Well my first week is almost over. My days pass in reasonable isolation – I don’t have an office at this stage so I sit and read in my bed all day. I can’t get through the day without a nap though, I really am a grandma.

The other international students on the scholarship are really nice and we hang out, and I do have other friends in Brisbane, so I’m not really isolated. It was one of the girls' 21^st so we all went out for a Turkish banquet. It was probably the best food I’ve ever eaten. Check it out!!!

Aside from that amazing meal out, the food here is standard fare. It’s not as bad as I expected, but is definitely lacking in imagination. Everything is fried or battered, there’s a full cooked breakfasts every morning, and dessert every night – I’m doing a lot of running to try to burn it off!

Aside from that the campus continues to amaze me with how beautiful it is – it has all these lakes and the wildlife is like a zoo – turtles, eels, beautiful parrots, lizards, geckos, turkeys, cockatoos, ibises.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading; my favourite thing I’ve read so far is probably an article about changing the norms of prejudice. In experiments, just one person expressing anti-racist views dramatically reduced tolerance for racist acts among the other participants. Conversely, when the person expressed benign acceptance of racist acts, the other participants also recommended acceptance. I like this, because I’m making it a goal to actually speak out when I see or hear prejudice, and it’s encouraging to hear that this can actually make a difference. I was inspired/ disgusted after watching this video that Luke Sizer (who is extremely awesome) recommended me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqbQWxHIn4U

I’d like to think I’d be one of the people that would speak out, but I wasn’t so sure – now I’m making a conscious effort to.

I’ve also re-read Michael Cullen’s valedictory speech. He is so hilarious. Here are some of my favourite parts:

... In the 1980s the urgent and necessary process of modernisation and reform lurched off into ideological excesses underpinned by the belief that there was no gain without pain. That came to mean that pain must inevitably lead to gain and then to a kind of political sado-masochism in which pain almost seemed to become an end in itself.

It certainly caused me some small financial pain. The biggest speeding fine I ever got was driving back from Whakatane to Wellington in January 1990 when I heard on the news that Geoffrey Palmer was supposedly moving to reinstate Roger Douglas as Minister of Finance. I hit 134kmph before a firm but polite traffic cop restored me to my senses...

...But today I want to emphasise the many good things that I have been part of. Apart from the issues already mentioned, the end of the right to rape one's wife, the end of the attempt to prevent gay people being themselves, the end of corporal punishment in schools, the greater openness about domestic violence and mental health issues, the increasing diversity, richness, and tolerance of our society are all to be celebrated.

New Zealand is, in fact, far less of a nanny state than it was in 1981 in terms of both social and economic freedoms. It takes a peculiarly warped sense of values to equate using an obsolete, inefficient light bulb to the right to be who you are...

The full speech is available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxdCu3VlOfo

Hmmmmm, so that’s me at the moment. Busy finishing U.S. applications, chatting on skype, and getting ready to shop and explore Brisbane this weekend!