March 12, 2006

Hello!

As I predicted it has been another week since a major update. Hopefully you all saw that my camera started working again and that I posted several pictures from my adventure weekend. If you did not see them you and would like to, they are just below this update.

I believe I left off last week with the first day of classes starting the next day. Monday was the first day of classes for the semester. I am currently enrolled in four classes (the normal amount for University in Australia) and none of my classes meet on either Monday or Friday. So, being the proactive student that I am, I attended three classes Monday that I had been interested in. This way, if I ended up not liking one of the classes I was enrolled in, I could pick up one of these three classes and not have missed the first day. Unfortunately, of the three classes I attended only one was decently interesting. So it did not look like a great start to the semester, but I just hoped that the four I had picked were going to be great.

Monday night was also St. John’s College’s first Formal Dinner of the year. St. John’s has two Formal dinners a week; Monday and Wednesday. A Formal Dinner is compulsory for all residents. Proper dress is required at Formal Dinner and that consists of a smart casual outfit at the very least (Khakis and shirt and tie). As well, we must wear our academic robes to the Formal Dinner. I know this sounds very fancy and proper and it is in some sense and not so much in others. It does slightly resemble something out of Harry Potter, seeing 180 kids walking down an old Victorian building all in black robes. The Dinner itself is supposed to be the best meals of the week, and they usually are. However, you do not really serve yourself, like you do the rest of the week, so the portions are smaller. (And to all my motherly figures that are reading this, I am gaining a lot of weight and I am eating more vegetables here than in my whole life. I even tried cauliflower and squash). During dinner, the tables are covered in clothes and we use fancy silverware and everything. As well, there is a “high table” with the Rector and others at it and speeches and announcements are made throughout dinner. Also there are several weird rules about eating and drinking and procedure in the dinning hall, I will not go into them now, but that do make eating a little trickier, but also more entertaining.

After Formal Dinner a bunch of my American friends and I went to the campus bar where they were replaying the Oscars on a big screen. Now, just for all you trivia buffs, Australia is one of the few countries in the world that get to see the Oscars live, however it is so early in the morning that most Australians just watch the replayed version. It was fun to watch the Oscars, which I do not usually watch in the U.S.

On Tuesday I had my first real classes. I started at 10:00am with Australian Social History 1919-2006. The Professor for the class is an interesting man, he is someone who is awkward, but in the sense that he is very into his topic matter. In Australia there is a huge discussion over what is an Australian and what makes someone Australian. As well, if there is no such thing as an Australian then how is someone or something un-Australian. This discussion has been around for decades, yet at moments in history it is brought more into the front of conversations and the riots over the summer have brought this topic back into the mainstream. Thus, this social history class in particular really deals with this issue, as do several other of my classes. But this Australian Social History class does seem interesting and it seems like it will be a good way for me to not only learn more about Australian history, but also about the culture and society that I am living in for the next five months.

My next class was Southeast Asia: Dilemmas and Developments. The Professor for this class seems significantly less interesting than my first Professor. She is not very engaging when you lectures and seems somewhat unsure of herself and almost seems unsure about what she is saying when she lectures. The class is a government class; however she seems to be combining a lot of economics into it, at least a lot of the lectures look to be centered on a country’s economy. Despite all of this, the class still does interest me especially because I know very little about Southeast Asia and the nations that make it up. So this class will be a great opportunity for me to learn more about this area of the world that is often overlooked.

The last class that I had for the day was Australian Politics. The title pretty much says it what the class is about, so there is not much explaining to do in that area. The lecture is very large, over 200 students, and since it is a first year level course it is composed of mostly freshman and International Students. The Professor is a thirty something women who seems very active and knowledgeable on Australian politics and has taught the course for several years. She is very engaging and interesting and it looks to be a good course, especially since I know almost nothing about politics in Australia. The Professor reassured all the International students at the end of class that they should not feel like they are behind because they know little to nothing about Australian politics. It turns out that in primary and secondary school in Australia, almost no teaching of politics occurs. Thus, most Australian students know as little as I do about Australian politics, despite the fact that they are now 18 and have compulsory voting.

Those were my three classes for the day, my fourth class is only held once a week on Wednesdays. However, in order to keep this update in sequential order I will first tell you about my Tuesday night. On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to be treated to a real dinner and very nice evening thanks to a friend of a former associate of my father. This woman, Kate, is an attorney in Sydney, who attended some school in the US. She lives in an area of Sydney called Elizabeth Bay and has an amazing apartment that also has a view of the harbor. To get to her apartment I had to use the subway (they call it ‘the trains’) for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised. I also got to see an area of the city called King’s Cross for the first time. It is not quite a ‘family place’ at all, but nonetheless it is part of the fabric of Sydney and is interesting to see. Kate and her niece treated me to dinner at a local café. It was nice to talk to older Australians who have a little more knowledge and insight then some of the college aged people I live with. It was a good night and a welcomed change.

On Wednesday, I attended the second class of Australian Social History and Southeast Asia: Dilemmas and Development and then attended my first class of my second history class; Australia and the World. This class is a third year level class and will be the most difficult class I have. Third year level is the highest undergraduate level there is at University here and my class has approximately 15 people (by far my smallest) and we all sit in a small room with our Professor. This seminar atmosphere is nice and a change from classes I have taken in the past and am taking now. The Professor seems terrific, he is an older man, has troubles hearing, but has a terrific sense of humor and wit. I really feel that I will enjoy this class, not only for the Professor and topic matter, but also for the students; it seems like a diverse, intelligent group. The topic matter, not clearly evident from the title, is mostly a history of Australia by looking at its interaction with the rest of world. Hopefully that is a decent enough description.

Wednesday night was our second Formal Dinner and it went well, not much difference from the first one. Afterwards our pub, the Dail, opened for its one night a week and it was good fun. After spending sometime in the Dail I went back to me my room in order to book my trip to Canberra for the next day. Because it is the first week of classes and I don’t have tutorials (discussion groups) I had Thursday free as well. So I left Sydney by train on Thursday for Canberra (the nation’s capitol, for those who do not already know). I arrived in the early evening and walked about three miles through the city to the youth hostel I was staying in. The hostel seemed nice and I had three male roommates. That night I walked through a part of the city that has most of the night life, though there wasn’t much, and I walked through the local University. There was not much going on so I went to bed early so that I could be rested for the next day.

On Friday I woke up at 7:00am and rented a bike from the hostel I was staying at and started my day by biking to the local market and picking up some bread to eat for the day (very low budget, I know). (I have decided to leave out most of the details and little facts/trivia that I learned while visiting the places below, because it would take to long for me to write it all and it might get boring. If you would like to know more about any particular thing I did just ask me and I will send you more details.) I started my day by visiting The National Museum of Australia. The museum structure and design was probably the most interesting part of this museum, it was mostly a social history of Australia. Next I biked to the Australian War Memorial and Museum. This is a beautiful Memorial and Museum in one, which is laid out to look directly at the Old Parliament and Parliament buildings across the lake. I took a tour of the museum and spent about two hours in the museum. However, the museum is so vast and interesting that I could have easily spent a full day in it and still not have seen everything. Next I biked quickly across the lake to visit Parliament. Unfortunately, Parliament was not in session, because the Commonwealth Games are about to start in Melbourne, so I did not get to see it in session, but I did take a great tour of the building. The building is a huge and interesting structure. It has many interesting features and provides a marvelous view of the whole city from its roof. After wandering through the Parliament building I biked down to the High Court (the equivalent of the our Supreme Court) and got there just in time to see about twenty minutes of one of the proceedings occurring in the one of the three Courts that make up the High Court. It was very interesting to see this, they use videoconferencing (so the lawyers were not in the courtroom with the Judges, but rather appeared on a TV screen). After getting a ton of information on the High Court from the very nice guides that were there (I think I might have been the only visitor all day), I biked up to the see the U.S. Embassy. It was a beautiful compound, however it is closed to the public and I only got to talk to the Australian gate guard that was stationed outside, a little disappointing for all the biking I had to do to get to it. Finally, I biked quickly to the see the Botanical Gardens; however it closed right as I got there and thus my day of sightseeing was over. I took the bike to the market to get some bread and nutella for dinner, but before taking it back to the hostel to rest, I biked a few blocks to take a picture of a restaurant called Sage (for those of you who don’t know, that is the name of the restaurant I spent all summer in last summer). Then I went back to the hostel and had some great conversations with some Australians and a Canadian and then went to sleep. I woke up at 5:00am so that I could walk back to the train station in time for my 6:37am train back to Sydney. The train ride is about four and half hours each way and the train system is fairly nice and efficient here.

I did nothing exciting on Saturday once I returned to St. John’s, so that is an update of my whole week. My time in Canberra was a lot more fun that my brief, dry description makes it sound. I found it quite interesting the contrast between not only the basic set up of the Australian system, but also the buildings and how it all contrasts with Washington, DC and the US system. I learned a lot and it was a great experience and I am very glad I made the trip. Also, all the biking taught me not only how out of shape I was, but also the importance of water. I mentioned that I biked everywhere. Well it happened to be roughly 93 degrees Fahrenheit and very sunny (and yes, I wore plenty of very heavy, high grade Australian sunscreen and was forced to drink tons of water). All and all it was a great day and a good trip.

Now I am back at St. John’s and getting ready to start my class work and preparing to start picking classes for next fall at GWU, the start of my senior year.

I hope this was a satisfactory update and below are some pictures from my trip (they are not all of the highest quality, my apologies). As always, I greatly appreciate any and all e-mails and apologize for any delay in writing back.

I hope all is well with you and that this finds you well. I look forward to hearing from you and I will be writing again in another week.

Again if you would like to know more, you can always just ask and if you would prefer getting updates by e-mail, instead of checking the blog, just let me know. It is no problem for me.

Have a great week!

Love

Jon

p.s. Next week I will have taken good pictures of St. John's and my room. I will post them and explain them so that if you want to get an idea of where I live, you can.

Sorry that the pictures are not really in order, but I think you get the idea.

A view of the Bush from the train

My first Hostel room

The main courtroom of the High Court

The High Court building

The Parliament building

The flag pole on top of the Parliament (from the roof)

The 'House' side of Parliament

A view of the outside of the Parliament building (most of it is underground)

The 'Senate' side of the Parliament

ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp) Parade. The Memorial/Museum is at the end.

One of two walls on the Memorial that has every name of every Australian killed during War time. The flowers are for memorial.

This is a Japanesse bomber and is believed to have been used both at Pearl Harbor and the first bombing of Darwin, Australia.

This is the 'inside' of the Memorial

This is one of eleven Memorials along the ANZAC Parade. It is their memorial for Vietnam

This is the courtyard of The National Museum of Australia

This is the Carillon bell tower. It has 50 large bells and was a gift of Great Britain

One of only four remaining original Magna Cartas

A map of Canberra. Though maybe you could blow it up and get an ideo of where things are. I stayed around the circle on the opposite side of the lake from the Parliment building.