Travvy Goes Green
It is three weeks into the semester and things are starting to settle down. Although I’m not overloaded with work yet, it is starting to come in at a nice steady pace. I was getting a little jittery in the first week, since I didn’t have much to do in the way of study, yet all my friends seemed to be very busy. I guess most people would count themselves lucky if they were in such a situation, but it made me feel edgy and uncomfortable. I need to feel that I’m working at least as hard as everyone else or I feel like I don’t deserve things that I achieve, maybe I just like working hard.

This Sunday I went along to an organised tree planting event. In case you didn’t realise, it was the ‘National Tree Planting Day’ on Sunday. Several of my fellow college residents and I caught the bus out to a place called Cotter. As we were snaking our way up a mountain with dense forest either side of the road, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was bothering; surely the last thing Canberra needs is more trees. Our destination though was more or less a tree deserted plot of land, so that made me happy enough.

I armed myself with a pick, some trees and various other items essential to the modern day tree planter and set off. Although featureless and flat from a distance, up close the field was most unpleasant. Blackberry bushes were rampant as well as other thorny bushes and I walked straight into one, as though it were a cactus and I was one of the various characters from an early slapstick cartoon. Ouch. I cut my hands a little while digging as well, but the rest of the day was more or less incident free. It felt kind of good to get out and do a little physical work in the bush. I was getting my hands dirty, I got to use a pick and it was all for a good cause. When I was feeling particularly manly and energetic, I started whacking the especially large rocks that were loitering in the many ditches of the field. Surprisingly after a few contacts with the pick, they shattered apart.

I was whistling along and having as much fun as you probably could planting trees, when a new resident at Johns asked if we could work together. I’m a rather independent person and don’t really like working in groups, in fact you could say I hate it, but reluctantly I said, “Sure thing.” The guy just stood around, except when I went to dig, he’d say “No, I’ll do that,” proceeding to attack the ground like a madman with his pick. I didn’t really like this, for digging was an essential part to enjoying the process and besides, I felt I wasn’t working hard enough. Very soon he got tired, which I was glad about as it meant I could take over all the tasks of planting. He asked me what he could do and after mulling it over I said, “Maybe you could start watering all the trees that have been planted.” He was happy, as it meant he had to do barely any work and I was happy as I could do it all.

Eventually though it was time to go. I was proud as we drove away when I looked at the field and saw all of the work we had done. The milk carton guards that were placed around the trees were lined up neatly in rows down the hill like miniature soldiers in a formation. I can now print lecture notes to my heart’s content without any feeling any guilt.

That evening I got to do yet more physical work, this time helping a friend move her bags and boxes out of her room. She was leaving to go back to America having now completed her degree. It will be strange not having her around and I’m going to miss going to watch her perform in operas.

A few things have been bugging me about college lately, and number one on the list is the state of the bathrooms. Some people seem to have the hygiene standards of apes, not even managing or bothering to press the button to flush the toilet. And it happens quite often. The other day there was vomit or something that looked like it in the sink that someone hadn’t even bothered to wash down.

My net connection has been down since Saturday afternoon and the computer guy said it was something he had never seen before and is in the process of fixing it. My phone has a light that blinks when I receive messages and turns off when you check the messages, but this light is now permanently blinking. Every time I enter my room I get excited that I have a message only to check and realise I don’t. I get the feeling it is going to be another one of those special cases where the college ‘fix-it’ person will scratch their head and say “Hmmm… well I’ve never seen that happen before.”

Quite a few new residents have moved into college for the new semester and although most of the ones I’ve met seem quite nice, some are quite bizarre. One is a total sleaze and is a discriminatory curry offerer. The other night in the dining hall he was going around to all the tables and offering his ‘samba curry’ to anyone that wasn’t white and by the way that is not a euphemism. Anyway, he sat next to me once and was slurping and eating so loudly, which I really hate.

I think all this is bothering me only because this time more than any other I’m missing Melbourne. Oh well.

It’s not all bad though, I’m still having fun. I recently watched a pre-season A-league soccer match that was being played in Canberra and the weather has been quite nice lately, plus it is good spending time with my Canberra friends.

My subjects all seem interesting enough, although one of my lecturers is quite terrible and her lecture notes are fairly useless. This is really quite annoying as it is a subject that could be made to be really exciting if a lecturer like Steve Stern (a plump witty family man from America) or Kostya Borovkov (a hilarious tall lanky lecturer with a thick Russian accent who says ‘God Bless You’ to anyone who sneezes in his class) were teaching it. Sigh, what a disappointment. Oh well.

Until next time,

Take care.