I Reckon I'm Keen on Meat Pies :-)

So I have to update you on the last week and a half! Sorry I haven't already. Here are the highlights: going to showing of films that won a short film festival in Melbourne this year, making friends at Biology's happy hour and going to a bar with them and dancing swing to a live band, going to a "Save Tassie (Tasmania) Animals" fundraising live music event, going to the Sunday Market and National Gallery (art), then this weekend - going to a CS happy hour then a Margarita Party, going to a very fancy Turkish restaurant for dinner then to the Dark Knight movie, and going on a 6K run with triathletes, then brunch, then an AFL (Australian football) game today! So many fun things... :-). I finally have friends in Canberra!

So a word on the weather - it's still cold here. When I get up and go running or biking outside around 8am the grass is frosty/icy. Crazy! But it's beautiful when it's sunny, which it mostly has been lately. And I'm getting more and more used to it - don't need as many layers when I do go out :-). The other morning I saw hot air balloons over Canberra in the early morning - very neat! Still enjoying my exercise :-).

I've been busy lately because I might be going for a paper deadline on Friday - we aren't entirely sure if our overhead is low enough yet, but it's exciting! We are really proud of the project and how it's turning out. So fun stuff. Yay for research going well and being excited about it. I've been working every weekday evening... So yes, I do work a lot!

And I've really had some good conversations lately with people. Learning about the world, feeling worldly. Trying to open my eyes past America which seems sort of generally full of itself and I've been realizing lately how PC we are about things - how worried we are about people's feelings or maybe just being sued over things. Example - my Chinese roommate was talking about how their PE classes in high school give grades based on how fast you can run a distance - faster you run it, higher the grade. My immediate reaction was "That's so unfair", except that it's not - it's just rating people's physical ability whereas most classes rate mental ability. But he did mention China loves ranking everyone on everything - and they are sorta brutal about it :-). But here it's normal for people to live in another country for at least a year, so they are more worldly, or maybe that's just the people I interact with, but I enjoy it. But then there's also this juxtaposition about really being home and comfortable and finding how to be most yourself versus being the nomad and having experiences and traveling the world. There's time for both, but I more and more feel like I need some time with the former for awhile because I've definitely had the latter! And it's a challenge for me - by myself... I'm tired.

But - about new activities! Last Tuesday - The film festival was interesting. 2 sessions, each just over an hour. Very interesting shorts. Some abstract and artsy and hard to get. Some poignant stories. I liked the ones more that were sort of people dramas with character development of course :-). One about Papua New Guinea aunties sitting around chewing betelnut and getting "high" on it :-). One that was just 5 minutes of people on a subway - a lady falling asleep on this random guy's shoulder :-). One poignant one about an aboriginal man's whole village getting massacred. A hilarious one about "pigeon men" - these macho guys who raise coops of pigeons and love their birds! One cute cartoon about a panda in a polar bear world. My favorite was actually called "The Funk". The summary says "Jack woke up in a Funk one day. No one really knows how it started." It was done in black and white with stop photography - stringing photographs together to show characters moving. It was actually really cool. And it was about this married businessman who wakes up one morning and just realizes his life is empty and he just goes through his routine everyday with no depth or joy, so he's in a funk. I enjoyed it for some reason. And I ended up drinking free wine during the break and talking to a very odd buy interesting Australian woman. Very nice - of course had to ask my impression of Australia. But even though she'd met a lot of cool Americans, she said, she never really wanted to visit America. I've heard that a lot down here... Something about our sort of shallow and busy culture... It's interesting. Plus, really, for 1/2 way around the world, the American culture is not so different from here.

So then last Friday - I had friends! I met a friendly CS grad student Tim who mostly grew up in New Zealand, but we got to talking aobut live music. And Friday there was a Biology happy hour on that a ton of people go to, so he invited me along. So I met some of his friends, and then we all went to dinner at the Noodle House. I got the traditional Malaysian Laksa - a curry noodle soup plus meat dish. Tasty :-). Then we headed to see this really neat band, but they had just finished when we got to the park (half walking half driving). So, we went to a seedy wooden bar where an older sort of honkey-tonk band was playing. It was loads of fun :-). There was a bit of an older crowd, but the fast music was hoping. Tim, the friend I met, belonged to a group that did swing dance, and they were all there, so I ended up swing dancing (me = poorly) with him and 2 other friends of his. It was fun to be dancing again though! And hanging with people - in the scene again :-).

Last Saturday I went on a nice long bike ride around the WHOLE lake this time! Although going west involved going on a freeway for a bit which wasn't the most fun, but overall I enjoyed my 35K bike! Yay! And then later I went to see that cool band we tried to see Friday night... They are called Andi and George - you can check them out on myspace. They are local. And Andi is this amazing singer and George is a percussion stoner :-). But the whole band actually has like 12+ people in it. They just jam - people jump in and play guitar or rap or sing or play saxaphone or the didgeridoo or more drums or whatever with whatever song! Very diverse and fun. But I actually liked their practiced songs better than them just making something up. But I saw 3 bands at this benefit before them - 2 of them I really enjoyed. So it was an all day event raising money for Tassie - Tasmania - animals. It was in a park - live music all day. And it was mostly hippies there and signs all over about global warming and save the animals, etc. They were selling curry dishes and cake in the back - all donated or homemade. I got some homemade Chai and some mulled wine - pretty tasty. And during the last 2 bands - no one sat - we all just got up and danced the whole time! So it was super fun. I saw some of Tim's friends there at the end of the night and hung with them. But it was fun to just go and hear music. Reminded me of Ryan...

Sunday I slept in then went with Nancy, my young friend, to the Sunday markets. It was really fun to wander around and sample all the exotic foods again :-). And then we went in the back and had some Ethiopian food from a food stall! Pretty good, although I think it had an Indian bent to it - there were some curry dishes... But tasty :-). And we wandered around and bought some neat cards of Australian scenes. I bought a magnet and bookmark that reminded me of Canberra. And some neat earrings :-). So, just fun. Then I ended up biking to the National Gallery because it was recommended to me. Spent less than an hour there, but it was fun. Saw a very famous Pollock painting calling "Blue Poles" that Australia bought. And then I liked the Aboriginal art - lots of painted wooden poles. Then went up to the Parliament area to take some pictures. It was closing so couldn't go inside sadly, but took some neat photos outside, but then it started to rain! and I had to run home biking in the rain at dusk. Of course when I got home it wasn't raining :-). But fun day!

Monday I actually met my goal of running a full 10K! Was very proud :-). Fun times!

So worked the week. Fast forward to Friday - we had a happy hour at the CS department, and Steve brought champagne for his paper getting a big award, so that was awesome. Met some neat people again, and had some interesting conversations. Then worked a bit more, then headed to a friend's Margarita Party - Mexican theme in Australia, crazy! This is the guy who Nancy rents her room from - he's an American but been getting his PhD here for hte last 3 years. He's really nice. So I knew no one (Nancy is out of town), but met cool people and had some interesting conversations! And had tasty Mexican food/drink - good tequila and sangria! But I met this really cool girl Katie from the US (Atlanta), but had been living here a year and a half and really liked it here. But she was my kind of girl - a triathlete! And gregarious, so invited me to go do a 6K run with her and her triathlon group this morning - Sunday. That was awesome! But anyway - she was cool. Connected with her on the whole "finding where you most feel yourself", and being older with all your friends settled and having kids, with you not, and of course the triathlon stuff. So felt like I could really be friends with her if I stayed here, which is a nice feeling - meeting people like you! So even though I was tired, met some really nice people.

Saturday - worked the day (went in to work). Still getting closer to the paper deadline... And then got picked up and went to a very fancy nice restaurant - one of my "going away" dinners with mentor Steve, his wife, grad student Daniel and his girlfriend. Restaurant was a nice Turkish (my favorite) place called Ottoman. Had a moment where I got really homesick - like wanted my guy around for a very nice dinner. I've had that several times this weekend - really enjoying being around very cool new people here versus really missing home and my people. But anyway - we had wonderful food! For entrees (which actually means starters here), we got a plate of different spreads and bread, marinated mushrooms, special dolma with fish, and a lamb-eggplant dish. Then we got 4 mains - another eggplant-lamb dish (which was wonderful - both were), then a king fish skewer dish, a chicken skewer dish, and duck :-). All very good. And salads. And we started with a bottle of champagne, then had a bottle of Australian shiraz with the meal. No shortage of decadence! All very nice! And then we got desserts - a big range from chocolate, custard-pie, orange cake, sorbet, and I got a poached pear with apricots and figs :-). Oh my God, good rich food :-). Was overwhelmed with it all and it was super fun. Nice company. And Steve picked mine up on ANU's tab! So nice! It was expensive too... And then Daniel, Karen and I went to see the Dark Knight movie on the big screen! Wow, was that intense. Great movie, but so much in there - felt like I missed some things. But Heath did do a fabulous job. Maybe I need to see it again to take it all in :-). But I was glad to go with friends to see it!

Got home late and today had to get up early to go running with friend Katie! She picked me up in her new car. We went to the lake area, and met some of her friends. Then ran - together - a 6K. It was a nice track, and fun to run with her and chat - reminded me of Maria and I missed runs with her! But was glad to be with people instead of just running by myself. Although I couldn't run as much as I was used to because it wasn't by myself. Oddly I felt like I could've run more - 6K is short to me now! But was glad to go. Then we took off - went back to her house to shower up and met a bunch of her triathlete friends at brunch! I just got a regular omelette with ham, mushrooms, and cheese. But the company was fun - nice blokes. Heaps of fun. We discussed how they believe Americans don't have good senses of humor - here they are drier and more used to sarcasm :-). And then we went to the AFL game together - Katie and her friends had tickets sitting on the grass, and I split off and found Steve and his mates and kids to sit on seats with them. It was actually a beautiful and relatively warm day! After eating a meat pie (w tomato sauce) and sitting with the sun beating down on us, I was actually quite warm and felt like taking a nap! Watched some of the game - Sydney Swans (red) versus Melbourne Bulldogs (blue). Sydney scored 4 goals in a row right in the first few minutes, which was exciting. But after that... Bulldogs dominated! They were better and ended up winning by like 20 points. But I had fun just hanging out and chatting with Steve's friends. And had fun kicking the footie around on the field after the game. But was ready to come home - busy weekend! And ended up indeed taking a nap when I got home. Nice to relax a bit! :-).

So, right when I'm about to leave (can't believe it!), I finally get friends and am doing fun things and getting used to this place. I really think I could enjoy living here, but also feel drawn to go back home and sort of settle down a bit. Plus, there is a difference between having friends, and just hanging with people who really KNOW you. And I think I need that again - to be surrounded by comfort for awhile. To be able to be myself for awhile. I'm definitely keen on going home. And it's not far off - a month now! I made my travel plans for going to Townsville to see the Great Barrier Reef - leaving Canberra Aug 13 - so soon! And then on to my 2 week New Zealand adventure. More adventures, but fun in store. So cheers for now!

(P.S.) One addendum - Australian houses have 2 "bathrooms" - the toilet is in a little room by itself, and the sink and shower are in another bathroom. Very amusing :-).