Still coughing Posted on September 9th, 2004 by Jared Lee

Well, I’ve passed the two-month mark of my arrival here in Australia, it’s hard to believe it’s already been two months. But most of the last week has been dominated by this awful cough that I still have. I saw one of the doctors at the Health Services office in the campus centre last Thursday, and he said it was basically just the common cold, although I didn’t exactly share that sentiment. So when on Tuesday it got significantly worse, with my chest so sore from coughing that I could barely move, I went back to Health Services on Wednesday afternoon. I saw a different doctor this time, and upon listening to my breathing with a stethoscope (and saying that it sounded “downright musical” due to lung spasms), promptly prescribed me some antibiotics and an inhaler.

I’m really hoping the drugs start doing their job soon, because it’s getting old being in pain whenever I move my upper body at all. Even breathing, but especially coughing, is painful. It really sucks. The doc said that he’s surprised at how many American students come down with respiratory illnesses every semester here in Melbourne, that it just must be some differences in the strains of whatever that we Americans aren’t used to. And I’m certainly not the only one with a cough or other respiratory crap, Patrick, the guy who lives across the hall from me, and a bunch of his friends from Loyola College that are down here either are already sick or are getting sick too. So what have I been doing in between coughing fits?Last weekend I sat by the TV most of the time actually, catching three of the four first-round AFL (footy) playoff matches. Brisbane slaughtered St Kilda 149-69 (Brisbane had been up by 100 for a little while, an absolutely astounding margin), Essendon edged Melbourne 104-99 in a fantastic back-and-forth match, Sydney survived a thunderstorm and treacherous conditions to knock off West Coast 75-34, and Port Adelaide trounced Geelong 117-62. In footy, a goal is worth 6 points and a behind is worth 1 point, so as you can see it’s typical for a team to kick around 15 goals in a game. Pretty much any game decided by more than 30 points is considered a blowout, less than 10 is really close. The AFL also does playoffs a bit different from the NFL back in the States. In the AFL the top 8 teams (out of 16 total in the league) make the playoffs, and the top 4 get the “double chance.” Basically the top 4 teams play each other in the first round in what are called qualifying finals, where the winner gets a bye the next week and the losers play the winners of the elimination finals, which are the first-round matches between the bottom 4 teams in the playoffs. So even though St Kilda and Geelong both got creamed last weekend, they’re still alive, but Melbourne and West Coast are done for good. This weekend both games are at the MCG, Sydney-St Kilda (winner goes to Port Adelaide next week) and Essendon-Geelong (winner plays Brisbane, the three-time defending AFL champs).

On Tuesday MWACS (Monash Weather & Climate Society) had “Vorticity Day,” with guest speaker Dr Greg Holland from Aerosonde and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research. He gave a very interesting talk about vorticity, a concept that’s pretty important in fluid dynamics and meteorology, and afterwards there was a Q&A session, where I sussed out from him why he went to Colorado State University to do his Ph.D. in meteorology (instead of other top schools for weather, including Oklahoma or Wisconsin). He told me that the important thing in looking for a grad school was to find someone that you would be able to work with for a few years. Basically his advice was to read papers on topics that really interested me, then find out who wrote them, then find out what university they’re at, and that I should base my decision on that, not just on the reputation of the grad school in the field. That’s basically very similar advice to what I’ve also gotten from Dr Cecil Keen at Minnesota State University-Mankato, in all my talks with him. Anyways, Dr Holland also went on to tell us some stories, including from when he was stationed up in Darwin as a forecaster at the time when Tropical Cyclone Tracy struck the city dead-on on Christmas Eve 1974, causing massive devastation. Tracy is still one of the most talked-about weather events in Australian history. In that respect it’s probably similar to how Hurricanes Andrew or Hugo are still talked about back in the States.

Other than that there hasn’t been a whole lot going on, other than finishing up a paper on Wednesday for my Aussie Landscape class. I’m starting to do some research for my Climate Change essay that’s coming up, examining the evidence for rapid climatic changes in Earth’s history. I’m actually learning a fair amount by doing this research, but some of the papers I’m having to read are so long, and at this stage it’s hard to tell what’s going to be relevant to me or not. Sigh. And there’s no rough draft of the essay to hand in, like there might be back in the States. Here the prof won’t pre-screen your essay either, they’ll only look at a small section (like a paragraph) if you have a specific question. But they’re also pretty open about helping the students do a little research if they’re having trouble finding resources, so that’s cool. The only challenge for me will be getting motivated enough to do very much before it’s almost due.

Well, that’s all for me now. I’m really hoping I get better soon, because I don’t want to be prevented from going anywhere or doing anything with anybody for a third weekend in a row because of this cough. I’ve already been frustrated enough the last two weekends, I don’t need a third. If nothing else I need to be better by a week from tomorrow, when my Aussie Landscape class is taking a four-day camping/hiking trip to Wilson’s Prom. Let’s keep those fingers crossed, but now that I have drugs I think I can actually hope I’m gonna start getting better finally.

But lastly, in memory of the victims of the September 11th attacks, I’d just like to say that we will never forget that day. I for one will never forget finding out about the attacks while standing outside the cafeteria at Gustavus that September morning three years ago as a freshman in my first or second week of classes at GAC, staring dumbfounded at the TV along with a group of other students gathered right outside the caf. We will never forget.