So a certain brother of mine demanded an update and I'd hate to ruin his recent run of good fortune by denying him, so now you all get to benefit.
Now that the first week of classes has come and gone it has finally hit me that I actually have to go to SCHOOL here. Until now I'd just been wandering around the city, eating and wearing away my money and generally acting like my life was one extended vacation. Well, no more. The dark reality has hit - I have to do huge amounts of reading, write long papers, attend lectures; essentially, behave like a student. BOO. However, this chilling realization didn't stop me from going on a winery tour on Friday. A few American friends and I toured four wineries in the Yarra Valley, where a large number of Australian wines are made. I don't know that I learned much about wine, but I can definitely PRETEND to know what I'm taking about ("it has a light blonde color and a woodsy, full-bodied flavor with undertones of asparagus and old sweaters"), and I can certainly drink it with pleasure.
Before classes started I took the tram down to Acland St. in St. Kilda to see the Postcard Show at the Linden Gallery. They were displaying hundreds of submissions of small paintings, usually postcard-sized or slightly larger. Its a nice space - an old two-level mansion with wrought-iron railings and a lovely balcony. I liked some peices a lot, but they had so many it was difficult to make my way through them. Still, I enjoyed myself. I think my favorite part was when a woman brought in a large group of eight-year-old kids to show them the gallery. They wandered around in groups of three or four, freaking out about the art. A lot of them just thought the peices were ugly and had no problem expressing their dislike at the top of their lungs, but a couple of the girls really couldn't stand all the nudity. My favorite was this little blond girl who kept shrieking, "how can they show that! Those are her private parts! You can't paint private parts!" It took me a few tries, but I managed to snap a picture of them without looking like a stalker.
My classes are all engaging and don't seem to involve TOO much work, which is a relief. American Politics and Society, however, is proving to be
interesting. At first I was concerned that the professor would be boring (his voice sort of lulls me to sleep), but not to worry - the way he represents American democracy is more than enough to keep me alert. Its not that he says anything extraordinarily outrageous, but he makes statements that just feel
off. I can't totally pinpoint why, though, because I don't have the breadth of knowledge or factual information like he does—all I have is my anecdotal experience.
He criticizes the constitution and the American governing process a lot, and while his opinion is certainly legitimate, I wonder at the point of doing that in a class where the majority of the students know very little about the system he is judging. Its important to point out flaws in the system, but when the people you're showing the flaws to don't even know how the system is put together, it seems like you're showing them an innacurate view of that system. He makes weird comments too—he said that in the parliamentary system, the fact that you elect the party means that your leader is guaranteed to have experience by dint of having fought his way to the top of the party. In America, however, you can (and often do) elect leaders based on their ability to campaign and not on the basis of their experience. He was obviously refering to Bush, and he's right that Bush didn't have experience. However, when he refered to Australian party leaders, he made an aside about a couple of poor leaders they had elected and awknowledged that he was making a generalization, but still felt that generally speaking, Australia had elected solid leaders. He was obviously generalizing about America as well, but didn't mention that, or any other shoddy presidents we'd had. So the whole point of his argument was to show that Bush wasn't a strong leader with experience, but in making that point he also made a sweeping claim about the American election process (that we tend to not elect experienced leaders) and didn't back it up.
He made a lot of comparisons between the Australian and American governing systems, with America usually losing out. At one point he even said that Bush was inexperienced because the governorship of Texas was largely ceremonial and had very little hands-on action involved. Now, I am the first person to say that Bush administration has NOT been good to my country, but I find it hard to believe that the position of governor in the LARGEST state in the union is an empty honor. In fact, I know Texans who probably wish Bush's position had been ceremonial, given what how he lead the state. The class should really be called, "Why The American Constitutional System Doesn't Work and Isn't As Awesome As the Australian System, So There!"
Okay, so I know it sounds like I hate the class, but don't. When the professor isn't weirding me out with his out-of-left-field comments, he's actually quite informative, and I like hearing the reactions from the Australian students as well as their random questions about Hilary Clinton's chances or Barak Obama's "blackness." (Don't ask.) The professor is also witty in a dry sort of way and always willing to answer questions or open up the class for discussion, so all and all it really isn't that bad. Also, this is only the second week—I think as we get further into the course we'll be able to stop comparing the systems and just examine American politics on its own merit.
I leave you with a random picture from the adventure that Theresa and I went on to that amazing Swedish land known as Ikea. We needed apartment stuff (pots, pans, decorations, sheets) and the Swedes were happy to oblige. Of course, then I got caught up in the kids section and it all went south. Theresa had to drag me out before I bought a bright red pup-tent.
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