A report from Canberra

So, now that the whole shitstorm has quieted down a bit, I thought I could share some impressions about Canberra. (For those of you who are wondering how to pronounce it, it sounds like Kääm-bruh, with the stress on the first syllable.)

Canberra was built a hundred years ago (1913) to be the capital of Australia. The rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne was getting on everyone's nerves (including theirs), so the government decided to build a capital. It's located in the hills about a three hours' drive west of Sydney (they were aiming for an area that has seasons, as research says people are much more productive living in such areas), in hope of the city becoming a Mecca for politicians, students and rich families. Mission accomplished.

Canberra is spread out geographically, so that it doesn't actually have a CBD. The Parliament and the ANU campus hold up a lot of the central area, with pubs and restaurants lining up along the centre. The rest of the inhabited area is made up of suburbs split up by large areas of bush. It takes ages to get anywhere, but luckily the public transportation seems to do its job, so it's not that bad.

The city's reputation is, naturally, not one of an insanely fun city. You either see lots of people in suits and students having fun with a bunch of mates in the pub; or you don't see anyone at all. It's got a weird vibe–although not necessarily in a bad sense–so it takes some time to grow on you. Heaps of museums and galleries store historical treasures, while libraries and universities make it very appealing for those wanting to get into academia.

I was here during Australia Day, but honestly didn't even bother to go down to the lake (artificially made) so I wouldn't know how it was. I did see military planes flying over my building, so yeah. I can say I was there. Aside from my friends M&I coming over from Sydney and going around the city during the weekend, there's not much I've done here.

The research I'm doing at the ANU is taking up a lot of my time, so if I go anywhere after that, it's the pub for a bite and a pint. There's still a week left, but I honestly doubt I'll do much more than what I've done so far. Lazy as(s), I know. Who knows–maybe I go crazy and spend a couple of afternoons exploring the city. But given that all the museums and galleries close at 5 (and I rarely leave my office before that), I somehow doubt it.

The campus itself is so huge it's divided into precincts. I enjoy walking around, visiting different libraries and going through ancient encyclopedias. It reminds me of how inspiring it all is, but also how different things are once you're older and have to worry about other things in life. I still enjoy it (as short as it is), which only motivates me to hang onto the idea of getting a PhD.

But anyway. I've ranted on for the last week and was really stressed and pressured from a lot of different sides. At one point, I had enough of it all, but I guess things change when one sits down and reconsiders things.

All in all, I'm grateful for everything that's happened to me. I know I've been blessed, but I just tend to forget it sometimes, dealing with stupid little things and focusing on irrelevant things. I guess we all need a reminder here and there.

All good.

A winter update

Winter's here. It came a while ago.

A winter that would make you laugh. It's 16°C at the moment. My mate G and I call it not-summer, as we spent big chunks of our lives living in Europe.

This is not winter. But it doesn't mean it's not cold, especially since I've apparently gotten spoilt rotten by the hot weather here.

The flowers are blooming, the chilli plants on my balcony are sprouting all over again and the cloudy sky is coloured dreamily every night.

Night means five o'clock. No daylight saving means it's pitch black at 17:30. Shower means five days of torrential rain. The temperature at night goes down to 2°C – and then it's 20 all over again during the day.

People are scraping off frost off their windscreens in the morning and jogging shirtless in the arvo¹.

It's ridiculous. It's 15 and I'm jumping into a hoodie and thick socks. I am ridiculous. As people are migrating to the coast in Croatia, I've migrated onto my lounge and developed a relatively close relation with my duvet².

Am I going to have to get used to cold weather again after spending two years getting used to insanely high temperatures?

This is silly.





¹ Arvo is Australian for afternoon.
² Duvet is Australian for quilt.

A photo update from the Northern Territory

The Daily Pinch

Moving to Australia pretty much changed my life. It's funny when things you dream of come true.

Just like the day I passed my final exam. Or the day I graduated. Crossed the street and had a cup of coffee. Just like any other day.

It hits you later on. And then you kind of forget what it felt like. Especially nice things, which sucks, because you remember the bad ones a long time.

Waking up every day to the song of parrots puts things in a different perspective. Days may be long, hard and too hot, and weekends may be busy, cloudy and too short. But I remind myself – not every day, but whenever I can – of where I am and what I do.

I saw this new series on the TV, and it made some feelings stir up inside me. This incredible awe and cluelessness, respect and admiration...

I walk on the same sand people walked on 50,000 years ago. I work with some of the last people to have walked out of the desert, I learn new ways – but the ways that have been present for tens of thousands of years.

Makes you think of your high school history lessons, doesn't it? It makes me remind (and keep reminding) myself of my new life...

Google it, watch it, share it.

Spring in Australia

Spring has finally come to Australia. After a long and cold winter, here it is! Even though winter in Australia is nowhere near cold and should be called not-summer (as my friend G would say), I have a feeling people have had enough of rain and cold.

The temperatures here don't go lower than 2 degrees Celcius or so, but because there's no heating and the isolation is quite bad, it gives you the chills all right. After three weeks of pretty much crappy weather in Croatia, I came back to the Western Australian spring, to pretty much similar weather.

According to the Noongar cycle (Noongar are the native tribe in present-dayPerth and its surroundings), we're in the middle of Djilba over here, which runs through August and September, and is described as a mixture of wet days with increasing number of clear, cold nights and pleasant warmer days. The Noongar calendar has six seasons, rather than the four that were imported by European settlers.

I found a news article that says:

...intriguingly, it's not the calendar, or even necessarily the prevailing weather, that largely determines the Noongar seasons. Rather, it's the emergence of various plants and animals that dictate how and where traditional owners would have gathered their food.

Professor Len Collard, a researcher at the University of WA's School of Indigenous Studies, says that the Djilba season literally translates as the 'grassy time', when the preceding months of rainfall are reflected in the wealth of vegetation now growing. In turn, that paves the way for Kumbarang, or the "time of plenty", when young birds are fledging and wildlife is abundant.

Traditionally, Noongars would have relied on this kind of seasonal knowledge to inform their hunter-gathering strategies. For instance, rainy weather means kangaroos have higher levels of worms, which makes kangaroo-hunting a bad idea at this time of year. Similarly, emu eggs will have already passed the edible stage. In short, "nature governs", Professor Collard said. Although few people live hunter-gatherer lifestyles today, the principle could also help to teach us how to fish or hunt in a sustainable way, he added.

For instance, "it's not in our interest to be killing the mother duck while she's sitting on the eggs, because then the eggs might not survive and we won't have as many ducks the next year".

The Noongar seasons may also be better at highlighting the changes to our environment being wrought by climate change, Mr Cook said.

Check the link for the complete article: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/lovely-djilba-weather-were-having-a-guide-to-the-noongar-seasons-20130911-2tkm7.html#ixzz2gobA1cQv.

Lovely, isn't it? And so simple. It makes me think...

I'm lying in my bed, lazying around on a Saturday morning, and the blinds are down. I know it's shitty weather outside again. It's not about the clouds and the rain, but the wind. It blows through your bones. Cold winds blowing from the south make me not wanna go out, but hide under the covers.

But here's a couple of spring photos. Walking to work, I run into these crazy little flowers and amazing blooms, some of which I've never seen before. Enjoy!

Also, I finally planted a little herb garden on my balcony, and already had some rocket, basil and chives in my food. Yum!

And a couple more photos of spring life...

Australia's South West - Teaser

Here's a couple of photos from my Easter break trip down south...

I'll try to do some writing up later on, preferably once I finish Myanmar off.
:checks his watch and the calendar and rolls eyes:

Taboo

Indigenous communities in Australia are well known for thabul (better know as taboo), which basically means they're not supposed to use some words. The thing is that people don't really have an idea about what those words are.

I reckon the first things that pop into most people's mind is private parts, 'sex' and similar, but there's much more to it. Honestly, I had my concern about it when I first started doing a bit of a background research, and after I realised how much more lay behind it.

The interesting part starts with figuring out all the numerous situations occur, when you’re supposed to follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

• Avoid family relations – a man doesn’t have any relations whatsoever with his mother-in-law, which can prove to be very difficult when I’m supposed to pick them up in the same car; also sister and brother after he’s been initiated etc.
• Hunt totem animals/plants – a person gets a certain totem depending of his family background, place of conception or birth, where she/he lives etc.
• Avoid saying certain things out loud – usually closely regarded to initiation, but also widely used in men-only or women-only situations, e.g. men will discuss men stuff and women will simply scatter around, and vice versa.
• Women are not to play the didgeridoo – this is especially noticeable in social situations, which are regulated by the Dreaming Law; some ethnomusicologists believe the situation is changing, especially in the contemporary development; even though the taboo is supposed to refer to Aboriginal women only, Nicole Kidman was said to have broken that taboo by blowing into the didgeridoo on German television (and thus cast a shadow on that custom, making others think it was okay to do so), and was said to be barren due to that.
• Avoid naming the deceased – saying the deceased person’s name brings grief of the family and friends, and is thus replaced by a replacement word which is, amazingly enough, “replacement” (or, in some cases, this and this person's mother; someone's neighbour etc); the struggle starts when you’re dealing with names like Friday, Alice and Rose, and you’re trying to say you’re meeting your friend in Alice Spring on A Friday – what you’d say would quite literally be “I meeting replacement on replacement in replacement’, and you won’t be able to use the words rose, rosebush etc; it is thus a common practice to use more and more really exotic names (Binbeal, Dorak, Mearann, Pindan, Ungud, Gymea, Lournea, Apanie, Oranta etc)…

And on that note, I shall tell you a story about the name I’m being called.

Being that my name is rather unusual (and my surname even more), there's an incredibly slight chance that it might become taboo. Nevertheless, it's unfamiliar and hard to pronounce, so I figured I'd be baptised something else.

Even though I had already done a couple of surveys before, it was the big meeting we had up in the desert that was supposed to be the moment I actually get introduced to the community. Everyone was gathered around, the women, the elders and the initiated men, while kids ran around and made quite an admirable amount of mess.

One of the lawyers said she wanted to introduce me, but as soon as she said my name, we realised it's not going to be as easy. Because they rely on their family relations, they wanted to know more about my background – a bit about where I come from, what my history is and, finally, what my full name is.

I tried pronouncing it as slow and understandable as I could, but it didn't work, even with the help of a microphone. Our lawyer found it funny and used the chance to giggle at me and make me repeat it a couple of times. To make up for it, I had to make a round and show my face to everybody, after which a new topic was started. The community was, nonetheless, immensely intrigued by the whole thing and, even though we would meet each other more often in the future, they wanted to sort that out.

They told the lawyer they wanted to sort it out, so – based on my initials, which are MM – they would call me M&M. Everyone agreed, there was a bit of a murmur and that was it. I was in!

Being that I'm a bit of a newb out there, the nickname would work out just fine. After all, initials are often used as a way of referring to someone or calling after them. And it's not even the first time I got called that (previous trips resulted in some people calling me M&M), so it kind of made sense.

Until everyone else picked it up and my new name was spread around the office and stating that M&M – being I'm white and all that – is actually Eminem, after which I've been dubbed Slim, Double M, Marshall etc.

And something tells me it's not going to stop there...

Life geography

This weird feeling of being in a place and feeling good about it.

Not wanting to run away, or to get the taxi to the airport and get the first flight out. Not wanting to shut yourself in your room and plug the phone out. Not wanting to fall asleep and wake up after the winter ends.

When you're sleepy, but in a good way. When you're tired, but only because you had heaps of fun. When you're working long hours, but it's something that fulfils you.

A feeling strange to me. Something I cannot connect with living somewhere. Travelling yes, but living no. It just seems strange that it all works out. You have to work, but you also find time to enjoy yourself. You're super stressed at work, but you meet up with your friends and put it all aside until Monday.

And even simply observing the people around me: people wake up early and go jogging, go to the beach for a swim, go to their physio... People invite you over for dinner, go out and see a movie, want to go to a concert by someone they're never heard.

So relaxed and yet responsible. So laid back and yet organised. So professional and yet so open.

Isn't it amazing how geography changes lives?

After a swim at Porpoise Bay, Rottnest Island, WA

Kalamunda by bicycle

I finally got my bike!

It took me a while, I know, but it's a painful process going through all the bikes, offers and components, and finding what I wanted.

Thanks to L from work, my mates G and Douche and some other people who gave me tips - here it is!

We went to Kalamunda National Park for a ride last weekend and, even though I'm bruised and I scratched half of my tan off, I loved it.

Guess what's on for this weekend...

A well-deserved rest after an approximately 15km trail ride

Bits and pieces from Sydney

Trying out the Passbook boarding pass...

The inappropriately called Spit bridge.

The Manly scenic walk - 10km in 2.5h.

Houses on rocks.

The view along the way...

"Make some shade, man!"

Swim at Manly beach. Okay, two. And then lunch...

The big move

People who know me, who've heard about me move, or are simply interested in knowing more, often ask me how come I decided to take the step.

That big step.

Even when I decided it was time to apply for jobs abroad (which was an idea for a long time), people were both supportive and sceptic at the same time. That has proven to be even more obvious when the situation started developing and certain opportunities started arising.

People who welcomed the idea of me looking for abroad were surprised by the fact that I a) got a response, b) had an actual interview and c) got offered a position. After a couple of false alarms (because I've been offered positions, but nothing came through), people tended not to react as excitedly as the first couple of times.

I guess people get excited and happy that someone got a job, but due to the heavy situation that's currently going on, people have lost enthusiasm. And even though some were really happy for me, I guess that shadow of doubt didn't really think it was going to happen. That's what happens when you keep finding yourself in a gutter, which was starting to happen to me after looking for a job for almost two and a half years.

After being offered a position, I was a bit more careful with getting it out there. People were already suspicious enough and I didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf over and over again. It got out there and people were sincerely and openly happy.

I accepted the position, started dealing with the paperwork, gathered all the necessary documents, applied for my visa and started planning my move when I got asked if I was really going to go through with it.

I guess it's that shadow again. Everyone would like to get away, change the situation they're in, and finally start living the life that they crave. Some people may have doubted me and my determination, and maybe even thought I would never do it when the time came.

But I did it. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying I'm a miracle maker. Many have taken the step (or maybe I should use the term jump) and there will be many after me, when it was way harder and when there was no jets and Skype and cheap phone calls.

Nevertheless, it's not easy. Hanging around people who've moved a lot makes it easier. It makes me realize that people around the world do it on a regular basis, that moving is not such a big deal after all, and that I have to focus on the benefits and not the lacks of it.

A lot of people ask me how I'm doing, whether I'm going out or hanging around at home, what I find nice and what creeps me out, if there's really all those snakes and sharks, and how I cope with the heat. The problem is I can't boil it down to a sentence in the chat window, nor in a short group or copy/paste e-mail.

Maybe that's where this blog actually falls in, as my window to the world, as the salvation from all the endless repetition. And maybe that'll make things easier.

I do miss my friends, I still need time to adjust and, if not get get used to things, at least not find them weird. The come-back-from-work-have-dinner-lie-on-the-couch life is freaking me out a bit, but I'm getting out there. Parties, beach runs, lunches, home visits...

I'm getting there...

Yours sincerely,
Newbie Lost Dork in Oz

Note: This just came out during my break at work. I hope no one gets offended by the sudden avalanche of thoughts...

Coles

I went to Coles yesterday, to stock up on some groceries. I needed some juice and nibbles, as the weekend was in full swing and the one thing I planned to waste it on was lying around and going through my hard drive's Torrents folder.

It was really busy, as it was almost closing time on a Saturday. The parking lot, already famous for the utmost insanity that goes on it during rush hour, is a Russian roulette for pedestrians like me. The only and unavoidable way through is dodging pensioners who don't even look around, crazy mums who don't give a fuck about anyone (because they have to run and feed their kids) and random, seemingly homeless, people who keep nicking trolleys.

I felt like I was on candid camera as I walked in and did what felt like twenty-four three-sixties. I went out of the store and back in three times in search of a basked, but I guess there were so many people that they were all taken. The downside is that these situations totally stupid me out and I'm lost within seconds.

Not knowing whether to just chuck stuff in my reusable bags or get the mere basics and carry them in my hands (or just run away), I was still circling the entrance like a goldfish in a circular jar-style aquarium. I finally came to my senses and went toward the cash registers, where I took one basket which was sitting on the side.

Bingo!

I grabbed some stuff as soon as I could and decided to leave the isles lying furthest away for another day. A better day.

The queues at the cash registered were already beginning to take a snake shape, so I went for one with only three people in it. Phew! Being all drawn into my own shopping, the tiny Einkaufszettel* that reminded me of all the things I needed to get and figuring out how I'd carry all that shit home, I raised my head and boy, did I have something to see.

Busy mums with three kids in their trolleys, romantic couples that basically can't wait to get home (but can't keep their romance to themselves), Tibetan monks, barefoot hipsters grabbing a refreshment after an evidently crazy night out), a nose-wiping boy at the cash register, probably totally fed up with having to repeat flybuys? and cashout?, and me.

Me, with my three bags, a French baguette sticking out of one and the gusts of wind pushing me from side to side at times. If I don't get blown away, I will have made it.

Next stop, LiquorLand!

*See the photo below, taken from the Internet.

Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie is a famous mining town about 500km north-east of Perth. It's known for its Super Pit mine that gapes right on the edges of town. It got its name from the word karlpurla, which means place of the silky pears, plants native to Australia.

I fly there often because it's on the way to the areas that my company covers. It's not a regular mining town, because it's grown so much and thus turned into a proper town. Nevertheless, it's not a place I'd want to hang around for long. Too busy for a town, too expensive for a non-metropolitan area and in general a place you get to or leave from.

Since I seem to have landed/taken off at night, I haven't actually seen the mine from above before until yesterday. That's why I decided to write something about the place.

Being that it's located in the desert, the rainfall is minimal. It was therefore important to get water to the ever-more-rapidly spreading town. It was founded during the gold rush at the end of the 19th century and a very expensive project for that time was proposed - a pipeline which would connect Kal to Perth.

I heard a story about the pipeline being finished and a big inauguration being held in Kal. All the public and the newspapers and the locals were there when they opened the pipeline, but no water came out. Charles Yelverton O'Connor was the one to make John Forrest's project reality. I was told he committed suicide when he realized the project was a failure.

The history writes a different story. Under the constant pressure and criticism, O'Connor committed suicide by shooting himself while riding his horse into the sea in Fremantle, where he constructed the famous harbour.

The pipeline project supposedly took place about a year after he committed suicide and it still enables the 25,000 people to lead their lives up in Kal.

Kalgoorlie's Super Pit
(Photo taken from the Internet)

John Forrest National Park

H, G and I went to the John Forrest National Park today, some 35 kilometres north-east of Perth.

It's a place of pristine nature, with a feeling that gives you the chills. Ancient trees, giant boulders, an abundance of various species of plants, freshly emerged wild flowers, parrots screeching from the treetops, kangaroos peeking from the bushes only a couple of meters away, waterfalls...

It's just magical! And as pictures speak better than words, here you go...
(Look closely for extras...)