Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Nobody actually says g'day

Life here at Murdoch University is truly incredible. I live in a brand new apartment flat in my own room with four other flatmates: Maisey from Manhattan, Katie from Minnesota, Andrew from Singapore, and Liza (I think) from Zambia. Cool lot of people, though I am disappointed that I'm not with any Australians. Australians are awesome people. They are the most laid back people I have ever known. Very very friendly to strangers and Americans. And the accent is hilarious to listen to. I will grin like an idiot in any situation where I'm surrounded by Aussies.

It's going to be really hard to catch up to where I am right now with details, but I'll do my best. This is going to be sort of rapid fire so strap yourselves in plz. Alright: I've been in a flurry of orientation and social activities. A lot of the time I'm with people from my CIEE study abroad program, and other times I'm with a general group of international students. There's another program here from Wisconsin - roommate Katie is in it - and that's mostly a bunch of girls, but we usually end up at the same places. Since there aren't many Australians in the student village now - they move in when classes start next week - it's mostly Americans so far. Which kind of sucks, but hopefully I'll be surrounded by Aussies in the future. I've been going to a lot of clubs and bars for some casual, legal, social interaction (I'm being safe, mom) with these groups of people. During the day when we aren't involved in a bunch of orientation stuff, we go to beaches and go shopping and stuff. I recently found out that I suck at grocery shopping. So I'm going to be eating some pretty interesting meals.

On to some more interesting things! So, I sort of became a small celebrity among the international students recently, as a result of some skills that I gained during sculpture 100 at Penn State. All the international students were at a free dinner doing some silly orientation activities wherein we were all split into small groups doing contest things. One of the contests was to create an aluminum foil sculpture of something inherently "Australian" and present it to the rest of the students. Since we were the kangaroo group, we (I) decided to make a kangaroo family. However, I wasn't paying attention to the other girl doing the sculpting, and she made a cockatoo. What the hell. So, to redeem the situation, I finished the kangaroos and put them on top of the large bird. In presenting this to the rest of the international students, I gave a profoundly poetic explanation (harking back to sculpture 100, where I would give epic bullshit explanations of stupid modern art sculpture things with a straight face) about how the cockatoo represents "the soaring aspirations of our academic dreams" and the kangaroo family represents "the idea that despite we come from background all over the world... (theatrical sigh) we really are one family." This received thunderous applause and we won the contest. So that was really fun. I also danced like a fool (read: incredibly well) last night so my reputation is growing.

That's all for now! I'll try to think of cool things to put here that are more about Australia and not my ego, but I've been in a crazy whirlwind of activity and I haven't even had time to nap!

Also, if anyone has some shopping tips I would love them forever.

This weekend we're going to Rottnest Island, where I will go biking, sunning, and I will meet some small creatures called quokkas. Oh, and as per the title, nobody in Australia says "g'day." "No worries" is used in like every sentence though. So, that's it for now. Hopefully that's a sufficient post. I think I wrote a lot.

Australia is awesome! I do miss everyone though, so try to keep in touch. <3
-Kevin

4 comments:

  1. I suck too, but have found that frozen chicken cutlets can be very versatile. Defrost them and grill them, simmer them in a pan (I use teryaki), shake and bake 'em, etc.

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  2. You are so silly kevin. I am very proud of your sculpture bullshitting, and very jealous of your sun. It might be harder than you think to make friends with the Aussies... think back to Penn State ... do you try to befriend study abroad students? BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN YOU WONT MEET SOME HOT AUSSIES. Probably blonde with golden skin. Just like you Kevin, just like you.

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  3. "I will grin like an idiot in any situation where I'm surrounded by Aussies"

    ^^getting a pretty solid mental image of this, if it's anything like your idiotic normal face (brun!). PS, i joined the ping pong club at uconn and am better than you now. UH HUH

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  4. sigh, that should say "burn" obv. i lose

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