Sorry. Could You Repeat That?

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Language Barriers

I literally can not understand half of what anyone is saying to me here. Although we are all speaking English, Queensland (and possibly all of Australia) is full of slang. In nearly every sentence I can not understand 10%!o(MISSING)f the words or more. As such I constantly have to ask people to repeat themselves - and even then I still sometimes don't know what they are trying to tell me. The few foreigners I have met (from America, France, and Canada) say it took them a while to get used to it but now they don't even notice an accent.

Culture Shock

Although there are a lot of similarities between Australia and the U.S. I am still a little shell shocked here. For starters, my childhood instruction in the use of "Ma'am" and "Sir" makes me stand out like a sore thumb in even the most busy of situations. I imagine I'll eventually get used to people stopping to stare every time I open my mouth in public.

Besides standing out as "different" I am also finding myself trying to adjust to other cultural nuances. The most obvious of these is the idea of "personal space". People here just stand a little closer to you than in the U.S. and I find myself subconsciously backing away as they keep leaning closer. That's something I'm working on and I try not to back off to much when someone is speaking with me - even though the American within is squirming uncomfortably and trying vainly to run away.

I'm not sure what eye contact entails here, but most people can't seem to look me in the eye very long before darting off. This is typical in the U.S. as well, but eye contact here is even more brief. Nonetheless I'll continue my usual way of communicating, which is to look at someone's face when they are speaking.

Friendly Faces

Everyone here has been incredibly friendly to me. Within the first hour of my arrival a man in a business suit stopped to ask me if I knew where I was going (I suspect my accent and the use of "Ma'am" had something to do with this). Of course I didn't, so he walked me straight to where my terminal was while asking me all about my stay in Australia.

I'm currently staying with two "blokes" before I get my own "share room". One is my research mentor's PhD student (Matthew) and the other is his roommate (Jason). Both have been incredibly nice to me and both have invited me to parties tonight (it's Friday here). I'm going with my labmate, since these are the people I'll most likely be hanging out with for the year, but I sincerely plan to take Jason up on his offer to come to the pub and listen to his band play. I heard him practicing his guitar when I got home yesterday and he's really good. He's a music teacher as well so maybe there will be some interesting melodies to listen to.

Clean, Friendly, Fun

Everywhere I've been here is incredibly clean. Everyone I've met has been very nice (except the customs office but that job must suck) and nearly every retail store has uniforms. Even the little shops in the mall have unique uniforms for it's workers. All children are in uniforms (since every school requires it). Even the pubs and bars are really clean (and it's workers uniformed), well lit, and open to the ocean breeze. It's a nice town, relatively big but not huge, and there is a myriad of things to do. I'm looking forward to getting my own place (renting a room with others) and exploring downtown on the weekends. As for it being winter here, it's 70+ during the day and 55 at night with crystal blue cloudless skies. I'm loving it so far.

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Comments

[Sarah L Fann]

Pictures Soon
I promise I will put up pictures. I've been busy in the evenings everynight so I keep forgetting to upload my photos to the computer. Soon I promise.

[Lauren]

Personal Space
I could not handle the lack of personal space, although I would love the accents ;) I'm so happy you got there safe - we should skype or something after you get settled!