Indonesia!

Okay, so I really should be studying right now and will for sure give a recount on my 4 day weekend field trip to Orpheus Island, pictures included, tomorrow. But, I just wanted to share that I got accepted to the Freeman Foundation and the Institute of International Education's Summer 2010 Freeman Indonesia Nonprofit Internship Program. The program pairs ten American students with ten Indonesian students to cross cultures and learn of the significance of non-profit organizations. I will be spending my summer in Jakarta taking a seven week culture and language course and then will be working with the environmental protection group Kehati. I can't go into too much detail except that I am uber excited, will be going straight from Australia to Indonesia (hopefully) and will be doing straight up what I want to do. Ah! Here is the link to the website if you want to take a gander. I will post more details/information as I get it.

http://us.kehati.or.id/
http://www.iie.org/en/Programs/FINIP/About

Heart Stopping News

I have good news and I have bad news. Let's start with the bad news. On Thursday morning I had a doctor's appointment so I could get approved to get SCUBA certified. I went to Uni-Health Medical Center, had my examination and was told I cannot complete my certification. Why? Well it seems that I have an irregular heart beat: a murmur. Hmmm. You can imagine I was rather surprised to find this out as I had never been told this by any doctor in the past. The woman even gave me and ECG and the results showed that my heart was in fact irregular in nature. She sent me off with a referral to a cardiologist and a considerably lighter wallet. Thank you Australian health-care system, thank you.

I was sort of mopey the rest of the day; not so much that I had a screwy heart but because I wouldn't be able to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef. After some internal conflict and some thinking I thought hey, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, no? That afternoon I booked a two day live-aboard snorkel trip in Cairns for the Saturday and Sunday of Easter. The story gets better. The good news.

There is a doctor who lives on campus: Dr. Joseph Lee. He works at the Townsville Hospital and is new to the city, hence why he is living in Pauls. Anyways, he is a cardiologist and specializes in adult health. It wasn't until Maddie and Lucy reminded me of this at lunch that I was like "hey, maybe he will give me a quick listen-listen and give me a second opinion." At around 10:00pm, I finally tracked down the good doctor. Here was his synopsis of the situation. First, my heart beat is in fact slower than normal because I am a "fit guy." Second, the irregularities in my heart, coming from the right side, are because my heart is "super strong" because I am a "super fit guy." Apparently murmurs and such are mistaken, clearly with people of my age group are "super fit." I felt so much better. I think I am going to hold off on the diving because I would still have to go to a cardiologist here to get approved and that would take a lot of time and money. So the moral of the story, I paid $80 to receive a complement...thank you Australia, thank you.

Fisher Shield Basketball

I will make this short and sweet.

We had two games of basketball yesterday, 15 minute halves, standard rules apply.

The first game we lost 30 to 13. A Saint rolled his ankle in the first two minutes. We had no idea what we were doing. Complete opposite of water polo where we actually had some confidence.

The second game we lost 24 to 10. We succeeded in scoring 0 points in the first fifteen minutes. Another Saint, Sean, hurt his knee and was carried off by the trainer. This is the same Sean that rolled his ankle really bad last week in practice and probably shouldn't have played.


Maddie and I took him to the emergency room and I got my first taste of the health care system in Australia. In the public realm, everything is covered. We were there until 2:00am. He had x-rays taken and was referred to a general practitioner. Hopefully it is nothing too serious. It's sad because now instead of limping on one leg, he now has two bad legs. Poor bloke.

Needless to say I do not plan on playing "America's game" tonight; these people here think that all Americans are like Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordon. No no my friends, I will not be fulfilling any basketball heroics in Oz, my apologies (although I did play under #22, claiming to be one under Jordan's #23 because I am good, but not that good...this clearly happened before the game started). I do not see the need to pay $15 to get destroyed physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and economically. Also, I need to get some sleep because I have to wake up at 3:30am for my field trip to Orpheus Island this weekend. So excited...but so tired. Cheers.

National Liberal Party

Boyd is very involved with the National Liberal Party. From what I understand of the party (which is actually a coalition of two parties in Queensland but in the rest of Australia is actually two parties, the Nationals and the Liberals) it compares to the conservatives in the States: the Republicans. Now, regardless of my politic beliefs (yeah democrats!) I was interested in going to a young NLP get together they were having in Riverside. Boyd invited myself, Kirsty, Chris and Leslie. I wasn't really sure what to expect. In my over imaginative mind, I pictured a cocktail party with elegant violins in the background, snacking on cucumber finger sandwiches while discussing the state of Chinese takeover of national industry, complemented by fake laughs and cheerful outbursts. This was not the case. The gathering ended up being about twenty university students sitting in a big circle on the veranda of this nice house drinking and talking nothing about politics. I had asked Boyd before we left if there was anything I should not bring up based on my own political views...I semi-felt like I was a piece of steak walking into a lion's den. He told me not to talk at all. He kids, he kids.

The only Aussie who made me angry the entire evening was evidently the only idiot to talk politics: Gordon Terry (he just sounds like a jerk, hey?). Upon being introduced to him and him subsequently figuring out through his astute intelligence that I was foreign, he asked me where I was from. He got excited when I told him I was from the States; we shared the whole, "where exactly is Pittsburgh?" thing. He asked me what state I lived in and "what color" Pennsylvania was, referring to the blue or red of the political trends. When I told him we were a swing state, going both ways, he responded by saying "oh well then, so you are obviously a Republican then?" with this big-fake cheesy politician smile. Ready. Aim. Fire. "No, actually I am obviously a Democrat" I cheekily replied. He then got all weird and you can tell he was flustered, uncomfortable, and probably angry to be in the presence of one of Obama's minion. Shmuck - get over it.

Sorry, that was a total vent session. It just makes me angry when people make you assumptions and then treat you differently when they fulfill the cliche, making an ass out of themselves. That was the only downfall of the evening because I enjoyed great discussion about a lot of very interesting things ranging both in and out of the world of academia. Overall, good fun.

Cyclone!

Last week, rumors started bubbling up about a cyclone heading straight for the north Queensland coast. Cyclone Ului had caused at least one death upon landfall in Figi and reportedly millions of dollars in damage. Now, as an international student I found myself quite excited about the possibility of being involved in a natural disaster. Heck, no one else seemed to be freaking out about the category 4 cyclone making landfall over the weekend, why should I? Over the course of the week the Townsville newspaper was just covered with stories about the cyclone: where it is expected to make landfall, how people should prepare, how this compares to other cyclones. Towards Thursday it was narrowed down to Ului making landfall between Townsville and Mackay, about four hours south. On Friday, we had an all college meeting to go over safety and precautionary details. It was Friday evening though, that scientists were safely able to say the cyclone would hit the Whitsundays, about three hours south of Townsville. All of the hype of the cyclone, the biggest one since 1971, was in the end anti-climatic. It dropped to a category 3 when it hit on Sunday and we only got one intense day of rain on Monday and some on Tuesday. I guess my involvement in a major natural disaster will have to take place at to-be- announced date.

Worst case scenario...

Brief recap of an incident that took place on Friday. Picture this ordinary event. I walk into my room at around 1900 hours, turn on the light and decide it's best to close my curtains as I am about to change my clothes. That's when disaster struck. I realized there were eight beady little black eyes attached to a big hairy spider looking at me --no joke, as big as my hand. I FLIPPED out. I ran upstairs to ask one of my friends Maddie (the girl who helped me get rid of the cockroach) if she knew if it was poisonous or not. She said it sounded like it was a Huntsman which apparently are harmless but are still very intimidating because of their size. Just to confirm I called Boyd...he just laughed. Long story short, he thought it would be funny to call the two duty RA's to come to my room. When they got here, I passed them in the hallway and they were like are you in room 17? I was so embarrassed. One of the girls got some bug spray and sprayed it. The spider freaked out and started to run across the window. At this point, myself and the other RA ran into the hallway (there was no squealing). The RA said the spider ran out a hole in the screen. After they left I took two actions. (1) I sealed and locked my windows and closed my curtains using my tennis racket. (2) Because I didn't actually see the spider leave, I scanned my room (from a distance of course). I somehow managed to sleep fine that night, although, I did pull my bed another foot away from the wall in each direction.

Fisher Shield Water Polo

This past weekend marked the second sporting event of the Fisher Shield calendar: water polo. The tournament pits the six colleges against each other in 6 on 6, 20 minute water polo games. The top four colleges for both the men and women's side advance to the semi-finals and then the finals. We as Saints were feeling rather confident, at least the guys were, after our strong performance in the swimming carnival. Here is a brief synopsis of the weekend.

1. We had four games on Saturday against George Roberts, St. Marks, Rotary and Western Courts, and University Hall. Our first game was against George Roberts and we had a slow start but managed to come away with a draw. St. Marks is our biggest, most hated rival and we destroyed them 16-3. We handed Rotary and Western a 13-3 defeat. The day had taken its toll on all of us, bumps, bruises and scratches. Our last game was against Uni Hall. We got beat pretty easily, though I did score one of our three goals. For the day we went 2-1-1. I was such a slug on Saturday night.

2. We had a game at noon on Sunday against John Flynn. We knew we had a good enough record to advance into the semis but we were jockeying for our seed position. Uni Hall had secured the number 1 seed and either us or George Roberts were going to be 2 or 3. Although we beat John Flynn, George Roberts also won their last game. We both had a 3-1-1 record but because they had a better goal differential, they got the number 2 seed. No matter, we were going to be playing them in the semis anyway. The Saint ladies went undefeated in the ladder and secured a semi against St. Marks.

3. The girl's played their semi game first and absolutely crushed Marks to get into the final against Uni Hall. Our semi final game was so intense. It seems as though our previous game against George Roberts was an accurate representation of our two teams because for eighteen and half minutes it was evenly played, cut throat aggression that left us at 5 all. A moment for glory. With a minute and half left and with us Saints playing a little flustered I somehow broke from my marker, received a perfectly delivered pass and fired a shot into the lower right hand corner. We held onto the ball to win 6-5. An all Saints - Uni Hall finals. Intense.

4. The Uni Hall girl's came with something to prove and jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the first half. Our Saint ladies fought back though and after some questionable officiating in the last minute ended up losing it 14-13. Such a good game. Let me just paint this picture for you. There were about five people deep along two sides of the pool from both colleges, decked out in either red, yellow and blue or green and gold just screaming. The bongo was there and the Uni Hall Wolf Pack were in full force. People had noise makers and signs: quite the spectacle. So when we Saints took to the pool for the final game, we were totally on an adrenaline high.

5. Now, we played that final game as best as we could and gave Uni Hall a run for their money. They ended up winning 13-9, much closer than our first game. Though I didn't score I still played very aggressive, being sent off twice for fouls (apparently you are not allowed to grab guys by the head and push them under or swim over top of them to prevent a shot...oh well). I had such a great time and it reminded me why I love competitive sports.

The weekend was such a blast and I was so proud of all the Saints. Last year the guys came in last place. It's about things change around here.

"speak, seppo, speak"

So, I was sitting at lunch the other day and was enjoying good conversation with some of my friends when I noticed I kept getting asked to repeat myself. Was I mumbling, did I have something in my teeth? No, apparently I just say some words "funny." Seriously, I have been here for over a month and they are just realizing this now? The culprit...the letter "r". "Four," "or," "retard," "carpet" just to name a few. Now, if you knew me as a child, you would know that the letter "r" and I are old friends. In grades three and four I had to attend speech classes to help fix my Elmer Fud Syndrome: "wassicly wabbit wan wight." It took much practice of reciting "the pirate ran around the red baron to reach the rum," to finally ditch Elmer and step into the light of proper speaking society.

Now this childhood achievement is a tell tale sign that I am an American - I sound like "George Bush". And the funny part is it is only some words that people, particularly Boyd, poke fun at. He will repeat it in a way that makes me sound really stupid...sort of like when I make the nasal "a" sound to make fun of my friends from Ohio. Well, I have tasted my own medicine and it is bitter. Karma is a bitch. Oh well, I have just taken to dishing it right back, repeating words they say with a very fake Aussie accent. Talking "funny" is a two way street, my friends, and in the states we drive on the right side. Silly Austwalians.

Never Never Land

Monday's are great. This is mainly because I do not have class, but not having class means I can do fun things. Like this Monday, I went out to get fish and chips for lunch with Boyd, Brooke and Katherine. So good! We went to this place (they call it the best) on Palmer Street. I am pretty sure it is owned by a Greek family. Family owned + right on the harbor = good fish. After our feast of fish and chips, we went to the rock pool. The pool is right on the Strand and as you might have guessed, is enclosed by rocks. It probably gets to about 3 meters in depth and they pump the water straight in from the ocean. Everything reminded me of Never Never Land and the lagoon for some reason. Brooke and I hiked up on this hill looking over it and I was like, "I've been here before." It was a gorgeous day and the water was very relaxing. I could get used to this whole three day weekend thing...or four, or five days. Monday night, I had social water polo. Basically, you sign up for teams and just play games - no drills, sprints, or practice. Well, no one showed up for their games, so it just ended up being JCU club plus a few random people. Instead of playing four 5 minute quarters, they decided to play six. I cannot even begin to describe how tired and sore I was. The sad part is I probably only played for three of those quarters, or maybe even two full ones. Disgraceful. I haven't played since Monday but do not fear, I have rested well for this weekend's Fisher Shield Water Polo Tournament. If I take nothing else away from this abroad experience, if I keep up with this water polo thing I will for sure leave with thighs of steel.

Rugby Practice

Alas, I have finally had my first practice of rugby (footy). We met at 2:00 in the afternoon, heat of the day, at the cricket oval. We started with a lap around the field, some warm-ups and stretches, the usual. There were a number of drills we did, but here were my two favorite.

1. We lined up at four points of a large square. If you can imagine it, we were supposed to run diagonally across the square and in the middle, flick the ball to the mate running towards the corner you had just come from. While this was happening, the other two corners diagonal to each other were doing the same thing. As you might have expected this created quite the traffic jam and for each error we made, we had to do a certain number of push-ups and crunches. Good fun.

2. Wrestling. You had to pair up and get on your knees facing one another, about a half a meter apart. The object was to get your partner on their back as many times in thirty seconds. Who ever lost had to do push-ups and crunches. You had to stay on your knees the entire time and use leverage. I paired up with Sean who is a 6'7'' lanky tank. We drew even at 2-2 and then he just won the decider match. Curses; I was so close but still proud of myself.

Okay, so after all of these drills we played touch footy. I was way not sure of what was happening. Imagine yourself in the states and, having never played American Football, walking into a backyard game and be like "can I play?" That's what I felt like: out of place and confused. I held my own. Funny story. We were doing our thing as a team, passing, attacking, and running. I ended up with the ball and escaped a touch and everybody sort of stopped. I was like "what happened, what are we doing now? Is it your ball?" Then someone said "try" and I was like "okay?" The kid next to him put his hands up above his head and was like "touchdown."...embarrassing. Everyone got a good laugh out of it though, including the coach. When they score they call it a "tri," hence the confusion. Oh well. I am actually going to head off to water polo practice, St. Paul, not club. I am going to be a very, very sore boy in the morning. Actually, let's be honest, I am going to be a sore boy until Thursday.

Water Polo

Wednesday was a momentous occasion for me here at James Cook University. I had my first club water polo practice. Now, for those of you who don't know, I have never played real water polo...I guess opposed to the fake water polo (not played with horses ironically). The water polo I am familiar with is the kind we used to play after swim practice; mixed scrimmages where the only rule was to survive. It was not out of the ordinary to have the swim coach have to step in and tell a mob of people, most always girls, to let somebody up so they could breathe: intense. Well last night was different. If Pinocchio was a water sport, last night he became a real boy (I apologize, it is the heat of the afternoon and I think I am losing some brain cells).

The practice consisted of us swimming widths, doing drills, passing/catching, spins and shooting. I had to get a little help to understand the "egg-beater" kick, which when explained by a bunch of Aussies can be very confusing even though I was attempting to do the same thing but just calling it something different. Whatever. I actually held my own, catching on rather quickly, especially to the catching and throwing which all has to be done with one hand. The swimming came naturally, for some obvious reasons, but some of the stroke techniques are majorly different than I am used to. Like swimming with your head out of the water at all times and taking short, short strokes rather than long strokes. Practices are every Wednesday and scrimmages are on Mondays. Doing this will hopefully get me in shape, but the real reason I really want to continue doing it is I have always wanted to play. As for today, I am sore but not dead; I am actually going to play some basketball here in half an hour. Maybe there will be a story to post about that when I get back. Until then, cheers!

Americans Abroad: Rant 1

Now as a preface, I love my country and I am proud to be a patriotic citizen of a country that believes in the rights and liberties my countrymen have fought for in the past and fight for today. That being said, if I see one more stupid American while I am in Australia, which I surely will, I might cover their face in Vegemite and introduce them to a swarm of fire ants, or maybe tie a sirloin steak onto their ankle and throw them into a crocodile infested river; I have yet to decide. My first reaction is to just smack them on the spot. Although my desired actions might seem a little harsh to all of you reading this, let me explain. Americans, specifically students I have either come across or observed from a safe distance, are stupid (9 out of 10). First, they form cliques and shut them off to Australians around them: at college, in class, in practicals, everywhere. For instance, I give you exhibit A; the infamous, what should I call them, Dumb, Dumber and Dumb-Dumb, that will work. In my first practical (which went fine by the way), I sat near these three perfect specimens of Yankee stupidity. Over the duration of the entire two hours we were in lab they talked about three things: people from their school back at home that they all knew, amusement parks/rides, and how Dumb-Dumb was being a little bit more moody than normal and why Dumb and Dumber thought this was unjustified -apparently there is drama in "little America." Idiots. Why would you come all the way to Australia and restrict yourself to only hanging out, working with, or talking to Americans. It drives me crazy.

Exhibit B. The perpetrators will remain anonymous (but let's just say I was disappointed). But, as I was sitting near these individuals, mind you, at a table with Aussies, they felt it necessary to comment on the Australian accent every time someone said something. "Oh my gosh, they so that so weird," or "did you here the way they said that, that is so fun." In mind I was sort of wishing they would say, "oh my gosh, back at home we say a-b-r-o-a-d but here they just keep saying w-e a-r-e g-o-i-n-g -t-o- d-e-p-o-r-t y-o-u-r a-s-s." Wishful thinking but seriously, is that necessary. Some people should just not be able to be allowed to travel. It is not that they won't learn anything, it is just that they are not open or even aware (thick-headed, close-minded) of what they are doing and the image they are giving off. There is a reason Australian's have the stereotypes for Americans that they have: it is the "ambassadors" that have preceded me. Idiots.

I am continuing to not associate with any Americans while here (to a certain extent, there are a few here at St. Paul's that are acceptable). I have gone as far as to sit down in a lecture, realize I am next to some bitchy American girl complaining to her ditsy-American friend that the humidity is murder to her hair, promptly stand up and move seats next to an Aussie. My purpose has morphed. Now, instead of just getting an Australian experience and meeting and building relationships with Aussies while seeing the country and learning the culture, it is my national duty to try to improve the image we as Americans have here at James Cook University. I think I will need a lot of patience, and perhaps prescription medications.