What else. Seeing as I'm halfway through classes, I just had midterm papers due, which wasn't to bad, but that also means that its almost SPRING BREAK!!! Yay! I have two more days of classes, friday off and then on saturday its off to Tasmania!! IES (my study abroad program) has planned the whole trip, so the 30 of us who came will all be headed off to Tasmania at 6:45 am! eeeks. We're flying to Hobart and also traveling to Port Arthur for a night or two. I'm so excited for the trip! We're going on a ghost tour of an old jail and we're going on a bike ride down a big mountain and we're goign to a beautiful national park and we're going to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory! wow. amazing. Should be a great week.
My spring break is actually two weeks so after my week in Tasmania I'll have another week to relax! My friends are all headed up to Cairns (aka the Great Barrier Reef) for the week but alas I'm staying here in Melbourne. I'm excited though, there are a lot of parks and museums I've been wanting to go to but haven't gotten to yet. It will be good to relax for a week, watch some movies I've been wanting to see, go to some great exhibits, perhaps even go to the zoo!
Well. I'm exhausted and i'm not the one who just read all the babble! I love you all and think about you often. I hope everyone is happy and healthy and doing well. I'll work on writing more about my life in Australia in my blog and keeping everyone updated. If you do'nt hear from me for a while, its because I'm in Tasmania, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth (although boy, if there was an end to it, i'm pretty close...next thing is antarctica!).
So, if you're up for any chat about australian mammals, shoot me an email!
