All right, two months down, eight to go. If we're not careful, we're going to start thinking that we live here... after a while the accents start to sound normal and you even get de-sensitized to the sight of the Opera House.
Two things this week that I have to tell you:
After much hemming and hawwing about the expense3 and quite a bit of shopping around, we finally joined the gym down the street the other week. Slowly, we're getting ourselves into some kind of an exercise routine, which helps us to feel better and also to be more productive in our other work, since it keeps us on a regular schedule.
Even so, this week was a down week for Chad, with more computer frustrations4 and continuing difficulty finding a schedule and a routine that is productive. Sydney Uni was closed on Friday and Monday for the Easter holiday, which meant we couldn't even get in to our buildings. This week is a break week, so there are no classes, although at least the staff are there and we can get into the buildings.
Still, some progress is being made, even if it feels like two steps forward and one step back.5 D has been working furiously to revise a paper for publication in the Department of Performance Studies journal (due Thursday)... and also learning some new .html tricks.6 She also spent a good deal of time reworking her "front page." Check it out here (but to get back here, you'll have to use the "back" button or follow all the links).
Okay, so the highlight of the week was yesterday, Easter Monday, when we braved the public holiday crowds to go see the Sydney Royal Easter Show at Olympic Park. (Ohlandts, you're gonna love this!) We've been seeing the hype for the past few weeks, and the show closes on Thursday7 so we decided we had to go. Basically, it's a huge, expensive, do-everything-in-one-go Aussie version of a county fair. It takes its name "Royal" from the sponsoring organization, the Royal Agricultural Society. Livestock are shown, judged, and sold; domestic animals compete in professional-calibre breed shows; businesses and restaurants offer tastings and food for sale; police parade in full dress on horses; a whole warehouse is devoted to satiating the peculiarly Aussie obsession with "showbags" sold by every imaginable company on every imaginable theme8; rodeo competitions; woodchop competitions; stunt truck and dirtbike drivers; elaborate arena-sized tributes to "The Drover's Life" (Australia's version of the Wild West?); cattle dog demonstrations and demonstrations of stockman on horseback "herding" stunt truck drivers9; far too many bad covers of John Denver songs; and, ultimately, a fireworks show.
We hopped and skipped our way through the exhibits, landing at the final round of judging for the Cat Show ("Supreme Cat in Show" went to an animal that was indistinguishable from a very cute mop) and a few of the woodchop events, where the announcer welcomed the two American contestants by saying "We're so glad to have contestants from the US here trying out their skill, but of course, we have hardwood here, not like what they're used to back in the US, so we wish them the best of luck!" Sadly, they did not win and so we could not gloat.
Despite the crowds, it was a nice way to spend the day, and nice to see Olympic Park as well. (We took some pictures, so maybe D will write a feature page on the Easter Show when she gets done with our Victoria trip last month.) Unfortunately we missed the flying and diving pigs-- even though a friend from home had sent us an Associated Press photo of them-- because the stands were full, but in the grand scheme we judged it an acceptable loss.
And, we can now sing half a line of the Australian National Anthem. Hey, at least we know what it is!
;)
- D
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NOTES
1Only we Americans saw the humor in this, and of course, to us the humor was immense. All the more so since the "Crossfire" incident, which by the way is extremely difficult to explain to foreigners.
2Incidentally, only four of the six states and two territories of Australia observe DST (or is it five?), plus some of the time zones are 30 minutes apart from each other instead of an hour... it's really hard to figure out what time it is in other parts of the country...
3In the end, a little less than $50/month per person, but we had to get used to the idea of paying for gym facilities at all. Yes, we're spoiled by the graduate student life, luxurious as it is.
4"Higher level" complications now, not all of which are his computer's complications and most of which you won't understand because they involve techno-babble like "NFAT" and "TechPlot" and "partitioning" and "OS" and the number 32.
5Or sometimes, one step forward and two steps back.
6This is going to be painfully unimpressive to you people who are web savvy and see immensely more sophisticated web pages on a daily basis, but the trick she learned was how to script a pop-up window for the video of Chad driving. Click on the photo on this page if you want to see her new trick.
7It opened on March 19, so it amounts to two weeks of pandemonium and "special event" schedules on the public transport.
8The whole showbag phenomenon was the hardest thing to get our heads around. Essentially, they probably started as sample bags and have evolved into the monster they are... The bags range from collections of candy to dress-up kits to magazine issues and vouchers, all supposedly priced well below the "retail value" of the items included. We bought a sample bag of honey but restrained ourselves from buying a proper showbag... although we did brave the crowds of the showbag pavilion to buy a few for our housemate.
9This wins the award for being the single most surreal moment of the day and no description will ever do it justice. The trucks in question were low-riding pick-up trucks that were intentionally spinning and fishtailing in the dust, and the stockmen on horseback... well, they herded them as if they were straying cattle.
Back to the GAA page!