They Don't Tell You About the Flies
Apparently there's a popular folk song in Australia called, "They Don't Tell You About the Flies." I only have one thing to say about it -it's true. Flies are ubiquitous here. It's something you wouldn't think to write home about, but they are so pesky that I feel I have to warn everyone. Nomatter where you go in Australia, you will be confronted with flies at some point. Usually not a swarm, but just one.. one fly, smaller than the average American fly, but twice as fearless. They like to land on your face, or anywhere on your body that you might find completely off-putting. They have no boundaries, and because they are smaller, they are more difficult to feel once they land. I've seen business men talking... a fly comes up and lands on one of the men's cheeks, and it takes him a good 30 seconds to notice it's there. They're quiet.
Anyway it's not that big of a deal, but it's funny. It's just one of those things that you don't really notice until someone says "damn, the flies here are so obnoxious" and then everyone chimes in "yeah! i've noticed that! they're random, but everywhere!"
I haven't actually noticed too many insect issues... I know Australia is meant to house the most dangerous animals on the planet, and they're pretty prideful of it, but in the city you don't see too many dangerous spiders or anything. Lots of cockroaches at night on the backstreets. ew. but they come with every city, so you can't really complain. You can, however, shudder and squirm every time you pass one.
Thanksgiving here was really nice. BU put on a really nice catered dinner with wine and turkey and mashed potatoes.. and American styled-pie. I hadn't really noticed how much I missed "American" food. Australians put their own spin on everything. The burgers are totally different, layered with beetroot and a fried egg instead of cheese and pickles. They don't make pastry pies, really.. they expect a "pie" to have meat in it, unless you specify that it's a "dessert" pie. Even then, they're not really big on dessert pies. And I never noticed that the US was particularly "big" on it, but whenever you see that something is missing somewhere else, you realize how prominent it is back home. It's funny, too, because I don't eat a lot of burgers or pies in the states... it's just the familiarity of it being what you would recognize... that's what I missed, I guess.
The Blue Mountains were amazing. I loved it up there. We were watching this film about the Blue Mountains and the narrator introduced it saying, "But at the mountain walls, the city stops." -That's exactly what it's like. It's full-on nature, just two hours outside of a sprawling cityscape. And it's beautiful. The Mountains are full of Eucalyptus trees... and those trees omit a certain oil into the air so that when light reflects off of it, it creates this blue mist.. hence "blue" mountains. It's really quite beautiful. I felt so at home there. In a way it reminded me of small town New England... in some kind of parallel universe. I also learned how ancient and untouched this country is. A few years ago, scientists discovered ancient trees that dated back to prehistoric times. Like Australia's pladypus (the mammal who lays eggs but nurses their young..) this tree was a hybrid... it was built like a fir tree but had fronds (like those of a fern) for leaves/branches... and also, its bark was alive, not dead... and looked like it had billions of little snails on it. There are apparently only 40 in the forest, and their location is only known to scientists, who are trying to protect them. We got to see them in the nature film we saw, and they really are prehistoric looking, and incredibly tall. It's really quite strange.
I suppose that is the world untouched. Australia is so often criticized for being a country that is always looking out toward the sea, too afraid to look inward because there's just nothing there but wild earth and a deadly desert. You can see how this plays a role in their cultural identity. It's almost eerie, being in a place that's so similar and yet so different to the states. A total parallel universe. I keep saying it because it's really very much how I feel. Everything is backwards in a totally parallel kind of way. I feel like I'm in that old TV show "Sliders" -wow, there's a nerd reference, for you.
I did get to go horseback riding up in the blue mountains and it rocked. They're pretty trusting if they know you're an experienced rider, so I didn't at all feel like i was stuck on a nose-to-tail ride. I got to do all the fast stuff that I wanted, got as sore as I could, and some of the inclines were really quite difficult, even for advanced riders... because when it comes down to it, it's all about whether or not the horse gets the right footing up the rocky slope. Needless to say, it was beautiful terrain.. a really cool way to experience the landscape. I was in heaven.
What else have I done? I worked... worked.. got a hair cut, that was pretty amazing. Really needed it. My stylist was from Singapore. So, that was coool. Ah.. "Australian Idol" is rather HUGE here, and I'd sort of been keeping track of what was going on with it.. especially because the last episode was two days ago. It was this HUGE deal at the Sydney Opera House and everyone and their dog were tuned in... lots of fireworks over the harbor (more spectacular than any 4th of July fireworks i'd seen, which is funny)... The interesting thing about Australian Idol, even though it's just as cheesy as the American version, is that the singers aren't quite as "poppy" as in the US. Of course, there were some pop-style vocalists in the line-up, but by the time they were down to 5 contestents, only one of them was a girl (who was 16, by no means was she plastic or skinny, and had aboriginal heritage). The remaining 4 were men: a hard rocker with an amazing roughness in his voice that was really great, a so-so pop style guy, a very attractive virigin/christian rocker with a pop voice, and an Irish dude with an unbelievable falsetto.
At the end, it was down to the Irish dude and the aboriginal girl. Pop princess vs Andrea Bocelli. Unbelievably, and to my pleasant surprise, the Irish dude, Damien, won.
I wouldn't have gone into this story if it didn't have some kind of climax...
So I walk into work this morning, and I'm noticing menial things along the way. Things are different. There are random people standing in the middle of the backstreet that I usually walk along. There are never random people there. There's a table set up next to a little park bench which looks like it's just served breakfast for two. That's never been there. I think to myself, "huh, looks like film people doing a film set dealie... no big. i'm probably wrong seeing as no one's holding any film equipment" I get to my office, and around the back.. there it is, film people and equipment. I pat myself on the back for being able to recognize it from the get-go, and I ask the receptionist what's up. (the receptionist, who, by the way, has been away for 4 weeks and was the first one to notice that i had a haircut.. funny, that.) Anyway she says they're filming the Australian Idol music video in our facility. HAH! And there's Damien, hangin' out, doin' his thing, being a dad... to the most adorable little blondie boy. And I laughed. We must be pretty hot stuff to house this kind of video in Australia.
At the same time, it makes sense.. we're the company that's been supplying Australian Idol with all it's editing equipment from the start. It was just funny to walk into work completely unprepared.
Alright, I think I've exhausted this entry. I'm sure there's more to say. I've finally broken the walls with one of the guys I work with here. I always thought he was really intimidating, and I finally just told him that today, and he was really quite shocked. And now he's being so nice. People are often unaware of how they are percieved. I've been guilty of the same thing... which, I think, is common in people who have introverted tendencies. Actually, I think I was intimidated by him for much of the same reason that people are sometimes intimidated by me. He comes off as an introvert, but he's really quite extroverted.. and I could see that extrovert in his associations with other people, but he wasn't comfortable enough with me to go there. So, his introversion with me came off as a distaste. I do the same to people I don't yet know very well, or people who I'm not that comfortable with. I guess that's something to be aware of... I can't fake comfort, but I'll think of something so that my true self comes out more quickly... because as I've noticed in this guy I work with, the true self is often more fun and engaging than that introverted version of oneself. I'm not sure how you teach yourself to be more comfortable around strangers. Is it a matter of turning off that part of you that cares what others think about your personality? But if that's the case, then wouldn't you enter that oblivious obnoxious ignorance for other people's feelings? I imagine it's finding the balance. Hah, isn't that always the case?
I've overstayed my visit with the blog. The ennnd!
Anyway it's not that big of a deal, but it's funny. It's just one of those things that you don't really notice until someone says "damn, the flies here are so obnoxious" and then everyone chimes in "yeah! i've noticed that! they're random, but everywhere!"
I haven't actually noticed too many insect issues... I know Australia is meant to house the most dangerous animals on the planet, and they're pretty prideful of it, but in the city you don't see too many dangerous spiders or anything. Lots of cockroaches at night on the backstreets. ew. but they come with every city, so you can't really complain. You can, however, shudder and squirm every time you pass one.
Thanksgiving here was really nice. BU put on a really nice catered dinner with wine and turkey and mashed potatoes.. and American styled-pie. I hadn't really noticed how much I missed "American" food. Australians put their own spin on everything. The burgers are totally different, layered with beetroot and a fried egg instead of cheese and pickles. They don't make pastry pies, really.. they expect a "pie" to have meat in it, unless you specify that it's a "dessert" pie. Even then, they're not really big on dessert pies. And I never noticed that the US was particularly "big" on it, but whenever you see that something is missing somewhere else, you realize how prominent it is back home. It's funny, too, because I don't eat a lot of burgers or pies in the states... it's just the familiarity of it being what you would recognize... that's what I missed, I guess.
The Blue Mountains were amazing. I loved it up there. We were watching this film about the Blue Mountains and the narrator introduced it saying, "But at the mountain walls, the city stops." -That's exactly what it's like. It's full-on nature, just two hours outside of a sprawling cityscape. And it's beautiful. The Mountains are full of Eucalyptus trees... and those trees omit a certain oil into the air so that when light reflects off of it, it creates this blue mist.. hence "blue" mountains. It's really quite beautiful. I felt so at home there. In a way it reminded me of small town New England... in some kind of parallel universe. I also learned how ancient and untouched this country is. A few years ago, scientists discovered ancient trees that dated back to prehistoric times. Like Australia's pladypus (the mammal who lays eggs but nurses their young..) this tree was a hybrid... it was built like a fir tree but had fronds (like those of a fern) for leaves/branches... and also, its bark was alive, not dead... and looked like it had billions of little snails on it. There are apparently only 40 in the forest, and their location is only known to scientists, who are trying to protect them. We got to see them in the nature film we saw, and they really are prehistoric looking, and incredibly tall. It's really quite strange.
I suppose that is the world untouched. Australia is so often criticized for being a country that is always looking out toward the sea, too afraid to look inward because there's just nothing there but wild earth and a deadly desert. You can see how this plays a role in their cultural identity. It's almost eerie, being in a place that's so similar and yet so different to the states. A total parallel universe. I keep saying it because it's really very much how I feel. Everything is backwards in a totally parallel kind of way. I feel like I'm in that old TV show "Sliders" -wow, there's a nerd reference, for you.
I did get to go horseback riding up in the blue mountains and it rocked. They're pretty trusting if they know you're an experienced rider, so I didn't at all feel like i was stuck on a nose-to-tail ride. I got to do all the fast stuff that I wanted, got as sore as I could, and some of the inclines were really quite difficult, even for advanced riders... because when it comes down to it, it's all about whether or not the horse gets the right footing up the rocky slope. Needless to say, it was beautiful terrain.. a really cool way to experience the landscape. I was in heaven.
What else have I done? I worked... worked.. got a hair cut, that was pretty amazing. Really needed it. My stylist was from Singapore. So, that was coool. Ah.. "Australian Idol" is rather HUGE here, and I'd sort of been keeping track of what was going on with it.. especially because the last episode was two days ago. It was this HUGE deal at the Sydney Opera House and everyone and their dog were tuned in... lots of fireworks over the harbor (more spectacular than any 4th of July fireworks i'd seen, which is funny)... The interesting thing about Australian Idol, even though it's just as cheesy as the American version, is that the singers aren't quite as "poppy" as in the US. Of course, there were some pop-style vocalists in the line-up, but by the time they were down to 5 contestents, only one of them was a girl (who was 16, by no means was she plastic or skinny, and had aboriginal heritage). The remaining 4 were men: a hard rocker with an amazing roughness in his voice that was really great, a so-so pop style guy, a very attractive virigin/christian rocker with a pop voice, and an Irish dude with an unbelievable falsetto.
At the end, it was down to the Irish dude and the aboriginal girl. Pop princess vs Andrea Bocelli. Unbelievably, and to my pleasant surprise, the Irish dude, Damien, won.
I wouldn't have gone into this story if it didn't have some kind of climax...
So I walk into work this morning, and I'm noticing menial things along the way. Things are different. There are random people standing in the middle of the backstreet that I usually walk along. There are never random people there. There's a table set up next to a little park bench which looks like it's just served breakfast for two. That's never been there. I think to myself, "huh, looks like film people doing a film set dealie... no big. i'm probably wrong seeing as no one's holding any film equipment" I get to my office, and around the back.. there it is, film people and equipment. I pat myself on the back for being able to recognize it from the get-go, and I ask the receptionist what's up. (the receptionist, who, by the way, has been away for 4 weeks and was the first one to notice that i had a haircut.. funny, that.) Anyway she says they're filming the Australian Idol music video in our facility. HAH! And there's Damien, hangin' out, doin' his thing, being a dad... to the most adorable little blondie boy. And I laughed. We must be pretty hot stuff to house this kind of video in Australia.
At the same time, it makes sense.. we're the company that's been supplying Australian Idol with all it's editing equipment from the start. It was just funny to walk into work completely unprepared.
Alright, I think I've exhausted this entry. I'm sure there's more to say. I've finally broken the walls with one of the guys I work with here. I always thought he was really intimidating, and I finally just told him that today, and he was really quite shocked. And now he's being so nice. People are often unaware of how they are percieved. I've been guilty of the same thing... which, I think, is common in people who have introverted tendencies. Actually, I think I was intimidated by him for much of the same reason that people are sometimes intimidated by me. He comes off as an introvert, but he's really quite extroverted.. and I could see that extrovert in his associations with other people, but he wasn't comfortable enough with me to go there. So, his introversion with me came off as a distaste. I do the same to people I don't yet know very well, or people who I'm not that comfortable with. I guess that's something to be aware of... I can't fake comfort, but I'll think of something so that my true self comes out more quickly... because as I've noticed in this guy I work with, the true self is often more fun and engaging than that introverted version of oneself. I'm not sure how you teach yourself to be more comfortable around strangers. Is it a matter of turning off that part of you that cares what others think about your personality? But if that's the case, then wouldn't you enter that oblivious obnoxious ignorance for other people's feelings? I imagine it's finding the balance. Hah, isn't that always the case?
I've overstayed my visit with the blog. The ennnd!
posted by C Killian at 7:16 PM
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