A Wee Update

This entry will be very short because I'm at Southborough's public library and there is of course a line for the computer (Americans love their lines), so there is the pressure to be brief.

By the grace of God I arrived safely at L'Abri, although I have suffered culture shock and I think my sense of homour is starving. It's quite difficult living in close proximity to strange, new people (Americans at that) but I'm getting used to it and enjoying the different way of relating to people. I will talk more about this later when I have time.

In other news I am discovering Os Guiness. More on this later too.

I'd appreciate your prayers - that I would seek to serve the other students, that I would learn much and have my mind sharpened, and that I would be patient with the Americans. ;)

I forgot to put flowers in my hair.

I fly to Boston early tomorrow morning, so I you probably won't get an update from me for a few days or perhaps a week.

Today cousins Stephen & Jared and I went to the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art (That was pretty much the only place we went to in San Fran because there was lots of walking to do and we were tired). A very good gallery. I was especially impressed with the technical abilities of one artist Jess, who creates drawing collages - a complex landscape composed of many separate drawings he has maticulously copied from magazines, photos and old style lithographs and etchings. In each peice of the collage he maintains the visual quality of the image he is copying - fuzzy or crosshatched. He doesn't draw what he thinks ought to be there, he draws what is there. The drawings form a believable composition, despite being drawn from different sources.

There was also an exhibition of three young male artists who examine the decline of masculinity in contemporary Western society. Their work was stylistically excellent, and the blurb the gallery had written regarding masculity was suprisingly insightful even if it is ultimately wrong. I might blog on this more later.

We went to Uber Borders and I bought Status Anxiety, which is very good so far. I also wanted to buy a book on Earth science, but I couldn't find anything that isn't a field guide, but also isn't written with a flourish like most popular science. It needs to be academic, but also accessable. I realised that I'd like to know more about geology when I observed some interesting patterns from a few kilometers above Tasmania's north coast. The coastline dips into a series of long beaches, each eroded at the same angle with large streaks of sand or rock running inland for many kilometers. Like a layer cake with bites across the diagonal.

What causes such a strange pattern at such a large scale? Yes, the sea, the air, the rain, the wind and the tectonic plates are all causes, but how? And why the regularity? In order for regularity to occur there must be deterministic laws and sub-laws at work, but what are they? And how do they interact? Are these patterns the result of elegancy on a molecular scale? These are questions I should very much like to have answered, preferably in a rich, well-argued, interesting academic style without too many peurile analogies and distracting stories about the author's recent trip to Alaska. Can anyone reccomend such a book?

I realise that the trolleys probably aren't too much bigger than ours in volume, it's just that they're wider and with a higher floor so that you don't have to stretch as far when putting food in your trolley. Stretching takes energy, and if you don't have to stretch as far then you have more energy left to put more food in your trolley.

Isn't that sad about Steve Irwin? His poor widow; I think they really loved each other in their own goofy way. Be careful with wild animals.

Anyway, I fly out tomorrow so your prayers will be much appreciated.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Don't panic when you first see an American toilet (saying "toilet" is almost as crude as talking about sex here). It's not actually flooded, despite the fact that its at high tide. Still, it's somewhat unnerving.

I said that I didn't have jet lag, but I think I was wrong. I'm still very tired (I woke up at 2am this morning) which makes communication even more difficult.

Today I went along to church. It was quite empty due to Labour Day Weekend. Hmm, some parts of the service made me cringe, and I wanted to say "yes, but no" at lots of points in the sermon.

I don't want to say too much about the church because perhaps some of my readers may misinterpret my criticisms as ungratefulness and an implicit rejection of my brothers and sisters. But not the case. All I'll say for now is that the focus of the church seemed to be a bit off, the emphasis a bit askew. Too much talk of "purpose" and "what you need for your life", rather than laying out the facts of the matter, that Jesus Christ is Lord and he demands repentence and obedience, irregardless of what our psychological longings may be.

There was also a bit of a plug for the Promise Keepers rally. They had snippets, and I was dissapointed that there seemed to be no speakers stirring up the men into spiritual leadership, to take their rightful Biblical role. A missed oppurtunity, with so many men in one place, ready to listen. Something to pray about.

I went to the local Safeway and made a few observations. Food is actually not that cheap, although this may have to do with the fact that serving sizes are frick'n huge. Even the trolleys are jumbo-sized. Half the "store" is junk food, with every possible permutation and combination of chocolate, biscuit, cream, nut, caramel and ice cream imaginable.

Apart from the home cooked food my kind (non-fat and non-loud) relatives have "fixed", the food generally tastes medicore, with the flavour of preservatives and sweetner dominating. I withold my judgment about whether this is a feature of America, since no doubt there are places that cook damn fine food. America is the land of extremes after all.

Oh, and everyone has great teeth here. I don't know how that is compatiable with excessive sugar consumption, but hey, this is a strange place.

Tommorow, God willing, we shall go into San Fransisco proper. I'm looking forward to this. Looks like we'll have a gay time.

And some pictures.

Big Mumma plane that made it across the pacific.


The console screen. I watched the "flight plan" for most of the flight. Nerdy, but interesting. Did you know that outside the plane midflight it was -50 degrees celsius?


This was taken just before I got told off because I was taking it in a no-go zone. Of course once I got told off there were hecklers.

Dad's cousin Jim's wife Kathy, Dad's cousin Bruce's wife Cindy, Jim's sons Stephen and Jared, Bruce. Jim not pictured. Taken at Old Town Sacremento (capitial of California), where we went today.


There was a big Pioneer renactment thing happening there, including this man with an impressive neck beard. Note he only wears a neck beard. He chin is otherwise clean shaven.


The renactment brought out all sorts of charcaters, including this unfortunate man with a cat growing out of his head.



This is a detail of Sacramento's capitol building.

As Obelix would say...

..."these Americans are crazy!"

Yes, I'm here. I don't really have jet lag; I think the trick is to pretend the brief period of darkness over the Pacific is a truncated night. Despite the darkness, I didn't sleep, except for about an hour of faux-sleep: (tiredness) + (closed eyes) + (thoughts of the impossible being normal). Instead, I played tetris on the individual anti-social consoles installed in the back of the seats.

I arrived in San Fransisco airport with very dry lips because no liquids, gels or anything like that are allowed on board for fear of waiving a terrorist's bomb-making ingredients. Oh well, whatever it takes for safety. I said that to an American today and they ignored me, starting to talk of something else. I think my Machiavellian statement so offended her 5th Ammendment sensibilities such that she wouldn't do the typical American thing - and say something.

[warning sweeping generalisations based on a regional case study ahead]

That's right, Americans always have something to say. This is both good and bad.

It's nice not to have to do all the work in a conversation. Although sometimes I'm left speechless because the American has just delivered a whole bunch of information, and I'm not sure which angle to take.

Also, everyone in America talks to strangers. If you like someone's dog, you don't think twice about saying something. So, you're unlikely to get lonely if random acts of conversation is what you're looking for for communitas.

The downside of this is that the there is no possibility of escaping public humiliation. Because strangers are garranteed to comment, they will say something if you slip up. Don't they realise that embarressment is embarressing enough without someone pointing out that you've just done something embarressing? How do people here handle this psychologically??

I know, this is what they do: They just say something back, loudly. The loudness escalates. Person A says something about person B, who overhears because A is speaking so loudly, and B retorts, loudly. Person C has something to say about all this and the only way to get heard is to say it loudly. So you get a loud nation.

That is a wierd word when you type it out lots. Loud loud loud. [tighter segue needed] Like how nothing here is done by halves (my domain here is quantity. In regards to quality, manyAmericans are quite happy to do it by halves. Like the kebab I had today. It was worse than any kebab I've eaten in Australia. Processed meat, tasteless sauce and bread - I ate two bites and abandoned it). So many things are supersized: cop cars (actually, they're pretty cool - black and white), SUVs (SUV limos at weddings are normal), portion sizes, roads (but they're bad quality) and people.

There really does seem to be more fat people here. Or maybe its because fat Australians hide away in shame. There seems to be a whole fat pride thing going on - they waddle around with supersized ice cream cookies in fat little hands wearing their beige polo shirts and pleated shorts. Fatness is also non-discrinatory - I've seen fat rich young white men, fat hispanic women, fat old black couples. Fat fat fat.

They're fat due to a cultrally induced eating disorder. Food and the advertisment of it is part of the landscape. Friday night's baseball game was not so much about "Borl", but more about food (and being loud). The baseball stadium is basically a food court that happens to have a pitch in the centre.

But the baseball game was good fun to watch. Very fast paced (especially when you're used to cricket ;)). The team my cousins "root" for (he he he) won. The game was followed by supersized fireworks. Seriously, they were the best fireworks I've ever seen. See, when you do things to the max, you're going to get some things right, like fireworks.

But post-game was truely bizzare. When I lived in Melbourne last year, footy supporters would occasionally be on the same train as I. Before or after the game the fans would be going crazy if their team had won - singing, shouting, talking to strangers. Compared to Americans, Australians are somewhat subdued and quiet. So it would seem to follow that the post game leaving the stadium celebrations would be positively racous in America. Not so. In fact, someone did yell out in support of the Oakland Athletics and was told to shut the f__ up (by a stranger of course). And the hometeam won!

The only possible explanations I can think of are: 1) this is a one-off bizzare occurence or 2) Americans compartmentalize their enthusaism. Perhaps 2) is reasonable, because they're somewhat more conservative than Australians.

Anyhoo, I'm rambling. Next post I shall put up some photos, so if you didn't read my analysis of America so far, you can at least get something out of my blog. :)