I belong!

This morning at the train station a woman asked me for directions. Me! Haha! I was mistaken for an Aussie!  Probably because I looked half-asleep and cold, though it's still in the 50's (already I'm becoming a wimp...oye).

I have lots of work to do before Jodie, Edwin and I go to the pub tonight.  So just 4 things:

1. Finished reading Ragtime.  It was an interesting book, and one of my first experiences with historical fiction.  It began with some general commentary about the Ragtime era in the U.S., and then proceeded to describe the intricate goings-on of a fictional family that once in a while intertwined with historical persons or events...but only once in a while.  However, by the end of the novel all of the fictional threads of the story slowly emerged as being entangled in a fascinating yet believable way with the historical bits.  In all, I liked it.  Not as much as older books (I still have issues with stuff written in the last 40 years), but I think I like Doctorow as an author.  Next up I'm reading a personal memoir about some chick's negative experiences with the famous Australian mega-church Hillsong.  My host family has serious grievances with this church also.  More later.

2.  My brief (though intense) affair with Lemingtons has come to an end.  I was running too late to grab breakfast at the house this morning, so had to stop on my walk through the university for a coffee & food.   Caveat on coffee:  They only serve espresso in Australia...sometimes with a bit of chocolate or a bit of milk, but you cannot buy any coffee drink larger than, say, 12 ounces unless you're at a Starbucks.  American coffee drinks are mostly syrups.  I don't know if I can ever go back, despite my love of sugar (and therefore syrup, which is made of sugar (cf. the move "Elf").  

Caveat over.  I saw that my new favorite coffee place (called "Mint") served Lemingtons.  So I thought, what the heck. Since at home I usually have Reeses' Puffs (sometimes granola, if I'm feeling less naughty),  a Lemington isn't too far off the mark.  But when I started devouring it in my office, the coconut tasted exactly like soap.  Exactly.  Very disturbing.  And the cake, while good, was not as delicious as some of the other offerings I beheld in Mint's display case, namely, huge chocolate croissants and other pastries I can't even pronounce.  So, goodbye, Lemingtons.  It was a fling that was "too hot not to cool down", as Nat King Cole would say.

3.  Last night was the first famous rugby match of the season, called "Game of Origins" or some weird title, between arch- rivals New South Wales (the Blues) and Queensland (I have no idea what they're called). NSW squashed the Queens (that's probably not it, is it)-- 18 to 4.  Rugby, I am willing to concede, is an interesting game. But give me college basketball every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  Or pro &/or collegiate football.  Or soccer.  Rugby was fun for a while, but then you realize that all it is is touching.  Too much....touching.  Yes, that's it.  Too much touching and feeling and smacking and kicking and groping and bleeding of very thick-necked, muscular, approximately-square-shaped, steroid-and-angst-filled, dirty men.  Blech. I'd take our boys any day (*cough* Tom Brady *cough*...though I hear he's married now? Man, I leave the country for one stinking summer...) 

But I watched the match.  So there you have it.

4. Lastly I must report a more disturbing event having to do with a seminar Guido gave on Monday afternoon.  In the room were mostly philosophers that I recognized, but for this one woman.  She was Asian, petite, mid-to-late 30s, spoke to no one.  And she giggled during Guido's entire talk.  It was the most bizarre thing, ever.  And very, very eerie.  Because, I'm pretty sure I followed closely the arguments Guido made, and none of them were that funny.  I wanted to lean toward her and say, "Seriously, Chuckles-- you're freaking us out over here."  But no one said anything, and she want on giggling maniacally (and yes, prior to this day I would not have said one *could* giggle maniacally... but she was definitely doing precisely this).

Now, as a philosopher who somehow gets related also to science, you're bound to get weird emails or have interactions with weird people.  Already I've received a few emails from random guys who saw on the ND website that I studied philosophy of physics, and they wanted me to read and evaluate their paper or argument or thesis or whatever, on how quantum mechanics explains the existence of God or how evolution is bunk because of quantum-leaping proto-plasmic entities, or how time travel is allowable if you tune two different radios to the same station and make them face each other, or some such nonsensical thing (ok, that last one was my own-- I used to think that as a little girl.  I was very young, though, and read more about the Bermuda Triangle, poltergeists, WWII, and random fantasy/science fiction than is probably healthy; but as a little girl such hypotheses are cute, not insane or disturbing).  Anyway, the point being I'm not unaccustomed  to this.  Also, the other day working at the local soup kitchen with some kids from SBCRC I got into a discussion with some of the clientele about lunar eclipses, and some guy started going off about space-time wormholes and whatnot.  You get used to it.

But the giggling?  I've never experienced that sort of response.  I haven't asked Guido about his feelings on the matter yet, but for the time being I remain rather disturbed.

The end!  

My first language...

..is not English, it turns out.  I've been slow to make this crucial realization: classical music is my real first language.  And it's probably all my love languages, too.  Whatever.  The point is, music moves everyone-- ask Daynan about his senior thesis (it had to do with the psychological profoundness of music, I think).  But I'm not sure if it's normal to be so entirely swept up in classical music that you forget where you are, or what you're doing.  That your mood is immediately and completely compliant to that of the music.  This happens to me frequently.  Maybe it's because I'm a hopeless romantic and should be writing 19th century British poetry instead of doing whatever it is that I do.  But I'm pretty sure the 19th century is over, and I don't want to die tragically and at a young age like all worthy 19th century British poets inevitably did.  Also, I'm not British. Or a man.  Or a woman with a man's name.  Or a woman married to a man with a man's name who is also a poet.   

So never mind.

Some things transpired over the weekend that helped me come to this realization.  First, I watched a wonderful and moving Swedish film called As it is in Heaven the other day with Edwin.  It's about a famous maestro who returns to his boyhood village after an excruciating career in the lime light.  It's a bit sappy, and overdoes its point... but still I loved it.  And I know it's in part because the movie's theme concerned the way music has with people.

Second, I had dinner with my professor and his wife Jenny on Sunday night.  It was lovely-- they live in the Italian suburb of Sydney (though you wouldn't know it by its name-- "Leichhardt"), whose main drag is Norton street.  Norton street is a happy little land where all the restaurants serve authentic Italian, and aromas of garlic bread and red wine follow after you wherever you go.  Guido and Jenny have a daughter, Kate, who is an incredibly social 18-month-old and is spoken to in English by Jenny and Italian by Guido.  It's pretty much adorable. I've offered to watch her some night during this next week so Guido and Jenny can have a much needed break.  I may try to speak with Kate in German, or maybe Spanish...and see what happens.

After Kate went to bed, Jenny, Guido and I talked about classical music for the entire evening.  We listened to three different recordings of the second movement of Dvorak's 6th Symphony (though the 7th is her favorite).  We decided the Czech orchestra (I forget under which conductor) performed it best--with the most pluckiness.  Jenny was trained as a professional conductor in Prague for many years, hence her great love for all composers Slovakian and Eastern European, especially Dvorak.  I'm sure many people would think it ridiculous that we spent the entire evening considering a particular movement of a particular symphony, but I loved every minute of it.   Jenny has told me that if I can underwrite the event, she and Guido will come to the States and put on an opera.  Jenny will pick the opera, but I get to be the diva-- that was my one condition.  I want to do lots of showing-off, I said. That's fine, Jenny said, but I get to decide the tempos.  Agreed.

The third event was rather a string of small events that not only endeared me to a few individuals in particular, but to humanity at large.  This was on Monday, after I'd spent the weekend prior immersed in Dvorak, and watching As it is in Heaven, and coming to the general conclusion that I can only ever fall in love with someone over-the-top obsessed with classical music-- that the events occurred.  First, waiting for the train I was joined on the platform by two young men.  Both college-aged or younger.  Both dressed in punk manner.  One has a guitar.  The other-- not in association with the first--a cello.  Most excellent.  I wish we could see more celli floating around train stations, streets and sidewalks.  We'd all be much happier.  Second, on the train ride home the boy immediately behind me (again, probably a bit younger than me, and dressed in a somewhat hipster manner-- though I have noticed a general lack of hipstericity Down Under) with his MP3 player going full blast.  This is all quite normal, except that I happened to catch the distinct sound of brass--and an entire orchestra (more faintly)-- coming from this person's earbuds.  Just the week before I'd been listening to bits of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers on the train, and realized that it was probably too loud and that everyone in the vicinity most likely was hearing only annoying warbling coming from my earbuds.  I turned it down a bit...but then thought "What the heck.  It's a bit of a cultural abnormality to be listening to classical music on the train anyway.  I wonder how many people in the world do this? Maybe lots... but I doubt it."

And here, not but a few days later, was solid evidence to the contrary.  A person approximately  my age, obviously enjoying at high volume some unmistakably classical repertoire.  I was a little weirded out by how happy that made me. I couldn't keep from grinning to myself for the remainder of the commute.  There is goodness in the world.  There is decency.  There are people in my generation who enjoy a good bout with orchestral music.  Then, to top off a good day, when I got home Arie was listening to some symphony on the radio while he cooked dinner.  

Well, enough of me going on about that.  What a snob I am.  Sorry.  But please note that it is not a valid argument to conclude from my excessive love and appreciation of classical music and all things associated therewith, etc. etc... that I therefore disapprove of other kinds of music.*  That's just wrong.  I love me some Radiohead, for example.  Apparat is a new favorite, too.  And Beirut.  And perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but I've been on something of a George Michael kick of late, too.  There.  I said it.

I've gotta get back to work.  A few more brief tidbits before I go:

1.  The people in Australia are surprisingly tall! Men and women alike.  I have seen more tall women ("tall" means my height or taller, operationally defined) here than I think I've even seen at Calvin or in the Netherlands.  Put together.  That's some freakishly tall people, folks.

2.   Nobody has yet guessed successfully the meaning of "budgy smugglers", though mom and dad gave good attempts.  Very creative, parents--but way, way off the mark.  

3.  My new favorite food is an Aussie treat called a Lemington. Let me explain to you what a Lemington is.  A Lemington is a perfect cube of delight and wonder: a literal cube of vanilla cake about the size of something that's 4 inches cubed, dipped in dark chocolate and coated with infinitesimally small coconut flakes (which is the only sort of coconut flake there should be, in my opinion-- one wants to *hint* at coconut, not bury one's face in it).  That's 64 cubic inches of all that is right and good and pleasing. 

For this reason, Australia, I applaud thee.

*lest that music be country.  Then, by all means, invalidly conclude away.