Mission: Friends

I don't usually think of myself as a creepy person. That is not until I get to a foreign country. I'm in Melbourne where, aside from Will, I don't know a soul. I don't like not knowing any other souls. My soul likes getting to know other ones. After feeling panicked because I didn't know anyone, a great opportunity presented itself in the form of an after-school meet-and-greet that also included spouses of the students. Excellent.

Once I arrived at the school I was happy to see that a decent number of Will's fellow students were also married. After chatting for a few moments I felt compelled to immediately go on the offensive and get the numbers of these other lonely souls. Now, I don't do this in Calgary where I already have an established group of friends. Back home it takes days and sometimes months of chatting/working together before the number swap will happen. Being practical I didn't have that kind of luxury to waste as I didn't know the next time an opportunity like this would present itself. Feeling somewhat desperate and more than a little creepy I pulled out my ever-present planner and pen to jot down the numbers of girls who I'd known for a total of 15 minutes. Yes, this is what fear of loneliness does to me. This tactic seemed to have worked out successfully as I have a group of girls that I see with some regularity, our two things in common are that we're not from here and our husbands' are in the same program.

Now I've been hired to work at a school for the next term where many other people also work. While this has potential to create more friends, I can't pounce there, I do have my limits for what's socially acceptable. On a side note, I absolutely hate being the new person. Teachers there have formed their friend groups and have worked together for the whole year if not longer. I'm not good at breaking into already established cliques. I feel like I might as well be screaming, "Be friends with me! I'm nice, really I am! And hey, I have a cool accent!" I never worried about it in Calgary where I already had my network and friends from work were a bonus, not a necessity.

However I'm nothing if not determined. I'll make friends at that school or die trying. Actually dying isn't on my list of fun things to do, I'll modify that to I'll make friends at that school or...I won't. Yes, a much stronger statement! But really, I'm so charming how can anyone resist? :P

Footy and what I don't know about it

I've been in Australia for just over a month now, and working for 2 weeks as a CRT. Yesterday afforded me one of my more interesting introduction to the culture here...footy.

The main sport here in the state of Victoria is AFL or the Australian Football League, they follow Australian Rules Football. The way I understand it is that it's a mixture of rugby and football (not soccer). Not knowing the rules to either I won't elaborate on it. From what I can see they play with a modified football in soccer-like clothing. That's about what I can see. Sorry, I'm horribly unathletic. This translates in being a spectator as well.

The AFL consists of 16 teams, of which NINE are situated in Melbourne alone. This makes for a city full of rabid footy fans. Yesterday was "Footy Day" at the school I was subbing at. The entire day was devoted to Footy related activities and a nearly 2 hour assembly that declared itself to be the "Footy Show". Uniforms were cast aside in favour of team colours and students eagerly tried to recruit me to support their teams. This isn't a phenomenon just among children, adults are much more invested in the sport.

Now I'm from Calgary where I support the local NHL team the Calgary Flames. Hockey is Canada's thing, our unofficial national sport. The major difference is that Calgary unites to support it's team since there aren't EIGHT others to fight over. And there is no song that goes with the Flames. Yesterday I endured listening to 16 team songs, at various points student and staff would stand to enthusiastically join in.

Being an outsider and having no cultural sensitivity to Footy, I sat most of the day completely bewildered by the ardent love of the sport (and doubly shocked when the singing started). I wondered if, in a year or so, I would be singing along when I heard MY team song.

For someone who still can't master the rules of American Football it seems doubtful that I'll pick up Aussie Rules. But I can enjoy the spectacle of others who do appreciate the game.

I Hate Transit

I can't really pretty up the title anymore than that. I grew up in Calgary where if you don't have a car you're condemned to stay at home and starve to death. I've never been without a car, be it my parents or my own. If I had to make a pros and cons list about transit it would look something like this:

Pros:
1. Saving the environment
2. Don't have to worry about parking

Cons:
1. It REALLY SUCKS
2. See number 1
3. See number 2 (you get the idea)

My newly revived hatred of transit began about 3 weeks into my stay in Melbourne and coincided with the commencement of my job. I work as a substitute teacher, or CRT (Casual Relief Teacher) as they're known here. Part of my job description is that I visit a variety of schools, taking over from teachers who are sick or have prior commitments that day. Without a car, this can get somewhat tricky. First some background about Melbourne's transit system.

Okay, the system here isn't at all bad. It's actually quite comprehensive. If you're traveling somewhere close to your home then there's really no problem getting around. The system is comprised of buses, trams and trains. I think the 1st and 3rd are pretty obvious and don't need further descriptions but I will go into the trams. These are akin to Calgary's LRT but much more rickety and squeaky. They are tracked and run on electricity, however, they operate like buses in that you need to indicate you want to get off at the next stop or the driver will just carry on. For the first few rides on the tram, I usually glued myself to the window in the fear that I would miss my stop (which are handily numbered). I'm a bit more relaxed about it now. The transit system breaks Melbourne up into two zones. Zone 1 originates in the city centre and extends at least 15-20 kilometers out (I think). Zone 2 covers areas outside of zone 1, and is generally the suburban areas of Melbourne. Zone 1 tickets are $3.50 one way and Zone 1 and 2 together will cost you $5.50. Now back to my initial carping.

The company that I work for generally calls the night before to inform me of a job opening. Once I accept said job I then open up the transit site on the computer and proceed to obsessively map out a route to the school. This can take anywhere from 15 minutes to about an hour (I'm serious). I first look at what the site suggests then take matters into my own hands by pulling out the transit map and poring over the train, tram, and bus routes closest to the site. Once I've settled on a route, I consult the website for the timetables of each vehicle and then coordinate accordingly. These nightly productions leave me worn out and unenthusiastic for the day ahead. So far my job assignments have been far enough away that it takes me two hours to get there and I travel through both zones. Yesterday my route included: tram, train #1, train #2, bus. Spending 2 hours (one way) walking, tramming, training and then busing is not my idea of a good time. At the end of a chaotic day my desire to get back onto a bus is about as strong as my desire to poke my own eyes out. Not to mention I'm spending about $50 on transit a week.

To rectify the situation and after much complaining and whining after only 3 days of using transit extensively (yes, I am that spoiled) we have now bought a car. Nothing fancy, just a '94 Toyota Corolla that'll get me from point A to B in some comfort. Yes, I'm leaving a carbon footprint and no, I don't care. As for parking, pfft, I can always use a pay lot.

So here's to my last week of transit and to my upcoming life of absolute luxury.

Accents and Textas

Living in Australia, I'm surrounded by the accent. It's sometimes grating on my ears and other times I hardly notice it. Now that I've started teaching I get the frankness of children staring open-mouthed at me when I tell them I'm from Canada. It's strange to be considered the one with the accent. Don't they realize I speak real English and they're the ones who are doing it wrong?

Today I asked students to guess where I was from this resulted in the following:
Me: Where do you think I'm from?
Student 1: America!
Me: No, try again, it's really close to America.
Student 2: USA!

Okay, I'm going with the assumption that the second student either didn't hear the first guess or thinks "America" referred to the continent as a whole and wanted to be more specific. In any case I informed the class after more unsuccessful guesses (I did wonder why Canada never entered their minds, I guess we really are that far off the map) that I was Canadian. They seemed flabbergasted and the general response was to say "Wow..." in appreciative disbelief.

After I set the group's project for the hour I walked around the tables looking at their progress. When one student asked me for a "rubber" (*giggle*) I said: "Oh, the eraser is over here." At which some kids looked confused. To further the confusion, there was another exchange that went like this:

Student: May I use a texta?
Me: I'm sorry, what did you want?
Student: Can I use a texta?
Me: What is a texter? (I'm saying it incorrectly)
Student: You know, to colour.
Me (now completely baffled): A pencil crayon?
Student: No, a texta!

At some point another student took pity on me and showed me the "texta" in question. For the North Americans out there, it's a marker. In Australia, they have different words for different thicknesses of markers. "Marker" means a large tip marker, "texta" is medium, and "felt-tip pen" is fine tip. After this minor debacle I overheard this comment: "Well, she does speak Canadian."

Canadians back home will be happy to discover we have our own language! It's eerily similar to Australian and American but just different enough to be declared separate! I look forward to future word tangles and will update you all accordingly.