Where to get your caffeine fix. Melbourne Edition

Melbourne, Australia is a city known for its multiculturalism, its graffiti and its coffee.

Now when I say it is known for its coffee I do not mean to say that every single shop selling coffee is a contender for world’s best coffee. I have met countless people who come to Melbourne expecting amazing coffee, go into the first café they come across on Swanston Street (the main drag of the CBD), order a cup and are disenchanted with Melbourne coffee forever. To them I would say it isn’t the coffee buddy, it is you. What they are doing is the equivalent of hearing New York has the best bagels in the world and then being disappointed after buying a bagel at Dunkin Donuts.

What I mean that anywhere you are in Melbourne no more than 5 minutes away is a really nice cup of coffee waiting for you in a local café. You just need to know where to go.

I have a coffee crazed Swedish partner which means I make it my job to know where there is good coffee, just in case we are out for a walk and he starts showing signs of caffeine withdrawals. These can range from seeming slightly deflated to downright cranky. He doesn’t always need coffee at these moments, sometimes he is just hungry (mostly for chicken) or it is too crowded, but the safest bet is probably coffee.

As his personal café database I have developed a pretty keen eye for good coffee.

Brunetti's also does a mean Affogato

There are of course the culture specific coffee like Brunetti’s Italian cappuccinos, perfect with some biscotti napoletani (check them out on weekday afternoons when they do a 6.50 pastry and coffee deal) or Bahla's Lebanese coffee to be enjoyed with a giant box of their famous baklava.
Though amazing these are more special occasion places than your standard everyday café.

For your day-to-day coffee needs look out for specific brands. If they advertise 5 Senses, Seven Seeds, De Bella, Padre, St Ali or Market Lane you are on the right track. These are all Melbourne roasts that are generally well loved. There are many more so don't hesitate to ask around for people's favourites!

Real coffee connoisseurs may want to look out for cafés that signpost daily coffee specials with roasts of different origins and added flavours.

There is also the ongoing battle between filter drip and full bean ground coffee. Any place that acknowledges this schism will probably also serve up a robust cup of joe.

However useful these strategies may be, none of them form the basis of my café-picking policy. In Melbourne the best advice I can give for locating places with good coffee is find the most hipster looking place with the most hipster looking people, and you’ve probably found yourself a winner.

Seriously though, how much time would this take to do...

Now I am in no way a hipster, I love many aspects of mainstream culture, and not just ironically, but I do appreciate some of the things Melbourne hipsters get right.

1.       Their immaculately manicured beards, like seriously they are discomfortingly tidy

2.       Their love for foreign films, just because it isn’t in English featuring some major star like Johnny Depp, doesn’t mean it isn’t an amazing movie

3.       And finally their snootiness about coffee

I say snootiness with the greatest respect by the way

In a city where your standard cup of coffee is about 3,5-4 dollars (with another half a dollar added on if you are a lactard like me and need soy) you really shouldn’t be settling for bad coffee.

As I mentioned my partner is a coffee snob. He even uses a shorter more English sounding version of his extremely Swedish name when ordering coffee to make the process less of a hassle (a practice which I myself have begun to adopt). I joke that it is his hipster alter-ego ordering a flat white.

While many mock the hipsters (sometimes in self-defense due to the slight snooty scoffing that can sometimes occur when frequenting hipster cafés as a not so hip person) is true Melbourne hipsters often run and visit great coffee shops.

Brother Baba Budan
See what I mean about the random decor?

Now some of you who are not so familiar with the Melbourne hipster scene may be wondering how on earth you are to distinguish a hipster coffee joint from a regular one. Well a few things to look out for are, random object replacing standard furniture (things like crates or barrels), very distinct decoration like bikes mounted on the walls or large wall paintings, mason jars or other odd vessels for drinks and food, fancy looking sandwiches or pastries in the windows, organic juices on the menu, big sharing tables, bicycle parking in front, coffee distillers that look like out-of-place chemistry sets and slightly abnormal placeholders. In terms of guests/servers look for people wearing skinny jeans, thick rimmed glasses, mis-matched colours/patterns or possibly all of the above.

Chances are a place with most of these characteristics will have great coffee and you’ll never have to drink at Starbucks or Gloria Jean again.

If you are still unsure just check out this really cool map featuring a couple of the most hipster coffee places around.
hipstermelbourne.org

Happy hunting!

Post-Holiday Treat: Kettlebuns Recipe

Happy 2015 everyone.

I hope you all had lovely holidays and got a bit of a break from work and study.

Personally I really enjoyed the holidays. It was the first year I didn't have to worry about all transportation options for getting home being cancelled because of snow or ice.
No this year my parents came to visit me for the holidays which means I was lucky enough to be in a country that celebrates Christmas over summer, which meant my Christmas day was spent in shorts and a t-shirt checking out animals at the zoo and picnicking in the grass, slightly different from the usual eating Christmas Eve leftovers while watching the Grinch wearing 3 sweaters.

The one downside was the lack of home kitchen in which to cook an elaborate Christmas dinner. I mean eating out was nice and all, a good burgers and shakes is always appreciated, but I definitely missed the hustle and bustle of Christmas eve cooking, the turkey, cranberries, stuffing and la piece de resistance the buche de noel.

My holiday meal quota for the year was limited to Thanksgiving dinner, when my partner and I were invited to an american-australian thanksgiving crossover. All the typical requirements were met: good company and conversation, nice drinks, the traditional turkey, mash, greens, squash and pumpkin pie with the addition of a less conventional, though delicious, chocolate ripple bake. My partner and I were responsible for the dinner rolls, a job we took very seriously, no buying pre-made buns from a bakery or supermarket, good old home-made fare from scratch.

As I stated above the kitchen I have access to is not exactly the most reliable. For one it is being used by another 100 people (probably less considering i am pretty sure quite few of them cook). The temperature and humidity is not stable with doors being opened and closed at random, the oven and dishwasher being used sporadically. All in all not a great place to commit to baking something that requires anywhere from 3 to 6 hours of your day as any bread based recipe does. But, we were committed so the day of the dinner party came and we began our search for recipes.

We ultimately settled on Martha Stewart's dinner rolls recipe (http://www.marthastewart.com/312832/dinner-rolls). Mostly just because we were hungry at the time and the image looked nice. After reading the recipe it seemed easy enough, we had all the ingredients and 3 and a half hours was less time than most other recipes required (as we later found out this was because whoever wrote the recipe seriously underestimated the amount of time required for anyone who is not Martha Stewart).

We began our baking adventure around four hours before we had to leave for the party. After bringing together our dough and kneading it until it sprung back after a good prodding it was time to let it rise. Now anyone who has ever made bread knows that this is the moment of truth, the point when you find out whether your yeast was active and your kneading worked, it is the moment when your dough is meant to rise. Normally for a quick rise you have to leave your dough somewhere warm (not hot). As there was no-where reliably warm to put our dough and it was rising too slowly for us to be on time for dinner we had to get inventive and I came up with an idea. I decided to put the bowl with dough onto my desk next to a hot just-boiled kettle under a blanket. Sounds weird I know but it worked, the dough rose like helium filled balloon. We were able to beat the air out of it and separate it into rolls to let it rise again just on time to go to the dinner party.

If you don't believe that my technique worked here is a photo of the bread rolls once they were done. In fact when we got to the party the host thought we had cheated and bought our rolls, that is how good they looked, though his comment may have also been influenced by the box we brought the rolls in. As they didn't fit into any of our tupperwares we ended up using the box that my bath robe had come in. The fact that it was lined in baking paper and had a bit of plastic you could look in through apparently made it look like a baker's box.

Anyway lesson of the day: amazing food can be cooked anywhere with some determination, a little bin of extra effort and a whole lot of creativity.

- Annelies

Breaking Negative Thought Patterns

The university experience can be isolating, competitive and demoralising. That is why it is important to go in with a thick skin, good coping strategies and a positive, but realistic, outlook. This way you'll be able to thrive and attract like minded individuals to surround yourself with. This can make university a positive time in your life both academically and socially.

I am currently a postgraduate, working on a PhD and I recently found out that around 40-50 percent of all grad students experience emotional or stress-related problem that significantly affects their well-being or academic performance. Those are some scary statistics, especially considering those are only the ones that have gone through the effort of telling someone about their problems. Many people just sit and suffer in silence.

I personally went through my own meltdown between my second and third year of undergrad, and I know how easy it is to assume that there is no point talking about it because no-one could possibly understand what you are going through, and how uniquely difficult your situation is. I also know what a load of excuses those are. If half the student population is experiencing anxious or depressed episodes, then there is a good chance talking about it will do more good than harm, at the very least it will make you feel less isolated.

The unwillingness of most people to seek professional help is also a major problem. People seem to live under the conviction that psychologists and councilors are for the weak or in the worst case for the insane. This is completely untrue. Everyone has certain things that make them irrationally guilty, jealous, upset, anxious or angry and could benefit from minimalising the affects of those negative feelings on their lives.

I have been dealing with a number of friends who are suffering from mixes of anxiety, depression and eating disorders. All having to do with a negative thought process and unproductive coping mechanisms. These often lead to cynicism, bad self-images and distrust of others. The justification often used is that they are just being realistic that thinking positively would be to delude themselves. I disagree, I believe that those negative thoughts are more delusional than a healthy dose of optimism.

I know all to well that snapping out of these patterns is more difficult than it seams on paper. You really have to completely alter the way you think and it takes a lot of work, but it is not impossible, and ultimately you will be better for it. It takes a supportive group of friends and/or family, some who push you, some who are gentle but all of whom will be there to catch you when you fall. In my case my professional team, councilors, psychologist, doctor and dietician were an excellent help providing both moral and practical support.

The main thing I learned was that setting small achievable goals, each time pushing yourself a bit further is key to getting out of a mental crisis. Also allowing yourself to slip up sometimes is important. But these slip ups need to be used a learning experience. You can't get away with just making excuses for yourself and going back to square 1 each time. When the crisis gets really bad it is often best to avoid too many other commitments. Taking some time off to recover will often help more in the long run, rather than attempting to juggle recovery with jobs, essays or committees. It takes a lot of effort and a relaxing caring environment to really make a long term change.

I personally found CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy extremely helpful, but different people get over negative patterns in different ways: traveling, art, music, ... the options are endless.
As long as it helps you externalise and analyse your thought processes. Notice triggers, patterns and consider new ways of coping. I used to keep a diary of both physical and mental reactions to certain events, those two are often more intertwined then we think, and improving our well-being on both accounts is essential to leading a more positive life.

For more serious long term crises (anorexia, depression, etc.) there are often multiple phases of recovery. Initial denial of course: the negative patterns have become so commonplace that they seem rational and natural, they are not yet perceived as problems in need of fixing. Then comes realisation: the point when the patterns start being recognised as irrational. A word of warning to this phase, though highly important to recovery it is also very deceptive. Knowing something is wrong and acting on it are two very different things and it is easy to plateau in this phase. Often others will not understand why at this point you are not yet getting visibly better. This is because there is an internal war occurring in your head between the rational and irrational. Part of you wants to change but the other part realises how difficult this will be and would prefer to just stay the way it is. However difficult it may be, once you accept the fact that you are struggling to recover on your own it is very important you get help. Which is also phase three. Once you are able to accept help, you are finally on your way to active recovery. If all goes well you will start feeling more like you belong in your own skin and eventually you'll be able to look back and see the crisis as a moment of your life that taught you something about yourself and made you stronger.

Some patterns of negative thinking that could lead to such crises and you should probably nip in the bud now are:

- All-or-nothing thinking: 'anything less than perfection is failure'

- Black-and-white thinking: 'I can't be a contributing member of society unless I am a lawyer'
- Disqualifying the positives: 'life is just a series of disappointments'
- Negative self-labeling: 'if people knew what a failure I was they wouldn't like me'
- Catastrophising: 'everything will go horribly wrong'
- Mind reading: 'I am sure all my friends hate me because they didn't invite me for dinner'
- Shoulda-woulda-coulda: 'I should be acing every exam'
- Excessive need for approval: 'I need someone to love me to be happy'
- Disqualifying the present: 'I'll relax when I am done with university and have a job'
- Dwelling on pain: 'If I just keep thinking about what went wrong maybe I'll feel better'
- Guilt trip: 'Everything is always all my fault I am a terrible person'

These are all common pessimistic ways of seeing the world. All are equally irrational and all can be refuted. Realising that you control how you think, that you got into the negative cycle and you have the power to get out of it, is very important. No-one made you think this way, if you have surrounded yourself with negative people who are not supportive of your attempt to turn to a more positive outlook, maybe it is time to look for a new support group, your old friends will come around when they are ready.

Like I said before it is difficult to get out of a negative thinking pattern, it takes time, effort and a bit of outside help, but in the end I believe it is most definitely worth your while.

On Faith and Values #NSLF2014

Over the weekend I attended a conference in Canberra called the National Student Leadership Forum. 

I was nominated by my college about a month prior to the forum, and initially writing my application I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Going in I was afraid it would just be a series of lectures, or even one of those kumbaya type sharing-round-a-campfire events I had been to as a kid (seriously though we made tie-dye shirts and talked about how vegetables were people too). It didn't help that the age category was 18-26 which meant I could be dealing with undergraduates, students who were 5 years younger than me. 

Needless to say I went in with quite a lot of scepticism and very little knowledge of what the program would be like. All I knew was I was going to attend the forum, take 4 days of my research and hopefully learn a little bit about leadership.

At 8 am, 3 hours after a painfully early wakeup call, my partner and I arrived in Canberra. We were to be staying at the Hyatt, a 5 star hotel near Capitol Hill. 5 star, as in bathrooms that are about the same size as my college dorm, as in Jacuzzi and sauna facilities in the pool house, as in you probably shouldn’t arrive in jeans, sneakers and a pink lap top bag if you want to be taken seriously.

Luckily (or perhaps not so luckily) we had 3 hours to kill before we could even register for the forum, so I had time to change, re-arrange my luggage, drat some e-mails, and walk around the hotel about 7 times. By the time the forum started I had started to seriously cultivate the idea that the entire event was a little too high brow for me. Most of the people I met were dressed in business attire and had a background in politics, commerce or law. Everyone seemed to have a sense of purpose, whereas I was starting to wonder why I had come. Later on in the weekend I would realise that most of the other students who had been nominated for the forum had been just as nervous and confused as me. However, that was not the way I perceived it at the time.

The first thing that we were required to do when registration opened was to pick up a schedule, and sign up for seminars. Looking at the program for the next three days ended up being less re-assuring than I had hoped. Almost every hour from 8 am to 10 pm was completely booked up, with talks mostly but also something noted down as small group time. The rest of the afternoon was to be spent at Parliament House, attending question time and listening to speeches by a bunch of politicians whose policies I categorically disapproved of. This seemed to reinforce my earlier scepticism and fear that the entire forum would turn into a series of lectures.

Suffice it to say that every single one of my assumptions was totally and completely wrong.

Small group sessions turned out to be time spent among an amalgamation of about 9-10 people of which most other students like yourself, discussing the themes brought up during the activities of the day and sharing your story and motivation. I was lucky to be in a group with 8 of the most inspirational, supportive and fun people I have ever had the chance to meet. The way the sessions were planned really forced you to open up and make yourself vulnerable, which, although extremely scary, also helped solidify the group’s sense of comradeship and made us form friendships a lot faster than had we just sat around and discussed leadership.

Similarly with regards to the lectures. I was afraid they would be boring and preachy, and I would end up getting angry and just rant about the immoral political/financial decisions of the various speakers. Surprisingly each and every one of the speakers had an interesting and engaging story to tell. I had always seen these people in their professional roles, treasurer of Australia, leader of the opposition, CEO of a multinational company. Listening to them talk about their motivations however, forced me to see them as individuals each with their own histories and motivations for taking on the positions that they had. Once you start seeing someone as an individual it becomes very difficult to disregard everything they do or say as terrible. You start trying to understand them, and think of ways of working with rather than against them (though that still doesn’t mean you have to go along with or even agree with any of their policies). In my case it also made me feel like quite a mean person for having judged them the way I did.

After an afternoon of serious soul searching, and a complete turnaround in my view of the forum, I finally retired to my room ready for a long night of sleep after having been awake since 5 in the morning. To my surprise, my roommate, though having arrived before me, had left me the ginormous double bed, herself taking the small single bed at the other end of the room. That act of kindness set the tone for the rest of my engagement with the forum.

The next few days besides having lectures and small group sessions, we also had a trip to the war memorial, an afternoon of team-building: playing volleyball and soccer, a community service outing in which my group helped paint furniture at a disabilities centre and helped with animation at a local fayre, and a barn dance. All further solidifying our ties with each other and our confidence in ourselves.

Part of the program also consisted of delegates performing or presenting in front of their peers. One group did the haka, there were a number of people who sang (the music ranging from opera to indie), one guy recited Shakespeare, and another few people showed us Fijian dances. All amazing and great in their own right. However, the presentation that really caught my attention was the Maori prayer shared with us by Levi W. I liked it so much I asked him to send it to me afterwards and he immediately did along with a translation and inspiring commentary.

Whakarongo, whakarongo, whakarongo.

Whakarongo ki te tangi a te manu e karanga nei

Tui, tui tui tuia,

Tuia i runga, Tuia i raro,

Tuia i roto, Tuia i waho,

Tuia i te heretangata.

Ka rongo te po, ka rongo te ao.

Tuia i te kawai whakapapa i heke mai,

I Hawaiki-nui, I Hawaiki-roa, I Hawaiki-pamaomao,

Te hono ki te wairua, Ki te whaiao, Ki te ao marama,

Tihei mauri ora.

Listen, Listen, Listen.

Listen to the cry of the bird that calls

Unite, unite, unite and be one

Unite above, unite below,

Unite within, unite without,

Unite as a people.

Hear this in the dark/night, hear this in the light/night.

Unite in the descent lines from,

Great Hawaiki, Long Hawaiki, Far away Hawaiki,

Joined with the spirit, the glimmering dawn, the world of light,

There is life.

In his view, and I agree with this fully the poem engages with many of the themes of the forum. “It talks about the weaving together of people through meaningful relationships, creating something great with new possibilities and countless new realities, out of two ordinary objects: people. We are joined as people, with the spirit (life force), the glimmering dawn (possibilities and potential) and the world of light (that which is).”

He also shed some light on Maori culture for me. Apparently the Maori hold the understanding that there is life in the breath, so in the sharing of the breath we share our selves and our spirits with each other. That is why the final verse: Tihei Mauri Ora – there is life, is such a strong line. It is about the creation of life through the sharing of breath.

There were a number of other inspiring ideas that came up during the speeches. Jihad Dibb’s assertion that active communication and engagement with others as a way of becoming a better leader, Audette Exel’s belief that the best way to lead is to stay true to yourself and be honest with others, and Joseph Assaf’s description of harmony not as an absence of difference but as the coordination thereof, are all examples of this. But for me all of it came back to this one speech, this one idea of people joining together in meaningful relationships, sharing a spirit and through that creating life, creating a culture, and changing the world. That was the speech that defined my weekend; that was the speech that curbed my cynicism; and that is the message I wish to share.

Belgian born but not bred

I've always considered myself a bit of a wanderer.

I was born in Belgium, in a city called Aalst, and for the first year of my life I lived in the bucolic province of East Flanders. Since then I have moved 7 times, lived in 5 countries over 4 continents.
Over my 23 years of travelling the world I have never found a place where I truly belong, no one location where I feel rooted or at home. As a teenager this gave me a sense of pride. At an age where everyone desires to be unique, I had staked my claim to singularity through my travels.
However, as I entered university life and especially post-graduate studies I began to miss the sense of stability that a home could provide.

I often describe my PhD candidature as a kind of limbo. In a sense my thesis is my job. As I am on a scholarship and working within the limitations of a student visa, I am getting paid to research and write on a topic of academic interest. But, at the same time my graduate student experience is removed from much of the experience of those who have left academia and have full time jobs and families. I have yet to figure out what I'll be doing after thesis work, where I'll be doing it, whether I will be living independently, with family, a partner, or a friend. Add to that the common feeling graduate students have of being unworthy of their specialist status. I personally often feel like I am just an imposter, muddling my way through while others achieve greatness in their fields. I am constantly afraid of being found out. As if one day security would come into my office and escort me out, as the administration realised that my acceptance had been a fluke. These thoughts can leave you feeling unsettled and weak. For me this manifests in a kind of homesickness. Only I can't seem to pinpoint the location of the home I seem to be missing. My nostalgia seems to be focused on the experiences others describe to me, rather than any personal memories of a familiar home territory. This realisation often leaves me feeling lost, alone and quite hopeless.
Luckily these episodes never last too long and I always manage to get by with a caring word from a friend or relative. During one of my more recent bouts of sadness, a good friend sent me a link about being a 3rd Culture Kid. Now as I stated above, I always thought of my experiences as unique, separating me from the rest of the world. At the time it helped me justify my cynicism and general teenage angst. However, at the age of 21, hearing that my feelings of marginality and disassociation were a common occurrence was an immense relief. Turns out I wasn't doomed to wander alone, there was an entire host of people engages in parallel wanderings across the world.

So though I may not have a specific place to call home, I have loved ones and memories scattered all over the globe, and my home, along with my heart is scattered among them.