Beginnings

We probably don't think on a daily basis about how our country was founded and the impact that it has on our lives as well as the ideals we hold closely to, but our country's founding actually has great deal to do with how we live and what we think today.  Every country is affected by how it was founded and the first people that arrived in the country.

The pilgrims decided to come to America to escape religious persecution because they wanted to find freedom in the new world.  They had a hard life where they were living and they wanted a better, easier life in America.  The people that first arrived here, chose to come, and when they got here they managed to overcome insurmountable odds by gaining independence from Britain.

This story is very different than the story of how Australia was settled.  England was running out of room for their prisoners, and James Cook had just discovered a new world down under so they decided to send the convicts there to get them off their hands.  They decided to send prisoners to Australia because the land there was very hostile and unsuitable for plantations of sugar, cotton and tobacco.    There were more than 700 convicts sent to Australia as part of the first fleet.  They were separated from their family, friends and the only life and home that they knew, and they certainly did not choose to go to Australia.

The strories of the beginnings of these two countries are very different and still affect the views held by their citizens even now.  Here is a brief comparison of the views held by Australians and Americans today and how they have been formed by the countries beginnngs-

America
- Believes that we should dream big! We can accomplish anything we set our minds to
-Very indivdual, the indivdual is the center of life
-We strive to have a lot of pride
-We want to stand out against the crowd, be our own person
-Our value is determined by success
-If you work hard, your life will be just fine
-We use flattery a lot and don't always say what we mean

Australia
-Don't have expectations, because if they don't come to fruition, you'll just be disappointed
-This is as good as it is gonna get so don't screw it up
-Don't stand out because people will just cut you down
-Rely on fate
-Opposed to authority
-Don't care about being politically correct, more blunt
-Egalitarian, everybody gets a fair-go
-Very laid-back

Take some time…

On my first day of school in Australia I took the bus home and it dropped me off in front of the mall by my host family’s house.  I was excited to take a look around the mall and see what it was like.  However, I surprised to see that most of the stores were closing and it was only 5:00.  With the exception of K Mart (which is open until midnight) almost all stores close around 5 every day.  When we all complained about this in class, our program director explained that this was because Aussies don’t want to work late so they can spend the evenings at home with their families.  We were all pretty surprised by this and just grumbled more about how we were used to being able to go to stores late into the evening.  It took my whole five months in Australia to get used to this and to actually start to appreciate it.

They make sure that there is significant time to spend at home, and while they work hard, they make sure there is ample time to relax as well.  They also put a high priority on taking holidays.  These typically happen over Christmas and Easter, but depending on specific jobs, there are often more throughout the year. 

As a new program rule, we also did not have internet access at our home stays.  This was definitely a challenge, especially when trying to do homework, or look up places to go and directions, but it ended up being such a blessing.  Without being able to shop, run errands, or use the internet, my evenings were completely free to enjoy with my host family.  I got to know them so much better and we had so much fun.   

All this to say, take some time to slow down and enjoy the people around you.  We are all busy, but often we forget to invest and spend time with the people around us.  Maybe try to turn off the TV, cell phones and internet for just a little while each day and use that time to spend with family and friends.  We may think that we don’t have time, but we make time for what we want to make time for.  It’s always good to do a priority check on how we spend our time and evaluate what is important to us. 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Before I left for Australia, I tried to prepare myself the best I could by learning about the culture and the different kinds of things I might encounter during my trip.  I looked into family life, the kinds of food they eat, what the weather would be like among other things.  I knew all of these things would be different from what I was used to, but one thing I did not expect to be different was school.  I knew that I would be going to a small, private Christian school and I assumed it wouldn’t be entirely different than Northwestern.  I was so far off.

I was amazed at how different the class structure and dynamics were.  I made sure to be at class on time or a couple minutes before and I was always surprised when there was hardly anyone in the classroom and the professor wasn't even there yet.  Students would slowly start straggling in, throwing a ball around or playing games until the professor arrived about 15 minutes after class started.  He would take his time setting up and eventually the students would put the ball away and went to their seats for class to begin.  However, once class started, it did not get any more formal or organized. 

It’s not that Australians are not respectful, but they come from a very different background than we do here in America and they have a different perspective on authority.  Since Australia was colonized by convicts, they started out as a very anti-authoritative group of people.  That tradition has continued and is especially evident in Australian classrooms. 

In a couple classes particularly, I was amazed by how the students acted in relation to the professor. They would talk through the class and often interrupt the professor.  There were many times that he had to ask them to be quiet and they rarely listened. It got the point where he was so frustrated that he asked a couple students to leave, and they actually refused at first. I tried to imagine something like this happening in an American college classroom and just couldn’t.

It was also different how time was managed in class. Australians in general are much more laid back than Americans and they are far-less concerned with time. My classes in Australia only happened once a week so they were each three and a half hours long. They hardly ever started on time, and since it was such a long class period the professor typically gave us a break half way through the class. He would tell us we had 15 minutes, and many students would take the time to walk around to stretch their legs. Some guys would take the opportunity to play a pick-up game of cricket in the classroom. The professor and students would typically take much more than 15 minutes to come back from break and when they did, they would often join in the game of cricket and spend another half hour just messing around. This video is an example of one of the ways we used our time in class. The man in the red shirt that everyone is jumping over is our professor.

Can you imagine something happening like this in an American classroom?

This amused me to a certain point but it also annoyed me because I figured if we did not waste that time, class could get out early and I could be getting other important things done. That is because I grew up in a culture where time is a commodity valued over almost anything else.  However, looking back on it, even though there was time wasted in class, it was also a very insightful and fun glimpse into Australia’s culture.  And in retrospect, I actually learned more in those classes with that professor than most other college classes I have taken.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate being back in classes where I can count on them starting on time and being productive for the whole hour. The reason I even thought of all this in the first place was because a student in one of my classes asked a professor to repeat himself because all that the he could understand was “blah, blah, blah.” My friend looked at me with wide-eyes and whispered that she could not believe the student had said that, and if she ever said anything like that to an adult her parents would have slapped her. All I thought about the student’s comment was that it reminded me of home back in Australia.

Green Around The World

The word green has become such a trend, it’s the cool thing to do to help the environment, reduce, reuse, recycle and all of that jazz. But what is actually happening to make changes towards a “greener” earth.  This varies in different parts of the world and countries all have their own ideas about it. The world could benefit a lot from sharing ideas on how we can live in a way that is more beneficial for the environment. 

Australia has had to find ways to use the resources they have in a smart way.  The Australian land is very hostile and needs to be approached on its own terms.  The defining characteristic of their land is that it is very dry.  Australia is almost constantly going in and out of stages of a drought.  Their techniques to deal with this a lack of water can be implemented to our water using habits in America.  For example, their toilets have two flushing options: a half flush or a whole flush.  The half flush can be used when there is not much to flush, and it uses half of the amount of water of a normal flush.  This makes a big difference because the average amount of water used from toilets in Australia is only 12% of daily water usage compared to America’s 27%.  

  

Australians also work to save energy in more drastic ways that could be implemented at times in some parts of the United States.  For one, they do not use central heating or air conditioning.  You may think that Australia does not need heat, but in the winter (yes, there is winter there) it gets down to 40 degrees.  This actually feels really cold when you can’t escape it because it is the same temperature inside as it is outside.  The Aussies just bundle up indoors and deal with it.  They get smart about dealing with the cold by heating only a room or two that they are in most often, and they board up doors and close the curtains to keep out drafts.  While a winter in Minnesota without central heat just might kill everyone, this could work in other parts of the country where it doesn’t get as cold. 

You would also think that AC would be necessary in a country that gets to temps in the 100s in the summer, but they are smart about that as well.  They build houses to keep the heat out by using bricks and other methods and it actually stays quite refreshingly cool inside.  

The United States could implement some of Australia’s ideas to be more environmentally friendly, but Australia could also learn from the many innovative things that America is doing to make the world a greener place.  For example, right here in Minnesota, the most environmentally friendly stadium was just built.    The new twins stadium captures rain water and purifies it so it can be used for field irrigation and stadium wash-down.  The lights around the stadium are low energy as well and are going to end up saving Minneapolis a lot of money.  There are many large stadiums in Australia that would benefit greatly from this sort of technology.  The world can work together and share ideas to improve the state of the environment. 

A New Direction

I have been back from Australia for a couple months and I decided it was time to resurrect my blog in order to reflect on what I learned during my time abroad.  I want to explore how my experiences can be applied to life here in America.  Stepping outside of America and looking at it from a different culture teaches that there is much to be loved about this country and much that could be changed for the better. 

Something I learned right away in the research I did before going to Australia is that the world tends to know a lot about what is going on in our country, but for the most part we are clueless about what is going on in other parts of the world.  I think it’s fair to say that it would be unusual for someone in another country to be unaware that Barack Obama is our current president, making him the first African American president we’ve had. After all, it is a big deal and has surely made news coverage around the world. 

However, Australia just booted out their old Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in favor of Julia Gillard who is their first Prime Minister that has never been married, one of the first born overseas and of course she is the very first female Prime Minister.  This is a fascinating event and yet I would be shocked if anybody here had any idea that this happened.   

And it is not just Australia that we are out of touch with.  Does anybody know or care that there has been a civil war raging in Uganda for over 20 years and 90% of the rebel army consists of children?   Do we keep informed with what is happening right across our border  in Mexico with the drug lords wreaking havoc?  If it does not directly relate to America, or seem to impact our daily lives, it goes ignored. 

Every year from elementary school through high school students are required take a history class, primarily a US history class. Students learn about how this country got started and follow its progress through the time around World War II.  It might vary year to year- some years focusing more on Lewis and Clark, and some spent memorizing all of our presidents, but people or events that don’t directly relate to the US are hardly touched on. 

I was amazed when talking to my host brother in Australia because while he is only 17, his knowledge of current events and world history is incredible. Australians spend a lot of time learning about what is happening around the world in addition to what is going on in their own country.  I’m not sure why that doesn’t happen in America.  It’s certainly not because the information isn’t available.  Now more than ever, we can find out about what is going on around the world with just the simple click of a mouse.  I am not sure why we don’t care to seek out this information.  Maybe it’s because we are overwhelmed enough with what is going  on right in front of us.  Whatever the reason, we need to make an intentional effort to care about what is happening to our neighbors around the world and maybe we could even stop being viewed around the world as “stupid Americans.”

So I managed to get a few pictures onto my flash drive and I can throw them on here.  They are of the Switchfoot concert I went to.  It was amazing! I wish I could show you all more pictures.  I went to a wildlife park and got pictures with kangaroos and koalas! I should have a laptop by the end of the trip though so I'll have to do one mega upload.  I only have 50 days left here, that's so weird!!!

Jon came into the crowd right where I was standing and sang most of On Fire (my favorite song) there.  Incredible.

Bummer

So I don't think I will be doing many blog updates now.  My laptop and 2 of my roommates laptops got stolen out of our flat last week.  We are all fine and they only took the laptops so it could have been much worse.  I am most disappointed about all of my pictures from this trip being gone.  At least I have some that I can get off this blog but it is still a huge bummer.  Not much else going on- I have a ton of homework due next week and no laptop to do it on so that might be difficult.  I get to see Switchfoot on Friday though so that's a happy note.  Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying spring!