Over & out

Exams are over. I'm finishing up here. Had a few days down south, which was really good. I'm now packing up & saying bye to Australian friends, such as this fella:







Touch down at Heathrow early Wednesday morning. Thanks for reading this year. Hopefully see you soon.

Living the dream...

I could do this whole Australian thing a little longer. At the beach this morning (in the middle of winter) it was at least 25c, a light breeze, cloudless skies, bright sun, vibrant waters, & glassy 2ft surf. Perfect.





I have had a bit of an all Australian day... after the morning surf I headed to Subiaco Oval with a few mates to watch an AFL game - my first professional, live game. Fremantle Dockers beat Richmond Tigers 106-98, which is good for me. Sports spectators down here are far more diverse than in Englad: far more women & children. It's obvious why - sitting in the sun on a chilled out Sunday afternoon with family & friends is a little different to braving the gale force winds and sheet rains on a dark November Saturday afternoon sat in the town end of the County Ground, as Swindon lose 1-0 to Port Vale... the only goal being a penalty. That takes a little more commitment, & interest in actually what is going on. I'm planning on finishing the day off in a not so traditionally Australian way - by heading to Church.





Yesterday morning was my first exam - employment law. It was my potential banana skin this semester as it was a 90%er and my lecturer seems to get kicks out of setting ridiculously confusing exam papers. I think you need to be a professional reader to actually read the questions in the exam, because they are so long - and a doctorate would help to figure out which combination of questions it is ok to answer. Anyway, after navigating those tricky waters I still had some inspiration to write some stuff... I actually ran out of time half way through my second question, which isn't great, but I think I got enough down to do ok. We'll see. Last night I also went to the aforementioned Subiaco Oval, to watch the Australia v Fiji test. A comprehensive 49-0 win for Australia - good preperation for the imminent tri-nations and World Cup. Sports games cost so little to watch out here - it cost me roughly £17 in total to watch both those games!





Apart from trying to get some preperation in for these exams over the last couple of weeks, I have put a fair amount of effort into living the dream. Friends leaving parties, dinner out with friends, surfing, sports games, bush bonfires & bbq's, Sunday sessions (afo drinks) at Little Creatures, & Caversham wildlife park... all contributing to some memorable last few weeks. There are still a few more things I would like to be seeing & doing in the next couple of weeks. Of course, I'll try not to forget that I still have two more exam papers to sit this week.

The boys bush bonfire & bbq!:

So, I'm certainly loving this place. It will be so sad to leave. But also getting more excited about many of the cool things about coming home - Anneli, mums food, family banter, friends weddings, catching up with you(!), Bratton, familiarity... see you before long!

Fight club

The first rule about Fight Club is....

Ok, so I'm breaking all the rules! This weekend I headed north of Perth to Moore River with a great group of 25 men from church. It was the Fight Club (church mens ministry) weekend away: time to hang out, chat, bond, eat meat, and have fun. I was responsible for buying the food (ahem, meat) for the weekend so got 100 sausages, 40 steaks et al en route to McDonalds where the weekend began. On Friday night we had a good chat led by Rory (our pastor) about being faithful as young Christian men - something increasingly counter-cultural in all senses I think. We then headed to the beach for some wrestling. The ring was drawn in the sand, and two guys were sent in to scrap it out. Once the champion had prevailed he did not have an instant to recover before a new challenger was at him - very amusing. On my turn in the pit I prevailed over two guys before taking a big hit from an eager challenger. I was concussed so decided to sit out the rest of the fighting, a physcial game of British bulldog, and a night swim in the sea. After everyone got back we stayed up very very late watching Arrested Development, and Braveheart. A hearty evening of good chats and relaxing banter.

On Saturday we headed to the sand dunes for some sand-boarding. It was quite a cold day, and raining heavily. Still, we spent several hours boarding down dunes, running back up, and generally having a good time. I also tried my hand at being towed behind a 4x4 on a rope - kinda like wakeboarding, though I struggled to get a hold of that one. After this, I went for a quick surf with Joel. It was amazing to drive in his 4x4 onto a windswept beach with no one else to be seen and hop into the water straight from the car (almost). The surfing wasn't great, & I took another knock to the head from my surfboard. Amazingly, just before this happened a dolphin breached the water about 2 metres away from me. It gave me such a surprise as it came out the water that I jumped off my surfboard - I then got nailed by a bomb, & got the surfboard to the head. Needless to say at that point it was time to call it a day.

After a big meat dinner a few of us headed to a random Inn in the middle of a national park, which feld like it was about 99 miles from any civilisation. We were hoping to catch Australia v Wales (rugby union) on the big screen, and were not disappointed when the barman switched channels for us. Good beer and hot potato wedges sustained a very good evening with friends. I will miss nights such as these. We then returned to College where we watched South Africa trounce the England 'C team' in a disappointing game. A few of my South African friends enjoyed the victory at the expense of myself and Ben (the other exchange student from Leicester) - richly deserved on their part, as the England rugby on show was fairly (actually, very) rubbish, and South Africa seem to be on the right track for the World Cup. I hope Ashton can turn things round a little before 14.9.07 when I will be watching the teams play again in Paris at the Rugby World Cup, nevermind before the second Test next weekend. Unfortunately, I've got no photos to share with you. Off to church now. Bye!

Australian Footy

I've just got back from playing AFL (Australian Football League aka aussie-rules, or footy) for college. It was quite good fun, though we got fairly well thumped. by 40 points. I really enjoyed it however - fun to learn a sport in a competitive arena (these guys took it fairly seriously) & I really enjoyed wearing a styley 'vest-shirt'!!

So, I thought I should eductae you on a central tenet of Australian 'culture' (I use that term lightly!). Footy is the most popular sport in Australia - like our football. As the sport of the masses, it is played by bogans (chavs) who sometimes get themselves in a little trouble, as do many of our footballers.

Thus, the star captain (Ben Cousines - see above, with the ball) of the West Coast Eagles (Perth team - winners of grand final last year eg Man Utd) has a crack addiction that was recently exposed. Now that isn't too good for a role model so he's been in rehab in America, & will soon be playing again. There are also a fair few fights in AFL games - the team we were playing thought this was a good idea too, & got a little fired up. Luckily it didn't boil over too much.


The basic rules are that you can't run more than 15m without bouncing the ball, you can't throw it to your team mates but have to 'handpass' it, & if you kick it more than 20m & your team mate catches it directly, that is a 'mark' & he has a few seconds to compose himself & play on. Catching a 'mark' near the goal kicking area is vital if you are to score goals.

Pitch: a huge 'oval' - a football/rugby pitch easiy fits in with space at the sides and end. So marking is man on man - I played in the half back flank (see diagram) .

Scoring: you just gotta kick it between the posts, as high as you like. Between the middle (taller) posts gets you 6 points (a 'goal') & in between the (shorter) outside posts gets 1 'point'.

Tactics: in defence the idea is to disrupt the flow of the attack, hassle them, & stop them from getting marks, then start an attack. Up front the guys are trying to keep the ball moving & get a mark in goal kicking distance.

Apart from that it is a free for all brawl with bodies, limbs, tackles, boots flying in every direction. There are so few rules governing the breakdown (as far as I can make out! I may have just ignored them) unlike, say rugby, that it really can get messy in there - anything goes.

I haven't been to see a live match yet, though I've seen a few on tv, but plan to before I come back. In other news, last night I went on 'the wonders of the east' tour - arranged by my friend Simon, where he shows friends what he considers to be the best sights of Perth. We had some good banter, & it was cool to hang out. In the car, we realised we were from 5 different continents: Me (Europe), Simon (Australia), Sara (US), Eugene (Singapore), Pat (South Africa). Also been working on essays, 3 deadlines this week. Only surfed once in 3 or 4 weeks, so will hopefully get going again once these assignments are done. Ciao.

Catch up

It is amazing how quickly the last two weeks have gone since my last post... I honestly do not know where it has gone! C'est la vie.

I have begun a (slightly less than) part time job on Monday mornings. I am doing some voluntary work for Case for refugees - a local charity aiding refugess in their visa applications and guiding them through the process of settling in Australia. It is good to help out, & also get a little legal experience on the side. I have also read a veritable plethora of journals and legal texts in research for several essays that are due in a few weeks - this is the staple diet of a law undergraduate degree in Australia. With slightly more forward looking vision, I have also completed a few more applications for summer vacation schemes with law firms, and thus may yet try my hand at the 'big city business' bag for a few weeks this summer.

One question I found particularly difficult to answer on one of the aforementioned applications was:

Creativity - Describe a new way you were able to apply existing knowledge to solve a problem.

It sounds simple, but you try answering it. In fact, I would appreciate it if anyone has any ideas of what material I could use (from my life!) in answer to such a question. I'm dry on this one. Keep it clean please, boys. The whole process is a little demeaning as it can be difficult to impress the recruiters in answering such questions without churning out the usual 'trite CV lines.' The joys of law.

JoeyRadford visited for half a week, so it was fairly cool to hang with him a little. He was around last Saturday, when it was the annual college car rally, which involved car loads of people dressed up in a fancy dress theme terrorising locals in Perth for various photos, bits of information, prices, autographs and the such like. Being one of the last groups, my tactful and subtle request in the gay bar for a photo of Joey with 'anyone available' was quickly unmasked as specifically requiring a lesbian... very embarrassing, but alas we got the photo & continued! The rally ended with a party on someones farm out in the country, inlcuding a bush band with Aussie county dancing - a distant cousin of the barn dance, celiedh and other such folk type dances. It was a good night. The photo below is of my car - dressed in the theme of Scooby Doo after securing a brown van as our mode of transportation... I am 'Fred'. (nb: we were one of the less adventurously dressed cars... everyone else went to far more effort: spartans, ninja turtles, flower pot men et al!)

Wednesday 25 was ANZAC day - a remembremance type day commemorating Aus & NZ soliers in WWII. I went to a service in the chapel, which was moving. My tutor group from college then had a social in the afo: ice blocking, which is essentially sledging on blocks of ice down a hill. It was quite cool, but is clearly an inferior Ozzie version of one of my fav child-hood outings. Its got nothing on Happy Valley! We then went out for an all-you-can-eat Chinese, which was edible... so that was good!

I've just got back from a unichurch weekend away. It was cool fun. We heard some talks from the book of Daniel in the Bible which were helpful... about living a Christian lifestyle in a world that is not Christian. Lots of challenges there. However, there was also lots of time off for chilling out over the weekend, which was good. Yesterday afo, 6 of us guys hired some canoes & went up the river: sinking each other, sabotaging other groups, & generally being 'laddish' & causing trouble. We also found some v.high sand dunes that ran right down into the water. We each ran the gauntlet down the dunes trying to get to the safety of the water whilst getting nailed by all the other guys - good to practice rugby tackles. Later we also dragged one of the hire canoes 50m up to the top of a sand dune & had a go at some bob-sledding Jamaican style down the sand into the water. That was one very cool hour.

Tonight, I played football for my college in a couple of games against the other residential colleges from UWA. It was a windy & blustery night, so it felt a little more like playing back home (apart from the considerably warmer climate!) which was nice. We played 2 games, & won them both - I managed to steel a goal & set one up, so not a bad night in all. I hope you are all well & enjoying the early summer vibes in England. Go hard in the exams friends, a long summer is just around the corner!

Easter

Mum & dad returned from the east coast & we headed down south WA for a week of family banter - travelling the coastal route, & terrorising laid back country towns in our campervan. It was a good time, & cool to see some of the beautiful spots this state has to offer. We spent time relaxing on beautiful beaches such as Salmon holes, & Redgate - mostly in the sun... & often also the wind! We also explored some of the beautiful southern forests, which included a 'tree top walk' & climbing a 61m Gloucester tree on metal stakes spiralling its trunk - mum led the way which was very impressive! We also visited some wineries & spent enough time trawling through souvenir shops on mums infamous missions.

I think a highlight for my parents was meeting some of my friends (& their parents!). We had a good meal with Rory & Susan, then hung out with Rory's parents over the Easter weekend, before visiting the farm of some of my other good friends (the Dodds). It was a beautiful place, & good fun to go walking, swimming, & quad biking round! My folks plane out of Perth was delayed by a day, so I actually had said goodbye to them three times (after a surprise early morning goodbye) by the time they left! The weekend has been a quiet one, but that is not a bad thing as the rest of semester is lining up to be a busy one. Thanks for stopping by - keep in touch.

Work hard, play hard

Mostly, for your amusement, and also to my shame... here is a recent pic of me 'surfing'.* Looks like fun eh?!

Honestly it isn't always like this, but the camera doesn't lie I guess!

So, the weather is cooling down considerably at the moment. Realising I have got used to the climate though as I talk about 20*c as if it was -5*c: bring on the English summer! One weird thing though: even if it remains fairly hot outside, inside the buildings it is really cool - actually cold. So I can sit in my room working & shivering away on a warm sunny day! Strange.

Well, my folks arrived safe & sound, if a few hours late. It was good to hang out & show them the 'burb. They seemed to like Perth, enjoy meeting some friends, had a good time at church, but were unimpressed by the sea temperature. I think they may have expected tropical waters. They are in definite need of a holiday, so I think they will be enjoying the break. They have been in Sydney & Melbourne for 10 days & return to Perth later this week.

In the meantime, my life has been determined by essays & assignments. Not to say that there hasn't been some 'play' too. I want to ensure you that this blog is for my highlights, & not the sum total of what I do every day - uni just isn't that interesting. So I have got through the first round of deadlines this semester, & feel a little better for that. I'm also busy writing letters/emails/application answers telling commercial lawyers how much I love them. White collar slavery. The application process for graduate law jobs has begun (to commence in September 2009!) & I'm jumping on the bandwagon, if a little reluctantly.

On Friday night I went to see the Western Force play again. Another good win, this time against the Natal Sharks from SA. Afterwards we went out for a curry in Subiaco - my first one in Perth. A slightly disappointingly weak (less spice than one of Ruthy's dishes) effort from Australia compared to Leicester's fair curry houses.

I have found time to go surfing, & had a great time out at a new spot yesterday - my best surf for a few weeks. I also headed down to the West Coast Blues & Roots music festival in Fremantle last night. I failed to get tickets but watched from outside with a few mates. I just missed the train & so didn't get to see John Mayer (so gutted!) but managed to catch Ben Harper (& the innocent criminals) - very satisfying.

* Insert: paddling around in the water, trying to look cool, & getting smashed by waves!