Identity Crisis

This past Friday we had the opportunity to go to Canberra which is the capital city of Sydney. The dilemma…I had to get up at five in the morning. Now I haven’t slept well lately so sleep is very precious to me. Always has been, always will be. And I know for some of you this is a very easy thing to do. You have my up most respect. So I wake up at 5 and start getting ready and Trevor who has been up for an hour now comes into my room and begins talking to me. Dilemma two…I’m not a morning person…I’m not a five in the morning person. All I wanted to do was get through the morning, talking as little as possible. Trevor was up an hour before anyone else so he was already good to go. Needless to say he dominated the conversation and every question asked to me was answered with either yes or no…even if the question was not a yes or no question. I was beat. Anywho fast forward to Canberra. We get there and the first place we visit is the New South Wales Art Gallery. We have an hour here to walk around and see what we can see…and that wasn’t much. This place was huge and to see all that it had to offer you needed at least three hours just to give a glimpse to all the photographs, paintings, and movies here. Next was the Indonesian Consolate. There we have the chance to talk to two ambassadors for the Indonesian government. They had thick Indonesian accents and it was kinda tough to understand what they were saying but it was nice of them to come and talk to us. The next stop was the New Zealand Consolate and he was awesome. Funny guy and made foreign affairs between New Zealand and Australia very easy to understand as well as enjoyable. We stopped at the aboriginal consulate which didn’t have a building. The only thing they had was tents in front of the Australian Government Building. The land in front of the building was given back to the Aboriginal people, but that is a nugget compared to the land that they have lost. The people staying on the small piece of land in front of the building are there everyday pleading for the government to do something about the land the Aboriginals do not have. (blog on the similarities of Native Americans and Aboriginals to come.) The final stop was the hostel we were staying at for the night. At this point everyone is exhausted and wanting to eat and go to bed. But the day doesn’t stop there. Arranged for us is a class debrief of everything we saw as well as what we think about two songs, Waiting on the World to change and American Idiot. The night ended around 11.30 and sleep didn’t come easy even though I was exhausted. Underneath the hostel was a bar with an outside lounge. People were loud and the smell of alcohol and cigarettes filled the room. With the missed opportunity of sleep the not so happy feelings of the day past stayed with me. The whole day I was feeling not so me like. I was a bit of a loner and just wanted to be off by myself. We visited the New South Wales Portrait Museum, not to be confused with the first place we visited; as well as the Australia History Museum and the War Memorial in closing. All of these places could have been more fun but it seemed like we were herded from one place to the next. “It is nice to have a schedule of things to do but let us enjoy it our way.” Being by myself most of the day gave me time to think about home and family and friends and missing people…it all came on like a landslide and I couldn’t really stop it. I’m glad it happened though. I was kinda wondering if it ever would…it reminded me of a first week of school. I look back and see how long it took for me to be comfortable back at Malone. It took a while for me to find my comfort. I had been there for three years and I knew how things went down. Now I’m in a new place with a group of new people. I’m now seeing how well I can adapt to new surroundings. This past weekend I remembered that it won’t be the same as everywhere else. I haven’t been here for three years so I’m not automatically going to be friends with everyone, I’m not going to trust everyone here right off of the bat. At times I may feel lonely, but I also need to remember that I’m not the only one that feels that way, so am I really alone? Crisis avoided.

At a Stand Still

Thanks to everyone that has talked about how they are doing. Its good to hear from ya’ll. I miss you guys heaps and heaps. This past weekend was pretty awesome. It started off on Friday evening. I will be at home with just my home stay family every Friday just because the other two guys have other things they want to do. So I did some homework and I finished most of the homework for the upcoming week. Then Sue (the mother) asked if I wanted to try Thai food…I said yes. We went out and picked up some Thai and ate it at home. They all fell asleep pretty early and I watched the television. Kung Fu Panda was on and that equals a good way to spend the night by your self. Saturday consisted of some Spiderman cartoons and breakfast cereals. The whole day it was forecasted to be cloudy and thunderstormy. I had plans to go to the beach and rain or shine I was gonna go. And I did meet two other brave souls and we traveled to the beach called Bondi. We were waiting for the storm to come and the only thing we saw that day was the blue sky and the sun that is seven times shinier than in the states. We threw the Frisbee around and jumped a couple of waves and five hours later we decided we were hungry. Back in the city of Sydney there is a restaurant call Pancake on the Rocks. Imagine IHOP but three times better. The food that is in the picture of the menu is the actual food that you get in front of you. They have a blueberry pancake special, a chocolate and vanilla pancake platter served with chocolate ice cream on top, and the delicious chocolate pancake with chocolate syrup and chocolate covered strawberries. Bingo Bango…afterwards we walked around the Sydney Harbour and sat in front of the Opera House and watched the moon slowly rise. Sunday came and me and one of my roommates Trevor, spent the afternoon back at Bondi and threw the Frisbee around. At around five we came back home and watched movies on tv: Gran Turino, Flubber, and One Missed Call:). Great way to end another pretty good weekend.

So it’s been almost a month now… a whole month has almost past. That is amazing to think about. It has gone really fast already. We haven’t even done our trips to the Outback, Canberra, or New Zealand; and we still have two weeks off for Spring break and Easter!!! Time is just gonna fly by quicker and quicker. I’m having a great time here getting to know some Aucka’s and the other students that came with me, its hard for me to realize that things are still going on back home. I’m trying not to miss all the fun that is happening without me…all the things I want to be a part of but can’t cause I’m half way round the world you know.

Daravi

There is a Cambodian exchange student that is staying with us here in Aussieland. Her name is Daravy (pronounced just like you read it da-rah-v) and she has been working on a 250 page thesis for her Masters degree in hydro development to take back to her home in Cambodia. We were talking about her home land at dinner Tuesday night and this is part of her story. In the 80’s the Cambodian government was overthrown. Genocide spread through the country. 2.5 million people were killed because they were educated. One of those people was Daravi’s aunt. The few ways you could live in the country were to somehow hide the knowledge you had while being inspected or you would die. How could the government know you were educated? If you knew English…the rich were the only ones to have any say in the country. The rich were the only ones with food; meanwhile the poor are starving to death. Daravi tells a story of students like her receiving scholarships to go out of the country to continue school and while overseas the Cambodian government would offer jobs to the students so they would come back. The students would come back and once landing on back on their home soil realized that it was a trick to get them back…these students were killed also. The Cambodian government rules all media of the country: tv, radio, newspapers…any criticism of the government is not tolerated. Such is the story of Daravi and her uncle. He was a reporter for one of the newspapers and he leaked much information incriminating the government showing how corrupt it is. A couple days after the article was released her uncle and his son finished running and while on the way back home were shot and killed. The paper claims that one of the friends of the son got into an argument and he is the one that shot the two men. The government is so corrupt; they had two Prime Ministers in the same year. The first won by election…he was assassinated by the man that was next in line and he would then become the next Prime Minister…this stuff is still going on over there right now.
The mind blowing part is that she wants to go back. She is engaged and her future husband to be is still living there. Everyday they live in fear of what can happen to them just because they have gone to school. Daravi says there are many students that she talks with that go to school in a different country and never comes back. If everyone does that then who will stay and attempt to rebuild the country? She wants to be one that helps rebuild the nation. I don’t know if I could do that. I mean there is a certain level of fear that we live in back in the States, but it’s not to the level of wondering if I will die because of being smarter than the government is. I respect Daravi so much for what she wants to do for her country even though the government has done such wrong to her for such a long time…
And that’s just part of her story…

I Need a Little Help from my Friends

So I want to hear how you guys are doing as much as you want to hear from me. How do I have a list of blogs that I can go to? Do you know what I mean. Like a subscription list? I'm just slightly blog illiterate...