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Published: August 5th 2010
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A forecast that would be equally accurate if it was hourly. So, it's a lovely thursday afternoon in Bundoora. The birds are making entertaining sounds outside and the sun is shining through my window... now that the rain has stopped, that is. (It seems to rain here just about every other day, though usually only for a few minutes at a time. And I thought Michigan had unpredictable weather.) It's also a lovely afternoon because this time next week, I'll be in the middle of a three-hour lab, whereas today I have a huge block of time open to do some of my homework and write this blog.
Since my last entry, I've done a few things worth mentioning. Last Saturday, I actually went to a Catholic mass with a girl from my floor who was nice enough to invite me, and another of her friends who isn't Catholic either. After all, I'd never been, and I figured it would be a good experience--and less of a culture shock than going to a mass conducted in Spanish back at Hope, which my Spanish profs keep suggesting as extra credit. And it was really interesting. More than anything, I was surprised by how much of the service was the same. Yeah, they
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This has nothing to do with anything, but I thought the sky looked cool. cross themselves, and they knelt for one part of it, but a pretty big chunk of the responses and things were word-for-word the same as at our church, like the "May the peace of the Lord be with you" (And also with you) and the stuff leading up to communion/the eucharist/whatever you want to call it. (That was another difference, of course.) I should also point out that it's really hard to speak with an American accent when you're reading something in unison with a room full of Aussies. Kind of an odd phenomenon.
And after that, we got a group of students together and went out for dinner in the city at an Italian restaurant that had really yummy pizza. Then we walked around for a while looking for someplace to get dessert, and ended up going to a Spanish churro place. (It was quite a multicultural evening.) I got a classic Spanish hot chocolate that was absolutely delicious... for the first half or so anyway. It was so insanely rich that I actually couldn't finish it. Still, it was worth it. And now I want to go back and try their churros.
But no worries, I've included some Australian cuisine in my menu too. I got minced kangaroo meat instead of beef at the grocery store this week, and it's quite good. (And it hasn't gotten stolen yet either. Yay!) Hard to describe what the difference is, but apparently it's really healthy, being only about 2% fat and high in iron, in addition to being way better for the Australian environment than cows and sheep are. Of course, I've been using my kangaroo meat for soft-shell tacos and tortilla pizzas, so I guess that makes them even more... worldly. Or an abomination. Or... something.
But anyway, continuing onto something more authentically Australian: last night a whole bunch of us went on a Tim Tam shopping spree and had Tim Tam slams. You bite off two opposing corners of the Tim Tam (which is a delicious chocolate cookie that comes in a whole bunch of flavors) and use it like a straw (in our case to drink hot milk). It starts melting after a couple seconds, so then you have to eat it really fast before it falls in or gets melted chocolate all over your fingers, but it's SO GOOD! I don't know if it's possible to buy these things in the U.S., but I will be very sad if it isn't. Maybe I can bring some back...
The Melbourne International Film Festival is coming to a close this Sunday, so Marieke (who is also in my screenwriting class) and I are going to try to go downtown to catch one of the films. Our lecturer recommended it, and me being a movie fanatic, I would hate to miss out on something like this, since I have the good luck to be in Melbourne when it's going on. I don't know yet what we're going to see, but they have some pretty cool stuff from all over the world, including a British comedy, a Lebanese war film shot almost entirely inside a tank, and an Australian documentary about those evil invasive toads Dad told me about. (As well as stuff from the U.S., but it seems kind of silly to go to those.) I also want to see Ghost Writer now, but we missed that one.
I'm going to wrap up for now, because I have to do some reading for Women Writing (the American novel 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes') and work on my own screenplay before our Down Under Program dinner tonight. Sorry I don't really have pictures of any of the stuff I talked about this time. But there's your update for today.
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Sandra VerBeek
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Movies
You suggest Ghost Writer, so I guess I'll get it ON DEMAND. I have a cold and a movie will help pass the time of day. Everything you've written about sounds interesting. Glad you're taking it all in. Kanga meat? Oh, well......G'ma