April 30, 2006

Hello,

This past week was quite different from the two previous ones. I did not leave Sydney at all and for the most part stayed on campus. I just want to state in advance that this will not be a very long or exciting update.

I believe I left you on last Saturday. Well, Sunday and Monday did not involve anything of real note. I spent the majority of both days doing reading for classes and starting to prepare for some assignments that will be due soon. On Monday I did attend Formal Dinner after what seemed to be quite a long time without it. However, it became obvious that the quality of food has gone down hill here at St. Johns. Unfortunately the quality of food has decreased and I have found myself eating slightly less then I had been before, but I trust it will get better (tonight’s dinner was very promising).

Tuesday and Wednesday were probably the highlights of the weekend. As I mentioned very briefly in my last update, Tuesday was ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) Day. ANZAC Day is the largest holiday in Australia and is observed by everyone. In essence it is Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day and Independence Day combined into one day. It has been celebrated on April 25 every year since 1915. The date of April 25 is significant to Australia and New Zealand because it is the day on which ANZAC troops first landed on the shores of Gallipoli in 1915. For those of you who are students of the First World War you will know that Gallipoli was a terrible disaster. Australia lost 7,600 men and 18,500 more to casualties. Despite, or rather in spite, of the disaster the valor and courage of the Australia soldier was glorified in Australia. This is what Australians call the ‘ANZAC myth.’ It is basically a glorification of the troops at Gallipoli, with the basis that their valor, courage and skills proved that the newly independent Australia was a true and respectable nation. Hence, every April 25 all of Australia remembers and thanks those that served not only at Gallipoli but also all those who have ever served or are now serving in Armed Forces of Australia.

With that explanation out of the way, there are many ANZAC services in every big city and small town throughout Australia. Sydney has one of the biggest ANZAC services and it is called the dawn service; it is aptly held at dawn. I figured that this would be the best service to attend, if I only was able to attend one. So I woke up at 3:00 AM, threw on some clothes and grabbed my camera. I walked about halfway to Martin Place, in downtown Sydney, and caught a bus the rest of the way. Luckily I had beaten most of the crowd and was able to get within a few rows of the stage. The memorial is held around the Cenotaph, the most famous and recognizable war memorials in Sydney. At 4:00 AM the service started, as dawn broke, and it is estimated that around 10,000 people squeeze into about a two block area to listen and participate. There were several speeches and some songs sung. The main part of the ceremony is a solo trumpet player, who plays two songs, followed by a two minute moment of silence. It was very serene to be standing in the middle of the Central Business District of Sydney, at 4:30 AM, with 10,000 people and have it be absolutely quiet. It was a very nice and moving experience and definitely gave me a new insight into Australian culture and history. I tried to find some other events, but did not succeed before becoming exhausted and walking home to take a nap.

Wednesday I started classes again and things were back to normal. However, after classes were done on Wednesday the Inter-College athletics started. At 5:00 PM there was a Fresher Netball game. Now you are probably asking yourself what exactly netball is. It is unnecessarily complicated and so I will just describe the basics. First, it is a female sport and is very reminiscent of basketball. It is played on a basketball court, with two hoops, but no backboards. The court is divided into three areas and much like women’s basketball was back the 1950s, players may only move in certain sections, there is no walking once you have the ball, and it is contact free. That means that players must stay three feet away from their opponent. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Well it is weird, and interesting to watch. It does not look like it should be easy to play, almost like a passing drill for basketball, but apparently is difficult. Well our first year girls played St. Andrews College and unfortunately lost by 5 points (each basket is one point).

After the netball game I returned to St. John’s for a very small and quick Formal Dinner. Then it was back to St. Andrew’s College for the Fresher Footy game. This is a huge game, as there is only one footy (or rugby) game for freshers (first years) and it counts for a lot of points when deciding which college wins the Inter-College games. I might mention now that St. John’s last won this Inter-College competition (called the Rawson Cup) was in 1974; and there are only six colleges in the competition. So we don’t tend to do so well as a school in the athletics field (although we did have a player on the Under 19 World Rugby Championship team this year). Back to the actual game, it was going really well and we had a huge crowd. Everyone from St. John’s had come out to cheer and drink. And we are by far the loudest college, despite being the smallest. We had the leading going into the end of the game and then a questionable no-call by the referee, which would have give us possession, let directly to St. Andrews scoring a try (basically a touchdown). It turned out that they scored this with one second remaining and therefore the game was over, they went ahead with the score and won. I was a huge blow to St. John’s, because they never win, especially against St. Andrew’s and it was going to be huge that we won and then at the last second it was taken away. Well despite two big loses in one night the whole college was in good enough spirits to have a good rest of the night.

Well Thursday, Friday and Saturday all went by without anything of significance occurring. This is mostly because I spent the large majority of all three of these days doing research and working on a presentation I have to do on Wednesday. As well, I have been trying to plan my future trips. I have almost come to a decision on my trip to Asia in July and hopefully will complete my travel plans to Melbourne, Perth, Ayers Rock and Tasmania. All the work and planning is very time consuming and stressful. I know that I should not be working so hard, but instead be relaxing and enjoying it here. But for some reason I feel a need to do all my work on time and well, and that is time consuming. So I am doing a lot of work, but I am still enjoying myself a lot, so do not feel too bad for me.

I must stop writing now, as this as become as long as all my others and it is getting late. As always I would love to hear from all of you (I always find time to read e-mails). Other than that I will have another update for you next Sunday (though I can’t imagine what I will write about as I plan on studying and researching all week).

I hope all is well at home and that this finds everyone in good health.

Love,

Jon

There are only two pictures at the moment. They are from ANZAC Day. I would have taken more, but felt odd take pictures during or after the ceremony. I will hopefully take some pictures of the rugby game from a friend and post those soon.

This is the Cenotaph at Martin Place.

This is a shot of part of the crowd at Martin Place.