Japan blog

Hey guys,
I'm in Tokyo!! It's been fantastic so far and I've decided to start a blog to keep track of all my adventures/misadventures over the next four months. Here is the link: http://brettintokyo.blogspot.com/ ...Though I will share some of the more interesting stories on here from time to time. Anyways, I just spent the day admiring/laying under cherry trees...the city is gorgeous right now! Anyways, hope everyone is having a great time. Just remember- I beat all of you for earliest time zone! ;) (haha jk)

Performances

I've said before that Oxford favors specialization over well-roundedness. There's one area, however, in which the university is more open than IU, and that area is performing arts. It's much easier for students outside the theater and music departments to find groups to perform with. Most colleges have an orchestra, a drama society, or both. The university-wide orchestras have open auditions at the beginning of the year, and there are a plenty of student groups that put on their own productions.

Naturally, these groups still attract mostly theater and music majors, since they're more committed to the kind of work involved, but there's a healthy mix of humanities and science majors participating in most shows; this is not something that you find very often at IU.

"We can hear you guys miles away..."

So after noting the strong Scottish accents of a couple guys we were talking to at a bar, I asked an Aussie friend if the American accent seemed really strong to Australians. Her response: "Oh yea, we can hear you guys miles away..." Good to know. (and interesting that they use the phrase "miles away" when they work in kilometers)
A couple of notes about Australian-speak: They like words to end with an "ie" or "y" sound. My college, St. Thomas More, is Tommy More. The neighboring one is Georgie. Other examples are sunnies (sunglasses) and mossies (mosquitos), as well as the famous barbies (BBQs) I also have noticed that a lot of Australians add an "r" sound to the end of words ending in vowels. So at least to my ears it sounds more like "Australiar" (Australia), "Americer" (America), "idear" (idea), "pander" (panda), etc.
One more interesting thing-on the first day of one of my classes, one of my profs (as he was going over the course outline, etc) noted that he had taught in both Australia and the USA, (I think he's German) and he asked, "Do you know what the difference is between American and Australian students?" I was thinking "Uh-oh, something bad is coming..." but what he said actually complemented American students. He said (loosely quoted) "American students are loud and outspoken. They challenge the profesor. Australian students are quiet and passive..." (He was trying to encourage us to participate in the lectures.) An interesting generalization. I'll have to see if my classroom experiences support it.