An Update

Hi everyone.

Phew, well I’ve got some time to sit down and write now. Its been a fair bit more busy this last week than before. I’ve signed myself up for groups and lessons to try and make the most of my time here. 

At the moment, I am currently in the Model United Nations, Youthrise and soon a youth bible study group.

Model United Nations or M.U.N. is a student group that simulates the United Nations. We follow the world news, have debates about topics and try to make how-we-going-about-things as close to what the countries involved would do. It requires a lot of study and delving into the doings of other nations, but I’ve got some time on my hands so why not? Later on in the year they will go to an MUN conference where student groups from many others schools come and have a massive simulation of the United Nations.

Youthrise is a student group that does events to help the community. They organise and help run events to get funds. On Saturday there was a youthrise-organised dance (a.k.a. a canteen). I helped out by selling Sprite and Coke-cola at the door. It was the first event by Youthrise this year, and we’re hoping to grow the events we organise throughout the year.

Also I am to play drums in the morning church services. I go to the evening service too, which is called CE.

There are 3 drumkits in the school, 2 of which are difficult to access. The 1 drumkit that is easy to get to is “too loud for the chapel” so in order to play you need to use a Jazz kit. Instead, they have a small box which makes a bass and snare sound. It’s fun to play, but I think I’ll try to stick with the kit.

CE is a lot like the evening service back at Canterbury Bapts. It’s a relaxed, fun service comprising of worship, a short message, a game, and some snacks afterwards. The people there are mainly grades 11 and 12, and it’s a relatively small group.

I will admit that I have been missing Canterbury Bapts a lot whilst here. The love and friendship everyone has there is something I miss dearly.

My tabla lessons have also commenced. They are a bit tough but I think I might come to enjoy it. I am currently at the tabla level of below zero, where I need to build up my finger strength before I can really start playing. It’s like I need to do push-ups for my fingers on a small, squishy foam ball.

My teacher wants me to increase the lesson count from 2 to 4 lessons each cycle. I am unsure about this, because I think he might be taking me-wanting-to-learn-tabla a bit too seriously. But I’ve decided that I will increase my lesson count to 4. This is due to the philosophy I have that whatever I am interested in, and can’t do back home, do it (Nike style). Being here has given me a whole new set of priorities. The things that used to be important (eg school work) now have been lowered, and things that I can do here but not in Melbourne (eg table lessons and student groups) have been raised. To me it seems logical that if I want to get the most out of this, I need to change. When I get back to Melbourne my old priorities would need to resume, but for now I am greatly enjoying a relatively stress free school day. 

The weather here is quite nice. There have been some really spectacular mornings with blue skies and strong sunshine. There hasn’t been much rain during the day, but it falls slowly at dinnertime (slowing the internet to a grind, just when I need it) and during the night. It needs to start raining heavily soon to ease the water crisis here.

(some photo's from a nice morning last week)

 

People wise, I think it’s going pretty well. Through getting involved with church and the student groups I’ve got to make friends and know people. There are a lot of great people here who have a passion for social justice and caring.

I find that I feel slightly anxious for long durations of time on some days. I have nothing to be stressed over, but can’t help but feel tense and down. It’s not bad, comes and goes. It’s quite annoying though, dragging my smile into a frown. This place really is awesome though. The stress is sometimes for 1 day, then disappears for a couple of days. Constant reminders of home come with it, making me feel a little down. But I have a little bit of home with me (metaphorically and realistically speaking). Mum and Dad sent me a package a couple of weeks ago and it has arrived. I found great joy in unveiling all the Australian icons of food which I had been desiring. 

I’m beginning to have a sense of family. In assembly today, the Principle Mr Moody said that you see the people in this school more than your own family. You eat breakfast together, have classes together, go through the good and bad together. This results in the KIS community being very strong. An example he used was that more than 200 past students from KIS meet in Pennsylvania, America, and for a week they recreate life at KIS. I’ve come to understand that a little bit, though it worries me that it will make parting from here much more difficult. Going from one family to another.

Now, I’d like to share some foreigner tips that may seem obvious to some but were unclear to me. To share this lesson, I must tell you the story (which my parents are yet to hear so shhhh…).

It was about Indian Independence Day, the 15^th of August (a Thursday). It was the celebration of India’s freedom. For the school it was a day off, but there was a ceremony and numerous musical presentations after that. You were allowed to come in national dress or formal cloths. Most of the guys in the dorm went for the formal option, suiting up and putting on ties. Some of the others had brought their national cloths with them.

I have to say that the sorts of cloths I saw was spectacular. It was amazing to look around and see such colour and styles.

For a bit of fun, and to join in on the celebrations I decided that I would go in what I thought to be my national dress, t-shirt, shorts and thongs (the idea of Australia’s national dress can be debated, but in my opinion this is the national dress because it symbolises our beach culture and relative relaxed approach to life. Feel free to rebuke, I soon learnt my lesson if you keep reading).

I went down to school with a little koala holding a flag in my bag (a little to patriotic?).

I took with me some spare cloths in case they thought that my cloths were offensive.

In breakfast and around the school people kept asking me “why are you wearing so little cloths?”. I’d explain to them that this was my national dress then walk away. They’d have an awkward smile on their faces. After breakfast I got ready to play in the band, played the Indian National Anthem, listened to some speakers, listened to some more speakers and musical items, then played the school song. It was then lunchtime and went back to dorm.

That was pretty much the entire day, it was great to be a part of.

Fast forward to Monday. I'm in English class and get asked to come to the principles office. I was in good spirits because I’d been told that the Principle would like to meet and get to know me, Australian to Australian (the principle was Australian).

I went into his office with a large smile on my face, he looking stern (I didn’t notice his look, my mistake). He said that he heard about my cloths for Independence Day, I said that I considered it national dress. He then told me that he found it offensive that I wore such cloths to the celebrations. The Principal went on to explain how formal an occasion it was. He put forward why it was such a inappropriate thing to do, and I took it. I saw my mistakes, didn’t try to explain about the extra cloths I had brought, and left the room promising that it would never happen again.

I hadn’t considered the different perspective people would have of my cloths. I saw it as celebrating multiculturalism, while they saw it as disrespecting the significance of the day.

I did something my way, the way that I expected people would laugh at and enjoy.

Following rules is one thing, but considering the context of the place you’re in and asking ‘why?’ and 'is it really ok to do that, even though it says I can?' is another key part in avoiding trouble.

I hope this can help some of you in travel.

Also, if you have your own good general travel tips please share, it might save my neck next time.

though for my case it's India and I'm on student exchange

That’s about it from me.

In summary (or tl;dr for those who live on the internet),

• I’m having a great time but still feel a bit low at points.
• I’ve got myself involved with as many student groups as I can, and am helping out in church too.
• The people here are becoming like my family, but I still miss many of you back home.
• Have changed my priorities which means I can do more unique stuff whilst here. 

The school here is so different than Carey, so I can’t say which I prefer. There are things though that I like about KIS, that is the open friendliness everyone has and the kindness towards each other.

May you all have a great week.

If you want to get in touch with me about anything, please feel free to email me at: comanduash@gmail.com

I’ve greatly enjoyed reading the emails I’ve so far received, thank you once again for those. 

Keep them coming!

P.S. I know my mum will be one of the first to read this blog so you don’t need to keep my story a secret.