Martha and Susan’s Excellent Adventures

On  Sunday night I went to dinner with my co-supervisor and her husband, and a visiting guest from the Fraunhofer Institute and his family. He has 2 little girls, about 5 and 7 years old, and neither speak any English. Or so we thought. After dinner we were talking a bit about Monty Python, and then the oldest girl pipes up: “And now, a man with three buttocks!” We just about died laughing. Then she said “The Ministry of Silly Walks” and she and her little sister proceeded to make up silly walks and circle the living room. “And now, a man with a tape recorder shoved up his nose.”

Obviously they teach them all the right things over at the Fraunhofer.

Yesterday was Approximately Pi day. Yael and Andy made a meat pie, that we didn’t eat. Close enough.

Just right click on the image and pick “view image” if you find it too small to read. It’s worth it.

First off, we won the East Coast University Championships last week! Go New South! Here’s a crappy shot of us and our medals:

Since that’s only 4 of us, here’s the team, um, trying to stay warm before the finals:

So yes, we won the gold, even without Shen’s little sister Servet, the Young Matilda ringer who plays for us now. The down-side of having a national level soccer player on the team is that they can get called away to play soccer for their country at very little notice. But Servet also had some success, scoring a goal against China and helping Australia to a 2-1 victory there.

And the final success of the week is Liam, from the looks of it. I don’t know the whole story, but he also seems to have won a TimBit soccer medal. Good on ya Liam! Hugs from Aunt Martha - xoxox

Just when you think Australia’s getting pretty normal, they come up with this. World Youth Day is being hosted in Sydney this year, so the Pope’s coming to town, the Randwick Racecourse in particular, which is just across the street from my uni. In preparation for the event, the NSW government passed a law saying “authorised people, including police, will be able to direct people to stop conduct which “causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event” ” and “Failure to comply with the new laws, introduced for WYD events in Sydney from July 15-20, can attract a penalty of up to $5,500″. They’re not very good at dealing with large numbers of people here, needless to say.

I guess it’s an annoyance free week for me, since I’m Catholic. I hope you’re listening, you pesky mosquitoes. Silly laws.