Linguistic and Educational Quirks, 5-10-04

Original email October 5, 2004

Hey, how ya going? welcome to a peek into our lives once again. you might want to comfy and put your feet up... this may be a long one :)

The spiders are out, the mozzies are biting (can't get away from them even here!)...but the good news is there haven't been any bird attacks as of yet. And even though it's still only Spring here, it feels much like Summer back home. 80-85 degrees F every day. yesterday we were at an airshow all day, oogling the gorgeous planes, and already we're experiencing our first ugly sunburn of the season :S. but once we're over that and remember how to wear piles of sunscreen, i'll be back to absolutely soaking up the sunshine and blue skies.

the wide flat spaces, the random rolling and jutting-up hills. the dry red earth. the explosions of colour that bunches of flowers give to all the tropical trees, making up for the grass that tries so hard to be green. i often feel like i was born for this place.

But i don't exactly Sound like it.

i was in a shop a few days ago, looking at some tops(...still trying to get used to the fashions. it seems there are so many more BRIGHTly coloured clothes here than i'm used to. i'm used to minnesotans generally wearing lots of natural, earthy colours. now i'm starting to get the feeling that people just wear more bright colours in this semi-tropical place where the sun's nearly always shining.it's just a theory. i've lots of theories. and now i have lots of short skirts and a yellow top as well.)
anyway, i was in one of these shops one day and i exchanged hello's with one of the girls working there. although, greetings here never actually have "hello" in them. they usually go something like this -- a very slight nod of recognition, eyebrows up, and "how ya going?" -"yeah, alright, you?" "good thanks" she got really excited. the very next thing she said to me-- "How long have you been here?! cause you sound American, but your accent's not very strong, sounds like you've been here awhile." i'd been living here nearly 5 months by then, and i told her that. "Yeah, because i can still hear a bit of american, but it's fading. the aussie's pushing it out. before you know it, you'll sound all aussie." i dont' know if that last bit is true, but it's the only time anyone's made a comment like that. i was surprised by her intuitive accuracy about my situation.

usually, if people i meet are interested in the story that my accent hints at, they sort of cock their head to one side, squint their eyes like they're trying to figure out a tricky math equation, and say: "where are you from?" unless of course, they're one of the bolder who just immediately "know" where i'm from. since you probably haven't heard me talking to aussies lately, you should understand something. the way i speak now, especailly when teaching or hanging out with a group of aussies, it sounds a bit strange. i reckon it's because i've been here for a while and i have a tendency to speak the way i hear people talking around me. yet at the same time, my minnesotan pronunciations of many sounds i still can't quite shake. if i want to sound normal to my ears, i have to really think hard to just speak like an american. But when i'm not thinking about how i talk, my sentences come out as this strange hybrid of noises that sound more foreign to me than either of my 2 homes and that no one quite knows what to do with. i would love to just sound australian when i talk to people here, but i can't do it. i wouldn't mind just sounding american either, but that's really hard work now too. so at the moment i'm stuck in this strange in-between place.

the linguist in me is fascinated by this, but the result is no doubt a quieter alicia than you've ever known. (then at home, my dear husband gets all the words and thoughts and ideas i'd kept in througout the day. ahh...he's a good man :) so, many of the teachers i've met at the school where i've been subbing were of the "i know where you're from" variety. and of those people, the closest to accurate guessed I was Canadian. from others i've been declared to be Irish, Scottish, British, and Swedish. (and i suppose they were all really only a few hundred years from being somewhat correct.)

I've been subbing quite a lot now at a school really nearby our home. Eagle Junction. School is great here. i have another theory-- that the kids are a bit happier and behaviour problems sometimes a bit less stressful than in MN, because these kids get to play outside SO much. They eat more at school too. Of course, they're not stuck inside out of the FREEZING cold for 5 months of the year, so that may have something to do with it! schools here all get 2 LUNCHES a day! Morning tea (AKA "Little Lunch") -- 30 minutes. "Big Lunch"-- 1 hour. Kids eat in their classrooms or under the buildings (depending on the school), and when they're done, they go play. it seems to break up the day really nicely for everyone, and you don't go through the day hungry either :)

There's no equivalent to hot lunch here, and no government-subsidised lunches, but nobody seems to mind..i guess they just expect it to be that way. they can bring their own lunch from home or buy food from the Tuckshop (those are under the buildings too-- in the shade). it's kindof like a canteen, but only because that's the closest thing to anything like it we have back in the states. Parent volunteers usually run them, and you can order little snacks or milk or juice or whole sandwiches and meals there. and some things that still seem a bit strange to me-- savoury biscuits with vegimite (biscuits=crackers), a hardboiled egg, or a large salad with all the goods, including of course, beetroot. Beets! the standard aussie canned veggie which makes its way into every picnic lunch, BBQ, and many unsuspecting salads and sandwiches. Burger King (which was re-named Hungry Jack's here) advertises its much loved "aussie burger" which includes cheese, salad (lettuce & tomato), tomato sauce (like catchup, but not), and most importantly -- beetroot !

Ok, you may be wondering how the kids eat lunch and have tuckshop UNDER the school buildings...and before you start thinking that they're hanging out in the basements, i'll try to explain buildings here a little. first of all, no basements. i have fun trying to explain what they are to people. some people say they've heard of such a thing :) Secondly, many buildings here, especially schools, tend to be built up off the ground a bit. they're raised up on brick or concrete pillers, sometimes connected with latticework of wood, to let the wind blow right under the main floor. the shaded area underneath is perfect for kids at school to eat, and sometimes for cars to park at home. the design of these buildings is just beautiful to me, and wide, airy verandas seem the most important feature. since it's hard to visualize, i've attached some photos so you can see for yourself the kind of place where i live.

there's a photo of the main building of Greenslopes school -- where i did that long term sub job for the first 2 months i was here, and where i've subbed quite a lot. it's just one building though, the schools here are set up like mini-campuses, with clusters of classrooms in different buildings.

Then there's some photos of houses along our street. we live in a beautiful little neighboorhood, with many old, renovated, classic-styled homes called "Queenslanders." it's a gorgeous neighboorhood-- with lots of charm and variety, lots of dogs, pleanty of bus stops, and a good old-fashioned corner store just about 20 steps from our front door. So there's some photos of our neighborhood and our home.

ok, more thoughts about school i need to share... Turned out that i enjoyed subbing much more than i ever thought i would. it was great to get to know kids and teachers at all grade levels at just a couple of schools. i even got to dance with the kids at eagle junction :) for weeks, the whole school was preparing for a fantastic masquerade ball. so for their P.E. time (they don't have "gym" class, since they don't have gyms) they danced -- country line dances, the Mexican hatdance and the macarena, among others. they were adorable, and quite good. so i did that for a while... and then there was another 2-week holiday!

that's another reason the kids and teachers here seem a bit less stressed out-- the school year roughly goes like this: end of January-- school starts. there's 4 terms. each term is 10 or 11 weeks, and you get 2 weeks off in between each term. school year is over at the end of November, and you get two months of christmas holidays (summer vacation), before the next year. so it's a lot more spread out than the traditional U.S. system, but not quite the "year-round" model either. it seems to work out well here.

so at the moment, we've just finished a 2-week break, and next week begins term 4. for most of it i've got long-term sub jobs as ESL teacher. i'm so looking forward to that! starting tomorrow, i'll be a travelling teacher. i'm all ready with my little portable classroom, to work with kids accross all 7 grade levels at 4 different schools. yet another mini-adventure begins. and with it, the sorting out of teaching positions for 2005. if you're so inclined, you may want to breathe a small prayer on my behalf for some sort of permanent teaching work for next year.

and now as i get ready to leave you for this edition, if you're still reading this and you aren't bored out of your skull... i'd love to leave you with a book recommendation. just before i moved here, my very thoughtful danny bought me a book -- an anthology of short stories written by American women who moved overseas. it's called "EXPAT-- Women's true tales of life abroad", edited by Christina Henry de Tessan. it's been a beautiful companion in the last few weeks -- to see through the eyes of other women whose experiences are so same to mine, and so completely different. if you've ever lived far from your own home, or if you're doing so now or hoping to, or if you're interested in the topic at all, you will love this book. if you come visit me, i'll let you borrow it :)

and for your October, i wish you warmth, joy in the meaningful things, lots of laughter, and the impulse to write (or call) your friends who are distant only in miles and kilometres. :)