The Travels of Kate

On my way home from uni on Wednesday, March 21, 2007, I decided to give you a bit of a tour of where I live. So, here are some pictures!

Turning onto my street!

After the turn. Walking down the street.

But then I crossed the road, so I could take a picture of the house from the other side. So here's the other side of the street.

My shadow.

We made it! Number 9.

The front of the house.

The back of the house.

Lovely laundry.

Then I went inside and planned on continuing the adventure, but I did not. So the inside tour will have to be for another time.

After dinner, I tried to do some work. But then I procrastinated. Do I look like a ballerina?

Well, that is the end of that day. But then, that Friday I took some more pictures! So I shall share them.

Danger in the library?

Look who's invaded our bookstores:

A pretty church.

The next day, I went baby shower shopping with Pippi for the twins! Which are due May 8, so that's quite exciting. I am definitely looking forward to having baby twin cousins. And shopping for them has already proven to be quite fun, and they aren't even born yet, hehe! So I thought I would post what I got, since baby stuff is cute.




The end! But more coming very soon, of course.

Before I begin, I want to announce that I have a new goal. I want to be in the studio audience for a game show. I've just recently realized that they film SO MANY in Melbourne. Pretty much every Australian game show I've ever seen or heard of is filmed here. And since I'm in university and have large gaps of free time during the day, going to game shows seems like a fantastic way to fill the time. Maybe one day I can even try to be a contestant?

In other news, there are only five (!!) weeks of term left. One of which will be spent on school placement, so only four weeks of classes and such. Where did the semester go??

Well, to answer that question, we shall have to go back in time...back to...March 11, 2007. Actually, I don't think anything much happened that day. Let's try for...the 12th, Monday!

Wednesday the 14th was Labour day, but everyone got Monday off for it so we'd all have a three day weekend. Everyone, that is, except Melbourne Uni. For some reason my uni never closes for Labour Day. All the other unis do, and everyone gets the day off work! So I went to my morning classes, but then said "Grr to university!" and skipped my afternoon lecture. Then I met up with Pippi to check out Moomba, which is an annual festival here. Moomba is supposed to be Aboriginal for "Let's get together and have some fun," but it's, well, not. We had a guest lecuture the other day at uni whose Aboriginal, and he explained to us what it really means. The story goes that in 1950s, there was this Aboriginal and he was pretty prominent among the Aboriginal activists and also pretty mad at how they were being treated. So when the Melbourne government came to him asking what would be a cool thing to name their festival, he told them, "Moomba." When asked what that meant, he told them it meant getting together and having fun. But, of course, it doesn't. But the name has stuck. And if you're curious about what Moomba really means, I'm sure you can find it online hehe. But anyway.

On to Moomba. I didn't actually take that many pictures. So I've stolen other pictures that people took from the festivities this year and in previous years, so you can still feel as if you were there. But one of the pictures is actually mine

The parade:

The rides:

The fireworks:

Other cool stuff:

And, of course, the waterfest! Pippi's favorite part:

The next significant day I can recall was Friday, March 16th. That was the day that André and I went to go buy fishies! 6 zebra fish...or so we thought! The store clerk accidentally gave us 7, which is sort of understandable considering how quickly they swim around. So we named them Splish, Splash, Spot, Soren, Susanna, Sam, and Surprise. Yes, Susanna, we named a fish after you. So feel special. They live in André's kitchen and I can visit them when I'm at his place. I tried to take pictures of them, but it didn't really work, because they swim really fast! But here are my attempts anyway:

On this day, André and I met up and went to Acland Street.

Acland Street is a 3 Smiles Per Hour Zone.

Yes, I know. I, too, wondered what on earth that meant. Only 3 smiles an hour? Not really that much when you think about it. So I consulted Google to find out what it meant.

The Government's Explanation.
A news article.

It's actually rather hilarious, I think. Seriously, I want to be a Smile Spy!

So yes. We went to Acland Street, hopefully helped the smile ratings, and got some gelati! Yum yum. Then we decided to walk to the beach. On the way we stopped at Luna Park. We didn't actually go on any rides, as that would cost money, but I took enough pictures to make it look like maybe we'd spent some time there.

The famous face - entrance to Luna Park.

Various rides.

Next to Luna Park is the Palais Theatre. I think that this is where my mom saw my dad play for first time, which is why I photographed it. But if I'm wrong then this is just a nice building.

Then we turned and walked toward the water.

Bye, Palais Theatre!

Look, we're almost there! See that pier? That's where we're headed!

But first we have to cross a bridge.

We made it!

Onto the pier.

View of the skyline from the pier.

Close up.

Then we walked down the pier and went to the cafe at the end. Not sure why I didn't take pictures here. They would have been good ones! Oh well. We got a nice bowl of hot chips. Yum! Then we walked back and passed Captain Cook!

Hello, Captain Cook!

Then we went home. The end.

Well, I had the intention of doing millions of entries today, but then my internet died for a good portion of the afternoon and evening. So this will have to do!

So the second week of uni. Some stuff probably happened. I'm pretty sure that this week I started hanging out with the people I now hang out with most. But I have met a wide variety of people. Even boys, though they are few. In my department anyway. I'd estimate there are maybe 150-200 first years in my department. Probably 10 or so are boys. So yeah, hee.

Actually that reminds me of a funny conversation I overheard between two such boys the other day. Complete with Australian lingo, which is the main reason I am going to share it. They were talking about what it was like to be a boy doing primary teaching and how they "may be called poofs, but [they]'d rather be called a poof than a bogan."

Indeed. Well, anyway. Let's see. *searches memory*

No, I've got nothing. Well, I can tell you what happened on Friday!

Friday was the start of a great tradition between André and myself. Now, every Friday, we go to Hungry Jack's (Australian for Burger King) and get the Summer Stunner Deal. It's stunning indeed. You get a burger, fries, drink, and oreo ice cream desserty thing for just $4.95! And that's AUD! USD it's ... *consults Xe.com* ... $4.13! So truly, just stunning. The ironic thing, or so André and myself think, is that while in Australia autumn officially begins 1 March, we did not start partaking of this wonderful deal until 9 March. And here we are, halfway through April, and we're still getting our weekly Summer Stunner Deal. So, a bit strange, but I think we'll keep taking advantage of it until Hungry Jack's eventually realizes that it's autumn.

But anyway, yes, we did that for the first time that Friday. And then we decided to go to the State Library of Victoria, since it was just across the intersection. But that didn't really work out because the library has a stupid rule. You aren't allowed to take any bags in with you, instead you have to pay a dollar to rent a locker to put them in. André and I both had our uni bags and didn't feel like renting lockers, so instead we went outside and took pictures. So, I shall share them.

First of all, I was amazed at how many seagulls there were! We weren't particularly near the ocean. And I haven't noticed them anywhere else in the CBD. But apparently they love the State Library!

Here's some cool guy on a horse!

Here is the same cool guy but from another angle.

Here is Redmond Barry. I had to look up who he was. I have a lecture in the Redmond Barry building at uni. So I guess he was pretty cool.

Here's a view of the library from the street.

Here's a neat lamp post that's on the street by the library.

And of course, my buddy LaTrobe and I!

So that was Friday. The next day was Saturday. On that day I took a bazillon pictures, so I think I will make a separate Saturday entry!

But first, here is a random picture that doesn't fit in anywhere else. It's an entrence to a car park on campus. I just thought it was way nifty.

Well, before I go into the first week of uni, I thought I might touch on classes and structure, as I think it's rather different from the US system. For most classes I have a single lecture a week, along with either a tute or a workshop. Tutes and workshops are made up of 20-30 people, and we go more in depth with what was discussed in lecture, explore it a bit more. Additionally, there's no Mon/Wed/Fri, Tues/Thur thing. Instead, I just have my classes whenever they can be slotted in. So I'm pretty busy Mondays and Tuesdays, but then Thursdays and Fridays I have a single morning class. Wednesdays are sort of mediumly busy.

While I'm on this subject, I might as well go ahead and list what classes I'm in, for those of you who are interested. I guess this is also rather different from the US system, as all of my classes relate to my major. Ooh, that's another thing that's different from the US. I am not a freshmen, I'm a first year, which makes me think of Harry Potter, haha. But anyway, my classes. They are:

Education 1: This class is like a general Educational psychology, theories of practice, sort of thing.

Science and Technology 1: This class is focused on teaching us science knowledge that we're going to need to know so that we can properly teach it ourselves. So there's not much teaching theory or anything here, it's just sort of like a middle school science class. But more in depth, since we have to really know things to be able to answer all the questions kids come up with. But it's not all too hard, content-wise.

Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE): This class is about societal and environmental issues. Shocking, I know. And how we can teach our kids about them, make our kids global citizens so they will want to and know how to act and save the planet and end poverty and yay!

Maths 1: This class is about math. Both making sure that we know how to do primary math, quickly, easily, and without calculators, but more importantly that we understand the mistakes kids make and why and how we can help them understand math and fun stuff like that.

Primary Music: This is hands down my most fun class. We meet once a week, there's only about 15 of us, and we play instruments and sing songs and make music. We'll all grab whatever instrument strikes our fancy and sit in a group on the floor, and our lecturer will say, "Okay, let's make the sounds of the ocean." I'm not really sure what it has to do with teaching primary music. But it's fun, so I guess that's what counts.

So yes, those are my classes.

I typed up all that because I honestly don't remember much of my first week of uni, but I needed something to fill up this entry.

I do remember my very first lecture! I thought I was way too early, but then everyone else was way too early as well, so I guess it worked out well. I ended up finding some people that I met at orientation. But after a while, I found that they talked about drinking and partying a bit too much for my tastes, so I've since found different friends, but it was good to have people to hang out with the first few days.

Wednesday of that week was Eloise's and Pippi's birthdays! I went with Eloise to her birthday picnic and a movie. We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens for their Moonlight Cinema. You sit outside on picnic blankets and then when the sun goes down this inflatable movie screen appears! I thought this was very cool, so I took pictures:

Finally the movie began! It was the Breakfast Club. But the movie's film was apparently rather old and it broke every 10-15 minutes, and then it took another 5 minutes to get it going again. So we eventually left at about 10:30 and got refunds. But a fun time was had by all nevertheless!

So then I had Thursday-Saturday. Some things happened, I'm sure. I'm pretty sure I went to Pippi's for dinner Sunday night. We ordered pizza.

And so concludes the first week.