Thursday, August 27, 2009

Eating Crow

Today I take off for Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, for no other reason than I've never been there. I'm a little excited to see this city as my mother raves about it. I figured that since I'll be gone for the weekend, I might as well update my progress now.

A few days ago a powerful weather system moved through the region bringing howling winds. I don't know exactly how fast they were but winds of up to 90km/h were recorded in Sydney and that was the same system. Although the windstorm brought clouds there wasn't much in the way of rain. The system has now cleared and we've got nothing but sunny weather. Unfortunately, according to the forecasts, my time in Adelaide will be rainy.

In my last post I mentioned Roman and Oksana who had come down for a wedding and I said that it was for Oksana's friend. Shortly thereafter I received a, may I say terse, e-mail friend reminding me that it was Oksana's sister that was getting married up in the Blue Mountains, not her friend. Now, I don't know Oksana's family dynamic but I imagine if she's come from Canada to see her sister get married, they must be friends. I stand by my earlier statement.

Now, a little about Adelaide and South Australia. South Australia was founded by free settlers, unlike the rest of Australia which had convict settlement, although the man who though up the idea was a convict and was in Newgate Prison in London when he thought up the idea. Some of the earliest settlers were Germans who established the wine industry in the Barossa Valley, now a premier viticultural area. The Germans had a particular dish involving crows and to this day South Australians are known as "crow-eaters". Because it accepted non-conformist thinkers South Australia has usually been a little more liberal than the rest of Australia.

Adelaide, named after a Queen of the UK, with a population of 1.1 million, is Australia's 5th largest city after Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Its center is laid out in a grid pattern and is the only major city in the world who's central district is entirely surrounded by parks. It is home to many festivals, giving the name "The Festival State" to South Australia. I'll see if Adelaide is as wonderful as my mother says it is.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

All Work and No Play

The title of this post worked out better than I thought. It's a pun. Someone once said that puns are just lazy writing, and they're probably right, but punners are in good company. The ancient Egyptians were famous for their puns and enjoyed them thoroughly. The civilization that brought us the Pyramids, the Great Library, the Great Lighthouse, poetry (the first recorded example) and organized labour, including history's first recorded strike (I'm not kidding), seem to have been lazy writers. I suppose when all your writing consists of pictograms (hieroglyphs) even a short story is quite an undertaking, you have to economize where you can. The ancient Egyptians, it seems, economized with lazy humour.

I'll explain the title now. Since my semester schedule is better for getting hours at ACTTAB, I've been getting better (more) hours at ACTTAB. Although I haven't been overworked, I've still managed to get in some solid time, which translates to some solid cash. Unfortunately, it meant that I couldn't see this year's ANU Law Revue. I'll have to get a precis of it from someone.

The ANU Law Revue, an annual comedy lampooning put on by law students, ran Thursday-Saturday but commitments interfered every day. Thursday was blocked by umpire training and a visit with some family friends, while Friday and Saturday were taken up by work.

On Thursday, I met up with some family friends, Roman and Oksana, who were in Australia for Oksana's friend's wedding. Oksana is originally from Australia but has lived in Canada for a number of years while Roman, her husband, is a Canadian through-and-through. They were kind enough to pass along some stuff, mostly clothes, from my mother. I met up with them at the Canberra Hyatt, Canberra's oldest and possibly nicest hotel, and then they were gracious enough to take me out for dinner. I showed them around Garema Place and we finally decided on the Tongue & Groove, a new, trendy restaurant/cocktail lounge. If you can get a table there, you're somebody. We were seated and had a fantastic dinner. Afterwards, I thanked Oksana and Roman for their companionship, the dinner and the parcels.

Earlier I discussed ancient Egypt and I figure I'll say a little more on that fascinating civilization, in case you still don't believe the assertions I made earlier. With regards to poetry, the first recorded poem is an ode to the sun written (probably dictated) by Amenhotep IV, popularly known as Akhenaten. Among other things, he was Tutankhamun's father. Akhenaten was a very unusual fellow and moved the capital to a place now called El-Amarna, or Tel-El-Amarna. He instituted what was known as the Amarna Revolution, completely changing Egyptian religion. Although polytheistic, Akhenaten declared there to be only 1 God, the sun God Aten (hence the name change and the ode). It was history's first monotheistic religion. As well, art was changed to show the royal family in a more realistic way. After his death, the old religion was restored but such was the upheaval that, for whatever reason, Tutankhamun's name was erased from the List of Pharaohs.

As for organized labour, the Egyptians were famous for not using slaves in the construction of their monuments. Slaves were only used domestically, and sometimes in the brick works and quarries. All the Egyptians who toiled away for decades to make the Pyramids and other monuments were paid, and quite well. There were actually two very good reasons for this. Firstly, most of the work was done during the flood season when stones could be shipped closer to the monuments. At this time, better than 95% of the population was, effectively, unemployed, so the monuments essentially became vast public works for employment creation; lessons for today, I think. Secondly, I think there was a sort of spiritual aspect and that the Egyptians believed that you could not truly appreciate what you were building, essentially ensuring the Pharaoh's immortality, if you weren't an Egyptian. Getting to the first strike, around 1480 BCE there was a brick works near modern Deir-El-Medina. Like most people, they were promised goods (in this case grain, I think) in lieu of cash. At one point, they were not paid their wages and so the workers stopped working. They returned to work after being promised their wages but when those were not forthcoming, they went on strike again. They only returned to work after the Mayor of Waset (Thebes), I think, personally came down and delivered their allotment. I think the ancient Egyptians could teach us all a thing or two.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

In, and Out, the Money

I had a pleasant surprise on Monday when I noticed that my income tax refund had been deposited in my bank account. While $676.00 may not sound like a lot, to a student it makes all the difference in the world. Of course, it's my money to begin with so I'm only really getting what I've earned anyway. Am I really any better off? Of course I am. That, combined with a fairly nice payday a few days before means that I have ample funding for me-sen and my adventures.

The first thing I did was get a new rear wheel for my bicycle, whose rear wheel was slightly, but noticeably, bent and the axle broke. I just have to fiddle with the breaks a bit to get it perfect. I also got a set of Allen keys and a mud flap so my pants won't get dirty when I'm riding in the rain.

I've also decided to treat myself to a little vacation. Using my hard-earned money, I booked myself a round-trip to Adelaide with accommodation at the central YHA hostel. I think I deserve it. I'm leaving on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27th and returning to Canberra Monday, August 31st. Because one of my courses won't be running for a few weeks, I won't have class that Monday giving me extra time in Adelaide. I'm going primarily because I've never been and my mother sings the city's praises. This will mean that the only capital cities left for me to explore will be Hobart and Perth. I'll have to catch them some other time.

There are 2 things I wish to complain about, though, the first being the absence I see, from time to time, of the letter "u" in words like colour, harbour, favourite, etc. While this would be acceptable in the USA, I find it very irritating. It's not a matter of American hegemony, rather laziness on the part of the writers. Is it really that hard to set the spell check to English (Australian/UK/Canadian)? I had an exchange on this very topic over the university intranet with someone.

The history of the "u" in those words is actually quite interesting. In the 18th Century there was a move to standardize English spelling and, at the same time, to make it more like Latin; this is where the absurd "non-splitting infinitive" rule came about as well. The idea was the words that entered into English from French would be spelled with a "u" but those that came directly from Latin would be spelled without it. The problem was that it was very difficult most of the time to discern which language was the progenitor of the English word. Hence, 18th Century spellings sometimes would include words like "errour" (error), "terrour" (terror) and "governour" (governor) and "color", "labor" and "harbor". In the 1750s, the first great English dictionary was published by Samuel Johnson and his spellings included the use of "u" now seen in the British/International English. In the American colonies, soon to be independent, the Latinization of English continued to the point we see today, but it is only the American English that has dropped the "u". There are other differences, such as "-fense/-fence", "-lt/-led", "-ise/-ize", and "-er/-re" but I won't labour on them.

The second gripe I have is with the appalling lack of late-night eating facilities in Canberra. This arose out of a discussion with a fellow from India named Varun. Sometimes I like to eat late or I just get a craving and I want something. Unfortunately, there isn't a single pub or anything that serves good food late. Your choices are limited to either pizza stands, McDonald's or the Casino, which does have an alright menu, but it is quite limited. I really don't understand why there isn't at least 1 pub that serves food late. Kitchens seem to close in Canberra around 21:00 and I can't fathom it. Surely there must be a demand for proper late night eating; I'm an example of it. Is a late night food serving pub really too much to ask for? Apparently, in Canberra, it is.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

The Case of Humans vs. Zombies

For most of the week ANU has been in the grips of a zombie infestation. Apparently, Humans vs. Zombies is a popular role-playing game around American universities. Essentially people get placed on human or zombie teams and then go on missions. If a human is touched by a zombie, they become zombies. Although zombies cannot be killed, they can be stunned for 15 minutes by being hit with either a nerf dart or some socks. The game ran across campus and in the residences starting Wednesday and ending last Saturday. The Zombies won by infecting all of the human players. It sounds like so much fun and I couldn't play only because I didn't hear about it until late. Next year, if they're still running it, I'll buy some night vision goggles for the night missions.

Thursday and Friday were the last 2 days of my intensive postgraduate course. We had some interesting guest speakers who spoke of APEC, ASEAN and the Human Rights Council. Now comes the interesting part of trying to write a great paper. The professor assures us it isn't hard but I'm not so sure.

This evening I went to a laser tag facility called Zone 3 in Belconnen. This was a joint venture between our floor and the residents of the floor below us. We had an enormous amount of fun shooting each other and I fared fairly well. A nice escape from the usual drudgery.

I'd also just like to point out that I gained about 8kg from my Canadian trip and now I'm busy trying to shed that weight. That's the last time I accept to eat so much without the weather favouring bicycle riding.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Formatting Adventures

I've noticed the days getting longer. When I go to umpire training its not quite as dark as it used to be. It hasn't warmed up any but it's getting there.

The last few weeks haven't proven interesting really. University continues to be as much fun as it sounds, although I was introduced to a new class format. As part of the JD program, I have to take at least 2 postgraduate courses, and this semester I'm taking Law of International Institutions (LAWS 8184) with the same professor who's teaching me Advanced International Law (LAWS 2264). Because most postgraduate courses are run for those who work or fly in from elsewhere, the format is 4 days of 09:00-17:00. That was last Thursday and Friday and the same will be repeated this Thursday and Friday. Following that, I have to submit a paper which will be worth 100%, not something I'm looking forward to. I hope that because I did a similar class back at NPSIA I'll have an advantage here. Other than that, so far so good. I will only have 2 final exams this year so I'm hoping I'll get those out of the way quickly and then have the summer to work at ACTTAB and travel if possible. I may even be having visitors from Canada.

Life outside university seems to be progressing. My friends and I had another DnD session recently where we managed to slay a difficult opponent. We're all riding a high at the moment and we can't wait for the next adventures. I'm hoping a little adventure will come my way soon too.

By the way, I've updated my previous post a bit so check to see if you've missed anything.