Friday, April 4, 2008
Sydney is one strange city. Even though i'm trying to blend in as a local...it really doesn't seem to be working.
Some strange things people have said to me over the past few weeks that i have found quite amusing:
"You have a melbourne accent."
"You dress like a melbournian"
"You seem to dress a cut above the rest."
"You come from Melbourne?! you poor dear..."
Other things I've found really eye opening:
1. See, it has taken me a while to get myself a scientific calculator so for the past few weeks I've been using my graphics calculator at uni and when ever i whip it out i get the funniest reactions. You see, people here have never heard of this contraption before and if they have, then they certainly have never laid eyes upon one until the day they met me. Students here dont get to use graphics calculators in year 12. You decide whose standard of maths is higher. (personally i reckon vic wins...but people here think it's cheating :p )
2. Speaking of the differences in cirriculum...i could not get over the fact year students here pretty much had to write essaysin chemistry and physics. In a way it's smart coz they deliberately made it that way so that asians who can only calculate really well but can't apply theory and write essays for crap won't get an advantage. Having said that though, science standards in victoria are so much higher. I can't believe students don't do organic chem here in year 12 when we spend like one semester doing it in vic and when it comes to things like oribtals..they'd be like.."what are orbitals?" oh well..at least it means i get a head start in chem for uni.
3. The roads. omgosh. where do i start? The traffic is a nightmare. Cars everywhere. People everywhere. Roads going in all different directions. One way streets. and the conditions of the roads are horrible! as in...the road itself...it's like there's no such thing as road work here. Some of the major...MAJOR roads in sydney are in the most run down state and driving on them makes you think you're in anywhere but sydney. Let's just say...i didn't know what a pot hole looked like until i came here :p and the problem is...they can't level out the roads and make them smooth because that would mean road work and road work implies that the road will need to be closed which implies CHAOS as it is already chaos with all lanes open.
5. People here don't give a crap about AFL. They don't know the first thing about AFL. which kinda sucks coz although I don't really like the sport all thaat much...it's certainly better than rugby. All people care about here is the NRL. i don't know the first thing about rugby! and they dont make it as grand as they make AFL in melbourne so it's kinda different not seeing everyone walking around the city with their team scarf wrapped around their neck.
4. You don't realise how laid back melbourne actually is until you stay in sydney for a while. It really is a much bigger city. There are so many people here and everyone is always on the go.
But i'm just being a picky, biased melbournian :D other than those little things, it's a great city and i love it here :D dw..i will do a post on how great sydney is as well..of which there are many actually :p Now that i'm in sydney, i really have been exposed to the whole melbourne-sydney rivalry. I stand on neither side of the debate. They're both great cities with pros and cons.
posted @ 6:33 AM
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