Access

    It's been some time since I stopped halfway through my travel log of the trip here, so I decided it was time to get the rest of it all told out.  I believe we left off at the point where I boarded the Qantas flight for Sydney.  It was about 10pm at this point and considering the fact that I had been "in transit" for almost 18 hours, I think I was doing quite well.  The drugs had helped quite a bit in making the massive headache I mentioned in part 1 go down quite a bit, and I was able to relax a little bit more now that second of three transportation issues seemed to be successfully resolved.

    A perhaps insignificant thing to be grateful for, but for which I am nonetheless grateful, was that on both flights I managed to quickly and easily find a place in the overhead compartments to place my carry-on and my laptop bag.  I remember when I was flying home from my mission I had a huge carry-on, which to this day I still don't know how I got it on to the plane without them telling me it was too big, and it wouldn't fit anywhere.  I checked all of the nearby compartments, but alas, none were empty enough, or of a compatible geometry to accommodate my bag.  I was so crowded with my garment bag (containing four suits, about eight shirts, two pairs of shoes, and all my socks) "under the seat in front of [me]" that one of the flight attendants asked me if I wanted my garment bag hung up.  I didn't even know that that was possible, and I was very thankful that he offered to hang it for me.  Taking this lesson to heart, I sought quickly to board, find my row, stow my luggage, and take my seat.  Now knowing that planes have somewhere to hang things up, I asked the flight attendant if I could hang up my suit jacket, thus avoiding getting it wrinkled during the next 18 hours.

    Some of you might be asking at this point "Why was he wearing a suit?", and the answer to that is actually quite simple.  I decided to wear a suit for several reasons, some of them better than others, but all equally contributing to the final decision.  The first thing that sparked the idea and gave it birth was simply the fact that if I wore the suit, it would allow for just a bit more room in my suitcase.  While this may seem insignificant, it was the initial motivation, and as I debated the idea, I began to see more merits to it.  The second merit was that I wanted to have people take me seriously.  I'm not trying to say that if I wore shorts and a t-shirt that people wouldn't take me seriously, but more that if I wore a suit, I would appear more serious.  As much as we might debate it in either direction, I think that ultimately, I was well-founded and justified in my second reason:  When I told people that I was going to the University of Wollongong, so many people jumped (not so much jumped but more that they, based on current social norms, deduced (incorrectly)) to the conclusion that I was going to be teaching there.  Now, I want to point out here that I don't think that wearing a suit subconsciously spurred flight attendants to put any more care or effort into pouring me a small plastic cup 3/4 full of juice, or to do so faster than with people in casual clothes; that's not what I'm trying to say at all.  The last reason is closely related to the preceding, that I wanted to make a good impression.  I didn't know/wasn't sure who would be showing up at the airport to pick us up and so I wanted to be prepared to give a responsible and confident first impression should anyone from the university faculty be there to greet us.  As it turned out, no one of academic import was there, so I made an impression only on my fellow classmates and the flight attendants.  Despite the foregoing defence of my decision some may still be thinking that this was all just foolishness, so in a final support of my conclusions, I would like to remind the reader that, on my mission, I wore a suit and a tie EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT EXCEPTION FOR OVER 700 DAYS STRAIGHT; I am very comfortable in a suit, it didn't bother me in the least, and there was absolutely no downside to my choice.

    Having stowed my luggage quickly and found my seat, I was disappointed and irked to discover that I was in an exit aisle and consequently had no window and no movie screen.  This was shaping up to be a very long journey, as I was hoping to take some pictures and while away my time by watching all the movies.  I must ashamedly confess that my shy nature came into play here, preventing me from asking the flight attendant the simple questions that would ensure my contentedness during the voyage.  At first, most of my thoughts were occupied with wondering what would happen if I asked to be moved to a seat with a screen.  Then they were directed toward the design of the aircraft itself; who would design the seats so that these exit rows would have no screen and all the others would?  I was irked, and quickly on my way to becoming annoyed.  After stewing about it for a while, and feeling a little sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity, I decided to try and sleep.  I'm not sure how long into the trip it was when I awoke (read: stopped trying to sleep) but when I did, it was to find the guy next to me watching a movie on his screen.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from, or stop, laughing at my inexperience and naïveté.  While I have flown a few times, I’m not an expert on commercial airliner seat design; how can you blame me for not knowing that the screen was located under the arm of my seat?  Seriously.  Not surprisingly, I extracted my screen and immediately began watching the available movies.  I watched an Australian movie with Daniel Radcliff in it (the Australians like to joke about this, as he isn’t Australian, mocking his accent) called December Boys.  It wasn’t all that great, and I don’t think I’d recommend it to anyone, nor would I watch it again.  It was actually quite boring, with little plot to speak of.  I can’t remember the other movies I watched (a consequence of taking so long to document the flight) but among the movies, trying to sleep, and reading my book, I managed to pass the time rather well.  The food on both flights was your typical fare and, for anyone who knows me, was more than satisfactory (despite some slightly over-microwaved rice).  We were served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast, with snacks in between consisting of frequent juicings and fruitings (in the words of Calvin “Verbing wierds language” (I realize that ‘juicings’ and ‘fruitings’ are grammatically nouns, they are nouns that have been verbed, then nouned, and so are perfectly related to the quote)).  I’m not sure what other details from the flight to include, so if you think of any you want, lemme know and I’ll edit the post.

    After disembarking (I, in the past, have heard it referred to as debarking, which makes me think of taking the bark off of trees) I walked along the long walkways and through the carefully placed duty free stores on my way to customs.  They had several signs detailing the seriousness of bringing in foreign plants/fruits/vegetables/meat, and at one location just before the customs line they had a large rubbish bin (garbage can) with a sign indicating that this was their last chance.  It seems as though the Australians are very cautious, and they have a right to be considering what they endured in the mid 1800s when that one Englishman imported a few rabbits so that he could hunt them.  Apparently he wasn’t a very good hunter, ‘cause some of them managed to get away and began to reproduce . . . like rabbits.  I got in line, but then realized I hadn’t filled out my customs declaration card, so I went to go fill it in.  While I was doing so, another couple planes landed and the line got a lot longer.  I got back in the now significantly longer lineup and began to wait.  Suddenly, I realized I was missing my carry-on.  I had left it over at the counter.  There was now a saddening number of people both in front of and behind me.  I had to leave the line yet again to get my bag, then re-enter the line.  It took me sooo long to get through.  Looking back on it now, I think it was a good thing that I spent such a long time in the lineup because it meant that I had to spend less of the next hour or so agonizing over the fact that one of my checked bags never appeared on the carousel.  There was one that looked exactly like mine, but it had a lock on it, and a blue ribbon on the handle.  Clearly, someone had assumed that mine was theirs, not looking closely enough to notice that it wasn’t.  I have now learned my lesson, and in the future I will always ensure that some significantly distinguishing mark or feature is present on my luggage.  After waiting until the carousel stopped (to ensure that it was, in fact, lost), I was directed to the luggage claims counter in order to file a claim.  Approaching the counter, I was amazed at the shocking number of pieces of luggage that were ‘lost’.  This vast sea of luggage was easily 4m X 10m, and in some cases was piled 2 and 3 high.  Wow.  There were only a few people in the luggage line, but it took quite a long time for them to get through.  All told, including the customs line, the carousel wait, and the luggage claim line, I ended up taking about 2 hours to get off the plane and into Australia.  As there were a few different flights that contained UoW students, I ended up having to wait as soon as I got out anyway.  We had to wait for about another half hour for the last flight to land and the rest of the students to get through.  The bus ride down to the Gong (the city of Wollongong) took about two hours, as we travelled via the older Coast Hwy (I guess the driver wanted us to experience something more scenic).  I chatted with the other students, enjoyed the view of the coast, and listened to some music as we traveled along the coast, south towards our new home for the next 10 months.  We all got dropped off at our various temporary accommodations, with me and a few others being dropped off about half a block away from ours ‘cause the bus couldn’t turn around if he dropped us right in front.  Keiraleagh House, my temporary home, has been described previously, so I won’t go into any more detail about it.

    And there you have it:  The first stage of my Australian experience.  It’s interesting and saddening to note that it took me over two months to document it.  I need to be less scared of starting things.  That’s really my only problem.  I’m not good at starting.  When I get going, things go well, but it’s that initial motivation that I lack.  I’ll have to make sure that I marry a girl who can give me that little push to get things started.  I’ll get around to that eventually, though not right now.

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    I find myself torn between two extremes:  1. Including significant amounts of detail so that the individual events are well described, and my own feeling and thoughts are adequately conveyed, and 2.  Saving myself time by eliminating excessive detail because it takes me so long to think of exactly how I want to convey my experiences.    Of course I don’t want to leave out details, so the ideal solution would be for me to get faster at punching out my ideas.  Because that ideal situation seems unlikely, I think I’m going to have to be more selective about which events and thoughts I decide to include.  The whole purpose of this post is to get some feedback about what I should do.  I’m just not sure what would be my best move here.  So, in this post I expect some feedback.  For those of you who might not have made the connection yet, I will be basing my future posts on the content of the feedback and comments left.

    Sunday was great, though packed.  I sat down in the back pew, just a few minutes before sacrament meeting was to be starting, and was asked to bless the sacrament.  I thought that was interesting not only because it’s not exactly a small ward, so there are plenty of other priesthood around to do it, but also because they still don’t even know for sure that I’m a member.  I haven’t met with the Bishop, and I’m sure that my records weren’t transferred yet, so I could just be a guy off the street (who knows a fair bit about the church and doesn’t mind sitting in church for several hours).  I finally decided that the reason he asked was because he wanted to hear my Canadian accent bless the bread.

    This week there was a couple of babies being blessed (not that the babies were a couple, this isn’t a pre-arranged marriage sort of country, just that there were two of them) so there were significantly more people at church than the week before.  So many so that we had to add some cups and fill them after all the water trays had been depleted, something that hasn’t happened to me more than a handful of times (this was the third, I think).  After a really good testimony meeting at which I bore mine, the teacher of the singles class approached me and recruited me into her class.

    After helping set up the chairs, I was asked by the missionaries to help out with the Gospel Principles class because there were so many non-members there for the blessings.  The aforementioned teacher, whose class I had been in for just 2 or 3 minutes, was really hoping that this wouldn’t be a permanent thing (which it wasn’t).  The missionaries spent the next 45-50 minutes trying to give a really well-prepared first discussion.  I say trying because there was a visitor who was a member, but had a bad case of brain-mouth.  She just kept talking about some of the most random stuff that though it was always related to the church and spirituality often had little if anything to do with the overview of the plan of salvation that the Elders were trying to teach.  Sadly consequently, we only made it through pre-mortal existence and almost all of the way through mortality.  For any of you who have served missions, you will know that one hour is plenty of time to make it through the plan of salvation.  I felt sorry for the missionaries.  That’s really a hard position for them to be in.  They really want to be thought of as nice and kind, but they really need to get through a lesson, so they’re torn between being nice, and not getting through a lesson.  It takes a lot of skill (and often a lot of courage as well) to help someone feel like they’re not getting cut off when, usually, that’s precisely what’s happening.

    During priesthood I was informed that we were going to be doing lesson 3, a fact that bothered me quite a bit.  There may be some wondering why this would bother me at all, but then there are also those who made the connection between Fast and Testimony meeting, babies blessings, and lesson 3.  Lesson 3 wasn’t supposed to be till the next week.  I decided to comment on it, and in response the EQP said that because there were so many lessons in the manual that we’d never be able to get through them all if we only did two per month.  It kind of boggled my mind that neither he nor any of the other members knew that the manual was to be used over a two-year period until one brother informed me that they got the Teaching of Brigham Young manual a year after it came out for us, so they only had it for a year.  So, in their defence, they had precedent for thinking that we would have it only for a year, but really, that information should have been made available to them.

    Saturday was a bit of an exciting day.  I was really looking forward to my first opportunity to go surfing.  The night before, Bro Clancy had gone onto one of his most favouritest websites where he checks the forecast for the waves.  It looked like tomorrow would be a reasonably good day for the swells, so he decided that tomorrow morning was a go for surfing.  We got up and loaded the van and headed out to survey the surf.  The first beach we checked wasn’t what he would have hoped, so we headed over to the next beach up, but the waves were even smaller and were breaking pretty far out (which is bad, apparently).  Resigned, Bro Clancy went back to the first beach and we started to get things ready.  All along the drive, Bro Clancy was giving me a crash course in waves, tides, and surfing which, combined with the explanations we got the previous week at the Uni about rips and currents, gave a reasonable idea of what I should be doing.

    We put on our wetsuits, lubed up with sunscreen, and were about ready to go when I was told to take off my CTR ring ‘cause it would most likely come off.  Bro Clancy said he lost his wedding ring one time.  Not wanting to lose my 6^th CTR ring, I took it off and placed it safely in my bag.  Bro Clancy asked me if I was wearing my swimsuit under my wetsuit (which I was) ‘cause he thought it was too bulky underneath.  Raph, who had joined us with Yurgen (another member), said that he found them warmer, not bulky.  Bro Clancy suggested I get a pair of Speedos, but I didn’t bother mentioning that there was no chance on this planet I would ever wear them, even under a wetsuit.  Maybe the Speedo briefs, but even then . . .  I was, however, wearing a rashie, or rash-vest.  They’re skin-tight shirts that are designed to minimize the rash that can develop from paddling out to the waves in a wetsuit, as well as be UV proof.  Surfers call them rashies, but they’re also known as UV shirts or swimshirts.  I got a couple recently because it means that I won’t have to put on as much sunscreen; as most of you know, there exists a peculiar enmity between myself and sunscreen.

    All prepared for my first time surfing, we walked down to the beach, into the water, and started paddling out to just past where the waves were breaking.  It was at this juncture in time that I began to realize how useful the ability to swim can be.  As some may know, I made it to Maroon (back when they had colours) in swimming lessons, and just recently (only by comparison, it was two years ago) I went to the MRC and took some more swimming lessons.  Despite this, I still have little stamina when it comes to swimming.  I get tired very quickly, and exhausted shortly thereafter.  Part of my problem with swimming is my debilitating lack of breathing skills in the water.  I don’t know why, but I just don’t seem to be able to breathe quite as well when I’m in the water.  I end up swallowing water and air, instead of breathing air.  To me, the waves were huge; much larger than I’ve been accustomed to.  Getting to the other side of the breaking waves seemed to be an impossible task.  We walked out as far as we could, then started paddling.  When a wave was about to break on us, I was told that jumping through it works best.  But jumping through it means going underwater.  Normally, when I can relax, I can hold my breath for quite a while, but with the wave breaking on top of me, spinning me around and over, and all of this underwater, it seemed as though the 5 or 6 seconds I was actually under the water were an eternity and that I would never make it back to the surface.

    I remember one time when I was on my 3 month exchange to Quebec, we went to the cosmodome in Montreal.  One of the things we did there was to try the spinny-roundy thing.  You know, the thing with a seat set inside three rings with three different axes.  I’m sure it’s called a gyro-something, but right now it escapes me.  I got to try it, and they had me try to use a calculator to make some simple calculations while I was spinning and changing directions quickly and sometimes violently.  It was really difficult, and the speed at which I was spinning made it seem as though all the blood in my body was about to burst out of my forehead, and my eyes were about to pop out.  As interesting as that feeling may be in hindsight, it wasn’t pleasant.  The feeling of being tossed around by a wave was humbling and no less undesirable.  I’ve never thought about how big a wave is, and how much momentum it has, but a quick estimation of its mass and velocity will give you a number that should scare you even theoretically.  In practicality, it was so much so that I gained a newfound respect for the ocean and its power, and for the awesomeness of the gravitational pull of the moon.

    That part of your body (I’m not sure where it is) that tells your brain your lungs and blood no longer have enough oxygen to be able to function properly has the power to make itself know with the most forceful urgency.  Its programmed function to acquire more oxygen is strong to the point that anything else seems so insignificant, unimportant and pointless.  Not knowing which direction I was facing, and which direction was up was one of the scariest experiences I’ve had in a long while.  Perhaps the only events that come close are when we were rappelling as scouts, though the significantly more controlled nature of it makes it pale in comparison to this; and when I went bungee jumping in Korea, though the comparatively brief duration of the freefall was more exhilarating than terrifying.  As the wave flung me around and over, I could think of little else than ascertaining which direction was up, and then getting there with all possible haste.

    Just when I thought I was making progress in getting out beyond where the waves were breaking, the fourth or fifth wave seemed to be much larger than the others and would push me up, down, under, and sideways (yes, in that order), ultimately reverting my position in 3-dimensional space to one which seemed to have necessitated a short journey through four dimensions, not just three.  I just couldn’t seem to make it out past the breaking waves.  After what felt like nearly drowning (I’ll emphasize in this parenthetical remark that it only felt like I was drowning; I was perfectly safe and well-supervised by experienced swimmers and surfers the entire time and was at no point in any real danger.) twice, I resigned myself to the fact that my limbs were so exhausted that any further attempts seemed futile.  I signalled that I was going to head back to shore and play in the kiddie pool (metaphorically speaking, of course).

    As I was waiting for the others to finish off their early-morning surf I began watching all of the people walking up and down the beach, many of whom were walking with their dogs, and most of those with a tennis ball.  I was quite surprised at how many people were out walking that early in the morning, but I guess not everyone is as . . . inertial as I am.  In addition to watching people, I was also watching some little insects.  I’m not sure what kind they were, but they looked like really small and long beetles.  They were walking all over around my feet, which were slowly sinking down into the sand with each large wave that came occasionally.  That kept my attention for quite some time and, thinking about it now, it’s just another experience that makes me wonder who could possibly doubt the existence of a Perfect Supreme Being who created this planet and organized us upon it.

    Yurgen, an older brother from the ward came out slightly after I did, and we had a good chat as we waited for the others.  He had a stroke about 6 months ago that affected his speech and right arm for about 3 months.  Consequently, he’s chosen surfing as part of his resolution to be more healthy.  He also has one of the coolest jobs out of anyone I’ve encountered so far.  He works with a company that designs and manufactures electronics for the military (the military is their major customer, but they cater to anyone who wants an indestructible piece of hardware).  He was telling me about the laptops he designs to withstand the weight of a jeep, be waterproof, and still operate after being covered in sand.  He said the year-old models go for auction, so I might see if I can get one for cheap (though I doubt it strongly), as it would be sooo cool.  When we were all out, we walked back up to the one shower and rinsed off the boards and ourselves, dried off and packed up the boards and ourselves, and then headed home.

    That day I asked Bro Clancy about the bike he had said he had lying around when I mentioned that I was going to buy a bike, so he took me out to the garage and grabbed one the many he had around.  We got it cleaned up and I took it out for a test ride, however it didn’t fare well.  The gears were on the centre frame and were consequently hard to reach while pedalling.  Due the many (about 6 (six)) hills between home and the Uni necessitating the frequent shifting of gears to avoid the chain slipping teeth, I decided that this wasn’t the best arrangement for my needs.  Upon returning, I informed Bro Clancy of the problem and, after some thought, we went back into the garage and he picked out the frame of another bike and switched wheels with the first.  The shifters were much better on this one, with the rear being a click-shift and the front being normal (though it doesn’t shift to the easiest gear quickly, or well).  After just a couple minutes this one seemed quite a bit better, so I set off to discover how long it would take to get to the Uni.  When I got to the first hill I tried to shift down, but in so doing, I pushed it a bit too hard and instead of dropping it into first gear, I dropped the chain right off.  Putting the chain back on, I thought to myself that “there must be an easier way to do this”, wondering whether buying a bike would be worth the money.  Any who know me will not be surprised that I quickly dismissed the notion of buying a bike, because why would I buy one when here’s a bike right in front of me, that will easily accomplish the task.  The chain securely back in place I got back on my metaphorical horse and kept going.  A sad fact that became all-too-readily apparent was that I was not in the best of shape and that my stamina was sorely lacking.  There’s no Auction House where I can go buyout a pair of Hyperion Greaves of the Bear either, so I’m just going to have to live with the embarrassment of making it about two-thirds of the way up the hill and then having to walk up the rest of the way because my legs are screaming out in pain begging me to make it stop.  That’s about what happened on each hill on the way there.  I would pedal madly down the hill to gain enough momentum to make it as far up the next as possible before torturous screams became too much to bear.  Even with the chain coming off once more, and having to walk up the hills, I still made it to the Uni in almost exactly 20 minutes, giving me hope that with a bit more stamina I can easily drop that down to a 15 ride (though I’ll probably try to balance the time it takes with the amount of sweat I produce).

    My next stop on my bike ride was downtown to find a wireless router.  My selection was small (3 models over 4 stores) but I got one at a decent price and proceeded home to set it up.  I realized shortly (very shortly) after getting off the bike seat, that it was much too small and . . . painful (I tried to think of a euphemism, but didn’t).  I’ll have to fix that.  I attempted to rest my hinderparts whilst sitting in the computer chair setting up the router, but after about 3 hours, I just could NOT figure out how to get it to work with the modem.  The router works fine, but can’t access the internet for I don’t know what reason.  I spent another bunch of hours and a few calls to tech support on Monday for both the router and the modem and STILL couldn’t get it to work.

    Day two Down Under was pretty relaxing.  I went with Amy and Serene to walk up to the University and scope out the campus.  After making a couple wrong turns, it took us about an hour and a half to get to the Uni.  On the way back it only took about 40 minutes.  The campus itself is beautiful, with lots of trees of all kinds, and lots of wildlife.  The buildings are much smaller than UBC and SFU, and consequently there are a lot more of them.  Learning which building is where will be a little more difficult, but I think they’ve chosen this arrangement because going outside to walk between classes isn’t nearly as unpleasant here.  Not with the blue skies and the puffy white clouds.  We checked food prices on campus, and surprisingly they were on par for the rest of the city, though still more expensive than I’m used to.  Making our way back was a bit easier and faster now that we understood the map and the area a little bit better (on a side note, it’s amazing how inaccurate maps can be when you look too closely).  I can’t remember what I did for lunch, but I assume that I ate nothing.  I didn’t really eat much all weekend.  Mainly because fast food was so expensive and I still hadn’t gone to see the grocery store.  Later that evening, most if not all of ‘us’ went a local pub.  It amazed me to see all of the people there.  There were so many.  There must have been about 4oo people there.  I’m so glad that I don’t drink, watching some of the people there.  I ended up getting really tired and bored, so Mike and I walked back together and I pretty much just crawled in to bed.

    Saturday was Australia Day and there was a little carnival down near the beach with some kid-type rides and games and food.  I decided to walk up to the church, just so I knew where it was and how to get there for Sunday.  It was quite a long walk with only one wrong turn that added 20 minutes to the 45 minute walk.  I had tried calling the only number I had for the church several times over the last couple days, but there was no answer, and the emails I had sent to the bishop remained unanswered.  In the end, I found out where the church was, how long it took to get there, and what time church started.  I thought it was a very productive morning/afternoon.

    Mike and I went to Subway for dinner, and that’s where I learned that though they understand ‘green peppers’, they call it capsicum.  I got foot-long with the deliberate intent of saving the other half for lunch on Sunday.  After dinner, I played a bit of World of Warcraft with John, then helped my friend Rob fix some of his computer issues.  Right after that, a bunch of us were going to go out and see the fireworks together, but some of them went ahead saying “We’ll meet you on the beach”.  Little did they know that the beach would be completely covered with people and kids, all waiting to see the fireworks.  We never did end up finding them, which I guess was okay because all we did was watch the fireworks then leave.  Being together is nice though, even if you’re not interacting all that much.  When I got home from the fireworks, there was a huge party at the hostel.  There was ridiculously loud music and strobe lights, and about 30-40 people all crammed into a normal-type backyard.  It made it quite difficult to sleep, but I did manage to dose in and out of consciousness until about 2am, at which point I noticed that the music had stopped and I could finally get some sleep (as itchy and buzzy as it was).

    Sunday morning I woke, showered, dressed, and then left for church.  I decided that there was no way I was going to walk all the way to the church, so I left in plenty of time to catch a bus.  I walked to the main bus stop and checked the schedules and waited for the bus that said it would go right by the church.  Unfortunately the schedule lied, and the early busses didn’t come.  I ended up catching a bus at 9.10 which got me there just in time for the 9.30 start.  Sacrament meeting was quite nice, and there were about 70 or so in attendance.  During the announcements portion I discovered why I hadn’t been able to get a hold of the bishop at all:  He was still on vacation and had been for the last two weeks.  The ward was really nice, and very kind.  I talk to the counsellors and had them ask in both priesthood and relief society if there was anyone who had a place for me to stay.  I didn’t hear any good news that day.  There ended up being a fireside with Earl C. Tingey that night, and one of the other YSA in the ward offered me a ride up with her and her brother.  The drive into south Sydney took about 50 minutes and I got to pick V’s (her name is Venetia, but she goes by V or Vivi) brain about all things Australian.  Interestingly, she and her brother are half Greek and half Pilipino.  The fireside was really good, with Elder Tingey speaking about his love for Australia, the country where he and his father and his grandfather served their missions.  He also spoke of President Hinckley’s declining health, mentioning specifically that with his colon cancer and his age, the doctors had no precedent for how well the chemo and radiation therapy would be affecting him.  I got the distinct impression that evening that he was preparing us for the inevitable.  I had no idea it would be the next day, however.  V actually sent me a message the next day telling me that President Hinckley had passed away.  Then, of course, I got emails from dad, and LDS news confirming.  At the end of the fireside, we got out to the parking lot and discovered that V had left the lights on, and we needed a jump so we had to wait a bit for that to get worked out.  Raph (Raphael, V’s brother) said that he was going surfing the next day with Gerry, and invited me along.

    I was pretty excited, but in the morning, my phone was still on silent from the fireside, so I missed the call and the fun.  I was pretty mad about that.  Bro Clancy (Gerry) invited me over for dinner instead.  I think this was the afternoon where I finally made a trip to the grocery store to pick up some food.  I made the trek down the street to the Woolworths and walked up and down the aisles looking for whatever was cheap and easily edible.  I didn’t have anything remotely resembling adequate cookware at Kieraleagh house and I didn’t want to have to borrow any.  Consequently, I got things like yoghurt, canned food, and bread.  I returned home and enjoyed my creamy yoghurt in the heat of the day.  The weather the whole weekend had been absolutely fantastic, with only a hint of rain on Saturday night.  I got burnt on Saturday while walking to the church, and then I got some more sun after that.  I was quite pink, and a little bit crispy for the next few days.  Thankfully, I didn’t peel that much at all.  I’m so bad at putting on sunscreen.  Not the actual act of applying the sunscreen, and not entirely forgetting to do it, but more the fact that to me it’s really gross.  Sunscreens are slimy and sticky, and most are really greasy and oily as well.  When you combine that with the fact that I have hairy arms, it makes it so unpleasant that I would rather burn.  I had the pleasure of meeting brother Clancy’s family, and get a tour of his home that night.  He showed me the room of his son, who is in New Zealand, that he offered to let me stay in during the course of my studies here in Wollongong.  As I mentioned to some of you, my bed is above the doorway as you enter the room.  It’s definitely and interesting place to put a bed, but it seems very practical.  The ladder hurts my feet in the morning, and sometimes I hit my head on the ceiling when I sit up, but I think I’ll get used to it.  The room is quite small, and I don’t have a closet as of yet (his son’s clothes are still in it), but it’s definitely well worth it to be in a good home with a great member family.  When I get back from Dubbo I’ll definitely try to remember to take some pictures of the room and include them in my next post.  Then invited me to join them for FHE and I accepted.  We had a lesson about succession of the Presidents, which was a lot of “hmmm . . . I’m not really sure how it works”, and then they drove me ‘home’.  It was a good Monday and I was looking forward to the next day:  My first day ‘at school’.

    I’m deliberately skipping ahead (don’t worry, I’ll come back and finish recounting the flight details) because I don’t think I’ll forget the few details of the flight, but I might lose some of the other details that happened after, so I want to get them down first.  The Kieraleagh Backpackers hostel was quite the place to live.  It was an old house with 5 bedrooms upstairs, 3 downstairs, and 3 outside.  These bedrooms don’t include the part of the house where the owner and manager lives with her family.  I chose the cheapest room (20$ per night) which meant that I got the top of one of three bunk beds in a room in the cottage in the backyard.  The house itself was unmistakably old, but was in reasonable good repair.  It had four showers, four toilets, kitchen, TV with DVD player, and wireless internet (which was a bit unreliable).  I really enjoyed staying there, and there were only a couple downsides I could think of:  1. Every there either smoked, drank, or smoked and drank, so it wasn’t the best of environments for me, and 2. there were soo many mosquitoes (mosies, as they’re called) and flies that I had many bad nights from the buzzing and the itching.  On the bright side, I got to talk to several of the people there about the church and about my beliefs.  I had some pretty good discussions, which I might or might not go in to more detail about later on.

    After checking in on Thursday morning, a few of us went right down to the beach to walk on the sand.  I was a little disappointed because they were so hungry that all we did was walk on the sand and take a couple pictures.  I wanted to at least walk in to the water for a bit, but I also wanted to be social so we went and got something to eat.  That was when I discovered one of my first Australian Englishisms.  They don’t call it ketchup, they call it tomato sauce.  They understand ketchup, of course, but they don’t use it.  At that same time, I also began to realize that, even taking in to account the exchange rate between our dollars, Australians pay a LOT more for food, especially fast food.  Just a normal burger and fries is 8$ before tax, and if you want any special burger, it’s going to be around 10-11$.  I decided right away that I liked Australia.  I liked it for the simple fact that I want to be much more healthy in my life and there are several things about this country that are going to be extremely beneficial to me in achieving my goals.

    Perhaps the main aspects of Australia that will help me achieve my goal of becoming more healthy are:  1. Fast food, and food in general, is expensive.  Consequently, I will be more motivated to not eat out, to eat healthier, and to eat cheaper.  2. The weather here is super sunny and warm.  It’s scientifically proven that if two people with exactly the same level of fitness and diet live in two different temperatures, the one in the hotter temperature will have a higher metabolic rate and be healthier.  So just by being here I’m already one-up on being in Vancouver.  The great weather has the added benefit of being more conducive to outdoor recreational activities.  It’ll definitely be a lot easier for me to be able to play a lot more sports.  Contrary to what some might think, I’m not entirely averse to sports.  I enjoy them very much, and I look at them as the best way to get exercise.  I have a general disdain for ‘going to the gym’.  I think it’s silly.  Why not get your exercise and have fun doing it.  That’s my theory.  It just seems so boring to go to the gym and do your exercises in a drab room with nothing else to look at than other sweaty people, and maybe (if you’re lucky) a big screen TV with baseball or soccer games.  To make a long story short (too late), I plan on being a lot more active, and a lot more healthy.  3. The internet here has a cap on it.  You pay by how much you use the internet.  You can get monthly plans of 600MB, 1, 2, 5, or 30GB depending on how much you download.  It’ll be interesting because I’ve never bothered to track how much I use it, but I’m sure that it’s quite a bit, so I’ll have to be cutting down on my internet usage and consequently on my computer usage in general.  This also means that, most likely, I won’t be able to play as many video games which, in connection with point #2, I’ll be well on my way to reaching my health goal (which at this point, I realized, is only ambiguously defined as “be healthier”).  I should set some actual well-defined goals, but I don’t feel that your health is something you should put numbers on.

    We finished eating our first taste of Australian fast food and returned ‘home’ to wait for Tim.  Tim is a realtor who realized that there are always new Canadian students looking for accommodations around this time every year.  Consequently, he makes special arrangements to pick them up and drive them around to the many places that he has available for rent.  Due to the fact that some of the other Canadian students were coming in on a later flight than originally planned, we ended up waiting for him for several hours.  I didn’t really need a place to stay, as I was waiting to find out if there were any members who would be able to offer me a place to stay.  I was just going along for the ride to see what was available, just in case no members had any room.  Some of the places were nice, and some weren’t.  Some were expensive and some . . . were expensive.  Just about everyone got a place that night, but there were a few who were still looking.

    Let’s start at the very beginning; it’s a very good place to start.  Hmmm, what IS the beginning of this story?  I guess it should be when I first started applying to SFU’s PDP (Teacher) program (is that last ‘P’ redundant?  I don’t quite know what the full acronym means).  I was searching through the requirements for the application and I discovered that both UBC’s and SFU’s programs required 2 (two) English courses.  This was a problem for me because throughout the course of my Bachelor of Science degree I had tried to take only useful classes, avoiding the unnecessary.  Consequently, I found myself one English course short of being able to apply.  A few more clicks on the SFU website quickly informed me that this was a rule that they would definitely not give any sort of leeway whatsoever, so I registered myself in ENGL 120 – Introduction to Modern Fiction.  The first half of the course was quite entertaining, though uninformative, and in the end the class ended up being simply a nice GPA boost.  Due to this small but significant setback I was waiting till next September to get in to the teaching program, when I received a phone call from a dear, thoughtful, and not sufficiently thanked sibling of mine who informed me that the University of Wollongong in Australia had a Teacher Education program and were actively looking for international students to start at the end of January (eight months sooner than if I stayed in BC).  The time savings was important to me, so I researched, enquired, applied, and was accepted.  To make a long story short (too late) I decided to go to Australia for school.

  This morning we went to the East Sea (commonly known as the sea of Japan, but the Koreans don't call it that).  There were some big waves, and I think they were some remnants of the typhoon that fizzled out yesterday.  There were lots of little kids that would get close to the edge [of the wave-break wall] and wait for a huge wave to come and splash, at which point they would quickly run away laughing.  It was sooo cute to watch.  The nearby fish market ended up being a little bit tedious.  At first it was cool, we walked along enjoying looking at all of the little shops selling flatfish (flounder I think someone said) and king crab (and other kinds of crab) and lots of dried fish, and lots of littles potato flour cakes, and pumpkin flour cakes, and cornbread cakes (containing pumpkin and red bean) and other fish (I don't like fish that much, so I didn't really care what kinds they were) and other foods. After the first hundred metres, everything started repeating itself, and then it because a hunt for something new and different to look at.  I must say that I'm definitely at a loss in the communication department.  I feel so . . . incompetent, and though it may sound negative, it's really quite an accurate description of my current condition.  All I can do is say Hello, point to what I want, and hand them the money that I think the sign indicated was the price.  Frustrating to say the least.  I've managed to memorize, in my little spare time, some of the letters of the Korean alphabet, and can read some of the words.  However, I'm still at the point where even if I can read the word, I still don't know what it means.

  Expo came to the town where we were (I think it's called Sokcho) in the 90's.  I don't know what year, though I'm sure they told me, but there was a faded painting on the side of one of the buildings that said EXPO '9_.  I'm sure it won't be hard to look up when I get an internet connection.  The hotel we're in today has an internet cafe, and I think I might go to it, despite it being Sunday, as I need to do some communicating and e-mail checking to make sure that I have place to stay tomorrow night.  We went up a tower they had constructed for Expo and had a nice view of the small town.  Outside the tower, in the main square, an entrepeneur had set up shop with a whole bunch of electric motor quads and motorbikes.  There were about 20 kids riding them around in circles, happily enjoying the beautiful outdoor weather today.After a nice lunch of jellyfish, pollack, cucumber salad, squid salad, squid Korean pancake, bulgogi (a typical beef dish), marinated sweet potato, kimchi, rice, jujubei, yam, and a leaf that has no English name (to their knowledge), so we called it 'mountain leaf'.  The lunch was very good, though heavy on the seafood.  The high seafood content is to be expected, considering the nearby ocean, but that doesn't mean that I had to like it :P

  During the next hour and a half of driving, we got to watch a Korean movie about a girl who marries a guy as a promise to her dying grandfather who promised his war buddy that their children would marry, and when they both had sons, the promise was carried to the next generation.  The grandson was in college, doing an internship as an art teacher, and the girl was 15 and in high school.  So they got married and the girl ditched the guy at the airport on their way to Jeju island for their honeymoon.  The girl's mom made them sleep in separate bedrooms when they returned.  The guy ended up being his wife's teacher, and they kept it secret from the whole school.  As might be expected, the secret got out, but only at the very end, and the guy gave a great speech to the school, and everything ended up happy.  It was a really cute and funny movie, so I'm going to keep my eyes opened and I might buy it.

  Our hotel tonight has no mattresses, just some cushy floormatblankets and pillows.  Dad's used to sleeping on the floor, so he wouldn't mind, and though I WAS a little perturbed, I've been on enough camping trips to be able to endure just about anything.  I'm kind looking forward to it now.

Wow, what a day! This morning was a flurry of slightly stressful last-minute packing resulting in one pair of shoes that would NOT fit into my suitcases. I couldn't figure it out. Everything had fit in on the way here but now it didn't. I hadn't even had the opportunity to buy any space-consuming souveniers, just a couple of the graded readers, and a bottle of shampoo. But then, as I was about to put on my sandals and head to class it made sense. On the way here I had been wearing shoes, not sandals. It may seems trivial, but it added signigicantly more stress to my life this morning that I wished. I went to class and handed out their certificates of completion, then we headed to the auditorium for special awards. One of my students got 1st place in the essay contest, and I was quite proud of her. She wasn't the most talkative or participatory student in my class, but she was definitely one of the more studious and intelligent. Two of my students also got an award for having the highest score on the final test. I was surprised, and proud of them.

After the awards, we went outside and milled about as kids found their parents and luggage and headed for cars and busses. I had a good time meeting some of the parents and saying goodbye to the kids, and then it was time for lunch, and then we loaded out luggage into the tour bus and we pulled out of Cheong Shim International Academy. It was kinda sad, 'cause I'll probably never go back there...ever. But hopefully I'll never forget it. I'm sure that it will be an unforgettable experience, and I will try not to forget it.

As we drove throught the Korean countryside our tourguide informed us that our trip to Seorak Mountain would be less spectacular that it should be due to the weather. Do you remember the wonderfully pleasant breeze I mentioned yesterday (or was it the day before?)? Well, apparently it was the precursor of a typhoon that was making its way toward us. As a result, it was foggy/cloudy, rainy, windy, and a little bit cooler than the previous month**. As a result of the foggyness/cloudyness (fogginess/cloudiness?), rainyness (raininess?), windyness (windiness?), and the little bit of coolness, out trip to Seorak mountain and the Buddist temple there was a bit hurried and slightly unpleasant. You might say they put a damper on it (pitiful pun intended). I did get to see one of the world's largest budda statues. Kinda creepy in a way, but cool in others. The drive from Mt Sorak was uneventful with one exception, so I spent much of it typing my last blog entry. The one exception was that as we were driving in and around the 38th parallel, we crossed a bridge that was just like any other bridge, except for the fact that it had camouflage painted on it. After we had passed over it, our tour guide informed us that it's an anti-tank bridge, and that it's filled with Dynamite! If North Korean tanks try to drive over it, KaBoom. Another thing I noticed was that there is certainly less value placed on 'possessions' here. While many are affluent, I just get the feeling that the people here are more...humble. Then we had dinner, then checked into our hotel. It's nice, thought I won't really get to enjoy it, as we're just spending a quick night here before we head out for our next leg. I'm going to go get ready for bed, try to figure out a way to dry my shoes, and then try to get some rest. No internet here, so I'll be posting this as soon as I can.

**As a somewhat humourous sidenote, the actual outside temperature was 21. So I guess I had gotten somewhat used to the constant 28 degree weather, as I was a bit chilled.

  Something kinda . . . unsanitarily different is that it SEEMS as though Koreans don't flush their toilet paper.  There's a waste basket next to the toilet.  I flush mine, and will continue to do so until notified that it's a big cultural nono.  Ewwww.

  While I've been here at the Cheong Shim camp, they've had a laundry service.  I was scared at first, because we were instructed to put our laundry in one of those little holey laundry bags and leave it outside our room to be picked up.  I must correct myself.  At first I wasn't worried.  I just put all my laundry in the bag and left it outside my door.  Afterwards, some of the other teachers were talking, expressing their fears that the bag would just be put in a giant washing machine, whithout separating colours.  When it came back, the clothes inside were sort of folded, but I think they didn't separate colours, as I think my underwear is even more off-white than before.  After that, I made sure to separate them myself.

  Insects seem to be bigger, and more abundant here than in BC.  Despite this, or perhaps because of, I've notice a significantly higher number of children that are unafraid of insects.  In fact, many of them have insects as a hobby.  During the speech contest, one of the students mentioned that she successfully married her bugs, who then laid eggs.  It was very cute.  The sounds of the night here are almost entirely those of insects.  Some of them sound familiar with something like a cricket in there somewhere, but there's one that was really loud, and really annoying.  One day while we were walking from the school building to the gym, one of the students mentioned that it was called a mee may.  The Korean name helped me little, but at least I had a name to curse as I tossed and turned in the heat and humidity of the night, for I couldn't shut the window without facing an even more uncomfortable and hot night of almost sleep, nor could I leave it open to allow the (only slightly more) cool air.  I really had a hard time deciding which was a lesser evil, and finally decided that I would eventually shut out the noise when sleep finally took me, and that the (slightly more) cool air would allow me to sleep a bit more soundly.  I started to realize as I typed this that I painted a very dismal, and perhaps negative, picture of this aspect of my living conditions.  Let me assure you that I am exaggerating some degree in the name of humour.  Do not for a moment think that I am in any way suffering for a lack of sleep, or that I am to the slightest degree having an unenjoyable time.  If everything went perfectly and smoothly, this wonderful experience would not be as memorable.  The little things (even if they ARE inconveniences) are what really make something more . . . more!

  As some of you might know, ping pong is pretty big here.  Just outside the gym are three ping pong tables (of surprisingly exceptional quality) where many kids spend their sparce free time after meals playing this game of speed, agility, and hand-eye coordination.  I have never thought myself very good at ping pong, but these kids make me feel a little infantile in my abilities.  One of the kids, who was one of the few students who were in a four-week class, was exceptionally good.  He could put quite an amazing spin on the ball.  Needless to say, when he was serving the game should have been called Ping, 'cause it wasn't often that I was able to return it.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to walk around thinking that Korean children are all pingpong prodigies, my point is just that I don't know ANY 12 year-old Canadians who are that good at pingpong.  I'm sure they could be, but the sport just isn't that popular.

  This leads very well into the next tidbit of information that I wanted to pass along.  Koreans, when they are born, are one year old.  They then gain another year on New Years.  After that, their age increments on New Years, not their birthday.  So, in reality, if a child is born on Dec 31st, he becomes 2 years old instantly.  Cool.  If this seems confusing, don't worry, I had to have it explained twice.

  Changing the topic to something more lighthearted, the school here has a convenience store right by the cafeteria.  As perhaps anybody who really knows me knows, I am the type of person that must try new things.  Needless to say, I've frequented the convenience store more than most other teachers,and students.  I could probably even give you an exact dollar figure, as I haven't been able to spend my money anywhere else.  I just counted, and I have about 68000W left, and if I remember correctly, I started out with 150000W, so I've spent roughtly the equivalent of 80$ on just candy and drinks in the last month.  Some of them were worth every won, but some of them were won wasters.  Allow me to enumerate the candy goodness.  One of my favourite candies were the Chewlets.  Just really chewy, with roughly the same consistency as those caramel square, but a little more . . . rubbery.  The two flavours they had at the store were apple, and strawberry.  The strawberry was good but the apple left me happier, probably due to its tart fruityness.  My favourite drink was called Hi-<something>, and it was delicious white grape juice, from those grapes that are squishier, with the skin that comees off easily.  Something that made this drink EXTRA special was that it had grapes in it.  I was totally surprised, because it came in a can.  At first I just sipped it, and savoured its intrinsic goodness, but when I went to take a bigger drink, this chunk of something entered my mouth.  After the initial shock wore off, I realized what it was, and I could then enjoy the whole fruityness of it.  A famous drink in asia is Pocari Sweat.  I think I remember someone saying that the name is Japanese, so I'll just assume that it's from Japan.  It's called Pocari Sweat is because it's an 'electrolyte' replenishing drink for when you sweat.  It's my personal opinion that it tastes a little like Five Alive, if five alive were to make a Gatorade version of itself.  Aleesa Sutton however, disagreed weth me completely.  She couldn't describe what SHE thought it tasted like, but only denounced my assertion of its Five Aliveness.  Choco-Pies are quite popular, and all they are are wagon wheels, most of then low-quality.  But then, all wagon wheels are low-quality.  The had one that might be considered by some to be a step above the others.  It was kinda like what you would get if you crossed a Jos Louis with a wagon wheel.  In my opinion however, its a desecration of the divine.  They came so close to the light cakey creamy heavenliness of a Jos Louis, but then they adulterated it with the dusty dry cookie crumbly gooey chewy marshmallowiness of wagon wheels.  Blasphemy. There was a nice cookie/cracker that was basically two ritz crackers with filling.  I tried two kinds of filling, peanut butter (does that surprise you?) and orange.  The orange was good, but the peanut butter was found wanting.  There wasn't enough peanut butter flavour in it.  I had some pommegranate juice, and that was delicious.  The ice cream desserts were all pretty much the same though.  There are so many drinks here that are tea drinks (hot and cold) and due to the fact that I don't quite know what KIND of tea it is, and that I don't LIKE any kinds of tea (WoW approved or not) I just stay away from them.  This brings me to a bit of a worry of mine, being here in a foreign country, having to depend on others so much, and not being able to understand the language.  I'm a little worried about ingesting something I don't want to.  I'll have to make it very clear to everyone that I DON'T DRINK.  I don't want to be rude though.  I'll just have to memorize "morumon gyo".

  I'm never really sure which day is the last day.  Thursady was the last day of classes, today is the last full day, and tomorrow is the last day at the camp.  Each day seems like the last, but tomorrow IS really the last.  Today we had the farewell party.  It included a talent show, a love contest, and a goodbye at the end.  The talent show was typical for talent shows containing 6-15 year olds.  The love contest, however, was something that I had never seen before.  The love contest consisted of different kids getting up on stage, and saying who they love, then they would hug.  Most kids picked their friends, some kids picked teachers, and one boy picked a girl and they had him give a little love speech to her, but they didn't make them hug.  It was really cute and funny.  One girl from my class has been obsessed with one of the TA's for the entire camp.  She called him up and gave him a note and some chocolate, and much her overjoyment, she got to hug him.  After a brief snack time, they showed some pre-recorded farewells from some of the camp staff, and then the teachers and TA's got up on stage and we got to say a little goodbye.  I managed to cry.  I didn't cry during the first farwell party (when the first group was leaving), but I realized that I definiitely connected a lot more with this group than with my first group.  My first group was a bit better at english, and seemed a bit more mature.  I really became more attached to this group.  There are four from this group that I especially liked, and one of the reasons for that is that they were excellent participators.  Two in particular, and of those, one by far.  She was ALWAYS talking, in a very good way.  She always participated in class, and even though she wasn't as good at english as the others in the class, she always took the time to express how she felt, or what she was thinking, or some memory from her childhood.  As a result, I definitely feel closer to her than to the others.  The second of the two best participators is a boy who reminds me so much of myself, in so many ways.  He likes singing, and science, and he's shy and quiet.  I love signing, and science, and I used to be shy and quiet when I was his age.  He was very sad when it came time to go, and he must have said "Don't forget me" and "I'll never forget you" and "Call me when you get a cell phone*" about ten times each that night.  I definitely expect him to e-mail me the second he gets home.