Comings and goings

Guess what? Today, I finished my last class of law school. Can you believe it? The reality of it hasn’t set in yet…in a few weeks, I will officially be finished of this crazy little degree. Given that it is end of semester, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library. It has been occasionally painful to spend a sunny, 29-degree Saturday in the library but my hard work will all pay off very soon.

Spring brings many delights in Melbourne, including visitors. It seems that all the people I met in Byron Bay have shown up on my doorstep in the past little while. Suzanne and Almuth, the German girls who taught me that a mullet is a vokuhila in German, were in Melbourne for a few days and we spent a giggly afternoon together. I showed them around campus, including the fancy modern law school and the older buildings of upper campus. In particular, the quad near south lawn is interesting because it sparked the movement for the 8-hour-day. The story goes that the stonemasons who worked on that building would get tired after eight hours of work. After all, cutting and lifting stone is a hard work! So the masons demanded an eight-hour workday. In downtown Melbourne, there is a statue with 888 written on it to commemorate this trend: eight hours of work, eight hours and leisure and eight hours of rest. Suzanne and Almuth were on their way to New Zealand but before they left we shared ice cream, looked at each other’s photos, talked about boys and just giggled a lot.

My next visitor was Duke, whom I also met in Byron Bay: he had the top bunk and I had the bottom in our four-bed dorm. Duke was also in Melbs on his way to New Zealand and showed up on a borrowed bike. He has this amazing ability to float through his travels without paying for anything: free places to stay, free food, borrowed bikes and surf boards, etc. It doesn’t hurt that he looks like a classic California surfer dude: tall with long blond hair and model looks. During Duke’s visit, I took some much-needed time off from studying in the library and we wandered around Victoria Market before going to Brighton Beach with Channie and Matt. While Matt and I lounged on our beach blankets, Duke took it upon himself to teach Channie some basic rugby skills: throwing, passing, and tackling.

Channie, my Korean girlfriend, is such a nice friend. We’ve been running into each other on campus by accident a lot lately. She’s the kind of friend that I can text to say, “Meet me at our spot on South Lawn in 15 minutes,” and she’ll be there. Sometimes we just have a few minutes between classes but we’ll eat an apple together, hug and go off in our separate directions. I feel very lucky to have found her! Last week, Channie planned a little outing for us to Fitzroy Gardens, where James Cook’s cottage has been reconstructed (FYI: Cook is that dude who “discovered” Australia and planted the flag to claim this massive island for Britain). All the world maps of Cook’s adventures have Australia at the center of them instead of Europe, which I found interesting. People here don’t think of Oz as a strange land at the bottom of the world: this is the center of the world. After touring the tiny house, we wandered through the lovely herb gardens and then out into Fitzroy Gardens proper, which reminds me of a mini-Central Park: a lush oasis in the middle of downtown with skyscrapers in the distance.

I celebrated the last week of school by going to see Xavier Rudd in concert last night (he’s a Melbourne native, after all) and popping into the beer festival at Federation Square this evening. Good times. Now that classes are over, we have a week off before exams begin and I’ve decided to use my time wisely: I’m flying to Hervey Bay tomorrow to spend the night sailing around Fraser Island with the Sydney crew, Eva, Rachel, Nathan and two of his mates. Then I’m headed to Tasmania for the rest of the week. I’m sure it will all be very “educational.”

This week, I felt my first pang of homesickness since I’ve been in Australia. I’m sure it is stress-related - too much time studying! But I just want y’all to know that I’m thinking of you. You are in my heart and I’m hoping that you’re keeping the homefires burning for me too. Lots of love and more news to come from the road!