Aussie Sun

The sun here is intense. And we’ve experienced Colorado sun and Kenyan sun and Kalamazoo sun (…oh wait – did Kalamazoo get sun??), and I still say Australian sun is INTENSE. This is partly because we get a lot of blue-sky days. It’s also partly because of that proverbial Ozone Hole. Yep – thanks to that, UV levels are much higher here than in the northern hemisphere. I don’t know if I’ve seen a day where the UV index isn’t “Extreme.” Consequently, skin cancer is much more common – it’s been dubbed the National Cancer.

So now, the Fanson household (we’ll pretend we’re in the same house for the sake of this story) has 4 broad-brimmed hats, 6 different bottles of sun-block, and 2 chapsticks with UV protection. This sun means business, and we’re not about to fight it unarmed.

That's right, cloud - hide that sun!

I spy: My commute

After dealing with Chicago and Sydney traffic, I'm a really big fan of my commute to work right now (which, incidentally, is not in a car but on my bike - better yet!).
I go down the gravel path,

past the beach,

over the bridge,

up the cement bike path named after an aboriginal tracker (you can see the Zoo signs in the background),

by the gum trees,

and finally I'm there!

Dubbo PhotoNews

Another thing to add to the list of what I love about Dubbo: the Dubbo PhotoNews. It's this great, happy, feel-good FREE paper that comes out every week. It's mostly just filled with pictures of locals: at So-n-so's 40th birthday party, at the park, in front of iconic international monuments (e.g., the Eiffel Tower) wearing their "I (heart) Dubbo" T-shirts. They have sections for "Hitches" and "Hatches." They feature several interviews with locals, so you can learn that 4-yr old Bailey wants to see the beach when he grows up, or that Sophie, the "Page 3 Girl" thinks that different languages are the weirdest thing in the world.

And speaking of foreign languages, here's a bit of Australian for you. This is what it says on the front of the Australia Day issue:
"It's the celebration of a nation, when we rock up to a rellie's or a mate's place in the arvo, throw some snags on the barbie, take the ankle biters for a dip, act the galah for a bit, but above everything, get proud of living Down Under. In this issue, you'll meet some fair dinkum Aussies along with beaut ideas of what's going off this weekend."
If you need help translating, let me know.

Ironing

If I learn nothing else from this job, it will at least teach me to iron. Now this is not to say that I didn't know how to iron beforehand - I was raised by a good mother who taught me all the important basic life skills (e.g., how to iron, how to separate an egg, how to take care of my eyeballs... and elbows). But I never do it. I don't know if I have ever actually ironed since Mom made me practice on Dad's shirts. We got a wonderful ironing board from Grandma for our wedding shower, but while we galavanted around the country doing fieldwork for 3 years, it apparently grew legs and walked out of storage. And while we puzzled about where it could have gone, we never actually missed it (sorry grandma). Even when Ben got his fancy corporate job at Abbott, we still managed to avoid ironing.

But now, every week when I do laundry, I iron my uniform. Maybe there's hope for my domestic skills, after all.

Happy Australia Day!

Australia Day is a lot like 4th of July - a national holiday in the middle of summer filled with barbecues and good times. It celebrates the day the First Fleet arrived from Britain to colonize Oz with convicts. And one of the major activities of the day is Thong Throwing. Yup - thong throwing. Now I'm cheating a little bit, because I neither witnessed nor participated in any thong throwing this weekend, but I'm going to write about it nonetheless, because this is a subject that just has to be written about.

So to clarify, the word "thong" here refers to a type of footwear, not a type of underwear. [Actually, it can describe underwear, too, but it's predominantly used in reference to flip-flops.] So drop that mental image of a bunch of crazy convict grandchildren running around flinging their underwear everywhere. Instead, picture them throwing their shoes, which - though better than underwear - is still a little odd. But it's Australia Day and everyone is happy and proud of their Lucky, Sunburnt Country, so they can throw their shoes if they want.

I stole this pic, but thought it would give you a better feel for thong throwing.

House of the week

I was starting to feel a little settled, so I decided it must be time to move again! Now, I’ve taken up residence at Tamara’s place (she’s the person I’m filling in for – I kinda feel like I’m taking over her life…). Anyway, Tamara is down in Tasmania (which becomes Tassie when you follow the aforementioned Aussie rule of shortening the word as much as possible and then adding –ie). Her PhD is on Tasmanian Devils, so she’s there for 2 weeks to do some field work, and she asked if I’d house/cat sit for her.

So I’m living in a nice brick house with a great loft (which is a bit of an oddity out here – very few houses have basements or second floors). I have 2 cats to keep me company: Merrick and Scrappy.


There’s actually a law student renting a room here, too, but he’s hardly ever around and Tamara didn’t trust him with the cats, so that's why I'm house-sitting. And although I hardly ever see Peter, he's proved to be an interesting guy. He's a nice enough guy, but he has his quirks. For example, I think the second thing he said to me is "Are you OK if I walk around in just my shorts/boxers?" Tamara had actually warned me about this, and given the temps, I say do whatever makes you comfortable. Nonetheless, I was a little taken aback when I came home to find him cooking dinner in nothing but lime green briefs! And when Scrappy was looking out the window the other night, he decided it was animal cruelty to keep cats confined... in a 2 story house.

Diligently writing a new blog post... uh, I mean working on my thesis:

Bye Bye, Bush!

Well, I sure wouldn't want to be the poor guy, but I'm glad Obama is finally in charge! It doesn't seem to be getting as much attention here as the election did, and I think that's because 1) we know who is moving into the White House, so there's not the suspense, and 2) I'm in Dubbo, where international politics take second seat to local affairs (e.g. who stole the plants from a health centre's garden, which locals are trying to make it big on a reality TV show, and what water restrictions are in place).

Nonetheless, a weathered Aussie bloke at work said that he got up at 3am to watch the inauguration, and that he shed a few tears because he was so moved. People here are definitely excited. And I'm going through major NPR withdrawal!!