After all the drama, we headed back to the Shine Dome to await the arrival of another guest speaker, Professor Jenny Graves, Order of Australia and Australian Academy Fellow, as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Australia and additional members of the Academy. Thankfully, I presented prior to Professor Graves, as her talk was titled "Weird Australian Animals, Sex and the Future of Men"...and the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge in science teacher preparation is a pretty tough sell after a weird animal/sex talk! Really though, it was quite an honor to attend her presentation - she has done amazing work throughout her career and has advanced the field of genetics in astounding ways!
I had a wonderful opportunity to visit Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, yesterday. The Australian Academy of Science invited me to present a talk for their East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) fellows and members of the Academy, since I had been a fellow in 2013. The 2015 fellows are having their orientation in Canberra at the Shine Dome before heading off to their summer (for them) internships across the country. I enjoyed catching up with Shannon, who coordinates the program, and getting to know the fellows. The EAPSI fellowship is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with national science and technology agencies in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan. It was an amazing experience for me, and left me with a strong desire to return to Australia. I'm so excited for the fellows who are about to embark on their adventures! I was able to spend the day with the group touring some Canberra highlights. Our first stop was the Australian War Memorial. This was my first time to the memorial - it is not only a touching tribute to those who have given their lives serving their country, but also a well-curated museum and archive for the Australian armed forces. I think the most striking part for me was the Roll of Honour, adorned with innumerable red poppies. The flower is a symbol of remembrance of fallen military persons, and the tradition of placing poppies in the wall began in 1993 at the internment of the unknown solider as people waited in long lines along the Roll of Honour to lay a poppy at the tomb. After our time at the War Memorial, we headed to Parliament House for another tour, followed by question time. I had toured Parliament during my own fellowship orientation trip a couple of years ago, but we had a phenomenal guide who made it all the more interesting this time around. The guides at both the War Memorial and Parliament House are volunteers, and it's astonishing how knowledgeable they are about their respective institutions and the history behind them. I didn't bring my camera into Parliament, as I'd visited previously and cameras are not allowed in the House during question time, but here are some shots I took on my first visit of the national flag on top of Parliament, the House and the Senate... Question time was quite the experience. In a nutshell, there are questions without notice from the opposition (the Labor party), which they direct toward a specific individual from the majority party (Liberals) as well as planned questions from the Liberals to leaders of their own party. (Note: Labor is the party we would consider the most liberal in the U.S., and the Liberal party is the most conservative.) During this particular session, Labor used every question they were afforded to address the fact that the Attorney General failed to submit a letter he'd received from the Lindt Café gunman to the inquiry on the Martin Place siege that occurred at the end of 2014, a terrorist attack that took the lives of two hostages and the gunman in downtown Sydney. They hammered on the fact that misinformation was (albeit unintentionally) provided to the House and went uncorrected for too long after this was discovered. During their turns, the Liberals took the opportunity to lob questions like "Can you tell us how the current government is delivering on its promise of rainbows and unicorns and making Australia the greatest country in the universe?" to which the Liberal addressee (often Prime Minister Tony Abbott) would respond with a long, self-congratulatory verbal pat on their own back. Throughout the entirety, outbursts would occur from all sides, including scoffs, loud sarcastic laughs, snarky comments and bold accusations. The ringmaster in this circus was the Speaker of the House, the Honorable Bronwyn Bishop, a 72- year old woman with white hair and a bright orange jacket who sat atop her throne-like bench and commanded "There will be silence on my left!!" while warning members if they got out of line again she would throw them out (picture Ruth Bader Ginsburg-meets-the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland). The whole thing was quite the show! If you're interested, you can relive a bit of the spectacle here (start at around 35:14), though I will say that you really don't get the full effect on video. After all the drama, we headed back to the Shine Dome to await the arrival of another guest speaker, Professor Jenny Graves, Order of Australia and Australian Academy Fellow, as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Australia and additional members of the Academy. Thankfully, I presented prior to Professor Graves, as her talk was titled "Weird Australian Animals, Sex and the Future of Men"...and the development of technological pedagogical content knowledge in science teacher preparation is a pretty tough sell after a weird animal/sex talk! Really though, it was quite an honor to attend her presentation - she has done amazing work throughout her career and has advanced the field of genetics in astounding ways! After our presentations, the AAS hosted a dinner for the fellows and honored guests. While the Academy was very gracious when arranging my travel to offer accommodations for the evening, I needed to get back to work the following day, so I headed out before the dinner to catch my 8pm flight. Shannon presented me with an extremely thoughtful gift and lovely note with her thanks for attending and well wishes for our wedding. She is seriously the most awesome representative of the Academy for the groups of fellows they host - no one on either continent was as thoughtful, well-organized and supportive as Shannon during my time in the program! I didn't get a photo, so I'm including one with Shannon from my fellowship visit. It was a long but exciting day, and I am grateful to Shannon and the Academy for the experience!
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Well, we've been back from my sister's wedding for a few weeks now, but I've just been too crazy busy to post. I interviewed for a position with my university before leaving and was offered the job on our way back from Mexico, so between getting started with that and wedding planning, things have been preeeeeetty busy (not so much in the "I have pics and stories to share" kind of busy - more like making reservations, going to dress alterations appointments, having our rings made kind of busy...all good stuff though!). Kerry and Brad's wedding was SO fantastic! It was a ridiculously fun few days, and I wish we could have stayed so much longer. The resort was amazing; the food was delicious; the water was surreally blue; the people were a blast, and the wedding was just perfect! So much happiness - it was a really awesome week of memory-making. They don't have their wedding pics back yet from the photographer and have asked everyone not to post pics of the ceremony, so I'll just share these from the trip itself... The time with family was great, and I'm so pumped to be seeing them again so soon (this time with Pickle's fam as well!) in just a little over 2 weeks! yikes...2 weeks...I really need to get back to work! Can't Wait!!! -JL
I haven't been blogging much lately, as we've been pretty busy getting ready not only for our own wedding in July, but my sister's wedding NEXT WEEK!
Kerry + Brad's Wedding CountdownI'm SO excited for my sis (and best friend) to be marrying her perfect match!!! They are such an awesome team...just look at their save-the-dates ;)
We'll be heading out this Saturday morning for Cancun, Mexico, and Kerry + Brad will be tying the knot in Playa Mujeres in one week!!! I could NOT be more stoked to see my fam and for what I know will be one of the most memorable trips of our lives <3
-JLWe've had some fairly rotten weather here in Sydney over the last week, including hail storms that collapsed industrial buildings after a half a metre of hail accumulated on the roofs, flash flooding that washed away houses and severe winds that swept Bondi and Coogee beach dunes well up into parks and streets. Pickle and I were fortunate to be living outside the worst of it. We were grateful though, after the prolonged dark, loud, rainy days, to see the sunshine return last Thursday and decided to take advantage of it before it was pushed away again. We headed in to the CBD and caught a free lunch break concert by one of the jazz ensembles at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. It was a beautiful facility and a great performance by their second of three big bands. The conservatory is located just outside the grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens, so we enjoyed a sunny stroll before seeking out a lunchtime destination, Pickle playing the role of inquisitive amateur botanist and I the role of crazy bird lady. We found another Din Tai Fung location (this time the takeaway in Westfield Sydney) and headed straight for the steamed pork dumplings. After that, we hit up the bar. Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar serves a wicked pavlova sundae with vanilla ice cream, passionfruit, fresh strawberries & meringue, served with bananas and a little pot of melted milk chocolate on the side. It was a nice weekend/weekday swap.
If you're thinking that we may have a problem, scarfing candy bars by the fists full and hitting up the chocolate bar in the middle of the day, CALM DOWN...................we totally balanced it out with bananas. Sorry if I'm a bit defensive - all this chocotalk has made me hungry! I'm not me when I'm hungry...time to grab a Snickers. -JL'Just thought I'd share a few shots from our experience at the Sydney Fish Market this past weekend. We decided it'd be fun to hit up a Sydney landmark or two for a tourist-style outing (more importantly, we decided we needed to find some free/cheap entertainment because we took our car in for it's first maintenance experience and walked away with significantly lighter wallets!) We'd planned to go to the Harbour Bridge, but we left a little later than we'd planned, and we maaaaay have taken an extra trip or two over the Anzac Bridge trying to get to the fish market. So, we only did the one stop this weekend, but the detour made for a nice photo op. We found free parking (woot!) on a side street and strolled through Wentworth Park, which boasts a fantastic view of the skyline and Sydney Tower. The Sydney Fish Market was (spoiler alert) full of fish - not just fish, but all kinds of fresh seafood as well as breads and pastries, cheeses, fruits and veggies, and well, just about everything but meat and poultry (although there were plenty of happy seagulls and ibises hovering around the picnic tables and raiding the rubbish bins)... They had several sashimi bars where you order deli-style by weight - a whole new experience for us. We were like fish out of water (it's ok to roll your eyes). We debated the whole way through the line how much to order. Not gonna lie - our first time at the grocery deli counter, we bought 1 kilo of turkey breast...turns out, that's a LOT of turkey breast (2.2 lbs. to be exact). So while we've since honed our deli meat projection skills, we weren't exactly sure how accurately that would translate to salmon sashimi. It was priced by the kilo - maybe we could just ask for $20 worth? No, Pickle decided that wouldn't fly - we definitely needed a weight. We decided on .25 kg as our best estimate...but how to order? Since it's priced per kilo, Pickle asked for ".25 kg" - didn't translate..."1/4 of a kilo"? Nope...he tried "a quarter of a kilo" and then ".25 kg" again to no avail. English was not the young lady at the counter's first language, which wasn't a problem except that our foreign ordering skills were not translating well. Luckily, the kind Aussie next to me relayed that we wanted 250 grams of the salmon sashimi. All parties were grateful for the assist! Besides the sashimi and some seaweed salad, we ordered some just-caught, just-torched cheesy scallops that were scrumptious. For dessert, we had a chocolate-covered fig, strawberry, and mango on a stick....aaaand then two more chocolate-covered figs :) -JL
We'd already picked out a spot for him in the bathroom (because who wouldn't want to start their day staring at that enthusiastic panda pioneer ready to aim for the stars while brushing their teeth in the morning?), so we picked out a frame at IKEA and got him situated. We bought some sticky wall-mount hooks, and I suggested we eyeball where we wanted it, slap those babies in place and call it a day, but Pickle had other plans. Well, to be more accurate, he didn't actually have a plan yet, but he had a plan to plan (he loves to plan). And plan he did! He planned...and planned......and planned...........and planned.......................... Ta-Da! (...it fell down about 20 minutes later - I just eyeballed it and stuck the new hook into place, waited an hour and hung it back up. So far, so good.) In other news, we finally sold our monster sofa on gumtree (woot!), so as soon as we replace the empty space with our wall decal, I'll post some pics of the apartment. (That's prooooooobably going to require some planning though...) -JLThis has been the week of beautiful brekkies! Over the weekend, we stumbled onto "Sydney's Best Breakfast" (so says The 2014 Sydney Morning Herald) at Efendy, a Turkish restaurant in Rozelle. When I say stumbled, I really mean I stumbled across it online in search of our next great Sydney food find, so we called ahead for a 1:00 booking for brunch on Saturday. Efendy is a large, stand-alone restaurant, a bit of a novelty among the endless strips of shops and cafés. It has a beautiful patio area out front with an outdoor spit on which I believe they were roasting some lamb. The inside feels like a converted farm house, with its distressed wood floors, exposed brick walls, crackling fireplace, solid wood farm tables with mismatched chairs, benches and cushions, and beautiful staircase leading upstairs to the kitchen and a second level of dining space. It's got character, and a bit of quirkiness too - Turkish comic posters cover one of the downstairs walls and our bill came nested in a Turkish comic book. Our brunch was served on a giant plank like a 2-person buffet (well, really like a 4-6 person buffet, but it was just for the two of us!). It included assorted spreads, jams and honeys, olives, meats, cheeses, veggies (both hot and cold), fruits and helva (oooooh, holy helva it was good!). We were seriously impressed...then a cutting board with various breads and pastries came out, and we were a little stunned....and then a separate bowl of sausages and a serving dish of eggs with tomatoes came out and kind of overwhelmed us. I mean...we tackled it, but it was pretty daunting... deliciously daunting. All of this came with Turkish coffee and tea. We also made it back to The Laughing Goat Café - the cute little place attached to the antique shop we discovered a few weeks back. This time, we split the Eggs Benny. It came with smoked salmon and was scrumptious! And we made it back to Kanzo for lunch...twice. We don't mess around here...it's all about the salmon sashimi. Yesterday, we took advantage of the school break and hit up The Grounds again - this time for breakfast. Our order got a little out of control when we couldn't decide what to get...we ended up with the Brekkie Board, with smoked salmon, goat cheese, smashed avocado, two poached eggs so beautiful they looked like mozzarella, olives, tomatoes with olive oil and herbs, Serrano ham, grilled asparagus, and crusty sourdough toast, and Summer Berry Hotcakes with blueberries and raspberries, vanilla infused mascarpone cheese, edible violets and agave syrup with a side order of polenta chips. We also shared a deconstructed iced coffee, which came with frozen espresso cubes, a shot of espresso, a syringe of simple syrup and milk. I think I've mentioned previously that coffee here is an entirely different construct than what we have in the U.S. First off, when the topic of coffee is brought up, the Aussies I've spoken to have been quick to note (proudly) that they (speaking on behalf of the country's population) are coffee snobs...that there is a rich European tradition here where coffee is concerned, and the standard is just plain higher. Starbucks has failed miserably in Australia, as people see it as a super-sized, high sugar, high calorie, low quality, Americanized fast-food bastardization of the beverage. In fact, drip coffee in Australia is basically considered swill. It's difficult to find, and on the rare occasion that it's available, people refuse to drink it. They actually served free filter coffee at an orientation session Pickle attended at the uni and literally no one (besides him) would drink it, instead waiting for tea time to go across to the local café to pay $5 for a "proper coffee". Coffee here is all based on espresso. You can order coffee in various formats, including differing amounts of espresso, water, milk and hot chocolate, but it's a very purist approach...you won't find flavored coffees, creamers, or syrups and you can't have your coffee blended with oreos, cheesecake chunks, caramel, peppermint sticks or pumpkin pie filling. There are quite a few ways to mix up this combination of ingredients though, and it's amazing how rich the coffee tastes (even sans the cookie sundae additives)...
-JLAs Sunday is wrapping up here, I thought I'd post about our Easter (as everyone back home in the U.S. is just waking up to theirs). We'd run ourselves down to emergency status on groceries again, as we ran across a Singaporean/Malaysian restaurant yesterday after going to Parramatta to order our weddings rings and decided that eating there would be more fun than grocery shopping. A quick inventory this morning yielded 1 banana, 2 chocolate mint cookies, 2 (somewhat questionable) eggs, a few pieces of stale bread and some butter. I played it safe with the banana and Pickle made himself eggs and toast for breakfast (he survived), but as we prepared to leave for a grocery run, it dawned on us that the grocery may not be open on Easter day. Sure enough, it wasn't, and as we readied ourselves for battle over the mint cookies, I decided to take a shot in the dark and check the Facebook page of a new local place that had caught my eye this past week. As it turns out, they were open AND having a fantastic little Easter Fair AND, incidentally, were busting up the largest chocolate Easter egg in all of Australia today just 15 minutes from where we live...an Easter miracle! So we made peace and headed to The Grounds of Alexandria. The Grounds turned out to be a very cool place - it has a very industrial-meets-crunchy sort of vibe (if that's a thing). They have regular market stalls, fresh produce, a beautiful flower shop, garden, artisan bakery, a restaurant and bar called The Potting Shed, and café where they have hands-down THE most amazing coffee I have ever consumed. They also have farm animals (including a particularly hairy pig named Kevin Bacon) and a macaw. We put in our names for a table (the wait happened to be 1.5 hours, which was ok with us since there was so much to see) and headed over to see the largest chocolate Easter egg in Australia. At 2pm, Bugs Bunny came out and cracked it open with a sledge hammer and an axe and giant chunks of the enormous confection were distributed among the crowd. Yay Easter! After the chocolate massacre, we wandered around the market stalls a bit and purchased some local raw brush honey with macadamia nuts in it...yummo! When our pager finally went off, Pickle jumped and yelled at me as if we'd won the lottery and made a B-line for the hostess. We were pretty pumped to eat, and holy moly was it worth the wait! We had a deconstructed mocha that was not only novel and fun to prepare, but was definitely the most delicious coffee product I think I've ever had (admittedly, I don't think the 1/4 cup of melted chocolate hurt, but the espresso itself was really good too!). It came with a mug with melted chocolate in it, additional milk chocolate pieces, a shot of espresso, warm milk with foam, and cocoa powder. We split the fresh fig salad with gorgonzola, asparagus, crispy pancetta, frissee, honey crumble & apple balsamic vinegar, a sandwich of grass fed minute steak marinated in soft herbs and lemon, grilled & served with wild rocket, herb mascarpone cheese, marinated capsicum, onion jam in a crunchy house baked black olive ciabatta, and a mixed fruit tart and chocolate brownie for dessert. Unfortunately, the dessert was pretty sub-par, so we'll definitely just stick to the coffee-based goodies next time (we ordered affogatto, but they were out of their house made tiramisu ice cream), but the main dishes were deeeeeelish! I'm so glad we found this great spot. We'll definitely be back for more rustic food, local products, amazing coffee and laid-back atmosphere! Wishing everyone who celebrates a Happy Passover and Easter! -JLWell, I don't have any particular adventures to talk about today, but thought I'd share a quick update on what we've been up to. First of all, our household goods finally arrived! They were delayed for about a month because of the west coast labor disputes in the U.S. It's nice to have some things to make the apartment our own, although we've been just fine living out of our suitcases for months, so it's not that we really needed anything that showed up. I will say though, after being "just fine" sleeping on a sofa bed all this time, our king-size bed was the most welcome cushy, comfy, fluffy, cloud-like pillow of happiness I could ever imagine! Anyway, we don't have everything unpacked yet, but we've come a long way. We're trying to sell the 30-ton monster of a black leather sofa that we shipped halfway around the world on Gumtree (as this unwelcome obstacle is currently monopolizing our main room and kitchen area), but we've unpacked a lot and contained most of the extraneous stuff (i.e., clothes we're too lazy to unpack because we'd just as soon continue wearing the same pair of jeans, 7 tops and a hoodie for the next several months) in what has become our designated "storage" room. While unpacking my suitcases (admittedly, not one that just arrived but one that I'd brought with me over 3 months ago when I came to Sydney and had not completely unpacked yet...no joke about the clothes), I stumbled across a heartwarming surprise from my mom and dad. They'd signed this little book and stowed it away it in one of my shoes. They even included a photo on the last page of the first time I got on the bus to go off to school by myself... I'd say Pickle and I have done pretty well with such a big transition. There have been plenty of stresses (job searching in higher ed., the entire visa process, telling our families we'd be moving to the other side of the planet, selling both of our vehicles and a lot of our belongings, Pickle having to come over first and being apart for the holidays, leaving our dog Mika with my parents, saying goodbye to friends and family, apartment hunting, getting established here and navigating a new context and culture), and I think we've handled them like champs as a team, but I will say it hasn't always been easy. We'd been so busy having fun and exploring our new city that, while of course we missed our families, it was easy to keep preoccupied. Now that we've settled down a bit, we do get a little homesick from time to time. It's a tough decision to move so far away without a date of return, especially when you're as close to family as we are. You know there will be heartache, but you are fueled by excitement and the spirit of adventure. We both value the experiences we're having and are grateful for this amazing opportunity. We're both glad that we chose to embrace it. But we do love and miss our families dearly. ...And when your parents slip a little emotional time bomb into your luggage for you to stumble upon three months later on a rainy day, you inevitably tear up ;( Besides unpacking, arranging (and crying like a kid away at camp for the first time - thanks, mom 'n' dad) we've been using our weekend time to tackle some wedding stuff, making reservations, shopping, etc. My sister is getting married in about a month and a half, so we're super pumped for that (also it just occurred to me how soon this was coming up as I checked the calendar to verify this!) and our wedding is July 6 (which seemed like far enough away before I said that about my sis's wedding, and now I think I'd better wrap up this post and get to work!) Anyway, we have been making progress on the wedding planning. Shopping is
Hopefully we'll have re-homed our extra sofa soon, and I'll post a little tour of the new place when I get a chance for everyone back home. Right now, I think I'll go make a countdown to the weddings!! Much love,
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AuthorsJamison Lorraine Archives
November 2016
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