A migaloo in Melbourne

G'day, how ya goin mate?

A home away from home, that's what Melbourne has become. It's atmosphere is easygoing, it's neighbourhoods are green, it's locals are a friendly bunch of all world's flavours, and it's weather beats Europe's hands on.

After last writing I've lived thru a lot, and the good news is that most of it was sublime. The never-ending celebrations of Chinese new year on Malaysia's island Pinang with lovely company, celebrating the arrival of my year, the year of the rat. Racing the waves on Bali's Kuta beach with a basketball mate that I didn't expect to encounter at this side of the world. Crashing with a random crowd at the house of a friend of a friend in a Kuala Lumpur suburb after watching three movies and terrorising the communal swimming pool. Overlooking the sunrise behind the crater of mount Bromo, neatly tucked away in another crater that spans over 20 kay of barren land, freezing at night and blazing during the day. Dipping into the chilly silver tipped flickering waves at the Mornington Peninsula while pelicans are doing their air plane like landing routine in the distance.

Unfortunately, university has started munching away on my free time since last week, but luckily it still leaves a few chunks for me. Mondays and Fridays are off-days, and the ones in between make up my fair share of education. I decided on actually taking courses that I can learn from, staying clear from the often encountered exchange excuse: party hardy, study hardly. Three of my four courses involve typical Australian themes, one is Aboriginal History, one anthropology focusing on matters of indigeinity and Australian identity and the third is Australian Film Studies. It is really challenging for me to participate in units about which I have entirely no prior knowledge. It motivates me even more to get a good grade.

It is nice to be able to settle down for some time to get a feeling for a city after running from place to place with just enough time to take in either the Lonely Planet's highlights or a decent meal. The scales in Singapore told me which I've given way: eight kilos of my body weight were left behind somewhere in S-E Asia. The argument that although I had three kg too much in my check in luggage, the overall had gone down, convinced the smiling Qantas girl to cut me some slack.

Don't let yourself become a victim or practitioner of what Willemen so accurately describes as "a kind of promiscuous or random form of alleged internationalism that I would prefer to call an evasive cosmopolitanism masking imperial aspirations." (Willemen, 1994) Whatever that might be.

See ya's,
Reinier