Whereabouts in Melbourne

"A Walkabout Melbourne"

2010-03-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

My good friend, Alex Brown, has been back in Kentucky for a few months after having spent almost a year in Melbourne. Like me, he spent a year studying as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Alex and I were roommates for a summer at Centre College in 2006. When Alex first arrived in Melbourne, early 2009, we had a pint at the Union Club Hotel (a pub) and drank to the curiosity of both having wound up studying at the same time in Melbourne.

Alex kept a keen account of his time in Australia, worth checking out.

alexbrownwalkabout.blogspot.com

I am fond of, among others, his entry, Journey through the red center of Australia.

Olympics of the other

2010-02-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

I have not asked them, but I suspect Australians take extra pride in participating in the winter Olympics. There is snow in Australia, but only in one small part of the country, near the bottom right hand corner, in pockets way up in a small and ancient mountain range- the Australian Alps. These mountains contain Snowy River National Park, The Blue Mountains, and other bucolic sounding stretches of high country. Otherwise, the country is mostly a desert. So, I would feel satisfaction at my compatriots going big in the colds of Vancouver. And that's the funny thing: I do feel satisfaction about Australians winning and losing in the snow.

Daily coverage from Vancouver has been hosted by Melbourne's Eddie McGuire and aired on a public access TV station. I've tuned in three or four times. What was very apparent, but did not strike me until the third time watching, was that the broadcast was not focusing on American athletes. "Of course", you're thinking, but I'm used to Olympics being portrayed as mostly about Americans. And this was about the Olympics, but it was really about Australian athletes in the Olympics. The broadcast, I realized, was constructing a narrative of Australians and of Australia, as the Aussie athletes interacted with the rest of the world through competition.

I found myself rooting for the Americans and barracking for the Australians; US flags and inflatable kangaroos.

"Kentucky"

2010-02-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

"Where did you go to uni?" I am often asked.

"Back in the US, in Kentucky," I say.

"Oh, Kentucky Fried Chicken," they say with the type of smile which leaves me thinking I've managed to whet their appetite.

KFC, or just Kentucky as it's referred to here, is a primary corporate sponsor for the Australian Cricket team. KFC sponsors Australian Cricket? It's a weird and special world.

I came across an article from ABC news online about the sponsorship, published in 2008. "Obesity experts" were calling for extermination of the sponsorship, questioning the responsibility of professional athletes sporting fast food logos. Kentucky may not be healthy, but they've hung on to their sponsorship contract. Meanwhile, Australia beat the United States last year. It pushed the US out of the top spot for nation with the highest obesity rate per capita. Kentucky probably didn't help.

Australian Tennessee BBQ

2010-02-20T16:51:00.000-08:00

My friends put on a BBQ last night. The air was dry, with a cool breeze. Heat from the grill warmed our faces. We drank Tasmanian lager. The steaks were marinated with Jack Daniels Tennessee bbq sauce. My friend Steffen said about the sauce, "I found that for $4. I hope it's good". The steaks were good.

$100 vs. Fat Ass

2010-02-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Marathons cost money to participate in. The average fee is around $100. The collective sentiment of family and most friends: "You pay them so that you can run 26 miles?" Well, yes. And yes, it seems asinine at first thought. But so does paying $30 for a restaurant meal which one could perhaps prepare just as well at home for $10? You pay for an experience, with other people. (I understand that the subtext of the above sentiment is something like, "You pay them so that you can experience pain?" Yes, it's weird, I know).

$100 is a bit greedy on the money clip. So, someone had an idea for organizing distance running events which are free. It caught on. The runs are organized over the internet, a few kind folks volunteer their time and energy to take the lead and see that it all comes together. They call them Fat Ass Run. Their motto:

"No fees, no awards, no aid, no wimps"

The races are typically longer than marathon distance and often off-road. The idea is, in addition to being free, that it would get people together who desire to run in groups for the sake of running, as an enriching experience. The idea to run with other people is as old as people, but Fat Ass Running in particular was the idea of a guy from San Francisco who organized a group to run 50 miles together right after Christmas one year to make use of that extra cushion from luscious yuletide cooking. It was the birth of running Fat Ass. The phenomenon continues to grow but remains, by its very nature, humble and independent. The San Franciscan encouraged any and all to take up the idea. They did. It caught on in Australia, which now has a list of annual runs.

There is something irresistible about what happens when something is taken up by Australians. Take this description of Fat Ass in Australia from the website:

In the end we just got fed up of not having enough races that we like - generally bush runs and usually longer than a marathon, that we just thought "bugger it - we'll do our own" but in a no frills, no bullshit way - just rock on up, get a map and head off into the yonder.
- http://www.coolrunning.com.au/fatass/hq/index.php?title=Main_Page

See? Irresistible.

Parkour in Melbourne

2010-01-25T13:47:00.001-08:00

I've become aware of another unique perspective with which to view my city. Melbourne is home to at least one crew of Parkour, or 'free runners'. Parkour originated in France. It consists of running full on through an environment, usually urban, and navigating any obstacles with only the body. The people who practice this art form and athletic discipline must be as dedicated to training as professional athletes. There could be no other way, it is that rigorous. It seems dangerous. I imagine its practitioners would tell you it is not so dangerous if you know what you're doing. Parkour is known as l'art du deplacement, the art of movement. At some point it made its way around the globe to Australia. Watching these Australians swing, jump, glide, climb, and run throughout Melbourne convinced me that it is an artistic discipline, requiring an artist's precision. It also requires big heap of guts.

Melbourne through the eyes of Parkour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKPD6wsvoK8

Parkour athletes fall sometimes. (Warning, this one hurts to watch):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNs-Q0qLvz0

Ultra running, part 1

2010-01-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

These are the final months of the thesis project. Some graduate students go mental and lock themselves in rooms with only a slice of light from the bottom of the shade illuminating their laptop. I haven't wigged out yet. There is still time though.

What keeps me steady is running. There are over two hundred reasons I enjoy running. One of them is the emotion stabilizing effect. Take a knot of tightened emotions, run them around for an hour, and watch the magic happen as they sigh into their little emotional lounge chairs. That's when you run typical distances. Then there is distance running. And then there is ultra distance running.

An 'ultra marathon', which sounds a bit too super hero-ish, is a race measured at any distance longer than the official marathon of 26.2 miles (42 kilometers). There exist humans who think it a good idea to run 50 miles. Some occasionally run 100 miles. Why not make it 135…in the desert of Death Valley…in the summer (Badwater ultramarathon).

In the course of training for the Melbourne marathon, I figured out how to run without my knees hurting. It's called mid-foot strike form (as opposed to heel strike, which is what nearly everyone in running shoes does without realizing it). Mid-foot strike running form mimics how we all run when we are barefoot. When we run barefoot we do not land on our heel first because it would hurt.

Post Melbourne marathon I could barely walk to my friend's car. Three days later my muscles had finally loosened enough for a short jog. The muscles in my legs were spent and crying. But my knees and ankles and other loosey goosey joints and whatnots felt as strong as or stronger after the marathon than they ever had.

Those oddball 100 mile runners, it turns out, are not as crazy as they seem. With good running form and patience to slowly build up mileage over weeks and months, it seems there may not be a limit to how far we can run. It is no doubt difficult to run 100 miles, though.

I recently reread a book by Christopher McDougall called 'Born to Run'. I can't look at it without getting Bruce Springsteen on repeat in my head. It is one of the most compelling adventure/culture stories I have read. The book is about the Tarahumara people, all superb running athletes, and the quirk that is the ultra running community. It is the story and theory of how humans are biomechanical designed to run long distances.

Running for an hour and running for 26 hours apparently have different effects on the emotions. In ultra runs, people see things…and they hear things. There is an account in McDougall's book of an ultra runner screaming and leaping off the running trail because they thought a train was coming at them head-on. Another runner is reported by their support crew to have said in the middle of the race, apparently to the empty space in front of them, something like, "I can't see you, but I know you're there". Or, the runner who started seeing corpses on the side of the road. So, you get the idea. There are ultra highs to match the ultra weirds, though. Either way, ultra races do not necessarily have a stabilizing therapeutic effect. But they seem awesome, I mean, don't you think?

Here's my favorite illustration of an ultra going wrong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsoAQwhKKm0

Not according to plan

2009-10-14T04:41:00.000-07:00

I ran my first marathon. It did not go according to plan. Please refer to photo taken of me at the finish:

If you look very closely, you may recognize the contorted facial features of a man who might cry if there were any water or salt left in his system with which to a tear up. I became dehydrated midway into the race.

They say that if you run 26.2 miles, the first 20 miles are really only the first half. I would now add that if you become intensely dehydrated, the first 20 miles are the first quarter and the last 6 miles are like getting slapped in the legs for an hour with a wet beach towel by someone who didn't like you in high school.

The good news is that I finished the marathon. The even better news is that I was not one of eight runners who were hospitalized or one of another 100 + who were treated by medical teams for severe dehydration. But dehydrated I was.

What was my mistake? It was a bad judgment call, based on my lack of experience. I had trained properly to run 26 miles. I had trained sufficiently to run 26 miles with a time between 3 1/2 and 3 3/4 hours. However, I was not prepared to do these things in sunny and warm conditions. By the time I had paced the first half of the race at 8:00 minute miles, it was already too late. My body was dried up. No matter how much liquid I tried to feed it, it would not soak it in.

It was the classic blunder. The newbie goes hot off the blocks and falls apart at the end. I fell apart. I blew up, more like. It was one of the best experiences of my life and simultaneously one of the ugliest. There were ups, there were downs, runner's highs and runner's lows. There were 4,500 runners, the lady in pink, the girl with gummy worms, there was muscle cramping, day dreams, diluted Gatorade, ocean views, vomiting, hitting the wall, and then the other wall, and then another wall, there were three mates there barracking for me, and there were legs which would not move, and defeat, and somehow fun, and I think a nap toward the end. All that and more in 4:06:32. I'll take that time, all things considered. I didn't get the time I was after. It did not go according to plan. But as my friend Adel said, "Man relax, you finished a marathon."

Details to follow.

The 'G' awaits

2009-10-07T02:14:00.000-07:00

This year's Melbourne marathon is on Sunday, Oct 11. It has adopted the motto 'glory awaits you at the G'. The 'G' is the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a sporting stadium and a significant cultural site. Marathoners have to run 26.2 miles (42 kilometers) to get there, so I think we ought to be saying 'inner-thigh chafing awaits you at the G'. That's what awaits me at the 'G', anyway. I've been running away from magpies feverishly for months now to be able to run this thing.

My favorite thing about the race so far is the 'Inspiration DVD' on the marathon website. You're watching the video. You're thinking, oh nice, running, yeah, that's cool. But wait. No. It's clubbing. The 'beat stops', the 'bass drops' and awww yeaaaaah, they're clubbing. Then there are images of people finishing the marathon in doubled over agony. That inspires something. But still, the clubbing, that's what I'm talking about. People ask me, "why would you pay someone else money so that you can run?" Yes, I paid to run this race. And yes, I will answer your question. But first, watch the video, then see if you still even want to ask that question.

The home page with the race director speaking in the accent I hear every day and cannot get enough of: http://www.melbournemarathon.com.au/

To watch the 'Inspiration' video, see the right hand column menu on the home page.

Cultural traffic: Waltzing Matilda

2009-09-30T00:48:00.001-07:00

I was talking about Waltzing Matilda with some Australians the other day, as you do. They were pleasantly surprised to learn most American kids know at least the chorus. "You know, really", said one guy, "it's a song about disillusionment, solitude, and suicide". Another said, "Reminds me of Durkheim". Leave it to sociologists to notice the rain clouds over a bouncy play tune.

I played Waltzing Matilda on the guitar at a Rotary meeting late last year. It was an anniversary of the founding of the Whittlesea Rotary Club, so there were a couple hundred people there. I had the lyrics projected on a screen and some man yelled out, "We don't need the lyrics, mate." I laughed and kept the lyrics up because I was the only person in the room who needed them. After the meeting, a grandmotherly woman approached, put a tender hand on my arm and said, "Dear, thank you, that was just lovely to sing with you. Only, you played it too fast." I had noticed the crowd looked a mite tense during the song.

I recommend the Wiki page for Waltzing Matilda. Interesting history and some sense made of the colloquial conundrums:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda

The Grand Final

2009-09-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

Freaks pop up everywhere. Obsessive, spit flecking devotees float in the pools of politics, religion, commerce, certainly the arts, and most certainly in sport. Take these lovelies for example. You made the papers, guys! (This photo comes from a major Melbourne newspaper website). And from in front of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), the 100,000 capacity stadium which commentators knowingly use religious language to describe- the 'hallowed' MCG. This fellow is as mean as he looks. I know because I was stuck behind him for five minutes on Saturday as I paced through the crowd outside of the stadium. I could not attend the Grand Final, the Super Bowl of Australian Rules Football, so I ran to the stadium to take in the pre game atmosphere.

Saturday's contest was between the Geelong Cats and the St. Kilda Saints. "Go The Cats!" a part of the meandering crowd chanted from near a sausage stand. "Go the Saints" countered some red and black clad Saints supporters. My running clothes happened to be red and black, so I garnered a couple of slant gazes from the Cats fans. The team I actually 'barrack' for, the Richmond Tigers, are unlikely to appear in the Grand Final any time soon. (Oh yeah, England and it's former colonies use 'barrack' to refer to the team they support. The word 'root' has a different connotation. When I told some Australians last year that I root for the Tigers, one of them said, "Mate, that's more than I wanted to know about ya.")

As I was saying, I was stuck behind the freak. It took half an hour to weave through the musty crowd with their meat pies, umbrellas, steamy cups of coffee, face paint, and wind tussled hair. The man in the photo is about six foot six (if you count his painted white 'stack' shoes). This guy would start small verbal contests with fans from the other team. Nothing too bright, just "The Saints are done for" type banter.

I walked past the guy and eventually stopped to watch a woman playing "When the Saints go marching in" on the bagpipes. The Saints later lost the game, but her effort was not wasted on me. Well, until I heard it four times in a row, then I pressed on.

A curiosity about the 90,000 plus crowd was the somber mood I detected. Perhaps it was the cool, cloudy weather, or because the people I encountered were outside, biding their time until the game began. If pressed to describe the character of the crowd, it was like a 30 year old man in a football jersey, forced to be in church on Sunday morning while his friends are watching the big game on HD TV from leather couches with a banquet of salty snacks and iced beer at their finger tips. It was not the giddy anticipation I have seen at other major sports events. Probably just the weather.

Wanting to participate in something Australian I went for a sausage. The stands only took cash, so I ran to the city centre and had sushi instead. By the time I made it home the game was over and the Cats had taken the game in a close match. Today I overheard a couple of social science professors talking about the game. "It was a tough game," said one. "And it could have gone either way". Too bad I missed it, but taking in the social atmosphere was nearly as good.

Them

2009-09-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

Some of the students in my tutorials (equivalent to TA taught classes) and I were swapping magpie 'swooping' stories. Australians are all familiar with the black and white birds who garner frequent mention in this blog. Australians all have at least one frightening story to tell. One student recalled when her mother hit and pulled a gang of four magpies off her younger sister, who later had to get stitches on her head. Another student said she waves her arms around her head when she goes running near a thicket of trees. "I'd rather look like a ----- --- than chance getting swooped", she said with a straight face. Magpies are lovely to look at, fascinating to listen to, with a shrill but enchanting song, and are a very real threat, able to draw blood and put out eyes.

My mate commented on the last entry that he doesn't know what they look like. So, take a gander at these beauties (note the size of the bird and the length of the beak):

(I know the magpie just looks like it wants a hug, but trust me, they're nasty)

(That guy in the back seems to be enjoying the show; "You're next," the bird is thinking)

Wattle

2009-08-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

It is wattle day in Australia. September 1, bring out your sprigs of golden wattle, the plant with seeds of significance, beginning in Tasmania when people wore branches of it to commemorate European discovery of the island. Wearing the wattle blossom on the first of September is supposed to remind people of the Australian virtue of community, call it 'mateship'.

Indeed, this country prides itself on a relative high level of camaraderie. You're everyone's mate. That is, you're everyone's mate until you go for a run. Then you are a sweaty moving target.

Some lessons about being a runner in Melbourne which I learned the hard way (and am still learning).

Parking lots: Cars have the right of way, always. Don't be a silly pedestrian and inconvenience someone looking for a spot. If you walk across a parking aisle, drivers will place a bead on your shopping buggy and tap the throttle. If you run through a parking lot, you are sending a message: "Hey cars, anyone want to play chicken?"

Stop signs: Cars may or may not stop. Either way, wait until the car has passed before crossing the street because you are a runner, and that makes you inferior and weak for not being in a car, and probably means you should be crushed. Just this morning, a woman in a large sedan was approaching a stop sign at the same time as me. We made eye contact. She tightened her grip on the wheel and turned hard as she accelerated through the stop, so as not to have to wait for me. I jerked to a knee busting halt as she tilted by. Then, 300 meters down the road, she had parked and was crossing the sidewalk toward a store just in front of me. When she looked at me like, "Oh, it's you", I had never been closer to football sacking the stuffing out of a middle aged woman in my life. But I'm a peace loving man, so I just mad-dogged her. (You would have too, trust me).

Honking: Cars will honk at you. There's something about a person enjoying the mental, emotional, and physical challenge and joy of a good run that just makes some drivers go crazy. When honked at, either ignore them or chuck a big fist pump in the air that says, "yeah mates, let's get this!" Do not point and laugh at them hysterically. Do not look at them and make a large swinging arm arch ending in a butt slap. That one really makes people mad.

Birds: When the cars can't get to you, Australian birds will. It's nesting season again, and the magpies are back to attacking. I was shocked into Spring last week when a magpie dive bombed me out of a French hip-hop induced running trance. Magpies make a loud click with their beaks behind your head, right before they attempt to bite a chunk out of it. From what I have heard, they are quite capable of doing so. A bit of flesh and skull probably make a nice breakfast for a magpie. And they remember you. Seriously, they have good memories and can pick individual humans out of a crowd. When a magpie decides you are a threat to its nest and attacks you every time you pass it's tree, do just walk a couple hundred meters until you are clear of its tree. Do not plot to teach that bird a lesson. After being attacked twice, on the third run I gathered a fist full of pebbles. I was ready to go, bi....bird. It swooped, cawed, snapped, and set me writhing like a child on too much Kool-Aid hurdling into a swimming pool. The bird swooped up, readying to dive again. I hurled my rocks. I completely missed. It became more angry, now having affirmation that I am a threat.

To be fair, self defense is only a small fraction of the running experience in Melbourne. There are some people who cheer you on. Two weeks back I was passing an elderly man walking his dog on a nature trail. The guy was clean-shaven, with disheveled white hair, and the look of tough and sun-weathered farmer. "You're making me tired", he said warmly, and chuckled as I ran by. I laughed with him and said, "I'm making myself tired too". He smiled and made an ushering gesture with his arm. "Ata way," he yelled after me like a coach. "Run for your life, son!"

I was indeed encouraged. And his words stay with me, when I need a boost of energy, and when approaching stop signs.

Chafing

2009-08-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

I carried a journal in my kit on the Appalachian Trail back in 2003. My resolve was to write something every day of the trek, even if only one or a few sentences. Entries like: "Exhausted/ chafing!/ running out of food/ too tired to write", I reckoned would indicate to me years later what sort of pace I was living at.

This entry is something like that:

August 18, 2009

Exhausted/ commitments all tidal surging at once/ no time for grocery shop/ too tired to write/ note to self: get better at saying "no"/ chafing!

Curiosities

2009-07-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

I have been back in Australia exactly one week right now (Friday morning). And I have seen some curious things this week, very curious, though they are not unique to Australia. Some I have noticed before and some I would be better off not knowing. Some examples:

I was at a graduate student seminar where two peers were giving presentations, round table style. I had a water bottle. I took a sip of that water. Several other people immediately reached for their coffee cup or water bottles and took a quick drink. Have you ever noticed that? I remember taking notes in high school or college classes. Write a note at a time in the lecture when there is not anything especially noteworthy, and half the class will move their pen to paper, compelled to write and thinking they may have missed something important. I know that I do it too.

I walked toward the library and spotted a construction worker atop an adjacent building. He was near the edge of the roof, six stories off the ground, and was harnessed with rope to a secure point. There was a walkway directly below. He suddenly reached for a four-foot long steel pole, somehow miscalculated and it began to tumble out of his hands. He bent and snagged it, adjusted his balance, and leaned back toward the building. I watched as he turned around to some coworkers and said in a definitive boom, "Whoa! I almost dropped this, mate! Hahaha." There was nobody walking below at that moment.

Two fellow grad students and a professor were asking me how my trip home was, did I have a nice time. It was great, I said. I spent most of the time with my family in Nashville, Tennessee. The professor made an impressed and sincere smile. "Nashville; how exotic," she said.

Heaps of artists

2009-05-24T13:49:00.001-07:00

Richard Florida researches what he calls the creative class. Nashville, my home town, has made it on his radar for its concentration of musicians (The Atlantic Monthly).

Music, musicians, and the music industry, are becoming more 'clustered and concentrated'. Technology is not, in fact, making the music world more disparate because it offers the possibilities of remote connections. Artists are congregating, being face to face, more than ever, it seems. Florida has a brilliant little map of the US with bars representing these pockets of music community. Techno thingies are being put to use, but people are still tribal (that's how I like to think of it, anyway).

A scene from Fido, my favorite Nashville coffee house, comes to mind. It is a renovated pet shop, so, of course, they kept the name. There are brick walls patched with the work of local artists. The baristas are neither especially nice or especially rude. They just are. They just are waiting for their shift to finish so they can go home and get back to that electric keyboard and duct taped drum kit which are their tickets to enlightened liberation from the bonds of food service industry and into the elusive world of artists who make money from their acts of creation. The baristas suffer the Vanderbilt University students and thrive on interactions with the other musicians who decorate the place. How do I know there are musicians there? Oh, trust me, you can tell. They look pretty much like real people, only, they have what I refer to as- frayed edges. For example, the rest of us wear our hair a bit tussled, as per the current style. A musician is sure to have hair that slouches over their face and then spikes nine inches high in the back like a porcupine cap. If tight pants are back in style, a musician is likely to have used plumbing tools to negotiate into jeans stolen from their little sister, in a butt-cinched display of just how hard it is to be a musician.

This all had me thinking about what type of artistic congregation might be happening in Melbourne. Here is what I found.

Melbourne was named a 'City of Literature' by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural division. The first and only other city to receive this title is Edinburgh. It has to do with the city's overall dedication to the literary arts. I'm guessing that it signals a large literary community. I would like to see a map like Richard Florida's of Australia, and perhaps the world, which charts the congregations of writers.

Australian 'lone person households' Part II

2009-05-23T01:30:00.001-07:00

David de Vaus, in his study of 'solo households', asked a handful of short-answer attitudinal questions.

He found that:

The top three 'positive preference' reasons given for living alone, amongst all those interviewed, were 1) Independence, 2) Can make decisions on own, without having to take others into account, and 3) enjoy the quietness and privacy.

The top three 'negative preference' reasons given were 1) Relationships are too risky (for various reasons), 2) Because everyone else left, and 3) their partner unable to live with them (including the widowed).

(David did not say what percentages of the respondents had particular combinations of these responses).

63% said they chose to live alone during the particular 'solo' spells.

30% said they did not choose to live alone during the particular 'solo' spells.

In response to questions about overall satisfaction with living alone, the most satisfied group of respondents were women aged 70 plus (anyone else see the humor in this?). The least satisfied group were men aged 50 to 69.

"You can't expect relationships to last these days" - 52% of respondents agreed.

"Getting too close to people is risky" - 33% of respondents agreed.

"You can't rely on other people" - 39% of respondents agreed.

'Alones' had much higher rates of frequency of visits and time spent with extended family, friends, and community events, then did samples of the rest of the population.

The percentages of people living alone are spread nearly evenly between each age category (16 to 30; 31 to 49; 50 to 69; 70 plus). There is actually a bow in the middle of the graph, indicating that there are slightly more 'solo households' amongst the middle age ranges than the younger and older).

----------

Many interesting things might be deduced from this heap of stats. Most of these people will be 'solo' on a temporary basis. I gather that, to draw a sweeping generalization, people who live alone do so because they want to, for the short term, and that it improves their quality of life...temporarily.

Does this mean that Australian civilization is falling to bits as people are able to tuck inside their own navel? Probably not. People do not tuck themselves inside their own navel, they end up spending more time and developing more and stronger ties with their extended family and the community. Perhaps something is being lost. The nature of relationships changes. For better or worse? It's hard to say.

Australian 'lone person households'

2009-05-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

David de Vaus, dean of the faculty, gave a staff seminar today on his research into households with one person.

'Lone person households' are not to be confused with single parent or other types of households. They are dwellings in which there is just one person. David's research into this Australian demographic is quantitative, consisting of large trends and curious intersections.

He reports that 27% of Australian households (which include apartments and the like) are 'solo'. One in four households consist of one person. This surprised me.

Some more interesting figures and trends from David's study:

-This demographic group is increasing faster than any other.
-The 27% is up from 8% in 1946.
-Most developed societies are experiencing this upward trend, to different degrees. Examples:
Sweden - 46% (the highest)
Germany - 39%
United States - 26%
Spain - 14%
United Kingdom - 29%
Japan - 29%
China - 8%
Singapore- 10%
Turkey - 3%
(estimates are that many South American countries hover around 3%)
-41% of Australians have ever lived alone (for at least three months)
-The percentages of those living alone is almost evenly spread across age groups (read: it's not because there are more old people).
-46% of Australians living alone are men, 54% women.
-From 1986 to 2006....
....those living alone due to divorce increased, 23% to 32%.
....those living alone as widow(er) decreased, 38% to 28%.
-Most solo households are in 'spells' or are temporary, often transitional, statuses.
-Of these 'completed spells'....
....the median was 2.9 years.
....the mean was 1 to 2 years.
-The mean of those still in solo households is 6.5 years.

What does all of this mean?

David de Vaus and nearly everyone else who studies this are not sure. They have guesses, they write journal articles about it, and they generally come up with one of a few types of answers.

1) Demographic explanations (i.e. the population getting older)
2) Choice and values explanations (i.e. people want to live alone)
3) Capacity explanations (i.e. housing types and greater overall wealth enable it)

Some post grad friends of mine and I walked away from the talk suggesting that there are 100 PhD dissertations in all of that tangle of statistics.

Whatever the answers, it is an interesting glimpse into the social patterns in Australia (and the US, it turns out). Political rhetoric and policy focus on families, and it probably ought to since that's what most people seem to want to do and actually end up doing. But a quarter of the population live alone at any given time, and not only because they are especially young and unmarried or because they are old and widowed.

David highlighted the fact that a stereotype of people living alone is that they just can't cut it living with others. This, he found in his studies, was not at all the case.

Days to not spend money

2009-05-19T15:49:00.001-07:00

Should a country legislate that chocolate bunnies cannot be purchased on Good Friday?

The Age, Australian newspaper, recently ran an op-ed piece on retail holiday 'black out' days. 'Open and they will come' is Michael Baker's argument that requiring shops to close on religious or other holidays is a double standard and fiscally harmful or at least hindering to the Australian economy.

He makes a type of argument in which all people are equal and therefore ought to be able to shop every day of the year. It's not good for the greater society and not good for the economy, he argues, for government to decide when business can and cannot carry on as usual.

America, Baker notes, is way more religious than Australia, yet they do not require shops to close on religious holidays. It is a multicultural society with a government that does not assume that everyone will want to stay home on Good Friday. (In Australia, Good Friday is a public holiday and retailers close). Australia is multicultural, multi-faith, 'So what gives?' asks Baker.

Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is doling out big economy stimulating bundles of cash, similar to the US. Baker is suggesting that measures like these are only as good as people's opportunities to spend the money.

Fair enough, I suppose.

As an aside, I wonder about the socio-emotional benefits of a society-wide breather from the work-spend-work cycle that patterns our lives. Who knows?

When I arrived in Melbourne, one of the first things I noticed was that most retailers, aside from grocery stores, close around 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. "Well, that's right when people get off of work, how can they shop?" I thought. It seems to work out alright for them, but I'm surprised Baker did not mention opening hours in his piece.

Being a bit of a spendthrift, and being a person who becomes exhausted at the mere mention of shopping, I vote keep the days for the market, and its people, to breath.

A hold on the past; the Appalachian Trail

2009-05-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

The things we experience now have an inextricable impact on the choices we make tomorrow and the next day. That is why I hiked the Appalachian Trail with Rob and Erich in 2003. The trek was important to do then, I was convinced, because it would shape the way that I perceived the world and made choices from that point forward. Abstract as it seems, I am convinced that those months in the expansive Appalachian Mountains have much to do with me being in Australia. My thoughts return often to that time of living in the American wilderness. I hold firmly and fondly to that trail, the people, the struggle. And it has a solid hold on me.

This short video, which I found over the weekend, is one of the better I have seen for offering a taste of an Appalachian Trail end-to-end hike. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZxEh_klLU0

"Think of what you've done in the last five months...."

Introvert empathy

2009-05-14T21:41:00.001-07:00

I do not know Jonathan Rauch from Adam, but he seems to know me like a brother.

Rauch wrote a piece for The Atlantic in 2003 about introvert personality. I found the article just today and it has changed my life. If nothing else, I am justified! Haha. Yes, I am laughing out loud to myself, as this is a matter of maniacal relief.

The article was published March, 2003. March, 2003 is when I began a five and a half month long hike from Georgia to Maine, three months of which I hiked alone...by myself....alone. "You hiked alone!" is the response I often receive to this bit of my life experience (clearly from extroverts). "Why would you do that?" they ask with scrunched noses and narrowed eyes. To discover the answer, please read Rauch's richly entertaining article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

Good. Having read that, you now understand everything you need to know about me (and those other poor introverts in your life).

Great Ocean Walk part III

2009-05-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Despite the worry of a defunct backpack, those solemn feelings of expectation began to emerge. When I set out on a trek like this, whether it is meant to be five days or five months, there is a web of emotion which feels the way that a triple scoop cup of ice-cream tastes.

I had been eating that scoop of vanilla on top, enjoying the taste of anticipation for what's to come. This includes imagining for two months what it will be like, and knowing that it will never be quite what I expect. There are the musings about whether the group will make it the whole trek, followed by audacious banter about how "We're gonna finish this bastard, if we have to do it with our legs broken and bleeding!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!" At which point we each take another drink of coffee, go back to that packing list we were making, and silently think to ourselves, "I hope we make it."

Tightening the hip-belt on my pack, taking up my trekking poles, and giving a bit of a grunt, I looked at the guys and we were ready to go. I was about to take a bite of mint-chocolate-chip, that middle scoop of the experience itself, which I had been waiting for eagerly. My friends and I enjoyed the vanilla of planning together, now we were on to the good stuff. (The third scoop is chocolate; the faithful pleasure of memory and story telling.)

A voice stepped into my euphoria like a bully on a sand castle: "What are those ski poles for," asked a young Australian woman, pointing to my trekking poles, speaking through her nose, and sounding like she had already made up her mind that I was an idiot. "Oh right," I chuckled, "I know, they look like skiing poles, but they're called trekking poles. I bought them at a hiking store. See, they retract into three sections, they're pretty light, and they take a lot of the strain and effort off of your legs."

She looked entirely unconvinced. "Oh, well," she said, "In Australia, we use sticks."

I try not to let these types of things bother me, really I do try.

Great Ocean Walk part II

2009-05-07T16:24:00.001-07:00

The Great Ocean Road is a marvel of post WWI works, in which hapless crews of returned servicemen dynamited and dug and paved a road into the sides of an otherwise impervious coast of cliffs. Battle hardened Aussies are and were called 'diggers'. They did not simply build a road along the scenic cliff tops. It is more like they dug a road into the side of the country. Leave it to Australian gusto!

Our car accelerated out of the turns, and into the turns of this road. When you sit in the passenger seat, you nearly look straight down to the laundry-basin like tide of aqua blue and white rushing against the rocks. We were squeezed into the car of a friend who took what would have been our bus fares in exchange for a three hour ride to Apollo Bay, where our hike would begin. Another friend, Ashwin, who had never seen an ocean and is always hungry, came along for the ride. Muhammad was sure he was going to vomit, I had a leg cramp, Ashwin kept complaining that we didn't stop at Red Rooster (a local equivalent to KFC) (he's big, lifts weights, and started to look like he might eat us instead), our driver seemed to forget he had breaks, we all swayed back and forth through the hairpin turns, groaning along with the car as we tried not to crush each other in the back seat.

When you're not worrying about your buddy slinging his lunch in your lap, you realize how much like an explorer you feel, perched along the cliffs and gazing across the blue arch of horizon toward Antarctica. The road straightens out toward Apollo Bay, offering glimpses of surfers, families and walkers on the beaches scattered along the coast, tucked into bays.

Apollo Bay, finally, and I limped out of the car while blood tingled back into my right leg. We parked at the visitor's centre near the beach. Small waves lapped on the other side of a grassy sandbar. Our packs were lined up as we riffled through the food bags, deciding whether we really needed those extra cans of tuna, and should we take two pairs of wool socks, or three, questions of pack weight which seem quite important at the time.

Muhammad was having some trouble with the straps on his pack. "This doesn't seem right," he said, as he loosened this bit and tightened that bit. "Oh, no, it looks okay," I said, trying to reassure him that the pack he'd purchased expressly for this trip wasn't a rip-off. The pack looked like an irritated monkey writhing and pushing against him as he tried to cinch it to his back.

Great Ocean Walk

2009-05-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's a silver day in Melbourne, the sky hazy with rain. Transcribing interviews makes my eyes itch after a couple of hours. I made a cup of tea and a dusted off the Great Ocean Walk map. It is the map I carried in December on the trek with Muhammad and Adel along the cliffs of Australia's southern shore. It is a coast said to have claimed countless ships. I imagine that if the water receeded, an underwater marina of green and skeletal vessels would emerge.

This bush-walk was exceptional.

Ten feral koalas.

Nine(ty) + kilometers.

Eight blisters.

Seven falls.

Six near-enough to injury or death experiences.

Five days, five nights.

Four national cultures.

Three men.

Two-man tent.

One mis-step after another.

Rodeo clown

2009-04-07T17:27:00.001-07:00

The Shelterbox Australia weekend conference was made up of approximately 45 Australians, two Brits, and one North American. Being an American in a large group, or any sized group, of Australians is like being a rodeo clown in a pin full of friendly but nonetheless unruly bulls. Your ass gets sent into the air with the spike of a good joke, you do a couple of barrel rolls, stand up, brush it off laughing, and the crowd goes wild.

Americans are easy targets for plenty of reasons. The biggest lament from Australians though, is that Americans are "up themselves". One man put it to me like this, "The poms (British) always worry that someone else is better than them, the yanks (Americans) don't think anybody is better than them, and Aussies assume that they're all equal".

I can appreciate this sentiment of egalitarianism. I can also tell you that it is most certainly not true. If you're Australian and suddenly offended, please know that I mean it with the utmost sincerity, that Australia is in no way free from the fetters of hierarchy. Toorak and Broadmeadows, I need write no more. (For non-natives, that's suburb for rich and poor). And I daily hear judgements made in the way of distinguishing which fractions of the population are cultured this, or bogany that.

Still, there is something to a national character which people can see when they take in the whole of the individuals they have met, the films they have seen, the news they consume, the wars they do or do not participate in. Generalizations on a national scale may not give us the entire picture, but perhaps they give us something.

Back to me getting "the piss taken' out of me" by my Aussie friends. The British Shelterbox representative talked us through a power-point of statistics on fundraising. The UK raises the most money and is where Shelterbox started and is headquartered. Then you have US, Australian, Canadian, and recently French and German upstarts. For population size and number of Rotary clubs, America ought to be raising the most money. They are not.

America has fifteen times the population of Australia, many many more Rotary clubs, twice as many demonstration boxes, and several times as many SRT members. And America only raises a fraction of the money for disaster relief that Australia does.

This is only half of the story of differences in fundraising, but it's enough of a story to have me waddling gladly in a clown suit for my homeland.

The thing I learned early on in Australia, is that the national pastime is to verbally regulate others' sense of self-importance. This is often called tall-poppy syndrome. I like to call it abuse. But I've grown to appreciate the belittling, because it means you're liked. If Australians didn't think you were worth their time, they would leave you to your own puffed-up devices. I once met an Australian woman who after asking where I'm from said, "Oh, well I'm surprised you knew there were other countries on this side of the world." Hey hey now, Americans know geography too...I can sing all 50 States to you right now if you like.

Toward the end of the conference, we each were invited to make closing remarks. I said, "Well, after spending a weekend locked in a conference room with 40 Australians, I finally know what my younger sister has felt like her entire life. See, I pushed her around relentlessly...because I love her so much. So, in that respect, I feel very loved by all of you."

We laughed together heart-fully.

A final observation on fundraising. Canada, with the smaller population and fewer Rotary clubs, is raising a high and ever increasing amount of Shelterbox funds. Having already surpassed the US, it is inching towards beating out Australia. When the UK rep said that, given its upward trend, Canada would possibly, even likely, surpass Australia, the room suddenly went robust with grumbling, jowl shaking, disbelief in the fact that a statement could even be made. "Oh, right," went one sarcastic jab. "That'll be a laugher," went another. With eyes closed, head shaking, and a wide smile, another man simply said, "No, no, no-oh-oh."

America and Australia are compared on a daily basis, in a friendly jostling manner. Compare Australia and Canada and it seems to strike a nerve. I will be playing with this new discovery and see what happens, clown make-up and all (insert hand wringing and sinister laugh).

Terribly sporty

2009-04-06T19:15:00.001-07:00

Shelterbox Australia had their annual conference this past weekend, in Dandenong, near Melbourne. It was held for all of the district representatives and the Shelterbox Response Team (SRT) members, like me.

Discussion centered much of the time around fundraising, as the Shelterbox Trust is a fundraising organization, which then spends over 90% of its raised funds on urgently needed disaster relief aid supplies and delivery.

A representative from the UK, where Shelterbox originated, was with us for the weekend and had some keen input into expanding the strength and reach of Shelterbox Australia, as a subsidiary. He spoke at length about finding and utilizing patrons, well known people who might serve as reputable and honored spokespeople for fundraising.

The British disposition is to attract “cultural” patrons: classical singers and theatre directors were a couple of mentions. He said, in response to a district rep who wanted to approach the Brisbane Lions Aussie Rules football club, “Let’s think more cultural patrons, not so much sports stars or rock musicians. We want more reliable people.”

To which one woman, another district rep, replied, “Oh, but we are a terribly sporty country.”

The forum of patron suggestions being thrown out yielded another 70 or so names, most of which were sports teams or individual sports stars.

It was that good

2009-04-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

Australia is a compelling cultural batch of trail mix, with peanuts, m & m's, almonds, coconut, dates, and toasted oats. It is a country of cultural variety whose flavors mix surprisingly well and are easy on the stomach, and are good food for thought, friendship, hard work, and long distance treks. The mornings are crisp, clean, and right for an espresso. The afternoons are sun-baked, a little salty, and leave you thirsty for a Victorian brew.

I am not destined to live out my days here, but I have decided to stay for a second year.

The reasoning behind staying in Australia a second year:

Eight additional months for my master's thesis affords me the time to make a stronger work. The original intent was to complete the project within 12 months. This was doable, but in the end it would have meant a hastily constructed thesis and a more shallow living-abroad experience. With a stronger thesis, I hopefully become a stronger candidate for the US graduate schools I will be applying to toward the end of this year.

The camaraderie amongst the social science graduate students and staff is rich. I have alluded to it before and I am sure I will be writing more about it.

Last year, I taught tutorials for a sociology course. This means I worked with three classes of 20 students, reinforcing the lecture material through group discussion. I also marked their essays and served as an advisor to their coursework. On top of that, it was paid! One of my ambitions is to teach at the university level. This time teaching affirmed that desire more than I even imagined it would. This year, I will have the opportunity to teach for another two semesters. I have already begun teaching four tutorial classes for an introduction to sociology course.

I served as a resident assistant last year at the post-graduate residence building Graduate House. This year, I have become the deputy coordinator. This makes me sound like Barney Fife, and it affords me the chance to work with and get to know more international students, as well as live close to La Trobe University.

There are a handful of friendships here which are gold. The friendships remind me of my friends back home, whom I miss dearly. They also remind me of my family whom I miss so much I cannot wait to tackle them like a feral kangaroo.

There are, of course, more nooks of coast line and expanses of red desert which need exploring.

I wrote this on the plane ride over last year:

Aboriginal Australians believe this land was created through songs sung by their ancestors as they walked the land. The idea of song-lines refers to this act of re-creating, of communing, and of understanding. This seems an appropriate notion for the year stretching out before me like the mountains reaching toward the expansive outback of central Australia. In the next year, I have the privilege of walking in new friendships with Australians and people from around the globe. It's a walk into other cultures, into other lives, and into other landscapes. I will walk to see, to hear, and to understand.

It was that good. May the tasks at hand, may the people I meet, may the thoughts, dreams, hikes, and foods, all be as life enriching in the year to come.

Bikies- individual acts, social structures

2009-03-24T22:27:00.001-07:00

Recent escalation in rival gang violence is absorbing Aussie front page news at the moment. Australia has motorcycle gangs with compelling names like Notorious, Comancheros, and the famous Hell's Angels. (An ABC article).

It's quite real. Last week, one "bikie" gang surprised a rival gang member in Sydney's international airport and battered him to death with a metal pole in front of dozens of shocked men, women, and children.

The police have assembled a task force to address the issue, with an equally compelling, though less convincing name, Taskforce Raptor. That's just the sort of name to strike mockery in the hearts of Hell's Angels everywhere.

Australia is a relatively peaceful place to live. Violence has been rising in the last ten years or so, though. A sociologist asks what greater, societal level issues help explain these more localized lethal rivalries. There are many possible explanations, some of them anecdotal, some based on empirical evidence. One such structural explanation for escalating social violence could be the fact of a growing underclass. Australian sociologist Belinda Probert describes the underclass as:

"People whose material circumstances make them worse off than the traditional Australian working class, and who stand little chance of finding secure employment, or buying a house. Not only this, but they will find their claims to welfare support increasingly challenged and contested…The thing that defines this group is their tenuous relationship with employment. It includes the unemployed and the very insecurely employed; the people on various kinds of make-work schemes; the discouraged job seekers; the mothers who cannot afford childcare; the growing army of the working poor…those on disability pensions who would work if appropriate jobs existed; and those with part-time jobs who need a full-time income…those who are involuntarily working less than full time; those employed in temporary jobs; those employed on a casual basis; and those whose hours vary at the whim of their employer."

Most of this underclass are working-poor. Probert wrote this in 2001. At that time, she reported that about a fifth of working-age Australians were "in sufficient strife to receive some kind of social security payment…That is now two and a half million people". The working-poor group, she estimated, totaled about two million. The country even now, in 2009, only has just over 20 million people. All of these percentages and numbers have become significantly worse in the past eight years.

The bikies are one of several types of violence making the news here these days. I do not know if there's a positive correlation between an overall increase in violence and an overall worsening of working conditions in Australia. But it seems likely to me. Powerlessness, desperation, disintegration and identity distress, distrust, and displaced anger; it all comes with poverty. I certainly would not take blame away from the one big bikie who bashed the other big bikie because he was intruding on his turf. I do, however, as a sociology student become curious about the greater structural issues couching the issue. We will see how the government approaches this. I hope they ask the sociologists for a hand.

Why it works

2009-03-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

Australia has had multiple waves of migration which give it a significant multi-cultural identity. As a relatively young settler society, it is a cross-stitch of other places.

Space becomes place when a group of people attach meaning to it. The people who have come to Australia in the last two centuries have made it their own place, and that place is one of great diversity of appearance, language, political and religious persuasion, thoughts and practices, not to mention foods. The striking thing is this: it works.

I have been thinking about why it works. Three of the good friends I have made during my time here are other international students: a South African, an Indian, and an Iranian. What I think we share is something which makes our friendships work and is something which I have realized is what makes Australia work. It is a desire to understand.

Adel, my Indian friend, and Muhammad, my Iranian friend, and I went on a week long hike along Victoria's Great Ocean Walk in December. The bond created over that period will last the rest of our lives. The reason is that we spent that whole week hiking through the Australian bush and sharing our lives and our cultures. It was this time which made me realize that as different as the three of us are, our desires to understand each others' perspectives enabled us to benefit from our differences, perhaps even more than if we had the same perspectives and life experiences.

This attitude of understanding is a substantial part of the Australian ethos. I see it at the university, on the streets, and in the news. There are hick-ups in this, as with anything, but the overarching mentality I have seen is one where people want to understand and respond positively to difference. It is more than tolerated, it seems to be valued.

The next question is why difference is valued to such a degree.

Drowning in Prime Ministerial fashion averted

2009-03-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

Australia once lost a prime minister. He was lost to a powerful rip tide after deciding to swim in a frothing surf break, against his friends' discouragements. The year was 1967, the search effort was one of the largest in Australian history, and the death pronouncement was made after two full unsuccessful days of scanning the nearby ocean for his body. A police spokesman reportedly said that, "The search has come to a dead halt". The word Halt comes out just like Holt if you're an Aussie.

I have been quite busy, but not too busy for a trip to this famously beautiful place.

Niki has purchased a car. It looks like a big metal blueberry. Most Australian cars are half the size of most American cars. We picked up Alex Brown and the three of us made the hour and a half drive Eastward along Port Phillip Bay. Alex is also an Ambassadorial Scholar, also a graduate of Centre College, and also one of my best mates. He is doing his year of study at Melbourne University.

We pic-nicked on the sand and went for a good beach hike. At one point Niki and Alex veered out onto an exposed rock shelf with algae and green pools of starfish speckled water. I stuck to the sand as they went further out. From my vantage, it was clear that the water level was rising, parts of the rock shelf beginning to submerge. Niki's feet are tough because she walks barefoot regularly. Alex teetered and bent and lilly-footed along at a snail's pace. All the while the water rising. I followed after them on the rock at a quick clip because I had flip-flops on. I gave Alex the flip and I wore the flop as we both limped after Niki as she giggled and frolicked back to shore. Drowning in prime ministerial rip tide fashion averted.

Survivor guilt

2009-03-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

The wind is meant to reach well over 100 kilometers per hour today. The weather is reminiscent of Saturday the 7th, though not quite as hot. The 7th, in addition to being my birthday, is now called Black Saturday, in regards to the bushfires which caused extensive damage and took over 200 lives.

The forests in these hill regions of Victoria are blackened, still with expansive beds of grey ash where undergrowth used to be. A common sight: two houses are burned down and one stands next to them untouched. Apparently forest fire experts do not fully understand the dynamics behind this eerie phenomenon.

I attended some of the community meetings in Kinglake, where I had the opportunity to volunteer with Shelterbox. Relief organizers, emergency services, the Department of Human Services, and other groups gave daily reports at noon in a circus sized white tent. A woman in charge of directing the relief effort in Kinglake made a memorable set of comments one day, into a microphone and scratchy speaker set. She acknowledged that those whose homes were not burned are experiencing serious guilt. "Why their home and not mine? Why their life and not mine?" these people were asking themselves. The message from the organizer was simple: it is a good thing that your home did not burn. It is a good thing that you are still here with us. And since you are here with us, we will not turn a good thing into a bad thing. We are here now, and we will rebuild together, now. We will honor those who are no longer with us.

My work in Kinglake is over. The work for the people who live there has begun but will continue for a long while. It will take years. The loss and lore of Black Saturday will shape the character of that community and the others affected similarly. Work crews are clearing fallen trees off of the roads, sawing piles of wood shavings, stirring up dust. When the dust from rebuilding settles, it will still hurt, and it may begin to hurt worse. But they are on their feet serving each other, expressing gratitude, and trying to cope.

Update

2009-02-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

"Bushfire response provides comfort;

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd praises Shelterbox aid in Kinglake"

See story here:

http://www.shelterboxaustralia.com.au/userfiles/file/News%20Update%20-%2016%20February%202009.pdf

Rebuilding community

2009-02-16T04:34:00.001-08:00

Owners of Kinglake's unofficial town centre thank those who battled to save it.

This little fella sunbathes near the spot where his owners' house used to stand. A Shelterbox tent will house them until they get reestablished.

This man wanted Rotary and all other individual donors to know how grateful he is to have a place to stay as he rebuilds his home.

News update from http://www.shelterboxaustralia.com.au/ :

12 February, 2009

A first delivery of 50 ShelterBoxes was made to the fire-ravaged Whittlesea area yesterday. Forty boxes are in Kinglake with 10 at the Whittlesea Recovery Centre. ShelterBox Australia General Manager, Jenni Heenan spent the day with ShelterBox Response Team [SRT] volunteers Eb Friedrich (Rotary Club of Woodend) and Mark Mallman (Rotary Club of Whittlesea), witnessing scenes she describes as, "unimaginable loss, destruction and suffering – it’s like a war zone."
Jenni was moved by the sense of community, and especially the support of Rotarians in these areas. "When people saw what the green ShelterBoxes contain, they could not believe they were being given a tent, blankets, a cooker and other equipment … and at no cost," Jenni said adding, "they are so grateful … tearfully saying their need is now."

The Department of Human Service [DHS], working with the Victoria Police and the Australian Army is assessing further needs – a decision is likely later today. Indications are that ShelterBoxes may be needed in Marysville (where virtually the entire township has disappeared), Flowerdale, Yea, Narbethong and Buxton.

Shelter

2009-02-15T00:47:00.001-08:00

The relief effort will continue for months after the bush fires first came washed through like an orange and white tidal wave (how one woman described to me what she saw). Shelterbox will continue to get shelter and warmth to now-homeless people around Kinglake and close by areas in the coming week. I will be out here at Whittlesea and Kinglake for at least one more day.

Images of recovery

2009-02-13T01:17:00.001-08:00

Shelterboxes with a burned down house in the background, Kinglake, Victoria.

Eb, Tal (a locol volunteer), and me putting up a Shelterbox tent in Whittlesea.

Two State Emergency Service (SES) volunteers who lost their home to the fires while working day and night to assist residents of Kinglake. The couple will live in a Shelterbox tent on the site where their home used to be, until they can rebuild it in the coming months.

Shelterbox has deployed kits around the world. They did not imagine they would be deploying them within their own backyard. Individual donors, volunteers, and a generous global network of Rotarians make this life-sustaining disaster relief program work.

http://www.shelterboxaustralia.com.au/

http://www.shelterbox.org/

From relief to recovery

2009-02-12T03:02:00.001-08:00

Kinglake is a Victorian town blackened by fire. There are over 500 families whose homes now resemble a camp fire the morning after.

Shelterbox has so far distributed 24 survival boxes. A Shelterbox includes the essentials for shelter, warmth, cooking, and water purification. I am glad to be a part of the process whereby people in need are given a kit to help them cope as they get reestablished over the coming months.

The people I am working with have lost family members, friends, neighbors, and the total of their worldly possessions. Some of these folks do not have insurance. They are destitute. These same people have to be coaxed to accept aid. We have to convince them that they themselves are the ones who need the aid on offer, because they are so concerned that neighbors of theirs need it more. No, we tell them, you are the one who needs this.

Volunteers from around Victoria are doing whatever they can to lend a hand. Donations have already totaled over 40 million dollars. The striking thing is that many of the volunteers are the victims. What I saw today is what I consider the best of humanity: people with so little, who have lost everything, are searching for ways to give of themselves to other people who are suffering.

Tonight I am back home in Bundoora. I will spend Friday doing the first aid certification course I was already signed up for, then probably return to Kinglake and or other affected areas on Saturday with Eb, my Shelterbox response team mate.

The fires are more or less under control. There are plenty of volunteers and many financial donations. What people need now is prayer and counseling as they move from the relief of survival to the angst of recovery.

Staying home

2009-02-11T03:08:00.000-08:00

http://shelterboxaustralia.com.au/

Eb Friedrich and I spent the day in Kinglake, one of the areas with the most ash and wreckage from the fires which began February 7th. We are a two-man Shelterbox response team. The day was spent assessing the sites and whether Shelterbox tents are what people here need. Phone calls, running here and there, a bit of red tape, plenty of helpful Rotarians and community members, and we had the Shelterboxes on a truck and up the mountain by the afternoon. We taught groups of volunteers (some of them victims) how to errect the tents and use the other gear.

Most of the folks here, who have blackened brick chimneys and piles of metal and ash where their homes used to stand, want to remain in the area. They insist on being on the site of their burned out homes, despite offers for temporary accommodation closer to Melbourne city. The Shelterbox tents are certainly needed because of this. It is cold up here, a series of chilly days following in the wake of a record high 47 degrees Celsius on Saturday when the fires began.

We have referred to the Victorian Department of Human Resources (DHS) to determine who truly needs the tents. DHS are the ones who made the call to Shelterbox for assistance. In the next couple of days we will be helping however we can, primarily doing demonstrations on setting up these huge tents and on using the multi-fuel cookers and water purification systems, and allocating the Shelterboxes.

The Kinglake area is like a grey moonscape, with black and barren trees towering up above the flakes of white ash. Emergency services have pushed the cars to the side of the road which were overtaken by a blaze which caught them as their drivers tried to rush to safety. A burgandy colored horse lay burned and dead in a bed of white ashes, next to the charred timber frame of what had been a farm house.

There is nothing good about so many people dying. But there are good things which the survivors are doing for each other. I am struck most by the concern everyone out here has for others. Each and every person I interacted with, victims and those like me who have come to help the victims, seemed interested primarily in one thing: what can I do to make it better for someone else? I must write more about this attitude because I have not experienced anything like this before. It stops me in my tracks. It is necessary, it is inspiring, and it is refreshing.

Disaster relief

2009-02-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

Thirty minutes ago I received a phone call from Shelterbox Australia HQ. They are sending Shelterboxes to now-homeless victims of the Victoria bushfires, where there have been tragic deaths and some 700 + homes have been destroyed. I am leaving in thirty minutes to assist with the relief effort (setting up tents in a safe site).

I am a volunteer with Shelterbox, a part of an SRT (Shelterbox Response Team). Another SRT member and myself will leave for Whittlesea in about twenty minutes. We will help to establish a small tent community for people to have and use until they are able to secure something more permanent.

Please have a look at the following for detail on Shelterbox and on the current situation in Australia: http://www.shelterboxaustralia.com.au/ and http://www.shelterbox.org/ and http://www.theage.com.au/national

While in Whittlesea, I will assist with the set up of the Shelterbox tents. I will be gone at least through Thursday (it is currently Tuesday afternoon). The tent sites are obviously far from danger.

I go now to pack a ruck sack. All is fine, and I will be in touch as I am able, maybe Thursday, maybe sooner.

Bushfire

2009-02-08T22:57:00.001-08:00

An immense bushfire is burning right now in central Victoria, Australia, within an hour's drive north of where I live. There have been over 130 deaths and this count will increase as rescue and relief teams walk amongst the charred tree trunks in the coming days. Twenty-eight fires still burn and threaten the low lying hill regions of the state.

I am safe. La Trobe University is safe. There are some people who are still not safe.

Saturday the 7th was my birthday. I spent the morning in the city at a café working on the literature review for my thesis. Thoroughly caffeinated, I spent the afternoon skimming short stories and essays at Reading's bookstore on Lygon Street. The evening was spent with a heap of friends, a chocolate birthday cake, and a slab (case) of Carlton Draught. While in the city I received a phone call that there were bushfires turning the undergrowth black north of Whittlesea. Whittlesea is my host Rotary Club.

I had walked from air conditioned coffee place to air conditioned book place on Saturday as quickly as possible. The wind and heat combined to produce the effect of zeppelin sized hair dryers pushing hot air through the streets of the central business district. It was oppressive heat. It was, as it turns out, the hottest high temperature on record for metropolitan Melbourne: 47.5 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit). The air was dry and heavy, as though there was an invisible barbeque grill ten meters above the sidewalk. The sky was grey, with a dulled disc of sun. It was after the phone call that I realized it was smoke from the bushfire, not just the heat which produced the visual effect of a chilly overcast day with the feel of a mild sauna.

Sunday morning I received an email from Eric and Yvonne, my Rotary host counselors and friends. They informed me that a former member of the Whittlesea Rotary club and his family had found out about the fire too late. They were killed. A former student of Yvonne's was also trapped by the surrounding blaze and died. The region on fire is rural, with quaint winding back roads. The news channels are showing footage of cars burned out, stationary in the middle of the road, with large branches lain over them like charred and shriveled hands of giants.

The ABC called this the most devastating bushfire in Australian history.

This is a difficult moment for Victorians and for all Australians. Please pray with me for the families and friends of the departed.

Belly dance in-ya-face, part 2

2009-02-07T15:55:00.001-08:00

We bounced in our seats and pointed to Muhammad as we sang the happy-birthday-to-you dance beat song. The restaurant idly looked on and smiled, some even clapping with us. Twenty minutes later, the song played again. The nine of us sang loudly, getting the whole restaurant's attention, and especially, I noticed, the attention of the large table right next to us. They looked back and forth at each other and chuckled, as though amused about an inside joke. A tall man from their party stood and walked out of the restaurant as we finished singing.

Twenty minutes later, the man returned with a birthday cake and set it on their table. It was when the song played a third time and their group began signing to one of their own, that I realized we had been confiscating their birthday jam. The cake was purchased to get the message through to us that the music was for them. And they laughed with us about it all.

We went back to dipping pita in hummus and sipping Shiraz. The volume of the music jumped two notches. I was seated at the end of the table, my back to the front of the restaurant. My friends had all stopped eating and turned in my direction, looking past me. They started to elbow each other and smirk. The music turned a corner into solid rhythmic thumps of drum and the winding hum of a flute.

I turned but could not see anything. I leaned to Rahul and rattled off: "It must be time for the belly dancer. Is it time for the belly dancer? Where's the belly dancer?"

Rahul, wide eyed, nodded as if to say, "quick, look now."

I turned around too quickly, heard the metallic shimmer of dangling sequence, and my field of vision was commandeered by the unmistakable omnipresence of human female mid-section. I froze…as you do. This was not fair. A woman, smelling like, I don't know, frankincense and myre perhaps, was shakin'-what-her-momma-gave-her (as they say) with such surprising athleticism and grace, and in such blissfully painful proximity to my face, that I completely forgot to enjoy it. Let's be honest, I was scared.

Every social practice has a code. This veered pretty well outside the realm of my typical social interactions. How was I to be, to do, in this social procession, this fantastically awkward drama? I turned to my friends for guidance.

It is disconcerting when nine people, who are supposed to be in your corner, are laughing hysterically while you perspire and pray that this unfamiliar thing will just stop, that the dream will end. I was obviously on my own.

I turned toward her. Whoa, yep! she was still there. I could see only aqua-blue sequenced waist line, aqua-blue sequenced crop-top line, and all that space in-between. What do you do when an attractive, exceptionally supple and elastic female is willingly doing stationary acrobatics in your personal space bubble? Play it cool, I thought. I sat back, made a light knowing laugh, pointed at Muhammad with the this-is-for-you-buddy gun shaped hand, and pretended that my eyeballs weren't going to implode from the insane blood pressure in my face.

It was then that she threw the gloves off. Before I knew what was happening…sorry, but there is no better way to say this: she shook her boobs as fast as she possibly could at the side of my head. I maintain that I had a mini stroke, but it is hard to say for sure. My friends could not have been more pleased. I nearly peed in my pants for fright.

Aditya, who had been keenly enjoying the evening, begged to switch places with me before the next dancer was to arrive for the next dancing session. I finished gulping a large glass of water, poured myself some more, then wordlessly switched seats.

"You guys, I know that I looked all calm and chill about that," I said, "but I can admit that I was a little bit nervous."

"Your face was so red, I was concerned," said one.

"You were obviously quite scared," said another.

"That was the funniest thing I seen in my short life time. I thought you might cry," said yet another of my supposed friends.

Muhammad leaned back in his chair and laughed like a child whose parents had hired a clown for his birthday party.

The next time I go to a place where someone could end up fanning the side of my head with their "assets" (as one friend said), I will have the benefit of experience to guide me.

Belly dance in-ya-face

2009-02-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

It was Muhammad's birthday so Adel and I arranged something special. We booked a dinner for 10 at Min Ziman, a Lebanese restaurant with hookah and belly dancers.

It is not as though we had a choice, our hand was forced to go to where the belly dancers dance. You see, Muhammad eats halal meat. There are limited halal restaurants in Melbourne. We wanted to be on Lygon Street. Min Ziman it had to be. You understand that one must make sacrifices for friends.

We ate from large blue rimmed porcelain platters of steaming foods: sizzling lamb cutlets; falafel, fried patties of chick peas; kafta, minced meat skewers; fatoush, a salad with toasted croutons, cucumbers, tomatoes, and mint; hummus with pita; other colorful and spicy bits. We had bottles of red wine for the table. It was hot tea and baklava for desert.

Each table in the restaurant was full, with people lingering around the coffee bar. Conversation was robust, filling the place with good mood, like the steam from the foods and coffee blending with faint sweet smelling hookah smoke.

We ate and laughed, leaning forward, making large gestures so friends at the opposite end of the table could decipher the stories being told about the birthday boy. Muhammad is usually the most talkative of the group, but he leaned on his elbows, quietly smiling and graciously nodding to his friends' teasing accounts of past embarrassing moments.

The stereo speakers in the corner started playing an Arab happy birthday song, an upbeat jig that prompts dancing in your chair. "Happy-birthday-to-you" da-da-da-da-da-da, "Happy-birthday-to-you" - the song repeats this emphatically over and over, like I imagine a Russian drinking song to bounce along. How did they know it was Muhammad's birthday? Doesn't matter, the nine of us were chanting and pointing to Muhammad.

Hassles

2009-02-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

Boviya and I were discussing the hassle drawn out process, at times a hassle that is student registration at La Trobe. She is a new resident at Graduate House, from Chennai, India. I am told that Chennai is the Detroit of India, because of its automobile production and export. The Detroit of India? I guess there are worse things to be.

February last year, I remember making trips to this office, being sent to that office, which sent me the next office, which turned out to be the middle of an abandoned sports field. You begin to feel unwanted, when all you want is your student email address activated.

Boviya's patience is exceptional, especially given the 100 degrees + temperatures. "You're a long-suffering person," I said to Boviya. Then she told me why.

Two years ago she was accepted to enroll at La Trobe University. Boviya is a very organized person. She applied for a visa, purchased a flight ticket, and made all the arrangements to move to Australia for two years. She applied for a visa four months before she would be leaving. One month prior to departure it still had not been granted. She rang and they said these things take time. Two days before departure, they told her it would be alright, just go to the airport. 12 hours before the flight, she was given a farewell party with tearful goodbyes. A few hours before the flight, she was told that a visa would not be granted because there was a problem with her identification.

Boviya could not get a refund for the flight. Out of frustration, she told the visa department never mind, please send back my passport and papers. They told her there was a security problem and she must come to Delhi and fetch them in person.

She took a solo four-night train ride from Chennai to Delhi. Finally at the government office, she sat with an official for ten minutes. The woman explained to Boviya that her passport photo and the extra photo sent for the visa appear to be two different people. She had had a hair cut since the passport photo was taken.

She had a four-night train back to Chennai, two years of working, and this time made it to Australia with a visa.

La Trobe is not the most efficient institution, but it could be the Delhi office of Australian visas and migration. Here's something I just pulled from the Australian government website:

The New Delhi Visa Office has seen a significant increase in the number of applications received. As a result, prcessing times are currently at 12-14 weeks for a student visa application lodged at the New Delhi Visa Office. Your course should not commence until at least 12-14 weeks after you lodge your application. ("prcessing" typo theirs)

And your hair should not have cutting on it 12-14 weeks prior to having visa-passport photos taken.

Gumption and a couch-bed

2009-02-03T03:56:00.000-08:00

Umar went to IKEA. He was accompanying my friend Adel, who needed an end table, lamp, and "probably a cozy chair" for his new flat.

Adel left IKEA, a furniture-mouse-maze of a store, with two arms full of furnishing, but no cozy chair. Umar left the behemoth IKEA lamenting that he could not afford to purchase any of the flash couch and chair sets, much less figure out a way to get them back to his share-house.

That afternoon, Umar stepped off of the train and walked toward his home. A kilometer from his share-house, he was approaching a man loading a large couch and chair into the bed of his pick-up.

"Excuse me," said Umar. "Are these furniture for sale?"

The man looked at Umar, and then he looked at the couch. Then he looked at Umar. "Sure, why not," he said. "How much you give me for 'em?"

"Fifty dollars," said Umar.

"Deal, mate," said the man.

The man unloaded the furniture, accepted a $50 bill, and promptly drove away. Umar stood on the sidewalk with his new couch ("Which even becomes a bed!" he later reported). It was just Umar and the couch. Umar and his new couch, and an empty street. And no other people, or cars. Just Umar and the couch, and the midday sun.

He somehow dragged the couch back to the busier walking street he had been on. From that point he managed to get strangers to help him carry the couch and chair a kilometer…10 meters at a time.

"Uh, excuse me," he would say. "Hi, I am just trying to go a little way with this. Could you please offer a hand?"

The people who were kind enough to say yes would lift one end of the couch. The pair would shuffle about 10 meters before the stranger set their end down. "Aw look, it's too heavy, mate," they would say and then walk off.

Umar would walk back to the chair and repeat the process, soliciting help from a passerby. Twenty meters later the person would be huffing and say, "How far are you trying to go? I think it's too hot for me, sorry."

By my calculation, Umar would have taken three hours and gone through 30 or more volunteers.

He is proud of his new couch and matching chair; a couch which can become a bed!

Afraid of quelling his enthusiasm, I restrained from asking why he didn't pay the guy with the truck $15 to drive it the kilometer.

El Camino retrospective

2009-02-02T03:36:00.001-08:00

In light of how icy it has been in Kentucky, and how sizzling hot it has been in Victoria, and that I posted a piece of writing from two years ago related to the pilgrimage walk to Santiago:

Nate Crimmins, me, and Rob Kinzel

El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, January 2007

The mountains of north western Spain

Lives

2009-02-01T04:23:00.001-08:00

Francesca has invited me to her home to interview her for my thesis.

I unfold a piece of notebook paper with a hand drawn map. The tram clicks down the line toward the city, having dropped me at stop 25 in Clifton Hill, a Melbourne suburb. I fold the paper and put it in my shorts pocket, walking into the neighborhood of small workers' cottages built in the '60s. They are now refurbished and house young professionals, groups of students, and some of the same families who have managed to stay through the years. They maintain the same attractive steel lattice work façades and house-to-house, borrow some sugar?, neighborly proximity. I walk along partly shaded sidewalks, by memory from my map. I wipe sweat from my forehead once I realize I have made it to Francesca's (not her real name) house. The gate is open to a front yard, large plants and small trees taking up the entire garden space. They are pale shades of green, obviously in need of water.

I am listening to the story of an extra-ordinary life. We sit in the living room on two couches facing each other with a coffee table in between. One wall is made, from floor to ceiling, entirely of book shelves. They overflow with novels, tall architecture and art books, historical, social, philosophical, political, and science books. A second wall is all windows with dark wooden blinds, looking out into the small backyard. The other two walls are checkered with paintings, presumably originals from artsy friends. The room is comfortably warm, and smells like a hint of herbs from the kitchen.

Two hours and twenty minutes into the interview, I ask Francesca again if she is sure she's alright for time. Neither of us has made a move, both engrossed in the patched together story of Francesca's life; her in the telling, me in the absorbing. She says we should keep the interview going and refills my water glass from a pitcher.

Francesca, like my other interviewees, grew up in a family of low socio-economic status. Her family was actually homeless for a couple of years when she was a child. She now does professional work. Her story of from-there-to-here is captivating, and frequently quite harrowing.

I listen intently, occasionally asking questions and jotting short notes. It occurs to me that this woman is offering something deeply personal and very valuable. She is offering me her story. She is telling it to me openly, fearlessly facing details of her past which she admits she has not thought about for years. Because this process involves high levels of emotion, it feels unfair, like I am receiving but not able to give in return. She is offering me her story because she is pleased that I would use it in my research thesis, and that is enough for her.

In the front garden she explains that, for conservation reasons, they do not water their garden, letting nature decide which plants survive the summer. I am leaving and trying to express how grateful I am. She waves from her garden as I turn to make the walk back to the tram. She is reminding me that I am welcome to her family's home any time.

-------------

There is a particular moment in life which I am fascinated with. When I finish a novel, close it, and slowly look up, a unique brew of emotions and thoughts coalesce and leave me pleasantly stunned. I sit. I do not want to move for awhile. Something of a calm euphoria has me looking out the window at the middle distance. I do not mind that the story is over, but I would not mind if it kept going. In an imaginative sense, I am still in that other place. I am making a transition back to the present, slowly this time because I realize that it is the final time for that story. The emotionality of it all seals the deal: now that novel, that story is a part of my experience. I relish this sensation.

The interviews I am doing for the thesis are the first thing which for me, match this profound experience of finishing a novel. In two or so hours, I have been invited to take part in another person's history, and one-on-one, face-to-face. I learn things about these people, in strict confidence, which I am guessing many of their friends and some family would not even know. These interviews are richer emotional interactions than I had anticipated, and more so than a novel could be.

Each interview has ended with the person seeming very pleased and relaxed. They would be happy to keep going, but do not mind ending. My impression is that the tranquility is tied to the process of narrative making. These interviews require the person to piece together different bits of their life story which may have seemed unconnected up that point. In the end, as with every life, there are more questions than answers. But continuity seems to bring comfort.

I told Francesca how grateful I am to be allowed to use her story. She said that it makes her happy to think that her story is somehow useful.

Human stories are immensely useful. Our lives are hard, wondrous, and valuable. Think of someone you love and all that that person represents to other people, to you, and all that that person has been through. Think of that person's name and the depth of meaning held therein. The most beautiful thing about life is surely…lives.

Two years ago

2009-01-31T12:58:00.001-08:00

An anthropologist friend of mine jokingly said she looks forward to the day she writes an article in which all the sources cited are references to her own published work. We laughed. The conversation began with me sharing an article I had read in which the researcher kept referring to a book he had published two years prior. And it got me wondering whether I had written anything two years ago this time which I could refer back to. In fact, I had.

It hardly seems two years ago. My memories of the time are still crisp as a dusk walk beside the olive colored waters of the Strasbourg canal.

-----

I'm in Strasbourg, living with a French family who only speak French. When they speak to me, I mostly just nod and say "Oui, oui." With narrowed eyebrows, and mouth agape, I listen and think, "I hope this isn't important."

I have met people in North America before who carried their end of the conversation with only the words "Yes, yes." It was clear that they had no idea what I was saying. Ah yes, so this is what it feels like.

I'm not sure that Centre typically places beginning French students with host families. I requested it persistently because I thought that full emersion language learning would be cool. It's more like hard than cool. But I'm learning alright. I learned the other day that if I leave pastries on my desk, the 16 year old terrier, Salie, will find a way to get her thin, gray, elderly body on the desk and eat the pastries. I was in the kitchen asking myself where I'd be if I were a French coffee filter when I heard Madame Schirmann's voice from my room, "Salie!"

I'm getting to know Strasbourg fairly well. Getting lost is like failing a test; you learn from your mistakes. And really, the city is not that difficult to get around in. You simply ask the kind people of Strasbourg for directions. "Pardon, madam. Ou est le supermarche." You think you just asked her where the super market is. She looks at you like you just asked if she'd mind giving you a ride on the handlebars of her bicycle. You try the same phrase a couple more times. "Ahh, oui," she says, beginning to nod and laugh at you at the same time. You know she's thinking, "Aww, he can't speak French, bless his heart." While she rattles off a long series of directions, you try very hard just to hold on to the first part; go right. You thank her very much, you go right, and you ask the next person, "Pardon, monsieur…."

When people here speak French around me it feels like I'm surrounded by a bunch of advanced language students who are playing a trick on me and at any moment they're going to laugh, pat me on the back, and start speaking English.

The wee bit of French I know gets jumbled in my mind with a little bit of Spanish. Two Centre friends of mine, Rob Kinzel, Nate Crimmins, and I spent the first 26 days of January walking Spain's medieval pilgrimage trail, el Camino de Santiago de Compostela. It took me nearly a month of walking and trying to speak with people to figure out what that means in Spanish and now I'm attempting to make the switch to French. Picture me in Spain: "Perdon senora, donde esta el supermercado?" Again, the bike handlebars look.

Rob, Nate, and I passed through Strasbourg on December 28 on our way to St. Jean Pierd-de-Port in the French Pyrenees, where the pilgrimage path begins. We would walk from there to Santiago in northwestern Spain. I was able to be in Strasbourg just one full day before heading off to live nomad-like for over a month. I walked back into Strasbourg from the train station on January 31st with sore knees and a heavy pack. As I approached the city center, I had an overwhelming feeling of returning home. It's odd to feel that way about a place in which I am a stranger. Though the Rhine valley is not my home, it feels good to sleep in the same bed more than one night in a row. It feels good to be with a patient French family, a fun group of Centre students, and enthusiastic professors. It feels pretty good to be speaking French.

(Mallman 2007, 3 - 5 )

Clash of civilizations

2009-01-30T00:15:00.001-08:00

Australian flies are the fruits of the devil.

Flies silently plink their little bodies onto your food. You motion for them to go away. They go away, and they may circle and come back. You motion again and they leave. It is a familiar and harmless if not annoying relation between human and insect. I refer to flies on all of the continents except one. Where else but Australia?

Aussie flies are marked by their bullish resolution. "Take my food, take it all", you beg, because the flies are coming after your face. They prefer the delicious taste of skin or salt or something, but Australian flies will go for a particular place on your head. When you wave at them, they must consider it a fanning favor because they stay put. Even slap them and they still might not move. You have to physically remove them. This gets tricky when they have skillfully landed inside your ear canal, up your nostril, between your teeth and gums, or have caught themselves in your eye lashes. The whipping tickle of their wings and legs is shocking in its ability to send your body into flailing convulsions (well, it does mine).

And here's the thing: after you have physically removed them with your fingers they take a short circuit around your head and land exactly where they just were. This process will continue until you have murdered the fly. And there is never only one fly at a time.

The most I have encountered was hiking the Great Ocean Walk with Adel and Muhammad. A couple of hundred flies were hovering on and around each one of us. Adel gave up and let them do whatever they wanted. Muhammad and I lost our reasonability. We roll played as the Persian and US militaries joining forces to defeat a third and more formidable civilization: the Australian flies. We took turns twhapping each other with towels and watching 30 to 50 flies at a time fall dead to the cracked red dirt. Each time, just as many flies would soon replace the deceased.

I hit Muhammad on the head with a bush branch and shook a dozen dead flies to the earth. Muhammad laughed maniacally with his face to the sky and arms upturned in triumph. I saw a fly in his mouth, a black spot against his bright white teeth. You have to understand that we had been exposed to these flies for five days. We took a course of bilateral retaliation, but with no international criticism from Adel, who apparently represents an Indian passive resistance.

Bill Bryson says it best with his description of Australian flies in A Sunburned Country. Here is an excerpt: "An Australian fly will try to suck the moisture off your eyeball…He will happily die for the glory of taking a tiny dump on your tongue. Get thirty or forty of them dancing around you in the same way and madness will shortly follow."

And indeed it does, Bill.

My friend Hannah asked me if I have had one "do that…take a tiny dump in your mouth". "Thankfully, no," I said. "Well, it could happen while you are sleeping," she said.

Thank you, Hannah. I'm going to go brush my teeth now.

Free books, or, Library: brilliant

2009-01-29T13:37:00.001-08:00

It happened at some point while studying at Centre College; I fell in love with libraries. If love has something to do with long-term devotion, willingness to make sacrifice for and protect, desire to give as well as to receive from, and admiration, then yeah, I definitely love libraries.

In Phil White's Shakespeare course at Centre, I remember we discussed the idea of love at first sight in the context of Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps, Phil suggested, love at first sight can refer to seeing something familiar in a new way, for the first time. In this sense, I think it was library love at first sight. Okay, this is admittedly geeky and mildly strange. But here's what happened.

I found the book I had been searching for, pulled it off of the shelf, opened it, and realized that the spine had not been cracked. It was a brand new book, though it had been published several years prior. Then I was overwhelmed. I turned to the left, then the right, looking at the long aisles of volumes. It was me and the books. It was the books and me. I could take any of them home.

My eyes widened, with hands upturned, knees slightly bent, and feet planted. That's when it struck me: I am surrounded by thousands upon thousands of free books!

These are books which someone else stores and looks after for us, dusting them and "shooshing" people who talk too loud around them. Isn't it great!

As if I needed another reason to admire libraries, the heat reached a mind-numbing 47 degrees Celsius recently. My flat is not air conditioned. The social science building is not air conditioned. Even outside in the shade it's blazing, and eventually frightening varieties of bugs peck and suck on your simmering epidermis. But...but the library is air conditioned. Three days now I have greeted the librarians during the opening hours and waved a grateful goodbye at closing.

Library: brilliant.

Make that 45 degrees

2009-01-28T14:39:00.001-08:00

Make that 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). It is meant to be even warmer tomorrow.

The heat brings people together, hunkering in the shade or air conditioned places. I ate a kebab for lunch with a few friends. We sat for a couple of hours together, laughing and sharing stories as a hot breeze eased along the grass, causing our cheeks to flush now and then. Normally we would have been in too much of a hurry for that type of leisure.

In Rob's dispatch from Danville, he draws some keen images of how life has slowed there, but for the cold instead. I recommend it: http://www.whereaboutsindanville.blogspot.com/

Hemisphere extremes

2009-01-27T11:51:00.001-08:00

Kentucky governor, Steve Beshear, has declared a state of emergency for Kentucky. This is where I last lived before moving to Melbourne. Record ice storms have disabled utilities in places. The associated press says that Danville (home to Centre College) itself has declared emergency state, and is expecting water outage, advising people they may have to boil their water for purification.

On the other side of the world, some people are being sent home from work for record levels of heat. It is nasty in Melbourne. The weather forecasts for today say "Very hot", because they don't know how else to convey what we're about to deal with. La Trobe university issued a statement that the expected temperatures would make for the longest succession of the hottest days on record. Yesterday had a high of 42, today is 42, and tomorrow is expected to be 43 degrees (that is 108, 108, and 109 Fahrenheit). What makes it particularly oppressive is the thinnish hole in the ozone over Australia. I am like a water fountain: consuming liters of water and watching it glisten out of my pores.

This is an exceptional spike in weather extremes for my two homes in the hemispheres.

Danvillians, I hope that you're alright.

Australia Day

2009-01-26T04:13:00.001-08:00

The ambiguous sentiments in regards to Australia Day are fair enough. "Invasion day" is how some refer to January 26, which commemorates the day in 1788 when a small fleet of ships from Britain, carrying a heap of petty-crime convicts and those who would preside over them, landed in what is now Sydney Harbor with the intention of starting a new colony. Whether one calls it Australia Day, Invasion day, or I submit just for fun Colonization day, it is a significant historical event. The emotion depends on which side of history you are on. (The date is even controversial between descendents of colonizers. The argument I heard this morning is that the 26th is important to New South Wales (Sydney's state), but means little to the other five states. Why not make Australia Day a celebration of state federation in 1901? And on it goes).

The side of history which my fellow international students and I are on happens to be a pleasant one. I do not make light of a sordid past. We are glad for our opportunities in Australia, though, so jump at the chance to celebrate anything which mentions Australia.

Graduate House had a BBQ yesterday (the one where my friends made fun of me). There were thirty people- none of whom were Australian. I think that we, as a group, would have made whomever it is trying to solidify an Aussie identity proud.

We barbequed heaps of meat, drank a couple of beers, got a little bit sunburned, and I played Waltzing Matilda on the guitar.

Most of our crowd huddled around me to see the lyrics on my laptop. We sang loudly. We sang with good humor. We sang with accents from South America, Europe, the Middle East, all parts of Asia, and of course mine, the token North Amercan.

From Banjo Peterson's original poem, Waltzing Matilda:

Oh there once was a swagman camped in the billabong
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree
And he sand as he looked at the old billy boiling
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda my darling
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
Waltzing Matilda leading a tucker bag
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the water hole
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee
And he said as he put him away in the tucker bag
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me

This has been a highlight of my week, and my whole time here. You have not heard anything as awkward, touching, and lovely as the world's cultures fumbling together to pronounce in song and understand the strange lyrics of Australia's unofficial national anthem.

Gone country

2009-01-25T16:42:00.001-08:00

We had a bbq for about 30 people at Graduate House. Here you have a Peruvian and an Indian laughing as an Iranian does his best impression of a dancing Nashvillian. These guys have become good friends of mine, so they feel they are free to make fun of me on a regular basis. Well, I reckon they are.

Left to right are: Muhammad (the Iranian dude), Adel (who is especially fond of ribbing me (when I'm not ribbing him)), and Carlos (who played his guitar along with me as we hammered out Wagon-wheel by Nashville's own bluegrass boys, The Old Crow Medicine Show).

Global-McDonald's-democrat-ization

2009-01-24T15:02:00.001-08:00

These drummers were part of a recent protest I encountered in Melbourne. China / Freedom / Now, read one of the banners. Communism Must Go, read another.

Beer notes:

2009-01-23T18:54:00.000-08:00

-A recent newspaper add for Liquorland: GREAT AUSSIE BEER SALE, it says. The text is filled in with amber, sudsy beer color. The Australian national flag waves behind the delicious looking text. Monday the 26th is Australia day, the celebration of the arrival of British colonizers (a controversial holiday to be sure). The liquor outlet is subtly suggesting expressing national pride by drinking beer. This is funny. I don't know whose idea it was to have beer drinking associated with Australianness.

-A professor emailed me about something and wrote at the end, "Have a good 'cultural experience' on Australia day ie drink lots of beer." It was clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, as this is a person who makes her living at studying national identity. But it was also clearly meant to suggest that I ought to drink a lot of beer on Australia day. This tells me that drinking beer is really in the national unconscious and conscious.

-You know that Foster's commercial where the guys says, "Fosta's - Oztray-an fa be-ah" ? Interestingly, Australians rarely drink Fosters. That is marketed specifically for Americans. And it is expensive. And it is a repackaging of what is considered the cheap beer here. I suspect Corona is the same deal, coming from Mexico. There's a rich Mexican out there laughing all the way to the bank.

-Well, I'm off to the grocery. Mustn't be unprepared for celebrating the first fleet's arrival, January 26, 1788.

Cricket for blokes

2009-01-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

I wrote of cricket: Talk about a leisure class activity… Well, the white trousers style might be, but mine eyes have witnessed the beer swilling, sausage sizzling, after-a-hard-day-at-the-construction-site translation: indoor cricket.

In May last year, I went with my friends Hardick and Suddi to watch Suddi's indoor league team play. The facility was a warehouse converted to indoor sports center, straddling an industrial block and a housing suburb. We walked to the end of the street to get there, in the dark, and then entered through a door which looked like it was simply cut out of the metal siding. The bar was the predominant feature of this place, serving a small crowd of men in colorful cricketer shirts. These were large, bulking men. Not like the gangly cricketers on TV, who resemble IT staff escaped from an office.

Some of these guys were still in their coveralls, getting the first couple drinks in them before they changed for the game. After fifteen minutes, I gathered that to play indoor cricket, one is meant to have certain qualities: thick neck, creatively foul mouth, loud laugh, friendly demeanor, tattoos engulfed in thick arm hair, dark tan/burn, and an it doesn't matter if we win, but we're going to beat you attitude.

There were four court/fields partitioned off with strong mesh netting. Each section was about ten meters wide and thirty long. The tone of this game is fast balls, high danger, and less running. You have the all-or-nothing, chuck-a-wobbly, over-hand pitch of the crazed man (which is universal to all forms of cricket). The batters whack the laces off the thing. The defensive players hope they do not get hit by the ball in such close proximity to the batter. Well, I would hope that. These guys looked like they couldn't wait for the hard ball to smack them in the eye, the way they went after it every time without hesitation. This is a game of short burst power. After all that hard work and sweat, they went for a round of beer at the half to get hydrated.

What Australia expects

2009-01-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

I get to learn about Australia's relationship to the USA by listening to and watching their reactions to what is happening in and around America.

The school of social sciences had a lunch time re-viewing of the inauguration ceremony, 12:30 p.m. local time. Twenty people showed up to the politics department break room (nearly all of the staff in-office mid-summer). Some brought cheese, bikkies (crackers), and a bottle of champagne for everyone to share. The room was full of people who would have voted for Obama if they could have, so of course they smiled at an intelligent speech and significant occasion. The interesting thing is, again, that they would have voted if they could have.

Australians like American pop culture. I think they also like what America is supposed to represent: liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. We don't get it right all the time, but we do it well sometimes. I think much of the rest of the world acknowledges that, and I think they even appreciate it. They expect a lot of the USA. They expect us to live up to these ideals. And I think they are in our corner, quietly cheering us on. That is what I see on the faces and hear in the tone of the people living in this expansive corner of the world.

The Don: legend

2009-01-20T02:16:00.001-08:00

The sport of cricket is silly. I mean in the way that most sports are so when you think about it too long. There's one ball and many grown adults whacking at it and throwing it, strategizing about it, building rivalries over it, and basing their identity around it.

So that you do not get me wrong, I love a pick-up game of basketball. Sports are great fun. They also are a microcosm and working out of social relations: competition, social networks, economics, politics and international relations, taste, fashion, power and status, gender, race, and all the human emotions. Cricket is especially funny though. A team dressed in white smart-casual attire walk around on a field for five days and someone, somehow comes out the winner. Talk about a leisure class activity; British through and through. Other countries have made it their own and become quite successful at it on the international stage. Take Australia, for example.

In a meeting with five of my fellow grad students, all Australians, Russell made a reference to The Don. "Who's The Don?" I asked.

Life is the like a sit-com sometimes. All five of them whipped their heads toward me, wide-eyed, with the sound of a record zipping to a halt. "Who's The Don?" they said in shocked unison? They were surprised I was allowed into the country without first knowing about this Don character.

"He's legend," said one of them. "He has mythical hero status," said another.

"Okay, my bad," I said. "Let's see. This is either a political figure or an athlete."

Russell said, "Based on what you know of Australia, which do think he is?"

"An athlete," I said.

"You'd probably be right," he said.

They gave me a research assignment: find out who Don Bradman is.

It turns out he was the greatest cricketer of the universe (if you ask an Aussie). With a professional career batting average of 99.94, he may have achieved the most astounding thing in the history of sport. Coming from a rural area, he began playing "bush cricket" (provincial sport league) and within two years was leading the Australian Test (professional) team on a global ass-whooping tour. His method of play was for an aggressive scoring push, which worked much of the time. The other white duds didn't know what had hit them.

His legendary status carried the image of a highly driven man, prone to introversion and independence. These characteristics perhaps match a rough-n-ready Aussie bush ranger popular ethos. Not to mention his offense centered mentality, which aligns stridently with "Advance Australia Fair," the title of the national anthem. Possibly for these reasons, in 2001, former Prime Minister John Howard call Bradman "The greatest living Australian".

Now I know who The Don is. And cricket seems ever so slightly less silly.

Tradition

2009-01-19T18:10:00.000-08:00

My Indian friends have given themselves the humorous and knowingly hopeless task of turning me into an Indian. We hopped in the car and went to the Indian grocery the other day. Aditya checks out his Bollywood films from there. The DVD covers are dramatic and colorful, many of which hint at Hollywood remakes.

Culture is like language in that deciphering requires understanding. Indian music, food, and dress, and languages all appear the same to me. That's because I don't have a clue what's going on. American culture, some say, is homogeneous, with little variety. Someone who claims that would not have a clue what's going on in America. There is as much, possibly more, cultural variety of flavor in India as in North America. But as I say, I have trouble distinguishing because it is new and vast.

In the return car ride, I sat in the back and imitated the "Indian head bang" that Adel and Aditya were modeling for me. Seeing myself in the rear view mirror, I looked like a rooster with a neck cramp. I stopped doing that to my neck and popped open the snaps on the plastic box of sweets I had purchased on the shop keeper's recommendation. Speaking of language and discerning: the name of the sweet sounded something like reepa boogie. They are small cubes- light, crispy, wheat-based, and with slivers of almond, cashew, and a dash of cardamom. They melt in the mouth like cotton candy. I passed the small case of boogie up to the guys. They gratefully each took a piece with two fingers as they did the Indian head-bob thing to the chanting beat.

This morning, I was able to try another Indian sweet, Kheer (its actual name). This is a rice pudding, a common dessert and one with ceremonial significance in certain parts of India, especially related to weddings. Bhovia, a new resident at Graduate House, knocked on my door this morning with a warm bowl of Kheer. She offered it to me and explained that it is in keeping with tradition. When one "starts a new kitchen", as she would be in our communal residence kitchen, they must cook a sweet dish to sort of kick it off or inaugurate it or something to that nature. She shared the sweet rice pudding with me, then began planning the first full meal she would cook in her new kitchen. I'm sure she would have already purchased a masala kit (mixed spices) that my Indian friends are each outfitted with. They are typically circular tins, with pie-shaped sections bearing chili, saffron, coriander, nutmeg, curry and the like. Lucky for me too, because I happen to be around whenever they need someone to "try this!"

Beard: the saga continues

2009-01-18T03:20:00.001-08:00

Social science staff and graduate students like my beard. They say things such as, "Oh Mark, nice beard", or "Digging the facial hair", or "Hey, you're looking like a scientist now".

This is as opposed to the "what's-that-on-your-face" comments I blogged about January 1st. The acquaintances who seemed to puzzle at the sanity of me growing a beard were mostly Asian, including Indian, Chinese, and Japanese. Secretly, I thought that perhaps the trend of beard-bashing was linked with Asian-ness. This did not seem reasonable, but it's all I had.

Since the social science staff have been praising the aesthetics of my face fuzz, a new and more plausible correlation has occurred to me. There are also Asians in the social sciences, of course. My beard skeptic Asian friends are almost all in the graduate business school, whether studying management, administration, IT, or other. These are corporate people. They are training to serve the man. The man does not like the beard. The beard is not tame enough for the man. Social science critiques the inequalities produced by the man.

Ray, an anthopoligist, called me Ned Kelly. He may as well have said, "You're awesome". Ned Kelly is Australia's iron outlaw. He is the bush version of Robin Hood, who made his last stand in the Victorian scrub. Kelly was a rough and tumbler, hard yakka, who resisted the man unto death. (He was also a thief and mildly murderous villain, but nonetheless).

Long live the beard. (And it's female equivalent).

Historical chemistry

2009-01-17T18:01:00.001-08:00

Some 30 percent of Australia's population were born overseas. The vast majority are 10th to 2nd generation Australians. The indigenous populations trace their family roots some 40,000 years ago.

Australia, as it is now, is a very young country. Beau and the Centre College class have been commenting on its youthfulness. Centre College was established in Kentucky in 1819. At that point, Australia was not yet called Australia. The states were being explored and negotiated, ships were wrecking on cliff lined coasts, expedition parties were getting lost in the outback, and someone was trying to plant potatoes. Australia would not become a federation of states until 1901.

This is a young and diverse country. National identity (the topic of Beau's January course) is still in its early stages of being worked out. National identity is always redeveloping along with history. Australia is especially young, fresh, and in the teenage years of growing pains and awkward self-discovery. The varying parts of its ego are wrestling for expression in its super-ego. Tension can be a good thing. At times it leads to violence, unfortunately. But it also encourages discussion, coordination, and makes interesting creativity in art, politics, business, and other new cultural production.

The same thing happens in America as it continually works out its national identity. I like being an American in Australia, with an outsider's perspective on the living historical chemistry of national identity, unfolding before me day to day.

One of my favorite things: meeting an Arab (or Chinese, or Peruvian, or Greek, or other) who start speaking and sound like Steve Irwin.

Theoretical drugs

2009-01-16T05:14:00.001-08:00

I say no to drugs. But my recent belly-flop into sociological theory, especially class theory, has me experiencing alternate states of mind. I could not tell you for sure, but I'm guessing it is not far from the "whoa-dude" jollies one gets while playing with recreational drugs.

Example: I had been reading Pierre Bourdieu on the idea of habitus which he mind-numbingly describes as a "structured and structuring structure." At this juncture, it doesn't matter to you what that means. For my purposes, I have to understand what it means. It refers to the way different parts of society form and re-form, showing noticeable patterns of difference and sometimes inequality. Anyway, I was reading Bourdieu and went down to the Agora (the centre of campus) for a cappuccino. Teachers and professors walked crisscrossed patterns to and from offices, the library, eateries, parking lots, lecture halls, and other. I watched all the people with their varying dress and hair-styles and laughs, serious stares, conversations, reading newspapers and resting in the shade. Then, patterns started to emerge in types of people and ways of walking and demeanor. I began to feel a bit of endorphin-like fascination and pleasure at the ephemeral scene of class culture unfolding before me. I was seeing the world through the lens of habitus. It was like the Matrix film where suddenly Neo sees the glowing green marquee of script which constitutes an imagined world. Well, it was almost that good.

I am getting enough sleep, drinking plenty of water, and not trying anything in particular my mother would disown me for. Theory is just that stimulating.

Perhaps the take-home lesson, though, is: everything in moderation.

"Cashed-up bogans"

2009-01-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

Bogan is a term used fairly regularly in Australia. Its closest equivalent in the States is redneck. In both cases the usage is often endearing more than derogatory. It could be something to be proud of. Consider the Gretchen Wilson song titled "Redneck Woman," or Charlie Daniels' "What This World Needs is a Few More Rednecks." The implications of bogan, as I have heard it used, are generally: manual labor, rural, country accent, simple living, loud cars, the odd "taz" the Tasmanian devil tattoo (which funny enough you are more likely to find on the calf of an American than an Aussie). Bogans can be of the urban variety, as well as rural.

A cashed-up bogan is a person who fits the above description, more or less, but makes enough money for a flash car, a big house, and a big ol' bass boat. I offer you more American song titles to hint at the U.S. equivalent of cashed-up bogan: "Redneck Yacht Club," by Craig Morgan; "High Tech Redneck," by George Jones; "Hillbilly Deluxe," by Brooks and Dunn.

Cashed-up bogans have been on my mind lately. Not just because I danced with a room full of them on New Year's eve, but because they illustrate part of what makes my thesis project difficult.

I am, in a particular way, writing about class in Australia. Before I can get very far though, I have to figure out what class is. There are libraries full of books on the subject of social class. You cannot get any social theorists to agree on what class is or whether it even exists. I am supposing it does. But then, what is it? My eyes are now permanently stuck in the squint position from wrestling with this.

Most recently, R. W. Connell's work on class is providing me fuel for thought. Here is a gem about class from Connell's Making the Difference: "It is not what people are, or even what they own, so much as what they do with their resources and their relationships, that is central."

Vic the plumber (Joe's Aussie equivalent) makes more money and has more stuff than Bob the professor, who happens to live right at the stated poverty level. Which one is middle class? Which one is working class? This is the puzzle which has led some to say that there just is no class anymore, especially in Australia. This conclusion is based on the complication of placing these two workers in a distinct social category. Because what would you base it on? Income and wealth? Social status based on employment? knowledge (of plumbing or academics)?

The issue is muddier than a dingo in the Yarra (or a bloodhound in the Chattahoochee, if you like).

Connell is on to something with this "...what they DO with their resources and their relationships..." The people I am interviewing have parents who did manual labor and now they are doing professional work of various types. They have DONE something different. The interesting thing is: how have the done what they did?

The question I am asking is clear. Class, as of now, is not so clear. I will not be the one to convince social scientists of what class is, but I am getting closer to having an idea useful enough to write a master's thesis with.

Centre meets La Trobe

2009-01-14T15:26:00.001-08:00

Two of my worlds recently collided, in a good way.

Beau and his crew of Centre students rode the 86 tram up to Bundoora on Monday for a day of meeting with La Trobe University staff.

Kerreen Reiger, one of my supervisors, arranged it. I had mentioned to her that they were coming and I wanted to host them at La Trobe for a day. She took the reins and organized a full-fledged program. We had a reserved room with professors giving talks and discussions about Australian national identity. There was a catered lunch from my favorite on-campus café, "Caffeine". We even watched a film about indigenous Australian culture as it has been for some 40 thousand years, and what it has dealt with since colonization (a tragedy story, really).

The thing which impressed me was the attitude of the La Trobe staff who joined us for the day. Centre is my alma mater (which I just learned means "nourishing mother", in which case Valerie is my true alma mater). But, the La Trobe staff acted as if Centre were their own "Centre dear". Kerreen leapt at the prospect of organizing the day. Other staff, and a post grad, seemed very pleased to be there as well. Some others, who were not part of the program just showed up and spent parts of the day with us.

It is not as though these folks have nothing else to do. In fact, the reason I am so impressed is because I know how very busy they always are. The last couple of days, three other staff have caught me in the hall and apologized that they could not join us.

Two things about this display of enthusiasm. One, I think La Trobe is the Victorian university where you would most likely have this response. The people here are pro community, friendship network in a way which stands out, even amongst "matey" Australian universities. That is their reputation and I have found it to be true. I have felt welcomed since day one. Two, as Peter Beilharz (a La Trobe professor) told the group, "I (by which he also meant Australians) have a love affair with America. It's a love-hate affair". Australians love American culture, even if they hate that they love it. All the staff who joined us that day have spent time in America. I think they were genuinely interested in having dialogue and lunch with a group of uni students from Kentucky.

They taught us interesting things that day. They were obviously happy to give.

I think I speak for most Americans when I write that Americans love to love Australia (even though they don't know much about it).

A beard in the club

2009-01-13T03:12:00.001-08:00

New Year's eve, I am usually with family and friends near a medium to large city, but never in the city for the festivities. Near Melbourne, now's my chance for a mid-town new year's, I thought. Some friends and I ended up in a dance club called CQ. This is not what I had in mind, but there I was.

It takes a couple celebratory drinks to get me dancing outside the comfort of my family, who already know that I am ridiculous when I "dance".

Discothèques are not my scene. They may even be the opposite of my scene. Club music all goes bump-bump, bumpity-bump-bump. My music is usually some variation of rock. Club people have gel in their hair. I have a beard. Club lights blink neurotically. The outdoors light comes up over the horizon, and slowly works its way to go down on the other side. Club people smell like a Sears perfume counter. I smell like Old Spice and denim. Club people are willing to wear white trousers. I will not wear white trousers unless there's a large cash prize involved. Club people know the club dancing rules, which apparently have evolved along with dancing. I apparently need to freshen up on the Western dance culture phenomena. The following is participant observation:

I am dancing, trying not to look too serious, but simultaneously not too goofy. A little lean-back here, just an ounce of hip there, and arms settled just below boxing stance. There is a group of four women (far too fashionable for me) who are dancing in a group. The group starts to move closer to me. I try to act natural. I am probably not acting natural. The group nearly has incorporated me into its circle of femininity. I am doing panic management on the inside, and keeping it happy and cool on the outside. Perhaps they are fascinated that a beard was allowed into the club and have come for closer inspection. No matter. One of these women seems to want to dance, I think, because she keeps hovering nearby. I tug of war with my two selves as to whether I should ask her to dance. I ask her over the loud speakers if she would like to dance. She says "Yeah sure," then leans over to her friend, whispers something, and then the two of them walk away.

It sucked to be me in that moment, but the insight gained is worth it. Cultural practices change. I was assuming that, similar to the films from the 1970s and prior, it would be proper to ask someone for a dance. My friends laughed at me when I relayed the story. They informed me that you do not ask for a dance. You dance around the person until it turns into the two of you dancing. Hmm. Very interesting indeed.

I stood back at the bar for a few minutes to observe. I watched a guy dancing slowly backwards toward a woman. He turned around, and oh whoops, there is a woman in front of me and now we're dancing, dance, dance. She subtly turned and faced another direction. The guy danced back from whence he came. It's the 2000's, a new age of dance!

It was an anthropological new year's.

Research thesis: skills, endurance, and ritual chanting

2009-01-12T16:27:00.001-08:00

Day to day, I work slowly and surely on a research thesis, alongside others who are endeavoring to do the same thing. I read, strain my eyes at big theories, discuss, teach, interview, listen, transcribe, organize interview material, read more, gather notes, drink coffee, think about writing, wander the halls, perform ritual chants in preparation for writing, and sometimes even write.

I have benefited immensely from this process. I have gained an appreciation for how difficult it is to work when nobody is making you. I have also gained an appreciation for what an enormous privilege it is to be allowed time to do all the things listed above.

Milton Reigelman, my first year advisor at Centre College, told me at that point that it almost did not matter which major I chose as a course of study. Yeah sure, I thought. And they pay this guy?

But it turns out Milton is right. In fact, it turns out that it almost even doesn't matter which course of study I choose at the master's degree level. Perhaps, the same can be said of a PhD thesis. (I would not have truly believed this even one year ago).

I look around at the other post-grads (master's and PhD research students) in La Trobe University's school of social sciences. We will each spend one to five years walking out an independent endeavor which turns one into a weathered, furrow-browed, caffeine addicted, overly cautious introvert with the confidence and capacity to carry a big thing through to the end. We will have developed the capacity to make a substantial piece of writing out of the thin ember of an idea. Some of the skills we will have reasonably honed by time the thesis passes inspection: reading right through the temptation to nap, developing self-discipline and self-direction, doing the ambiguous job of "thinking", learning to write decently, professional development, friendship and connections with very interesting people, and living on instant noodles and tuna.

Then each of us will go on to the next thing. Very few of us will use our thesis in very specific ways. Generally though, we will all use the skills, temperaments, and connections developed along the way, whatever the thesis topic may have been.

For this I am grateful. Now, it's back to ritual chanting.

Centre students in Melbourne

2009-01-11T03:51:00.000-08:00

Australia is a 7,500 mile stone's chuck away from the United States. It takes cash flow and jet lag to get from one to the other. This leaves me staying in Australia as long as I live in Australia. But America has been coming to me. Most recently, Beau Weston and his son Joe are leading a group of 20 Centre College students on a January long academic stint in Melbourne. Beau was my supervisor and is a good friend, so I have been grateful to spend some time with his class as they study Australian national identity.

Beau rented two twelve-seater vans for the weekend. The two of us drove on the wrong side of the road, to a Friday Aussie BBQ with Rotarians, a Saturday tour of the Great Ocean Road, and a Sunday trip to Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. Travel, driving, eating, laughing, and learning, these are a few of my favorite things. It was a rich weekend.

A highlight, among many: We arranged, before the BBQ, for a stroll at Warrendyte State Park, in order to spot kangaroos. They were not in the paddock where they typically graze. The twenty students began treading through tall grass toward the river in hopes of tracking some roos. Some set out into the scrub in dresses and sandals, and "wedges" I think they're called, since I had informed them they wouldn’t have to walk much to spot the roos. Sorry, ladies.

We made our way back to the vans after having found and taken photos of well over a dozen kangaroos. It was their first time seeing the muscle bound marsupials.

But there were four stragglers.

I looked down the hill. Along the river line, Joe and three of the Centre guys (especially tall athletic guys) were tip-toeing through the grass rapidly in pursuit of the kangaroos, their arms outstretched for balance. I imagined a cartoon pursuit with a high-note piano key punctuating their steps. One of the guys is a hunter. "Alright Joe, you head around those trees and in front of 'em, flush 'em out back toward us," he said. The hunt was on.

One of the guys disappeared for a few minutes behind a tree line where the animals were last spotted. Kangaroos can easily crush a man's ribcage with their size 23 feet, and or make fatal lacerations with their carpenter's blade claws. I was glad to see the roos bound out from the trees and continue along the tree line with our tip-toeing student in hot pursuit.

"Man, one got pretty close and stared me right in the eye," said the student. "I'd like to hunt one of those with a big boomerang," said another student. "Man, you would get eaten alive first," said the third. Joe smiled, apparently overall very pleased with the pursuit.

New year, new beard, same question

2009-01-01T00:49:00.000-08:00

What's wrong with people? I ask this, not in bitterness, but with a sense of wonder at what people are capable of.

In December, two friends and I hiked the 98 kilometre "Great Ocean Walk." My facial hair grew for the six days. Since then, I still have not put razor to it. This has resulted in the continued growth of stiff hair on my face, known as a beard. But you knew that. So, why are there people out there who, upon seeing the beard, scrunch their eyes and say things such as:

"Hey, what happened to your face?"
"What's wrong? Are you depressed?"
"What's that? What are you doing?"
"You haven't shaved?"
"That's funny, are you going for a new look or something?"
"What's with the facial hair?"
"Are you going to let that grow?"

It would be nice if I were making this up, because that would mean I wouldn't actually have to come up with answers to such shocking questions.

It is an age of the tame, the sleek, the luster bound mechanized worker, strapped to the machine to produce and get paid less than he/she is worth, to keep capitalism going. It is an age in which beards are rounded up and confined to a circus of professors, national parks personnel, hikers, hobos, and alt country bands. So, a guy like me grows his beard, and perhaps it's reasonable to think, oh, I wonder if something is wrong with Mark because he hasn't shaved, just like everyone else. But why, why would anyone allow this to come out in the form of "What are you doing?"

The first couple of comments threw me off, like a wasp suddenly hovering in my face. I hesitated, then jerked about and searched for an answer to wave off the question. "Oh yeah, I'm uh, growing my beard." What else could I say?

The next couple of comments, I was ready with a classic: "I can't find my razor. Hehehe." One guy asked if I would like to borrow his. Again, the wasp of idiocy "uzzzzzzed" at me from nowhere.

When David Beckham grows a beard (or a faux-hawk, or something else ridiculous), nobody says, "Dave, what's with the facial hair? Are you depressed?"

I ought to just keep making the "can't find my razor" joke. But yesterday I couldn't. A guy I know who doesn't speak English well was passing by and, upon seeing me, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, held his chin, and said "Mark, what…?"

I should have been nice. Instead, I said "'What?' What?" I made him explain what he was asking. Then I made him explain why he was asking it. It took a while, but I made him earn his answer. This is not something I'm proud of, but I bet the next time he sees a guy with a beard he doesn't make one peep about it.

Human action and inaction always have rationale, whether conscious or subconscious. And this rationale choosing springs up like a wildflower from somewhere within the field of culture. There is rationale in me choosing to grow a beard, part of which I'm aware of, part of which I'm not. The first person to walk up and say, "Nice beard," might be a good person to explore this idea with. Until then, I will cheerfully go back to saying "lost my razor." It's not that big of a deal. It's a new year, it's sunny outside, and I'm working on my beard tan. Live and let "uzzzzzzz," I say.

Australian stories

2008-12-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

Each year, I await the newest in the Best American Short Stories series. There's a distinct pleasure in finding that a New Yorker, Atlantic, or other story that I happened to have read in the year made it to the all stars. Even better is finding a new-to-me author amongst the most recently anthologized. As a younger fella, I remember the same sort of joy found in opening a crisp pack of baseball cards, reading the stats, wrapping the "keepers" in protective plastic, and trading the doubles to my buddy down the cul-de-sac.

My first week in Australia, I discovered The Best Australian Stories series while exploring my university's library. I did one of those inward fist pull and knee ups, saying "Yes," then looked left and right quickly to make sure nobody saw me (only one girl saw me). I checked out the brightly colored 2005 and 2006 paperbacks. 2007 seems to have been out on loan since I arrived in March.

And 2008 just came out! Yes, that is an exclamation point.

--

Rob Kinzel flew over and spent 16 days here in November. We rented a cheap car and packed that two weeks tighter than a boxed set of 1996 Upper Deck baseball cards.

While in Sydney, we spent a day walking the Sydney University side of town, including an area called Gleeb. This was pitched to us as a hip, student, coffee house, gallery, pub, independent bookshop, international food part of town.

We popped into "Gleebooks" for some time well spent picking up, gently handling, and reading reviewers' comments on the backs of the wholesome smelling new books. Rob was especially on the lookout for a journal. He quick-stepped back down the stairs toward me. "You've got to come upstairs," he said, grabbing my shoulder. The Best Australian Stories 2008 and The Best Australian Essays 2008 were having their official publisher's book launch upstairs in ten minutes. $10 had us with a glass of red wine in hand, sitting amongst a smallish crowd of authors, family, friends, and other readers.

I looked at us: tanned foreheads, slightly burnt noses, hiking boots, jeans, back packs, eyes of tired strength, having walked the hilly suburb all day, possibly a bit musky. I looked at everyone else: fresh dark clothing, pulled back hair, earrings, and shiny watches. Yet, we didn't get that you-don't-belong-here upturned gaze. They were after all a fiction crowd- perhaps an easier going, open to all types crowd. Anyway, when the readings began, we were all together sharing the same imaginary space, tuned to the authors' voice.

It was pure delight, hearing the editors and a couple of the authors speak and read from their own writing. It was as though our day of walking led us to that point.

My newly purchased copy of Best Australian Stories 2008 is at my side on the couch. It's slim, simple, and handsome in a canary yellow uniform. It's a collection of stories with its own story for me, and for Rob. It's a keeper.

Are you gonna eat that?

2008-11-11T03:20:00.000-08:00

I went with some friends for yum cha, and ended up eating chicken feet.

A Cantonese phrase, yum cha translates to "drink tea." It refers to a type of eating out in which Chinese tea is served with various courses of dim sum, or little bits of rich food. Servers push trolleys amongst the tables, with platters full of interesting rice paper rolls, things which jiggle, and other things with rubbery spikes. They make a tic on the bill whenever the group gets a couple more plates set on the lazy susan.

"Here, try this," said Robbie. He held with chopsticks over my plate what looked like a white rubber band with little tasting tentacles all over it. That could be puffer-fish skin, I thought. "It's tripe," said Robbie, "just give it a go." I tried it. It tasted like the chili sauce I dunked it in.

"So, what did I just eat?" I asked.

Tripe, the world wide web reports, is "a type of edible offal from the stomachs of domestic animals." I don't care to know what an offal is. Knowing that it was stomach is enough. Robbie said it fights cancer, or maybe he said it prevents blood clots, or wait, maybe it's meant to be good for your eyes. I liked it and kept eating it.

Chicken feet though...c'mon, that's gross. I ate one to be a good sport.

For the uninitiated, you bite a finger at the joint and suck the meat off, then spit the three little finger bone parts out. It's the closest I've come to feeling like I was eating something human. Just four fingers, but it looked like a little person hand as I clenched it in the chopsticks and made a slow approach to my mouth. Mine happened to have curled outside fingers and a straight middle one. So, of course I flipped the bird at Robbie for making me eat the thing. The whole experience was too creepy for me to notice how it tasted.

We listened to music at one of the others' apartment all day. By dinner time, we went for Vietnamese and I ordered the beef bowl, with tripe.

The dominant mentality

2008-11-05T13:47:00.000-08:00

My research thesis is about upward social mobility in Australia. They have that here, as we do in the States. Yesterday, I was presenting a paper at a post-graduate conference as the voting polls closed on the west coast, 12 hours behind Melbourne time. The results came in. America elected its first black president.

My last post claims that America is not a racist country. I'm speaking in broad terms, realizing that racism is out there, but saying that it is not a dominant part of the American mentality. Racism is the terrain of a fearful, misguided minority.

Today, America elected a black president, with a majority vote. Of course, his race is not why he was voted in. But the significant thing is that his race did not keep him out.

An Australian friend told me, okay, maybe America isn't a racist country. People in the rest of the world are watching. And they are proud of the U.S.A.

Good ol' Rocky Top

2008-10-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

A friend approached me today and declared that Tennessee was in the international news. I had already heard about the two disgusting racists (redundant, I know) who were convicted for plans to murder innocent people and a presidential candidate. One of them is from Tennessee.

I said to my friend, "Let's be clear, that person is from East Tennessee." Okay, okay, that's not so important (unless you're from Nashville).

The news story, as reported by the BBC, managed to steer mostly clear of the type of race-tension-fear hype news agencies often cannot resist. But I detected a small whiff of concern about violence against Obama, were he to be elected.

Sociologist, Michele Lamont has researched and written extensively about the cultures and attitudes of American working-class as well as upper-middle class people. Racism is one of the key interests of her studies. What Lamont found is that most Americans (the vast majority, by a mile) are not racist. I realize that recent polls indicate some voters would not want a black president. Those polls probably reflect something of the truth. But those polls and other like information are generated and interpreted by the media (who can print whatever the hell they want and appologize later). I trust Lamont's research findings over anything the news tells me.

Racism has many degrees of expression, some subtler than others. The ideological stink of racism is a filthy part of American history, and it still eeks out in subtle and not so subtle ways. But by and large, racists, especially something like a "white supremacist" are a tiny lot of fearful weenies, margenalized from other Americans.

Barack Obama, when asked if he was concerned for his safety from racist violence, replied that no, he's not, because that's not what America is about. He is right. The two young men involved in the email murder plot are part of an ostracized, marginalized group.

Barack Obama's safety is important, so I leave it to the experts. My main point is that America (despite some ongoing acts of racism) is by and large not a racist country. It is a multi-cultural place, with people who are learning more about each other all the time. Lamont and Obama are right, racism is not what America is about.

Deadlines

2008-10-23T01:47:00.000-07:00

Deadlines are only any good if something is at risk of dying. I've discovered this for myself trying to set my own dates for progressing on thesis research and writing. There is this sneaky way I have of getting myself out of self-related commitments if I don't feel at risk of a death to my goals, or pocket book, or dignity, or literal death of body. So, I got my supervisors involved. Help me set deadlines and hold me accountable to them, I said. Sure thing, they told me. The deadlines came and I sent a half-hearted draft rather than the coherent draft I'd promised. There were no consequences, not even shame because that's probably not a supervisor's responsibility, to shame their advisees.

I like what I'm doing as a MA student, but I still find it difficult to get the writing done without a bit of extra pressure. Me and 95% of the rest of the graduate students I know deal with this.

Tania, a La Trobe research fellow, shared about her writing habits. Each morning she writes for two hours. The time is set aside for writing and nothing else. She does not allow herself to email, text, answer the phone, answer the door, eat, or play solitaire. She does not allow herself an out. The trick is, even if she only writes a hundred words in the two hours, it's writing only time. The result is, the subconscious becomes trained that, "You're not getting out of this, so deal with it and write."

A week and a half ago on Monday morning, I gave it a go. 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. It was me, the word processor, and some notes; nothing else. I struggled through it a bit, my mind wandering and slowly coming back like a downcast child told to come in from recess. But I came out of the two hours with around a thousand words of rough-draft. The rest of the day, I read, had conversations with people, answered emails, typed reading notes, drank coffee, read friends' blogs, all the usual. I felt more content and happier that day than I had in months.

Tuesday morning, I woke up…late. Then I had to prepare for tutorials, and then eat lunch, then this, then that.

Wednesday morning, I woke up and wrote from 8:00 to 10:00. Since then, I've done it every other day. When it works, it really works. Maybe I'll get it to every day some time.

I shared this with someone else and they said, "Yeah, that's being directive with your time rather than responsive."

Call it discipline, directive, determined, or whatever. It's making me a happier person, because I'm actually getting some writing done. (It's helped the blog too).

God, magpies, and theorized biography

2008-10-22T04:16:00.000-07:00

When magpies aren't chasing me, they're pooping on my shoulder. Even in Canberra, New South Wales.

Early September I spent a week in the country's capital, Canberra. I had applied and been invited to participate in a work-shop titled Using Lives: a post-graduate workshop in biography. I'm "using lives" in my thesis, so it was an ideal week of presentations and discussion to be a part of.

My modus operandi is to jump in head first and pretend I know what I'm doing until I become proficient enough to look like I know what I'm doing. As my mother says, nobody really knows what they're doing anyway. It was clear on the first day of the work-shop I was a bit out of my league.

Using Lives was sponsored by the Australian National Museum, The Australian National University, and the Australian Dictionary of Biography. I don't know what that all means either. It was 29 other PhD students and me (MA student) spending a week of deep conversation about the theoretical and practical uses of biography in humanities and social science research. I was the only sociology student there amongst mostly history post-grads. The average age was about 40. Many of these folks have already published books and had careers. The sessions all took place at the National Museum where we were wined and dined and met with international scholars. Richard Holmes was the highlight speaker, a prominent British biographer. The whole thing was pretty flash.

Out of my element, for sure, but I was welcomed and taken into the fold of a smart and convivial bunch of folks. Day one I thought, they've made a huge mistake letting me into this thing. But it turns out they knew what they were doing (more than me).

A sociology thesis necessarily has at least one driving question. It was easy for me to think about how and why I'm "using lives" because that's what I've been trained to do, to have a driving question and a main point (thanks, Dr. Weston). In the end, many of the biography PhDs found that they were doing biography but they weren't sure why other than that it's interesting. The coordinators pushed each of us to ask the why and how questions. What makes your project a thesis? What's the question? For this, my input was actually useful. I've theorized my work, drawing on big ideas to try and make sense of my respondents' experiences. The discussions with the group were rich.

During an outdoor lunch on the day of my presentation, a magpie pooped on my shoulder. My lunch mates laughed at me. A bad omen, I thought. Sarah giggled and said not to worry, assuring me that it's good luck. I looked at Michael and he laughed while nodding in agreement. "I mean, it picked you," Sarah said enthusiastically.

My presentation went well, so maybe there is something fortunate about a magpie choosing to take a big one on my shoulder. I'm grateful for being picked. Mostly, I'm grateful to God for being picked. I believe God has opened the way to opportunities for me to stretch my mind and skills, make new friends around Australia, and regularly cross paths with feisty magpies. Like the magpie, for some reason, God picked me. I only hope I can make them both proud.

Kiwis, Brits, Indians, Chinese, and a yankee (me)

2008-10-21T02:07:00.000-07:00

My bedroom window overlooks a cricket sports field. I'm typing and watching 14 Indian students play a pick-up game, with the period shouts suggesting a good time being had.

Multiculturalism has been an obvious theme of this blog. The term not only refers to the idea of having many cultures represented in one nation-state, multiculturalism is the name of the Australian Federal government policy instituted in 1973. The policy suggests that individuals from all global cultures have the potential to contribute to the well-being and development of Australia. The migration doors were opened, ending a long implicit, and even longer explicit, "white Australia" policy. The state celebrates cultural diversity, and barring the inevitable tiffs and growing pains, most Australians citizens do as well.

A generation and a half later, Australia has one of the most diverse multicultural populations in the world. Many new citizens are coming from Asia and Oceania. In 2008, the immigration department has invited/allowed 300,000 people from other countries to become new citizens. For a country of 21 million people, 300 thousand is not insignificant.

For 2006-7, the top five countries to lose people to Australia (so to speak) were in this order: New Zealand, U.K., India, China, and the Philippines. It is the first year on record where new "Kiwis" out-numbered new "Poms" (Brits). It is also the first year on record where new Indians out-numbered new Chinese.

I mentioned the Diwali dance I went to, all in fresh Indian duds, as well as the major Diwali festival downtown Melbourne, with fireworks and all. And outside my window are a crew of friendly Indian blokes, batting the cricket ball around, shouting that excited sports way that you do.

Several cultures living together within one state is as old as time. But there is something unique in how Australia is striding forward in this distinctly modern social experiment. Multiculturalism says, "We want people from other cultures to come here because they'll make us better." Australia is not perfect at it, but they seem to want to be a leader. America does it too, but I sense a slightly different attitude here. Australia wants to show that not only can it work, but it makes for a kind of social dynamism not to be missed.

Dirty Dumplings

2008-10-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

Ship's Piano is an indie-rock band I watched play in the city Saturday night at a venue called Pony. The lead guitarist, a thin young guy with a great swath of curly red hair, is my primary supervisor, Anthony Moran's, son.

I rang up a few people and ended up hanging out with three politics post grads: Sophie from Germany, Aure from France, and Russell from Adelaide, the fifth largest city in Australia.

Federation Square, where we met up, was belly to belly with a crowd of mostly Indian Australians celebrating Diwali. There were dancers on the main stage, concessions, and there were to be fireworks around sunset, which is why we met up there.

We ordered Japanese beers at a waterfront bar on the Yarra River. The fireworks burst over the river, with the Melbourne Cricket Grounds on the horizon.

Plenty of time before Ship's Piano would be on, so Aure suggested some Chinese dinner at "Dirty Dumplings."

"So, let me get this straight," I said. "It's actually called Dirty Dumplings, or it's known as Dirty Dumplings?"

He managed to avoid the question and talk us into going, because it's "a Melbourne establishment. I used to eat there three times a week," he said.

Sure enough, Dirty Dumplings (its famous pseudonym) was dirty. They don't serve un-fried food. Aure insisted on ordering us "the best thing on the menu," pork dumplings, fried noodles, and fried pumpkin sweets. When the food arrived, Aure only ate the noodles. "I'm a vegetarian," he shrugged and said.

Russell refused to eat the pork dumplings, which bobbed in a bowl of yellow oil/grease/something. I managed to wrestle a slippery dumpling onto my plate and get it down. Not too bad, actually. I was very hungry. Sophie and I ate half of them, the rest floating in the yellow.

Aure complained that we weren't getting the full experience because they had recently remodeled the restaurant. It used to be really dirty, he said. I looked around. There was not an empty seat in the large place, and a line out the door. Go figure.

On our way to Pony, Aure started to get excited about the place saying, "Pony is a dive, a real Melbourne establishment. Only, I've never been there before three a.m. or sober, so I'm not sure what to expect."

Pony did happen to smell like urine, sweat, and smoke. A rocker's potpourri. If you've been anywhere like this, I don't need to describe the spray-painted bathrooms in too much detail. It had character, though, like Aure said it would. There were antique furnishings, like say, probably from the early 1980s. People laughed, and drank, and bobbed to the down-beat drum-thump from upstairs.

We paid $8 and went upstairs for the music. Anthony and his wife were there, supporting their son's band. People got pretty into Ship's Piano's music. They could jam. It was loud, it was raw, and it was sweaty. Strangely, it reminded me of Dirty Dumplings.

It could be monkeys

2008-10-19T00:12:00.000-07:00

A fellow resident, from Singapore, was surprised to hear about the magpie attacks. I told her about the whole nesting protection thing they do as we prepared food this morning in our common kitchen area. She's a runner as well, so she appreciated the warning about the swooping peckers. I even gave her the specific locale where Hell-bitch lives and haunts (see last blog).

In Singapore, she told me, she has to watch out for monkeys when she goes jogging. When they run after her, she usually gets away. Twice they have managed to catch her and scratch at the back of her legs as she anxiously tried to sprint away. That's one of the creepiest thing I can imagine happening while exercising in the park.

Apparently, the monkeys hang out in large territorial circles. She learned that if she runs way around the circle, they won't bother her. If she wanders into the middle of their circle inadvertently, well, it's "eeeeeekk-eeeek" chasing as you run hell-for-leather through the park.

These Aussie birds are aggressive, but then, it could be monkeys.

Dislocating my hips

2008-10-18T00:05:00.001-07:00

Bhangra dancing is for lovers, of shoulder jivin' joy. And Diwali (pronounced di-vali) is a time for bhangra and other types of Indian dancing. It's known as the festival of lights, the lights representing victory of good over evil in all people.

Indians make up a fair percentage of the residents in the building I live in. We had a massive Diwali festival, with dance performances, a play, vegetarian snacks, Indian dance music, and lights.

My mate Chinmay lent me a red dhoti (gown thing) and a pearl colored dupatti (scarf thing). I thought my friends would laugh at a white dude in Badagas dress, but they were clapping and smiling, complimenting the look. If only my blue jeans and label-less t-shirts got that sort of attention.

I can't directly identify with the religious significance of the festival, but I can appreciate my friends' expressions of their spiritual devotion. And I never mind getting' down to some funky bhangra beats.

There are movements involved in this type of dancing which I find impossible to make my body do. Something happens with their shoulders which looks like intentional dislocation. I try to move my hips the way they do and I end up looking like I'm dodging arrows. People get so into the dancing though, I like to think they don't notice my moves.

Then there's this bit you're meant to do with your hands. I couldn't get it right until Chinmay explained, "You screw in the light bulb with this hand, turn the faucet with the other, and move your foot like you're putting out a cigarette." Oh sure, nothin' to it.

It's difficult to find a stronger expression of joy than a party of Indians jamming out steps to bhangra music.

Hard to imagine me in a dhoti and dupatti? Here ya go:

My Iranian friend, Muhammad, and me go bhangra.

Bird violence

2008-10-17T07:18:00.000-07:00

The magpies have struck again. And I don't mean my footy team, Collingwood. I'm talking about the territorial, spastic local birds.

It's nesting season for the birds of Australia. Large white cockatoos with their neon yellow crests, glide in flocks and screech. "Noisy miner", a mid-sized grey bird with yellow beak, is described on many websites as curious and aggressive. Parakeets flutter about and try to mind their own business. And then there are the magpies, who hop along lawns and streets, looking for fights. They stare you down as you pass by. "Pies" are larger than crows, the same dark black sheen, but with a patch of white feathers on their wings.

When I first arrived in Australia, I noticed some cyclists had zip-ties attached to their helmets, pointed up like spikes. Curious, I thought, maybe just an Aussie oddity. Turns out those spikes are there to deter the magpies. During nesting season, the pies will trail behind cyclists until they get close enough to attack the head with thrusts of their index-finger sized black beaks. Alfred Hitchcock much? Riders without helmets have been sent to the hospital. Riders with helmets have chunks of plastic and Styrofoam missing from their lids. The zip-ties are supposed to keep the pies at bay.

Nobody told me that magpies attack runners as well. Two weeks ago must have been the beginning of nesting. I was on my favorite route, jogging to some Metallica, when I heard a cawing howl behind me. Hmm, an interesting part of Don't Tread on Me which I hadn't noticed before. The caw came again, closer. I turned and was running, face to beak with a magpie as it yelled, wings crook and talons poised. My body did something like tweak in a dynamic epileptic fit of freaking out, arms and legs each going their own direction. The bird turned and flew back to its tree. I kept running, still surprised, when I heard the sound again and flung my arms over my head, thwarting its second attempt. The third time it swooped for me, I shooed it off, then I started running after it. It perched on a tree branch while I stood there sweating and daring it to come back down here. Yes, I talked to the bird, very loudly.

That magpie and I have had several run-ins since. I refuse to change my running route. Even though I know when to expect hell-bitch, (that's what I call it; the name comes from the horse of the character named Call in Larry McMurtry's novel Lonesome Dove), it still startles me into convulsions. It's not unlike having someone jump out of an ally at you every time you go for a walk. You know it's coming, but it's still shocking. Hell-bitch is all business.

This morning I watched three magpies outside my window in a tussle with a bright green parakeet. They had the parakeet on the ground and were taking alternate jabs at it with those nasty black beaks. I would have stepped in to help, but I mean, come on, three magpies is a gang and there's only one of me. The parakeet eventually managed an escape. And I swear those pies looked proud of themselves for ruining the parakeet's day.

I've learned to listen for the eerie caw and watch for shadows of magpies. I am safer with the experience based know-how. So I thought, anyway.

Just today, a "Noisy Miner," who I thought was a peaceful bird, swooped in silence and shot past my ear. It grazed my face. Almost as suddenly, another one buzzed the other side of my head. I went through the whole spastic flailing thing again. This time, I had an audience of children at a playground. Was it the children or their parents who were laughing the loudest at me? It was difficult to tell while I scanned the sky for more kamikaze little freak birds.

Australia: where the struggles of human and beast become one frenetic dance. I can only hope I would have made the late Steve Irwin proud.

Post Script: I won't mention any names, but thanks to those friends who told me to get-my-stuff-in-gear and keep bloggin'. (Hunter, Rob, and Hannah)

'Canbra'

2008-09-06T04:38:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I fly to Canberra. I've been corrected. It's pronounced 'Canbra'. Not unlike swallowing the middle of the word to pronounce Louisville, Kentucky as 'Louvull'.

If you studied sociology in college and or belong to a Facebook group titled Every day something happens which makes me glad I'm a sociology major, then you may think this is cool: I'm going to participate in a five day sociology and history conference/workshop titled Using Lives: a postgraduate workshop in Biography.

Otherwise, you may think this is cool: I'm going to Australia's capital city for five days.

Twenty-nine other postgraduate (same as graduate) students and I will present papers and hear from some of Australia's pros in the game of using life stories/biography in research. Does it get more exciting? No, I submit to you, it does not.

People have mixed feelings about Canberra. I've heard everything from, "Oh, it's just wonderful; the parks, the museum," to "Canbra? It's S###."

Hmm. What to think? I'm curious, and I'm looking forward to it.

I recall Bill Bryson's account of touring Canberra, in his book A Sunburned Country. Specifically, I remember him looking for nightlife and ending up in a hotel pub, a bored looking couple in the corner, a couple flies, and a napkin to write notes on and wipe beer from his chin. Sounds pretty, uh…well, the good news is, us students are being housed in shared apartments at ANU (Australian National University). I'll meet other post grads from around the country. We'll share ideas, we'll swap sociological stories, drink sociological coffee and wine, and we won't go to that hotel pub.

Masquerade ball

2008-08-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

I went night surfing instead of my high school prom. This was a conscious rebellion against convention: band practice and waves to fight the forces of formal dress, disco-ball, sugary punch, and the dreaded slow dance to radio love songs. The lyrics from one our band's songs, to give you an idea of the spirit of our rock:

You see it on TV
You see it on the streets
You say 'that’s for me'
You say 'that's real neat'
Chorus:
You have to look
Like everyone else
Just to feel good about yourself
Ahhhhhhhh! Let's go!

Trust me, I'm now aware of the irony of being a social type which writes punk songs gloating about not being a social type.

I actually looked forward to last night's masquerade ball. It wasn't meant to be a prom, but had a similar ring to it: formal dress, dancing…formal dress, dancing. Like going to the dentist, these are things I typically mope about but then am always glad I did. But I had a stake in the ball having helped a bit getting it together. Plus, we would be wearing masks, so I had a place to hide as I impressed people by doing the robot (which I actually did, and I guess people must have been impressed because they pointed, laughed, and encouraged me to keep doing it).

The ball was organized for University Lodge and Graduate House, the two main residences for postgraduate (same as graduate in U.S.) international students. We had white tablecloths, a catered meal, bar, big speakers, dance floor, purple and white balloons, a red carpet, and masks. Folks bought masks, while others made their own. There were feathers, sparkles, bright yellows, dark purples- all colors.

A few of my favorites: Muhammad's black mask with large, built on paper mustache; Martin's robot box helmet made from an empty case of Carlton beer; an oversized cardboard teddy-bear face.

I plucked a small branch from a tree and used that for my mask. That branch went wherever I went. To speak with people, I had to part the leaves. The only time it didn't make people laugh was when I put on Muhammad's mustache mask and then hid behind my greenery. A girl raised an eyebrow and said it made me look like a creeper in the bushes. Okay, just the bush then.

Last week, I witnessed the fantastic Bhangra dance at an Indian Independence day ceremony. Last night, a Bhangra song came on and I wound up in the middle of nine Indian dudes with my arms clapping in the air to Punjabi music humming through the speakers.

They would bust a move, and I'd mimic. Without anyone telling me, I knew I looked like Kermit the frog, but my Indian buddies assured me with pats on the back that I was doing a good job. The bunch of us jumped and clapped and yelped, me with my little tree branch waving. (And I didn't even have anything to drink!).

Hardick was the DJ. He took a lot of flack for sneaking a Pantera song into the line-up. People went from emphatic hip hop lean-backs to standing and facing the DJ like he'd just stolen their lolly-pop. Hardick wouldn't have known my punk-rock reasons for skipping my prom, but it did my heart good to see a little metal guitar grinding the gears of the dance to a halt for even just a moment.

The music came back. Everyone in their formal clothes, with masks propped on their foreheads, danced until late. There was hip-hop, Salsa, Bhangra, Michael Jackson, and yes, a couple of slow songs. And no, I didn't dance to the slow songs.

It was the most fun I've had with a tucked-in shirt. I secretly look forward to the next ball.

Social problems: think about it

2008-08-21T07:59:00.001-07:00

Social problems have always been a primary concern for sociology. Every group of people has disturbances, deviance, and tears which need mending, whether within the basic unit of society, the family, or within an entire city, or maybe a political party.

Australia and New Zealand have their fair share. Here are social commentators from New Zealand to help us wrestle with urban social problems. Please click below and sing along:

Flight of the Conchords

Spicy rock; space invaders

2008-08-19T05:11:00.000-07:00

(Continued from last post).

All-you-can-eat Indian food at "Krazy Kurry" reminded me that when presented with an endless food supply, I'll eat like my family's late Scottish terrier, Violet: until ill or someone pulls the bowl out from under my face. We walked out of there like cowboys, for the full stomachs.

Through the front door of Billboard, down the winding staircase, into the dark, with blue and green neon lights, up to the bar for a VB, over to a perch on a raised table facing the stage, down onto elbows for sipping, across to each other for band anticipating questions like: "What's a show that you could've gone to, but didn't, and still regret missing?" Me: Arcade Fire, playing in Louisville, a caravan of friends from Centre. Still mad at myself.

The Gin Club, a group of lanky, curly haired rockers from Brisbane, opened the night. They were like broccoli which you have to finish before a juicy Band-of-Horses steak is set before you. The band members were talented. We knew that because after each song, all six of them rotated instruments. Never the same drummer twice. The most interesting as well as useless thing was when the big guy in black jeans, sized for an 11 year old girl, held a snare drum upside-down and strummed those strings of metal bearings on the bottom which make that ststststs sound. It didn't make any distinguisable noise, but looked creative.

Two women to my left were sharing the counter Hardick, Andy, and I had posted up at. We were all positioned to face the stage. I noticed that they were slowly, strategically pushing us to the right to make room for another of their friends. Claim jumpers!

There's being nice, and then there's too much "Kurry," a generic sounding band, and a long awaited keen view of one my favorite bands. I stopped being moved like a magnet bounced by another magnet. Sure enough, after the next song, her mini movements brought her shoulder to shoulder with me. This woman wanted to out-awkward me! So be it, I thought.

My physical-contact-with-rude-stranger-resolve lasted less than a minute, so I went for a round of beers. Hold the fort, I told the guys.

I returned with three drinks. My new friend was standing exactly where I had been ten minutes prior. Hardick turned and looked me, looked at her, looked at me, and shrugged. I reached all the way around and placed the beers on the table in front of her. I smiled and she rolled her eyes and gave me back half of my original space. I slouched and squeezed into my slot. In exchange for her space invading, I decided I would be that crazy guy who rocks out so hard that people lean over with crossed arms and says to their mates, "I'll have whatever he's having."

And then they came onto the stage, before an elbow room only crowd with lots of hair in the dark.

The rhythm guitarist ran his hand so fast it was a blur of pale skin over his instrument. He wore light colored cloths, with a white toboggan. The organist, a big fella in a cowboy hat, touched out groans which reminded me of the background sounds of a fiery preacher, wiping sweat from his forehead and leaping with practiced fits and shouts of praise.

Ben Bridwell, the vocalist, sat at his steel guitar. His long hair was pulled back with a bandana on his brow. Tattoos on his neck reach up to a thick beard, puffed down and out like a long-distance hiker's. He wore a country western plaid shirt and tight jeans. He has a high, pleading voice. It begs and it proclaims lyrics of nature, love, and the South (the American South). When he sings with that high tone, it draws deep lines in the bass rifts and kick drum bump. Singing long notes, he leans forward, his neck tightening, and his large white teeth part wide. He sang out of the side of his mouth at times, looking for all the world like a horse with a flatter face. Enthusiasm beamed from this guy like a lantern on a lake.

The spirit of the show was too good to hold a grudge. Plus, I'd digested the curry. Rather than being that freaky rocker guy, I settled on drumming the table a bit. Toward the end of the show, my space invader even started to break out in a table tapping routine in time with mine.

Buying Band of Horses

2008-08-16T18:44:00.001-07:00

I bought chap-stick, just one stick, for $4, but only because my lips hurt. The cost of living is higher in Melbourne than Nashville. Groceries, toiletries, transportation, clothing, eating out, and rockin' out, all run around 30 to 70% higher here. Alcohol is especially stunning at $15 for a six-pack of Victoria Bitter, the local equivalent to Coors. There's a student, cheap movie night, where it costs $10 to see a film. You Americans get the idea by now.

(An aside: I asked an Aussie friend, who had lived in America during graduate school, what he had noticed about Americans. "They seem to think of life, most things, in terms of their dollar value," he said).

Due to the expense, and a U.S. dollar trying to catch its breath, it's necessary to be discerning and make good choices with what I've got. When Band of Horses came to Australia, I stopped discerning and paid the $40 to see them play in Melbourne. They're one of my favorite bands, so no matter it would have been a $25 show in the states.

Hardick, my American mate, and Andy, my British mate, texted me about the show and whether I wanted to go. Buy, buy, buy, I texted back.

Hardick and I not only came here from the same country and have similar tastes in music, but went to universities within a forty minute drive of each other in Kentucky. You can imagine this unfolding:
Hardick - "You went to Centre? I went to UK. Do you know so-and-so?"
Me - "Yeah, I had an English class with her. Her brother and I went hiking together."
Hardick - "Oh, no way, how is he? What's he doing now?"

We talked bands and books on the 20-some minute train into the city. At Parliament Station, we surfaced up a long stair case into the Melbourne CBD. We sniffed from spice and ate with our hands at "Krazy Kurry," an all-you-can-eat Indian place (can you spot the American influence?). Outside of our window seat, folks in sharp black clothes walked through the lamp lit dark, on their way home from work or on their way out. (A quarter of Australians now work over 45 hours a week; some more American influence, perhaps).

to be continued (not because I suspect you're on the edge of your seat but because I'm tuckered out).

Independence; dance like water

2008-08-14T19:49:00.001-07:00

I've celebrated Indian Independence day, in Australia. New friends, Sandeep and Vinita, had directed and were to act in a play, part of a commemoration at La Trobe Uni of India's 61 years of nation-statehood. Indian dignitaries and a handful of students were invited for a mid-day ceremony of speeches, Indian food, dancing, and a play, as well as to celebrate a healthy Australian - Indian relationship. Muhammad, Adel, and I (who live with Sandeep in campus residence) were lucky to receive his invitation, as only a handful of students were able to attend.

Speakers, Indian and Australian, talked about the beauties and benefits of the two countries living together, eating, playing, and doing business together. India's story of struggle for and final achievement of independence on August 15, 1947 is painted with darker shades of political and physical violence, as well as bright yellows and blues of passive resistance and unification. It's a fantastic story, and I could see in the Indian presenters' eyes, and hear in their tones that they are happy to be in Australia and very proud to be Indian. The play Sandeep and Vinita put on artfully explored the social problems India wrestles with now. A message of the act, though, was that Indian’s share a passion for their home land, strong enough to keep them working toward healing their social ills.

Muhammad and I were eating our Indian food at the break. He stopped eating. The speeches about connections between countries, he explained to me, had gotten him thinking about being an Iranian, sitting next to an American. "Two countries with the most difficult relations," he said. "But we are friends."

We sat back down. It was time for the dance.

Two men and two women wearing bright red and green gowns, with shimmering gold trim, entered the stage. They were Bhangra dancers, a style originated in the Punjabi region. Music came over the speakers in slow, pulsing drums, like large drops of water falling on guitar strings. The music began to quicken, the four dancers tensed with anticipation, and with a brum, brum, brum! the music went into a gallop of Indian sounds, the strum, the pluck, the wind, the pound.

These Bhangra dancers (students) leapt, stepped, and flowed around the stage in split-second unison. Their arms were raised, directing an invisible orchestra of thumping drums and strumming strings. Loose shoulders rolled in and out. They would bound from side to side, in complete control, their bodies taught as their torsos lead the way and confident legs twirled. The audience clapped in cadence with the music. Their arms would roll and then pull back in an arc, to then pull and roll in another direction, like the line of fly-fisherman's rod, gliding over running water.

I watched as they kept their faces upturned, smiling at each other, eyes wide with an enthusiasm of people dancing beyond their own energy.

Bhangra dancing is meant to compel, to draw its viewer in. I had goose-bumps. These were students, not professional dancers, but they could have fooled me. Adel explained to me that this dance is something which most people from the state of Punjab know how to do. It would be like everyone in Tennessee being able to break out in line dance at the drop of a hat (which would be pretty funny).

Vinita and Sandeep also emceed the event. They stood before us in white gowns which framed their smiles, expressing pride in standing before many of the uni staff they work with, a few of the students they study with, and a proud group of Indian dignitaries, each there to celebrate their homeland, in their home away from home.

Right place at the right time

2008-07-28T20:26:00.001-07:00

The Gold Coast was where we would air out for a few days after camping with the dingos and "making" Niki hike a lot.

Day three, I took the youth hostel shuttle the few kilometers into Surfer's Paradise, a center for surf, shopping, eating, and hearing thousands of rubber sandals flipping and snapping along the hot sidewalks. Lovely iodized air and kitschy souvenir shops hawking beer cozies with tanned butts and koalas printed on them. Paradise? No. But endlessly interesting.

The shuttle let me out at the large metal archway overlooking the beach which proudly reads "Surfer's Paradise," with two sculpture surfboards crossing decks. I had no sooner thanked the driver then I realized what the large crowd of men were doing gathered at the gateway to Surfer's.

I had arrived in the midst of a women's calender model, swimsuit competition.

Now, being dedicated to the study of society, I got out my ethnographer's notebook and stuck around for this cultural event.

Unless you've seen 50 gorgeous women in bikinis parading and posing on the beach in orderly fashion, then you've not seen a more pitiful display of ten times as many men: giggling like tiny little girls, literally bouncing on their heels, taking cell-phone photos, and looking for all the world like they might pass out with excitement. They couldn't stand still. Except for the guy whose wife had him by the back of the shirt.

I, of course, was an objective observer, entirely immune to these obtuse displays of irrational, overheated engines. Well, pretty much.

A dingo and Shelterbox

2008-07-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

Queensland has dingos, and we camped with them. Niki and I were treated by our Rotary hosts, Eric and Yvonne, to two weeks with them in the northeastern state. Our tents were pitched next to the ancient rain forest. I startled out of sleep when I heard Niki from her tent. "Mark. Mark. Maaark!" She said in a loud whisper. "What the hell is that?"

I listened. "Hoooooowwwwuuuuuuu." A dingo was near our campsite, howling.

"Hear that?" she asked, "Is it a wolf? Do something!"

I turned on my headlamp and could see my breath freezing into tired little puffs of moisture. The dingo howled again. The half of me that was asleep was not about to get out of the tent and "do something" with the dingo.

"It's just a dog, Niki."

"No it's not. You have to come in my tent."

"Seriously, it's just a little dog. Go to sleep."

-Hoooowwwwuuuuuuu- It had come closer. Suddenly I was fully awake (possibly a little concerned as well).

"It's a wolf," she said, "Now come in my tent. Please?!"

"I promise you, it's just a dog. It'll go away."

This went on for another two minutes: Niki pleading for me to do something, me having made up my mind I was not going to do something, and the dingo belting a groan at two tents posted up in its backyard, with chocolate, lunch meat, and kiwi fruit in them.

Juast as suddenly as Niki had interrupted my sleep, the dingo took off running down the hiking track. It's paws pounded thump-thump-thump, thump-thump as it sped by.

"Gees, that sounded big," I said.

"You're not going to come in my tent and protect me, are you?" she asked.

Silence followed.

"Look, the most that will happen is your feet might get a little nibble," I said.

The next morning we were boiling water on the camp stove for instant coffee and oatmeal. We had a laugh about the wee hours when the dog was howling at us. Then, I said, "Oh, by the way, uh, that was probably a dingo, since there aren't any stray dogs in this rain forest, but there are lots of howling dingos."

Niki strangely appeared upset. I mean, I did her a favor by suggesting it was merely a dog, so that she could get some sleep and not sweat it.

Eric and Yvonne, who were staying in the lodge, enjoyed our stories, and we accumulated many more over the two weeks in Queensland. A third of trip was in Lamington National park, a third at the Gold Coast, and a third in Brisbane. There's more to come on this trip. It was a highlight of my time here so far.

-----

I returned to Melbourne for 36 hours, then made a long flight to England.

I have become involved with an international disaster relief organization called Shelterbox. ( http://www.shelterbox.org/ ). When there has been a natural or human made disaster, Shelterbox delivers life sustaining kits to those who need it the most. A Sheltebox contains, among other things, a durable tent meant for a family of up to ten people, water purification, wood burning stove kit, basic tools, blankets, and bowls, plates, and cutlery. It is meant as a temporary life sustaining measure for families who have lost their homes, their possessions, and especially family members and friends.

One year ago, I called my mate David Eby and said, "Hey, you're not gonna believe this. I received a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, which means I'm off to Melbourne Australia for a year of grad study."

"Oh yeah, I'm familiar with Rotary," he said. David explained to me his involvement with Sbx as a part of one of their Shelterbox Response teams, or SRTs. In order to get the shipments of boxes through customs and to the folks who need them, teams of four trained SRTs are sent for two week deployments to work with, smile with, bargain with, and sweat and freeze with the people there on the ground who have just lost so much.

Sbx was started in Cornwall, UK, 2001. Since then, it's become a hefty international aid organization with headquarters in Cornwall and branches in Australia, Canada, and the US. 90 % of the money they raise, through private donations, goes into the boxes. Most of the people involved are, like myself, volunteers. Sbx was started by a Rotarian named Tom Henderson. Rotary International does not fund Sbx, but it's thanks to the global network or Rotarians that the program works so well. It's Rotary contacts in the affected areas who are able to say, hey, this is exactly what's going on, and here's what our need is.

I since have submitted a written application, made it through a weekend assessment here in Melbourne, and was invited to a nine day, intensive training course in Cornwall. Sbx graduated 13 of us through the training, and after our first deployments, we're full-fledged SRTs.

In case of disaster, Sbx has a list of 70-some SRTs they have to choose from. Based on our availability at a given time, they call through the list to put together a four person team. If they call me they might say, "Mark, there's just been an earthquake in China, we're going to send 800 boxes. Could you be ready to deploy in three days?" If I say no, they say cool, we'll call you next time. If I say yes, I would head off and assembly with the rest of the team to meet the boxes abroad.

Right now, I have myself on hold for lack of a list of immunizations and for the sake of my immediate Rotary and university commitments. In the coming months, I will keep Sbx abreast of my availability, and go from there.

In coming entries, I'll be going into more detail about the training, as well as the five days in London and two days Abu Dhabi I was fortunate to have on the way back to Melbourne.

Preston Market

2008-07-25T22:41:00.001-07:00

My ruck-sac is empty and tucked neatly into the wardrobe, for now. My hiking boots are still airing out (Gore-tex keeps water out but holds moisture in for too long).

Five and a half weeks away from Melbourne has added salt to my fascination with it. It's too easy for me to get used to things, but I'm reminded that I will spend a year in Melbourne and still not come to the end of it's colorful offerings. (Wherever you are right now, there's something interesting about your town you may not have explored, [yes, Danville too], so go out there and make it happen).

Just this morning, I went to Preston Market with a group of peers from residence. It smells of fresh sea food, baked bread, melons, coffees, spices, and dusty, focused shoppers like myself. A South American band of wind instruments hummed and chirped at wooden pipes in the middle of the indoor area. Children appealed to parents for bright plastic toys. Corn husks were swept into a corner pile. I bought as much fruit and vegetable as I could carry, found a cafe seat and took in the bazaar while eating gummy worms.

Double travel

2008-07-22T01:54:00.000-07:00

Travel has kept me at bay from the blog. High internet-cafe prices are my excuse and being on the move with full ruck-sac my alibi. I had been away from Victoria for over five weeks.

Some accuse me of "double traveling" or "over traveling." This is where you get into being in a temporary home away from temporary home away from home away from home. It can be madness. It is usually delicious, delving into the ever new. It's Lamington chocolate cake melting in your mouth, the smell of instant coffee in an aluminum cook kit, camping with dingos, the screech and base of public transport, cooled marble halls of big city galleries, and a taxi driver telling you that you're lazy.

It will take time to catch up on these travel stories, as well as my happenings since arriving back in Melbourne the other day. It can be done.

Chuck a wobbly

2008-06-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

Rex, a Rotarian, gave me a gimmicky baseball hat. He had a sly smile and said something equivalent to get-a-load-a-this.

The hat is blue, has an embroidered kangaroo and the words "Aussie Lingo." So, with no further ado, and for your pronouncing pleasure, av a go at these:

flamin' heck
no worries
fair dinkum
lairy
onya
rip-snorter
g'day mate
yacka
stunned mulltet
strewth
yobbo
crikey
flat out like a lizard drinking
av a go ya mug
bingle
tinnie
cuppa
bikkie
have a gander
Jocks
Barbie
stroppy
trackie daks
wag
yank
she'll be right
dinky di
chuck a wobbly
ya larrikin
dunny
spit the dummy
slab
dog's breakfast
footy
too right
esky
give heaps
stubbie
fair crack of th whip
maggoted
ocker
cookin' with gas

The Rotary group told me what these mean (a couple are mildly offensive, which is fun). I've heard half of them used in casual conversation. Personal favorite: Chuck a wobbly.

Pick favorites, make a guess at their meanings (note it in the comments), and I'll report back at some point soon about their true definitions, which are hilarious after you've tried to guess.

Battler is as working-class does

2008-06-04T00:40:00.001-07:00

"Battler" refers to someone who faces difficult circumstances with steel rail will and locomotive endurance, making ends meet, resigned to hard work, and without self-pity.

This Australian concept goes back to the bush wrangler, man from Snowy River, and before. It's about people doing what it takes to make life work.

Most recently, the term has been used in politics. Take that first sentence again, and apply it to blue-collar workers, the working class. It's meant to honor the hard labor of those who live paycheck to paycheck. It's meant to take the place of the word class.

"Working family" likewise is used instead of working-class family.

As suggested in earlier blogs, talking about class in Australia can be like talking to a guy with chocolate on his lip, hand behind his back, who is saying "What ice-cream?"

Toorak and Broadmeadows. Mention either of these Melbourne district names, and eyebrows rise. "Ohhhhh," people say. Toorak's 2008 median home price is $3,000,000. They're oh-ing over Broadmeadows because it's the place you're most likely to get beat up. Lest that sound offensive, it's what most people I've talked to agree on, including people who are from Broadmeadows. And between these areas a spectrum of social class splays out around Melbourne.

Anyway, the point had been that "battler" is rhetoric for working-class. There are good reasons to be sensitive about how "class" is thrown around. Maybe it's nicer to say "battler" because "class" can be taken to imply differing levels of human value (which it doesn't), and "battler" tries to point to the positive character of blue-collar workers. Maybe "battler" is patronizing. It's up for debate.

To answer a question posted a couple blogs ago, battlers are not quite the same as straddlers. Straddlers (Alfred Lubrano's term) are folks who grow up in working-class families and then do middle-class, professional work. Battlers are working-class folks who will expectedly continue to do blue-collar work.

Doing Americanization

2008-05-30T01:31:00.001-07:00

I taught yesterday, sort of.

The larger university classes meet for a weekly lecture, then have separate class sessions with groups of 15 to 20 students, with further teaching and discussion about the lecture.

Amanda is the tutor for a course called Discovering Australia. The course is cross listed as a sociology, politics, and history credit.

Life is acting like you know what you’re doing until you figure it out. Well, perhaps I should use the first person here, but it works for me. I think. Anyway, it’s what I did when Amanda asked me if I would teach four tutorials for her this week.

The lecturer, Gwenda, filled me in on the topic- Americanization in Australia. Amanda, an Australian, flew to Massachusetts for her brother’s wedding, and her tutor replacement is American. What makes anyone think there’s such a thing as Americanization?

Maybe it was that one of the tutorials had five North Americans, a German, and only four Australians in it. Maybe it was that during Gwenda’s lecture, a cell phone rang to the unmistakable bass line of Seinfeld, and a deep Aussie voice said “oh, uh, yeaa, surry abut thut.”

Whatever it is, the idea is present that America has had a dominating cultural influence on Australia.

The tutes were great, with students engaging the ideas (ideas which I’ll flesh out more next time). Their enthusiasm combined with mine to re-reaffirm my desire to teach.

This morning, a kookaburra waddled along a smooth tan branch twenty meters above ground. It screamed prehistoric and unsheathed its white wings. The bird bobbed its head and waved a shining red Coke can over the heads of students hurrying to class.

Battling

2008-05-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

The flu in Australia is as snotty and debilitating as in the US. I fought it. I lost. But I'm back on my feet now.

With one eye open, I read a collection of short stories by Tony Birch called Shadowboxing. Birch teaches short fiction and travel writing at the University of Melbourne. As a PhD student, he studied urban cultures.

Tracking the life of a boy, Michael, into adulthood, the stories of Shadowboxing fill out an imaginary working class family life in a real 1960's suburban Melbourne. The setting is right along the tram line I take into the city, in Fitzroy, just off of High Street. These neighborhoods are now fairly expensive to live in, the old workers' housing units with ornate wrought iron railings, painted reds, blues, greens, or white, transformed into professionals' abodes.

Struggle, violence, and love mark the lives of the characters. Michael watches his dad, an ex boxer, labor, not ever have quite enough money, drink, and occasionally beat his mother. A neighbor beats his wife, right in front of the whole neighborhood one sweaty summer evening. (That wife goes on to murder her husband and is not convicted).

Perhaps violence is more prevalent in working class families. (Social scientists say probably so, like Rubin in Worlds of Pain). It's a minority of people who are doing the violent acts, though. The key thing I note about the families in the book is that the economic condition people are in is stressful. An already unrestrained person lashes out physically for lack of knowing how to responsibly cope with the economic pressure, which is no less atrocious.

Australian politicians are most recently calling blue-collar or working class families "battlers." This term is meant to honor the fact that blue-collar workers live paycheck to paycheck. And they do it without much to fall back on should calamity strike.

I reckon most people handle stress responsibly. Michael, of the book, goes on to become a journalist, covering sports like boxing, and takes care of his elderly, senile father. The violent few tend to mess things up for everyone, but individuals can and do experience redemption and make good choices, as does Michael. Material conditions help determine a life course, but they are not set plots and scripts.

Though, battling the flu does make it tough to blog.

A little too close

2008-05-14T16:57:00.001-07:00

Buddhist teachers Michael and Christie vowed never to be more than 15 feet apart. They share one plate of food, read one book (at the same flippin' time), and live in a tent in the Arizona desert.

I've noticed men and women think differently. Recipe for homicide?

Countering individualism is cool. I myself like individualism. I also like big personal space. Most are welcome in it, just not willy-nilly.

Australians are with me on this one. Sweep the arms, and that's the distance; recognize.

I know this South African whose personal space extends to the end of her nose. She hugs an Aussie friend David. He becomes a nutcracker doll, head tweaked, and tight-toothed smile.

Some non western friends talk a foot from my face. Wide eyed, I smell their breath, smile euphorically, and enjoy it for the same reason ol' monk Michael has denied himself alone time, ever again (!) It's good to be jerked out of what's normal.

The "no long term" ethic

2008-05-13T05:08:00.001-07:00

Rotary has difficulty recruiting from generations x and millennial.

Mark Granovetter writes that institutional networks, like businesses, are characterized by short term projects and commitments, and fluid leadership and personnel.

Granovetter's idea is "the strength of weak ties." In a world of rapid flux, individuals who maintain nominal contact with many have advantages in mobility, flexibility, and accessibility to resources.

Rotary is about friendship, understanding, and providing opportunities. Young professionals would share these values, but may find Rotary's structure to clash with their way of thinking and operating in work. The same groups of Rotarians meet each week for a meal. They develop friendship, loyalty, and trust over the long term. Rotary intentionally brings together folks from different professions to pool their ideas, time, and resources.

A "no long term" alternative is to group Rotarians based on specific projects. Individuals would periodically change groups based on interest and project needs.

But the depth of friendship and loyalty would be affected.

Readings bookstore

2008-05-12T17:13:00.001-07:00

Readings Bookstore is Melbourne's independent retailer. Across Lygon St, Border's Bookstore glows red, enticing with its café and gigantic, spacious white cases of new paperbacks.

I walked from Melbourne CBD, fifteen minutes up tree lined Lygon. The street points to Melbourne University, and is tight with Italian restaurants, gelato shops, and thick scented cafes. Outdoor tables pulse with cross legged people handling espressos, wines, and colorful plates of food.

Readings has narrow aisles, footstools for seats, and staff with thick rimmed glasses. Tall haired students wearing dark or striped scarves, debate the quality of a new collection of poems.

Readings does something its alluring sister across the street can't or won't- literary journals. I crouch on a wheelie stool and thumb through mags with names like: Going Down Swinging, Wet Ink, Overland, Etchings, Meanjin, Verandah 22, and Total Cardboard.

My imprint can be found in Brentwood Borders chairs, but local wins with a stack of quirky, rough paper lit rags.

Stung, bitten, or chewed

2008-05-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

I speak at Rotary clubs as a part of the cultural exchange. Rotarians have firm handshakes, genuine interest in me and the States, and insist on sharing hot meals.

I received a list of the world's deadliest creatures before boarding the plane, I tell them. Most found in Australia: The crocodile, great white, death adder, and spiders. The irukandji jellyfish is translucent, thumbnail size, and the smallest living thing with the ability to kill a human. A snake handler at a trip to the Healsville Wildlife Sanctuary: "There are seven types of snake in Victoria. Don't worry whether or not a snake is a poisonous type…because they're all deadly. Haha."

"This list," I tell Rotarians, "is brought to you by my mother, Valerie, who says that if I die in Australia, she's going to kill me."

They laugh and assure me that I'm more likely to be hit by a tour bus then stung, bitten, or chewed by Aussie wildlife.

Competition to the lady friends

2008-05-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

I walked one of the usual tracks to begin breaking new boots in, past a billabong, and counted over 78 kangaroos. It was cold, overcast.

A 4x4 dusted up. George, with the wildlife reserve department, wore thick green pants and shirt, sleeves rolled. There'd been reports of a wild dog chasing the kangaroos. Told him I hadn't seen it, but that I had counted 78 kangaroos. He wrote that in his notepad. He was also interested in my story about the roo that jumped in front of me as I ran by.

We chatted. George wants to hike in Appalachia. I recommended the Smokies.

"By the way," he said, putting his notepad and pen in his shirt pocket. "We have the occasional roo attack round here. Yeah, they only attack young male joggers."

He was serious.

"It's the testosterone that young blokes put off when they're running. The roos worry about their little lady friends. So yeah, mate, you're competition!"

City hike

2008-05-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Niki bought hiking boots. I told her they're hardcore, she told me they're ugly. I said she should wear them at uni to break them in, she said she wouldn't be caught dead.

We would hike a day's stretch of the Great Ocean Walk. Rain appeared in the forecast, so instead I found a series of self-guided Melbourne walks.

Starbucks is trenched in a mall, across from the station. I conceded that we would go for Niki's first Starbucks. A blackboard with neon chalk listed coffees. Explaining them to her, I turned and she was jogging into the mall, head back to see if I was following.

I tried to set a cap on the number of shops we could go in. "Ha ha ha," she said. I planned the hike, but we all know who was leading it.

We walked 15 kilometers, despite side trails. Niki's a walking machine. Add shopping in the mix, she'll out hike you all.

160 words; three first things

2008-05-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

My good friend Hunter keeps a sharp travel blog regarding his time living and teaching in France. He was inspired to brevity by another good friend, Kevin, who writes flash fiction. Hunt once limited his entries to 160 words for seven days. I will ergo have a go.

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Running is opening wide my experience in Victoria. I saw three things today for the first time.

I slogged through hole 8 of a golf course. Dark clouds curled apart. Like a midday dawn, the sun illuminated the fairway. The rain turned the color of amber. It looked like I was moving through large drops of beer, the sun a stage spotlight from a black amphitheater.

Power lines buzzed at the rain on their black cables. I turned and was stopped by a rainbow struck across the sky like a neon advertisement across a black bar window. It made me think of the Care Bears, from its red to violet, with rounded bars of light.

I huffed it to the top of Mount Cooper, highest elevation point in Metropolitan Melbourne. A lower layer of cloud revealed spiky, light blue pillars. It looked like icebergs in a cave.

No exaggeration.

I sat in my room, dripping, and stretched. I thanked God.

Impressions of the city

2008-05-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

A Turkish grocery store on High Street in Fitzroy is where I found lunch on Friday. Mandarins, plums, walnuts, and dried candied figs kept me fed most of the day, for under $5.00 Australian. I waited at the register for 5 minutes while the owner listened to a local woman gossip. "Well, and you won't believe what she did then," she said, hands on hips, cloth grocery bags at her feet.

The sky was a scattering of thick cumulus clouds. I stopped in a Salvation Army op-shop (thrift store), but found only old band t-shirts with holes and brown mugs from the 80's.

The tram the rest of the way into the city was standing room only with a lunch crowd. Marble sized raindrops began tapping windshields. Umbrellas popped up on a busy sidewalk, with people shuffling for café awnings.

A Korean man in his 90's gripped a green plastic handle on the tram. He had a hand rolled cigarette unlit hanging from his lips. He stepped off the tram and stood on the opposite corner next to an Irish Pub. He stood evenly on his feet, adjusted his baseball hat and lit his smoke. The electric tram hummed and sped on down the rail, taking a bend onto Gertrude St, toward Carlton Gardens.

I walked two blocks from my tram stop, into the shadow of Melbourne's glossy buildings. Entering the DIAC, immigration office, I found a cue where I could get a number to then wait behind 70 or 80 people. I was there to have a working visa stamp pasted on a page in my passport. The folks in the office appeared mostly Indian, Asian, and Southeast Asian.

Melbourne is an easy place to wander for hours, finding new things each time. So, I did and was wearing my hiking boots. I treated my afternoon as a city hike. I went to McDonald's three times. It's the best place downtown to use the bathroom and fill up your water bottle. I am ideologically opposed to eating at a "Mackas", as they call it, while in another country, but quite comfortable using their facilities.

In the evening, I met up with Dr. Joe Workman. Joe is a chemistry professor at Centre, on sabbatical and doing research for a year at Monash Uni south east of the city. We talked about finding each other, before either of us had left the states. This was our second time meeting for food in the city. Several of my friends have taken Joe's challenging classes and have traveled with him on his Centre Term trips to New Zealand for a course studying (and climbing) volcanoes.

One of Joe's hobbies is restaurants. He reads reviews, sometimes writes them online, and always enjoys a quality cuisine. We met at Bourke and Swanston, then we walked toward China Town on sidewalks crowded with people dressed in designer jeans, nice dresses, and all just getting their weekends going.

There are over 90 Chinese restaurants in the city. The one we ate at (I shamefully can't find the name of it now) is open until 3 a.m., reputed to be the place where other chefs in Melbourne come to eat when they're off of work. Turning into a narrow ally, we came to a tucked away door opening into a steep, wood paneled stairwell. The line came down to the bottom of the stairs, a customer to each couple of steps.

We were seated amongst the crowded tables. Our waitress brought the duck and "piglet" we ordered. Non-ceremonial decor, loud, contented conversations and drinking, reasonable prices, a fashionable clientele, and the best Chinese food I have tasted. Like many restaurants here, bring your own alcohol is expected. A group of men in the corner, with coats and ties, sang happy birthday to their friend three different times. Each time, with the same fervor and back slaps.

After going for a beer, Joe got on the train south east toward Monash, and me on the tram north toward La Trobe. The shops on Smith St were closed but the cafes and pubs just getting going. I saw still-frames of people in motion, having a good time in the dim lights.