Mumma in Aussie !!

Just got back from Perth but before that I had a stream of visitors: Mr. May, Esther, and last but certainly not least concluding with my momma. It was great to see all of them and here are some pics from when they were here.

First visitor: Mr. May paid a visit to Melbourne

 Street Party Near My Place

 Best Buskers (Street Performers) I've ever seen 

African Dancing in the Park

The Edge - "Jets out from the highest building in Melbourne into a glass box."

 Yarra Valley Wine Country

 Trying Kangaroo for the first time.

 Cheers

Gunnamatta Beach

MGMT

Reppin' Mizzou in Aussie. There's the Richmond Tigers an AFL team. Same colors as our tigers so have Tigers socks!

Chesty Bond's, This is how you roll in Aussie.

Aussie Christmas, New Years, Summertime and Australia Day....

It's been a long time since posting so I have to go ages back and start with Christmas eve. First off, Christmas in the summer is just weird. Especially in the city, it just doesn't feel very Christmas-sy and a lot of people don't put up decorations: me included. All that aside as a true Aussie would, we had a Christmas eve BBq. We had two mates staying with us from Perth for over a week at that point. As all of us were away from home, we ended up calling ourselves a family. The "Tram" fam. and we invited a few others over that were also away from their families. I ended up introducing them to foil packs where we used chicken and heaps of vegetables in foil that is cooked on the barbie for those that don't know. After dinner we went to midnight service at a local contemporary church.

The day after Christmas in Australia is called Boxing Day. It is a national holiday.I should say that nearly everyone has off a week for Christmas in any non-labor working job. The University actually shuts completely down for an entire week over Christmas and staff take their holidays. Boxing Day is essentially our black Friday where everyone has mega sales in all stores across the board. Me and the two mates from Perth had planned to get up at 4am to head into the city for Myer and David Jones opening at 5am. They even had a prize wheel they were setting up outside Myer and from 4:30 to 5:00 people were given a go at it. As I had done black Friday once with my mom, from this decided I would never do it again as it wasn't worth it. I wasn't necessarily keen on going. Luckily, their alarm didn't go off. When they didn't come upstairs to get me up I assumed they decided against going. At 4am after clonking out at 1am I didn't much feel up to it anymore or enough to get out of bed to go ask them. The next morning I found out there alarm just didn't go off but it was fine and just headed in to the city to check it out. There were still heaps of people and some stores just looked ravaged so I couldn't even of imagined the madness at 5am so next year I might give it a go just to see the rage that occurs.

Summertime here has been rather odd as it is still in the 60s/70s most days. I should note that this is not normal for this time of year but I can't complain as my house and my lab don't have A/C. Getting in the 90s and 100s for the few days it did was nearly unbearable aka new years was 100 until 9pm at night. Talk about sweating bullets and then the next day was a high in the high 60s. That's melbs weather for you. We'll see how the rest of the summer pans out because February is supposed to be the hottest and last year got above 45 celsius (113F) for a couple days. Other than that summer he is rather festive with heaps of summer events on and even a decent number put on by the city for free.

Next up is New Years and it was one of the more interesting fireworks shows I've seen. They had basically shut down the main city streets around Fed Square (center of the city). They had free concerts and other activites on. The fireworks at midnight we're in sync to the music being played at Fed Square. They were shot off from like the top of 10-15 buildings surrounding Fed Square. Although I've seen more impressive shows by far, it was pretty unique and could probably be seen from ages away from the city.

 Next major holiday in Australia is Australia Day (Jan. 26). Again what do you know I went to a Barbie, lol. This was with nearly all born and bred Aussies. One of the topics that came up was what is Australia day. Like no one really knew what it actually stood for. So since I looked it up and realized it commemorates the landing by the British in 1788. Either way it's just excuse to have a day off to barbie and drink. We ended up playing b-ball after we barbie'd at a nearby college. This is where the day took a turn for the worst for me when a little 4 on 4 ended up with my right foot becoming nearly two feet as I somehow came down wrong on it. We thought for sure it had to be a fracture so I went to the hospital. Something I forgot to mention is that to go play bball we had to climb over a double story fence which made the climb back over with a busted foot rather difficult. Literally right after I got over, a lady came to kick us out so the others just got to stroll out the front. Either way I got to the nearby hospital shortly and they took x-rays but the doc said by the look at it it's probably a fracture. Luckily, the results came back negative and I'm writing this as I recover :).

Post Pics of The Above Below

Our Tree and Gifts

 Firing up the barbie

Our Backyard

Foil Making

The Family!!!

Outdoor Light was out so candle light dinner it was!!

Wouldn't be very Spencer-like unless something caught on fire. Me, Napkins, and Candles just didn't get along.

Roomies

Free Music Festivals in the Park Right Next to ours

Just Chillin waitin' for the Diagnosis

Sick, I know!!

What's more Aussie than a Second Barbie of the Day on Australia Day

Best part about being injured; everyone else cooks and caters the meal for you!! Although it reminded me to much of knee surgery and can't wait to give these crutches the boot.

Cheers from Aussie :)

On the Road Again : Bootin' out Down the GOR

So two of my lab mates are leaving soon which led to a last minute and impromptu two day trip down the great ocean road and to Grampians. Great Ocean road is one of the most scenic roads in the world and very popular among tourists. The Grampians is a national park about 2-3 hours outside of Melbourne. I think the pictures can do the explanation. Here are some but I posted the whole album up here or on fb soon:

http://picasaweb.google.com/JeffSpencerD/GreatOceanExports?feat=directlink




    Start of Great Ocean Road Trek

   

     Called the 12 Apostles although only 8-9 still standing.

   

     Start of Grampians National Park

    Top of Mackenzie falls

   

     So I've been here roughly 7 months and the first kangoroos I'd seen. They're heaps of them farther out. Pretty much like deer.

   



Also a group shot from Thanksgiving:

Another of Chelsea Beach Near Melbs:

Jorts, Jorts, and more Jorts

So it's been ages since I posted on here last but I've been super busy with school. Considering it's summer here exams are finishing up this week and all the coursework students are about to start summer break (aka. holidays) so the campus is becoming pretty quiet.

Although they watch and learn about American culture through television, our style just didn't make it through as Jorts, yes let me repeat Jorts, are in style here. I first saw this jorts phenom on the first really nice day here where it was hot enough everyone was wearing shorts. I passed three normal looking guys all wearing jorts. I couldn't help but notice and do a double, no probably triple take and chuckle a bit. Since I have seen heaps of people wearing jorts and this is normal and accepted. I know hard to believe but it's true.

Other Australian style notes would have to be short shorts for summer. I think that is pretty well known that guys here wear really short and tight fitting shorts. The winter style is pretty similar to Europeans where dark and neutral colors reign supreme. Just as short-tight shorts they wear very, very tight pants. Those that know Kyle Schnurbusch that isn't anything on some of the guys pants here but you get the picture. So go out and buy a pair of skinny black jeans before you jump across the pond.

Well, off to go get me some jorts :)

Summers A Comin'

So I often have ideas but then when I actually go to write it seems like I forgot all of them but for starters I need to basically add this on to the post from last time because for the first time in current Australian Football League (AFL) history (used to be called Victorian Football League until about 50-60 years ago) the Grand Final ended in a draw. In the event of a draw, be ready for one of the most unique sports rules of all time. The match is replayed the following week. I don't know that I've ever seen both teams in such distress and the interviews of the captains where they were literally speechless. They had no idea what they planned on telling their 'mates' back in the locker room. This was a huge money maker for AFL and the network covering it here but I have a feeling a modification of this rule might come in affect as 'footy' becomes the most popular sport in Australia.

So everyone assumes it's the summer here but the weather here is still like Spring and some days are 70s to 80s but some days are still in the low 60s. The days that are nice now are beautiful but I have a feeling that this is going to last briefly for like 2 months and then it's going to get unbearably hot at times. Last year there was one day that was 119F. The weather here fluctuates a lot so a heat wave apparently may come through for a couple days and then the temps will drop back down to reasonable levels.

Ps. I feel you get converted into a culture when you start reacting and thinking the way they do instead of converting from what you know. Here they use celsius like essentially nearly the rest of the world. I actually think in Celsius now and had to convert back and think what it'd be in Farenheit which I did the complete opposite when I first got here because I had no idea temperatures in Celsius. This has happened in all areas though because I now naturally look right first when crossing the road and walk on the left on sidewalks, etc...

For those that don't know I'm researching modeling the auditory pathways and actually started another blog to impart the knowledge obtained from doing the research process to others. This isn't on my research because that you publish but essentially the tools and process applicable to any researcher. I got the idea because people in my lab had questions about switching to Linux/Ubuntu and decided it was the best way to introduce people without answering the same question five times. So really not relevant to most reading this blog but check it out here if you desire: http://aresearchtoolbox.blogspot.com/. If anyone is particualarly interested in my research, I can send you some documents via e-mail or I may be able to post them on here soon.

I have no pictures right now because I spilled on my computer a couple days ago and am waiting until Monday when I get what I need to fix it :( so I plan on posting some soon. The last two weeks they had this festival here called the Fringe Festival which had a ton of up and comers in all areas of entertaining from comedy to plays to music and performances every night at venues across the city. I went to the Humpday Jam which featured musical comedians ranging from SNL type skits, Tenacious D esque, and Flight of the Conchords wannabes. The host was pretty good but my favorite performance had to be two guys singing about his sweet Margarita. How he loves it when he wakes up with her on his chest because he's always ready for some more. The pizza that is. Also saw a comedian one night thats performance was fear and laughing. It was so, so but introduced me to the absurd rule here that was just passed in Melbourne that gives police the right to stop anyone, anywhere in Victoria (State Melbourne is in) and search them on the spot. Although he did get some pretty good jokes off of this so maybe it has some good.

I have added my address and number on the left of this blog. The US number is a google number so it will ring through to me if I am logged into google or I get SMS or voice messages immediately via e-mail on my phone so you can give me a shout sometime :). Even if I'm not on hopefully I can give you a call right back but no gurantees.

Footy vs American Football

So Friday for lunch I walked into the lounge and turned on the tv to see what was on. To my surprise the first NFL game of the year was playing. This shouldn't have been that shocking as I'm in a fantasy football league and drafted nearly two weeks earlier but it still was because you don't hear any stories/analysis on America sports over here. So the sports / going ons really just slip my mind. Also the fact it was on at 12 noon on a Friday is just a tad bit weird and the fact they were playing American football on Aussie tv too. The next person that came into the lounge happened to be an Australian girl so I asked if they had ever seen American football. The extent of her knowledge which is typical of Australians maybe most in the world outside America is what they see from American television which basically boils down to them knowing it's big guys with a lot of pads.

Over here they play what's called "footy" or the Australian Football League. In Victoria, it's the most popular sport far ahead of both rugby and cricket. It is spreading to the other states as more teams are added each year. There are major differences between the two. The biggest difference probably come from a couple things:

• it's an oval field that's 170m long
• the ball is moved forward primarily by kicking
• they don't wear pads
• if a clean catch is made it's called a mark which results in a free kick if wanted or you can just keep playing
• two sets of goal posts (the inners are 6pts if kicked through or 1pt if it hits the ground or a player; the outers are always 1pt if it goes through)
• it's extremely fast paced game where the ball is constantly moving similar to say basketball (with the final scores actually typically being from 60-120).

Explaining it without watching a game is really hard but that should give some idea. As our NFL season is starting the AFL over here is just ending with the semifinals coming up next weekend.

Cheers

Spicy Capsicum In, Hommus Out

So recently I might have fallen in love with Capsicum and spicy Capsicum has to be a direct gift from god. If you haven't tasted it you should probably give it a go because it'll be worth your while.

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted but I guess time flies. So I've moved into my place and have two roommates Derrick and Denise. Both of them just recently graduated from Melbourne University and are working here. Derrick is from Singapore and an architect. Denise is an arts major that did her undergrad over here but is originally from the states but doesn't want to go back anytime soon so is trying to get permanent residency status.

Finally, I've really settled in because moving in and starting school at the same time made things extremely hectic. You don't realize the hassle of even getting things like a desk chair for your room without a car. Lack of time/motivation doesn't help either but after three weeks there I've got everything I need I think. I guess some pics of the place below. It's no penthouse apartment but it's where I call home:

My room

Kitchen

Living Room

 Back to Back Patio

Igor's Pad (Really Derricks but I like to call it that because it's in the attic. They were repairing something in his room so most the stuff moved to the side.)

Path To:

Room:
School has been going well after the initial indirection. My research aim is modeling the auditory pathways. Since it's a research position, I don't have to take classes here and really just take classes if there going to help your research or need to learn something for your research. My professor teaches informal classes in a range of subjects once a week that our optional to attend. If you do take classes as a research student, they are just pass fail and no grades are attached.

Also, after cs'ing (couchsurfing - couchsurfing.org) for so long I put my pad up as soon as I moved in to host people and got a request pretty much asap as somebody was comning in the next day and sent me a request. I don't really have is much time now but still have hosted people sporadically as my roommates are down with it.

My first cs'ers:

A picture of my favorite park in Melbourne; it's right next to the CBD:


Ode to my mates for letting me cs for so long:

Some Australian bands to check out if you haven't heard them:
Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars
Youth Group - Forever Young
The Cat Empire - The Chariot


Pat Kilgore told me about this so if you want e-mails whenever any blog is updated it does so. Just follow directions below:

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Cheers,

Jeff