^ Aussie Dollar is back on par with American dollar, which means I won’t go broke because of the exchange rate anymore! instead I’ll go broke from senseless spending. Yay.
Where to begin... About a month in. /
Where to begin is a basic concept, but it’s been so long since my last post that I don’t particularly know where to start in describing Australia so far. I’ve met heaps of great people, and I’ve been having a great time so far.
I’ve been mountain biking 3-4 times a week up in the hills around campus. In the first week of school they were back burning the hills here because the army was doing some controlled burns on their land next door. Mostly that only meant that campus was full of smoke and snakes (they had no where else to go but down). My friend saw a Taipan sunbathing on the road during this time (these guys are something like 50x more toxic than a cobra). The trails are maintained by the Townsville Rockwheelers and there’s some really great ones out there. Coming up in September is a 12 hour night ride from 6pm to 6am, looking to do that when it comes up. I’m getting to know the other riders here who are pretty insane. These guys ran a half marathon on Tuesday, played ultimate frisbee on Wednesday, biked on Thursday, then went out and ran a Sub 4 hour marathon on Sunday, without ANY previous running training. Sure they felt terrible after, but the fact that they were able to do that should say something about these guys.
In addition to the biking I’ve been playing on an Ultimate Frisbee team every Wednesday/Sunday and a Touch Rugby team every Monday night. Touch has probably been the most interesting as we’ve had the opportunity to decipher the strange complexity of rules that make up rugby. We just had our first game tonight andwere pretty bad as a team, but we should get better (this was a lot of our first times playing rugby).
Classes here are pretty good. I’m taking indigenous people & ecology, history of terrorism, conceptual portfolio, and biodiversity of tropical Australia. No one here talks about studying like they do in the states. They keep to themselves when it comes to school and get stuff without windgeing (complaining). I’m getting a bit apprehensive about the portfolio course. Planning on traveling out to Alice Springs and photograph Aboriginal families if I can get my contacts in line. I’ve had a lot of conversations with others about indigenous persons and I don’t really know how to write up what I’ve heard without being politically incorrect. I’ll just let pictures speak for themselves when I finish the project in late October.
Let’s see.. There have been quite a few adventures lately. In the first week I met some rugby players at one of the larger Rugby league games against the Sydney Tigers. These guys took a few of us Americans out to Crystal Creek last weekend to jump off cliffs and relax by the water. There was one cliff, maybe 35 or 40 feet that was pretty nuts. Also had a chance to drive on some windy dirt roads in a a car on the LEFT side of the road. After we layed out we went to watch Ethan play in his Rugby game then went back to Troy’s place and had a few beers and played back yard cricket. (Really not that bad of a game if you keep the pace up).
One thing Australian’s love is their alcohol. It seems like every party begins with a tout of drinking games that reminds me of my days in high school. Everyonehere drinks goon, which is most likely the cheapest alcohol available because of all the taxes. Goon is a not very delicious boxed wine beverage that comes in a variety of flavors ranging from Fresh Dry White to Fruity Lexia. The roughly $10 standard price makes for easy price comparisons when purchasing other items. If I’m not careful, I may soon be measuring the value of my purchases by the “boxes of goon”.
On the topic of money, I was able to get a job working 12 hours a week at a café on campus called Bambini’s. The work really isn’t the best but I’m getting paid minimum wage (aka $15 per hour AUD) which isn’t bad. I’m looking to also work a few hours in the cafeteria each week washing dishes which pays something like an absurd $22 an hour. I’ve found that working at Bambini’s has expanded my choice of words in such a way so that words such as Tah, Cheers, Long black, flat white and pasta pot are now common vocabulary. I’m not in Australia to work, but don’t think I won’t be making a few bucks while I’m here.
It’s been a great time so far and I’m really at a loss as to how to continue this entry. I’ll be sure to post again within the next week or so. The full moon party is coming up on Friday on Magnetic Island, and the Brisbane / Townsville Rugby league game is on Saturday so it should be an eventful weekend.
Backburns on campus
The sign from our climb up mt. stuart : p
stereotypical kangaroo shot from a few weeks ago
my room
First Post in Australia /
First cup of many- St. Kilda
Beach view- St. Kilda
"So by the looks of it, nearly everything on this continent can main, poison, injure, or kill me. 4 months, let’s start the clock. Time to survive college…" So far we’ve gone out and seen Kangaroos, had lunch in the city a few times, sang some "Australian songs" and mostly kept our heads down long enough to get through orientation. Tomorrow we head off to Melbourne where we’ll stay for a day before leaving again for Townsville the next day. Okay, so i’m not going to lie, I’ve been a bit hesitant to get this first post up. I’ve been keeping a pretty steady journal each day but there’s something much harder about posting up on the big WWW so that anyone and everyone can read it. Not that they will… but the point still stands. Anyways, we (a group of about 15 of us, 8 from Occidental college, 1 from Bucknell, 1 from Davidson, 2 from Scripps, 2 from Arcadia and 1 from George Washington) are staying in a Hostel in Sorrento (about 2 hours south of Melbourne). We flew in yesterday morning (the flight went well, complimentary bottle(s) of wine helped with the sleeping/jet lag process) and somehow managed to stay up until 8:30 pm before collapsing into bed. Becca, Tara and I went for a run this morning through Sorrento and saw some amazing views before the sun came up. There were a lot of dinghys parked out in the ocean and it was a very picturesque view. Australia is full of new things. One of which is the Harry Potter premier tonight. We are about to go out as a group to see # 7 at midnight on the 13th (a full 2 days early booya). Pretty excited for my classes for once (anything would have beaten properties of mechanical solids and dynamics). I’ll be taking a conceptual photomedia course, history of globalization, an anthropology course involving economics and environment and an indigenous people’s course (I’m transferring into this last one from biodiversity of tropical australia- not the worst class in the world, don’t know if I’ll switch or not yet) I’ve been asking around and I’m planning on taking a few extra trips while here in country. It would be great to have a chance to stop over in either Fiji or New Zealand on the way home. Also a Sydney trip is necessary and it would be pretty incredible to take a Townsville -> Darwin -> Alice Springs -> Townsville trip at somepoint. I’ve been throwing the idea around of working on a photo project while here and there would be some great subjects in central Australia. I guess we’ll give it some time and see where that goes.. Definitely need to get a job now and start budgeting if I plan on traveling this often. More posts to come, and I will definitely get some photos up on here as soon as I can access my camera cable which will be in a few days.
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Burnside Skatepark
“ Built without permission, by skateboarders and later sanctioned by the city, Burnside is the preeminent example of action. Burnside’s unique growth and evolution -through the sweat and blood of a handful of dedicated individuals- have matured into one of the best skateparks in the world. Burnside and its creators are true pioneers, setting the stage for community built skateparks across the country."
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Portland: Last Thursday
“Over the last 13 years, Last Thursday on Alberta has developed organically, from what was originally a visual art event aimed at promoting the street’s art galleries, into an amorphous celebration of art in all its forms. The monthly event has become increasingly popular and, in recent years, has been attended by thousands of people, particularly in the warm weather months." www.lastthursdayonalberta.com
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Marshall Tan and Neil Kirkpatrick (http://deptofsound.tumblr.com/) created a music video with the help of cinematographer Patrick Eggert (http://www.patrickeggert.com/).
DOS tracks:
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My buddy Neil was a leader for the Portland Plunge this last weekend and I followed him around and grabbed some shots. I’m not going to lie I was pretty distracted by the chess game, but I got some other shots of Neil working with his kids.
Politics of the Plate: Barry Estabrook /
Great blog by Barry Estabrook.
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Decided to google myself tonight and I found my photos from the RMI Les Anglais trip all over blogs on tumblr. Not sure why I’m reposting this on my own wall, but I didn’t think other people would enjoy my photos like this. Call it shameless self promotion, but i think its neat that other people are actually into my work.
young musicians in haiti
zach krahmer [portfolio]
(via bembacoloraaa)
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(via tamsam)
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Flew home yesterday after an incredible weekend at the EARC Sprints with the rowing team. I’m going to miss those guys a lot.
Somehow caught a cold on the airplane which has turned into a 103 degree fever/cough/sinus combo which is beating the shit out of me.
Meh, anyway here’s some photos i took in the plane. (is that a threat to national security?)
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Went out and saw the new Banksy film last night, Exit through the Gift Shop. The film wasn’t what I had thought it to be, although I was surprisingly pleased by how much of the street art scene it showed. Much of the movie focused on Thierry Guetta and his rise from a disorganized video obsessionist to a mass producing for profit street artist under the title Mr. Brainwash. I was captivated by the strong images, and it was interesting to hear Banksy speak, albeit altered. This movie seems to be nothing more than a subversive message by Banksy about the state of the street art world. I doubt many of the viewers will understand the significance of what it means for Banksy to endorse this film about Thierry, but its obviously got to do with keeping the so-called mr. brainwash in line. There are positive remarks about Thierry’s work, but the main theme of the movie bashes on his style, or lack thereof. Banksy dupes the public once again to accept his own adaptation of mass production in order to discredit Thierry Guetta, the man who mass produced his way into the art scene after witnessing the art scene from behind the lens.
If for nothing more than to see the validity behind original street art, see this movie.
B+
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Last night some friends of mine invited me to the Countdown to Zero screening. The movie was really interesting and absolutely horrifying at the same time. Lots of facts, put forward pretty straight with cool visuals. My kind of documentary. It seems so plausible that a terrorist organization could get its hands on some HEU and put together a dirty bomb. Check this organization out. They have a petition on their website you can sign located here: http://www.globalzero.org/en/sign-declaration
That’s all I have time to post now. Cheers
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Seattle, WA
Today in Economics the professor brought up the story of Edith Mayfield and her stand against a construction company. Basically, she had been born and raised in this home, and planned to die there. A construction company bought the property rights to every other home on the block. It offered Edith 250,000 to which she said no. 500,000 still no. They offered her 1,000,000 and she would still not sell. So what do they do? They began construction around her.
Needless to say she got her wish and died in the house in 2008 at the ripe age of 86.
Thought it was a cool story and something I’d share.
Follow this link to see a news article here
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Climate Rally was on the National Mall today and what a beautiful day it was. Lots of people, lots of hippies, lots of crazies. Saw the Roots band, Lionel Richie, John Legend and more.
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This last weekend I went to Jersey for the first time for rowing. Call me prejudiced but I was surprised to see no Ed Hardy or spiked hair. Maybe MTV isn’t the real world.
I couldn’t row because of my bad ankle, but I got to ride in the front of a launch and snap some photos. Some of these should be up on row2k.com soon..