Australian peculiarities III: beetroot

After complaining about some of the Australian peculiarities in part I and II of the series, here comes one that I really love! 

Beetroot! 

Beetroot in salads, beetroot on burgers, whole mini beetroots just cooked, beetroot in cake - I just love them! I don't know why they are so popular here and not in my home country, but I don't care either. I'll enjoy this dark red deliciousness whenever possible and I'll convince my whole home country one day that a necessary ingredient for a superb burger is a thick slice of beetroot! Yumm!

Australian peculiarities I: Shower heads

I just had shower and simultaneously an idea for a slightly off-topic branch for my blog. And as the best ideas come to us under the shower - as proven by Jorge Cham with this nice drawing - the idea must be good and I'll directly turn it into reality while my hair is still dripping wet.

"Australian peculiarities" will be about all the little things that I've discovered while living in Australia and that I still find weird even after a few years of adaption time.

The topic today: shower heads

if you want to rent an apartment in an area where the last construction boom took place in the 1960s you'll find that shower heads are tightly fit on the wall at a height of about 1.6m (about 5.2 ft). Usually they can't even be turned in any way and as there is no shower hose it takes a bit of gymnastics to get all the bits of your body wet enough. Esp. for people taller than 1.8m (about 6ft) taking a shower is an act of balance and physical exercise. I've seen this type of construction in New Zealand before and I wonder: is this some kind of a Commonwealth thing? Or was the nutrition supply in OZ and NZ so bad in the 1960s that people did not grow taller than 1.6m? Does the Government want to encourage a minimum amount of muscle stretching each day? Or has the plumber guild a body height restriction rule for some reason?

If there are any theories or pieces of wisdom out there on this topic please share!

*munchmunch*

My PhD student came by my office to talk about his work. We didn't have an appointment, but I'm generally fine with it, when they have something important to discuss. So he came in and started talking right away, even though he was still chewing on his sandwich. And he didn't stop eating after he had finished the first bit, but worked himself through his sandwich and his thoughts simultaneously munching and talking. It was so unusual to me, that I watched him amused for quite a while, but finally I told him, that I think it's a bit rude to talk to me while he's eating. But it seemed that his whole brain was occupied already with the munching and talking activity so much, that my complaint did not reach any significant parts of it. He just nodded, made some "ah OK, I understand!" sound and continued eating and talking until he had finished his food and what he had on his mind!

culture clash or what?

Since a few months I have a new colleague in my office: smart guy, very focused and concentrated, but always nice and friendly. Somebody you can chat with for 5 minutes and then go back to work. 

All seemed well and the sun was shining innocent in our office and no one expected the thunder storm that recently broke out - or at least I didn't!

A PhD student and I had a discussion in our office while NewColleague was there and suddenly NewColleague switched on his music. At first I thought that was not on purpose, but he didn't stop the music after a few seconds. So I thought, that might be a "hint" that our discussion is disturbing him and I asked him about it, but he negated - twice! So I told him, that his music is actually disturbing us and if he could switch it off. Ooohhh, totally wrong move! He just went so crazy, telling me in a very aggressive way, that there are rules - internationally accepted rules! - for offices and people should stick to them. But he of course could not make people stick to these rules and yes, sometimes discussions turn out to be longer than expected, but still... one has to stick to the rules. And if a discussion takes longer than 15 min, one should leave the office for that, there are meeting rooms and coffee shops for these occasions,.... . 

I couldn't make out his point from what he was saying, because he never said, that we are actually disturbing him. He just went on about internationally accepted rules and that he sticks to them. I told him several times during his speech that in case I'm disturbing him, he must tell me that. But he didn't! And as I thought it was very rude of him to "educate" me in front of my PhD student, I was not willing to follow his un-spoken wish. Instead I turned around after he was finished and continued my discussion. He interrupted us once more to continue his speech and after that I again turned around and continued talking to my PhD student. And finally then he managed to say, that we are disturbing him and we should leave the office - what we then did.

The temperature in the office dropped by a few degrees.

A few days later the discussion continued, after I - not very diplomatic, I know - reminded him of his internationally accepted rules, after he had a discussion in the office, which exceeded the magical 15 minutes. There was nobody else in the office at that time and he got so mad at me, interrupting half of my sentences, was offended, when I asked him to repeat something, because I didn't understand it through all the anger,... .

I offered that we could set up some rules together with the other colleagues in the office, but he said, that's not necessary, because I am the only problem in the office. As I did not agree to his point of view, he decided, that it's a waste of time talking to me and dropped out of the discussion.

The temperature dropped below freezing temperature and there it is.

I know that I could have been much more perceptive in this situation and could have stopped the escalation of the topic. But if I would have given in, while my PhD student was there, I would have lost my standing with both of them - and the situation was just to surprising and ridiculous and rude!

I'm not sure where NewColleagues sudden emotional release came from. I never had any problems in the various offices I worked in and none of my "older" colleagues ever mentioned, that I'm disturbing them.

Three theories:

1) It's a woman-man problem, as I'm the only woman in the office and NewColleague has a problem to fit in his big Ego into the same room with a woman, without being accepted as superior right away.

2) It's a culture problem, as he comes from an Asian country, where people are maybe not used to being direct, when they feel disturbed. From his point of view being direct might be impolite and so he sent subtle signals to express his discomfort. I, on the other hand, don't have the sensing abilities to deal with this, as I never needed them - this might as well explain, why my other colleagues never said something so far, as they come from Asian countries as well ( that's a very generalized statement, of course)

3) I am an unpolite and rude person and was just lucky so far with the offices I've worked in, that the people could deal with it.

Any other suggestions?

public holiday

Today Australia celebrates Anzac Day - a remembrance day for all who served and died in military operations. I think it's important to bring this topic to public attention and to make people aware that some of us do an incredible service for all the others - may we approve the specific operations or not. 

But I must honestly say that for me here it's "just" a public holiday. Maybe because I didn't grow up with a culture of war memorials and military parades or maybe just because its not my home country?

 

So what did I do on this public holiday?

• I went running early in the morning to please my sporty-me, which has been pretty sleepy during the last months
• I finally, FINALLY pressed the "submit" button for the publication I have been working on during the whole last year - YEAH!
• I curled up in a big blanket in the sunshine behind the balcony windows, nicely sheltered from the strong winds, and read a book about the topic I have to teach in a few months, took a nap after the first chapter and then read a second one - while teenage neighbour tried to cope with her teenage life by listening to loud pop music
• I had a good lunch and then curled up in my bed to have a long, way too long nap - which pleased the sleepy side of sporty-me, I guess...
• And then I took a long walk - past my favourite Indian take away restaurant - mmmhhh 
• The rest fo the day will certainly include some ice cream and some note taking about my teaching topic! 

Not too bad for a day off.

*sigh*

Today a student wanted to work in my lab, but when he started switching on the computers and the other fancy boxes, the general fuse tripped and all boxes and computers went back to silence.

From my point of view there were two possibilities for him to handle this situation:
a) walking over to the general lab manager, who lives just across the corridor and telling him about the situation.
b) in case the general lab manager is not in his office: calling me on the phone and telling me about the situation, because I'm the not-so-general lab manager and he has my mobile number.

For some reason he opted for the not so obvious version
c) walking away, without telling anybody
Back at his desk he wrote an email to me and went off to attend a class. 

When I found out about this whole situation, it was already to late to call the electricians in right away... *sigh*

Its clear, that he did not want to sneak out of the situation unseen, otherwise he wouldn't have written this email, but for some reason the direct approach - talking to a person in charge directly - was too difficult, even though the general lab manager is the kindest person you can imagine and I usually don't get mad at people as well - esp. not if they are obviously embarrassed about what happened AND its not their fault. 
I'm not sure what would be a good strategy to encourage shy students, how much I have to take their cultural background into account (both the shy-student-encouters were with Chinese students) and at which point I should stop being sensitive and start saying "Don't make such a fuss, student". I guess thats a continuous learning process on both sides...

money makes the world go round

The Australian government is recently discussing the pro's and con's of the Living away from home allowance (LAFHA). This allowance means for people from overseas, who come to work in Australia and are not a permanent resident, that they get some part of their salary tax-free. The idea behind it is that somebody who comes to Australia for maybe a year might still have financial responsibilities in his/her home town and this tax-free money is supposed to compensate for that. The LAFHA is mainly split into two parts: part one says that what one pays as rent will be tax-free, part two gives a certain amount of money "for food" as tax-free (how much that is depends on how man people belong to the household and the amount is calculated fresh every year). The weird situation is, that the more rent ones pays the more salary becomes tax-free and from the governments point of view, this possibility as been abused too much during the last years.
But instead of finding a better way to regulate that, it seems that the current plan is to stop the whole LAHFA thing completely - already from July on. This of course would bring in quite a bit of tax-money, but for a lot of people it would mean a very sudden and sharp decrease of their net income. If one can trust the numbers I saw in an information session of my uni, we talk about something like 10k per year less. That's tough!
In general, I must say, that when I came here I was surprised about this kind of "free money" and the amount of it. So I would have no objections, if the government would reduce this amount a bit or bring in different rules, that prevent the abuse. But cutting it off completely is a bit like changing the rules in the middle of the game. I'm sure a lot of people informed them self much better about how much money they'll have in their pocket, than I did. And I'm sure that quite a few of them would have reconsidered the job offer if they were told that they will earn 10k or 15k less per year.
If the new taxation comes as planned, recruiting new staff from overseas will become much more difficult for universities and its very likely that quite a few people, who already work here, will think about the duration of their stay once more.
Interesting times...