how long can I pretend that the seasons are not reversed?

It was really windy and stormy here today. Wind in Geelong has a category of its own. There are literally days when the gusts blow you over. Today was one of those days. I mostly stayed inside and baked bread and made pumpkin soup. My body is apparently still convinced that we are heading into winter, not summer, and so recently I have had strange cravings for squash. Hopefully the soup can ward them off for a while.

When I picked up the area official tourism map a couple of weeks ago, one of the events was a marathon along the great ocean road, supposedly one of the most beautiful coastal drives in the world. The idea started to form in my head that I should train for the marathon. It's in May, so it gives me a long time to train, and there's a half marathon race as well if I don't feel up to running a whole marathon by then. I've been perusing training schedules and, unfortuantely, they all seem to only start about 16-20 weeks out. I have much less confidence in my ability to suddenly run 20-odd miles and would prefer to build up to that distance much more slowly. So, I've been running three miles a day pretty consistently for the past couple of weeks and decided to officially start my training with a long run this morning. It was only six miles, a distance I used to run routinely in Ecuador, but it felt like a really long way. The constant threat of magpie attacks doesn't help, either. Although I have yet to be attacked while running. I'm building a theory that they only attack walkers, and that they seem to target people with curly hair (a curly-haired Macedonian friend of mine here is the only other person I know to routinely be targeted). But I digress. I decided to brave the wind since skipping my first day of training wouldn't exactly set a good precedent. But the wind was surprisingly strong. At one point an unexpected gust actually knocked me over. Fortunately, I made it back home and spent the rest of the day cooking, eating, and watching Australian television so as to completely negate any positive health value the run might have had.

And Geelong wins the premireship!

After graduating in June, I spent a few months in Maine, a couple of weeks on an island off the coast of Michigan, and now I am in Australia for a year (visits are encouraged!)
Here's a brief summary of what I've been up to in Australia:

• I live in a city that my lonely planet guide says is not worth a stop. A few weeks ago I would have agreed. It's slowly growing on me, though.
• Fortunately, that city is in very close proximity to Melbourne, which is worth a stop.
• The Geelong cats are the town's Australian Football League team (aka uniquely Australian mix of rugby and American football). They had not won a premireship (aka super bowl) in 44 years. They won tonight.
• I'm getting an honours degree in biology, which means I am again an undergraduate.
• I'm studying how some very tiny mussels in a very salty lake tolerate that salt.
• My mussels are actually surviving.
• I'm starting to learn some Australian vocabulary beyond G'day Mate and No Worries: i.e. tea=dinner, swearing is encouraged, especially when amoung people of authority, and any word can and should be shortened with a y attached to the end of it (sicky = sick day, cafy = cafeteria, etc).
• I have seen kangaroo. I have eaten kangaroo.
• I have seen emu. I have not eaten emu. I will eat emu on October 23rd.
• Australia is believed to be the only country that eats the animals that grace its coat of arms.
• I have not seen koala, yet.
• I have been attacked by evil magpies. Several times.
• I have tried vegemite. It is good in small quantities.
• I've visited Canberra, the nation's capital; Sydney; the Blue Mountains; Melbourne; and Rutherglen, a small country town in Victoria.
• I would reccommend seeing all of them.

If you would like to see some pictures...

Graduation: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012153&l=34103&id=40901628

Maine: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012477&l=26f17&id=40901628

Katahdin (the tallest peak in Maine/end of the AT): http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014179&l=06047&id=40901628

Beaver Island: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014181&l=8fc0b&id=40901628

Australia: http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014182&l=c4dd4&id=40901628

and http://kzoo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014183&l=d710d&id=40901628