A few more beginning thoughts

After the initial comment from Peter about "G'day mate," I have actually been greeted that way a number of times! Excellent. One thing that is still taking a bit of getting used to is the fact that the cars all drive on the other side of the road. Upon entering every crosswalk, there is a big sign painted on the ground stating 'Look Right.' If these hadn't been there, it is quite possible that I would've been hit by a car, or bus, already. haha.
I was getting a coffee with Peter this morning, and was introduced to even more of the faculty around the building. There was one comment Peter made that really wrapped up the Australian feeling so far, and it went something like this: "You've got to be nice. Can you imagine being a nasty person? You'd have to live with yourself everyday." It reminded me of something Kurt Vonnegut would have said... in fact, I think he said something very similar at one point. Anyways, Peter said this after buying me a coffee, despite my protest to his continuing to buy me coffees and such. He said that it is all part of travelers carma. He's just paying it forward, as people who have helped him before.
One place that I have already fallen in love with is the Royal Botanical Gardens. They are so beautiful, and huge. There are so many different plants. I even passed a section today that had 15 or so patches of different types of grass laid out with a little description of each one. Yesterday it was a bit rainy around here... but I still wanted to be out and about a little bit. So where did I go? To the Gardens of course, and I found some shelter from the rain under an enormous Small Leaved Fig Tree. It turns out that if you are traveling alone, sometimes you have to ask natures assistance in taking pictures :)



















So, today was my first day of actual work. What did I do, you may ask? Well, Peter and I basically laid out a rough schedule of what I will be doing while here. There are so many resources in the library that I am going to take advantage of. Peter already has given me a number of articles. He even gave me a copy of this chapter he just recently wrote for a book that is not even published yet. Also, most of the main scholars on Aboriginal music are at least somewhat in contact with each other. This means that I have a connection through Peter to a lot of the highly published people in this field. Together we are going to work on setting up interviews for me with a few of them. I will also be going to see a number of local Aboriginal dance groups while I am here... hopefully being able to interview them as well.
In other news, if all goes according to plan, Peter and I will be driving down to Canberra, the country's capital, this weekend. Though it is apparently a pretty boring city, (and very cold too) it does house the AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.) This is sort of a 'must see' while I am here doing research on Aboriginal music. There are also a number of other touristy type things that we will probably do while down there, including visiting museums, etc.
After talking to some more people about didgeridoo lessons, it turns out that I should wait a little while, until I have had some more time to work a few things out on my own, before I take any lessons. Therefore, I will be using Peters didgeridoo for a while, trying to figure the basics out on my own before I go out and take some lessons from a professional. I practiced for a bit today, and got my lips all buzzed out. My mouth felt very funny after about a half hour or so of playing around on it.
I think that'll be all for now. Thanks to those of you who have already commented, I appreciate to know that people are actually reading this.

Cheers,

The Didgeri-dude ;)