Not a whole lot has been going on the first half of this week. On Monday I went to class, and then spent a decent chunk of the evening revising an article I’m writing for the Gustavian Weekly (the weekly newspaper back at Gustavus) about Australian politics/government and the recent election. I got it down from over 1350 words to under 900 words, not too bad but still not quite short enough to make it into the paper. But the nice weather that started out last Friday continued through today, with a top of about 25 C (79 F).
Tuesday I went to Campus Bible Talks in the afternoon as usual, and then just hung out the rest of the afternoon on the shady grass near the Campus Centre, talkin to a few CU people like Ro, Jimmy, BradWe, BradWa, Kathryn & Kirrily. Tuesday was really warm too, it topped out at around 32 C; in real degrees, that translates to around 92 F. I’m definitely not used to that kind of heat yet, it was the hottest day I’ve experienced since probably July or August 2003! Then in the evening it was time for the last session of growth groups and evangelism training for the semester — next week is an end-of-year party instead. It’s kinda sad to realise that all this stuff is winding down, just another reminder that I won’t be down here much longer… After I got back I whittled my Weekly article down to 750 words on the nose, the max length for it. Unfortunately after I sent it to Lyz for final approval, she read it and said it wasn’t commentary-ish enough, and so she sent it back to me to rewrite it completely. Sigh, I hate miscommunications and misunderstandings about what’s expected of you, but no worries, I’ll probably split it up into two separate articles and submit at least one of them for next week’s issue. They’ll probably be better articles after I rewrite them anyway, but it’s still frustrating having it rejected for this week since I’d put so much time into it. Oh well, life goes on.
Today was most definitely hump day. Ugh. I am gonna be so glad to be rid of these Wednesdays where I have class from 9am-6pm, with only a couple hour break mid-afternoon. On the plus side I found out that both of my lectures for Monday have been cancelled, woot! The overnight low last night was the warmest October night in Melbourne in 20-some years, it only got down to the low 70s, but it the temp’s been falling ever since then, it’s down to 54 now. And it’s been raining all day too. But I really can’t complain about the rain too much, since all of Australia always desperately needs every drop they can get. Oh, and my official Wisconsin absentee ballot arrived in the mail today, I’m excited finally to get a chance to vote in a presidential election! This evening I’ve also spent a bit of time reading and doing research for a fairly short essay that’s due on Friday for my weather class. It’s not gonna be hard to do, but I’m still so unmotivated to do it.
Last weekend’s Australian elections seem to have gotten very minimal coverage. Why are American reporters so disinterested in anything that happens outside of American borders? Being abroad I’m really a lot more aware of that, as there is quite a bit of truly news-worthy events around the world that don’t get jack for coverage in the American press. The least they could do is cover what the Australian election means for America, like the Spectator’s piece from yesterday about how Kerry lost Australia, since Kerry’s sister (I was wrong in a previous post when I said one of Kerry’s daughters) was actively campaigning to defeat John Howard and to break up the US-led alliance in Iraq. Howard’s victory was a major triumph for conservatism. On the topic of American politics, the Wall Street Journal today has an excellent op-ed on how critical this election will be to the judicial make-up of federal courts (namely the Supreme Court) for the next 50 years. The Democrat obstructionist tactic of filibustering the appointment of highly-qualified judges like Miguel Estrada because of their race is despicable (Democrat Party memos said they were blocking him because “he is Latino”), and hopefully the Republicans will remind voters of this. And can any of you believe how the Democrats are politicizing Christopher Reeves’ death? It’s absolutely sickening. John Edwards was out on the campaign trail today and made what could perhaps be one of the most unbelievable campaign promises in history, when he promised “when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.” By implication he’s saying that President Bush has put people into wheelchairs and kept them there, which is unconscionable. Making promises about the premise that embryonic stem cells are the key to all ailments, when no scientist will even say that that’s a likelihood to happen ever, much less during the four or eight years of a Kedwards presidency, is the pinnacle of irresponsibility. The Kedwards campaign needs to be taken to task for this outrageous statement.