Beats, Boats, and Ball

Hey guys,

This will probably be the penultimate post because I have so little time left and so little motivation to post more frequently! Hope you enjoy it! Apologies that it has been so long since the last one!

Quick Hits

• Ripper is a word that Aussies might use to in the place of something like "awesome" in Americanese. Example: I'm off to uni for 12 straight hours! Ripper! (used sarcastically in this sense)
• Two of my friends used phrases that I don't think are very common among Aussies, but I'll include them anyway because I found them humorous. The first was when one burst into the room and excitedly asked us, "What's the crack?" Silence...because we were all confused. And then my other friend, who's a little quicker on the draw, replied, "Oh, so like what's the hippy haps?" 
• I think if I were a super villain I would be Mr. Freeze from Batman's universe. This is largely due to the fact that in this country, it's customary to travel on the left side of whatever: the road, sidewalk, staircase. This creates many awkward situations because whenever I'm on a collision course, which is often, I go right out of habit and they go to their left out of habit, and then they're confused because I'm still coming at them and they freeze. It happens every time. I have the innate ability to make people stop going where they want to go. I am powerful and mighty. I don't fear Batman whatsoever.

Not sure what's going on here...

• One of the reasons that I decided to come to Australia was that I was under the very false impression that the sun never stopped shining here and that all was glorious and pleasant weather wise. When I tell this to people from Melbourne they laugh in my face because apparently Melbourne is the Ithaca of Australia. It is renowned for "four seasons in one day" but recently we've just been experiencing the season of pure, unadulterated crap all day. 
• I've picked up another job! The first one is serving in the dining hall. This one is doing groundskeeping work! It's a lot of fun because I use power tools and get outside and sit on a zipply little ride-on mower. People get a little sad that I wake them up with my obnoxiously noisy and persistent groundskeeping though. All I can say is that it hurts me more than you and hope they buy that. 
• If someone feels that someone else should be widely regarded as an admirable human being he might call that person a legend. Example, "Thanks for the autograph Kevin Garnett! You're a legend! Please don't eat me!" 
• another way to express your admiration for someone is to call him/her a "top bloke/chick"

"Fun Quotes from fun friends"

In a conversation about someone's relationship with her twin: "Do you ever forget which one you are?" --Will P.

Randomly, or perhaps in light of something I was saying about my background, "Are you quite Asian?" --Sarah S.

ANZAC Day and Yarra Cruise

ANZAC Day is a memorial day of sorts for the military from Australia and New Zealand who have given their lives in service of their countries. I think it originated as a way to memorialize the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soldiers who fought the Ottomans at Gallipoli in WWI, but it turns into a general day of remembrance in practice. 


This year for ANZAC Day Queen's had it's first ever service (before now I think university regulations have hindered services at the colleges). It was held at 7am out on the front lawn and the weather was suitably somber (raining buckets) as we huddled together under our umbrellas and the tiny little tent where the college chaplain told us a story and gave a speech. I forget what the message was but the story was about a guy from Queen's who fought at Gallipoli I think. He was a seminary guy or something and greatly admired by his men. He took a bullet to the chest but was saved by his bible. In the next month or so, however, he was killed in the line of duty. However many years later, I also forget this detail, someone found the Bible with the hole shot through it and returned it to Queen's or something. 


One of the fantastic things about ANZAC Day, besides taking time to remember those who have given their lives in service of their country and besides the fact that lectures are all canceled for the day, is ANZAC Day Cookies (or biscuits in Aussie language)! The dining hall just kept cranking them out and we just kept knocking em back. They're tender little oat and coconut kind of deals and they are super delicious. 


Along with the ANZAC celebration came another big Queen's event, the annual Yarra River Cruise! Basically a costume party on a boat. The theme this year was SPACE! So naturally, I went with the Space Jam Bugs Bunny costume. My friend Nikesh went as His Airness, Mr. Michael Jordan, and two other guys went as the blue alien from the Monstars. We looked dumb. 

Another Queen's tradition for the "Booze Cruise" is that every time the boat passes under a bridge we're all supposed to either scull, spew, or score. I don't think we held too tightly to that though. 


All in all, a fun night! 

KFC LAD'S NIGHT

Some time ago, there existed a group of young men (lads) with nothing to do and money and time to spend. The night was young, and they dove headfirst into repetitive games of Halo that also involved drinking. One of the young men, whose Halo prowess was unmatched in its poor quality, grew bored. Before long these daring individuals headed out into the world to spread their wings and drink alcohol in a different setting! Unbeknownst to them, however, all the pubs in town were closed (I think it was Easter or something?). 


The new destination became KFC, and the crown jewel of the evening became stealing a light bulb from one of the overhanging lamps, for some reason. As fate would have it, the lads also ran into some random guy from an Australian reality talent show called X-Factor named Declan, out to buy chicken for his moms.


One shattered light bulb and a few unearthed signposts later, the gentlemen made their way back to Queen's and retired for the evening. 

Don't think he won? No idea

Goose
Just wanted to take some space to give a shout out! My friend Goose (real name: "Gus") is a really wonderful guy, super nice and a great friend, but had a really bad accident where he ended up falling out of the fourth level window of our building somehow. Miraculously, his fall was broken by one of the trees in the garden, and he's well on the path to recovery now! If you're reading, Goose, thanks for making me feel welcome here at Queen's and always having a nice thing to say to everyone around! Wish you all the best in your recovery!  

The Fattest Night on Earth
Every so often, my friend, Emma the American, and I try to catch dinner at some fancy restaurant to see what Melbourne has to offer. The latest in the series was a visit to Cumulus, a chic little place tucked away in a corner somewhere. It was a great night because after my daring orders of beef tongue and kimchee soft shell crab, I was still supes hungry. Before the night was done, I had consumed a Hungry Jack's (Burger King) burger or two and half of a massive eclair. It was the fattest night on earth. 

Tasty

The Revue

One of the awesome things about many Queeners is how incredibly artistically talented they are! The Revue was a celebration of just that fact, and I was absolutely blown away by the performances of the young men and women that walk the halls of this goofy place! It was a long time ago, but my favorite performances were "Come Together," a few face-melting solos from three amazingly talented girls, and a performance of a bit from Monty Python. 
Behold! 

Rugby: Bulls vs Rebels

My friend from Melbourne Uni Christian Union invited me to a Super 15 rugby game between the Melbourne Rebels and South Africa's Blue Bulls! It was really awesome and it made me 1. realize how much I miss playing and 2. realize how little we all knew about playing...


The game was PHYSICAL as heck and when people went down they just send medics to check them out and kept playing the game right over them! It was nuts! The Bulls had a much more sophisticated back-line (there was a play where the fly half kicked the ball all the way out to his wing, which is nuts) but the Rebels had a really tough pack and they just pounded the ball down the middle off consecutive rucks. They had a hyooooge number 8 too and a really nifty flyhalf. 

Wouldn't argue with this guy...

Kurtley Beale was a menace out there!

Of course the Bulls won, AFL is bigger than rugby in Victoria by far, but it was a super game and I sat with my friend's group of South African church friends which was definitely a cool experience! Afrikaans is unlike any language I've ever heard before. They certainly love their rugby! 

Anything Goes

Every year the Melbourne Uni res colleges come together and put on a musical production. This year's was Anything Goes and, man, it was one of the best performances I've ever seen! Really well acted and funny and the leading lady was a Queener and she blew the roof off! It was such a good performance and made even better by the fact that half the cast and crew were from Queen's! 


Check it out! http://fon.com.au/photography/anythinggoes/ (website by Queen's staffer Ben Fon)

Red Bull Beat Suite

A few weeks ago, my friend convinced me to attend an Aloe Blacc concert with him (I didn't take much convincing) at the Victorian College of the Arts south of the river. We had no idea what was in store though! The show was actually a collaboration performance between the Australian Youth Orchestra, a number of renowned DJs from Australia and New Zealand, and some really impressive individual performers like Aloe Blacc, Ryan Ritchie, and Ladi6. 


Not only was the venue absolutely stunning, the blend of the different synthesizers and vocals and strings brought out a completely unique and fresh sound. It was really, really, really cool. As much as I dislike the idea of energy drinks, it seems like Red Bull does do some very interesting and meaningful work! 

The Melbourne Recital Center

Ryan Ritchie's bit sticks out in my mind as does a part where Ladi6 recorded a bunch of different loops of her own vocals right in front of us and just kept adding more and more layers until it was like a whole host of voices was coming at us. This dude DJ Perplex was also insane. 


The highlight of highlights was definitely the first part though. After two or three minutes of this spacey kind of white noise, one of the DJs dropped a really strong beat and the whole orchestra came in really heavy and everyone in the audience went nuts! 


Definitely a memorable experience! 


I don't know what this does but it's cool: http://beatsuite.redbull.com.au/#/Home

Rowing Day

Rowing Day is the biggest sporting day of the first semester! We all got up mega-early and started drinking for some reason. Then we all walked down to the river and sat around for a while waiting for the regatta to start. The four oldest colleges on the crescent (Newman, Ormond, Trinity and Queen's) are the ones that take Rowing Day the most seriously, and generally have the strongest boats. The rest of the colleges don't really care that much. So while the Queen's teams had been training for at least a month in preparation, some colleges had just assembled their first VIII that week. 


Queen's has a really strong history of winning the races, but this year Ormond College, the biggest and most hated on the crescent, opened up their non-residential program really wide and brought in a huge pool of rowers. So these people didn't live at Ormond but they were allowed to compete for it specifically in rowing. This unfortunately meant that Ormond swept the regatta and Queen's had to content itself with three second place finishes and one third place. 


Although the weather had been incredible the majority of the morning, by the time the races were up it was raining buckets. We had a quick BBQ on the riverbank and then it was off to a pub crawl! A pair of party buses shuttled us between various pubs around Melbourne and after all was said and done we went back to Queen's for some sandwiches and had a big old turn! 

Me and Kat "the Mad Bear" Drutschinin (someone has courteously written "Tim Tam" on my forehead and given me some eye shadow here)

Good times. 


Queen's Ball
The last big thing that I should update you all on is the Queen's Ball! Every self-respecting college on the crescent throws together one smashing, all-out, black-out party each year, and Queen's is nothing if not self-respecting! I think this is where the majority of the Student Club's funds go. 


This year, the college had a Casablanca themed ball (I'm not sure how that played out though beyond the promo-video and the posters), and it was widely regarded as one of the best balls ever balled! 


I had a wonderful time chilling with my friend and birthday boy Scott and the table of ragamuffins he assembled last minute and boogeying down to the tunes of performers that I really wasn't paying attention to. The food was excellent and the beer wasn't bad at all! 


The down-side to having 500 drunk and raving college kids was that the security was pretty intent on chaos-control, so they were throwing people out left and right. My friend was dumped outside for having a drink on the dance floor and others were booted for being perceived as too drunk or rowdy. Tough break to be removed from something you shelled out almost $90 for so ruthlessly. 

Pre Ball with the Lower South East Corridor!

More Pre Ball

The Twin German Towers and my Boston Brother

The Incomparable Niki Scott

More good times.

Academics
Just a final update on the academic side of it all: by now I've finished with all my lectures, tutorials and assessments. Finals period here at Melbourne is insanely long, three or four weeks with a week of pure study, so people aren't too too stressed usually. 


I had four essays to turn in in a period of about seven days so it was really rough for me. I disappeared. Two assignments ended up getting in late (China in Transition and Global Health, Security and Sustainability) but hopefully the damage won't be too bad on my final mark. My China assessment took a 3% hit but my GHSS took a 10% deduction. 


Overall, I felt that my classes were pretty beneficial this semester. My favorite was probably Sustainable Development followed closely by Global Health, Security and Sustainability. 
Really looking forward to making my way back to Cornell, where a new major awaits me (Environmental Science and Sustainability) with much more sensible requirements (no second semester of physics!). 


Travel and Summer Plans
Super finally, an update on travel and summer plans. I had intended to bump around for the last few weeks I have free here but it didn't really work out so well. Instead, I'll try to work as much as possible in the garden and the dining hall, do some volunteer work, maybe take an MMA class or two (I've been wanting to check out one of the local gyms!) and generally make the most of my time remaining here at Queen's and in Melbourne! 


I'm leaving Melbourne on 6/22 and landing in Boston on 6/23. The next day I'll be headed up to Burlington, VT to attend a six day leadership in sustainable food systems workshop, which I've very excited about, and then I'll be headed back to Boston on the 29th. After a day at home, I'll once again be packing up, this time for Ithaca, NY where I'll be spending the rest of my summer working for my adviser in her Garden-based Learning (GBL) program conducting interviews and surveys of local GBL practitioners (I think) and preparing myself for my final year at Cornell! 


Very excited for what God has in store for me in the coming weeks and months!


Thanks for reading guys! Hope that you are all well and excited to reunite with people soon!

I wouldn't mind if all my friends became koalas...

Hi Friends!

It has definitely been a while! Hope that you all are doing splendidly and loving the lives you're living! If I haven't heard from you in a while, that makes me sad. Unless I harbor secret resentment for you. Then we're cool. As far as you know...

Since I last posted: 

• I missed out on an a really cool Queen's event called Ladies and Gent's night! Basically it was a really classy pub crawl. Everyone dressed up in black tie kinda attire and people were paired up in guy-girl couples just to make things somewhat formal. I heard it was super fun. I missed out because I finally snagged a job! I'm working in the dining hall for Wednesday night formal dinner. Next week I'm also starting work for the Queen's Groundskeeper/Gardener! All good news because Australian wages are ridiculous. In a good way. 
• I saw my first footy game on TV! It looked like a mess to me but a very fun, enjoyable and intense mess. Things that make it different from rugby or NFL are that it's played on an oval, you can only kick goals, you can't throw the ball (you have to punch it to your teammates), you have to punt the ball to make a long pass, and there's no line of scrimmage so people are constantly coming at you from all sorts of directions (with bad intentions). Can't wait to go to a game at the MCG!
• I've become obsessed with these two videos from some American reality show Sing Off. My friend introduced this group Pentatonix to me, and they did some insane performances on the show. 

Ridiculous

Nuts
...yeah they won

• We played a Queen's scrimmage in American Football. It was really fun. Footy guys make their living going up to snatch the ball out of the air, so you better believe I got skyed a few times by large Australian men
• Cornell Pre-enroll: I wanted something like this 

I got something more like this: 

It's actually not that bad; I just need to do some rearranging come fall!

In other news...

My diet has become 90% Chocolate Easter Eggs

Easter break came and went. The social committee has flooded the corridors with little chocolate eggs and they're just so available and so delicious. Easter Sunday was a busy day for me. First thing in the morning (for me at least; it was noon), I got picked up by a Christian Union staff guy to have lunch at his house. He'd invited me to his little house church a few times before, but I'd never gotten around to going. Lo and behold, I was the only young person there! Unless you count the swarms of childrens. It was a good time though and free wine and bbq is never a bad thing!

Highlights from lunch:

• I met a really nice Malaysian couple doing their postgraduate studies at Melbourne Uni. They named their son "River" which I think is amazing. He likes cars.
• A few of the adults were talking about past glories and being into Christian deathmetal. Gold nugget comment from one of them was "they should call it Lifemetal"
• There was a discussion on the theological basis for avoiding relationships with animals as pets
• Someone asked why the cockroach was created as it has no natural predators and you can't eat it (can you?)
• A wife said about her relationship with her husband, "I was attracted to him when he was most ugly" referring to the time when he had accidentally dyed his hair orange. Can't beat that!

After that lunch I went directly to an Easter Sunday Service at City on a Hill Church with a few American girls. It was really nice and super cool also because a bunch of people got baptized! Always fun. The night got less Easter oriented after that. Suffice it to say that I tried to participate in a dunk context (on a six or seven foot hoop), ate Asian food with a bunch of Queeners (Roast Duck and Fried Pork Noodle Soup for me! yeah boi), and went to some margarita bar called Taco Bills. Yes, we got giant fruity drinks and free sombreros. 

Sorry, JW. Not Taco Bell

Korean BBQ and Alien Abduction 
Also during Easter break I took a trip to the Melbourne Chinatown with some Queeners and got some amazing Korean BBQ! It was sooo good and the service was really fast! Korean BBQ is something that my life needs more of. Anyway that night we watched a ridiculous movie called The Fourth Kind. Two of my friends had seen it already and told me that the reason it freaked them out so much was that there was real live footage in it. Well that was a load of B.S. It was really scary though up until the end. Basically the premise is that a psychologist in a remote Alaskan town notices that all her patients are reporting the same symptoms: they're having trouble sleeping, they wake up around 3am every night and there's an owl outside their window. The details get jumbled from there and the movie uses two different film clips of the same scene happening side by side to make it look like one is the real footage and one is the reenactment. This is a technique they often use and it convinced me at first. The patients say that they're not sure, but they think the owl somehow got inside...it won't go away. It's looking down at them from the foot of the bed...Well the good doc is baffled by this, and she decides to try hypnotherapy to ask them what happened. SPOILER ALERT: THERE IS NO OWL! Apparently the owl is some memory device that aliens had been using to trick the humans into thinking things were all cool when in reality they were stealing into their houses at night, abducting them, and performing terrible experiments on them and their families. Seeing the hypnotized people flip out as they suddenly recalled what had happened was indeed very scary. The idea of aliens coming into your house every night with you being powerless to stop them: also scary. Probably the worst part of the movie was when she's recording herself on a tape going over the case and thinking up ideas. She falls asleep. When she plays the tape back though she hears herself screaming uncontrollably and telling the aliens to stop and you can hear the alien language and it's all very freaky. Anyway none of it is real and I hate the movie for making me afraid of owls, now.

Owls? Or alien mind tricks?

Byron Bay Like A Byron Boss

During Easter, uni kids get a week long break which is awesome! On Wednesday, I flew off to Byron Bay with three other Americans and a German. What is there to do in Byron Bay? That's a good question...Well there's the beach...and there're the pubs and the nightclubs...And that's enough! We stayed in a really nice hostel (part of the Nomads chain) and just relaxed. The weather started off kind of undesirable, with intermittent showers and little sun, but once it cleared up our days were full of naps, beaches and the most beautiful waves and clearest water I've ever seen.

Byron Bay is a surf town, and our roommate did offer us a really good deal on surf rentals, but we think we lost that opportunity when we woke him up a few hundred times in one night coming back from a pub. Nonetheless we had a really good time!

Highlights from Byron Bay

• I hit the game winning shot on a really long game of beer pong (using a full length ping pong table is tough!) with a jump shot accompanied with the name "KOBE!" ringing from my lips. I didn't think it would work otherwise I would have paid homage to someone less despicable. Like Ray "Jesus Shuttlesworth" Allen. 

I have never seen this movie

• I woke up to the sun melting my face. Good times!
• On the second day of our trip, we went on a super hike to the bottom of a waterfall! It was amazingly pretty and the hike was really fun. I got my first leech stuck behind my ear! I was displeased.
• The waves. Man they were just so beautiful. Seeing a wave towering above your head and hurtling toward you is a huge rush. Getting half-drowned and pants by that wave is also a good time! 

This is me taking it all in

Hiking up to that lighthouse is actually quite easy and it's a very scenic walk!

Hiking back in the dark after a glass of wine is not as easy

What makes koalas so cute? 
On the way back from Byron Bay we stopped by the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary to get our cute animal fix.  All I can say is that cute doesn't even do it justice when it comes to koalas. Is it the adorable way they chew with their mouths open? Is it the understated fuzziness? Is it the careful way they hop from branch to branch like it takes all the energy in the world? Is it the way they casually peer over their shoulders at you? Is it the way they blatantly scratch themselves so that you can almost picture a bag of potato chips at their feet and a wifebeater draped over their boxer-clad bodies? I can't decide if they're more like fat little old men or fat little babies. All I can say is that if all I could do for the rest of my life was watch koalas sleep, I wouldn't have it so bad.

wow

oh 

sweet

merciful

mangoes

Only Twits Use Twitter!
The Queen's oratory competition came and went as well! I was really impressed by all the speakers and it was actually good good fun! How it worked was that each student was given a topic that they had a day or two to prepare for. Three guest judges, one of which was the Master, then evaluated them on their delivery and their arguments I think. The topics were (as far as I can remember): happiness is overrated, smokers, drinkers etc should be excluded from the healthcare system, you get the politicians you deserve, the journey is more worthwhile than the destination, drinking is a road to nowhere but it sure is the scenic route!, and only twits use twitter! It was a really entertaining night, and my favorite speeches were definitely the twitter one and the alcohol one. The facetious argument of allowing natural selection to breed out druggies and the analogy of Australian politicians to Halloween candy were awesome highlights as well! Queeners never fail to impress!

OMG the bread on my sandwich is stale!!!!

Random story: Who's smiling now? Not me...
Last month or so, I left a blue zip up hoodie at this fast food place we call "Smiley's." I thought I'd never see it again, but I was wrong! Coming back from church one night I spotted a group of Queeners getting their grease on. I popped in to say hello and the next thing I saw was my hoodie! Awkwardly, the guy serving the pizza was wearing it! Yeah...my friend was ready to pick a fight though, so she marched right over there and told him that she really liked his jumper and wanted to know if it was from Old Navy, where mine was from. Of course he said no. Do they even have Old Navy in this country?

Uni
Uni has been good! The way my classes work, I don't really have to show up for lectures. All I need to do is read the assignments and turn in my essays on time. I still go, but it's a really good feeling having so little stress and so much potential free time! By now, I've turned in my first few assignments. For China in Transition I had to give a presentation in tutorial about the readings and the topic. As I am the procrastination champion, I was forced to stay up late, diligently getting my facts straight. As I am also the not-waking-up-on-time champion, this meant that I woke up at 9am for my 9am tute. Once the "shooooot" factor passed over me, I was out of my room like a bat out of some other room, and I made it just in time to listen to another group finish presenting on the same topic because for some reason that week we were doubled up on presenters. Sweet!

For my Global Health, Security and Sustainability assignment, there was less drama. I just skipped Global Health, Security and Sustainability to write it!

Finally, just yesterday, I turned in my Public Policy Making take home exam. The time constraints on this bad boy were TIGHT, so I thought using all of the day to crank it out would be a necessary evil. I didn't have lectures anyway. Little did I know that not doing the readings and not going to class is a poor recipe for take home examinations, and I finished with just a trickle of time to turn in the hard copy. Sadly for me, I had no idea where that was supposed to happen! And of course the Queen's printers weren't working. Suffice it to say that it was an eventful and frantic 20 minutes. Luckily the Melbourne Uni campus is tiny!

Two months to go!
I can't believe that my time here in Melbourne has passed it's halfway point (I think?)! It's been an amazing time, and I've met some really great people and learned a lot about myself and about Australians. I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store!

Here's a list of things that I wouldn't mind happening!

• The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is happening right now. I really want to go!
• Next week or so, some friends and I are trying to go camping in the Grampians!
• Footy game! I still have to pick a side to back. I feel like I can't do that til I see them throw down
• Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands: this would be unreal
• Fraser Island: I'm not exactly sure what happens here but I've been told it's good
• Roadtrippin New Zealand: this would also be unreal  
• Diving in the Great Barrier Reef
• Jump out of a plane??? I don't know. Maybe if I can wear a diaper
• Things that I might do if I have time but I wouldn't mind missing out on: Sydney and Uluru (aren't seeing the pictures enough?)

Uluru

Methinks Sydney is to Melbourne as NYC is to Boston

Grampians National Park

Whitsunday Island

Anyway, that's what's been going on with me! Thanks for reading and hope you're all doing really well and having wonderful lives!

While writing this post, I consumed seven chocolate eggs

Tales of the Assassin Bride

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

Sorry...yeah...I haven't posted in forever. Don't hate me. Let's just move on it'll be healthier for both of us.

Lessons in Aussie Lingo

• If someone says "you're a gun" or refers to someone as a gun it means that guy is hot stuff in some capacity (usually sporting). I think it's a really cool thing, and I'm definitely going to bring it back to the States. 
• People say "heaps" a lot here. Heaps of people say heaps. People heaping say heaps too heaping much. 
• One of the funniest things that guys say here when they're busting each other's nuts is they call each other "dickhead." The first few times I heard it, I didn't really use my sensory imagination. When I finally got around to it, I couldn't stop laughing.
• If you ask someone a question and he doesn't quite hear you he'll respond with a "hey?" 
• If you ask someone a question about the status of something or how something went you'll probably get an answer that starts with "yeah." Example: "How's your firstborn son?" "Yeah, good."  
• After a big night of partying or an intense sports practice or something in which your physical faculties had been pushed to the brink, the morning after people might ask you, "How'd you pull up today?" I think that's what they're saying at least. It was confusing to me at first. Now I'll say, "Yeah, not too bad."
• To "shout" someone is to pay for their ______. Dream come true conversation: Hero: "Cornell is so expensive. Here, Geoff, lemme shout your college tuition." Me: "I love you."

I might be this kind of gun...

Lots of things have occurred since I last shared with you guys, so I'll do what I did last time and just do some spotty retelling. 

Soiree

A few Mondays ago, Queens had a little talent show that was called Soiree, and Queeners came out in droves to show other Queeners how much talent Queens has amongst its Queeners. Every act was heaps of good (that's not a correct usage of "heaps"), but my favorites were a twelve string guitar medley, a parody of George Michael's "Faith" by two senior girls who rewrote the words to be about them creepily stalking good looking fresher boys and going into their rooms while they're out and smelling their dirty laundry, a crazy rhythmic gymnastics performance, and a jazz improv trio of bass, piano and drums. Yeah it was intense. The gymnastics girl did this thing where she threw her ribbon thing up in the air, did some spinny move thing and then caught the handle on her ribbon right as it was coming down. Yeah it was intense. 

Assassins

Last week a Queen's-wide game of Assassins commenced. Basically, every Queener got assigned someone to assassinate, and we were given two days to complete our assignments which we did by pouring water on our targets. The only rules were that no one could see you make your kill, your kill couldn't see you coming, no killing people in anyone's rooms, and no killing in the dining hall. It was a great way to meet new people, as we were usually assigned Queeners outside of our corridors. After each kill you emailed the folks in charge and they gave you new targets. It was really fun and on the first night screams could be heard echoing all around the college as people waiting in dark places struck unsuspecting victims. The only reason I made any kills at all was that once you found out where people lived, everyone around them helped conspire with you. 

Geoff's Assassins Kill Count

1. The first guy I got, the girl across the hall from him shouted for him to come look at something out the window so I could throw water at him from behind an outcropping as he exited his room. 
2. For the second kill, my friend knocked on this girl's door (I'd followed her in from lunch and knew she was in there) and told her that someone upstairs was asking for her. I just waited on the floor above the staircase and got her as she was coming up. 
3. The third kill happened because everyone in the guy's hallway saw him go to take a shower, and I just waited around the corner for him to come out. 
4. I lucked out on the fourth kill. I'd looked up what the girl looked like, so I knew her face pretty well, but she lived on a really busy corridor, and I hadn't had a chance to properly scheme with anyone yet. One lazy afternoon, I was walking through the quad, and she seemed to be headed right toward me! As inconspicuously as I could, I ran back into the building I just exited and filled up a cup of water in the kitchenette. Luck would have it that she was headed to the same place to check her mail. Lucky for me. UNLUCKY FOR HER. 
5. Kill number five wasn't really a successful kill. The target was a fellow exchange student from the United States. I made the unsmooth move of texting him to come over because "I wanted to talk to him about something," and he sent me the awkward reply "Cool, you better not assassinate me! HaHa!" HaHa indeed. I waited for him to enter our building, and I tried to dump my entire water bottle on him from the third floor. My aim was not true, however, and he survived the onslaught. In hindsight, I should have taken a surface area approach rather than the bunker-busting path. His disinterest in killing his assignment led to him conceding defeat though. 

Overall, I was attacked twice by the same girl, but she did it in plain sight of 5 or 6 witnesses so neither attempt counted for much. In the end, I was eliminated because I needed to leave town for a bit and couldn't really kill or be killed...Fun stuff though! 

This would be against the rules

Skool

My new policy class has been alright. The first lecture that I went to we spent a looot of time watching clips and videos. We actually watched a full length show called "Hollowmen" which is a hilarious parody of people working in public policy. I enjoyed the show, but in a two hour lecture is it really ideal to spend a quarter to half the time watching semi-relevant news clippings and a tv show? The show was pure gold though. Really illustrated (exaggerated?) the struggles that governments go through to appear as if they are doing effective policy making: i.e. pushing out of context soundbites and misleading statistics, the conflict of the public's desire for decisive and swift action with the time needed to actually gather data that would allow one to make an informed decision, the airheaded bosses that twist and manipulate whatever thoughts and words you have to justify doing what they were already going to do...it's all there! One guy got me every time because he would go everywhere without a pen and then suddenly want to write down what people were saying. Man you have to watch it. 

Anyone have a pen?

Corridor Chapel

The chaplain of Queen's College is a very learned man. He's got quite a colorful personal history (raise your hand if you've ever drag raced an undercover cop?) and his knowledge of Scripture and his ability to discern it's meaning is probably unparalleled amongst all the people I've ever met. Anyway, every Sunday Queen's puts on a chapel service and he preaches. It is a tradition at Queens for every corridor to go to chapel as a group at least once. Last week was our turn. The message was something that I think is very true and very under-understood if I may abuse the English language so perfidiously. Basically, the chaplain spoke about love and what it means to love others. What he said was that to love is to give something up--to make sacrifices. Many people think about love as a solution to everything and as the source of overwhelming peace and happiness. His message was that love comes with a cost. Tying it back to the message of Jesus, he pointed out that "God gave up his Son. Jesus Christ gave up his life." Real love involves a lot of sacrifice; there is absolutely no way to deny it. He also pointed out that in 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter that gets a ton of play at weddings, the word that Paul uses for patient in the opening verse "Love is patient" means "long suffering." Love is able to suffer at length! This probably wouldn't be so cheery to mention at the next wedding you're at though. In the end, while I think his message was right on the money, I do feel that you come out with more than you started with when you establish loving relationships. Anyway it was deep.

Base Camp

Last weekend, I went on a retreat type thing with Christian Union, an Intervarsity affiliate here in Melbourne. It was good stuff. The talks that were given were basically an extrapolation of Kevin DeYoung's Just Do Something, which made its way around Cornell Cru last year pretty well I think. It's definitely a very practical concept in terms of decision-making and the will of God, which can get very confusing. I also got to meet a bunch of Australian believers and spend time at the beach which is never a bad thing! A few of the girls there are also at colleges and they told me about a college specific Bible study and also invited me to their church, which I went to yesterday and met oodles of cool people. This also happened:

 Me in a toilet paper wedding dress and my lovely team of designers

My Quick Trip to Taiwan!

Finally, I just want to mention that I was able to see Amy this past week because she and her mom were in Taiwan for her Spring Break! I missed three and a half days of uni, but it was well worth it booking a trip out there to see her! Taiwan is an awesome place to eat and shop as everything is amazingly cheap and pretty decent quality wise! We ate lots of food, and I'm incredibly grateful toward Amy, her parents and her family for being such great hosts to me during my time there and for lining up a lot of the logistical things that I was so helpless in trying to figure out! Any time spent with my girl--no matter how short!--is time well spent!

One of the funniest things about Taiwan is that there are apparently a bunch of clothing companies that produce cheap graphic Ts that they sell on the street. Lots of these shirts have random gibberish English phrases and cities and sometimes just strings of letters. It's funny. I have a shirt now that says "New York Vihtagf Hockoky Man Acemf Dfvilslakfh Dakotastateonawrs rhysical fdncatiohctatfwisscupi." Good stufffffff. Just don't look too closely and you can't tell it makes no sense. 

Night markets are much fun

On the plane ride I watched "The Artist," "Pulp Fiction," "Puss N Boots" (which I think might've been targeted toward a younger audience) and a bunch of episodes of "Modern Family." I also had the most frustrating dream ever. In Australia the 2 dollar coin is tiny, the one dollar coin is slightly larger, and then the 20 cent and 50 cent coins are behemoths. I had a dream where I was sitting in the sand somewhere trying to pick up a bunch of coins that I'd dropped, but I just couldn't quite get them in order because sand kept shifting and covering them up or something. Suddenly the coins started getting smaller and more valuable every time I failed to pick them up. Before I knew it, I was looking at a pile of miniscule $9 coins that were quickly sifting through my fingers. I woke up and my leg and arm were asleep. Maybe my subconscious's way of waking me up before I lost both my left limbs? Who knows.

Soooo...that's all I can think of for now. I hope you all are doing excellently! Be good friends and tell me what's up with you, you jerks.

Thanks and hope to hear from you soon! I'll try and post moreeeee.

Southern Style Praying Mantis

Wow I'm not even going to try to apologize for how long it's been since I last posted...

Things: 

• Certain Aussie phrases and things are fun for my American brain to fiddle with but nothing has been more brain-fiddling than the imperative "Get amongst it!" Used in a sentence, "Yeah cricket is good fun at Queen's. Get amongst it, Geoff Tam!" It's kind of like a firm but gentle push to have fun, try new things and let go of your worries. To me at least. 
• Along the same lines, Aussies also use the word "keen" to describe a sort of willingness to participate. Example, "yeah I just talked to him; he's keen to wrestle some crocodiles." Probably the most heart-rending sentence I've heard anyone say during my time here was, "No one was keen..."
• The length of the shorts here on males is maybe HALF the length of what a guy in the States might wear. I'm tempted to "get amongst it" but my pale man thigh is convincing me otherwise.
• For some reason, when people talk about American football here it's referred to as "Gridiron" and they only know a handful of teams which invariably includes the Patriots. There are also a lot of Celtics fans here for some reason. I've seen more Boston gear than Yankees and Lakers put together which is just another reason I'm sure I've come to the right place. 
• I played cricket. It was like golf-baseball. One thing that's impressive about cricket players is that they bare-hand all their catches and groundballs and whatever. Only the wicket keeper has gloves on the fielding side. 
• Another sports note: Victoria is the Aussie Rules Football capital of Australia and thus the world. A lot of these Victorian guys can punt an AFL ball with the precision that guys back home can toss a football except they can do it with either foot. Maybe let's ask Tom Brady to toss a TD with his left hand and see what happens?

Maybe he's a lefty...maybe he's a ball-kicking genius

• All the toilets have two flush options: half and full. Instead of urinals you usually get these giant communal "troughs" that don't offer much in terms of splash protection.
• It's taken me a month, but I finally attended church for the first time since I landed on Aussie soil. The church is called City on a Hill and the morning service that I went to is actually held in a movie theater on the top floor of a shopping mall. Comfy. 
• I might be trying to get onto the second team for Queen's rowing. So far my technique on the ergo leaves much to be desired. 

Lots of things have happened since I last posted, so I'll just do some random and patchy summarizing. 

Classes (referred to as "subjects" here):

So far there have been two weeks of classes, enough time for me to attend all my various lectures and tutorials and also have a highly stressful scheduling crisis! Basically, I was mistakenly allowed into a master's seminar on Policy Design and then pulled out of it forcibly with only two days to find a suitable replacement. Awesomely, these two days also coincided with a turnover in my academic adviser, so I lost the first day because she was in training and couldn't talk to me. The second day I was sent on a wild goose chase to obtain permission for the master's seminar at the School of Social and Political Sciences but was flatly turned away by a very un-charming woman who proceeded to explain to me in repetitive detail that I was only an undergraduate and post-graduates had "earned the right" to not have to take classes with me. I'm twisting her words but only a little bit and only because she was mean to me. 

What's that? You don't have a Bachelor's yet? 

On the whole, I'm really enjoying my lectures. My lecturers are really engaging and polished and they present the information in ways that are organized, well-paced, and interesting. I really liked the master's seminar in policy design and am kicking myself for not earning the right to be in the class ("Geoffrey, that subject is a compulsory class for students in the masters of public policy. Are you in the master of public policy program? Well there you go. Geoffrey, all those students have earned their bachelor's degrees and usually with honors. Do you have your bachelor's degree yet?). 

Memorable moment from Policy Design:

Lecturer: "Were you going to ask a question?"

Masters Student in Public Policy: "No I was just inhaling."

Formal Dinner:

Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the men and women of Queen's College attend a formal dinner in our dining hall. This means we don't wear flip flops and we do wear $90 academic gowns. At least until the Master has said the Latin grace. No dinner was more formal than last Wednesday's Commencement Dinner. This is the meal that kicks off the year officially for some reason and a bunch of posh Wyverns are invited and scholarships are also handed out to first-years who earned them. It's altogether a somewhat arduous process that is made easier by the fact that we all have "coffee parties" beforehand and we have free wine during. Our table's drinking game was to drink when the Master said the word "scholarship." 80 scholarships later, we were feeling ok about ourselves. 

Fight Club

I didn't really attend a fight club but rather a drinking ritual at Queen's that reminded me a lot of fight club. The game is called "Matchbox" and there are three rules to matchbox:

1. You can only play Matchbox after you've spent the day playing cricket.
2. You can never tell any of the girls or other male Queeners who haven't been to Matchbox about the rules of Matchbox
3. You can never practice Matchbox. 

There was lots of alcohol...

It was like this but with more beer

General Meeting

This is a time when everyone in the college gathers up in a room and the General Committee (the student leaders) and the Master as well as the Vice Master tell us what's going on in the life of the college and we make important decisions. It went from 8pm to 12am and was a mix of good fun and terrifyingly real and in your face boredom. 

Throughout the proceedings (what do we want to do about our coin-operated laundry system guys?) there were certain students whose job it was to liven things up by pulling people out of the audience and giving them cold showers and letting them partake in cheap boxed wine. They also had the authority to confiscate snacks and eat them in your face and make you wear swimming flippers or put your underwear on the outside of your pants...It only slightly undermined the goings-on of the General Committee...only slightly. 

At halftime there was also a keg-kill, a chili-eating contest and a few birthday boys had to scull whole pitchers of beer. 

Christian Union

This is the biggest Jesus group on campus. I actually see them everywhere and they seem to have a big presence. So far I've attended a Bible study and a large group meeting and both seemed to be somewhat promising. I'll be going to their retreat that's coming up next weekend, so I'll definitely let you know how that goes! 

Story Involving Lincoln Smith

One rainy Saturday morning, the internet was down across the College and there was nothing to do so three strapping young men set off to the mall to buy electronic goods. On the way back, the rain picked up and this was problematic since Lincoln had decided to put a chunk of his hard earned cash toward a tv for his room. Needless to say he was concerned for its well-being in the downpour. At one point he was seen running, 32" in hand, without his shirt, which he had taken off in a feeble effort to shield the box from the deluge. Turning back toward us, all he could say was, "Do I look like I've just robbed it?" Yes. Yes he did.

Story Involving wildlife

One stirring, crisp evening I was about to head off to a reunion of my Melbourne Welcome group when I turned to find my phone and lo and behold, a praying mantis was making his merry way up my wall behind my pillow. Needless to say, I was super keen. I took his picture ten or twenty times and then went on my way.

Real Casual

A bit bolder here with the flash

Later that night, I finally was able to head to bed after our first General Meeting, and just before I put my head down I remembered my friend the mantis. Where could he be? After a brief lookabout, I found him happily perched atop my giant red bulletin board. "Aww how cute," I thought to myself, and took his picture ten or twenty more times. "He can be my little buddy" I mused to myself as I went to bed. HOW NAIVE I WAS. 

No flash

         
FLASH!

And no flash again just because

As I gently slipped off to sleep, crossing my fingers for dreams of lollipops and balloons and scratch-and-sniff stickers, I felt something gently plop atop my head. 

MANTIS ATTACK! 

Yes, he jumped on my head as I was trying to sleep for some reason. I also threw him out a second story window, so I think our friendship might be over...

Conclusions

It's been a fun few weeks here in Melbourne, and I'm definitely hitting more of the routine that I've been seeking. Hopefully now my timetable is all settled, and I'll be able to start establishing a nice rhythm. 

Thanks for reading! I'll try to get something more like a weekly or twice-weekly update going.

Cheers!
Geoff

Orientation Week: It's good to be Queen

Hey Folks!

So sorry that it's been so long since the last post! I've just completed O Week for Queen's College, which is the residential college that I'm lucky enough to be staying at for the duration of my experience here in Melbourne.

It was definitely one of the more hilarious and interesting weeks of my life, and I'll do my best to capture some of the magic here in a few paragraphs. Our whole week, from 7am to 11pm every day, was planned and laid out by a fabulous group of third year students that we affectionately were commanded to refer to as OWLs (O Week Leaders). These guys were amazingly dedicated, enthusiastic, helpful, caring and so much fun! Their jobs were to make the transition to college life and university life (there's a big difference: college is where we live and university is where we study, either at University of Melbourne or Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) as easy as possible, to indoctrinate us to the Queen's way of life, and to make us feel at home with each other and with our new surroundings.

It's so hard to try and put down in words how wonderful life is when 10 ridiculously uniformed young men and women lead by example in courtesy, consideration, careless-fun-mongering, and community. Throughout the week, these guys were clad in yellow shorty shorts with high socks and brown and yellow v-neck sweater vest kinda deals, they were there to take care of our concerns and answer our questions, they were up on stage shaking booty like they just didn't care, and they were there to encourage us to throw away our insecurities and embrace our new lives as part of an impressively tight-knit family.

We held hands and fed each other fish and chips. We woke up at 7am and danced ourselves awake to the same song (our song: Two Door Cinema Club's Undercover Martyn) every day. We ran through the city of Melbourne dressed in clothing of the opposite gender. We learned chants and traditions that belong to Queen's and made us belong to Queen's. And all along the way, these men and women, our wonderful OWLs, were there to encourage, goad and torment us in a perfect balance of "Shut up the fuck up, Freshers!" and "You are the Queen's Freshers. You are all amazing people."

If I say that Queen's College is similar to what we call Greek Life in the United States you might get a picture heavily laden with negative connotations. Maybe you think of a sense of undeserved entitlement and douche-baggery or superficiality and hedonism. Maybe you think of hazing, peer-pressure and loss of individual and critical thought. I'm not trying to say that all frats and sororities are like this but rather that this is how one might characterize the worst of what those communities might become. I've never been in a frat or a sorority, so I really have no right to comment.

When I say that Queen's College is like Greek Life I mean that when you live at Queen's your life and your identity really becomes pretty engulfed by being a Queener, for better or for worse! You do sacrifice some individuality, but you also gain a whole network of support and community that is pretty rare to find in this world. There is a lot of drinking and a lot of hooking up but there are also aspects that are very cool as well!

Examples:

1. Queeners fill up tables. When we go to the dining hall, we make sure every seat at every table is full before we start new tables. This means that you can pretty much toss out your plans to sit with your little clique! You're meeting someone new until you know everyone.
2. Queeners acknowledge other Queeners. If you see a Queener if that boy a shout!
3. Queeners don't boo. 
4. Queeners don't let other Queeners sit alone or leave the bar alone. 
5. There are no phones allowed in the dining hall. Can't be disrespecting your dinner buddies like that!

Other rules are more reminiscent of hazing, but, all in all, nothing tugged too intensely at my rugged sense of individuality and my need to stand off to the side by myself and stare mysteriously into the abyss.

                                                                    Queen's College

Anyway, these oddly dressed fun-psychos were our older brothas and sistas for the week, and they put us through seven days of serious orienting. A lot of it was ridiculous. A lot of it was fun. A lot of it was purely for their entertainment at our expense.

It's rare that random strangers earn such authority, admiration and respect in such short time, but I think what helped this process along is what makes it so similar to what we have at Cornell in Outdoor Odyssey and why it would never ever work for something like Cornell's O Week (sorry Michael). The first reason is that everybody who is here at Queen's wants desperately to be a part of the community here, to fit in, and to make friends. They signed up for this. This means that if an OWL tells you to get up at 7am, dress like a girl, and run a few k's through the city of Melbourne yelling ridiculous chants and a few more k's through the university where all your friends and peers can see you, you do it!

The second reason that these OWLs were so effective is that they treated us like adults with respect and peer-itude (if there's a word for this I don't want to hear it). We talked openly about everything from sex to drinking to hookups to drinking and also sex. The fact that they showed us great respect and caring yet held us on leashes of a certain length brings me back to what I learned at the Food Project about the two keys to effective parenting: establishing firm boundaries and showing that you deeply care. They did this well, and put together a fantastically memorable week! I can't thank them enough!

ONWARD TO THE SUMMARIZING! 


Quotable Quote of Just Now: "I've figured out that I don't need to work out anymore; I'll just buy smaller and smaller shirts." --Lincoln Smith.

O Week 


Few things to keep in mind: 

• If we forgot our nametags, our names were written on our foreheads in Sharpie marker
• If the OWLs called out, "Is everybody happy?" Our response in unison was "You bet your ass we are!"
• If an OWL used the siren sound on the megaphone, we had to do squats in honor of whatever song this is:

• If we had a "coffee party" we drank beer and chilled in an OWL's room while they checked in to see how we were doing
• If we crossed a street we had to shout "Pascoe!" over and over again in honor of I think a Melbourne Uni professor named Pascoe who solved an impossible riddle, ran out into the street yelling his own name and was promptly hit by a bus. 
• If an OWL asked "What do we think of _____?" we all answered "He/she's alright!" 

Yup, power corrupts. 

Day 1: On day 1 we moved in and all the moms and dads stuck around until lunch was over. After that we were all gathered into what's known as the Junior Common Room, where we listened to a speech by the master of the college. As soon as that was up, the reins were quickly seized by our O Week Leaders. Doors were shut dramatically and that scary and intimidating operatic song they use in movies that I don't know the name of played for about 15 seconds as the OWLs deftly lined the walls, effectively sealing the exits.

What followed were some pretty dramatic and polished speeches delivered with just the right amount of theatrical panache to make it not too cheesy. Speech one was about how when the OWLs were freshers at Queen's, their OWLs made them sit in a room in silence for 40 minutes to scare them. They even planted an ex-Queener (known as a Wyvern) in the crowd and had his phone go off during the period of silence so they could take out a fake phone and smash it in front of everyone just to show how serious they were. The point of the speech was that this generation of OWLs believed in doing things differently and showing us a respect they wanted to be returned.

Speech two was about what it truly means to be a fresher, which I thought was awesome. The point of it all was that who we were before now doesn't really matter that much. We need to concentrate on who we are in the present time and place and who we are becoming. You can't live off your past accomplishments and actions (for most, high school; for me Cornell). We're all new here, we're all great and amazing people, and we all need to start fresh.

The last speech was about not having mom and dad to pick up after your messes anymore and being an adult by taking control of your behavior and responsibility for your actions. Good stuff too; I just can't remember much from it.

Next up we had a big activity that made us race around the college in groups holding hands. Kind of like the Amazing Race, where a group gets a clue and has to figure out where to go. It was a cool way to pack in a tour of the place without actually getting a tour. After that was a chapel service in the school's beautiful little chapel where we listened to a sermonette about Star Wars and Darth Vader by the college chaplain, heard some scripture, and sang some hymns. Funny to hear our OWLs introductions which were massively laced with sexual innuendo (He's a man of fine taste and all the ladies say he tastes fine! He's very neat but, girls, he doesn't always like it clean!) and then hear the very same people read to us from the book of Revelation. Queen's does have it's roots in the Methodist Church somehow though.

The day closed off with a "Paint Party" where we dressed in white and threw tie dye at each other, drank beer and danced. When that was done, I plugged into a quintessential college moment of busting some shots of rum and singing along to my friend's guitar along with fifteen or so other freshers. Who knew Tenacious D's "Tribute" was so popular in Melbourne?

Day Two


The second day we spent at the beach, which took about an hour and a half to bus out to. On the way, the OWLs had all the girls board the buses first and sit in the window seats. The gentlemen then sat in the aisle seats and we proceeded to "speed date" in increments of a few minutes each round for the entire ride there. Exhausting.

When the buses stopped we had to hold hands with whoever we were sitting with and eat feed them lunch which was fish and chips. Pretty hilarious. Then we broke up into little groups and did some team-building and trust games which were actually pretty fun. After that was up we had some free time where I learned a game called "kick-up" which is basically an excuse for Australian men to throw a ball at each other.

That night we all ate cheese and crackers in the quad and took turns getting tours of the college tower. Pretty chilled out.

Day Three


Day three we had to wake up early once again and grab someone's hand. We held this person's hand for the duration of our first activity which is known as the College Run. Just as schools have a selection of frats and sororities, Queen's is not the only Res College that has a spot on the strip of road across from the Uni known as College Crescent. There's St. Hilda's, Ormond, Trinity, Whitely, University College, St. Mary's, Janet Clarke and maybe more. The College Run was an opportunity for the OWLs to give us a tour of our neighboring colleges and let us know what they really thought about them. Basically they made us shout things at buildings full of sleeping people. Also we passed a pub that Queeners like a lot so we all bowed down to it as if we thought it were a Golden Calf that just broke us out of Egypt.

Some of the things were pretty funny. Trinity is supposed to be the college with all the rich, privileged kids that went to boarding school (yeah, what are we then?), so we stood outside their gates and yelled, "Thanks for the Range Rover, daddy!" Pretty funny. Ormond College had a sex scandal a few years ago that forced their Master to step down, so when we passed their gates we took these saucepans that we brought along for the entire run and covered our sphincters yelling, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Also funny.

                                                                   Thanks, Daddy

The rest of they day we had to do our Uni Orientation stuff. I went to my academic advisor dude who enabled me to enroll in classes which was sweet. We also had Gender Talks which I thought were smashingly well done. The genders split up and OWLs gave briefings on sexual health and hygiene and stuff and even outlined practices of common courtesy and respect. "Good blokes prevail" was a common theme. Don't spread gossip about the girl you just hooked up with etc. There was also a hilarious presentation on the Seven Wonders of Queen's, which is seven places that we're challenged to have sex at including: laundry room, Master's doorstep, the chapel, the tower, the elevator, the library and the Master's chair (a $30,000 throne that sits in the dining hall). Another hilarious presentation was about a term that I think is unique to Queen's called "laying Gary" which basically equates to picking up girls. There are all kinds of techniques and we learned a good deal of them. Can't remember most but here are the ones that I do remember:

• Classic Gary: You're a nice guy. You complement her on her shoes and hold the door open for her
• Reverse Gary: You get her to do the work for you. Maybe mention that you played a game of footy today, and when she presses you on how you did let on that you kicked 400 goals or something. She won't be able to keep her hands off you apparently
• Investment Gary: Perhaps the girl isn't where you'd like her to be just yet but you see a lot of potential. What you do is sort of like investing your money. You put in your effort to reap a reward later. 
• Inception Gary: You enter her dream state. You can also apply different Garys in concert with inception Gary. 

That's all I remember. Quite humorous. Good fun. 

That night we had a pub crawl and then went bowling. The pub crawl, down on the schedule as a "culture tour," was actually really scary because the OWLs introduced a few drinking games that were downright terrifying. The first was if an OWL dropped a twenty cent coin in your glass you had to "scull" (we don't say chug) your whole beer. And the nature of people just dictates that they'd only do this to you if you had a full pint. Not fun. The other game involved a clothespin. For some odd reason, we were all forced to wear garbage bag poncho type outfits and shower caps on the pub crawl. The game was that if someone put a clothespin on your bag and you didn't find it in ten seconds you had to scull your beer. Also. Not. Fun.

The worst thing was that everybody is in on it and they all countdown from ten to someone who doesn't have the closepin on them. This means that they guy who's pinned doesn't even know he needs to start looking until everybody turns around and laughs in his face. And he loses. 

Bowling was fun. Lots of Skrillex going on.

Day Four


The day during Day Four was pretty tame as well. The majority was spent preparing for what is known as the Fresher Exam. Basically, all week, the OWLs psyched us up to study these little handbooks they gave us about Queen's history and rules and resources and whatnot. After every little speech that we got from IT or from facilities management we were told that everything we just heard was examinable. Then they got us all to believe that this test determined our housing preference for the next few years. If we did well, we would get massive rooms.

As you can probably guess, this too was a brilliantly orchestrated hoax. They even told us one hour beforehand that the Master or someone had had a stroke of sympathy and would allow us an 8x11 cheat sheet. We all had to be in our academic robes and our little O week shirts and all the OWLs were super serious. The exam was in two parts. The first part was legitimately about things we studied (I should say "they" because I spent about -5 seconds studying for the exam), and it was reasonably difficult. The second half of the exam was hilarious. Not only were the questions completely ridiculous ("who is the hottest O week leader and why?" "which two O week leaders are getting it on and why?"), throughout the exam, the OWLs never broke character, but instead of making us keep our heads down and shut up they went around trying to make people do the most distracting things possible. A few people had to write on the underside of the table only. One guy had to sing the Star Spangled Banner then read aloud from an erotic novel. The guy next to me had to make orgasm sounds and then pretend to be laying an egg. All in all, a very ridiculous experience.

Probably the coolest part was when the president of the college introduced us to a few seniors (anyone who's not a fresher is a senior) by pulling back the curtain on the giant glass wall on the dining room's east side to reveal a hundred or so eager young men and women cheering and slapping on the glass.

Afterward we ate dinner with the seniors in nearby restaurants and had a party on the Queen's campus, which are called "turns" in Queen's language. The theme of this turn was fluorescent stuff which they abbreviate as "fluoro." The "turn room" at Queen's has a blacklight so it was pretty cool. Drinks were cheap, but it was still kinda scary because seniors were taking guys aside to introduce them to the beer "octobong" and making guys scull and shotgun beers. Not too good.

Turns are cool though because at the end of each turn every class's song is played and everyone in that class gets on stage and goes nuts. Apparently there're also songs in Australian college culture where you take off your bra if you're a girl and drop your pants if you're a dude. Also if you hear Ice Cream you take your shirt off no matter who you are.

Day Five


Day five was the last day we had with our OWLs. In the morning we we were once again awoken at 7am but this time we were told we had to show up in the quad wearing clothing borrowed from members of the opposite gender. After loading up on a tram and eating some pancakes by the Yarra River (again holding hands for some reason) we then proceeded to run around the city and the university like a bunch of weirdos. Pretty entertaining. Running in a tight floral skirt is hard work. The afternoon was occupied by learning the Fresher Dance. Basically a senior Queener choreographs a dance every year that the freshers learn the chorus of. Then during the year a team of freshers is assembled through auditions and they learn the whole song and compete against all the other colleges in a dance off. As in most cases, Queen's has a strong reputation to upkeep in the Fresher Dance-off.

The night of day five was also known as Transition Night: the night when our OWLs transitioned from OWLs to our friends and peers. This of course means that we went to the pub together and the OWLs finally drank with us and, yes, hooked up with us in some cases.

Camp Rumbug: 


After five day of alcohol, hooking up, waking up at 7am, and running ourselves ragged, we were shipped off to a camp in the Victorian wilderness known as Camp Rumbug for the weekend. Yes, the walls were plastered with pictures of twelve-year-olds. Yes, the canoes had a weight capacity of like 160 kilos. Yes, we slept in bunk beds. Yes, there was a talent show.

Basically this was a time for the OWLs to rest up at Queen's while the show was run by the masters and graduate students that are our mentors. The whole weekend was dry and we did nothing more exciting than sitting around a pool, watching movies, and eat a lotttt of candy. The afternoons were full of possibilities for "activities" (we watched Step Brothers) like walking up and down the ridiculously steep hill that the camp was perched on or archery, canoeing etc. There was a funny game involving super heroes which could be cool for youth organizations that I'll definitely keep in my back pocket. Watching She's the Man made me miss Amy, who loves that movie, and watching The Departed made me miss Boston. There were also some useful things like an academic panel that addressed everybody's concerns about Uni and a few talks on physical and mental health. Good things for first year students. Tough things for third-year students to hear again.


That brings us up to today! It's been really fun running around like an invincible cockroach this past week but I'm really excited to get to classes, which start tomorrow morning, and establish a routine.

This is what my schedule looks like:

I'm taking:

• GEOG20010 China in Transition
• UNIB30002 Global Health, Security and Sustainability
• PPMN40001 Policy Design
• GEOG300101 Sustainable Development

Also, look what I found when I logged on to Melbourne Uni's "Learning Management Systems"

Yup. It's some kind of demon-spawn of Cornell's Blackboard system. Not the slice of home that I would hope to find here.

Anyway, sorry that this post was so gargantuan and that these are coming in so infrequently! I'll do my best to get you the info faster and with greater entertainment value! 

Thanks for reading and definitely let me know how you've been! 

Peace,

Geoff