Backbencher

After reading some of the blog comments I found that I was unable to comment on any of them. That can be expected with the first lecture in any course because, as we all know, the first lecture of a course always starts kicking over some stones, if you will, on new ideas. Which is good because according to that little quiz we took I know next to nothing. This first lecture was quite an eye-opener for me because I know absolutely nothing about either country. After listening to some of the lecture I started to draw some parallels between their history and our history. In our history we have Native Americans, and in their history they have Aborigines and Maori. Australia and New Zealand had trading regiments with European nations, and in our history we are a former European nation. Australia and New Zealand were discovered by naval explorations probably unintended, and if I do recall Columbus set sail in 1492 and discovered America. Ok, islands off the coast of America, but for the sake of argument I am going to go with that. In my notes I have noted that the Aboriginal peoples had to make subsequent adaptations to arid and poor lands, and when American settlers started to explore and settle the frontier they too had to deal with an arid landscape. As lecture would have the Maori and Aboriginal peoples had views on warfare and geopolitical policy, and if I do recall a couple of years ago America bombed Iraq with some help from Australia. I believe today in class someone brought up the fact that there were hundreds of Aboriginal dialects, and in this country there is also a variety of spoken languages. In looking back through the notes it appears that Australia and New Zealand are to some extent America's little brother walking in big brother's footsteps. That is an awfully big shadow to be walking in, but I could tell you where I would rather be right now.