Current US time and date: 5:42 am, Tuesday 5/28/13
G'day cobbers! (That's another word for 'friends')
I'm very sorry for the long delay between blog posts, I've been meaning to post for the past few days but have been so busy down unda. Anyway! I just finished a delicious Aussie dinner of chicken schnitzel (also known as 'chicken schnitty'), and now I'm ready to buckle down and get to this blog.
I've been hearing nonstop about these 'schnitzels' here (they're quite iconic). Schnitzel has been on basically every menu at the restaurants I've gone to, there are numerous schnitzel shops in food courts and down in town, and people have been talking about it quite a lot. I've been curious as to what all the hype was about, so my host family thought it was time I actually tried it. I must say, it was very good! It's essentially just breaded chicken--can't go wrong there, right? It's typically served with chips (fries) and gravy, but my host mom just made it with gravy on the side tonight and a salad instead of chips. I put a little gravy on it, but I'm not much of a gravy-person unlike many of the Australians; they love their gravy! So, now I can happily cross 'schnitzel' off my Aussie Foods bucket list. Maybe I should tackle the emu next? Ehh...we'll see.
"The terms “Schnitty” and “Schnitter” are gaining popularity, particularly in South Australia, where the Schnitzel has reached almost cult or iconic status in local pub culture and on local menus." -Wikipedia
Remember I said I was teaching about American artists, and last week we learned about Andy Warhol? Well, this week I introduced the students to Jackson Pollock. Jackson was a very influential American painter and major figure in the abstract expressionist movement--an art movement that started post-World War 2. He was most renown for his unique style of "drip painting", which is basically just what it sounds like. Drip painting is a form of abstract art in which paint is dripped or poured onto the canvas. Jackson Pollock liked to do so with hardened brushes, basting syringes, and house paint. He would start by putting the canvas on the ground as this would allow him to walk all around his art as he created it. Then, he would let the dripping and paint slinging begin. It definitely is not a clean form of art (my students learned this after we made our own pieces)! Though some of his work may look like he just splattered paint onto a canvas, he said he always had an idea of what he wanted the outcome to be and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see. He also claimed he had control of his work; it was never accidental. This is somewhat hard to believe because of the many uncontrollable factors in this form of painting such as the force of gravity and absorption of paint on the canvas. He also had to deal with the movement of his body and viscous flow of the paint, but those were a little more controllable. Once all factors came together, he created some pretty amazing art. Take a look at some of his famous pieces:
Looks fun, huh?
Check out this one above ^^ This is called "Blue Poles", and it is actually quite famous in Australia.
Got a good look at it? Now, tell me, would you pay $1.3 million for that? Australia did!
In 1973, the National Gallery of Australia purchased that painting at a world-record breaking price of $1.3 million. At the time, this was the most money ever spent on a contemporary American painting in Australia. The painting caused quite the controversy over here, as some people just could not make sense as to why Australia was spending so much money on this piece of art. Here's a picture of it in the National Gallery of Australia:
And now, here are some of our own "Jackson Pollock" pieces!
Here was the start of the demonstration piece I did for the kids
My little Pollocks hard at work!
The demonstration piece once I finished the demo
Awesome student work pieces...
Don't they look great? Jackson Pollock would be proud!
Now, onto Healthy Harold. First, meet Harold!
As you see, Harold is a giraffe with his own "life science" center. At his center, students from all over can come learn about different health issues and topics. On Monday, we learned about the effects of smoking. I actually learned way more than I ever knew about this topic! We all know smoking is terrible for you and can lead to a lot of health issues, one big one being lung cancer, but there are also so many more horrible, life threatening aspects to smoking that I never knew.
In Australia, the leading cause of death amongst any and all drugs (legal and illegal) is smoking. Thankfully, the number of smokers has dropped significantly over the past few years--dropping more than 1 million smokers between 2001-2012 from 24.2% of the population to 17.5%. Still, smoking is a major issue in the country. There have been a lot of laws passed here regarding smoking, many of which are like ours. For example, restaurants, casinos, and public places are non-smoking. They also have some different laws such as it is illegal to smoke with any person under the age of 16 with you, and it is illegal to throw your cigarette butts out the window (many, many bush fires in Australia have been started because of this). The fines for both of these crimes are pretty hefty. Plus the fees of $15 per pack of cigarettes? That's one expensive habit.
I also learned a lot about what smoking does to our insides--it was all pretty disgusting, and I was feeling queazy seeing and hearing the effects. Did you know there are more than 4,000 chemicals in just one cigarette? Some of which include chemicals found in lighter fluid, batteries, candle wax, sewer gas, rat poison, rocket fuel, insecticide, toilet cleaner, and barbecue lighters. Sounds appetizing, right?
Here's the kids matching up some of the cigarette chemicals with things they are also found in
Car emission, rat poison, nail polish remover, toilet cleaner...
There's Healthy Harold coming out to answer some questions about smoking!
One of the most disturbing things I learned about was the way that smoking can build up fat and plaque inside your heart's arteries--the main blood vessels that move blood to your heart and keep it going strong--and clog them.
Here is the video they played on this topic. It is a AU anti-smoking commercial. Warning: it is NOT for anyone that cannot handle gory sights. When I said I felt queasy during the presentation, it was partly because of this video. That being said, do not watch it if you don't like to see gross, "yucky", unpleasant things---I'm lookin' at you here, Ashlynn ;) (I remember your reaction during the scissors part in Joey Pigza)
So, rather than spending the rest of this blog by telling you every interesting, disturbing, crazy fact about smoking and its effects, I'll just stop myself now and leave you with this: Smoking is not a joke. It should not, and cannot, be taken lightly. Yes, it does cause cancer, but if that wasn't enough to turn you off, then go take a look at the other long-term health effects. Not to mention the smell of your hair, clothes, and breath! If you find the time, research more about smoking and cigarettes; I'm still amazed by all that I learned on Monday.
Well, that about wraps up this post! I hope you all enjoyed your Memorial Day and day off from school! Make sure you thank any current and past soldiers for all that they have done if you haven't already. Sadly, I didn't get off on Monday since that is an American holiday :( oh well, I still participated in giving thanks from all the way across the world!
I promise I'll follow up with the culture/language blog posts soon. I'm really hoping I can get at least one of those done this week, but it all depends on my school work and your pen pal letters! The students are working on responding, and I'm slowly putting them all together to send over.
Also, this is my last week teaching :( don't worry though, I'm still going to play 'messenger' and send your messages to and from. I'll be traveling around this great country over the course of the next week and a half starting Saturday and won't be home, so I may not be as fast with the letters (or the blog posts), but I'm giving you my word it'll all get done! Can't wait to share everything I see and experience with you guys once I'm back from my travels! I'm sure that will result in some lengthy blog posts--sorry ahead of time for that.
Talk to you later, fifth grade!
-Miss Probasco
PS... during the course of writing this blog, I have also been baking a pavlova with my host mom! The first part is done, and tomorrow we're going to finish it by putting the cream on top and decorating it with fruit. Yum! I'll let you know how it turns out and how it tastes!
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