Written at the beginning of my time here, handed to me last night at our last IES dinner.
July 15th, 2008.
Grace -
You've been here for three days. You are cold, tired, and sore. But you are just about to dive into the greatest adventure of your life so far.
So much for the dramatic. I don't know who you've become, but I hope you're someone awesome, girl who is reading this. Hopefully you've learned what
postera crescam laude [the University motto] is because I feel pretty damn uncultured for not being able to read the Latin.
You've had bad spots. You're me, and I know you. But the good outweighs the bad, and you've made new friends that you will be sad to leave behind.
You are everything I am and more.
I hope you remembered to journal, have called your parents, and not forgotten your girlfriend (she will kill you if you haven't told her how you're doing - don't forget her wombat).
You are a different person now than I was, sitting bundled up in the Grampians.
Try the Vegemite. If you haven't yet. You'll regret not doing it.
Love,
Grace
(PS - I did try the Vegemite. It was horrendous.)
Australia Bios
So I hang out with people. Here are two of them. First in a series.
Ingrid. Ingrid is 22 and Dutch, from the Netherlands. I go over there and we watch movies; we also take walks around Princes Park after dinner once or twice a week, something I really enjoy. She’s blond, with greenish eyes and a very ready smile. She wears a lot of blues and greens and browns – it’s what she’s wearing now, sitting kitty-corner from me on the other sofa. Her English is very good, but a little bit quirky; yesterday she told me she had a pickle on her face. She meant pimple. Today it was “I sported this morning!” I am very fond of Ingrid. We have wonderful conversations. She tells me all about her lactose-intolerant boyfriend and I tell her all about my gluten-intolerant girlfriend. It’s a good system. She drinks a lot of tea, and is the only other person I know that drinks rooibus. Mmm. She puts a LOT more milk in her tea. I’m adding this later – we had another walk around Princes Park, and the last bit of it was in the rain, which was unpleasant, but we always have rather an unusually lovely time. Today we talked about horses and running and sports. She lived next door to me for half the semester; now she lives in an apartment with Maud, Evan, and James.
Evan. Evan is 19 and from Geelong. He can be a complete sketchball sometimes, and takes great pride in being ‘dodgy’. He paints his nails pretty colors and is far better at it than I will ever be. He has brown hair the same shade and feel as mine – the first thing he said to me was “I like your hair! It looks just like my sister’s! Which looks just like mine! Uh.” Someone who heard went, “Either he just complimented himself or insulted you.” I didn’t hear from him for several weeks, until I met Callan, who Evan had brought to the play. Then suddenly I fell in with them, and I was happy. He makes terrible jokes and hugs me when I’m sad, and invites me over for watching TV and does laundry with me. We went out for cake once and talked the whole way there and back. Occasionally he proposes to me, just so Fitzy doesn’t have all the fun of being a drama queen. He dated Naomi and is currently dating Kat.
