Alright. I guess I will write something about the crazy week I’ve had. Last Sunday, I boarded a flight to Australia. I have now been here for about 5 days. There are so many things here that are different. For one, food and booze are way more expensive here than back home. Also, the sidewalks actually matter here… no shortcuts around them because the grass is always soggy. I walked across a football field at the park today and by the time I got to the mall, it looked like I just walked through a wet vegetable garden. My feet were covered in mud. Another thing is the humidity– great for the skin, great for the sinuses, but not so great for an ASUS computer touchpad. Needless to say, I had to buy a mouse for my computer the other day. There are these ferns here that just grow on the trees like weeds:
Pretty cool to see things just growing like that. I apologize for the poor photo quality– my camera battery doesn’t hold up for too long and I can’t use my phone here so I’m stuck with an iPod touch.
They don’t have ketchup here and what they call hot dogs here actually taste like sausage… much better than our trashy hot dogs. But another thing is that even though I have a slight advantage for the currency conversion, the food costs almost twice as much as back home. I think I’m losing weight like an actual starving artist. To add to it, I don’t have a car here (which is really inconvenient) so I walk just about everywhere unless I can figure out the bus system. The campus is half an hour walk from downtown Lismore, so shopping and having to walk that far isn’t an easy task. A taxi costs $18 one way to get to or from campus. I definitely can’t afford that.
Aside from the cost of living and a few bumps along the way, it’s pretty cool to be here. The walk to town cuts through an original rain forest remnant that the town left untouched. The birds are bright and colorful and the humidity allows all sorts of things to just grow like weeds. The koalas are cute from a distance, the trees smell fabulous, and I get to see at least one cool fungus while I’m walking to and from ordinary places every day:
This is a member of the stinkhorn family, and trust me, I can definitely smell them when I pass by… yuck. But they look really cool 🙂
So far, I haven’t had a chance to set up studio. I’m waiting until I can get back in the art building and talk to my new professor. She told me that there is a space saved for me already, but I don’t know where it’s at yet. Also, since I didn’t think to pack my respirator, I had to order one online and it hasn’t been confirmed as to whether it’s coming here yet or not. I also have to get a guitar here… there’s no Netflix and the studio is only open for limited hours and I need special permission to go there on weekends, so I’m gonna need something to keep be busy at home. If I like the guitar enough, I might try to ship it by boat with the rest of my pots to go back home.
Cheers!
Kira Call Ceramics 