Wink at Me Sydney!

Isn't where I am from pretty? It's a wonder anyone here has a fully formed personality (ahem).

Having said that, last week, I took a friend from overseas to this new, rather cosy and possibly illegal zoo in town and he said that all our native animals - such as the koala, the wombat, the kangaroo - look like they're out of work:

Not much more of the sunny fun times. Shortly back to the blob of white.

Some Belated Chrissie Treats

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I haven't written much while I have been back in Oz. I have been staying for the most part at my lovely family home, upon which two of my brothers with their partners and kiddies have also descended. I haven't been able to duck or weave past all the humans to get to a computer to blog, let alone the overdue catch-ups, trays of mangoes, justify-your-life-choices conversations, beach opportunities, thesis guilt and assorted attempts at writing, Christmas preparations, red wine and DVD sessions, a fabulous book I am reading, and two mammoth (and happy) Christmas celebrations.

I knew I had a draft post sitting in my folder, one I wrote when I had just returned from the health retreat. I thought it worth digging it out and posting it this morning, as it contains some goodies that I would like to share with you in general Christmas/holiday fuzzy love spirit. Here it is:



I am back from luxury boot camp. It involved Tai Chi at 6:30am on top of a hill overlooking rows of wild rosemary shrubs, families of kangaroos and rosellas, and regular patches of eucalyptus trees, separated by small vineyards. Then aqua running at 7am followed by wholesome (farty) breakfast, cardio classes and health and motivational seminars til lunch. The same again til meagre dinner. No sugar, wheat, caffeine or alcohol and restricted carbs. Nuts for treats (nature's goodies!). All organic. Massages, facials and counselling or naturopathy sessions most days. Each evening, zany, self-expression activities such as charcoal drawing in time to music; art guided by your special dancing shapes! (I would love it if Wednesday's blindfolded 'spirit dancing' was secretly recorded and unleashed on YouTube.) May make the retreat seem three water features and two resort-style pools away from being a cult, but it was actually wonderful and hugely beneficial.

Here are some of the messages from the talks and activities and, although they're melty cheese treats*, I think they're worthwhile:

1. Take time for yourself - actually, you should lock it in at the beginning of the week. See through the eyes of the child within.
   
   
2. Do you appreciate beauty solely when you've planned on and even paid for it? The Joshua Bell story is worth a look at.



3. Oriah Mountain Dreamer's The Invitation is something you need to ask of yourself before you ask it of a loved one.
   
   
4. Thoughts and feelings affect physical reality. Watch the words you use about yourself and other watery creatures. See Dr Emoto's The Hidden Messages in Water.
   
   
5. Understand that you didn't break them, and you can't fix them.
   
   
6. Don't be too competitive in team sports at a health retreat, especially if you're female.
   
   
7. Forgive and forget anything that would stop an endless river of love and compassion flowing out through you.
   
   
8. Super healthy toasted muesli recipe: 1kg rolled oats, 250g oat bran, 250g unprocessed bran, 1kg buck wheat roasted, 200g linseed meal, 350ml honey, 100ml apple concentrate, 400ml orange juice, 350g peaches dried, 700g sultanas, 260g dried apple diced, 200g dried paw paw (papaya) diced, 180g dried figs, 500g pecans or macadamia nuts. Mix oats and oat bran. Add honey and water, juice and mix. Roast at 85 degrees celsius for three hours. Add dried fruit. Store in airtight container.
   


9. ''Just so long as you are trying to make things better. That's what counts." (work philosophy of beautician in response to my question whether she ever feels uncomfortable doing pedis or waxes)
   
   

*In other words, only number 6 would count as evidence-based.

Time for a Health Farm

photo by: DaveSag

Am back in Sydney. Blue skies, purple flowers, twisty trees, boat engines and bird screeches are back in my life, as are shouty ads on TV.

Thanks for all those wonderful geek hobby suggestions. Nice to have some options. The metal detector would be vintage.

I am heading off to a health retreat with my Mum and sister in an hour. The evidence for the 'wellness assessment' I have on this afternoon is contained in this blog (shuddering at the sheer indulgence, but I can't feel guilt and shame about everything!). I here provide another piece for the fair-haired, muscly armed, lady in a smart tracksuit.

Extracts from a letter I wrote to a friend on the plane:

Just after take-off. My eyes are dry and tired. I am in an aisle seat, 34D,
but there is no one in the two seats next to me. This doesn't help with the
nerves. I like being in the middle island because it makes me feel part of a
team. Sipping ginger ale. The pilot introduced the customer relations officer
and I happened to see her curtsy to herself. It's dark and grey-blue outside and
my ginger ale is circling from turbulence. We have been rocking since we took
off. Anyway, I don't want to focus on that. I am going back to Julie and Julia.
Needed something cute.

I just went to the loo. There were a couple of people waiting. Under the
lights inside, I noticed I am flushed and tired. Why does it become so awfully
hot on the plane? Healthy glow of first loo trip has turned into mad look,
especially with eye mask on as headband. Looks medicinal. I was going to ask for
the large, English flight attendant to sit with me in the empty seat for a chat, but I
didn't.

Watched two episodes of 30 Rock. Americans love visual gags, like an old
lady falling over. My eyes are stinging and it's still so hot. Still haven't
managed to sleep yet.

Half way. 1am in my mind, but 9am and humid outside. A passenger's bottom
just swiped my upper arm. But on the positive, looks like I have a spare seat
next to me. That would be pretty mega ace if I could sleep along two seats.
Getting used to the Aussie accent again - that pseudo-posh, Dannii Minogue one.
Some of the Asian passengers are wearing face masks. Not good for my nerves, but
trying to focus on comic potential.

Only two hours til landing. Had three hours' sleep with headphones on
playing Flight of the Conchords. I was so tired that I felt I had to will on my
lungs to breathe - 'C'mon little guys.' They were disconnected to my racing mind
and stubbornly kept a slow place. Then I fell into those trippy dreams that you
get when you're on a plane and knackered - flashes of strangers' faces,
cloloured spots and, the most unsettling, a row of suburban houses with black,
fright trees behind them. The sound of the show helped my mind quieten. Not very
Zen though.

We've started our descent. There is an elderly, English couple
sitting in the window seats next to me. They must be in their late seventies. I
don't know how they do the long haul. Maybe you just don't care so much. Oh,
this must be the most inane, disappointing letter. Makes me realised what a load
of rot goes around my head and comes out of my mouth all day. Cabin crew is
taking their seats. We're shaking because of the rain clouds and we just had a
couple of rollercoaster drops. But I love landings. I smile at everyone around
me. I am pretty much waving at them. There have been a few more drops,
lots of readjusting of wheels or whatever makes that electronic noise.
Babies are crying. The Chinese guy in the lime green rainproof jacket has just
looked at me, grinning with mild panic. But I can see pretty Sydney out the window:
the lights of the CBD, the cars, the roads. We're rocking like a bloody dinghy,
but I don't care. We're about to land. Wow - with a thud and skittle and intense inertia.
Makes me think of how funny it would be if the plane blew up after all that.
The people are relieved and scrounging around their bags and rubbing their foreheads.

Waiting for family at arrivals. No glory for me coming through the gates.
The first to greet you at Sydney, by the way, was a customs dog, right at the
passageway. They love customs in this country. I am wearing too many layers. The
Sydney women are wearing white and blue and the men are dressed like 14 year
olds. The arrivals area is glowing and the orange in the flooring and meeting
point signs are setting off the classic airport blue. Just heard a woman, with a
child strapped to her front, say 'Noi' [this is how urban Australians say
'No'] to her husband. The last thing the customer relations officer on the
flight said was, 'For thoorse taiking connecting flaights within Australia, they
will need to goi toi Terminal Twooii.'

Preparing for Home

photographs by: xssat

In between churning out the words and riding my bike to and from the library, I'm starting the mental and physical preparations for my upcoming England departure. I am heading home for the final (?) thesis burst and to spend Christmas and most of the summer with my family and friends. This will be my first Christmas at home in a few years. It will be lovely to draw in a waft of pine needles and mangos at the same time, to sneeze at the bright sun in the high sky, and to dive under the dauntless ocean waves. Tralalala!

One thing's for certain: I will have to face Sydney trendies. Australian trendies are like English trendies, only with a little less audacity, a lot more skin, a few more smiles, and, most importantly, beset by white light, the most unforgiving of all the lights going round. (Evidence for your pleasure included above. Click to zoom.) This makes me apprehensive. In Oxford, you would never even have to see, let alone reveal, anything from below your neck if you didn't choose to. Quite normal. Plus, in the graduate community (not to be confused with the undegrads, darling!), people tend to think a t-shirt with a clever slogan slapped on it is daring. I have to decide whether I can be bothered trying to look as interesting and appealing as everyone else or whether I should write myself off as a PhD geek and stick to the jeans, trackies and odd, excessive layers until completion (even on the beach!). Not the most significant worry...but more fun than the rest of them...and the one I am least attached to.

The Trial at Lunar House

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After many weeks of gathering documents from my Faculty and my bank, sending inane emails to various administrators and finally* filling out a 55-page form, I headed down to the Public Enquiry Office of Immigration & Border Control in Croydon (South of London) yesterday to extend my student visa. The six hours spent in public transport was uncomfortable, but the experience really came to its own inside Lunar House itself, the 1970s government building shown in the photograph above. As I followed that first painted red line out the front leading to security check, I had no clue just how fitting the name - a nod to the moon landings - would be.

The operation kicked off by lining up to have bags scanned, lining up to have documents checked and approved and a case number given, being directed upstairs, having paperwork checked at bottom of stairs and top of stairs, and lining up to have documents checked again and to pay the £565 fee. It then meant joining over a hundred other people (and their bored, grizzly kids) on rows of blue plastic chairs bolted in to face a long line of glass booths, booths which were designed to shield the case workers from us slipshod foreigners. The security staff (dotted every 10 metres) was clearly straight from the set of EastEnders: cheeky, thick necked, balding young guys and white-blond, throaty, older women with frosty make up.

As I sat on a sticky chair, numbers were called out every few seconds by automation. Often different recordings called out over the top of each other. Orange numbers flashed from squares above each booth while the position and progress of our numbers were depicted in a separate visual display. The only other form of entertainment was a slide show of the Border Control's policies and procedures, with the same messages (about their staff not tolerating abuse and their disability facilities) being earnestly read out over and over by alternating people, each representing the various categories of race, gender, religion and age.

After a good 40 minutes (well over an hour since arrival), my number was called. I sat down in front of the young case worker. The applicants' chairs had been bolted a good foot or so back from what would be a natural distance from the counter. This meant we all had to lean forward awkwardly, over-extending our backs, essentially putting our chins or two hands on the counter to hold on. I placed my materials through the chute as directed. Case worker silently looked at them. I stared at the 'panic attack' red button in the middle of a grey box to the right of the case worker. It took me to the control room of 1970s sci-fi movies and I thought I heard the distinct sounds of David Bowie singing Space Oddity. Caseworker typed some things, stamped stuff and then politely told me to take a seat.

I waited over an hour. Little kids started to wail and run and hit their heads on the corners of the seats and wail even more loudly. Some parents tried to sleep on each other. My number was called again and 'they' took my biometric details - digital prints and a photo - for these new biometric ID cards, a scheme that originated, more or less, after the London bombings in 2005. (Now I am here, I couldn't really object, could I?) I plopped back down and stared for an hour and a half. I tried to do some work, but laptops were forbidden and the air was stale. I also forgot to eat, mesmerised by my number flashing on screen, slowly advancing to the front of each electronic queue.

I should be fair, there were some high points, a couple of moments of fuzziness when I sensed that we - applicants from different parts of the world, of different colours and creeds - were all facing this Kafkaesque doorkeeper together. Overhearing the husky security ladies share suggestive jokes and provide nurturing pieces of advice also made me smile.

For several minutes I watched my number sit at the top of the 'case consideration' stream. My number was called and I sat in front of a different case worker. Case worker followed a very similar procedure: checked my forms and passport, typed in my details. She then informed me that my application would have to be sent downstairs to be vertified again because of an internal audit process and that I would have to wait another two hours minimum. Without thinking too much, I calmly told her that I would be hopping on a bus back to Oxford rather than waiting any more (my dwindling mind was fixated on one thing: getting back for a talk by Richard Dawkins) and asked if they would please send my passport to me as and when. Caseworker said, 'But what if you have to come back down because they need you to bring something extra?' I said that given that I had already made it through at least three, possibly seven, checks here today, I was willing to take that risk. She then said she would see if she could get my application looked at by 'floor one' sooner. I thanked her and resumed my spot on sticky seat.

I watched a case worker in the booth next to mine tell a Chinese couple that they would have to wait another 2 hours minimum, which they accepted, deflated. Brushing off concerns about whether or not I was a brat for holding myself to ransom, I made my way outside, determined to inhale some air from this century. Nevertheless, leaving the building also meant having to go through security and checks again so, I would say to others, it is only just about worth it.

While I waited another 30 minutes, I filled out a feedback card. My two suggestions were that the security staff be given greater role diversity or responsibility as their boredom was making them jumpy and erratic and that the case workers be trained to display some sense of awareness of just how long and dull the process is as their neutral and sometimes sharp expressions were hard to take after 4 hours+ of waiting in one room. I was called and reunited with my beloved passport. My application for an extension of my student visa had been approved.

Just to tie up the blogging proceedings (and I thank you for joining me), I think my final few minutes at Lunar House were symbolic. As I left the booth for the final time, I announced to a few people still waiting, 'It can be done, Ladies and Gentlemen. This process does have a finish, I assure you.' They were all pretty much dribbling by this time and I had no takers. I pranced over to the tired kiosk and immediately spotted the gold of a Crunchie being shown off by the plastic-wrapped beige chicken rolls. I took out my pennies, ready to get some honeycomb goodness. With the giddy enthusiasm of someone being found not-guilty and facing the press outside the court or of someone leaving prison after being wrongly accused, I trumpetted, 'I am treating myself to a celebratory Crunchie, how much are they?' The heavily-lined lady (who I had heard being pretty funny earlier in the day) replied, without moving any of her face, 'I am about to change the till, you will have to come back in 15 minutes.' I said, 'Can I please just leave you the money as I am finally on my way out.' She said, 'No.' I said, 'OK, well I guess I'll be going then.' She croaked, 'Suit yourself.'

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*If you're interested in the form filling process which involved visiting the student advisory service here in Oxford, please let me know. I can share a wonderful email my boyfriend sent me to make me feel better about my apparent failures on this front.

Basking in Some Poetry

photo by: Sunday Grrl

I came home last night to find on my desk The Great Modern Poets: An Anthology of the Best Poets and Poetry Since 1900 (edited by M Schmidt). It's an ideal (re)introduction for someone like me who has not studied poetry in any sustained way since high school and who doesn't have the frame of mind for a tome. Each of the 50 poets is given a short introduction, and some historical and critical context for his or her work. Plus, the book itself looks pretty and feels precious. I will resist taking it around with me today for show and tell.

The usual team was called up - Hardy, Houseman, Frost, Yeats, Frost, Pound, Eliot, Graves, Auden, Thomas, Hughes, Plath etc. - to join names I hadn't heard of before. I was quite surprised to find an Aussie in there, Les Murray (1938 - ). After reading a few of the heavies (it is ordered by poet's date of birth), I came across him and was taken back to the muggy classroom of my teenage years.

I want to share one of his poems here, not because it was necessarily the most pleasurable or insightful of those I read before bed (although I don't think I was being particularly discerning, I was just happy to have my new book!) and certainly not because he is an Australian (you may already know about my ambivalence towards patriotism). I have chosen it because his poem threads many of my recent thoughts about academics, particularly those in consuming spells of thinking and writing. Also, it's reminiscent of a fair few religious/spiritual and philosophical ideas I have read or heard over the years that have appealed to me.

The Meaning of Existence

Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.

Even this fool of a body
lives it in part, and would
have full dignity within it
but for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.

Anyway, I am off to my Department. It is far too bright and warm for it and my legs are rebelling against the idea. I am quite certain this will be another day of students talking about admiring and smelling flowers and worrying about their inability to focus or finish sentences.

Feel free to point me to your favourite poems - who knows how long this zeal with last! Hope you are feeling uncluttered and positive about things.

Nordic Treat

photo by: just.K

I just discovered this pretty special (and very manageable) Spotify playlist, Vantapamig, posted by a Nordic sweetie. Try this if the other link doesn't work.

I am as quick to join in on a rant about the dearth of letter-writing as any other toff around here, but bless the magical interweb. I am so grateful that I didn't have to meet this person on a Contiki tour and then hope she would indeed send me that mixed tape she promised in exchange for my Crowded House tape, the one that had been playing (along with Counting Crows) on the bus during the entire trip of 73 countries in 6 days. That would suck on so many levels.

Judging from her last name and her careful selection of moody, but accessible songs, I think she's Scandi, but I will say Nordic to be safe since the girls from that part of the world are fierce. Scandis have the low contextuality (ie directness of speech, fewest words to convey meaning) of Australians mixed with that intense pride that comes from being from a set of countries that are apparently so much more evolved than everywhere else. They just don't seem to care if you like them or not. Anyway (ahem), it's been getting me through today's writing session. Thanks Alexandra.

Feel free to (please) send some more study/work playlists my way. I'd like something upbeat to join this one, but not something that will trigger any automatic robo-dancing.

Sydney as a Bathtub

Hey, I found these wonderfully zany films yesterday. The artist, Keith Loutit, uses techniques such as tilt-shift and time-lapse photography to make the world appear as figurines and miniature toys in a giant's playground. Watching them took me straight back to my hometown, Sydney; they capture superbly much of the colours and lifestyle. Louit has selected some great, quirky soundtracks too. Bathtub IV is brought to life by Megan Washington's adorable and affecting song, Clementine - definitely worth a listen to and look at on its own. His most recent short film uses a song by Shawn Lee called Throwing Shadows at the Wall and the video for this song makes me terribly sentimental.* I can't really cope with senior citizens singing the words of someone else's song.

*until the dancefloor part.


Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I'll give you style if you give me chocolate

photos by: Michael Gray for Street Chic, UK Vogue online

Last night, my (English) boyfriend finally agreed after many attempts that Australian Cadbury's chocolate is better than English Cadbury's. By better I mean more full, rich and soft, and less brittle, buttery and bland. Being the fair-minded person I am, I told him I would concede something on behalf of Team Australia. I admitted that English women (or a particular group of English women) tend to have a better sense of dress than Aussie women. Wouldn't you agree? No matter how hard we try, we cannot pull off the shabby chic look in quite the same way as a Brit and it's not just the darker tan and whiter teeth that dimish our efforts (tee hee!). I pointed out that I was being especially magnanimous as he is not chocolate.

I have been in the Radcliffe Camera today revising my thesis outline. I was somewhat distracted by the dusty sun beams coming through the window overlooking St Mary's Church. But I did fairly well. I had figured it was time to check that my chapters were working for the same boss.

Bushfires in Australia

photo by: Reuters

I should be in bed, but I can't help reading about the tragic, horrific bushfires in Victoria, Australia. They're the worst bushfires in Australia's history and it's chilling to know that at least some of the fires were deliberately lit or re-lit.

I feel so far away, although it is being heavily (and sincerely) covered here in the UK.

You can donate money via the Australian Red Cross, or I just spotted that Kate, of Love You Big, has decided to donate all proceeds from sales at her etsy store next Wed 18 and Thurs 19 February to the Red Cross. Check it out.

Tiny bits of England I am learning to love...

1. Stephen Fry
2. Women from old money - those dotty ones who garden a lot, have a sharp tongue and generous chat
3. Noel Fielding
4. Dry stone walls
5. Withnail and I
6. Mock the Week and Never Mind the Buzzcocks
7. Punting
8. Buttercups
9. The pink dawn scene in Pride and Prejudice
10. That being ugly is OK, sometimes an advantage
11. Flatness (panoramic views, such as this one of Kirtlington, Oxfordshire taken by me or The Boy - we haven't agreed on that one yet)

Having had a look over my list, one thing's clear: I am getting wussy! Someone please send me some tan bark, a bluebottle, sun burn, a manly man from Manly (as The Boy calls Aussie blokes), a waratah, delusions of grandeur, a knuckling to the head.

Aussiephobia

I did not give much thought to my Australianness when I nervously anticipated how I would be received as a new student in Oxford way back in 2004. I thought about my first days of high school, and about not having my brothers and sisters around. I wondered whether I would be able to continue to say to myself, 'It doesn't matter what people say about me or my personality, I have loved-ones who have said worse things about me'.

What I did not prepare myself for in the slightest was the barrage of balls that would be thrown at me for being Australian and therefore either (or a combo of) competitive, brash, obnoxious, entitled, unintelligent, anti-intellectual, backward, racist (a cab driver asked me only the other day whether Australians were hateful people), unsubtle and therefore unfunny. The most persistent comments come from the English, but I've got to say, the New Zealanders are up there... Even a South African man came up to me last week (having only met me once) to let me know that South Africa beat New Zealand in rugby union and that it made him feel 'good that the Aussies would get smashed.' How did the Aussies come into it?

Our energy and enthusiasm is seen as crass and annoying or evidence of stupidity. A Danish student remarked to me recently that she'd never hurt such vile things said about a population than the comments her British friends make about Australians. I tried to explain that it was only because of our special, parent-child relationship (where the child leaves the parent) that Brits felt so stridently comfortable about making comments that they never would about Africans or Asians, for instance, or even Canadians (the good son who does his own thing and does not cause trouble). It did make me wonder though. And come to think of it, an English guy recently told me that he could not tolerate 'Colonial women' because they (we...me) were too aggressive and upfront.

I have been trapped in awful, drunken conversations at 2am about shrimps on barbies (caught by trying to explain that no one in Australia uses the word 'shrimp'), Fosters (same thing), backwardness (our literacy rate is higher than that of the UK!), convicts (the proportion of convict descendants; the intentional policy of enforced labour in the colonial period), the arrogance of Aussie males (sporto jerks everywhere; you're projecting because you're smaller than them), The Ashes, our Olympic medal tally. The list goes on. And each time I engage I just feel depleted, infantile (like when your brother used to upset you with the same bait each time) and silly. Usually and increasingly, I concede to a few points - Australians can be too much sometimes in some contexts (especially on Contiki buses) and the male, macho culture (bushman, Anzac hero, sportsman) is intense and sometimes nauseating.

But I still don't like the conversations. I don't like being patriotic. It's akin to loyalty to 'houses' at school. But I must be. How else can I explain why I have to force a smile after the third Aussie-bashing joke in almost every Flight of the Conchords episode?

I didn't even consider that I would be representing Australia in the UK. But I am. I would prefer to represent myself and maybe my family. Apparently I am here to prove or disprove the very strong, prevalent (and most often not jokey) viewpoint that Australians are crap.

What's your problem with Aussies, mate? (eager, but not aggressive tone)