Well, it's yet again Sunday night. All one can do is "look forward" to another week of school/work/the longest possible amount of time before the next weekend. It seems like it's always Sunday evening here. But this Sunday is different! Ruth Ann is making(as I type) rice bubble treats(rice krispie treats with peanut butter, honey, coconut, and raisins instead of marshmallows)!!! We just got done cleaning the dust off of the floor and under the furniture. Our apartment produces a ridiculous amount of dust. We have no idea where it comes from but there are always huge dust bunnies(or jack rabbits) under our bed. So because of our hard work, we get a treat!!

We had our first orchestra concerts this weekend. There was a concert Friday night that celebrated all the scholarship winners at the Con. Apparently both of us won scholarships, some of which we didn't even know! We knew about Ruth Ann's but had no clue I was getting anything. We're not counting our chickens before they hatch, though, because we have lived here too long. We're going into the scholarship lady at the Con and seeing what exactly is going on-it's possible it was a typo or some other mishap. Later that night we went to here the Sydney Symphony(we can get some free tickets through the Con) and heard an amazing oboe concerto amongst other things. We decided that should they even need an extra flutist or bassoonist, we'd be more than happy to play with them.

Our concert Saturday afternoon was not quite as good and Fridays, but we decided to be social and went out afterwards with a number of the wind section. We had multiple odd and amusing conversations such as "the evils of American cheese vs. The other better kinds of cheeses out there(we agreed)," "Denver and tuba players," and we tried in vain to explain right wing militias-apparently they don't really have them here.

We've used our Sunday to the best of our abilities: slept late, went running, had pancakes!, talked to various family members, had a nap, and now we get dessert! Have a good Sunday night!
~Mike

I feel like expounding on our discussion on right wing militias. :-) I'm not sure why Mike decided to ask the Australians if they had any, but they were extremely confused. The discussion got passed around the table a bit, and Mike tried to explain about people hiding out in compounds deep in Montana. One girl protested that there hadn't been guerilla warfare since Vietnam, and another guy said that there were no people to shoot in the bush. We tried to explain further, about right-wing extremists, just hanging onto their guns for dear life. "Some people go hunting for fun," another guy offered. We continued to try and explain Montana (who can?!) and I guess it didn't work. When one girl finally said "I think the closest thing we have is paintball," we gave up. !!!! I guess you just have to experience it for it to make sense :-)
Back to my Rice Bubbles!
~Ruth Ann