Oz

Well I've been holding off from doing this post partly due to laziness and partly due to my hope that one of the people I was traveling with would post some photos (my camera didn't make it onto the plane). However, I'm rapidly forgetting what went on over there across the ditch, so I think I'd better just go for it.

Wednesday, the day after Jake and Robin left for home, I got on a plane too, and headed for Melbourne, Australia. I got to fly business class, which was an experience. I felt rather out of place in my jeans and t-shirt among all the suits. Anyway, I got in to Melbourne after the 3-hour flight, and was met by my friends Lachlan and Maša (both of whom I know from Hong Kong). I should explain at this point that the reason I went to Melbourne was to attend a birthday/all-around celebration for Lachlan and his family.

I spent four full days in Melbourne. I quite liked what I saw of the city. One highlight was going to the aquarium, where there were some very sizable sharks and some amazing jellyfish. We also went to see Wicked, which I would recommend highly. It's a great show, even though I felt the story could have been more convincing. I think it was about the second night of the preview shows (before it officially opened), so there was a lot of excitement around town, random areas bathed in green light, and that kind of thing.

On a different evening, we went to see an Australian Football match. Australian football bears very little resemblance to American football or soccer (or rugby or any other sport I've ever seen for that matter). It was pretty easy to follow, though, and quite entertaining to watch. It was also not nearly as violent as I would have expected. Personally, my favorite part was when they played cheesy recorded fight/theme songs at the beginning.

The other kind of exciting thing we did was go to a wildlife park (basically a glorified zoo, but bigger and many of the animals got to roam). We saw kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, echidnas (I liked the echidnas), etc. We also saw platypus, which are very cool little animals up close. They can sense tiny electric disturbances with their bills, allowing them to pick up on brain waves from crayfish and such.

I am now back in Wellington, of course, and am currently on break again. Hmm, Olympics-wise, New Zealand is fiercely proud of their medalists. They may not have many, but they're way up there on a per capita basis. Most of their realistic medal chances seemed to be decided on a single night, which I watched. Again the most amusing part for me came at the beginning when a fatherly sportscaster gave a little speech about how we mustn't get too excited now, because there are lots of good athletes competing. So if it doesn't turn out like we hope, let's not beat ourselves up about it, alright? Alright.

Finally, I shall leave you with some psychology fun fun times. Your job is to look at the two faces below and decide which one looks happier to you. There is no right answer, (and the fact that the writing is flipped on one of them is not important). When you have picked a face, read on.


Face A

















Face B


















Echidna. Not part of the psychology experiment.


















The two faces are exact mirror images of each other, yet most people say B is happier. This is because the right side of your brain is better at perceiving emotions (and faces for that matter). The right side of your brain is also the side that first receives information from the left side of visual space. Therefore, the emotional information from the left side of the face (as you look at it) predominates your interpretation of that face's emotional state. It's amazing! Some people get brain injuries that prevent them from being able to perceive emotion properly, and others end up unable to recognize faces at all, although they can "see" perfectly well and have no memory problems.