Saturday, November 15, 2008

In da hood

I have developed a bad habit of listening in on people's conversations on public transport. While eavesdropping is not considered a polite hobby, I justify it to myself by thinking that it is good 'hörverstehen' practice.

Normally, I don't understand a lot of what is said, but yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to two 14 year old boys whose mother tongue is 'Merkin.

It was all 'dawg', 'motherf@#$er', 'bitches' and contained very little agreement between subject and verb with respect to number or tense.

I managed to keep a straight face for most of the journey, but after a particularly colourful passage of conversation, I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore.

They got off at the next stop.

Which was a shame, really - the conversation was just getting interesting.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Ousted

It appears that I have been ousted from power after 9 long years in government in New Zealand. I, of course, accept responsibility for this defeat and will be stepping down as leader of the New Zealand Labour Party.

In related news, an Australian woman currently living in Germany gets her name back. Hooray.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

The movement of fresh air is deadly

So say the majority of my language class. They are convinced that my recent bout of the common cold was brought about by not dressing warmly enough and all that poisonous fresh air to which I am exposed whilst riding my bike.

I missed a couple of days of school last week due to feeling utterly awful. When I returned to class, there was a firm consensus and a fair bit of tut-tutting about my general disregard for just how deadly moving air can be. I was half expecting someone to suggest a course of leaches to rid my body of its ill humour.

I have my own theory on how I fell victim to this pernicious illness. Shall I tell you? I got sick because for the last couple of weeks I sat in a stuffy classroom surrounded by a couple of people who thought it was appropriate to come to class when they were sick. One in particular, I’ll just call him Typhoid Mary, sneezed, sniffed and coughed his way through the past two weeks of lessons.