Highs and Lows
Trip Start
Feb 15, 2004
1
27
34
Trip End
Dec 18, 2004
UNSW Library,
Australia
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Allright, I'm exaggerating. I've actually been having a lot of fun
Missy & Me
. First, Missy and Mark were in town and it's always great to see them wherever in the world our paths happen to cross. We even went to see Funkstar, just like old times, and found out in talking to the guitar player that the height of their careers was when the Butler study abroad posse used to go to their shows at Scruffys every week 4 years ago. Kinda sad. I had another experience reminiscent of my last visit to Australia when I went to Sydney Uni for a lecture given by one of my former professors. I hadn't stepped on that campus for four years, but I remembered exactly how to get to the Linguisitcs department building, like a homing instinct. As I sat in the same classroom where I had my Syntax class 4 years ago, it hit me just how much my study abroad experience there had changed my entire life... That's the reason that I'm back here right now, doing what I'm doing. It felt like some sort of pilgrimage. What really weirded me out was when my professor came up to me after the lecture - she recognized me and even remembered which class I had been in! A week ago some of my former students invited me to their apartment for a big Japanese dinner (and also to tell me that two of them want to come to New Zealand with me!). They made a huge meal of sushi, Japanese pancakes, and both raw and fried oysters (which I had never eaten before, and never really need to eat again, esp
My Japanese Girls
. raw!). Just as I was sitting there feeling really full, they all went back into the kitchen and started cooking more food! They brought out bowls of miso soup and more pancakes, announcing it was round 2! Plus we had bought a cake, so by the end of the night I was stuffed. So I took them all to Scruffy's to see Funkstar of course, and we danced it off.This past weekend I went out for drinks with the teachers I work with, for the first time ever. They usually go out on Friday afternoons for happy hour, but the teacher I kinda hate organizes it. He invited me the first few times when I started teaching there, but I never went because I felt weird about hanging out with them, so he stopped inviting me. But this time my friend David made a point of asking me to come, and a bunch of other teachers I'm friendly with were going too. I thought we'd just be at the pub for an hour or two, but we ended up staying till around 10 pm! I spent a lot of time talking with the teacher I used to hate... I don't hate him anymore, esp. since he kept buying me drinks. I thought he was around my age, but I found out that even he's 34! I feel like a baby when I'm around the other teachers. I got to learn some interesting things like two of the teachers used to be archaeologists, my school seems to attract fundamentalist Christians, and I'm not the only one who thinks one of the other teachers is psychotic and annoying. I actually had a good time. Some of the teachers were trying to convince me to come back to Australia to do a Ph.D. so I could work at APC again. Ummm... maybe not.
Things are ending here really quickly... next week is my last week of uni classes, the week after that is my last week of teaching, then all my assignments are due, then it's the Maroon 5 concert and my birthday, then I'm going to New Zealand for 3 weeks, then I fly home to NY, and a couple weeks later I head back to Breckenridge for another season! Crazy! I just hope that when I go back to the States there will be a new President. I'm extremely worried that Bush will win again, and so is the rest of the world. At least this time around I was able to do my part and vote against him, since I actually received my absentee ballot this time!
