AUSTRALIA CHRONICLES: PART 2!!! Settling in and getting around
1/12/23
Hello again, reader. I can't believe it but it's almost been a week since I got here. These past 6 days have genuinely felt like a month. When every sight and experience is novel, it's like the days stretch out and I'm constantly adjusting and familiarizing myself.
It's interesting because Sydney is really similar to America in a lot of ways and totally different (read: better) in others. Obviously, I know the language, and the landscapes are a lot like California, with big trees, blue skies, and a constant breeze. I don't think there's anything better than a breeze. At the same time, they drive on the other side of the road, there are quirky Aussie nicknames for everything, and their society is set up in a way that actually values it's members. Wow!!! Who would have thought that putting money towards social infrastructure and having a high minimum wage and gorgeous, reliable, sexy sleek and clean, jaw-droppingly convenient public transportation would make a city really fun to be in! What a concept. The wait time for trains and busses is so short, it's so convenient. There are always people walking around, I haven't felt unsafe or uncomfortable on the streets at all, and there are more free places to go than I've ever encountered in America. Museums being free to get into is genuinely so awesome.
We have had a couple lectures so far, the program brings in different professors and smart people to teach us about Australia's history and details about the continent itself. I didn't know that much about Australia before coming here so it's been super informative and I feel like a sponge that is just soaking up knowledge.
Getting to know the other people on the trip has been very interesting to say the least. There are lots of types of people, and they seem to be grouping up into different cliques. There are the ones who think they're cooler than everyone, the ones who are actually cool and know how to have fun and be inclusive, and those who are more inclined to kind of do their own thing or group together by process of elimination. Can you tell which one I'm in? Lol. I've always known that I need downtime to "recharge my batteries" so to speak, and I've been working on not feeling guilty for taking time for myself to do my own thing. A lot of our days are structured, but we also get a ton of free time and opportunities to do whatever we want, and I've realized through hanging out with the whole group that I get worn out more quickly when the people I'm around are always really loud and "on" all the time.
Me and a group of 7 ish went out for drinks the other night, and a couple people at the table were making a tiktok the whole time we were there. We were sat at a round table, all facing one another, and I was trying to spark conversations and get to know everyone better, while two of them were literally just on their phones and making a video and taking selfies and being so isolated from everyone. And I know I'm not really one to preach about low screen time, but I feel like scrolling twitter or instagram under the table a couple times throughout the night is less disruptive than screaming song lyrics and doing nothing but looking at images of yourself. And I get mean so fast because of the volume, the lack of important or stimulating conversation, etc.
After that bar we went to a bottle shop to get some wine, then a souvenir shop where I had a little photo shoot in my lion shirt and green skirt. We went to another bar that had some drag performances, which were not as fun or exciting as Portland drag. Me and Anika talked to a girl in the bathroom with our Australian accents and I think we really pulled it off. Qwynci was flirting with a cute girl, who invited us to a club that I didn't realize until the next day was having a lesbian night event. I remember thinking in the moment that there were so many cool, queer people there, and I just took that as being normal when it was literally lesbian night lmao.
The UV index gets so intense here, I was at Coogee beach after a lecture at UNSW and it reached 11! I put on sunscreen a couple of times while we were there but it wasn't enough, and my back and shoulders got fried. There were blue bottle jellyfish there, which have a super bad sting and it was interesting to be in an environment that has animals and creatures that can actually harm you. I haven't seen that many big spiders here so far, which is good, and no snakes either. I'm sure it'll happen eventually though.
We've been learning a lot about Australia's early colonial history, and how the effects of it have been so devastating for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, with effects that are still felt today. Similarly to America, these histories of brutal violence and systematic destruction are not broadly addressed in contemporary culture, and it's been interesting to think about the parallels between America's way of addressing these topics in comparison to Australia's. While Australia has only recently been pulling back the layers of the previously taboo topic, I think there are a lot of ways America could follow suit and do some real acknowledging and apologizing.
I've been really enjoying spending time by myself here, whenever I can I like to do my own thing and not be with a ton of other people. I went to the public state library of NSW yesterday and did some preliminary research for my project about death, grief, and healing in Aboriginal communities. I am workshopping the specificities of that because I really don't want it to become one of those situations where it's a white researcher coming into a community they don't really know anything about and profiting academically off of their trauma. I think if I have a focus that highlights the ways in which contemporary Australian politics or society have been infringing on the "sorry business" that is crucial to those communities, as well as the ways that First nation people have been standing up for their practices and resisting that interference, it could be more educational and uplifting of those voices, as opposed to just writing about their grief and sensitive topic matter.
We are working on planning our free week in which we have to get ourselves up to Brisbane, which is about the distance from LA to Portland! I am going with 5 other people and it's been tricky to plan it because no one wants to work on it. It was stressing me out that we have 8 days left and nothing booked, so I sent a message explaining how I feel to the group and we are going to work on it for a couple hours tonight, and hopefully get everything figured out. I'll be so much more excited once we have a plan!!
Ta ta for now,
Kate
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