Tipping, Cartels, and Extreme Poetry

Life on the Melbourne front is continuing on rapidly. I feel like I've been here forever and am always quite surprised at how short of a time I have actually been here for. I take that as a sign that I have settled in nicely. Speaking of niceties, our heating mysteriously started working shortly after it stopped, and has actually been working better than it did before it broke.

I seem to be making progress on the academic front. I'm not sure in what direction, but there's definitely movement. These things are not straightforward and linear, so I choose to believe I am progressing in some sort of potentially meaningful way. I've started my Research Assistant job and that's going along at a steady 7 hours/week, as per my scholarship requirements. My RA job keeps things interesting and helps me distract myself from the perils of my own academic scholarship (a good thing, to be sure).

I want to share some of the more humorous happenings of my academic surroundings, particularly, my involvement in the ARCSHS footy tipping pool. My colleague Geoff and I got a late start into the season, and neither of us knowing anything about the AFL, quickly found ourselves floundering at the bottom of the tipping ladder. Well, Geoff, who is notoriously proactive, suggested we get together with a third, also floundering, party, Henry, and workshop our tips in an effort to improve our standing.

This tactic has been working quite well for us, though we were quickly uncovered by the Head Girl and our newly formed cartel duely reported to the rest of the centre. Not that our tactics have been stopped, they continue quite fruitfully. The cartel cannot be stopped.

A proud tradition of ARCSHS footy tipping is submitting your tips in poetry form. I do not think that my colleagues were aware of my notorious submitting-answers-in-mad-poetry skillz, but I am well seasoned in aggressive statistical poetry writing. Let me share with you the fruits of my poetry and cartel labours, as per round 8.

The new cartel of Henry, Joni and Geoff are really working on this together and have begun their ascent up the ladder with two 7s and an 8, that’s looking like a system that works and they even did some poetry writing. Joni gets top billing for tips in verse:

Perhaps I should be reading and writing
Instead of tipping on sweaty men fighting

But as a part of my acculturation
I am learning the sport of this great nation

I may not be a statistician
But I work on my tips in the hope fruition

Conclusions on these were not easily made
Predicting the future is not why I’m paid

Collingwood and Hawthorn will win their match
While Richmond and Brisbane go down the hatch

Kangaroos and Adelaide surely win the game
While Essendon and Fremantle feel the shame

Now, having gotten my tips out of the way
Finally I can get on with my day!

And so it continues...

I am not so happy to report that after about 2 weeks of having functional indoor heating, our heating has once again stopped working. We will be without heat for at least another week and are negotiating (or trying to) with our landlord for a reduction in rent so we can purchase firewood. And things were going so well.

The bugs continue to take residence in our home. I believe I've now seen 3 separate species of cochroaches, and several scary looking spiders. I've also seen a large centipede and a bug that can only be described as what I imagine the devil would look like if the devil was a smallish insect. Not that this bug was particularly devilish in behaviour. It was too high up for me to do anything about and then it was gone.

Joining the bugs are some furry friends. Mice, possums, rats, who knows. I'm not going to be the one to open the cupboard while I can hear them violently trying to chew through the tupperware container the dog food is in.

Aside from the continuing adventure that is my housing situation, things have been going pretty smoothly. I've been making progress with this whole PhD thing and am not, at this moment, feeling particularly lost. I may even know what I'm doing. Maybe.

The weather here hasn't been too bad, although now that our heating is gone unless it's over 20 I'm probably going to bitch about it. We're getting a bit of rain, which is good considering the water crisis. I got laughed at today because I am wearing a warm sweater, a scarf, and a wool hat. Our office tends to get chilly, especially since I'm sitting right by a window, and I'm fighting off a cold so I feel totally justified dressing like it's -10 instead of +16.

I have officially gotten my work visa and will be starting my 7 hour a week job as a Research Assistant to Dr. Gary Dowsett (who is largely responsible for my being here, so it seems fitting that I should be working for him) next week. I am looking forward to having the extra money and actually being able to get ahead a bit.

Mostly it's business as usually for me right now. I don't have anything special or exciting happening at the moment, though, like most days, I am planning vacations. I'm hoping to go to Tasmania in the summer (whenever it gets too hot in Melbourne) for like a week, and I am planning a trip to India with my friends Laura and Jeff for next year. I promise nothing, but I may also be planning a trip home. You will all have to wait until, oh, October, to find out more about that! Mwahahahaha!

ALSO ***I have posted my Melbourne pictures on Flickr now*** so if you click on the "Travel Pictures" hyperlink on the side of the page it will take you to my pictures. There's an album called "Melbourne" and that's got all my Melbourne pictures in it. I will keep updating that as me and my camera keep exploring the city.

Learning Australian

Today marks my 2 month anniversary as a Melbournite, and I have to say, I'm feeling right at home. People are always asking me how I'm settling in and adjusting and I feel like there are no seams in my transition from my life in Canada to my life here. Of course, I didn't feel this way at first. But on the whole it has been a very smooth transition. This is in no small part because I was very much ready to take on this challenge and prepared myself well for it. I came armed with technology that makes it quite easy to stay in touch with friends and family back home, and I came with a great deal of enthusiasm to get back into academia, and I had very few expectations about what life would be like down under.

It turns out, life down under isn't so different from life in Canada. There are a lot of odd similarities that make me feel much more at home here than I probably would in any other country. To be quite honest, I could see myself staying on here permanently (or as permanently as I could stay on anywhere). I feel very much at home.

I'm also completely in love with living in Melbourne. I realized the other week that this is actually the largest city that I have ever lived in, which threw me because I think of myself very much as an urban girl. Spatially, Melbourne is very much like Calgary. It sprawls and sprawls and sprawls. But there's a much larger population here than in Calgary, and it's a huge cultural centre (versus Calgary being a huge corporate centre, which, eww).

There is a tone of diversity in Melbourne, and never a dull moment (as my housemate Kirsty said, there's a new festival on every week). One of the things I love most about being here is things like that a sizable chunk of the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance Australia are from Melbourne, and I can vote for which one I want to win. I can see why Melbourne is considered one of the most livable cities in the world.

So I'm setting down roots here. It's a slow process, since I'm a PhD student and that is an isolating and intensive experience, and means that I am poor. It's harder to go out and meet people when you're head is being sucked into the academic vortex and the money being doled out to you isn't enough to support brain cell killing activities. I don't know what the bar scene is like in Melbourne because I can't afford to participate in it (well, I can it just means that I can only drink beer since a cheap cocktail goes for about $12). The cafe culture here, now that's something I can tell you about! Melbourne is a coffee city, actually, it's more of a coffee mecca. (If I ever get a chance to bring a Melbournite to Canada I am going to have to take them to Tim Hortons just to show them how lucky they are.)

Back to what I was saying, meeting new people isn't easy when you're a PhD student period, let alone a PhD student in a new and far away country. Fortunately, the people in my department are incredible. And I have an amazing house mate. We get along great, and she's a huge support for me. I get to practice my Australian on her!

I've learned to use "thongs" and "budgie smugglers" conversationally, and the other night at dinner I said tom-AH-to. I think it's going to take a lot longer to get "G'day mate" in there, but I'm starting to get the hang of "how ya going?" and "ta". I've learned that it's just "koala" and I'm down with "no worries," kinda. Then there's "brekkie," "trackie dacks," and "plats". My vocabulary is growing....but I still can't be asked to make a proper cup of tea.

Struggles, Acceptance, and Kangaroos

AHHHHH! I am settling back in at my desk after a trip to the Queen Victoria Market (conveniently located literally across the street from my campus) and am enjoying my lunch (freash, organic pizza, strawberries for dessert). It is a serious luxury to have the market so close. I now have a bag full of freash fruit and veggies, cheese, and a loaf of sour dough bread.

The market is huge and there's always something new to discover, and not just because the vendors aren't consistently the same. I am seriously looking forward to having some visitors to take on a gastronomical and shopping tour! *hint*hint*

I have been living in my place for a bit over a month now, and yes the bug problem continues. We've recently had another moth hatching and we can't figure out where they've hatched from. The battle continues. Another continuing battle: getting our landlord to fix the heat! We have no heat, and it's been this way for about a year. My housemate tolerated it last winter, but after having the rent increased and nothing repaired, we're preparing ourselves for war. Or, more accurately, renters court. Hopefully it won't come to that, or, if it does hopefully we'll get some serious action this time.

I am pleased to report that I have, finally, won over the affections of my housemate's dog, Bella. It was a bit of a slow process since Bella isn't a very affectionate dog, but seeing as she's replacing 4 dogs for me I wasn't about to let her off easy! It didn't take her long to realize that I'll play with her when she's hyper. Soon after she would count me (she goes around the house and counts how many people are in it, and I became worth counting). But what really won her over was when I sat beside her while she faked being tortured in her harness on a car ride. The next day she was all cuddles with me, letting me hold her and coming over to disrupt my studying. When I came home last night she even got excited to see me!

Over the weekend I went up to the country with Kirsty (my housemate) and we did some shopping. That was a really nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Afterwards we went to her partner's parent's place, which is a chicken farm. I got to see all sorts of chickens and ducks and geese running around, and some really cute and fuzzy baby ducks...

Then, as we were leaving to go home, I spotted a bunch of kangaroos munching away on the hillside. I got out of the car and took a picture, and discovered the remains of what may have been a marsupial. I decided not to take the still together spinal column home with me, tempting though it was.

As far as my actualy uni studying stuff goes...well...I'm actively avoiding it by writing in my blog. It's a challenging process and I don't really know which way is up at the moment, but I'm assured that this is how I am supposed to feel and that I will probably feel this way most of the time. So I guess I'm right on track!

Harbinger of the Apocalypse?

As anyone who has ever stepped out into the great outdoors (and I mean that in the most liberal way possible) with me will know, I don’t do bugs. It’s like the rational part of my brain just completely shuts off and the most harmless of insects send me running for cover. It’s not all about fear, and it’s not all insects that have this affect on me. I’m fine with spiders, provided they aren’t actually on me. The way I figure it, it’s basically bugs that fly and bugs that are crawling on me that cause these melt downs.

Since I’ve moved into my current place, I frequently find myself feeling like I’m camping. For one, we currently have no functional heating other than fire. This hasn’t been an issue, especially since I bought a quilt. But this Indian summer should be coming to an end and we’ll be moving into proper autumn weather, and then, winter (and I thought I was escaping it).

The other thing that makes it feel like camping is that we don’t have screen doors, except for on the front door. Our back doors are screenless, as are the doors to the little side area that doesn’t really serve any function other than a toilet facility for the dog. Since it’s mostly been ridiculously hot since I’ve moved in, we tend to keep at least the front and the back doors open to get a cross breeze through the house. This has resulted in some of the outdoors violating my indoor sanctity.

The first violator that made me, literally, hide under a blanket was a fly that sounded like it was the size of my fist. It’s actually about half the size of my thumb. This fly has a habit of buzzing into the house, taking a look around, and flying away. It started to do this on such a regular basis that I decided to name the fly “Dave”. Dave still comes by to visit, and sometimes he brings friends. We had another fly that decided to move into our house during the heat wave (it was between 37 and 40 degrees pretty much every day, we didn’t even have the energy to shoe the fly away, let alone do the dishes). So we named her Daisy, and when the heat wave ended, so did my patience with her. She’s either in hiding or has moved out, after escaping many close calls with death.

The barrage of mosquitoes seems to have ended. I guess they were satisfied after eating the entire left side of me. But now we have an epidemic of cupboard moths. We can’t find them in anything in the cupboards, but yet, every time we open one, they come flying out. Over the Easter break I discovered what may have been the source of all this. We have a huge, dead moth lying by the fireplace. Possibly it met its end with a spider and has now fallen out of a hidden web, I don’t really know. All I know is that this thing has a huge body and I don’t care if we’ve proved it’s really dead, I’m not touching it. For all I know it’s a zombie moth just waiting for me to go pick it up to throw it out so that it can eat me alive.

But this is just the beginning! When I went to change the garbage in the kitchen I found, at the bottom of the bin, what first appeared to be mouse droppings. Upon closer inspection it was clear they were some sort of eggs, moth eggs we suspect. Unborn bugs I can deal with. I took that garbage can outside and disposed of all the eggs, making sure to give the bin a good wipe down before bringing it back into the house.

A few days later we started to find these little white crawly things making their way through the house. On the counter top, on the cupboards… I’m pretty sure these little dudes are what come out of the eggs – proto-moths, moth caterpillars (Kirsty is having caterpillar issues in the garden right now too). This has been a less than pleasant experience. But on Sunday I saw something truly horrific.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating my lunch, when I noticed the shed skin of one of the proto-moths. Completely disgusted, I left the table to get something to clean the bug shed up with. That’s when I heard it. A rattling sound not unsimilar to that of a rattlesnake. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this noise; I had heard it coming from, so I thought, the garden a few times over the weekend. But this time I saw it!

Sitting on the blinds of one of the back doors was one of the biggest bugs I have ever seen! I don’t know what it was, but it was like a cross between a beetle and a dragonfly. Like most days, I was home alone and now I was having a panic attack. This thing had wings and could decide to fly right at me at any second. It was obvious, since it was trying to figure its way through the glass, that it wanted to go back outside. We have French doors, and the particular door this bug was on was the closed and locked door. I went into the bathroom and got the mop, hoping that I could use the handle to unlock the door from a safe distance. No such luck. I was going to have to go into enemy territory if I wanted to get this bug out of the house.

Mop in hand, brain knowing the mop wouldn’t do anything except potentially knock over and break something, or worse, anger this mystery bug that I can only assume possessed lethal capabilities, I approached the door. Adrenaline rushing through my blood, I had that door unlocked and swung open in a fraction of a second, and just as quick I found myself running back to the safety of the other side of the kitchen, mop outstretched in front of me in case the bug got any funny ideas. The bug, for its part, remained clueless to my anxiety and shortly after I got the door opened, figured out how to get out. It flew straight out of our yard and over to the neighbour’s yard, hopefully never to been seen again.

Kirsty swears she’s never had problems with bugs in the house before. We’ve come to an agreement that the bugs are probably a sign of the impending apocalypse, although we are in disagreement over my moving in being a trigger for these events. I am slowly recovering from the trauma of this most recent experience, wishing that my bedroom spiders, Dandy and Dot, would come back and provide me with some peace of mind that at least some of the bugs invading my space are getting eaten.

Currency Confusion and Tram Assassins

Sorry I haven't been updating about my time in Melbourne much. I've been here a month now and I'm finally settled enough that I'm able to relax and reflect on my time here. And so I present to you some stories about my early days in Australia.


Australian currency is similar to Canadian currency in the breakdown of bills, and to some extent the coins. They have $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills and they have $2 and $1 coin. But they also have 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, and 5 cents. Apparently the metal some of the coins are made from is worth more than the coin itself, so I'm thinking of doing some metal melting. They don't have 1 cents here and the stores round your purchase total off (it’s actually a really handy way of doing things, they do this in Holland too.)

But there are some funny differences between the money here and the money back home. The coin, for instance, is very different in shape and size. The bills are where I’ve had the most difficulty. When I first arrived in Australia I exchanged my Canadian cash to Australian dollars, and it worked out to about $88. So I was very confused when I was handed back a bunch of red bills. Here $5 is purple, $10 is blue, $20 is red, $50 is yellow, and $100 is green. It’s taken a bit of getting used to.

Tram Karma
In Melbourne there are 3 ways to get around the city via public transport: by train, by tram, or by bus. The tram is generally the most convenient and most used mode of transportation, especially for travelling around the Central Business District (CBD, or, downtown). I am fortunate enough to be living close to a tram stop and a train station, so I have my options for getting around. The tram line that I’m near though is my best bet because it stops just a couple of blocks from my campus.

Now, I seem to have developed a bit of bad tram karma and I don’t know exactly what brought this on (the bad bank karma I can understand). You see, whenever I’m on the tram or planning to be on the tram there’s an increased chance that something will happen in relation to the tram. In my first 3 weeks here, I have been on trams where tickets were checked more than most people probably encounter in a year. Needless to say, I’m not hopping the tram! But, that’s just the light side of my bad luck spell (and it's more bad luck for the other people on the tram, because frequently someone gets a ticket, or, escorted off the tram).

In my first week I was on a tram that hit a car. Now, the trams are the reason why I don’t think I will be driving in Melbourne any time soon, if ever. They go down the middle of the road and they have the right of way. Their presence has inspired some unique traffic rules, like, the hook turn. If you’ve ever felt nervous making a left turn at a busy intersection, multiply that by a hundred and that’s a hook turn. When a tram hits a car it is almost without question the car’s fault, as it was in the case I witnessed. The car was pretty smashed up. The tram was fine.

But even that is pretty pedestrian compared to my next story! I was on my way back to my hotel after wandering around in the city, minding my own business, listening to my music, when suddenly a bunch of people at the front of the tram started shouting “Stop the tram! Stop the tram!” and the tram came to a screeching halt. I thought “oh, maybe we hit a puppy this time” but no, we hadn’t hit anything. Now, since I didn’t actually see what happened I don’t know how this all got started, but according to the police witnesses a fight broke out between 2 men, an older one and a younger one, at the front of the tram. Apparently the fight had something to do with someone being drunk and someone sitting in priority seating, but all the possible combinations of who was who could fit with the story so I can’t get into specifics.

What I saw, shortly after the tram stopped, was the 2 men in question running up the street while the younger man attempted to punch the older man. He did manage to get some hits in before the older man got away (rumour has it he hopped in a passing cab). A couple of other guys from the tram were trying to separate/restrain the younger guy, but to little avail. Our tram, for its part, kept going after the guys had ran off. But, the younger guy seemed to have gotten it in his head that he wanted back on the tram and came chasing after it. And that’s when things got really interesting.

He ran up to the tram, which was now stopped at Separation Street (a place forever etched in my mind as having a yellow building and a waxing parlour offering a discount on brazillians) and the people at the front yelled “Don’t open the doors! Don’t open the doors!” And the dutiful tram driver did not open the doors. Well! Our young man with the fiery rage burning in his eyes was having none of that! He started screaming and cursing at the tram driver to open the doors.

He stood in front of the tram so that it couldn’t move. He came back to the middle doors, which I happened to be sitting beside, and started shaking them with all his might, still yelling and cursing at the driver to let him on the tram. We had a would-be hero on the tram who came and stood in the door way, ready to fend off the beast should he succeed in opening the doors. The angry guy then started shouting at our would-be hero, who happened to be black, to get out of his country and go back where he came from. Which was ironic because our aggressor was clearly of immigrant decent himself.

Eventually he tired of shaking the doors and this time he went over to a garbage bin and pulled out a broken umbrella, which he used to start bashing on the drivers windows. He did, in fact, succeed in smashing one of the windows. Of course, by this time the police had been called and he gained enough sense to flee the crime scene, though it didn’t take terribly long for the cops to find and arrest him. The police came, took statements from the passengers sitting up front, we all had to get off the tram so it could go to the depot for repairs (which, incidentally, is not too far from my new place). Normally having to get off a tram and onto another one would be a huge pain, but by this point there were about 8 more trams stuck behind us.

Let’s just say I’m glad to not have to take that tram route anymore. The biggest problem I seem to have with my new tram line is delays. I can handle delays.

Waegook Wanderings Part Two

As we soon found out, Samcheok is a city full of very pleasant surprises. We stayed in a “love motel” right beside the bus station and took off to find ourselves some kimbap for dinner. After wandering a bit, we found ourselves in the midst of a good sized market, still open in the evening. It mostly was selling various fruits, vegetables, and fish. I’ve never seen so many anchovies in my life!

Eventually we found a little place that had kimbap. Now, kimbap is actually made with ham, so we’ve been ordering it without ham. This place had their kimbap premade, so we had to pick the ham out (which isn’t particularly hard if you have good command of chopsticks). This gave the ladies running the shop quite a laugh, but they came over and helped us remove the ham. Between the 2 of us we had 2 rolls of kimbap and 4 red bean pastries. The total for our meal came to a whopping $3.

After dinner we decided to see what kind of a jimjilbang this Samcheok place had. And then our minds were blown. We caught a cab, and happened to get a female driver, which Laura tells me is extremely rare to see in Korea. We told her what we were looking for and she excitedly took off exclaiming that we were in for a treat! (Okay, I don’t know what exactly she was exclaiming, but from the tone of her voice I could tell she had something special in store for us.) We pulled up in front of this huge building, which we were told housed a pool and a karaoke room, along with the jimjilbang. Clearly Samcheok has more to offer than giant wooden phalluses! (And a cave, but we didn’t have time to see the cave.)

The jimjilbang was incredible. I don’t know how to describe it other than to say that it alone was worth the 7 hours on a bus. And we didn’t even check out the pool and karaoke room! We slept very well that night. So well, in fact, that we didn’t wake up until after 10am. We had to leave that same day to go back to Seoul, so our intentions had been to get an early start to the day. Instead we threw our stuff into our bags and threw on some clothes, and headed out to catch the city bus out to Penis Park.

Penis Park is exactly what you except it would be, well, it was exactly what I expected it to be. The story goes that there was a young virgin who was due to be married and she was collecting seaweed (or something) on a rock out in the sea. Her fiancé was supposed to collect her at the end of the day, but because of a storm he was unable to and she drown. After her death, the village experienced a shortage in fish. Then, one day a man was attending to “nature’s needs” (I’ll leave it to you to interpret what that means) and exposed himself to the ocean. That day, the fishing improved. And so the villagers began erecting giant wooden phalluses in order to appease the dead virgin girl’s soul.

The park is actually situated between the sea and the mountains, so the scenery is quiet beautiful in and of itself. All in all it was a very enjoyable trip and we were both sad that we didn’t have more time to discover all that Samcheok has to offer. It was now Feb. 13 and we had a tour scheduled of the DMZ for Valentine’s Day, so after we took in the penises we were back on a bus to Seoul.

The DMZ tour starts very early (like 7:30am early) and we were running a bit late. Fortunately, the start time we were given was a big earlier than the actual time the bus leaves Seoul, so we didn’t really need to run from the subway to the USO (our tour guide was actually on the subway with us and watched us run to the USO, he informed us of this after our bus got underway). The DMZ is about an hour or hour and a half’s bus ride from Seoul. On the way you drive alongside a river that is heavily watched by the South Korean army for North Korean submarines.

When we arrived at the DMZ we were inspected by an American military personnel, who then provided us with a tour. We had to wear UN visitor badges for the duration of our tour and were told when and where we were allowed to take photos. First we had a presentation on the history of the Korean war and the DMZ, and then we were taken to the boarder, where we were instructed not to point, smile, or make any attempts at communication with the North Korean military. Since it was a cold day, there was only one person outside from the North Korean army, and he was way up on their building. There were others inside the building, you could tell because he would go stand beside a blacked out window and talk to them. (You couldn’t hear him talk, he was a ways away.) We got to go into one of the UN buildings that straddles the boarder and is used for peace talks, and inside this building we were able to cross over into North Korean territory. In this room there are microphones on the table and everything is recorded, so you know whatever you say will be listened to by the North Korean military. It’s a very weird feeling.

Afterwards we were taken to a lookout point where we could see both Propaganda Village (NK) and Freedom Village (SK) off in the distance. We were taken to the bridge of no return, though we weren’t allowed to get out of the bus because they believe that the North Koreans guarding their side of the bridge don’t obey the rules on allotted weaponry within the different sectors of the DMZ. We were also shown one of the caves that the North Koreans dug underneath the DMZ. The North Koreans claim they were mining coal, though it is very clear that there is no coal to be mined in these tunnels, and that the South Koreans dug them anyways (but it’s obvious from the way it was dug that it came from the North’s side). There are several of these tunnels, and they are all intended to end at point near Seoul to facilitate a surprise attack. While this is unlikely to happen, they still haven’t found all the tunnels that have supposedly been dug.

That was quite an interesting experience, and if you’re ever in South Korea the DMZ tour is not to be missed. I’d like to take it from the North Korean side one day, but as it stands right now it costs about $10,000 to go on the government controlled tour of North Korea.

Well, that about concludes my trip to Korea. My last day was just spent relaxing and doing a bit of shopping and then Laura and I parted ways at the bus station and I headed on to Singapore (for about 2 hours) and Melbourne, where I am currently getting myself set up and established. There will be much, much more to come on that!