Entry #2

Hello all!

Alright, this entry isn't going to be nearly as interactive as my other one (i haven't gotten a chance to put any more picture up online - sorry!) but i just thought i would ensure everyone knows i'm still alive and kickin'! :-) it's also probably going to be a bit more frazzeled becauase it's 1:18am and i'm SLEEPY!

I cannot... as in CAN. NOT. believe i have been here for almost a month. totally crazy to me. I feel like i'm still getting my feet on the ground! ah!

So, what's going on in my life (you may ask)... weelllll, school, for one. Whoever said that Australian courses are not that difficult was a LIER. they are definitely intense, and i'm working to stay afloat. I have felt fairly proud of myself - switching back into thinking/school/brain not being mush mode has not been easy. I lost a month of my summer! I am in Australia though... so i cannot complain.

But yeah, my life goes as follows:

Monday: Film & Video Drama -> 2:00pm-5pm
-- This course has been... alright. As was expected it's very very narrative (obviously). It's all about how to be a director, how to work with actors, what directors need to worry about, etc. My notes for this class look something like this:
"Pre-pre-production: Script ->writing a script - several drafts
-must know why you're making the film - what it's about (What's the story &/or what's the THING) - the THING -> must be something you are really passionate about........"

I'm not sure why i just typed that out... but yeah. It's kind of intense because some of the kids in my class are clearly looking to become directors so they ask questions like "Where are good places to find my actors?" I just have to keep reminding myself that i'm not signing my future away to a land of directors by taking this class. That may not make sense, but it's seriously something i have to remind myself of after almost every class. I'm hoping that, even though i doubt i want to be a director - especially a director of mainstream feature films - I will at least get something out of this course that will help me more knowledgeable in different aspects/areas of film. Am i speaking in English anymore? i don't know. i sure hope you're at least kind of understanding what i'm trying to say.


continuing on....

Tuesday: Gender Culture & Power -> 10:00am (the hardest class to get up for)
I'm enjoying this class so far. Thus far we have concentrated primarily on understand where gender comes from and deconstructing the terms feminine and masculine. It's interesting to take a nonSLC gender course... actually it's interesting to take a gender (as opposed to queer theory) course. I feel like i'm really able to apply the knowledge i have gained at SLC in this area and apply it to both course discussion and assignments. The people in my class are also very open to discussion and I feel like they really listen to each other, which is very important this type of course. All in all, although i miss SLC's course structure, i'm enjoying it so far.


I have both Wed and Thurs off --> It's nice to have a little break in the middle of the week to catch up on work. It's also kind of strange, because while at SLC you are NEVER EVER done with work aka never completely caught up on work (because there is also more reading that can be done - either for class or conference), at UTS it actually is kind of possible to be done with homework for a night. like... i can finish my work for class on tuesday by sunday night... i haven't experienced that since high school. its kind of nice.

On wed night i typically go out with my friend Amanda and our friend Sara (who is Australian - yay for Aussie friends!) to a couple local pubs. Playing pool has definitely become one of my hobbies... and yet i am not improving. i'm not sure why. ohhh well. :-)


Friday: Narrative Writing --> 1:00pm
This may be my favorite class.... and i've been trying to figure out why. I think it's because it challenges me the most. There is a lot of reading and weekly writing samples due. I've only written one so far, but i had a lot of fun writing. i hope that sticks. Aside from a book called "The Art of Fiction" we have to read 3 novels for the course -- 1) An Accidental Terrorist 2) The Quiet American 3) The Member of the Wedding.

Although i read The Member of the Wedding for one of my courses last semester at SLC i'm hoping to reread it. I have also read all but the last 90 something pages of An Accidental Terrorist. I started out hating it. It was slow, and I felt like the author was just introducing characters in almost a list kind of way.. aka... This is Bob - he has brown hair. He likes to play baseball. His eyes are blue and had hates pizza. Know what I mean?... but yeah, it has improved a bit. It's also set in Australia (and i assume written by an Australian author), which is kind cool. I really hope to take some kind of Australian literature/history/something-or-another course while i'm here. I don't know if I would necessarily recommend the book to you guys, but i'll keep you updated.


This weekend i'm going on a "Farm Stay" with my Butler (Institute for Study Abroad), so that should be really interesting. I'm kind of looking forward to getting out of the comfort bubble i have formed around me in my area of Sydney. Hopefully i will take some pictures that i can show you.

oh! one last piece of news:

today it hailed! I heard the sound and thought it was just rain, but when i left my room in order to go pick up a packet from one of my teacher patches of ice were all over the ground. I was like... snow? huh? but no, it was definitely ice. it was kind of funny because everyone on the street was looking at it all confusedly. Guess it doesn't happen very often.



ok. bed time for me. I hope that you can make some sense out of this entry. I'll write a more -thought out- entry one of these days, hopefully with more pictures.

until then, love you all. Hope everyone is doing well. :-)


love
Alex


ps: You may have already seen these pictures... but a mini mini mini tour of my place:

my kitchen (no stove! - have to go to the roof to use a stove):


Ok. first of all.. what is happening in this photo is... I moved the table to the end of our hallway, right in front of Poppy's (left) and Pauline's (right - though all you can see in the first photo is a piece of paper in her hands) door. They were trapped. This was taken on the third night i was here. I think i had eatin' icecream or something... whatever was the cause, it was midnight i was feeling goofie or exhausted and delirious or something. if you ever want to live with me, you must be reading to experience such situations. ask caitlin! ask Jel! ask Lea and ask Liz! it happens!

Anyway you can basically piece the picture of the kitchen and this picture together. Note the little white recycling bin. The red-maroon wall on the right is the start to the "common room" which then leads out onto a little belcony that looks out onto a massive courtyard thing (that has a fountain in it that lulls me to sleep each night).



maybe you can see the layout of that end of the hallway better in this picture:


so yeah.. poppy's room is at the end of the hallway, pauline's room is on the right side, the bathroom is on the left, and then the room with the shower is a little ways down the hallway (towards me/the camera). I was taking the pictures right outside my room, so that gives you a general idea of how big the place is. it's very very nice. i like it a lot.

Like i said i'll post pictures later... but just incase you (coughcoughcoughMOMcoughcoughcoughcough) were wondering, that's a general idea of what it looks like. :-)

bye for real!

Update number #1: the first week!

Dear family and loved ones,

hello hello from australia. I decided that a little blog type deal would make my life wayyyy less complicated when it comes to showing you guys pictures from my travels.

Alright, here we go.... my trip thus far (because i put up so many photos, they may take a while to load- sorry!

Also: if for some reason a link doesn't work just go to http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k137/aalbers3/ and look towards the top of the page. you will see 5 links to 5 different sub-albums [ex "Aboriginal dancers, "Kangaroos and sunsets", etc] just find the album that corrisponds with what i'm talking about... you shouldn't have a problem.) :

I departed from home on July 19th ready to head out into the world. Apparently, however, the world wasn't so ready for me because i experienced INSANE delays at Ohare. We were delayed.. and then delayed again... and again and again until finally we were put on "no gate", which is something i didn't know existed, but basically meant that they were having so many issues trying to get us off that ground that NOT ONLY did they not have a plane for us, but they also didn't have a gate. it was so frustrating, and i ended up just curling up on the ground and nesting amoungst my varies pieces of baggage. Roughly 4 or 5 hours after we were supposed to take off... we actually left the ground. Both the flight to LAX and to Brisbane (located a little ways north from Sydney) were pretty good, and i though "ah, finally i'm on the road, no more problems." WRONG. When i arrived at the Brisbane airport i discovered that they had lost one of my bags... and OF COURSE it was my BEAST bag, which had most of my stuff in it.... of COURSE! Well, even though they couldn't "find [my] bag in the system" they said it would turn up and that people lose bags all the time. I was forced to take their word for it, and although i was still nervous i would never see it again, i tried to just enjoy my first few moments in Australia. I found my group and we headed to the little resort where we spent the next 3 days getting over intense jetleg:

(the resort):


(The little cabin thing i lived in my first 3 nights in Australia):


Like i said the main purpous of these days was to get over jetleg, and NEVER have i experienced such intense jetleg. The butler (institute for study abroad) staff tried to keep us as busy as possible so we wouldn't fall asleep. We little meeting sessions where we learned about dangerous animals, how to act in pubs so we doing experience antiamericanism, and how to understand aussie slang (there is sooo much of it! ah! i feel like i'm learning a whole new language). In regards to the last of the mentioned sessions, it totally won an australian slang guide book. here are some examples of aussie slang:
Aussie: Australian
Barbie: Barbecue
Bickies: biscuits; dollars
Bikie: motorbike rider
Chalkie: school teacher
Chappie: man
Chewie: Chewing gum
Postie: mail deliverer
Smoothie: smooth talker; drink made with blended fruit

and the list goes on.. and on... and on... and on.. the book is 247 pages long.. so yeah.

but anywaaayyyy.. different activities took place at night. One night a ladies with a bunch of animals that are found in Australia came and talked to us...

(My new best friend and me.... do not mess with us!)


another night some Aboriginal dancers came and preformed for us and taught the boys some of the dances (their culture says they cannot teach women. I believe that only women can teach women and men can teach men):



To see more photos from this event - copy and paste the following address into your browser. sorry, for some reason the i cannot turn it into a link:

http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k137/aalbers3/Aboriginal%20dancers/


we allssssooo got a surfing lesson! it was so fun, and although i only was able to stand up a couple times, i really want to do it again:





something we were warned about was that beach we were surfing on was also a highway. meaning... when we existed the water we had to make sure we FOR SERIOUS looked both way because cars drive down that beach really really fast. so yeah... an australian highway:


also: my favorite sign of all time:



Each day we also had a few ours to ourselves to hang out or explore the area. One day we came across this FIIEELLLDDDD of kangaroos. I was so angry because i hadn't brought my camera. The next day, however, i returned to the location to see if they were still there... and sure enough, THERE THEY WERE!!



Here is another link to more photos from this moment in time (and also some shots i took of a beautiful sunset):

http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k137/aalbers3/Kangaroos%20and%20sunsets/


The third day we were there we took a day trip to Fraser Island. It was a really really rainy day, which was a little disappointing, but we were determined to make the most of it. In order to get there we got to experience the beach highway. IT WAS SO INTENSE (and increadibly increadibly beautiful):





For more photos from this trip go to:
http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k137/aalbers3/Butler%20Orientation%20trip%20to%20Fraser%20Island/

on the way back from fraser island we stopped to go for a brief walk in the rainforest. The trees were really really tall!



it as sooo green and so beautiful:


For more pictures from the rainforest go to:

http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k137/aalbers3/rain%20forest/


Now i am in sydney and am having a great time. I think i'm going to stop there for now. I haven't gotten any photos up online that i have taken in sydney and this entry is already really really long. I hope all the links and pictures and stuff worked. Sorry for any crazy typos. I would proof read... but i really need to do some homework (ah! homework?! i know.). but yeah. i hope this counts as an ok update. will update again soon.

i love and miss you all! hope everyone is doing great!

love,
Alex