Thursday 2 March 2006

My Day! Starring Cat! + Many Foods!

6.03am: Arise from my jasmine-strewn fairy couch, rub eyes, dimly recollect awful dream about contracting Legionnaire's disease.

6.10am: Take shower under strict feline supervision. Well somebody has to make absolutely certain all the water goes down the plug hole.



6.28am: Brekky. I can only manage 1/3 of a cup of coffee at this hour of the day. At least the sun's up now.
After breakfast I unpack my packed-up laptop and briefly connect to the internet in order to download three or four more pictures to be patched into a slideshow for later on. Oh all right and to quickly log into bloglines & see what happened in the Northern Hemisphere while I was snoring.



7am: Get in the taxi I booked the night before.

7.14am: Western Ring Road, gateway to all the excitement and cosmopolitanism of the world's most liveable city.



7.25am: Tullamarine. The morning light always looks extra full of promise and hopefulness in the vicinity of airports.



7.40am: Gate 25.



I am early anyway because I try to get here before the morning rush on the roads; but a voice on the tannoy says I'm going to have to wait an extra twenty minutes because "the engineers aren't quite sure just yet exactly what the problem is." So I get out my laptop. Am unable to resist the pop-up invitation to connect to the airport wireless network, so pay $5 for the privilege of fifteen minutes email-checking and teeth-grindingly slow blogsurfing. Next time I'll Just Say No, and look out the windows at the pretty, elusive-problem-ridden airplanes instead.


8.35am: Plane takes off twenty minutes late. Never mind. I look out the window at the earth and the sky.



8.50am: Qantas person brings me my second breakfast. It is like a sugar-embalmed version of breakfast #1, but I don't immediately notice this as I'm trying to explain that I don't require extensive plastic cutlery or a table mat or a napkin in order to eat a muesli bar.



But after protracted negotiations it seems that I won't be given coffee unless I put the napkin-thing on my little table. So I leave it there but don't touch it. All the same when they come back later to clear up the untouched napkin contraption goes into the rubbish.

Is it actually possible to travel on this airline without getting drawn into some kind of silent but deadly tactical battle with the cabin staff. Note absence of question mark at end of previous sentence.

9.35am: Welcome to Mildura, hurray!



I get in another taxi.

9.55am: Arrive at the Grove of Academe, hurray!



I try to avoid making identifiable photographs of people who are minding their own business, so many of these pictures are underpopulated - but this is really how the Mildura campus of my university looks much of the time when I'm around. It's too hot outside to stand about, I guess is part of the reason.


10.10am: I have coffee with the charming campus Librarian and a quick look at some of the library's local history resources, which are modest but not catastrophically limited. Phew.

11am: Meet my first year tutorial group. There are thirty-four people in this class. I knew that before but I hadn't pictured quite how many people that actually is. In midst of minor freakout I completely forget all previously formed resolutions about doing lots of small group & pyramid activities and doing them from the very beginning. Consequently I very soon find myself actually standing at the front of the room writing on the board. Not cool! Very, very far from cool. Must have more backbone next time.

(Now seems like a good moment to say that any student who is kind enough to wonder about my life outside our classes, & who ends up googling their way to this blog, is very welcome here, and I hope you will come back & visit again whenever you feel like it.)

1pm: All-important midday meal was partaken of in the salubrious surroundings of the Sunraysia Institute of TAFE's cafeteria which styles itself "Cafe Delice". I had too many handouts and things to carry this time, but normally I would bring lunch from home, since there's nowhere within walking distance that sells food but this place, and the offerings seem mainly designed to appeal to the palates of teenage apprentices like the ones in the corner of this picture. Doesn't matter how early in the day you go in they will be there in their overalls eating deep fried yellow material and drinking Big Ms.



I think you want to see a closeup of my own very special lunch.



Out of consideration for the tender feelings of the afternoon class I fished the onion chunks out of my salad.

1.45pm: sure is hot outside. Palm trees look good but they don't give too much shade.



2pm: Do my best to teach about The Bush to a dozen 2nd & 3rd year people who live either in, or near, it. I can't lose the irony of this. One thing we agree on: what qualifies as bush has everything to do with where you're standing. I think they see it as a more derogatory description than I do. This was the fun part of my day and I felt kind of deflated when they all went off to their next class.



Empty seminar room, you tear at my heart! A bit.

4pm: I'm a bit sick of airconditioning and being socially ept so I go sit under a tree outside and read Tracks by Robyn Davidson.



4.45pm: Another cab back to the airport. It is driven by the Mildura taxi driver who knows everything there is to know about grapes and the cultivation, growing, harvesting, and selling of grapes. I, too, am rapidly increasing the store of my knowledge about these noble fruits.

4.57pm: Another delayed plane so I wait at the airport for a long time.



5.40pm: Plane finally leaves. There are only six passengers.





I love those round things, but what the hell are they? It is a dumb citified question which I am too afraid to ask of any person who might know the answer.

6.50pm: Plane lands, kinda bumpily, at Tullamarine.


7.03pm: Back here again. Sigh. By now I am rather a wilted little blossom.



Fortunately taxi driver #4 is comfortable with silence.


7.49pm: Cat acts pleased to see me.




8.20pm: Veggie pizza at snobby pizza place. Snobby for Lower Plenty anyhow.



9.40pm: The ad always used to claim that it's hard to have a Gaytime on your own. What drugs were they on? It's not something I've ever had the slightest bit of difficulty with.



There is nothing left to do so now I'm going to sleep.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmm, pretty clouds. I'm pretty sure the round thingies are fields irrigated by a sprinkler going round and round on the spot, but then I also suffer from acute cityitis, so take with a grain of... well, I don't recommend salt.

Phantom Scribbler said...

I'm very tempted to take my (still unread) copy of Tracks outside to read under a tree, just to feel like I am somehow taking part in some pale shadow of your day. But it's supposed to snow this afternoon. So I won't.

lucy tartan said...

Clancy, the plane flies relatively low so it's one of the more visually interesting journeys across south-eastern Australia.

I think that's what they are too Kent. They must be frigging ginormous sprinklers though. I'm also intrigued by the fact that this method of cultivation leaves gaps between the paddocks, cos they don't fully tesselate.

Phantom: I noticed you had a copy of Tracks! I hope you do read it sometime, I know you'd love it. For what it's worth it wasn't that nice under the tree because big ants kept crawling up inside the legs of my pants.

Fluffy said...

I loved this post! So nice to just have a peek into someone else's day, and think "hmmm I really like her shoes", or "I love those circley fields you see from the plane too".

More please.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Let me get this straight: you worked a twelve-hour day including two trips in a small plane in order to teach 'tutorials' with 34 people in them.

(Actually, this doesn't sound too unlike my own academic past, except for the plane trips.)

Next time you hear somebody (probably some right-wing business type) sneering about how academics are latte sippers with cushy jobs who never do any work, feel free to give them an extra smack in the eye from me.

elaine said...

I did too, fluff. And I also thought nice shoes.

I love your description of the cafeteria.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, well at least we get flown up for a week, rather than a day, to teach.

Cats are obsessed with water and plugholes, aren't they? Mine have been known to poo neatly over the plughole if the litter tray's empty.

David Nichols said...

I thought my weekly drive to Warrnambool as the sole Australian Studies presence there 2002-3 was something. But a day (a week?) in Mildura is something else. I have only spent a very small amount of time in Mildura, I'd really like to see more of it. Actually I have it on good authority they're going to restore the train to Mildura. I suspect this won't suit your timetable however.

ThirdCat said...

last time i flew over that area, i was really struck by the salt residues you can see everywhere. another sign of the river's decay (and the land around it)

there's a marvellous painting in the art gallery here of the murray way back when. all the trees are still alive

gaytimes are one of those things for me...i lust after them, but then the soggy nuts always disappoint

will you be doing that trip every week?

Anonymous said...

As you suspected, those round things are from large irrigation systems that work like a protractor or a compass -- a long tubal arm with wheels and waterjets trundles around a central point, distributing water evenly in a circular pattern. Indeed, a giant sprinkler. The are quite tall too to make sure the crops aren't damaged.

Yours sincerely,
An ex-farm girl

Zoe said...

I love this post. Even with dial-up.

Kirsty said...

Did you read Stephen Muecke's post to the Cultural Studies list about being stared at by your cat while naked?

lucy tartan said...

Galaxy, I did! The CSAA digest came into my inbox just a few minutes ago. The Derrida essay he's quoting from sounds like something i want to read. Here's the bit quoted on the list:

"The animal I am after all

I often ask myself who I am, just to see, myself — and who I am at the
moment when I am caught naked, in silence, by the gaze of an animal,
for example by the eyes of a cat, and I have difficulties, real
difficulties in overcoming my embarrassment. Why this difficulty? I
have difficulty repressing a movement to cover up. Difficulty in
keeping quiet a desire I have to protest against indecency. And against
the discomfort you can feel in finding yourself naked, the genitals
exposed, stark naked in front of a cat which looks at you without
moving, just to see.

L’animal que donc je suis, éd Marie-Louise Mallet, Paris: Galilée, 2006"

A cat may look at a king eh?? I wonder what Derrida would have written if his cat had known how to open the bathroom door while he was sitting on the toilet.

Elsewhere's comment also reminds me of my friend's cat who was caught short and crapped on the shower drain then dragged the bathmat over it.

I'm relieved that two of the coolest bloggers in Melbourne approve of my shoes. They're from Target & I have been uncertain about whether they're too slipper-like to wear out in public.

David, driving to Warrnambool to teach is a very tall order - more so than flying to Mildura I think. Travelling time is about the same but driving requires concentration. And I'd worry about being late in the morning then procrastinate about setting off home again. I don't get to see anything at all of Mildura, which really bugs me. One day this term I hope I can stay overnight & do a bit of sightseeing. I'm going up eight more times over the next three months.

Pavlov, yes to all of that. The big group handed in a bunch of first assignments yesterday too.

Scrivener said...

I love staring out the windows of airplanes.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to add that my dog also supervises my showering in the same way. I used to think she was doing an in-depth study of the coriolis effect but I think she might just be a tad obsessed with moving water in general.

cfsmtb said...

Here's the breaking news from our part of the world.

lucy tartan said...

Jaz probably is just fascinated with moving water, because as everyone here has known from the cradle upward, the coriolis effect has no application to very small systems. The direction water spins as it goes down the drain is determined by other conditions like the angle of the pipe and currents in the water.

This is the only thing I learnt in year 10 Science - that and Copper Sulphate.

lucy tartan said...

so unfortunately the southern / northern hemisphere thing is a Big Fat Lie.

hc said...

I enjoyed your day. I have resisted the urge by LTU to visit Mildura to teach but your visual tale has changed my mind. I'll aim to be as cheerful and laid-back as you seem to be but probably won't succeed.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

I am neither cool nor Melbourne but would nonetheless like (as I meant to do right from the get-go and then forgot) to add my voice to the chorus of approval of your shoes. I have always loved this sort of shoe, and also have a passion for diagonal instep straps of any kind. These look like ballet slippers -- but not too much, just enough.

I am trying to imagine Stephen Muecke naked and being stared at by his cat, but I can't manage it.

Ben.H said...

La Trobe has a Mildura campus? Somewhere in Melbourne University (I think in the cloisters) there's a brass plaque that says "We used to have a Mildura campus in the 1930s, but it didn't work out."

pdamfix!

lucy tartan said...

Thanks Harry. It makes a nice change and the students like seeing different people.

Pavlov, picturing Jacques Derrida being stared at by a cat is a slightly more inviting prospect perhaps.

hpily?

Ampersand Duck said...

Great day. A lot of travelling! Surely they could afford to have an on-site staff member for the amount they are paying for your travel?

I only eat Gaytimes on my own because I think people will mock me for it. Not nuts, but biscuity goodness, so if you bite into it expecting nuts, thirdcat, you will ALWAYS be disappointed.

Baz has an intensity that only be experienced at close range, by the looks of it...

Jellyfish said...

I always seem to end up commenting about 100 years after everyone else. I need a much faster draw.

I was just thinking - and please don't take this the wrong way - how this was kind of the first time I thought of you as a (university) 'tutor/lecturer.' It hit me rather abruptly - if I'd attended a different uni I might have been in one of your classes as a student. Furthermore, there's a good chance you may teach some of my friends (including some bloggers).

This should probably have occurred to me earlier, but as previously stated I am a little slow sometimes, and thus it crept up on me as I read your post. It was sort of like a reversal of the first time you see one of your school teachers in the supermarket and think, Wow, Mrs Harvey buys toilet cleaner just like other earth people.

lucy tartan said...

Duckie, I'm not privy to the ins and outs of why there's no resident tutor up there, but I'm lucky to have been given the job - you might remember how damn pleased I was to get it. I suspect the flying isn't as expensive as we might imagine because it's all booked months and months in advance.

It's not a situation that would have been remotely workable before the internet really came into its own a few years ago.

Jellyfish, I don't take any offence at all at your comment. It's hardly surprising since I haven't really written much here about that side of my existence, people don't blog much about their work I guess...the other factor is that at 33 I am still an apprentice at this profession, heh.

Last week I was sitting in on some lectures at the Melbourne campus and looking round the room speculating how many of the new students there probably kept blogs. Of the six staff members in attendance, three are bloggers (three that I know about...) Pretty soon it'll just be another thing people do.

Ampersand Duck said...

Yeah, you're probably right. And I bet the unis get bulk discount on fares too. I think the students are lucky you got the job.

David Nichols said...

By the way, when I wrote 'a day (a week?)' I didn't mean that I thought you were there for a week, I meant 'one day per week?' I like to blame English for these kinds of messups, but it's really just my poor command of it. Though English is a cruel mistress.

The Warrnambool drive was amazing - after a few goes I had it down to a fine art, I'd get there with minutes to spare. I recall one day arriving with five minutes to print my lecture out and finding another staff member using 'my' computer (actually his but he wasn't meant to be there) though the only usage he was making of it was to eat a salad roll over the keyboard. So I was a couple of minutes late for the lecture - still I made it. I suppose these are the little angsty hassles that take years off one's life. This semester I have a nine o'clock tutorial at Geelong, which isn't going to be an easy thing, even though I, like you, live close to the horrible, but handy, Western Ring Road. In fact I can see it out my front window. Anyway, this is more than I've posted on MY blog in the last week, so I'll end.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

* I take a gazillion photos out of plane windows when I get the opportunity. bless digital cameras for their clarity! everything turns out the way it looks...

* Gaytimes: even though it's bisuity goodness, it should still be crisper! also, the quality of the ice-cream doesn't sate my lust anymore. sigh. luckily Splices still seem to be about the same. although only in one flavour now. Gaytimes used to have a second flavour too.

* my little dog loves to wait outside the shower on the bathmat. then she tries to lick my legs as I towel off. is it pack grooming mentality? or does she prefer the taste of water from a leg more than a bowl? both my dogs used to stand at the toilet door to be let in, or force it open if that was possible. at the moment there's a cruddy old concertina door on the bathroom and you see a little nose poking through, waiting for an invitation. who can resist?

Val said...

I have been uncertain about whether they're too slipper-like to wear out in public.

Nothing can be too slipper-like, except for maybe those furry ones, and these days the demarcation lines between slippers and "real" shoes are delightfully blurred. I keep a pair of those tapestry-type slippers in the office and have been known to venture out into the library's general collection wearing them. Sh-h-h-h!

BTW, I too was fascinated by those fields plowed in a circle. Please find out about them, and then tell us.

lucy tartan said...

Hi Val! Thanks for the footwear affirmation. Kate filled us in on the circular paddocks, somewhere up above. It's an irrigation thing, she says.

Thank you very much for the gratuitous old gossip, susoz, it's the best thing I've read today. She seems exactly the type to feature in an anecdote like that.

The Student said...

Blogging about uni hey?

*scratches chin*

...interesting concept.

Anonymous said...

Hey, why didn't you photograph (or post photographs of) Mildura airport's two bizarro features: the viridescent astroturf grassy knoll (for watching planes, I think!) and the outdoor luggage pickup? :)

Chris

Anonymous said...

"Restaurant Delice" is the name of a training restaurant that operates many Wednesdays in a room next to the canteen, but isn't the canteen itself. It's food is much more upmarket.

There is another lunch selling shop within walking distance, but it's a truckstop, and offers a similar range of foods as the canteen.

Sunraysia TAFE's Mildura campus also has a cafe run by Work Education students.

lucy tartan said...

Thank you, Anonymous. I haven't taught at the Mildura campus for two years. Then as now I do not eat meat and thus don't regard what is sold in the servo over the road as "food". Point taken about the distinction between cafe delice and the canteen, although you must agree that to an uninformed observer it's hard to know that the canteen is not called cafe delice, especially on those days when the cafe isn't operating. It was never open on the days I was there.