My Daily Life

I am now midway through the semester, which brings with it both good and bad news. The good news is that I have a two week holiday (spring break). The even better news is that my brother and sister-in-law are visiting, and I'll be travelling with them for a week. They're starting off in Sydney and then I'll be joining them a few days into their stay (on the 21st) to go into the heart of Australia to Uluru, the largest monolith in the world, and then head up to Queensland.

The bad news is I have three papers due within the first two days I get back from break, hence the delay in joining my bro. (So why am I blogging now? Good question. Call it "responsibility to my readers" :) ...or just procrastination.)

Anyway, this is all just to say that yes, I'm overseas, in Australia, having an adventure, but that I am also a student and go to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and I have homework that cuts into my play time. This is not a complaint. Just the reality of this adventure. One of my friends told me to post more often so she could live vicariously through me, and I reminded her of this fact. Nonetheless, I thought I would give you a sense of my daily life.

As I mentioned in a previous post, much of my first two months was a frenzy of settling into school and finding a place to live. Now that's settled. Here are some pics of my place:

walkway to the front entrance, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the picture

living room, what you see when you walk in the door

patio, to right of living room where you see the sunlight hitting the chair in previous picture

fireplace, to left of patio

kitchen, to the immediate right of the front door

stairwell, to immediate left of front door, leading to bedrooms

hallway and my bedroom, taking left from stairs

my room

my wardrobe and mirrors, plus reflection of entire room, plus me

my bedroom window, plus bathroom at the very right
(yes, I have my own bathroom w/shower!)

very high slanted ceiling

bathroom

(By the way, I mentioned toilets flushing in the reverse direction in my first post,but much to my disappointment, the toilets don't fush in a spiral here. The water just gets sucked down. The only place I can see the water spiral down is in the sink. I know you were all dying to know this.)

Kendra, my wonderful flatmate

Hope you enjoyed that very thorough virtual tour.

I really love my place. Just a 7-10 minute walk to school and cozy, as you can see. I actually don't spend a ton time at home though because I'm at school so much, either in classes, tutorials, or in the library.

As for schooll, I am taking four classes in Philosophy: Basic Issues in Moral Theory; Existentialism and its Critics; Knowledge, Truth, and Relativism; and Nietzsche and the Dream of Reason. Most of what I'm learning is uncharted territory for me, and at times I have felt utterly inept at navigating some of the ideas I have encountered, reminding me of my undergrad days.

I have to say that my favorite class is the one on Nietzsche. This is my first encounter with him (other than the infamous "God is dead" quote), and I find him quite refreshing to read, compared to a lot of the dry and technical texts that are read in philosophy. I appreciate the sheer vigor of his personality and thought, and his view of the human condition and its remedy is intriguing. Of course, my interest in and enjoyment of this class has so much to do with the teaching. It is actually taught by two Ph.D. students, one of whom is fascinating to listen to because he's so fascinated with Nietzsche.

My classes actually take up quite a bit of my time, not only because of the number of hours I'm in lecture or tutorials (12), but mainly because philosophy texts just take time to get through (at least for my brain) and understand and then think about. It doesn't really bother me, though, (except for the papers over spring break) because I don't have the desire to busy myself with a lot of other things, like I used to. Nietzsche writes a lot about the importance of the vita contemplativa and it's something that resonates with me. He writes a lot of short cultural critiques, and there's one that is dead on for today, even though he wrote it nearly 125 years ago (1882):

Leisure and Idleness--
There is something...in the American lust for gold; and the breathless haste with which they work--the distinctive vice of the new world--is already beginning to infect old Europe with the ferocity and is spreading a lack of spirituality like a blanket. Even now one is ashamed of resting, and prolonged reflections almost gives people a bad conscience. One thinks with a watch in one's hand, even as one eats one's midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market; one lives as if one always "might miss out on something." "Rather do anything than nothing": this princple, too, is merely a string to throttle all culture and good taste...Living in a a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion in continual pretense and overreaching and anticipating othres. Virtue has come to consist of doing something in less time than someone else.

If sociablity and the arts still offer any delight, it is the kind of delight that slaves, weary of their work, devise for themselves. How frugal our educated--and uneducated--people have become regarding "joy"! How they are becoming increasingly suspicious of all joy! More and more, work enlists all good conscience on its side; the desire for joy already calls itself a "need to recuperate" and is beginning to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one's health"--that is what people say when they are caught on an excursion into the country. Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give in to the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking a walk with ideas and friends) without self-contempt and a bad conscience.
-- From The Gay Science, Bk 4, Sec. 329

I read in the New York Times last month that Americans are taking less and less vacation time. They rarely use up their vacation days, which is already fewer than people in many other countries have. When they do go on vacation, they are still tied to their cell phones and palm pilots. Being in school, too, in many ways, creates obstacles to life-giving leisure. But don't worry, I don't intend to spend all my time with my nose in the books.

Friday is my favorite day because I have no classes, and it's the day I meet up with my girls and go to a ballroom dance class. I'm learning Modern ballroom, which includes waltz, quickstep, foxtrot, and eventually tango. It's great, and once again, it has so much to do with the teacher. He's an older gentleman, Barrie, and he is so smooth on the dance floor. He likes to insert comments into his teaching that make the shy students giggle with embarrassment (i.e., how close we should be standing with to our partners, where we should be looking, etc.--nothing sleazy).

And the weekends? Well, once the paper writing is done, I'll have more interesting things to say about that. Which reminds me...off to work.

My Mates

In recent years, I've come to appreciate good, close friends as an uncommon blessing--people who embrace you and with whom you just click in some fundamental way that lets you know, this is a person I can trust and in whom I can confide, from whom I will learn and who will help me grow; this is someone quite simply that I want to spend my time with because I enjoy their presence and they enrich my life.

So I am truly amazed, when I reflect on it, that in the short time I have been here, I have found not just one, but three close friends who have become a vital part of my life in Melbourne. They are my "mates" and have been a lifeline in some of my more difficult moments of adjusting. What's even better is that we are all friends and have a great time together. We meet for lunch every Friday, and it's a wonderful thing to look forward to every week. Here they are...

From left to right: Monica, Valerie, and Preethi

They are all students at Melbourne Uni, and we met each other during orientation week back in July. I think we could be a walking ad for Benetton, or we could take over as hosts of The View--just need someone to take Barbara Walter's place! Anyway, here's just a little about them...

Monica is from Mexico and is getting her Masters in International Tax Law. We met on the first day of orientation, and she has made me laugh ever since. We've had fun with some Spanish-English (mis)translations, but she is such a good sport about it all. I get to improve my Spanish with her, too. But that aside, she is just great fun because she always has such a great attitude. And she is an angel, albeit with a devilish side.

[I just HAVE to tell you one of the biggest laughs I had with (actually at) her, even though she protested, because I nearly fell on the floor laughing. Her parents, naturally, were concerned about her coming to Australia, but one of their primary concerns was that Australia is known to have deadly animals. So, they made her promise to use a mosquito net for her bed. And Monica, sweet as she is, actually bought one when she got here. Of course, she doesn't actually use it. She said she'll put it up though when her parents visit.]

Valerie is from Kenya and is getting her Masters in Marketing. She thinks I'm crazy. Even so, I think she's sweet, and I admire her gentle nature, something I have strived quite unsucessfully to develop in my life. Given her nationality, I thought she would be a great long distance runner, but I learned otherwise recently while we were running for the tram--ha ha! Okay, no, I didn't really assume she would be a great runner (just like she didn't assume I know Karate), but I had fun teasing her about it. Interesting note: she told me that a study showed that the Kenyans who win marathons usually come from specific tribes and it attributed their successes to the fact that they live at high altitudes.

Preethi is from Singapore and is ethnically Indian (but third generation Singaporean). She's getting her Masters in Education. And she's crazy. No, she's not really crazy--that's just my affectionate way of saying I love her quirky sense of humor. She's also wonderfully warm, compassionate, insightful, and a great cook! I have already converted her to Korean food, as I try to do with all my friends, so that now she craves it more than I do! I'm going to teach her how to make bulgogi. She taught in Singapore for four years before coming here, and I know without a doubt that she was and will continue to be a great teacher.

SPRING IS HERE!--Revised

So, after my last triumphant post about spring, I was quickly subdued by the news from my housemate that the warm weather was not here to stay. I was informed that for the next couple MONTHS it would be warm for a few days and then cold, windy and/or rainy the next, and then warm off and on again.

Well, she was right and the last few days have been downright cold. Yesterday was in the low to mid-50s, and in the evening I reluctantly pulled out my down feather coat when I went out.

We are on the upswing again until Wednesday when hopefully it'll reach 22 degrees (C)/~72 degrees (F).

SPRING IS HERE!

Yesterday (September 1) was the first day of spring in Australia, and unlike in Boston and New York, spring actually arrived on time. The weather got warmer, the skies cleared, and little green leaflets have begun to sprout, breaking through the dull hues of winter.



But we're still in transition from winter, and you can still see the remnants of it. The trees on campus look kind of funny because you can see the skeleton of their dead, jagged branches with a few leaves here and there.


Some of the trees haven't gotten any of their leaves yet, but the flowers make up for that.




Feeling the sun and the warmth again was like meeting old friends after a long period of separation. It lightened my mood, and I even went out to celebrate, doing the outdoor cafe thing drinking a nice iced coffee in the sun. Of course, I later paid for this with a stomach ache since I rarely drink anything with caffeine in it.

I came out of sort of a hibernation period this week, too. Obviously, I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been swamped for the last three, actually six, weeks because three weeks ago, I moved to a new place and for three weeks before that I was looking for a new place. My first place was good, but a little inconveniently located given that I don't have a car and maybe a little too quiet. My new place is really close to school and in a more lively area with a lot of shops and restaurants close by. Actually, there's a picture of my street on one of my previous posts--Lygon street. My new flatmate, Kendra, is Canadian and really nice. I thought that I would live with Aussies when I got here but it's actually not as easy as you might think because it seems like many just live at home. Most Aussies go to college locally.

Anyway, after all this I was really behind on my school work so I've just been trying to catch up and am still trying to catch up.

But that's okay because spring is here!