First week: This week was mentally and emotionally draining. I met my colleagues at the City Futures Research Centre on Monday, but my mentor Hazel will not actually arrive until next week. She is currently in Spain presenting at a housing and climate conference. However, Charlie (another researcher) helped me settle in and gave me relevant readings to situate myself in the centre. The administrative assistant Aley is great too. She is a graduate student at the University of New South Wales studying share homes (like a more official system of roommates), and she has helped me navigate a lot of the public transportation to and from the CFRC. Australia on the whole is very disorienting place (cars driving on the wrong side of the road, etc.), but I made the time to visit a couple of new neighborhoods and museums, like the Museum of Sydney and Art Gallery of New South Wales. At the Museum of Sydney, I was surprised to learn many parallels between Sydney and New York City, as both were founded as port cities under the British empire. Even the development of the city center, claim of native territory, and creation of industry paralleled one another. I am looking forward to spending more time exploring the city, but it is a bit lonely doing everything by myself.  

Second week: Hazel returned! It was wonderful to meet her in person, and I spent Monday auditing one of her research classes. The class lasted from 10AM - 5PM with coffee and lunch breaks sprinkled within. It was wonderful to hear her speak about her research process and to learn about the disparate interests of her students. One person is focused on the land use policies associated with graveyard development, and I had never considered that as a topic of interest until today. The students were very welcoming to me, and we even had lunch together. I did some very Australian activities this weekend, like drinking flat whites to an excess and going on a few coastal walks. People keep complaining about the cold, but it's only 70 degrees out, so it's actually perfect weather. I think I am going to try going to an outdoor public bath and go on a bush walk soon. I have been settling into the rhythm of life here, and my research has been going smoothly, now that I have access to the Columbia GIS subscription. 

Third week: I ran into a roadblock with my GIS account, since I need to virtually access the computers at Columbia through screen mirroring. The software has very different capabilities on PCs than online, and trying to use both has been more difficult than I thought. Figuring out how to sort the data/make the color scales has also been a challenge, and I have spent more time researching quantitative analysis than I thought I would. However, the work is very interesting, and it is important to sort data in the way that is most accurate and fair, whether that be thorough even breaks, normal distribution, or logarithmic scales. On a more fun note, I did the famous Spit to Manly walk this past weekend, and I met a friend. I wanted to get involved with the local community here, so I decided to start volunteering with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. My new friend Natasha is one of the leaders, and I attended a few sessions on how they are currently protesting fracking in the Northern Territories. We had some very interesting conversations about the war in Gaza and how it overlaps with climate policy, and Natasha is going to take me to the University of Sydney encampment next week. 

Fourth week: GIS solved. I finally finished my tasks, and I was able to successfully visualize the demographic data. I have now begun to do background research and start drafting the text for the Storymap. Given that I am completely new to this subject matter, Hazel and I decided that a "Strata 101" project would be the most appropriate and useful resource for me to attempt to tackle. In my free time, Natasha and I went to the Biennale in Sydney. It was in an old power station that has been repurposed into an art exhibition space. I also went to a couple of local craft fairs, and I was excited to learn about the pearl and silver industries in Australia. I knew very little about the main precious products of Australia, and the artisans were very friendly and willing to chat. I am slowly becoming more open to impromptu conversations, and I finally feel comfortable navigating public transportation, striking up conversations, and exploring the city alone. However, my main mode of transport is on-foot (Opal is very expensive), and Sydney is not a very walkable city, and I was lightly hit by a car when I was just crossing the street. I was joking with Aley that unlike in New York where drivers will yield to pedestrians and feel mad about it, Sydney drivers will run over pedestrians and feel happy about it. 

Fifth week: For the final two weeks, Hazel, Charlie, and I were planned a couple of walking tour routes for me to experience the neighborhood change and gentrification processes at play in Sydney. There is this one reflective green roof in Sydney (One Central Park) that reflects sunlight onto its green roof and onto the street below, in order to illuminate it despite the tall buildings in the area. I also took a short tour of the financial district and old port town, which resembled NYC's South Street Seaport. During these short tours, I have also been taking film photos with my camera, and it has been a fun and immersive experience so far. My notes from these tours will inform the way that I draft my final story map. In the mean time, I actually met up with my friend Taryn Chung from high school, who is also in Sydney for Cornell Laidlaw! It was great to meet Taryn and her other Laidlaw friends, Olivia and Eliza. We went on a brewery crawl and met some welcoming people while hiking in the Blue Mountains. 

Sixth week: Final week meant committing to completing my project. The text is done for the most part, and I am only tweaking the maps to include tool tips and have interactive components, like sliders and zoom features. We have also decided to put another previous CFRC map in my story map, which has created conflict regarding data permissions. However, I think we will get it done fine. I have been spending my last week just revising my favorite places, walking around my favorite neighborhoods, and spending time with the Cornell Laidlaws and Natasha. We all went to a rock gig with Aley and her sister, and it was  awesome to see more of the local music scene in Australia. I have certainly learned a lot of the challenges of implementing GIS as a research method beyond the classroom, but I have honed my skills, and I am now equipped to take on more difficult geography visualizations. Overall, great summer!