The South Coast

Wednesday a couple of my Young Men and I headed down to the South Coast. We left early in the morning, taking the King’s Highway, a narrow ribbon of bitumen which races across yellow, drought-parched paddocks and then winds through dim, grey-green groves of towering gum trees before plunging down the face of the Great Dividing Range via a seemingly endless series of tortuous hairpin curves. It was a pleasant two-and-a half-hour trip. Alex had brought his guitar, and he kept us entertained with his own latest compositions plus a few requests from me. In addition, we stopped en route at Braidwood’s award-winning bakery and breakfasted on their hefty meat pies slathered with tomato sauce. I usually don’t eat breakfast, but for this I made an exception.

From Bateman’s Bay we headed south along the coast til we came to Broulee Beach. I’m a bit of a beach snob, preferring the quiet, less-developed kind to the crowded, noisy ones lined with fish & chips shops and ugly toilet blocks, so the extra half-hour drive is worth it to me. As you can tell from the photo, it was a beautiful day to be at the beach. Admittedly, it was a bit cooler than it could have been, reaching only 22 (72F), but the sun and sand both felt luxuriously warm after the chilly weather we’ve been having in Canberra.

After warming up thoroughly with a long sunbake, we played in the surf, jumping over and diving under the waves. They weren’t the biggest waves by a long stretch, but they were big enough that some people were surfing on them, so they weren’t boring either. The water was bone-chillingly cold, however, so, after we’d turned blue, we had to soak up more solar radiation til returning to a normal—or possibly ruddier—colour.

Early-afternoon we stopped for lunch, which we ate in the shade of a large tree behind the beach, hoping to keep our consumption of sand down to a minimum. We’d all brought odds and ends from home, and we ended up with a nice meal: cheese sandwiches, most of a roast chicken, two kinds of potato chips (Thai sweet chilli and cheese & onion), and two bottles of lemonade. We managed to finish off all but part of a bag of chips and half a bottle of lemonade.

Then it was back to the beach for more fun in the sun, surf, and sand. I’m happy to report that I won four out of five arm wrestles, which is not bad considering that I was not the biggest competitor. We also buried Dobbie in the sand, sculpting the pile on top of him to look like a mermaid. I am afraid, though, that he’ll likely be getting sand out of his ears for the next fortnight or so. After a final swim, designed in part to minimise the amount of sand tracked into my car, we packed up our towels and sunscreen and headed back up to Bateman’s Bay, stopping at a developed beach for a shower and a chance to change out of our wet bathers.

Despite our earlier feasts, everyone was up for a bit of dinner, so we parked near the harbour to get some food. The boys chose the ‘safe’ option and headed off to KFC, but I went to a fish & chips shop and bought grilled fish, grilled prawns, chips, and a small salad. We then ate by the harbourside, watching the pelicans on the pier and keeping our food safe from the greedy seagulls which flocked ‘round us.

The drive home was longer than the drive down had been, as is often the case, but it was tinged with the quiet satisfaction that attends those whose backs are a bit sunburnt, whose bellies are full, and whose bodies are tired from a full day of good fun.

Merry Christmas!

It’s been a beautiful couple of days. Church yesterday was joyful—and surprisingly full of people. For most residents, Canberra is less home and more just a temporary absence from somewhere else (which I think is a shame, but that’s a topic for another post). Consequently, major holidays and long weekends generally turn the city into something of a ghost town, a phenomenon which tends to extend to our church services. It’s not unusual for our attendance on such occasions to drop to only 40 people or so, which is what I’d feared would be the case yesterday.

Instead, we had at least 131 people in sacrament meeting, that being how many I quickly counted from the stand at the beginning of the service. As usual, a large number of our ward members had gone interstate, but this time visitors to our ward actually outnumbered those missing. It was great to see the pews filled as they should be on Christmas Eve.

One reason we had so many visitors was because two babies were blessed at the beginning of the service. One of these was Xander, son of my very good friend (and dutiful second counsellor), Scott. He had asked me to help with the blessing, which was a great honour.

After church, I swung ‘round to visit my home-teaching families, taking them plates of homemade chocolate chip cookies. I knew people were busy, so I’d planned just to stop by, say ‘Merry Christmas,’ and leave the cookies, but instead I was invited in at each house for warm conversation and Christmas goodies. By the time I got home, I’d enjoyed homemade almond tarts, mince pie, and sponge cake layered with cream and fresh strawberries and apricots.

I then spent the rest of the evening across the border in Queanbeyan, visiting my friends Wayne and Angela. They both come from Spanish-influenced cultures (Chile and the Philippines), so Christmas Eve is the focal point of their Christmas celebration. I was late getting there, but they were still eating dinner, so I happily joined them, the missionaries from their ward, and our mutual friend Sam for a feast of roast beef, roast pork, steamed prawns, mashed potatoes, Greek salad, and Caesar salad. It was an excellent meal, both because it was my first meal of the day (not counting the sweets from earlier) and, more importantly, because it was shared with warm, generous friends.

I didn’t get home til quite late, and I then stayed up to wrap presents, something I’d not yet gotten a chance to do. Consequently, it was difficult to wake up early this morning, but I did so, getting up at 7:00, because I didn’t want to miss our ward’s Christmas morning service. It was a perfect start to a blessed day of remembrance. We prayed, read scriptures, and sang carols together—the children still in their pyjamas—before returning to our homes.

I then started work on our Christmas lunch, preparing garlic prawns, pineapple chicken with red chilli, teriyaki beef, rice, and a salad of cucumber, bean sprouts, and pickled radish. I was joined by my friends Kali and Nita, Kali’s brother, Nita’s little sister, and Eric, a guy I met two weeks ago. He’s just moved to Canberra and has no family here, so I was glad to invite him to join us. It was great to have a houseful of good people to spend the afternoon with.

This evening was set aside for that great Aussie Christmas tradition: cricket. We met up with some friends from the south side of the city and played until the sun went down. I have to admit it wasn’t exactly cricket weather tonight, though. In fact, it felt a bit too much like a northern-hemisphere Christmas all day; despite the forecast, we never actually reached 20 degrees (68F), and it was only 13 degrees (55F) this evening, with a stiff breeze making it feel a lot, lot colder. I was glad whenever the batsman sent a ball my way; the running kept me a bit warmer.

The greatest source of warmth today, though, was the gratitude I feel for my innumerable blessings and all the good people in my life—all gifts through the grace of Him Whose birth we commemorated this day.

Brew, Take Two

So we just cracked open my second attempt at ginger beer, and I’m happy to report that it managed to surpass the first bottle in quality. It was hotter, more gingery and less citrus-y, and considerably fizzier. In fact, it was so fizzy that I had to keep loosening the cap to let some of the carbon dioxide out and then tightening it again to prevent an eruption. This took several minutes, and even then I experienced some spill-over.

I attribute the improvement in flavour to the fact that, as planned, I upped the quantity of ginger by 33%. That was a good idea. And I’m pretty sure the fizziness is due to my having gotten brave enough to let the brewing go on a bit longer than I did last time. When I finally put it in the fridge, the bottle was so tight that I couldn’t really dent the plastic at all. This will prove to be a tricky balancing act in future since I like the increased fizziness, but I’m not too keen on possibly having to remove shards of plastic from the walls and ceiling of our kitchen.

Birthday Dinner

Today was Daniel’s birthday, so tonight we had a birthday dinner for him at our house. I told him the menu was up to him, and he requested gyoza (pan-fried dumplings) and mango piña coladas. To round out the meal, we asked the guests to provide Asian salads, Samoan chop suey, Chinese barbecued pork, Japanese curry, soft drinks, and cake.

We bought ingredients to make 120 gyoza, though I think we only had enough filling for 114 of them. They may have been the best gyoza I’ve ever made; the minced turkey filling seemed to be spiced with the perfect quantity of ginger and garlic and rounded out with just the right amounts of cabbage, mushrooms, carrot, and shallots. Daniel, Troy, and Kali formed most of them whilst I was busy first boiling and then pan-frying the dumplings. I also cooked up a big pot of rice to go with, and we had two dipping sauces, one quite traditional (soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and chilli paste) and one a bit more adventurous (with basil, mint, sugar, and fresh red chilli).

Once everyone was here with all the food, we had a blessing and began our feast. Once again our dining table was loaded down under a mountain of good eats. There’s simply nothing better than communal eating: Everyone contributes a little, and somehow there’s more food than anyone could conceivably finish off in one go.

After everyone had finished eating, it was time to whip up the piña coladas. We’d gotten a great deal on mangos at the markets earlier, picking up four huge ones that had been marked down because they were a bit overripe—perfect therefore for tossing into the blender with pineapple juice, sweetened coconut milk, and ice. Nita helped me by scooping out the mangos (a task I’m never too keen on since I hate getting sticky), and together we blended three full jugs worth—about six litres. Amazingly, the sixteen of us managed to polish off every last drop.

People had been playing Guitar Hero throughout the night or just sitting in groups and talking. We got three more free dining chairs last week, so, between our lounges and our chairs, we almost had enough places for everyone to sit this time, lacking just one seat. That’s very cool, especially considering how little furniture we used to have just a couple of months ago.

After more Guitar Hero and good conversation, it was time to cut the cake. We had no candles, but I struck a match and stuck it into the top of the cake, and then we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ as fast as we possibly could before the match could burn out. The cake was awesome—dense and chocolaty with a fudgy icing.

As always, I’m immensely glad for good friends and good opportunities to celebrate together.

A Night in Bethlehem

Our ward Christmas party was this past Saturday evening, and it was a radical departure from our traditional Christmas celebration at Bro Laney’s farm (across the border in New South Wales). Christmas parties at the farm are all-day events filled with swimming in the small dam he has for watering his animals, taking ‘sleigh rides’ on the back of an old car bonnet dragged behind a ute,* carefully tending the goats and pigs that are being spit-roasted for that evening’s dinner, and singing Christmas carols around a bonfire once the mid-summer sun has finally gone down.

This year the Ward Council decided to do something requiring considerably more planning and effort by recreating a bit of Old Bethlehem in the church hall instead. I really liked this idea because, as fun as it is to swing over the water on a ‘Tarzan rope’ and feast on crispy pig skin and pavlova,** it’s somehow more fun to spend hours working side-by-side with other ward members in planning and executing a large project like this—especially when, in the end, it all comes together beautifully.

My Young Men were asked to paint backdrops for the event, something we spent two whole Mutual nights working on, but our representations of brick and stone and desert landscape turned out great. In addition, I helped build ‘stone walls’ out of cardboard cartons, which were then painted as well. Others in the ward sewed costumes, built a manager, fashioned spears for the Roman centurions, constructed a glittering star, cut out gold and silver ‘coins,’ and stitched moneybags to keep the coins in. Moreover, food in abundance was prepared by various auxiliaries.

In addition, a nativity play was planned for the night, and I was asked to be Joseph. We had a brilliant script, written by another ward member, in which an angel choir narrated the story of the Advent using bits of traditional Christmas carols. This all required rehearsals, of course, both for the singing and for the actual acting.

But, in the end, it was all worth it. We worked from morning into the afternoon on Saturday to install all the decorations, but the hall looked great when we were finished. Vendor stalls made of ‘stone’ and ‘brick’ encircled three sides of the hall, set up to sell kebabs,*** fresh fruit, flatbread and dips, spiced rice and beans, baked goods, toys (handmade by the primary children), and wine (blackcurrant cordial).

Later that evening the ward—most of us decked out in our best bathrobes and tea towels—gathered in the chapel to sing and to pray, and then we were ushered by Roman centurions past tables where we signed the census and paid our taxes. Most of the rest of the evening was spent in Bethlehem ‘buying’ food at the various stalls, mixing and mingling, feasting and laughing together—and occasionally being harassed by the centurions.

When most had eaten, the lights were dimmed, and then the ‘angels’ arose from wherever they had been sitting around the hall and, with clear voices, invited the ‘faithful’ to come to Bethlehem. From that point on, I can’t tell you much since I was too much in the middle of things, but I think the nativity play went well. As I helped a very pregnant ‘Mary’ wend her way through the crowds of people sitting on the floor of the hall, even the smallest of children seemed to be watching in rapt reverence, so I’ll take that as a good sign. And I know I personally got a thrill up and down my spine when a family of shepherds knelt at the side of our humble manger to pay honour to the baby represented by the doll therein.

It was somewhat sad at the end of the night to help pull down the decorations, fruit of so much labour, but, if others walked out of the hall that night as renewed in their gratitude for the miracle of the coming of Christ as I was, it was most definitely all worth it.

*Short for ‘utility,’ this is an Australian truck. Imagine a much meaner version of an El Camino.

**The quintessential Australian dessert—a huge meringue base filled with custard and/or whipped cream and topped with passionfruit sauce and fresh fruit such as berries and slices of kiwi.

***In Australia, spit-roasted meat rolled up in Lebanese bread with various salads and sauces.

Ginger Beer

I’ve never been a big consumer of soft drinks. I think this may be related to the fact that they were rarely drunk by my family growing up. We used to get Sprite as a treat at Christmastime and for our Independence Day cookout. Homemade root beer cropped up at church parties and fairs during the summer. And, whenever I had something like tonsillitis, my dad would bring me home a bottle of soft drink to calm my stomach. Other than that, I mostly just drank water.

Australia, however, has proven to be something of a garden of temptations in this area. I reckon I’ve drunk more soft drink here than I did in my entire previous life—something I’ll blame on the diverse range we have available. Who can resist such alluring flavours as passionfruit, blood orange, lemon-lime & bitters, sarsaparilla, or lemon crush? Better yet, most of these beverages come in a sugar-free variety, removing the major nutritional argument against consuming them.

My all-time favourite Aussie beverage, however, may be ginger beer. This is not an exclusively Australian soft drink, of course. I actually drank it for the first time whilst living in the Caribbean, where we never celebrated a baptism at church without a huge jug or two of Sister Winifred Carty’s spicy (and sometimes quite chunky) home-brewed ginger beer. In Australia, though, ginger beer is ubiquitous—so much so that a standard supermarket probably stocks a good half dozen different brands of it. These range all the way from the ordinary (virtually just store-brand ginger ale dressed up in a brown bottle) to the sublime (the version produced by Bundaberg, a rum distiller, which, like Sis Winnie’s home brew, is spicy, not very sweet, and borderline chunky).

Recently, I decided to try brewing my own. I was motivated in part by having chanced upon a web site maintained by an American professor of chemistry who also happens to be an avid brewer of ginger beer. His recipe seemed ridiculously simple—simple enough for a busy PhD student to try—so I took ten minutes Monday (that’s really all it took) and threw the whole thing together, using an empty two-litre Coke bottle that my housemate had saved for me.

I had to wait 48 hours before I could try it—24 for the actual brewing and then another 24 for the chilling—bringing me up to today. I have to admit that I was a little nervous when I first opened the bottle and poured out a taste of what looked not unlike dirty dish water. Sis Winnie, however, would be proud. It was almost perfect—spicy, not too sweet, and with an intriguing citrus undertone. It even had chunks in it. I think I may up the amount of gingerroot slightly in the next batch, but all in all I’m pleased with the results. I reckon I’ll be doing some more brewing in future.

Housewarming

After having lived in our house for over a month, the four of us finally got our schedules sufficiently in sync to be able to hold a housewarming a couple of weekends ago. We’d all thought that our new home, with its open-plan design and spacious areas, would be perfect for parties, but now we have indisputable evidence that it is. At least I know that I had a great time.

We decided to run with a Mexican theme (my idea), and dinner was a taco bar. We provided the mince, freshly made tortillas, and guacamole, and then we asked the guests to bring various other items (cheese, tomatoes, beans, etc.) in lieu of housewarming gifts. Making the tortillas was almost a necessity since the objects that pass for flour tortillas in Australia more resemble round sheets of vinyl than anything edible. They even come sealed in plastic bags with a shelf life of a year or two. Consequently, I’ve had to become a tortilla maker the past few years. I have to say, though, that these were the best batch I’ve ever pulled off—light and tender. I guess practice starts to make perfect.

Dinner preparations did not go off without a hitch, however. Our cooking appliances are gas, but our house is not actually connected to the mains, maybe because we’re so far back from the street. Instead, we have bottled gas, and, when we moved in, there was still a partially filled bottle connected, so we’d just been using that, not knowing exactly when it would run out. Naturally, it ran out late at night the Thursday before our festivities. I rang first thing the next morning to request another bottle, but that was when I discovered that the delivery trucks leave before 7:00 every morning. I was told that I could pick up the replacement bottle myself but that I’d have to transport it upright. Strangely enough, none of us owns a truck with a rack on the back…so we just had to agree to wait til the next week. That left us gasless over the weekend.

Thankfully, Keiran’s family had given him an electric frypan when we moved into our new house. It’s not the world’s best electric frypan, not exactly getting as hot as one might like, but it was better than nothing. It handled three dozen flour tortillas followed by 2.5kg of beef mince. Granted, it took about three hours to pull all this off, but, by the time most everyone had arrived, we were ready to eat.

And eat we did. Our dining table was groaning under the weight of a fiesta at the beginning of the night, and many of us were groaning under portions of the same weight by the end of the night. Though of course there was still room at the very end for the ice cream that someone had brought. Fortunately, after having joked that our dining room was better suited for dancing than for eating, I now have conclusive proof of that proposition as well, having given it a good swing-dance workout that night as something of a counterbalance to all the eating.

I think people had a good time. We’d planned to play some Night Games in the park behind and to the side of our house, but people seemed content to sit (both inside and outside), eat, drink, and talk. The last guest went home about 2:00 AM, so I’ll take that as a good sign. And the house definitely feels much warmer now. It’s such a blessing to have a home that can handle a crowd of friends.

The Last Lecture

There were many things I loved about my undergrad uni (USU), but one of them was the Last Lecture. It happened every year near the end of the final term as a kind of symbolic cap to the academic year. I never actually figured out how lecturers were nominated or chosen, though I think it may have had something to do with the Honours Programme; regardless, the person chosen each year was invited to give a lecture on a topic of her/his choice to the broader university community. If I remember correctly, inductions into Phi Kappa Phi happened at the same event, and there may have been other academic honours handed out, but the focus of the night was on a powerful, often controversial lecture.

This concept has stuck with me, and last February I brought it up at the Vice-Chancellor's Retreat. The two other students who were there thought it was a great idea, as did Professor Oakes (the Pro Vice-Chancellor for University Community), whom we also ran it past, so we had several meetings in the weeks thereafter to try to nut out how we might pull off a similar event at ANU.

Like I said, I never really understood how it worked at USU, but, for ANU, we decided we would let all students nominate a favourite lecturer, with nominations taken during designated weeks in both semesters. We would then contact all the nominees to see if they were willing to participate. Those who were would be submitted to an online vote open to all students, with the results weighted based on each lecturer's teaching load for the year.

We really had no idea how this was going to go. We didn't know if students would take to the idea enough to actually nominate someone. We didn't know if the nominees would be willing to let themselves be voted on like this--especially since the 'prize' for winning would be to prepare and deliver a rather high-profile lecture. And we had no idea what size venue to hold the actual event in, wanting to be hopeful but recognising that new ideas can take some time to catch on, especially when they involve sticking around campus on the second-last night of the semester, not for a beer at the Uni Bar with one's mates, but to listen to an academic lecture.

I'm happy to report that our concerns all turned out to be unfounded. First of all, we received dozens of enthusiastic nominations. Then most of the nominees seemed flattered and agreed to participate. And the weighted voting (about which I'd harboured a number of concerns) came off without a hitch.

The actual event itself was better than I'd dared hope for. We'd decided to have it in the Great Hall of University House (think Harry Potter) because, with its soaring buttresses and stark murals, it exudes pomp and ceremony, and also because, when set up for a lecture, it can seat 270 people, and that seemed like an apropriately hopeful number to shoot for. Consequently, we started at 5:30 in the University House courtyard with wine and nibbles. I could see a decent number of people milling about with their wine glasses and spring rolls, so that made me happy.

It turned out to be considerably more than a decent number, though. As the 6:00 start time neared, we quickly filled up every straight-backed chair in the hall. People then piled into the spaces open behind the last row of chairs and spilled into the foyer. We'd manage to outgrow our venue in our very first year! Who would have guessed?

We had no academic honours to hand out, but Prof Oakes took the first few minutes to award the prizes in her office's first-annual ANU Calendar Photographic Competition. This was a perfect start to the formal part of the evening because, as each prize was awarded, the image was projected onto a screen at the front of the hall, showing ANU in its beauty throughout the changing seasons. Prof Oaks then turned the time over to me as the event's originator.

I gave a short (but hopefully very passionate) speech about the importance of universities and good teaching and then introduced this year's presenter of the Last Lecture, Prof Chris Reus-Smit (from my research school!). None of us knew until he started speaking what his topic would be, but I couldn't have asked for a better, more suitable lecture. He gave an energetic and inspiring presentation on the five factors affecting global security/strategy which we ignore at our peril. I wanted to jump up and shout amen on a number of occasions. I must not have been alone because, at the end of the lecture, the audience stood en masse, and the hall erupted with applause. I then escorted Prof Reus-Smit from the dais and out into the foyer, where people were able to greet him on their way out.

That night, Prof Oakes thanked me and told me she thought it had been the best thing to happen on campus all year. That was nice. Then, the next day, I got a note from the Chancellor, who had attended with his wife, in which he also thanked me and expressed his hope that the Last Lecture would 'become an enduring feature of the ANU,' and that was also very nice.

New Washing Machine

I think the worst part of having had to shift house nearly three weeks ago was losing our washing machine, which belonged to our former house. Granted, it wasn't the world's greatest washing machine. In fact, I have to admit that I often grumbled against it. It didn't really have an agitator so much as just a 'swisher' which moved the load of wash gently clockwise, then anti-clockwise, and then back again. And it totally lacked any kind of lint filter, even the old-school kind that one has to clean by hand. Consequently, I had to utilise 'wash balls'--small plastic spheres wrapped in a kind of velcro yarn that managed to remove at least some of the lint out of the water.

Still, it was better than hand washing. I know because I had clothes to wear yesterday only because of hand washing. I'd washed every unclean item I had the day we moved out with the hope that we would find a washing machine for our new place the week after moving in. We didn't. That was sort of OK because that Saturday I was able to go to the laundromat and do a load of wash. I could only do one because laundromats are rare and therefore expensive in Australia. Virtually everyone owns a washing machine. Even the smallest flats have laundries in them. Canberra, with a population of over 330,000 people, has only three small laundromats. And the one we went to charged $4.20 just to do one small load of wash. Twenty minutes of drying was another $4.00.

This one load of whites got me through another week, but I wasn't able to make another trip to the laundromat this last weekend because of having gone to Sydney to attend the temple. And one can't use a laundromat here at just any old time because, like virtually all businesses, they only open 9 til 5 on weekdays and a few hours during the day on weekends. As a result, I found myself Monday night washing out a few items by hand in the laundry basin. Fortunately, having lived in Indonesia, hand washing laundry is not a new concept for me. I may find it tiring, but I know how to do it.

A ward member actually gave us an old washing machine a week and a half ago, so that should have solved our problem, but it didn't. First the machine wouldn't turn on at all, so we had to ring Bro Smith back and ask him about fixing it. I spent two hours helping him (and learnt more about washing machine controls than I'd ever known before) in order to get it to start. I was excited to use it, but Keiran put in a load first, and that's when we discovered that it leaked water, both from the drain hose and from the pump housing.

I saw Bro Smith this morning when I took the kids to seminary, so I mentioned to him that the washing machine he'd given us--and which had once fallen off a truck--was unfortunately too crook to use. He told me we could take it back to his place sometime and apologised that it hadn't worked out.

Then, later this morning, he rang to tell me that his granddaughter had a newish washing machine that she was willing to lend us until she moves into a more permanent place. This was incredibly exciting news. I was working on my research, but I took a break, and Daniel and I immediately hitched up Troy's trailer, returned the old machine, and picked up this newer one. Since it's in good condition--having never fallen off a truck--it should work beautifully.

And, if all it does is swish the laundry back and forth in the water without removing any of the lint, I suspect that I won't complain.

Chinese Feast

If the ace Chinese food in Sydney yesterday weren't enough, tonight we had another memorable feast. Last Monday a friend from uni invited me 'round for dinner at her flat. She's from a neighbouring ward, and she was hosting the missionaries and three Chinese students that the Elders have been working with.

During the course of the night, I asked them what they thought of Australian food. They agreed that it was painfully bland most of the time. I then asked them what they thought about what passes for Chinese food most places in Australia, and they laughed in agreement when I said that I thought it was pretty much just Australian food with soy sauce added. I told them about the place near the temple which has really good food, and I asked them if they'd discovered anywhere in Canberra where one could get proper Chinese food. 'No,' they insisted in unison.

I asked them why, and they claimed it was because Aussies wouldn't eat real Chinese food. I would, I said. I think they may have interpreted this as a challenge because, at the end of the night, they invited all of us over to their place tonight for a proper Chinese dinner.

And this was definitely not your typical takeaway. We all sat on the floor around the coffee table and feasted communally on rice, pickled jellyfish tentacles, tofu with dried prawns, stir-fried asparagus, fish stewed with pickled cabbage and whole chillies, and rare-cooked chicken served with a dipping sauce full of sliced raw garlic. I frequently say that life's too short to eat boring food; none of this was boring food.

I had no idea that one could even eat jellyfish. I half expected the tentacles to sting my tongue, having once been stung by a jellyfish in St Thomas. Instead, they just tasted great--crunchy, a bit chewy, and pleasantly flavoured. My favourite dish, though, was definitely the stewed fish. The flesh was sweet and mild--and then the chilli kicked in with a beautiful slow burn. The sauce, infused with the chilli and the pickled cabbage, was addictive.

I definitely gave my chopsticks a good workout. I think the three Chinese students were impressed. Near the end of the meal, one of them said he didn't know if I was really an American or maybe just a Szechuanese in disguise. I took that as a compliment.

Temple Trip

We got back from Sydney safely at 6:30 tonight. It was a good trip. We left Canberra at 5:30 last night and had what felt like a super-quick drive up. Daniel went with me, and one of our friends, Wendy, went too. I was so glad to have them along. Last month I drove to the temple all by myself, and I hated that. I was actually OK on the way up because I just used the quiet time to ponder and pray, but coming home I started to see wombats in the middle of the highway that actually weren't there, and, the closer I got to Canberra, the bigger these imaginary wombats became.

This time, the three of us talked together the whole way, the conversation ranging from the funny to the spiritual. There's a particular kind of pleasant intimacy that occurs in a car on a a roadtrip that exists nowhere else. We spotted the lights of Campbelltown (the first Sydney suburb visible from the Hume Highway) far sooner than it seemed we should have. In no time, we were navigating the insane Sydney traffic.

Our first stop was the Hungry Jack's in Smithfield, about 15 minutes away from the temple. We still had some vouchers, so this was a good choice for a cheap dinner. I had a bacon deluxe burger (hold the mayo, add ketchup and mustard, heavy onion, heavy pickle) and large onion rings. With the voucher, the onion rings cost more than the burger, but Hungry Jack's is the only place in Oz to get them, so I splurged.

We then continued up the Cumberland Highway, past the temple (its stained-glass façade glowing), and to our rooms at the temple accommodation. We got there a little before 9:30. We first made up our beds. Then Wendy came next door to talk for a bit before heading back to her room. After writing in my journal and reading two chapters in the Book of Mormon, I said my night prayers and happily crawled under my blankets.

I can't remember the last time I actually got eight good hours of continuous sleep, but I actually got more than that last night. It felt great. I actually felt rested and ready to go when I woke up this morning. We got ready (which at temple accommodation includes cleaning the room) and then left for the temple about 9:00. We were planning to do the 10:00 session, but we all wanted to spend some time at the Distribution Centre first.

It was indescribably good to be at the temple again. Worries melted away, replaced by peace and love. I saw things clearly again. Prayers were answered.

We'd planned to attend the 12:00 session as well, but, unfortunately, the three of us were the only patrons for that session, so the temple president decided to cancel it. It all worked out, though, because they then did a sealing session with us. We did sealings of couples for about an hour an a half. That also felt really good. I was excited when I realised that the second sealing I was proxy for was for a man whose endowment I'd been proxy for last month.

After leaving the temple, we headed to the Asian food court about two blocks away for our mid-afternoon lunch. I love eating at this place. Outside of the temple, it's one of the few things I like about Sydney. The food is cheap, and the clientele is almost exclusively Asian, so the food actually tastes 'right', as well--unlike anything we can get in Canberra.

We had a feast! Each one of us ordered a dish, and then we all shared them. I got Peking noodles with shredded pork and preserved vegetable. Wendy got fresh Singapore noodles with meat, prawns, and steamed baby buk choy. Daniel got chicken in Szechuan sauce with rice. Each one was a huge platter of food. It made a beautiful finale to our time in Sydney.

The trip home also went quickly, filled with more good conversation coloured by the unmistakable afterglow of the temple. These two can be a dangerous combination: Several times I looked at my speedometer and realised I was going over 120 (126 once!) when the highway is posted 110.

We got a beautiful welcome as we came down the highway from Eaglehawk and looked out over Canberra. A stunning sunset behind the Brindabella Mountains had turned layer upon layer of clouds over the city a range of colours, from electric pink to deep purple. It was good to be home.

New Housemate

When I got home late last night, I discovered that we had a new housemate. She had moved in whilst I was at Mutual. Despite her rather large body size, it took me a while to notice her--because she was on the roof of our dinning/rec room.

For those of you who have never lived in Australia, this is a good opportunity to introduce you to the huntsman, a common house spider here, and the species of this particular new housemate. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I've attached a photo which I took after I got back from home teaching tonight.


Unfortunately, this photo doesn't really reveal much about the spider's actual size. For all you know, she's a tiny little thing whose image I've enlarged. I really wanted her to be close enough to something recognisable that one could compare her size to, but she was on the ceiling again tonight (though in the kitchen this time), so you'll just have to trust me that I've sized the photo such that it's pretty much actual size on my computer screen.

I mention that she was on the ceiling again tonight because that is not where she was when I woke up this morning. I know because I specifically looked for her. A spider this size and colour is quite easy to spot on a white ceiling, and she was definitely not there. There's only one thing worse than having a huge spider on one's ceiling, and that's having had a huge spider on one's ceiling that could now be hiding anywhere.

And you'd be surprised where a giant spider like this can hide. I took a break from research about 12:30 this afternoon to make myself a couple of very fine tuna-melts on wholemeal bread. I was busy toasting them in our sandwich press when I noticed something odd and slightly organic looking protruding from under Troy's jar of Chittagong curry powder. Without thinking, I lifted up the jar, and there was our new resident.

How she managed to wedge herself under a glass jar filled with 300g of curry powder is beyond me. I thought she might take this opportunity to shift her hiding spot, but she didn't, so I just put the jar back down over her. What I should have done was get my camera and take a picture of her next to the jar for comparison, but my sandwiches had finished cooking, so I put it off until after eating, and, when I went back to snap her photo, she was gone.

Consequently, I was quite happy to once again find her on the ceiling this evening. Of course, she's already managed to disappear again after I took the photo. And before you ask, I've already checked under the curry jar; she's not there.

Now, if I were a fair dinkum Aussie, none of this would bother me. Having a huntsman or five running around one's wainscoting at night is as ordinary as things come in these parts. After all, despite being huge and hairy, a huntsman is nothing to get excited over--unlike the hundreds of other spiders we have here which can actually kill people.

Tonight, I'm trying to be a real Aussie.

Open-air Bathrooms

There's a funny thing in Australia: Houses tend to be built so that bathrooms and toilets* are continually open to the outside air. This is usually accomplished in one of two ways. The old-school method is for windows in these two rooms to consist of louvers which can overlap when 'closed' but which can't really close to seal the room off from the outside. The newer method is for a window to have glass only part-way up, the top of the window being a metal mesh which allows the fresh air in.

Now, this all probably makes sense if one lives in Sydney, where it's quite warm year 'round, or in Brisbane, where it's hot and and stickily humid nearly every day. It somehow seems to make less sense in Canberra, which is perched high in the mountain valleys of the Great Dividing Range, just a short drive from two ski resorts. As a result, when it's -5 outside on a frosty Canberra morning, the temperature inside the bathroom or toilet is often not much more than that.

This was a definite issue for me in our last house since, occupying the master bedroom, I had an ensuite** attached to my room. The door to the ensuite was a flimsy thing that slid on a track outside the doorframe and consequently did little to keep the cold Antarctic air which was blowing through my bathroom window from blowing right into my bedroom. After just a few weeks of this madness, I finally wised up, obtained a sheet of insulating foil, and closed off the open part at the top of my bathroom window.

In our new house, I also occupy the master bedroom, and once again I have an ensuite attached to my room. Unsurprisingly, this bathroom also has metal mesh at the top of the window. However, I may not have to cover it up this time. First, the doors in our new place are fantastic. Not one of them is a flimsy inside door; they are all constructed of solid wood, just like an outside door would be. Second, though the door to my bathroom is again a sliding one, this time it's one of those cool doors that slides into and out from the wall itself, it reaches clear to the floor, and it's protected by something like a valance at the top.

Consequently, though the cold air still gets into my bathroom at night (and it was two degrees outside when I woke up last Tuesday), none of this cold air seems to make it into my room. What's more, I seem to have been in Australia long enough that it now seems normal for a visit to the loo to feel like one's just stepped outside for a breath of fresh air--even on a winter's morning.

*Australian houses tend to segregate bathing facilities from toilet facilities, having two separate rooms for these tasks. This presents its own concerns since toilets rarely have their own wash basins. After using the toilet, one has to exit that room and then locate the bathroom (which is usually next door) for hand washing purposes. Fortunately, our new home is flash enough to have a wash basin in the toilet. It's built into the wall like an old-school drinking fountain and has a cool tap with handles one above the other.

**This is the Australian term (borrowed from French) for a room which contains both bathing and toilet facilities. Usually one only finds these attached to a master bedroom.

Early-Morning Lawn Mowing

It's genuinely beautiful to live in a house the backs directly onto a public park, but the nicest things have their drawbacks. This morning I discovered one related to having a park as one's back garden. My alarm had not quite gone off when I was jolted awake by the roar of a giant ride-on lawnmower directly outside my window. This was not just a temporary disturbance, either.

The park runs through the centre of our entire neighbourhood and actually curves around the side fence on the west of our house as well, so it was pretty much non-stop lawn mowing for the next hour--throughout my morning prayers and my shower. Oh well. I don't reckon that the park will get mowed that often considering how severe the drought currently is. And I still like having the park directly outside my window.

New Contacts

After months of knowing that I needed them, I finally got new contact lenses last week. It's so good to be able to see again. I'd reached the point where I couldn't even read roadsigns with my right eye, so I suspected that my prescription had changed quite a bit, and it had.

During my exam, the optometrist had me take my old lenses out and then asked me to read back to her the top line of text on the eyechart. I had to admit to her that, not only could I not read the line to her, I couldn't actually see a line of text. Normally I can at least see a dark smudge that I know must be a line of text, but this time all I could see was a totally white square.

I guess spending 40-50 hours per week for several years staring at tiny text and a computer screen eventually takes its toll. Thank heaven I can at least still get my vision corrected.

New Furniture & Helping Strangers

Daniel and I took off early this morning (well, early for a Saturday, anyway) on a furniture run. As fabulous as our new house is, it came fully unfurnished (a dishwasher being the only white good included), so we've been trying to acquire various bits of furniture the last few weeks. Today, Daniel was after a bookcase, and I wanted to find a bedside table or a small chest of drawers.

We first headed to Revolve, which is a fabulous second-hand shop next to the rubbish tip. People can drop usable stuff off there instead of paying to take it into the tip, and then it's resold to the public. They had tons of various furniture items to sort through today, but the only good bookcases had already been sold. I did, however, find a small chest with three drawers just the right size to go next to my bed.

It's not in the best of shape, having scratches here and there and a rather serious gouge on the left side, but it also has the distinction of being made of real wood, none of this particle-board-clad-in-wood-like-vinyl-veneer crap. Another interesting feature of Revolve is that nothing has a price on it; one has to dicker over the price with the employees. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at this after nearly a year and a half in Indonesia. I got the price down to $10 (currently USD $7.50).

I was disappointed we didn't get Daniel a bookcase, so we next headed to the Salvos at Jamison Centre. I'd been there twice already this week, and I hadn't seen any bookcases, but op shops turn over stock quite quickly, so I was modestly hopeful. Fortunately, they had a fabulous, almost-new bookcase on the floor for only $30, so Daniel bought that.

Whilst we were moving some other furniture to get the bookcase out, one of the employees asked us how we were going to get it home, and I told her we'd brought a trailer. At this, a little old lady came over and asked us if we did indeed have a trailer. When I told her we did, she asked if we'd be willing to take the bed she'd just bought to her house in the next suburb. This seemed like a great opportunity to help, so I said sure. We left the bookcase and went to get the bed for her.

She told us that she would pay us $20 for making the delivery, but Daniel told her we didn't need any money, and I agreed. I was just glad to help. We all need assistance now and then, and the world's a better place if we jump in to give that help when it's needed. Anyway, we got the bed out to the trailer, and, whilst I was tying it down, Daniel went back into the shop to get the address. The lady had written it on a sheet of folded paper for us. She'd also slipped a $20 note into the fold of the paper.

We got the bed to the house OK and carried it up onto the front verandah. I was then going to suggest that we leave the $20 somewhere the lady would find it, but just then she pulled up in her car, so that plan fell through. She thanked us profusely for helping her out. I told her we were happy to do it and tried to give her the $20, but she wouldn't take it. I guess sometimes one has to let people do their thing.

On our way home, we stopped by a servo and used half the money to put some petrol into Keiran's car (which we'd been using all morning since mine doesn't have a towing hitch). After that, we used the remaining $10 to buy us lunch. Since we had Hungry Jack's vouchers, we were able to buy two whoppers with cheese and two bacon deluxes with it. That made us a nice lunch!

ANU Back on Top

It's official: After slipping a few notches in its global rankings last year, ANU has returned to its spot as the world's sixteenth-best university according to London's Times Higher Education Supplement. This is not bad for a small Australian university--especially considering that the top fifteen places are taken by institutions such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Yale and the like. ANU is ranked just below Cornell and many notches above my old alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (no. 79).

The crazy thing is that very few Australians get just how good ANU is. This year, we launched a new consortium under our leadership--the International Association of Research Universities--which teams ANU in research and academic endeavours with Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Berkeley, Tokyo, Beijing, National University of Singapore, the University of Copenhagen, and ZTH Zurich. At the same time, we had to lower our entrance cut-offs for domestic students to try to encourage more Aussies to enrol here. That's nuts.

I blame this at least partially on a lingering influence from Marxism in Australian higher education. Many in the sector don't want various universities to been seen as better than others because that would introduce 'inequity' into the system. I'm not just making this up, either. Earlier this year, the university started talking about introducting oral defences for PhD theses, and, as a student rep, I actually met with students who didn't want this to happen--not because they were afraid of oral examinations but, by their own admission, because this would make an ANU degree 'distinctive.'

Frankly, I feel blessed to be at one of the world's best universities. I walk through the corridors of my building, and I'm amazed at the concentration of expertise in all things Asia-Pacific that I have access to. And I'm happy that, when I finish my PhD next year, I'll carry for the rest of my life a 'distinctive' degree.

New House

It's now been one week since we've moved into our fantastic new home, and I like it more and more each day. Let me give you a few details:

We previously lived in a busy residential street which had 24-hour traffic noises and a streetlamp directly outside my bedroom window. Our new place is in a much quieter street, and, morever, it's on a battle-axe block--meaning we're about 15 metres back from the street--so traffic noises are gone, as is annoying light from streetlamps.

Another reason the house is so quiet is that it backs directly onto a reserve. We don't even have a back fence. Our back garden is the reserve, which is green and filled with trees. I love opening my drapes in the morning and looking out into greenspace. There's a footpath that runs through the reserve, so occasionally people walk by with dogs or children in tow, but that's the kind of traffic I don't mind.

This footpath leads directly to the neighbourhood shops. I can walk out our backdoor, and, in four minutes, without ever setting foot on a street, access an IGA, a bakery, a butcher, a chemist, a video hire shop, a newsagency, and a takeaway.

In addition to its excellent location, the house has a great design. The front (north) of the house is all open plan, with the kitchen, dining/rec room, and lounge room all a single space only partially separated by brick walls. This area is lighted with massive skylights during the day and also includes a funky circular fireplace for heating and ambience. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows on this side of the house allow the winter sun to pour in whilst large eaves shade it from the summer sun.

In fact, the house is very 'green' that way. We were still using our central heat in the old house every day last week, and I was using the gas log in the lounge room during the day as well, but we haven't turned on any heat in this house yet, and I don't know that we will have to until next winter. The walls and ceiling are both insulated--a rarity in Australia!--and we even have a solar water heater. The tiled floor and interior brick walls in the front of the house have been designed to absorb solar heat during winter days and release them during the night. The bedrooms are all on the south side of the house--looking into the reserve--and consequently should be cool and shady even in January.

I'll try to take some nice photos and post them soon for visual effect.