Carrie Morgan's blog

First day of Winter, Perth Australia

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23 degrees C / 73 degrees F and the day spent at the beach. It was a day in which I was reminded why I love it here.

New Developments

I am well aware that I am long overdue for an update. It's like putting off a long email reply... the longer I wait the harder it is to post something.  But no time like the present to update! Those of you with RSS readers, lucky you. Those without, sorry you had to keep checking back in and reading about EuroVision!

This week has been eventful. At work, I've been helping organise a Careers Fair aimed at postgrad business students, and the whole thing goes off this Thurs night (hopefully without a hitch!)

The end of the semester is near, I'm currently halfway through my last week of classes. Exams start in two weeks. The life of a student is rough- I work weeks AND WEEKENDS. Injustice. But gimme 3 weeks and I'll be a third of the way through a masters degree.

Rob is in Melbourne then Sydney today and tomorrow for interviews with the Reserve Bank and the Productivity Commission. These interviews, plus contract negotiations with Accenture, will determine the city that I'll be living in come February of next year. Needless to say I'm on the edge of my seat. It's between Sydney and Melbourne, and I can honestly say either city would suit me fine. PR work in Sydney and Melbourne will be easy to find, and unlike Perth will be focussed on consumer-based companies instead of resources and govt. Hopefully we'll know within a couple of weeks.

Off to class! Stay tuned...

EuroVision 07. I live for this.

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Last night was one of the best nights in television watching. The 3 hour long EuroVision Song Contest Finale 2007. For you poor deprived souls, I'll summarize. EuroVison is a yearly contest in which the best of euro-trash bands/artists from each European country compete in the cheesiest, most horrible, glam, english-as-a-second-language-but-I'm-singing-in-it-anyway contest for best song in Europe.

Oh yeah, and hugely political. As in, if Finland doesn't give full points to Sweden there is a possibility of outbreak of war the next day. The Eastern countries vote east, the Western vote west. It's fantastic.

This year, Serbia won (c'mon, the lead singer girl could have passed for a slightly overweight 30 year old man). My vote goes to Ukraine and the man with a star on his head (runners-up).

Please watch, enjoy, and appreciate bad European trash club music at its best.

Eurovision 2007 Ukraine: Verka Serduchka - Danzing

the gems of Perth

Last Friday night, I had a crazy night out. And there were zero bars, no drinks, and mostly wildlife involved. As a thank you, my boss Christy organised a night out for the approx 20 volunteers who hauled boxes and served lunches all day for free at the Curtin Careers Fair (god love em).

The night out was a tour called "The Seven Wonders of the East (of Perth)." Basically, a friend of hers runs mystery tours which visits all the secret spots he discovered growing up east of Perth. Mystery meaning that the secret locations are undisclosed until arrival.

These were:

Alfred's Hamburgers: a roadside dinner with an outdoor fire pit serving AMAZING burgers of strange varieties. Mine was Alfred's special: egg, bacon, cheese, burger, pickles, all served between three layers of toast.

Airport land: snuck onto airport property and stood at the end of the runway at Perth airport and watched the jets fly 100 metres overhead and come in for a landing (lets pretend this wasn't illegal and that hopefully no one working for airport security reads blogs)

Abandoned train tunnel. Exactly that- dark, abandoned, muddy, with a chance of hiding kangaroos.

Scenic overlook over Perth in Lesmurdie.

The windy road down the hills in Lesmurdie. 180 degree hairpin turns down the side of a nearly-mountain, all with a view of Perth.

Fast Eddy's: Nothing tops a night off like midnight sundaes.

So this all got me to thinking: if I organised the same sort of thing in Richmond, Va. what would the secret locations be?

I could go on and on.... Church Hill, Belle Isle, the Gutenberg Cafe, Maymont Park, Westview, the Bottom/the Slip...

Life Lesson: Don't talk about sex in a job interview (particularly if you need a visa by Monday)

A new full-timer is being hired at work- which benefits me because one more member of the team will let me work on even bigger and better things in the next few months. Hip Hip for increased responsibility.

And new hiring means interviews- one of which I was lucky enough to listen in on. I had heard tales of bad interviews, heard that they do exist, but never seen one up close. Until Friday. And let me tell you, it was physically painful to watch this take place. I'll recount the particularly painful bits here for your reading pleasure:

Interviewer: "So, can you tell me about a time when someone said something against you and you had to defend yourself? Like perhaps when you worked on something and you thought you had done a great job but someone spoke against you and said that you didn't, and you had to defend yourself?"

Interviewee: "Well, this one time a guy said he had sex with me but he didn't, and I had to defend myself and tell everyone that he didn't have sex with me."

Interviewer: "OK, um, I guess I mean has something like that ever happened to you in a professional setting? In a job? If it did, what would you do to straighten things out?"

Interviewee: "Um, I would do dinner. Take them out to dinner so that they could see my face and we could talk to each other."

Interviewer: "Ok, so in this job you'll need to work with businesspeople and speakers visiting from big companies in Perth, have you ever worked with any businesspeople from companies before?"

Interviewee:" Um, yes I have, I just can't think of any names of those companies right now".

Interviewer: (Beginning to revert to easier small talk at this point) "So how long are you planning to stay in Perth?"

Interviewee: "Oh, I'm going back to Malaysia in three days- on Monday. My visa is expired so I can't stay any longer. So I was hoping you could give me a visa for this job so I can stay."

I'll stop there and simply say the interview was well over at this point. And I was doing my best not to crack up laughing. One candidate down, this should be interesting.

Out Bush

Last weekend I spent 4 days in Laverton, West Australia- a tiny isolated mining town in the middle of the outback with a primarily indigenous population. We flew in and out on the mining flights (aka tiny 20 seater propeller planes) into Granny Smith Mine (a gold mine) and caught a lift from there into Laverton. (See the map- Laverton is where the green arrow points to)

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It's just what you would think- flat red dirt stretching as far as the eye can see, scrubby brush, and hot dry sun. It's gorgeous. There's something completely unique about that contrast between red earth and bright blue sky.

The purpose of the trip was community development- more specifically working with the kids in the youth centre to provide positive role models and safe activities. If you know anything about aboriginal communities in outback Australia, you know that it's not an easy place to be a kid. And while the situation is too complex to explain in black and white, there are many social issues that plague these communities and are in part due to the fact that the white Australians made some serious errors in moving in on their lands and communities.

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It was important for me to see for myself, because from an American point of view it can be difficult to see why race relations between these two groups are so strained and the division between them is so marked. Life in Laverton is lived on a completely different socio-economic level as life in Perth. While I'm still not 100% clear, meeting the people, the kids, the police officers in the town, the teachers, and the local miners let me take part in some fascinating conversations which helped me to get a grasp on things.

And from a trip point of view, I nursed a baby kangaroo, dipped in a healing salt lake, swam in an abandoned mining crater, watched the sun rise and sun set, and met amazing people.

My thoughts are in Virginia

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Its difficult to be away from home when tragedy happens. Its especially hard to be out of the country.

I've been watching the news about Virginia Tech on TV, and because I am from Virginia it hits hard. A large number of the students from my high school went to Virginia Tech, and it is one of the major universities in Virginia with the most students. Luckily I don't think I knew anyone who was killed, but I do know people whose friends were killed. And I know plenty of students at VT who are dealing with complete emotional shock.

What's especially difficult is that while I'd like to be able to mourn with my country and feel sad about what happened, I've had to watch the Australian news' take on the event, where John Howard says something like "It was tragic, we are quite sad, luckily our gun control laws in Australia mean it could never happen here, poor Americans."

And instead of being able to mourn the loss of the students, I end up being asked question after question about gun control and gun laws, and many Australians seem eager to tell me how they thing our gun laws in America are crap and how if we restricted guns things like this would never happen.

Its not that I don't know these things, and this conversation will happen in the US because of what happened. But when something like this hits so close to home, it would have been nice to be able to simply feel sad that such a horrible thing happened, sympathize with the students, and attempt to wrap my head around what happened before the political blame game begins.

What makes you truly happy?

Happiness is one of those things that we assume will just come to us. Who ever put massive effort into being happy? But an article in TIME yesterday explains that being happy is something you actually do need to work at.

Most interestingly, a lot of people report being out and about and thinking if they could just go home and chill out or watch TV then they will be happy. But other activities, like social gatherings or physical activity, actually make them happy while being at home leaves them feeling restless.

Happiness

Things that make me really truly happy:

-laying on the beach

-going for a bike ride or playing a sport (running, unfortunately, has the opposite effect)

-good conversation with friends, regardless of the venue

-live music

-curling up in bed with a good book on a cold day

-experiencing something new for the first time, especially places

TIME's suggestions for finding your happiness:

*Be attuned to what gives you genuine satisfaction. Although many people assume that popular activities like watching TV are enjoyable, their own reports generally indicate that they feel more engaged, energetic, satisfied and happy when doing other things.

*Study yourself. To better understand their own happiness, Csikszentmihalyi says, people should systematically record their activities and feelings every few hours for a week or two. In recording your observations, try to focus on how you actually feel, rather than what you think you ought to be feeling or what you expect to feel. Afterwards, note the high points, particularly, and the low ones. Then try to adjust how you spend time according to your findings.

*Take control. Repairing unhappy conditions requires active effort. People often assume external conditions will change for the better or let chance determine their response. That's a mistake. "Get control," Csikszentmihalyi says. When things aren't right, "you have to put in the same effort you would if your business were in trouble. Just as markets move, life changes too."

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1606395,00.html

Itchy feet

I'm on a 2 week semester break. I'm spending it writing papers, catching up on reading, and in the office. And polishing off easter chocolate. But it's painful for me to have 2 weeks off class and not making plans to travel. Two years ago this time in the semester I was off in Thailand eating curry and bungee jumping.

No matter, such is the life of a grad student as opposed to a study abroad student. Lets be honest, I've lived my study abroad days (twice) and I'm totally OK not going back to that place in life. BUT it's gotten me thinking about my next few travel adventures over the year. And the only thing better than actually taking a trip is planning one.

So I have some thoughts.

I would love to try a home exchange. Like Cameron Diaz/Kate Winslet home exchange. There's a pretty decent looking website: www.homeexchange.com. Which means that Rob, Adrian, and Bonnie and I will swap our pretty little house for one in a more adventurous part of the world. Southern India? Sri Lanka? Vietnam? Only trouble would be coming home to find all of our furniture gone, run away with by Sri Lankan thieves. Not good.

Another option is the road tripping/camping out trip up north. Up North means fantastic beaches (it gets warmer as you go north here on the south side of the planet) and beautiful gorges. Coral reefs. And humpback whale season. If we pile enough people into the car we can drive the 15 hours over the course of 10 days and see everything along the way. Possibly 10 days in the car/camping would turn out to be less vacation-like and more torture-like.

Options options!

Happy Easter!

It's chocolate bunny day! Ok, also Easter.

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I have eaten a total of 40 little mini choc eggs, 1 Lindt bunny, 5 Lindt balls, and the ears off of my giant bunny. I'm on chocolate overload. Everywhere I go people keep giving me chocolate. It really isn't my fault.

Luckily, "A substance called phenylethylamine is found in chocolate and seems to trigger feelings similar to “falling in love.” There is also a compound in chocolate called anadamide that stimulates brain receptors in a manner similar to that of other addictive substances. Chocolate cravings may also be triggered when the taste buds tingle with the taste of chocolate. This sensation occurs because chocolate's melting point is 97 degrees, just below body temperature. When the taste buds are excited, endorphins are released from the brain. These endorphins are the body's “feel good” chemical." -Yale-New Haven Hospital

ha. It's all about endorphins. And chocolate=love.

*good thing too, because Rob just consumed his entire 10 in tall white chocolate bunny in one sitting. What a trooper.