Random!

Random pics - Random thoughts. See y'all soon. : )

Australians don't say "How ya doin?" or "How's it going?" They say, "How ya goin?"

Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (yep, like the movie) lives on my block. I saw him yesterday.

http://www.chopperread.com/

Sometimes, when Australians are sick they say, "I'm crook." When I asked what crook meant someone said, "Crook, you know, as in 'I'm crook as a dog.'"

I don't know what it's like to live under an Obama presidency.

In Australia, 'power point' can refer to the software, or refer to an electrical outlet.

My Greek class taught me about a lot of things and a lot more than I expected.

I will miss my flatmates the most. They are awesome.

Penultimate Ponderings

The overeducated urge to summarize my experience is too great to ignore. But I'll put pictures up after this.

To answer, again, the often asked question, Has this experience been everything that you were hoping for?, Why does everyone ask me that? No one says, Are you having a good time? Yes, I've had a good time. Let's talk about

A U S T R A L I A

A lot of things that you can get in Melbourne, or in Australia, you can get other places, and perhaps, even better. Here are some things that you can't get elsewhere, or can't get better:

Sense of humor. Australians have a fantastically offbeat and sarcastic sense of humor. I highly recommend three Australian movies, two of which you may have seen, that seem to sum up the Australian sense of things: Chopper, Harvie Krumpet and Malcolm.

I was also told that Australians expect Americans to not understand their sarcasm and have had bad experiences with Americans not getting jokes in the past. Here's one story: My friend, a violinist, was at an American summer music camp. An American girl was about to perform in front of the group and was really nervous. My friend said, "Don't worry. The worst that can happen is that you do horribly and completely embarrass yourself in front of everyone." She gasped, then cried, and later my friend was told by others that it was an inappropriate comment.

Animals. I guess being an island makes an evolutionary difference. Australian animals are unique in the true sense of the word. Tasmanian Devils, the Duck-Billed Platypus, the whole marsupial gang, and many other animals that are obscenely large and seem to come from The Land That Time Forgot. I don't know, it's tough to explain, but even with all the pics of kangaroos and koalas I was totally unprepared for how they really look.

Australian Rules Football. It's a cross between American football, soccer and rugby, but more of a schoolyard game than a game bogged down with rules and regulations. In other words, the basics are easy to understand and the fans STAY ENGAGED THE WHOLE TIME. I've never seen this. I mean, you can't get a whole NFL stadium to cheer for every first down. The Aussies would cheer for everything, and this was an early season game. I was impressed and had a great time.

Aborigines. I haven't talked much about aborigines because I know so little, but I have thought a fair amount on the plight of Aborigines vs the plight of native peoples in the Western Hemisphere. I first typed up this big long section discussing my opinions of such matters, but I think I'll save the proselytizing for anyone who's interested later.

Instead, here are few facts/observations:

1. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Aborigines have been in Australia, untouched, for at least 40,000 years and some estimate closer to 70,000 years.


2. At the VCA, there is a department called the, "Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development" which exists not only to promote the arts of the indigenous groups, but also to give support and a place for indigenous students attending the VCA.


3. There are no Aboriginal casinos.


4. There's a new holiday in Australia called, "I'm sorry day" or "Apology Day" or something. It's a weak-ass, meaningless holiday to tell the Aboriginal peoples 'I'm sorry' from us white folks. But it's something.


5. Modern Aboriginal art is amazing: fascinating, angry, inspiring, vibrant and hopeful.


6. Boomerangs and didgeridoos are even more awesome in action. Actually, they totally surpass expectations.


7. I've seen a lot of homeless and/or drunken Aborigines.


8. To lump all Aboriginal peoples into one group is probably as insulting as Apology Day.

Lastly, here are a few luxuries that I got in Australia that I could probably get somewhere else, but got here:

near anonymity

time

sleep

university access

persimmons

Yamaha makes a lot of money.

I taught two piano classes this semester. They were for music theatre students, you know, CATS and WICKED and DISNEY CRUISE SHIPS. It was a brand new class for a brand new music theatre program which is now the brand new defunct music theatre program. I still got paid. I had a lot of fun, despite the class times (4:45-6:15pm and 6:30 to 8pm on Fridays) and that these students were the most talkative and the worst listenening students I've ever had. If I wasn't feeling dizzy (I have no idea why, I'm open to suggestions), I would tell you more about the lofty goals I was given for this class and how I was expected to teach. As it is, you can just have some tales of my students...

Every week the two classes would swap times (so no class had to stay until 8 each week). One week a student couldn't make it to the "later" session. He told me he had previous plans. Usually I would tell him too enjoy his Big Fat Zero for the day, but there was a huge scheduling snafu that week, partly my fault. I told him to stop by class right at the beginning, and we could schedule another time to meet. He agreed.

Halfway through the class, he shows up and says, "I'm sorry, I couldn't make it to the beginning of class." I said, "So, you're here in the middle of class to schedule a lesson for another time but you couldn't come to the beginning of class and you can't stay for the end of class?" He said yes and I laughed. The class didn't understand why it was funny.

One week I gave the classes a pop-quiz. A student took a look at it and said, "I'm sorry, I haven't studied this part yet."

Halfway through the term, my bosses sent me a spreadsheet with the grading policies. This is the grading system:
(80-100%) FIRST CLASS HONOURS

(75-79%) SECOND CLASS HONOURS DIVISION A

(70-74%) SECOND CLASS HONOURS DIVISION B

(65-69%) THIRD CLASS HONOURS

(50-64%) PASS Meets the minimum threshold for satisfactory completion of the subject

I told the powers-that-be that I did not quite understand the grading system (in other words, WTF? with all the "Honours"). They told me to just give them a grade out of 100 and they would apply the Honours. Undergraduate degrees only take three years, but if you want you can opt for a 4th "Honours" year. I figured this was just for the kids with good grades and such, but it looks like anyone with a 65% average or better are specially gifted for a 4th year.

The kids were ALWAYS asking me questions about the U.S. and were pretty pumped about several American shows and movies like South Park, the Simpsons, etc... They also liked to tell me how they met some Americans and Americans are stupid. One week a girl said, "I heard that the reason you eat so much peanut butter, which is disgusting, is that everything is so sugary there. I saw a American student putting peanut butter on her apple at lunch EVERY DAY. That's so gross! Is it just because stuff is really sweet there?" I said, "Yeah, in fact, there's a giant bin of sugar at the door to every grocery store and when you leave, you have to dip all of your produce in the sugar bin." They bought it.

Alex can attest to this one. This is, quite literally, the sort of thing I would say on a weekly basis, every five minutes: "Now we are going to play the exercise on page 25 with your right hand only. This will be on page 25. If you're not sure what page it is, it's on page 25. Right hand only. There's no need to use your left hand. Make sure you are on page 25. All that you need is page 25 and to use your right hand. Your other right hand. We are no longer on page 27. No, do not turn to page 27. Page 25, right hand, 1-2-ready-go." When Alex was there, a girl actually said (after I explained the exercise for several minutes), "What are we doing?"

This happened today and I'm probably not being totally ethical by typing it, but if you want unethical tales of teachers, I've got a long line of stories worse than this. Anyhoo...there is a student who had to miss her final because she had "glandular fever" (Australian for mono). That's fine, people get sick. Today is Friday and we were supposed to meet at 4:30. I left the materials for her on the board on Monday, and emailed her to let her know they were there and to ask if she had any questions. I saw her on Wednesday and she said she had picked up the materials and didn't have any questions.

She emails me today at noon and says, she's only had two days to look at the materials and since we never confirmed our time, she would like to meet later, perhaps on the date I put on the materials. I told her it's not my fault she didn't pick up the materials until Wednesday and that we would not be able to meet at the date on the sheet unless she could go back in time to May 15th and be present for the original final. I was told she was made aware of the time by the administrator. (I can't schedule it myself because they have to have a camera for the final so we can record their final and so they can contest their final grade later. If any student tries to contest their grade, I will happily show them the 8 ways I managed to give them higher grades then they deserved). Regardless, I'm sure I'll have to reschedule.

That's all I got for music theatre students stories for now. I will say that I enjoyed teaching this semester. For the most part, they were fun students and I don't know, I just really like teaching classes. I'm going to go eat a candy bar.