Well I haven’t updated at all in the last few days, mostly because there hasn’t been too much going on. Back on Thursday, as part of the evangelism training course I’m doing with Christian Union, I went out with Rob to give the “Two Ways to Live” gospel presentation to a random stranger on campus. I was kinda nervous about doing that, but since it was my first time going out to do that Rob did most of the talking, which was good. We actually found a guy (a native Iraqi who emigrated to Australia after the first Gulf War in 1991) who was willing to listen to us, and we actually had a pretty good discussion with him. Hopefully our talking to him will cause him to give everything another think-through, but it’s highly unlikely either of us will ever run into him again, since this campus has over 20,000 students.
On Friday evening I went over to Stu’s place over in Blackburn, Jimmy, Ro and a couple other people were also there, to watch a movie — “Pumping Iron.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he prepares for and then competes in the Mr Universe/Mr Olympia bodybuilding contest in 1975. It’s so funny, especially in the scene where the current governor of California is smoking a joint after winning his sixth consecutive Mr Olympia bodybuilding competition, lol. Since it was late and nobody really wanted to drive me all the way back to Monash, so I just stayed the night at Jimmy’s place.
In the morning before Mars (Jimmy) dropped me off at the train station, I walked to the polling place with him when he went to vote. The lines were actually kinda lengthy, but that’s to be expected when everyone’s legally required to vote (it’s a $50 fine if you don’t). It was also interesting to see representatives of all the parties handing out literature and “how to vote” guides at the actual polling place. That’s something you just wouldn’t see in the US (since it’s illegal). In addition, in the lawn in front of the polling building, there were all sorts of political signs and billboards, something that’d also be illegal in the States. It was interesting to see some of those differences. Right after I got back to Monash, I headed into the city to catch the Twins-Yankees game (Game 3) at a sports bar. Man, what a depressing game (especially since it was on a two and a half hour tape delay, and they completely cut out the Twins half of two innings in a row late in the game, just so they could show more of the Yankees batting, that was really annoying). But another couple came in and set next to me, and it turns out that they’re originally from Pennsylvania (Yankees fans though), work for Campus Crusade for Christ at Melbourne Uni, know about Christian Union, and also know this kid Andrew from MWACS, the Monash weather club I’m in. Small world! But when the baseball was on commercials, I’d peek over at one of the other big screens, that was showing day 2 (of 5) of the big test match in cricket between India and Australia. I think in order to really understand what’s going on I’d have to pay attention to it a bit more. I think I get some of the sketchy broad details about it now, but I still don’t really get everything. It’s a fairly slow game that literally takes all day (or sometimes five full days); during the entire course of the baseball game, Australia made just 5 outs and 175 runs or so (which apparently isn’t a very high run output for that many outs) before calling a break for tea (lunch). Only in a sport like cricket would both sides take a break for lunch. Saturday night I went back out to Blackburn to Stu’s place, before going to a LAN cafe to play computer games like Counterstrike or WarCraft 3 with them for a few hours. But since I was either very rusty (I hadn’t played WC3 at all since January) or a total newbie at those games, I got frustrated and just watched them play the last game of WC3, which wound up taking forever and a day. Jimmy was nice enough to drive me back to Monash at 3am.
I woke up this morning and was very careful not to check espn.com or talk to anybody, because I was planning on going back into the city to catch Game 4 of the Twins-Yankees series, and since it was on a six-hour tape delay on cable. So right before I was gonna leave I asked my friend Pat, a Yankee fan from New York who lives across the hall from me, if he wanted to come watch the game with me, and he blurted out “oh, well the Yankees just won.” Sigh. What depressing news that was, to find out the Twins had been eliminated. At least it saved me the trip into Melbourne, since after I knew they lost I saw no point in watching it. Oh well. Instead I went outside and enjoyed the beautiful day by writing an article for the next Gustavian Weekly about Australian politics, since the election just happened, and America’s is just around the corner. And then tonight it was the usual Monash Bible Talks house church thing, it’s always good getting together with those guys.
The results are in from the Australian election, and John Howard was re-elected to a fourth term as Prime Minister. That’s good news for President Bush and everyone else who hopes that we win the war on terror, since Howard is a very staunch ally of the US in general, but in particular with the war. Challenger Mark Latham had campaigned on a promise to pull out the 900 or so Australian troops from Iraq before Christmas, but voters obviously trust Howard with the job more. One of John Kerry’s daughters had been down here for a few months campaigning for Latham, and essentially campaigning for the unraveling of the US-led alliance (translation: she was campaigning for the US to lose the war), and thank goodness nobody really listened to her. With regards to the presidential debate back on Friday night (Saturday midday for me), it sure seems like Bush did a much better job, to the point of pulling out what I think was a close win in the debate. But having read quite a bit about the debate, the audience questions were very good. Definitely way better than anything the media’s been asking of the candidates. And on National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg has a biting column on the Kerry/Edwards (or “Kedwards,” as he calls them) attitudes towards the war that’s definitely worth a read, especially if you disagree with the Iraq war for whatever reason. And Saddam’s weapons program has been found — the UN Oil for Food program, the largest corruption scandal in world history, with our supposed “allies” like France, Germany and Russia (the same nations Kerry wishes to subordinate our foreign policy to) lining their pockets with millions of dollars by keeping Saddam in power and repressing his people. Even though it’s what the mainstream press has seized on, the real news of the Duelfer report isn’t that there were no WMD — we already knew that. The real news is that the lid has been blown off this scandal, and that it’s damning to Kerry’s foreign policy preferences – Saddam still in power, sanctions still in place against Iraq, and having France approve our decisions (paraphrasing John Kerry, ‘screw Australia, Britain, Poland, Italy, and all our other allies! I want France on our side at all costs!’). End rant. For tonight anyway.