Our first couple of days in Australia have really shown us just how dependent we've become on mobile phones. I mean, we've had to arrange specific meeting times and places with people hours in advance, or -- gasp! -- even the day before, just because we had no way for other people to reach us. It was so quaint, and like we were stuck back in 2002. So we were all thrilled yesterday (Friday) when Mike was able to give each of us a mobile phone that we can use for the rest of our time here in Melbourne. The Campus Crusade summer project undergrads from Va Tech and UVA returned to the States yesterday morning, and so we're using some of their phones that Cru loaned them. Now we'll be able to communicate much more effectively with each other, with the contacts we're meeting, and with my friends here, especially since Ash, Tracy & I are staying at different homes and I'm occasionally off doing other things. Anyway, it's great to have a phone again. If nothing else, now that I have a mobile phone I no longer have to wonder what time it is, since I don't have a wristwatch!
Anyway, after spending the first couple of days in the city at both Melbourne Uni and RMIT, yesterday we stayed out in the eastern suburbs and took the bus from Blackburn Station down to Monash University in Clayton (I walked to Blackburn Station, but Ash & Tracy barely arrived on the train in time to catch the bus). At Monash the three of us met up with Mike and then also Graeme Chiswell, the campus director for the Christian Union group at Monash. [CU is affiliated with AFES, the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, which is in turn affiliated with IFES, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In the States, InterVarsity is affiliated with IFES.] In my semester at Monash I was quite involved in CU, but Graeme arrived the semester after I was here, so this was the first time that I met him. Our meeting today went really well, and he seemed keen on exploring some sort of partnership with us and Student Life to reach graduate students (or post-grads, as they're called here). The part of the meeting that didn't go well was the coffee we got, which was passable at best. Tracy's latte was basically just hot milk!
CU already has a bit of a ministry going with post-grads and staff, through some "prayer triangles" or "prayer squares," groups of three or four people in the same department or building who get together every fortnight or so to pray with and encourage one another. Once or twice a semester these groups then all get together for a potluck or other sort of campus fellowship event. In the recent past there have been Bible studies as well, but the primary students who've been organizing those have gotten busy with their studies and other things, so that's kind of gone dormant for the meantime. At any rate, there's at least something going on with post-grads here at Monash that can be built upon, and something that's actually not dissimilar to some of what we're hoping to do at PSCG.
I'm sure Ash or Tracy will have a bit more to add about the meeting with Graeme yesterday morning, because I had to duck out in the middle of it. I had to leave because I gave a seminar on my research at noon today at Monash, in the Monash Weather and Climate group in the School of Mathematics. Only about 15 people or so attended my seminar (apparently quite a few folks are out of town this week), and I thought it went fairly well. One of the professors and research scientists took me out to lunch afterward. Having a glass of shiraz and a latte at lunch is definitely something different for me -- I think I could maybe adjust to the Australian university setting. :-) I met briefly with a couple of other faculty members after lunch as well. One of the main questions I got from people is, "Why are you here in Australia?" So I decided to tell them that my primary reason for being here now was to investigate some ministry opportunities with post-grads here in Melbourne. "Ministry? Is that a church thing?" someone asked. "Yep, a church thing." It was of course way too early for them to have any idea what sort of post-doc opportunities there might be two years from now, but I think it certainly helped to get my name out there, so that if I do apply in another year or two for something, they'll hopefully remember me and think positively of me. That's the goal anyway, and is what I hope comes of my other upcoming seminars at the University of Melbourne and the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre next week, where I'll also be "selling my wares," as the Monash folks called it. I'm glad seminar #1 of 3 down here is in the bag!
After I was done with my post-seminar meetings, because Ash & Tracy had already gone back to the city to meet someone at Melbourne Uni, I took some time to wander around the Monash campus, including taking a walk back to the dorm that I lived in back in 2004, Roberts Hall. It was a nice little trip down memory lane.
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