συσπουδασωμεν τα ανωτατα

I know, two posts in less than twelve hours, what is the world coming to, right? But I was reading back through some of my older posts and I realised I've been promising this Greek life post for a while, so here it is.

Greek life -- fraternities and sororities -- are something Australians just don't seem to understand at all. I suppose from an outside perspective they are a bit odd; before going to uni I didn't know much about them aside from what I'd seen in movies and media and such either, and Aussies draw a lot of their knowledge of American life from films. The question I always get asked is "Is it like it is in the movies?!"

No. No, it's really not, but I've started to realise that even I can't really explain it. I thought I would be able to -- and sure, I can spout facts about NPC and IFC and NPHC and social vs. service fraternities and sororities, and all sorts of numbers and examples -- but it's much, much harder to explain than I thought, largely because Greek life is a very American thing. I think I read an article a while back about a historically Jewish fraternity becoming the first fraternity to establish a chapter in Israel, which is fantastic for them, but for the most part, sororities and fraternities are limited to the US. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few which had colonised Canadian universities since they are so close, but that's about it.

But despite their not understanding it, as soon as an Australian spots my letters on my necklace, they always ask "is that your sorority?" and then proceed to grill me about Greek life. It's this never-ending source of fascination for them. It's something so foreign to them, and I suppose the portrayal of Greek life in films hasn't really done anything to make it more accessible, or to make it seem real. They're always shocked to find out that we spend heaps of time doing philanthropy and running events. Some Aussies get it more than others, but the one thing that gives them the most trouble is the concept of the bond, and the sisterhood that exists within a sorority (or the brotherhood that exists within a fraternity, for that matter).

Of course the Aussies understand the concept of sisterhood, but they don't understand choosing your sisters, especially when it's impossible to meet a chapter of a hundred women over the course of recruitment. "What if you make the wrong choice?" they ask, or "how can you just decide to be sisters with someone? That's not how it works". Several people I've talked to are most sceptical about the part where, despite the mutual selection process, you suddenly are basically bound to love and be supportive of large numbers of women whose names you barely even know yet. And they're right, it does sound rather daunting when put that way -- and the only response I really have is, "you have to be there. It's not really that terrifying." It's really the bonding element; spending time together, learning ritual and traditions before initiation, doing projects and getting to know one another. But they think it's backwards. Why would you choose sisters before you got to know them?

And then the dues. Never have I seen more shocked faces when they ask me if it costs money and I quote them numbers for dues at Denison. I would imagine they can be (and are!) much higher elsewhere. Even AXΩ's relatively low dues draw looks of horror! It's almost funny, because it's something I basically take for granted and don't really bat an eye at, but I do remember being a PNM (prospective new member) and thinking "oh shit, those dues are ridiculous".

Aussies just don't really get it, and that's okay. It's not a societal norm for them, and that's totally fine. It's just interesting to see these women who would make incredible sisters, who I imagine would even want to go through recruitment if they were American and went to American unis, and they're like "it sounds...interesting, but it's probably not for me. I just don't get it."

As much as I love Oz, I love and miss my sisters so much, and that bond is just something you can't replace, or describe.

SWOT Vac Thoughts

So it's SWOT Vac here at Melbourne Uni, which stands for "Study Without Teaching". It's basically a reading period wherein everyone catches up on all of the things they didn't learn for the semester in preparation for their exams, haha. Surprisingly, everyone is actually locked up in their rooms doing work, which I didn't really expect, considering how badly we all slacked off during the semester. But I suppose it is crunch time.

Yesterday (yesterday being Monday, though I know it's technically already Wednesday), I helped my friend Alisa out with her teaching exam, where she basically had to give a lesson to an advanced voice student for 30 minutes and be observed and marked on her teaching methods. Aside from just helping her out (since you can hardly teach if you don't have a student!), it was actually really helpful to me as well, since the piece we worked on is actually going on my junior recital in April. Since we don't do a lot of historical-accuracy work back at Denison, she helped me a bit with that, and overall I think the piece is sounding much better, which is great because I haven't had a lot of opportunity to work on any of my recital repertoire this term.

Afterward, we had celebratory drinks at Turf, and then we hit the CBD proper for some shopping (although neither of us bought anything), and then we went to all-you-can-eat sushi at a restaurant in Melbourne Central with a sushi train. It was fantastically epic. Her friend Anisa and Anisa's boyfriend met us there, and we must have been there for at least two hours or so, just gorging ourselves on sushi. It was a $30 all-you-can-eat deal, so we had to make sure we ate at least $30! We ended up with this huuuge tower of sushi plates. It was pretty funny, and the sushi was quite good as well.

Alisa and I have spent quite a lot of time together lately, having lessons for her exam, etc. She's one of the friendliest people I know, and the very first person in Early Voices to talk to me and make me feel welcome in the ensemble. Next week we have a little trip planned out to around where Alisa lives, and she's going to take me sightseeing around the area, which is fantastic because I haven't really gotten out to any of the suburbs yet. Another friend from Early Voices, Helen (who I actually auditioned for EV with, and sat next to all semester -- my fellow Alto II!), has promised to take me home with her to Geelong before I leave as well, since I'm just curious to see what it's like (Geelong is the second largest city in Victoria and I have quite a few friends there -- David is from Geelong as well; not to mention it's home to this year's AFL Premiers, the Geelong Cats and my secondary team). I'm determined to explore more of the Melbourne area before I leave! I haven't gotten to do as much travel around Australia as I'd hoped (since I'm poor and couldn't find a job, sadly), so at the very least I'd like to become a bit better acquainted with the greater Melbourne area. So far this weekend is looking like the weather is going to be fantastic, so I'll hopefully hit the beach, and maybe explore St Kilda a bit as well.

The last few weeks have been a bit busier than usual; the Great Ocean Road was a lot of fun, and it was wonderful to spend some solid time with the Melbourne Arcadia people. We went platypus-spotting on Saturday, and I'm told a lot of native Australians have never even seen a platypus in the wild, and we saw several, so that was pretty incredible. You can't get very close to them, and they swim away very quickly, so really they just look like a sliver of silver (try saying that five times fast! Haha), and they're only about 40cm long, so when you can't get much closer than 15 metres (and that's if you're lucky and they accidentally surface close to your boat), they're really difficult to find.

We also saw the Twelve Apostles on Saturday just around dusk (although apparently there aren't twelve of them...only six, or something, though there used to be more) and the Loch Ard Gorge on Sunday morning, as I mentioned in my previous post, and they were absolutely magnificent. It was a bit overcast both days, but still gorgeous.

The Twelve Apostles are near the end of the Great Ocean Road, so we spent the night on the far end of the Great Ocean Road and then drove back up the next day, making a stop to go koala-spotting, and we saw quite a few koalas! They're adorable, even if they are lazy little buggers. =P They spend most of their days sleeping, and when they're not sleeping they're eating. Fun fact: male koalas have bifurcated penises (two-pronged!), and female koalas have two vaginas and two separate uteruses (uteri?). They also don't mate for life, which I always wondered about because they're rather solitary animals, but I always thought of them as cute and cuddly and I guess somehow that relates to monogamous in my head? Koalas are also not actually bears, and apparently in recent years there's been a movement to stop people calling them "koala bears", because it's inaccurate.

Anyway, then that afternoon we went surfing. I got up a few times and even managed to catch one or two waves on my own, but the water was very, very cold (remember, we're in the south of Australia, and it's only gotten warmer in the last week or two -- it's still technically only spring here, and the Great Ocean Road is even farther south than Melbourne), and I don't know what's been wrong with me recently but my legs cramp very easily, especially if I point my toes. This is a problem because I always point my toes for no reason, haha. (Chalk it up to years of dance training and/or colorguard, I guess.) So after the first couple of successful waves, every time I jumped up my leg would cramp and I would either have to get down immediately or I would fall into the water because it hurt so badly. It sucked, but oh well. I did get about an hour and a half of water time in though, so that was good.

We got back into the city around dinnertime, and then the next day I jumped right back into schoolwork. For my music history subject, Medieval & Early Modern Music (we call it MEMM for short), the final project is a group performance, so we've had a lot of rehearsals recently. A few members of the actual group are a bit flaky, but I have confidence that we'll be able to pull it together at least decently well for the final performance.

Then last week I was consumed with the Vocal Ensemble concert we had on Friday, which went beautifully. I was added to one ensemble at the last minute a few weeks ago, and that was the ensemble which probably had the most challenging part of the programme, the Brahms Zigeunerlieder. Most of the programme was in German, and we did eight movements of the Zigeunerlieder (I think there are twelve in total?), entirely in German, and not even easy German. There was one movement at an extremely fast tempo with all quavers (which is what they call eighth notes here), and I could barely read the notes and the words at the same time, let alone spit them out that quickly. So we had extra rehearsals for the Zigeunerlieder alone, and I spent a lot of time working on it on my own as well.

In the end, the concert went extremely well. Everyone loved it, and I can honestly say that I think that was one of the top three concerts I've ever had the pleasure of performing on, not to mention that the Vocal Ensemble is the most hilarious, gregarious, wonderful group of incredibly talented and amazing people I've ever met in my life. The culture of the music department here is amazing because everyone goes out of their way to say nice things to each other, and my day was made on more than one occasion by someone who probably didn't even realise they were making my day. Everyone is so genuine and sweet, and it's been pretty incredible to see such amazingly talented people go out of their way to compliment their fellow performers. At home it seems that people do this because it's almost compulsory; if someone sings on a recital or a concert, you're practically obligated to say "good job". But so often I find it's the most talented people who lack this sincerity (which is not to say that there aren't plenty of talented people at Denison who are incredibly sweet), and here it's just so refreshing to see everyone so down-to-earth.

Vocal Ensemble this semester really renewed my passion for music, and I think it will be the class I miss the most once I leave. Also, at some point I hope to do a post just about Vocal Ensemble and the hysterical people in it, but we all know my track record with doing blog posts about what I say I'm going to, so don't hold your breath. =P

Anyway, after the concert, we all went over to Naughto's, a local pub just across the street and up about a block from the con (the Conservatorium of Music), maybe even less. Roz, the head of Voice, bought us champagne and nibbles and we sat around and had a lovely time just talking and enjoying ourselves. After drinks, Daniel, Ashlyn and I walked home together, since we all live in the same area, and it was so nice to chat with them, just the three of us. We dropped off Ashlyn first, then Daniel took me home with him for a little while and I met his mother, who is an amazing woman as well, very honest and hilarious. We stood around the kitchen for a while, talking about everything from footy to Australian politics and Kevin Rudd (the current Australian Prime Minister, who apparently speaks extremely fluent Chinese). It started raining as Daniel and I were leaving, so Daniel drove me back to RMIT Village and promised that we would explore North Melbourne (something I haven't really had a chance to do yet, which is unfortunate since I live here!) together sometime soon before he headed off.

I'm a little bit sad that I spent so much time in the group of people that I am/was already in, because I'm starting to get to know all these new and amazing people so much better now, and with less than a month to go before I go home, it's not enough time with them. I suppose it was never going to be, but that's why I'll have to come back, and soon, as Nick keeps reminding me. "We expect to see you back here very soon," he says to me in his smiling bass voice, and I know I would rather die than disappoint, or worse yet, lose touch with these incredible people.