Violeta Garcia Diaz
September 2008
Update
Every month that goes by, I fall in love more
of this country. Now spring has arrived and the weather became so
hot!. I feel like if I live on the Beach, but without the
Beach.
This month was full of Uni work to do! However I did a lot of
things and I learn new things too. First of all, I finally started
my Internship, I have been working in an advertising agency since
the beginning of the month: I have to admit that is a rewarding job
for me, because I'm learning new things and to work in a very
different environment of the one I'm used to. I am making some
design and I'm taking part of their activities like creative
meetings, final production and the making of a TV ad. It has been a
challenge for me because I have to organize mi time to finish all
my uni work and to go to the agency. I´m pretty sure that the
things that I had learn here are going to be great tools for me in
my professional development, and I would like to keep on going
there even if my working hours come to an end. Regarding my other
units, I continue working in my personal web page, and I´m
working in a Mexican Death Altar as part of my work for studio
drawing, I have been doing some research about Mexican traditions,
and I realized that there are a lot of things that I didn't know
about my own culture, things that are quite important for me to
know, because is my country and my own culture, so now I'm learning
other cultures and learning mine as well.
All the reports, assignments and tasks for my units had kept me
very busy, it has been quite difficult to get used to the grading
system, the report and essay writing and the exams. I have never
written a report like this for Uni, so it takes me a lot of time to
organize all the information and to write it down, but at the end I
see the results of all my working and that makes me happy. I must
say that after this experience I definitely will improve the
quality of my works for university.
This month I volunteered with the English Language Centre at my
Uni, helping with English conversation classes for the Japanese
students that come here to take short English courses. I just have
to introduce myself, ask them few questions about them, about their
countries, they way of living and then we play board games for a
few minutes. The last time was amazing because when the class
finished they invited us to join and sing some Japanese songs that
were beautiful. I realized that Japanese people are very friendly
and open minded, and they like to share their own traditions and to
share some of their lifestyle, one of them give me as a gift a
small origami figure.
The Fusion Festival arrived to Southern Cross University! An entire
week to celebrate diversity in university life! Who could have
thought that there could be more than 70 nationalities in the
Uni. We celebrate this week by showing to the community part
of our traditions, traditional dresses, food and our different
languages. This year a cook off competition was held, it was
supposed to be in teams and I'm the only Mexican in campus studying
now, so I decided to make a team with a friend from Brazil and
Yvonne a friend of Ecuador, we decided to call our team "Las
sabrosas", and we were representing Latin-America. We were 5 teams
cooking in the middle of the Uni plaza, and we had 2 hours to cook
a main meal for the judges and 50 samples for all the other
students, we cooked enchiladas and tropical fruit mix. I may say
that it was hard, because we are from totally different
backgrounds, the teams were as followed: South Korea, Japan, China,
Australia and Latin America, however they were 3 Asian teams they
all have different kind of food, I must say it was delicious. Even
the newspaper took us a picture and we were there the next morning,
so I could say now that I'm famous haha, (I keep one copy to show
it to my family when I get back home). At the end we won 2nd place,
and a $40 voucher for the book-store, even though the competition
was so much fun and at the end, it wouldn't matter who had won but
the things that we learnt from each other.
All the weekends the Uni organizes busses to the markets that are
in the surroundings of Lismore, those markets are amazing you can
see the huge variety of things that they sell there, so different
from different parts of the world and is a way to know the real
Australian lyfestyle.
All my friends are from different nationalities, and day by day I
get to know more people, last week they introduce me to Valerie
(she´s from Fiji), Leema (she´s from India but she lives in
Austria) and Rachel (she´s from Malasya and she knows 5
languages), we had a beautiful talk about our cultures and
the way things are different here, sharing your
feelings make you realize that your not alone and there is a lot of
different people feeling the same as you are, even if your roots
are not the same.
Finally I just want to say that I am so happy to be here, this is
an amazing country and I have learnt a lot of things, the
experience has make me a stronger woman and a concerned citizen
about global peace. And it had change me in a way, maybe could be
little things as, be more organized, tidy or tolerant, but if I
feel so different in 3 months, I could not imagine how I will feel
by the end of this fantastic year.
August 2008
Update
Second month in “The Land Down Under”, lots of
travelling, lots of studying, lots of fun, lots of friends, lots of
thinking….
As part of one of my units I’ve been working in
some portraits for my Studio drawing class, I had to make some
interviews and work in some research about Australian art and way
of living, it has been a very deep work, because I have to show
through my work part of my Mexican heritage and also my teacher
told me that my way of thinking is a little bit different from my
other classmates, because I have a different background. Tomorrow I
have a big interview for other unit that is kind of an internship,
is about a “job” in a design agency as a graphic designer, I’m so
excited about showing my work to other people.
For the Afghanistan fundraising I’m designing
some button badges to sell in the Uni, for now maybe I’m not going
to get a big amount of money but is a middle-term plan for
fundraise more, so by all year I can fundraise a good amount of
money, and maybe my other scholarship partners can help me to sell
them in their universities too, I think is a good and cheap way
that young people can help and at the same time, have a nice badge
that they can use wherever they want. Also I’ll be helping Eleanor
with the design of a brochure for the IDP, I’m so excited about I
can’t wait!
The other day I went to fish for my first time,
it’s so relaxing and the sea was beautiful, we went to Ballina,
other beautiful town near Lismore, I took the car ferry for my
first time and I could enjoy the beach, the wind and spend time
with my friends talking and laughing, by the end of the afternoon
we didn’t catch anything but it worth it. Also I’m working on my
Aussie vocabulary, sometimes I don’t get what people are trying to
say me, so I have been working on that and trying to memorize
different words.
The other day we had College Olympics! They are
peaceful games between colleges and it was so much fun because we
were too many people and everybody was just chillin out and having
a good time playing funny games, everybody enjoy that day, you
could see in their faces that they we’re so exited about winning
and playing, and we had to dress up with the colour of our team
which was yellow, I made my team’s flag, our name was “the
champions”, and I had a good time painting it one day before with
some of my friends in campus.
In two weeks is going to be held the fusion
festival, which is made to promote the multiculturalism that is on
University, so is the time for everybody to share about their own
culture we have to group in teams of three, so I’ll be working with
Lira and Yvi that are from Brazil and Ecuador, we are going to
represent not only our countries but Latin America, we’re going to
cook and possibly make some dancing at the university plaza.
Last weekend I went to Brisbane with some
friends, we were a really multicultural group, even a guy at the
hostel asked us where we coming from, because he had listened 5
different accents while we were there, haha that was funny. Andre
and Viki are from Germany, then Scott is from USA and Tania is from
UK, We decided to rent a car and drive all the way to Brissy and
then we spent all the weekend in a youth hostel. We were so excited
about been in a big city and have a lots of places to go, we made a
sightseeing of the city, went to the market, went shopping, took
the pedal ferry, went to the botanical gardens, to the artificial
beach, Chinatown and went out of party at night; this weekend help
I’m trying to learn some German and my friends are helping me to
achieve that, even my German friends are teaching me some German
I’m so exited about learning from other countries. Every week we
make a dinner in someone’s place and every time we make it with a
different background, this week it was Scott chance to cook, he
made a beautiful dinner with meat, veggies and ice cream as desert,
and we have a wonderful chat about the ocean and the Great Barrier
Reef.
This weekend we went on a trip to Mount Warning
(Wollumbin), to watch the sunrise it was supposed to be a walk but
it was more a hiking, we left the Uni at 1:00 am, arrived there at
3:00 am, and then began to walk in total darkness in the middle of
the rainforest. I have to admit that I was really scared and really
tired, because we hike a mountain during 2:30 hours! I was so happy
when I reach the top, I felt powerful, like if I can do whatever I
want after climbing the mountain, and also give me a feeling of
belonging to Australia, because is a sacred place for the
aboriginals and is the first place that the sun reaches the
Australian mainland, so I felt like unique and privileged at the
same time, at the top it was freezing, but every second up there
worth it, by far one of the most beautiful things that I have seen
in my entire life.
July 2008
Update
I arrived to Australia 20 days ago, and I just
can describe it with one single word: AMAZING!.
It’s a really different country, full of
surprises and multiculturalism. I’m studying at Southern Cross
University which is located in Lismore a really beautiful town in
the Northern Rivers region of Australia, best known for their
rainforest, their landscapes and the rainbows. Mi classes started a
week ago, I’ll be taking digital photography, online media design,
professional placement and one elective and that means a lot of
work, but I’m glad to have something else to do, also I signed up
for social sports, I’ll be playing soccer in mixed teams with my
new friends each Tuesday, which is great cause you get to know a
lot of people there and It’s so cool that you are able to play with
men and women. The Uni organize different trips to beautiful
markets or to the beach each weekend, the other day we went to
Byron Bay a very famous beach best known for their surfers, and we
walk all the way to the lighthouse that is in the most easterly
point of the Australian mainland, everything was fantastic, the
view, the sun, the wind, the coast. I really enjoyed that trip and
I realized that Australia has the most beautiful landscapes and you
can see a widest variety of colours in their landscapes.
Living here had make me open my eyes to all the
beautiful places in my country, people is very interested about
knowing my culture, everyone wants to know how Mexico really is,
what kind of economy do we have, how do my country works, what do
we eat, how do we dress, and I like to talk with everyone and tell
them how amazing is it.
Is good to know that there is a lot of people
that worries not only for the issues of their countries but they
feel a lot of interest of things that are happening through the
world. By far I’ve known people from all world like Germany, India,
Canada, Mauritius, Russia, USA, Austria, Hong Kong and I must admit
that I also feel a lot of curiosity about their countries, I want
to learn everything about them, right now I just want to travel and
get to know all the countries of the people that I’ve met, being
here has made me realized that everyone is different and it doesn’t
matter from which country we are or what our nationality is, we
could be friends and learn from each others, perhaps we could have
a lot of differences as cultures and countries, but we feel the
same way and that’s why feelings are a universal language.
As a part of my assignments for this semester I
am thinking on developing a project in which I could use my
creativity and at the same time aloud me to fundraise some money
for the Afghanistan Scholarships, I’m thinking on work during this
two months and the make an auction in the University.
Before arriving here I knew exactly what I
wanted to do with my life, but for some reason I’ve realized that I
have a thousand of possibilities of making my country better,
living here has make think as a society and not just as an
individual. I have realized that as in my country are people
fighting for their ideals, here are also people fighting for
theirs, they are a little bit different but even that encourage you
to fight more for what you really want. More than ever I want to
come back and continue with the work that I have been developing in
my NGO.
In a couple of months it’s going to be held in
Brisbane and in Melbourne a city romp, which is an event to promote
the sun care culture, and also to fundraise money for the skin
cancer associations and researches that are among Australia, cause
as we know skin cancer is very common in Australia, one of the
ozone holes is over Australian land, and as the matter of fact that
remind us, as foreigners to take more care of the environment in
our countries, the pollution of our countries can cause
consequences in other country as well, we are all connected in the
same environment. We must concern about global warming, because it
is affecting the entire world at the same time.
I like to talk with people all the wonderful
things that they can see in México, but also I’m concerned on
showing then the inequity that we face every day in my country, and
how privilege they are on living in a country with a lot of
opportunities. I’m glad to show them all I can about México.
Good bye and see you the next time !
