save the roos!

for an animal that truly respresents australia as its icon - featured on the australian coat of arms, on some currency, and used by many australian organizations, such as the airline qantas - i was shocked to hear about this story of roo abuse. i guess ever since i did a shoebox "diorama" on the kangaroo as a 2nd grader, i've been a fan of these furry friends. why would anyone want to hurt them? at least it sounds like the community is combatting the event with a pretty strong response! a lynching - yikes!
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Roo killers spark community outrage
26th March 2007, 7:00 WST

Residents of Preston Beach, near Mandurah, are incensed at the senseless barbarity of hooligans who deliberately mowed down four kangaroos, including a joey, on Saturday night. Peel Supt David Parkinson spent most of yesterday morning with retired police officer John Watson putting down dying kangaroos whose broken bodies were left on the streets of the quiet enclave. He said he had no doubt the kangaroos were deliberately targeted and police were trying to identify a white station wagon used in the attack in the hope of tracking down the offenders. "I had about 15 people come to my house down there...several of the comments were that they would start a vigilante group and that they wanted retribution," Supt Parkinson said. "The community are absolutely livid about it."

Supt Parkinson said he had information that one of the hooligans attacked a kangaroo with a golf club after the animal was struck by a car. "It really is disgraceful," he said. One resident, who did not want to be named, told The West Australian the community was outraged by the crime, saying some of the kangaroos were favourites among residents and were hand-fed and regularly seen lazing around front gardens in the suburb. "They were deliberately run over," one resident said. "It was pretty traumatic...there will be a lynching if the community find out who has done it."
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a walk in the park

i wouldn't be so quick to say that life has been a walk in the park this past week, but it certainly is great that we have found plenty of time to take advantage of the beautiful area in which we're living. the photo here is taken in the botanical garden at king's park, which is one of our favorite places to walk. in the background, you can vaguely see the "federation walkway" that stretches above the treetops of the garden and has amazing views of the river.

as the aussie's say, my course is pretty "full on" right now and i am already forgetting what it's like to have hours of free time on my hands (as was the case a few weeks ago). i volunteered last week with another girl in my educational leadership class to do a presentation this thursday on the theories of educational leadership. we are also looking at how the role of the 'educational leader' has changed over the past 50 years or so. definitely an interesting subject, but a heavy workload for this week. i know it will be good to get this out of the way early, and our professor even said he'd go easy on the first group (that's us) as we haven't learned too much in the class yet, but he also made it very clear that we are setting the bar here, so it better be good! :)

this past weekend we cheered the western force on to win another match against the queensland reds! then on st. patty's day we saw dave hughes, a well-liked aussie comedian, do a show at the historic regal theatre in perth. i was a little worried i wouldn't understand all the jokes through his strong aussie accent, but no worries there - he kept us rolling with laughter straight through the whole show! we had tickets in the 2nd row right in front of him which made for an even better time. luckily, he picked on others around us to poke fun at and we were saved from any embarassment there!

heat wave!

ok, ok. so i think i spoke too soon with my last entry stating that since it's "fall" now, the weather will be cooler and more enjoyable. I was punished for jumping the gun on that and witnessed the following days after i wrote that to have temperatures reaching between 100-108 degrees fahrenheit! (by the way, i just did the conversion now - before that i just knew it was flippin' hot!) i heard on the news that the day it reached 108 was the hottest day on record for perth in march!

this lovely heat wave coincided with my first week of classes! I am taking 4 "units" (or classes) in total this semester, but the schedule is a little different than the traditional full-time load that i was anticipating. 2 of my core units, 'language acquisition' and 'language teaching methodology' are both being taught in "blended" mode, meaning we have a face-to-face tutorial only every other week and then an online tutorial (with a posted report/discussion) the week inbetween on the assigned topic. then i have one regular unit, 'educational leadership' that meets weekly, and the fourth unit, 'qualitative inquiry' (to fulfill a research methods requirement) is only offered in "compressed" mode meaning that it's taught during the second week of our 2-week break in april every day. so that's the courseload for this semester. i think it should keep me busy for a while! keeping with the education theme of my course of study, i think it will be interesting to see which style of class works the best for me.

in other developments, after a long and painful process dealing with the student administration and the uwa campus news & gifts store, i finally received my student fare bus pass last week. i don't even ride the bus that much, but once they started being difficult with me, i declared war and was determined to get one! it is a great deal less than the normal fare and since it's a smartrider card, you don't need to worry about carrying change with you for the bus. today, i even used it to go to the drivers licensing center downtown to get a drivers license. unlike the hours (even days?) usually spent at the mva in maryland (some of you know what i mean here!), i was out of there in less than an hour and should have the license mailed to me within a week! talk about getting all my transportation needs fulfilled all at once! tonight we're off to our 2nd match of the western force vs. new zealand hurricanes. don't know how much support the 'hurricanes' will get tonight - there's a cyclone (george) currently hitting western australia in the north!

an end to summer?

officially, summer has come to a close here in perth and autumn has begun, but i don't really seem to notice any of those same signals i would normally see back home. instead of leaves changing color, some of the trees and brush have just sort of remained a dullish shade of faded green from the dryness. i think things will start to get greener in the winter months (june-august) again. one thing in common with the fall that i know and love is that the days aren't quite so unbearably hot as they were a few weeks ago, but are now pretty much that perfect warm temperature for being outside. after having no rain for quite a few months, thunderstorms have rolled through this past week and the rain has also been a nice change from the solid hot days. we took advantage of the great weather this weekend and spent the afternoon at cottesloe beach yesterday. we also got internet hooked up at home on friday - hooray! - so it should be much easier keeping up with email, etc. my first class at "uni" - language acquisition - finally starts tomorrow! i can't even explain in words how nice it will be to get going with this master's program now, after having all this time off! more updates on that to follow soon...

purple pride...again!

saturday night we attended our first 'western force' rugby match in perth. jason got a membership for us this season, so we will be able to see all the home matches against teams from south africa, new zealand and queensland. this was my first time at a rugby match so i considered it to be somewhat of an educational evening as i carefully watched penalties called (it's sometimes hard to really see what they're for, though) and tries/drop goals/penalty kicks scored. i really enjoyed the whole experience, and whether it was accurate or not, i even found some parallels to characteristics of other games i know, like american football and soccer. the best part about the game was how it kept moving along without too much stopping, and in the sweltering summer heat, i appreciated that the whole thing was over in a short 1 1/2 hours! even though the force lost by 2 points to south africa's lions, it was a close match and kept everyone at the edge of our seats up to the very end! i also need to add here that this is now the 3rd place i have lived where the football (or now, rugby) team's main color is purple! minnesota vikings, baltimore ravens... now western force! is that a funny coincidence or what?!

rottnest island getaway

we just got back from a wonderful 3 day trip to rottnest island - a popular holiday destination located about 11 miles off the coast of perth. jason was there as part of the "upper airway symposium," which was hosted by his research group, the western australia sleep disorders research institute. people in this field from all over australia as well as a group from boston were all present. i was one of only a few "tag alongs" in the group, and felt very fortunate to have plenty of time to take advantage of all that the island had to offer.

wednesday morning, jase and i took the morning ferry and got to rottnest in time to spend the whole morning at strickland bay, swimming and surfing before the first session started that afternoon. one unique thing about the island that i really enjoyed was that since it's an "a" class reserve, there are no cars allowed and you must either rent bikes or take the shuttle bus to the various bays and beaches. my afternoon consisted of a nice siesta and reading by the pool at the rottnest lodge! ahhhh... so relaxing!

while jason was in the sessions thursday morning, i met up with the wife of one of jason's colleagues and went exploring (by bike) all around the southern side of the island. here are some of the gorgeous shots i captured that morning:

one other fun fact about rottnest is that it was actually named for these cute little quokkas (part of the marsupial family) that are the island's namesake. legend has it that some of the first people to set foot on the island thought these little fluffballs were rats, and the name developed from 'rat's nest' to 'rottnest' island! due to the fact that they have no real predators on the island and love the food that people leave behind, they are very tame and pretty much come right up to you and sniff your hand!

on the last night, we headed over to the rottnest country club for a bbq and some lawn bowling. thanks to brit's pub in minneapolis, i think i pretty much stunned everyone on our opposing team with my skills - after a few lousy tosses, it all came back to me - leading our team to victory! with only a week to go before classes start up, i am so glad i got the chance to see such a hidden treasure of natural beauty so close to where we live!

summertime fun

i have to admit, while these weeks of 'adjusting' since i arrived have been important in getting ready to switch gears and be a student again, it has also been an abrupt awakening of how much time there really is in the day when you don't have any sort of a schedule...yet. so far, my days have looked something like this:

• wake up around 8:30am to catch australia's version of the "today" show, "9am with david & kim ." actually i must add here that the other day i nearly fell off my seat because they had a guest on the show that had just been recruited by the minnesota twins - 17-year-old tayler rowe, an aussie baseball fanatic from victoria. it was so awesome to see the 'twins' getting that kind of international recognition!!
• around 11am, i then walk over to the uwa library for a little emailing/internet (we will soon be getting internet at home in time for classes to start!)
• back home for lunch around 12:30pm
• 12:30-6pm is pretty much open and varies day-to-day. recent activities include: getting my hair cut from a nearby aveda salon (aveda just reminds me of home!), going to the grocery store for dinner supplies, reading my book, walking along the river, doing my taxes (yay they're done!), and talking with professors from my program to get course advice.
• 6:30-7ish when jase gets home, we usually go for a long walk, then cook dinner and watch the evening shows that are on.

in light of this slow-paced routine i have adapted, i was excited, nevertheless when i learned of the perth international arts festival that started up last week, and i immediately signed up for the brochure so i could find out where all the events were happening. one of the free events this year was an evening of 'opera in the park' featuring the west australian opera chorus and symphony performing offenbach's "orpheus in the underworld." it was adapted somewhat to add more of a humorous family appeal, but the music was great and it was wonderful to be out rubbing shoulders with the locals. the lawn was filled with people on blankets having dinner, kids playing soccer and tag, and others just enjoying the complimentary evening of music by themselves.