I remember the first time someone told me I had an accent. I didn’t believe them. I obviously *don’t* have an accent! This person was so well travelled that they even guessed where I was from which made me pause a bit. Maybe I did have an accent. I’m not talking a ‘foreign accent’ either. Just a regional USA one.

Which makes this new research out of University of Chicago so interesting. They’ve found if your accent is hard to understand, you’re seen as less truthful & less credible. The harder you are to understand, the worse the problem.

The article focuses on foreign accents but it sounds like people with regional accents would have the same issues. The listener has difficulty understanding the person & turns that difficulty into not trusting what is being said.

I haven’t tracked down the article but would be interesting to see what backgrounds the listeners had – have they worked overseas? travelled? did they grow up somewhere with regional accents? do they think they have an accent?

published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

An aussie woman’s life expectancy is 84. Men = 80. Which made me wonder what it is with other countries – especially those with national healthcare. The chart below doesn’t differenciate between genders but out of the 6 countries I compared, the states has the lowest average – of 78.

Aussies give less to charity (though I’m sure this would be different after Haiti & Tsunami figures). A 2005 report (Giving Australia) says the avg total annual personal donation was $424. GDP wise, americans give 1.6% of GDP & Aussies .68%.

There’s not the constant ‘church & state separation’ here because church really doesn’t enter into it. I really enjoy not having to hear the constant religion din. The 2006 census showed the majority of people (64%) said they were christians but 19% ticked the non-believer choice. The 2001 census only had 16% of non-believers. Go non believers!!!! BTW, in 1911, 96% of all aussies said they were christian.

More than $18 BILLION is spent per year on gambling.

After iron ore & coal, overseas students/education is the 3rd largest cash machine for the country. Not at all surprising but I didn’t realise that AU has the highest percentage of overseas students among all OECD/developed countries. ONE TENTH OF THE ENTIRE WORLD MARKET. No one should be wondering why politicians are making trips to India to smooth things over after multiple Indian students have been bashed or killed. More surprising is why they haven’t been doing more.

and lastly….

AU has the 2nd highest proportion of foreign born people – 30% (Israel is #1 but there wasn’t a % noted). Add in all those foreign students & it’s surprising the country isn’t more diverse & welcoming to migrants. Instead they’re pissy about being overtaken by the 158,021 new immigrants that arrived last year. The blurb says that breaks down into 21% from New Zealand, 14% from UK & 20% from China & India (combined).

for U$778 plus tx u can fly frm LAX to AU and have a free stopover in either NZ, Tonga, Cook Islands, or Samoa. book by april 15 !!!! but fly btwn may n december.

but no.

in one of those classic expat moments, none of this was easy. first i found it hard to find the dye. ok, fine, i can get food colouring and make due. i had no idea it would be so hard to find the eggs. i don’t eat eggs that frequently so i think it was the first time i realised that all the eggs in the grocery store were brown, not white. i ended up having to open a bunch of egg cartons to find the palest browns i could. it just wasn’t the same… the brown came thru in the dying process and i have never tried it again.

so i found this article about brown eggs quite interesting.

turns out brown hens, which lay brown eggs, are more efficient than white hens that lay white eggs. due to efficiency’s sake, egg producers started using brown hens in the 1970s and today it’s very hard to find a white one. the australian egg corporation estimates less than 3% of the eggs laid in the entire country are white. apparently you have to go to a specialty place (one named in sydney but not near me) and they claim there’s demand during easter but then no demand the rest of the year (huh? people say no to the white egg? really?)

the article is about the hunt for the white eggs by the greek community who dye the eggs. no mention of the american expat community or how much fun the aussie kids are missing out on. happy easter all!

(the pix below are some eggs i bought at the grocery store a few weeks ago. the company’s logo has a smiley face but how cool that they’ve extended that onto all the eggs in the box!)

we went to art gallery nsw to check out the archibald. the archibald is an annual prize for portraits. i can’t remember ever hearing about it before moving to AU but it’s a massive thing here that gets big media coverage… on the morning brekkie shows & evening news & in mags, etc.. the portraits are usually either artist self portraits, celebrities and (lesser so) relatively unknown aussies. last year’s winner was one of heath ledger.

it wasn’t til we were at the show that i realised it’s actually multiple prizes – portraits, australian landscapes and subjects done by an aussie artist. you can check out the winners here and the rest of them here. personally, i found most of them boring.

it was only by accident that we discovered inside art express on a different floor. here’s where we should have spent our time. i was gobsmacked that all the artists shown here are HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. it was depressing that i’d never be able to produce anything as cool as some of their work but it was also inspirational (and hopeful that if they continue their work the archibald might be more interesting in years to come).

my favourite artist was estelle felix. her paintings were cool but she had 3 soft fabric pieces (the site only shows the orangey yellow one) with a craft sensibility that made me want to create interesting wall hangings. i hope estelle continues the art path as i’d love to see more.

then we headed to MCA. there’s something about the mca that always draws me back… a combination of the art and the beautiful harbour view i think. this is one of the places i discovered during my first trip to sydney 9 years ago and i have very good memories of the james exhibit and a lazy sunny afternoon.

i wanted to see yayoi kusama: mirrored years and discovered i could easily decorate my home by adapting her art. massive greyish ‘clouds’ cushions that i was dying to recline on? check. mirrored balls lying on the floor reflecting the light? check. closets turned into art by covering them in mirrors and scattering polka dot soft toys across the floor? sure – although i’m probably more inclined to go with the closet covered in mirrors with dangling xmas tree lights. i’d probably skip the water on the floor though.

u can check out her site and those in LA and NYC can see other exhibits of hers.

and yes, haven’t posted here in ages. almost 2 years! was busy with work. didn’t feel the ‘mba’ name was relevant anymore but couldn’t decide on a better name (and was too lazy to reinstall wordpress & create a new directory).

i’m now unemployed & finding a need for an outlet beyond facebook/twitter so i have returned.

i’m headed to the states the end of june but will miss this since it runs til mid june ;(