March 4, 2012
At this
point in our venture, we have been in Australia for two weeks and have
absolutely loved it! The people are as friendly, relaxed, and helpful as any
you could meet. It reminds me a lot of the reputation for being hospitable that
the South and Mississippi is so widely known for. I think that's why I enjoy
the people so much. The best description I can give to collectively describe
the Aussie attitude is "no worries mate." It seems that the answer to
every question, problem, or situation is greeted with that increasingly
familiar phrase. I have to admit it's starting to grow on me.
We're
starting to get into the swing of a routine, as far as class and all things uni
go (uni will be explained later). Rather than consisting solely of lectures,
Aussie classes are comprised of lectures and tutorials for each class. The
lectures are large and do not leave much room to ask many questions. It's
mainly about gathering as much of the information as possible. The tutorials
are smaller groups of 10-15 where the setting is designed to ensure that you
understand and know how to apply the material. I definitely favor this
structure of learning and teaching for quite obvious reasons that benefit both
the lecturer and the student. I only have class and tutorials on Monday,
Wednesday, and Thursday, which leaves me plenty of room to travel, work, and
relax with my mates. I'm also going to have to squeeze in some time to conduct
research for the thesis that I'll be writing when I get back.
The
crosses between uses of language across culture are very interesting. The
following is a running dictionary of Aussie words and their English meanings.
1) uni-
university: "Are you going to uni today?", "What uni do you
attend?", "Do you play uni sport?"
2) bloak-
guy/dude: "These bloaks play rugby.", "What kind of bloaks wear
that?"
3) mate-
friend: "Me and my mates are headed to the gym.", "It's my best
mate's birthday."
4) lift-
elevator: "Excuse me mate, do you know where the lift is?"
5) servillet-
napkin
6) boardies-
bathing suit/ board shorts
7) sunnies-
sunglasses
8) thongs-
sandals
9) boots-
cleats
10) heaps-
a lot: "There were heaps(of) people at uni today."
11) jelly-
jello
12) lemonade-
lemon soda (they don't have real lemonade)
13) rock
melon- cantaloupe
14) are
you keen- would you like to/ does that sound ok to you: "Are you
keen on meeting today?"
15) hektic
(purposefully spelled with a k)- awesome/cool/crazy
More will
be added later, but that should be enough to at least wet your appetite.
Oi.
This is Kyle here. I'm not much for writing but Jacob is making me put
something on paper... so here I am - fighting that ever-present writer's block.
I suppose I should say, though, that this is a different kind of writer's
block. Usually, I have no idea what I want to say, but it's quite the contrary
here.
You
ever run into someone you haven't seen in 5 years and the first thing they ask
is "what chu been up to?" Yeah...I never know how to answer either.
Or when Indiana Jones comes back from a psycho crazy adventure I wonder how he
responds to "what's been up Indy?" I suppose every story has an
intro, though. Let me tell you.. these first two weeks in Australia - quite the
intro.
Australians
are incredibly nice humans. I don't know if you've read Alexander and the
horrible, terrible, dirty-rotten, no-good day...well you can't find that book
in Australia. There is no pile of kangaroo poo, no matter how giant, no matter
how gooey, that an Aussie can step in that would ruin his/her entire day -
that's not to say some choice words wouldn't be said after the
initial...squish. I'm sure there
are some jerks out there (or as our friend Tom would call them,
"wankahs"), I just haven't found them yet. Rugby is pretty big out here...I'm excited to try it, but I
have a feeling after the first padless, full-speed, head-on collision...I'll
check that off the bucket list and call it a day. As for the rest of the bucket
list, I have done some serious damage to that poor sheet of paper. I'll give
you an idea:
Kyle's
Bucket List [Excerpt]:
Go to
Australia - Check
Go to
Hillsong (Hills Service) - CHECK
Check out
the sydney opera house/sydney harbor - on the reg
Try
Australian "spirits" - Oh yeah
Enter a
surf competition and top the charts - Coming soon
Avoid
killer jellys - so far
Get a
shark to bite my board but not me - unrealistic
Wrestle a
Gator - working on it
Scuba the
great barrier reef - in a month!
Learn to
play the digereedoo - not yet
A few
more things I can't go without pointing out - there is no netflix or pandora out
here. Go ahead, read that one more time. NO NETFLIX. NO PANDORA. How's that for
first-world problems?? On the brighter side, they do have this... sumptuous...
savory... indulgent candy called TimTams. It has to be sinful to eat these
things - nothing should be that appealing to the senses. Well guys, I'd tell
you more but...well I'm sure those of you who are still with me are dozing
quickly so lemme wrap this up by saying... avagoodwon!
