The Aussie alphabet: F is for ferry; footy

So, ferries. Certainly not uniquely Australian. But yesterday, on the road back from Toowoomba, we got off the motorway and took the scenic route, Moggill Rd, from its western origin. What we didn't know was that the road ends at the river, yes, ends; and in order to get to the other side of the river, the cars drive onto a funny little ferry. Here's a link to the map showing how the road just ends on either side of the river. The ferry is pulled across the river by a cable, see top photo, and once it's across the cars drive off and continue on their way. This arrangement is on a major commute route. The traffic backups during peak hours don't even bear thinking about.

But, footy! THAT'S Australian. Now, footy could be any one of four games played here: rugby league, rugby union, soccer, or Australian Rules Football. But usually it refers to Aussie Rules. Now that I've lived here for nearly two years, here is what I know about these games:

1) Soccer is called soccer, just like in the US. It may be the beautiful game elsewhere, but here, of the four it's probably the least popular.
2) Rugby scores often don't get out of the teens, whereas footy scores can approach 100.
3) If there are four upright poles in each end zone it's footy; if the goalposts are H-shaped, it's rugby.
4) A lot of footy teams are based in and around Melbourne, the spiritual home of Aussie Rules.

The nuances of league vs. union are beyond me, and none of them look like American football, mainly because there are no timeouts between plays, no pads, no helmets, and the ball is a bit rounder without the pointy ends.

I took the photo above at an actual footy game - yes, I have been to one, thanks to Brian - about a year ago.

Meta-blogging at convention

What do you call it when someone who blogs is blogging while sitting in a session about blogging? I'm at the 55th annual meeting of the American College of Nurse-Midwives in Washington, DC. Three midwife/health bloggers presented the session, which is almost over now though. Two people have iPads in here, as far as I can see. Are any Aussie midwives blogging? With all the changes coming up so soon, it seems like this would be a good time to start one.

Been to a few good sessions. The one on manual rotation of the OP head was packed with probably 300 people. It looks hard to do, kind of like the Woods screw maneuver only with the head, not the shoulders. I may never get the chance to try it at this point but it should be widely disseminated.

Also been seeing a lot of people I know and explaining my current location and being a student and the research I'm going to be doing. Explaining the research is hard because it's not midwifery, but as soon as I get through it I can see the light bulb go on on the other person's face and out comes the story: "I had my rotator cuff fixed too!" "Why hasn't anyone written about this before?" It really seems like there's something in this.

Study for "What's wrong with Australia"

I took this photo first yesterday, shooting (as you shouldn't) into the sun. I have no idea how the distortion happened but it's kind of artsy so I'm posting it. You can still see the Liquorland sign and the golden arches on the far right.

Pink poinsettias

You've seen red ones, you've maybe seen white ones, have you seen pink ones?

What's wrong with Australia

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like here in Oz. But this one photo really says it all about what's not to like. Too much fast "food," too much booze. And this particular branch of Liquorland, which happens to be a couple of km from my house, is one of the many drive-through liquor stores in Oz. Yeah, you read it right. Drive-through liquor stores.

The Aussie alphabet: E is for Ekka

It's only the end of May now, but August will be here before we know it. And August is the time for the Ekka. Proper name: Royal Queensland Show. Shortened to Exhibition, which being Australia gets shortened to Ekka. A Queensland tradition since 1876, it's got everything. A midway with carnival rides, livestock judging, performances, food, music, and showbags, collections of (usually) candy and toys offered in themed bags (Batman, Barbie, that sort of thing) for some amount of money. All this goes on for nine days in August; this year's dates are 5-14. And the Wednesday of Ekka week is a public holiday, the last official one before Christmas, so everyone can go! They put special trains on that go to the showgrounds where the station is only operational for these 9 days a year.

This photo, no doubt taken from the ferris wheel, is from Ekka 2009.

English bluebells

We visited the U of Birmingham's botanic gardens yesterday. Here are 2 shots of the gorgeous bluebells that are blooming all over now.

Ludlow Castle

Today was my solo excursion to Ludlow, recommended by my maven of all things olde and English, Anne. The castle remains are pretty impressive although I think they could do a better job of labelling the spaces. The oldest parts date to the Norman period -- like the keep pictured here. More on the castle here.

UQ turns 100...

...and that's pretty old for an Australian university. There was a big community celebration on Sunday, 18 April. Phil and I spent the day at the "eDiscovery Quest" tent sending people off on a sort of scavenger hunt all over campus; participants had to solve a series of riddles and those who got them all right had a chance at the big prize, an iPod Touch. But that has nothing to do with this photo. I noticed a couple of days after the big event that someone had spray-painted the grass below the student union with the 100th anniversary logo.

Roman ruins in Caerleon

The amphitheatre. Site of legionaries' drilling, as well as who knows what horrible spectacles the Romans enjoyed so much. Also, thought to be (one of) the site(s) of King Arthur's Round Table. Yeah, that Round Table.

Can I buy a vowel?

We're in Caerleon, Wales, the first stop on Phil's speaking tour of the UK, 1-14 May. We're staying at the Priory Hotel, a former Cistercian monastery. Caerleon was the site of a Roman fortress that was the home of the second Augustan legion from 75 CE until about 290 CE. The Welsh language is inscrutable to someone whose second language is Spanish. This is a great example of its inscrutability.

my beautiful girls

I just had to post this photo of Zara and Amity. Many more to come, no doubt.

Adelaide

Capital of SA, 5th largest city in Oz. Last Sunday morning - very windy, but still sunny and dry, and pleasant for walking along the Torrens River that runs through the city.

Barossa Valley

Last weekend we ventured forth to the Barossa Valley in South Australia, my first trip to SA. The Barossa is known for its shiraz wines. The valley has a lot in common with California vineyard regions. The hills aren't as high, but the parched late-summer fields dotted with bushes and trees in contrasting deep green are very reminiscent of Phil's mom's Santa Ynez Valley. We stayed in a holiday home with 2 other couples (friends, and friends of the friends). On Saturday we visited Angaston, the home of yummy dried fruit and English influenced, in contrast to other areas of the valley which were settled by Germans. Lunch was at Maggie Beer's Farmshop, a mecca for foodies, in Nuriootpa. Last stop was Rockford Wines, in Tanunda. A gorgeous, warm, sunny, dry day.

First MS submitted!

After nearly a year of intermittent work, last Sunday night I uploaded the manuscript for my first paper, "Prevalence of work-related upper quadrant musculoskeletal disorders in midwives, nurses and physicians" to the target journal, Journal of Advanced Nursing. Two days later I realized I had made two errors that needed to be fixed. So it's temporarily "unsubmitted" until I get the errors fixed, then I'll upload it again. The first problem was their fault for not saying that I should put the email addresses of the co-authors on the title page in the instructions for authors. But the second one was all mine; on my diagram of the body parts that comprise the upper quadrant (neck, shoulder, upper back) the key says that shoulder is upper back and vice versa. No worries though, she'll be right, my graphics consultant will fix it.

Amity's quilt

Here she is showing off her quilt. The pattern is called Attic Windows. Usually the corner where the two sides of the window frame meet the pane (where the purple and gold come together) involves tricky piecing but this pattern just has you make a half-square triangle for each corner. Too easy! In the border, as with all my baby quilts, is her name and birthdate. Amity means friendship, and I wanted an appropriate quote to stitch on the other 3 sides of the border. Zara's quilt has Peter Rabbit fabric and I used the opening lines of the Tale of Peter Rabbit, but I didn't have a ready literary source for this one. But the internet came through after some looking. The source is cringe-worthy -- Kahlil Gibran -- but I think it expresses the hope her parents have in naming her Amity: "In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures."

Amity Jude

I have a new granddaughter! You've probably already guessed her name. She's 12 days old today. This photo was taken a couple of days ago. Isn't she beautiful? I'm working on her baby quilt, which I will photograph and post when it's done. I've been visiting here in VA with her parents and big sister Zara since the 26th of January. The time has flown by and I'll be leaving on Thursday to go back home to Oz. By the time I come back in June, she'll be a whole different person.

The Aussie Alphabet: D is for Diminutive

You don't need to be in Oz for more than 15 minutes before you realize (realise) that no energy is to be wasted pronouncing unnecessary syllables. While "bottle-o" might be recognizable (recognisable) as Ozspeak for "bottle shop" (which is itself Ozspeak for "liquor store"), you might wonder at "rego" (pronounced with soft g) -- this refers to car license plates and comes from "registration," at 4 syllables clearly way too long a word. You might get "muso" (musician) but would you get "arvo" (afternoon) or "cozzie" (costume, Ozspeak for swimsuit)? Do you fancy "brekky at Macca's" (breakfast at McDonald's)? I live in "Brissie" (Brisbane) where I often need my "sunnies" (sunglasses) and I go grocery shopping at "Woolies" (Woolworths). "Lippie" (lipstick), "bikky" (biscuit, = cookie [must look up etymology of that!]), "bikie" (motorcycle gang member) -- sometimes we talk like we're all still in "kindy" (kindergarten) here.

C is for ... Crocodile; Coffee; College

Once again, I couldn't decide which of the C words should go into this Aussie alphabet so I put all 3 in.

Crocodiles

Fab facts for all ages about crocs: http://www.kidcyber.com.au/topics/crocs_oz.htm

Coffee

This post pretty much explains the history of coffee in Oz and why it is a national obsession. http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/georgesabados/06-12-2007

and this gives a sense of the intensity of the love affair --
http://www.coffeesnobs.com.au/




College

"College" here has a few meanings. In general though, what it doesn't mean is an institution that offers bachelor's degrees and some graduate degrees. For that you have to go to university -- of course, it's called "uni" because this is Australia and no energy is wasted on unnecessary syllables. So "college" can be:

1. a branch of TAFE (Technical and Further Education), which is roughly equivalent to a US community college, where you can study things like watchmaking, beauty, meat retailing, ASL (Australian Sign Language), and practical nursing. However, these are usually called "TAFEs" and not "colleges."

2. a secondary school, generally private, corresponding to US grades 7-12. This makes it very confusing until you get used to "college" meaning something very like "high school." Many are at least nominally affiliated with a church, some have boarding options, Latin mottos, and so far they all seem to have uniforms. Most of the time when I have heard people talking about "college" they've been talking about this kind of place.

A few post-secondary colleges are specialized, for example art colleges, and can grant bachelor's degrees, but most give certificates. Sometimes the credits earned can be applied to advanced standing in a university. TAFEs and their ilk are supposed to be a way of getting into university for those who didn't do so well in high school, a similarity to US community college.

What happens when you put oil, then molasses, then an egg in a bowl

Title just says it all.