LJ has left the country: This morning LJ left Oz to head back to the US of A. I already miss him. I was getting really used to seeing him every week. I guess I need to hurry up and graduate so we can live in the same place. J
Driving the wrong way: My flatmate, Elizabeth, let me borrow her car to go to the grocery store tonight. Bi-Lo isn’t that far away, but I was still apprehensive. Strangely enough, I had the most trouble with little things, like reaching over my left shoulder for the seatbelt instead of my right. I also had the hardest time figuring out how far away from anything I was with the left side of the car. Now I understand why LJ kept having trouble with parallel-parking a car here in Australia.
I coulda been a selector: I ran into Phil (the French Canuck that reminds me of Andre—see my Nats pix) today and he asked me to be a selector for the EUG team. EUG is short for Eastern University Games, which are a multi-school, multi-sport competition held in September among the unis in the eastern part of Australia. The top teams from EUG play in the AUG, or Australian University Games, which are being held in Perth in October. Ultimate is still small enough that college-level ultimate is co-ed. Phil said that the club wanted to have at least one impartial selector for the team. Unfortunately, I won’t be around for the tryouts next week. I told him that I’m still willing to give my $.02 if they want it, since most of the people trying out will be the same people I’ve played with since I got here.
Goatie goes to Great Britain: Goatie (the second Katie) from our women’s team is headed off to England for a year or two to work and travel. [Editor’s note: The Commonwealth nations have some sort of agreement with Great Britain that if you’re under 30 (recently upped from 27), you can go live there if you have 2000 pounds in savings and you don’t have a job already lined up (to prevent taking away jobs from citizens). Many young Aussies and New Zealanders take advantage of this agreement before they settle into full-time jobs here.] Katie and Sturt hosted a going-away party for Goatie. During the festivities, the boys decided that a piggy-back race up the driveway was in order. Somehow, since they decided that I was one of the lighter girls (which I really don’t think is true), I got talked into being a rider. Timmy with Luci, Sturt with someone (can’t remember who), and Paul with me lined up and ran the race. Paul almost ran into a parked car, but I alerted him to it just in time. Then, out of nowhere, someone came at us from the other direction (the driveway was pretty dark, so we had a hard time seeing them) with Kendall on his back. Paul and I narrowly avoided the collision and managed to win the race. Woohoo! J (If there was anyone out there who wasn’t aware that I’ve decided I don’t want to grow up yet, this post definitely proves it.)
A weekend in Newcastle?: Since LJ left the country, I actually spent a weekend here in Newcastle. I have really enjoyed the traveling I’ve done, but I also like having a nice, slow weekend to do much of nothing. Today I called Becky, did some shopping, and spent the afternoon reading on our veranda. What a nice way to spend a beautiful fall day.
During my shopping around town, I stumbled across a display at the Honeysuckle Markets about Newcastle’s steel-working industry. I thought perhaps that the local markets were open, but instead there were all kinds of photos and other memorabilia about the steel industry in Newcastle, which closed not too many years ago. It’s rather interesting to learn about Newcastle’s past. (See, Mom? I can enjoy learning about history. It just has to be on my own terms. J)
Home-cooked meals rock: Paul and Flis invited me over for dinner again tonight. Penny, Rosie (another med student, just like Penny and Flis) and Paul’s sister Stephanie were also there. I think that two of the best meals I’ve had in this country have been at their house. It’s nice to make friends with people and then find out that they’re good cooks. (Speaking of which, Dave, I really miss having you around. When’s dinner? J)
Sugar Mags vs. Flick N’ Steelers: The Sugar Mags (women’s team from here at Newcastle) and the Flick N’ Steelers (the men’s team) play a game against each other right after Nats. Since we all recognize that the men’s team is taller and faster on average than the women’s team, we had to handicap them to make the game worth playing. The boys were forced to throw only with their left hands. In most cases, this resulted in some rather dodgy throws, except for with Timmy and Paul. Timmy and Paul have both broken their collarbones at some point in time and then proceeded to play disc golf five times a week left-handed. They had left-handed hucks that put my right-handed ones to shame. About eight guys and ten girls showed up for the game. Somehow, we Sugar Mags scored the first point to go up 1-0, but unfortunately Katie jammed her thumb on the catch and was out for the rest of the day. The boys then started scoring a bunch in a row. They ended up winning the game 7-2.
Trick play: The second point we scored was on a trick play. I’ve heard of trick plays being used in ultimate, but I myself have never been a part of one or even seen one in action. I figured that a fun game like this one was the perfect place to give it a go. I first started rambling on about the Statue of Liberty play. As I understand it, the SOL play comes from (American) football, where the quarterback will put one hand in the air and hold the ball in his other hand behind his back. Another player comes behind him and takes the ball to run with it. In ultimate, you can’t hand off, but you can just drop the disc a foot into someone else’s hand. When I was explaining the play, though, I missed some of these intricacies. Realizing this, I suggested that we do the barking dog play, in which everyone stacks up normally and at a given signal, one or more players drop to their hands and knees, and howl/bark like a dog. Since I called the play, I agreed to play the part of the dog. Eliza decided that she wanted to throw a hammer to Luci for the score.
We stacked up normally in the endzone. I had said that we needed to wait until five, which tipped the guys off that I was in on a play. I rather wanted that misdirection. Eliza went back to the position on the endzone line where she called the timeout. She picked up the disc and stood with it in her outstretched arm above her head. The stall count [definition: a ten-second count spoken aloud by the mark—defender covering the person with the disc—in which the thrower must get rid of the disc or it’s a turnover] came in at four. On five, I dropped down and started howling. Eliza hammered to Luci and we scored! Woohoo!
Babies are so much fun: If you’re wondering about that screaming sound and the pounding of feet that you can hear in the background, it’s not a kid—it’s LJ running like mad from me making that statement. J (Not to worry, LJ, I mean that they’re fun when they’re cute and smiling and someone else’s, with a key emphasis on those last two words.) I realized this once again when Kevin invited me over for dinner with his family. Kevin and his 3.5-year-old son, Aiden, came and picked me to drive me to their house. At the house, I met Kevin’s wife, Ailish (almost certainly misspelled), and his 10-month-old daughter, Kira. Anthony, Kevin’s student, and his wife Alex were already there. I was happy to see them there, because it made for a larger, more talkative group for lunch. I also was feeling a bit guilty earlier in the week when Anthony said he’s worked for Kevin for three years and has never been invited over. We spent the next couple hours talking over a leisurely meal, starting with cheese and crackers for an appetizer, chicken and lamb kebabs with salads for the main course, and a homemade pavlova for dessert. Yum! Kira was happy and giggly for almost the whole time we were there. I like happy, giggly babies much better than unhappy, bawling ones (which are the only ones I usually see, since I most often encounter babies on airplanes).
Big Brother, the phenomenon: Big Brother is huge over here. The premise of the show is much like a suburban Survivor: fourteen people are thrown into a house to live together, with one person being voted out of the house each week and the final person taking home a bunch of money ($250,000 in past years, $1 million this year). The people are not allowed to watch TV, bring many books or anything with which to write, or in any way make it possible for them to spend much time alone. They’re trapped in this house and yard with very little to do except interact with each other. This year’s house looks like a nightmare that the “Night at the Roxbury” guys from “Saturday Night Live” would buy. The house is all bright colors that went out of style when the big hair bands did. The décor, if you can call it that, includes a lime green kitchen, a shocking pink bathroom, and a sleazy looking indoor pool—I’m not sure how a pool can look sleazy, but it does. I would run screaming from the show if I were shown this house, but the morons on it did not. Almost all the contestants are white and completely flaky, including one woman who left her husband and two kids, one of whom is ten, to go on the show. She says her 10-year-old daughter is happy for her, but will she still feel that way after her mom divulges secrets on international TV? The only one who showed what I think is a wholly intelligent, human response to the house was Trevor, a black man with hair like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. Trevor had a look of complete and utter confusion that said, “What have I gotten myself into?” I don’t think I’ll be watching this show again. (It’s Elizabeth’s fault that I saw the first one while I was eating dinner. J)
A frightening promotional tactic: I was reading the back of my 2-minute noodles (don’t ask me why—I think that the graphics drew me in) and found a very disturbing bit. Here it is, word for word: “Eat MAGGI 2 Minute Noodles, log on to www.noodolbot.com and prepare to party, Noodolbot style! Create your own Noodolbot character, give it a Noodolbot name and try to become the world’s best ‘Bot by playing Noodolbot games! Play on the weekend! Play after school! Play when you should be learning to burp the alphabet! Use Special Codes from the back of every MAGGI 2 Minute Noodles and play more, more, more!!! PLAY, PLAY, PLAY! After all, playing is all Noodolbots ever do… it’s all you’d ever do if you were born in a junkyard and lived on 2 Minute Noodles!”
I can’t decide if I’m more disturbed by a) the encouragement to do nothing by play online and eat 2 Minute Noodles, or b) that the creators thought that a cheap, AUD$1 Ramen Noodles knock-off NEEDED a marketing ploy this extensive. The whole thing has a very Japanimation feel to it.
Aussies work harder than Americans? That can’t be!: According to this CNN article, it’s true. “Forget the image of the laid-back Aussie lifestyle, Australians now work more hours than Americans or Japanese and rank as the hardest-working people in the developed world, according to a new book.” The author of the book says that it’s mainly because the number of hours worked by other nations has slipped, not that Australians are working more. I disagree with the premise, just from what I know of the American economy. I don’t know many people who work less now than they did in the past. My theory, which is supported by every Australian I’ve explained it to, is that Aussies are just more likely to lie about the number of hours they work. J The article counted the number of hours worked, not the productivity, so maybe Aussies are spending more time at work but not getting more done.
Viruses, viruses everywhere: This morning, when I came into work, the one person who was here before me (just making the point that I’m working long hours here, in case my group members/advisors are reading this) was having problems with his computers on the network shutting down after a minute with an error message. As other people showed up, their computers frizzed out, too, so that before long, I was the only one with a working PC. I disconnected from the network for the morning, just to be safe, but when I went to the Microsoft website later on that day, I found out that since I had updated Windows before 30 April, my PC would be just fine and was immune to the current round of viruses. The moral of today’s story is to always run Windows Update when the magical icon pops up in the tray. (If you don’t have the auto-update feature enabled, you probably should.)
Another week, another loss at league: I am captaining a team with a perfect record. Unfortunately, it’s perfectly bad. We haven’t won a single game. In the first couple of games, we were up by a few points and then lost it (choked) at the end. Now, though, without Matt Kelly (who moved) and Tats (who’s got that broken leg), we can’t even start out ahead. I can’t seem to figure out what to do differently as a captain. In all honesty, I’m not sure that we need to change anything. I’ve been trying to make sure that all our players get the disc and that everyone is involved, while other teams are relying more heavily on their experienced players. We may have a bad record, but I’m seen all my teammates do really good things. That’s all that really matters to me.
More exciting driving: Today I had to go pick up some lamp bulbs from a local photo shop for my research, since the one I was using blew out last night. Neil Gardner (one of the staff here) let me take a Uni car to go there. Driving in the daytime is a great deal more stressful than driving in the evening, since there’s so much more going on. (LJ, thanks again for doing all the driving.) I was fine on the major roads with wide lanes, but when I got to the downtown-type area in Mayfield, things got a bit dodgy. I never realized how many things happen outside a car, from people crossing the road somewhere other than a zebra crossing (crosswalk), to people opening car doors into traffic from parallel-parking spaces. I panicked only once, when I was going around a large truck that was parallel-parked and the car in front of him almost pulled out into me. Luckily, the car saw me and stopped. I still haven’t worked out how wide my car is to the left—that problem was made worse since I was driving a large station wagon.