Footy Fever
So, here's something I never really expected to be able to say: I now understand Aussie Rules Football.
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a vaguely organised barfight in which 36 men wearing vests and very short shorts kick and jostle and elbow each other around a huge circular field (as in, they use the full extent of a cricket field) with the intent of eventually kicking a ball through a set of upright posts. Its most likely origins are in an early version of Gaelic Football, although the recent theory that it emerged from a traditional Aboriginal game has found a great deal of popular support (most of it, alas, based on emotion rather than evidence). In any case, it's the obsession of nearly everyone in Victoria. The season culminates in the Grand Final, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year to a crowd of 100 000 passionate supporters, half of whom are typically destined to experience soul-crushing despair by the end of the match. We took the civilised approach and watched it from a comfortable living room supplied by the director of the Centre at Swinburne, who had invited everyone over for a barbecue. It really was a thrilling match, but as the rain turned into hail I think we were all happier to be inside and warm than at the stadium...
Apart from that, we've had a pretty lazy weekend after climbing on Thursday and dancing on Friday. Yes, we've finally found a nice place for dancing - it's close to a train station, they have socials every Tuesday and Friday, and they seem to be a hospitable bunch, so we'll keep going there. It really is wonderful to dance again. I've also found a good climbing gym very close to the Uni, and also met some interesting characters there, so little by little Melbourne is starting to be more comfortable. I must say, the people at the Centre where Christina works are also a very social crowd, and that has certainly made it a lot easier for both of us.
I'm generally enjoying the Australian culture, too. I had previously been struck by the sincere and friendly way in which everyone I met said "Welcome to Australia" when I first arrived: it really did make me feel welcome to be here. I'm also enjoying the dry humour. I was on my way in to Uni on the train a couple of days ago, and we came to a stop on a steel rail bridge over the highway in a particularly dire area of Richmond, with a view on both sides of graffiti-covered warehouses and grimy steel superstucture. A voice came over the intercom: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Sorry for the delay, we're just waiting for another train to clear the platform ahead of is." After a short pause, "I'd also like to apologise for not finding a more attractive spot to wait in..."
On my Uni side, I'm starting to get more to grips with the scope of the PhD as an overall project. It's very different coming from UCT's heavy marine focus to a Zoology dept which is more involved in terrestrial creatures, genetics and embryology, so it's proving harder to find exposure to similar research. I'm establishing connections gradually, though: there is a centre for ecological risk assessment in the Botany Dept which does a lot of ecosystem modelling, and their seminars will hopefully be more suitable. We're also discussing plans with the few PhD-level researchers who are in the marine field to try and set up some sort of regular meetings and discussion groups.
Speaking of which, I went on an interesting trip last week with Bastien, a fellow PhD student from France. He specialises in sharks, and got a call one morning from the Melbourne Fish Market to say that they had a strange and unusual beast that they'd never seen before, so we went off to pick it up. It turned out to be a goblin shark, a type which is apparently known from only about 50 specimens (Bastien had never seen a real one before, but knew it from pictures). It lives at depths of up to 1500m (this one was caught at 1050m down), and has the freakiest-looking mouth of any shark I've seen. There are some decent pictures here:
http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/goblin-shark.html
http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/ecology/deepsea-goblin.htm
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's a vaguely organised barfight in which 36 men wearing vests and very short shorts kick and jostle and elbow each other around a huge circular field (as in, they use the full extent of a cricket field) with the intent of eventually kicking a ball through a set of upright posts. Its most likely origins are in an early version of Gaelic Football, although the recent theory that it emerged from a traditional Aboriginal game has found a great deal of popular support (most of it, alas, based on emotion rather than evidence). In any case, it's the obsession of nearly everyone in Victoria. The season culminates in the Grand Final, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year to a crowd of 100 000 passionate supporters, half of whom are typically destined to experience soul-crushing despair by the end of the match. We took the civilised approach and watched it from a comfortable living room supplied by the director of the Centre at Swinburne, who had invited everyone over for a barbecue. It really was a thrilling match, but as the rain turned into hail I think we were all happier to be inside and warm than at the stadium...
Apart from that, we've had a pretty lazy weekend after climbing on Thursday and dancing on Friday. Yes, we've finally found a nice place for dancing - it's close to a train station, they have socials every Tuesday and Friday, and they seem to be a hospitable bunch, so we'll keep going there. It really is wonderful to dance again. I've also found a good climbing gym very close to the Uni, and also met some interesting characters there, so little by little Melbourne is starting to be more comfortable. I must say, the people at the Centre where Christina works are also a very social crowd, and that has certainly made it a lot easier for both of us.
I'm generally enjoying the Australian culture, too. I had previously been struck by the sincere and friendly way in which everyone I met said "Welcome to Australia" when I first arrived: it really did make me feel welcome to be here. I'm also enjoying the dry humour. I was on my way in to Uni on the train a couple of days ago, and we came to a stop on a steel rail bridge over the highway in a particularly dire area of Richmond, with a view on both sides of graffiti-covered warehouses and grimy steel superstucture. A voice came over the intercom: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Sorry for the delay, we're just waiting for another train to clear the platform ahead of is." After a short pause, "I'd also like to apologise for not finding a more attractive spot to wait in..."
On my Uni side, I'm starting to get more to grips with the scope of the PhD as an overall project. It's very different coming from UCT's heavy marine focus to a Zoology dept which is more involved in terrestrial creatures, genetics and embryology, so it's proving harder to find exposure to similar research. I'm establishing connections gradually, though: there is a centre for ecological risk assessment in the Botany Dept which does a lot of ecosystem modelling, and their seminars will hopefully be more suitable. We're also discussing plans with the few PhD-level researchers who are in the marine field to try and set up some sort of regular meetings and discussion groups.
Speaking of which, I went on an interesting trip last week with Bastien, a fellow PhD student from France. He specialises in sharks, and got a call one morning from the Melbourne Fish Market to say that they had a strange and unusual beast that they'd never seen before, so we went off to pick it up. It turned out to be a goblin shark, a type which is apparently known from only about 50 specimens (Bastien had never seen a real one before, but knew it from pictures). It lives at depths of up to 1500m (this one was caught at 1050m down), and has the freakiest-looking mouth of any shark I've seen. There are some decent pictures here:
http://dsc.discovery.com/
http://www.elasmo-research.
posted by Sentinel at
10:21 AM
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