Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

You haven't really experienced Australian culture until you go to your first Rugby game, right? Well, check that off the list! I went to my first rugby game a few weeks ago at Suncorp stadium with my friends from uni. We're all international students, so we got to experience a Rugby Union game for our first time all together! GO REDS!

To blend in with the true fans, we got some temporary tattoos:

Australians are serious about their mascots and team colors... the Brisbane "Reds" cheerleaders go all out literally from HEAD to toe... too funny!

I may not know too much about Rugby (Rugby League or Union!), but I do at least know that if a team is named "The Reds", it's probably a safer bet to wear a red shirt instead of a blue one...


Australians know how to win over the crowd with their junk food and beverage selection... I mean what's more tempting than LUSCIOUS lamb kebabs, or a QUICK beer when you're wanting to rush back to see the game?! And potato gems? True gems.




We shamelessly waited with all of the 11 year old fans in the front row after the game so we could get an autograph and photograph with a real, live Rugby player. It was completely worth it!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A visit to the Brisbane Boys' College

The second Interact club I presented to was at the Brisbane Boys' College in Toowong. It's an all-boys school, and most of the boys in the Interact club were in year 11 or 12. I didn't realize how odd I looked walking around that campus until the very sweet and proper and Interact club president was walking me through the crowded schoolyard during the end of the lunch period to direct me back to the train station. He was carrying my backpack and laptop for me, and as we passed every various clique wrapping up their lunch hour, the chants and yells of "Isaac! Isaac! Hey Isaac" got louder and louder and more frequent. Isaac just kind of smiled and tried to ignore his friends, but I had to break the tension and say "Wow, you're pretty popular around here, Isaac." With a meek voice he looked up and replied, "No, I think it's you, Miss!" Guess these boys don't see many girls ever on campus!

Me and the boys of the BBC Interact club:
(Year 11s are in green, the Year 12s are in white.)

Ambassador of Goodwill, at your service...

I have completed 5 of my required 25 Rotary presentations so far! The first was to my host Rotary Club upon my arrival, the next 3 were at St. Paul's School in Bald Hills, and the 5th was at Brisbane Boys' College. Each presentation seems to go more and more smoothly, as anyone would expect. If nothing else, I am definitely learning quite a bit from giving these presentations and interacting with some candid locals, even if they don't end up learning to much from my 25 minute-long presentations about me, me, me!


Traversing to each of these gigs has been quite the chore on my Tuesdays. Picture me, more or less looking like a Mormon missionary (I don't know why I've been wearing a white collared short sleeved shirt and black slacks to a lot of my Rotary presentations and meetings, but I do... I even come with a plain black backpack strapped on my back) minus the helmet and the bike... sweating like a pig in the heat and humidity. From the front, both of these private schools (St. Paul's and Brisbane Boys' College) are amazing--St. Paul's is modern and state-of-the-art, with wrap around ceiling to floor glass walls, while BBC looks like a nicely refurbished old ranch-style mansion. Neither one resembled the graffiti-ridden, gated-in to the extent of resembling a prison more than a place for enlightenment, type of public schools that I went to in my hometown...


and then I catch sight of my first St. Paul's student!! It is Maddie, who happens to be the bubbly Interact Club President, who has been assigned as my escort for the day. She is dressed from head to toe in her school uniform, which... I can't even begin to describe how absurd the school uniforms in Australia seem to me.Compared to the relatively modern school uniforms in the US, they appear very old-fashioned looking and conservative, yet with a mixture of the funkiest color schemes and made of the most arbitrary combinations of plaid/striped/woolen/sheer cotton materials. They have so many pieces and specifics to them... ties and pins and collars and hats and the big black shoes! Girls have to have their hair 100% pulled back in a bun or ponytail day in and day out if it's longer than your chin. Even how you roll your socks and button your shirt are part of the dress code! However, despite all of my less than positive comments, I kind of wish I had worn a uniform in high school so I hadn't wasted so many mornings over what to wear, even if they looked like the old-fashioned Aussie ones.


Maddie and I had about 30 minutes to kill just talking to each other, and this ended up being my favorite part of the day. It was so great just getting to know her and hear about Australia and Australian culture from the mind of a 17 year old cute, bubbly girl instead of just from the mindset of a 65 year old male Rotarian (but nothing against the Rotarians!! It's just fun to hear about pop culture and teen fads, too!) I couldn't help but question about the details of her uniform. At one point, she proudly explained to me how the student body rebelled 2 years ago and really caused an uproar by getting the rules changed from having to roll down their socks in thirds to just getting to leave their socks rolled once... She demonstrated what the old rules of rolling the sock into thirds looked like and said "See, doesn't that look SOO dumb?"... All I could do was smile to myself and think, "Um, have you seen the rest of your ENTIRE outfit?!" But instead I emphatically agreed and said "Oh ya, the socks totally make a difference." I really started to feel like I was on another planet by this point... or at least on the other side of the planet. Oh wait... I am.


However, it didn't take much more than the back of the bathroom stall door for me to realize that it was just like high school back home-- inappropriate drawings and cuss words scribbled and attempted to be painted over. Now that was something I could recognize!


Here I am with Maddie and 2 other Interact girls after my presentation. Maddie is holding the Visalia Sunset Rotary Club banner!

Unbeknownst to me, I had been scheduled to present my Interact presentation to 2 classes at St. Paul's school after the Interact meeting--a year 11 Econ class and a year 12 International Econ class. The PowerPoint about me and where I'm from had become part of an international economics curriculum! My data about Tulare county and its influence in international food exports was more relevant that I ever would have imagined. I also addressed my international travels and the impact of my money for the in flows and out flows of the tourism service sector. Phew... it was a long day (total time of formal presenting totaled to over 80 minutes...), but I got 3 presentations done for the price of one afternoon spent out in the suburbs and I got to interact some really, really great kids :)

Friday, March 11, 2011

I miss Mexican food!!!!!

I think that is what I miss most from California... 24/7 access to some of the greasiest, best Mexican food there is. In attempt to satiate my hunger for those flavors a bit, I bought some tortillas and enchilada sauce and taco meat seasonings... only to find out after my cart is full that jack cheese is nowhere to be found in this country! The few grocery store workers I asked for a translation or substitute option from had either never heard of jack cheese and tried to get me to buy parmesan, or hadn't heard of an enchilada! I guess that's understandable since they're about 8,500 miles apart.

(Funny side note, and please do not judge me for talking about something so politically incorrect... this is just informational data on Australian culture!!!: What some Queenslanders refer to as a "Mexican" really means the migrants from Melbourne and Sydney and the colder Southern Australian states who move North and flood Queensland so they can live in Queensland's awesome weather, hahaha... no wonder there's no jack cheese around here.)

If anyone can tell me what the type of cheese "Tasty" cheese is, that would be great. It definitely does not go well in a cheese enchilada.


Thanks for being so helpful and descriptive, Australia... but of all adjectives, I wouldn't use "tasty" for you. 

"Rotary gives ordinary people extraordinary opportunities."

Last Sunday, this whole lovely group of people:


met at the University of Queensland's International House for a Rotary Scholar Seminar. Walking up to the meeting room at 8am with my two Rotary hosts, as well as one other Rotarian, was rather sad--the UQ International House was one of the worst hit buildings in St. Lucia in the January floods. So much so, that the entire complex is uninhabitable this whole semester. It was like walking through a ghost town. You could see the where the water had been on the side of buildings, and in some spots, the water was as high as midway up the 2nd story. It was just terrible. However, the mood brightened up as soon as we made it to the Rotary meeting room and got a nice welcoming cup of tea in us!

The day really was so insightful and helpful. It wasn't until Sunday that I realized just how lucky I am to be hosted by District 9600--District 9600 is home to one of only 7 Rotary Peace Centers in the WORLD!!! This means that I don't only get to network with and befriend the 2 other great Ambassadorial Scholars here with me, but also with 15 Rotary Peace Fellows who are studying Peace and Conflict Resolution at UQ. I got to spend a whole day with some incredible future leaders of the world. Go and get us that world peace, guys!!

Also, because I am in a Rotary District that has a Peace Center and is a "World Vision Pilot District," I get to be around some of the most involved and dedicated Rotarians in the world. The support system we have in District 9600 is unbelievable. I got a sense of that from the start through my own personal hosts, the Springers, who are so generous and great to be around, but then they could have just been anomalies and maybe I had just gotten lucky! However, seeing the large group of Rotarians who gave up their whole Sunday to come as our counselors and advisors to the Scholar Seminar was a great way to really make us feel welcome here, like honored guests! 

Second to my deep appreciation for getting to be a part of District 9600, I also walked away from the Sunday Scholar Seminar with a stronger sense of purpose for being here, a better grasp of my duties for the year ahead, and my "I can do it all!" attitude had come alive within me again!

I see the role of being a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar as having 3 parts to it:

  1. Go to postgraduate school while maintaining high academic achievement
  2. Serve as Ambassador of Goodwill, both informally by living in a foreign country amongst locals and formally through presentations
  3. Giving back to the organization that has given me so much by participating in service projects to help the Rotary Foundation further its mission of alleviating poverty, supporting education, and improving health, while embodying the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self"
It was not very clear if for part 3 we were supposed to design our own service project to "help save the world", or whether it's sufficient enough to just help out with the projects already planned in the area and be supportive to those. In the long interview process to win the scholarship, one of the major points we had to discuss was what sort of service project we would design and implement if we were chosen, so at the time I assumed that was actual practice for doing the real thing and that it was a requirement. However, it was not made real clear in our Rotary duties once we were selected--not in our handbooks, nothing... and because I never heard anything about how to truly go about designing a project by Rotary guidelines or fundraise through Rotary (compounded by the hecticness of just trying to get my everyday life in order in a foreign country once I finally arrived here), it seemed like doing a service project single-handedly from scratch was just impossible and not really endorsed.

I feel quite differently after an epiphanous moment last Sunday. After talking to a few Rotarians who had some great ideas, as well as some go-getter Peace Fellows who were planning their mandatory field work projects, I have decided that I will do everything in my power to do a service project of my own that I am whole-heartedly passionate about. At the same time, I will choose to pursue a project (like a mini-dissertation) through my master's program at uni that will be a research analysis of my project or on the health issue my project will work to improve, instead of doing my whole master's degree just through coursework. 

I may be pursuing the more rigorous workload for the year ahead, but I'm ready to take some risks in order to reach my full potential with this amazing opportunity that Rotary has given me. As Judy said during the Sunday Scholar Seminar, "Rotary gives ordinary people extraordinary opportunities." I need to take full advantage of this once of a lifetime opportunity... so wish me luck!

P.S.
If anyone has any past experience or contacts with any public health organization in the Australia/Solomon Islands/Papua New Guinea region, please let me know! I would love any help and any recommendations possible.

P.P.S
As of today, I've officially been here 1 month! Wow, it has FLOWN by.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Home Sweet Home!

I have been LOVING the past 72 hours in my new apartment! International share house: I will not miss your weird Asian food smells and cigarette smoke wafting in through my windows at 4am...

Here are pictures from move in day!






If anyone would like my new address, please e-mail me or leave a comment and I'll send it your way! I jut don't want to post it up here since my blog is open to the public... 

Now that I am no longer living there and I won't be giving my parents heart attacks, I will let you all in on a little fact: Cheryl, my Rotary host/Australian supermom, truly believes that I was living in an ex-brothel. It is just a block away from about 4 strip clubs, 2 of which flank either side of a church! hahaha. But hey, I survived it, without any immediate signs of scabies or bed bugs... so it served its good purpose of getting my out of the hostel ASAP but giving me a bit of leeway time so I could really find the perfect apartment. Which I did!

Also, I learned quite a bit from my 3 week stint there:

1. I have mastered the art of showering in the pitch black darkness... for some reason, the landlord always managed to "forget his keys" whenever he came by and a female reminded him that the lights in the bathroom were out. This is really a useful and great talent to have developed in case natural disaster #99 hits this region again this season and knocks out all of the electricity. Or just to prep for the armageddon.

2. Don't ever say "yes" when a Turkish man asks if you want to "try" the food he's making. Even despite the fact that Oscar saw I had just prepared myself a heaping salad and a big bowl of pasta for myself, he proceeded to make me an even bigger helping of pasta himself for me. When I told him it was "way, way too much! I just want a bite!" he would say "No, you must eat it all!" in a nice but very not sarcastic way. Note, this was not like he had made me a beautiful Turkish dish that he wanted me to try... this was just boiled pasta with microwaved sauce from a can poured on top, exactly like the subpar meal I had just made! Just I guess a nice gesture on his part. When I couldn't fit anymore in despite his questions of "What? Not good?" every time I slowed down, I decided to dash to my room and get a tupperware case to put the remaining pasta in. I bundle it all up, wash all the dishes and say "Here Oscar, you can have lunch ready for tomorrow. Have the rest, it's so good!" and run out of the kitchen and close the door behind me. However, about 45 minutes later of trying to let my stomach digest, I hear a soft knock on the door and thought it was maybe one of my other handful of lively international friends at the door... nope, it was Oscar with the pasta and tupperware in hand. "You forgot this" he says and walks away after leaving it with me. Ayiyiyi... I learned not to ever offer to "try a bite" from anyone in the international share house, although it was really surprising in the best of ways to see that everyone there was so overly friendly and generous. I'm much happier to have it that way than everyone keeping to themselves and being territorial.

3. I have learned to truly value some key phrases of the English language, of which no other language can quite translate juuuuust right. One night when I finally had the time to sit around with the few socialites of the house out the backdoor to chat, drink wine, and smoke (ya, it's THEIR smoke and noise that kept me up every night! But I never told them that...), the conversation drifted to funny things about the English language, since everyone at the table except me had only learned English as their second language. We had Erkin from Colombia, Oscar from Turkey, Gio from Italy, and Mari from the Philippines... and after much debate on a topic that they had carried on for 3 nights, these 4 unofficial "elders" of the international share house agreed that "Why not?" was the #1 best phrase in the English language. When I asked them "Why that phrase?" of course their responses in unison were, "Why not?" before they roared into laughter together. They spent the rest of the social hour (or 2 or 3) supporting this fact and expressing its universality... in every single sentence. And laughed at it every. single. time. But then, "Why not?" After a while I began to, too :)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A few more glimpses into my Aussie life.

Two weekends ago I attended the Flood and Fire 2011 charity event in Dayboro, Queensland. The funds raised went to help victims of the devastating January floods and an unfortunate local house fire. It was really fun to see some great local talent (such as a cute Grade 3 "Here Comes the Sun" performance and some local bands). There were several Rotarians from various clubs in attendance. They were not only representing Rotary in a positive light, but were there to support their constituents, as the gentleman in the middle of the photograph below is the mayor of the neighboring suburban area, and the gentleman on the far right is on the local council. I was rubbing elbows with the politicians!


Going to the Flood and Fire event was very eye-opening. They had slideshows of pictures from the worst of the floods, and it was absolutely shocking! I was happy I got the opportunity to see what it was really like during the floods since I wasn't actually in the country at the time. In the background of the photo below, you can see where water is up to the rooftop/awning of a local shop in downtown Dayboro! Before seeing these pictures, Brian and Cheryl drove me through the town of Dayboro, which barely a month after the floods, looked as if nothing had even happened. It had completely regained its quaint country-town ambiance! I am very impressed with how the community came together and made this happen so quickly, and clearly continue to work at it with events like this one.


These pictures are from similar views up the same street. Further back on the right in the picture below you can see the same yellow and burgundy shop but the water has risen and is surpassing the awning/roofline. What was so devastating about these floods, at least for Dayboro residents, is that the floods came high and FAST. I think picture 1 and picture 2 were not even taken an hour apart from each other and you can see the huge height difference in the water. The good news was that the water receded relatively quickly, too, but not without leaving some long-lasting damage.



This next photo is of me with Cheryl and Brian Springer, my Rotarian hosts! Last Saturday I was invited to attend their annual February Party. This is an awesome tradition (although Brian describes it as just an excuse to throw a party!) that the Springer Family has kept going since the 1970s! (Correct me if I'm wrong there, Cheryl!) They had about 80 people in attendance, and it was a great summer's evening spent with good food and family. Well, for me not family, but it was very fun to meet alllll of the Springers' family. Their quirky tradition with the February Party is that you can only attend if you're there to celebrate a family member whose birthday is in February. When this was explained to me, I was able to tell Cheryl immediately that my Dad's birthday is in February and later I realized my Grandma's was in February, too, so she said that made me doubly-legal to come! Glad I made the cut! haha. I had a glass of yummy Australian red wine for you, Dad! And then a glass of champagne for you, Grandma! Then I remembered that little Ella and little Isaiah's birthdays were in February, too, so I had a double-wide piece of tiramisu in honor of them :) YUM!!


These are all of the fun people I've been getting to hang out with lately! The February Party is a time when literally the WHOLE Springer Family is able to come together, which is really great since Christmas and normal holidays aren't the best time for a good visit. From left to right is Laura with her husband Michael Springer; Michael's sister, Caitlin Springer; Caitlin and Michael's brother, Eddy Springer; in front of Eddy in the black is his, Michael, Caitlin's sister, Louise Springer; to the right of Louise is Eddy's wife, Mellita, and then Joe Springer is the brother of Michael, Caitlin, Eddy, and Louise; then far right is Joe's wife, Candice. The parents/in-laws of this whole crew are Brian and Cheryl, who are pictured with me above! Also, Eddy and Joe are the ones with the boat who get credit for teaching me how to waterski at Somerset Dam!!!!


Below is UQ's medical school. To the left (out of the frame) is the School of Population Health department, but all of my lectures are held in this main building. I love its traditional, regal look to it!


This is a picture of the beautiful Roma Parklands that I live walking distance from. It's basically a big park with awesome botanical gardens, playgrounds, and bbq facilities so you can have picnics there. It is like (a very mini) Central Park with its juxtaposition of high rise buildings behind beautiful, open parkland.


Back to school!

My third week here in Brisbane brought about the first day of school for me... oh ya, SCHOOL! That little thing. I had almost forgotten that the whole point I was here was for obtaining my master’s degree. I am taking some pretty daunting courses-- Intro to Biostatistics and Intro to Epidemiology, as well as two other courses that are a bit less scary. I have both of the daunting ones back to back on Mondays! A straight 6 hours of it. However, Monday proved itself to be much more enjoyable and survivable than I had anticipated, and in all honesty, the structure and material of the classes themselves didn't seem too much different from school in the U.S. (note: my Biostatistics professor is a young girl from the U.S., so I mean LITERALLY, there is hardly any difference there!)

However, looking around the room in my first lecture of 150 students, and attending my 20-person "tutorial" section today, showed me how very different school is here from the U.S. 

(For those Australian Rotarians and friends reading this: when I say "school," I mean "uni" right now... and for my American readers, "uni" is just Australian for "university,” and I will probably start using that word without really realizing it. You really have to distinguish which type of level of education you're referring to here. When I tell Australians that "I went to school in Los Angeles," they assume I went to a boarding school in Los Angeles as an elementary school kid, not for my undergraduate university degree. There are lots of specifics like this to get caught up on here!! I seem to be having to explain myself quite often, but I am gradually catching on and fitting in!)

Ok back to the diversity at uni here. First off, when I was at UCLA and we referred to having a diverse international student population, that was just a downright lie. We had a lot of people representing different ethnicities, but they were either still American, or they were international students from China. Or if they were really international students from another country, there were so few of them that they didn’t stand out and influence class discussions all that much. If you come to Australia, you really see what an international student population looks like! I would estimate that one-fourth of my first lecture were Caucasian students from Canada, the U.S., or Australia, one-fourth were Chinese, one-fifth were African, one-sixth were Southeast Asian, and that remaining fraction (too much math/biostatistics for me today…) were Middle Eastern. And when I say that these students were African or Southeast Asian, I don't mean that they came over to Australia as children and have been living here for a while, but that they have just moved here in the last year or few weeks to specifically be here as an international student, and they will be returning home to pursue careers once they complete their respective degrees. (I don’t mean to discredit the students who have been living in Australia/U.S. for a while but still retain and identify with much of their native culture, but I do very much value in a different way the people who still live in their native country and possess a unique worldview and life experiences that were developed completely in that original country.)

Of course this type of invaluable diversity really doesn't matter too much in a lecture-type learning environment, so day 1 of classes passed without much difference to my American uni experience. However, it was today in my "tutorial" section of 20 students where it was just... COOL!! And I mean that in the dorkiest of "I'm obsessed with studying international relations/development/public health" kind of ways.

One of my first "class friends" that I made today in my Biostatistics tutorial section is Wumi, a girl in her mid to late 20s who is a midwife from Nigeria. We were put together in a discussion group to analyze why selecting people at random from a community's "voter registry" to survey people on their health would produce biased sampling. I rattled off the very obvious--"because you don't include kids under the voting age" and "you don't include people who aren't registered to vote." Duh. After I rattled off my underwhelming contribution to the group, Wumi added the point, "Yes, the people who aren't registered to vote is good, but what you're saying refers to something so big. There are so many reasons why people might not be registered to vote. So many people can’t vote sometimes. There are the people who you might say just don't care or are too lazy, but then there are people who can't because of religious reasons. In my country, religious reasons play a very big factor in this and they can't go vote even if they want to. You would really be missing out on the people from those religions."

At least one of “those religions” that Wumi was referring to is Islam, as over 50% of Nigeria’s population is Muslim. Certain sects of Islam obey Shari’a Law. Devout Muslims have different beliefs in terms of their medical practices and their social structure can sometimes contain significant gender differences that could affect their healthcare received or political participation. Although I admittedly know very little about the governmental structure of Nigeria, I can see now why my very vague grouping of people who just “aren’t on the voter registry” does not describe the biases that would be present if you tried to conduct a survey like this in Nigeria. In the U.S. where “separation of church and state” is revered, I wouldn’t have thought of what a CULTURAL bias using a governmental/political registry would produce and how skewed my health survey would end up if I were in most other countries.

Ok, stand up and take a breather! I know this blog entry is getting rather wordy, and I apologize, but I really can’t help it. I ramble a lot and editing this might make this more of a chore than a fun way to keep in contact with everyone. I have just one other anecdote about my epiphanies from being in such a diverse student body:

As we were introducing ourselves today in my tutorial section, we had to do the typical thing where you say your name, where you’re from, what you’re studying, and what your favorite food is. The first girls to go were 3 Canadians who were all friends. Each of them responded to the “favorite food” part with chocolate, Kettle Corn popcorn, and the third said she was “…addicted to those spicy flaming-hot red Cheetos.” These are all very normal answers to this type of name game. I am usually a bit of an oddball with this—apparently when I was a kid my answer would be “artichokes,” “apricots and nectarines,” or “sushi,” but that’s just me being the weirdo. However, I was still very surprised when the first non-North American student responded saying her favorite food was simply “rice” and she kind of giggled like she was very shy to admit that, but it was clear it was the truth. I can’t remember where she was from but she was wearing a beautiful magenta scarf around her head and under her neck. The next guy to go said his favorite food was “beans and chicken.” A student from (I think) Tanzania at one point said “fish soup.” An emergency room doctor from Saudi Arabia said, “whatever my mom cooks, but especially meat with rice.”

You get my gist. Without any exaggeration on my part, all of the Australian, North American, and Chinese students admitted some sort of junk food as their favorite food, whereas the students that were from an African country or a Middle Eastern country named something that we would consider a very bland staple to our diet as their most favorite food in the world! (I seem to be forgetting what Trung from Vietnam said, she was also in mine and Wumi’s discussion group, so I am leaving out the couple of Southeast Asian students… but again, you get my gist.)

(Note: this was not true simple random sampling on my part, so therefore this is not an unbiased survey. These were all international students in an international public health class, so it’s definitely a biased sample! Don’t assume that all people in Africa and the Middle East don’t eat and crave junk food as much as North Americans, Chinese, and Australians do! Haha. See, I am learning something from Biostats!)

As an International Public Health student, and after having just blogged about obesity and food portions in Australia vs. the U.S., this further informal lesson on diet and nutrition throughout the world was just fascinating to me. Who knows if I’m taking a little thing and making a big deal out of nothing, and who knows what socioeconomics and culture and society have to do with this over the agency of an individual, and what any of this really says about health and the future of obesity rates in various countries, but maybe by the end of this year I can come back and produce a more profound conclusion to these little “wow!” moments of mine. For now, I hope they at least entertain you and make you think a bit more about global health differences.