The Gabtrotter

After being back in the United States for a solid 10 days, I’ve come to the conclusion that that chapter of my life went by too quickly. I guess because it is this faraway place, it has the ability to seem less real than other chapters. Whereas, with things I miss or think about around here, I am reminded of them much easier since I am surrounded by them or pass by them regularly.

The night of our goodbye party, I mentioned in conversation that it is a sad realization that “this is the closest we will all ever be again.” My friends and I from this trip will probably never be in such close proximity at the same time, and as close again emotionally. There are always exceptions to the rule, but it is unlikely and that is a sad realization. For, there are not many times in life where you grow close with people and know for a fact that this will be as close as you will ever be, I guess when certain friends are moving or you are leaving you always assume that you’ll have the chance to be close again because you’ve had them part of your life for so long. With study abroad it is a bit different than that.

I guess that is what makes studying abroad such a highly regarded experience: for a short while you experience what it is like to live and create a world in another country, with different friends, different foods and life-altering experiences. For the most part, all of these experiences and ways of life are temporary-, which in a sense romanticizes the whole thing. Already, I have a tendency with nostalgia only remembering the good and forgetting the bad—oh sweet memory. As I think about the times from Australia, I remember them with fondness and appreciation more and more.

My friends and I at our goodbye party

11:19 PM

Right now I’m wrapping up the first page to my final paper for Australian Cinema. The question I chose to answer,

“How important is it to define what constitutes an “Australian” film? Support your views with reference to past and present trends in Australian film production and film criticism.”

The paper is due tomorrow by 4PM, but I am going to try and have it finished for our 9AM class. After this paper I have a lot of breathing room, for the only class I’ll really have any assignments for is Directing Actors, which does not require a lot of work on my part because it all comes from the imagination, which I fortunately have a lot of. Today I took a long nap in preparation for this paper I need to write. It’s funny, I slept until 5PM and now I feel wide awake at 11PM.

Am I creating a new time zone within a time zone?

The video is out of sync for it was recorded on my computer, sorry!

Before I left, people would tell me, “Oh you’re going to love it. You’re going to have the time of your life there!” When people would tell me that, I never really believed it. I just didn’t understand how one short trip, to a place where I knew no one and had no idea what to expect could really be some of the best months of my life. Now, that I am actually living it, I totally understand what they had meant.

Before I left, I saw the movie Up in the Air and although I didn’t really like the movie, George Clooney’s character said: “If you think about it, your favorite memories, the most important moments in your life… were you alone? Life’s better with company.” The best moments are spent with other people; at least they have been for me. They may not be people you’ve been friends with your whole life, or people you’ll always be friends with, but all that matters is that you are there, together, fully loving and living in the moment.

Before I left, I didn’t know whom I was going to meet and I didn’t exactly know where life was going to take me. While I am here, I’ve been fortunate to have made some friends that have made these memories exceed just a good time and people to kill time with.

This weekend we went to Byron Bay and saw Australia’s most easterly point. There is something about being someplace that is the most of anything. Aren’t some of the best things when you are the most of that situation? Where you are the most happy, the most out there, living. We were standing on the edge of Australia, the edge of the world… or the world we live in right now. I’m the type of person, that as long as I am with some friends, it doesn’t matter where we are: we could be stuck on a plane for 13 hours, or at a club with the worst music in the world, I’ll still have a good time because I know that when the time is over it wasn’t about the music that was playing, the places we were or the talks we had at the time… it’s about being where you are and just fully experiencing it. I guess this time we are lucky, not only are we living in the moments as they happen, but we happen to be living these moments in the middle of the summer of a beautiful country. I might sound a little extreme, but I’m just trying to make the most of this… or be the most of whatever it is I am: happy.

Cheers to my friends here! Enjoy some of our best pictures:

Just stopping in here to say that life is good.. Life is grand… I love being tired because I’ve been having fun all day and not because of other things. I’m going to play tennis tomorrow and I’m excited about that. Life is good… Life is grand.

The roommate situation did not work out accordingly to plan, but as we all know nothing usually does work out as you planned. Last Tuesday, I got a call from the other girl whose roommate had moved out. We talked, and it turned out she had a nicer room, and seemed like she was a lot of fun, so I decided to go ahead and move in with her. Fortunately it was just down the hall, but I plan writing a letter to Bond’s Housing department, because it was a serious disruption to my daily life.

Moving on… (I’ll be updating very soon about my recent travels and thoughts)

The guy I met with wasn’t the dean of students, but the vice-chancellor. In American terms, this is like meeting with the Vice President of the school. The meeting was short, but he knew where I was coming from right away. He said that he’d talk to housing and we’ll see what can be done.

I signed up for Res-wars. Every dorm on campus can sign up to play in weekly sporting events, girls on one team and boys on another, and we play the other dorms. The team with the most points at the end wins a prize, and every week there is free dinner. I decided to sign up since a couple of my NU friends were doing it and it seemed like fun. Tonight’s sport? Basketball. Growing up, believe it or not, I wanted to be a college basketball star. I dreamed of going to Stanford, playing basketball and loving it, because I loved it so much then. I ate, drank, and slept basketball – the camps, the summer teams, the AAU teams… it was endless… until it ended. Well, tonight I didn’t rekindle my love for the sport, but I rekindled my innate athletic ability that I inherited. Our team had gone undefeated for the night and won the championship. It was fun, getting in there, playing hard, with a group of girls all with one common goal. It felt like I was a freshman in high school, not a junior in college. At Northeastern I haven’t had much time for anything other than work, schoolwork and fun work. Being here I’ve added a lot of activities that I haven’t participated in years, for example basketball. After the first game I was sitting on a chair, zoning out, thinking about how out of shape and terrible I have become at basketball. I had been so self-deprecating, and upset…then all of a sudden, this kid walks by me, stops and says, “hey you were one of the really good players out there, nice job.” Something as simple as that brought me some peace. It’s funny; sometimes I wonder if someone can hear what I’m thinking.

I had my iPhone unlocked; now I’m using that with my Global Gossip pay-as-you-go plan.

I started reading Jack Kerouac’s, On the Road, not only because I am on the road, but also because the “classical” books at the bookstores are the only affordable books here. The other reason is because I’ve always heard the famous quote from that book, but never knew its context. Incidentally enough, I didn’t have to read too far to stumble across the quote. I feel the same way that this quote does, and I often wonder why there aren’t more mad people out there… I’m still young though, who knows whom I’ll meet.

Quote:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn…” -Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Saturday morning, when I woke up, my roommate informed me that she was moving out, right then and there. My room is next to the common area, so it can be pretty loud, not something she was used to… but something I’ve been living with for the passed 4 years. The common room is nothing compared to the T, living on Huntington Avenue is like riding the T all day long. Anyway, she moved out and I was like sweet, now I’m going to have a single without having to have paid for a single. Or, someone new is going to move in and I’m going to make a new friend…

Today, I decided to be an informed resident and waltzed over to Housing to find out what is going to happen to the spare bed in my room.

Her: Oh you’re in room 316, we were going to leave you a note today. You either have to move into another room, with another roommate or pay $210 a week instead of $115 a week to stay in your room.

Me: What?? That sucks

Thus starts the dilemma. At Northeastern, it would be, “lucky you, you get your own room until someone moves out of their dorm, or until the semester ends.” Well, of course we’re on the other side of the world, they do things completely differently.

I told them I’d think about it and that I would come back… Well, after thinking about it, it started to dawn on me… I didn’t ask my roommate to move out, I was perfectly happy with a roommate… Why do I have to do anything because my roommate moved out? So I marched on over to Housing again and said:

Me: Well, it just doesn’t make any sense. Why would I have to move out because my roommate moved out?

Her: Because you can’t have your own room when you’re paying for a double.

Me: Right, so just move someone else in.

Her: Well, you can talk it over with the other girl who’s room will be vacant as to who will be moving.

Me: Ok, what’s her number?

Her: I can’t tell you that until her roommate actually moves out.

Me: Ok. Well, I’ll just have to take this matter up with Alan Fynch (the Dean).

Her: Ok.

I just don’t understand how, a month into the semester, they’re going to up and move me because of my roommate moving out. I’m happy in my room, and I’m comfortable. I’m going to have pack everything back up, and then unpack again. We’ll see what the Dean says; I have a meeting Wednesday morning. I don’t mind talking things over, presenting my side of the case… If I go the lawyer route, I think I’d be good at it.

Although this video did not take me very long to make (about a half day of work), there has been a serious conflict between my editing software (Final Cut Pro) and my digital camera. I haven’t used my digital camera as a video camera before, but because it records HD I thought I’d give it the old college try.

Technical difficulties aside, this is the video gives the basic rundown of what my campus looks like. Weather aside, Bond is quiet different from Northeastern. With 2,500 undergraduate students, it is significantly smaller than NU, for at Northeastern there are about 2,500-3,000 students in my 2011 class alone.  NU’s dining halls are very different, with the serve your own, buffet style to the Bond’s pay as you go, restaurant style. The cities are both very different too…

I never realized how much I took living in a city for granted. Being able to walk out of your apartment and find most places open until around midnight is a real blessing. Now, I’ve started to realize what one of the cab drivers meant when he said Bond is in the sticks; for even though it’s only 20 minutes from the beach, it is a lot like living in the country. If I had a car, this country feeling may not be as accentuated. The closest stores aren’t really that far away, but it’s nowhere near like being in Boston, where, you can find anything you need at anytime. The stores here though, close much earlier than in the US. It’s just a change from what I have been used to. I guess I never realized how much of a city girl I have turned into over these years in college.

Next to living in the “sticks,” I’ve also taken a serious technology downgrade. This can be viewed as a good thing, I suppose. Before I got here, I was the girl attached to my iPhone. Always on it, always checking my e-mail, constantly connected to the virtual world. Well, now, I have a Nokia phone that hasn’t been considered modern for about 6 years, it’s really sad. As silly as it sounds, I miss my iPhone, all of the beautiful things it could do for me: from the 24 hour GPS device to the unlimited texting, being iPhoneless can be somewhat disappointing. Even for the fluffy things. For example… Today I was at dinner with a few of my friends and I asked my friend from Norway, if Norwegians eat perogies. She, nor did my other friends, know what perogies were. If we were in Boston, I’d pull out my iPhone with a smile and graciously google a picture of a perogi to show them what exactly I was talking about. Well, today, even though I went to reach for my phone, I re-remembered that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Even though we flew into Brisbane, Bond University is actually in Gold Coast, Australia. My junior year of high school the lacrosse team went to a lacrosse camp in Florida. The school was Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. Bond reminds me of Eckerd for it’s a small, warm and beautiful campus. There are a lot of beautiful looking people here too; in fact I think the only unattractive people I’ve seen or met have been Americans, which cracks me up.

We barely made our flight from Sydney to Brisbane, and because of that most of our bags didn’t make it. We arrived at Bond around 3PM and the total travel time took a about 36 hours. I was very tired when I arrived, but my excitement kept me alert and happy. The ladies checking me in remembered seeing my name on the list, and of course inquired about it. I just said, “my parents think they’re funny,” they laughed and I left it at that.

My room reminds me of a very simple hotel. There are two twin beds, separated by a nightstand, two desks, and a bathroom attached. I’m living right at the center of campus. I can walk up and down a flight of stairs, and I’m at the gym, where the beautiful outdoor pool is. My view is of the lake with a spouting fountain, which again, is in the middle of campus. It’s a very pretty view and it makes me feel like I’m on vacation. Actually the whole experience feels like I am on vacation and not about to start a semester of school.  My roommate’s name is Cait and she is from Massachusetts and goes to a small school called Western New England College, it’s close to where she grew up, near Six Flags New England. She seems like the ideal roommate, respectful, friendly, nice and doesn’t talk too much, but still enjoys a pleasant conversation.

Monday I spent the day trying to get organized by getting my student ID card and figuring out how my meal plan works. It’s definitely not like the NU dining hall, the Northeastern system is made for gratuitous eating. Where as here, you get a certain amount on your Bond Card and it’s up to you to make it last the whole semester.

I also spent the majority of Monday trying to get my iPhone unlocked for a pay as you go plan. Of course AT&T makes it impossible to unlock the phone, even if you are overseas. It’s a serious inconvenience. I tried calling them and they said they could unlock any phone except, the iPhone. I tried explaining that I am going to stay a faithful AT&T customer when I am in the US, but I need the phone while I’m in Australia. Well, it didn’t work. Fortunately, my friend Sarah Simon who had studied here last year, lent me her phone for the semester and that’s what I am now using as my Australian cell phone. For calls home, I am paying $12 a month for the skype global plan. I can make unlimited phone calls anywhere in the world. It’s a great deal. If you want to reach me, my phone number is 617-553-1033, and if I don’t answer just leave a voicemail and I can get back to you.

Monday evening, my friend Steph and I met a retired couple at a Chinese restaurant near campus. We started talking and next thing you know, we ended up sitting with them talking about Australia and the US and the differences and similarities. It was great fun; they even gave us a ride back to campus. The Australians are much friendlier than Americans.  Also, the restaurant we were at was BYO, which means bring your own. Any restaurant that says BYO underneath the name means that you can bring your own wine or beer. I thought that was a nice way of doing business. Also, gratuities are not expected here, which makes for a cheaper meal.

Monday night I went to a toga party. They give you a sheet to make into a toga, it’s possibly one of the most unflattering outfits I have ever worn. See for yourself:

Even though something like that isn’t typically my scene, I decided to bend my own comfort to try and have a goodtime. It was a complete unsuccess. I went with my friend Stephanie, but she’s not into that whole scene either.  I tried a Tooheys beer while at the party, it was a little bitterer than a Bud Light, and definitely not as good.

Tuesday I went to the pool and traveled to Robina Shopping Center. That was pretty cool; they had a Target there. I tried to get in, and to my dismay the store was closing; the stores close at 5PM there (except on Thursday where they have late night shopping until 9). I was disappointed by this news, and just bought some stuff at the grocery store.

Today is Wednesday and I’ve gone to the pool, listened to a local explanation of where to go to get what, and I am currently waiting for the mini-fridge we’ve rented to be delivered. Having a mini-fridge will definitely make life a bit easier.

Because Bank of America has high fees for making purchases abroad. I have decided to open an account here, with ANZ and wire money into my account. It’ll cost $35 each time I do it, but I am saving a lot of money by doing it this way. ANZ allows you to make purchases free around Australia. I still haven’t been able to figure out what my rates are for my BofA Amex card, but when I do know I’ll write about it.

Once the mini-fridge is delivered I hope to make a video tour of campus, so that way you can see what it is I am talking about.

Until then…