Out of My Element

Today was an interesting tutorial in my Indigenous Studies class. We read an article titled, “What's a Koori word for hello? Sorry, why don't we know?” describing the historical illiteracy of the Aboriginal people; however, the article brought up the point that perhaps it wasn’t the Aboriginal people that were illiterate, but rather that white Australians were. The white Australians, with one in particular, opened an education center in order to give the Aboriginals the opportunity to read and write English such that they “cure” the illiteracy “problem” of the indigenous populations. As a white American, I initially saw nothing wrong with this gesture. It appeared as a humanitarian attempt to better the often impoverished lives of the Aboriginals living in Australian cities.

Yet, the more I read into the article and discussed it with actual Australians, I realized how ethnographic my thinking was. We were forcing our English culture upon them without making the reciprocal attempt to learn from them, especially about the land. The overwhelming majority of English Australians are illiterate about the land, how it really works, and how to “speak” with it while that is something an indigenous child learns from the beginning. Really the whole point of this ramble is that it really made me stop and think about how I perceive and process things. I hadn’t really thought of this new perspective, and it intrigued me so much that I decided to ramble about it here. I realized even more so that I was truly an ignorant American when it came to the world’s cultures. It will be very interesting for me to continue exploring these tensions throughout the semester as I had no idea that these conflicts even existed in the first place. Just me being nerdy and rambling. Apologies.

Melbourne International Film Festival

Me excitedly waiting for one of India's biggest actors to come out for a pre-screening talk.

Let me just say that my MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival) experience was something I will not soon forget. Some of you reading this are unaware of my obsession with Bollywood movies, but this love affair began back in January 2010 (when all my roommates took a class on it, and I lived vicariously through them). Anyway, I have since become addicted to the genre and eagerly watch any movie that I can get a hold of. Melbourne being the culturally hip and internationally savvy city that it is, has a large Indian population and influence. Therefore, one of the categories at the film festival is "Not Quite Bollywood" with several movies from India. I was interested in going to see one of the films, Peepli [Live], from the outset mostly because I thought it would be cool to A). Go to the film festival B). See another movie in theaters since that's relatively uncommon in the States and C). The plot of the movie looked pretty solid. Much to my delight, I discovered that Aamir Khan, the producer of the film, was going to introduce the movie and then answer questions about it after the screening! Didn't take me long to purchase tickets and convince another person in my program to come with me... I also devilishly sucked them into my obsession by showing them some of my favorite Bollywood movies beforehand. Company!!



The line into Regent Theatre was nuts. It wrapped around the block, and we were probably 2 out of 30 or so white people there. A couple women were dressed in really elegant saris and that just added to my excitement. The inside of the theater was extra classy with a chandelier and velvet curtains covering the screen. We were given a little chinese take out box with two delicious cakes inside (which I promptly inhaled...) and took our seats with breathless anticipation (at least me). Aamir came out. 40 people rushed the stage for photos. He left. The movie started. People clapped, cheered, laughed and cried. Overall, a really great movie and really fun experience. Pumped I got to see Aamir Khan (still wish it was SRK!)

Classes Begin!

Back to school, back to school. While most of you are sitting on your duffs lazing about the home for your summer vacation, I began classes on July 26. My lectures are HUGE, but not overwhelmingly so. Right now I’m enrolled in: The Biology of Australian Flora & Fauna, Sex: Science and the Community, Gothic Fictions, and Australian Indigenous Studies. The Biology class has been interesting so far, and looks like it’ll be an easy course, which will be a nice break from the usual. The Sex Science and the Community class is a multidisciplinary look at how we look at sex (both gender and the act), and has been pretty laid back. However, they’ve already alluded that they’re going to give Americans a hard time in the future for both our sex education standards (or lack thereof) and for the “sexually repressed Southern United States region.” That lecture should be fun… Gothic Fictions is all about the dark, dirty, supernatural and scary, which is everything I’ve ever wanted in a literature course. We’re reading Dracula, Frankenstein, Interview with a Vampire, and watching True Blood, and The Bride of Frankenstein. It’s by far my hardest class with the level of discourse and the fact that we read a novel a week, but might be my favorite so it’s not difficult to put in the work. And finally, my Indigenous Studies class is difficult in that I have absolutely no background in Australian history, but is extremely interesting because it has me thinking in new ways. Basically, I love the classes I’m taking over here. The only problem I foresee is that because of the class size, they record every lecture and post notes for every one. This makes it EXTRA tempting to sleep in when my alarm goes off at 7:30am…

Great Ocean Road

Began orientation #3, University Orientation. MISERABLE! By now, I was sick of the ice breaker games and small talk so I skipped a lot of events there. Plus, the talks in the morning were geared towards incoming freshman and as a senior I hopefully have that under control by now. Hopefully.



But we had a weekend break before starting classes so we planned a trip to the Great Ocean Road. I was one of three drivers. Driving on the left side? Not too bad.. Driving on the left side in a foreign city?? Terrifying. I had to dodge both people and trams in an effort to make it out of the city alive. I survived with only one comical story. As we ventured from our first stop along the Great Ocean Road, I got stopped and breath-a-lized as part of a routine thing. Highly entertaining at the time. But we made it to the 12 Apostles right at sunset and that was amazing. Such a beautiful sight. The Great Ocean Road runs through Australian countryside the majority of the time, so it was strange to be in such a big tourist spot with literally nothing but grass and cows around you for miles (or kilometers if I’m getting fancy here).

Melbourne Welcome

So begins orientation #2, Melbourne Welcome. We went all over the city (I'm now a navigation pro) and through all the secret little alleyways where some great cafes and bars are hidden. Melbourne has a great café culture, and you can hardly pass a corner without spotting 2 or 3 (as well as two or three pubs). In the city there’s fantastic shopping and phenomenal food of every cuisine. I’m in love.



First on the agenda was the Royal Botanical Gardens, and we went on an Aboriginal Heritage tour. We learned the various uses of native Australian flora (grass band-aids and fun laxatives), listened to a digeridoo, hugged a couple trees to connect with the spirit of the land and drank some lemon myrtle tea. We then wandered over to the Great Wars memorial where we got a great view of the city skyline despite being almost blown off the top of the monument due to gale force winds… Next was a tour of the Indigenous art gallery and an Indigenous food tasting session. Menu: Emu, kangaroo, crow's eggs, crocodile, duck and prawns. Kangaroo and emu were by far the best.



The next day we went up to the Eureka sky deck, which is the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere. Cool to see the city skyline, but a tall building is really just another tall building. Also on the agenda was a trip to the Melbourne Zoo where peacocks apparently just roam free. I saw all the animals my heart desired, with the koalas, tiger cubs, and baby elephants as the highlights. I have yet to see a platypus in real life though..



The final fun activity was that we all got free tickets to an Australian Rules Football game at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG). We chose our sides (Naturally, I went for the North Melbourne Kangaroos) and watched as the two teams duked it out on a circular pitch, kicking a rugby ball through what looked like Quidditch posts. I like to think it was all due to my excessive cheering, but the Kangaroos won the match, and we sludged home through the rain to our cramped apartments.

Philip's Island and Warrook Farm

For our IES orientation trip we went out of the city and into the countryside to Warrook Farm. We got to feed calves, watch a cow get milked and a sheep get shorn, saw sheep being herded and best of all, got to feed and pet kangaroos! On the second day! There were also lots of peacocks and emus wandering about (with the occasional wombat thrown in) with sheep herding dogs running around too.



After the farm we were again packed into a bus, and this time we were headed further up the coast to Phillip's Island to watch the Penguin Parade. Essentially, 600 penguins come in from the ocean to go into their land burrows at night. It was hilarious to watch as each penguin group had to muster up enough courage to cross the beach. Plus, for every penguin, there were two Korean tourists. All in all a good time.



For the night, we were put in this weird little summer Christian camp for the night and at like 8pm had nothing to do so we walked to the liquor store and grabbed two mini kegs. Nothing says icebreaker like a good game of Circle of Death. The second day of the field trip I braved a try at vegemite, but just as expected, it was digusting. A little like spreading rancid, sweaty body ooze on a piece of toast. Just say no… Next on the agenda was a scenic bike ride through a Koala reserve, but none were spotted. Disappointment.