A Thought

I just got back from my first lecture of Australian Popular Culture (a class populated almost entirely by American students). One of the introductory slides featured pictures of Crocodile Dundee, a lifeguard sitting on a surfboard, and a picture of Ayers Rock (actually called uluru, nowadays). During my orientation, similar pictures were put up on slides of the way that Australians were conceived abroad, basically as surfing Steve Irwins. And while it is true that that is sort of the joking Australian stereotype, when I got on the plane to come here I wasn't really expecting the people in this country to be like that. I just assumed they would be normal people, when I really got down to the practicality of it. And I think that's probably what most people believe, right? When you picture a stereotype of a person from another country, do you really believe that everyone there is like that, or just that they are people who maybe speak another language or have a different accent? Maybe all of this stuff about how countries are represented abroad doesn't matter as much as we think it does. I do not really believe that Kazakhstan is full of people like Borat (lol).

PS australian funfact: most of the lifeguards here are volunteers.
PPS i got growled at by a bird yesterday. it was scary.
PPPS there was a gecko in my room this morning. actually he is currently MIA so he might still be here somewhere.