Special Holiday Edition

Yuletide is once more upon us, with the commensurate joy and headaches. I see that in Canada the weather is wreaking havoc with flights, delaying reunions and returns. I can only hope that those stuck in the airports find some way to share the spirit of the season with each other.

I have lately been wondering what the first British immigrants thought when their first Christmas came around in Australia. In this country, Christmas is a summer holiday, sometimes with temperatures of over 40C. As I write this, Christmas Day in Canberra is expected to be sunny and 30C, while most of Canada lingers under a frigid cold. Here, the days are long and hot, completely at odds with most Christmas traditions of hearty meals and carolling at night. Australians have adapted, though, and now have some of their own fine traditions. One example is that Australians traditionally have a barbeque with prawns. I look forward to partaking in this, and other fine antipodean Yuletide traditions in the coming years.

Christmas falls around the time of the December solstice, which in the northern hemisphere is the shortest day of the year, but in Australia, it is the longest. The sun found itself over the Tropic of Capricorn and officially brought about a change in the seasons. In some points of Australia, the sun was directly overhead.

The same day, I went to the Ukrainian Orthodox Centre to help with the preparations for a lunch. It was very well attended, attracting some 70 people and afterwards, there was more partying by some of us who stayed around. However, at one point, the accordion was brought out and played nearly unceasingly for nearly 9 hours. I wonder if you can imagine that. I was reminded of the famous Far Side comic in 2 panels the first one "Welcome to Heaven, here's your harp" and the second "Welcome to Hell, here's your accordion". Luckily, I was able to cope thanks to the wonderful company.

The reason I am writing this post so early is that I am departing for scout camp soon. I am taking a bus to Sydney and tomorrow I will be driven to Orange, a town about 3 hours outside Sydney. I managed to get cheap bus tickets to Sydney, such that the round trip back to Canberra costs as much as a normal one way trip. The camp itself will be held outside Orange at Lake Canobolas, in the shadow of Mt. Canobolas. From what I'm told, Mt. Canobolas is the highest peak west of the Great Dividing Range until you hit Africa. I'm looking forward to seeing how Australian scouts camp. There is even to be a large New Year's party which I hear is quite the festivity. I'll be gone until the evening of January 4th.

To prepare for this camp I had to buy a few things, like a rucksack, a compass, a poncho and a few other odds and ends. I already have most things that I need but to purchase what I did not have I was driven to the new Discount Factory Outlet in Fyshwick. DFO as it's called is essentially a large shopping mall built in the style of a warehouse. There are many stores inside, mostly clothes, but some camping stores. I managed to get everything I needed except a poncho which I purchased at Big-W. DFO stores do offer some pretty good deals and after a quick rummage through their selections, I am now fully stocked on all my camping needs. Not even the hazardous Australian Outback will be a danger.

I also received my new bike, completely built and ready to ride. I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to be mobile and how great it is to be able to get to virtually any point in the city quickly. I love biking and I can now go farther and faster than before. I look forward to riding my bike many times. It may not be skydiving (my brother's recent adventure), but I find biking exhilarating. Apparently, a person on a bike is the most efficient energy user known to nature.

With the arrival of summer, Australia's wet season has begun and with some spectacle. A few nights ago, I watched some lightning in the distance. I find thunderstorms fascinating and there is something about lightning that is captivating. This is especially true of "quiet lightning" , that is distant lightning that is seen without the accompanying thunder. Later that morning, there was a torrential downpour where the sky seemed to be a sheet of water. If anything, it will replenish the reservoirs and we can begin to move out of drought.

I also had a peek at my test scores for the Foreign Service Officer exams and I was pleased to see they were all well above the minimum pass levels. I'll list my scores with the minimum pass levels in brackets beside: Graduate Recruitment Test=34.0/55 (23), Situational Judgement Test=74.0/100 (60) and Written Communication Proficiency Test=40.0/50 (18). We'll see what comes of this but I wouldn't mind working in Canada's foreign service. Perhaps I can meld the law and diplomacy by working in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's legal division. Or perhaps I could be Canada's counsel in Australia. Who knows where this could go. I'm pretty happy and proud of me-sen. Come to think of it, isn't the minimum cut-off for the Written Communication Proficiency Test a little low? You would think that diplomacy, a job that requires a high degree of intelligible communication, would mandate a higher minimum score. Maybe this is why the world's so messed up sometimes.

Well that's it for now. I hope everyone everywhere is having a warm holiday season, even those who celebrate Festivus, the festival for the rest of us. I'll also wish everyone Season's Greetings, because I know that expression cheeses my mom off no end. I'll close, though, by just a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Pre-Season Cheer

There are signs of the Christmas season all around me, which compensates for the lack of snow. While normally I would be bundling up as Christmas approaches and complaining about how cold the weather is, instead, I am lounging about in warm sunny weather on the other side of the world. This is particularly poignant as I have been reading, with more than a passing interest, about the deep freeze in the prairies and the large snowfalls elsewhere. So that I'm not confused, I've seen wreaths, Christmas trees and carollers. The other day, as I was going to a work Christmas party, I saw 4 carollers on the sidewalk. I remembered thinking that I hope they sing one of my favourites, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and sure enough, they were. Today, there was a whole choir outside the Garema Place ACTTAB. To my mind, carolling in the blazing sun is just bizarre, especially when you think that all other Christmas traditions, such as warm hearty meals, are based on it being a winter holiday.

Another sign of the season is the obligatory office Christmas party, or in my case, 2. ACTTAB threw a lavish affair at the Hotel Realm, a very well appointed establishment in Canberra. This came complete with buffet and bar, all paid for by the company of course. I had a great time and some others had even better times, though I suspect they wish they could remember them now. The second ACTTAB Christmas party was a lower key affair at the Hellenic Club. This time, we had to pay for our food and drinks and instead of being for the whole organization, this party was specifically for those who work in the branches. It was quite enjoyable as well and we all got presents from our wonderful boss, Jenney; I got a box of chocolates. I guess you never know what you're going to get!

The day after the first Christmas party the races were on at Canberra Racecourse so I worked there. All I can say is that I am glad I don't drink alcohol as many people were nursing vicious hangovers. I was stationed with another seller in the public area which took some skill to find. It was up the stairs and down the hall, through 2 other "public" areas; those were reserved for club members and something else. The racecourse, despite its size, is quite labyrinthine. I enjoyed being up in the public area because it meant that I could actually watch the races. I did have one interesting episode though, well 2 really. The first is that I ended up serving a couple from Toronto who had recently immigrated to Australia and were now applying for their permanent residency. The other involved a man who turned in $80 and tried to get me to split it 50/50. When I told him we couldn't, since the money didn't belong to either of us, he became very irate. This continued sporadically for some time until he left. I guess he learned the price of honesty.

A few days ago I decided to go out to a pub for something to eat and afterwards, for no particular reason, I decided to walk to Scrivener Dam. This is a dam at the end of Lake Burley Griffin which allowed the lake to be formed. Prior to 1963, the Molonglo River slowly snaked its way through Canberra and was subject to periodic flooding. In the 1950s work was begun on the lake, which Walter Burley Griffin (Canberra's designer) had planned. Excavations began during a drought which made the work considerably easy. The lake was to have a minimum depth of 2m to prevent mosquitoes from establishing themselves. At one end, the Scrivener Dam was constructed to allow the lake to fill. A few weeks after work completed the drought broke and Lake Burely Griffin was finished.

The walk to Scrivener Dam is long but goes through some nice park land. It goes past the National Museum of Australia and continues along the lake shore before dipping inland. I especially remember the night view of western Canberra as I approached the dam over a hill. It was as if I had just come from a long journey through the wilderness and had happened upon an oasis of civilization. I walked around the dam for a short while before turning round and heading home.

So that I get get to far-flung places places like Scrivener Dam more quickly, I've decided to buy a bicycle. I went down to Big-W, the Australian equivalent of Wal-Mart, and bought one. I don't have it yet as it has to be assembled and I don't trust myself to do it. However, soon I'll have a brand new bike and I'll be able to access the whole city. Like Ottawa, Canberra is very bike-friendly and I look forward to riding many places as necessary. It'll also mean that I'll be able to sleep in a little more when school starts up again.

Yesterday I took up the Hall Dean's challenge of a ping-pong game. He has accepted all challengers to play him at aping-pong and if you win, you get a prize. We played a quick game but I beat him 11-2. My prize was 2 biscuits. I'll see if he'll accept another match.

Today was a very quiet day both at ACTTAB and at Cafe Pronto. At the Garema Place outlet, there were very few people, though the place was truly empty for only a few minutes. At Cafe Pronto, we had only 1 pizza customer until 19:45, and we opened at 17:00. We then had a 3 pizza take-away (take-out) order and 3 tables. Just before that, though, the place was so quiet we had a little staff Christmas party where I made 2 pepperoni pizzas for the 5 of us. I have never seen a Saturday evening, or indeed any evening at Cafe Pronto, so quiet. I wonder why that is?

My laptop is also beginning to show its age. The graphics module is decaying so every so often I get these strange staticy lines across the screen. The machine is still usable and with a bit of jostling the lines disappear, but my laptop is nearing the end of its life. Also, the hard drive seizes up occasionally, which is much more serious, bit I've found a way to handle that; I hit the part pf the laptop the noise is coming from and the hard drive then continues as normal. I can't afford a laptop as yet, but in a few months, I think I'll be able to swing a nice one.

And finally, my next post will be on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day as I'm leaving for camp. I've begun to gather up the gear I need, though I already have quite a bit. This will be a Ukrainian Scout (Plast) camp near Lake Canobolas, a glorified pond near the town of Orange. I'll be there from December 26th-January 3rd but have to head into Sydney on the 25th as I'm getting a drive from someone there. I'm heading back to Canberra on the 4th so that I don't have one long trip on the 3rd. I'll wish everyone proper season's greetings in my next post.

Discoveries

This has been a week more of discoveries than actual events, though there have been some of those as well. Throughout the last week I have found things out about Australia which are interesting and, at times, unbelievable. It just goes to show what a fascinating country this really is.

But first to the events of the past week, the first of which was the raising of a giant Christmas Tree in Canberra. This large, and I'm sure, artificial, tree stands right in front of the Legislative Building. It is lit up by many small Christmas lights and there are even presents, or more accurately, large gift-wrapped boxes, underneath. I tried to get a picture, but none turned out well. I'll have to use my mini tripod to get a good night shot.

On Monday, to finish off the year, the local Ukrainian Scout group had an "apel'", which translates to "gathering". There was a brief mustering, where I was the sergeant giving the orders, followed by an excellent barbeque. I brought some porkchops to be cooked and they turned out alright. That's it for scouting until February except for camp outside Orange, NSW later on this month. I'll have more on that during a later post.

I've taken to watching Australian parliamentary debates (Question Time in the House of Representatives) on the internet via the Parliament House website, http://www.aph.gov.au/. I must say that it is very entertaining if for no other reason than the choler to which the MPs whip themselves up. They tend to shout extensively and use colourful metaphors to describe their opponents. It was doubly interesting for me lately because some of the debates surrounded the government's proposal to buy a laptop for every secondary school student in Australia, a move the opposition opposes, if only out of a contrarian expectation of the public. The program is called either Computers in Schools or Computers for Schools, which is the name of a federal program my mom administers. Unfortunately, Parliament has risen for the summer and I shall have to find somehow else to amuse me-sen (Yorkshire for "myself").

I have been following not only Australian politics, but Canadian politics as well which is also providing no end of entertainment. I was rather hoping for a change in government or an election. Maybe Stephen Harper has played his cards right, though, as the coalition seems to be imploding which is probably what he was counting on. I can only hope that the coalition gets its act together by budget day.

It's not as hot down here as I thought it would be. Temperatures are lingering around the mid 20s, and I was expecting at least 30C by now. Today it barely reached 20 and rained wombats and koalas, my Australian equivalent for cats and dogs. It doesn't feel like a proper Australian summer. It has, however, caused some leaking in Fenner Hall, though not anywhere near my room, thank Fortuna.

Today, apparently, there was also an earthquake in the region that was felt up to 60km away. The quake measured 1.0 on the Richter Scale, but I think 2.0 is about the threshold for anyone actually feeling it. I guess we can all go about our business as though nothing had happened, because nothing really has happened.

The first discover this week was that on of my favourite book, In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson, goes under the title Down Under Down Under. Why the title would need to be changed is beyond me since most Australians would understand the sunburned country reference; it comes from a poem but is spelled "sunburnt country". The difference is that Down Under was published in the UK so it uses British spellings and turns of phrase. In a Sunburned Country uses American spellings and slang by contrast. The whole book is interesting but I am particularly taken by the chapter on Canberra, not only because I live there but because Fenner Hall is across the street from the Rex Hotel, where Bill Bryson stayed. He noted, among much else that Canberra should have one of the following mottoes: "Gateway to Everywhere Else", "Why Wait for Death?" or "There's Nothing to It!" To these I would add my own suggestions: "It's not that Bad", "It's not as Bad as You Think" and, my favourite, "Where Fun Comes to Die".

A few days ago, while working at ACTTAB, I found me-sen thinking that I should at least know how the odds are calculated for bets. I had always assumed that the odds are set by a bunch of guys sitting in a room, poring over thousands of statistics, and coming up with the odds. Actually, the odds are set by the betters themselves in a way. A horse's odds change depending on the number of people betting on it; the more people betting, the better the odds, the lower the payout. The money collected goes into a pool, there is a win/place pool, a trifecta pool, a quinella pool, and so on and those who win get a percentage of the pool money. It sounds complicated but once you see the equation, which only has 3 characters, it has a kind of elegant simplicity. If nothing else, at least I know better how things are done on the tracks.

I mentioned earlier that Australia is an interesting country and my last 2 discoveries this week relate to that. The first was the realization that there are only 2 paved roads leading into the state of Western Australia; one from the Northern Territory and one from South Australia. Western Australia, you have to understand is the largest state (taking up 1/3 of the country's size) and one of the most prosperous states. Yet, due to Australia's size (it is the 6th largest country behind Russia, Canada, China, the USA and Brazil) and the concentration of its population in a few large cities , there is little need for an extensive paved road network. Amazingly, the roads themselves, the Great Northern Highway and the Eyre Highway, are 1 732km apart! To put that into perspective, that is roughly the same distance between Ottawa and St. John's. Can you imagine crossing such a distance in a First World country without ever seeing another soul or crossing a paved road? It really does boggle the mind.

The second discovery was that Australia is considered part of the "Economic North" and "Economic West". This is a designation to merely say that Australia is a part of the First World, like Canada, the USA and western Europe. It is comical though since Australia is about as far away from those cardinal directions as you can get; only New Zealand, Chile and Argentina extend further south. It is also well into the eastern reaches of the Eastern Hemisphere making the "western" designation equally unintuitive. However, in a land of such striking contrasts, perhaps it is not that surprising that Australia finds itself in such a bizarre, and contradictory, position.

Solidarity Forever

The first item this week was my root canal treatment on Monday. I was a bit nervous going in but I was soon put at ease by the endodontist. This guy was very friendly and made sure I knew what was going on. Although a nuisance, it didn't actually hurt, although there were moments of very slight pain; nothing that I couldn't handle, though. The whole procedure took slightly less than an hour and included some completely unique sounds and sensations. I hope never to repeat this experience. I'm putting all my hopes in stem cell research and maybe one day I'll be able to grow a new tooth to replace this faulty one. Actually, I'll probably get a whole new set if I can.

There have been a few interesting news items in Australia this week. Jorn Utzon, the Danish designer of the Sydney Opera House, died at 92. Following some disagreements with the government of the day, Utzon left Australia before the completion of the Opera House; he never saw it complete in person. He did, however, have numerous photos of the Opera House at his home and it was said that he held it in very high regard. The Opera House is Utzon's most famous landmark and he never designed anything quite so famous again. He said that it was not that he never wanted to return to Australia, it's just that he could never find the opportunity. After many years, his doctor advised him against the long travel and so Utzon, by chance, couldn't make it to Sydney. However, Utzon's son said that since the Opera House was his father's vision, he didn't need to see it in person, all he had to do to see it was close his eyes. Whatever the case, Utzon's imaginative design will live on for many years and, I'm sure, continue to spark the imaginations of those who see it.

In a more bizarre news story, random breath tests are being contemplated for New South Welsh parliamentarians. The other day, an MLA came into the Legislative Assembly following a Christmas party in the parliamentary bar where he'd been drinking. Then, for some reason, he got into an argument with another MLA, in the chamber mind you, and ended up pushing, though not very strongly, a female MLA. In a country where alcohol-induced hooliganism is a major concern, this naturally caused a but of an uproar. The MLA has apologized to the MLA he pushed but that hasn't quieted the storm. He says that while he had been drinking, he wasn't drunk, but that cuts both ways; he's not a mean drunk, he's just a sober jerk. Now there are calls for breath tests to ensure sobriety but the Speaker has said that it must be voluntary. In a country where drinking is a favourite pastime, we shall see how this plays out and if anything will come of it; I doubt it.

I've also decided to join the union that represents ACTTAB employees. I don't know exactly why, but I've always been a supporter or unions and unionism. I'm sort of a capitalist with socialist leanings, or a socialist with capitalist leanings. I just think they are worthwhile organizations to represent workers. Some people say that if your employer is good, and ACTTAB is a very good employer, then a union is unnecessary. I find that argument as bizarre as saying that since the police don't go around beating people up, we can get rid of democratic representation.

A curious thing happened, though, and that was that my mother said it pleased her that I was joining the union. I never figured my mom for a big union supporter but I know she was a union representative many year ago in the public service. It's perhaps not all that surprising since my mom comes from the Canadian prairies, the birthplace of Canadian socialism. This is somewhat ironic since now it is the home of Canadian conservatism. It's also curious as I've never known my mom to express a strong opinion on any matter, really. The furthest I've ever heard her go is to call Bush and Harper, "idiots", which has provoked an interesting response from my dad. My dad has called my mom, jokingly, a prairie radical, perhaps in the vein of Tommy Douglas. Maybe my mom is a little more radical than her manner would suggest?