Educational

I'm officially done with uni in Australia!

Last week was my final week of classes, meaning Sustainable Enterprise was canceled on Monday for "revision time" and Wednesday's Australian History & Politics class consisted of a 30 minute wrap-up lecture and a trip to the Museum of Sydney, which was actually quite awesome. I spent the week finishing my final papers (for Malaysia, a 10-pager on Australian wine exportation to The US and Malaysia; for politics, another 10-pager about the assimilation of Aborigines into white Australia between 1940-1970), reviewing lectures and assigned chapters for business, and holding study sessions with my friend John, who took the same business class.

Saturday was the first day of a three-week finals period. Fortunately, my business exam was scheduled for 2 p.m. that first Saturday, so I was pretty lucky. The exam went well - 20 multiple choice questions, which were ridiculously hard but I think I did okay, and two short essays based on subjects I'd studied for hours (life cycle thinking, and sustainable fishing in Australia). Hopefully the marks reflect my confidence!

When I get back to SF State, I'll have four classes to finish up before graduating in December. It's a little nerve-wracking to think about, particularly because many of my friends graduated last month and several have since moved back to their respective hometowns, but I'm getting pretty tired of school at this point (regardless of the continent) and am looking forward to a new challenge!

So here I am, four years into my journalism degree with a stated emphasis in magazine writing...and I have absolutely no magazine industry experience. I've written for online and newspaper publications, interned for a TV station and gained experience in newspaper marketing, but other than a couple magazine journo-related classes in SF, I've got nothing.

That's about to change: I've just landed an internship at Women's Health Australia! The way it happened was kinda funny.

Two weeks ago, I received an email from a UTS journalism lecturer stating that Women's Health was looking to fill two weeklong internship spots - one in late June, the other in late July. I've been reading the magazine for years in the States (and I always stole my dad's Men's Health because the articles are hilarious), so I was stoked to discover this magazine existed in Australia too. I excitedly amended my resume, wrote up a cover letter to the editing coordinator, and sent it all to my lecturer.

A week went by and I'd heard heard absolutely nothing. I emailed my lecturer a quick note to let her know I was quite keen on the internship and if there was someone at WH I could contact. The response was less than appreciative: in short, I was told I was up against forty or so other students and that she was swamped with letters to read. Fine, I figured, I'll wait it out.

When I had still heard nothing by the beginning of the following week, I phoned my lecturer: "I'll call you back in five; I'm on the line with another student," she said. All right, I'll take five minutes.

Thirty-five minutes later, with no callback, I called the magazine myself, had a chat with the coordinating editor...and scored the June internship myself. Wahoo! I was due to start on the 22nd, where I'd act as an assistant to the editors and writers: researching, filing, that sort of thing. Alice, the editor I spoke to, said the office is relatively laid back and that I could jump between departments. Sweet!

The following day, I received an email from the UTS lecturer asking if I was free for one of the internships. "Already set it up" I replied. The phone rang - it was the lecturer. Apparently I wasn't supposed to do that, but fortunately she was calling to offer me one of the positions, so it worked out okay.

I'm not taking any journalism courses this semester - I figured while I'm abroad, I may as well explore other interests. That said, when I was invited by Wendy Bacon (an uber controversial, well known investigative journalist and professor at UTS; we'd met through another journalism-related project) to help cover the Sydney Writers' Festival, I was absolutely STOKED. The annual festival takes place over seven days and includes presentations from all sorts of authors, bloggers, reporters, screenwriters, travel writers, etc. The list of topics is extensive, as are the venues all over the city. Needless to say, it's kind of a big deal.

This year, approximately 30 UTS journalists were going to be pre-reporting on various forums and publishing their articles in City Hub, a free, monthly, independent publication I've seen lying around cafes and gyms. We weren't writing for money or course credit; we were working for bylines. I met with Jenna Price, the professor coordinating the UTS students, and together we picked two stories: Blogging vs. Journalism, a hot topic to be debated on Sunday, 24 May by a panel of five successful reporters-turned-bloggers, and a little feature piece about a new book coming out about the Opera House.

Abandoning my other assignments, I immediately went to work on my stories: emailing panelists, calling up bloggers whose sites I enjoyed reading (check out www.stilgherrian.com - I spoke to Stil for a good 30 minutes and he's fabulous. Christian Landers' site www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is also worth a browse), interviewing tourists outside the Opera House about their reactions when they first saw it, and the ultimate: a sit-down breakfast interview with Katarina Stuebe, the photographer behind the book Joern Utzon's Sydney Opera House.

I met Kat at a little cafe in Kings Cross about a week and a half ago to discuss the book and how she came to be involved in the project, and her story was utterly fascinating. In a nutshell, she came to Australia from Germany to study architecture at UTS (!!) in 2001 and made frequent trips to Circular Quay to pursue her on-the-side passion: photographing the Opera House. She was fascinated with the Danish-designed icon, but it wasn't until 2006 that she tried to get in touch with the Utzon family (through Jan, Joern's oldest son.) With Jan's blessing, she trekked out to Joern's home just north of Copenhagen, where she was, expectantly, welcomed into the architect's home. A friendship blossomed with the family, and after several meetings where Joern and Jan pored over Kat's gorgeous Opera House photographs, Jan encouraged her to publish them. Thus, the book was born. (After Joern's death late last year, she decided to make it a tribute to his legacy.) In addition to her photographs, the heavy coffee table book is filled with stories from Jan about the family, Joern's work in Australia, and his life after leaving the country.

Our meeting went so well, she ended up inviting me to the official book launch in the Utzon Room at the Opera House! It was pretty intimidating to be in a room with several of Kat's friends and family, along with the writers' festival coordinator and other Australian head honchos, but it was an incredible experience. Check out the photos I got with Kat and Jan: (in one of them, Jan's sketching the Opera House on Kat's shoulder)

Aaaand the Opera House article: http://www.altmedia.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/city-hub-june-2009.pdf (pgs. 16-17)

(Will post the bloggers vs. journos link once I find it...)

I attended a couple seminars at the festival over the week:

- "And He Shall Be Called Barack Obama: The Makings of a Mythic Presidency": Named after a t-shirt the Washington-based BBC reporter/panel moderator saw someone wearing after Obama's swearing in, ABC's John Barron and the Sydney Morning Herald political correspondent Peter Hartcher (who I still think is one of the most incredible writers) discussed why the world made such a big deal over Obama's successful presidential bid. Highlights from their hour-long discussion:
John (while reporting from Iowa): "It's like the set of Bonanza populated by contestants from The Biggest Loser.
Peter (candidate reporting vs. what people actually focused on): "Journalists focused on Obama's blackness, yet 2/3 of voters chose him to 'fix the economy'." Interesting.

- "The Road to a Bestseller": Learned a bit about the publishing industry and about a few bestsellers they either turned down or took on but never expected such success from - Amy Einhorn, Charlie Conrad (who turned down The Lovely Bones) and Nita Taubib.

Today featured a mix of events. We started at the Bank Negara Malaysia for a presentation on Islamic banking, which is when it really hit me that I was in a completely foreign country. The presence of religion even in the financial system is intense: for example, the bank doesn't charge account holders interest because it's against the teachings in the Qu'ran. They believe nothing is accidental and that everything happens because of "God's will," so they have their own insurance policy called "Takeful." And, because they don't invest in non-Muslim, high-risk businesses (casinos, strip joints, etc.), they haven't been affected as much by the global financial crisis. Imagine being an Australian businessperson looking to set up shop in this type of setting - they have to educate themselves about the different legal requirements of regular and Islamic banking systems. Sounds complicated.

On our way to the Australian High Commission for our next tour, we stopped by a beautiful Buddhist temple. I'm not particularly swayed by any one religion and didn't grow up practicing anything, but the Buddhist values have always appealed to me. I like the fact that it encourages you to better yourself and be your own Supreme Being, and I left the temple with a stack of free books and brochures to further read up on its teachings.

Perhaps my favorite educational tour was next, at the Australian High Commission, where we listened to the presentation about Australia’s trade relations with Malaysia and how to be successful in business in Southeast Asia. Malaysia’s economy is only a fifth of the size of Australia’s, but 50 percent of their GDP comes from their exports (particularly rubber and timber) and they maintain their status as one of Australia’s top 10 trading partners (3,500 Australian companies export to Malaysia annually as well). Our presenter, Gareth, highlighted that the most important skill a Malaysian businessman (or women) had to possess was a strong command of the English language; without it, he said, you were “the lowest in the Malaysian economy.” This explained why everyone I’d spoken to in shops and restaurants spoke English so well: their careers depended on it. I’d expected to face a much bigger culture shock because of the language barrier, but I’d been happily surprised to find I could easily carry on a conversation with just about everyone I’d met.

What I also found fascinating about Gareth’s presentation was how divided the Malays, Malay-Chinese and Malay-Indian were, and particularly how evident the degradation and hostility towards each other was in the media. I was shocked to hear that a non-Malay businessperson’s promotion is often printed in the newspaper, as to draw attention to the idea that they’re treated fairly and have the ability to move up the job ladder just like their full Malay co-workers. Still, since 14 of the top 20 wealthiest businesspeople in Malaysia are Chinese or Indian, it sounds like they’re doing quite well for themselves.

The rest of the night was a lot of fun: chips and salsa at Chili's (haha), last minute shopping at KLCC, then heading out to Luna Bar, a gorgeous spot with a pool and a rooftop bar overlooking the city and Petronas Towers, and finally...Reggae Bar, for the last time. We ended up scoring t-shirts from the bar to wear around for the rest of our trip.

After a much-needed coffee sesh at the Starbucks across the street with Alecia and Courtney, we boarded the bus all dressed up in our business attire and headed for the industrial town of Rawang. Today we were going to visit the Perodua car factory and watch firsthand how cars are assembled, how engines are built, and all the work that goes into producing a single vehicle. I'm not much of a car person and it was difficult to hear what our tour guide was explaining over the noise, but it was pretty sweet to be able to walk through each step of the process.

Once the bus dropped us back at the hotel, Courtney, Alecia, Jeremy, James and I hailed a cab to Bukit Bintang, a prime shopping mecca just 3 km away. We haggled for a decent cab fare (because that's what you do here - you decide on the fare BEFORE you get in the cab! Excellent way to do it - if you're good, you can get across the city for just a few Aussie dollars) and arrived at...another American-style shopping mall. How funny.

We immediately headed upstairs to get a feed, settling on a nice looking Chinese restaurant. The prices were incredible: 12RM would get you a plate of Singapore noodles, 15RM for a plate of yummy steamed veggies, and the ultimate dish: a whopping 35RM for a whole duck. James ordered it out of curiosity, and within 15 minutes the waiters brought it out. It was...well, a whole duck. They then proceeded to carving it up and serving the skin in thin pancakes before whisking away the rest of the meat to toss into a noodle dish. (Unfortunately for James, Alecia and I accidentally mistakened the duck noodles for our Singapore noodles and ended up eating almost the entire dish. Whoops! It was delicious though.)

After lunch, we separated to pursue different shopping interests. I ended up shoe shopping for sandals and popping into Forever 21 (yeah, I was surprised to find it here too!) before meeting up with the group for drinks across the street.

We headed back to quickly shower and change, then reunited with the rest of the group for a pre-planned cultural night at the Saloma theatre and restaurant. The location was beautiful - set just near the lit-up Petronas Towers - and we were awed by a series of Chinese and Malaysian-influenced cultural dances (many of which several of my fellow students joined in on.) Some of the dances were pretty corny, but it was still fun to watch.