Really?

I get daily US Info e-mails from the embassy in Canberra designed to keep diplomats up to date on the state's version of current events. Generally, they are pretty bland articles (i.e. "Librarian Nancy Pearl promotes reading, library services"), split between regions of the world. Today, under the Africa section, was the following headline:

U.S. Soft Drink Company Teaches African Teens About AIDS

Now, what does it say about our global influence that we entrust a soda company to educate a country on a life-threatening disease? I read the article out of curiosity and it turns out Coca-Cola actually is doing some interesting philanthropic work in Africa. However, that work is mainly limited to sponsoring concerts, etc, that are supposedly simultaneously teaching African teens about AIDS. On another note, it's also poignant that this was the only article under the Africa section. Apparently the US Department of State deems Coca-Cola's influence the only newsworthy event for the continent.

THEY DID IT!

The Rockies made it to the world series!
I'm totally skipping a day of work to watch them in the series

A not-so-boring weekend

I'll just skip over Saturday (complete with errands, grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry ugh!) and head right into Sunday since it contains enough adventure for many weekends.

I got up in the morning, went for a run, then headed out to a farm that I nearly ran by earlier in the morning where a colleague of the guy I rent a room from lives. Gus is a mechanical engineer (Graham, if you turn out like him in 30 years, I'm totally coming to live with you) who works at Avalon airport, the Chicago Midway airport of Melbourne. I have always really wanted to go flying, and I thought I might get to go flying with him. Then again, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen so I didn't want to get my hopes up.

When we arrived at his farm, we talked for a while about Australian farming politics and unions and then started a pre-flight check for a 44 helicopter that we would take to the waterfront (about a 10 minute flight). The helicopter is for tourists and normally charges 130 an hour, according to Gus, but due to complaints about helicopter noise it parks at Gus's farm every night so he can take free flights into the city of Geelong whenever he wants to since the helicopter has to get there anyway.

So, that was an experience in itself and I was thrilled. We flew over Geelong and around Port Phillip Bay and it really felt like we were floating. I got to sit in the front and the windows were so huge you could really see everything. We eventually returned to the farm and had morning tea and then Gus said he was going to take me out in his cessna, which he keeps in a barn attached to his house. Now I was really excited! We took off from a makeshift runway/pasture and flew to a nearby tiny airport to refuel. Then we took off again and flew around the Bellarine Penninusla, over Queenscliff and over the rip, an area at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay where water moves faster naturally than any other place in the world. Visibility was so high that we could see clear across the bay to the skyscrapers of Melbourne. Then we turned South to follow the coast (i.e. the Great Ocean Road) and I got to fly. I got to fly! So I flew down the coast until Anglesea when we encountered a rain storm so we skimmed across the Eastern part of the Otway mountain ranges and back toward Geelong. I flew over Deakin Uni and over the house where I am staying before Gus took back over the controls to land us back at his farm. It was so much fun! The best part is that he goes flying at least once a week and he said I could come back and fly with him again. We're planning trips to go further down the coast to fly by the Twelve Apostles (some cool rocks) and over the true Otway ranges as well as a night trip to see the lights of Melbourne. AND, as if you didn't have enough reasons to visit me in Australia, Gus is emphatic that I bring any visitors out to the farm so he can take them up as well.

I think I'll be dreaming about flying for a long time. I'm still really elated.

Here's a rough map. The farm is near where the main road from Geelong splits off to go to Queensfliff. Queenscliff is on the tip of the penninsula and Anglesea is at the bottom left. Lake Connewarre, my study site, is the big lake in the middle of the penninsula.

BTW, my favorite baseball team, the Rockies, are officially in the National League championships. They are such underdogs that even though they haven't won the World Series since 1995 and even though they have had an amazing season so far (only one loss) the story of the game didn't even make the front page of the NY Times sports section. I have a secret plan to convert everyone I know in Geelong into Rockies supporters so they will have a strong contingent somewhere outside of Colorado.

Was I really like this when I was 15?

Maybe I have just blocked it out of my memory, but I do not remember being that bad when I was 15. The 15-year-old I live with had her birthday last week. Yesterday, she had a bunch of friends over for a 'slumber party', but apparently no one told the girls about the slumber part of these events. They stayed up all night screaming and giggling and playing pop music in the room outside my bedroom. Fortunately, I tend not to have a problem falling asleep, or sleeping through extremely loud noises. But they even managed to wake me up a few times during the night. I don't mind since it is a one time thing, and everyone deserves to have a little fun on their birthday, but I do not remember doing the things these girls were doing. In fact, I don't think I stayed up for a whole night until college. Then again, I led a sheltered life with a 7pm bedtime and sans barbies or nintendo. She says she had fun, which makes the noise worthwhile, but some of her friends were feeling pretty sick when I saw them on my way to uni in the morning.

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

stressed?

For the past couple of years K has been trying to get its students to lighten up. It all started many years ago when the day of gracious living was established. It is a sunny, hot day in Spring when you wake up to the chapel bells signaling that all classes have been cancelled for the day and the college sponsors busses to the beach as well as other fun activities. A year ago, facilities management installed a swing on campus. Soon thereafter they hired a chaplain who takes us on canoe trips, leaves cookies and tea out for anyone who wanders by, and keeps a steady supply of bubbles and hula hoops during the day and s'mores and a fire pit at night. Lately, however, things have become even more silly. One staff member drives a 'random act of kindness cart' around campus handing out free ice cream sandwidches to students on hot days, and at a recent senior event, we were all given kazoos to play our alma matter in front of the campus. As the culmination of silliness, we had a cirque de K circus with the band recently, as well.




It's hard to be stressed when you're eating ice cream and playing a kazoo, until someone reminds you that by Wednesday morning you will officially no longer be an undergraduate student.