I Heart Big W

I think I mentioned before that Melbournce Central is the largest shopping centre in Melbourne. But according to thatsmelbourne.com.au, QV is the largest shopping centre in Melbourne. I think I've gone there just about everyday since I've been on Easter Break. Mostly because that's where the Safeway supermarket is, Safeways Liquors and Big W.

Ahhh, Big W. Its the answer to everything. Its just like Super Walmart except it doesn't have a liquor store or a grocery. Big W is underground and to make up for its lacking things, the supermarket is right across from it and Safeway liquors is right next to it. This QV place is amazing. Its like an underground fantasy land where people can go spend money and hang out and eat sushi or kebaps and drool over the pastries they have on display at the bakeshop. So Big W is essentially Walmart. They have the same colors and the same smiley face that bounces around knocking off price tags.

When I lived in Ohio there was this department store called Woolworths, which I thought went out of business at the end of the 80's. Woolworths, or Woolies as they call it here, is alive and well. Woolworths owns Safeway grocery, Safeway Liquors, Big W and a few other stores. In the UK Woolworths is a department store. Its a monster. How many places in there world could there be Woolworths?

It seems like some coorporations from the states that have spread elsewhere are doing considerably better. Kmart for example is nothing like a Kmart you can find in the states. It occupies the same place Target does in the states and Target here is rather expensive, so I don't shop there. The Martha Stewart of Australia's is Donna Hayes.

She dominates Kmart, has her own magazine and probably knows everything about everything.

Being Bored on Good on Fridays

Today was the first day of Easter Break and it will probably become the most boring of all the days of Easter Break. Because it was Good Friday, everything was closed.

We ran out of Equal sugar yesterday and completely forgot to buy more when we were at the supermarket last night buying heaps of other sweets, namely banana cake, muesli biscuits and cadbury icecream. You know how when you realize you don't have something, it turns out that everything you need to do from that point on requires that one thing? Today it was sugar. I needed sugar for my cereal this morning, for my chai tea and heaps of other things.

I solved it by puting honey on everything. It works really great with cold soy milk and bran cereal because instead of coating the flakes with sweetness, it clumps up and sinks to the bottom.

When Home is Sweet

When Home is Sweet
Posted by: dirtyflamingo.

It has almost been a week since William and I moved into our new apartment on Swanston street. And since last week my workload at school has multiplied times 50. City living is really nice. Especially when you don't have to take public transport to do anything essential like go bowling at 5am or go to the supermarket to buy raspberry biscuits. Both bowling and raspberry biscuits are right across the street and public transport literally drops you off right in front of my building. Unless I have to make the 41 minute commute to the uni, the train station is right around the corner.The apartment definately has its idosyncrasies, such as a triangle-shaped shower and a channel on television where you can watch people take money out of the ATM at the entrance to the building, but I must say the set of red pleather couches with deep purple piping the place came with are the best part. What's even better is when I wear a red shirt on a particular day and then come home and change into my red pijama pants and maybe my red slippers, I completely dispapper when I sit on the couch to watch television. Although the place still kind of feels like a hotel, home is starting to feel quite sweet.

How to Apply Theory in Multi-Layered Shapes

Today was my first tutorial for Applicaitons of Translation Theory. Its basically a class after lecture where you break into smaller groups based on your language pair (mine is English-Spanish) and have everyone critique your translation and discuss what things could be improved. Much like an art critique, except this was way more brutal.

I guess this was an eye-opener. Grad school is not going to be easy. That's what I wanted, actually. I can't possible live up to these other two girls in my tutorial. One of them, Isabel from Peru, is already a professional translator/interpreter, has 2 kids my age and I guess just wants a "refresher" or an advanced degree in Translaion. The other girl, Samantha from Australia half English and half Mexican, is a writer. She's published and she also works at Channel 7 doing captioning in Spanish. I'm just me, Cuban and from nowhere, straight out of undergrad with no professional experience but with great aspirations of becoming a subtitler for television shows or film and I also did horribly on my first translation assignment about dinosaurs. All I did was try to apply all of this theory my professors are throwing at me. Faithfulness vs loyalty. Free vs literal. Overt vs Covert.

I was way to literal with my translation and a bit too much of the english language structure showed up in my spanish translation. And the worse thing was that I realize all of this as I'm reading out to the group and had no choice but to continue reading and make a complete idiot out of myself. After that I didn't want to open my mouth again and I was all flustered and uncomposed and bothered.

I was caught by complete surprise. Translation is so much more intense and complex than it was in undergrad. And grad school has now officially become hard and lots of work.

The Home Concept

Up until recently I never really thought about the dual meaning of home and the simple meaning of the word house. "Who needs a home when you've got a house?", I thought. But then when I went away to college I met people who had a house AND a home. I also met people who wanted to know where I was from. I would simply say, "Costa Rica", because that's where my house was and that was my home, it was where I had a bedroom full of stuff that belonged to me. When I moved to Costa Rica, I was from Miami and when I moved to Miami I was from Panama, but no one really cared because in Miami there is this strange dichotomy where you're either Cuban or something else. So in Miami, I was Cuban and without a past. And before Panama I lived in Mexico ,but that's entering the elementry school years and no one cares where you're from, plus no one would believe I was from Mexico in a million years. Kids just wanted to know if you were good at playing red rover or if you had any cool stickers to trade.

So when I went away to Spain for college, being from Costa Rica and not having been born there wasn't a big deal. No one asked questions really because everyone one else was from somewhere else. My family lived there, I had a house there, that was good enough. It wasn't until my family moved to Colombia while I was still in Spain and all of a sudden my system had a fault in it. I was no longer from Costa Rica and I wasn't from Colombia because I hadn't been there and I surely wouldn't have a room waiting there for me. So Spain became my home, I had an apartment there, I went to school there and all of my friends were there. Spain was home.

When it came time to leave and reluctantly start my life in Boston things got scary. I was moving back to America. Real America where English was the official language (as opposed to Miami, which is not quite Latin America because its in America but its not America because its just like Latin America). A place I hadn't lived in since I was 9, wildly obsessed with Barbies and desperatly wanting to discover where Cabbage Patch Kids were born. Then again, when I was 9 I lived on a military base in Florida and everyone knows that most large military bases are pretty much self-sufficient. They have schools, shopping areas, supermarkets, sometimes hospitals and in the case of one in Panama sometimes an airport. So if we want to be technical here, when I was in pre pre-school in Orlando I didn't live on a military base for like a year or 2. In Boston, people wanted to know where I was from so I usually had to think really hard to come up with a response and by the time people had already tired of waiting or think I was an idiot, so I'd just say I don't know. Because I don't.

What marks the end of "growing up"? I physically stopped growing in 7th or 8th grade, but since 8th grade I've also grown alot as a person. Is growing up just physical or mentally and spiritually?

If you "grew up" in X place but moved away and never went back will you always be from there? Can you ever be from somewhere else?

Me, the Hunted

I'd just like to start out saying that I really hate spiders. Especially now that I'm in Australia and they supposedly have some of the most deadliest ones just crawling around. Just looking at a picture of one makes me feel very strange inside.

On Sunday night I was in my room trying to get through 30 pages of reading about translation theory that I had all week to do, but left it to the last minute because "I didn't think it'd be THAT many pages". So I'm reading and out of the corner of my eye I see some dark fur blur rapidly crawling up the side of my wardrobe. I looked at it just 2 seconds and started to freak out because there was a tarantula in my room. In MY room! I slyly went over the phone that was right in across from the spider and called William and told to "Bill!!!! There's a giant spider on my wall! Come!" And he took forever to come. Or it seemed like it. So by the time he gets to my room the spider is just about above the doorway and I didn't want to go out and William didn't come it. He took at look at it and comfirmed that "its a pretty big spider". We kind of just stood around for a bit, well I was squirming, trying to decide what to do with. William decided a styrophone cup would do the trick. A girl walked by in the hall and said that we should call security because she has a spider in her room last week and there's no way of telling wether its poisonous or not. So I call security and tell them, "Hello?! I'm in Howitt Hall on the 12th floor and there is a GIANT spider in my room and I don't know what to do!" So the guy on the other end says (mockingly), "There's a giant spider in your room and its not a pet?" Of course not. He tells me to go to the Ops office (resident operations office) and get some bug spray and spray it. And if it didn't work I should call him back and he'd "walk me through it".

William goes and get it because I can't leave the room, for fear the spider will jump on my head and attack me. He comes back with 2 cans of raid and by that time, the spider is on the other side of my room and I'm sitting on top of my desk. We move my bags and blanket off of the bed and my chair in case the spider jumps and Raid has to be sprayed in my stuff. So he climbs on my bed and I take a picture of him and the raid can and then he starts spraying. I start jumping around in the hallway so the spider doesn't get my feet and the spider falls on to the floor and goes under my bed. I come into the room and somewhat help pull my suitcases from under the bed and I see the spider crawling around and William sprays it to death. All over my new suitcase. The spider didn't want to die so he sprayed some more and then it was dead and shriveled no longer looked like a tarantula.

According to the Queensland Museum (the state in northeastern australia and home to the great barrier reef), these giant spiders "are famed as being the hairy so-called 'tarantulas' on house walls that terrify people by scuttling out from behind curtains". The thing sure terrified me. Their habitats incldue houses, forested areas, gardens, rainforest and my room.

Chocolate Rice Bubbles: A Great Australian Tradition

Today is free supper wednesday, where floors 11 (william's floor) and 12th floor (my floor) have to make a supper for the rest of the hall. Supper is a mid to late-night snack; sweet or savoury. 2 weekends ago I was made the chalkboard artist for 11th and 12 floor and spent a good hour or two last weekend doing a really great job on these boards to advertise Free Supper Wednesday: 11th & 12th floor + provide tasty food = Happy Howitt Hall. Only people showed up to help and 2 of them were william and myself. Tracey is the head RA and she decided that we were going to have Chocolate Crackles. Mostly because she's culinarily impaired and I completely forgot to suggest dishes to serve so that we could buy the stuff in advance. I had all these ideas swimming around in my head...mini polenta rounds topped with colby cheese, crostini, empanadas, spanakopitas...nope.

copha
icing sugar
cocoa
Rice Bubbles
sultanas
dessicated coconut

Does anyone know what these ingredients are?

Not to go Unmentioned...

I forgot to mention something. The reason William and I couldn't find anything Moomba Festival related last weekend is because the festival is THIS weekend. Labour Day weekend is THIS weekend and not last weekend. But just like this monday I will have school next monday as well. Our uni doesn't celebrate Labour Day. What is that?!

I heart Melbourne: carparks and footpaths

I heart Melbourne: carparks and footpaths
Posted by: dirtyflamingo.

William and I went back into the city today to go check out these student apartments we're thinking of moving into. We had a choice between Global Village and Unilodge on Swanston, but were leaning more towards Unilodge because its location is as central as it gets.

We get to Global Village and tell reception we're interested in leasing a 1.5 bedroom apartment so she goes and shows us around. The place was tiny! It was like a small studio with two small bedrooms in it, no formal dining area, some sort of "seating" area that was supposed to be the living room and a new buidling that was being contructed would soon obtruct our view and block all sources of light. No thanks.

We walk over to Unilodge on Swanston street and tell the reception we're interested in leasing an apartment. She shows us around a hotel room in the building that has the same layout of the place we would be leasing. It hadn't been housekeeped yet, so it was quite messy. But it was sooo spacious. And it had two REAL bedrooms, a living room, full kitchen and it was great. We put down a deposit and signed the contract in two shakes of a lamb's tail. The apartment building is right next two Melbournce Central which doubles as a major train station and the Melbourne's largest shopping mall. The best part is that it's right in the middle of everything cool, hip and fun. It doesn't get anymore downtown that that.

I heart Melbourne!

The Save Our Sanity Campaign

William and I decided that today we would go into the city to check out the Moomba Festival that was supposed to be going on along the Yarra. We hiked across campus, caught a bus to the train station and then caught a train into the big and wonderful city of Melbourne. As soon as I saw the cityscape come into view I almost squealed. Yes, I almost squealed.

When we get to the Yarra [river] it looked the same way it has looked since I've been here. There was no festival, but there was the Grand Prix happening in St. Kilda. It was happening about a kilometer away but you could hear those race cars zooming around that track from the Yarra! At Federation Square where they have this giant screen with a webcam that streams onto a website was showing the Grand Prix. There were heaps of people just hanging out, sprawled on the cement just watching the race. Since there were no Moomba Festival festivities to be found anywhere we decided we'd go take a look at this place called UniLodge on Flinders. Unilodge provides ideal student apartment style living right downtown at not-so-student prices.

I've already established that Clayton is the epicentre of boring, so this was kickstarting our "Lets Move Back to the City to Save our Sanity" Campaign. The Unilodge didn't have any rooms open to view because the Grand Prix visitors filled them all up, plus they didn't have any apartments available anyways. So we head over to Unilodge on Swanston and it was the same deal with them...Grand Prix, no rooms to view. But they did have 2 1.5 bedroom apartments becoming available in the very near future. Great! Our next stop was Global Village, also ideal student apartment style living right downtown at not-so-student prices. They also had 1.5 bedroom apartments available.

Today was a good day. In a scant 2 weeks we're moving back to the city just in time to enjoy our Easter Break. Fancy that.

I like Romantic Moonlit Sunsets...

This is my second uneventful saturday in Clayton. The day began with good intentions. I wokeup at a reasonable time because I wanted to get to the bookshop to check the price of my german and french books but they weren't even open. And it also hailed sometime after breakfast. Then the sun came out and William and I headed off to the library to do come required readings. History of TranslationTheory is boring by the way. At 4:30pm we decide its time to head back to the halls to get a bite to eat and then catch the bus to the Chadie (The Chadstone: coined as the largest shoppign center in the southern hemisphere). As soon as we get back it starts hailing and raining and some serious winds are howling outside my window. We eat lunch and check the bus schedule and figure out that on weekends the bus stops running at like 6pm. And the Chaddie closes at 5ish pm. However they have the Nightrider which takes you from the city to Clayton from12am to 6 or 7 am, but they have no buses that take you to the city after like 6pm. Without a car you are literally trapped in Clayton.

On a happier note, we saw a motorcycle rally drive by the halls on Blackburn Road from Williams window. It was just dozens and dozens of scruffy motorcycle riders riding by with their loud motorcycles doing nothing special. Also, this past wednesday was Free Pasta Night for all of the Halls and it was basically mediocre pasta with 4 choices of sauce, garlic bread with chocolate cake and wine, beer and orange juice. I had my share of wine and began to draw on my placemat instead of listening to the speeches of the candidates for secretary of Howitt Hall and many other positions I could care less about. I voted for the guy who looked like Napoleon Dynomite. Fair enough. So I draw some sort of hideous half man half geometrical shap on my palce mat and the Deputy Head RA person sees it and gives me the job of drawing notices on the chalkboards for floors 11 and 12. Because I'm artistic. And in fact I am. I have a BS of Science in General Arts that proves it.

So while designing the notices for the chalkboard on floor 12, I realize that evey single day I can see the sun set from my room window. And it's not just any ordinary sunset. Its a sunset seen from Clayton, setting on the ocean right in Melbourne. All from my window.

Clayton is good for something- sunsets.

Friday is an Open Road

Today I went to a bicylcle shop with William. He wants a bicycle and I think I am going to get one too. I want one of those old-fashioned bikes with chipped paint, pastel purple (lilac) curvy handlebars and a place for a basket. I love everything about bicycles. I like their giant round wheels. I like the endless possibilities of the positioning of basket. All of the things I could fill that basket with. Juice, candy, bread, cheese, a book...Most of all I like those nifty messenger bags bicyclers wear, but I already have one of those.

We took public transport to Open Road Cycles to go inspect some new bicycles for William (That's the only way you can get anywhere around Clayton). I quickly scanned the shop for my ideal bicycle and didn't find it. So I quickly became bored.I became even more bored when William and Mr. Bicycle shop owner began to casually throw around bicycle lingo like "hybrid" and "sports bike" and "mountain bike" and "U-lock" and "insert more fancy words here" and "here". I kind of like this shiny red bicycle that was hanging from the ceiling but the price tag made me look away. Quickly. So in the end he chooses one and the takes it for a ride up and down the footpath in front of the shop. I sat outside examining this hideous neon green easy rider on the other side of the footpath in front of the shop until William came back. When he brought the bicycle back inside he through around some more lingo with Mr. Bicycle shop owner and decided he wanted the bicycle along with some other stuff like a pump, a lock, a helmet and some sort of mini-tool set "to get you out of trouble". All for an even AU$400.

He's currently exploring other alternatives on how to spend an even AU$400. Sometime this weekend I'm going to go take a look at my dream bicycle: one of those old-fashioned bikes with chipped paint, pastel purple (lilac) curvy handlebars and a place for a basket...

I like my foods whole

This past week has been a snooze-fest. I only have classes Mondays and Thursdays, plus tutorials directly after. But for some reason the professor I have on Mondays has decided that the allotted time for tutorials won't be used. So that cuts my contact hours on Monday by 1. Today, I had my second class, Applications of Theory: Translation1.That's supposed to be 1 hour of lecture and 2 hours of tutorial. I don't have tutorials until week 3 the professor says. So I have 3 contact hours of class per week! A day has at least 24 hours and I only spend 3 of those in class.

I've also decided to sign up for French and German classes but those also fall on Mondays and Thursdays. So today I attended a training session to work at Wholefoods. Its a student-run vegan and vegetarian restaurant at the campus center that has super cheap food. For each hour that you volly (australian speak for volunteer) you get a free meal ticket. I've signed up for 6 hours a week. That's 6 free meals. Yes! I'm going to be working in the kitchen doing prep stuff like making salads, chopping vegetables other similarly interesting things. Wholefoods philosophy is great. There is no management which means no hierachy. I really dislike managers who are full of themselves. Plus, they price all of there food so that they barley make enough to keep the place open. They do it for the students.

Wholefoods rules!

Sweet 23

Once a year for a few months I have the pleasure of dating a younger man. And once a year William (AKA Bill) has the pleasure of dating an older woman. Its the best of both worlds really. Today is the day when reality sets in and what is really going on is that we're just dating someone who is the same age as ourself.

Today Bill is 23. And today I will turn my dorm room into a snazzy banquet hall complete with blue streamers, coloured balloons of various shapes and sizes, a gift, martinis, tomato and feta crumble, stuffed mushrooms, mini apple pies and icecream. Its a private event with a very selective guestlist.

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I think I've gotten that departent all covered.

He's wiser, hotter and 23. Happy Birthday William!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way...William (AKA Bill) is a blogger now. Check it out for yourself: http://accountsofastrangeworld.blogspot.com/

32 degrees Under the Melbournian Sun

Every single summer magazines and newspapers always print articles on the proper way to expose yourself to the sun. I don't understand why people who are prone to burning, people who don't tan well or people who just turn pink insist on wearing SPF 8. I don't even wear something that low on my face for daily purposes. I think that everyone should be required to attend some sort of crash course on Tips and the Dangers of Prolonged Sun Exposure (AKA: Tanning). Here are some tips on the PROPER ways to expose one's self to the sun for extended periods of time:

1. NEVER wear anything lower than SPF 15. Commercial products put a SPF factor of 15 in facial products for a reason.

2. You CAN get sunburned even if its cloudy.

3. Peeling like you are some sort of reptile after "tanning" is called damaged skin. It means you fried the outer layer of skin on your body and frying is NEVER good when it involves human body parts.

4. Wearing a low SPF factor doesn't help you tan quicker, it exposes you to ultra-violet radiation that much quicker.

5. Apply sunblock BEFORE you get to the beach, not after you spend 10 minutes setting up your towels and organizing your snacks and coolers. By that time you've already exposed yourself to the sun without protection for 10 minutes and by the time you actually put on the sunblock, its absorbed by your skin and becomes effective a good 30-40 mins have gone by where you've literally been baking yourself in some great Ultraviolet radiation. Yum.

6. Sunblock doesn't block the sun as soon as you put it on. That's why you're supposed to apply BEFORE sun exposure.

7. Believe it or not, you CAN tan if you wear SPF 30. It takes longer, but it prevents you from buring every single time. Plus, who likes radiation? Doctors don't -that's why they run out of the room everytime they zap you with x-rays.

Australian summers are great.

(32 degrees C=90 degrees F)

Melbourne in a snapshot

Melbourne in a snapshot
Posted by: dirtyflamingo.

Some days ago William and I took a river boat cruise down the Yarra river (melbourne's snazzy river) because we were running of things to do. Plus taking a boat ride was the only way to see some parts of the river bank. This is a picture of the Federation Square. Its a pretty snazzy area with restaurants, galleries,bars and open space for festivals. That very day they were having a festival for Sustainable Living. It was a snooze fest. The free tea on the boat however was unforgetable!