No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem

So, I spent Saturday poking around Wagga. I got sunburned (BIG surprise) and found Wagga Beach and other assorted sites. But, there was something that I noticed that I am dying to share with all of you. Here goes.

Last year, during one of the many marathon nights in the GIS lab, Sammie Linton was recalling Australia, as she studied abroad here, and she said that she was shocked that people actually went into the supermarket, among other stores, with no shoes or shirts on. I remembered this when I got here, and when I arrived in Wagga, I remember thinking, "Well, it must be only crazy Queenslanders that do that sort of thing." I had never remembered Mel going sans shoes into Wegmans and the people in NSW all seemed to be donning footwear in public places.

Well, I made the mistake of going into town on the week days. On the weekend, all bets are off. People are hitting the beach, the shops, the streets. I was walking down Baylis Street minding my own, and BAM. There went my first gentlemen sans footwear. I smiled at him, and he smiled back at me and said something totally kodak: "G'Day!" I walked away with a smile on my face. Not 30 seconds later, there was a whole family without shoes. So, this was on the street. I wondered if these people just magically produced thongs to go into the grocery store with. The answer to that query is: NO. I saw Mr. G'Day later that day at Woolworth's, and he stopped me and chatted as if we were old friends...all without his shoes.

The sign that hangs on the door of every American business is "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service". In contrast to that, Sammie was right. These people are crazy and don't wear shoes to go grocery shopping. I'm not going to be jumping on that bandwagon anytime soon, but, I will say this: I love it. It's relaxed, it's carefree. It's an excellent reflection of the attitude of the continent, as I've observed it so far. They're your feet, do with them as you wish. No one should be picking anything up off of the floor and selling it in a food store anyway. Who cares? As Kenny Chesney said, "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem!" No worries, mate!

In related news, this explorer and her ipod are going to Tasmania over the Easter holidays. This decision was influenced and finally made thanks to a panel of experts and my keen decision making skills (ha!). So, more details on that are forthcoming, I'm planning and scheming like a maniac! Loving it!

And I just realized this weekend that I, Catrina Nicole North, packed all of my shit in three bags, took off to AUSTRALIA and am now living here, studying to pursue a dream. How fucking cool is that! I typically wouldn't say this, but: I fucking rock! Who does that?! Geez, life has changed in the last month!

Cheers

Mozzarella Sticks

These people do NOT have mozzarella sticks. What am I going to do!? Three years without Mozz sticks? I'll go batty. That's the real fat kid talking, here!

Anyway, Mom sent me a package with my work shoes and prescriptions in it, and there were a bunch of food stuffs in it. Cut right down on my shopping. She sent normal stuff, pop tarts, Doritos, home baked choco chip cookies. She did include a box of wheat thins, as well. Well, after I came back from a swim, I decided to pop open the Wheat thins and offer them to the room mates and myself as a snack. One or two of them took my offer, and I discovered something odd. None of them had ever had wheat thins. Nor a mozzarella stick. Where the hell am I, Mars? No Wheat thins? For some reason, I just couldn't get over this. I still can't.

Well, I'm out of ideas. And tired. All of this culture shock in one day. No mozz sticks.

Lamingtons

Mel, my room mate: I have a surprise for you guys tonight.
Me: I hate surprises.
Mel: I'm not telling you, you'll have to wait.

Well, my surprise was a cool one. Do any of you US'ers know what a Lamington is? Well, neither did I. It's basically a sponge cake covered in dark chocolate and coconut flakes. Yes, it is as heavenly as it sounds. Mel and I had gone to the food market about a week early, and as usual, she had had a good laugh at my stupidity regarding Lamingtons, among many other foreign food items. (They have these huge tubes, like tubes of out Bob Evans sausage, only larger, of dog and cat meat. I'm talking friggin' HUGE tubes. Who does that?)

Well, Mel had gotten the whole 8 of us a package of Lamingtons. We were all hanging out in the "family room", as we call it, and she appeared with dessert. Jer-Bear, my fellow wine science-er, came up with some ice cream. We dished it up. Distributed it, and all sat and watched TV. I looked around the room while everyone was sitting there, mostly in awe. A month ago, I was just leaving my home. Since then, I've covered a few miles, shed a few tears, and seen a lot of things. And there I was, surrounded by people who I already consider friends and care for, but never envisioned. I felt very fortunate.

It's remarkable how quickly things move sometimes. Sometimes it takes a quiet night of TV, a foriegn dessert, and some perspective to realize just how lucky you are.

Oh, side note. Wine people. Did you know that Phylloxera originated from North America? They think it probably rode over on a boat and then did some major damage in Europe. This funny vision of a note going something like this popped into my head:

Dear World,

We're writing to apologize for the phylloxera thing. We didn't mean to cause any sobriety. We hope you still love us.

Yours,

North America




I couldn't help but think that all of the Australians in the room were looking at me as if I were the vessel that brought them to Australian vineyards. :-P

Cheers

"How Important Are We to the Americans?"

My friend Stan, the bus driver, asked me how important I thought the Australians as a people were to the Americans. He asked if we thought as much about them as they do about us.

I grimaced and shifted in my seat uncomfortably, not wanting to ruin my friendship with my new friend, and said, "No, Americans don't think of anyone but themselves. Maybe, we'll think of Europe or the Middle East, but not Australia."

He looked at me excitedly and said, "Well, I've told all of my friends that, but they never believe me. Now I know. "

I laughed. He smiled, it was all good.

So, I needed some empirical evidence. Just how important was the David Hicks case in the States. David Hicks was suspected of terrorism and is being held at Guantanamo Bay, and he's been there since he was captured in 2002. He's on the Australian news EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I mean, he's usually in between stories about weather or grapes, right up there at the front. He's were GWB would be in our news reels. It's completely WILD.

I found my empirical evidence when I pulled a Bill Bryson (Author of "A Walk in The Woods" or "In a Sun-Burned Country") and searched the NY Times for the last 5 years. About 140 articles came up, 50 of which were unrelated to Oz's David Hicks.

I then searched "The Australian", a major newspaper over here. It only let's me search for a week, but just in the past 7 days, there had been 7 articles on him. 7! One per day! So, let's look at the math. Say they published for 50 weeks a year, for five years, at one article per day. That's 1750 articles! Another news site returned 238 articles in the past 30 days. Compared to our 90 or so. Suck on that!

So, Stan, I think you are right. But rest assured, Australia means a lot to some Americans, and they're the ones you really need to worry about. Who cares about GWB? I'm cool, and I'm at your end of the globe, so, no worries.

Cheers

When I Grow Up

It's settled, then. I'm going to be just like the little dude in the picture above when I grow up. No stress, no worries. I would only have to be awake about 4 hours a day. Good times. I took that pic at the Sydney Wildlife Zoo, and these koalas were considered "active". They were trying to get them to eat. I can't blame them for being lazy...it was too hot! :-)

Now that I'm over being pissed and disappointed, I have serious consideration ahead. Studying by distance isn't really an option for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which being $. I would technically be only half time, so I would have to start paying my student loans off. So, that's probably not going to happen. I've decided it wouldn't be the worst idea to go to Adelaide, but I'm not going to make an decisions until I see the place in April. And, if I like it and deem it's something I can do WITHOUT a car (or "ute", in Australian), then I'll consider it. I don't want to leave this program without giving it a fighting chance or for the wrong reasons.

I came here with pure intentions, and I want to leave only for the right reasons.

Now continues the exercise in patience.

Cheers

When It All Falls Apart

I really like surprises. But, I'm a conditional surprise lover. I like surprises if they're good surprises. Aren't we all that way? Well, as you can probably surmise from my last post, I was frustrated by the fact that two of my classes were via tutorial mode. Teaching myself Biochem and Sensory Science...yea, I'm still totally pumped. NOT.

Anyway, this got me thinking. Are my future classes going to be like this? Is this a common thing, or is it just this year. Australians describe themselves as in a "wine glut", so enrollment in their wine science and viticulture has seen a decrease. I wondered...is this temporary, or will my course at CSU continue in the pattern of "tutorial" learning. Good question, right? Should I continue paying all of this money to teach myself things? Or, is someone professional going to head my studies?

I'm sure this method of self-education works for some people, but I am not one of them. Now, I am going to try it this semester, and we'll see how it goes, but, I'm having a sneaking suspicion that it will not go well. But, I'm trying really hard not to have a bad attitude about it.

Anyway, my room mate, Jeremy, is a third year wine science student. So, I was chatting with him. He is currently taking 8 subjects(!) and 7 (!) of them are via "tutorial", AKA distance only internally, mode. He said to me, "The higher up you get, the worse it gets." Oh AWEEEEESOME. Then, I stopped in to talk to my course coordinator and he said that the majority of third year courses were offered in tutorial mode. You can imagine, that's exactly what I didn't want to hear.

So, I wondered...why hadn't I noticed this? Did I skip this page on the glossy book they sent me? I don't really recall ever knowing anything of this. So, from what I understand, this phenomena is relatively new at CSU, and it's occurring because the majority of students are studying at CSU via distance education. They are already working in the wine industry and getting their degrees online. They come to Sturt twice a year for "residential schools", which is where they perform all practical exercises that come with the course.

So, now I have to decide. Even though very few of my courses are going to involve actual lectures and traditional schooling, do I want to stay here and finish the degree I've just begun? Or do I want to look at other options. Do I want to look into the University of Adelaide? Do I want to come back to the states and go someplace in CA or WA?

My major malfunction is that I don't really know what I want to do just yet, nor do I feel like I've been here long enough to make a call on anything. However, I don't really have much time to waste. I need to make a decision relatively soon.

Geez, everything looked all set, and then it all goes and falls apart. So, yea, there's a little look at my past week.

Cheers

PS- I did have a copy of a pic of the opera house to use, but, I friggin' hate easyshare and it's inability to relate to macs. So, I had to borrow this one. Thanks, dude. :-)

WTF, mate?

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

So, my first day of classes was today. It was fun! I got to eat grapes in one of my pracs. Shiraz, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Cab Franc, Sultana and many more...it was cool. So I have two classes on campus, and 2 that are entirely conducted online, with the exception of a "residential school" in July when we do a marathon lab schedule.

I could pretend that I was thrilled that classes were being conducted online. I, however, am NOT. I'm NOT at ALL thrilled. I moved all the way to fucking Australia to teach myself Biochemistry?! I DON'T think so. And as I've investigated, a lot of the subjects here at CSU are "tutorial", which means...teach yourself for a ton of money.

And, my July is shot because of "residential schools". I really wanted to go home in July, because, well, it's July. Will it be as good to go home in April? I want to go home, or I won't be home until Christmas, and well, that's just too damn long. Boo. I'm pissed all to hell. This is NOT what I signed up for.