DHol Down Unda'

While I did attend this show with my family, I am going to write about it separately.

The concert took place at the Sydney Opera House, which is supposed to have one of the better acoustical sets in the world. My dad said he wasn’t too impressed with the quality (or the concert, for that matter, which is another subject entirely, and one I won’t touch upon), but that’s the beauty of being young: I have much less to compare it to, and am more easily impressed.

Despite all that, I think Janelle Monáe is one of the more underrated talents of our generation, and I don’t need 40 more years of wisdom to realize it. Her performance was absolutely mesmerizing. She performed mostly material from her 2010 album, The ArchAndroid, as well as a few other impressive covers, including “Smile,” by Charlie Chaplin, which was much better in person with a double spot, electric strings, and less vibrato. 

She commanded the stage with a presence not many other 26-year-olds possess, outfitted in classic black and white with the rest of her band. The stage needed no gimmicks, and the audience no other excuse to get up and dance besides her musical energy. I hadn’t listened to much of her stuff before, but you can bet I’ll be downloading all of it now. 

The show had an old-school vibe to it with the vibrancy of 2012 (it mimicked well the coinciding Vivid Sydney, which I will explain later). Monáe jumped around, flailed about on the floor, ran up and down stairs, danced the moon walk, painted on stage, walked into the audience, and even head-banged so hard her massive hair pouf fell out. It was a blend of jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and soul, the kind of mix that makes you forget everything but the sounds exploding from the stage.

This past weekend we went to see the Sydney Swans play wreck the Melbourne Demons in an Australian Football League game. The AFL is more soccer and rugby than football, but it was pretty easy to understand on a basic level, and a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Here’s a rundown of the rules:
The object of the game is to kick the ball (shaped like a cross between a football and a rugby ball) between the two major goal posts with a reward of six points. On either side of the main goal are positioned two other posts, and if you get the ball through either of those posts, you receive a “behind,” worth one point. Each team has 18 players on the field at once, all of whom run nonstop throughout the 25-minute quarters, which almost never stop. To move the ball forward, you may kick or “punch” (volleyball style) the ball, or you can lateral it backwards. Players do not wear a helmet or pads, but are allowed to tackle.

Basically, it’s a bunch of minimally-clothed, tan, buff, great looking guys running around and getting progressively sweaty while wrestling each other to the ground in order to win a game. If that review could be any girlier, please let me know.

From left to right, the three columns stand for: number of goals, number of “behinds,” and total score. Took us a while and asking some locals to figure out what they meant.

Finally made it to the post office today, got home and ran upstairs like a child, so excited to open my mum’s package. This is what I found:

Let’s go through everything, shall we?

• Magazines: I’ve been dying without my subscriptions, my favorite guilty pleasure, and now I’ll have more things to put on my walls.
• Chocolate bunny/Reese’s eggs: We didn’t get to celebrate Easter this year, so I’m really glad I can at least perpetuate the chocolate tradition.
• Tagalongs/Do-si-dos: The only Girl Scout cookies I actually like, they’re going in my freezer immediately after I eat half of them now.
• Slinky: I can only predict many a drunken adventure with this magical toy.
• Mother and Daughter book: Cried reading the whole thing.
• Coral red lipstick: I’ve recently become mildly obsessed with wearing lipstick, and this is a color I have been looking for.
• Macaroni & Cheese: I’ve been stuck with Easy Mac for far too long; absolutely nothing comes close to the original Kraft.
• Collegian: The past few issues of UR’s newspaper! Now that I’m not on staff anymore I haven’t kept up with school news - not for long.
• Peanut butter M&Ms: If you know me, you know there’s not a whole lot I wouldn’t do for this candy.
• Post-its: My favorite office supply, you can never, never have too many. Seriously they’re always necessary and useful.
• Instant oatmeal: Mama, it’s like you knew I’ve been craving dinosaur egg oatmeal and they don’t sell it here.

This is hands down the best package I’ve ever received. Literally a box of all my favorite things. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mama! You are the beast mum ever. (Not a spelling error…I know you’re all thinking it.)

This made me so unbelievably happy, I can’t wait to see you in just over a week. OXOXOX

Because we’re such good ambassadors to our home universities, and have a deep devotion to globalization and international involvement, we all joined GLP, a program which consists of five colloquia and a distinguished speaker event. The program is a chance for us to attend (what we hoped were) interesting lectures on various global issues while also fattening up our resumes.

This past Tuesday was our speaker series, with keynote speaker The Hon Michael Kirby, a judge of the high court of Australia until August 2009. We arrived a bit early to enjoy free drinks and finger food before filing into the hotel ballroom.

We were each given a pad of paper to take notes on, and this is how mine turned out:

In reality, he was a really good speaker - funny, verbose, and did a good job of connecting with his audience. My rhetoric profs at home would have been proud. His lead-in was his advice to all college students: 1. Have fun, and 2. Make lots of trouble. Aye, aye, your honor.

Kirby is a big civil rights activist, “fighting for the inclusion and rights of everyone.” He knows a thing or two about this struggle as he is gay and he and his partner have been together for 43 years without the chance for a civil union or otherwise, but, he said, we can’t be focusing all our efforts on one social issue. Other things need attention, too. As he put it, “My brother was left-handed and I’m gay. If you have a problem, have a lie down, take an aspirin, and get over it.” The rest of his speech was just as enjoyable; I made note of two or three points that I liked if you can decipher my handwriting.

It was surprisingly fun for a mandatory event, and when we weren’t listening ever so intently, we were playing hangman, MASH, or taking selfies in the bathroom mirror.

1. Accents
2. Boys with accents
3. Small children with accents
4. The slang
5. Beaches
6. Pass/Fail classes
7. Pineapple on my burgers
8. Diversity
9. Student concession on public transportation
10. Outdoor pool at the gym
11. The fashion
12. Boat cruises
13. Walking anywhere barefoot
14. Having my own bathroom
15. A huge mall within walking distance
16. Pie Face
17. Un Less safe carnival rides
18. Solo soft drink
19. On-campus bar
20. Alright, my friends here are pretty cool, too…

1. Cheaper everything (and by everything I mostly mean alcohol everything)
2. Free WiFi
3. My own printer/free print credits at Boatwright
4. Free laundry
5. My queen-size bed
6. HVAC
7. Driving
8. My hair curler
9. Harmonious birds
10. Squirrels
11. Netflix/Hulu/Pandora/Spotify
12. Clean dishes
13. My full wardrobe
14. More than six TV channels
15. Real, crispy bacon
16. Hotdogs, not sausages
17. Firehouse Subs
18. Pizza delivery without a $20 minimum
19. Ben & Jerry’s that doesn’t cost $12/pint
20. Oh, and my family and friends, I guess…

Every year at Madison, the Wisco kids celebrate “Mifflin Day,” which is called so because the day-long party takes place on Mifflin Street where houses open up their front lawns to party-going students. It’s full of red shirts, red cups, and good music. It’s just like Pig Roast for us Richmonders, except we do it bigger and in pretty dresses ;).

Mifflin fell on Cinco de Mayo this year, and we brought it to Australia. Mollie lent me some Madison gear so I could become an honorary Wisconsinite for the day. We began at 9:30 am, waking up the neighbors with plenty of dirty dub beats and played a bunch of solid American drinking games (man, I missed beer), going strong til late afternoon when we all crashed for a much-needed nap. I think I’d do well as a Badger…