What's a Phff-aaa-nn?

STOP!!!!!!

What DO you think you're doing?

You're reading this post AND YOU HAVEN'T RESPONDED TO OUR QUIZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's it. Stop reading right now and get your lazy self down to the last posting and answer our questions. It won't hurt, I promise. Get a move on!!

*********************************************************************

Thank you. That's much better, and it wasn't so hard, was it?!

I just got back from another futile shopping trip to Tar-jay. Seeing as the sun is being sighted several times a week again, and temperatures have creeped up as high as 26 degrees, I thought it was reasonable to want to replace our beloved Hoppy the Fan who succombed to all the dust in our apartment a few weeks ago. (One could say he literally bit the dust!!) I'd checked for fans a few weeks ago and the response was "Check back in a few weeks!" I went today but still no luck. If you ask for anything that's not in stock at Tar-jay, you can see the workers sounding it out in their heads. "She wants a phhhfff-aaaaa-nnnn. Is that some fashion accessory? A brand of furniture?" They assume a blank look which quickly switches into one of smug superiority. "WE are above ppphhhfffaaaaannnnnss." I'll try back next month.

I can't really pretend that a lack of knowledge and organization is unique to Sydney's Tar-jay, though. Back in Bloomington, before they renovated, Target kept hair dryers in the most obscure spot. Not next to the hairbrushes and shampoo; no, they made their home next to the potted plants.

At least we're not suffering for a phfan yet. It's a very pleasant temperature most days, but a fan would expedite turning our damp laundry into dry. At least it's not warm enough for the bugs to be out in full force. No signs of ants yet, just a few rogue daddy-long-legs. I'm waiting for more cockroaches, though--I just discovered a new hole in the floor, right underneath our garbage can. Mom points out that at least the bugs won't have to go far!

This semester is chugging along. I'm about to have a big bunch of free time as I'm being rotated out of orchestra and will have 6 weeks off until I'm back. That means that EVERY Tuesday I can go hunting for phfans! I've been working a lot lately, though, so I can't say as I'll mind some free time. On Saturday, Mike and I worked "Open Day--Sydney Uni Live!" (Officially they're the University of Sydney, but they call themselves Sydney Uni, and even make Tshirts saying "Sydney University." I guess there aren't enough universities here that it makes a difference if they're one or the other.) Anyway, this was a day for prospective students to come check out the Con. Mike and I staffed the general information booth, which meant giving people directions to various recital halls and being deafened by the saxophone duet that played right next to us. It wasn't so bad, except that after doing that for 6 hours, we then had to staff the Early Music Ensemble concert. I don't know what it is about Early Music Musicians, but they're the most disorganized people on the face of the planet. Maybe it's because they're all supposed to be living in 1650 and haven't noticed that the world moves at a slightly different pace now. In any case, these concerts are usually chaos for those of us back stage. I went to the director a good hour before the concert and asked what stage changes he'd need help with. They were doing a concerto for 4 harpsichords, so I knew there'd be insanity. Neal insisted that he would coordinate the moving of the harpsichords; all I had to do was take 6 chairs offstage. He forgot to mention that when he said 6, he really meant 10, and also that he needed 4 more stands added behind these newly positioned harpsichords stage right. So I wandered aimlessly around the stage while the recorder players whispered frantic instructions at me off stage. Then the entire ensemble went back onstage while the sound guy was still moving microphones, leaving him in his jeans and brown Tshirt caught in a sea of black formals. *sigh*

~Ruth Ann

P.S. Just because you answered the quiz doesn't mean you're excluded from commenting on this post......

The next quiz!

Hi folks! Mike has been carefully crafting this quiz for weeks now, so we expect a good turnout. Last time we had 13 applicants, and now we expect EVEN BETTER RESULTS!! Tell all your friends, tell all your relatives, the Australia Quiz is BACK!!!


1. How many Australians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. None
B. 1-2
C. 3 if they get around to it.
D. Lightbulbs don't exist in Oz. Here they're called Luminous Spheres

2. What is the most poisonous spider in Australia-which is the world's most poisonous as well
(thankfully one not found fit to come to our apartment)?
A. The Goliath Spider
B. The Sydney Funnel web Spider
C. The Kirribilli King Spider
D. The Acromantula

3. If someone 'whinges'(pronounced with a soft 'G'), what are they doing?
A. Mispronouncing a number of possible words
B. Sneezing
C. Complaining
D. Referring to some new techno-slang word

4. If you're at Circular Quay and need to get to Broadway, what bus should you NOT take?
A. 443
B. 257
C. The 1:25 train to Penrith
D. 16.5

5. What name is the Australian soccer team?
A. The Socceroos
B. The Soccer-manian Devils
C. The Whiz-bang Wombats
D. The Down Under Wonders

*Bonus question(1/2 a point): Before this year's world cup, how many goals has Australia made in all previous world cups?
A. They won the last one
B. 12
C. 5
D. 0

6. If one is 'knackered' what is one?
A. One is handy with something
B. One is done in/exhausted
C. One is wearing pants
D. One has the hiccups

7. What shape are the droppings of a wombat?
A. Dodecahedron
B. Hexagonal
C. 2 dimensional and round
D. Cubic

8. What event here at the Con did NOT cause a protest by the student body at the Con?
A. Unpopular foreign officials visiting
B. Unpopular foreign Deans
C. The elimination of the minor performance major
D. Mandatory breathalizer tests before concerts

9. What was the Con's performance hall used for before being a Con performance hall?
A. Dancehall
B. Stables
C. Headquarters for the Parramatta Trust Group (Mining Division)
D. Part time lecture hall/radio station for the biochemistry dept. of University of Sydney

10. What was advertized the most in local tour books?
A. Escort services
B. Opera house
C. BASE jumping from the Harbour Bridge
D. The mine ride at the Parramatta Trust Group (Mining Division) mine

11. What are rockmelons, capsicums, and pumpkin known as respectively in Australia?
A. Rubble from the PTG (Mining Division) mine, hats, and shoes
B. Types of birds, a relative to the tsetse fly, and apples
C. Cantaloupe, bell peppers, and squash
D. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors at the Con.

12. What is this the entrance to?



A. Hell
B. An amusement park
C. The Parramatta Trust Group (Financial Division)
D. The entrance to the Con

13. What does Kangaroo taste like?
A. Chicken
B. Gamey beef
C. Nothing like you would think
D. Polar Bear(not that I would know what this tasted like!)

14. At the time of printing, how many rolls of toilet paper do we have in our cupboard?
A. 35 rolls (24 unscented and 11 with some weird scent that I(Mike) bought by mistake)
B. None! Aren't WE in trouble!
C. Toilet paper in Australia comes in ovals, not rolls
D. 7 plus whatever is on the holder

15. What are these a picture of(there may more than one correct answer)?







A. A goof with a piece of fruit on her head
B. An apple
C. A wattle seed
D. Mangosteen
E. A goof with a nut on her nut


Good luck!!! You have one week to get your answers in!
~Mike and Ruthie

Apostrophe Man to the rescue!

Hello readers!
We're back in the thick of second semester and the weirdness has begun! We begin our tour with Christian Fundamentalism. Apparently a number of students at the Con think that Ruth Ann and I are Fundamentalist Christian. I don't know how this got started as to most of you who know us might agree: WE'RE NOT! Nobody said anything to us for a while until one of the other American bassoonists asked if I had become more religious since leaving Bloomington, IN. A member of the quintet we're in this semester was all excited because she being very, VERY liberal wanted to try and corrupt us. She was a bit disappointed when we said that, no, we're not Fundamentalists.

The next oddity in our recent past was a massive hailstorm. RA and I had just gotten a bag of M&Ms(peanut) and sat down by a window when it started pouring rain. We were very impressed and enjoying it until we remembered we had a lot of laundry on the clothes line. Since our heater caught on fire, we've had to dry our clothes very slowly in the apartment. The morning of this day was one of the first nice days out so we put out a lot laundry. To make matters more interesting, hail started falling. The ground got covered with an inch or two of hail stones and everyone here was so excited because "it looked like it SNOWED!!!!" There are a number of our friends who haven't seen snow. Our clothes stayed out several more days to dry out until the batty old lady upstairs wrote a snide note on the board to take them down(she's the one who was trimming the hedges at 11pm that one night).

Several fun, interesting times were had while working at the library. RA discovered that if you hit control, alt, up arrow, the screen on the circulation computers flipped upside down! Of course on my next shift I had to try it. I also tried control, alt, right arrow and that flips the screen on it's side. Delighted, I pressed control, alt, left arrow to see what would happen.......and the computer crashed! When I restarted it, there was some message about a graphics error or something.

Here in Australia there is this annoying habit on signs, emails, newspapers, etc, to make a word plural by adding apostrophe 's' to something. I don't remember seeing it in the US but rest assured, I'm sure we have many bad grammatical traditions. I asked the high school librarian(the is a high school attached to the Con and that library and the music library share the same space) who has an English degree about it and she said that it was just uneducated people being themselves. She said that in the newspaper a few years ago, a columnist advocated the use of Apostrophe Man! This involved putting your finger in the air, shouting 'Apostrophe Man to the rescue!' and taking a pen and scribbling out the apostrophe. The librarian said that RA and I had to invoke Apostrophe Man at least once before we go back.

These little events have amused us greatly in the last week. We also heard one of our new favorite quotes from the little old lady downstairs. When we were in Portland, she picked up our mail and took it inside so we baked her some cookies in return. When we brought them to her she said with a big grin "Oh, I am just PRONE to cookies!"

The next quiz is coming!!!!!

~Mike

Our new favorite place

Hello all,

Within the last week we have found our new favorite place in Sydney. There's this huge store chain called David Jones with 5 or 6 stores in the downtown area. Each one sells different things: one homewares, one ladies clothes, etc. Our new favorite place is the gourmet food store. Forget everything you know about gourmet food and the stores that sell it. This place is HUGE! There is of course the usual selection of imported chocolates, spice mixtures, and sauces. Going further into the store is the cheese bar with hundreds of different kinds of cheeses. Next to that was the deli with sliced and salt cured meats. Next to that was the pasta bar with homemade gourmet pastas. For dinner tonight we had pumpkin and leek ravioli and roasted eggplant, pepper and ricotta ravioli. There was several dozen other kinds along with little bite sized quiches. Next to THAT was the sausage bar with all kinds of zany sausage mixtures. We bought(but haven't tried yet) Duck, pear, and cognac; chicken, rocket, and goat cheese; and beef, spinach, and pinenut.

There was also a butcher where you might be happy to know we could have gotten lamb kidneys or a turkey for almost $100. (Turkeys aren't raised or eaten as much here as in the States. I suppose if the pilgrims had ended up in Australia, we'd be eating emu for Thanksgiving). The produce section was surprisingly small compared to the rest of the store... There is also little containers of chocolate mousse that we've gotten several times and have plans for getting more.

Should you find yourself in Sydney, we'll take you there! Stay tuned, dust off your thinking caps, and tell all your friends: the 2nd Quiz is coming in a few days!!!!

~Mike

Back in Sydney

Hi everybody! I got back into Sydney last Friday and have successfully worked my way through jetlag. Thanks to everyone who's been so sweet to us these past weeks.

Semester 2 is well underway at the ol' Conservatorium. It looks like we're both going to have light semesters--we both get 6 weeks off of orchestra in the middle of the term. What are we going to do with our free time?!?!?! Both of us have taken on extra work, though. I'm doing some substitute teaching at St. Andrew's Cathedral School, one of the biggest primary music programs in the city, and Mike will be touring with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in September. Whoohoo!!!!

Life at the Con wouldn't be the same without a protest, so, to oblige us, the students staged a walk-out on Tuesday. They all met in the cafe and made about 200 signs, which they hung outside the Dean's office. These signs were quite adorable. Mostly they protested the fact that they have to play in orchestra or sing in choir--when "We all plan to be soloists!" Oh dear. How pathetically naive!

We're becoming very hopeful that spring will arrive soon. Every morning when we wake up the birds are singing their little hearts out. It's slowly warming up during the day, although nights are still pretty chilly. We had a dramatic incident with our space heater. Friday when I got home from the airport, we tried to turn Zippy, our favorite $15 space heater. Unfortunately, $15 only take you so far. First there was a painful squealing noise...then smoke gently wafted from his vents...then I saw flames. But alas and alack, Sydney stores are now into summer merchandise. No more heaters available!

Here, at long last, are some pictures of crazy Tasmania wildlife. THESE are pademelons:



Australia is full of small, hoppy creatures. Pademelons are essentially small kangaroos. Two nights we were in Tassie, a whole group of these little guys came into our front yard. They are very fond of apples and sweet potatoes ;-)

We'd heard that there was a chance we'd see some wombats in Tassie and were very hopeful. "Wombat" is just such a funny word! We'd learned that they leave square droppings on anything new to mark it as their own. We saw trails of said droppings (we have pictures, but I'll spare you...) and kept hoping. The second day it was very foggy and we just driving through the park because it was too stormy to hike. All of the sudden Mike stopped the car.



He waddled down the road in front of us and finally ran off to the side. They're related to koala bears and definitely waddle, although he can run at quite a clip when pressed. He snuffled in the brush for a few minutes as we stopped and cooed over him. THEN he got the bright idea to run and snuggle up next to the car tire (or "tyre" here in Oz). Mike's eloquent quote: "Um...shoo??" Luckily the wombat decided the car wasn't as pleasant as he'd originally thought and trundled off. Crisis averted!

~Ruth Ann

DAD EXTRAORDINAIRE