It's a Cliché for a Reason

So many song lyrics and thrown about quotes remind us to make the most of life since its time is very limited, and seize the day or as the movie Dead Poets Society frequently repeats its Latin translation "Carpe Diem".  These phrases are used so often most of us hear them and maybe reflect on them for a second or two and just let them go right through our ears, not really giving them a chance to get what they are trying to convey to us.  This is of course understandable since it goes against human nature to have the idea of our own deaths salient in our consciousness constantly.  Many times it takes a tragedy to cause people to sit down and really reflect on their own usage of time here and this is very unfortunate.  A tragedy such as the one that occurred at my home university today.  The death of Declan Sullivan was an unnecessary event that could have easily been prevented if the university used common sense, however, as with everything, it is in the past and cannot be changed, only lamented.

Even though I never knew him, I am dedicating this blog post to Declan, a young man whose soul is now in the hands of the Lord and the thousands of prayers that will be said from Domers across the world.  That being said the current mortality rate of the world is calculated to be .883, meaning 1 out of every 113 people died last year (>150,000 per day).  Without trying to sound insensitive, death is a part of life and will happen to everyone at some point.  Our university is making this a huge deal, mostly due to the fact that Declan died while working for them, but (with no disrespect meant for the life of Declan) people die everyday.  Especially people that we don't know.  A large amount of facebook statuses we posted saying that they were praying for him and his family, but many of these people have no idea who he was, their only connection to him was being part of the Notre Dame family.  I am not saying this is a bad thing only that all his death did was remind those with no other connection to him about the salience of life in general.  The tragedy of death lies all within the timing.  Since it is an event all of us will undertake at some point, and when we are reminded of it through events such as this we are confronted with thoughts of how much more that person could have experienced in their lives before it was cut short of all its potential.  After lamenting that person's loss, our thoughts naturally lead to our own lives (not out of selfishness, just the salience of death) and all of the things we want to accomplish and the unknown things that we will accomplish with the rest of our time.  But, with Declan as an example, this time can be untimely cut short, which leads to the overused but often under-appreciated cliché phrases that remind us to make the most out of the time we are given because we never know how much we have. I urge you readers to take this message to heart, at least for the day, and do something special that makes this day different than the rest.

A(nother) Weekend in Southwest Australia

After finishing up classes on Thursday, I was forced to skip my lone friday lecture by the University of Notre Dame in order to go down south to Margaret River for the weekend. It was a travesty indeed.  Instead of staying around Perth for the weekend, waking up early to watch us beat a very mediocre Western Michigan team, and doing homework, I instead got to go surfing, wine tasting, and bouldering (the act of climbing on rocks in a non-intense fashion that would otherwise be called rock climbing).  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Lets go back to last weekend.  I have had a fairly busy week and lament the fact that I have almost gone two weeks without a post.

Right-left: Andrew, Me, Kelly, Kevin, Bee, Mary Kate, Karina, Alan

Anyway. The previous weekend our college had its annual ball. It was just an excuse to get dressed up nicely on a Saturday evening, eat some good food, and dance.  Oh and experience the first open bar event that we were legally allowed to partake in with all my friends down here.  Technically it wasn't an open bar seeing as they only came around with beer, red wine, and white wine (my choice for the night) but it was unlimited refills and some people took advantage of that more than others.  Needless to say that our dorm providing free-flowing alcohol was an experience that I would never get at Notre Dame.  The food was delicious and a welcome break from the over-cooked meat that we get at Tommy on a very regular basis.  The table I was at was filled with Notre Dame people and a super fun group to share the long meal with.  After that it was a short-lived night of dancing with my girlfriend Kelly due to poor speaker quality. But overall an extremely fun night.

Nothing earth shattering went on during last week which was part of the reason I didn't update this sooner since I really only had the ball to talk about.  Just doing normal school work for four days and then headed down to Margaret River on Friday. I am really getting used to this three day weekend that I have effectively had all semester with only one lecture on fridays in the morning.  It is going to be rough going back to ND where almost every minute of my days I will have to be doing something and can't take as much free time for myself like I am able to down here.

On to Margaret River.  We left Tommy at 7:30 am on Friday and drove down to some mine about and hour south of Perth after picking up Jane, one of our leaders, at her house in Cottesloe.  Friday was incredibly boring and felt like a waste of an entire morning and afternoon.  We basically drove around the Alcoa mine for the entire morning in our bus, since it was an aluminum mine and just harvested it from a couple meters into the earth (not down super far underground like the Super Pit). After having lunch late at around two in the town of Harvey we drove the rest of the afternoon down to the Surfpoint Lodge that we were staying at.  We first visited the town planning committee and listen to them talk for a while.  After that we got sized up for wet suits at a surf shop down the road and then came back for a delicious meal of sausages, kangaroo steaks, and salad.  We barbecued ourselves as a group and I was the one in charge of the kangaroo on the barbie.  It was awesome. After a talk with Martin and Jane it was off for a night walk along the beach and then to bed.

The closest pic I have of
me actually surfing

The next morning we got up bright and early to eat breakfast and catch the world-famous waves of Margaret River.  We met up with our surf instructors at a beach and were divided into two groups. I was in the second group so while the first were out learning how to surf we walked around and out to some rock formation.  I just couldn't wait and was so excited all morning just to get out and experience one of the things Australia is most famous for.  We got taught how to stand up before heading out. It was an awesome experience. I got up multiple times, as well as eating it multiple times as well, and actually had a pretty good runs that I was proud of for my first time.  To be fair we didn't have super-gigantic waves that were on either side of the area we were in but they still got decently sized.  After a spot of lunch we headed over to Wardan Aboriginal Cultural Centre for a talk with an elder and a walk through the bush.  For dinner that night we headed into the town of Margaret River and ate at the Spaghetti Bowl.  The night concluded with listening to a live instrumental band at Settler's Tavern which was a blend of didgeridoo, drums, saxophone, and flute among others I am probably missing.

Sunday morning a group of us went to mass in Margaret River in the morning after catching part of the Wisconsin-OSU game and having a chat with Martin and Jane. Technically these trips constitute a one-credit class so we have to have some scholarly discussion.  After mass we drove to Leeuwin Estates, one of the best vinyards in all of Margaret River (an area of Australia that is known worldwide for two things: wine and surfing).  We got a tour of the wine making process which finished up with wine tasting. This wine was better than the wine I had had on spring break.  I really am not a fan of red wine at all, but these expensive white wines are growing on me.  After that we headed up to Canal Rocks, a place I have previously visited on my spring break trip, but it is still a beautiful place to spend a while.  Alan, Mary Kate, Kevin Bell, Spencer, Kelly, and I swam over to part of the rocks that were only accessible by water and continued our bouldering there.

A weekend experiencing some of the finest aspects of Australian culture. It doesn't get much better than that.  This trip is just making me more excited to get to traveling afterwards. Two more weeks of lectures. I am planning on getting all my papers, lab reports and presentations done with this week and then start studying for exams next week.  Finish up this year strong then head out and see more parts of Australia and then the part I am most excited for: The Kepler Track and Milford Sound among other things in New Zealand.

Looking Ahead

Our final exam schedules finally came out the Thursday in the week before spring break.  The University certainly took its time about this and it hurt us a bit in trying to plan travels after the semester especially since almost everybody I wanted to travel with was gone during spring break.  But we talked friday night before break and got a rough idea, I worked on plans throughout the break, and yesterday we finally were able to go down to the Quantas agent in Perth and extend our ticket home.  Notre Dame has a deal with Quantas that allows us to add stopovers in cities on the way back to LAX for a reduced price.  After a very long morning at the Quantas builing we eventually got all of our flights booked for the way back to the states.  My plans are to fly out to Cairns first and stay there a couple of days, then hit up Sydney for a handful more, and the fly into Christchurch, New Zealand and travel all around the south and north island for 10 days.  This is the part of my study abroad experience that I have been looking forward to the whole semester.  I cannot wait to hike and drive all around New Zealand seeing the one country that I have wanted to visit forever.

Classes are going pretty well at this point.  I have most of my assessment work done until finals except for one lab report and one paper.  But other than that I just have three and a half more weeks of lecture and then I am done with classes.  This weekend our Dorm is having a ball on Saturday, next weekend we have our last Notre Dame sponsored trip down to Margaret River (same area that I had gone for spring break) for the weekend (+ friday), and after that I really don't know what but I only have two free weekends left. 

I cannot really tell you where the semester has gone because it seems to be flying by and before I know it, it will be Dec 9 and I will have to come back to the states.  The best parts of my experience down here are coming up though and I will  try to enjoy every moment up until then of my time down here instead of only looking forward to these after-school travels.  Time to head off to psych (this class is terribly boring however and I would rather be managing my three combined 10-2 fantasy football teams or continuing this blog)