After a coffee at Bertoli's in the village (probably the best coffee I've had) I spent the afternoon doing admin stuff, and preparing for next week's classes. For those of you who are interested, and for those of you who have feigned interest, here are the courses at UNSW I'm doing:
'Australian Legends: An introduction to Australian Studies' - this includes concepts of national identity, the role of sport, and the way that Australian culture has been portayed in books and film
'Australia's Asian Context': the History of Australia since European colonisation within the region, including Vietnam, the White Australia policy, and modern relationships with the Asia-Pacific region
'Making of the Modern World': rise of nationalism, First World War, Americanization, the rise of capitalism, Cold War, genocide, rise of Islamism.
'The End of Empire': the collapse of European colonial powers, birth of Israel and post war settlement, post-colonial north African conflict, Indian independence, central and southern Africa, Indochina and post Vietnam.
It's going to be pretty 'full on' as they say, but I'm looking forward to starting. More of a challenge is working out how to reserve and borrow books, and track down the films etc I need to watch from the Library - it's all pretty complicated. I also need to write letters this week to see if I can get some part-time work in a school.
I'm very glad we won the test match - I spoke to Adrian the other night and he warned me the Aussies would be intolerable if we'd lost it. Thankfully I've been spared - '... for now' (as Daniel Corbett, the BBC weatherman might say... I miss him); let's just hope it rains for the rest of the English summer so we clinch the Ashes 1-0....
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