It's A Hung Parliament!... Heh?!?

Week 6 (Aug. 16th - Aug 22nd)

Move over Wizard, tonight is the federal elections, which means there may be a new person emerging from behind the curtains to run the land of OZ. However, the polls are so close that the deciding factor might be called to a hung parliament (a legislature where no political party has an absolute majority of seats). To give you an idea of how rare this election outcome is, it would be the first hung parliament decision since World War II. I'm sure this news article can explain it better, so hopefully you can open this web page and read about it if you're interested. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/7801295/hung-parliament-looking-likely/

Apparently the Greens Party (read Hippie Party) are the only ones currently jumping for joy as they've earned their first seat in the Senate. Right now the current PM, Labor Party's (liken to our Democrats) Julia Gillard, is duking it out with the Liberal/ National Coalition (Liken to our Republicans) Leader Tony Abott. I will update you with the results so stay tuned.

Interesting facts about voting in Australia: voting is mandatory! If you do not vote, you will be fined. It's not a large fine (maybe around $100 aud) but here you literally and figuratively pay a price for not voting. Also, election days are always on a Saturday. This helps to make the polling process convenient for people to vote so it doesn't interfere with work or school. I really can't help but compare other systems to our American system and wonder if the States should make voting mandatory. At the very least, they should hold election days on Saturdays, it makes way to much sense, doesn't it?

In any case, we can only hope the elected PM (unlike most politicians out there) has courage, a heart, and a brain.

Yours by popular vote,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

I'd Tell Ya If I Could Remember!...

Week 4 (Aug. 2nd- Aug. 8th) - Nothing interesting or informative happened this week.

Week 5 (Aug. 9th- Aug. 15th) - This week was formally known as Ekka Week in Australia. Actually, it's more formally known as the Brisbane Exhibition, but any long title or word never escapes without an informal abbreviation here, hence Ekka. It is an agricultural fair of sorts, and Wednesday was recognized as a public holiday due to the cultural significance of the Ekka. Since Wednesday was a public holiday, we spent Tuesday night like any other society that has the next day off work - we got very very drunk. A group of about 12 of us went out to dinner and brought about 6 bottles of wine, which by some peoples standards may be plenty of alcoholic refreshment, but clearly was not enough for our group. By the end of the dinner and 9 bottles of wine later, the lazy susan (that spinning disk in the middle of the table you put entrees on) and a spoon had been transformed into a lethal drinking game. We had about 3 bottles of wine left, and with no one willing to sacrifice their livers for the team, we came up with a clever involuntary drinking method. We placed the spoon on the lazy susan, spun the lazy susan around, and whoever the spoon pointed towards had to down a glass of wine. No one was safe from the spoon. Eventually, after finishing all the wine and annoying everyone in the restaurant, we meandered to the Jube to drink some more. The Jube is a cowboy themed bar complete with complimentary straw cowboy hats and a mechanical bull - notice that even while intoxicated we are keeping with the agricultural theme of Ekka. I'm pretty sure we danced, sang, and socialized for a bit and then headed back to our place for a dip in Michael's "love tub" jacuzzi- because after a long day on the farm it's tradition for the ranch hands to take a dip in their love tubs. Okay, that's not true at all, we totally broke with the agricultural theme on this one. While others who shall remain nameless found a whole-lotta love in the tub that night, Michael and I fought to see who could collect the most floating miniature rubber duckies. I think I won...

The next morning we worked on nursing our hangovers and piecing together missing parts of the night. Advil, water, and bread was needed, STAT! After all, we had about two hours to pull ourselves together and get ready for the horse races. We hired a van and the Irish girls and the roomies went to New Farm race track. From afar it looked kind of glamorous. Girls wore dresses of all lengths and colors with over-sized hats or flowers in their hair, while guys looked dapper in their suits. But then after closer observation and a couple hours of drinking, this civilized gathering rapidly declined into what could only be described as the horse racing scene from My Fair Lady on crack. Think Kentucky Derby meets Jersey Shore. The crowd was slightly younger and while they were putting on their best show, it had quickly turned into a shit show, perhaps a dressed-up version of what we looked like last night. Girls could no longer function in their heels, guys were wrestling each other and rolling around in the grass, people were making out so hard I think they'd forgot horse races were even taking place - all of this in their Sunday's best. Whatever, it was still fun to watch everyone walk by and rate what they were wearing. It was kind of like watching the red carpet show before the Oscars, except it was nothing like the red carpet show before the Oscars. I definitely plan on going again, it is quite the unique experience.

I spent the rest of the weekend recovering and writing my first paper that was due on Monday. I learned that weekend that while I was able to easily get away with procrastinating in college, that work ethic was not going to fly in grad school. Right now I'm struggling to find the balance between school and social life - without one or the other suffering to grave a consequence. On top of that, I eventually will need to add a job in there somewhere. Oh, in case you were curious, I wrote my paper on the national and human security threats of Uganda brought on by the Lord's Resistance Army. Although the crisis there is dire and tragic, it is just as sad to me that compared to other world issues, this issue has only received minimal media and scholarly attention.

Avoiding lazy susans and spoons from now on,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Lost In Translation...

I figure while I freeze in the rain waiting for the bus, now is as good a time as ever to update y'all on living in Australia.

So I'm going on a month of living here. Before moving I had set expectations of certain lifestyle habits I wanted to amend and adopt while living in Australia. One of my lifestyle habits I really wanted to change was to spend more time outdoors and less time watching TV. Living here and not owning a car, it's nearly impossible to not walk to most places. Also, with studying and being out and about, I've maybe watched an hour of TV cumulatively since I've been here. I used to consider TV a necessity, and now it's hardly an afterthought. I don't think you understand how effing huge that is for me. I literally used to justify to myself that watching TV all day was okay because I was watching CNN. It's really not okay. I will definitely be making a conscious effort to never let that happen again - there's a huge, bright, magnificent world out there folks! However, I still would have liked to have seen the last episodes of The Hills and The City and I really miss Locked Up Abroad. Don't judge me.

Random bird noises: So we have already discussed the "Wild Uni Turkeys" but while walking around my new hood, I've noticed some truly weird bird sounds. I now refer to birds by the sound they make. There's the "drop" bird - which makes the sound of a water drop in a bucket. Then there's the "whip" bird - yup, sounds like the crack of a whip. And I saved the coolest one for last, the "monkey" bird. Unless there are monkeys in Bardon, this bird sounds exactly like a monkey and it kinda weirds me out every time I hear it. It's very elusive, I've never seen what this bird looks like so for now I can only imagine a monkey face on a bird body. OR, there is the possibility that since OZ has wild parrots and cockatoos that mimic sound, it could be one of them making all these crazy noises. Shit, I might have just totally debunked my monkey bird theory. Hmmm... I'll try and find out and get back to you as I'm sure you're all very interested to know more about Australian bird calls.

Moving along, so I was in a club the other night and Lina just happened to run into her friend from class, Travis, who was with his roommate and friends. We all introduced each other and the following conversation ensued (to preface the story - Travis and his roommate met when they were kids, their families had neighboring farms. In Australia, it's not uncommon to grow up on a farm or know someone that did):

Travis: So, what college did you go to?
Me: Cal State Northridge
Travis: What's near Northridge?
Me: Chatsworth?!
Travis: What's in Chatsworth?
Me: I dunno, it's the porn capital of the world.
Travis: Oh really? Huh.
Travis' roommate walks up (I don't remember his name, so we will call him John)
Travis: Jillian, this is my roommate John. John, this is Jillian. She's a corn farmer.
Me: WHAT?!?! Wait, why would you think I'm a corn farmer?
Travis: Because you're from Chatsworth, ya know, the corn capitol of the world!

This entire interaction will never cease to be funny to me. While loud music was mostly to blame for this miscommunication, I can't help but feel a little bit of it has to do with the slight cultural difference. I'm fairly certain if this situation were to happen in L.A. there is no way someone would have mistaken me for any type of produce farmer.

I know my East Coast family would appreciate this segment of the post, but I guess you can tell by the pictures of what has re-entered my life once again. Yes, the good old clothes line! I was actually really excited when I first saw it, just brings back some of my favorite memories of all of us staying at the cottage on the Long Island Sound. Although, this clothes line doesn't have the fun pulley system like the old one, which takes all the excitement out of drying clothes. But you can't have it all, can you? I've occasionally forgot about my clothes drying and they've received a second washing from Mother Nature. Not only is it aggravating when that happens, it's incredibly counter-productive. However, I had a stroke of genius and got crafty with my space heater! Not just a space heater anymore, it is now a multi-functional device as you can tell from the first photo. Yes, family, this is what I'm doing in Australia. In case you ever say to yourselves, "Gosh, I wonder what sort of fascinating and wonderful things Jillian might be doing in that foreign land?!" Scroll back up, take another look, and marvel at photo #1.

We'll, it's official, my life is getting pretty normal here. But if you know me at all you know that really never lasts for too long. Just hang in there with me til November. I should be going to Thailand, Bali, and Cambodia with the money I'm supposed to be using to fund my education. Hopefully my trip will produce something interesting for me to blog about, but until then my life might be relatively normal. Sorry.

Missing all my loves residing in the surrounding areas of the corn capitol of the world,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

The Learning Curve

Week 3 (July 26th- Aug. 1st) This was a pretty trying week. My days of fun and playing around were officially over! Well, maybe not officially over... but definitely unofficially over until the weekend. No more introductory lectures. My first course started out with my professor asking us, "what causes war?"An intriguing question with several varying responses but the one he was fishing for was when a student replied, "human nature." I kept quiet, seeing as I have never studied International Relations before and my professor has a PhD in the field, it's probably in my best interest not to question it. However, being a hopeless eternal optimist, I couldn't help but disagree. Not even 10 minutes into my program and I'm already questioning authority. Honestly, who do I think I am? I guess I can't help but feel that while conflict is human nature, war is an outcome or product of conflict, and therefor a conscious decision that can be controlled. I disagree with the sentiment "what always has been, always will be." I'd like to think that our ability to evolve and adapt might take us to a point someday where war is unacceptable instead of inevitable. Although kind of forced, some may argue we have reached that point already in a sense regarding a future third world war. That's the thing with international theory, we would like to try and predict the outcome of future situations based upon the history of similar previous ones, but there are too many unforeseen variables in a constantly changing world that it's all speculation until it happens, and then it becomes history.

Sorry for the tangent, but that's a little insight for you into what my courses are like and that was just scratching the surface of how analytical/ theoretical they require us to be. But thought the question was fascinating enough to share. If you give it some thought let me know what you come up with, I'm curious to get a consensus on it.

I'll be honest, there were moments when the professors were giving their lectures this week and I thought to myself, "What have you done?!? You've picked up, moved to another country, got in over your head. Same mess, different continent." But then I reminded myself (and I'll remind you, so that you don't think I'm being all whimsical and flighty) that there's a lot more to this move than getting a masters and living in another place. I promise (and as you well know by now) there is always a method to my madness, and everything I say and do is weighed, calculated, and thought through ahead of time. Although I can not predict the outcome of this journey, I'm happy to say that so far it has been living up to its intended meaning. BUT, I really miss all the loves of my life back home - family, friends, meh kittehs, and In-N-Out. For the first time I experienced the feeling of being homesick - not a good feeling. You really have to work through it and psych yourself out of it.

The weekend couldn't come fast enough to pull me out of this travel funk I was in. We decided to check out the West End on Friday and ended up finding the BEST Greek restaurant, I was in heaven. We went out after and found a cool spot called Archive. To give you a better idea as far as social night life scene, The Valley is Hollywood and the West End is Santa Monica. The next day we hopped on the train to Surfers Paradise - my sanctuary - to celebrate Lina's birthday. It was a good time and being so close to the ocean put me in the relaxing state I had been craving.

Once again I had a reflective train ride home. I came to the conclusion that I'm at an interesting juncture of school paralleling life and vice-verse. On a daily basis I learn about and form theories on an international scale, while learning and forming theories about myself and my life. And life is just like international theory, you can plan and predict future events and outcomes all you want but there's always unforeseen variables that inevitably change everything. It's okay though, I've figured out that while planning may work for some, it doesn't work for me. I do best just living day by day.

Eternally Optimistic (who knew?),

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

PS - looking at some of my favorite photos of my luvs always eases the homesickness.

I Say Bell Pepper You Say Capsicum; You Say Budgie Smugler I Say Speedo; Bell Pepper, Capsicum, Budgie Smugler, Speedo- Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

I always felt the most important part about traveling is to observe, participate in, and understand the respective country's culture(s). If only we practiced this in our everyday lives, how different our world might be - but that's a whole other blog. I'm doing a little subsection blog, if you will, on idiosyncrasies, differences, and general observations on culture, environment, language, really anything and everything. I'm excited to share with you about what I learn in school, but I feel that what I learn from living is infinitely more valuable, and thus the most important to share. Plus, some of these experiences of venturing out of your comfort zone and putting yourself in an unfamiliar and different environment produce really funny results sometimes.

Exhibit A: Kate, Lina, and I had stopped into a coffee shop in Paddington to take a break from walking and caffinate ourselves to get over the jet lag. We got onto the topic of Queensland sports teams and which teams we should start rooting for. Quite confused by all the leagues and various teams within Queensland and Brisbane, we asked our server which teams he rooted for and which teams we should root for. He chuckled and responded with the names of a few teams I've since forgotten. We continued with our conversation and trying to decipher all these teams and have noticed the family sitting next to us frequently taking pause, looking at us, and chuckling. Others were not laughing as much as just staring. Anxious to get back to exploring and a little put off by the attitudes of the other customers, we wrapped up our break and came to the conclusion that we should really just root for all the teams and call it a day. It wasn't until later on in the afternoon that we learned the word "root" here, means "to fuck." Needless to say we haven't returned to the coffee shop in Paddington.

Excessive use of up-lighting: The other night I was traveling by way of bus coming back from school. Since I'm bad with directions and didn't want to get off at the wrong stop, I was being hypersensitive and vigilant about my surroundings. In my very aware state, I noticed all the trees that lined Coronation Drive (the main street that runs along the Brissy River) had dramatic and super colorful up-lighting. Each tree was illuminated from the ground to cast a glow of vibrant colors onto it. Then I started thinking about buildings that I've seen in the CBD that also have the same type of lighting. This one beautiful casino in the CBD (pictured in Farmers Market in last post) is lit up in bright fuchsia at night. While a ferris wheel across the river is lit up in bright purple and a bridge over the river is bright blue. I don't know if this night illuminating technique is used elsewhere in OZ, but Brisbane seems to be all about the bright and dramatic up-lighting effects. If there is a bland looking stationary object in Brissy, the up-lighting police (city decorations committee, perhaps?) will find it and they will up-light it with a magnificently bright color. It's kind of odd, but no other city could really pull off this extreme night lighting quite like Brissy.

Smoking in Australia and the policies of government regulation under universal health care: Boy am I glad I am a reformed smoker in this country! I noticed last time I was here that a pack of cigarettes averaged about $14.00 AUD a pack, packs of cigs usually have a large grotesque picture of a cancerous lung, and there are signs above the cigarette stand that read in large letters "smoking kills" and phone numbers for quitting help lines. It's nothing short of obvious that the government doesn't want it's citizens smoking. I asked Michael about it recently and he said the federal government is taking even further preventative measures in the near future by raising the tax on cigarettes again and taking all branding off the packs. Why this would never fly in America - we value (or perhaps are too scared to change?) the freedoms associated with free market enterprise and the tobacco lobbying dollars that line our politicians pockets would never allow for it. Prime example of the downside of capitalism (I know, strong words). For a country providing universal health care, it is in the government and the people's best interests to try to regulate tobacco use. In Australia, people with smoking related cancers and other smoking related illnesses are considered a huge economic drain on society. I wish I could say the governments regulations on tobacco products is the direct result of a love story between a government and it's people, but it is simply more profitable for Australia to keep it's citizens healthy, than to generate revenue through tobacco sale. It's almost too logical, isn't it?

Things about Australia I'm not sure I will ever get used to: No toilet seat covers in public bathrooms - my legs have gotten noticeably stronger from hovering; you're waking up, I'm going to sleep. Weird.; Australia's roadkill (kangaroo) is significantly larger than most American household pets - I thought I was going to need therapy after our drive home from the farm

I'll continue to update you as I continue to learn. I will probably revisit old topics too as I learn more about them, specifically health care since it's such a hot button issue back in the States.

But enough about me, I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on all of this. Especially seeing as this particular post got a little controversial. If you'd like to discuss, debate, question, or comment on this post or any of them, you can click on the word "comment." We can also discuss privately too if you prefer.

Controversially yours,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Farmers Markets, and French Horns, and RooPoo - Oh My!

Week 2 (July 19th - July 25th) We get back from the farm on Monday and reality slowly starts setting in. On Tuesday I went to orientation at the St. Lucia campus. The campus is incredibly beautiful and captures a type of university setting that I felt lacked from CSUN and always wanted to experience. I don't know how to describe it but the people, the energy, and the environment are so different. And last I checked CSUN didn't have wild turkeys roaming around campus (yup, you read that correctly, wild turkeys on campus - makes thanksgiving dinner incredibly convenient. kidding). I'm not going to school bash or anything but I think you know where I'm going with this. Anyway, orientation went well, I wont bore you with details.

Since we had really only been in Brisbane for a short few days before heading to the farm, the city still feels like relatively new uncharted territory. We continued exploring and on Wednesday happened upon an amazing Farmers Market in Brisbane Center. It's the healthy hippie in me that just loves supporting local farmers, fresh/ organic produce, and outdoor market/ fair type things, so obvi I plotzed over this! I'm so excited to pick up some veggies and other goodies there every Wednesday!

On Thursday evening we decided to go have dinner in South Bank, just a short bus ride and walk over a Brissy River bridge. After dinner we randomly found a french horn symphony performing in an open air theater in the middle of a park, so we stopped and listened. Other passers by did the same, it was just too beautiful and peaceful to not take a seat and appreciate the music for a moment. Maybe it was the impromptu french horn concert, or the amazing Farmers Market, or the way the city lights up at night, but I couldn't help but think to myself while listening to the music that I am one lucky bitch!

Friday we took a train down to Surfers Paradise. It was the first time when we actually had a moment to stop and rest and be alone with our thoughts. I think it was a reflective train ride for all of us about how much our lives had changed and all the life events that led up to the present moment of being on a train in Australia, creating a new world for ourselves for a (relatively) short period of time. It was a great day trip, and I still got the same "this is where I want to be" feeling just as I did the first time I had visited there.

Saturday was a particularly big night for us, we experienced our first rugby game - and it was A-MAZ-ING! We started off at a BBQ for Rowena (one of the Irish girls we had met at Michael's Bday) where we got our pre-drink on. Michael and I decided to get decked out in Wallaby (our rugby team) paraphernalia. We made a deal that if he wore a bright green and yellow mullet, I would wear his prized blow-up kangaroo, RooPoo. Seemed like a harmless enough deal at the time but then things went horribly wrong for me. I thought it would be this little kangaroo I would wear on my back, until Kate blows it up and the thing is as nearly as big as I am. Then Michael started dressing said roo in a yellow mankini reminiscent of Borat. The yellow mankini was NOT part of the deal, and when Michael started stuffing mini sausages in the "down under" region of the mankini I was ready to call the whole thing off. We truced that the sausages went but the mankini stayed. Although I found my argument of "kangaroos don't typically wear mankinis so why should I have to wear one that does?" to be a valid argument, I decided to be a good sport and go along with it. Very aware of the unwanted attention I was about to receive, I braced myself by having a few more drinks. This is where things get really weird. So I'm walking down a busy pedestrian street with a life-sized yellow mankini wearing kangaroo strapped to my back, and NOBODY says anything. They hardly gave a second glance. I started wondering if people maybe did this often - how was nobody phased by this? The lack of attention would have been a let down if it wasn't so damn embarrassing. But I did get a chance to bond with RooPoo a little bit, and gave him a more L.A. ghetto fab style name, K-Jizzle. We got to the stadium and although K-Jizzle was an absolute hit with security, he was not allowed into the stadium. They gave us a claims ticket and we would have to retrieve him from a claims desk after the game. We kept our drinking going and watched the Wallabies claim victory over whatever the South African team is called. Rugby is a super fun game to watch and pretty easy to pick up the rules quickly too. After the game we head over to the claims desk to pick up RooPoo and come to find that someone else had taken the roo! Although this was really devastating for Michael (it was a very precious and irreplaceable item) here are some funny bits of the argument with the guy behind the claims desk that should be shared:

Michael: Hi. We're here to collect RooPoo, my kangaroo
Claims Guy: I don't think we have anything like that here. what did it look like?
Michael: Brown. 4 ft tall. wearing a yellow mankini.

and

Michael (to claims guy): I can replace the mankini, I can replace the sausage stains, but I can't replace RooPoo!

Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, it was useless, RooPoo was gone. The only way for us to salvage the night was to continue drinking along the bars on Caxton Street near the stadium - and that we did.

Sunday - recovery day

And that sums up week 2.

Peace, love, and RooPoo,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes