Backbencher

Hi all!

The last few days my inbox has been bombarded with grade requests. Here I will have to ask your patience, as I finish entering items into the gradebook. Those of you who have sent me a request...I WILL get back to you, but it will probably be midweek.

A reminder also, that I am keeping my regular office hours this week, if anyone has any questions.

thanks
Jim

In the book Botany Bay Mirages. It tell a story of what happened when people were sent to Botany Bay. They went though some hard times to get there. They would overload ships with these convicts and send them off the the Botany Bay. It was a way to get them out of the country and out of there minds. They showed the figures also of all of the different numbers of prisoners sent over at a givien time. This book showed a great deal on how and why things were started at Botany Bay. With a great amount of people that were flowing into the bay they had to come up with stratagies to keep them alive. They couldn't ship all of there food in, so they would let the convicts grow there food and maybe grow some extra for some income. In the beginning there were alot of people that had starved because of lack of the food. Then there was the small pox epidemic that killed a bunch of people. In this book it shows alot of good facts in the time that Botany Bay founded and how Austalians really came about. It was kinda werid how they would just send people to a foreign land for prison, but British people are kinda werid anyway. This was a easy reader for anyone who wants to know who the beginning residence of Australia are.

In the book the Australian Language there were alot of interesting facts and ideas the they had covered. In the beginning of the book they talked of the flora and fauna that was named strange names that were unique to this land. Such things as kangaroo, kookaburra, billabong, kurrajong, bunyip, wattle, bush Darling Pea, honey ant were some of the things that were named. The natives also had some things that stuck with the langauge also. They talked of the dictonary and how things that were not in it were not the right way to speek according to some people. In this book they also covered the beginning of Australian settlement and the convicts that were sent there. They talked of the landscape and all the the livestock and such things. They talked of the war and how it affected Australia. Back the the language aspect of things there was a few pages of this book that had a thing where it told what thier words meant, which I thought was pretty neat. They talked of some of the native languages also. This was a really interesting book. It pretty much takes everything we learned over the course of this class and sums it up. Its like Australian history in a nutshell. I thought it was a good book and would recomend it to any one who wants to know about how Australia is the way it is.

In the movie Strictly Ballroom, it show a whole different aspect of a way to look at Australia. I thought it was a strange movie and I probably would never watch it again. I was a story about this kid who comes from a family where ballroom dancing is thier main thing that they do. This kid never wins any competions in the beginning, because of a sort of crazy way of dancing. His parents are very disapointed in the ways he is doing things. They want him to dance like a normal ballroom dancer and win competion. They interview alot of different dancer to dance with the kid, but none are good enough. During the time of the interviewing the kid is dancing with some other girl that want to dance his style. When the parents find out about this other girl they are pissed off and tell the girl off. So she leaves and the kid chases her down. They end up at her parents place and she meets the dad and he is pissed off. It seems that there are alot of pissed off people in this movie. He then amplies the crazy way of dancing and goes from there.

I thought this movie was kind of werid. I guess I am not really into the seen of the ballroom dancing competion. Most of this movie was set in Sydney and I thought it showed that really well

Yesterday we had a quest lecture from the University of the Sunshine Coast. Joanne Scott started off talking about the Uni, which I have seen many pictures from recently with a lot of friends studying abroad there. From what I have seen the campus is a very open one, with a lot to do. Scott made a comment about the kangaroo’s that are on the campus, which reminded me of last year when I got an email from a friend telling me that he had to go the hospital because he was attacked by one of them, and I’m not even kidding. He is the one statistic they have about kangaroo attacks.

Other than the campus, Scott discussed the agriculture fair, the Expedition, and all that goes on during it and the progression it has made over time. There were the changes from the merry-go-rounds, to the different side shows, and the competitions throughout the fair. It was funny when she was talking about the old times when there was poop flinging contests of some sort, and how sadly enough they do not have that anymore.

The pictures that Scott in her slideshow made the fair look extremely fun and something that would be rather interesting to go to. It did remind me of the MN state fair, but I think this one would be more of an experience then just seeing bunnies in a cage.

Set in a fictional Australian town called Wirrawee, this book follows a group of six friends through an invasion of their hometown. Ellie, along with her friends Homer, Fiona, Corrie, Kevin, Lee and Robyn decide to go camping in the bush. While they’re gone, they see large numbers of planes flying at night, but think little of it at the time. When they arrive home, they find that their families are gone, there homes abandoned, and their pets and livestock are dead. They decide to break into groups to investigate what has happened and find that there has been an invasion and the locals are being held captive in the town’s show grounds. After a lot of ciaos, the group decides to split up, with half going back to their bush camping spot to hide and form a base camp and the other half going to the show grounds to do some more investigating and see what they’re up against. Along the way they find and pick up an old school mate, Chris, who’s been in hiding the whole time. The group figures they have the choice to stay in the bush an hide, surrender to be with their families, of stay and try to fight. They decide to fight and wage in guerrilla warfare by blowing up a bridge which formed the easiest way into Wirrawee. The book ends with Corrie getting shot and Kevin (her boyfriend) makes a sacrifice to bring her to the hospital (which is being run by the opposition).

This book is the first in a series of seven, so there is much more that happens in their fight for freedom. With this being a fictional book, it didn’t have any exact information that would relate to our studies of Australia and New Zealand, but it did indirectly. There was a lot of use of the Australian vocabulary and at times was a little bit hard to understand. It also paints a vivid picture of the bush and farmland/paddocks. After taking this class and seeing all of Prof. Isern’s pictures from his various travels, I found it much easier to form images in my mind. I would definitely recommend this book. It’s filled with action and a riveting story line.

In our final day of class we got to listen to a lecture by Dr. Joanne Scott from University of Sunshine Coast. Her lecture was titled "Charms, Splendors, and Wonders" and dealt primarily with the Brisbane Exhibition. First she showed us a couple of pictures from Queensland, which included a giant pineapple and one of their campus with kangaroos all over the place. We can relate with these somewhat as we have giant replicas of random things in the United States (my favorite being Tommy the Turtle in Bottineau, ND, which by the way if you have not seen you must, as a giant turtle riding a snowmobile is an experience that is quite unforgettable).
She then went on to explain more about the Brisbane Exhibition, covering why it matters, the first exhibition, tradition and continuity, and aboriginal courts in the 1910s. The first show was in 1876, and included many things that are still in the show today. Some of the categories are cattle, sheep, pigs, and dogs. One that is no longer in the show, which Dr. Scott was quite happy about, is the manure competition. Honestly it would still be a good category to be included to be more eco-friendly by finding ways that it could be useful. She showed us a series of photos that were from the very first show, which included a picture of the wooden foot bridge made by a local sawmiller that one first place. The tradition of the Brisbane Exhibition is very apparent, and helps to preserve the rural heritage of Australia. I found this whole lecture to be very interesting because once again it gave us the historical perspective of Australia from an actual Australian.

Another newspaper I looked through this morning was the Grisborne Herald out of New Zealand, and like the other newspapers i have read from the lands down under it was similar in stature to the US newspapers. One thing I did find interesting is an article on the Salvation Army as I did not realize that they had the Salvation Army down there. but probaly the most interesting article I found was one about some hooligans who vandalized a local golf course with their truck by driving it all across the fairways and greens causing a large amount of damage and the amount of money it will cost to fix it is still unknown. Also the vandals are still at large and police are on the look out for them. I guess this hits me pretty close because I am an avid golfer and just wonder why people would ruin a beautful golf course. I guess it goes to show that their are idiotic people everywhere you go. Another interesting thing from this online newspaper was that it had an automatic death and birth update system, that would let you know when some one was born or when they died almost as soon as the news was released, which is a little disconcerting because if you saw your relatives name pop up there all of a sudden what would you think. Overall this was another interesting read for New Zealand.

Matt Liese

"Breaker Morant" is an Australian film based in 1901 and was made in 1980. It is a war movie, the first movie based on war that I have seen during this class. It is about three soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant, Peter Handcock, and George Witton. The three soldiers are fighting in the South African Boer wars. After a while the three are accused of murdering a six Boer prisoners and sniping a few German missionaries. They begin to go through with the classic court Marshall Sequence. It is up to their defense Major Thomas to save the three men, the only problem is he has one day to ready the defense. Lord Kitchner, who is the governing body over these proceedings, wants to prove that he is willing to take away his own men so that they may resolve this conflict with peace. He claims that the murdering of the prisoner was an n act of revenge. Despite the courts support for a guilty verdict, they have a tough time proving their guilt and the three get off. Today people say things of this nature happened all the time for Australians in English wars. Therefore, there are always anti-British thoughts when it comes to the major world wars of the past. I enjoyed the movie because it was about war. When we think of Australia we do not think of fighting, but this movie does a great job showing the Australian involvement when it is necessary. The film is very well made and it went on to win 10 Australian film awards.

NZherald.co.nz April 29, 2008: As mentioned in previous posts, New Zealand keeps its residents up to date on the latest in scientific research! A revolutionary treatment involving a singular injection at the posterior end of the eye is a pioneering gene therapy trial administered by British scientists that has aided a blind man in once again acquiring his vision! This is very interesting to the scientific community for many reasons, however, it has also given hope to millions of individuals who suffered blindness due to eye diseases! According to the article, this research is being done at the University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospitals, with similar research being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. This has allow many individuals who had problems navigating in lowlight and dark environments, and after treatment for some has proved slightly to moderately effective! To those who only had slight improvement, they continue to speak its praises because what normal people (with perfect eye sight) may believe only to be a small difference, to that person, it was so much more!! This is a really great story! With the increasing numbers of individuals needing the aid of glasses and the trend of genetic degradation of eyesight through the generations, this could be one of the greatest discoveries that would affect Billions of individuals!