And… breathe.
Finally, a chance to lie back, shoes off, parrots above, endemic
flora around, good o’ basking in the sun. This week has proved to be the
busiest of any as it has been full of deadlines. (And it's only Tuesday.) The good thing? I’m learning!
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| The line on campus for free food. |
A few things to note: I took my first Australian midterm
this morning for my biology class. Amidst all the usual stress that comes
with exams, I was also a tiny bit curious if there would be
any differences in the Australian test format as compared to the American
format. As far as multiple choice go, NOPE! They still word things just as
confusingly, asking the inverse of what the question should actually be then
giving you the answer for the question they should have asked! Confused?
Exactly.
It wasn’t hard.
It was a breeze really, after I’d gone through all of the
power points and made my study guides. (All I’ve got to say for myself is that I
will be well equipped for finals.)
Anyway, the whole point of my story is that right before I
took my test in a room lit by sunlight on my cushy stool, our tutor
mentioned the fact that if we needed extra pencils or “rubbers” that he had
some at the front. I had to turn around,
if not only for curiosity’s sake! Erasers, of course. What else could he be referring
to? Australians… Gotta love them.
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| Free soda, veggie burger and snag. |
I also got my first lab report back and got 11/12 ½, so a
high B (American grading system) or H2
(Australian grading system.) Considering I kind of threw the thing together and
didn’t fully complete the last question, I’m pretty pleased with myself.
Writing, however, is a different story. (Ha.)
I’m not sure where to start, frankly. Speaking of puns, I did have a point this
week, where unfortunately for Shayna, I was completely tired and stressed so I
had a whole three minutes of flinging every pun that was in my head at the time
out to Shayna. This conversation went like so:
“Hey, hey Shayna! I was just thinking. Bald men must not get
irritated.”
“What?”
“Nothing gets in their hair!”
“I’m not even going to respond to that…”
“Hey, hey. You know people in wheelchairs?”
“Yea?”
“They must have a hard time with politics, because they don’t stand
for anything!”
“Again, I’m not even going to respond to that…”
“And they can’t even show their approval properly! Nope, not a single standing
ovation!”
Pause.
“You know what? You’re right. Tonight… I’m just full of it.”
Hysterical laughter (from me.)
Now, let me explain why that last one was funny. Or wasn’t
funny. (Depends whether your sense of humor is awesome or not.)
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| St. Kilda Beach. |
Sunday, I completely blew off all of my work and went to St. Kilda
with the Unilodge crowd (Shayna, Flo, Phil, Ray, Rhi, and Rhi’s brother Liam.
Tom had to work. Sad face.) It’s the first time I’ve been in good weather. When we first got there, we noticed a row of tents
lined on the sidewalk just before you walked out onto the beach. There were
all kinds of knickknacks. It was funny. We girls had to stop and take a look
while all the guys were worried about was getting down to the beach. Ah, gender
differences.
I found a really cool tent full of bracelets, where everything was
mostly made out of leather. I came close to getting something, but
resisted. Maybe next time.
It was pretty cool to just lay out in my tank top and cut
offs with a nice breeze rolling over my shoulders. We all spread out towels,
munched on strawberries and listened to Phil talk the majority of the time. All
in all, it was a relaxing experience and a complete procrastination of anything
productive. We then got it in our minds that we were going to deep fry candy
bars, because it’s a Scottish tradition. At least, that’s what Flo said. Deep
fried Mars bars. Heck yes.
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| Fried Snickers bar! |
So Phil contributed a bucket full of pasta and we all ate an
insane amount of cheese (it was Phil’s home made Alfredo sauce, which mainly
consisted of Parmesan cheese.) After fried squares of Parmesan cheese, two
bowls of Alfredo pasta, and a fried candy bar… I thought I was going to barf.
But at least I wasn’t alone. We were all suffering together.
So, that was a long way of explaining why me being “full of
it” in both senses was, at the time, hilarious.
Needless to say, night-time sanity is fleeting.
My play was workshopped yesterday. It’s funny. As a writer, I
tend to cling to bits of words, character or plots that I know people won’t
like. It’s rather counter intuitive and has caused me a lot of grief. Alas, I
brought it on myself. But this time, however, I went in knowing what the
problem with the script was, but not knowing how to fix it. I guess the workshop
clarified that the problem existed.
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| Campus was beautiful today. |
Now I’m being rather harsh on myself. Besides one of my
character’s not earning an emotional payoff, the class and teacher loved the
dialogue, main character and rhythm of the piece saying it had a rather poetic
intensity. And with those words, I could not be more satisfied.
As far as screen writing goes, I’ve finished my synopsis on “No
Country for Old Men.” It’s about a 100 words over. I’ll get there. Eventually.
Moving on to real world issues. I’m sure many of you must be
wondering about a rather evasive part of Australia’s culture that tends to be
talked around as opposed to directly confronted.
Aboriginal culture.
Every nation has a past, every person has their flaws. And
we must all come to terms with the world our ancestors left us. With
Australia being a relatively new country and still in a limbo as far as
politics are concerned, I think social issues of a certain standing and
importance are, in a sense, lacking. I’m not saying Australian issues are
trivial. But, as compared with the U.S., they have not had time to let those issues brood
and fester into something more encompassing that effects people on a more massive scale. Poverty, social injustice, gender inequality, political corruption—issues
that we debate over daily in the States, seem nonexistent in comparison. Or
rather, exist on a much smaller scale.
So, the issue that seems to be in the recesses of every Australian’s
mind is the question of Aboriginal assimilation. In 2008, the Prime Minister of Australia, Keven Rudd, made a public appearance to apologize to the "Stolen Generation," otherwise known as the Aboriginal children that were uprooted and
taken from their homes. Even now, before every formal dinner of event, Australians will pay “homeage” and thank whatever tribe
previously owned the land.
I may be crossing a line when I say this, but I think a lot
of that is lip service. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is good to give thanks, to bring awareness to
what has been done and where it has left you. But it seems like the
problem is almost being skirted over. The Aborigines truly are invisible in
society. At most, I may’ve seen three while here, and they were on the
outskirts, browsing a trash bin or averting their eyes when walking down the
street.
We discussed the problem in my theatre writing class. We
even read a script that really opened my eyes. (If you
are interested, check out the play, The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch & Deborah Mailman.) Apparently, our teacher was in a band
with a few Aborigine guys, and they travelled up and down the coast. He watched
as not one, but four police men dragged
one Aborigine man into the back of a squad car because of “noise disturbances.”
What was sad is that a pub full of raucous music and drunk Australians sat
right on the corner.
A lot of the problem resides in marriage systems. In the Aboriginal culture, who you could marry depended on knowing who your relatives were. If someone is your child or
brother/sister, you can’t marry them. So, thus, when children were taken away
from their families, and many women were taken advantage of whose children
ended up being half-cast (or half Aborigine, half white) the whole culture was
thrown into turmoil. If you don’t know who to marry because you don’t know who
your relatives are, and marriage leads to societal success, then you as an
individual and ultimately as a culture fail to progress.
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| Iced Mocha. Boo yea. |
What can you give to a people your ancestors took everything from? What can you do that will ever equate to the words, “I’m sorry.”?
I think people strive every day to make up for/ make sense of the injustices of the world around them. And to be honest. It doesn't make sense.
But, that's enough preaching from me.
I will leave you with a delicious picture. THIS is what I finished my lovely day with:
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