There were two bizarre side-effects of my inter-hemispheral travel. The first was that, depending on how you look at it, either I had two Tuesdays, or else one really, really long one. And secondly, if we take the two Tuesday view, the first Tuesday was in winter and the second was in summer.
Really, really, emphatically summer. I mean right now it's almost 9.30 at night, and it's still 32C. Thank god I worked out how to turn on the air-conditioning.
I haven't left myself much time to get sorted. I arrived Tuesday evening, managed to get some basic necessities, thanks to the kindness of my flatmate who took me to the store, and then had to be up for a full day of International Graduate Student Orientation. If somebody shows me another form or information booklet, I may cry. No, I can't... there's bound to be more of them tomorrow! Anyway, it wasn't all bad. I met the only other new aussie grad student, a philosopher - also from UQ! - who showed me where the good coffee was, and THAT improved my mood immensely! Before that I'm afraid I was starting to come over a bit wobbly-lipped, in a nasty flashback to my first day at boarding school, aged 12. The power of espresso is truly an amazing thing.
I'm getting impatient to meet some linguists already!
4 comments:
32C! Wow, we were less than 20C today, and apparently it's summer here too! I wore one of your pashminas today, made me a little sad :-( But it did look very nice :-)
Enjoy orientation, keep up the coffee intake and you'll be fine!!
Firstly, you call those cacti?? I want some photos of the ones with the long upright bit then the arm to the side :)
Secondly, you call this winter? Huh, the sunshine outside and the unused jumpers in my cupboard beg to differ.
I'm glad you found some good coffee, I've heard horror stories about American dripolators and such. Enjoy the rest of the orientation, looking forward to hearing about the lunacy of linguists.
Wow, Beth, you're in pashmina weather already? I pity you in winter - sure you don't want to come to the Grand Canyon with me and Jus? ;-)
Sorry Jess, I found a really cool pic of a tall cactus, but it didn't fit the header bar... I needed something that was short but wide. I'll post some pics just for you as soon as I work out how to hook stuff up. And it IS winter in comparison to this, trust me!
The espresso is good, but it's not cheap - probably on a par with home. So far I don't think a lot of things are noticeably cheaper than at home! This is worrying me, because I think my stipend is going to taxed like crazy - maybe 14%!! Yike!
You're there!!!
and more importantly, you have coffee!!!
And Alex without coffee is..well...it doesn't bear thinking about.
Glad you're safe, though am alarmed abot your stipend. That's a hefty chunk.
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